You, Israel.

"But what we must know of these things is Israel."

YOU, ISRAEL, are the salt of the earth. You are the Light of the world. A city set on a hill that cannot be hid. A candlestick giving Light to all in the house. These are the words of Jesus, King of the Jews, to His people in Matthew 5. In fact, we can say that all of His words there are spoken to them and of them. We, Gentiles, have taken them for our own, and as branches grafted into their roots, we can do this, but we’ve done it mostly by removing them from it. And they are who it was intended for.

This applies to the Gospel itself and to the baptism in the Spirit of Acts 2. The Spirit fell on a group of Jews during a Jewish holiday in the city of the Jews. Those saved were Jews from different nations, who’d come to worship there. The apostle Peter’s dream in Acts 11 released the Spirit upon the Gentiles, God speaking clearly that He would save all people. And then we read the epistles of the apostle Paul, a trained Pharisee who God sent to the Gentiles.

“Salvation is of the Jews,” Jesus said (John 4:22).

We overlook this. But it is seen in the healings of Jesus, written in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Who are Jews. The blind, the lame, and the deaf who came to Him were Jews. The healings in the synagogue were Jews in Jewish worship. The raising of Lazarus was resurrection of a Jew. The Pharisee Nicodemus who came to talk to Jesus in John 3 is a Jew trained in the Torah. Those seeking baptism by John the Baptizer were Jews. The Roman centurion who sent to Jesus, asking healing for his servant, was not a Jew. He was noted, though, for being kind to the Jews (Luke 7:5). And what was Jesus’ remark about him? “I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. (Luke 7:9).” A distinction was made of the greatness of his trust (faith) in the work of a Jew.

We see this in the Syrophenician woman as well. She came to the Jewish Messiah seeking deliverance for her daughter, and His remark was He was sent to the Jews. He even used a light derogatory statement (Mark 7:28), speaking words He heard from the Father, and it only increased her belief He would do it. He did do it. The woman from Samaria is also set apart for an obvious reason. Samaritans and Jews were segregated (John 4:9). The disciples made this clear in a remark they made later (Luke 9:54). And Jesus rebuked them for it. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman of Himself as the Jewish Messiah (John 4:26) and of worship in Jerusalem being the salvation of the Jews. Joyful, she ran and told all those people she knew, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ (John 4:29)? But what we must know of these things is Israel.

We’ve taken the Good News to the Jews and made it Gentile. We’ve made Jesus Gentile. We don’t know beans about the worship of the modern Jews, and so throw them under the bus. Unless they give up “all that” and announce, “Jesus is Lord,” we condemn them. But hear Jesus speaking in Matthew 5 again:

“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” (Matthew 5:10-12)

These are not political statements endorsing our fight against a liberal government in the Good Ol’ USA. They are not an okay to hate the Jews or the Baptists or the Catholics or those outside of trust in the living God. They aren’t a badge we can wear when we get in a tiff with others. NO ONE HAS BEEN MORE PERSECUTED THAN THE JEWS.

Six million died in the Holocaust. Gentiles murdering Jews.
(https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution)

We need to stop being petty. Childish. Prejudiced. We need to, instead, be grateful. That their Jewish Messiah included us in their plan of salvation, dying for the entire world. We need to, instead, remind ourself daily we are part of them. And seek God for understanding of the Word of God, written for them and by them, so that we include them. Greater, make them the central story. From our understanding of the Old Covenant, which I assure you we do not understand, to how history changed their worship, making it what it is today. We must see the Spirit of God among them, speaking to them, and become who we are meant to be to them—love.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com