Survey: 1 in 5 US Jewish Millennials Believe Jesus Is Son of God - CBN News John Waage

Survey: 1 in 5 US Jewish Millennials Believe Jesus Is Son of God

11-01-2017

CBN News John Waage

In a culture of changing spiritual beliefs, a surprising number of young American Jews – more than one in five – said they believe Jesus is the Son of God.  

A Barna Group survey of Jewish millennials (born between 1984 and 1999) recently released found that 21 percent believe Jesus was "God in human form who lived among people in the first century" and  28 percent "see him as a rabbi or spiritual leader, but not God." Forty-two percent said they celebrate Christmas.

A majority of those surveyed believe one can be a part of other faiths and still be Jewish, and one-third of Jewish millennials feel "God desires a personal relationship with us."

The survey was commissioned by the evangelistic group Jews for Jesus, but the Barna Group, noted for a number of in-depth surveys on American religious belief, claims it is "solely responsible for data collection, analysis and writing of the report."

According to the report titled: Jewish Millennials: The Beliefs and Behaviors Shaping Young Jews in America, the group is much more likely to consider themselves as "spiritual" and have more interest in faith and spirituality than other generations.

Some of the results surprised Ari Kelman, who was interviewed for the report and teaches Jewish studies at Stanford University.  

Kelman was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying,  "These don't look like Jews I recognize."  He added, "I was not willing to just write them off entirely.  Maybe these are Jews we've never seen before.  We know religion is changing, we know parameters of identity are changing, so why would we expect different generations to look exactly the same?"

Kelman admitted he was somewhat uncomfortable about a study commissioned by Jews for Jesus, but acknowledged the credentials of the Barna Group.  

"They were good social scientists with skin in the game, he said.  "Most people who fund research on American Jews also come with an agenda, and I've been in this world long enough to know that the people who fund that research don't interfere.  They don't cook the books."

Susan Perlman, director of communications for Jews for Jesus, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) the survey was "very hopeful, from our perspective."

"This was a generation that was spiritual, that is willing to engage in the subject of whether or not Jesus might be the Messiah.  All we can ask for is an open mind to engage with the Bible, engage with the culture and look at the possibilities," Perlman said.

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How God Used Jews for Jesus to Bring a Jewish Young Man to Faith - JEWS FOR JESUS CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Jews for Jesus Chicago branch leader Jeremiah Zaretsky

How God Used Jews for Jesus to Bring a Jewish Young Man to Faith

 11/14/2016 JEWS FOR JESUS  CHARISMA MAGAZINE

How does someone come to faith in Messiah Jesus? For some there is an instant they can point to, an "aha!" moment. For others it is a process that takes place over a long period of time. In both cases, more often than not, God works through multiple people during the seeker's journey. I was one such person whom God placed in the life of a young man named Robin.

Almost one year ago, Robin was invited to come for Shabbat dinner at the home of Jews for Jesus missionaries David and Arielle on the north side of Chicago. For over two years now, the Chicago branch has used Shabbat dinners intentionally to create a Messianic community and to engage Jewish seekers who are exploring their faith.

The Shabbat dinner Robin went to in January of last year was the first of many steps he took toward accepting Jesus. Months later, we met at a Passover Seder my congregation was hosting, but it wasn't until I saw Robin show up at my house one week for Shabbat dinner that we began talking. I asked if he would be willing to meet together over coffee so we could get to know each other, and he said yes.

Robin was born in Germany to a German father and a Jewish mother and grew up there with his brother. Both his parents are believers and even though he grew up in a believing home, Robin had never been exposed to a community of faith where he felt he could be authentic in the face of his fears and doubts. When he was introduced to our Shabbat dinners, he stumbled upon something he couldn't shake—a community of people truly committed to living out their faith. A seed had been planted.

Many people, both among our staff and within the local community of Jewish believers, witnessed to Robin over the following months. Eventually, the two of us started meeting regularly to study the Bible together. In our first meeting, Robin admitted to me that he never really followed Jesus as "Lord" because he was afraid of giving up control of his life. We continued to meet and Robin continued to wrestle with the prospect of surrendering his life to the Lord. The seed was growing.

At the end of the summer, Robin got in touch to tell me that while he was on a plane to Germany to visit his brother, he found Jesus! As Robin explained it to me, he was reading some writings of C. S. Lewis and one line struck him: "Jesus was either a Lunatic, a Liar, or Lord."

"It was then that I decided to bend the knee to Jesus," Robin told me. "Between my Christian counselor, C. S. Lewis and Jews for Jesus, I have found faith in Yeshua." He explained how God had broken some vices in his life and has brought him freedom through the love of Messiah. God's love finally had travelled the 18 inches from Robin's head to his heart!

I was so ecstatic to hear and see evidence of God's transforming power in Robin's life. I may have watered the seed, but it was the Lord who brought the harvest!

Robin is now participating in our Chicago branch residency program for a season of service and discipleship. He had his very first taste of street evangelism during our Wicker Park outreach! Pray for Robin's continued spiritual growth.

Want to know more ways in which God is working to touch the hearts of Jewish people? Sign up for Realtime, the online monthly publication of Jews for Jesus worldwide.

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Prophetic Art That Points to Salvation - TROY ANDERSON CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Steffi Geiser Rubin | © iStockphoto/JJRD

Prophetic Art That Points to Salvation

2/4/2016 TROY ANDERSON  charisma magazine

Imagine Christ's view from atop the mountain where He preached to the multitudes about the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful and the pure of heart. As He preached the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), Jesus looked down on a sea of faces that hung on His every word because He didn't teach as the scribes did but as one with authority—and He was moved with compassion for their souls.

A new book, Multitudes, helps readers imagine what Christ saw as He taught about anger, adultery, oaths, revenge, loving your enemies and charitable giving, fasting and heaven. Steffi Geiser Rubin, an artist commissioned by Jews for Jesus to create original art for the Messianic Jewish evangelistic organization's new book, says its cover gives Jesus' eye view perspective from that mount in Galilee.

"The cover, which is made up of faces from the illustration of Matthew 5-7, is to show what Jesus saw when He looked out," Rubin says. "He was able to see beyond the exterior into the hearts and souls and needs of the people. This is an image of Jesus that Jewish people can understand because there has been a lot of suffering among Jewish people, and, therefore, a lot of compassion toward those who suffer."

Reaching Jewish Multitudes

The coffee table book—combining the Messianic Jewish Tree of Life version of the book of Matthew with 20 original, full-scale paintings—is part of an artistic outreach to share Yeshua's love for the "multitudes" with the Jewish people and, ultimately, the entire world.

"I love that verse and the way Matthew paints such a graphic picture to help us understand what Jesus was feeling," David Brickner, executive director of the San Francisco-based ministry, wrote in Multitudes. "If we are to care with the compassion of Messiah Yeshua, we need to see past the veneers to understand people and circumstances as He sees them. We need to see that the multitudes who are without Yeshua are lost and without hope because they are without God in this world."

Multitudes is not just a coffee table book; it's also a traveling exhibition. The paintings were displayed at recent art shows in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, an exhibit that drew 500 people its first night. More shows are planned this year in Paris, Tel Aviv and across Israel.

Susan Perlman, associate director at Jews for Jesus, says the shows attract the curious—just like Jesus did when He walked the earth. That curiosity opens the door for Jews for Jesus staff to introduce the curious to Yeshua.

"People are really taken by these art shows," Perlman says. "It does cause dissonance: 'Wait a minute, they're Jewish, but they believe in Jesus. But what we're experiencing is especially very Jewish and Christian at the same time.' The combination—it makes people do a double take."

Multitudes' Prophetic Inspiration

Inspiration for the project began when Marc Sternberg was teaching on Matthew and realized the apostle was a Jew writing to Jews who didn't yet believe in Yeshua as the Messiah. He thought: "Wouldn't Matthew be a great vehicle to reach Jewish people today."

Later, while driving home, Sternberg says the Lord inspired him in a "waking vision-dream" to begin work on the illustrated Gospel of Matthew book that is now Multitudes.

"I believe that the art of Multitudes is a non-threatening platform for sharing the gospel," says Sternberg, director of the Jews for Jesus Store. "Almost each of the paintings has a Messianic prophecy that Jesus is actually fulfilling in that passage of the Bible, or that He is quoting directly from the Old Testament Scripture."

Following the "vision-dream," Jews for Jesus commissioned Rubin, its first art director and a founding member, to create original artwork as a vehicle for communicating the Jewishness of the Gospel of Matthew. Rubin joined Jews for Jesus after encountering ministry Founder Moishe Rosen at a Bible study at University of California, Berkeley in 1971. He asked her, "What do you think God wants from you?" After reading the Gospels, she put her faith in Yeshua.

Rubin's paintings represent the major themes, events and messages within the book. The key verses, Old Testament references and image ideas were a collaborative effort between Rubin and Jews for Jesus.

Disrupting Jewish Thinking

"Multitudes is Jesus' perspective of the gospel," Rubin says. "(It's) what inspired Him when He delivered the Sermon on the Mount. The whole background, the whole history of Jews for Jesus, is one of disruption—changing what people think when they hear 'Jesus,' changing what people think when they hear 'Jews.' These paintings are all so disruptive."

Perlman hopes the project will not only touch hearts, but will expand the understanding Jews have of Yeshua.

"Most importantly, it will transform them in terms of their understanding of the Creator Himself, and how both visually and in the written word, we can find that He is the way, the truth and the life," Perlman says. "It's a gospel tool and also a validation of our faith."  

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Watch how Jews for Jesus can reach people for Christ through the Multitudes Art Project at multitudes.charismamag.com.

Troy Anderson is the executive editor of Charisma, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and co-author of The Babylon Code. Follow him on Twitter(TroyMAnderson), Facebook (troyandersonwriter) or online at troyanderson.us.

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CHRISTIANITY'S JEWISH ROOTS

Why Jesus is Our Passover Lamb

Rich Robinson
Jews for Jesus

CBN.com

In the day to come when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' you shall say to him…"Exodus 13:14.

The number four plays a significant role in Judaism. There are the four species of vegetables for Sukkot; four kingdoms in the book of Daniel; four Torah portions in the tefillin; four Matriarchs. At Passover, we find this number in abundance. In the course of the Seder we have four sons, four cups of wine, four expressions of redemption (Exodus 6:6-7) and perhaps the most famous "four" of all: the Four Questions.

As the Seder developed over the centuries, the Four Questions underwent many changes and were altered as different situations arose.1 For example, originally one question dealt with why we ate roasted meat.2 After the destruction of the Temple, that question was deleted and one about reclining was substituted. Today, the Four Questions (phrased as observations) are asked by the youngest child in the family:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

On all other nights, we may eat either chometz or matzoh; on this night, only matzoh.
On all other nights, we eat all kinds of vegetables; on this night, we must eat maror.
On all other nights, we do not dip even once; on this night we dip twice.
On all other nights, we may eat either sitting or reclining; on this night, we all recline.

The father then explains the Passover story.

There are other questions that the rabbis could have chosen as well. In the spirit of rabbinical adaptation, here are some additional questions that both children and adults might ponder.

Why do we place three matzos together in one napkin?

There are any number of traditions about this. One tradition holds that they represent the three classes of people in ancient Israel: the Priests, the Levites, and the Israelites. Another tradition teaches that they symbolize the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet another explanation is that it is a depiction of the "Three Crowns": the crown of learning, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of kingship.3 And a fourth option is that two of the matzos stand for the two weekly loaves of Exodus 16:22, and the third matzoh represents the special Passover bread called the "bread of affliction."4 And if those are not enough to keep one's imagination running, here's another.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Sperling suggested that the three matzos stand for the three "measures of the fine meal" which Sarah prepared for Abraham's angelic guests (Genesis 18). The reason for this interpretation lies in the rabbinic tradition that this event occurred on the night of Passover!5 Out of all these explanations, how can we decide which is the right one, or is there yet another?

Why is the middle matzoh, the afikoman, broken in the course of the Seder?

Are we breaking the Levites, or Isaac, or the crown of learning, or one of the guests' cakes, or the bread of affliction? Or are we symbolizing the parting of the Red Sea (another explanation)?6 If any of these explanations are correct, why is the matzoh hidden away, buried under a cushion, and then taken out and eaten by all, as the Sephardic ritual puts it, "in memory of the Passover lamb?"

Where is our pesach, our Passover sacrifice, today?

The Torah prescribes that a lamb is to be sacrificed and eaten every Passover as a memorial of the first Passover lambs which were killed (Deuteronomy 16:1 -8). In reply, it is said that without a Temple we can have no sacrifices—yet some have advocated that the sacrifice still be made in Jerusalem even without a Temple.7 Since the Passover sacrifice, like others, involved the forgiveness of sins, it is important that we do the right thing. 

Some feel that the pesach had nothing to do with forgiveness. But in Exodus Rabbah 15:12 we read, "I will have pity on you, through the blood of the Passover and the blood of circumcision, and I will forgive you." Again, Numbers Rabbah 13:20 cites Numbers 7:46, which deals with the sin offering, and then adds, "This was in allusion to the Paschal sacrifice." Clearly the rabbis of this time period regarded the pesach as effecting atonement, and Leviticus 17:11 confirms that "it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."8 

Today, however, we have only a shankbone, the zeroah, as a reminder of the Passover sacrifice, and roasted egg, the chaggigah, in memory of the festival offerings. But nowhere did God say that we could dispense with sacrifice. So, where is our pesach today?

The answers to these questions can be found by examining how and why the Seder observance changed dramatically in the first century.

The Seder Celebrated by Jesus and His Disciples

The "Last Supper" was a Passover meal and seems to have followed much the same order as we find in the Mishnah.

In the New Testament accounts, we find reference to the First Cup, also known as the Cup of Blessing (Luke 22:17); to the breaking of the matzoh (Luke 22:19); to the Third Cup, the Cup of Redemption (Luke 22:20); to reclining (Luke 22:14); to the charoseth or the maror (Matthew 26:23), and to the Hallel (Matthew 26:30).

In particular, the matzoh and the Third Cup are given special significance by Jesus:

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" (Luke 22:19-20)

The Passover Lamb

The early Jewish believers in Jesus considered him the fulfillment of the Passover lambs that were yearly sacrificed. Thus Paul, a Jewish Christian who had studied under Rabbi Gamaliel, wrote, "Messiah, our pesach, has been sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7). John in his gospel noted that Jesus died at the same time that the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple (see John 19:14) and that like the Passover lambs, none of his bones were broken (the others being crucified had their leg bones broken by the Romans—John 19:32, 33, 36). The idea behind all this was that just as the Israelites were redeemed from Egyptian slavery by an unblemished lamb, now men could be freed from slavery to sin by the Messiah, the Lamb of God.

The Cessation of the Temple Sacrifices

The first Christians were considered a part of the Jewish community until the end of the first century when they were expelled by the synagogue. Until the temple was destroyed, these Messianic Jews worshipped regularly with those Jews who didn't believe in the Messiah. In fact, there were entire congregations that worshipped Y'shua and they continued in their observance of the regular Jewish festivals. In such a setting, much interchange of ideas was possible. Jesus declared over the matzoh, "This is my body." Since the Jewish believers of that time saw Jesus as the Passover lamb, it followed that they would see the matzoh as symbolic of Jesus, the Passover lamb. In turn, with the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of sacrifices, the larger Jewish community might well have adopted the idea that the matzoh commemorated the lamb, even if they discounted the messianic symbolism.

The Afikoman Ceremony

As mentioned earlier, the significance of the middle matzoh and the ceremony connected with it is shrouded in mystery. The derivation of the word afikoman itself sheds some light. The word is usually traced to the Greek epikomion ("dessert") or epikomion("revelry")9. But Dr. David Daube, professor of civil law at Oxford University, derives it from aphikomenos, "the one who has arrived."10 This mystery clears further when one considers the striking parallels between what is done to the middle matzoh (afikoman) and what happened to Jesus. The afikoman is broken, wrapped in linen cloth, hidden and later brought back. Similarly, after his death, Jesus was wrapped in linen, buried, and resurrected three days later. Is it possible that the current Ashkenazic practice of having children steal the afikoman is a rabbinical refutation of the resurrection, implying that grave-snatchers emptied the tomb?

These factors strongly suggest that the afikoman ceremony was adopted from the Jewish Christians by the larger Jewish community which also adopted the use of the three matzos. Jewish Christians contend that these three matzos represent the tri-une nature of God, and that the afikoman which is broken, buried and brought back dramatically represents Jesus the Messiah.

The question then remains: What will it take to convince you?

Do you want to know Y'shua as your Messiah?

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More from Christianity's Jewish Roots

Endnotes
1. Daube, David, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (University of London, 1956), p.187.
2. Klein, Mordell, ed., Passover (Leon Amiel, 1973), p.69.
3. Rosen, Ceil and Moishe, Christ in the Passover (Moody Press, 19788), p.70.
4. Klein, p.53.
5. Sperling, Rabbi Abraham Isaac, Reasons for Jewish Customs and Traditions, (Bloch Publishing Co., 1968), p.m 189.
6. Ibid.
7. Klein, p.28.
8. Morris, Leon, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Eerdmans, Third ed., 1965), pp. 131 132.
9. Gaster, Theodor Herzel, Passover: Its History and Traditions (Abelard-Schuman, 1958), p.64.
10. Daube, "He That Cometh", (London Diocesan Council for Christian-Jewish Understanding, no date).

Learn more about Christianity's Jewish roots at the Jews for Jesus Web site

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