Addressing the Theological and Spiritual Issues of the Broad Messianic Movement
The development of today’s modern Messianic Jewish movement goes back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, as Jewish Believers in Israel’s Messiah established congregations, synagogues, and assemblies with the mission of facilitating Jewish outreach, Jewish evangelism, and solidarity with the State of Israel. This is a mission which continues to our present day, and should ever be on the hearts and minds of those involved with today’s Messianic congregations.
Why are any of us involved in today’s Messianic movement? The answers that we might provide to this question are likely varied, and they each involve a number of distinct life circumstances and encounters. Hopefully the main answer that each of us would have to this question is: God wants us here. If you are a Jewish person raised with a knowledge that your ancestors definitely stood at the base of Mount Sinai, hearing the Ten Words from the Almighty, then you have found your promised Messiah and may be considered a completed Jew. If you are a non-Jewish person, likely raised in an evangelical Protestant home, then you have connected with your Hebraic Roots in the ancient Scriptures of Israel, your Jewish Roots in the Synagogue, and have joined with your Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters in an important move which will culminate in the return of Israel’s Messiah.
Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee considers a number of factors playing into how the Messianic movement of the 2030s, is likely to be very different than what we see now.
Why are there so many leaders in the Messianic movement who call themselves “rabbi”? Yeshua explicitly forbade this in Matthew 23:8.
Why does the Hebrew Roots movement have such a negative reputation in the Messianic Jewish movement? Why is it looked at as a spiritual plague?
Can you give me an idea about the, or at least a, Messianic process of ordination? I see many leaders out there bearing titles such as: rabbi, pastor, teacher. What was the process they went about, getting ordained and receiving such a title?
Can you tell me what some of the similarities, but also differences, are, between participating in One Law and/or Hebrew Roots, versus Messianic Judaism? I have noticed that your ministry has integrated itself into Messianic Judaism.
Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee reviews the one, ongoing significant area, where the Messianic community just cannot seem to have proper resolution: our identity. There are doubtlessly distinctions between Jewish and non-Jewish Believers, just as there are males and females. But are our individual identities to be more important and significant, than our identity in the salvation of Yeshua the Messiah?
Many Messianic people are of the conviction that today’s Messianic movement is a great deal like the First Century ekklesia. Was it actually a stable faith community, or one riddled with problems and challenges
Messianic Apologetics editor John McKee discusses some of the changing dynamics of the Messianic spectrum. We commonly call ourselves part of “the end-time move of God,” but how many people actually believe it, or are willing to evaluate what this might involve? Are things not as ideal as we think they should be, precisely because we have a unique role to play in a future—too many are afraid of?