Articles – Page 5 – Messianic Apologetics

A Summarization of Passover Traditions

14 April, 2025 J.K. McKee

Certainly, when Believers in Messiah Yeshua sit down to partake of the Passover meal, they are not just remembering the Exodus of the Ancient Israelites and the plagues which God dispensed upon the Egyptians. Each of us sits down to remember great events in the salvation history of the world. The primary event we remember is the slaying of the Passover lamb, God’s mercy toward His people in Egyptian bondage, and how He led them to freedom through the Red Sea. This is a heritage which all those who follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob partake of, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1, NASU).

What is the Problem With Easter?

13 April, 2025 J.K. McKee

It comes every Spring, usually sometime in March or April. You know it because in stores you see the baskets, candy, rabbits, eggs, and the annoying fake grass that goes in those baskets. You see the Cadbury cream egg commercials on television with the rabbits gobbling like chickens. Its name is Easter.

Most sincere Christians celebrate the season of Easter not as a time to fawn over rabbits or eat candy, but as a serious time to remember the resurrection of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus). They commemorate His death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. Certainly, of all the events in our faith, the resurrection of our Lord is the most important. The Apostle Paul validly writes, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Messiah has been raised; and if Messiah has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14). However, when we consider the pre-Messianic and pre-Christian origins of “Easter,” we do need to reevaluate it.

Approaching One Law Controversies: Sorting Through the Legalism

12 April, 2025 J.K. McKee

Throughout much of the 2000s and into the 2010s, anyone who would be found discussing the issue of non-Jewish Believers and God’s Torah, was likely pulled—in one way or another—into discussions and debates, where Torah passages employing terms such as “one law” or “one statute” were featured. Frequently, from Torah passages such as Exodus 12:48-49; Leviticus 24:22; Numbers 9:14; 15:15-16, 29-30, it has been advocated that there was one basic law to be followed by the native Israelite and sojourner within the community of Ancient Israel, and thus non-Jewish Believers drawn by God into the Messianic community should not be discouraged from keeping God’s Torah. An entire sub-movement was seen to have spun off the Messianic community, labeling itself as either “One Law” or “One Torah,” making Torah declarations of there being “one law” its principal focus of theological and spiritual attention. The One Law/One Torah sub-movement has advocated that there is “one law” for Jewish and non-Jewish Believers, and hence that all should be Torah observant.

The Last Seder and Yeshua’s Passover Chronology

11 April, 2025 J.K. McKee

What kind of issues present themselves when the Passover season arrives? Would you believe that there are some people in the Messianic community today who do not believe that the Last Supper was a real, or even a kind-of, seder meal? How many of you have been engulfed in the argument that we need to do exactly what Yeshua did, and not any “traditions of men,” making Passover a bit unexciting? While there are longstanding disagreements on halachah between the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish traditions on what is kosher for Passover, think about some of the new Messianic disagreements which have arisen on what actually took place in those days leading up to Yeshua’s betrayal and execution. How long is three days and three nights? Was the Messiah really crucified, or put to death another away? And this is only a short list of what often gets discussed…

Answering the “Frequently Avoided Questions” About the Messiahship of Yeshua

25 December, 2023 J.K. McKee

The Messianic community of faith presently finds itself at a very serious crossroads, not just a crossroads in determining its long term purpose and where it is going to be in the next few decades, but most seriously in its theology and how we are to approach the Bible. The enemy desperately wants us to get off course and away from the mission of seeing the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel accomplished (Acts 1:6). He wants us to not be a movement of positive change and transformation, where people are empowered by the Lord to accomplish His tasks in the world—but rather be one of mischief, confusion, and apostasy. The enemy wants us to seriously “mess up” and gain a bad reputation so that people will (rightly) stay away.

One of the most significant ways that this has happened over the past several years has been seen when various Messianic individuals deny the Divinity of Yeshua the Messiah. There have been both Messianic teachers and laypersons who have decided that Yeshua the Messiah was nothing more than a human being empowered by God, but certainly not God in the flesh. They have stripped away the reality of His Incarnation, and made Him little more than a mortal like one of “us.”

It is not all that surprising, but among a significant number of those who deny Yeshua’s Divinity are those who later deny His Messiahship. Not content with their entirely human Yeshua, these people then question whether or not Yeshua is even the Messiah and whether they truly need Him. Outsiders to the Messianic community who witness this trend, often believe that the Messianic movement is not something that God has raised up to restore the lost Hebraic and Jewish Roots of the faith, or even just see a generation of Jewish people brought to Yeshua—but rather is a move of the Adversary to lead people away from the salvation available in Yeshua and the truth of the gospel. Is this truly the case? Are we nothing more than a revolving door, leading people into our midst for a short season, and then into the open arms of a Messiah-less Synagogue?

Answering the “Frequently Avoided Questions” About the Divinity of Yeshua

18 December, 2023 J.K. McKee

There are many claims that those who deny the Divinity of Yeshua, and thus deny the Biblical reality that we must have a Divine Savior, make, in saying that Yeshua is not God. Many of the arguments that anti-Divinity proponents make tend to be sensationalistic, and they can definitely prey on various individuals’ unfamiliarity and/or ignorance of the Bible. Those who are undiscerning, and especially those who have perhaps not have had the spiritual encounter with the Creator through the Divine Messiah that they think they have had, are quite susceptible to these arguments.

It has become commonplace, when trying to challenge Yeshua as the Divine Messiah, to see various lists and compilations floating around, called something like the “Frequently Avoided Questions.” Perhaps it is because these questions are so easily answered, that various Messianic Bible teachers who fully affirm Yeshua’s Divinity, have not really taken the time to answer them. This analysis that I have provided you is intended to address ten of these specific so-called “Frequently Avoided Questions,” which are often used to claim that the Messiah is not Divine. You will find that these questions can be answered, that they are usually based on a selective reading of Scripture passages only at the surface level, and that when deeper readings of the text are conducted they fully affirm Yeshua’s Divinity. Yet, it is these questions that can get even relatively mature and Biblically-rooted Believers, caught totally off guard.

Being Realistic About Kosher

7 December, 2023 J.K. McKee

How do any of us, in a still-emerging and still-maturing Messianic movement, sort through some of the issues regarding “kosher”? How do we get a little more realistic about what we see among the Jewish and non-Jewish Believers within our faith community, remembering that not all people share the same views as we do, and allow for a little more grace and mercy to come forth—rather than any unfair or unnecessary condemnation? How many of our challenges have been caused by an insufficient or under-whelming handling of Bible passages—versus having been caused by an under-whelming level of spiritual maturity on behalf of too many people?

Being Realistic About Shabbat

1 December, 2023 J.K. McKee

Frequently in much of today’s Messianic movement, what is witnessed is that the seventh-day Sabbath is simply a time for Believers to attend services at their local Messianic congregation, and for various other congregational activities. While congregational activities such as corporate worship, teaching, and fellowship do provide a legitimate way for people to consciously honor Shabbat—many questions do arise regarding work, permissible and non-permissible activities, and most especially what to do when “life happens.” Tension can arise between people inside and outside of one’s local assembly, with some thinking that one type of Shabbat observance is too lenient and liberal, and others thinking that another type of Shabbat observance is too rigid and inflexible. Surely, as we evaluate Biblical instruction, some traditional interpretations, and weigh some of the realities of Twenty-First Century living—the possibility does exist for us to come to a realistic orientation of making the Sabbath a holy and blessed time.

How Do We Properly Keep Kosher?

16 November, 2023 J.K. McKee

Observing and/or adopting kosher eating habits is admittedly one of the most difficult things for many Messianic Believers to do. There are many theological arguments made from the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament) that when viewed a particular way, can seem to suggest that the importance of the dietary laws was rendered inoperative via the work of Yeshua the Messiah. Once a person has overcome many of these theological hurdles in his or her Messianic quest, and sees the validity of the dietary laws in the Bible and how the Apostles continued to eat a degree of kosher, the question of how one is to follow them in a Twenty-First Century world needs to be asked.

How Do We Properly Keep Shabbat?

10 November, 2023 J.K. McKee

How the Messianic community is to properly keep Shabbat, or any Biblical commandment for that matter, is a mystery for many. There are many issues and questions that have to be weighed and taken into consideration when establishing a proper halachic orthopraxy for oneself, one’s congregation, and the movement as a whole. In the Jewish community, whether you are Orthodox or Conservative, keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is an important sign of who you are as a Jew. It is the sign that God gave the people of Israel from Mount Sinai to distinguish them from the world.