When I went to Manhattan to see Rush play at Radio City Music Hall, I would see Jews for Jesus tracts in subway trains and in train stations, the way I've seen Chick tracts in San Francisco and here in Hell, uh, The City of Fallen Angels. I got the impression from an AOL J4J chatroom in the mid-nineties that real Jews find the J4J tracts highly offensive. I read that J4J was started by Southern Baptists to convert Jews. Are J4J really Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah, or are they another Christian group trying to "play Jewish"?
To my knowledge Jews for Jesus are made up of real jews and all the ones I have met up to now that have belonged to the organisation at some point have all been jewish.
(01-31-2010 10:35 PM)YYZ Skinhead Wrote: [ -> ]When I went to Manhattan to see Rush play at Radio City Music Hall, I would see Jews for Jesus tracts in subway trains and in train stations, the way I've seen Chick tracts in San Francisco and here in Hell, uh, The City of Fallen Angels. I got the impression from an AOL J4J chatroom in the mid-nineties that real Jews find the J4J tracts highly offensive. I read that J4J was started by Southern Baptists to convert Jews. Are J4J really Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah, or are they another Christian group trying to "play Jewish"?
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"Jews-for-Jesus" are former Jews trying to hold unto the Jewish identity
as hyphenated Jews. They are not Jewish but Christians. To be Christian is to believe and confess that Jesus was Christ. That's what we have from Acts 11:26. The text talks about a Nazarene Synagogue in Antioch, where Paul spent a whole year preaching about Jesus as Christ. Therefore, the members started being called Christians for the first time ever.
"Jews-for-Jesus" therefore, are Christians because they do confess that Jesus was Christ, and that's the first requirement to become a Christian.
Ben
Jews for Jesus are Christians who have Jewish heritage, but are no longer practicing Judaism....that's from a Christian standpoint. And they tend to focus on that heritage and in many cases that preempts focus on Christ who is to be first in our life. Unfortunately many focus on things of the flesh over the spirutual. In Christ, it doesn't matter what heritage we have or cultural background, we are one new man and one in Christ. THere is one faith and one Lord in Christ.
As in most Messianic organizations, the vast majority of those involved in Jews4Jesus are gentiles. It was started by a
Jew named Moshe Rosen who was a baptist minister, and decided that mixing Christianity and Judaism would be a way to attract Jews. In reality what it has done is attract gentiles. Most of the upper echelon of J4J is Jewish, but some are not
but claim to be. It probably has a higher percentage of Jews involved in it than the average Messy group though.
The tracts are highly offensive, and so is the organization. From what I have seen it has not been very successful.
The spent a ton of money a couple of years ago running evangelistic campaigns in major cities across the country,
and had almost no success.
It definititely has a more Christian influence than do the other Messy groups.
(03-07-2010 04:36 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote: [ -> ]The thing I found interesting is that J4J promotes Passover celebrations with the Haggadah or Passover Seder ............... go figure 
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Yeah, they do promote seders, and for a good reason I think.
The one holiday that even the most secular Jew observes is
usually Passover if even only going to a seder. It's a good way
to trap Jews. They also do a Christianized version of the seder.
Speaking of their haggadah, I remember seeing one written by
one of the muckedy-mucks in J4Jesus where she claimed she
was raised in an assimilated family that really only observed
the seder and nothing else Jewishly. A couple of years later
she claimed she was raised in an Orthodox home. They
think that makes the more authentic, and you often see them
lie about how observant they were raised.
They do not refer to themselves as part of Messianic Judaism aka Hebrew Roots movement because they do not teach keeping Torah. HR is not real fond of J4J because they teach that J4J is leading the Jewish converts astray [away from the truth] by not promoting Jewish halacha.
