Lecture by Jeroen Bol, chairman of the Jules Isaac Foundation
This lecture was given during the conference of the Jules Isaac Foundation in the Poortkerk church in the city of Veenendaal, The Netherlands, January 16, 2025
The theme of this conference with dr. Mark S. Kizner as main speaker was ‘Messianic Jews and Jewish Christians together – Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, Yachad BeYeshua and the healing of the wounded People of God’.
In his lecture Jeroen Bol focuses on the great importance of the theological work of Mark Kinzer. He also occasionally addresses Mark Kinzer directly.
This morning we have heard much about the wounded people of God and the direction in which we can seek restoration.
It is no secret that this restoration is high on our agenda. It was one of the reasons we founded the Jules Isaac Foundation in 2015. It was in the autumn of 2006 that I for the first time became aware of the enormity of the tragedy of Jewish history in Christian Europe. The book by the Austrian Werner Keller, ‘Diaspora,’ opened my eyes to it. Keller demonstrates that intense Jewish suffering did not merely occur sporadically in European history. Reading his book I realized for the first time that for centuries Jews regularly, in many ways and in many places, have faced suffering and injustice on a large scale. It turned out to be a pattern.
Of course, I was aware of the Holocaust. But the idea that there is a relationship, albeit indirect, between the Holocaust and 1800 years of Christian anti-Judaism was new to me. I discovered that Christianity had been accompanied by anti-Jewish thinking for 1800 years. This consistent negative thinking about Jews created the fertile ground on which Nazi anti-Semitism could flourish.
We deliberately named our foundation after the eminent French Jewish historian Jules Isaac. His book Jésus et Israël has had a significant impact after World War II. Preparing the book Isaac conducted in-depth research into the roots of the extremely violent anti-Semitism by the nazi’s, which he personally encountered. How did he approach his research? In short, he meticulously compared the accounts of the Gospels with what he found in Bible commentaries and other Christian literature. He juxtaposed his knowledge of the history of the Jewish people in the early centuries of our era with the Christian version of that same Jewish history. Jules Isaac wanted to clarify to what extent the Christian theological tradition deviates from what he read in the Gospels themselves. His immense expertise and competence as a historian and his superb mastery of New Testament Greek served him well in this endeavor.
While in hiding he works meticulously. And then, in the couse of his three-year-long research, Isaac comes to some remarkable discoveries. The prevailing Christian views of the Jews often deviate significantly from what the Gospels themselves teach.
And the Christian reading of the history of the Jews doesn’t match on essential points with the factual history of the Jewish people. And perhaps the most important conclusion: where the Christian theological tradition deviates from the Gospels and the factual historical data, these deviations turn out to be consistently to the disadvantage of the Jews. Isaac then concludes that the European anti-Semitism has its deepest roots in the Christian anti-Jewish theological tradition. At the same time, he states that this Christian anti-Judaism contradicts what the Gospels themselves teach. In line with this, Isaac states that anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism are at odds with the essence of Christianity itself.
Through a careful reading of the Gospels, he demonstrates that in Jesus’days Jesus himself never rejected the Jewish people and that the Jewish people have never rejected Jesus as a people. After the war, Jules Isaac tirelessly advocated until his death in 1963, that the Roman Catholic Church should once and for all renounce its centuries-old anti-Jewish ideas. And with success. His efforts significantly contributed to the drafting of the church declaration Nostra Aetate. With Nostra Aetate, the Roman Catholic Church in 1965 said radically goodbye to its centuries-old anti-Jewish ecclesiastical tradition. For the first time in its existence, the Roman Catholic Church taught that the Jewish people are still loved by God “for the sake of the patriarchs” (Rom. 11:28). Many churches would later follow suit.
In the meantime, decades have passed. Since the beginning of this century, a new chorus of voices has emerged on the Jewish side. And with this, we arrive at the actual subject of this lecture: the crucial importance of the Messianic Jewish voice, and in particular the post-missionary Messianic Jewish voice. Earlier this week, Mark Kinzer explained in his lecture during a conference at the University of Tübingen what distinguishes post-missionary Messianic Judaism from broader Messianic Judaism. I quote briefly what he said about this: “Post-missionary Messianic Judaism (1) involves Torah observance as a covenantal responsibility; (2) discerns Jesus’s hidden sanctifying and saving presence in the midst of the Jewish people and religious tradition; and (3) represents (but does not replace) the Jewish people in relationship to the gentile Christian church (…), enabling the church to identify as an extension of, and not a replacement for, Israel’s mission within the world.”
The fact that post-missionary Messianic Jewish theologians such as Jennifer Rosner and Mark Kinzer have only fairly recently begun publishing theological works, can be attributed to the very recent history of this movement. Messianic Judaism originates from the late sixties. The postmissionary variant is even younger, it emerged in the beginning of this century.
Messianic Jews occupy a quite unique position in the Jewish-Christian dialogue. They claim to remain fully Jewish while confessing Yeshua as the Messiah. This position often provokes misunderstanding from both Jewish and Christian sides. Messianic Jewish theologians like Mark Kinzer rightly point out that the very beginnings of the early church depict a movement of Jews living according to Jewish law while confessing Jesus as the Messiah. It was a new messianic movement within Judaism, out of which the church would emerge later. Less than a century later, the early church had a predominantly non-Jewish majority. By the early second century several church fathers, the gentile theologians and church leaders of the early church, began to problematize the combination of being Jewish and confessing Jesus. That combination would no longer be desirable. A few centuries later, Jewish Christians who insisted on maintaining their Jewish identity faced severe ecclesiastical sanctions. Thus, Jesus and Judaism were early on made into opposites.
We just heard how Jules Isaac’s groundbreaking research brought forth a radically different perspective on the relationship between Jesus and Israel: one of close connection. Jesus never rejected Israel and Israel, as a people, never rejected Jesus, so concluded Jules Isaac. Mark Kinzer has in his Messianic Jewish theology researched this close bond of Jesus and Israel much further.
Mark Kinzer and I share the conviction that abandoning replacement thinking is a prerequisite for the restoration of the wounded people of God. According to Mark Kinzer the people of God consist of Israel and the Church. The wounds inflicted centuries ago originate from this replacement thinking. Like Mark Kinzer, I believe that replacement thinking still leaves its traces in much Christian biblical interpretation.
I quote from Kinzer’s groundbreaking 2005 book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: “Despite its title, this is not mainly a book about the ekklesia – the community of those who believe in Yeshua the Messiah – and its relationship to the Jewish people. It is a book about supersessionism and the ecclesiological implications of its repudiation. Supersessionism teaches that the ecclesia replaces the Jewish people as the elect community in covenant with God, in whom the divine presence resides and through whom the divine purpose is realized in the world. According to this traditional Christian view, the church is the new and spiritual Israel, fulfilling the role formerly occupied by so-called ‘carnal’ Israel. In the decades after the Holocaust, many Christians have repudiated this teaching. However, it would appear that few have learned to read the New Testament in a non-supersessionist manner. Even fewer seem to have considered the ecclesiological implications of their new stance.” (PMJ pg. 12)
How recognizable this is. It is one thing to claim that one rejects replacement thinking. It is a lot more difficult to read the New Testament in a new way, without replacement thinking playing a role in the back of your mind.
Mark, on one crucial point your theological work differs fundamentally from that of Christian theologians who like you engage in post-supersessionist theology. I then think of your sitz im leben. By that I mean, you can only do theology as a Jew, as a Messianic Jew to be precise. As a non-Jewish Christian, I can only think about God as a non-Jew. And this truly makes a difference.
In this context I want to mention something about your personal journey with God. You were 19 years old when you came to faith in Yeshua. When I read your biographical texts, I am struck by what you recount. How you visited the synagogue shortly after coming to faith. And how you experienced Yeshua in everything in the synagogue service, even though His name was not mentioned. How extraordinary, a revelation really. And soon it was clear to you that you would live out your newfound faith in Yeshua within Judaism. From the beginning, it was evident to you that your faith in Jesus did not mean a break with your Jewish identity and Judaism. This has always remained the case. Over the years, you have delved deeply into Torah, Halacha, Jewish theology and Christian theology. In the meantime you were building, almost from scratch, a whole new postmissionairy messianic jewish theology. And you are still building. All of this has shaped who you are now: a respected Messianic Jewish theologian of world stature, theologically at home in both worlds, Christianity and Judaism. With your post-missionary theology, you deliberately and consistently operate from the unique hinge point between church and Judaism. This makes your theology incredibly exciting, fascinating and challenging. And, yes, often not an easy read. It is always a matter of rethinking, of challenging old paradigms.
Your contribution to formulating a well grounded theological response to replacement thinking, which dominated for 1800 years, can truly be called unique. And with you, the contribution of the growing group of Messianic Jewish theologians. Again, in my view, this is all connected to your sitz im leben, and that in combination with your unique qualities as a theologian and who you are as a person. In addition, for about twenty years you were part of a Christian ecumenical charismatic community. You even held a leadership role there. So you know the Christian world from the inside as well. In 1993, you became the rabbi of the Messianic synagogue Zera Avraham in Ann Arbor, a congregation of which you are a co-founder as well. During that time, you also began to play an important role as a theologian within the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, UMJC. I am not even mentioning everything. You played a key role in so many more important new initiatives, often as one of the pioneering initiators. I think of the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute. The most recent is the establishment of Yachad BeYeshua in 2019.
As a Messianic Jew, you are part of a community that was not allowed to exist for around 1500 years. For centuries, the voice of Messianic Judaism within the church was silenced. Your community of Messianic Jews did not exist, from roughly the year 400 to the 18th century. And now you are back among us. Welcome !
Already in the second century, leading theologians of the early church taught that a Jew who believes in Jesus must completely abandon his or her Jewish identity. In the eyes of the church a Jew who believed in Jesus became a Christian. Period. And with that ceased to be a Jew. In your book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism you demonstrated convincingly that there is no ground for this church policy in the New Testament itself. In the New Testament, we read about the mother church in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem was the heart, the nerve center of the early church. In its early years, it consisted entirely of Jews.
A century later, these Jewish disciples were no longer allowed to exist as Jews in a church with a by then non-Jewish majority. By excluding Jewish disciples of Jesus, a huge wound was inflicted on the Body of the Messiah. The Jewish part was excluded. The Body of Christ, which according to your convincing exegesis of Ephesians 2 in its essence consists of Jews and Gentiles, confessing Jesus as Jews and gentiles. You state that the exclusion of the Jewish believers is the original schism within the church, ‘das urschisma’ within the people of God. I agree.
Let’s return to what makes your theological work and that of colleagues of you like Jennifer Rosner and David Rudolph, so special and unique after many centuries of absence. It is that you deliberately and consistently practice theology from who you are: Messianic Jews. The fact that you are back refutes the many centuries of Christian boycott, it refutes the denial of your identity. Over the past thirty years, you have tirelessly given theological words to this return of Messianic Judaism and its implications. The lid is now off the pot, and people are starting to listen seriously to you and your colleagues. Beginning of this week you lectured in the University of Tübingen. In 2022 you participated in that unforgettable theological symposium at the University of Vienna and gave two lectures there.
You, and with you many other Messianic Jews and Jewish Christians explicitly say, “With us, Israel is physically back within the church. We are part of Israel, the Jewish people, and of the Body of the Messiah, the church.” “A third actor in the ongoing drama has once again entered the stage, and the ekklesia from among the nations must decide anew whether to embrace her, reject her, or pretend she does not exist,” so you write in your latest book Stones the builders rejected, pg. 80.
Your recent return on the stage of history calls for a response from the church. I am curious, Mark, to hear from you what we Christians from the nations can mean for you messianic Jews concretely. What can we do for you ? I am particularly thinking of Yachad BeYeshua; how could we Christians strengthen such an initiative? Within the church, your adherence to your Jewish identity is often still misunderstood. The path of Messianic Jews is often a lonely one. Thank you that theologians like you are willing to walk this not easy path with such perseverance. Thank you for enriching the church from within with a unique specifically Jewish perspective, even on the Gospel itself. Your book Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen from 2018 is a fantastic example of this. Every time I read your books, I am impressed by the careful exegesis and by your extensive scholarship. There is so much to learn here!
Your way of reading the Bible and engaging in theology is by definition free from replacement thinking. This is because you read the Tanakh and the New Testament as a Jew. And for you, as a Jew, it is beyond any doubt that God’s covenant with His people Israel is eternal and unbreakable. When you reflect on texts in the New Testament, the eternal and unbreakable covenant of God with Israel is always your starting point. In your postmissionary reading of the New Testament quite a few texts appear in a new light. Resulting in a post-supersessionist interpretation of the New Testament which yields important new exegetical insights.
I would now like to zoom in for a moment into a few of your core ideas that help us understand the New Testament in a new way. Let me begin with a quote from Jennifer Rosner’s dissertation Healing the Schism. She cites you here several times:
“The mainstay of Kinzer’s Messianic Jewish theology is the connection between Israel and Jesus. From a Messianic Jewish perspective, every theological topic ‘must be considered in connection with Israel, and in connection with Yeshua, and Israel and Yeshua must always be considered in relation to one another.’ This interrelationship is the fundamental starting point of Messianic Jewish theology, which Kinzer defines as ‘disciplined reflection about God’s character, will, and works, and about God’s relationship to Israel, the nations, and all creation in the light of God’s irrevocable election of Israel.’ While Jewish theology traditionally places God’s covenant with Israel at the center, and Christian theology is traditionally built around Christology, Messianic Jewish theology holds these twin convictions together. As Kinzer explains, ‘Israel’s enduring covenantal vocation and Yeshua’s pivotal role in the divine plan are central presuppositions of Messianic Jewish theology, not the products of its reflective process. Thus, these are beliefs that provide the basic shape of Messianic Jewish theology. If these twin convictions lose their centrality and cease to function as presuppositions and criteria of truth-value, the theology is no longer Messianic-Jewish theology.’” (Rosner, pp. 238-239)
Wow, when I read this, I almost jump out of my chair with joy. Are these not exactly the kind of theological convictions that one would expect to find in the earliest beginnings of the early church, in the Jewish mother church of James in Jerusalem? This belief in Yeshua the Messiah and the enduring covenant of God with His people Israel combined—two convictions inextricably and unbreakably united. Should it not, according to God’s intention, have always remained that way in the life of the later church? My answer is a resounding yes. Thank God, since World War II, we are witnessing a growing group of brilliant post-supersessionist theologians. Particularly in the English-speaking and German-speaking world we see quite a few theologians practicing theology along these lines. While post-supersessionist theology is not yet mainstream, it is on the rise, and the quality of it is often high.
What Jennifer Rosner writes here—“Israel and Yeshua must always be considered in relation to one another”—touches on an important core concept in Kinzer’s theology. I am referring to the concept of “Jesus as one-man Israel.” In Kinzer’s book Israel’s Messiah and the People of God, I read the following:
“According to the Jewish theologian Will Herberg, the Apostolic Writings (New Testament) present Yeshua as a ‘one-man Israel, an individual who sums up in himself Israel’s corporate covenantal identity.’ (pg. 66) Yeshua can become the ‘one-man Israel’ because he was already God’s eternal Beloved in whom Israel was chosen before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4). God adopts Israel as his ‘firstborn son’ (Exodus 4:22-23) by attaching Israel to the Son whom God knew and loved before anything was made (Ephesians 1:5-6). Yeshua becomes the servant of the people who have their being through him. Israel did not know this before Yeshua’s incarnation, and has not acknowledged it since. But such non-recognition cannot nullify Israel’s ineradicable dependence on Yeshua, and Yeshua’s unwavering commitment to Israel.” (pg. 66-67)
Mark Kinzer consistently advocates throughout his theological work for an Israel-Christology that affirms an unbreakable bond between Jesus as the Messiah and the Jewish people. In Chapter 1 of the Dutch-language book Israel in het hart van de Kerk, Kinzer provides a convincing exegetical foundation for this Israel-Christology. If I understand Kinzer correctly, Jesus came primarily to fulfill all the promises God made to Israel. This is also convincingly demonstrated in his book Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen. Many of these promises still await fulfillment. That Jesus came to fulfill these promises is also in line with what Paul writes in Chapter 15 of his Letter to the Romans: “For I say that Christ has become a servant of the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers.” And how beautifully Paul immediately follows this with a call to the gentile believers in Rome: “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.” Gentiles, rejoice with Israel about the salvation for Israel in Christ. In Paul’s perspective, there is no rupture between the ecclesia and Israel. For the apostle, salvation is both for Israel and the nations.
Striking in this context are several texts from the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, chapters 1 and 2. I will highlight one, though there is much more in these first two chapters of Luke that resonates with this.
In Luke 1, we read in Mary’s Song of Praise: “He has come to the help of Israel his servant, in remembrance of His mercy – as He has spoken to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants for ever.“ Mercy from God for Israel forever! Notice how Mary mentions the promises to the patriarchs, just as Paul does in Romans 15:8.
Mary’s Magnificat clearly speaks of God’s salvation for His people Israel. How on earth was it possible that theologians of the still very young church as early as the first half of the second century began teaching that the Jews were no longer Israel and that the church was now the new Israel? That all these promises no longer applied to the Jewish people as a nation. They now applied to the church, the new Israel.
Finally, I want to share some thoughts on an issue I consider most urgent. We have heard how over the past sixty years, many theologians have delved into the question of how the Bible can be read in a new way, free of replacement thinking. How can we be Christians in a way that wholeheartedly affirms God’s enduring covenant with Israel, without sacrificing core concepts of our Christian confession? This new thinking has so far only very partially reached the grassroots level of churches. It has gained only little traction in the minds of the average pastor, let alone the average churchgoer. In itself this is not surprising. The shift to a different way of understanding the Bible requires much theological reflection. A suitable activity for theologians, but not feasible for the average Christian. And besides, such a shift takes time.
Nevertheless, I am concerned. I see too little progress at the grassroots level of churches. Sermons are still often preached as if the people of Israel plays no role. Kendall Soulen uses the phrase ‘Israelforgetfullness’ for this all too familiar phenomenon.
I sometimes wonder whether a few simple steps could help us further. I think of a post-supersessionist view that should be easy to grasp for non-theologians, particularly regarding the role of Jesus, Israel, and the church. A view that could help non-theologians to read the Old and New Testament anew, in a post-supersessionist way without requiring much theologiacal reflection. According to my impression this question received too little attention unto now.
The following might offer a beginning of a solution. Let me ask you this question: What did the Bible of the early church consist of in her initial period of the first century? Broadly speaking, it was what we now call the Old Testament. I think the average Bible reader is seldom aware of the fact that the apostle Paul could not yet refer to the four Gospels when he wrote his letters. They would be written decades later. There was no New Testament yet. Paul and the entire early church had to rely on the Tanakh and, of course, on the oral testimony of the apostles of the risen Christ. That was it. The Bible on which Paul based himself, and from which those first believers sought to interpret the events surrounding Jesus, the risen Messiah, that Bible was our Old Testament.
During those first three decades, there was no question of a non-Jewish majority within the early church. Thousands of Jews came to faith in Jesus as the Messiah in those days. The early church was still predominantly Jewish. Replacement thinking was non existent.
How do you think the understanding of God’s covenant with the people of Israel must have been in those days? Is it even conceivable that the covenant with Israel could have been questioned in a still strong and vibrant Jewish Messianic movement that only had the Tanakh as its Bible? For these Jewish believers in Jesus, it was unthinkable that God’s covenant with Israel would no longer be valid. Everything changed in the early second century after the destruction of the Temple, when non-Jewish believers became the majority in the early church. Experts are still exploring how and why replacement thinking could take hold within the early church within such a short timespan.
With the return of Messianic Jews in our time we are hearing again, for the first time in 1900 years, the testimony of the Gospel from within a community of Messianic Jews. This is so extraordinary that then-Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, said about thirty years ago when he spoke to a group of Messianic Jews: “If you are what you say you are, then the coming of the Messiah is near.” In other words, this is a decisive moment in two thousand years of Christianity.
With the restoration of the Jewish part of the ecclesia, we live in a very very special time. In a vision document of The Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council, I read: “Messianic Judaism is not merely the restoration of an original biblical template for the people of God. The rebirth of the Jewish Yeshua-community is a new heavenly intervention in the world which intimates something of God’s ultimate purpose for Israel and the nations.” (Stones, p. 194)
Mark Kinzer rightly points out that all this coincides as well with the restoration of a Jewish state in 1948 and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. Despite evident challenges, Israel has returned to history in various very remarkable ways. Surely, one can only see the hand of God in this.
Messianic Jewish theologians like Mark Kinzer can do something their predecessors from the first century could not and, of course, did not need to do. They can as well informed qualified theologians respond to 18 centuries of Christian replacement thinking in a theological manner. This makes these Messianic Jewish theologians so incredibly important for us Christians. Not only because of their thinking about Israel, but definitely also because of their thinking about the church. The church as an expanded Israel, grafted into the noble olive tree, included in the new covenant. Not in place of Israel, but alongside Israel. Church and Israel, together the people of God…
But, the post-supersessionist theology of Mark Kinzer and many other post-supersessionist theologians demands much from the reader. Too much for the average christian. The theological level is generally high, and understandably so. The entire Christian theological tradition needs to be rethought if we are to truly part ways with replacement thinking. And that is indeed a task for theologians.
Returning to the need for a new way of reading the Bible without replacement thinking, that is hopefully easier for the average Christian to grasp, I do a proposal. We just saw how the Gospel in the first century began without a New Testament but with what we christians call the Old Testament. Replacement thinking was not yet an issue. Earlier, we heard this quote from Mark Kinzer: “Israel’s enduring covenantal vocation and Yeshua’s pivotal role in the divine plan are central presuppositions of Messianic Jewish theology, not the products of its reflective process.” Why can Kinzer say that these are ‘central presuppositions’ and not the product of a (theological) thought process? Is it not because ‘Israel’s enduring covenantal vocation’ is itself a central presupposition in the Tanakh?
Might it not greatly help the average Christian if they were taught in their local churches to make the testimony of the Tanakh the first guiding principle in their understanding of Israel’s role in salvation history? The Tanakh, that over and over again and unequivocally speaks of an eternal unbreakable covenant of God with Israel. Eternal means eternal. This is the testimony of Paul’s Bible; it is the testimony of the Bible of Jesus Himself, of The Scriptures. The testimony of the Tanakh.
Precisely because the New Testament has for centuries been effortlessly and without any ecclesiastical contradiction been interpreted in a supersessionist manner by the church, I propose to make the Old Testament fundamentally guiding over the New Testament when it comes to our understanding of Israel. So, in determining Israel’s role and place in salvation history, the New Testament should consistently be read through the lens of the Old Testament. And not the other way around, as has numerous times been advocated.
In my view such a step does not require elaborate theological justification or clarification. One just needs to let the Old Testament text say what it says about the eternal covenant with Israel. And let the Tanakh texts then be guiding in a decisive way in the exegesis of New Testament texts dealing with Israel and Jews. Call it disciplined nonsupersessionist Bible reading. And where the New Testament appears to allow room for replacement thinking, consistently give precedence to the testimony of the Tanakh: God’s covenant with Israel will never be broken. Period!
It is obvious that such a strategy presupposes substantial attention for the Old Testament.
Wouldn’t things just fall into place more easily for the average non-theologically trained Christian this way? Might it not help them, and their pastors, to learn interpret the New Testament in a post-supersessionist way? So that they no longer easily draw supersessionist conclusions based on certain New Testament texts, as has been the case for centuries.
But for this to succeed something more is needed. For how does the average christian become aware of the necessity of engaging with these questions about Israel in the first place? What is needed to wake him up ? Yes, why is it that many theologians and church leaders have struggled with these questions about church and Israel over the past sixty years? There is only one answer to that. It has been the confrontation with the enormity of the Holocaust that forced them to reconsider the christian theological tradition on Israel.
Recognizing that things must change, that replacement thinking can no longer stand, requires an awareness of what went horribly wrong in the last century and inj the many centuries before. It demands that the anti-Jewish element in our Christian tradition no longer remains the best-kept secret in the church. Real and lasting change will not be possible without taking an honest look at our Christian guilt toward the Jews. It requires an unwavering determination that things must and can be different in Jewish-Christian relations. This will definitely need more attention from the pulpit and in theological education.
The Messianic Jewish voice has begun to resonate in our time for good reason. The God of Israel is speaking to us christians from the nations in a new way in our days. One more time that quote from Mark Kinzer: “A third actor in the ongoing drama has once again entered the stage, and the ekklesia from among the nations must decide anew whether to embrace her, reject her, or pretend she does not exist.” Let us embrace our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters and listen attentively to them. For the sake of the health of the Body of Christ. We need one another desperately.