July 31, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Stephen Atkinson & Ron Elkin on “Jewish Evangelism & Calvinism: Friends, NOT Enemies!”

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Are Calvinism and Jewish evangelism friends or enemies?

Well, that's our discussion today with two individuals who are both what we call

Calvinists, which is just a nickname, of course. They are both theologically reformed, and yet they both have a passion to evangelize the

Jewish people. And hopefully, God willing, will break and destroy, help to destroy the stereotype today about those who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

And it is a sad tragedy that reformed people have had the caricature and the slanderous accusation that they are anti -Semitic.

Now, of course, there are Calvinists who are anti -Semitic. There are Arminians who are anti -Semitic.

There are all kinds of people who are anti -Semitic or who hate the Jewish people. But I can assure you that our guests today, who are both theologically reformed and have a passion for the

Jewish people, are neither anti -Semitic nor do they hate the Jews. In fact, our second guest today is, in fact, a

Jewish believer and a Calvinist. But let me introduce you to our first guest today,

Stephen Atkinson, who is the Director of Ministry for Christian Witness to Israel's North American Branch.

Their website is cwina .org. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Stephen Atkinson.

It's good to be with you, Chris. Very glad to be here. And Stephen, I detect a

Northern Ireland accent, I believe, if you could tell us something about yourself and where you're from and how on earth did a man from Northern Ireland get such a passion to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the

Jewish people, since I don't think there are all too many Jewish folks living in Northern Ireland.

But if you could explain. Not too many Jewish folks living in Northern Ireland, but my Scots -Irish roots certainly has a love for Jewish mission, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

But yes, I grew up in Northern Ireland, lived most of my life there, and most of my ministry, I've been in pastoral ministry and Jewish missions for about 30 years now, been a preacher for that length of time, regular ministry about 18 years, and about almost 12 or close to 12 years now with Christian Witness to Israel.

And I grew up in a church going home, but it was in a liberal church, but by the grace of God, I came to faith.

I wasn't very well taught, I would have to say, and so if you like, my Calvinism really grew out of my love of the

Scriptures and my parents' instruction in the Scriptures. And in my understanding,

Calvinism is simply Bible, and Reformed theology is simply Bible, but maybe that debate is for another time.

But I think also with regard to Jewish mission, Jewish mission is a clear commission from the

Scriptures. And so early in my ministry life, I felt that sense of an understanding that God is not done with the people

Israel. In my student days, I read the Puritan Hope, and that obviously was momentous and influential in my whole ministry life.

But little did I know that after 18 years of regular pastoral work, the Lord would call me into this work.

And He did so by just one of those providential phone calls and conversations that lead into various green pastures.

And so I've been doing this since 2004. I was the Director, you might say, for Ireland since 2004, and I moved over here in 2012, and I became the

Director of Ministry of CWI North America since that time. That gives a little bit of background.

And your headquarters for the North American branch are in Arkansas, correct?

It's Arkansas, yes, which is not Jewish Central, but it has been very providential, and I've had actually wonderful opportunities here, not only in reaching some

Jewish people, and I've even attended the synagogue here, met with the rabbi, and seen some fruit from personal evangelism.

But also I think what has been most encouraging, and this is really my larger ministry, is to challenge the

Church and to teach the Church how to reach its

Jewish neighbor. And what I find in this, what you might call a Bible Belt area, is that many churches have an interest in Israel, but in my mind it's misfocused, it's misdirected on a ton of other things rather than the one thing that is needful.

And so I've been trying to press my contacts, my friends, my opportunities that I get in whatever church

I go to, that we must be intentional in bringing the

Gospel to the Jewish people. Romans 10 .1 is very clear that, you know, the

Apostle Paul's desire is not for so many of the things that we see that desires today.

There's so much Christian gnosticism, so much blood moon gazing, instead of the

Apostle saying his heart's desire is that they may be saved. And my real burden is to get this back onto the

Church's agenda. And I find, this is my assessment, if you will, as I come as an outsider somewhat into the

American scene, I find that this is the most pro -Israel country on the planet, but it seems to me that it's maybe for some wrong reasons, and that at least it's going in all the wrong directions.

And instead I feel that we need to teach those that perhaps don't have a Reformed understanding, perhaps

I might speak of my Dispensationalist friends, that it's not about land, it's about the

Gospel. And I would speak to my Calvinistic friends that it's not about replacement.

You know, learn your history, learn what we might call, although I don't particularly like the term, what we might call the heroes of our faith.

Learn what they said about Jewish mission, and get that burden from these good men of old.

And again, one of the things that I seek to do when I go to Reformed churches is to remind them, and remind myself of our,

I'm a Presbyterian pastor, I'm a PCA pastor, remind of our

Westminster standards, and how the Westminster divines, very specifically in the 1600s, were concerned about Jewish mission.

And I think this is just something that we have forgotten, and so I will nudge both sides to think very specifically about Jewish mission.

And although you already have obviously explained a bit about the work of Christian Witness to Israel and what you've already said, please perhaps give us some more specific details about that organization.

And also, I gather from what you said, the Israel in the name,

Christian Witness to Israel, is more about a description of the

Jewish people rather than a nation in the Middle East. Yes, absolutely. I think that's where an error comes to mind, and it's one of those areas in which

I want to dispel some of those thoughts. If you mention Israel here in the

U .S., the immediate thought of most people is to think of a land, and that's not a

Biblical perspective. The people is much more important to us, and particularly so because the people need the

Lord. And where I see a fascination for prophecy, or I see a fascination for politics, those things are not unimportant, but I see a neglect of the people.

So Christian Witness to very much is a witness, a Christian witness to the people

Israel. I was recently taking a church meeting down in the Florida panhandle, and I was asked, well, you know,

Christian Witness to Israel, why were you called that? You were started in 1842.

The land didn't exist then, and I said, well, yeah, but the people did. And so our beginnings, just to give that little bit of history then, our beginnings were 1842.

Actually, probably just going back a year or two prior to that, because there was a mission of inquiry by the

Church of Scotland in 1839 with Robert Murray McShane and Andrew Bonner, and Scotland really sent four of its finest pastors, two of those young, restless, and Reformed, Bonner and McShane, and two more mature and experienced guys to look after those young, passionate upstarts.

And they were over in 1839 on a mission to the land, the land of Palestine, as it was called then, obviously.

And they came back with a great burden, and they burdened the Church. And again, it goes back to my understanding that it was their theology that drove their mission.

And that theology of the Westminster Divines, and that theology of the 1800s, the

Scots Presbyterians and the Puritans, was a theology that had a deep interest in bringing the

Gospel to the Jewish people. And so the outcome of that mission of inquiry was the beginning of some localized missions and some international missions, and ours was one of them, which was started in London in 1842, and the godly

Robert Murray McShane prayed the opening prayer at that first -ever meeting. So we have a very noble history and heritage.

In fact, for my Baptist brethren, and I must say in passing, my two sons are at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, and we have interesting after -dinner conversations between myself as a

PTA pastor and my sons at Louisville. But Reformed Baptists, Reformed Presbyterians, have so much in common, and I love my

Reformed Baptist brethren, and for the benefit of my Baptist brethren, I can name -drop even further and say that C .H.

Spurgeon preached on four occasions for our ministry. He did the annual sermon on four occasions.

We have actually one of those sermons online, where Spurgeon preaches on the

Valley of Dry Bones, and makes very specific reference to that grafting in again of the natural branches of Romans 11, and the preaching to the bones and the praying to the wind of Ezekiel 37 is really what we're seeking to do.

Today we want to bring that message of the Gospel to the bones of the House of Israel. They are dead.

They are very dry. They need the Gospel. Rather than what some some tele -evangelists might suggest, there is not a dual covenant.

There are no two ways. There is but one way, and the Hebrew of Hebrews, the

Apostle Paul, believed that strongly and preached it strongly, and we are doing similar in bringing the

Gospel to the Jewish people. And we're praying for the wind, because we can't save Jewish people.

Even winning arguments doesn't win them to the Lord. We may seek to sensitively have some understanding and winning the argument, as it were, but we must pray that the

Lord will open the eyes of the blind. We must pray for the wind to revive any dead soul.

And again, that's our Calvinism coming forth, I suppose, and that we preach to bones and we pray for the wind.

And certainly Spurgeon was one who did that, and we were delighted also to have him as part of our past history.

So again, all that to say that it's wholly consistent with being Reformed and being Calvinist, to having a very passionate interest and love for the ancient people, that they may be saved.

Amen, and it might even surprise many of our listeners to know that another very well -known outreach to the

Jewish people, Christian outreach to the Jewish people, Chosen People Ministries, a lot of people are totally unaware that that ministry came to be as a result of Presbyterians evangelizing the

Jewish people of Brooklyn in the 19th century. And their current president,

Mitch Glaser, who I've had on this broadcast, although we would disagree on eschatological things and so on, he is a

Calvinist, a five -point Calvinist. So it is interesting, and a lot of people are just totally unaware of that.

He also has a very open view to those being involved in Chosen People Ministries from different eschatological perspectives and has no restrictions against amillennial or postmillennial folks in being involved, which is good to hear, because you very typically will hear from organizations, messianic groups and so on, that amillennialism and postmillennialism are anti -Semitic in their nature, and that I believe that nothing can be farther from the truth from that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have good relations with Chosen People Ministries. I've known

Mitch Glaser, have met him. We're part of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, which is an overarching

Jewish missions group, and I attend that once a year, and meet up with my brethren, and I have a deep love for many in other

Jewish missions, my brethren also in Jews for Jesus. So we do operate together.

We have some differences, we have some theological differences, but I would have to say that I have a lot more in common with Mitch Glaser of Chosen People and David Rickner of Jews for Jesus than I have for some others who present a dual covenant theology and believe that Jewish people go to heaven because they follow

Torah, and that's sad that coming out of a so -called

Christian pastor... Yeah, that's absolutely amazing to me. I believe you're speaking primarily of John Hagee, are you?

Yeah, you know, we have... John Hagee's quotes are a little slippery at times, but the quotes are clear that he doesn't believe that they need the gospel.

That just baffles me, and what baffles me is that he got so many supporters.

In fact, it more than baffles me, it saddens me deeply. It's obvious that he doesn't really understand the gospel.

He can't understand the nature of man and the depravity of man and the need of the cleansing blood of Christ if he has this view.

In fact, the thing that makes it more bizarre is who was Jesus Christ's main audience in the

New Testament? They were Jews, and he was not giving them comfort to stay as they are.

In fact, Nicodemus, when he came to visit Jesus in secret, Jesus gave him no comfort to be a righteous

Jew for his salvation. I think this is what really bothers me.

And it also, I suppose in some ways, it gives me some hope. And here is my

Puritan hope coming forth. Theology drives mistheology. What you believe drives how you practice.

That's true with regard to your Christian living, and we as Reformed believers, we believe in a substantiality to our

Christianity. We believe in solid preaching. We believe in strong preaching. We believe in personal godliness and holiness.

We believe that your theology affects your life. And so when it comes to our theology of Israel, really it's being played out in all manner of our interest in Jewish mission or non -interest in Jewish mission.

If our theology is such that our mission is to get them all back to the land to build the temple and start sacrifices, if that's our theology, then that will be our mission.

Now I, in my Reformed understanding, have a different view of things. I don't believe that that is our mission.

In fact, it's not my theology. My theology is that they need to be saved. My theology is, yes, according to Romans 9 through 11, that there will be a grafting in again of the natural branches.

Yes, I long for that with hopefulness and aspirations, just as the Puritans did.

But the way we do that is to go out to the streets and to the highways and byways and make the connections and bring the gospel to the

Jewish people. In fact, we're doing that right now. Our work in Hungary is being supplemented by a number of our experienced staff from the

UK and Europe, and as we speak, they are on the streets of Budapest, and they're working, actually doing a joint outreach with Jews for Jesus on the streets of Budapest, and that outreach is continuing through until,

I think, the 9th of August. And so I'd ask your listeners just to pray for us, even as we're street preaching and giving out tracts and connecting with individuals in Budapest.

There are some 80 ,000 Jewish people in Budapest, and we're seeking to reach them and connect them with the gospel.

This is what it's all about. It's a no -brainer, and it just saddens me that we're off on so many rabbit trails and so many distractions, and yet we have the potential.

We have such an interest in the U .S., in Israel. Now, if we can teach, if we can get the theology correct, then what an influence for good that might be if we can get the

Church refocused at whatever the Church might be. And I'm talking to my

Calvinist friends, and I'm talking to my Dispensationalist friends, I'm talking to all. If we can get us refocused on the one thing needful, what an influence for good we can be in this country, where 42 % of the world's

Jewish population live. 42 % are right on our doorstep. This is the mission field. So let us get our churches active.

One of the things that I seek to do in my own ministry, I'm a preacher first and foremost, so I challenge churches.

I preach Sunday by Sunday, but also I engage in personal help to folks who have

Jewish friends, and I also do some seminars on how to sensitively reach out to your

Jewish neighbors. And I've done that in some of the seminaries as well as some individual churches.

And I think if I can mobilize the willing laborers, as it were, in the churches to be reaching their

Jewish neighbors, then really that's how I want to multiply myself. And we have churches and Christians that are in Jewish neighborhoods that are connecting with Jewish people.

Even where I live here in northwest Arkansas, I have a dear friend, and he's got Jewish business friends. He meets them four times a year.

They come from Miami, they come from New York City, and they meet three or four times a year. And he has been connecting with them with the

Gospel, and he's had them in his home share the Gospel with him.

That very natural way of sharing Jesus with Jewish people, that's how we will draw forth and bring forth

Jewish people to see that it's Jesus. Instead of the Christian church being fascinated by blood moons and red heifer, it saddens me.

There's such an interest in rapture theology rather than the Redeemer. When the

Redeemer is demoted, then there's something seriously wrong. Let us exalt

Christ. Let us exalt our King Jesus. Amen. Amen. You mentioned a term before for our fellow

Calvinist brethren to be leery about embracing, and I don't know if I'm going to have a difference of opinion with you on this, but you mentioned replacement theology earlier.

I don't know of any Calvinist or Reformed people who use that term as a way to describe themselves, and I do not think that if the

Gentiles are grafted in with the Jews as one people of God and that the church is a fulfillment of the nation of Israel and that we are a royal priesthood and holy nation as a church,

I don't view that as replacing anything. Replacement theology almost gives the idea that Gentiles have replaced ethnic

Jews or something, which I abhor as a racially bigoted heresy.

But anyway, if you could comment on what I had to say. Perhaps you disagree somewhat with what

I said, but if you could continue. No, I'm not disagreeing. I think what

I'm finding over here is not a radical replacement. My colleagues in the UK are actually facing a greater theological replacement where there is an arrogance, and we read of that arrogance in Romans 11, where there is an arrogance of the

Gentile church over the Jewish people. And in fact, you know, we could take a sweep through history and see how some of the early church fathers said some horrendous things about the

Jewish people. John Chrysostom was noted as a great preacher, but one of the quotes that we have of John Chrysostom was that God hates the

Jews, and therefore I hate the Jews. Now, his logic is fine, but his theology is abysmal.

And, you know, that theology of the Jews killed Jesus and Jews are

Christ -killers filtrated probably most of church history, and so, you know,

I could pull up a number of quotes. I don't need to do it right now, but I could pull up a number of quotes of, again, men throughout church history, even

Martin Luther. Some of the things that he said from a theology of replacement that then had that sense of God is done with Israel, God is finished with the

Jewish people. Now, Calvin was much kinder, and yet they were still expelled from Geneva.

Calvin was a man of his time. And it seemed to me that the Reformation took place over some time, as we know, and the

Reformation as to the understanding of God's purposes for the Jewish people took place over some time, and therefore

I delight in my Westminster divines. You know, Samuel Rutherford prayed that he could stay out of heaven.

In fact, I've got a quote right in front of me. I'll read it for you. He said, I could stay out of heaven many years to see that victorious, triumphing

Lord act that prophesied part of his soul -conquering love in taking into his kingdom the greater sister, the

Jews. Oh, what joy and what glory would I judge it if my heaven should be suspended till I might have left to run on foot to be a witness of that marriage glory and see

Christ put on the glory of his last married bride and his last marriage love on earth when he shall enlarge his love bed and set it upon the top of the mountains and take in the elder sister, the

Jews, and the fullness of the Gentiles. Now, Samuel Rutherford was certainly not a replacement, but some others, as I say from my research and also from what

I hear from my colleagues in the UK particularly, there is a radical growth of replacement theology, which is hindering their work.

And it just saddens me because we need to get back to the old paths, perhaps.

Back to reading what these good men of old had said. And instead of believing that God is done with Israel, God has replaced

Israel with the wonderfully obedient church. Not so. But there is that mindset.

I don't find it so much over here, I would have to say, although I have found it in some places, strangely.

But I don't find it so much in the U .S., but I know that my colleagues are facing it very strongly from some of the

Reformed churches in the UK. Now, would some of that replacement theology be involved in Anglo -Israelism?

Or I know that that would be certainly replacement theology, viewing basically the white

Anglo -Saxon Protestant as a replacement of ethnic Israel. But I don't even know how prominent that is anymore.

I know that the Armstrong cult held to that, but perhaps you could comment on that, because I don't even know if that's even really a significant issue today.

I think you're right, but it is cultish. What concerns me is not even that I know there's

British Israelism and there are cultish elements to that, but it's even mainstream in some

Episcopal circles in the UK, and even one bishop in the

UK has had his links with Arafat and with Iran, and there seems to be the...

It stems in with the liberation theologians and the sense of, you know, we stand up for the oppressed, the oppressed minority, and therefore

Israel is deemed the aggressor in the whole situation in the

Middle East, and then that anti -Semitism spills over into other parts of Europe. And as we know, there is a growing and alarming anti -Semitism in Europe as well as in the

UK. We're not seeing it so much here, and I'm delighted for that. I think what I'm seeing here is from my

Reformed brethren, I suppose something of a staying away from the whole

Israel question. It wouldn't be so much replacementism, but more a neglect.

I think we've let the whole Israel question be in the hands of those that perhaps are into the stargazing stuff, and so my more sober -minded brethren perhaps are saying, well, that's all a little complicated, a little complex, and we'll not go there, and therefore we're not very good at being balanced, so we let the swing go to the other extreme, and we stay clear of the whole

Israel question, which, again, I feel we're not fulfilling our commission which we've been given, and particularly in these climactic passages of Romans 9 through 11.

I'm going to give our email address if you have a question for our guest

Stephen Atkinson of a Christian witness to Israel's North American branch.

Our email address here is chrizarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please include at least your first name and the city and state where you reside or the country where you reside if you're writing from outside of the

United States. We do have a couple of listeners who have just sent in emails, and we will get to you right after this break, so we ask of you to please do not go away.

We're going to be right back with Stephen Atkinson and a Christian witness to Israel.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our theme of the day is

Jewish evangelism and Calvinism, friends or enemies? And we are seeking to prove today that those two concepts are indeed friends and not enemies.

And we have as our first guest for the first hour, Stephen Atkinson, who is

Director of Ministry of Christian Witness to Israel. And their website is cwina .org.

Later on at 5 p .m., we will begin our interview with Ron Elkin of Ami Ministry.

And they are also a Calvinistic or theologically reformed outreach to the

Jewish people. And Ron Elkin himself is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ.

So we will look forward to that as well. Our email address here, if you have questions, is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please include your first name, city and state or country if outside the

U .S. And Stephen, if you could, before we even go on, what is your personal eschatological background?

Because I know that not all reformed people agree on that. Yeah, as a mission, we don't have a specific eschatological position.

But I often say at churches, if you make a donation, I'll give you my personal one. I grew up in the mainline

Presbyterian Church in Ireland. And I then moved to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which, for those that are in the know, was the same denomination as Derek Thomas before he came over to Reformed seminary.

And so I'm coming out of that stable in Ireland. And my theological position was strongly

Reformed as I got into the Scriptures and understood what the Bible was all about.

Eschatologically, I suppose I initially had obviously that amillennial theological position, but reading the

Puritan Hope led me to have an optimism that I suppose did in some ways border on a postmillennial hope, at least in some areas of postmillennialism.

And at the same time, postmillennialism and amillennialism has not answered all my questions.

And so some aspects of pre -millennial and historic pre -millennialism is appealing to me.

So you might say that I'm in the mix there, and I think I'm in good company, because I heard on record that R .C.

Sproul was somewhere in the mix also, and perhaps some of our good men, if they're really honest, we don't fully fall down on one of those three positions.

But rather, I suppose theologically I would mostly be in the amill come, but it doesn't answer all my questions.

I have that optimism. And I suppose some aspects of the literalism of pre -millennialism appeals to me personally.

I think sometimes in our Reformed theology, we have taken a Greek mindset rather than the

Hebrew mindset, and we have so philosophized our understanding of things that we've lost the

Hebrew earthiness. And so all that to say,

I'm, again, as it's sometimes said, I'm a pan -millennialist, but it will all pan out in the end.

And I'm not specifically falling down on one particular position.

And as a mission Christian witness to Israel is confessionally Reformed, all our staff must adhere to one of the

Reformed confessions. So I'm Westminster, we also have some who are Baptist to the

Baptist confession, or Savoy or Heidelberg. So as a mission, we are

Reformed hold into one of those. But all of those Reformed confessions allow that liberty in terms of the eschatological question.

Now, in regard to some of the things that you've were saying earlier before the break, wouldn't you still believe even though you know of some bent of anti -Semitism, even if it's unconscious, unconscious anti -Semitism amongst

Reformed believers, especially in the UK, as you were saying, that the dominant view of Jews amongst

Reformed people, you would not categorize as anti -Semitic, would you? And you would not categorize anti -Semitism as inherent in any way to the theology known as Calvinism or Reformed?

No, no, I wouldn't. I think it's the dominant concern

I would have, I suppose, is the neglect. Apathy. Apathy about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just think that we have in our again, and I don't like to, to, to criticize my

Dispensationalist brethren, because I have a lot more in common with them than, as you have said previously, or by John Hagee.

But we do have our differences. I feel that because of some of the more radical

Dispensationalist views, my Reformed brethren have neglected the whole subject and stayed clear of something that they don't want to get into.

And yet, you know, I, I, I commend folks to go to our website and look up, there's a certain heading on our website called

Notable Quotes, and you will find quotes there by Jonathan Edwards, and Spurgeon, and Rutherford, and Sibbes, and Thomas Boston, and Bonner, and John Murray, Charles Hodge, John Owen.

All of those guys believe in God's future purposes for the

Jewish people. And so it saddens me that there is just this neglect. And I would really like to see it, you know, if we, if we believe

Romans 116, we may even have a belief in a priority of Jewish mission to the

Jew first. And in fact, Robert Murray McShane believed that there was a priority to Jewish mission.

He uses the illustration that a doctor will run to the most needy patient first.

And he speaks strongly about the Jewish people's danger, as we find it in Romans 2, because judgment comes to the

Jew first, and also to the Greek. And so McShane says, well, if judgment is to the

Jew first, if they are the most needy patient, the doctor needs to run to that needy patient.

And so he believed in a priority of Jewish mission. But even if my

Reformed brethren don't see that priority, I would certainly like to see every church, and here's my vision, that every church in the

U .S. has an intentionality to reaching its Jewish neighbor.

It is part of the Great Commission, but the commission is given to us, they are right on our doorstep, and we must be doing something.

And specifically where churches are in Jewish areas, they must have an intentional way of reaching, of crossing that divide and reaching their

Jewish friend. And where churches are not in Jewish areas, I would love them to just have that passion and that prayerful burden, even that our old

Scottish Presbyterians had. There weren't very many Jews in Scotland in the 1800s, but they had a theological burden that drove their prayers and their practical mission.

And I'd love to see that kind of thing happen again, that if the church is not in a specifically

Jewish area, well, we'll get the burden and pray for your brethren who are in doing that frontline work of ministry.

I've been to some churches in South Florida where the church is very positively engaged in reaching their

Jewish neighbor, and the senior pastor has told them, we're doing this or we're doing that. And I said, brother, you don't need me, you're doing a wonderful job, just keep doing it.

And then I've been to other churches in South Florida and other places where they've said, well, you know, we really could do with some help in this.

You know, you've rebuked me. I said, well, I'm not trying to rebuke you, my brother, but nonetheless, if you feel rebuked, let's make some changes, and let's make some intentionality to your outreach to your

Jewish friends. And I want to repeat our email address, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question for our guest. And before I forget,

I want to announce that our guest Stephen Atkinson will be here in the

Carlisle area, September 30th, God willing, that's a

Wednesday night at seven. He is going to be speaking at the church where I am a member,

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the website for more information on Grace Baptist Church is gracebaptistcarlisle .org,

gracebaptistcarlisle, that's C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E dot O -R -G,

Wednesday, September 30th at 7 p .m. If you live in the area, please come out to see and hear

Stephen Atkinson, and we will try to post that on the Iron Sharpens Iron radio website as well.

We do have a listener in Toronto, Canada, he doesn't really have a question, he just says, personally, as a

Calvinist, I strongly reject the idea of replacement theology, as I have understood things, as Paul said, it has always been the children of the promise who are the true children of God.

Would you want to respond to that, because I actually believe all of the elect are the true children of God, but if you could comment on that.

Yeah, I believe so, yes, as you rightly say, but we are the unnatural stuck -on branches grafted into the olive tree, and I think we ought also just to see something of a get to the original branches, and a debt even to the natural branches that are still lying around the tree.

They have been broken off, but they have not been burned up. They remain there around the tree, and it is our task to bring them to the gardener and to say, please, will you graft them again for your own glory, so that there will be one shepherd and one sheep, and one group.

Again, we don't believe in there being two peoples, but I think what

I would stress is that while we believe that we are grafted into the olive tree, that God is not done with the ethnic people, and I think that's what is a wonderful aspect of Romans 11, or Romans 9 through 11, is that God is not finished with the natural branches, with the ethnic people of Israel.

And I suppose as a Calvinist, it confirms to me that God is gracious to me.

A sinner, if when I stumble, when I fall, the

Lord did not persevere with me, a sinning saint, if he said, okay,

I'm done with you, well, my salvation is in jeopardy. But I don't believe that. As a Calvinist, I don't believe that.

I believe that God perseveres with my sinning nature, and by His grace and by His mercy,

He that began the good work shall bring it to a wonderful, gracious, and glorious conclusion.

And I think when I see folks suggesting that God is finished with the ethnic people, that saddens me, because to me, that's not

Calvinism. Calvinism is that God begins work, and He, again, in the sovereign purpose of God, He has veiled this people.

They are partially hardened, again, according to Romans 11, but not completely hardened, and it is of the

Lord to take away their sins. And so, again, in Romans 11, it speaks of that.

It speaks of His love for them. They are enemies on account of the gospel,

Romans 11, 28, but they are loved on account of the patriarchs, and it goes on to speak of, this is my covenant with them when

I take away their sins. So it seems to me that God has a future purpose for the

Jewish people, and it is a saving purpose, and it is a glorious purpose. And that, again, is what fires me for mission, and fires me to have that puritan hope.

There are promises yet held out to the ancient people.

There are irrevocable promises that God has yet to fulfill in His grace and glory, and we long and look forward to those being fulfilled.

By the way, I wanted to, I didn't get a chance to say this earlier, I would probably be in the same camp as you in regard to eschatology.

I guess I would call myself right now, anyway, an optimistic amillennialist, but would not be a dogmatic amillennialist.

I am willing to learn about the other groups. In fact, I want to let our listeners know that once again, just like we did on the old

Iron Sharpens Iron years ago, we're going to be having a week of eschatology,

August 17th through the 24th. So we're actually having six days of eschatology on Iron Sharpens Iron, where each day we're having a major view of eschatology represented by someone who is an advocate for that particular view.

So, and the majority of these participants would be thoroughly reformed, even though they disagree on the end times and so on.

And also, I don't know if you were aware of this, Stephen, but Ian Murray is also an optimistic amillennialist, even though he wrote

The Puritan Hope, and a lot of postmillennialists cling to that as their handbook. He has told me face to face that he is not a classic postmillennialist and would fall more in the amillennial camp.

Yes, yes, indeed. I loved Ian Murray's book in my student days, and in a wonderful providence of life and ministry,

I got the opportunity to meet with Ian on several occasions. In fact,

I was called as the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church in 1992. Some of your listeners might be interested to know, in 1991, a certain

Ian Murray was called to be the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church England, and a couple of months before his installation, he felt the

Lord calling him not to pursue that, and so he did not become the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church.

And within the next 12 months, they called this little old guy from Northern Ireland as the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, and Ian Murray preached my installation sermon in Cambridge in 1992.

And then, as a wonderful father and pastor to pastors, he called me up once a month to ask how

I was doing, because I was a young 30 -year -old in ministry in a strange location.

And I just love him in the Lord. I value him highly, and not just for the book that I read in my student days, but the impact that he had and the way our paths crossed in ministry life.

So Ian is regarded very highly by me. We have a listener that asks a question that you did address already, but perhaps you can expand on it, because I think that we could say a few more things about it.

Jeff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, writes, Do the errors, from a Reformed perspective, of dispensationalism cause an overreaction towards Jewish people as unique and Jewish missions?

Romans 11, in my reading, means we all should long to see ethnic

Israel turn toward the Messiah, and that would benefit all nations.

So would you say that a lot of the apathy that you were discussing earlier, that you see amongst

Reformed churches and ministries regarding Jewish evangelism, would you say that that's an overreaction to dispensationalism and a fear of being equated with dispensationalist errors and so on?

I think Jeff is right on the button. I think that's exactly my complaint.

One of the things that I suppose as I get older in ministry, I can look back on my younger days, and I feel sometimes, and this is where I go after my own,

I feel sometimes in our Reformed camp, we are looking over our shoulders. We are giving way to peer pressure.

We're saying the right things within our camp, and we're very careful to remain in the camp.

We don't want to be tossed out of the camp. And it seems to me that what

Jeff is saying, that there is an overreaction. We don't want to go there. We don't want to think about it, lest we be labeled a dispensationalist.

I've been labeled a dispensationalist, and I firmly dispute that. But I think that is the problem.

The neglect comes because my Reformed brethren are so tightly concerned to remain within their little group that they're not prepared to say concerning their interest in Jewish people.

And what I would try to say, you're in good company. You're with Owen, and Hodge, and Bonner, and Sid, and you're in good company.

Why are you afraid to start to lead what these good men of old said pertaining to Jewish mission?

So quick answer to Jeff's comment. He's absolutely right. There is an overreaction.

And what I want to do in my preaching ministry and teaching is to get us to be nudged back to what

I see as a historic Reformed position, that we had Jewish mission in our standards.

I commend your listeners to look up the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 191.

Westminster Larger Catechism, question 191, which is praying for the downfall of the kingdom of Satan.

Now, that's not a very political correct thing to do today, but there is much perversity that we should be praying down.

And in the Catechism, question 191 answer, we are to pray for the downfall of the kingdom of Satan and pray for the gathering in of the

Jewish people. And there are specific prayers in our Westminster standards for Jewish mission.

And I would just love my Reformed brethren to go back and read what their standards actually say, because Reformed theology and Calvinism are certainly friends and not enemy.

Amen. And it reminds me, Jeff from Philadelphia's question reminds me of how

Reformed people can overreact to an error of another group and therefore neglect something that they should be doing, just because they don't want to look bad.

It reminds me, I just wanted to say it reminds me of years ago when

I visited a church that was formerly an Arminian church, and the new pastor and new congregation that had purchased the building were

Presbyterian. They were independent Presbyterians. And when I looked over the baptismal tank,

Revelation 2217 was up there on the wall, and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.

And I said, Oh, I love that verse up there. And the pastor said, really, well, we're taking it down. We don't want to look like we're

Arminian. I said, it's a Bible verse. And I said, what better way to convey the message that you believe in all of the scripture to the

Arminian opponents of Calvinism by leaving that up there. I mean, that just struck me as totally bizarre that they would remove a text of scripture from the wall.

Well, I think that, but that is so true, because again, Calvinists, with our understanding of predestination, have been labeled as non -evangelistic, as if we, you know, we're just waiting for the

Lord to save people because the elect will come in. But no, we're being given the calling, we're being given the commission.

And let's also make sure that before we leave your segment of the program, since we only have about four minutes left,

I really want to make sure that everything that you most desire to have burned in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they go today, before they leave your portion of today's two -hour program, please just unburden your heart for as long as you wish within our remaining three minutes or so.

I think really this brings us back full circle, really. What is our calling? What is our mission?

And it is Romans 10 .1. It is that heart desire that they may be saved.

And whether there is a replacement or a neglect, I think sometimes in our

Reformed circles we neglect evangelism, and that's a legitimate charge placed against some of my

Calvinistic friends, my own heart perhaps, that we're not speaking to people about the Lord at every turn.

We become Reformed monastics. We have our little groups where we study

Reformed theology in the comfort of our own churches instead of reaching out with this glorious doctrine of grace to the lost.

And I think that's what happens then with regard to Jewish people. And if I can make one final plea, it is that we will see the importance of bringing the gospel to Jewish people, that there will be a gospel militancy about our ministry, that we will see that it is the one thing needful.

I have a Jewish friend who's come to faith in the past six or eight months up in Ohio, and he started attending a church

I was visiting, and I had some small aspect of help to him in the early days of him coming to faith.

And we have an article in our most recent magazine as well, and the title of the article is that he said,

I feel I've been lied to my whole life. And the rules and the rabbinical reinterpretations will not cut it on the deathbed.

On the deathbed, Jewish people will meet their God, and the only one that they can meet their

God in the strength of is Melchizedek, is the King of Righteousness. It is Jesus Christ, and we must bring that gospel of Jesus.

One final little illustration, and then I'm done. My CEO in London is

Joseph Steinberg. Joseph is a Jewish believer, and Joseph has really fired us up as a mission for evangelism, very specifically.

And he said, you know, my own mother without knowing her Messiah. And he said,

I want this whole organization to have this one thing on their mind, that we will cross every divide to bring the gospel to the

Jewish people all around us. So I ask that your listeners will pray for us, if they can even support us.

But in all things, be with us and stand with us as we bring Christian witness to the people of Israel.

Amen, amen. I couldn't have said it better myself, and that goes for most things, I think. And I want to repeat your website.

It's cwina .org. That's cwina for North America .org,

cwi for Christian witness to Israel, na for North America .org. And once again,

Stephen Atkinson will be speaking, God willing, on Wednesday night, September 30th at 7 o 'clock at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The website is gracebaptistcarlisle .org. It's been such an honor and privilege and joy to have you on the program,

Stephen Atkinson, and I look forward to having you return on the program, perhaps next time right here next to me in the studio when you're visiting

Carlisle. I would love that, and thank you so much for having me today. It's been a real blessing, and I find a new fine friend in Chris Arnson.

It's been a pleasure to meet my brother. May the Lord bless you and your radio ministry. Thank you so much, and I hope everybody stays tuned in for Ron Elkin of AMI Ministry, who is coming on next, and we look forward to receiving your emails for Ron.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com is our email address, and if you write to us with a question for Ron Elkin of AMI Ministry, please include your first name, your city and state of residence, and your city and country of residence if you're outside of the

USA, and we look forward to hearing from you. And by the way, you may disagree with our guests.

You don't always have to agree with what our guests have to say on Iron Sharpens Iron. Feel free to write with any kind of objection that you may have, and we look forward to having our guest

Ron Elkin respond to you to the best of his ability. So please don't go away, and while you're at it during the station break, tell your family, friends and loved ones to get on their computers to ironsharpensironradio .com

and have them listen to the broadcast. They can also, if they don't have access to a computer, they can also listen to the broadcast by phone, and the phone number for people to listen to the program anywhere, if they have a phone with them, is 401 -283 -6754.

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It's about God and His glory, and the gospel is about... Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you've just tuned in, this is the second hour of Iron Sharpens Iron.

We are discussing the theme Jewish evangelism and Calvinism, friends or enemies?

And we have been seeking to answer that question with a resounding no. And to continue that theme, our guest for the second hour is

Ron Elkin, who is the director of Ami Ministry, and their website is amiministry .org,

that's A -M as in Michael, M as in Michael, I, ministry .org. And Ron is a

Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, and he's also a theologically reformed Christian, and it's our honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,

Ron Elkin. Yes, hello, I'm glad to be here. Yes, Ron, and I'm excited to have you on for the first time.

First of all, tell our listeners briefly about Ami Ministry. Well, Ami Ministry began at a historic 10th

Presbyterian Church in Center City, Philadelphia, as a mission work of the church.

Our goal has always been to bring the gospel to Jewish people, as your previous guest was talking about, going out on the highways.

He mentioned Hungary, and it's kind of interesting that I was there in 2012, and I met the

CWI worker that he's talking about who's cooperating with Jews for Jesus. And actually,

Gary went around with me as a translator as part of the follow -up from a witness campaign.

So that's very much in line with part of our ministry, which is to go out into the highways and byways and bid people to come and understand the gospel.

The second part is to help fellow believers to share their faith with Jewish people, to help them explain what is the ways and ins and outs of Jewish culture and the history between the church and the

Jewish people that puts up all kinds of obstacles. And try to encourage the

Christian to have the ability to approach this in a humble way, to understand that often in the name of Jesus, evil things were done that really hurt the

Jewish people. And to be ready to deal with that issue up front, acknowledge these things happen, but explain that that's not at all what

Jesus was about, and that's not what he taught. And so there are the two major parts of our ministry.

And just to repeat our email address, if you have a question for Ron Elkin, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please include your first name, city and state and country if you're outside of the

United States. Now let's get around to you and your own personal testimony on how you, a

Jewish individual from a Jewish home, came to discover, love, and believe and follow the

Lord Jesus Christ. I just want to finish your first question first. We have two verses that typify our ministry.

One is Isaiah 40, verse 1, where it says, Comfort, comfort my people, sayeth the

Lord. And we can't think of any greater comfort than to help a Jewish person come into a relationship with the living

God. The second one is Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Jesus.

And that's where our outreach evangelism comes in. We then did become a mission board in 1991.

We started in 1984, so we're 31 years old now as a mission. And we became a mission board and focused in many different directions, but always reaching out to the

Jewish community. Now my own life, I grew up in a thoroughly conservative

Jewish home. My mother was actually raised Orthodox, so we had a kosher home. We kept all the

Jewish feast days. In addition to going to public school, I went to Cheder, which is the

Jewish Hebrew school. And so three days a week, I went there after public school and learned how to read

Hebrew, learned to read the biblical stories, and was thoroughly indoctrinated in a good way, in the sense of learning about God's word and the scriptures and also the traditions, and regularly attended synagogue.

And so it was a very deep Jewish upbringing. We were not secular, we were religious.

And so when I later came to be confronted with the gospel, it was very hard for me to even begin to think about the possibility that Jesus was this

Messiah. I'd heard through the synagogue, I was born in 1945, and so it was shortly after World War II, and I heard through my synagogue days about the horrors of the

Nazis and the Holocaust, and how Germany had been a Christian nation and how they had treated the

Jewish people. And so in my home, there was a fear of Christians, there was a fear of Gentiles, because of not wanting something similar to happen here in the

States. And my mother had been born in Kiev, Ukraine, and she came to Canada when she was a young woman, and she told about stories of the severe persecution at the hand of the church there in Ukraine.

And so that's how I grew up with a, you know, I wouldn't say I was hostile towards Christianity, but I certainly did not believe it.

There was no reason to, I just saw that as a path that was very prideful and arrogant and it hurt our people.

But God, in His wisdom and His providence, began to convict me as I grew into my 20s, began to put a hunger in my heart for truth.

And I went on a spiritual pilgrimage, including going over to India for a while, studying yoga, meditation,

Hinduism, trying to connect with God. I became convinced there was a God. I kind of left atheism in my mid -teens to pursue a

God relationship, but I didn't know what or who God was. And so I tried many different faiths and philosophies and trying to find my way to peace.

Through the grace of God, I had a deep conviction of the Holy Spirit of my own sins. And so later, in my later 20s,

I decided to atone for those sins in a very traditional Jewish way, by doing good deeds, by doing what's called a mitzvah.

And so I started a couple of community organizations in Northern California. I went from Philadelphia, I was born and raised in Philly, but went out to California.

Started a couple community organizations that were funded by the government, and have helped thousands of people.

But I found no peace, even after these were established. I still was under the deep conviction.

People had shared the gospel with me throughout this time. Somebody left a track on my window when

I lived in West Philadelphia that talked about hell. And it put a fear in me, even though I kind of shook it off, it planted a seed.

And that's one of the reasons we believe in track ministry, to help people plant that seed.

Then different people out there in California shared the gospel with me, and I would kind of make fun of their efforts.

But little by little, God gave me an attraction to the person of Jesus.

I read some books that were not really clear gospel books, but they did elevate Jesus as a great teacher.

And so I began to listen to Christians a little bit more. I had a respect for Jesus, but I could not believe that I had to come to God through him.

I really struggled with that, because I remember arguing with God, why do

I need to come to you through anyone else? Why can't I just come to you? And then

I tried to do all these good deeds. But God, little by little, pointed me in the direction of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit was speaking to me before I was really clearly reading the word.

I had little bits and pieces of the scriptures that people had shared. But when I started to read the

Bible, I recognized that spirit that had been drawing me. Eventually, when I was 31,

I came to a point where I became convinced that Jesus really was the way that God wanted me to go to know him.

And I remember I was at a church service, and I openly confessed faith in the Lord. And at that point,

God came and confirmed interiorly that I had indeed come home spiritually.

And it was like, we have cold winters here sometimes in Philadelphia, and then all of a sudden, they were at the end, and you have a beautiful spring day.

And that was what it was like coming into a relationship with God through Jesus. So I was thoroughly convinced at that point.

And then I began studying the scriptures and really seeing the connection between my

Jewishness and faith in Jesus. I saw all the connections through the prophecies and through the doctrines that are found in the

Jewish scriptures, and how they connect with the New Covenant, and what we call the

New Testament. And back and forth and back and forth, and everything became more and more confirmed through the

Word of God. And I grew to a great love for the scriptures. And so that's how

I came. And I thought I'd be a missionary back to India, but God, in a way, directed me eventually towards my own people.

And for a bit, I was like Jonah, wanting to run away. But God had his way, and I went to Cairn University and graduated with a degree in Jewish missions, and then went on the

Biblical Theological Seminary. And I'm very grateful that God drew me to himself.

And so I'm thoroughly believing in the sovereignty of God when it comes to salvation. Amen. Amen.

And I just want to plug a book, since our guest

Ron Elkin was speaking of the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, that he became convinced were speaking of Jesus Christ.

I want to strongly recommend a book called Behold Your King by a

Reformed Baptist scholar named William Webster. And that is an excellent book filled with the messianic prophecies of the

Old Testament and demonstrating how they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And you can get that book through one of our sponsors, actually two of our sponsors. The first is

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

That's cv for Cumberland Valley, bbsbiblebookservice .com. And also

Solid Ground Christian Books, solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com. You mentioned, Ron, Biblical Theological Seminary.

Was that where you first started to become more thoroughly introduced in Calvinism?

Or were the folks evangelizing you before that, Calvinists and Reformed? I know that Biblical Theological Seminary, I believe, is a historic pre -mill institution.

I'm not sure if it still is, but if you could speak on that for a minute. Oh, sure, sure.

Yeah, actually, here's the unique situation. As I mentioned before, we began our ministry at 10th

Presbyterian in downtown Philadelphia, which has a population probably right around that center city area of about 50 ,000

Jewish people. And so we began an outreach to them, and it was approved by the elders of the church.

And we were working there very hard to bring the gospel to people. And that's where I was introduced to the idea of the sovereignty of God and salvation.

And boy, did I rebel. I certainly rebelled and said, wait a minute, how unfair that would be, and so on.

And then I was at Carn University, which is basically a dispensational -oriented school.

And lo and behold, one of the professors was somewhat Calvinistic and pointed out the

Acts 13, where it says, all those who were appointed to believe, believed.

And he actually was convinced of the way of the sovereignty of God in choosing people to come to salvation.

Yeah, I love that text. Acts 13, 48, and those who were appointed unto eternal life, or some of the translations are those who were ordained unto eternal life, believed.

I don't want this to fly over the heads of some of our listeners. It gives a clear order of salvation there.

The election of an individual came before their believing. Their believing did not determine their election.

Well, that was the beginning, and I then became more and more convinced in looking at my own life, looking at the life of Abraham, looking at the life of the prophets who were called by God, looking at the life of the disciples of Jesus, and seeing that really throughout the whole history of the

Scripture, there's a calling of God among and out of the vast number of people.

And I'll tell you the truth, Chris, I hated this doctrine, but I believed it. I'll tell you in a second how that reflects my own experience, but go ahead.

Well, it's true, because the desire of, and God has given me an evangelistic zeal from the time

I was saved. I was out in the streets from the very first time of being saved with the church community

I was in. We did that regularly, and I had a great burden for the lost, particularly my path that left me as a non -Christian coming into a faith and understanding its truth.

It gave me a zeal to reach out to the lost, and so the idea that some of the people that I was speaking to did not have an equal shot really disturbed me.

But, you know, and it still does to some degree, but not that I will judge God in any way.

I know it's true. I know it's real, and I trust God with that whole situation.

But that's how I became Reformed in my understanding, and the more

I've been around, the PCA is where I'm a member of, and the more solid teaching

I've heard, and the more further God has shown me. And just in my own life, looking at the way

He has worked out things, you see the hand of God. And yet, I'll tell you, at times

I have, this has been very great encouragement to me as a Jewish evangelist, because I'm going to my own people who often have been trained, either historically, culturally, or religiously, to reject the gospel.

And they believe it's a sin, and it would be being a traitor to their people to believe. So here

I am going out and speaking to a group of people that have been preconditioned to reject.

But the thing that motivates me to continue is God's sovereignty, knowing that among the community there are people that He has chosen before the foundation of the earth to believe.

And also, at the same time, it takes the burden off of me. I'm not out there to manipulate anybody. I'm not out there to sell

Jesus. I'm out there to just speak the truth in love, and pray that God will use that in the hearts of people to convict them of their sins and bring them to a true faith in Jesus.

And so the Reformed understanding has been a great comfort to me. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly say that when

I first came to the doctrines of grace, I was baptized at a

Reformed Baptist church before I came to fully understand these things. And in fact,

I rejected the specific unique tenets of Calvinism, such as an unconditional election.

And a British gentleman who is now in heaven, Nigel Stone, gave me a booklet,

George Whitefield's letters to John Wesley on election. And I read that booklet.

John Wesley had every argument against Calvinism that I had and more.

And George Whitefield so powerfully and beautifully and tenderly demonstrated how the scriptures teach unconditional election, that I initially, after reading it, was angry and said, this is true.

I have no excuse. It's biblical, but I hate it.

But then gradually, I began to love this truth, especially when it made all the more personal and intimate

God's or Christ's death on Calvary, because he specifically had my name etched on his heart and mind while he was hanging there and receiving his father's wrath.

And this was not a death for a faceless, nameless sea of humanity that might or might not redeem them and bring them to heaven.

This was a work that Christ knew, Chris Arnzen, I am paying for your sins, and one day you will be in glory with me.

And it just made the whole thing more rich and personal and glorious for me. But it's a joyous to hear your testimony.

And one thing that disturbs a lot of reform people when they see

Jewish ministries involved in Jewish evangelism, or who focus on that, or who are identified by that, typically describing themselves as messianic, is they do see, at times, those that approach the border or sometimes leap over the border of Judaizing.

And where you have these messianic groups insisting that their members adhere to the ceremonial law of the

Old Covenant and so on. And there are, obviously, theologically reformed

Christians and others who find this abhorrent. If you could comment on that. Oh, sure, sure, yeah.

When I became a believer in Jesus, I was part of a church that obviously and naturally was a vast majority

Gentile. There were a few other Jewish believers, but of two or three hundred people, there was only one or two other

Jewish people. So I found in myself prejudice.

I didn't want to give my heart to my brothers and sisters. I didn't want to be completely open with them.

Because of the background that I had, it was very hard for me to not feel that sense of being a traitor to my people.

So I was reading in the scriptures where it talks about the fact that we become one new man, and in Ephesians chapter 2, and that God has abolished the law and He became our peace, made both of us one.

And I prayed to the Lord and I said, Lord, I don't experience that. I don't feel that.

I feel like I need to keep myself apart in order to be faithful to my Jewishness. And God, little by, like an onion, little by little, as I prayed,

I said, I want to be able to live this verse. And that's a good thing to do, my friend, to pray to live that verse, because God will work on you and worked on me.

And little by little, like an onion, He peeled away this sense of separation to the point where I could see my fellow believer, whether they're

Jew or Gentile, as a person, and that there was no need for me to keep myself aloof or separate.

So when Jewish people are not taught, as they become believers in Jesus, if they're born, if they're in a messianic congregation that's promoting the sense of distinctness, which is not, you know, it's not wrong for a

Jew to worship in a thoroughly synagogal way, as long as they don't fall into legalism. Certainly the culture of the

Church is no better than any other way of worshipping. I'm talking about the American traditional Protestant Church.

But the point is, if they're not taught, in a strong way, the unity of the body of Christ, it's very easy to keep that sense of separation.

And it does take an effort. So for me, that's one of the weaknesses that happens in a messianic congregation.

If the idea that the Jewish people have an exclusive call from God that's separate from the

Gentiles, they base that on Acts 21, where Paul, when he came to Jerusalem, was told by the brothers, we hear that you're teaching against the law, we'd like you to take a vow and go into the synagogue, and so on.

And he did that. It wasn't, you don't hear where God commanded him to do that. And he did as an action.

There's nothing where God says that was the right thing to do. And later on, shortly after that, he was arrested.

But the point is, they will take that verse and run with it and say, well, see, Paul kept the law, and therefore that's, you know, he's an apostle, and so on.

But yet, if you look at Paul's teachings, he clearly teaches that the laws were completed in Jesus, and that through him, we have peace with God, and that certainly we're not saved by works.

He says we're saved by faith, by grace through faith, not by works. So there's so many verses that teach us clearly, that these,

Colossians says, the debt we had of the law, which we all break, has been nailed to the cross with Jesus.

And so when people want to separate themselves and put some worth to keeping the traditional laws, like keeping kosher, and so on, then, and they think this is what

God wants them to do as Jews. I don't believe that's correct based on scripture.

If I did, I would do the same thing. So it's important that people don't make an idolatry of anything.

People can make an idolatry of the Reformed faith and make that more important than Jesus. And when a

Jew makes his Jewishness more important than the clearness of the gospel, then there's a real problem.

And yet I understand why they're doing that. There's an emotional hurt in the Jewish people over all the things that happened to them through the centuries.

And so it's, unless there's a maturing and a growing, it's easy to fall into that sense of wanting to keep that tradition, even when it's not moving in the right direction biblically.

Yeah, you could even make an idol out of the scriptures by, like, for instance, the

Judaic customs of the way that they adore the actual scrolls sometimes appears to border on idolatry because of the actual reverence to the actual paper and ink on those scrolls and so on.

I don't want to make too much of that, but do you see any kind of incorrect way of viewing that in a ceremonial way?

Well, I think the thing that's important to me to understand is that our

Messianic brothers, and many of them, of course, are truly saved, are wanting to identify with their

Jewishness because the original movement developed out of the idea that if we're more

Jewish in our cultural expression, in our worship service, and so on, that through this it would lead more

Jewish people to feel more comfortable hearing the gospel. And in some cases that does help, but somewhere along the line in that attempt to be thoroughly

Jewish, they began to cross over into levels of legalism that is anti -biblical.

And at that point is when they begin to move into error and begin to entrap themselves.

Some Messianic Jewish people become very orthodox in their practices, and they become very much involved with that.

And most Jewish people in America are not at all religious. Many of them are secular,

New Age, indifferent, and of course you do have some religious

Jewish people, but they're a smaller minority. And so if you're really trying to reach the general

Jewish community, you don't want to make them have to become more

Jewish than they normally are. And so that's where our ministry believes in working through the church and through our own testimony as a

Jewish believer and other Jewish believers to encourage Jewish people to come to believe in Jesus.

In other words, the majority of Jewish people who have gotten saved have gotten saved through the witness of a loving

Gentile who was able to show them kindness while sharing the gospel.

And so a true lover of people, which God wants us to be, can make a great impact whether they're

Jewish or Gentile on a Jewish person's movement towards salvation. And so my call, besides going out in the streets and besides meeting

Jewish people and personally witnessing, is to help train Gentiles how to share their faith effectively with Jewish people.

And it is like any other people group, they have a distinction that people need to learn about. We have to go to a break right now and we look forward to receiving your emails for Ron Elkin with questions for him.

We already have a couple that we will get to, God willing, when we come back. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't forget to leave your first name, city, and state and the country where you reside when you send in your email.

We'll be right back after these messages. 717 -254 -6433.

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That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen and we are interviewing for the second hour of our two -hour broadcast

Ron Elkin of AMI Ministries. Their website is amiministry .org. That's A -M -M -I, that's

A -M as in Michael, M as in Michael -I, ministry .org. And we are discussing

Jewish evangelism and Calvinism, friends or enemies, and we have been for the last hour and a half giving a resounding friends as the answer to that question.

And we, although recognizing that the sin of anti -Semitism, the sin of bigotry exists in all circles of life and in the globe, different ethnic groups, different religions, different denominations, different individuals, and bigotry and hatred of all kinds is a sin that we must repent of if we are guilty of it.

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

And of course, you were mentioning the kosher laws before and how some of the messianic groups instill in their congregants that they should be following these.

You would differentiate between that and somebody who, out of a desire to be a better witness and evangelist to their

Jewish loved ones or neighbors, may adopt a kosher lifestyle where they realize that it is not because they are required to obey that ceremonial law from the old covenant.

That is completely acceptable and even can be wonderful for somebody to do something like that if they're doing it specifically just to be a witness so that those they are evangelizing are more comfortable in their presence, correct?

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. There is nothing wrong even if a person feels the desire to keep the way he was raised and really does not have a desire to eat pork, for example, or shellfish.

But as long as he doesn't or she doesn't cross over to where they say this is something that is required of Jewish people who believe in Yeshua or Jesus.

And it certainly can be a volunteer thing and as long as they also don't believe that somehow it earns more merit with God by doing that.

And that's where I draw the line. If somebody says it's something that Jewish believers should do or must do to be pleasing to God, then

I just have to say, no, I'm sorry, that's not what the Bible teaches. One of the things that I've heard from Jewish individuals as to a reason why they are so offended by messianic ministers calling themselves rabbi is because of the fact that in Orthodox Judaism, for instance, there is much rigorous training and years of study that is involved for someone to become a rabbi.

And obviously I can't broad brush because I'm not that knowledgeable about the entire Jewish spectrum, including the

Reform Jews who are very liberal. But there are Jews who find it offensive that some minister who really he might not even have a college education and because he's an ordained minister by some group or maybe even self -ordained and he's walking around calling himself

Rabbi Patrick O 'Reilly. And no offense intended for anybody who's actually named that who's a messianic minister.

That was just off the top of my head. But you know where I'm coming from. Somebody who is adopting that title where even many

Christians would obviously be opposed to that because of the fact of the prohibition to using titles like father and rabbi.

But if you could talk on that just for a little bit. Yeah, again, I agree with you.

It says give no appearance of evil in our scriptures. And when one takes on a title that, as you said, demands a lot of education and rigorous training and approval, and takes it on without that happening, then it does appear to be counterfeit.

And it unfortunately adds to the idea that messianic congregations are not legitimate, so to speak, expression of Judaism.

There are training facilities that have been developed over the last 15, 20 years among the messianic movement that is trying to develop an authentic training, biblical training and Judaic training that would then, in a way, qualify that person more realistically.

So I have to say they have been making strides in that direction to try to legitimatize this title of leader.

A number of Jewish leaders within congregations will say that they'll call themselves a

Jewish leader or congregational leader rather than use the term rabbi because they also agree that it's wrong to do that, yet they are messianic congregations.

You've got to remember, as we're talking about the messianic congregational movement, there's a wide variety of expressions there, and some are very legitimate and very so -called kosher in theology, and others are getting way too far into rabbinics.

And so you have to not take too broad a brush. And they are, in many cases, our brothers and sisters, so we have to pray.

I've got online, and I've interacted with some of the messianic groups on Facebook and other places, and I basically had to argue with them about their over -focus on the

Torah. It was Torah this and Torah that, and kind of like, well, all right, so yeah, the law exists, and it was there to teach us that we're sinners, and no one can keep it, so what's all this love affair with the law, you know?

And yet, where's Jesus in the midst of that? But I wanted to take another topic here for a second, and that is that the previous speaker was talking about the fear or the hesitancy in the

Reformed churches to embrace Jewish missions or outreach to people.

Yeah, the apathy, especially. Yeah, out of fear of appearing dispensational, and so they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that's horrible, because Jewish people, like any other group of people, are just people.

They're people that are sinners, that need to hear the gospel, and they need to be saved, so as an act of love, we need to reach out to every tribe and culture, including the

Jewish people, and so there's a dryness. There's a lack of enthusiasm out of, again, fear of not appearing

Reformed, and that's sad, because it definitely needs the love of all congregations to try to be concerned for their

Jewish friends and neighbors, and to be thinking in terms of praying for them, and think, as a matter of fact, the confession says we should pray for the

Jewish people's salvation. But there's another thing that I do want to bring out that is a heart for people in the

Reformed camp, and that is that the Jewish people are a mystery. I'm a bit like your previous guest in the sense of the idea of pan -millenniism.

I don't take a hard and fast rule on these things, because I believe that God is still, in some mysterious way, and it's very obvious by the rampant anti -Semitism that's growing in the world around us, which is the work of Satan, that there is still an ongoing, mysterious connection of God's historical plan for the world and the

Jewish people. There is still some connection. It's not some cut -and -dry thing where all of a sudden the

Church replaces Israel, and though in many ways the Church is the people of God and the

Jewish people, though they are historically connected to God through the prophecies and through His working through them, spiritually speaking, they're not the people of God unless they believe in Jesus.

So it's a funny thing. You can't put

God in a neat box, is what I'm trying to say. And there's a pride and arrogance that sometimes, and you know, the

Greek world, which is what primarily Protestantism has been influenced by, feels they can dot every

I and cross every T and get all the doctrines down right. And it tends to sometimes get into the head too much rather than to recognize that God is able, in many ways, to continue to do

His program that's somewhat outside that box at times. And so I am thoroughly

Reformed, and yet I leave a measure of openness to God deciding how that's going to all play out as far as Israel.

Amen. And the Apostle Paul tells us that a true Jew is one who is one inwardly, not outwardly, who receives the circumcision of the heart.

Right. Yes, exactly. I agree. And the thing is, the Jewish people are a mystery.

If they have contributed, wherever they go, they contribute mighty to the well -being of the community that they're in.

All the inventions that have come out of that small country called Israel are overwhelming or mind -boggling, and yet they've been under the siege of war this whole time.

You can imagine the blessing that Israel could have been, the Jewish people there, could have been to the world if they had been left in peace over these last, you know, 50 -some years.

It's been amazing, the Nobel Prizes that have been won through the people of Israel, and all the major inventions that affect their lives.

But I want to share one more thing with you, that why we need to witness the Jewish people. You know, the

Jews were people were called to be spokesmen for God. We're called to be a priest people.

In Exodus 19, that's what God called us. We are supposed to represent God to the world and speak to God for the world.

We're supposed to intervene and pray and also be a witness for God to tell people the truth.

So I, as a Jewish believer who's out on the street, speaking the word of truth to Jews and Gentiles, I am fulfilling what

God has called the Jewish people to be. And it can be done in many ways, not just by that way, but we have a purpose in this world.

And as you notice, we're always there. We can't disappear. Many Jewish people have tried to disappear, like in Germany and other places where they tried to assimilate.

God reminds them that they're Jewish. Through the persecution, it's always brought up to them.

So, you know, there's a mystery there that we have to recognize. And in Jeremiah chapter 31, which is right after the new covenant passes, starting in verse 35, it says, thus says the

Lord who gives the sun for light by day and fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, the stars up the sea so that its waves roar.

The Lord of hosts is his name. If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the

Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me.

In other words, if the world ceases to be the way it is with the sun and the moon and so on, then the

Jews will no longer be here. And yet we're here. So in other words,

God has said that as long as there's this physical world, God's going to keep a nation of Jews in some way or another visible reminder of his faithfulness.

Yeah, I wanted to speak. Amen. I wanted to speak a bit on the specifics of Calvinism in regard to Jewish evangelism.

The thing that really puzzles me is why men such as yourself, a

Jewish believer, you seem to be a rare find amongst

Calvinists. And the thing that why that strikes me odd is because Jewish theology from the old covenant forward has always been about God rescuing a particular people for himself and preserving a special people.

It strikes me as odd why the concept of unconditional election would be abhorrent to the vast majority of messianic ministries and Jewish believers when the very basis of there being a nation of Jewish people in the old covenant was because God chose out from among the other nations a group of people that had nothing at all to do with their beliefs, their goodness, their being special in an innately wonderful way at all.

And it seems strange, like for instance, even the sacrificial system of the old covenant had absolutely no benefit to the pagan

Gentiles around them. So touching on the limited atonement or particular redemption aspect, if you could comment on that because it's really a mystery to me.

Well, first of all, I can't speak for all messianic leaders or teachers, but I think part of the problem is they associate

Reformed theology with Replacement theology to the point which led like the

Roman Catholic Church is very heavy in the church replacing the Jewish people and led to great persecution of the

Jewish people and great rejection. So they also there's a sense of being a need to be loyal to their

Jewishness and so on. But the other issue is many of the messianic congregations, some of the leading ones, the largest ones are charismatic.

And so that right there is the Arminianism and the problem of that versus Calvinism.

So you have that going on as a factor as well. And so that's the major issues that we're looking at.

And then there's the lack of education among the members of messianic congregations, particularly if their leaders are

Arminians and so on. They're not going to get the good training, the solid training that would help them see that God is basically sovereign over all these things.

But I agree with you a hundred percent because the whole thrust of God's teaching to the

Jewish people in the Torah and the Tanakh, the Jewish scriptures, is that he has sovereignly chosen them and that he has called them out to be a people unto himself.

And now that Jesus comes, he's done the same thing for both Jew and Gentile, and has called out a people to himself.

And it's exciting because we are an eternal nation made up of all races and tribes.

And it's a picture of what people really in their heart would want. They really would want the unity to be there.

And they look at the horror that's happening in the world, all the division, and they hate it.

And yet, I agree with you, how can we not see God's sovereignty in pulling out people to be united as a people of his that are going to go on for eternity?

We do have two questions from a listener in Fort Myers, Florida.

Mike, he asks, when you encounter interested Jewish people with a prospect of presenting the truth of God's word, how do you open up or suggest effective dialogue with them?

And the latter question, the second question is, are there tracks that you suggest in Christian outreach to Jewish people?

Two very good questions. Yeah, there's many, many tracks that share the messianic prophecies that share also the idea of the blood atonement and its role.

See, I remember meeting a Jewish lawyer in Philadelphia out in the streets, talking with him, and he didn't understand that the sacrificial system had been part of the

Jewish traditions. Now, he was a well -educated guy, a Jewish guy, but not understanding.

And so the theme of the blood, and now when you start talking about opening a conversation, that's going to vary depending on the level of friendship, the level of relationship.

But I think one of the ways is to start to show an interest in that person's spiritual life.

Do they go to synagogue? If they do, ask to go with them. Ask to understand a little bit more about their background.

Were they raised in a Jewish home, as far as practicing Jewish home? Show an interest in where they're coming from.

And then one of the ways to start bringing a conversation is to be excited about the

Jewishness of the gospel, and say how you've learned about the Passover, and how it's amazing.

And then start sharing with them the prophetic picture of Jesus in that sacrificial lamb, and explain how that was done.

And again, you have to be in prayer for God to lead in that conversation, in that relationship, but you certainly can approach it.

And another way to show it is just to ask the person if there's any trouble in their life, or if things are going on that you know there's something amiss, how you can pray for them.

You can express your thankfulness to God, and how God has answered your prayers.

You know, Jewish people, you know, Paul says that we need to provoke the, you know, the

Gentiles need to provoke the Jew to jealousy. And so make him jealous, or make her jealous, by the abundant life that God's given you.

And then at the same time be very, ask God to give you a true love for that person.

So they're not just an object, but they're somebody that you genuinely care about. And believe me,

Jewish people are very intuitive, and they will feel something like that. Your comment about the blood atonement is one of the most crucial aspects,

I think, of Jewish evangelism. A friend of mine, Richie Saxon, years ago was a minister in a

Jewish outreach church that was a Jewish outreach in West Sava, Long Island at the time.

And he brought up a story about how, in comparing it to the way the

Jewish people spiritualize away their need of a blood sacrifice today, since the temple has been destroyed in 80 -70, there has been no sacrificial system in which was essential to their atonement.

And Richie said, can you imagine the first -born boy in the home of a

Jewish family during that first Passover Seder? And the father says, you know,

I'm not even going to bother painting the doorposts with the blood. I'm just going to pray, and we're just going to hope for the best.

And the little boy says, Papa, can I stay at Uncle Moish's house tonight? So let's not allow that to go over the heads of our listeners, especially if they're

Jewish. They have no sacrifice anymore, and they really don't have an adequate answer to that fact, do they?

No, I agree with you. Not only agree with you, but it's one of the things that I try to share with Jewish people about the fact that shortly after the death of Jesus that God allowed the temple in Jerusalem to be destroyed and is yet to be rebuilt, and I explained that it was a fulfillment of the fact that Jesus completed that system, and it wasn't needed any longer.

He became the final atonement, and that the temple's sacrificial system was complete.

And prior to that, when under the Maccabees, the Jewish people were able to retrieve the temple and cleanse it and keep it going until the time of Jesus.

And so then after Jesus, God allowed that same temple that he preserved to then be destroyed.

So it's a tremendous witness. One of the things that we are trying to do as a ministry is to continue.

Philadelphia area has approximately 300 ,000 Jewish people, and one of the things we do is go out into the highways and byways and bid them to come.

And so this coming, we're doing something unique as a Jewish mission work. Paul tells us the gospel goes to the