An Appeal To My Gentile Brothers & Sisters

I've been facilitating a book study on Wednesday nights on the book "The Messianic Church Arising" by Robert Heidler.  The main purpose of Mr. Heidler's book is to show the renewed interest of the predominantly Gentile dominated church in learning about and returning to her Jewish roots.  This is both commendable and, without a doubt an act of God, as His Spirit is dealing with a large segment of His body that cut themselves off from their roots centuries ago.

In the fourth chapter of the book, entitled: Chapter Four/ What the Church Lost (When We Lost Our Jewish Roots), Mr. Heidler makes the following observations and statements:

"To the Jew, the person of God was treated with great respect.  God was not a subject for analysis; He was the object of loving worship.  The Jews knew that the puny human mind would never be capable of understanding God.  The only appropriate response to Him is to love, serve, and obey Him.  To put it another way, the Hebrews approached Scripture, not to understand God, but to learn how to please Him.  The Greek mentality [which inundated the Church from the second century on*] deified human intellect above God.  They assumed the human mind could ultimately understand God, and if you could understand something you could control it...As the church lost its Hebrew roots, it embraced this intellectual Greek preoccupation to analyze God."

Of course the results of this "Greek preoccupation" resulted in the erroneous and satanic doctrine that the Church had replaced Israel in the mind and plan of God.  It its journey back to its roots many in the Church are treating sacred, century old practices and objects of Jewish worship of the Almighty shamefully and, in its zeal, even desecrating objects considered sacred in Judaism under the label of being "Spirit led."  A case in point is the recent scandal I posted on my Facebook page the other day of Ralph Messer, who desecrated a Sefer Torah scroll by wrapping it around a person in a Church service and calling the Torah cover a "foreskin."  This heinous, irreverent act has been repudiated by the leadership of both the UMJC (Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations) and the MJAA (Messianic Jewish Alliance of America).  I would like to share with you the major portion of their mutual refutation of Mr. Messer's actions:

"We join our voices with the wider Jewish community in condemning the ritual orchestrated last Sunday by Ralph Messer at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta.  Messer is not recognized by any major branch of Messianic Judaism and, under the standards of the UMJC and the MJAA, is not even considered part of our community, let alone a rabbi...
We condemn Messer's flagrant disrespect of the Sefer Torah in this ritual and his misrepresentation of Jewish tradition, an abuse which must stem either from ignorance or great presumption. It is inappropriate and offensive to wrap a person with the sacred scroll, to describe the Torah mantle as "a foreskin," to pronounce a man to be "king" in a ritual context, to employ a tallit in ways completely out of touch with the tradition to which it belongs, and above all, to do all these things, and more, claiming to represent the Jewish community.
"Respect for the Torah is a central value within authentic Messianic Judaism. We assure the rest of the Jewish community that this ceremony would seem as bizarre and offensive within our congregations as it would within yours. An article at AJC.com (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website), quotes David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University: 'One problem with Messianic Judaism, in which leaders attempt to fuse Jewish and Christian traditions and symbols, is that it can easily stray into profound insensitivity.' While Professor Gushee's characterization of our 'attempt to fuse Jewish and Christian traditions and symbols' is simplistic, his description of the 'one problem' is accurate. Responsible leaders within the Messianic Jewish community share his concern that our traditions be handled with sensitivity and deep respect. By his actions at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Messer demonstrates why he is unworthy to be part of our community and cannot claim to represent us in any way."


 The search and desire of our Gentile brethren for their Jewish roots in the Messiah is both commendable and desired.  We ourselves have built a unique relationship with Freedom In Christ Church here in Alaska and marvel at the response of the leadership and congregants to the return to Jewish roots (including eliminating the observance of Christmas) over the past two years.  This relationship has been built on mutual trust and respect as we see God building us as the One New Man in these last days.  Much of the success of this relationship is the result of our sensitivity to each other in not trying to "change each other" and respecting the things we each value within our respective cultures.

I would, therefore, like to encourage other churches and individual Gentile believers in Yeshua, who are interested in exploring their Jewish roots, to likewise remain respectful and sensitive to those roots and the people through whom God brought the Messiah into the world.  I would also ask you in this wonderful journey of discovery of your roots to treat objects that have been considered sacred by the people of God for thousands of years with respect and diginity.  If you're not sure what the proper treatment, handling and protocol is for wearing a tallit, or blowing a shofar or handling a Sefer Torah, please don't do anything until you've researched it and are engaging in their use accordingly.

*The statement of "inundating the Church" within the quotes from Heidler's book is mine.