Category Archives: Israel

Weird and Wacky Theology 4: America in the Bible

Sooner or later, someone was bound to suggest that the United States of America appears in the Bible. Several authors have tried.

Hal Lindsey appears to have been one of the first. His reading of Revelation 12:14-17, ‘The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert’ takes the passage to refer to ‘some massive airlift’ transporting escaping Jews from the holocaust. ‘Since the eagle is the national symbol of the United States, it’s possible that the airlift will be made available by aircraft from the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.’

Lindsey does not explain why ‘the eagle’ should mean the United States, rather than Germany or the Czech Republic for instance. Nor does he explain why in Revelation it refers to modern aircraft, while in Exodus 19:4, Deuteronomy 32:11-12 and Isaiah 40:31 it does not. This is hardly evidence for a consistent ‘literal interpretation’.

Mike Evans has caused an even bigger splash with his latest offering, The American Prophecies:
Is America in prophecy? Yes, it is. Evans insists

“As a Middle East analyst and minister who has worked closely with leaders in that region for decades, I tended to be sceptical of attempts to come up with schemes to plug America into prophetic interpretations. I have often referred to such teachers as “Pop Prophecy Peddlers.” But, after thousands of hours of research, I am totally convinced that America is found in prophecy, and I believe you will, too, after reading [my] book.”

Even the reviewer for Amazon observes that actual quotes from Scripture are rather sparse.
Controversially, Evans goes on to claim

“September 11 would never have happened if America had fought the same bigotry in the 1990’s rather than trying to appease it. Millions of Jews would be living today if anti-Semitism had not been ignored in the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Depression, as well as other American tragedies, happened because of America’s pride and challenge to God Almighty’s plan.”

The danger with this kind of prophetic speculation is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is how D.S. Russell summarises the dilemma:

“One rather frightening by-product of this process of interpretation is that it is easy to create the very situation which is being described so that the interpretation given brings about its own fulfilment. Russia, for example, is to be destroyed by nuclear attack – and scripture must be fulfilled! It needs little imagination to understand the consequences of such a belief, especially if held with deep conviction by politicians and the military who have the power to press the button and to execute the judgment thus prophesied and foreordained.”

If you feel you need an antidote, check out Zion’s Christian Soldiers for instant protection and lasting relief.

For further examples of wacky theology see:

Weird and Wacky Theology 1: Israel and the Church
Weird and Wacky Theology 2: Will the Jewish Temple be Rebuilt?
Weird and Wacky Theology 3: Armageddon out of here

Weird and Wacky Theology 3: Armageddon out of here

John Hagee wrote to me again today. He writes most days. Today he wrote to remind me, “As Christians we have a Biblical obligation to defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need. Israel’s time of need is now. There is a new Hitler in the Middle East –President Ahmadinejad of Iran — who has threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the nuclear technology to make good on his threat. Tragically, 2008 has been a year of steady progress for President Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions.”

In case I missed it, John’s email contained not one but two requests for money – in between the paragraphs so I would not miss it, like I’m doing here, except you don’t need to send me any money.

Then John went on to warn me, “As Iran gets steadily closer to obtaining nuclear weapons, we get that much closer to the possibility of a second Holocaust. The risk that Israel and her six million Jews might be “wiped off the map” is too great for us to sit silently by as the world does nothing. As 2008 ends and 2009 begins, we must redouble our efforts to stop Iran. In particular, we must combine fervent prayer with urgent action.”

How John, how?

“In addition to prayer, we must also act to make sure that our fellow citizens and our government recognize the urgency of this threat. Christians United for Israel is determined to focus intensely on the issue of Iran in 2009. We plan to educate Christians across America about the threat of a nuclear Iran. We intend to help our members speak out in their communities and churches to raise awareness on this issue. We plan to communicate the urgency of this issue to our leaders in Washington and demand that they act with greater resolve to stop this threat to America and Israel.”

I knew prayer wouldn’t be enough. If that was all John was asking for I certainly wouldn’t have written this piece, and you wouldn’t be bothering to read it either, but you are and that’s because you know by now that John has other ideas of how to ‘stop Iran’ and being the pastor of an 18,000 member church he doesn’t need to beat around the bush.

At the July 19th, 2006 Washington DC inaugural event for Christians United for Israel, after recorded greeting from George W. Bush, and in the presence of four US Senators as well as the Israeli ambassador to the US, John stated :”The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.”

Well that’s everything isn’t it? The whole caboodle as we say in O’l Blighty. Now I don’t want to see anyone ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ least of all my Jewish friends, but bombing Iran back to the stone age won’t win us any friends in the Middle East, John. Trust me, I’ve asked them.

Your friend Ann Coulter suggested something similar after the tragedy of 9/11. She said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”

We tried it a thousand years ago. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. John, I’m struggling a bit with your theology. I’ve read the Bible a few times over the years but I just can’t find that verse you must have in mind that says this is our ‘biblical obligation.’ I thought our ‘biblical obligation’ was to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-48). Paul said our ‘obligation’ is to tell them about the love of God found in Jesus (Romans 1:14; John 3:16-17). Maybe I’m just reading the wrong translation.

Grace Halsell put her finger on it when she wrote: “Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that, by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind.”

She is right isn’t she? Such a fatalistic view of the future, with its prewritten script, is inherently suspicious and pessimistic about anything international, ecumenical, or involving the European Community or United Nations. Efforts to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East are spurned as counterfeit and a satanic ploy to beguile Israel. Such paranoia might be deemed a sick joke were it not so pervasive and influential, it seems, in shaping US foreign policy with its perpetual war against the ‘Axis of Evil’. Its greatest danger is surely that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Maybe to call it ‘weird and wacky’ is a little understated.

For further examples of wacky theology see:

Weird and Wacky Theology 1: Israel and the Church
Weird and Wacky Theology 2: Will the Jewish Temple be Rebuilt?
Weird and Wacky Theology 3: Armageddon out of here

The Men in the Shadows

Why can’t I get this song by Jackson Browne out of my mind? Maybe its the hope rising within me that with the election of Barak Obama, we will see a change in US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maybe there will be a renewed commitment on the part of the US administration to cooperate with the United Nations and achieve a multilateral solution as envisaged in the Road-Map to Peace. Just maybe.

Or maybe it reminds me of those lovely people who feel they need to hide behind their anonymous blogs to express their warped and cowardly views. Or maybe its because of the words of Jesus who said:

“Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. All those who do evil hate the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But those who live by the truth come into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-21).

One day everything will be exposed to the light of Christ and I can’t wait for that day. What ever the reason, just check out the videos that follow the lyrics and lets not be intimidated by those men in the shadows.

“I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that youve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the TV
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends–
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally cant take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we cant even say the names

They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire.”

Jackson Browne (1986)

YouTube Lives in the Balance (1986), here (live in 2007) and here (live in 2005) and here also.

Weird and Wacky Theology 2: Will the Jewish Temple be Rebuilt?

This second dose of Weird and Wacky Theology addresses whether the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt. Visit Jews for Jesus website and you can read an article by Zhava Glaser where she asks rhetorically,

“What flour is to bread, the sacrificial system is to the religion revealed in the Jewish Scriptures. It is not a garnish. It is not a flavoring. It is the very substance out of which the Jewish religion was constructed. We can forever design our own substitutes, but they cannot satisfy our yearnings the way God’s own provision can. Though some rabbis might minimize the revealed system of worship and its requirements, can the individual Jew neglect what God says? Can there be a “proper” Judaism without a priesthood, an altar, a sacrifice and a place on earth where God meets the individual?””

For many Orthodox Jews, the answer to these rhetorical questions is clearly ‘no’. They pray three times a day that the Temple will be built in their life time. Some Messianic and Dispensational writers agree. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, for example, writes,

“there will be a sacrificial system instituted in the Millennium that will have some features similar to the Mosaic system… What will the purpose of these sacrifices in light of Christ’s death? To begin with, it should be remembered that the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Law did not remove sin either (Heb. 10:4), but only covered them (the meaning of atonement in Hebrew). Its purpose was to serve as a physical and visual picture of what the Messiah would do (Isa. 53:10-12). The Church has been commanded to keep the Lord’s Supper as a physical and visual picture of what Christ did on the cross. God intends to provide for Israel in the kingdom a physical and visual picture of what the Messiah accomplished on the cross. For Israel, however, it will be a sacrificial system instead of communion with bread and wine. The purpose of the sacrificial system in the kingdom will be the same as the purpose of communion of the Church: In remembrance of me.” (Israelology, pp.810-811).

Fruchtenbaum is not alone – he is following the Cyrus Scofield who sees the sacrifices in Ezekiel’s Temple as ‘memorial’ offerings. The problem with this interpretation is that it is not what Ezekiel says! Ezekiel 43:19 says the sacrifice must be a ‘young bull’. O dear…

The idea that the Temple must be rebuilt was popularised by Moishe Rosen. He writes, “…at some point in these stressful days, the ancient Jewish Temple will be rebuilt on the holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem… Prophecy foretells the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple and the reinstitution of the sacrifices prescribed in the law of Moses. In a vision of the future Temple, Ezekiel received this word… Some way, somehow, the Temple will be rebuilt, in spite of the fact that two Arab shrines now stand on the only site on earth where this Temple may stand.” (Overture to Armageddon, p. 114).

David Brickner, the present Director of Jews for Jesus also believes this (Future Hope, p. 18). Now before I go any further, let me make it plain, this article is not a criticism of Jews for Jesus. I have invited UK staff of Jews for Jesus to teach in our church and I continue to affirm their evangelistic work – I just don’t agree with the dispensational presuppositions of some of their leaders.

As Fruchtenbaum rightly states, the Temple sacrifices, at best, only ever provided a temporary cover for sin. The daily sacrifices, and the smoke rising from the altar were a constant reminder of the need for a Saviour. How then could God encourage the sacrificial system to be reinstated when he had sent his son Jesus to be the ultimate sacrifice, to shed his own blood on the cross to take away our sin? As Glaser rightly concludes her article:

“Isn’t it ironic that it takes the New Testament to tell of the new altar, the everlasting sacrifice and the new high priest through whom gentiles as well as Jews are made holy?”

To suggest, as some Christians do, that sacrifices must be made once more to fulfill Bible prophecy sets one passage of scripture against another, and undermines the New Testament’s teaching that the work of Christ is sufficient, final and complete.

Those who advocate the need for a new Temple and reintroduction of sacrifices (whether for atonement or as a memorial) are nevertheless ignoring the way the image of the Temple is invested with new meaning. Subsequent to Pentecost, the Temple imagery is applied to the Church, the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. For example, Paul, writing to the Church in Ephesus, describes them as part of the new living Temple.

“Consequently, you are … members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy Temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:19-21)

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul quotes from passages in Leviticus and Isaiah, both of which refer to the physical Tabernacle and Temple, and applies them to the Church.

“For we are the Temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17 citing Leviticus 26:12 & Isaiah 52:11)

In his letter to the Romans, Paul uses Temple language to describe how we are to offer, not a dead animal sacrifice but our bodies as living sacrifices as our act of worship (Romans 12:1-2). Peter does the same thing describing the Church using Hebrew imagery associated with the Temple (Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 28:16). Christians are, he says, being made into the new house for God, in which Jesus is the ‘precious cornerstone’ (1 Peter 2:5-7).

So the Temple in Jerusalem was only intended to be a temporary building, a shadow pointing to the day when God would dwell with people of all nations through Jesus Christ. The flow of biblical revelation is progressive and moves in one historical direction. Christians who support the rebuilding of the Temple in the belief that future sacrifices will be memorial offerings, or can even atone for sin, are committing apostasy. Why? Because they are trying to reverse the flow of revelation and go back to the shadows when we already have the light of Christ. In the words of the writer to the Hebrews:

“It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

And that is the final rub. People must choose between a religion and a relationship; between the
words ‘do’ and ‘done’; between law and grace; between the need to offer continual sacrifices for sin or accept the finished work of Jesus Christ in our place; between a physical Temple and a spiritual one; between one in Jerusalem that is redundant and one that encompasses the whole world that is under construction.

For further examples of wacky theology see:

Weird and Wacky Theology 1: Israel and the Church
Weird and Wacky Theology 2: Will the Jewish Temple be Rebuilt?
Weird and Wacky Theology 3: Armageddon out of here

Weird and Wacky Theology 1: Israel and the Church

As a taster for my new book on the use and abuse of the Bible in relation to Israel and the Church, I plan to highlight examples of eccentric interpretation that lead, at best, to dubious theology, and at worst, to heresy.

Jacob Prasch is a good example. Described as an “authentic Messianic teacher” on the anonymous Seismic Shock blog, Prasch uses the story of Rachel and Leah from Genesis to teach that Jesus did not desire the Church as his bride.

“Jacob came for a bride from his own people. He desired Rachel, but he did not get Rachel at first, but Leah. After he learned to love Leah as much as he did Rachel, he got Rachel as well. In the beginning Leah had all the babies, her womb was most fruitful. But then Rachel conceives. Israel shall be a fruitful vine. Jesus came for Israel. He wanted to marry Israel, but He did not get Israel. He ends up with the bride He did not desire at first, the Gentile church. After He learns to love the Gentile church, then He gets Israel. In the beginning, the church has all the babies. But in the end, Israel becomes a fruitful vine.” (Jacob Prasch)

You can read the context here.

Here’s another example from John Wilkinson, Founder and Director of the Mildmay Mission

“ … the Jewish nation as such is shunted to a siding until the times of the Gentiles run out, to allow the express train to pass, stopping here and there to pick up the Church, and then the Jewish nation will take her place on the main line of the Divine Plan, stop at all stations and take on the world.” (Israel my Glory, 1893, p.134).

As Kevin Daly observes, “In other words what Jesus failed to do by pouring out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Jews will succeed in doing much better once the church is taken out of the way.” Gilbert Bilezikian rightly characterizes this theology as turning the Church into the ‘concubine of Christ‘.

David Brickner, revives J.N. Darby’s eccentric dispensational scheme, suggesting the last two thousand years history of the Church is merely ‘a parenthesis’ to God’s future plans for the Jews, who remain his ‘chosen people’. (see Future Hope, p. 18, 130; J. N. Darby, ‘The Character of Office in The Present Dispensation’ Collected Writings., Eccl. I, Vol. I, p. 94).

By contrast, the Apostle Paul describes the extent of Jesus’ love for the Church in Ephesians 5:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)

Jesus himself said, ” Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:13-14).

Just before he washed his disciples feet, the Apostle John writes so movingly, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.” (John 13:1)

Why was Jesus willing to die? The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that Jesus died to reconcile both Jews and Gentiles to God the Father.

“His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:15-18)

The Lord Jesus has broken down the barrier between Jews and Gentiles who recognise him as their Lord and Saviour. It is tragic when some of his followers, Like Prasch, it seems want to focus on that barrier.

Perhaps just as revealing, is the fact that the anonymous author of Seismic Shock, who calls himself the Maverick, regards Prasch as an “authentic Messianic teacher”. He must therefore be a Messianic believer himself (i.e. a Jew who believes in Jesus). No secular Jew would describe a Christian leader in this way. If true, I find this very, very sad, that so-called followers of Jesus would choose to use an anonymous blog to to discredit other followers of Jesus in this way. The Apostle Paul insists,

“Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)

It seems sad that their love of Zionism appears greater than their love of Jesus.

For further examples of wacky theology see:

Weird and Wacky Theology 1: Israel and the Church
Weird and Wacky Theology 2: Will the Jewish Temple be Rebuilt?
Weird and Wacky Theology 3: Armageddon out of here

Suicide Bombers: A Palestinian Christian Perspective

What is Theologically and Morally Wrong with Suicide Bombings? A Palestinian Christian Perspective

The following is taken from an article by Canon Naim Ateek published in the Sabeel journal Cornerstone, and subsequently expanded into a 35 page booklet. It is the best critique of suicide bombing I have read.

“The issue of Palestinian suicide bombings has become a familiar topic to many people throughout the world. It is easy for people to either quickly and forthrightly condemn it as a primitive and barbaric form of terrorism against civilians, or condone and support it as a legitimate method of resisting an oppressive Israeli occupation that has trampled Palestinian dignity and brutalized their very existence.

As a Christian, I know that the way of Christ is the way of nonviolence and, therefore, I condemn all forms of violence and terrorism, whether coming from the government of Israel or from militant Palestinian groups. Having said that clearly, it is still important to understand the phenomenon of suicide bombings that tragically arises from the deep misery and torment of many Palestinians. For how else can one explain it? When healthy, beautiful and intelligent young men and women set out to kill and be killed, something is basically wrong in a world that has not heard their anguished cry for justice.

The Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip took a very important turn since the early 1990s. Young Palestinian men, and more lately women, started to strap themselves with explosives, make their way to Israeli Jewish areas and blow themselves up, killing and injuring dozens of people around them. Between the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 and February 22, 2003, Palestinian militants carried out 69 suicide bombings in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including Jerusalem, as well as inside Israel, killing, according to Israeli statistics, 341 Israelis including soldiers, men, women, and children. In the same period, the Israeli army killed 2,106 Palestinians including police, men, women and children.

For the last 35 years, the Palestinians have been engaged in resisting the occupation of their country. For many years they have worked through the international community to bring an end to the Israeli occupation, but they have been unsuccessful.

Continue reading →

New IVP Global Dictionary of Theology tackles Christian Zionism

Theological dictionaries are foundational to any theological library. But until now there has been no Global Dictionary of Theology, a theological dictionary that presumes the contribution of the Western tradition but moves beyond it to embrace and explore a full range of global expressions of theology.

The Global Dictionary of Theology is inspired by the shift of the center of Christianity from the West to the global South. But it also reflects the increase in two-way traffic between these two sectors as well as the global awareness that has permeated popular culture to an unprecedented degree.

The editorial perspective of the Global Dictionary of Theology is an ecumenical evangelicalism that is receptive to discovering new facets of truth through listening and conversation on a global scale. Thus a distinctive feature of the Global Dictionary of Theology is its conversational approach. Contributors have been called on to write in
the spirit of engaging in a larger theological conversation in which alternative views are expected and invited.

William A. Dyrness, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Juan F. Martinez and Simon Chan edit approximately 250 articles written by over 100 contributors representing the global spectrum of theological perspectives.

Pastors, theological teachers, theological students and lay Christian leaders will all find the Global Dictionary of Theology to be a resource that unfolds new dimensions and reveals new panoramas of theological perspective and inquiry. Here is a new launching point for doing theology in today’s global context.

Nearly 250 articles by over 100 international contributors
Edited by acknowledged experts in global theology
Evangelical and ecumenical in perspective
The first major theological dictionary to explore the global range and varieties of theology
In an age of unprecedented global awareness, here is a standard launching point of theological research that will enrich every student’s understanding of theology
Moving beyond mission theology, it explores the local and global theological fruit of the inculturation of the gospel
Consistently anchors its discussions in Scripture and the historical development of doctrine
And includes an article of mine on Christian Zionism

Reviews and Endorsements

Barak Obama has Christian Zionists running scared

The likely election tomorrow of Barak Obama as the 44th US President has some leading Christian Zionists running for cover. Mike Evans of the Jerusalem Prayer Team wrote to me today to tell me that “Jews in Israel are worried that US may cut off funding Israel after the election”. That is about as close as Evans can come to making a political statement in favour of his preferred candidate (McCain of course) and at the same time ask me for yet more money for his ministry.

In an open letter to both candidates, Evans urges them to disregard international law and the Road-map brokered by George Bush or face divine judgement. To do so Evans has to rip out of context a promise God made to Abraham 4000 years ago and apply it Israel today.

“Please do not open the floodgate by supporting the Road Map to Peace document, the Shelf Agreement. There is much more at stake than just the geo-political situation. God made an eternal promise to Abraham that the Promised Land would belong to his descendants forever…and that He would place a divine blessing on those who help Israel and a divine judgment on those who curse Israel. For the sake of our nation—and my family and yours—we must defend Israel. We must resist the voices who urge forcing her to give up the land of promise for empty assurances of peace. We must recognize and maintain Jerusalem as the eternal and rightful capital of Israel. God will surely judge us if we challenge Him and the holy city of Jerusalem.”

Hopefully the new President, which ever one the Lord chooses, will listen to his conscience instead (Proverbs 21:1).

Stowe School Tackles Arab-Israeli Conflict

It was worth making the 151 mile round trip this evening, through the driving rain, to dialogue with between 80-100 of the most intelligent and articulate Sixth Formers you will find anywhere in Britain.

Stowe is one of the UK’s leading public schools with a wide range of nationalities represented. Members of the faculty invited me to address the historical and political context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, from an Israeli and Palestinian perspective, and summarise the position of the United Nations and rulings of the International Court of Justice.

The Faculty and Stoics engaged in a stimulating discussion, raising questions that centred on why Israel has been able to act with impunity and why the occupation, settlements and separation barrier are largely funded through US loan guarantees. The frustration expressed at the failure of British diplomacy to achieve the implementation of UN Resolutions was most encouraging. As with similar school presentations, I explained to the Stoics their homework – to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and succeed where their parents generation has failed. If some of the world’s brightest and best young minds cannot bring about a diplomatic solution based on justice and the rule of international law, then God help our world.

Messianic Good News (and the Perils of Dispensationalism)

Yesterday I returned from Johannesburg, South Africa, where I was attending the Messianic Good News Conference,’Israel in the Last Days‘

Messianic Good News was founded in 1950 for the purpose of proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus the Messiah to Jews and Gentiles primarily through the written format. They publish and distribute tracts and books for outreach as well as the quarterly, “Messianic Good News,” through which we aim to encourage and equip readers with a deeper understanding of the faith. The ministry originated in Hamburg, Germany in the late 1800’s with the conversion of a young Jew named Arnold Frank. Frank had a burden to share the good news of salvation with the many Jewish emigrants who were passing through Germany hoping to find a better life in the new world. He published and distributed gospel literature and he also responded to their dire physical needs by organising a soup kitchen, a hospital staffed with compassionate Christian nurses and the Mission House, “Jerusalem” to accommodate and disciple the many young Jewish enquirers who were responding to the gospel.

In 1938, at the age of 79 he was forced to flee to Ireland to escape arrest by the Nazis. The mission property was confiscated but Frank continued to minister in Ireland for a further 26 years until his death at the age of 106. Although the Nazis tried to destroy the work he had dedicated his life to, his legacy lives on through the labours of those whom he led to the Saviour.

One of those young men was John Düring, who fled to South Africa in 1938. In 1950, Düring, with Frank’s support and blessing, established the “Good News Missionary Society” primarily as a literary outreach to Jewish people. Düring established a strong witness to the Jewish people through the excellent literature produced by the society. In 2000 the society was renamed “Messianic Good News” and continues to publish and distribute literature proclaiming the good news about the Messiah. They have an office in Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as in America and their literature is also translated into Spanish and German.

It was heartening to meet many Messianic believers at the conference with a passion for the gospel, with a love for Jewish people and a desire to introduce Jesus to them, while at the same time repudiating the false gospel of dispensationalism and Christian Zionism.

One of the speakers at the conference was Kevin Daly, In his talk entitled, ‘The Good News to Israel and the Nations’ he exposed the dangers of dispensational teaching that insists God has a separate plan for the Jewish people apart from the Church. Daly illustrated this error with a quote from ‘Hebrew Roots’ teacher Jacob Prasch. Prasch uses the story of Rachel and Leah from Genesis to teach that Jesus did not desire the Church as his bride.

You can read the context for this erroneous theology here. Daly highlights the dangers of this false teaching,

“The Gentile Church was unforeseen, and somewhat of a disappointment and a second prize. Because of God’s failure to get the Bride he always wanted, he extended his favour to the Gentiles. By contrast, Jesus taught that flesh gives birth to flesh and counts for nothing. The NT states clearly concerning the unbelieving Jews: “They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Peter 2:8)

Does God’s plan depend on Man, or does Man depend on God’s Plan? The God-centred view is that God’s purposes prevail and unfaithful individuals disqualify themselves from participation. The humanistic, Judo-centric view which Prasch advocates is that God’s purpose was unfortunately frustrated by the non-participation of the Jews. The NT states further that salvation was always part of the Plan contained in the Abrahamic promise, and presents the Church as the fulfilment of God’s “eternal purpose”. The true worshipper, and the type that God desires, is the one that worships Him ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23-24).” (Kevin Daly)

I’ll share more about the conference in later postings.