There is growing evidence that Christian support for Israel in their hour of need is encouraging Jewish people to consider Jesus and the New Testament.
As the horror of war on seven fronts has held the nation in a constant state of tension and fear, God has been moving powerfully over this past year.
According to Jews for Jesus – and others back this up – there is a new spiritual openness among Jews because of Christians showing love and care for Israel.
Jewish orders for New Testaments
An Orthodox Jewish man, who runs a training programme to help Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men enter the job market, ordered ten copies of the New Testament from their website, explaining that, since the war started, he has been moved by the outpouring of support from Christians.
According to Jews for Jesus – and others back this up – there is a new spiritual openness among Jews because of Christians showing love and care for Israel.
“I would rather a Jewish person believe in Jesus than be secular,” he admitted in a later conversation with an evangelist1. He subsequently read the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, concluding that he “loves” Jesus.
In fact, several orders for New Testaments mentioned Christian support for Israel as the reason for their interest.
Response to generous hospitality
As a volunteer for the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), I also regularly communicate with Messianic Jewish friends in Jerusalem who are seeing similar results from their outreach efforts focused on generous hospitality, especially on Shabbat.
“We are seeing more and more Jews repenting and praying,” they report. Their visitors are amazed by their testimony of how they came to know Yeshua as their Messiah and can’t stop asking questions.
He had always previously stopped short of opening his heart to receive Yeshua. But this time, with tears in his eyes, he was ‘born anew’!
Like Jesus, they share his teachings around the meal table where guests note how the Jewishness of Yeshua is portrayed. Among their recent guests was a well-known politician and professor with whom they have been sharing the gospel for 20 years.
He had always previously stopped short of opening his heart to receive Yeshua. But this time, with tears in his eyes, he was ‘born anew’!
Shelter and hope to the displaced
Meanwhile, both Christians and Messianic believers have been offering food, shelter and hope as rockets rain down on the country, leaving tens of thousands displaced from their homes.
Christianity Today reports from the Yad HaShmona Messianic community that has been offering shelter to many Jewish families who have had to flee danger zones – changing their perceptions of Messianic believers through kindness and generosity. Evacuees learned about the Christian organisations that helped pay for their room and board before Israeli government aid kicked in.
As observant Jews gathered to pray, a few men of the moshav community would sometimes join them to make a minyan—the quorum of ten Jewish men needed for prayer. The religious people didn’t want to talk about (the Messianic faith), but whenever they had an opportunity, they would tell testify to their belief in Yeshua as Messiah.
... with conservative estimates of 30,000 believers in Israel worshipping in at least 75 congregations, many secular Israelis increasingly consider Messianic Jews an acceptable stream of society.
Historically, Israel’s Messianic community has been maligned, especially by ultra-Orthodox Jews. But with conservative estimates of 30,000 believers in Israel worshipping in at least 75 congregations, many secular Israelis increasingly consider Messianic Jews an acceptable stream of society.
Meanwhile, in Jaffa, where a terrorist atrocity saw seven civilians shot dead on October 1st, a Jewish colleague of mine has been sitting shiva (mourning) with a neighbour whose young wife was among those murdered, shielding her nine-month-old baby as she was cut down. Miraculously, the infant survived.
Solidarity touching Jewish hearts
In the UK, Christians were among thousands who joined a rally in Hyde Park, London, marking the anniversary of last year’s massacre, with many Jewish people deeply touched and tearful at their show of solidarity.
Sadly, however, some Christians believe we should not be ‘taking sides’ in this war as innocents are killed among both Israelis and Palestinians. This, in my mind, is a naïve view born of worldly influence; for the Jewish state is left defending itself from all sides in a conflict they have neither provoked nor chosen.
Jews are particularly receptive at this moment to kindness and solidarity from Christians, as their nation is vilified from all quarters even as they fight for their very existence.
The terrorist enemies surrounding them are committed to their extinction – it’s in their charter! And I guess, from that point of view, it is a one-sided conflict. We surely didn’t expect, after such sickening butchery, that Israelis would just lie down and allow the rest of their nation to be similarly slaughtered without fighting back, as they were unable to do during the Nazi Holocaust.
Both Palestinians and the Israelis need the gospel – but the Jews are particularly receptive at this moment to kindness and solidarity from Christians, as their nation is vilified from all quarters even as they fight for their very existence.
Too many Christians are in danger of failing to recognise the time of God’s coming among the Jewish people, just as the Jews had failed in this respect at Yeshua’s first coming (see Luke 19:44).
Jesus’ return is closely tied to how receptive Jews are to His Kingship. For, as He said as he lamented Jerusalem’s coming disaster, “For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Matt 23:39).
This is indeed a time to love and honour the Jewish people, and to pray that they may be drawn into the full embrace of Yeshua the Messiah.
1 Jews for Jesus newsletter, October 2024
