Latest / Relish: a Christian podcast / “Jew” vs. “Israel”: Why Christians Keep Getting These Terms Wrong (PART 1)

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“Jew” vs. “Israel”: Why Christians Keep Getting These Terms Wrong (PART 1) · Relish: a Christian podcast

• 0:01
  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity just sufficient to flavor to be
• 0:07
  pleased or gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table
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  today might add some spice to your life,
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  welcome to another episode of relish my name is alex zimmerman and you all know
• 0:22
  pastor don patterson do we do we all know don patterson you better okay uh,
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  i assume that's why they're here um doubt it doubt uh today we've got a good
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  episode we we promised last week that we were going to do some research on um,
• 0:42
  If it's all right. Pack the accuracy of what we were thinking of.
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  Is it okay to sell animals,
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  to Muslims for a religious holiday? You know that that thing is going to be
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  used for a religious holiday.
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  Right. And we looked at several scriptures through the Old Testament.
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  I don't see it in Leviticus like we were looking for.
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  And so I think the Ephesians 5.11 probably. Yeah. Don't participate in things of darkness.
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  Probably is as most accurate as we can get to say, you know, guys, be careful.
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  Be careful. Because at what point are we participating in the action?
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  Okay, let's take the goat.
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  What point are we participating in the sacrifice of that goat?
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  Do we participate in sacrifice by selling the goat to somebody who's going to
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  use the goat for sacrifice?
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  And you can go sacrifice a Muslim, world you can go sacrifice uh among the jews
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  you could go to demonic world i mean really yeah what what if you know that
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  they're going to come and buy your goat,
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  and use it in a demonic ritual yeah possible would you say no,
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  are they paying good money you know that that's kind of the one of the things,
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  are we saying it's okay because they are from what i understand is that there is a good market for it.
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  I mean, you know, they had a big sheep sale. Well, we wouldn't do it.
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  What if there was a bad market for it? Very well done. Very well done.
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  Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I can hear everybody laughing. Yes.
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  So part of it, you like that.
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  Part of it is, at what point are you in your faith in such a way that you're going to say no?
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  Yeah. Yeah. Well, hi, guys. People's window. Cool.
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  Cool. So, uh, do we need to take a hiatus? I suppose. Hold on. I'll be right back.
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  Just a moment in our studio.
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  Okay.
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  Hi, guys.
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  Hi.
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  Edited moment. Yeah.
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  I don't remember where we were. We were talking about that. So then where do
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  you draw your personal lines? Right.
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  Because ultimately, these kinds of things sit in our discipleship.
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  It's in that relationship between us and God. Yeah. And so you've got to do it.
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  And what I found in my life, and maybe you haven't found it in your life,
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  is if I draw a line in concrete over here,
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  and then I do something over here that isn't quite as easily detected,
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  then somebody, wait a minute, Don, you do this?
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  You won't do this, but you will do this. Oh, yeah.
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  And so then you start, you know, okay, is there an inconsistency in my life?
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  And I guarantee you, if there is someone who's questioning the Christian faith
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  and wondering whether they should be a Christian or not, they're going to be
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  looking at Christians and saying, wait a minute. Oh, and they have every right
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  to. That does not line up. That's right.
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  They don't practice what they preach. They have every right to do that.
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  And they have every right to do that. Exactly.
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  Yep. And so we have to sort of watch those parameters and, and,
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  and be aware of, okay, if I'm doing this over here, how does that affect what I do over here?
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  And we need to live into this faith that God has given us as best as we can.
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  And that's why I don't hold somebody who's been a Christian two weeks to the
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  same standard as someone who's walked with Christ for 12 years. Yeah.
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  Because this is a growing experience. It's like any other relationship.
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  We grow into that relationship with Christ.
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  We grow into our relationship with God. And so it changes over time. Mm-hmm.
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  It's beautiful. Yep. It is. It is. And challenging. Yep.
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  Oh, yeah. I mean, you always got to kind of check your heart to see where your
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  motives are for that kind of thing, right?
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  Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. So, before you sell your goat, pray. Yeah.
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  That's good. I'd say, yeah, another good idea would be a great opportunity for
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  witness. It is an opportunity. Exactly. Yeah.
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  All right. So, on to the next topic.
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  We said we were going to talk about, quote unquote, the Jews.
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  Usually this is, you know, what people are saying, you know,
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  these bad things are happening and they're attributing it to the Jews.
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  I wanted with Don to kind of figure out, you know, who are we actually talking about?
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  Right? Yes. Because the Bible talks about, you know, calls, Jacob is called
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  Israel. So we have a person, right?
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  Yep. Israel. Now we got to, we got to, then there's a people and then there's a place.
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  And so how do we know who we're talking to? So can you kind of define all the key players in this?
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  So let's, let's sort of get a grasp of God's purpose. Yeah.
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  God's purpose has been to call out a special people.
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  And so we go back and we see this with Abraham. And Abram was actually from Eber.
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  Who was descended from Seth. And that's how we get Hebrew? From Eber.
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  Sons of Eber. Yeah. And so our Hebrew thing comes there and it comes through Abraham.
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  Then Abraham, you know, was this called out one from Ur and the Chaldees and called to Canaan.
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  And over time, then the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
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  and then Jacob's descendants were taken into Egypt. Okay.
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  And so that process was calling out a people.
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  The special people. A special people who would have been almost Egyptized, but not quite.
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  And then they were called out to this model that God wanted them to call into.
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  And then over a course of time, then it's always been a process where God,
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  I hate to say calls out, but maybe he's doing some calling his chosen people. Sure.
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  And then we go all through the time of the kings and we realize the kingdom was destroyed.
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  And then there was always a remnant. And we hear Isaiah talking about the root of Jesse.
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  And it comes right down to, instead of being a great big tree anymore,
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  it's just the root of Jesse.
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  And then you have Paul talking about us being engrafted branches into this root of Jesse.
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  So, I would hesitate to say that everybody who calls themselves Jew is Hebrew,
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  because you have to separate the religion from the politics and the ethnics.
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  The ethnic source.
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  The political source, and the religious. Yeah. It's as if there's three things
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  we have to sort of talk about when we talk about Jews. Yeah.
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  And ultimately, when we talk about Israel. Yes, absolutely. And so what God
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  shows us in his word is he's always trying to get this faithful remnant that
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  has, it may have an ethnic root. Yeah.
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  Because he was still working with Abraham's seed.
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  It may have a religious root, which probably is the biggest prominent piece.
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  And if it does, it will affect politically. Yeah, yeah. Impact politically. And so –.
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  It's been convenient to use Jews of an ethnic race. Right.
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  And so you look for how, how's your nose? I have a Jewy nose. Yeah.
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  Yes. I would fit right in. Yeah. I think there's even a couple Jewish DNAs in me.
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  Yeah. And, and so we could all be called Jews, right? Sure. If you have some,
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  some ethnic tie and a DNA that happens to be, of that fact of that group.
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  And, uh, so do we want to do it genetically, ethnically and talk about Jews,
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  or do we want to talk about the religious Jews? Right.
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  And, you know, we have Hasidic Jews in New York, quite a prominent group and very powerful group.
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  And, uh, they are very religious and they have certain protocol and they observe
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  that protocol and you don't keep the protocol, you're out of the protocol.
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  And so they are practicing the faith that they talk about.
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  We also have a lot who have been Jews religiously and call themselves Jews,
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  and maybe not as ethnic as...
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  So then when we pull through, what I want to end up at that piece is to remind
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  ourselves that the Jews are in the revelations.
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  So we know in the end times, There's actually God taking from 11 of the 12 original tribes. Okay.
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  12,000 to be the 144,000. What's interesting is, if you'll notice in Revelation
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  chapter 7, the tribe of Dan is missing.
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  That's one of the sons, and Dan is missing.
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  In Jeremiah 8, 16, it indicates that the Antichrist will actually come from
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  that tribe, which would be called Jewish, right? Right. Okay.
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  So at the end times, there's going to be 144,000 of that root of Jesse that
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  are going to be considered a white robed individual having to do with.
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  Don't harm.
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  I heard them number those that
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  were sealed in God. And it was 144,000 from the tribes of Israel. Yeah.
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  And then in chapter 14, that was chapter seven, by the way, that was chapter seven, chapter 14.
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  And with him, the 144,000 who had his name and his father's name on their forehead.
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  And I heard the sound of heaven roaring, rushing waters like a peel of thunder,
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  and the harps and sang a new song.
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  And it's a heavenly peace there in heaven.
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  And so of all those who call themselves Jews or Hebrews or Israelites,
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  there will be a 144,000 is quite a few. Yeah.
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  A significant number that are kingdom people. Yeah.
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  Now, does that mean, what does that mean? Right. And so I'd say, be very careful.
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  When we're throwing around the term Jew and Israelite, and I'd say even the term Israel. Sure.
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  Because are you talking about Israel in the Old Testament?
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  Or are you talking about the present political state in the Middle East?
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  Now, I let Don cook for a little bit. I do like to listen to him talk and go
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  through all this. But if you're new to...
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  If you're new to Don cooking... If you're a new Christian or something like
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  that, what he was doing is saying that there's a special group of people that God has chosen, right?
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  And through Revelation, that's the last book of the Bible, right?
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  That also gives evidence that these special people will be, God will call them, right?
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  Right. There's 144,000. 144,000.
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  So that means that they are still alive today. Right. There's a remnant.
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  Right. Within what we call Israel.
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  Yeah. There's a remnant in what we call Jews.
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  There's a remnant among them of these 144,000. Right.
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  And I have a question, so I'll put a pin into that.
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  But at the end there, kind of what we were saying is like, there are a lot of
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  different players that get labeled under, quote unquote, the Jews.
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  And we all need to kind of take that apart a little bit to see who's actually,
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  getting that label. Absolutely. Because even in the Old Testament, we see Israel,
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  Going against God and doing things that God didn't want. Right.
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  And that ultimately took the kingship and the kingdom away from them.
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  Now, Israel, that was the people Israel, right? Not the country? Yes. Right.
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  So were they Jews? But there was a country Israel back then,
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  too. Back then as well, right?
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  So were those people, the people, the Israel, Israel body, right?
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  Were they the Jews at that time?
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  Or can I refer to them that way? Ethnic heritage, they would have been.
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  Okay. Or would become, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.
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  All right. So, yeah. And so then, yeah. Yeah.
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  Can I make it a little messier? It seems messy. We even know at the time of
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  Christ, there were actually Greeks becoming Jews. Yeah. Yep.
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  Religiously. You could be that next, yeah.
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  Yeah, exactly. And so the.
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  Proselytes were coming in, and so they wouldn't have had the ethnic piece,
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  but they would have the religious piece.
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  So are they Jews? Yeah, they're Jews. Yeah.
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  Let me ask this question. It gets really messy after 4,000 years. How? Why?
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  In the Bible, I feel like you can see the, you can understand it a lot better.
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  There's a lot more definitions, separation between Israel, the country,
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  Israeli people, and Jews, and just a different, well, they didn't have different
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  sects of them at that time necessarily. Maybe they're towards the end.
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  What happened that makes it so that made it so confusing now or what made it
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  like um mean what made those words come to mean different things now well partly it's the diaspora,
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  because when in 70 a.d when the rones romans took over jerusalem the center
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  of the israel world, Israel, there was a lot of pushing out.
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  And so it actually pushed the Jews way out of Jerusalem, which didn't really
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  work good for the Romans.
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  Then they pushed them out of Rome. And so the Jews have always been a dispelled people.
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  Even in the midst of all this mess,
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  God has an intention to bring a peace out of that.
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  And that's at 144,000. And even the geographic spot of Israel will play a role in the end times.
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  And I've been reading here lately and looking forward to these two witnesses.
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  They're talked about in chapter 11. Oh, of Revelation, yep.
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  I think, you know, that happens from what I gather. It's going to happen there
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  in Jerusalem. It's going to happen there.
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  And, you know, they don't end up too good and then they get resurrected. Right.
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  I really think that's going to make the national news. I think it might even
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  be on NBC. I would hope so.
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  I would hope so. I would hope so. But what I'm saying is, be careful.
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  Let's be careful how we treat these terms, Israel, Jews, even Hebrews,
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  as to, are we talking about Old Testament?
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  Are we talking about Jesus' time? Are we talking about Revelation?
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  God has an intention for that piece of real estate that we call Israel.
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  Does that make everything that's going on right now right oh heavens no no I mean,
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  yeah that becomes religious becomes political yeah and that's a dangerous spot yeah,
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  I'm okay with religions supporting, especially the things that are positive
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  about our faith, our morality, our view of sexuality, how we treat our brother.
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  All those things of our religion should be affecting our politics.
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  But whether or not I eat bacon or have to have lamb, I will argue with you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
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  Okay. So, um, did I hit what you wanted to hit?
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  I think so. Yeah. I think the big takeaway, just if you're going to broaden, if you're going to,
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  since the whole, the Jews thing is so black and white, if you're that kind of
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  person that you want to think about in black and white, here's the black white
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  answer that is that there's a
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  lot of different things that come under that umbrella heading of the Jews.
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  And if you do that and refer to every, even, you know, Israel as the Jews and
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  the Jews live there and they're doing this thing. Yeah.
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  You're not operating wisely. Right. And I even remember a guy talking about
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  the, oh, well, the Jews we'd call Jews today are Edomites.
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  And I go, wait a minute. Wait. Where are you getting that?
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  They're not really Jews. Oh, I see. And so I, how are you getting there from,
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  here? I mean, what's the DNA?
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  And I didn't get a good answer, but there are so many conspiracy kind of things
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  out there that just muddy the works. Oh, yeah. It's fun. Go back to the Bible. Yeah.
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  Don't mess around on all this other stuff. Yeah. Go to the Bible.
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  All right, let's go back to the Bible then.
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  Oh. If Israel was God's chosen people, why did Israel repeatedly rebel against God? Ah.
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  And what was the point of rebellion? Sure. I still go back.
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  This is Donnie's special language that I do.
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  I still go back to the fact they lost sight of the focus that God was putting them on. Yeah.
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  Because the covenant that was made was that I will bless you.
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  I will make your name great. You will be a blessing.
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  I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you.
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  And all peoples on earth will be, future tense, blessed through you.
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  But the intention of that is you will be a blessing.
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  And I think when Israel lost sight of the fact, the Jews lost sight of the fact
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  that because they are favored by Almighty God, they themselves are to be a blessing,
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  to the people around them.
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  When they lost sight of that, they lost God's blessing. Yeah.
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  And I think time after time and time again, you'll see this passage of Genesis
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  chapter 12, verses 1 to 3, used time and time and in different flavors maybe here and there.
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  But the bottom thing is they weren't a blessing.
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  They weren't being a blessing. Their selfishness, their self-centeredness, it was all about them.
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  Overrode the fact that they were elevated to a special position with Almighty
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  God for the purpose of being a blessing to people outside who weren't them.
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  Yeah, and if you can... And they were not a blessing.
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  They did not live like a blessing. They lived like a closed community that weren't
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  ever going to help their neighbor.
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  And then when Christ comes in Mark chapter 12, love the Lord your God with all
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  your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength,
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  and love your neighbor as yourself.
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  And he says that in a reference to the fact that, okay, who is your neighbor?
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  Well, the Samaritan ended up in that story being the neighbor. Right.
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  That's the thing that baffles me when we look at the old testament and all that
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  god was trying to do with his chosen people and they didn't get it,
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  that their primary call in this covenant with god what what they received they were to bless others,
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  no we'll just sit on it yeah and,
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  i think the dangerous spot is i hope christians living today aren't doing the
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  same i was just going to pull that in you can make a whole sermon about this,
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  yeah how often do we see people in the bible and say i wouldn't do that i would never do that laz or um um.
• 21:57
  Oh, who was I just lost it in my head. Oh, is it catching? I'm having those moments. Oh, my gosh.
• 22:03
  But you're looking at maybe, you know, some of the religious actors that are
• 22:08
  persecuting, crucifying Jesus. And you're like, I wouldn't be that one.
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  I would have been the one shouting Hosanna in the streets.
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  You know, I would have been the one weeping at the cross, not the one laughing
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  and shouting things at him. But I mean, in reality, that's probably not true
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  for a lot of us. You know what I mean?
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  And it can be very easy to lose sight of that. So then you look at something.
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  This is the question, you know, how could they do that if they were God's chosen
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  people? It's like, well, how do we do it? Right. How do we do it all the time? All the time.
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  Judas. That's what I was looking at. Judas. Yeah.
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  And you look at the crowd, the crowd speak at the trial of Jesus.
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  Yeah. And, you know, main voices were those of the Sanhedrin. Yeah.
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  And main voices among them were the priests.
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  And so the crowd speak picked it up. Yeah.
• 22:59
  Well, there's the guys who know. Okay. They must be right. Good.
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  Talk about the Sanhedrin then a little bit, because that's this conglomeration
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  of Jewish leaders, right?
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  Primary two political parties. Yep.
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  The Sanhedrin would have been made up of the Sadducees, and the Sadducees were
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  a more liberal side. Okay.
• 23:19
  They did not believe in the resurrection. That's why they were Sadducee.
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  That's how I remember it.
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  And so they differed from the Pharisees, who were much more spiritual,
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  but also more conservative.
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  And more Pharisees would actually accept Jesus than the Sadducees.
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  In fact, there's a spot in Acts chapter 4 where it is the Sadducees alone that
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  take the apostles before the Sanhedrin for trial.
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  It wasn't the Pharisees. The Pharisees weren't. Because...
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  Peter's rhetoric at that time was talking about the resurrected Jesus.
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  Well, I didn't bother the Pharisees. Yeah, they believed in that spiritual.
• 24:03
  Exactly. Sadducees were upset with that. Yeah.
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  And so those two political parties were part of the Sanhedrin.
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  And the Sanhedrin actually originated all the way back in Moses' time. Right.
• 24:15
  So that's the good way. That's another good example of like when you're talking
• 24:18
  about the Jews and what's happening.
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  Like even back in the time of Jesus, there were two different parties there
• 24:24
  that really differed on how they viewed the entire world and how they operated
• 24:29
  in a political and a power structure.
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  So then you've got, you know, people underneath them. So you've really got,
• 24:36
  then you've got like five already at that time. And you have to imagine that
• 24:39
  would multiply it to now. Oh my, yeah.
• 24:42
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• 24:46
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• 24:48
  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
• 24:51
  and his calling to us in our daily lives.
• 24:54
  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.