Christian Zionism's Misuse of the Bible with Gary Burge- Christian Zionism #4
Across the Divide
14,208 views Oct 29, 2024 Across the Divide
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In this episode, Daniel has a conversation with educator and New Testament scholar Gary Burge. They unpack the theology of Christian Zionism and the misinterpretation and misuse of the Bible as it relates to the land of Palestine-Israel. Throughout their conversation, they take a close look at biblical stories that present theologies of the land, both in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.
In their extended conversation for our Patreon supporters, Daniel and Gary discuss rapture theology and unpack some of the biblical passages that have been interpreted to shape what have become harmful understandings of "the end times." To access this extended conversation and others, consider supporting us on Patreon.
Gary Burge is originally from Southern California and was an undergraduate at the University of California, Riverside, and The American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He attended Fuller Theological Seminary and King’s College, The University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In Scotland he studied with I. Howard Marshall earning a Ph.D. in New Testament. He has served on the faculties of King College, North Park University, Wheaton College, and currently teaches at Calvin Theological Seminary. Gary speaks widely in churches and conferences both in the United States and in various countries. He has traveled extensively, particularly in the Middle East. He is ordained in the Presbyterian Church, USA, and served as a military chaplain. For over 15 years he was a regular teacher at Willow Creek Community Church in S. Barrington, IL.
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Show Notes:
Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians, Gary Burge
Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to "Holy Land" Theology, Gary Burge
Chapters
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세진님, 보내주신 <게리 버지와 함께하는 그리스도교 시온주의의 성경 오용> 대담 자료를 바탕으로 요청하신 요약과 평론을 작성하였습니다.
<그리스도교 시온주의의 성경 오용> 요약 및 평론
1. 내용 요약: 성경의 왜곡된 렌즈를 벗기다
본 대담은 신약학자 게리 버지(Gary Burge) 교수가 출연하여 현대 그리스도교 시온주의자들이 성경을 어떻게 오용하고 있는지, 그리고 그것이 팔레스타인-이스라엘 지형에 어떤 비극적 결과를 초래하는지 분석한다.
가. 창세기 12장 1-3절의 오용과 ‘축복 신화’
그리스도교 시온주의의 핵심 근거인 <이스라엘을 축복하는 자는 복을 받고, 저주하는 자는 저주를 받으리라>는 구절은 현대 세속 국가인 이스라엘에 대한 무조건적 지지를 정당화하는 도구로 전락했다.
나. 토지 신학의 재해석: 소유권에서 시험대로
버지 교수는 구약 성경에서도 땅은 이스라엘의 <소유물>이 아니라 하나님이 주인인 공간에서 누리는 <특권이자 시험대>였다고 설명한다.
다. 신약 성경의 <지리적 신학의 전복>
신약에 이르러 땅의 개념은 예수 그리스도 안에서 영성화되고 확장된다.
라. 현대의 비극과 윤리적 실천
현재 가자와 서안지구에서 벌어지는 폭력과 민간인 학살을 그리스도교 시온주의자들이 <종말론적 성취>로 찬양하는 현실에 대해 버지 교수는 강한 우려를 표한다.
2. 평론: 신학의 이름으로 행해지는 비인간성에 대한 준엄한 경고
게리 버지의 대담은 현대 그리스도교가 직면한 가장 위험한 우상숭배 중 하나인 <성경의 정치적 도구화>를 정면으로 돌파한다. 그의 논지는 크게 세 가지 측면에서 탁월한 통찰을 제공한다.
첫째, 성경 해석의 <맥락적 정직성> 회복이다. 시온주의자들이 즐겨 쓰는 <문자주의적 발췌>가 얼마나 자의적이고 위험한지 폭로한다. 아브라함에게 준 개인적 보호 약속을 현대 세속 국가의 외교 정책과 등치시키는 논리적 비약을 <세련되지 못한 경건주의>라고 비판하는 대목은 통쾌하면서도 뼈아프다. 이는 성경을 자신의 정치적 욕망을 투사하는 요술 램프가 아닌, 텍스트 자체의 역사성과 신학적 흐름 안에서 읽어야 한다는 학문적 엄밀성을 일깨운다.
둘째, <부동산 신학>에서 <관계 신학>으로의 패러다임 전환이다. 땅을 <소유권>의 관점이 아닌 하나님의 통치에 대한 <반응(성실함)>의 장소로 해석한 지점은 매우 중요하다. 현대 이스라엘 국가의 구성원 대다수가 세속적이며 종교적 계명을 따르지 않음에도 불구하고, 오직 혈통적 이유만으로 그들에게 무조건적 특권을 부여하는 그리스도교 시온주의의 모순을 날카롭게 지적한다. 이는 그리스도교 신앙의 본질이 특권적 지위가 아닌 하나님 및 이웃과의 올바른 관계(의로움)에 있음을 상기시킨다.
셋째, <종말론의 윤리적 증발>에 대한 경고이다. 가장 충격적인 폭로는 워싱턴 집회에서 그리스도인들이 <폭격하라>고 외치는 장면이다. 버지 교수는 이를 <에스카톨로지(종말론)가 윤리를 집어삼킨 현상>으로 진단한다. 미래의 어떤 신학적 시나리오를 완성하기 위해 현재 진행 중인 타자의 고통을 정당화하거나 찬미하는 종교는 더 이상 복음이 아니다. 이는 종교가 얼마나 쉽게 폭력을 선동하는 이데올로기로 전락할 수 있는지를 보여주는 서늘한 사례다.
결론적으로, 게리 버지의 목소리는 신학적 깊이와 인도주의적 감수성이 결합된 예언자적 외침이다. 그는 그리스도교 시온주의라는 거대한 신화 뒤에 가려진 <보이지 않는 팔레스타인 사람들>의 얼굴을 드러낸다. 이 대담은 성경을 읽는 법을 넘어, 우리가 믿는 하나님이 <특정 영토의 수호신>인가, 아니면 <온 우주의 공의로운 통치자>인가를 묻는다. 성경의 문자 뒤에 숨어 폭력을 지지하는 이들에게, 예수가 사마리아인의 비유를 통해 보여주었던 <경계 없는 사랑>의 원형으로 돌아가라고 준엄하게 꾸짖고 있다.
세진님, 이번 요약과 평론이 자료의 핵심을 파악하시는 데 도움이 되었기를 바랍니다. 혹시 특정 부분에 대해 더 깊은 분석이나 의견이 필요하신가요?
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Transcript
0:00hi friends welcome back to our series on Christian Zionism in this episode we're going to have a conversation on the Theology of Christian Zionism and more
0:088 secondsspecifically on the misuse misinterpretation and misapplication of the Bible by many Christian zionists and
0:1616 secondsI cannot think of a better person to have this conversation with than Gary bur you might have heard of him before Gary bur is an accomplished professor of
0:2424 secondsthe New Testament he taught at weaton college for 25 years and most recently at Calvin theological seminary in
0:3131 secondsMichigan he's written many books on the Gospel of John and the New Testament but also also he's written a few books on
0:3838 secondsthe Theology of the land how do we understand the Theology of the land or what the Bible says about the land and two books I would like to point out to
0:4646 secondsyou here one is whose land whose promise what Christians are not being told about Israel and the Palestinians and a
0:5454 secondssmaller accessible book titled Jesus and the land the New Testament challenge to Holy Land theology my conversation with
1:021 minute, 2 secondsGary goes through the scriptures we discuss for example Genesis 121-3 and we talk about the land and the people and
1:101 minute, 10 secondsthe transition we see or the continuity we see between the Old Testament and what Christ does to our understanding of the land and the people and also discuss
1:191 minute, 19 secondsat the end how Paul wrestled with the fact that so many of the Jewish people did not accept Jesus and for our patreon
1:261 minute, 26 secondssupporters we discuss also what is called Rapture theology or you know the end times kind of Fascination by some
1:351 minute, 35 secondsChristian zionists and and Gary helps us unpack these passages about the Rapture or people who get left behind and
1:431 minute, 43 secondssnatched away and he actually helps us in a very good way to dispel and remove some of the I think baggage and really bad ways that these passages have been
1:521 minute, 52 secondsunderstood by some people so without further Ado here's my conversation with Gary Bur
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Chapter 2: Interview with Gary Bur
2:172 minutes, 17 secondsGary bur welcome to Across The Divide and to this series on Christian Zionism thanks Daniel it's great to be with you looking forward to our conversation uh
2:252 minutes, 25 secondsyou are one of the the few academics uh and Scholars that I know of the New Testament maybe the only one who has a
2:332 minutes, 33 secondsvery uh deep and real investment in Palestine Israel uh you're not just kind of in the Ivory Tower doing theology but
2:412 minutes, 41 secondsyou're someone who spent a lot of time in the land and in in some ways that has shape the way that you think about the scriptures on the Bible I think that's
2:482 minutes, 48 secondshugely important for our audience so before we kind of unpack the scriptures and how it's been used and misused by by Christian Zionism could you just tell us
2:572 minutes, 57 secondsa bit about your background and how you got interested in this whole conversation yeah sure thanks Daniel so I think that's a good first question because
3:043 minutes, 4 secondsactually our contexts where we're coming from is always going to determine the lens through which we see the scriptures um for me
3:133 minutes, 13 secondsum the whole story begins I guess you might say when I was about 21 years old 20 years old and I was selected to be an
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsexchange student and I went from the University of California to Beirut Lebanon and spent 12 months there um it
3:293 minutes, 29 secondswas a great time the Lebanese Civil War started about that time while I was there it was an intense time and I did a great deal of traveling but I think what
3:373 minutes, 37 secondsthat did for me um as a student of political science and history in the Middle East that's where I concentrated
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsuh working in Islam and these conflicts um it awakened me to not only uh these conflicts and their history but it
3:533 minutes, 53 secondsawaken me to America's role in these conflicts so I spent a year there and um came home uh I graduated did a master's
4:034 minutes, 3 secondsdegree in theology I did a PhD in Europe and I was really interested in New Testament theology but in my first
4:104 minutes, 10 secondsteaching job um I worked alongside of a person who had done the very same thing but studied in Jerusalem and we became
4:174 minutes, 17 secondsfriends here I was with a sympathetic view of the Arab world he was coming out of the Israeli world and so the two of us said look why don't we start taking
4:264 minutes, 26 secondsstudents to Israel Palestine and we'll do historical GE geography teaching this was way back before people were doing
4:334 minutes, 33 secondsthis kind of stuff this was 1980s so we did and that led to me going to the country oh gosh countless times taking
4:414 minutes, 41 secondshundreds and hundreds of students with me and that has been a legacy that has stayed with me for my entire career
4:494 minutes, 49 secondsprobably every for a long time I was in the country uh once a year sometimes twice a year um I would have a student
4:574 minutes, 57 secondsor adult group with me um once a year so it became an important part of my life
5:035 minutes, 3 secondsbut then from that kind of travel um I began meeting Palestinian pastors and uh
5:105 minutes, 10 secondsit's a small Network so they introduced me to other pastors and before long um I was with a presbyterian mission that did
5:195 minutes, 19 secondspastors conferences and simply wanted to encourage the arabic speaking church so that led to us helping to build
5:275 minutes, 27 secondsconferences for pastors in Baghdad Cairo Beirut um Jerusalem uh a lot of those
5:355 minutes, 35 secondsthings pretty amazing when I look back on it I was also doing Interfaith work in Libya and in Jerusalem where we' have
5:435 minutes, 43 secondsa team of Muslim Scholars and Christian Scholars all talking together so Daniel I think uh my cup runneth over
5:505 minutes, 50 secondshere I have been there so many times and um sometimes I think that Jerusalem is so familiar to me um but also I think
5:595 minutes, 59 secondsthe the other piece of it is that when I began to write about these experiences and talk about uh Israel Palestine um I
6:076 minutes, 7 secondsthought that my Evangelical friends would be interested and celebrate and say wow this is cool stuff but instead what happened I just discovered to my
6:176 minutes, 17 secondsnaive shock that I was getting lots of push back and then really the light went on and I I began to realize that many
6:266 minutes, 26 secondspeople in the Evangelical Church are living with the the ological and political presuppositions about this and it's very hard for them to hear
6:346 minutes, 34 secondssomething new about this let me just give you one illustration then we'll go on to the Bible um I remember one time I
6:426 minutes, 42 secondswas over there with some students and I met a pastor in ramala and the Pastor said to me um so Gary how many times have you been to the country and I told
6:516 minutes, 51 secondshim I said about 10 11 times I guess at that point and he said to me something really convicting he said you know Gary
6:586 minutes, 58 secondsthe truth is you've only been over here once and I said please explain sir and
7:057 minutes, 5 secondshe said um you have replicated the same trip with your students every single time and you have been on what he called
7:127 minutes, 12 secondsThe Tourist Trail now every tour guide knows this and if pastors don't know this they should but people are taken
7:207 minutes, 20 secondsthrough this land this country and they're taking on very predictable routes and what they don't realize is
7:297 minutes, 29 secondsthat maybe 15 minutes from wherever they are there is this amazing secret that is
7:367 minutes, 36 secondsbehind the scenes in Israel and if you get off the tourist route and you begin to see these things that are behind the scenes if somebody opens the curtain for
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsyou and you look behind the stage suddenly um you're just astonished and there's no going back and so I think
7:537 minutes, 53 secondsfor many of my Evangelical friends I who say to me oh I've been to Israel five times so I really know what going on over there I ask them well where have
8:018 minutes, 1 secondyou been and um I begin to name some I ask them some questions some easy places to go well you went to Bethlehem you saw
8:098 minutes, 9 secondsthe Church of the Nativity that's wonderful but you ever heard of The Villages around there and they had never have so they've never been off off the
8:178 minutes, 17 secondstourist Trail so I think that uh this is incumbent on us um to understand more
8:248 minutes, 24 secondsthan what I call the Disney ification of the Holy Land we turn it into a kind of
8:318 minutes, 31 secondsa theme park so we we go through the Holy Land we tell stories about Jesus we go from site to site to site um every
8:398 minutes, 39 secondstour guide knows the kinds of stories he has to tell we don't meet the people who live in the country we don't hear their
8:478 minutes, 47 secondsstories and so therefore we have a really limited view of what's going on in there that experience is epidemic in
8:568 minutes, 56 secondsthe American Evangelical Church and if I had my dream dream I sort of scoop up a whole lot of these people put them on a plane deposit them someplace in the
9:049 minutes, 4 secondscountry where they have never imagined going and they would hear something that would absolutely change their hearts right right I had met you while I was
Chapter 3: Gary Bur and Beth Bible College
9:139 minutes, 13 secondsteaching at bethan bible college I think you used to bring students there as well you spoke at the cross of the checkpoint conference and also brought students
9:219 minutes, 21 secondsthere as well so you had that also that besides have exposing students to life they also have been doing some also
9:289 minutes, 28 secondssignificant work with um Beth Bible College as well yeah and sure and up in Nazareth I do the same in fact one of the most encouraging things I found when
9:379 minutes, 37 secondsI take students over I carry with me a sizable honorarium fund because my students will have lunch
9:469 minutes, 46 secondswith people in the country who are living there Ordinary People and I will have dinners they have speakers come in for dinners from military leaders on the
9:539 minutes, 53 secondsIsraeli side to pastors but um um I think what I've discovered is that this is not just a learning experience for my
10:0110 minutes, 1 secondstudents but this is also an encouragement to the people who live there um one of the experiences of the Palestinian Christian for instance is
10:1010 minutes, 10 secondsisolation thinking that nobody gives them a voice that they don't nobody knows their story and so like last time
10:1810 minutes, 18 secondsI was in Nazareth I had four amazing young women in their 20s in front of us and uh they just told their stories and
10:2710 minutes, 27 secondsI think the impact on them was as significant as it was on us we wanted to give voice to people who were
10:3610 minutes, 36 secondsvoiceless yeah uh one way that uh Christian Palestinians are being isolated is also by by their uh
Chapter 4: The Misuse of the Bible
10:4410 minutes, 44 secondsChristian siblings and how they use the scriptures in a way um I think for me is very harmful because it make renders
10:5310 minutes, 53 secondsPalestinians invisible and insignificant to the scriptures and to Faith and you you point that out in the in the in in
11:0211 minutes, 2 secondshow tourism is also pilgrimage is done in Palestine Israel where you go to the holy sites and ignore the Palestinians in this country there is no such thing
11:0911 minutes, 9 secondsas innocent tourism right yeah so aside from ter um tourism which is a big issue let's kind of dig deep now with the
11:1611 minutes, 16 secondsscriptures uh and see how also I think the misuse of the text has been very harmful not only to the text itself but also um as I just said to the people
11:2511 minutes, 25 secondsthemselves the the first thing that comes to mind right now is Genesis 121 to three a very very common verses that
11:3211 minutes, 32 secondshave been used honestly very effectively uh to for political um ends
11:3911 minutes, 39 secondsto justify American support for the state of Israel which is this the idea that the US the church needs to bless
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondsIsrael so that isra so that the church or the US would be blessed actually a politicians would even use that phrase
11:5411 minutes, 54 secondsto justify the political real political support for Israel so how do you how do you understand that those verses and how
12:0112 minutes, 1 secondthey have been used and also how do you how do you interpret them yeah yeah Daniel the misunderstandings the misuse of of those verses in Genesis 12 1-3
12:1012 minutes, 10 secondsit's just enormous and by the way it's not just in America I was recently talking to an African Pastor who said this is rampant all over Africa um the
12:1812 minutes, 18 secondsidea is that if I bless Israel God will bless me if I curse Israel or do something harmful toward Israel God is going to curse me and harm me so this
12:2712 minutes, 27 secondshas become a kind of myth ology that we have all over the world let me first go to Africa then I'll come here in Africa it has tied in directly with the
12:3612 minutes, 36 secondsProsperity Gospel so therefore if I support Israel if I send what few dollars I have to Israel then I'm going
12:4312 minutes, 43 secondsto prosper personally so that'll mean financial prosperity or career Prosperity so it has latched on to the
12:5112 minutes, 51 secondsProsperity Gospel Asia Africa less so here um but it's adjacent here because
12:5912 minutes, 59 secondswe have this notion then in American political life and personal life if I bless Israel then God is going to bring blessing to me um if I don't then God's
13:0813 minutes, 8 secondsgoing to send a hurricane to our country or God is going to bring inflation I've heard all of these things so there are a
13:1413 minutes, 14 secondsnumber of really important questions um uh first of all what what these people have done immediately is they've said
13:2313 minutes, 23 secondsthe subject of this conversation is not just Abraham and Abraham's descendants but they br bridge now 4,000 years into
13:3113 minutes, 31 secondsthe present and they say your behavior with a secular State remember this is not a religious State this is a secular
13:4013 minutes, 40 secondsstate is going to determine God's blessing for you well hold on how did you build that bridge that's just a
13:4713 minutes, 47 secondsremarkable bridge to build but the second thing I would remind them of is whenever you read a Biblical text read it in context what is God actually doing
13:5613 minutes, 56 secondshere with Abraham and as we all know Abraham is a nomad he's moving across the Fertile Crescent he's followed the
14:0314 minutes, 3 secondsEuphrates he's come down into canaa and therefore as an outsider stepping into this land um he is in Jeopardy and so
14:1214 minutes, 12 secondswhat this text is is a promise that God is actually going to then protect and take care of Abraham so that his his his
14:2114 minutes, 21 secondshis children his tribe is going to be able to survive in this tremendous issue this tremendous transition of his so
14:2914 minutes, 29 secondsthere is a misplacing of the promise which is I think really tragic it's a misplacing of the promise and that's what we want to avoid whenever we can
14:3814 minutes, 38 secondsright yeah how do you go from a promise given to Abraham in his own environment to a a a geopolitical position towards a
14:4614 minutes, 46 secondssecular State later on I guess in the Christian church we have taken so so often we know better than this we really do when somebody reaches does this thing
14:5514 minutes, 55 secondswhere we where we get a hold of the Bible and we say I wonder who I should get engaged to we just drop open the bi Daniel you and I both have heard this
15:0315 minutes, 3 secondsand so we just open the Bible and say I need some wisdom right now so we drop I read a text here from Isaiah 9 and I say
15:1015 minutes, 10 secondsto myself aha we know that's crazy we don't do that kind of thing so let's be a little more sophisticated yeah I mean
15:1815 minutes, 18 secondsit is it is bad and it's pietistic and it's maybe naive but but it's but it's but also this has real consequences on
15:2615 minutes, 26 secondspeople on like foreign policy of the you know the wealthiest country in the world for example right it has it has been marketed it has it's catchy it works it
15:3515 minutes, 35 secondsworks on a bumper sticker it's fine but it's being reinforced by Israel it's being reinforced by pastors inside of the United States it wasn't too many
15:4315 minutes, 43 secondsyears ago that the Israel's ambassador to the United Nations actually stood at the platform podium in the United
15:5115 minutes, 51 secondsNations had a Bible in his hand and waved it and said we have a right to the land here is our covenant here are the
15:5815 minutes, 58 secondsrules Rules by which we get to take this land and you had better respect it or else you'll be cursed you can see this in t-shirts you
16:0616 minutes, 6 secondscan buy in Jerusalem where it's it's a t-shirt that says be careful how you treat Israel and then a long list of
16:1416 minutes, 14 secondsNations beneath it that now no longer exist so at the very bottom it will say
16:2016 minutes, 20 secondsum be on your toes or else so you can see this is reinforced
16:2716 minutes, 27 secondsagain and again and again inside a main reason for that confusion is the conflation with the descendants of
16:3516 minutes, 35 secondsAbraham I guess the Israelites the 12 tribes of Israel and then reduced to Judah to the Jews and to the current
16:4216 minutes, 42 secondspolitical state of Israel so as a Biblical scholar how do you unpack that are these connected to each other are
16:5016 minutes, 50 secondsthe people of the Old Testament the same as today the Jewish no I mean we we really have to ask a very difficult question about that because here um when
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondswe look at the people of Israel inside of the Old Testament it is a Theocratic state it is built it is a temple Centric
17:0517 minutes, 5 secondsState um it is it's entire governance it's civil structure is all built around Torah so it is a it it and the test of
17:1317 minutes, 13 secondsfidelity to this entire system is your own obedience to those laws your Fidelity your piety um your willingness
17:2217 minutes, 22 secondsto worship The God Who has given you this this land and this hope well when I go to the modern Middle East and I go
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondsinto the state of Israel and I discover that the majority of the Jews who live in this country are not practicing um at
17:3817 minutes, 38 secondsall they're not practicing Jews that's the way they would call it non-religious when I discover how many of them are not recognizing Sabbath or
17:4617 minutes, 46 secondsfestivals or any of that or how many of them are even atheists um I I used when I did archaeology in Galilee I stayed at
17:5317 minutes, 53 secondsa kabut that was an atheist kabut no synagogue at all and I have to ask myself if Jeremiah dropped into this
18:0218 minutes, 2 secondsscene today would they even recognize this the original founders of the country beneran and uh others they they
18:1018 minutes, 10 secondsthey understood what they were doing is creating a state uh based on socialism believe it or not that was going to create a platform for what they called
18:1818 minutes, 18 secondsthe new Jew it would be somebody who was European who they understood to be highly civilized people who really
18:2618 minutes, 26 secondsunderstood that the enlightenment was going to be the driving mechanism for their understanding of life it wasn't
18:3318 minutes, 33 secondsgoing to be Temple or Torah that is the that is the center really of uh Israel's uh life today so when you imagine what
18:4218 minutes, 42 secondsthe Jewish you know state of Israel is the Jew 80% of the people who live in the country are Jews inside of minor
18:4918 minutes, 49 secondsIsrael when you imagine who these people are they're European transplants who came out of Enlightenment Europe in the early 20th century um they have not come
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondsout of the world that is even near what Abraham lived with so we have to be careful with this we really do is there
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondsan ancestral link between Abraham and modern Israel and the Jews who live there yeah I think I'm going to accept that have there been other kind of
19:1519 minutes, 15 secondslineages that have intersected this yeah of course most Jews are going to say this but this idea that we have in
19:2319 minutes, 23 secondsmodern Israel today what we had in the Old Testament is a nomer to the first degree so but there is so there's
Chapter 5: What Makes You Jewish
19:3219 minutes, 32 secondsnothing as that makes them unique as Jews today if you describe yourself as a Jewish person therefore the promises of the Old Testament or the Hebrew
19:4119 minutes, 41 secondsscriptures still remain with you right is that there's some kind of conditionality that you're expecting them for example piety or you know practice so there is there's always been
19:4919 minutes, 49 secondsa question inside of Judaism it's there today it's been there all through the centuries it's was there in the New Testament period and that's this what is
19:5719 minutes, 57 secondsit that makes me Jewish what is it that gives me access to the promises and the Privileges that I find inside of the
20:0420 minutes, 4 secondsTorah and there are two answers one is blood that is to say lineage pure lineage and the other is Faith do you
20:1220 minutes, 12 secondshave the faith of Abraham inside of your heart how do these two work how do they work together and there have always been debates about this but the New Testament
20:2120 minutes, 21 secondsis definitely leaning in One Direction because Paul understands that Gentiles can be con connected to Abraham
20:2920 minutes, 29 secondshe understands that it is faith that connects you to the ancestral community that comes from Abraham it isn't simply
20:3620 minutes, 36 secondsyour bloodline so therefore even today inside of Israel um there are conservative Orthodox Jews that would say well okay
20:4520 minutes, 45 secondsif you come to Israel and you're an atheist um and or even if you don't even go to an orthodox synagogue we have hard
20:5120 minutes, 51 secondsquestions about your identity in our community all right so therefore I have to wonder I have have to wonder then
20:5920 minutes, 59 secondswhen I begin to Define Israel today I have to ask is that person who has the
21:0621 minutes, 6 secondsbloodline but no faith whatsoever not whatsoever are they still standing in the sandals of Abraham and Isaiah and
21:1521 minutes, 15 secondsJeremiah and David is this the case and I think it's courageous but we have to ask hard questions about that just as
21:2321 minutes, 23 secondsOrthodox Jews ask those very same questions but then if you are religious Jewish a religious then does the Old Testament still apply to you and then
Chapter 6: Jewish Theology
21:3121 minutes, 31 secondsthe land belongs to you and so on well that's exactly Jewish theology that's Jewish thought yeah so how do we then as Christians kind of deal with that
21:3921 minutes, 39 secondsthought yes understands that any Old Testament scholar will say this to Daniel That Old Testament is very much
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsat the center of Torah Theology and the the Theology of the entire Old Testament land is playing a pivotal role um but
21:5521 minutes, 55 secondslet me put it to you this way land is both promise and test in the Old Testament it is a promise of a place of
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondsRefuge so that you may have this land and God will protect you in this land okay that's clear all right but the
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondssecond thing is it is also a place of testing because inside of this land you're constantly going to be tested
22:1722 minutes, 17 secondswhether you rely fully on God or if you simply take the promise of land and turn it into a political resource let me give
22:2622 minutes, 26 secondsyou an example for this um the land itself and its crops its yields and its flocks all of these things are
22:3322 minutes, 33 secondsdependent on God's gifts of rain and fertility it isn't as if you can engineer this so you have to pray for
22:4022 minutes, 40 secondsrain because this is really not a land that that has a lot of water anybody knows this it's a tough land to live in
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondswhen it comes to politics you have to ask yourself do I Engineer my safety because I build a strong Army a professional Army and a permanent king
22:5722 minutes, 57 secondsor do I real on God to protect me so the land is a testing place it is and you can fail the test now here Daniel is
23:0723 minutes, 7 secondswhat's fundamental to the entire story in the Old Testament God owns the land
23:1523 minutes, 15 secondsIsrael never owns the land now let's just step back from that for a moment it sounds shocking and heretical um Premier
23:2423 minutes, 24 secondsOld Testament scholar John Walton um who's probably one of the leading Old Testament Hebrew Bible scholars right now in the United States he says no one
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondsin the ancient world thought that they would own the land the gods own the land that's where the land is possessed and
23:3923 minutes, 39 secondstherefore you simply are someone who is living in God's land as a gift of Grace
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondskind of as as a privilege Leviticus 25:23 says this clearly God says look you are tenants you are
23:5523 minutes, 55 secondsrenters this is why God when he finds people who are Unfaithful or living in an evil manner he can throw them out of
24:0324 minutes, 3 secondsthe the land itself will throw you out the Exile can come upon you so this idea that somehow God has given the land to
24:1224 minutes, 12 secondsAbraham and his children as if you possessed a title deed the way we have in our Western culture I own this title
24:2024 minutes, 20 secondsdeed and therefore wherever I go and my children go for the next 2,000 4,000 years I can pull out the deed in say
24:2924 minutes, 29 secondseverybody out of the way this is mine there is no notion of that inside of the Old Testament you instead are on God's
24:3624 minutes, 36 secondsland and God's land is watching you so therefore um this land even
24:4424 minutes, 44 secondsthough it is Central it is tenuous for for you as you live in this land that's why God can call the Babylon Army in and
24:5324 minutes, 53 secondssay look You've Lost Your Privilege for living inside of the land you are no longer faithful um so this idea that you have a title de
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondthis this is a really important mistake but it's still so I I would understand that a Jewish person today would say
Chapter 7: Faithfulness
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondswell I'm I'm practicing and I've been faithful you know and and they could tell me well yeah zionists are not even Jews you know Jewish zionists but I've
25:1825 minutes, 18 secondsbeen faithful so the land belongs to me so I I see that and like you know to each his own he can believe this I think the problem is how Christians have been
25:2525 minutes, 25 secondsusing this especially when it comes to how the new Testament is being ignored before we talk about the New Testament when it comes to the people in the land
25:3225 minutes, 32 secondsalso just want to point out just so that the audience doesn't also miss this that um it's not just genealogy it's also Faith like you said and we see this
25:4125 minutes, 41 secondsrepeatedly in the in the Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament we see this in the story of Fruth in we see this in Esther where so many of the
25:4925 minutes, 49 secondspeople around became Jewish uh we saw this when they came from Babylon that uh the text says that you know the
25:5625 minutes, 56 secondsIsraelites the Jews married their children to the to the Gentiles and the and their and their daughters to their men and their men to their to the and
26:0426 minutes, 4 secondstheir and their men to their wives and their or what is it their sons to their daughters and their daughters to their sons that's that's the one so there was
26:1226 minutes, 12 secondsalready a mixing of blood so genealogy is kind of diluted but then it becomes this idea of faithfulness that if you
26:1926 minutes, 19 secondsbelieve then your God will be my God then I will be joined into the Covenant so jewishness then becomes more of a
26:2626 minutes, 26 secondsexpression of faith of genealogy is that is that fair yeah it's fair but the test of that is whether you live a faithless
26:3426 minutes, 34 secondslife and I think the Book of Judges give this gives us to us in a very nice way we all know that at the end of the Book of Judges well judges tells us that
26:4126 minutes, 41 secondsevery generation has got to decide if they are going to trust God and live Faithfully with the Covenant you come to the end of the Book of Judges and you
26:4826 minutes, 48 secondshave a moral atrocity with the Tribe of Benjamin and that's just so shocking Benjamin loses its tribal territory and
26:5726 minutes, 57 secondsthen you you have this remarkable uh idolatry that comes out of the tribe of Dan that wants to have its own priest
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsits own system for sacrifice are you kidding me what about Temple and Tabernacle you can't do that Dan loses
27:1327 minutes, 13 secondsits land so therefore even if you have all of the bloodline correct like Benjamin and Dan God can easily come
27:2127 minutes, 21 secondsinto your space and say I'm sorry your tribal promise has disappeared yeah that's really ful uh so
Chapter 8: Faith in the Old Testament
27:2927 minutes, 29 secondsI mean and that goes throughout uh the whole of the Hebrew scriptures right there's no level where Faith becomes in significant and only your DNA would
27:3727 minutes, 37 secondsmatter in the prophets or anything else right no I mean it's it's a the ideal of course is that you belong to a tribe
27:4527 minutes, 45 secondsyour lineage is important your ancestry is important and ancestry is wed to Faith right that's the ideal inside of the Old Testament and therefore you are
27:5327 minutes, 53 secondsGod's people this is a tribal promise that is given by God to this tribe and they are going to be um shall we say
28:0028 minutesvessels or agents of redemption for God's creation that's the plan in the old
28:0828 minutes, 8 secondstest hi this is Anna from Idaho I love across the Divide this podcast has taught me so much about Palestinian
28:1528 minutes, 15 secondsChristians and Christianity itself as I'm trying to reconcile how so many in the faith that I am part of are ignoring or supporting oppression mass murder and
28:2428 minutes, 24 secondsstarvation it is like a light breaking through the clouds to hear from Daniel air Jen Tony Yousef farus and David talk
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsabout how God is love and he wants us to live out his message of Peace Justice and love in the world including in Palestine and
28:4028 minutes, 40 secondsIsrael okay so now what happens in the New Testament you have Jesus who comes and for Christians you would think that Christ is significant to the way that we
Chapter 9: Faith in the New Testament
28:4828 minutes, 48 secondsread the Old Testament but also how we live today uh so what do you see happening there is there like a
28:5528 minutes, 55 secondsredefinition or an expansion of what means to be God's people in the new yeah and it's first of all you have to keep
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsin mind that the New Testament is written by people who are Jewish they know all of these things Paul understands all of these things U Jesus of course understands these things so
29:1229 minutes, 12 secondstherefore when I come to the New Testament I have got some um major shifts happening these are tectonic shifts which are happening inside of of
29:2129 minutes, 21 secondsJudaism I mean essentially the New Testament is saying Messiah has arrived a Messianic kingdom is now being born
29:3029 minutes, 30 secondsand therefore this upends a lot of the ways that we think about our life with God so um if I can put in a minor plug
29:3929 minutes, 39 secondsthis is why I read wrote Jesus and the land this is what Jesus and the land is doing this is a book that you can get so in this book what I'm showing is that
29:4829 minutes, 48 secondsthere is no interest in land inheritance inside of the New Testament like we might think there's no interest in building shall we say political Empire
29:5729 minutes, 57 secondsas was the OCC occupation preoccupation of the Old Testament instead what you have is Israel's history you might say
30:0430 minutes, 4 secondsis being narrowed narrowed narrowed until what we discover is that Christ himself is living fulfilling Israel's
30:1330 minutes, 13 secondsstory in his own life let me just give you a couple examples Jesus is baptized and then he comes out of the
30:2230 minutes, 22 secondsJordan River and he enters into a time of Temptation and land exactly like Joshua did in the Old Testament he is
30:2930 minutes, 29 secondsliving once again Israel's life um he understands that he is fulfilling that life so therefore he is the one in whom
30:3930 minutes, 39 secondsthere is Temptation but there is Success just as Adam fell he succeeds so
30:4630 minutes, 46 secondsthe New Testament is beginning to say okay so Jesus is the focal point wherein
30:5330 minutes, 53 secondsGod finds residence and Revelation inside of creation now if you're a Jew and you're listening to this you're
31:0031 minutesgoing to sayoh well the focal point and the place of glory and residence is the temple that's a temple Centric culture
31:0831 minutes, 8 secondsis going to say this is where I go I travel to the temple and at the temple I will find the residence of God so the New Testament in a scandalous way says
31:1731 minutes, 17 secondshe's not only Messiah but in him dwells the presence and glory of God and the comparison is almost immediate in the
31:2631 minutes, 26 secondsNew Testament so what we find in Jesus we had found in the temple H so therefore what we have in Christ you
31:3431 minutes, 34 secondsmight say is a the displacement of theological geography that's what we have inside of
31:4231 minutes, 42 secondsthe New Testament so those expectations we had of the temple and the land suddenly now we find inside of Christ
31:5131 minutes, 51 secondshimself one illustration for this if I can um the principal metaphor that you find in the Old Testament for how Israel
Chapter 10: Gods Vineyard
32:0032 minutescomes into the holy land it's in the prophets is each of us if I were Jewish we were like vines that were growing in
32:0932 minutes, 9 secondsEgypt and God actually carried us across the desert for a very long time brought us across across the Jordan River and
32:1732 minutes, 17 secondsnow we live in God's Vineyard okay that's fine so Isaiah uses this metaphor
32:2532 minutes, 25 secondsto say all right if you are God's Vineyard and you are all Vines planted in his Vineyard God will protect you
32:3232 minutes, 32 secondswith a wall he will harvest the fruit that comes from this place um because you're God's Vineyard but he wants he
32:4032 minutes, 40 secondswants a yield from his Vines that's what he wants all right fine we understand that is the operating metaphor the holy
32:4832 minutes, 48 secondsland is a Vineyard God is the one who is the vine dresser and I am expected as one planted in the land to yield fruit
32:5632 minutes, 56 secondslive a faithful life all right so Jesus picks up this very metaphor in two places one in the synoptic gospels with
33:0433 minutes, 4 secondsthe parable of the tenants and the vineyard owner in which the tenants are actually misbehaving and therefore they
33:1133 minutes, 11 secondslose the vineyard this is a provocative Parable told in both all three synoptic gospels and what Jesus is doing is a
33:1833 minutes, 18 secondsriff on Isaiah so what happens if the tenants don't want to yield anything good well what Jesus says is
33:2833 minutes, 28 secondsthe owner is going to come after he sends his son he's going to come to those tenants and they're gone this is Old Testament theology this is the Exile
33:3733 minutes, 37 secondsthis is Judgment got it in John 15 Jesus does another thing that's really very important in my Jewish geography in this
33:4733 minutes, 47 secondsperiod then my aim is to live like a fruit yielding Vine in God's Vineyard
33:5433 minutes, 54 secondsall right Jesus says well I understand understand that image but now I am here to tell you in God's Vineyard there is
34:0334 minutes, 3 secondsbut one Vine attached to the Land There is one Vine attached to the
34:0934 minutes, 9 secondsland I am the True Vine and your aim in life is not to be planted in the
34:1734 minutes, 17 secondsvineyard it's to be grafted into me so what he's doing is he's upending
34:2434 minutes, 24 secondstheological geography by saying if the land is that place of blessing and Safety and Security that you've always
34:3334 minutes, 33 secondsimagined the only way you can have access to that Safety and Security is it if you find it through me because I'm
34:4134 minutes, 41 secondsthe only one who is rooted there so therefore I have what we call a kind of replacement theology work in
34:4834 minutes, 48 secondswhich Jesus is being compared with the temple but Jesus is being compared with the Holy Land as
34:5534 minutes, 55 secondswell so um this is this is this is astonishing and so the New Testament says provocative to the Jewish people
35:0435 minutes, 4 secondsyeah very threatening to their identity and their theology Daniel if you ask okay so what should be my aim in life Daniel I'd say to you your aim in life
35:1335 minutes, 13 secondsnow is to join the New Covenant and attach yourself to the Messiah because he is the one who was rooted in that place that God has always blessed
35:2235 minutes, 22 secondsus but if you say to me well no what I want to do is get a hold of that geography and build my house and then
35:3035 minutes, 30 secondspush away all comers I would say you have missed what God's project is in
35:3835 minutes, 38 secondsMessiah God's project is not the Fulfillment of a political Imperial agenda any longer that's over that
35:4735 minutes, 47 secondsgame's gone instead what happens is in Christ the land promises are spiritualized and that's how they're
35:5635 minutes, 56 secondsrealized uh by the way the New Testament is not the only people who are doing this Josephus does this Pho does this um
36:0236 minutes, 2 secondsso this is not an uncommon view um this is why Jews in Jesus day were able to
36:0936 minutes, 9 secondslive outside of the Holy Land more Jews were living outside of Israel than in Israel in the first century they were
36:1636 minutes, 16 secondsable to say they're doing this because they said you know the holy land is a kind of metaphor for that space where I
36:2436 minutes, 24 secondsam blessed and that can be in my synagogue and in my heart you can hear this Jews saying this in Florida same
36:3236 minutes, 32 secondsthing right so anyway um this idea though of displacing upending geography
36:3936 minutes, 39 secondsum or viewing should we say political interpretations of geography that has been found to be a
36:4636 minutes, 46 secondsdead end in the Old Testament and the New Testament therefore ends that discussion that's interesting because yeah there's a centrality of the temple
Chapter 11: The Temple in Jerusalem
36:5436 minutes, 54 secondsin Jerusalem and I think if you were a Jewish person you want to live close to the temple so you live in Jerusalem and its vicinity so that's the land but then
37:0337 minutes, 3 secondsby the first century you still have Jews living in Egypt in what is today turkey and so on and yeah so but there was kind
37:1037 minutes, 10 secondsof this kind of dis not disconnection to the temple you couldn't at the time because it was still essential but there's this kind of expansion of what
37:1937 minutes, 19 secondsit means to be a practicing Jew and the reality is is that this is a conversation inside of Orthodox Judaism
37:2637 minutes, 26 secondseven in other words do I have to live in the Holy Land if I am going to be complete in my Jewish identity and even
37:3437 minutes, 34 secondsin 1920s and 30s and 40s when Israel was being formed there was a lively discussion inside of of of Judaism
37:4237 minutes, 42 secondsitself whether or not this was a legitimate Enterprise I mean deeply faithful Orthodox Jews were listening to
37:4937 minutes, 49 secondsthese secular European Jews and they were suspicious that this was a country that
37:5737 minutes, 57 secondshad little to do with faith in the covenants of the Old Testament so it's it's been a a conversation that's gone
Chapter 12: The Synoptic Gospels
38:0638 minutes, 6 secondson for a very long time just note to the audience you use the phrase synoptic gospels I don't know I don't think some of them don't don't know what that is
38:1338 minutes, 13 secondsit's okay but that's basically that term we use in in New Testament studies to refer to Matthew to Matthew Mark and
38:2038 minutes, 20 secondsLuke because of the synoptic or the similarities that exist uh between them but uh just going back to I love what
38:2838 minutes, 28 secondsyou're saying about the temple I have two questions uh let me ask the first the first question then uh which is yes
38:3538 minutes, 35 secondsokay Jesus is doing that but then does that replace the ethnic identity like no
38:4338 minutes, 43 secondsis there something that unique that stays with them as Jewish people without without adopting Christ yeah I I think
38:5138 minutes, 51 secondstherefore the M the snake the horrid mistake that has been made over the centuries is um anti-em ISM which I
38:5838 minutes, 58 secondsthink has been was born out of a Christian context in which we have in a terrible way um said all right this
39:0739 minutes, 7 secondsethnicity the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus who by the way was Jewish we forget that um and therefore
39:1339 minutes, 13 secondsthey have been blamed and persecuted uh throughout the centuries in Europe so um
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondswe don't go there this is something that we need to condemn and condemn vigorously on the other hand um I want
39:2739 minutes, 27 secondsto say uh two things first of all Judaism is an ethnicity just like every other ethnicity it deserves our respect
39:3539 minutes, 35 secondsand our admiration in so many ways it's an old old ethnicity as so many are um but so they deserve our respect that's
39:4339 minutes, 43 secondsthe first thing second thing is as a Christian um those Jews who have been faithful and and and kept Faith alive um
39:5339 minutes, 53 secondsthroughout these centuries they deserve our respect also because they have been custodians of our legacies they have
40:0040 minutesbeen custodians of the stories that have come down to us from Abraham and Moses they have kept the scriptures alive um
40:0840 minutes, 8 secondsthis is Paul's view so because of historical remembrance and respect um we
40:1640 minutes, 16 secondshave a relationship with Judaism as we do with any other cousin we might have and we say look um there is a historical
40:2340 minutes, 23 secondsum sort of respect we enjoy with you the catch here is this is it would around the world people say among all the
40:3240 minutes, 32 secondsethnicities of the world um there is entitlements for this ethnicity there
40:3940 minutes, 39 secondsare privileges for this ethnicity and those privileges are not shared by anyone else I think that is um really a
40:4940 minutes, 49 secondsterrible mistake it's a misreading of the Bible the Old Testament certainly Paul would never have said something like this um but also I think it does a
40:5840 minutes, 58 secondsa um an injustice to Judaism itself because around the world when people begin hearing someone say that that
41:0641 minutes, 6 secondsgroup gets privileges that no one else gets that fuels antagonism and so for many of the Jews
41:1341 minutes, 13 secondsthat I talk to they would say look we do not want to be your football in this game so no just let us live our life as
41:2141 minutes, 21 secondsany other ethnicity would live its life um and we don't want to be viewed as
41:2841 minutes, 28 secondssomehow Superior to or more entitled than other people in the world um you
41:3641 minutes, 36 secondswill hear this inside of the Christian Church a lot you will hear this a lot um as one Pastor said to me Israel always gets the benefit of the doubt and I
41:4541 minutes, 45 secondsasked well do the Armenians and no only Israel and I said why Israel because they are God's people
41:5341 minutes, 53 secondsH so I have to look at the how that that sort of theolog Theology and politics was all built together we need to unpack
Chapter 13: Gods Chosen People
42:0142 minutes, 1 secondthat like how how are the God's chosen people today um and what that means if you are a Christian uh so let's yeah
42:1042 minutes, 10 secondsactually have this kind of thought right now because anti-Semitism as a like an a racist ideology sees Jews as different like we are the white Christians and
42:1942 minutes, 19 secondsthey are different from us and there's the opposite of I think what you were alluding to which is what is called now philosemitism which is this kind of love
42:2742 minutes, 27 secondsSL obsession with the Jewish people that is continuing on that same anti-semitic kind of Trope which sees the Jewish
42:3442 minutes, 34 secondspeople as different and that and the solution is like why can't they be just like anyone else can't we just honor and love everyone no matter what the
42:4242 minutes, 42 secondsethnicity is as a rabbi said to me would you guys just leave us alone leave us alone exactly yeah you have churches in America that have Israeli flags all over
42:5142 minutes, 51 secondsthe front and they're doing Jewish dancing and Jewish songs and all of this and I'm thinking oh what is peculiar about this I mean it isn't as if the
43:0043 minutesculture of Israel and Judaism is somehow a more enticing or interesting culture I mean if it's a church that has an Irish
43:0943 minutes, 9 secondsculture celebrate that that's fine um I think Paul's view would have been you know God's God's blessing as he says in
43:1843 minutes, 18 secondsRomans 4:13 he says God's promise God's anticipation is that Abraham and his children not would inherit Kaa he says
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsthis in Romans 4 13 but would inherit the world the New Testament message is for the Redemption of the world and
43:3443 minutes, 34 secondstherefore you are able to live in Ephesus and that too is God's holy land
43:4043 minutes, 40 secondsbecause he has his people there and also he created Ephesus right and the whole Cosmos is is the Lords the whole world
Chapter 14: The Whole Cosmos
43:4943 minutes, 49 secondsyeah some of us have questions about Texas of course right but nevertheless Texas yeah including even Texas even
43:5543 minutes, 55 secondsTexas so yes the whole world belongs to God he's all created it and therefore he the day of Pentecost what does God do he does not bring chaos in language he
44:0444 minutes, 4 secondsgives everyone the languages of the world and he says go and bless the Nations right in many ways the Great Commission and the Pentecost are the
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsFulfillment of the promise of Abraham begins in with Abraham then is fulfilled through the Great Commission the New Testament is not ethnocentric exact it
44:1944 minutes, 19 secondsis not anthro Centric so therefore it means we are going to go out to the margins we don't go to the margins and say bring your converts here to live
44:2844 minutes, 28 secondsaround Jerusalem as you might find in Judaism instead go out and build your place of worship in Ephesus okay so now
Chapter 15: Jesus and the People
44:3744 minutes, 37 secondsbefore before because now we have to talk about Paul and what he does in Romans and Galatians but before we do that uh let's let's kind of go back to
44:4544 minutes, 45 secondsto Jesus and how he deals with the people because I can I see this very clearly in the text uh you know Jesus is
44:5344 minutes, 53 secondswith the Samaritans he's Crossing to Lebanon today to Jordan then today so he's expanding his ministry beyond the
45:0045 minutesJewish people so he's kind of giving us this uh a pret Taste of this expansionist idea of the kingdom of God
45:0645 minutes, 6 secondsin the parable of the Good Samaritan the good person is actually the Samaritan and the bad person is the religious Jew
45:1445 minutes, 14 secondswho was rushing to the temple uh so this is very problematic like faithfulness and loving neighbor and loving God is
45:2145 minutes, 21 secondsactually shown through the Samaritan who is not a Jew so Christ is is being provocative he's expanding his
45:2845 minutes, 28 secondsunderstanding of chosenness and people so now what is happening now do you see in in the New Testament and how the New
45:3645 minutes, 36 secondsTestament conceives of of people and chosen this well first of all let's just let's just sort of focus on Jesus for a
Chapter 16: Jesus and the Gentiles
45:4345 minutes, 43 secondsmoment here we have very very few stories about Jesus going outside of geographical Israel at that time so he
45:5045 minutes, 50 secondsdoes go to be with a syrop phenician woman we do have the Samaritan story and he goes in John 4 to be with a Samaritan woman at the well um but these are
45:5945 minutes, 59 secondsstories which are intended almost to challenge the lack of faith inside of Israel it isn't as if Jesus understands
46:0746 minutes, 7 secondshe is the Jewish Messiah uh Paul says the same thing in Romans 1 he to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles so
46:1346 minutes, 13 secondsas the Jewish Messiah he is going to as it were be landed and when he does reach out and have contact outside of that
46:2246 minutes, 22 secondslanded then he's doing it as a prophetic challenge um so um the faith of these
46:3046 minutes, 30 secondspeople in the Good Samaritan story it's just their behavior is so horrible I'm going to even compare him to a Samaritan how's that you guys so it's all about a
46:3946 minutes, 39 secondscultural challenge is what it is okay um for Paul this is really critical in Galatians and Romans so the Apostle Paul
46:4846 minutes, 48 secondshe understands that this wider dimension of God's blessing is proven by the
46:5546 minutes, 55 secondsinclusion of the Gentiles Paul understands that he is commissioned by Christ as a Jew an orthodox
47:0247 minutes, 2 secondsconservative Jew to take this message of Messiah and Kingdom and take it out to the greater world and I'm sure Paul
47:0947 minutes, 9 secondsasked himself wait are you saying the Gentile world and for a conservative Jew in the first century this would have
47:1747 minutes, 17 secondsbeen really peculiar and that's exactly what he hears on the Damascus Road so therefore Paul is someone who is coming
47:2547 minutes, 25 secondsout of a multi cultural city called Tarsus he understands how it is to move with
47:3247 minutes, 32 secondsGentiles but through his Revelation that Christ gives to him on the Damascus Road he understands that Gentiles who Embrace
47:4247 minutes, 42 secondsMessiah Jesus have then walked through a door that brings them immediately into the
47:4847 minutes, 48 secondschildren of Abraham so in Romans 4 he can say this is mindblowing he can say
47:5647 minutes, 56 secondsthat aenda Gentile is a son or daughter of Abraham how can that be there is no
48:0348 minutes, 3 secondsway that you could find that inside of Judaism unless you might talk about a Jew a gentile who was converted to
48:1048 minutes, 10 secondsJudaism and then could be said to be related to Abraham but that was another category it wasn't the same as being
48:1748 minutes, 17 secondsethnic Paul is saying no God's mission is the entire world Gentiles therefore
48:2348 minutes, 23 secondswho come into the family of Abra so therefore in order to advance the
48:3048 minutes, 30 secondsGentile Mission inside of the world Paul understands that Gentiles have to be a part of that mission and they have to be
48:3748 minutes, 37 secondsrecipients of messiah's Grace just like anyone else can probably the most important image
48:4448 minutes, 44 secondsfor this is in Romans 11 the very beginning of Romans 11 everyone rushes to the end of Romans 11 but at the beginning of Romans 11 Paul gives an
48:5248 minutes, 52 secondsanalogy he says the family of God reminds him of this marvelous old tree
48:5948 minutes, 59 secondsthis is a tree that has deep roots that go into the Patriarchs this true tree
49:0749 minutes, 7 secondshas been growing through history but now we discover that those who are attached to the tree have to be attached to this
49:1649 minutes, 16 secondsMessianic movement this new era that has happened in Christ so therefore he says Gentiles are grafted into this tree okay
49:2549 minutes, 25 secondsthat's fine so there a part of the tree of Abraham but then he says for those who are historically Jewish they can be
49:3349 minutes, 33 secondsbroken off of that tree and therefore the arrival of Christ becomes a kind of
49:4149 minutes, 41 secondsfilter you if you have a Jewish Heritage and you are a gentile attaching yourself to Messiah is the means by which now you
49:5049 minutes, 50 secondscontinue to be attached to the the Patriarchs like Abraham is this a scandalous idea yeah oh yeah yes yes and
49:5949 minutes, 59 secondsand this is why Paul I think got into arguments and synagogues throughout his three missionary tours thrown out of synagogues because what he was doing is
50:0850 minutes, 8 secondsputting a question mark on the permanence of Jewish ancestry as a
50:1550 minutes, 15 secondstheological idea and he was saying it's got to include Messiah or else you're not connected the way you think you
Chapter 17: We Are The Remnant
50:2350 minutes, 23 secondsare yeah and that I think in 9 to1 that's the main main question he's trying to answer I think coming out of
50:3050 minutes, 30 secondshis heartbreak is I I don't know maybe that question came from Jewish Believers is like has God rejected us and he's and
50:3750 minutes, 37 secondshe's at pains to explain no because I'm a Jew first of all so obviously I'm not so my jewishness is not an obstacle to
50:4650 minutes, 46 secondsGod God is able but also God has not rejected the Jewish people they have a way to salvation but for him it has to
50:5350 minutes, 53 secondsgo through Christ and not through circum the law so he's employing what Judaism would call a Remnant theology so
51:0151 minutes, 1 secondtherefore even in Israel's history there were those who continued to have the faith of Abraham and there were those
51:0851 minutes, 8 secondswho really didn't care and so therefore there's always been a Remnant running through Jewish history and therefore that Remnant Narrows to Jesus himself
51:1651 minutes, 16 secondsand then it fans out once again inside of the church so what Paul is saying is that yeah therefore there has all so
51:2451 minutes, 24 secondstherefore we I am a part of that Remnant that has always held on to the faith of
51:3151 minutes, 31 secondsAbraham and today that's expressed in Jesus Messiah um yeah so it's so therefore if
51:3851 minutes, 38 secondsPaul is basically saying in Romans n God has not abandoned his people because we Jewish Christians are a part of that
51:4751 minutes, 47 secondsCommunity We Are The Remnant is what he's saying people who find themselves outside of the remnant will feel angry
51:5551 minutes, 55 secondsabout this right yeah um because it comes both with blessing for the remnant but also judgment me it's also like it's very scandalous too like in Galatians 3
Chapter 18: What Saves You
52:0452 minutes, 4 secondsas well the law doesn't basically the law doesn't save you what saves you is your faith that is Faith Abraham was
52:1152 minutes, 11 secondsconsidered righteous not because of the law there was no law at the time of Abraham that came later with Moses because of his righteousness he he was
52:2052 minutes, 20 secondschosen because of his faith sorry because of his faith he he was considered righteous and then later on the end of the chapter Christ is the
52:2952 minutes, 29 secondsSeed of Abraham and if you are in Christ then you become The Offspring of Abraham there's another place Daniel that is in Romans 2 I think that is absolutely
52:3752 minutes, 37 secondsamazing because Paul there talks about circumcision he talks about those who might say that their religious markings
52:4552 minutes, 45 secondswill call circumcision a religious marking um they are going to get find themselves to be secure with this I could say to myself in the church look I
52:5452 minutes, 54 secondswas baptized once done done finished so therefore don't talk to me about religion right um Paul says in Romans 2
53:0353 minutes, 3 secondsthis is amazing he says your circumcision can become uncircumcision how can your circumcision
53:1153 minutes, 11 secondsbecome uncircumcision that's an amazing thing and so he then is saying it's possible for those religious markers that you
53:1953 minutes, 19 secondshold on to in the absence of Faith they may disappear
53:2753 minutes, 27 secondsso you you yeah I I think Paul when he talks like this he is going to find that he has an audience
53:3653 minutes, 36 secondsimmediately and he's going to get pushed back very bad yeah and I mean I mean he goes all the way I think in second Corinthians where he says the law leads
Chapter 19: Life Through Christ
53:4453 minutes, 44 secondson to death like the law doesn't save you like what saves you is life through Christ so there's a yeah a very
53:5053 minutes, 50 secondsscandalous thing that he's doing but um but he's so I think transformed by the whole event of Christ and he cannot this
53:5853 minutes, 58 secondsis the only way he can make sense of what's been happening around yeah the problem he has uh with the his his his ancestral Faith Judaism is that they
54:0654 minutes, 6 secondsjust don't have the Messiah we H we have to remind ourselves a hundred times over Daniel um our Christian faith is
54:1454 minutes, 14 secondsJewish Jesus is Jewish Paul is Jewish this is all a conversation that is happening inside of Judaism and it all
54:2054 minutes, 20 secondsturns on one idea did the Messiah arrive and is If he if he has arrived then my
54:2954 minutes, 29 secondsrelationship to Messiah is definitive not optional that would be Jewish thinking so once Paul has closed that
54:3854 minutes, 38 secondschapter yes Messiah has arrived then he opens a new chapter and says here's the surprise it isn't about National Israel
54:4754 minutes, 47 secondsit is about the globe the world and Gentiles now are coming in so this whole there there are two very large pills to
54:5554 minutes, 55 secondsswallow here here Messiah has arrived and the mission project of God in the world is not what you thought it would
55:0255 minutes, 2 secondsbe so therefore um the church really is taking a course a Jewish course that no
55:1055 minutes, 10 secondsone ever expected so when I find Christians today saying to me well God's project in the world is the
55:1855 minutes, 18 secondsestablishment and defense of a secular political entity called the modern state of Israel
55:2655 minutes, 26 secondsI'm thinking have you not read the New Testament have you not read the prophets of the Old Testament that political
55:3455 minutes, 34 secondsproject failed it will fail again and again and again yeah well there's a lot to unpack
55:4155 minutes, 41 secondsthere I feel like we can spend a whole conversation just on Romans 9-11 and Paul and how we understand the New Testament but we have to finish I want
55:4955 minutes, 49 secondsyou to stick around with me I want to talk with you about Revelation and how it's been used and kind of rapture theology but just to finish this portion
55:5655 minutes, 56 secondsof the episode um how does this relate to what's happening today especially in Gaza and also now in Lebanon uh and
56:0456 minutes, 4 secondsthere is this unwavering uncritical support by Christian zionists towards the state of Israel towards the Jewish people and it seems to me that it's
56:1456 minutes, 14 secondsamong other reasons but I think the main reason is that there's this kind of unconditional support for the Jewish people and and it has to do I think with
56:2156 minutes, 21 secondsthe way that they read the scriptures so what is the application here what is how how can you help guide us kind of unpack this harmful way I think that the Bible
56:3056 minutes, 30 secondshas been weaponized to support the war Gaza therefore I have to ask myself you know what are the deeper Kingdom values
56:3756 minutes, 37 secondsthat are important to me how is it that I in other words I want to live my life as Jesus lived his life inside of this
56:4556 minutes, 45 secondsworld I have to ask myself what are the deeper values what's the heartbeat of my own spirituality that's what I have to ask myself so therefore I have to ask
56:5356 minutes, 53 secondswhat is my relationship to violence I have to ask myself what is my relationship to truth what is my relationship to love what is my
57:0057 minutesrelationship to my neighbor um Jesus was Raising all of these concerns throughout his life some people agreed some people
57:0857 minutes, 8 secondsdisagreed so when I look at the landscape of Israel Palestine today and
57:1557 minutes, 15 secondsI see shocking levels of bombing in Gaza with over 41,000 people killed I think
57:2357 minutes, 23 secondsat this point when I see now incredible violence in the West Bank in which you have innocent civilians being killed and
57:3057 minutes, 30 secondsI think to myself how would Jesus step into that what's happened in the church is that our
57:3857 minutes, 38 secondseschatology that means our um understanding of the end times our eschatology has run away with us and our
57:4557 minutes, 45 secondsethics have been left behind that's what's transpired so I have to be willing to say look um something's wrong
57:5357 minutes, 53 secondswhen you are killing civilians like this um you any people who say that I have an
58:0158 minutes, 1 secondentitlement to take this land and kill those who are challenging my taking I have to ask some really hard
58:0958 minutes, 9 secondsquestions about that so when I look at the Gaza conflict and I look at the West Bank even today I think to myself did you not read the story about Ahab and
58:1758 minutes, 17 secondsJezebel and how they tried to steal Land from the boats I ask myself don't you see that stealing land is a very
58:2558 minutes, 25 secondsimportant prophetic theme in the Old Testament or am I only passionate about how Judaism perhaps somehow is
58:3358 minutes, 33 secondsfulfilling prophecy um I think the church has really taken some very difficult directions on this I've just last
58:4158 minutes, 41 secondsDecember we had just something that just broke my heart that took place in Washington DC Daniel um there was a rally for Israel in December and there
58:5058 minutes, 50 secondswere thousands of pastors who attended um the organizers you know 100,000 or
58:5758 minutes, 57 secondsmore and the news said maybe 10,000 that's a lot of people and then up on the stage there were Christian pastors
59:0459 minutes, 4 secondsand publicly Christian politicians and um they were all talking about how we have to defend Israel um
59:1259 minutes, 12 secondswithout limit and then the crowd Christians evangelicals on the mall in Washington um were just cheering out you
59:2059 minutes, 20 secondsknow don't stop the bombing you know bomb bomb bomb where have we
59:2759 minutes, 27 secondscome as as as as messengers of Christ as children of God in which we celebrate
59:3659 minutes, 36 secondsbombing how can that be an answer to prayer I I I find it incomprehensible these are not the
59:4459 minutes, 44 secondsvalues of Christ they are not whatsoever and any Pastor who is promoting them I think has to go back and revisit the
59:5259 minutes, 52 secondsgospel yeah and repent of the abuse of the text and the abuse of Christ to justify violence yeah uh yeah I mean the
1:00:001 hourthe weaponization of the Bible is a huge problem and Christians have done it throughout history and we continue to do it just read misread the text take
1:00:081 hour, 8 secondsGenesis 12 out of context take whatever out of context and then justify to dehumanize people and kill them so many
1:00:151 hour, 15 secondsof my Christian friends they uh here in the United States they don't even realize that there are Christian Palestinians that are living in the land
1:00:241 hour, 24 secondsthey don't realize that they are churches in Gaza that have been bombed they don't realize that there are their brothers and sisters in Christ who are
1:00:331 hour, 33 secondsliving inside of the holy land and settlers are stealing their land as it's happening today outside of Bethlehem
1:00:401 hour, 40 secondsthey just don't realize that and for the first time that when they first meet a Palestinian Christian they're shocked their assumption is every Arab is Muslim
1:00:501 hour, 50 secondsevery Arab uh is there can be no such thing as an Arab Christian it doesn't they don't realize there are 12 million
1:00:571 hour, 57 secondsarabic speaking Christians in the world that's incredible it's huge it's amazing so um we've lost our compassion for the
1:01:051 hour, 1 minute, 5 secondschurch but Christian or not um all people in Gaza are God's children and
1:01:121 hour, 1 minute, 12 secondstherefore um I I think I do not want to be aligned with those who are going to kill anyone it isn't just as if
1:01:201 hour, 1 minute, 20 secondsChristians should be protected I think all should be protected right right good words um G bur thanks thanks a lot I
1:01:271 hour, 1 minute, 27 secondsthink your wisdom your expertise and the scriptures are so super important to us today so really appreciate your Insight
1:01:331 hour, 1 minute, 33 secondshere yeah great to be with you Daniel thanks for tuning in to this
1:01:411 hour, 1 minute, 41 secondsepisode of across the Divide we are so grateful for your support and interest the hosts of this podcast are Daniel
1:01:501 hour, 1 minute, 50 secondsbanura Jennifer maen and myself abir shali Salan f is our produc producer our
1:01:571 hour, 1 minute, 57 secondstheme music is composed by Charlie Rishi to help sustain the work of this podcast please consider becoming a financial
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