How Might Christians Foster A Better Relationship With Jews?

One of the most complex issues for Christians and Jews to resolve is how to better relate to each other when the proverbial elephant is in the room.

What Is The Elephant?

The Elephant is the desire on the part of many Christians to evangelize Jews.

As one Jew eloquently stated several years ago,

"Christians have to understand Jews did not volunteer to become participants in the final act of a play they didn’t write".

And they need to understand the sensitivity that many Jews have to their uninvited conversion efforts.

Jews should be accepted and loved for who they are, and for the unique role they have in God’s plan for humanity.

They should not be looked upon merely as conversion targets, because the moment a Jew senses this the elephant immediately enters the room.

Earnest Christians, many of whom have a genuine love of the Jewish people might,

Seriously consider how much Jews suffered at the hands of Christianity.

Centuries of misunderstanding.

Abuse.

Expulsions.

The Holocaust.

And Replacement theology only widens the gap between Jews and Christians.

* Replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, essentially teaches that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan.

A PDF explaining Replacement theology is available for download.

Countering Anti-Semitism

And being seen to condemn and even attempting to counter anti-Semitism would go a long way to fostering a better relationship.

God Revealed Himself To The Jews

It is to the Jews that God chose to reveal himself, and with whom he established the Sabbath.

The God given Sabbath is a Saturday and not a Sunday, and both the old and the new testament confirm that it was never changed to Sunday.

The Catholic Church brought about the change to Sunday in the fourth century, as part of a growing effort by the fledgling religion, as it steadily moved away from its birth as a sect of Judaism.

* Seventh Day Adventists honor the Sabbath on Saturday.

Jesus And Paul Were Jews

Almost all of Christianity’s doctrine is based on the writings of Paul, whose real name was Saul, and who lived his entire life as a Jewish Pharisee and steadfastly considered himself a Jew.

In spite of the Church’s effort to portray him as a convert to Christianity.

And another noteworthy point is that, contrary to what most Christians and many Jews have been taught, Jesus, whose given name was Yeshua Ben Yosef did not abolish Torah.

*Torah – The law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (the Pentateuch).

The Jews Are Not Lost

It would also be mutually beneficial if many Christians were to develop a more objective and respectful understanding of what Jews have contributed to the world, rather than simply looking upon them as "lost".

With more than 1,800 years of persecution and death having been perpetrated against Jews by Christians, it should be easy to understand that Jews are skeptical, hesitant, and more often that not resistant about entering into a meaniful relationship with a Christian.

And especially if they sense the Christian is singularly interested in converting them to the very religion responsible for long years of persecution against them.