In this General Council year, I encourage our leaders to examine C&MA DNA: if one goes back to the founding program, it lists one of A. B. Simpson's primary people group focus: the Jewish people. This also happens to be the primary group to reach, according to the Word, in several places: Romans 1:16 and Acts 1:8. The Acts 1:8 passage is a theme for General Council and listed in our "About Us" section of the C&MA website under "We Rely On His Spirit". Certainly C&MA DNA.
In the section on General Council, this quote appears, "Be with us as we follow His lead into our next chapter of Acts 1:8 ministry." I whole-heartedly agree, IF, we take a look at how we have managed our first chapter of Acts 1:8 ministry. Have we reached the Jewish people, as A. B. Simpson put forth in the founding program?
Founding program can be located on page 98 of the "All For Jesus" book, with these words on the actual program:
Our Work for Israel and the Heathen World
The Jew First
Have we actually made the Jewish people a priority for the C&MA?
This peole-group is surely lost without Jesus, they are one of the "least reached" and by definition: "unreached".
From his series, “Christ In The Bible”, book on Genesis, Simpson writes: “To them also we owe the divine law...and, indeed all we know of the true and living God.”, page 105 (Christ in the Bible: Genesis). He also says, “Let us never forget, as we look upon the Jew, that he is the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, and has given to us our precious Savior and dearest Friend.”, page 105.
Dr. Simpson goes on to say, “They are distributed in almost every nation under heaven, as an evident part of the divine plan in their future destiny ... Should they be converted to Christianity, there is no instrumentality on earth that could so suddenly and effectually be made available for the evangelization of the entire world.”, page 110
Did you know?
- we have no full-time missionaries reaching Jewish people in their largest concentration: the US and Israel
- The C&MA's last full-time missionary to the Jewish people was retired in 2006: Abraham Sandler
- Alliance Jewish Ministries exists and has a few congregations in the US
- Abraham Sandler began a new organization in 2006 to support C&MA Messianic congregations
A. W. Tozer wrote, "Paul said, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. "If he felt that way about them then we should stir ourselves to pray after all these years. Then we owe them also an unflagging zeal for their salvation. The lukewarmness of the Church toward the evangelization of the Jew is one of the major tragedies of history. We are not responsible for the conduct of those who have lived before us, but we are surely responsible to do all we can in our own generation to pay the debt we owe to Israel."
I'd like to dialogue with you on this, and love to share more information with you on it. I believe if we get back to our scriptural and missional roots of the C&MA - our God-given DNA - there will be blessing for all of us.
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