Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

A Jew Lost in a Gentile World

Rabbi Maran Yeshua HaMashiach: A Nice Jewish Man Lost in a Gentile World! In speaking concerning Mashiach I have been told, STOP calling Him “Yeshua”, you make Him sound Jewish!  In fact many people have concluded that the Jewishness of our holy Rabbi Yeshua is an incidental detail or even untrue. This latter point is not far off from the perception held about our Rabbi Yeshua by many so called Christians (who hated Jewish people) through the ages. Most of the ancient church fathers (who cut themselves from their Jewish brothers in the faith of my Rabbi Yeshua) repudiated every vestige of Jewish culture. The result has been a distance between what has been called the historic “Rabbi Yeshua of history” and the pseudo-person “Christ of the Church.”  In a sense modern day Christianity have sought the message without the Jewishness of the Man or Jewish context. Even today, our readings of Scripture often fail to connect the Jewish Rabbi Yeshua to the specific environment of His day. Since few Bible believers are taught about the customs, values and worldview of the culture of Israel, they frequently miss out on a more thorough understanding of the biblical texts. While it is true that Mashiach was send / came to redeem the people of all nations, we need to remember that the real Rabbi Yeshua came into history as a...