Witnessing to Jewish people

[JohnD]

A Messianic Jew on Quora Digest posted:

Why do most Jews believe Christ was a Jew but Messianic Jews are not (Jewish)?  (the title question he was answering)

I don’t think it is fair or accurate to say “most Jews” in the context of your question. You should rather more simply ask “In general why are there Jews who can accept Jesus as Jewish but not Messianic Jews”?

If you want the most ancient reason there are angry Jews who can’t handle Messianic Judaism, the reason is that shortly after Jesus ascended there was a false Messiah called Bar Kochba who caused mass destruction for Jews when Rome destroyed his failed rebellion.

JohnD reply:

I would add that the Bar Kochba rebellion was a failed attempt to keep the Messianic prophecies in conjunction with the second temple. So, to date (1500 years later) no other messianic fulfillment has happened with relation to the second temple (which only Yeshua Jesus actually kept since it was to be before the destruction of the second temple not after ← which is when the Bar Kochba rebellion occurred).

A Messianic Jew on Quora Digest posted

As such, the followers of Bar Kochba who survived the failure, claimed it was the fault of the Messianic Jews who had such great numbers that their abstaining from the fight is the reason Bar Kochba lost.

Of course this is nonsense but it did give a reason for some sects of Judaism at the time to see us as traitors. Now the reason why we did not join that fight is because Jesus directly warned Messianic Jews not to follow any other claim of Messiah.

Simple hey? My fellow Messianic Jews of the time simply took their Rabbi’s advice and even fled when and how He warned them to just ahead of the disaster.

JohnD reply:

I would also add that the label of traitor / turn coat on Jewish believers in Jesus began long before the Bar Kochba rebellion. In fact shortly after the crucifixion of the LORD.

A Messianic Jew on Quora Digest posted:

If you want a more contemporary answer, the reason is because of the entire history Christianity being anti-Jewish. In fact badly so. I would even say that Christianity has done more harm to Jews and Judaism over it’s history, than Rome ever could have done to Jews.

JohnD reply:

The animosity between Jews and Christians began (as I said) shortly after the LORD was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to Heaven. Rome had yet to take up the persecution of Christians at the time. Jewish leaders pronounced Christianity a heretic sect to be put down even with capital punishment. The Apostle Paul before his conversion to Christ was among at least the witnesses of lynching and stoning of Jewish Christians. Then came the Bar Kochba rebellion when once for all the Jews became a stench in the nostrils of Rome and were exiled throughout the Empire while what remained of Jerusalem was plowed under leaving only the Temple Mount platform / wailing wall. Then Rome took up persecution of Christianity. Foxes Book of Martyrs goes into the gory details of how insidiously cruel it was. Then Constantine developed the strategy of making Rome a Christian empire in an attempt to prop up his crumbling realm with the cohesiveness he found in even the most persecuted of believers in Jesus. Then that adulterated Romanized version of Christianity turned its sites on Jews. The Crusades, the Inquisition, then the Pogroms, and even influence on the Holocaust came from the adulterated Romanized version of Christianity.

Not from true Christianity!

A Messianic Jew on Quora Digest posted:

Add to this that Christians have, in the name of Jesus, falsely killed Jews, during the Crusades, even under the banner of a cross. So claiming that they were cleansing Jerusalem for Jesus was their motto.

JohnD reply:

Again, the Romanized version did this. And the Crusades were primarily aimed at pushing back Islam which had infiltrated not only Jerusalem but pressed as far as Gaul (Spain) in the Mediterranean region. I am a bit rusty on this point, but I recall that what Jews there were in the area at the time simply got caught in the middle between Roman Catholicism and Islam war.

A Messianic Jew on Quora Digest posted:

Of course again this is a false claim. However, uninformed Jews who become uninformed rabbi’s teach uninformed congregations to have uninformed hatred for people like me.

So as a Messianic Jew I hear the same tired, old, worn out lies and misconceptions.

When Jews tell me I am a Christian, they mean for it to be insulting. They are hurt, confused, upset and uninformed for all the reasons I have mentioned above.

Also, do note that when Christianity is done properly, it actually must undermine Jews. Christianity is by definition, when done properly, racist. It has to consider Gentiles as replacing Jews. So logically that reason alone will make Jews distrust Christians and if they end up believing the lies about Messianic Jews being “Christian” with the history of Christianity I summarized, you can see the reason for the distrust, although those Jews who distrust a Jew like me are confused as I have noted.

JohnD reply:

1. Christianity is not the undermining of Jews. Galatians 3:24-25 clearly states that Judaism is a means to the Christian end.
2. That in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile or male or female or free or slave (Galatians 3:28)
3. That the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles is done away with in Christ (Ephesians 2:14-22)
4. That Gentiles are grafted into the Jewish vine (Romans 11:1-32) It is therefore NOT replacement theology but INCLUSIVE theology

Christianity is anti-racist. Christianity is what God intended first for the Jew then for the Gentile (Romans 1:16).

My apologies to all for not answering these claims by this Messianic Jew sooner. I intended to save it as a draft to come back to later with these answers but it somehow got published. His frustration with the animosity from his own Jewish people has clearly tainted his view... along with some leaven of the Pharisees he had been taught about Christianity...

[Jedi4Yahweh]

8 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Why do most Jews believe Christ was a Jew but Messianic Jews are not?

Hmmm....Messianic Jews do believe there will be a Jewish Messiah, they just don't believe its Jesus of Nazareth.   They believe he will be a descendant of King David as scriptures declare and as Moses taught that he will be an Israelite.  Where you getting this information???  Messianic Jews are solid on that stance.

[JohnD]

5 minutes ago, Jedi4Yahweh said:

Hmmm....Messianic Jews do believe there will be a Jewish Messiah, they just don't believe its Jesus of Nazareth.   They believe he will be a descendant of King David as scriptures declare and as Moses taught that he will be an Israelite.  Where you getting this information???  Messianic Jews are solid on that stance.

Please reread the question / title. I think you might have taken it the wrong way... ?

P.S. I amended it to state that Most Jews do not believe Messianic Jews are Jewish.

Regards.

[Jedi4Yahweh]

11 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Please reread the question / title. I think you might have taken it the wrong way... ?

P.S. I amended it to state that Most Jews do not believe Messianic Jews are Jewish.

Regards.

Thanks for the update but still confused by what your asking.

[JohnD]

4 minutes ago, Jedi4Yahweh said:

Thanks for the update but still confused by what your asking.

Someone posted at Quora digest why Jewish people (who do not believe in Jesus) acknowledge Jesus was Jewish

but that the same Jewish people do not acknowledge Messianic Jews as Jewish.

One Jewish lady here (who does not believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah) will tell you repeatedly that she believes

Messianic Jews are not Jewish.

[NCAP]

41 minutes ago, JohnD said:

So as a Messianic Jew I hear the same tired, old, worn out lies and misconceptions.

When Jews tell me I am a Christian, they mean for it to be insulting. They are hurt, confused, upset and uninformed for all the reasons I have mentioned above.

Also, do note that when Christianity is done properly, it actually must undermine Jews. Christianity is by definition, when done properly, racist.

Let's talk about the Ebionites, too.

4. These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law; [830] and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews [831] and made small account of the rest.
(Book III (3), Chapter XXVII (27), Church History by Eusebius Pamphilius)

[Jedi4Yahweh]

1 minute ago, JohnD said:

Someone posted at Quora digest why Jewish people (who do not believe in Jesus) acknowledge Jesus was Jewish

but that the same Jewish people do not acknowledge Messianic Jews as Jewish.

One Jewish lady here (who does not believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah) will tell you repeatedly that she believes

Messianic Jews are not Jewish.

What confused me is there are two types of Messianic Jews:

1) Jews who believe in a future messianic messiah, but not Jesus.  

2) Jews who believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.   

Yes, many orthodox Jews reject Jews who believe in Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah as not real Jews.  They teach any Jew who believes in Jesus have accepted a false Messiah/Idol and has abandon/apostate the teachings of Judaism.  Its strange because you can be agnostic or atheist Jew but if you believe in Jesus your out!!!!

[missmuffet]

It is very sad for the fact that if those Jews do not come to Jesus Christ they will not go to heaven.

[NCAP]

29 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

It is very sad for the fact that if those Jews do not come to Jesus Christ they will not go to heaven.

They may not come to Jesus because it is forbidden for Jews to speak to the dead.

[missmuffet]

6 minutes ago, NCAP said:

They may not come to Jesus because it is forbidden for Jews to speak to the dead.

I don't know if that is one of the reasons. The Jews have cultural,historical and religious reasons why they do not believe in Jesus Christ.