The Modern Messianic Movement Explained // History & Theology

Preston (00:01):
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Covenant and Conflict. My name’s Preston Benjamin. I’m your host today, Pastor David. Passed me the baton and I’m so excited to be here. But listen, today we have an incredible guest with us. We got Dr. Dan Jester in the house. So Dr. Jester really needs no introduction. I mean, he’s like one of the OG original leaders of the Messianic movement from founding president of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, founder of Tikoon Global International. I think he’s one of the co-founders of MJBI. Is that right? So from Center for Israel. I mean, he’s been involved in so many things. And really on the face of the planet, there are very few people who have the kind of experience, the kind of perspective that Dr. Jester has. So we are so thrilled to have you today. Thanks so much for being with us.

Dr. Juster (01:05):
So glad to be with you.

Preston (01:06):
It’s awesome. So let’s start. Can you tell us a bit about your journey? So it’s my understanding that you were called to pastor church in Maryland. And at some point you had an encounter, you caught this revelation of the importance of maintaining your Jewish identity. Can you take us back to that? Well, it’s a

Dr. Juster (01:30):
Little different than that. It was actually Chicago.

Preston (01:33):
Chicago, not Maryland. All

Dr. Juster (01:34):
Right. Right. And I was of Jewish and Gentile parentage. My father was Jewish. And I was a graduate of Wheaton College. And my spiritual father, chaplain, Dr. Evan Welsh, an extraordinary man, was very happy that I was training to become a Presbyterian pastor after I did two years of graduate school and philosophy of religion. And he had a problem. He was the interim pastor of the first Hebrew Christian Presbyterian Church in Chicago. And I was training to be a Presbyterian minister. And he thought I was his answer to be relieving him from this responsibility

(02:20):
Because

Dr. Juster (02:20):
He was there after a church split to try to heal it and to bring it into the future. And because he knew I was Jewish, he thought I was his answer. And I thought I would do this for a year, but there I am in Chicago with this congregation that had been by that time, almost 30 years old.

Preston (02:41):
And this is Hebrew Christian. The first Hebrew Christian

Dr. Juster (02:43):
Presbyterian church.

Preston (02:45):
Messianic.

Dr. Juster (02:46):
It wasn’t messianic yet. It was kind of like a halfway house of assimilation because they had the theology that now that we’re no longer under the law, it would be wrong for us to try to keep the Sabbath or the feast or things like that. But the people were ethnically from Jewish backgrounds. So there were a few people in our elders board that really believed that we should be Messianic Jewish. And at that time, there were only three Messianic Jewish congregations in North America that I knew of. One of them actually I didn’t know of. It was in California under Regan and I didn’t know about that. I knew of one in Philadelphia that was out of the Presbyterians as well, and one in Cincinnati, and that was it. So they began to say, “We should be Messianic Jewish.” And I said, “I don’t know what that is.

(03:31):
” So I began to study this. In those days, I was very academic. So how do you answer a problem is you go to libraries and study and you do research. And I had the best research libraries in the world, not the best, but one of the cities with the best in the world.

(03:46):
And as I studied this, I was astonished. I found a consensus in scholars of early Jewish Christianity that the apostles believed that they were called to continue to identify and live as part of their people as Jews after they had followed Jesus. And once they came to that, they sought to pass that on and it created the early Messianic Jewish communities. And I found scholarly books that wrote about this, and then I became convinced that we should be Messianic Jewish. Well, it was a radical change. I thought I was just going to be a normal Presbyterian pastor, but now I got hooked on this Messianic Jewish idea and I got up and preached two sermons and I said, “We’ve been wrong. We have been a halfway house of assimilation. We need to remain Jewish.” And I had mostly Jewish people. And so we changed our service to Shabbat.

(04:46):
We changed our name from first Hebrew Christian church to Adata Tikvah,

(04:50):
Which

Dr. Juster (04:50):
Is still going very well in the north of Chicago, 150 people. And I said, “We need to keep the feasts, apply the law, include Jewish liturgy.” And I lost about half of the people because they didn’t want to go there.

Preston (05:05):
So Hebrew Christian versus, I guess it was at the time, it was an established way of … It wasn’t a denomination.

Dr. Juster (05:16):
Yeah, it was in the missions at that time. Now, if you go back to the 19th century, it wasn’t always like this because there were people that would identify as Jewish Christians or Hebrew Christians that believed in continued Jewish life. One of the famous ones was Mark John Levy around the turn of the century who got the Episcopal church to approve an almost Messianic Jewish vision statement. It was amazing back 1917, but it didn’t take off. And what happened is that because of the influence of dispensational theology, the law has been done away with. Hebrew Christianity became a way to win Jewish people to the Lord where there are other ethnic Jewish people, but not to maintain Jewish life and identity. So the children wouldn’t be raised as Jews, and it ended up being assimilationist. And I felt that we should have a community that encourages Jewish life and passes on Jewish life to the children and grandchildren.

Preston (06:17):
Yeah. Wow. So then Messianic, Jewish, that whole approach that you took, was it kind of like you were writing the guidebook as you went or did you have something?

Dr. Juster (06:30):
Well, it sort of happens that David Stern and I, who was at the other congregation, one of those three that I mentioned, which was Ray Gannon in Los Angeles, he wrote a set of papers that convinced my spiritual father that I wasn’t going off the deep end and I was writing and we found ourselves in agreement. So the earliest Messianic Jewish theological books that were serious came from David Stern and myself in the late 70s and early 80s. And that kind of set a direction theologically for the Messianic Jewish movement. I was elected the president of the Union after we moved to Washington, but really it’s very simple. It’s Jewish people who come to faith in Jesus are called to identify and live as Jews, and that means that we live out Torah life as it’s fitting in the New Covenant worder. We’re very new covenantal, and that meant we create congregations to foster that identity, and that was the whole foundation of it.

(07:33):
We didn’t expect it to mushroom. I remember in 1974, I thought, wow, if we really do this right, by the end of the decade, by 1980 or 1990, maybe we’ll have one congregation in every major city of Jewish population center. And I looked forward to this extraordinary vision of maybe having 20 to 25 congregations by 1990. Well, little did I know,

(08:01):
Because when we formed the Union of Messianic Jewish congregations, by that time already, we had 21 in North America, and 19 of them joined the union that we formed at that time.

Preston (08:11):
Okay. So the Union Mastin Jewish congregations, UMJC, what year was that around?

Dr. Juster (08:19):
We had our formation discussion meetings in 1978. Manny Brotman tried to start this in 1976, but he didn’t get the traction because the meeting didn’t have the large contingent of Messianic Jewish leaders at that time. And then more congregations came. So we had discussions in Chicago. The Chicago congregation I was in thought that one day they would want to leave the Presbytery. And in the Presbyterian church, no church can get released to independence because they don’t believe in independent churches. You’ve got to be part of an accountable association. So if there was a union, they could be released. And that did eventually happen. It took some years. And the other Chicago congregation, Bene McAbeem, with John Fisher and Mike Becker, they also just believed in this in principle and they were part of the first effort with Manny in 76. So we had these discussions in 78.

(09:15):
79, we came together again and decided to do it. And then in July, beginning of July 1979, we actually formed it.

Preston (09:24):
Wow. So then for our listeners, is it fair to say UMJC is now like a denomination of Messianic

Dr. Juster (09:35):
Judaism? Yeah. The Union of Messianic Jewish of congregations is the only denominational structure in North America

Preston (09:43):
Of

Dr. Juster (09:43):
Messianic Jews. It is clearly a denominational structure. Government is a delegate structure of two from each congregation, very similar to how other denominations run the Presbyterian Church. And the Union is successful. I’m still part of it. I stayed part of it all these years, but I wanted to see something else happen beyond that as well that was more overtly charismatic, fivefold ministry oriented, but the Union is still important to me.

Preston (10:15):
Right. And that’s it on the other side. So Hebrew Christian, maybe there’s a little bit of history here with Hebrew Christian Alliance and Messianic Jewish, the MJAA, Messianic Jewish Association, what’s the acronym there?

Dr. Juster (10:33):
Well, there was an old organization called the Hebrew Christian Alliance, which formed in Great Britain in the 1860s. Then an American organization formed in 1915 called the Hebrew Christian Alliance. And that was during the days of the general secretary, Mark John Levy, who was really in his theology, didn’t use the term Messianic Jewish. He was Messianic Jewish in his theology, but he got the Episcopal church to approve the Messianic Jewish vision, but he couldn’t get the alliance to approve it. That was funny because they still had such an influence of this dispensational theology, though there were other people that were for it. So in 1925, they formed an international Messianic Jewish Alliance. So those are the three alliances. Because of the influence of these early Messianic Jews, we in Chicago, Marty Chernoff in Cincinnati, Herb Links in Philadelphia was the other Presbyterian one. In 1975, we all got together and we changed the name from the Hebrew Christian Alliance of America to the Messianic Jewish Alliance.

(11:41):
That was very controversial. A lot of the old timers were very disappointed. Not a lot of the old timers made it through after that change because it was a lot of young people who did that vote, but we had some amazing old timers that stayed and became key, like Rakmel Friedland,

(12:01):
Who

Dr. Juster (12:01):
Was the Talmadous, very, very famous and well known at that time, Holocaust survivor and Jerome Fleischer who came out of what was the American Board of Missions of the Jews now chosen people. And we even had some moral support from Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus back then, but it was very controversial and the old missions organizations, Jewish missions, wanted to condemn the new Messianic Jewish movement. And there was a big upheaval that was solved in 1976.

Preston (12:33):
Wow. Wow. So that is some modern Messianic Jewish history there from somebody who has actually … You were there, a part of all of those-

Dr. Juster (12:43):
Amazing.

Preston (12:43):
It’s wild. So I want to get into a bit of the theology, but that’s one of the reasons why … So I found your essay in this book by David Rudolph, Joel Willets, the Introduction to Messianic Judaism. And talking about the UMJC, I don’t know if this has been updated since then, the expanded statement on defining Messianic Judaism.

Dr. Juster (13:09):
Yes.

Preston (13:11):
And I just thought it was so interesting, some of the wording in here, and I thought, let’s get into … You were there, you were so influential in shaping so much of how the words we use and how to best approach covenantal life as a Jewish believer in Jesus. So I just wanted to read this and maybe have you comment on some of … If it’s evolved over the last 10, 15 years, or your approach to some of these ideas here. So let’s read this. UMJC, expanded statement. Jewish life is life in a concrete historical community, thus Messianic Jewish groups must be fully part of the Jewish people, sharing its history and its covenantal responsibility as a people chosen by God. At the same time, faith in Yeshua also has a crucial communal dimension. This faith unites the Messianic Jewish community and the Christian church, which is the assembly of the faithful from the nations who are joined to Israel through the Messiah.

(14:21):
Together, the Messianic Jewish community and the Christian church constitute the Eclesiah, the one body of Messiah, a community of Jews and Gentiles who in their ongoing distinction and mutual blessing anticipate the shalom of the world to come. So this idea here first, fully apart- Well,

Dr. Juster (14:40):
Is that part of writing that? That’s a really good statement, but I think I was part of writing that.

Preston (14:47):
So this idea, first fully part of the Jewish people, sharing its history, its covenantal responsibility. So what does that look like? Can you unpack that a bit? So sharing its history and also its covenantal responsibility.

Dr. Juster (15:03):
Just a little bit of the history of that. I was tasked with writing the definition and joined with Mark Kinser. As Dr. David Rudolph says, whenever you and Mark Kinser are involved in writing these statements, they come out really well because we bat it out and we disagree. And then what we come out with together is better than what we would have come out with on our own. And we were also involved in the UMJC doctrinal statement, which is an incredible doctrinal statement. But this particular definition is still the guiding definition for the UMJC and pretty much for Tikun ministries as well. What we’re saying is Jewish life is a life of covenant responsibility. In other words, God enters into a covenant with Abraham and he gives our people promises to preserve us as a distinct people, promises that are connected to the land of Israel, so that the land of Israel is in us even when we’re not in the land and returning to the land is part of the foundational confession of historic Judaism.

(16:07):
And when we come to faith in Jesus, we do not leave our people. We’re still part of the covenantal reality of the Jewish people.

(16:15):
Yes, we embrace Jesus. Yes, Gentiles have been grafted in and are now joined to us. And part of this definition came out of what we were batting out in the Catholic Jewish, Messianic Jewish dialogue years ago in Jerusalem and Rome. And we began to see the identity of the church as a join to Israel reality if they understand their own self-definition. And so when we wrote this statement, it was both with an eye to the particularistic place of the Jewish people and that we are still part of that people and that destiny are people. But also we are part of the universal Ecclesia, the body of believers, the one new man. And we’ve got to live out both of those realities, and that’s not easy. That’s a difficult place to live, but we have to do it because it’s a theological conviction in terms of what we believe the Bible is saying.

Preston (17:15):
Yeah. No, so there’s a few different words used here as far as maybe bringing some more definition to you have Messianic Jewish community. This is from the statement. Messianic Jewish community, Christian church and Eclesia. Are those three different … You’re defining those different.

Dr. Juster (17:38):
They’re different. The church is the people from all nations, including Jewish people. And Ecclesia is pretty similar to church. It’s not very different. But when we’re looking at Messianic Jewish community, you’ll notice that we’re not saying there the only way to form that kind of communal identity is to be in a Messianic Jewish congregation. The definition is very clear. You could be part of Jewish groupings within the church, as well as within Messianic Jewish congregations, or you could have, and we don’t encourage this because there needs to be some social reinforcement of Jewish life in Jesus. So if you’re not in a church that’s trying to foster and encourage you to stay Jewish, it’s very difficult. But I have examples of that. We had one man in our Chicago congregation who was leading a Bible study for the Jewish community. Rabbis were coming and he got to Isaiah 53 and he said, “This is Jesus.” And he had to stop his Bible study and he became a believer.

(18:45):
Well, he maintained an identity in the synagogue. They didn’t kick a kick him out and an identity in the Baptist church, but that’s very unusual for a person to live that out, but he did.

Preston (18:55):
Yeah. Okay. So then there’s kind of like maybe the lines are blurred a bit between one group. It’s not like you can only be a part of a Messianic community and you’re not … What’s the broader … I guess the Eclisia is what you’re saying is the entire body of Christ, right?

Dr. Juster (19:16):
Right, right.

Preston (19:17):
Okay.

Dr. Juster (19:17):
And in 1980s, our attitude toward Jews and the churches was come out from among them and be used separate.

Preston (19:24):
Yeah.

Dr. Juster (19:25):
It really was in the whole movement, the alliance, the union, everybody, because we were building the Messianic Jewish thing, but we realized that Gentiles are so effective in winning Jewish people and more and more Jews were in the churches much more than in the Messianic congregations.

(19:40):
What are we going to do? Are we going to write them off? Are we going to tell them they have to leave their churches? We want to add something and we want to call the pastors to care about this. One of the leading Jewish theologians, Orthodox Jew, is a man by the name of Michael Wishigrod who taught at Bruch College in New York City. And Wishigrod made the statement that we will not have overcome replacement theology, the doctrine that the church has replaced the Jewish people until pastors teach their baptized Jewish members that they are called to identify as Jews and live according to Torah, circumcise their sons. And I think that we agree with Wishigrod.

Preston (20:23):
Yeah. So then that is part of the end of this statement, a community of Jews and Gentiles who in their ongoing distinction, this idea of circumcising your sons, keeping Torah, this is that ongoing distinction.

Dr. Juster (20:42):
That’s

Preston (20:42):
Right.

Dr. Juster (20:44):
That’s

Preston (20:45):
Right. And mutual blessing. So can you talk about that? I think you authored a book on mutual blessing. So can you give us a 10,000 foot view of-

Dr. Juster (20:55):
Well, everything in God’s creation is ordered to mutual blessing. God creates distinctions for mutual blessing. You see this with male and female. A lot of times I wake up with my wife and I say to her, “I’m so thankful that you’re a woman.” I mean, I am. I’m just awed by her womanness. I just can’t quite grasp how amazing and wonderful it is. And it’s for mutual blessing. Now, the devil hates these distinctions for mutual blessing and he wants to level everything out. So what are we finding today in the sexual aberration movements is that you destroy the distinction between male and female. Well, it’s the same. There’s a book by a Methodist theologian. It’s a wonderful book, R. Kendall Solan. It’s called The God of Israel and Christian Theology, which we used in the Catholic dialogue to great effect. And Solan argues that Israel and the nations is an everlasting distinction

(21:57):
Because

Dr. Juster (21:58):
God loves all these nations and wants to preserve distinct national groups, but the relationship of Israel and the nations is one of mutual blessing. Israel brings blessing to all the nations, but if you study the prophets, the nations in turn bring blessing to Israel. So it’s a mutual blessing relationship. And the inspiration for my book, Mutual Blessing, came from Arkandel Solan’s book, but I saw it’s not just Israel and the nations, it’s every part of life, God and creation, man and nature. It’s all is established in a mutual blessing kind of order. And that when we deal with Israel and the nations, that mutual blessing is to be reflected in the church because the church is those that are saved from the nations joined to Israel. And within the church, we have the same blessing of Israel and the nations within the context of the redeemed community.

Preston (22:55):
It’s beautiful. Yeah. It’s Romans 11, the end of Romans 11, right? It’s this idea of showing mercy to one another. Did you make that connection as well and mutual blessing?

Dr. Juster (23:06):
Yes. As a matter of fact, it does appear to me that the work of winning Jewish people to faith in Jesus is a charge given to both Jews and Gentiles because Paul is Jewish and he says, “This is what I do as a Jew.” But then he says to the Gentiles, “You are to magnify the ministry of the Holy Spirit he’s talking about, to provoke to jealousy Jewish people and to save some of them for the sum being saved will lead to their mall being saved.” So we’ve got to have a significant growing sum, which some people think, “Well, in the end, the Jews will accept Jesus. I don’t have to worry about them coming to faith now.” But that’s not what Paul’s saying. And it actually is saying that Gentiles showing mercy to the Jewish people will be the more effective cutting edge of seeing Jewish people come to faith.

(23:54):
And wow, is that what he’s really saying? So it’s been my history experience that Gentiles are more effective in winning Jewish people to the Lord if they learn how to do it. They first have to learn to express sincerely their indebtedness to the Jewish people for the Bible, their salvation, and their commitment to the Jewish people and their destiny into Israel.

(24:19):
When Jewish people hear Gentiles genuinely profess that, they’re undone. They’re open to God. One woman in a Jewish Judea Khashog said to one of our members years ago, when she began to express that, she said, “You wonderful woman, you. ” And she was almost in tears. And that opens the door to sharing about who the Messiah is. And that’s why the great number of Jewish people that have come to know the Lord have come through the witness of a loving Gentile.

Preston (24:53):
Yeah, so great.

Dr. Juster (24:54):
Whereas if we do it, you are a traitor, you accepted Jesus as the Christian God. We have to overcome that. We have more to overcome as Jewish believers and Gentiles too. They expect Gentiles to believe in Jesus after all.

Preston (25:06):
Yeah. And that’s so great for what Romans 11 teaches us about as Gentiles in the church, our stance of humility, of saying, not thinking of ourselves higher than we ought, of saying, “Hey, you’re the root, we’re the branch, and that’s the model we’ve really been given.” And that’s what you’re saying is the model that’s actually the most effective. It’s like God knew what he was doing, setting all this up, right? Yeah.

Dr. Juster (25:34):
Indeed, indeed.

Preston (25:36):
So you’ve given your life to etching out, carving out so many clear paths forward for Jewish believers in Jesus and with precision, creating boundaries, creating guidelines, if you just look at all the different books you’ve written about due process, for example, I mean, they cover the full discipleship. You have a book on that you were telling me earlier. They cover the full gamut of life and Yeshua, it seems like. So I’m curious for you, looking back over decades, are there trends that you see where it starts to get unhealthy? Because one of the missions for Center for Israel is to help bring clarity, help bring a healthy understanding, because we’ve seen so often it starts to veer off. So can you speak to that a bit of like over your decades of experience, there are times that you’ve seen like, “Oh, this is a dangerous area.”

Dr. Juster (26:48):
I first addressed this in Jewish roots, my book, which I called a foundation of biblical theology, and Jewish roots really is a biblical theology textbook. And I addressed this in terms of what I called aberrations. I remember Coach McCartney had Promise Keepers when we were doing the road to Jerusalem meeting with thousands of people in Palm Springs. They said to me, “We want you to teach the basics of Messianic Jewish theology and warning about the aberrations, and we want you to do it in 15 minutes.” 15 minutes. So you can still look it up. It’ll pop up on Google, Messianic Judaism in 15 minutes.

Preston (27:27):
That’s cool.

Dr. Juster (27:28):
Maybe the most anointed thing I’ve ever done in my life because you’ve got to press something in 15 minutes. Always spirit

Preston (27:32):
Speaking through.

Dr. Juster (27:33):
So Jack Hafert said to me after I walked back, he said, “I don’t know who’s going to be able to follow that, but it was God. It wasn’t me. ” But basically the issue that we’re finding is that when people discover the applicability of the law and the law is applicable for all people, just weights and measures, not committing adultery, loving your neighbor as yourself, courts that are fair and just that take evidence and two or three witnesses, all of that’s in the Torah. The Torah is applicable in the New Covenant. Even though we’re in the New Covenant order, it’s all so much as applicable. But Gentiles come to the place where they think that the law applies to them in terms of what Rabbi Hillel, the contemporary of Jesus, called Jewish specific law. And you find this in Marcus Bachmill’s book, Jewish Law and Gentile Churches.

(28:27):
And what is really being said to the churches in the New Testament, according to Bachmill is not that the law has been done away with, but that they are not responsible for the Jewish specifics. They’re not responsible to circumcise their children. They’re not responsible to keep the Sabbath on the seventh day. The world at that time didn’t even have a seven-day week. How could that be something you would bring to the nations

(28:53):
At that point when you’re evangelizing? They were not responsible to keep all the feast days on the actual days of Sabbath day keeping, but they could connect to these meanings as they were led by the Lord, and they can do it in a way that is honoring the covenantal Jewish part of it. So we’re not saying that Gentiles shouldn’t celebrate the feast, but when they take it on as though the law applies to them in the same way as the Jewish people, then it begins to go south. So you’ll see this in the Jewish roots movement. You’ll see this in what we call the Ephrimite movement that claims that Christians are really the lost tribes of Israel and therefore keep the whole law. You’ll see this in Jewish roots movements sometimes, and it becomes weird. You can feel the weirdness. When Jewish people connect to these groups, they feel it’s weird.

(29:46):
It doesn’t help them come to the Lord. Why are these group of Gentiles doing weird things? Now, I’m going to give an outlandish example of it. I’m not claiming that this is where most of these people are, but this is how far I can go

(29:59):
About About 40 years ago, I’m in the Messianic Jewish Alliance meeting and there’s a guy with a black hat and coat and he’s dancing paius and he looks like an ultra Orthodox Jew. And I was so encouraged and I said, “Wow, isn’t this amazing? Even ultra Orthodox Jews are coming to Jesus.” And he was a Gentile, totally looking like a Jew. This is not helpful.

Preston (30:26):
Yeah. Are there some, in recent years, maybe past five, 10 years, are there some things that you’ve seen more of? Some of these unhealthy approaches?

Dr. Juster (30:37):
Well, it is a growing movement, I’m sad to say. But whenever there is a move of God, there’s heretic heresy from that move of God. So I believe that the one law movements, and I call it movements, that includes many different segments. I believe it’s heretical and it’s unhealthy and it’s what these well-meaning people, God bless them, but it’s what Satan has raised up to undercut the authenticity of the Messianic Jewish movement.

Preston (31:06):
And are there limits you’ve seen? So that’s speaking to Gentile believers who are going too far taking on what Dr. David Rudolph might call the one new Jew. We’re trying to become, all of us trying to become Jewish. So on the Jewish side, for when you’re discipling Messianic Jewish believers, what would your council be for when it starts to go a little too far?

Dr. Juster (31:35):
Well, you have to worry about a kind of replacement theology. Replacement theology says that Jews have replaced Israel, but one of their writers, one of the leading writers in this one law movement, put it this way, God does not care whether or not you’re physically Jewish or Gentile. He cares that you accept Jesus and keep the whole Torah. Well, as soon as God doesn’t care whether or not you’re Georgentile, but that you keep the whole Torah, you’ve created another replacement theology version. And people in these movements don’t realize the replacement dimensions. Now you know Dr. David Rudolph, our wonderful professor of Jewish studies and Messianic Judaism at the King’s University, he’s adamant about the dangers of this and for good reason.

Preston (32:24):
Yeah. So then on that Messianic Jewish side, would you say that there’s a limit to applying maybe rabbinic commentaries and going in that direction? Yeah. Is there somewhere where it’s like you would counsel maybe a young Jewish believer to say, “Well, don’t go down that road as much.”

Dr. Juster (32:47):
Well, there’s a lot in Rabbinic Judaism that’s true and it’s beautiful and that’s good. And if you take out rabbinic Judaism, you have a colorless, tasteless Messianic Judaism because the four questions in the Passover Seder, if your listeners don’t know what these things are, the way we develop the liturgy of coming out of Egypt, some of these practices that we have for Sukkot, they are really beautiful. And if you strip Rabbinic Judaism out of Messianic Judaism, it really is quite insipid. But I don’t want to be feeling a constraint that because the rabbis say this is what we should do, then I have to do it. So my approach to rabbinic Judaism is that we are to study it. We are through being conformed to Yeshua and his Holy Spirit being strong within us. We can see what is good and beautiful true and is applicable in a new covenantal Messianic Judaism.

(33:51):
But once we see what’s good and beautiful and true, that doesn’t mean we have to embrace it all. It doesn’t mean we have to do it. We are still led by the spirit to do it. And for me, that produces what some Messianic Jews might think it’s a very inconsistent pattern of life, but I’m happy with it. So for example, to get up in the morning and to pray and to put on phyllactries, the little box on your head and to wrap, to fill in around your arm and all of that, I sometimes have done that as part of my prayer life very meaningfully,

(34:28):
But I don’t do it all the time and I haven’t done it recently. And I’m not feeling constrained to do that because the rabbis say we ought to do this. I drive on Shabbat because our services are where they are. I don’t feel constrained to not drive on Shabbat. And so I think we can discern through the Holy Spirit and through having a mind that is conformed to Yeshua, we can discern what is good and beautiful and true in the heritage. And God has not preserved our people only through legalistic aberrations of conformity. He’s also preserved us by giving us good and beautiful and true things in our life as Jewish people. And so my approach is, as I would approach any culture, but because the Jewish people are people of the book as well, for example, the Jewish prayer tradition of the Sidhur, it’s almost like a pre-eshua statement of salvation by grace through faith.

(35:31):
So if one studies the Sedhur, the Jewish prayer book, you say, “Wow.” Though it’s pre-eshua, it doesn’t come into seeing Yeshua. This is the most amazing biblical content prayer book, and it’s amazing.

Preston (35:49):
Yeah. So I know we could just talk for hours. You’re like a walking encyclopedia, and just any question, you have the answer to so many questions. So I know we’re running out of time though. So I want us to end. We talked about some of those unhealthy, maybe things you’ve seen. I want to talk on the other side of some healthy things to help equip our listeners. So you’re also one of the founding board members of the Tour Jerusalem Council too. Can you tell us a bit about that and maybe help us end here of what are ways that we can come together in greater unity in the body of Christ with our-

Dr. Juster (36:39):
Georgerusalm Council two is what I call a great alignment project to align the church with the Messianic Jewish Movement.

(36:48):
Tikun International, Tikun Global also has such an alignment project, but it’s a bit different. We bring churches to join with us in alignment and they walk with us. But with Tor Jerusalem Council two, we are seeking an official council kind of an event or events. Maybe there’ll be more than one gathering that are actual councils, where church leaders come together to do several things. One, to repudiate replacement theology, to declare the election of Israel is still biblically the right understanding of scripture, and to affirm the Messianic Jews as being called to continue to identify and live as part of their people. Just as Acts chapter 15 released the Gentiles from Jewish covenantal responsibility in the same token, now because of the history of the church missing this so badly, we want the church to officially confirm that Jewish people are still covenantally called to live and identify as part of their people.

(37:57):
And so to have this made official in a council kind of setting is important and only the leaders of the church can call for a council. We call ourselves toward Jerusalem Council too, because we are encouraging the leaders of the church to call for a council. And we’re closer to that happening than ever before,

(38:19):
Because we have some major church leaders that want to help us do the see a council happen. And so we believe that when the church does that and is aligned and in unity with the Messianic Jewish movement, it’s going to release a very important power of God out of that reconciliation that will help complete the work of world evangelism and making Israel jealous. So it’s a big project. We’ve been at it for 30 years. I hope I see it in my lifetime. I think I will.

(38:49):
Amen. Amen.

Dr. Juster (38:50):
Some of the other doubters on our committee say, “Oh Dan, this might take another 30s.” No, no, no. I see the path forward to actually do it.

Preston (38:58):
Amen. Yeah. So good. So then just to leave our listeners, what’s a practice that you’d steer people towards to just foster this type of unity that you’re working toward?

Dr. Juster (39:15):
Well, I’d like to encourage the churches to do two things. One, to develop a relationship with the Messianic Jewish communities in your area. Try to really become one with them and do city events and do things together. We did this in the Washington area very effectively with many churches over the years together. We had a feast of Sukkot with a couple of thousand people worshiped together, taught on these issues. It was quite amazing. And we had Episcopal, Independent Church, Methodist, others all joining us for this. And then second, for the churches really to train in how they would encourage Jewish members to continue to identify as Jews. And like I say, when Gentiles join Jewish people in celebrating the feast without a replacement aspect of it, that’s very helpful. And I think the best feast for that to happen in is Sukkot. Sukkot could be a great unity time in the church, and it was for us.

(40:26):
And you see the image of Sukkot where all nations come up to celebrate that feast. So that is one where you really are able to implement this.

Preston (40:34):
Yeah, that’s great. Well, I don’t want this to end, but I know we’re out of time. We’re so grateful for having you here with us. Is people wanting to get connected to you or to your … Is it through Tikoon or?

Dr. Juster (40:48):
Well, the best place for us personally is the website, Restoration From Zion.

(40:53):
You

Dr. Juster (40:54):
Sign up for a newsletter. And we’re part of Tikun Global, but Restoration from Zion is where they would connect and sign up for our newsletter. That’s where they would find all our books.

Preston (41:06):
Awesome. Okay. Well, great. It’s awesome having you. Thank you to everybody listening. This has been such a sweet time getting to hear from firsthand accounts of the history of the Messianic Jewish Movement and also just the wisdom that comes from this man is incredible. So we’ll see you next time on the podcast. Thanks again for listening.