Apostates, Heretics, and Sectarians in Messianic Jewish Context

In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, modern orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel, railed against the boundary setting by ultra-orthodox rabbis in Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis have great power in deciding who is a Jew. Recently, hundreds of conversions were nullified by the Ultra-Orthodox who seek the backing of the…

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The Narrow Wider Hope

The Issues At Hand – Defining Perspectives on Afterlife and Salvation It has been very important to me to teach on the meaning of salvation from what I call a “Gospel of the Kingdom“ perspective. Salvation is a concept that is far richer than going to heaven when we die, as important as that may…

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Outreach In Israel

It would be very interesting to do an objective survey on outreach in Israel with all the proper sociological-statistical controls. To my knowledge, there has been no such survey, only a statistical study on Israeli Messianic Jewish congregations by Kai Kjaer-Hansen that is already quite dated.1 In lieu of such a survey, I will have…

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A Response by Daniel C. Juster

Mark Kinzer has recently authored a very important book on Messianic Judaism. The book is clearly and logically presented and persuasive, however, I do have some disagreements.   A HERMENEUTIC OF LOVE The first chapter of Kinzer’s book provides us with a very helpful hermeneutic. When the teaching of Scripture is clear, we are to…

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Describing A Movement And Universal Truth

Many years ago, one of my favorite philosophy professors made this point: before we have the right to criticize another per­spective, we should understand the perspective of the other. The acid test of this dictum is that we can repeat the perspective in our own words in such a way that the other will confirm…

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