Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Messianic Jewish Outreach (5)

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So that we can consider some of them in more detail, here is Stuart Dauermann' list of seven aspects drawn from Ezekiel 37:21-27:

1. God will gather Israel to the land.
2. God will unify the Jewish people
3. God will bring this people to repentance and spiritual renewal.
4. God will cause them to serve the Son of David, their Messianic King.
5. God will cause them to walk in His statues and ordinances - Torah living.
6. God will cause this people to communally experience the Divine Presence.
7. God will thus vindicate Himself as their God and them as His people.

Last time, we heard that, "While he is head of the church, as Son of David, Yeshua is also the one through whom all God's consummating purposes are to be realised." But auermann wants us to understand that these seven aspects are core aspects for mission and outreach in a Jewish communal and covenantal context. He explains:

For example, the third point speaks of repentance from sins, and the fourth of faith in Yeshua the Messiah, while the sixth speaks of the Holy Spirit corresponding to themes found in Ezekiel 36 and 37.

These texts, Dauermann points out, are the basis of much preaching in the first part of Acts and appear significantly in Paul's letters. He goes on:

The gospel preached to Jewish audiences in the book of Acts was the good news of God's covenant faithfulness to a people who were being called to respond in faith and obedience ("Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah"; Acts 2:36 NRSV). From its inception, the gospel was preached not as a benefit for faith-gifted individuals, but as good news for Zion. The eschatologically driven Messianic Jewish outreach paradigm returns the gospel to a Jewish covenantal/communal context.

We can see the way that Isiah prioritises - by Divine mandate, remember he is speaking on behalf of God - in Isaiah 52:1-12. There, zion and Jerusalem are each names five times as recipients of the good news of redemption. It isn't that the nations are excluded - far from it - but those called from the nations are added to the commonwealth of Israel, thus bringing God's people together under the banner of Israel. We cna see this in the gospels as well, where in Luke 2:10 Messiah's coming is declared good news for all the people of Israel, nad where Yeshua speaks of bringing other sheep into the fold so that there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16).

Taken from Stuart Dauermann, "Messianic Jewish Outreach", chapter 7 in Introduction to Messianic Judiasm, edited by David J Rudolph and Joel Willits, Zondervan 2013, page 93.