MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Romans 11:11, 25-26, “I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation [has come] to the Gentiles… For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob'”

It is a good thing, perhaps prophetic, to begin seeing the Jewish people taking one step forward to at least examine the person and teachings of Yeshua. The fullness of the Gentiles is at hand. My question now is this: Is the Second Coming of Messiah the catalyst that brings about their belief in Yeshua, or will their belief in Yeshua be the catalyst that brings about the Second Coming of Messiah? …

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN – “The relationship between Jews and Jesus has traditionally been a complicated one, to say the least.

As his followers’ message swept the ancient world, Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah found themselves in the uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, position of being blamed for his death.

Mainstream Christian theology’s position held that Judaism had been supplanted, the Jewish covenant with the divine no longer valid, because of the incarnation of God as Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross.

Jews, for their part, tended largely to ignore Jesus.

That’s changing now.

In the past year, a spate of Jewish authors, from the popular to the rabbinic to the scholarly, have wrestled with what Jews should think about Jesus.

And overwhelmingly, they are coming up with positive answers, urging their fellow Jews to learn about Jesus, understand him and claim him as one of their own.

‘Jesus is a Jew. He spent his life talking to other Jews,’ said Amy-Jill Levine, co-editor of the recently released ‘Jewish Annotated New Testament.’

‘In reading the New Testament, I am often inspired, I am intrigued. I actually find myself becoming a better Jew because I become better informed about my own history,’ she said.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a media personality who recently launched a bid for a U.S. House seat, argues in his own new book, ‘Kosher Jesus,’ that ‘Jews have much to learn from Jesus – and from Christianity as a whole – without accepting Jesus’ divinity. There are many reasons for accepting Jesus as a man of great wisdom, beautiful ethical teachings, and profound Jewish patriotism.’

And Benyamin Cohen, an Orthodox Jew who spent a recent year going to church, admitted that he’s jealous that Christians have Jesus.

‘He’s a tangible icon that everybody can latch on to. Judaism doesn’t have a superhero like that,’ said Cohen, the author of the 2009 book ‘My Jesus Year.’

‘I’m not advocating for Moses dolls,’ he said, but he argued that ‘it’s hard to believe in a God you can’t see. I’m jealous of Christians in that regard, that they have this physical manifestation of the divine that they can pray to.'” Read more.