Posts Tagged Evangelical
The Target
Posted by James in Uncategorized on January 11th, 2010
This is not our first foray into the battle for faith. In 2007, First Fruits of Zion offered a conference dedicated to answering anti-missionary arguments. The conference was a response to an alarming trend we observed among many Messianic Gentile believers who were falling in love with Judaism and abandoning faith in Messiah. Without exception, such apostates warmly (and gullibly) accepted the arguments of anti-missionaries without question, while at the same time they treated the New Testament and anything they perceived as Christian with cold suspicion and cynical criticism.
From vineofdavid.org
Answering Anti-Missionaries
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” -John 6:66-69
Vine of David is the publishing subsidiary of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ). I read their article about Anti-Missionaries and it reminded me of a couple of things. One has to do with the Jewish people and the other has to do with Gentiles in the Messianic movement…at least some Gentiles.
I don’t want to belabor the point regarding anti-missionaries in Judaism, but to understand this article, you have to understand something about anti-missionaries:
Who Really Goes to Hell? The Gospel You’ve Never Heard
Posted by James in Uncategorized on March 29th, 2009
Author: David I Rudel
Format: Paperback, 204 pages
Publisher: Biblical Heresy Press (February 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0981826601
ISBN-13: 978-0981826608
I first heard about this book on the blog of a fellow named Aaron called Honest Uncertainty. Well, actually I started following Aaron on twitter, but that’s beside the point right now. After reading Aaron’s review, it seemed like the book really needed a deeper going over and, long story short, I requested and received a review copy from the author David Rudel (thanks, David). Here’s what I found out.
Although there are a few websites and a blog that support the book, I wanted the text to speak for itself first, and so bookmarking the relevant URLs, I pressed on. The first thing about the book that I (and practically anyone, I imagine) noticed was that it has the world’s longest title: “Who Really Goes to Hell? The Gospel You’ve Never Heard: What a Protestant Bible written by Jews says about God’s work through Christ (A book for those in the church and those offended by it)”. Egad. Why not just put the entire text of the book (it’s only 204 pages) on the cover and be done with it? I can only guess that the author and the publisher felt that the long title was needed to “hook” the reader, but then I’m guessing.
Speaking of the publisher, they have a rather unusual name: Biblical Heresy Press. Usually the word heresy isn’t taken in a very positive light in Christian circles, so I thought the explanation from the publisher as to how they made such a name choice would be interesting, but that wasn’t the focus of my review or this blog post. Under the publisher’s logo were the words, “The Bible is best read with your own eyes…preferably open”. I couldn’t agree more, but in what spirit were those words written? I continued turning pages.
Speaking of URLs I decided not to visit until after reading the book, the footer on each page of the book contained a URL not listed elsewhere. I’ll talk about it more at the end of this article. I really wanted the book to be my first presentation to the author’s and publisher’s content.