Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The " I Believe " Forum

No offense taken (even if you meant any, which I don't think you did due to the triple clue at the end ).

But I know that I've got a tremendous amount to learn regarding my fellow man, and Dr. Howell drives that point home whenever I read one of his posts. I also know I tend to react too strongly to posts. A lot of my problem is the absence of cues present when I'm face to face.

Speaking of which...

The only 'problem' with that approach is we never know who is reading our posts and will be quickened by something we say. If we're driven 'underground' only the 'choir' will read it.

Not by lineage but the author of Hebrews tells us that we're grafted into Abraham. We're adopted Jews. I tell people that I'm Jewish in my heart even if there are some rustlers and hoss thieves in my ancestry.

Penguin,

My apologies to you. My post to you was indeed cheeky, untrue and uncalled for.

Affected Profundity Troll was pretty funny though.

He got you going before I had a chance to take you out for a nice ice-cold glass of iced tea with lemon!

Penny

One deplorable irony of Christianity is that in the beginning, the early Jewish Christians didn't consider Gentiles eligible for the salvation that the Messiah bought and paid for, and lately some Gentile Christians consider Jews ineligible.

Huh?

I thought that 'twas us Christians who someone suggested ought to be banned to another forum.

But then nobody ever accused me of being the swiftest guy on the cinders. Where'd I fail to hear the starter's gun?

Just to remind one and all what started all this fuss:



Still sounds to me like "banish the Christians to another room" (padded, perhaps? ).

It was Dr. Howell. 1B and JSTUART suggested in no uncertain terms that any religious discussion take place on its own forum - they were tired of being told how to live, what to think...etc.

Funny...

I missed the part where spiritual people were telling anyone how to live or how to think. I didn't miss the starter's gun; I was in on the beginning of the post. I did, however, miss the real or imagined oppression of our fellow board members by the endless proselytizing.

Maybe we missed posts with headers that said that the topic was something like "the .270 versus the .30-06" but morphed into "you're going to Hell."

Must be...I'll use the search function and see if I can turn up any evidence of people of faith acting obnoxiosly toward other board members. You know, telling them how to live and how to think and that they were going to hell if they didn't acquiesce, that type thing.

"topic was something like "the .270 versus the .30-06" but morphed into "you're going to Hell."
_

That is such a great line...Ken Howell is a classic, and that's a done deal.

NOW, ...."hold your 130 gr bullets up to the TV screen folks.

We're gonna' pray on 'em."

Thanks Doc,

GTC

Penny, I would like that.

George

I attended a Passover meal many years ago with some proclaimed Messianic Jew's who were not born Jewish but decided that the feasts and other traditions of the Jewish faith needed to be preserved and observed. They were all Christian in the sense that they had accepted Christ, most well before turning back to the traditional Jewish practices, thus my later comment about "multi-tasking.

The evening was truly beautiful and enlightening as to the hows and whys of a tradtional Passover meal, but I was not very interested in pursuing that flavor of worship. Maybe I'm just not a very good multi-tasker with my faith.

As I mentioned, I know there are thousands of Jews in Israel who are recently coming to accept Jesus as Messiah. There was a recent program on it not too long ago. It was very interesting and uplifting except for the persecution they face from other Jews in that predominately Jewish land. Many find themselves with no place to fellowship as they are no longer welcome at most Jewish temples and have problems finding a group as many are underground for fear of retribution in employment, schooling for their kids, or even local trade. Sad but prophetically expected.

I've got a better idea:

Give 1B, JSTUART, and others of like mind their own sterile forum that Christians can't pollute with our offensive notions. Title their forum something like "No Christians Allowed" � or with a good SS flavor, "Nicht f�r Christen."

1B At least to me it sounds like some in this debate are trying to do exactly as you described but in the oposite direction. They disagree with our beleifs and opinions so they want us silenced. Is this is not what is being asked for in reality ? I am not and never will try to deny anybody the right or abilty to voice e their opinion,I will choose to agree disagree or ignoree completely as I see fit. I just ask for the same in return.

Ken,

Christians, Christianity, have always and always will elicit that kind of response from someone. That is a Biblical fact of life. But,...I would like those who profess the same to also reflect that in their responses to one another. The tone should not be the same as in the arguments of "the ethics of a long range shot", for an example, on the other forums.

This is directed to no one in particular and to everyone in general including myself. "Salt" and "light" you know.

Gdv

Y'know I love ya, brother, but take it from me, you ain't Jewish. If you don't take it from me, find yourself an Orthodox or Conservative synagogue and attend Shabbat worship services some Saturday morning and see how Jewish it makes you feel. Prediction: not frickin' very.

Anyway, it takes more than being grafted into Abraham. Arabs are descended directly from Abraham, and it doesn't make them Jewish.

I understand what you mean to say, and if you say it among Christians it'll almost certainly be taken as you mean it; but see below for an argument why if you say it among Jews it will almost certainly not be taken as you mean it.


Other folks are of course entitled to call themselves anything they like (I'm a libertarian!) but in my experience, Gentiles who call themselves Messianic Jews (or any other kind of Jews) can be very damaging to Messianic Judaism (always inadvertently) and aggravating and insulting to Jews.

First. Most Jewish people who are aware of Messianic Judaism (by no means all of them know it exists) and who are not Messianic themselves are very offended by it and eager to assert that there is no such thing as a Messianic Jew: that people who call themselves Messianic Jews are merely Gentile Christians playing at being Jewish.

Anytime they can locate clear examples of their accusations (like the folks you mention), their argument is strengthened, and the cause of Messianic Judaism is correspondingly injured. The thing that counters their argument is when Jewish people (you know, short, curly dark hair, bald spots, big noses--Jewish people) claim Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah and make Jewish arguments from the Jewish Scriptures and the Jewish writings about him--and when Gentiles associated with Messianic Judaism call themselves Gentiles, don't allow themselves to ever be caught saying anything that in any way could be interpreted as claiming to be Jewish, actively deny it when anyone suggests that they might in some way be Jewish, but yet continue to hang around with and obviously love and support Jewish people.

That attacks both sides of the argument: both the side that says Messianic Jews are Gentile Christians--these people are obviously not Gentiles--and the side that says Gentile Christians play at being Jewish.

"Yeah, but I'm part of spiritual Israel" doesn't cut it: the dichotomy between "spiritual Israel" and "physical Israel" is lost on Jews, and a good argument can be made that the modern Christian understanding of that dichotomy is a mistake. Jewish opponents of Messianic Judaism will seize on something like that and use it against Messianics, even if you didn't mean it that way--not because they're congenitally mean and nasty and want to take over the world, but because they're unfamiliar with the nuances of evangelical Christian theology and that's what it sounds to them like you said.

Second. We Christians are a variegated bunch. Exactly how one becomes a Christian may vary from denomination to denomination, but all the groups I'm aware of have no trouble with the concept that anyone can become a Christian: all he has to do is have certain words said over him or have a certain kind of water dumped on him or believe a certain way or whatever. So we naturally assume the same sort of thing about Judaism: anybody can become a Jew, as long as he proclaims himself one, or claims the God of the Jews, or follows some other procedure.

But that's not the way Jews look at being Jewish. For them, it's a combination of religion, heritage, and culture. (For example: according to the Israeli Law of Return, an atheist with a Jewish mother is a Jew; a Buddhist or Hindu with a Jewish mother is a Jew; but a Messianic Jew with a Jewish mother who keeps all the laws of Moses more diligently than the most orthodox Lubavitcher Chasid is not a Jew.)

Any Jewish adult--even one who is not in the least religious--has spent his whole life being very conscious of his identity as a Jew, learning about his heritage and culture, developing Jewish habits and mannerisms, thinking and talking in Jewish ways, and so on.

In other words, he's had enough practice to be much, much better at being Jewish than you could ever possibly dream of being.

So when you say something that he understands as claiming to be Jewish, he thinks two things: first, that you're completely ignorant and full of crap and have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, which is probably true but has the instant effect of creating an unnecessarily adversarial relationship right from the beginning; and second, that it's extremely inconsiderate and presumptuous (not to say ridiculous) of you to assert that you could so easily and in so short a time assume a set of characteristics that he has worked on all his life.

So you see, the objective you were attempting to achieve--that of professing your love for Israel, your support of the Jewish people, and your recognition that your faith springs always from Jewish roots without which it could never exist--is completely lost whenever you tell a Jewish person that you consider yourself a "spiritual Jew," and you end up making him angry and hostile without any idea why. That objective would be much better served if you acknowledged that you're a Gentile Christian, but that even so, you still hold all the positions outlined above. That is impressive and gratifying to a Jewish person.

I don't mean to tell anybody what to say or what not to say--that's his own lookout--but I do mean to try to make a little clearer what the consequences of his choice might be.

Barak; re your last paragraph :

You suceeded .

IMHO, Jesus's idea of how to worship God is far more important to me than what my Jewish Brothers think. This has long been so important to me that I spent years of assiduous research � in the Bible and other resources � to dig my programmed understanding out from under the leaven of the Pharisees (both ancient and modern). What I learned is startling but simple, inspirational, logical, practical, and glorious.

Shalom avec agape!