Jarryd Hayne, the Jews, and the Gospel

Jarryd Hayne and the Jews: "Is evangelism anti-Semitic?”

By Bob Mendelsohn

Jews for Jesus, National Director

During the 2015 Hillsong Conference, Jarryd Hayne, the former Parramatta Eels rugby league star, sent out a tweet to his followers, “Jesus wanted to help people but was killed by his own people." The next day after being challenged by one of his followers, that Jesus was killed by the Romans, Hayne wrote, “The Jews were the people who took him to the Romans n forced them to give the order because they couldn't."

Because of the tweets, Jewish representatives immediately launched a counter campaign. And Hayne removed the two tweets.

Michael Koziol of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote about Jewish reaction, “Chairman of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, Dvir Abramovich, said he was deeply concerned by Hayne's tweets and labeled them "damaging, painful and irresponsible".

"For thousands of years Jews were held in contempt and were persecuted and murdered because they were labeled as Christ-killers," he said in a statement.

Koziol reported, “Most Christians no longer hold the view that the Jewish people were responsible for Jesus' death, and persistent belief in that narrative is now associated with anti-Semitism.”

Hayne later sent out an apology tweet which was welcomed by Jewish community representatives. But the issue remains unsettling for Jews. Some of Hayne’s Twitter followers chided him for his apology, using ugly language to describe Jewish people.

Hayne is a forthright Christian, and his comments about Jewish people, inspired by a sermon to which he was listening, highlight a larger question for the ordinary Christian in relation to evangelism. Is sharing the Gospel with Jewish people by nature anti-Semitic? Can a person have a view of another’s religion that is not tolerant or sympathetic, and yet be forthright in proclamation of Jesus?

I believe the exact opposite is actually true. If someone does not share the Gospel with a person because of an apparent theological difference, it actually is the most hateful thing a person can demonstrate. What if a pair of Jehovah’s Witness knocked at my door? What if my thoughts were: Since their religion is heretical, I will have nothing to do with them, ever, and thus refuse to share what I believe with them? Or imagine if I concluded the Muslim teller at my bank, with whom I at times share social pleasantries, was not able to hear the Gospel, because, well, they are followers of Islam and thus didn’t give them an invitation to my local church’s fete or carols program? That would be a very hateful thing to conclude.

The same is true for the ordinary Christian considering sharing faith with the ordinary Jewish person. I’m not saying that each person has to pounce on every situation and each person in their life, but I’m saying that with the people in our sphere of influence, when God gives us opportunity we should extend to them a snippet of the religion we hold so dear. To withhold a segue into Gospel presentation because of their religion being different or even wrong, that’s influenced by a wrong spirit.

Here is a definition. Evangelism: Giving someone an opportunity to say “yes” to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are two historical mistakes in sharing the Gospel with Jewish people. One: not giving them an option/ opportunity, but rather requiring the saying of ‘yes.’ This is most known in the Crusades, the Inquisition, and pogroms. Forced conversions/ baptisms of Jewish people is an ugly blight in Church history. I suppose some would say that “become a Christian or die” is an option, but it doesn’t really give the Jew an opportunity to say ‘no.’ By (my) definition if you give someone an opportunity to say ‘yes’ you are also giving them a chance to say ‘no.’ Wicked church persecution of the Jewish people prevents that ‘no’ saying.

The other historical error is more abundant in our days. Since the 1880s, worldwide, Jewish people are more in social contact with their Christian neighbours than ever before. Jewish people may enter into any field of study or occupation. Jewish academics since Schweitzer and Montefiore (around 1900) and throughout the 20^th Century have “accepted” Jesus in a way that would make every Jewish scholar before more than uncomfortable. Notables in our days: Vermes, Flusser, A-J Levine, and even Rabbi Shmuley Boteach write about the New Testament and the Jesus of history with sensitive and Jewish eyes. Councils of Jews and Christians are allowing dialogue and mutual tolerance and acceptance globally.

That’s why Koziol’s remarks can be so forthright: “Most Christians no longer hold the view that the Jewish people were responsible for Jesus' death, and persistent belief in that narrative is now associated with anti-Semitism.”

With all the welcome and blame revision from the Jewish community, the 2^nd great mistake Christians make viz evangelism is not giving the Jewish person a chance to say ‘yes.’ We hear officials and thus give the individual only the opportunity to say ‘no’, and thus fail to evangelize.

Either wrong is wrong. Giving the Jewish person only one option: to say ‘yes’ or to say ‘no,’ is not biblical evangelism.  Proclaiming the Gospel to each person, in language they can understand, via the personality and style of the Christian, that’s when rubber meets road. That’s when we are fulfilling the Great Commission.

To be fair, when rubber meets road much friction is caused. That’s what happened with Jarryd Hayne.  In measure that’s what you can expect from the ordinary Jewish person with whom you want to share the faith. I hear it a lot. But thousands, actually tens of thousands of Jews today, in Sydney, Melbourne, throughout Australasia and worldwide, who are now believers in and followers of the real Jesus, owe great gratitude to someone who had the character and courage to share the faith with them. And we are grateful.

Is evangelism anti-Semitic? The exact opposite is true. It’s the most loving thing a person can do with a Jewish neighbour, colleague or friend.

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If you have Facebook, you can see the thread of comments here:  Hayne on FB

Abimelech: Failed King, Guard your hearts

Our 8th lecture in a series on the book of Judges:

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

8 June 2014

All around us here in Moscow are memories of times past. Look at Red Square and the Kremlin. Look at historical markers like the churches that were built as far back at the 11^th century. Pushkin’s statue, Mayakovsky’s square, Yesterday we saw the statue of Peter the Great on the ship near Gorky Park. By comparison, Australia became a white man’s world in the end of the 18^th century, when Captain Cook arrived into Sydney harbor. So for us, history is about 240 years old. To you in the Former Soviet Union, that’s almost modern history.

And history should inform us. Remember the great quote by George Santayana:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So that’s why we read the Bible, which itself is thick with history. That’s why we listen to older people who recount stories from their past, so that we can learn. So that we don’t have to learn the hard way. We can learn from the mistakes of others, and not make the same mistakes.

Listen to what the author said:

2Sam. 11.21 ‘Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’

The mockery of the writer of Samuel is clear. A woman kills a Jewish king, not with a sword but with a big rock. By the way the word Rechev is almost always translated “chariot” but for this episode with the millstone of the woman in the tower against the horrible king Abimelech.

Today we don’t look at a judge, but rather a king, the son of Gideon named Abimelech.  Let’s ponder his name and his life and his ending and see what we can learn so that we can be better, and we can avoid the same mistakes he made.

It may be that Gideon named his son Abimelech (“my father is king”) as witness to his faith in the fact that God himself (as “his father”) was the true king in Israel. Abimelech apparently chose to interpret the meaning of his name differently: “my father was (asked to be) king” and now I will take his place as king. Abimelech like so many madmen in history chose a life of deceit and evil masquerading as harmony and civility to get his own purposes.

Let’s look at the three stages of this man’s evil life and learn to guard our hearts. Remember what Solomon said

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. (Prov. 4.23)

I. THE KINGDOM TAKEN

Abimelech was a clever politician and devised a plan to secure the loyalty of his family first, then the people of Israel second. He used his relationship with Gideon only as suited him.

His ‘selfish ambition’  is clear.  He is the son of Gideon, as we know, but his mother was the slave woman/ concubine who was not one of Gideon’s many wives. Maybe he had a 2^nd class idea of himself. I’m no psychologist however.  Abimelech’s ambition is obvious. He mounts a political campaign with the relatives of his mother’s family. (.1) Not with the relatives of his father. He is an outsider and lives like one.  He uses Shechem as his location to begin which makes sense since his mother was from there.

Remember what James the apostle says,

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. (James 3.16)

Abimelech invited the Shechemites to consider who should be king, although I doubt he advised them of the desire of the Almighty that Jews would not have a king. They thought, “One of our own should be king.” (.3) That would make sense in their political world as well. So he had them in his hand.  They were however uninformed about the 10^th Commandment “thou shalt not covet” which Abimelech clearly violated.

The story unfolds with Abimelech hiring hit men from the Baal temple worship center. (.4) The money is dirty money given to him from evil men and with it he hires evil men. The Bible calls them RAKA (empty heads).  They begin a military campaign to kill his 70 brothers. And with one exception they are successful. One escapes by the name of Jotham, who was the youngest of the 70.

Finally he seizes control of government and is heralded as king  there in Shechem (.6) What a sad day in Israel’s history as their new leader is anything but a kosher man. He’s a failed and failing man in direct contrast to his father Gideon and to the others who have made a difference in the life of Israel.

Jotham tells a parable, and I think it’s the first parable in the Bible. (.7-15) The trees all talk and invite others to rule over them, but the thorn bush, the bramble is Abimelech and is useful only to make the fire bigger. Jotham uses the story to highlight the uselessness of his half-brother. And like I see all over Australia every summer, the bramble bush would only cause more fires and not be able to protect the other trees at all. (.15) It’s irony; it’s laughable; it’s sad!

II. KINGDOM DEFENSE  (.22-29)

Abimelech was king for 3 years. (.22) Then God sent an evil spirit on the situation. The men of Shechem began to be thieves and steal from passing travelers all their goods or to levy taxes on them, which was the same as thievery.  A man named Gaal came onto the scene and the men of Shechem put their trust in him, as opposed to Abimelech.  How did he do it? Gaal told the Shechemites that Abimelech’s father was a Jew. (.28) The very anti-Semitic Gaal used Abimelech’s history against him.

Gaal and his troops were defeated (.34-41) by some clever almost Gideon-like strategy thanks to Zebul, his lieutenant, some ambushing, and Abimelech was king again.

Abimelech had to punish the people of the city, so he set them into a trap, and blocked the city gate and killed many of the people of the town who were trapped inside.  The king poured salt over the city after burning it down. This was also done to the Jewish city of Jerusalem some 800 years later when the Romans kicked us out in 135 AD under Hadrian

III. KINGDOM LOST (.50-57)

Finally the kingdom is going to be taken from Abimelech in a most unusual way.  He chased some enemies to Thebez, about 16 kilometres from Shechem. Those people had joined in the hostility to him as king, and thus they needed to be punished. They, like almost everyone in those days, went to the ‘strong tower’ in the center of town, which was a worship center to the false gods. Abimelech set an ambush against the town as he had done successfully in the past, only this time it didn’t end so well.

A woman threw a millstone out the tower and it landed on the king, killing him in an instant. Think about it. A king should die in battle, but he did not. A king should die by a sword, but he did not. A king should die by a man, not by a woman. What a sad ending on so many levels. The unnamed woman is a hero in a certain way and she actually fulfilled the prophecy of Jotham in her stone throwing.

The story is a history and if that’s all it is, then ok, we have learned a little today. But if we can learn from it more deeply, we can take away much more.

What a man sows, that he will also reap.

Ill-gotten gains do not profit.

Abimelech didn’t even know the God of his father.

Pride goes before a fall.

Paradise gained wrongly will lead to paradise lost.

Be like Gideon and live a life of faith in the Almighty, not trusting yourself, your cleverness, you deception, and your machinery of making things happen. Honor God and He will honor you in due time.

Today we go again to the park and the streets and we will look for people who are open to hear from us. Don’t make it happen. Don’t connive and threaten and coerce. Proclaim the truth of Yeshua, and live for him and He will draw people to Himself, even through us. We are asking for 100 contacts today. Many will approach us. Many will be looking at us and wondering…”who are those people?” Be used by God today. In faith, not in manipulation. Ask and let’s see what great things the Almighty will do. Amen?