To begin with, its important to understand that Yeshua ישוע ( Jesus ) was as a Jew who observed the Mosaic law, born of Jewish parents, from the lineage of King David. Here are sound passages from Scripture which explain why new covenant Believers should stand with Israel:
1. Salvation springs from the Jews - John 4:2 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation is of the Jews.
In other words, the Jews were the instruments through which God brought the message of salvation. The Word of God is very clear that Gentile Believers owe much to the Jews because the salvation that they enjoy today came through the Jews. The first 12 missionaries aka as 'Apostles ' were all Jews. The Jewish Apostle Petros (פטרוס) aka Peter, ministered to the first Gentile, Cornelius & he as well as his entire household were saved (Acts 10:34–48).
2. It is the Hebraic origins of our faith that supports the church ( ekklesia ) . Romans 11:17–18
And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
3.. We are to minister to them materially - Romans 15:27 It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.
4. We are beneficiaries of the preservation of the Old Covenant ( aka The Torah ) -Deuteronomy 31:24 The tribe of Levi was charged to protect the Scriptures. Starting at the time of Moses Israel's religious leaders zealously preserved the writings that would become the Old Testament.
24 Moses wrote God’s Law in a book, taking care not to leave out anything. When he finished, he said to the Levitical priests, who were in charge of the Lord’s Covenant Box (ark of the covenant'), 26 'Take this book of God’s Law and place it beside the Covenant Box (ark of covenant) of the Lord your God, so that it will remain there as a witness against his people. .
5. They "guaranteed" the accuracy of our Scriptures through their painstaking, meticulous copying methods .Israel's reverence of God's word spurred them to create a copying system which is truly amazing! They understood it would be very easy to make copying mistakes. They solved the problem of human errors creeping into the text by creating a set of copying rules, only some of which are below.
- Completed scrolls had the words counted and compared to the original
- Every line on a given page had to be exactly the same in number of words, etc. as the original
- After a copy was made the total number of letters on a page were counted, then a comparison was made with the original
- Copies had to be made letter by letter. Copying word by word or even sentence by sentence was not allowed.
- When the copy was completed another person was required to verify the middle letter of both the original and the copy were the same.
- A third person was also used to verify the middle word of the original and copy were exactly the same.
6. The entire Old Covenant ( Torah ) was written by Jews
The Jewish Tanakh ( also commonly referred to as the Old Covenant ) is the first 39 books in the Bible, all of which were written by Jews under divine inspiration. The Old Covenant contains the creation of the universe, the history of the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, the formation of Israel as a nation, the subsequent decline and fall of the nation, the Prophets (who spoke for God), and the Wisdom Books.
7. The entire New Covenant with the possible exception of Luke was written by Jews
All of the books of the New Covenant were written by Jews, many of them during one of the most eventful periods of Jewish history: just before and just after the destruction of the Second Temple (in 70 C.E.). Furthermore, the author of a large part of the New Covenant was a Jewish missionary Shaul ( shaw-ool) aka as Paul . He was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, and the Tribe of Benjamin, a ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews.’”
8. Israel is God's chosen people. Deuteronomy 7: 6-7 . דְּבָרִים, Devarim
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples.”
Israel did not volunteer to be special, but God chose them to be His own and treasure. And He chose a people who were small in number, to use the weak things of the world to bring the mighty to nothing (1 Corinthians 1:27–29). Secularists will have you believe that it is the IDF that protects Israel & fights her battles, but how do we explain how a tiny Jewish nation can be born again in a region where all her neighbours are larger in numbers militarily ? Even the combined armies of Israel's enemies which openly call for her destruction have failed humiliatingly in what seemed to be certain victory for them Case in point : 1948, 1967 & 1973 wars.
Most recently Yahweh not only gave Israel victory in Operation Protective Edge, but miraculously prevented a potential massacre on the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana. As Pharaoh was hurled into his watery grave with 600 of his chariots, so will Israel will continue to win its future battles not because of its military might, but because Hashem God is with them. !!
9. Israel is the apple of God's eye- Zechariah 2:8–9 For thus says the Lord of hosts: “He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. For surely I will shake My hand against them, and they shall become spoil for their servants. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.”
Wow ! It can’t get any clearer than this. Whoever messes with Israel will have to deal with Elohim, the almighty awesome God who brought down Pharaoh with precision timing ( at that time Pharaoh was the most powerful man in the world ) . ALL the modern day pharaohs will face the same fate. So biblically speaking, Christians owe a depth of gratitude to the Jews for their immense faith and witness to the God who loves us. The scriptures instructs new covenant Christians not to boast against the Jews who do not have faith in their Jewish Messiah Yeshua, but to love and support them. Any Christian who is anti-Jew or anti-Israel is thus either terribly ignorant of the Scriptures, or stubbornly ignoring the Scriptures.
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