Spiritual Maturity Required for Loving Israel

An ad from the Israeli anti-Messianic activist group Yad L'Achim

 It requires a level of spiritual maturity to stick it out with a group of people who treat you poorly, even mistreat you. It takes rising up to a level of commitment first to God that says, I see how much was sacrificed for me when I was yet a sinner, and how much faith and patience You have shown me as I stumbled and fell short in my life. I see also that Your desire is to see those who have isolated me, who have made me the butt of their ill will, that those are ones you desire to come to the saving knowledge of Your Son who laid down His life that any who did not persist in unbelief, but welcomed Him could enter eternal life with You.

Some things that does not mean: Yeshua/Jesus did not let anyone kill him, He laid down His own life at the time God showed Him was the time. There were attempts to murder Him before that, but He did not just lay down and let them do as they pleased with Him. We are not to do that either. 

It is a false Gospel to suggest that we - to show our love - must be passive in life-threatening environments. Yeshua removed Himself from life threatening environments because the day of His sacrifice was to be at a certain, God-ordained time, the Passover. We are the same: we cannot prove our love of our enemies by just allowing them to "kill" us or cause us great bodily harm.

No wife is called to God to remain under the same roof as a physically abusive husband. Likewise, the passivity of believers in Israel will NEVER convict the activist religious groups who have been threatening the believers in Israel for decades. Since I have been doing the Weekly Summary and Arrows from Zion, I have known of about 5 fire bombs targeting Messianic Jewish congregational facilities and believers. This is only the fiery attempts to harm the Jewish believers in Israel, there are so many other forms the persecution has taken place.

Now Christian organizations in Israel are in the crosshairs of religious activists, and it is not just the yeshiva boys riled up by their religious-political elders, it is the religious far right in Netanyahu's coalition government who are in positions of government power over things like clergy visas. Now the Christian organizations are getting a taste of the persecution Messianic Jewish believers have experienced for many years: the Interior Ministry trying to kick out husbands or wives of Israeli Messianic Jews because the spouse is not Jewish even if all the children were born in Israel. Some have been kicked out or forced to leave because of government refusal to extend benefits to spouses of Messianic Jews.

I DON'T TELL YOU ALL THIS TO RILE YOU UP AGAINST ISRAEL. Even though I could see this level of persecution rolling down the track for a long time - it was inevitable according to prophetic scripture - my point is not that you turn on Israel as an enemy. My point is that you wake up to reality. 

What do Christians owe the Israeli Messianic community who have been placed there by GOD Himself to be the laborers in the LORD's vineyard. They are going to bring the spiritual harvest of Israel in regardless of the harassment and persecution of the religious activists - and God is going to be with them to the END of it all when Yeshua returns.

What do we owe them? Exactly what scripture tells us we owe them:  "For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings." We STILL owe this debt to the Israeli Messianic believers - much more than Messianic Jewish believers in ANY other nation in the world. Israel is the last battleground. They are in the center of the spiritual storm on earth and we have been STARVING them out, with not even funding to do the ministry work God has laid on their shoulders.

It is past time the Christian organizations who donate so generously in Israel, began to wake up and realize that by all those donations not being channeled through the ministries of Israeli Messianic Jews, this has tied the hands of those who are actually ministering Jesus to the people of Israel. 

We cannot let these things turn to hatred for Israelis, not can we ignore the reality that how Christians give to Israel is so out of bounds. This money must go into the hands of Messianic Jews pouring out their lives to minister the Gospel.

If what I am writing means that I never get to set foot in Israel again, so be it. I settled that reality in myself years ago. I don't need to go to Israel, but my money and my support for Israeli Messianic Jews does.

Weekly Summary 22nd Anniversary & Bad Developments in the Land

 

     This is the 22^nd Anniversary issue of the Weekly Summary. For all of these years I have encouraged Christian Israel lovers to realize it is the Israeli Jewish believers, the body of Messiah in Israel, who are now and ultimately the laborers in the spiritual harvest in Israel. There have been many Christians who hardened their heart against believing they would not be those laborers working the spiritual fields of harvest in Israel. Years ago I tried to tell some Christians who frankly dismissed the Messianic believers in Israel as ineffective and not up to the job of bringing salvation to the people of Israel, that at some point Christians were not even going to be allowed to get in Israel. But I was scoffed at. Now there are headlines out of Israel that show this is exactly where this religious right coalition in Israel is headed toward. I don’t say that in and I told you so mode. I am unhappy to see this is where we are and Christians still don’t know to be a part of the spiritual harvest of Israel, they are going to have to become ‘help-mates’ to the Israeli ministries. Christians are going to have to come alongside them not only in prayers, but also in funding. Please wake up Church. It is getting rough over there on all the ministries.

New Visa Policy Threatens to Shut Down Evangelical Organizations Operating in Israel | The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem was notified that its requests for clergy visas have been rejected on the grounds that the organization no longer qualifies as a religious institution. Group's attorney: 'We will bring our case to court'
    
  August 17^th this headline appeared in HaAretz – it is a terrible source to get most news from Israel, but when it comes to religious news, I have found them to be the most likely to tell both sides of the story.
      I found that out after the religious zealot planted a bomb in a Purim basket for a Messianic pastor-family in Ariel in 2008. If not for the miracles of God performed on Ami Ortiz, he would have been the first Messianic  martyr of modern Israel at the tender age of 15.

Quit funding those determined to shut down the body of Yeshua in Israel!
TURN YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO THE BODY OF MESSIAH IN ISRAEL!
They are Israel’s HOPE!   — Pouring out heart & soul for God's purposes in Israel, Donna

What are you being grafted into?

 

What are you being grafted into?
by Donna Diorio

Some of us have it backwards: we Christians have been grafted into Israel’s olive tree and now the only Jews who have been re-grafted in by God are those who have come to faith in Yeshua. So why are so many Christians trying to graft themselves into the Israel that persists in unbelief?

     I am certain that if we knew the actual number of how much Christian financial donations are being given to the unsaved rabbis of Israel who are also partakers, if not instigators, of the persecution of Israeli Messianic Jews who love and follow Jesus - Yeshua the Messiah of Israel - that we would find it staggering.

     It is distressing to me to consider, and I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have had Christians ask me about this one or that one who support Israel. It doesn't take very long to scan the ministry to see they absolutely are not connecting with the Israeli body of Messiah, but are only connecting to the unsaved rabbis raising money among Christian "friends" for their projects.

     It is quite competitive to get Christians on-board of their projects, some of which are nice, but none of which will ever lead to their awakening to know Israel's Messiah. Recently during the Isaiah 62 Fast & Prayer for 21-days, one such rabbi showed up trying to make himself a prayer hub during the event. That made my hair stand on end! Because this rabbi would sure not be praying for "all Israel" to be saved, quite the opposite! He would be focused on siphoning off all the Christian support for Israel that he possibly could. He was there for the donations he might be able to land from Christians.

     He had already been on my radar although I had mostly just ignored him. When I saw his organization name as a "prayer hub" on IHOP's social media for Isaiah 62, I immediately did a thorough search to make sure I had the right idea about the rabbi in question and the first thing I found was him talking about the "Eureka!" moment when he realized how much income there was to be in tapping Christian supporters of Israel. I was incensed by it. But that was not the first time Rabbi Weisz has insinuated himself into large Christian gatherings.

     It has always been greatly disheartening to me to see such high level Christians become so fascinated with the unsaved rabbis who desire to establish relationships with them. The reason this is troubling to me is that while the unsaved rabbis are forging relationships with high level Christians, they are also subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) training Christian leaders to ignore the God given spiritual connection we have with the body of Messiah in Israel.

     Recently a high profile Christian pastor was quoted in a Jerusalem Post with a headline that read: "Trump’s faith advisor: Christians must learn from Jews, not convert them." They drew this from the fact that Paula White-Cain came to Israel to travel with Orthodox Rabbi Tuly Weisz, visit the Temple Mount with former MK Rabbi Yehudah Glick, study with Religious Zionist Rebbetzin Shani Taragin, walk in Hebron with Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, visiting the Arugot Farms in the Judean mountains and studying Torah at Nishmat – The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women.

     What a waste! Great for Paula's ego, zero step forward for God's plans in Israel to bring Israel to faith by the Jewish disciples of Yeshua among them. Paula did not visit one Israeli Jewish believer in Jesus on Paula's tour, nor do most of the most high level Christian political leaders and pastors. What an ego trip to have the red carpet laid out for you while you tell everyone: "I do not want to convert Jews or send them to [live in] Israel for the rapture. The plan for salvation for the Jews is God's." and “You can be Jewish without being Christian, but you cannot be Christian without understanding Judaism.”

     Paula White is right in part: It is NOT the place of Christians to bring Israelis to faith and without understanding the Hebrew scriptures, a Christian does not have a solid foundation beneath their faith in the Jewish sacrificial Lamb who made salvation possible for them. But Paula White-Cain has not come to the correct conclusions about God's intentions to bring Israel to faith THROUGH faith in this Yeshua preached by the Messianic Jewish believers in Israel. It is their place to be witnesses of salvation of Yeshua, and it is the international Christians' place to support the Israeli body of Messiah in every way.

     Many Christian leaders who support Israel do not have this understanding of the plan of God which the Apostle Paul laid out so well. There is blindness, and no matter how much I respect these leaders in other areas of ministry and devotion to God's love for the Jewish people, it is heartbreaking to see them continually gathered in to support unsaved Israel while turning their backs on the saved Remnant in Israel.

     Whether it is inviting rabbi Tuly Weisz to speak at the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast on the National Religious Broadcasters annual meeting, these invitations should ONLY be extended to the Israeli Messianic leadership, NOT to unsaved rabbis that will even more Christians AWAY from God's plan for Israeli, not TOWARD it!  I don't care how many high profile Christian leaders think otherwise, they are being led by the spiritually blind! They are like MOST Christians who know they are to love Israel, but they are trying to be "grafted in" to unsaved Israel rather than the only people in Israel who are "re-grafted back into their own tree" by their faith in Yeshua as Messiah.

     I would be remiss not to mention that many Diaspora Messianic Jews also still do not get the full magnitude of significance of the Israeli body of Messiah. God's plan to restore Israel spiritually are wrapped up in that Israeli remnant. Connecting Christians to the unsaved in Israel may seem like a good idea, but it is not God's idea.

     God drew Christians to begin a love relationship with Israel over the last 75 years, but now it time to for our love to mature and recognize who the HOLY SPIRIT is working through in Israel, instead of focusing all Christian attention on 'dating' unsaved Israelis. God is leading us to a marriage of Jew and Gentile made one in Messiah.

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.

The Word of God is Quickening

 

I have a growing sense of something that began with a 'knowing' that Yeshua was not born knowing who He was, but He saw who He was, recognizing Himself in scripture. 

     We are told to read scripture and insert our name into prophecies to make it more personal and real to us, but I believe that we can go even farther than that because it must have been exactly how Yeshua learned who He was, and what He was sent to do. He learned by reading the scriptures and recognizing Himself in prophecies. He saw Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at the instruction of God. He saw the lamb of God, the Passover sacrifice and God quickened the passages to Him - who He was and what He was sent to do. Even though tested by satan many times, Yeshua believed what He saw and accepted it from His Father.

     As we earnestly pour over the scriptures, I think most of us know the experience of having God "quicken" or make a verse come alive to us in a greater, deeper, more personal way than we have ever read it before. This is God speaking to us in His Word. We seek Him and He reveals not only Himself to us, but He also reveals who we were made to be. It is more than an exercise in putting our names into scriptures, it is the interaction of the Holy Spirit guiding our path into fully serving the LORD. Not everyone is called to lay down their life physically, but some are and we are all called to lay down our lives in a way that we do God's will and not our own.

     There have been all sorts of people who get deceived and think they are John the Baptist, Jesus, the prophet Jeremiah or take your pick. These are devilish delusions meant to scare believers off from seeing who they are and what they are called to from the Holy Spirit's making alive key passages to us. The world cannot understand these things and think anyone who believes these things are like the delusional psychos who murder their own children or other heinous ungodly acts claiming to be God's "chosen" apostle or prophet. But is is exactly as the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: 

     1 Corinthians 2:13-14 And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

     The first time we ever see God speak audibly over Yeshua was at His baptism. It very well could have been the first time The Father had EVER spoken audibly to Yeshua. I say this because of the Hebrews 2:14-17 

     14 He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death....17 For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. 

     This audible voice of God spoken over Yeshua at baptism were in fulfillment of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1. The first time it was for the benefit of John the Baptist. The God speaks audibly again on the Mount of Transformation for the benefit of Peter, James and John the brother of James. There Yeshua was transformed in glory before their eyes. James, the brother of John would be executed years later when Herod arrested Peter and James to the delight of unbelieving Jewish in Israel. Paul who had been a vicious persecutor of believers in Jerusalem before seeing Yeshua in His glory and coming to faith, "just happened" to be witness of the events that unfolded in Acts 21. 

     Even though he had formerly been a Jewish persecutor of Jewish followers of Yeshua, the events he witnessed in Jerusalem - the loss of James to enemies of Yeshua - would reveal to Paul a new, critical facet of his mission to the Gentiles. He would see how he too would be required to lay down his life at the Father's bidding, which Paul did when he returned to Jerusalem several years later carrying the collection of financial aid to the apostles in Israel from the Gentile churches he was responsible for overseeing.

     All these things are connected to where we are all being led, into a deeper following in the footsteps of Messiah, and laying down our lives to God's purposes. In John 21 Peter questions Yeshua: John 21:20-22 

     20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. He was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper to ask, “Lord, who is going to betray You?” 21 When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” 22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain until I return, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 

The Mystery of Paul's Collection

The Mystery of Paul's Collection
by Donna Diorio

 Back in 1992 or 3 God began to remove layers off of the mystery of the indebtedness of the Gentile Christians to financially aid the body of Messiah in Israel that he speaks of in Romans 15:26-26. It is a mystery and the nuggets of truth are subtle in Acts and in his letters. God must open our eyes or we will pass right over them without catching the relevance.
     The first of it was the big recognition of how we Christians were actually still indebted to help the Israeli ministries. I received that understanding with joy and it set me on a course that continues today. I wasn't sure exactly where I was headed with it but by 2001 many other layers of the mystery had been revealed to me — right out of Paul’s own letters in the Bible.
     It was August 2001 when I launched my first e-list to encourage the recognition among Christians that in Israel there were many followers of Jesus, many congregations and ministries and that they needed our help. Our help is REQUIRED in order to fulfill all the vision God had given each of them for reaching Israelis with the Good News of Messiah Yeshua.
     To me in 2001 it seemed most Christians did not have a clue there was already a Body of Messiah in Israel and if they did, they did not seem to care. I have actually had Christians tell me there was no need to send financial support to the Messianic congregations in Israel because they already knew the LORD! Their thinking was that it is only Christians who will make unbelievers in Israel "jealous" of our faith. They believe this jealousy is going to be prompted by the overwhelming generosity of financial support of Christians to Israeli traditional rabbis and government projects. They balk at understanding how many they were funding were persecutors of any Jew professing Jesus is LORD. It didn't seem to bother them that none of unsaved Israeli Jews showed even a smidgen of jealousy of Christian faith. Truly they are too wrapped up in their own interpretation of "making Israel jealous" to be bothered with even considering the believers in Israel are significant to God's plan of the spiritual redemption of Jews. 
     Over all these years I have unpacked many times what the Spirit has revealed to me about Christian indebtedness, Paul's final mission to Jerusalem and "The Collection." Paul urged the Christian churches he worked with to take up collections over a several year period. It started after he witnessed events in Jerusalem in Acts 12 when Herod killed James. 
     Last week I began to write my understanding of these things again for the Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests from Israeli Ministries and Arrows from Zion. When I did the Holy Spirit suddenly removed another layer of the mystery to me: EVEN THOUGH the apostle Paul had been a zealous persecutor of the followers of Yeshua, something became a REVELATION to him as he witnessed the events of Acts 12 when Herod executed James and intended also to execute Peter. 
     It was not until that point that Paul had a REVELATION that the Jewish believers in Israel were always going to live and minister in a state of persecution until the time God removed the veil from the eyes of Jews - as he wrote in Romans 15:25-27 AFTER the fulness of Gentiles had been fulfilled. It was a REVELATION to Paul that the Jewish believers were going to need the help of the Gentile Churches because the persecution of the spiritually blinded Jews was always going to be great against the Jews who came to faith in Yeshua. He and Barnabas came to town to deliver financial aid because they knew by prophecy a worldwide famine was coming. That meant the believers in Israel would experience even greater financial need than they already were under because of the faith in Yeshua.
    To thrive, Paul saw in the events of Acts 12, they were going to need the financial support of the churches, to whom he said clearly, "For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual blessings, they are obligated to minister to them with material blessings." 
     There must be 50 ways to misunderstand this "mystery" Paul wrote about and acted on when he took up the collection he delivered in Acts 21. I've seen a lot of them over the years but found a new one the other day.  Doing a search on the passage I came across a website discussing "The Collection." As I began to read the opening paragraph or two sounded eerily like the writer lifted them straight out of my writings. . . but dismissing my explanations of what was going on. 
     There was no recognition of why Gentile Christians were indebted to help the Messianic Jews in Jerusalem or why the Israeli Jewish body would need help on an ongoing basis. The writer supposed when Paul carried "The Collection" to Jerusalem in Acts 21 that Israeli believers must have been going through yet another famine like in Acts 11-12. That was not what Paul saw in Acts 12 prompting the Apostle in the Acts 21 collection which was meant to teach the churches to financially support the Israeli ministries. It was persecution, pure and simple.
     The writing I was viewing made so many assumptions about Paul taking that final trip to Jerusalem with the collection from the churches, like deciding he took representatives of each church with him because traveling with such a large amount of money wouldn't be safe except with a large group of people traveling. It is an explanation that totally misses the point that Paul was modeling to Christians what should continue to happen among the churches: the support was to be ongoing.
     Another assumption was Paul did this just to prove to the apostles in Jerusalem that God was working among the churches. The problem with that is the apostles already knew that and, besides, Paul had no need to "prove" anything to them. Paul writes in Galatians 2:7-9 of the Apostles recognition of his anointing to minister among the Gentiles at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. 
     The writer also assumed that Paul was trying to "shame" the church in 2 Corinthians 8 to prioritize the collection by pointing out what generosity the poor churches in Macedonia demonstrated. "How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." Paul was just telling them the facts: the Corinthians had much more in wealth, but the poor in Macedonia gave much more than those living in much better circumstances. There are lots of Bible verses on that common reality that those with wealth are less apt to help those in need, than others who are much poorer and pressed with persecution themselves. 
     History shows that the churches did not keep up sending aid for very long to the Jerusalem Apostolic leaders for distribution as needed among the Body of Messiah. I wish I could give you the documentation that Malachi Martin, a now deceased Catholic historian with access to the Vatican libraries had when he wrote what took place seven years prior to the Council of Nicea in 318 AD. Martin did not document his sources on this portion of his book but it was probably not as big a deal to him as it was to me when I read what he was reporting.
     Martin's 1983 book, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church" noted that a contingent of Israeli Messianic Jews came from Jerusalem to Rome to make an appeal to Pope Sylvester I, the pope from 314 to 335. Part of their mission was to appeal to the Christian leader to restore the financial assistance to the Messianic Jews that had been established by the Apostle Paul as told in Acts 21." The pope "curtly dismissed them" and then seven years later the dismissal of the Messianic Jews was made official at the Council of Nicea. 
     That sets the stage for the terrible Christian history against the Jews that unfolded from that point on in my opinion. Now as we have clearly entered the period of God's promise to restore not only the physical State of Israel, but also His promise to restore Israel spiritually, that means all of the excuses, misunderstandings, and ignorance of what God is doing in Israel must come to an end in the Church. We have to grow up now because God is moving among Jews opening eyes to the truth that Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel. The timing of "the fulness of the Gentiles" is upon us.
     What is the pleroma, or fulness of the Gentiles? It is Christians filled with the presence, power, agency, riches of God and of Messiah. Only those who enter into this state of Christlikeness are going to understand what Paul was doing when he took that Collection to the apostles in Jerusalem. We will be the only ones to respond to Paul's call to us across almost two thousand years that we are STILL indebted to financially assist the body of Messiah in Israel who are declaring the Good News of the Messiah's Presence in the midst of Israel today.
     In Romans 11:25 he wrote, "For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."  Will we go on in ignorance, or will we enter into what is meant to be the mutual blessing of Jew and Gentile becoming one new man in Messiah?

For Such A Time EXACTLY As This!

 

For such a time exactlyas this! 
by Donna Diorio

It's crunch time for Christians who love Israel but many of you misunderstand what's going on there because you don't pay enough attention to what Israeli Messianic ministries have to offer you. If you got your Israel news from Israeli Messianic ministries you would have more understanding of the times and how what is happening in Israel impacts us all. I'm not saying this to make anyone mad or feel ashamed because what I'm saying is THE TIME HAS COME for Christians and Messianic Jews to pay far more attention to what is happening in Israel. May God do a quick work in your understanding and may you see why after Acts 12 when the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul came to Jerusalem just at the time of these events, his eyes were opened to exactly how much help the body of Messiah in Israel really must have.

It changed Paul’s ministry in the churches from that point on because as he ministered to the Gentiles, he made it a point to foster their understanding of spiritual indebtedness to the Israeli Jewish body of Messiah. He was not raising donations in all the churches for the support of the Messianics in the Diaspora because they had freedoms that the Messianic body in Israel did not have and still don't to this day.

Current events in Israel are worsening their situation significantly. It is high time we dropped the petty, internecine jealousies between the different schools of thought in the Messianic community and among Christians. God is calling us to stand with our Israeli brothers and sisters IN THE FAITH of JESUS. But will we answer that call, or will we cling to our petty jealousies and pecking orders?

Break free, believer, and follow the LORD who is building His LIVING TEMPLE in the Land of Israel even in the midst to complete societal upheaval unfolding as the super religious make their play to "legally" make their minority judgment rule over all other Israelis.  Even God himself gives every human being the dignity of choice. Israel will NOT become holy through the reign of the most pious of religious Judaism. Only the Messianic Jews in Israel are on the path of the LORD Yeshua.
 

Acts 12:1 King Herod Agrippa[a] began to persecute some believers in the ekklesia. 2 He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. 3 When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration.[b]) 4 Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. 5 But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.

 ....23 Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died.
     24 Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread, and there were many new believers.
     25 When Barnabas and Saul (Paul) had finished their mission to Jerusalem, they returned,[d] taking John Mark with them.

     Even though God had saved Saul from himself, from passionately persecuting Jews who followed Yeshua, the events he witnessed in Jerusalem were a revelation to him. His eyes were opened by the events to another call God was adding to his apostleship of the Gentiles. (Galatians 2:7-8) From that point on, in addition to preaching the kingdom of God to the Gentiles and setting up functioning congregations among them, Paul began to stress to all them to collection donations that he would take to the apostles in Jerusalem for the distribution of the needs in the body of Messiah. Not to the unsaved rabbis, not to the government projects in Israel - but to be given to the apostolic team to help the body not only survive but thrive in sharing the Good News of Messiah in Israel. He continued to urge this collection in his letters written after Acts 12.

     Then the time came a few years later for him to take the donations to Jerusalem, along with ambassadors from each of the Gentile churches contributing. He pressed in to make it to Jerusalem before Shavuot (Pentecost), even though prophets came out of the woodwork to tell him that if he continued in his journey to Jerusalem, he would be bound in chains and his freedom taken from him. But Paul would not be turned back, because he knew his assignment was from God, not from himself and not from other men. He had to set the precedent for the level of sacrifice that would be required from the churches in the days we are now entering.

    If you are unaware of these things, it is time to open your Bible and your eyes to SEE!