FROM THE PRESIDENT
NOVEMBER 2017 / THE CHOSEN PEOPLE - 2
Dear friend,
Shalom and an early Happy
Thanksgiving to you! I pray you
will have a great time of rejoicing
with your family and friends
as you reflect on all the great
things God has done.
I am sure you would agree
that salvation is our greatest joy.
Sometimes I ask myself, “Where
would I be today without Jesus?”
All I can say is that as a 19-yearold
Jewish young man, I was
headed for an early grave and an
eternity without the Lord. But,
thankfully, God gave His Son as a
perfect sacrifice for our sin. Now
my life and yours are filled with
goodness, love, peace, and more
joy than we could ever deserve.
Jesus is everything
to me and that
is why I am so thankful
during this season
of the year.
This is also why
I am so burdened for
my own people—
the Jewish people!
I have given my life
to the salvation of
Israel, and I thank
God that I have
the privilege of serving with a
123-year-old ministry dedicated
to reaching the Jewish people
with the Gospel.
I am also so thankful for
you—I deeply appreciate your
reading our publications, your
prayers for us, and your generous
financial support, which enables
our work among the Jewish
people.
To sum it up, this Thanksgiving
season, our entire staff
around the globe is thankful for
the Lord and thankful for you!
WHY JEWISH EVANGELISM?
I am often asked why we believe Jewish evangelism is
so important. I love to respond to this excellent question...
especially during the Thanksgiving season!
Our motivation for Jewish evangelism begins with
thanksgiving to God, who chose the Jewish people.
As Jesus Himself said, “You worship what you do not
know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews”
(John 4:22).
Without the Jewish people, we would not have the
Bible or the Messiah Himself! This is quite fundamental,
but there are many clear passages in Scripture that support
the case for the importance of Jewish evangelism.
TO THE JEW FIRST: ROMANS 1:16
Paul, who was also a Jewish believer in Jesus, writes, “For
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek” (Romans 1:16).
Although Paul was considered the
apostle to the Gentiles, he still carried a
great burden for his own people—and he
practiced what he wrote. In fact, wherever
Paul traveled during his ministry among
the Gentiles, he first preached the Gospel
to the Jewish people who lived in that area
(Acts 13:13–52; 14:1–5; 18:7–11; 19:8–10).
We should ask ourselves why the
Apostle Paul made Jewish evangelism such
a priority in his own life. The Apostle Paul’s
argument may be summarized as follows:
“If Jewish people are successfully evangelized,
then Jesus the Messiah will return.” There was a sense of
end-times urgency in his preaching which is why Paul
encouraged the Roman believers, and us, to prioritize the
evangelization of the Jewish people.
MATTHEW 23:37–39
Matthew 23 is a pivotal passage in understanding the
logic of the argument:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets
and stones those who are sent to her! How often
I wanted to gather your children together, the way
a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you
were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to
you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will
WHY JEWISH
EVANGELISM?
The salvation of the
Jewish people will
come about because
of the power of God.