Before I create too many more blog posts, I suppose I should start to define some basic concepts. While all of the readers from my congregation and from other Messianic groups will know what I’m talking about, anyone who surfs in from the web or clicks a link leading to one of my articles may not understand some of the language I use or the ideas I describe. Since I worship at a Messianic congregation and conceptualize my faith from that framework, I think it would help if I described a little of my perspective.
According to Wikipedia:
“Messianic Judaism is a religious movement whose adherents believe that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they call Yeshua, is both the resurrected Jewish Messiah and their Divine Savior…The central characteristic defining the Messianic Jewish movement as Christian, rather than Jewish, is its belief in the divinity of their Messiah, Jesus. This central tenet of belief is seen by the great majority of Christians and Jews as being the defining distinction between the two religions. This is also the opinion of the Supreme Court of Israel regarding immediate and automatic eligibility for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return…”
Frankly, I don’t even like the term “Messianic Judaism” because I don’t think it’s particularly accurate and because some pretty odd ideas and theologies have become attached to that label.
My first objection to the use of the term is the tendency to define the Messianic movement as a form of Judaism equal to the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements in Judaism. Each of the latter terms I used are legitimate Judaisms and no one in one form (say Reform) would ever deny that someone worshiping in another form (say Conservative) wasn’t equally a Jew and that their Rabbis were unqualified or bogus in any way.
However, people in the traditional movements of Judaism I just mentioned would never consider worshipers in a Messianic congregation to be remotely “Jewish” (regardless of ethnicity) and certainly wouldn’t consider a “Messianic Rabbi” to be on par with any Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox Rabbi.
I would tend to agree with them on all counts, but my opinion is probably a minority among most Messianic congregations. Many Messianic groups do see themselves as a “Judaism” and don’t have a problem with their leaders calling themselves “Rabbis”, regardless of who they are. When you look at the education and training that a traditional Jewish Rabbi must have in order to be ordained and to fulfill the role of Rabbi, and then compare that to the vast majority of Messianic “Rabbis”, our congregational leaders just don’t stack up for the most part (every once in a while, you will encounter a leader in a Messianic group who has an education equal to a Masters degree in theology or divinity, but this is exceptionally rare…that said, I’ve met one, and he leads a group in the Tacoma, Washington area).
I would tend to agree more with Wikipedia’s take on the Messianic movement (but only up to a point) and define us as a largely Christian sect that is attempting to reconnect to the 1st Century roots of our faith. Like the Messianic communities (I hesitate to use the term “church” because of the modern connotations) of that day, we are made up of some combination of Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua (the most likely Hebrew name for Jesus) as the Jewish Messiah. A close look at the Declaration of Faith for most modern Messianic communities will reveal that their tenets of faith are more typically Christian than Jewish.
Also, it goes without saying that traditional forms of Judaism have, as their congregants, an entirely Jewish audience. Except for those few who are converts to Judaism (or occasionally, the Gentile spouses of observant Jews), these are people who were born and raised ethnically and religiously Jewish.
In the Messianic movement, those Jews who participate almost always were not raised in an ethnically or religiously Jewish household and many had only one Jewish parent. If the mother wasn’t the Jewish parent, then modern Judaism wouldn’t even consider these people to be Jewish (in Biblical times, it’s likely that having a Jewish father would make you Jewish, but the modern Rabbinical perspective is that the Jewish line flows only through the mother). Additionally, any Jew worshiping with “Messianics” would be considered to be a convert to Christianity by traditional Jews and thus, no longer Jewish.
Most of the Jews I mentioned who worship in a Messianic congregation almost always have a prior experience attending a traditional Christian church. It is rare for a Jewish person (or a Gentile for that matter) to come to faith in Yeshua and immediately start worshiping in a Messianic context. The Messianic movement doesn’t evangelize to the “unsaved” and actually, we don’t particularly evangelize at all, although some congregations make huge efforts to “reach” our traditionally Jewish brothers and sisters (See Sharing Faith in a Dark World for why this isn’t always received well).
We do tend to attract Gentile Christians who are looking for something more than they feel their church provides. Often, these are people who experience a dissonance between Evangelical theology and what the Bible actually seems to be saying. The modern church hasn’t done a very good job of explaining why God changed the “rules” that he so carefully established in the Tanakh (“Torah-Navim-Ketuvim” or “Law-Prophets-Writings”. Messianics tend to shy away from using terms like “Old” and “New” Testament, since one of the key components of our faith is that the New didn’t replace the Old but rather ratified it).
So if we aren’t a Judaism, are we a Christian church? Most Messianic congregations would say “no”. A lot of times, we call ourselves a synagogue, but that probably doesn’t sit well with the traditional Jews in our various communities. From my point of view, identifying us as “The Way” (probably the original identifier for the 1st Century Messianic movement) is the most accurate and (to me at least) the most “satisfying” descriptor. Most of us don’t have a Jewish background but, in order to honor our Hebraic roots, we tend to provide some form of Jewish worship style, usually characterized by the use of some Hebrew language in our worship and the wearing of a kippah (yarmulke…traditional Jewish male head wear) and tallit (prayer shawl).
We can “justify” the use of the traditional elements of a modern synagogue service, not because it necessarily resembles a 1st Century Messianic worship model, but because there is no 1st Century Messianic worship model. We know a great deal about Temple worship from the Bible, but almost nothing is known about how Jewish and Gentile Messianic groups worshiped in the time of the Apostles. Luke 4:16-20 shows Yeshua attending a (Sabbath) synagogue service and reading from the scroll of Isaiah, which provides a clue. We recognize this as him reading the Haftarah portion of a Torah service, so we have some idea that at least Yeshua, if not the later Messianic congregations, practiced Sabbath worship based on the traditional synagogue model. Beyond that, we have little information but must conclude that, if God wanted us to have a specific blueprint for Messianic worship, the Bible would contain as much information about that form of service as it does about how Temple worship was conducted.
All that said, how much “Judaism” is incorporated in Messianic worship is highly variable and depends on the focus of the given congregation. My particular group performs a liturgical service using about half Hebrew and half English, a “Torah Service” (most Messianic groups don’t have access to an actual Torah scroll since, for obvious reasons, legitimate dealers in Torah scrolls don’t want to do business with us), and provides a teaching based on the traditional, annual Torah reading cycle (although Messianic groups such as mine also add readings from the Apostolic scriptures).
In general however, Messianic congregations run the range, with some being virtually indistinguishable from a traditional church service (except for meeting on Saturday instead of Sunday) to those that are hardly any different than an Orthodox Jewish community (depending on the resources available to a given Messianic group, they may have a leader who is well versed in Hebrew and in Jewish traditions, or they may be learning as they go along).
One of the concerns with the Messianic movement (and why I sometimes have trouble “admitting” that I’m “Messianic”) is that, because it’s so completely unregulated, just about anyone with a theological “axe to grind” can put on a kippah and a tallit, call themselves a “Messianic Rabbi” and start selling their wares to anyone who’ll listen. Often these “Rabbis” will make rather fantastic claims, usually stating that they have calculated the exact date of the Messiah’s return, know the hidden location of the Ark of the Covenant (despite Jeremiah 3:16-17), or some other “amazing” claim to secret knowledge that has been “hidden from the church”. Many times, these religious leaders will say that they have been given special and unique knowledge by the Spirit that only they possess and that the church, having fallen away from the “true Messianic faith”, has been “lost”. Some are so bold as to even call themselves a “Prophet”.
You can see why Evangelicals and traditional Jews alike have a tendency to be a bit wary of Messianics. I understand that I’m painting a rather grim picture here, but I feel it necessary to define the downside of our movement to let you know that I’m aware it exists. I’m not saying that all or even most Messianic groups are “dodgy” or “cultish” (though I suspect some Christian groups may actually define the movement as a whole as a cult), but the “worst case scenarios” of our movement do indeed exist (and some even publish websites that, when discovered by sincere people curious about our faith, create a poor image that spills over onto the rest of us).
I can only speak for my group (though I’ve been to other Messianic congregations that have a solid Biblical background and honest, intelligent, and sincere leaders and worshipers) with any particular accuracy and state that we put the Bible first in our learning and in our theology, and any claims that we may make, must be supported in the Word. Our efforts I believe, represent the drive and desire of the majority of Messianic worshipers: to understand what the entire Bible as the Word of God is saying to us, and how it helps to define our role as Children of God and Disciples of Yeshua, our Messiah. We seek to let the Bible and the Spirit define our theology, not the other way around.
This conversation is only a beginning. If I tried to answer all possible (or at least all reasonable) questions about being Messianic, this blog post would be insufferably long. I’ll post more from time to time, offering additional details into our beliefs and how those compare to the Evangelical church, but for now, consider what I’ve written to be a mere introduction; sort of like an appetizer with the promise of an entree to come.
A few final statements. The opinions and observations I make here are completely mine and don’t necessarily represent the entire Messianic movement or those held by any other congregation. Even within my own congregation, members may disagree with me on certain points. I encourage you to make comments (please be civil) about anything I said, and I welcome any questions you may have about Messianics in general or about my particular congregation.
Blessings.