THE PRIORITY
OF JEWISH EVANGELISM
There is a foundation for Jewish evangelism. Thanks be to God,
there is the promise of Jewish evangelism. We acknowledge there
is opposition to Jewish evangelism, but we also need to see that
there is the priority of Jewish evangelism. Now, you wouldn’t
know the priority of Jewish evangelism from watching Christianity.
You could never discern it by tracing the history of the Christian
Church. That is judgment upon us, but it is clear in Scripture.
Paul in Romans 1:16 says, “To the Jew first.” That wasn’t just
a statement, I believe, of sequential historical progression.
I believe it is a statement of priority. It is to be preached first
to the Jews.
We need to recognize there is such a reversal in our modern
scandal. In the early Church, of course, the question was not
should the gospel be preached to the Jews, but the great
question was whether or not the gospel could be preached to the
Gentiles. In the early Church there was no elaborate theological
explanation for why the gospel should be preached to the Jews;
it was understood that this was an essential component of the
gospel. The controversial issue was God’s saving purpose beyond
the Jews. Then came the understanding that Jesus is the Savior
of all who believe in His name. And, indeed, through Jesus, Israel
has blessed all the peoples of the earth.
The great controversy in the early Church was about how the
gospel should be preached to the Gentiles and what that would
require. Now today you would think that the gospel was a Gentile
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