TJCII UK

Author: Editor

  • TJCII Testimony: Rev. Timothy Butlin

    TJCII Testimony: Rev. Timothy Butlin

    Rev. Timothy Butlin (TJCII UK) shares testimony during an online event with TJCII Ireland, along with insights into his connection to TJCII, Israel’s destiny and God’s history playing out before us.

  • The Seven Affirmations

    The Seven Affirmations

    Our Statement to Affirm the Messianic Jewish Movement

    Consistent with the principle of respect for diversity in the Body of Christ concerning Jewish and Gentile identity established in the original Jerusalem Council of Acts chapter 15, we make the following statement:

    1. We affirm the election of Israel, its irrevocable nature and God’s unfinished work with the Jewish people regarding salvation and the role of Israel as a blessing to the nations.
      
    2. We encourage Jews who come to faith in the Messiah, Jesus, to retain their Jewish identity and live as part of their people in ways consistent with the New Covenant.
      
    3. We affirm the formation of Messianic Jewish congregations as a significant and effective way to express Jewish collective identity in Jesus. We also affirm Jewish individuals and groups that are part of churches and encourage them in their commitment to Jewish life and identity.
      
    4. We invite churches and ecclesiastical bodies of all traditions to build bridges to Messianic Jewish congregations and groups, and extend to them the hand of friendship. 
      
    5. We encourage Messianic Jewish congregations to develop authentic Jewish expressions of their faith in Jesus the Messiah and so to fulfill their God-given purpose. They can rely on us as their brothers and sisters in Messiah.
      
    6. We affirm our willingness to be a voice within our own ecclesiastical structures and spheres of influence against all forms of anti-Semitism, replacement theology (supersessionism) and teaching that precludes Jewish expressions of identity in Jesus.
      
    7. We are confident that as Jewish and Gentile expressions of life in Jesus grow organically side by side, with distinct identities, that God will be glorified; that the Kingdom of Heaven will be advanced; and that the vision of “the one new man” in Ephesians 2 will unfold as fruit from the original Abrahamic blessing to the nations.
  • Antisemitism from the Reformation to the Holocaust

    Antisemitism from the Reformation to the Holocaust

    Repentance Service for High Wycombe 1234 Expulsion of Jews

    James E. Patrick

    It is now 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp, and by the end of last year, more than 75,000 Stolpersteine had been set into the pavements of towns and cities throughout Europe.  Each of these small square bronze plaques is installed outside the former home of a victim of the Holocaust, listing his or her name, and dates of birth, deportation, and death if known.  Britain thankfully did not lose any of its Jewish citizens to the Holocaust, except in our Channel Islands, where at least forty thousand, Jews and others, were killed in Nazi labour camps on Alderney.  But we cannot just blame the Nazis.  We too are guilty of the crime of deporting our Jews.  Here tonight, in High Wycombe, we honour the memory of each Jewish man, woman and child, we forced to leave their homes in 1234.

                Expelling Jewish people from English towns was the first step towards expelling them from the whole country in 1290, and many other nations of Europe began to copy us over the next two centuries.  The largest of these expulsions was from Spain in 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus discovered America, a future refuge for the Jewish people.  At the same time, the new dawn of the Renaissance was breaking over Europe, and a German priest, Martin Luther, soon began his religious Reformation of the Catholic Church in 1517.  He found forgotten truths in the Bible, a Bible he translated into the language of the common people.  Maybe now the Church’s ancient tradition of anti-Jewish prejudice might also be reformed?  Maybe they would see in the Bible, God’s clear promises of unending love and faithfulness to the Jews?

                Luther began well, in his book Jesus Christ Was Born A Jew, urging mild treatment of Jews in the hopes that they would convert wholesale to his ‘authentic’ version of Christianity.  But they did not.  Instead, he heard that reformed Christians were starting to rediscover the Jewishness of their own faith.  Incensed, Luther turned back to the worst excesses of his own tradition.  Augustinian theology held Luther back from advocating full-on massacre, but he came as near as he could in his 1543 pamphlet On The Jews And Their Lies.  Addressing the German princes and nobles who accepted his teaching, Luther urged them, and I quote:

    “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools…  Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed…  Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings… be taken from them.  Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach…”

    Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543

    The list goes on, removing safe-conduct, confiscating all their wealth, subjecting them to forced labour, and ultimately expelling them for ever from the country, so that, as he says, “we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews”.  Sixteenth-century Germany did not go this far, but the ideas took root in Protestant as well as Catholic German culture, until four hundred years later, Hitler set out to implement the programme.  He was no Christian, but most churches proved to be willing allies.

    From 1933, the Nazis passed increasingly repressive laws against the Jews, every one previously paralleled in anti-Jewish rulings of Christian canon law.  On 10 November 1938, hate-filled laws burst into flame in the Night of Broken Glass.  Over 1000 synagogues were destroyed, Jewish homes and businesses attacked, property stolen.  The event inspired a leading bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Martin Sasse, to publish a compendium of Luther’s writings, celebrating the fact that Kristallnacht had happily coincided with Luther’s birthday.

                It would be easy for us to point the finger at the Germans, or at the Lutherans, and say that the British, good Anglicans, would never have allowed such a thing to happen.  But in fact, the British did just that.  Four months before that night, the Americans had summoned representatives of 32 nations to Évian in France, with Hitler’s vocal approval, to settle the problem of the increasing numbers of Jewish refugees, all now legally stateless, who were trying to flee persecution in Nazi Germany.  Of all 32 nations, only the Dominican Republic expressed any willingness to accept more than a few thousand Jewish refugees, despite the millions in need of refuge.  Apparently, we didn’t have space for them; no room at the inn.  In the nine months leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939, Britain did actually accept 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees, known as the Kindertransport.  Yet at the same time we also passed the 1939 White Paper, illegally restricting Jewish immigration into the internationally recognised ‘Jewish national home’ in Palestine.  We allowed at most 15,000 per year, for the next five years, the five years of their greatest ever need.  We saw the Jews not as a potential blessing but as a problem; the Nazis would just have to find an alternative, ‘final solution’.  It was therefore Britain who shut the doors of the gas chambers, and Germany who did the rest.

                Not even after the Holocaust, did post-war Britain change its policy.  Those who had managed to survive the slaughter of their entire families in the death camps of Poland and Germany were now free to find somewhere, anywhere, to rebuild their lives.  Since ancient times, the annual Jewish Passover meal, which remembers Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, always finishes with the words of deep longing, ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’  Where else should they go?  As late as 1947, the Exodus ship, sailing from France towards British-Mandate Palestine, crammed with 4,500 bereaved and traumatised Holocaust survivors, was rammed by the British navy and then boarded.  In Haifa port, its desperate occupants were then transferred onto three other ships and taken all the way back to Germany, where we confined them again in camps, such as Bergen-Belsen.  The nations were rightly appalled.

                That was a lifetime ago now, but sadly the underlying prejudices have not gone away.  Why do our own hearts still resent the idea of the Jews having a homeland?  One place in the world where they truly belong?  That is of course putting the question the wrong way around.  We should be asking the Jewish people to make their home here too, among us, in our streets and towns, wherever they might honour us with their company.  A brass plaque outside our front doors, on our door-posts even, inviting the Jew to enter and make his home here.

                But it was our fathers who expelled Jewish families from Wycombe centuries ago.  It was our fathers who slammed the door of the gas chambers in the face of Jewish refugees, and then turned away the survivors, just decades ago.  And still today, it is we Christians who expel the Jews from our shared Scriptures, who unthinkingly call ourselves ‘Israel’ now and set up home in the beautiful promises made to ‘Zion’ or ‘Jerusalem’, having cast the Jews out of their own inheritance, doomed for ever to wander homeless, marked with the yellow star of ‘rebellious Israelites’ or ‘hypocritical Pharisees’, undeserving of grace and mercy that we ourselves depend upon.  Like our fathers, we still resent the chosen people, jealous of their unique promises, of God’s evident favour on them, so we steal their technicolour dreamcoat.

    The historian Cecil Roth estimated that up to half of all Jews in the late Middle Ages died violent deaths at the hands of Christians.  Drawing from this horrific legacy of jealous Christian antisemitism, the Nazis then managed to slaughter over six million Jews in walled-off ghettos and pits in the forest and slave labour camps and gas chambers and ovens.  Six million.

    With such vast, obscene numbers like this, the reality of the human cost can become statistics, mere numbers, as heartless as those branded on the arms of each person arriving at Auschwitz extermination camp.  If you have not already done so, it is your solemn duty, your sacred obligation, to go away from here tonight and listen to or read the story of at least one Holocaust survivor at this time of remembrance.  In the memories of survivors, the faces and voices of so many uniquely precious individuals who died are still honoured.

    But for Christians here, those who have chosen to obey the Jewish King, I want to direct your hearts to look at Him tonight.  There are two recorded occasions when Jesus wept.  The first was at the death of His close friend Lazarus, Eleazar in Hebrew.  The second was a few days later, as He entered into Jerusalem on a donkey, being welcomed as Messiah.  But Yeshua Himself was weeping over the city, and over the indescribable suffering that He knew His own Jewish people would experience forty years later in the Roman Holocaust of Jerusalem, and for century upon century after that (Luke 19:41-44).  In all their affliction, He too was afflicted.

    When He Himself was then sentenced to death for being ‘King of the Jews’, the Roman soldiers poured out all of their sadistic brutality upon Him as the representative Jew.  He willingly soaked up their senseless antisemitic hatred for His people.  He lived as a Jew and died as a Jew, suffering with and for His Jewish people throughout history, sanctifying the name of God – kiddush haShem.  He carried the pain of our abuse on Himself, and even asked God to forgive us for our ignorance and hatred.

    In casting out the Jew from our streets, our towns, we have rejected the blessing they carry.  Yet, as they died in those gas chambers, they died in the sure hope of resurrection.  And the one who stood at the tomb of Lazarus stood again at the liberated gates of Auschwitz and cried out, “Israel, come forth”.  May the merciful God, who always brings life from the dead, witness our tears and resurrect in our hearts a living love for the Jewish people, the light to the nations, at home again, here, with us.

  • One New Man and the Spirit’s call for Unity

    One New Man and the Spirit’s call for Unity

    This article by Domonic McDermott originally appeared on http://ccr.org.uk

    In 2017 the Catholic Church celebrated a Jubilee, 50 years since CCR1 began in 1967.  But then the following year the question, began to be asked, we have had 50 years of CCR but what now, what does the Holy Spirit want from us now as a body? A European prophetic consultation was proposed to answer this question and gathered prophetic people for a weekend in Assisi in Italy close to where St Francis had heard God’s call to “Rebuild My Church”.

    I was there representing the European Network of Communities as I oversee ENC’s intercessory and prophetic network. I had turned up a day early because of flight availability. So the evening before it officially started, as a few of us were praying during mass, Ged Farrell from Scotland received a scripture Ezekiel 37:1-14 about Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones coming back to life. These bones are Jewish bones, “the whole House of Israel” as it says in verse 11. But today I believe that this prophecy refers specifically to the Messianic Jews (those Jews who accept Jesus as their Messiah). Why?  Because they as a group had ceased to exist since about the year 400AD! But now (since 1967) God has raised them to life again in their thousands as, all across the world, they have found new life in Christ and through Him also the Holy Spirit, just as the passage says in verse 14. Also the Jewish people, of every sort, are being returned to their own land again just as the prophecy promises in verse 12.

    This was very exciting to me since in Dec 2017 the Boss had called me supernaturally out of 15 years of prison ministry to work for the unity of His Body – with the Messianic Jews as the instrument of that unity. The Lord had previously given me this Ezekiel 37:1-14 prophecy numerous times and in fact just before I left the prison work one prisoner even received the same vision as the prophet without having ever read the bible or even hearing the name Ezekiel before.

    Anyway the next evening, Friday in Assisi, the Consultation officially began and on that evening we as a gathering of several hundred prophetic people received two main words or pictures (among various others):

    • Firstly of a wall blocking and deflecting the flow of a river and
    • Secondly the scripture ref. Joshua 15/14 – the passage about Caleb fighting against and overcoming the three sons of Anak, who were blocking the way into his portion of the promised land.

    Nobody had an interpretation for either of these prophetic pictures at the time although I said I happened to know that the three sons of Anak were giants (I like giants I don’t know why) and Ged again said he felt that God wanted us to pull down this wall, whatever it was.

    That night The Boss started talking to me about these two images. Firstly Joshua 15:14 which is about the Exodus and describes how Joshua and the twelve tribes return to the Land of Cana (what will be Israel) after all the unbelieving people have died in the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Caleb who was one of the two scouts willing to trust God the first time they came to the land said in the previous chapter to Joshua “let me go in and take this hill country for I am as strong now as I was 45 years ago”. True to his word he does go in and destroys the 3 giants and takes the land and renames it Hebron (Hebrew for covenant).

    The Lord showed me that these three giants are still blocking the way for the Church to come into the fullness of the covenant He has for us (as a united body of Gentile and Messianic Jewish believers) and I believe the Lord said that these three giants symbolically represent:

    Pride, Independence and Ownership, these three things keep us as Church from the Spirit of humility and service needed to build unity which will in turn release the power of His Spirit that The Boss wants released for us. You know the scripture;

    “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity…there God commands a blessing…”

    Psalm 133

    It is interesting to note that Caleb was being given a second chance to enter the Promised Land, as the first time forty-five years previously fear of the many other giants there had prevented the people entering in to receive all God had promised. Similarly the RC Church and CCR specifically are now, after 50 years, being given a second chance to overcome these giants and of entering in to the Covenant blessings that God has prepared for us to receive through  our humility and subsequent unity.

    The Lord then explained that the wall that was seen on the Friday night has a name and that name is the “Hostile Wall of Division” of Ephesians 2:14 – this is the wall of division between Jews and Gentiles, the wall which, the scripture says Christ broke down by His Cross to make us both one Body. It says that He pulled it down so:

     “…that from the two He might create in Himself One New Man…”.

    Ephesians 2:15

     This breaking down of the wall between us led to the Jews accepting the Gentile believers into the Jewish Church in Acts 15 (verses 16-20): at the event which we know as the Jerusalem Council, and hence the One New Man was given birth. But about 400 years later we, the Gentile believers, took their church from them and effectively told the Jewish believers “if you want to be in our church you must give up your Jewishness and become Gentiles”.

    So this wall, which was pulled down by Christ, we rebuilt and have been steadily rebuilding ever since how? Eg in:

    • 306AD the local Synod of Elvira forbade marriage and other interaction with Jews,
    • 321AD the Saturday Jewish Sabbath was replaced by Sunday as our holy day,
    • 325AD at the Council of Nicea – the dating of Easter was separated from the Jewish Passover to further distance us from the Jews because of Constantine’s anti-semitism
    • 341AD the Council of Antioch forbade Christians from celebrating Passover with the Jews… etc etc.

    The river that was seen at the Friday night of the Assisi Prophetic Consultation is the river of the Holy Spirit and was shown being diverted away from where it wants to flow by this wall of division between Jew and Gentile. This is not just about ancient history, because as the fruit of this original division the Church has suffered split after split ever since with great hostility involved each time almost like a virus of division. The other divisions which followed are not about the Jews but are still built upon this wall as their foundation, built upon the idea that a new church can rise up and replace the old as God’s true Church, as if the old was not established by God, so this replacement theology was at the heart of :

    • 1054 Great Schism between Eastern and Western Churches (Latin and Greek) leading to the separation of Orthodox and Catholic Churches
    • 1517 act of Luther which ignited the Reformation separating Catholics from Protestants.
    • 1901 the start of Pentacostalism which further separated the Protestant Church world in two, between charismatics and non-charismatics

    Today there are said to be about 35,000 different denominations in the world, but as my friend Archdeacon Johannes Fichtenbauer is fond of saying:

    “When the Lord comes back He is coming back not for a harem but for a single Bride!”

    So what does the Holy Spirit want of the Church?

    Unity! Unity is our Destiny. To restore unity to the dismembered Body of Christ (which the wooden sculpture of the crucified Christ in our meeting hall in Assisi so graphically illustrated).

    To restore the unity Christ won for us on the cross as it says in Ephesians 2:14 we again need to pull down this wall of division – to start to heal these ancient wounds of division?  The Lord showed me, I believe, that the power of the River/His Spirit will do most of the heavy work if we make an attempt at dealing with the wall in humility.

    To switch images for a moment, the efforts to build unity in the Body of Christ is, He showed me, like a zip fastener on a jacket, you can try and do the jacket up from the top (the current day) by pushing the pieces of the zip (the various parts/churches of the Body) together, or you can start at the bottom with the zip fastener and align the two lower halves (Gentile and Jewish believers) and then everything will come together with minimum effort in the right (spiritual) order. “Okay” I said “what is this zip fastener?” and He said “The Messianic Jews are the zip fastener!”  ie those Jews who have accepted Jesus (or Yeshua as they call him). So we Gentile believers need to take hold of the Messianic Jews and lift them up (honour and support them) in order to bring about unity through healing of this original wound of division,  and then all the subsequent wounds of division will start to heal too. But this acceptance of the Messianic Jews (MJs) by the Church will only happen through the Charismatic Renewal. This is why I believe there was so much emphasis on ecumenism at the beginning of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 1967. Why do I say only through the CR because the understanding of the importance of the Jewish People is only received by a Church or part of a church that studies it’s bible and honours the prophecies it finds clearly written there.

    It may surprise you to know that the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 674 clearly teaches that “All Israel must be saved before Jesus returns” this itself being based upon St Paul’s teaching in Romans 11:26 and Jesus own words to the Jews in Matthew 23:39 that;

    “…you [Jews] will not see Me again until you say ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’”.

    Matthew 23:39

    Jesus was quoting from Psalm 118:26 which He knew referred to Himself, the Messiah, the stone which the builders rejected (Psalm 118:22). So if we want Jesus to come again we need to do everything we can to bring Israel to accept Jesus as Messiah (as the Messianic Jews already have).

    But how are the Jewish people to come to know Jesus as Messiah when we as Gentile Christians have done everything we can to destroy them and their way of life down through the centuries. We need some kind of bridge to reach them and this is exactly what God, in His wisdom, has provided for us in the MJ movement. Whilst Jews won’t listen to Christians, because of our history of persecution, replacement theology, crusades, pogroms and the Holocaust, they are much more likely to listen to other Jews who have come to recognise the name of their long awaited Messiah: Yeshua. The work of the MJ in converting their brothers is not easy and we as Gentile believers have a sacred duty and interest in supporting them – especially if we understand that Jesus will not return until they succeed!

    But why would Jesus put this condition upon His own return?

    Because the Jews are the original and natural Olive tree of faith that God Himself planted and that we as Gentile believers are grafted into, St Paul clearly teaches this in Romans 11:17. It is not the other way around, i.e. we are not trying to get the believing Jews grafted into our Church, as if we Gentiles were the original Olive Tree – although we have acted as if it was for the last 1700 years. This revelation can only come from God but when it does, we then come to recognise the Jews as our older brothers in faith as Pope John 23rd understood when he said to the Jewish leaders visiting the Vatican “Behold I am Joseph your brother” (quoting Gen 45/4 where Joseph reveals his identity to his estranged brothers). This word of the pope was an astonishingly prophetic act as God had allowed the separation of Joseph and his brothers so that Joseph through being accepted by the Gentiles (in Egypt) would finally be in a position to help his Jewish brothers in their hour of need and be reunited with them, once there was mutual recognition.

    This acceptance of the Jews as our older brother acknowledges their “irrevocable call and gifting by God” and this is also written in the CCC paragraph 839 quoting Rom 11:29 (irrevocable call) and Rom 9:4-5 (God’s gifts to them). This St Paul says, means that God’s calling of Israel and the Jewish people to reveal His nature to the world is an eternal calling. It further acknowledges that we Gentile believers get to share in the New Covenant that God, in Christ, made with them (see Jer 31:31). If we begin to acknowledge all this by honouring and lifting up the MJ (grasping and raising up the ‘zipper’ to go back to my analogy) then, I believe, bit by bit we will also receive the ecumenical unity that God desires of us and that Jesus on His last night of life on the planet prayed so earnestly for – John 17:21 “that they all may be one …so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.” and so when the world is convinced through our unity of the truth of Christ’s incarnation then the grace of God’s Spirit will be poured out in a new wave through the unified Body of Messiah upon the world for the final and great Harvest.

    In other words;

    • the world’s conversion which we all pray so hard for, is dependent upon our Unity as a Body.
    • Our Unity depends firstly upon our recognition, in humility, of God’s eternal plan to reveal Himself through the Jewish people and secondly
    • Our work to heal the many wounds and divisions of the past beginning with the Messianic Jews – so that Jesus may return for a single glorious Bride without spot or wrinkle.

    One last thing, I began this article referring to the Jubilee in Rome in 2017 celebrating 50 years of CCR (and also 50 years of the resurrection of a MJ part of the Body of Christ). I was there in Rome for the celebration of that Jubilee with the ENC2 council and just before it began we were praying for the event as some disagreement had arisen between the organisers and the Pope who had effectively said “you don’t have to make the event ecumenical but if you don’t then I won’t come”.

    As we prayed we received a word for Pope Francis himself:

    “I have laid upon his shoulder the key to the House of David and what (door) he opens no man shall shut…”

    Isaiah 22:22

    This came with a strong sense that the door that God was opening, through Pope Francis, which no-one will be able to shut, is a door for ecumenism in the Church especially including the Messianic Jews, (hence the Key being the key of the House of David). Then in the days that followed both Pope Francis and Raniero Cantalamessa (the preacher to the papal household) spoke from the stage to 60,000 wild charismatics about the Charismatic Renewal being a current of grace for the whole Church and not just for Catholics, an ecumenism of “reconciled diversity” that “especially includes the MJs!”

  • TJCII Eastern Europe Consultation

    TJCII Eastern Europe Consultation

    23-25 May 2019, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Every few years TJCII Europe organizes local consultations inviting church leaders and all interested in TJCII in particular region. The aim is to give a good foundation for TJCII grow in the area. But also to create the opportunity for building connections between leaders who understand the place of Israel and unity of the Church in the contexst of One New Man perspective. Last time it took place in 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine. This year May 23-25, there is Eastern Europe Consultation in Kaunas, Lithuania.

    There are international speakers invited including: deacon KR Mag. Johannes Fichtenbauer (Archdeacon of Vienna, TJCII Europe president and ILC member), Rabbi Marty Waldman (Baruch HaShem Messianic Synagogue in Dallas; founder of TJCII vision), fr. prof. Etienne Vetö (French-American, Professor of Theology at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome), Rabbi Andrey Vdov (MJ congregation in St. Petersburg), dr. Richard Harvey (Messianic Jewish Theologian and member of Catholic-Messianic Jewish dialogue), Rev’d Timothy Butlin (Vicar Anglican Church, Loudwater and UK Director TJCII ), Rabbi Andrey Lugovskyi (Elder of MJ congregation KEMO Kiev).

    The program includes 10 teaching sessions, prayer and worship time, shabbat celebration, pannel discussion and meeting of national teams. And of course time of fellowship and sharing with people who try to understand what God is doing in our times and what does He says to the Body of Christ.

    Consultation will be in English with translation into 5 languages (Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish). Registration must be done here: https://bit.ly/2HJMn6k

    All practical aspects (including detailed program, address, accomodation, food you can find attached below:

    TJCII Eastern Europe Consultations (1)Download

    If you feel interested but need some encouragement please read our bulettin issued after consulatations in Kiev.

    KIEV-Edition-Europe-finalDownload

    or watch video:

    Video “There is something missing” made during last TJCII Consultation in Kiev in 2014,
    hosted by Messianic Jewish Congregation in Kiev.

  • Now Generation Trip to Romania

    From 24 – 31 May, Paula Leitner (NL), Edit Lang (HU), Asia Malec (PL) and Sr. Mary Paul Friemel (Hainburg), visited Fr. Vasile and his church community in Sibiu, Romania.  The purpose of our visit was to learn more about the rich heritage of the Orthodox church, especially in the liturgy and other traditions. 

    Edit and Sr. Mary Paul arrived on Thursday and had a nice evening together with Fr. Vasile.  The next day, Friday, was spent getting settled into the place, with an introduction to the liturgy and many members of Fr. Vasile’s lovely family.  Paula and Asia arrived later that evening, after having spent a day with Florin Suciu, our Messianic brother in Bucharest.

    On the weekend, we were very happy (and at times overwhelmed) to take part in the meeting of the Lord’s Army, a renewal movement within the Orthodox church which began in 1918.  On Monday and Tuesday we were able to meet a visiting Lutheran professor and pastor, Dr. Martin Tamcke, who came to give lectures to two different groups of students.  We were allowed to take part in both sessions.  He shared about the history of the Syrian Orthodox church and the current situation.  On Wednesday, we took time to reflect on the very full and intense time we had, and also to rest a bit.  Our days ended, as they began, with a nice evening with Fr. Vasile.

    The Lord’s Army

    Lord’s Army is renewal movement within Romanian Orthodox Church founded in 1922. The basic idea of this movement is to bring lay people to know Bible and to serve God in their daily lives.

    When the Lord’s Army gathers, they follow a pattern of singing, recitation of a poem or another artistic expression and preaching (many times by a layman).  As many of the founding members of the “Army”, like Traian Dorz, had a talent for poetry, within the ranks of the Army of the Lord flourished a specific kind of religious poetry, written in an easy, accessible style. Most poems are focused on developing a personal relationship with Christ, struggle against sins, the Christian mission in the world, and the poetic interpretation of Scriptural passages.

    We spend whole weekend with Lord’s Army members during their gathering for weekend of Pentecost. We were really touched by the deep faith of the people. The teachings were very deep and touching – we heard many excellent biblical teachings about the Holy Spirit.  So often, the people preaching would even weep, and we witnessed many of the listeners being moved to tears by the message.  When we asked one young girl why people cry she said immediately that this is the Holy Spirit working in their hearts!

    Many people from the Lord’s Army (but also from Fr. Vasile’s parish) asked us directly: “Have you experienced miracles from God?” They shared beautiful testimonies of God’s healing and provision in their lives. It was great to see the same Spirit working in different settings. It was amazing to see how much they love and honor the Spirit working in their lives.

    Something deeply impressive was the level of commitment in them, how willing they were to make sacrifice – the meetings lasted 3 – 4 hours (each session), and many people stood for large parts of those times.  It was a kind of persevering, deeply reverent love of God as expressed in the Word and in the Liturgy.

    During these two days with the Lord’s Army, we had some deep heart to heart meetings with a few people, many young women and a monk who lives high in the mountains close to Sibiu.  Edit was able to show an icon which she feels shows the “Jewish Face of Jesus” and we were able to share a bit about our calling to unity and to the Jewish people.  The people who came to us were touched by what we said, and as we shared we were able to see how the Holy Spirit had prepared them (and us) for the meeting.

    In the first meeting when we were introduced, Paula did a great job of taking a first step of repentance as a Catholic towards the Orthodox Church.  This is important in this area where there are deep historical wounds between Catholics and Orthodox, especially during the time of the Habsburgs.

    The Liturgy

    The Orthodox liturgy was really a new experience for all of us except Edit, who regularly takes part in a Greek Orthodox liturgy in Budapest. So for the first days we were rather lost, especially as it was all in the Romanian language. In spite of this, we could be very touched by their deep reverence for Mystery – by the height, breadth, and depth of the worship.  They make time and take effort to make the liturgy beautiful and worthy.  The liturgy is full of scripture and intercession.  As Paula asked, “What would the world look like without the intercession of the Orthodox church?”

    We were impressed by the various Jewish elements that were expressed in the liturgy, and through the lectures with Dr. Tamcke, we learned how the Syrian Orthodox church has maintained so much, so closely connected to the synagogue.

    The people were touched, it seemed, that we took part in the liturgy.  On Sunday during the Lord’s Army meeting one man commented from the front that he was deeply touched that we have stayed to participate, and he said he felt to call us “sisters”. The people were very welcoming to us and tried as much as possible to help us.

    Opportunities to share about TJCII

    We were asked to share on three different occasions – on Saturday at the youth meeting of the Lord’s Army, on Monday evening with Fr. Vasile’s parish after the evening prayer service, and on Tuesday morning with a group of students in the Orthodox faculty.

    It was an honor to address these different groups and to feel the trust given to us to say something, especially as Fr. Vasile was the one to translated us!  In each setting we were each able to share something regarding TJCII and from our own personal experience in TJCII.  Edit was thrilled each time to share her revelation of the icons which she carried with her everywhere, in her backpack.  People were really touched as she shared, because of her deep love for the icons, though she is blind.

    It was also a blessing to have an opportunity to express our sorrow as Catholics in regards to the sins of the past, towards the Orthodox church, and our joy and gratitude for the “discoveries” that we were making in these days about the rich treasures.  We feel after these days that we have each experienced a kind of renewal and refreshment in our spirit!

    We also saw how the need still exists for more repentance and for more discovery.

    The Icons and the Jewish Face of Yeshua

    Edit Lang, from Hungary, has a deep love for icons and has received an understanding about many elements of icons that show the Jewish-ness of Yeshua.  In her presentations she was able to explain, in particular, one icon of Yeshua that shows him as a victorious King.  She has a wonderful explanation of the hair and beard and how it connects with the dignity of the Jewish people (that was so much lost, especially in the concentration camps as they cut their hair, even making rugs with it) and we could see that many people were deeply moved.

    For Edit, the liturgy was always a time when she realized more about the icons (and a few more that she got new on this trip) and then she was able to share more, each time touching the hearts of those who heard.

    Thank you

    We are so deeply grateful to Fr. Vasile and all who we met who made our trip to Sibiu so meaningful and warm.  The hospitality was excellent and we didn’t even know what to do with all the food we had!  We each go home refreshed and thankful, each hoping to return, as we know it is only a beginning to the process to know more about this rich Orthodox tradition.  May God be blessed in His creativity and wisdom, and may He bless our new friends in Sibiu and in the Lord’s Army!

     

  • Launch: Spreading The Word Online

    Launch: Spreading The Word Online

    Messianic Education Trust Launches New Guided Bible Study Package

    Spreading the Word Online is a ministry of Tikkun International, fufilling the mandate given by the prophets Micah and Isaiah: Kiy miTzion teytzey Torah ud’var Adonai miy Yerushalayim – For the Torah shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Micah 4:2, Isaiah 2:3). In these days, the words of Amos are to be seen everywhere:

    “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the LORD. And people will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)

    Our response is to make the Word available in the most effective and convenient way for the culture in which we now live – via the Internet. Spreading The Word Online exists to do just that: spread the word using on-line media – by email, facebook, twitter and other platforms as appropriate. We have a number of subscription, gift and sponsored ways for you to be able to participate with us in reaching more and more people with the words of the Bible, the Scriptures, on a daily, weekly, guided and themed basis.

    Spreading The Word Online believes in allowing the Word to speak for itself. While our material may contain some commentary, thoughts and challenges, we are not a teaching ministry. Teaching, on-line courses and speaking engagements are carried out by our sister ministry, Messianic Education Trust. Please do visit their website to see if there is a course or seminar series that would interest you.

    Spreading The Word Online can also be found on Twitter (@SpreadTheWordOL) so please follow us there so that we can get to know you.

    [/intense_tab] [intense_tab title=”About” border=”3px solid #e8e8e8″ link_target=”_self” icon_type=”question” icon_size=”1″ icon_position=”left”]

    Spreading The Word Online is a ministry of Tikkun International, a family of Messianic Jewish congregations and ministries in Israel, the UK and the USA. Its directors are Jonathan and Belinda Allen, who have been in covenant relationship with Tikkun for over seventeen years. Jonathan and Belinda led a Tikkun congregation for a number of years and Jonathan has served as Tikkun’s webmaster for most of that time, helping with content generation and formatting as well as correspondence and donor relationships. Jonathan completed his PhD in Theology at Trinity College, Bristol, in 2017 and has been teaching adult classes for nearly twenty years. Something of a Hebrew Bible specialist, although equally at home in the Apostolic Writings, Jonathan teaches biblical Hebrew and many other things covering a wide range of subjects from biblical criticism to the gospels, to studies of individual books, and practical subjects like prayer and how to read or study the Bible.

    Spreading The Word Online was approved by the Tikkun International Board in March 2018 and launched its initial range of ways to connect with the Bible in the following months. Please send us an email (STW) to give us your name and email address if you would like to be receive periodic newletters and information about our new products.

    Tikkun International is a Messianic Jewish family of ministries with their corporate headquarters in Jerusalem, Israel. Tikkun facilitates a network of Messianic Jewish congregations in the United States of America as well as a network of congregations and ministries in Israel.

    Products

    Spreading The Word Online is developing a range of products and ways for getting the Word out and being read in churches and congregations around the world. These include daily, weekly, guided and themed sets of Bible readings to help us all to read and think about the Bible and its Author more in our daily lives. All our subscriptions will be kept very low to enable people, churches and congregations of all levels of income to be able to share in the resources we produce and distribute.

    These products will be available on a subscription basis for yourself, on a gift basis to be able to bless and encourage someone else you know, and on a sponsorship basis to bless individuals and leaders who need help and support in their ministries around the world.

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    Intro to Spreading The Word Online by Jonathan Allen

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    Help Spreading The Word Online

    If you would like to make a donation towards the cost of providing sponsored subscriptions; of being part of helping Jewish people come to faith and Messianic Jewish congregations to grow and mature; of helping harrassed, busy and even persecuted pastors to teach their congregations the words of life; of helping the church to come to a rightly balanced understanding of the whole word of God, both the Jewish and Apostolic Writings; and of helping the Body of Messiah to reach maturity in and through the Word, please click the button below to go to the Tikkun International website donation page where you can make a donation that will be processed for us by Tikkun.

  • For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable

    Below we present fragments of the transcript of the teaching of fr. Peter Hocken on Romans which took place on 9th November 2013 in Hainburg, Austria as a part of the Bible Teaching series. Presented below is the part which refers to chapters 9-11.

    In Romans 9 Paul begins to speak directly about Israel, the Jewish people. Is this a complete change of subject from chapter 8, like some people have imagined? I think not, because in chapter 8 Paul is talking about the salvation of Jew and Gentile—of all—saying that God’s plan of salvation will not be frustrated. At the end of chapter 8 we read: “…nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39b). But obviously for the first Christians, it was a big surprise that a lot of the Jews who believed in the coming of the Messiah had not accepted Jesus. I think with chapter 8 Paul is saying that God will bring everything to completion. But now the question is raised: What about Israel, what about the unbelief of Israel? I don’t think this is a complete change of subject. Paul speaks of the great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart (Rom 9:2) because so many Jews were not accepting Jesus: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh” (9:3). Then in verses 4-5 he lists all the advantages of Israel, all the blessings given to her: “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises….” Notice that Paul says belong in the present tense. These things belong to the Jews; he doesn’t say they did belong. And this raises the question in verse 6. God had made promises to Israel so some could think that His promises had failed if the Jews didn’t believe. But Paul says: “It is not as though the word of God had failed” (Rom 9:6).

    There isn’t time to go into all the arguments in chapters 9 and 10. Chapter 9 was one of the passages used to teach the doctrine of double predestination by strict Calvinists. Double predestination means that God created some people to be predestined to glory and some to be predestined to hell. I think the problem with the way this was used by Calvin and others in the XVI century is that they didn’t understand that these verses are about the election of Israel. The whole argument is in the framework of God’s choosing Israel. It’s not about the destiny of millions of individuals, but about the election of Israel. Paul is also insisting that God is sovereign—an important part of his argument. He is not saying that God has created part of Israel to be lost. We can see this in Rom.10:1: “Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” Chapter 10 ends with the words: “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people’” (10:21). This isn’t asserting that God has rejected them. Rather, it speaks of their stubbornness, while God is continuing to stretch out his hand to them.

    This leads to the question in chapter 11:1: “I ask, then, has God rejected his people?” because they’ve been so disobedient. But again Paul answers: “By no means!” Again this strong NO. “I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” One of the signs that God has not rejected Israel is the fact that some of them did believe in Jesus, including Paul, and in verse 5 he calls the Jews who have believed in Jesus the “remnant, chosen by grace.” He continues in verse 7: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” So some believed and some were hardened. The next question, in verse 11, is about the Jews who have been hardened, who haven’t believed—“have they stumbled so as to fall” through their unbelief and rebellion? Here Paul is asking if it is impossible for them to be restored. No, absolutely not! “By no means! But through their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous” (11:11b). Here is another example of the kal ve-chomer argument.

    The Jewish argument in verse 12 goes like this: “Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” The unbelief of the Jews in Jesus’ day opened the door for the Gospel to go to Gentiles. It has been riches for the world. And Paul adds how much greater a blessing it will be when the Jews do enter in, when they do accept. In fact, this is prophecy that they will! Here we have a very important argument. We saw in chapter 1 how Paul spoke of being called to bring nations to the obedience of faith, and now Paul is saying that this has been made possible through the unbelief of the Jews. In verse 25 he uses the word “mystery” to describe this. By using the word “mystery,” Paul is saying that this is God’s plan. Then in verse 33, after more similar explanation, he finishes with: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Paul is realizing that this unbelief of the majority of Jews, which takes the Gospel to the nations, is part of the wisdom of God.

    Though we can’t go through all the rest of this chapter, there are very important elements here. For instance, here Paul speaks of the olive tree and the Gentiles being like branches of a wild olive tree who are grafted into a cultivated olive tree. You see, some olive trees are cultivated, pruned and shaped to bring the maximum of fruits. And some olive trees are just wild, growing off somewhere, and nobody has tried to train or cultivate them. This is the picture of Israel and the Nations. God has been cultivating Israel for 2000 years to bring forth fruit, and he has become frustrated. So now he begins grafting in branches from wild olive trees not cultivated through the Law and Prophets, but they will draw life from the sap of the natural olive. The Gentiles will draw life and nourishment from the roots of Israel. Then as we’ve seen already, Paul states that the Gospel goes to the Nations because of the disobedience and unbelief of Israel. And in verses 30-32 he says that all were disobedient so that God may be merciful to all. However, in verse 29 he asserts: “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” The election of Israel is still valid. God keeps his promises.

  • Prayer & Reconciliation in Hainburg

    God is working in amazing harmony, on different levels, moving in same direction different people to accomplish His desire to heal and restore what was broken. We have witnessed this to be very true recently in Hainburg an der Donau/Austria (and area) – place chosen by fr. Peter Hocken for his last years of life and ministry.

    The small Austrian City of Hainburg (with aprox. 6000 citizens) located close to the borders of Austria, Slovakia and Hungary has witnessed many tensions and bloody chapters in its history. During World War II, Hainburg became one of the way-points of the Jews during their Death March to Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp in Austria. The majority of the Jews travelling this path were Hungarian Jews, prisoners of the working camp called Engerau, today on the outskirts of Bratislava (the capital city of Slovakia) held under Austrian Guards.

    A few years ago, one of the TJCII intercessors, Viera from Bratislava, discovered the fact that close to where she lives in Petrezalka, Bratislava, the aforementioned working camp of Engerau, was located. Its previous existence seems to be a quietly forgotten fact, not known to many Slovaks or Austrians. Approximately a year ago, the idea was born among TJCII intercessors from Slovakia, Austria and Hungary that this year there should be common time of prayer and repentance there, since the history of the camp binds these 3 nations. Preparations including historical studies have been undertaken. The event was finally planned for 14 of April 2018.

    At the beginning of March Sister Mary Paul who lives in Hainburg, was contacted by a member of the city council. They told her that 29th of March there would be a special commemoration and unveiling of a memorial for the suffering of the Jews who were forced to march from the camp Engerau through Wolfstal, Hainburg up to Bad Deutch Altenburg, to be transported to Mauthausen. There were about 460 bodies found along the way when this issue was examined. Altogether around 1600 Hungarian Jews worked and died in Engerau. Sister Mary Paul was asked to help the organisers of the event to get invite some Rabbis to be present. She contacted people from TJCII Slovakia and Hungary and very next day there were two Rabbis one from Bratislava and one from Budapest ready to come for the meeting!

    The commemoration took place on 29th of March as planned. Striking for TJCII people was that same as in 1945 this year it was preparation day for Passover and same as that time it was also Good Thursday. It gave whole new dimension to know that and to try and imagine what Jews who should celebrate their liberation and salvation from slavery would have felt. Also what could Christians feel commemorating the Last Supper, the Passover Meal, knowing that just few meters from the walls of the church Jews are walking in deadly march!?

    At the ceremony were probably about 100 people – among them members of the group who annually marks the death march from Bratislava to Bad-Deutsch Altenburg, some local people including a Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor, as well as the group of TJCII people from Austria, Slovakia and Hungary.

    The ceremony began with a greeting from the mayor, followed by a historical explanation from a woman who wrote several books about the history of this camp/death march and who organises the commemoration each year. She came last month to the middle school there and explained the history to the oldest children. Several of them were there and they read various reports from that day in history, including a police report and a few pages from the diaries of local people. It was shocking.

    Then the president of the Austrian parliament spoke. He took responsibility as an Austrian and emphasised how this must be the attitude, no longer to view themselves as victims of the Nazis. Then came the blessings by Father Othmar and Pastor Jan, followed by the speeches of Rabbis.

    Rabbi Gabor said that the fact that this death march happened on these “holiest of days for the Catholics” meant that we as Christians betrayed our very selves.  It was a betrayal of the Jewish people, it was a betrayal of Jesus, it was a betrayal of our very selves. He then blessed the city. Rabbi Misha prayed the Kaddish. He also said a few words about the fragility of life, the fragility of a memorial, the fragility of a promise “never again.”  But his message was full of hope and gratitude for what he was experiencing in the ceremony.

    After the official proceedings, there was also the unique possibility for TJCII people and Rabbis to enter the old synagogue which stands, very close to the late Father Peter Hocken’s house. It was very special since it is not open to the public and is in serious need of renovation. There is also whole chapter of God’s work in it as the subject of synagogue comes back in prayers in the house regularly these months. But this is another story…

    Getting back to Engerau. What a wonderful next step in bringing this tragic story to the light and bring God’s healing was a time of common prayer and repentance for the TJCII intercessors on 14th of April. There was a time of preparation in the house in Hainburg with prayer and some historical introduction. It was amazing to discover in the group there was a Hungarian lady whose father took part in Death March and another Austrian lady from area whose relatives were involved in Nazi power system. It wasn’t planned by people, it was God itself to make it possible! The whole group of people from three nations went to Bratislava to pray next to the Leberfinger Restaurant, where there is still a building where prisoners of the working camp used to live. In part of Petrezalka where today there is a significantly “dark” atmosphere marked by poverty and crime. During the prayer time, the local group of Gypsy children began playing around and joined us and started dancing with prayer flags. This was an amazing sign of God’s grace being poured out and sign of the promise of restoration and turning tears into joy.

    The last surprise was to discover that the very same weekend there were other prayer and evangelistic initiatives in places we have prayed (or nearby). Again we could see the goodness of the Lord! He is constantly working to fulfil His plans of salvation and restoration of all things.

  • Joined Together: Daniel Juster

    Daniel C Juster with Tikkun International and revive Israel goes beyond the idea of alignment to the idea of being joined together.

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