Your People Shall Be My People

Currently, I am reading a fascinating book called Your People Shall Be My People by Don Finto. This book is a must read for all wanting to learn more about the Jewish roots of Christianity and the importance of Jew and Gentile coming together in the last days. In the book, Finto quotes Marty Waldman with the following:

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"The gaping wound of the schism between Jews and Gentiles represents the "grandaddy" of all wounds in the Body of Messiah. All other wounds of division in the Church stem from the original wound. Because the Church has grown to believe that it superseded Israel and Messianic Judaism, the spirit of supersessionism has plagued Christianity through the ages. The Orthodox Church believes that the Roman Catholic Church is in rebellion. The Roman Catholic Church has always viewed the Protestants as religious rebels. The many denominations and divisions in the Protestant Church are primarily the result of one group of Christians superseding an existing group because they have found a 'more pure way.' Supersessionism essentially nullifies the promise of God to the previous group."

Finto later writes in the chapter Division - The DNA Of The Gentile Church:

"We Gentiles are the spiritual descendants of the Jewish people. "Salvation is of the Jews," Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:22). He - the Jew - is our "parent" in the faith. Without Jewish faith, there would be no Christianity."

In Chapter 6, The "Gentilizing Of The Church", Finto makes a powerful statement that has truly stirred my heart. He writes:

" 'Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 21:24)! Prophetic words indeed. Yet none of Jesus' hearers could have imagined what would transpire over the next years: that the Gentiles would take control of the books of Moses and the Prophets - so much so that the Bible, God's inspired Word, would be appropriated by Gentiles for themselves to the extent that it is now known primarily as a Gentile book; that this Man in whom they now believed, this Messiah, this Christ, would become so 'Gentilized' that even His own people would fail to recognize Him as one of their own; that millions of Jews in the twentieth century would be killed at the hands of those who gave lip service to their Messiah.

Yeshua, Son of David, Son of God, had now become Jesus Christ, Savior of the Gentiles. In earlier times, the Jews had received us into their family, but we now rejected them. In the heart of the Church , the Gentiles were in but the Jews were out. The Church assumed that all was well, but the Lord was no please with the rejection. There was a price to be paid. The people who had rejected God's choice family would not even find unity among themselves."