Before 52 Churches, we visited a Messianic Jewish congregation: Jews who believe in Jesus as their Jewish savior, mixing Hebrew tradition with Christian faith. Recalling our time with this first Messianic Jewish congregation, I add another one to my list. Consider these three discussion questions about Church 71. 1. Meeting Saturday evenings, the service at […]
Discover What the Bible Says about Being a Member The word member appears throughout the Bible showing up eighteen times in the Old Testament and nineteen times in the New. A common convention in studying the Bible is to let earlier uses of a word inform our understanding of later occurrences. Here is how the […]
The Bible is a Book About Jews and Their Relationship to God The Bible isn’t really a Christian book. It’s more so a Jewish book. Without question the Old Testament of the Bible is Jewish. It’s about Jews, and it’s for Jews. It looks at their faith journey as a people, records their history, and […]
A guy who ponders deep theological thoughts recently shared two concepts with me: intentional Protestantism and accidental Protestantism. Both relate to the Reformation of the Christian church, some five hundred years ago. What about accidental Christianity or intentional Christianity? Back then, a group of people saw problems in the church and broke from it, forming […]
I was recently on LinkedIn and a familiar name from long ago popped up as someone I might know. At least it was a most familiar name, for in this instance my friend’s name was preceded with the word Rabbi. I was intrigued. I knew him through work and hadn’t seen him in twenty years. […]
That statement catches many Christians (that is, followers of Jesus) off guard. It is easy to label Jesus, since he is the impetus for Christianity, as a Christian, even though his time spent on earth was as a Jew. Indeed, he was born a Jew, into a Jewish culture, and had a clear Jewish lineage. […]