Jewish storytellers invite you into their lives and you will see through their eyes and experiences why they decided to become followers of Yeshua and the resulting profound impact this decision had on each of them as individuals. You will smile, laugh and at times be moved to tears by these compelling stories.
Ask Israeli travellers, “What’s your favourite town to hang out in the South Island?” and one answer will prevail over all others: “Wanaka!”
For years, we at Celebrate Messiah NZ entreated God to enable us to have a stronger presence in the most prominent Israeli enclave in New Zealand: the Wanaka/Queenstown region. This resort area, located in the middle of the South I
sland, is famous for its Middle Earth vistas, world class hikes, extreme sports, skiing and snowboarding, bunging jumping, sky diving – you name it; it’s all there, including hundreds of Israeli travellers any day of the week during the warm months. And when young Israelis come to this region, they typically stay for days or even weeks, simply because there’s so much to see and do. Their extended stay means more opportunities for building relationships and for engaging in spiritual conversations.
By Mark Ellick
Is modern-day Israel the fulfilment of prophecy? In this article we will consider and evaluate various positions and determine whether it is or not.
What is “replacement theology”? This theology claims that because of the Jewish people’s disobedience and general rejection of Messiah, God has rejected Israel and replaced it with the church. It asserts that the church is the “New Israel,” and states that the promises made to Israel in the Tenach (Old Testament) have been transferred to the church. Replacement theology also holds that the prophecies in the Tenach regarding a re-gathering of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the reestablishment of Israel as a nation should be interpreted allegorically, not literally. Thus, replacement theology argues that modern-day Israel is not a fulfilment of prophecy.
Little is known about Carl Lutz, a man who helped save the lives of thousands of Jews in Budapest during World War II. Lutz was born in Switzerland in 1895, but immigrated to the United States at the age of 18. He stayed in this nation for more than 20 years, studying at Central Wesleyan College (Warrenton, Miss.) and George Washington University (Washington, D.C.) and pursuing a career as a Swiss diplomat in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and St. Louis. He ultimately left the United States in order to become the vice-consul at the Swiss Consulate in Jaffa, Palestine (now Israel). While there, his diplomatic work allowed him to negotiate the release of German prisoners, an action that provided leverage in his later dealings with the Nazis while in Hungary.
If you have ever attended a Messianic Passover Seder, it is likely that you have found your faith in Messiah transformed in some life-changing way. Perhaps the presentation deepened your understanding of the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps it helped you more fully grasp the connection between the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures and their fulfilment in the New Testament. Or perhaps it was at a Messianic Passover celebration that you, like many others, gave your life to Messiah for the first time or rededicated your life to the Lord.
Written by Mitch Glaser
Shalom from New York City! We are rapidly approaching the Passover/Easter season, and I pray that this will be a great time of spiritual enrichment for you and your family!
During this time of year, I am often asked if I still celebrate the Jewish holidays now that I am a follower of Jesus. Since I grew up in a fairly traditional Jewish home in New York City, this is a deeply personal question for me and for many Jewish believers in Jesus.
The answer is an unequivocal yes! Zhava and I continue to celebrate the Jewish festivals as fulfilled in Yeshua (Jesus) the Jewish Messiah. But beneath the question of our continued commemoration of the feasts of Israel, there is another underlying issue. It is the question of whether a Jewish person who receives Jesus is still Jewish—and if so, whether this makes a Jewish believer different from a Gentile believer. I recently had a dialogue with a Jewish believer on this subject, and I would like to share some of the ideas I wrote to her in a letter. We must begin with Scripture, as this is the basis for the answers to all our spiritual questions.
Jesus celebrated the Seder with His disciples. Join us as we take a quick tour through parts of a traditional Passover Seder and highlight those points that are especially meaningful to believers in Jesus.
Before the beginning of the Passover, all leaven, which is a symbol of sin (1 Cor. 5:6-8), must be removed from the Jewish home. The house is cleaned from top to bottom and anything containing leaven is removed. Then, the evening before the Passover, the father of the house takes the traditional cleaning implements: a feather, a wooden spoon, and a bag, and searches the house for any specks of leaven which might have been missed (my mother used to leave it on top of the refrigerator so my father shouldn’t spend all night hunting!).
By Olivier Melnick
One can learn much about God’s character by studying His various names. One of these names is “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Early in the Scriptures, we realize that God is a God of people – a God of relationships. This is one of the most reassuring aspects of our Creator.
Another way to look at the God of relationships is achieved by studying the different agreements that He made with humankind in general and with the Jewish people in particular. These agreements, celebrating relationship and commitment, are also known as covenants. Understanding God’s covenants is critical to understanding God’s plan for humankind and for Israel.
By David Sedaca
Vice President of Chosen People Ministries
President of the Union of Messianic Jewish Believers of America
Over the past three decades, a new form of congregation has arisen on the scene: the Messianic Jewish congregation. A Messianic Jewish congregation is a New Testament church that is fashioned after traditional Jewish worship styles. Messianic Jewish congregations represent followers of Jesus who wish to worship, make disciples and witness within a Jewish framework.
The modern-day Messianic movement is the heir to the early Hebrew Christian movement. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were many Jewish people who came to faith in Jesus and joined traditional evangelical churches. Many Jewish missions in Europe established works throughout Europe, North America, Argentina and Israel. In those days, Jewish believers in Jesus identified themselves as “Hebrew Christians.”
Written by Olivier Melnick
Psalm 83:1-5 says in part:
O God!…Your enemies make a tumult….They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more”…. For they have consulted together with one consent; they form a confederacy against You…
Thus, the Bible draws an unmistakable parallel between hatred of Israel and hatred of the God of Israel.
In the Scroll of Esther, we find the most detailed, dramatic picture of an antisemitic attack in all of Scripture. The villain Haman hated the Jewish people because they were different-an example of ludicrous antisemitism that would be repeated endless times in history: