With so much gospel need in the world today, it can be hard to know where to begin. But, as Martin Pakula argues, the Bible makes it very clear: mission starts with the Jews.
There are a billion Chinese people in the world, more than a billion Indians and a billion Muslims. There are also many courses, books and seminars on how to reach them, and the church is right to make mission to them a high priority. In contrast, there are only 14 million Jews in the world. Evangelical Christians may be convinced that Jewish people need to hear and believe the gospel. But when we do the math, Jewish mission often falls at the end of the queue. Well, not if you believe your Bible!
In Briefing #354, I raised the issue of how Christians should regard Jewish people today. I argued that the New Testament still maintains a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile—a distinction which is also important for us to maintain. This inevitably leads me to the whole topic of mission to the Jews. In this article, I hope to show why taking the gospel first to the Jew is a theological priority regardless of their number, and to spur us on to think about how we can engage in Jewish mission.
Thinking biblically
Firstly, it’s good to remind ourselves that there is no back door into heaven for Jewish people: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Here, Peter, apostle to the Jews, says to his fellow Jews that they cannot be saved apart from Christ. This is the same for Gentiles. But the point is that the Jews are just as sinful as the Gentiles, and Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, died to pay the penalty for their sins. Salvation comes through no-one else.1
Secondly, we should take a look at the place in the Bible that deals with mission to the Jews: Romans 11. Because of space, I can only deal with this passage briefly.2 But here Paul makes it clear that God’s promises to the Jews still stand. Even now, there is “a remnant, chosen by grace”—that is, Jewish Christians (v. 5). Those who don’t believe are “enemies of God”, however they are also still “beloved” on account of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v. 28) because “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v. 29).
In contrast, the Gentiles were once without God and without hope (v. 30; cf. Eph 2:12). But because the Jews rejected the gospel, salvation has come to the Gentiles (v. 11). However, things don’t stop there; the obedient church has not replaced disobedient Israel. God has not forgotten his promises to his chosen people; Jewish people have now become like Gentiles (i.e. disobedient and without God) so that they might receive salvation like Gentiles (v. 31).
However, unlike Gentiles, the Jews are the “natural branches” of the olive tree—that is, the church (v. 21). They are the natural heirs and recipients of the gospel. If they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted back into their own tree (v. 23). This is why the gospel is “first for the Jew” (Rom 1:16 NIV).
But ‘First for the Jew’ doesn’t mean that Jews are better than Gentiles. It also doesn’t mean merely that the gospel went first to the Jews in the first century, and then to the Gentiles (though it did). It means that God’s salvation blessings were promised for centuries to Israel (the Jews), and that they are the natural heirs and recipients of today’s gospel blessings. These gospel blessings are now (praise God) also for the Gentiles (the nations), but first they are for the Jews.
Therefore, I argued in Briefing #354 that we should view world mission as two boxes. Replacement theology views the world as one box: the nations, consisting of massive people groups like Muslims, Chinese and Indians, and a tiny dot in the corner consisting of 14 million Jews. But this is not the biblical perspective. The Bible sees world mission in two boxes—the Jews in the first box and the Gentiles/nations in the second. The Jews do not belong to the nations. Mission is first to the Jew and then for the nations.
Thinking mission
So there is a theological priority to take the gospel first to the Jew. But what this means in practice will vary from person to person. At the very least, all Christians should pray for Jewish mission. Some could give financially to Jewish mission.3 Some could get involved themselves. Local churches may not reside in a Jewish area, but they could reflect this biblical priority by praying faithfully for Jewish mission and by supporting it in their mission budget.
Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, understood that the gospel was first for the Jew. So even though he was committed to evangelizing the Chinese, every year he wrote to John Wilkinson of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews and sent a cheque with a note saying, “To the Jew first”.4 The Apostle Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but he never stopped taking the gospel to the Jews (Acts 14:1, 17:1-2, 10, 16-17, 18:1-4, 19, 19:1, 8, 28:16-17). Even after the Jews rejected the gospel, Paul kept going back to them; he saw it was necessary to preach to them first because God’s promises to Israel continue (Acts 13:46).
Unfortunately the church has not always viewed things this way. The church treated Jews appallingly for many centuries. They oppressed them and forced them to convert—so much so that the name of Jesus became synonymous with hatred and persecution. During the Reformation, Martin Luther even said,
[I]f I had been a Jew, and seen such stupidity and such blockheads reign in the Christian Church, I would rather be a pig than a Christian. They have treated the Jews as if they were dogs, not men, and as if they were fit for nothing but to be reviled.5
However, in the 19th century, Napoleon emancipated the Jews from the ghettoes, and brought them into normal society. At the same time, many mission organizations that believed the church must take the gospel first to the Jew arose. The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews was formed in 1809.6 Many of the people who formed the London Missionary Society (later known as the Church Missionary Society) were instrumental in this. They saw the need for a separate mission to the Jews. By the end of the 19th century, the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews had 184 missionaries (including 82 Jewish Christians) and a total of 50 mission stations throughout England, Europe and the Middle East.7 There were 200 Jewish Christian ministers in the Church of England and almost 100 agencies working in mission to the Jews.
But in 2004, the Lausanne consultation on Jewish evangelism reported that many mission agencies to the Jews had ceased to exist.8 What happened? Why has mission to the Jews fallen off the Reformed evangelical church’s agenda?
There are several reasons. Firstly, since the Holocaust, the church has rightly sought to stamp out anti-Semitism. However, many have overreacted and backed off evangelizing Jewish people. As a Jew, let me say that I am deeply grateful to those who shared the gospel with me: without it, I would not only have lost many family members in the Holocaust, I would also have been consigned to hell in my sin. I thank God for the Christians who loved me enough to tell me the good news about Jesus. It is not anti-Semitic to share the gospel with Jewish people; surely it is anti-Semitic not to do so.9
Secondly, as premillenial dispensationalist theology has grown in popularity in the 20th century, many Reformed evangelicals have reacted by closing their ears to all talk of Israel and Jewish mission. They have forgotten the strong heritage of the Puritans and the 19th-century missionaries.
As a result, many of my fellow Christians will no doubt be sceptical about my views. But I am confident that they will find them in almost any modern commentary on Romans 11. In fact, many ministers I have talked to have told me that they changed their minds on this topic once they studied and preached on Romans 11. They now agree that the gospel is first for the Jew.
So Jewish mission still needs to take priority today. This does not mean, of course, that the church must refrain from engaging in mission to the nations. However, our present imbalance needs to be restored to a more biblical one. Taking the gospel first to the Jew is a theological priority incumbent upon us. We should pray, give and perhaps be involved directly ourselves, and continue the work of our Puritan and 19th-century forebears.
Endnotes
1. ‘Two covenant theology’ is a belief which was held by many non-evangelical churches post-World War II. It teaches that faithful Jews are saved under the old covenant and faithful Gentiles, under the new covenant. This isn’t what the Apostle Peter teaches.↩
2. See Briefing #282 and #354 for more on Romans 11. There are many excellent commentaries on Romans. I particularly recommend Douglas Moo’s (NICNT).↩
3. I recommend Christian Witness to Israel, a Reformed Evangelical mission to the Jews. There are many other agencies too.↩
4. Dr and Mrs Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor: The Growth of a Work of God (Volume 2), OMF, Littleton, 1988, chapter 40: http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/hudsontaylor/hudsontaylorv2/hudsontaylorv240.htm↩
5.Hugh J Schonfield, The History of Jewish Christianity, Duckworth, London, 1936, pp. 184-185.↩
6. This is now known as the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ).↩
7. WT Gidney, The Jews and their Evangelization, Student Volunteer Missionary Union, London, 1899, p. 91.↩
8. Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, ‘Jewish Evangelism: A Call to the Church’, Lausanne Occasional Paper 60, Sep 29-Oct 5 2004, p. 12: http://www.lausanne.org/documents/2004forum/
LOP60_IG31.pdf. An exception to this is the Southern Baptist denomination in the US which has recently created a department of Jewish mission. They are involved with the Pache Institute which trains Christians in Jewish evangelism.↩
9. A great tract to give away to Jewish people is the Old Testament version of Two Ways to Live.↩
