Yes we should share our faith with everyone, including Jews:
Most biblical Christians would think the question above is a no-brainer: ‘Well of course we should – all people need to hear the gospel.’ That is obviously my view as well. But surprisingly, many other people calling themselves Christians do say that we should not be evangelising Jewish people.
They offer various reasons for this, often stating that the Holocaust was so horrible (and it certainly was) that we have no right to any longer tell them about Jesus. As but one example, a gal just sent in this comment to my article on replacement theology.
To be honest, I am opposed to any attempt to evangelise Jews. Granted, some voluntarily do convert to evangelical Christianity or Catholicism, but I have problems with the concept that Jews are only ‘complete’ if they adopt the belief that Jesus is their Messiah. To be frank, the shameful millennia of Christian anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, seem to indicate that whatever Christian denomination we belong to, we must not romanticise our past. Certainly, we should be grateful for those who did speak out, even at the cost of their lives, against the evil of Nazi Germany, but so many others did not. We have a responsibility to face up to our past and take anti-Semitism seriously now. I’m a World War Two baby- one of my uncles was in the British Army and he saw for himself the barbarism and demonic horror that Nazism had wrought in Auschwitz.
Sadly there is some unhelpful conflating of issues here. It is always vital that we seek to offer mental and moral distinctions on matters such as this. So let me first give a few replies to her and folks like her, and then look at what some other believers have said on this matter.
Have Christians – and non-Christians – often been antisemitic and opponents of the Jews over the centuries? Of course. Antisemitism and Jew-hatred has always been with us, and sadly too many Christians have been engaged in this. So yes of course, we must take responsibility for this and ask forgiveness for it.
In this regard Christians are encouraged to grab some books penned by my friend Michael Brown. He is an American Messianic Jew who has written a number of important volumes on this topic, including the five-volume set, Answering Jewish Objections To Jesus.
But folks should pick up his 2021 volume, Christian Antisemitism: Confronting the Lies in Today’s Church (Charisma House). They also should be aware of his book, Our Hands are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People (Destiny Image Publishers, 1992, 2019).
So yes indeed, Christians have a lot to answer for here. And as someone with a Jewish background, Michael knows all about this. But he NEVER would go on to say that we must stop evangelising Jews. Quite the opposite. So let me go on to look at a few obvious facts:
Jesus ‘evangelised’ Jews, as did the disciples, as did Paul, and as did Christians for the past 2000 years. Sure, gentiles were also added to the mix of those being reached. But reaching Jews with the gospel has always been part of the Christian mission. To recklessly claim we should never evangelise them shows that we really are lacking in God’s love for our Jewish neighbours.
It also implies that those who say this in fact think they are wiser, more moral, and more loving than God, Jesus, the Twelve, Paul, and everyone else. That is not a good place to be in! When God commands us to do something, we should do it, and not argue with him or pretend that we somehow know better.
And try telling the many Messianic Jews who are out there (people like Brown), that Christians should not evangelise Jews. They would either laugh at you or get angry with you. As mentioned, I know many of these people. They are SO very thankful that Christians loved them enough to share their faith with them.
How can any person really believe that heading to a lost eternity is somehow a good thing, and we should just let people die without Christ? Good grief, what a poor view to hold to. No one claiming to be a Christian can hold to that. Simply reading from the Apostle Paul should put an end to this nonsense.
A good place to begin would be Romans 10. Verses 1-4 put it this way: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
And in verses 9-17 he continues with these words:
[I]f you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
There is Paul the Jew telling us to reach other Jews – and gentiles of course. He was divinely inspired as he wrote this, and he did NOT add a caveat such as, ‘However, if Jews are treated too poorly in the future, then we should just stop trying to reach them.’
Now, is tact, prudence and care needed in evangelising Jews – and anyone else for that matter? Sure. Just after WWII one could make a case of being even more discerning and cautious and Spirit-led as Christians shared with the Jewish people. So no one is denying that we need to be wise and loving in our approach. But we still are under obligation to share the gospel with all people, including the Jews.
Let me bring in just a few other voices here. The Lausanne Movement on global evangelisation reminds us that “Sharing the gospel with Jewish people was the beginning of world evangelism.” They go on to say this:
Today less than two percent of the world Jewry believe Jesus to be Israel’s Messiah. Jewish evangelism is an essential part of world evangelism. If Jesus is not the Messiah for all, he is not the Messiah at all. For different reasons, many Christians today do not see the need for Jewish evangelism. Some believe that the church has lost its right to proclaim the gospel to Jewish people because of church history, especially the Holocaust.
Others read the Bible to say that Jews have their own way to God and therefore do not need to hear or believe in Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour. Still others see God’s mission as starting only with Jesus and the New Testament, failing to see the New Testament story as the continuation and fulfilment of what God has done with and through the history of Israel and the Jewish people.
The Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), an issue network of the Lausanne Movement, seeks to bring together both Jewish and non-Jewish believers involved in the field of Jewish evangelism to share information and resources and to strategize on a global level, so that more Jewish people will hear and consider the good news of Jesus.
They go on to quote from the October 2010 document, The Cape Town Commitment:
We affirm that whereas the Jewish people were not strangers to the covenants and promises of God, in the way that Paul describes the Gentiles, they still stand in need of reconciliation to God through the Messiah Jesus. There is no difference, said Paul, between Jew and Gentile in sin; neither is there any difference in salvation. Only in and through the cross can both have access to God the Father through the one Spirit. https://lausanne.org/networks/issues/jewish-evangelism
Dr. Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People Ministries, in a piece titled “Why Is Jewish Evangelism Important?” says this in part:
Remember Jesus’ statement in Matthew 23:37-39? Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem. At the end of His reflection, Jesus says, “O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem. How I wanted to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks.” You see, the Lord loves the Jewish people. He wants to fulfill His promises and protect the Jewish people and gather them in His embrace. Jesus explains He could not gather them because the Jewish people kept rejecting the prophets that foretold Him as their Messiah. He then goes on to prophecy the destruction of the Temple and says He will not be seen again until they proclaim, “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai” (literally, “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”).
There is also a promise of hope. The day will come when the Jewish people will call out to Jesus as their Messiah. This is similar to the tradition at a Jewish wedding, when a rabbi calls out to the bridegroom, “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai!” The day is coming when the Jewish people will receive their true bridegroom—Jesus the Messiah. In scripture, the Lord has linked the second coming of Jesus with the salvation of Israel. The Apostle Paul had this understanding when he wrote Romans 1:16. And we need to have this understanding as well.
My hope is that Jewish evangelism will always be a priority in your life, just like the kingdom of God. https://www.chosenpeople.com/jewish-evangelism-important/
Finally, Michael Brown puts it this way:
How can the Church disavow Jewish evangelism and be true to its mission? After all, Jesus was born King of the Jews and died King of the Jews. And after His resurrection, He opened His disciples’ minds so they could understand that He was the prophesied Messiah of Israel. And He sent them to start their mission in Jerusalem, reaching their fellow-Jews. In fact, all of Yeshua’s first followers were Jews, and the Apostle Paul, who wrote almost half of the New Testament, was himself a Jew. And it was Paul who taught that the gospel was “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16).
But not only is it a fundamental contradiction of the gospel to withhold the message of the Jewish Messiah from the Jewish people. It is also a cruel thing to do, since Jews need Jesus as much as anyone else. I for one might not have made it to my 18th birthday (due to foolish drug abuse) had not Christians shared the good news with me. And I cannot thank God enough for changing my life through the death and resurrection of my Savior.
And I can point to multiplied tens of thousands of Jews around the world today who are thrilled that Christians shared their faith with them. They are thrilled with their relationship with God and have found something they never found within their own traditions. Really now, how can a Christian withhold the water of life from a Jewish person? How can they have God’s heart and not tell everyone – including their Jewish friends and neighbors – about Yeshua, the Savior and Lord? https://askdrbrown.org/article/should-the-church-continue-to-evangelize-jews
See also a 70-minute video interview he did on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfj-uJmEqZ0
[2020 words]