Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity

Pastor Deamon Scapin of Triumph Church in Washington DC discusses with Israel Collective's Josh Ahrens how profoundly his Israel experience enhanced his understanding of the Jewishness of the Christian faith.

Is Jesus Jewish? Were the disciples Jewish? What does it mean that the New Testament was written by Jewish people?

How does understanding the context of Scripture help Christians understand their faith?

The Israel Collective, an initiative of Christians United for Israel, was founded in 2014 by a team of young Christian leaders dedicated to building vibrant relationships between American Christians and the people of the Holy Land.

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[OG-GenX]

I'm following the same path now. I think it's important to learn all you can.

[rogermetzger]

My great great grandparents on my paternal grandfather’s side of the family were Lutheran. My paternal grandfather was Lutheran until the 1920s when he asked a question of his Lutheran pastor. My grandfather expressed appreciation of the liturgical scripture readings from the Psalms, the Gospels and the Epistles that has been used since his childhood “but when” he asked the pastor “are we going to learn about the rest of this book?”

It wasn’t because my grandfather was not acquainted with the rest of the Bible - he had read Bible passages aloud to his family every day for as far back as my father could remember - but there were some things my grandfather didn’t think he adequately understood. As I “look back” on that incident, I think the best way for the pastor to have answered my grandfather’s question would have been to find out what kinds of Bible study methods my grandfather had been using and then introduce him to some additional methods to encourage him to do more effective personal Bible study.

Instead, the pastor gave my grandfather an answer that had undoubtedly satisfied MANY other people. It was exactly the wrong answer for my Grandfather. The pastor replied “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It isn’t that important.”

When I was a small boy (1940s) I knew that most or all of the several Bibles my parents owned had 66 books. They read Bible stories to my sister, Ruth, and me every day until we were old enough to read them for ourselves. They read about an equal number of stories from the Hebrew Bible as from the Gospels. The Bibles they gave Ruth and me had 66 books. I was about ten when I realized that most of the other children in our neighborhood had Bibles with 28 or 29 books.

By the time I was ten, our parents had taught me how to use marginal references and a concordance and I began studying the Bible topically. Our parents wanted Ruth and me to learn how to find answers to our questions in our own Bibles. They often made helpful suggestions but I was very much under the impression that our parents’ beliefs were personal - not traditional or institutional - and that they wanted us to be students of the written word rather than merely following modern religious leaders.

My study was guided by several principles of interpretation our parents had adopted:
1: Much of Bible prophecy is conditional. (The prophecy of Jonah is the best-known example.)
2: The gospel was preached to Abraham. (Galatians 3:8) If Christians are people who have faith in the Messiah, Abraham and other Hebrew patriarchs and prophets of antiquity were Christians by that definition.
3. Some of the restoration prophecies were fulfilled after the Babylonian captivity.
4. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:29 (See Romans 4 and the rest of Galatians 3.)
5: The 70-weeks prophecy of Daniel 9 has already been fulfilled.
6: Biblical Christianity is the true CONTINUATION of the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets of antiquity.
I was also influenced by the statement of Jesus to the woman at the well (John 4:21-24) “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” and one by Stephen (Acts 7:2) “And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, ...” The implication in Acts 7:2 seems to correspond to what Jesus said to the woman at the well, i.e. our heavenly Father is not limited to a place such as Jerusalem.
In that same speech (verse 38), Stephen said “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, ...” The context indicates he was speaking about the church at the time of Moses. This makes sense when we think of the church as consisting of people who are learning to trust the Lord (rather than thinking of the church as an organization or institution).
It’s true that the Lord promised to Abraham all the land he could see (Genesis 13:15). Stepehn understood “And he gave him (Abraham) none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.” (Acts 7:5)
“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” - Romans 4:13
So if Abraham will inherit the whole world, does that mean that non-Hebrews will inherit none of it?
Galatians 3:29 “And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Now read Romans 11 again, keeping these things in mind. Yes, it is important to understand the Hebrew roots of Christianity but we need to be careful to study the actual text of the Hebrew Bible rather than adopting the rabbinical interpretations that were considered traditional before Jesus was born.

[trevino]

Where in the bible does it say that we have a debt to Jewish people? No We thank G-d and G-d alone...as to Christian roots, our root is Christ and Christ alone, not to any jewish can appreciate the History but to say that we have jewish roots as gentiles is nonsense....We are grafted in with Israel and that in itself can create a Jewish root under one new covenant with CHRIST but it does not mean we have to return to judaism becuase we gentiles not jewish. A jew can return to judaism while in christ becuse he is a jew but tht does not apply to gentiles.