Title: Sharing Jesus with Jews (interview)

It has been sixty years since freedom came too late for the Auschwitz death camp in Poland; a grim reminder of the holocaust when six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany. Even today the Jewish people remain one of the most closed groups to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are Jewish and you just happened to tune in right now may I invite you to stay with us for the next few minutes? We will be joined by a minister from Philadelphia and a theologian from San Francisco. This as a program called Sharing Jesus with Jews.

Song: Common Ground
Sung by: Haven Quartet

This is Haven Today and we are having a special couple of days called Sharing Jesus with Jews. Joining us from Philadelphia is a good friend of mine Fred Klett who's been on the program a couple years ago I guess; he's the director of Chaim Ministries. Fred, even though my Hebrew pronunciation is terrible, welcome to Haven Today.

(Fred)
Thank you, that wasn't too bad. You have to clear your throat a little bit to say it right.

(Charles)
Well if you packed your shofar, which I'm not sure you did we’ll even let you play it for us.

(Fred)
I’ve got it out in the car.

(Charles)
Alright! Coming to us from San Francisco from Hate Street, a famous street for former hippies, from the headquarters of Jews for Jesus is Dr. Rich Robinson. Rich, I want to welcome you to Haven Today.

(Rich)
Thanks so much Charles.

(Charles)
I must say the last time I was with both of you together was at a Hanukkah party at somebody else's house in Philadelphia. It is good to have you all together even though we're together by microphones today; thanks for taking a few minutes to join us.

Let me just throw a question out here to both of you to just kind of get us started. This is something that many Christians battle with and they don't really understand and maybe they haven't been taught; the question is; do Jews need to know Jesus? I don't know, Fred, you are the farthest away from me do you want to take the first stab at that?

Fred)
Well immediately two versus come to mind; one is in Romans chapter 1, it says, “I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because it's the power of salvation for all who believe to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.”

(Charles)
So I heard the word “all” and I heard the word “Jew” and “Gentile”.

(Fred)
You also heard the word “first”. It says “to the Jew first”. Another verse that comes to mind is what Peter said in Acts chapter 4, speaking to his own people, “There is no salvation by anyone else for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved.” So Peter was pretty clear on that and so was Paul; there is only one name by which people can be saved and that's the power of salvation for both Jew and Gentile to the Jew first. So if Jews don’t need Jesus then nobody needs Jesus.

(Charles)
It’s a very good point. Rich, up in San Francisco, what is your answer to the question? I should tell people even though your last name is Robinson you are Jewish. Do Jews need to know Jesus?

(Rich)
Absolutely. You know it's funny because Jewish people for so long are you saying, “We're Jewish and we don't need Jesus and he’s not for us” where as the church that has been at the same time attempting to evangelize Jewish people with the gospel. Sadly there's been a real tendency even among some Evangelical Christians to downplay the need for Jewish evangelism and to say that Jewish people are automatically okay with God just because they are Jewish. And we're trying to say everybody needs to hear about Jesus like Fred was saying if he's not the Messiah for the Jewish people he is not the Messiah for anybody. The gospel needs to go out equally to Jew and non-Jew alike.

(Charles)
That kind of brings up a memory from my childhood going to Sunday school. I can remember the Sunday school teacher telling all of his faithful students, and I was probably all of seven years old, the question came up how are Jews saved and the teacher said well they are saved by keeping the Ten Commandments but Christians are saved by believing in Jesus and Jesus death on the cross and we have faith in Jesus. I hear you both say, “That ain't true”.

(Fred)
Well, yeah, I suppose if somebody could keep all of the law of God in every aspect and every detail 100 percent well they wouldn't be sinful human. In fact they would be the Messiah because that's what he did. So it's kind of a silly thing to put it that way because it's not possible to do that and we all covet. None of us loves God with all our heart mind and strength and none of us loves our neighbor as ourselves and we all fall short of law.

(Rich)
Salvation has always been just by grace whether you are talking about in the time of Moses, or you are talking about today; no one was ever saved Jew or Gentile by doing certain things or keeping certain laws. It is impossible for us to keep them that is why the Messiah had to come.

(Fred)
We are told that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness so Abraham the father of the Jewish people was counted as righteous by faith.

(Charles)
Yes that is right; it says that in early Genesis. This is Haven Today and if you just joined us we're talking about sharing Yeshua, Jesus, with Jews and in essence what I'm hearing is it's the same gospel for Jews and for anyone who is a non-Jew as well. Rich, what are the main types of Jews that exist in the world today.

(Rich)
Well modern Judaism has basically three branches which are roughly equivalent to Christian denominations; that might help some people sort that out a bit. You've got the very traditional Jews, the Orthodox Jews, who place a premium on the interpretations of the rabbis and on tradition and on the rabbinic interpretation of the law; how you are to live out the law in your daily life down to some of the most minute details. Orthodox Jews today are a substantial minority of the Jewish population. The other extreme is Reform Judaism which is very liberal in its approach to just about anything theological the emphasis is much more on ethics than on laws or legal interpretations. And in between you've got Conservative Judaism which tries to sort of a mediate between the two of them. But the thing is this; that the majority of Jews today are secular meaning they might belong to a Reform Temple they might belong even to an Orthodox Synagogue but most Jews today are secular. If you ask the average Jewish person on the street what they believe about God you might discover that there agnostics there are atheists they are somewhat new-age in their thinking and that can be true whether someone is a very committed to living a traditional lifestyle or whether they're not. That's the state of the Jewish community today and the other thing that I can say about that is that no matter whether you are talking to a Reformed Jewish person or an Orthodox Conservative or some of the other minor offshoots; there is a consensus that we are all raised with whether what atheists are devout believers in God and the consensus says that Jesus is not the Messiah he may be for others but he is not for the Jews and if you have something that's going to demonstrated he's the Messiah well you know something's not right with your thinking and we've got to explain that away. So there is the age old question what does being Jewish mean, what makes a person a Jew and sometimes it seems that given the diversity of belief in the Jewish community the main common denominator is that we don't believe in Jesus.

(Charles)
Wow Fred, that's pretty strong and there's another form of Judaism as well it's a lot smaller than the three that Rich just mentioned and they had a seminary just around the corner from where I used to live in Philadelphia that I believe is the reconstruction of Judaism.

(Fred)
Philadelphia is a hotbed of Reconstructionist Judaism that indeed is where the seminary is. And Reconstructionist Judaism is similar to Reform Judaism in some ways it's Judaism is an ethical culture you only need to believe in God to be a rabbi you could be a woman feminist rabbi you could be an atheist and be a rabbi it's really self-consciously said that the focus of Judaism is not God it's on the culture and history of the Jewish people.

(Charles)
What I'm hearing you both say is there's almost an intense dislike if not hatred for people who believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and maybe there's a fear factory in there too.

(Rich)
Well a Jewish person can very well except the fact that a non-Jew believes in Jesus, that would be expected but a fellow Jew to believe in Jesus well that person is labeled as a trader or the term sometimes as Mashumid. They are generally not looked very favorably upon; the attitude is something is not right here that this person came to believe in Jesus they must come from a broken home or something's not right upstairs because you know any self respecting Jewish person is not going to believe in Jesus.

(Fred)
Rich, maybe you noticed what I've noticed that usually there are three options if you're Jewish and your kid becomes a believer; first is if you’re secular first you go to the psychiatrist and if he can’t do anything then you go to the Rabbi and if he can't do anything then there's the trip to Israel. But if you're more religious you start with the Rabbi first then you go to the psychiatrist and then the trip to Israel to try to get you back into your Jewish roots and so on. I've seen that happen to a number of times to different friends of mine, does that sound like something your you're familiar with?

(Fred)
There is a lot of truth to that. It's interesting because in the older days, meaning when more Jews were Traditional and Orthodox, sometimes if a family member came to faith in Jesus the family will consider them spiritually dead even go as far as holding a mock funeral for them. That's not done so much today. You do find that it does create tensions and problems in a family sometimes with the results that we just heard about and sometimes you do find families that are so secular and so open-minded that their attitude is believe whatever you want as long as it makes you happy. So you have this whole spectrum going on there but that person is still going to say, “that maybe good for you but certainly not for me.”

(Rich)
My associate, Rich Anderson, comes from a fairly conservative Jewish background kind-of Orthodox leaning Conservative, and his parents had planned to have a funeral for him to sit Shiva, the seven days of mourning; cover the mirrors and go around unkempt and so on in and considered that person dead. His family talked his parents out of it but that still goes on in some cases, that family will take it seriously enough you know that you are essentially dead to us you've left us and became one of them.

(Charles)
A little later on the program before we leave, we will be telling you about a book that we have that's actually written by the founder of Jews for Jesus. Rich Robinson is with us from San Francisco he is the theologian and residents, the scholar on duty kind of at Jews for Jesus, but we've got a book called Witnessing to Jews; practical ways to relate the love of Jesus. Let's say you just wandered onto the Christian radio dial and you're listening to us right now and you might be Jewish well we would like to just send you something. It's a little booklet; it’s from Jews for Jesus and it's called Yeshua; Lets Clear Things Up. You can call us or go to our website. I will give you the information on how to order that for free in a moment.

Now, let's get down to some brass tacks; I know we've got some people listening that are thinking Jews don't need Jesus or we’ve got somebody who's Jewish listening to us right now, Rich, why does a Jew need Jesus?

(Rich)
Well, I'll tell you why we need Jesus and that is that he’s the only way to have a proper relationship with God; the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. It’s true that in the days of the Old Testament what was promised to our people by God and by the prophets was the coming of the Messiah who would not do exactly what my great grandparents thought the Messiah would do. If you had asked my great grandparents, “Tell me what you believe about the Messiah”, they would probably say, “He’s going to be a great warrior; somebody that is going to bring peace to the world and when that happens we will know that that person was the messiah” but the scriptures, the Bible, tells us that when the Messiah comes he’s going to deal with a much more fundamental problem that’s not out there but it’s in our hearts and that's a problem of human sin. And that he was going to give his life; lay down his life as a sacrifice for our sin. And when we accept God's provision for our sins who is the Messiah then we become the kind of people who can help bring God's peace to the rest of the world. That's why we need Jesus; he’s the one that God sent.

(Charles)
Fred, you’ve been on the front lines for quite a few years sharing Jesus with all kinds of people but in particular Jews and you have seen God make some amazing breakthroughs haven’t you through the years.

(Fred)
Absolutely. God is able and you shouldn't see anybody as beyond the reach of the Good News. I mean look at the apostle Paul; who would've thought that he would become a great evangelist. He was persecuting Jews who believed in Jesus and he was killing them. He has become one of the greatest evangelists of all times. So don’t ever give up on anybody you know. I wasn’t a likely candidate myself and I don’t know about Rich but he probably wasn't a likely candidate either.

(Charles)
Well Fred, your Hebrew is pretty good and you're not Jewish yourself but a lot of people think you're Jewish when they meet you and they see the beard. But you were dabbling in New Age and you had a pretty rugged lifestyle yourself before God brought you to faith in college.

(Fred)
I used to mock Christians absolutely; made fun of them and I thought it was ridiculous. I was looking for something and I really didn't think I was going to find it in Jesus. I was intrigued by who he was and I think that a lot of people are in this category. They're intrigued by Jesus but they don’t like the church and they don’t like Christendom but they are kind of intrigued by Jesus and that's really what got me as I began to wonder who is this man I have to reckon with the him as somebody in history that had a tremendous impact that seem to have some kind of key to spiritual things. I began looking into who he was and discovered that indeed he was who he claimed to be that he did die for our sins and rise again and that he's coming back again. I had never heard that message before. The same Jesus is coming back to judge the earth….that really shocked me; I didn't know what the Second Coming meant. I thought it meant that there was another guy is coming along, not the same one coming back again! So I was very much surprised by the gospel when I heard it and very delighted to find out that God had done something to pay for my sins. Charles one thing that you asked before about payment for sin and Rich alluded too to it as well that God is a holy God and he can't just ignore our sin. It would be unjust for him just to ignore it and so they're basically two possibilities either you pay for your sins yourself or he provides the messiah to pay for your sins for you. I don’t know about you but it sounds like a pretty wonderful offer to me if he’s going to pay for my sins and happy to do it and that was good news for me. My motivation immediately was Lord I'm yours take me. I want to live your way and I want you to straighten me out and put me on the right path and thank you so much for your mercy and what you've done.

(Charles)
You've been serving him ever since. Rich, we are going to come back again tomorrow and I want you to share a little bit about how a good Jewish boy from New York City, from Brooklyn even, found faith in Jesus Christ or Yeshua. But I would ask your before we go, Rich, would you just lead us in prayer because there's somebody out there right now who needs to know Jesus and his listening.

(Rich)
Father God I pray right now that if there is somebody listening to this program that is curious and wants to know something about what God has for them in their lives that you would give them the courage Lord to ask you to show them if it's true that Jesus is the Messiah. And if he is indeed the way to God and that they might be open enough to investigate the truth for themselves and not be swayed by what other people might think of their investigation that they might search with an open heart and open mind. And for those who already believe Lord I pray that this will be some encouragement that they can take away from what Fred and I have been saying and we pray these things in the name of the Messiah for Jews and Gentiles alike Yeshua Jesus, Amen.

Song: Spirit of the Living God
Sung: Haven Quartet

(Charles)
I want to thank you very much for taking a few minutes to join us here on this Haven Today especially if you are Jewish and you don't really know what it means to be a Christian you've wondered about Jesus Yeshua and you are a little intrigued and you would like to know more. We have a booklet that we'd like to send you free of charge. All you have to do is call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN, that’s 1-800-65-2836 or you can go to our website at haventoday.org, that’s haventoday.org. The booklet is called Yeshua; Lets Clear Things Up and it talks about Christianity and what it means to believe in Jesus. It's about 16 pages and I think it would be very informative to you. If you are already a believer in Jesus and you listen every day to Haven Today, we would like to send you copy of a book that we have by Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus called Witnessing to Jews and we will also send you a copy of this booklet Yeshua; Lets Clear Things Up for your financial support of Haven Today. Just go to haventoday.org or call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN. If you would like to write to us and have a prayer request, just write to: Haven Today, P.O. Box 79997, Riverside, CA 92513 or in Canada at: Haven Today, Box 6800, Vancouver, BC V6B 4C9.

I’m Charles Morris, come back again tomorrow when we continue our Sharing Jesus with Jews. Shalom from Haven Today.