“But I will leave among you a humble and lowly people, and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.”

Zephaniah 2:3 and 3:12

Dear brother John,

well, I must say, you’re nothing, if not humble! (:~))

Please forgive me, I don’t use a spell checker. The right spelling is “segue”, pronounced ’seg-way’. It means to transition into, or follow along with a thought, or musical interlude, or whatever.

Anyway, what I meant was that it seemed like your comment didn’t fit with the context of Obadiah’s comments on “Partition of Palestine”. In other words, it just “came out of the blue” (sky, yonder, deep blue sea, etc.).

That does bring to mind where I first came to this forum back last March or so. There the context was exactly what you said, and which I whole heartedly agree and it was titled, “Christian friends might not be ours”.
Here is the URL to it. In the “for what it is worth department”, you’ll find my first entry on March 03 of 2009. I dove in with both feet first.

http://samsonblinded.org/blog/christian-friends-might-not-be-ours.htm#comment-111409

You might have other questions about my comments, especially since I was addressing them to a largely Jewish audience that I assumed knew Hebrew. So I made some in that lingo, or at least my ‘pigeon hebrew’, transliterating them into English script.

If you go to that sight you will see that it was/is one of Obadiah’s most frequented articles and a very robust conversation about it and the ensuing comments (between Jews and Christian friends of Israel) continues to “rage on”. You can add your part of course, since he keeps it there for just that purpose.

As far as the “one night stand” thing, I confess that I was testing you, comparing you, in effect, to someone who “professes love to Israel”, or at least, ‘doesn’t hate them’, and then never comes back to prove it. To put it another way, someone who just “loves/’doesn’t hate them’ and leaves them”. The ole one night stand man.

You have a great day too. And I also am looking forward to hearing from you, too!

PS you might look at the article that runs yearly about this time since we are now in Hanukah. Near the end, I gave my perspective as a self professed: “born-again, Spirit filled, evangelical, HYPOcharisMANIAC, judeochristianzionist Jesus Freak,(man!)”

I did not know I would ever hear from you again, but I shared what this holiday that Jesus observed (John 10:22-39), meant to me as one of His followers:

http://samsonblinded.org/blog/real-hanukah.htm

PPS In referencing the above URL, I noticed Obadiah is re-issuing one of his more insightful articles and yet one that never even got one comment, “Look at Syria”. How the guy puts out all this material, I don’t know…

As you say, we can’t exclude the Torah, even for a moment.

From your mouth to YHVH’s ears: that all Judah and Israel would agree with our actions and and lives based on that obvious, foundational truth. It is an inalienable right that beats any promise the nations would ever make or always break!

I agree with your sentiment, of course, although you seemed to seguay into it ‘out of the blue’. I had to re-read Obadiah’s comments carefully (I’ve done it at least twice since starting this response), and as far as I can tell, he never made the point you said he missed, i.e. “not all Christians hate the Jews” or as you concluded that he needed “to be more cautious in making such statements as ‘Christians hate the Jews.’”

While you do not hate, do you love the Jew in deed and in truth? Your comments imply you do since Jesus does, but I would ask you to be open (or more open, no matter where you are in your walk with the Messiah) to manifesting, someday, that implicit love you have in obedience to Christ in a living relationship with the Jewish people that expresses the implicit even more explicitly. To the point of expressing your prayers and concern with action that would be in answer to your prayers. In such a way that there is no doubt in the mind of the Jewish nation of Israel that your love comes from the heart of the God that we have in common. Who has mercy upon us (e.g. Romans 11, especially verses 11-17 and 24-36).

Here is a possible application by way of example: why not start, if you haven’t done so already, a yearly observation of the Biblical Feasts (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles). After all, in Zechariah 14, it specifically mentions The Feast of Tabernacles as obligatory for all mankind during the Millenium. So why wait? Many churches do some form of this in seeking to “return to our roots.” It’s radical but why not observe Hannukah since it is mentioned in the New Testament and Jesus, along with the above mentioned Feasts, observed it? I could go on and on, like having your day of rest as per the Biblical day, etc. but I’m just challenging you to consider starting somewhere, since “not one jot or tittle will pass from the Law until all of it is fulfilled.”

By the way, an outsider to your faith and hearing your well thought intentions might nevertheless easily mis-construe comments like, “Why would I risk God’s wrath?” as being your primary motivation, and that alone. Common sense works but love goes above and beyond, and never has a hint of being self-serving. I do not need to remind you that the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, who wrote the book on ‘justification by faith’ (and would therefore not fit your definition of a non-Christian who would never “hate the Jews”), failed miserably to move into a real relationship with the Jewish people like that which, in effect, I’m challenging you to do. As a result, his antisemitic comments were used by Hitler to justify the Holocaust.

Please don’t mis-understand my comments. “Your work is not in vain in the Lord.” Just come out into the water where it is so deep that it takes you away, where it will…

“Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, befold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house…and the waters came down from under the right side of the house, at the south of the altar…and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles…the waters were to the knees…the waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand (Ezekiel 47:5); and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, ‘Son of man, hast thou seen this?’” (ref Revelation 22:1-7).

Finally, another application you have already observed but still needs mentioning. “Don’t come across like a one night stand.”

Be blessed!