Persecution of the Israeli Body of Messiah

 
    Gil Afriat & the Tiferet Yeshua worship team  

In the first ministry letter shared this week, news of the theft of thousands of dollars' worth of media equipment and musical instruments at the congregation. In a separate incident the week before one of congregational leaders home was also broken into. There is no way to know if either were related to persecution for the faith, or simple crimes. God knows. The thing we can know is that both are spiritual attacks. Please pray for Tiferet Yeshua and for God’s protection over all the congregations.

Persecution of the Israeli Body of Messiah
by Donna Diorio

After the stoning murder of Stephen when persecution became so acute that many believers fled to other nations, what happened next is what puts Christians in debt to the Israeli Messianic Jews:  As they facilitated the preaching of the Good News to the gentiles, we are in debt to facilitate the preaching of the Good News to Israelis.

     After the murder of Stephen most of Jews who scattered to the nations continued to only preach Yeshua and the Gospel to Jews — BUT NOT ALL OF THEM. Those who went to Cyprus and Cyrene traveled to Antioch and began to speak also to Greeks about the good news of the Lord Yeshua. (Acts 11:19-20). The news of the great number of gentiles who believed and turned to the Lord made its way back to Jerusalem.

     Right before all this Peter explained the vision of non-kosher animals to the Apostolic team in Jerusalem, and how he had been accused of eating with Gentiles. That was a big no no according to the kosher commandments. But God was doing a new thing, raising spiritual understanding to a higher level in Yeshua. [Notice from reading Acts 10, 11 & 12 how many times the number 3 come up which seems to me to point to the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit being involved in these events]

     God gave Peter the vision three times, along with an audible explanation of the vision meaning: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” That’s why when the Italian Cornelius was given a vision to send for Peter to come to Caesarea, God prepared the way by also giving Peter the vision of the non-kosher animals. While Peter was still wondering what the vision meant, suddenly the 3 men Cornelius sent to ask Peter to come to him arrived where Peter was. The Spirit told Peter, “Simon, three men are looking for you.  So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”  Through all these things Peter then understood that the Good News was not only for the Jews, but it was also for the ‘non-kosher’ Gentiles.  Peter went with them and began to speak to the large gathering of people at Cornelius’ house who had been gathered to hear from Peter.

     Read the exact message Peter brought them in Acts 10:34-43. It is our message today: Yeshua is for all of us who will hear and respond in faith. In those days it was a revolutionary idea that God was offering salvation to anyone outside of His Chosen People, the Jews. That is how it had been for a couple of thousand years: the faith of YHVH was for a specific people, singled out by God Himself.

     It was Peter who first got the message that this limitation had been lifted. Then as he saw the Holy Spirit poured out on Cornelius’ household, he knew everything had changed. Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Messiah Yeshua.”

     After leaving Cornelius’ house Peter went to Jerusalem to lay out the case before the rest of the Apostles in Jerusalem. He told them all that had happened and the Apostolic team agreed that it was accepted by them to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. So when word came from Antioch that gentiles were being saved there, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. And when he saw what was going on in Antioch, Barnabas went looking for Saul in his hometown of Tarsus to bring him back to Antioch.

     Saul would later tell the Galatians that he spent three years in the desert in Arabia being taught by the Holy Spirit before returning to Jerusalem where the believers were terrified by his past of persecuting believers. But there he saw Peter and James, the Lord’s brother. At this point he was sent to Tarsus because unbelievers in Jerusalem wanted him dead. This is point that Barnabas retrieves Saul from Tarsus and brings him back to help evangelize in Antioch and organize them in congregations.

     That was the launch into Shaul’s appointment by God to become “the Apostle to the Gentiles” as he tells the Galatians he ministered there for 14 years before going back to Jerusalem and being confirmed in his apostolic administration (2:1,8). It was still not safe for Paul in Jerusalem. There were believer Jews who were jealous of him, and unbeliever Jews who did not want the former prize student of Gamaliel preaching Yeshua to the locals. By this time, even though Paul expressed great desire for Jews to be saved, he knew he was a marked man in Israel and had accepted the God-given assignment to take the message of salvation to the nations.

      We could assume now, “And the rest is history,” But it’s not  because of what happened in Antioch (Acts 11) and Paul’s next trip to Jerusalem (Acts 12): Acts 11:27-30  “During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.”

     There are several things to notice: #1 The famine was going to be worldwide, so #2 why was special consideration given to the believers in Israel when all believers in the entire Roman world would be afflicted by “severe famine”? One word: Persecution. The believers were already being persecuted in Israel on many levels including economic. Like it is again today, religious persecution of Jewish believers in Yeshua is often brought to bear in various economic ways. It was not a show of favoritism; it was a show of solidarity with those bearing a heavier burden. Notice: the relief effort began BEFORE the famine struck! Like Joseph in Egypt stored up reserves in the fat years, the time to give to the relief effort of Israeli believers is BEFORE the famine in the nations begins.

     Which brings us to the issue of why Christians, after almost 2,000 years, would be expected to think that what the Apostle to the Gentiles said In Romans 15:27 to Christians in that time could still be true today? What did he say? “It pleased them (Christians in Macedonia & Achaia) indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.” Whether we recognize it or not after 2,000 years, that is still the case that we are partakes of the spiritual things of the Jews who belong to Jesus, and our DUTY to minister to them in material things still remains as true today as it did when Paul wrote Romans.
 
    Would Paul have laid down his life in order to take the donation collection from all the churches in Acts 21 if the collection was only a temporary duty of Christians? Anyone could have delivered the financial help to them in Jerusalem if this was some one-off with no meaning intended for Christians down through the ages when God would put forth His hand to restore the nation of Israel and redeem His people within the restored Promise Land.

     How long will we fail to see what is obvious? We must facilitate the Gospel going forth in Israel. Not trying to take over the preaching, or trying to influence the unsaved Israeli with our financial generosity, but be generous to those Jewish ministries in Israel who are laying down their lives to be Yeshua’s feet in Israel.