“So why is Israel your business,” I grill the Evangelicals who come to my talks through word-of-mouth.
“Israel is old-time prophecies coming true … prophecies coming alive in our times.”
“Says who,” I query. “Tell me, cite one reference in the New Testament where Jesus Christ specifically talks about Modern Israel as a precursor to His Second Coming”?
Silence! Not one word! Because there is not a word ever uttered by Jesus, correlating Ancient Israel or Modern Israel to His Second Coming. But Jesus does prophesize the total and complete destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem:
“1Jesus left and was going away from the Temple when his disciples came to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you may well look at all these. I tell you this: not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one of them will be thrown down’ (Matthew 24: 1-2 Good News Translation GNT; Mark 13: 1-2; Luke 21: 5-6).”
If God is the same God in 70 CE and if Christianity has any validity, the temple in Jerusalem will NEVER, EVER be rebuilt.
The Good News, sermonized by Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, God in the flesh, is that God will never again reside inside an edifice made of stone. God, in the form of God’s Holy Spirit, dwells inside each and every believer; individual temples of human flesh, created in His own image; His own gems, more precious than stone.
Before Christ, God’s spirit has hovered in and around a select group of people. The Old Testament attests that the Spirit of God calls on priests, kings, prophets, and special people, i.e., Hagar, mother of Ishmael; Maria, mother of Jesus; and a handful of others. Ever since Jesus walked the land, God has chosen Jews and Gentiles3 alike to call on God’s spirit to reside in their hearts, in His omnipresence.
“But, you’ve got to want God to lead you by His spirit.”
We’re living in the New Covenant. All Israelites as well as all Jews and all Gentiles are equally Chosen. God has chosen us before we are born (Jeremiah 1: 5 GNT). And, it is up to us what we do with our ‘chosenness’ (Joshua 24: 15 GNT). That’s ‘free will.’ I want to make this point clear, you’re free to activate God’s spirit in your life. On the other hand, you’ve got no choice, no say in the matter, that you and all mankind are chosen, just like the Israelites in ancient times (Exodus 6: 7; 20: 2-4 GNT). As the Mishnah4 puts it: “You were born involuntarily (Talmud M. Avot 4: 22).”
“I don’t get it. Why am I chosen?”
“The word ‘chosen’ comes from the tradition of Ancient-Israel. But now all Jews and Gentiles are chosen. Everyone – all of mankind – is chosen or invited to seek God. It’s really a simple concept. You are a living Temple of God:
“19 Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God (1 Corinthians 6: 19 GNT).”
All living ‘temples’ are chosen. It’s no longer a matter of ancestry (1 Timothy 1: 4-5). In ancient times, only Israelites are chosen whether they want to or not. They have no say in the matter. But what each person does with his or her chosenness is their business. That’s ‘free will.’
“Israel must drive out the Palestinians … it is written, it is prophesized,” many Evangelical Christians tell me.
“Where,” I challenge them. “Where is it written … has Jesus ever suggested the idea of ethnic cleansing; worse, genocide”?
“Yes, it is written in the Old Testament,” a response from many in the room.
“Does Jesus say anything in the Old Testament … I’m not talking about what is written in the Old Testament … LISTEN … I am asking you a direct question, a very important question, a question of life and death … has Jesus ever talked about driving out the indigenous people, the native-born Palestinians from their homeland?”
“NO”!
Invariably someone would state: "Israel has sinned ... the Ancient Israelites should have slaughtered all Canaanites5 but didn't. Now they, the [Modern eds.] Israelis, are paying for it.”
“Besides,” adding ‘insult to injury,’ “if Abraham didn’t sin and just waited until Sarah was ready to give birth to Isaac, there wouldn’t have been an Ishmael … and now the Middle East is swarming with Arabs …”
Honestly, this is what I hear ... once stated by a highly educated young man, a medical doctor, age thirty-something.
The Old Testament explicitly states that Ishmael never leaves Abraham's realm of love and paternity, and he never leaves the sphere of God's blessing. Ishmael, the seed of Abraham, builds a great nation too. And, though, God promises Abraham that he will have many generations through Isaac and Jacob, He promises the same to Hagar, which means Hagar is, in effect, a female patriarch; and, Hagar is the only biblical character – male or female – to call God by His name and to converse directly with God (Genesis 16: 13-15 GNT).
"Israel is for Jews only ... all Arabs should choose to leave, then there will be peace.”
"How? Where to?" I inquire.
"They [the Palestinians] should pick up their belongings, pack up and move into the greater Arabian landscape ... where they're wanted. They're not wanted in God’s Promised Land.”
I force myself and pray for strength and wisdom, to remain cool, calm and corrected “Lord help me … grant me wisdom.”
“Are all Palestinians, Arabs, I ask?”
And so, I talk about Jesus, God in the flesh, who travels via Samaria to minister to the Israelites and Gentiles in Galilee.
“You know the story … in John 4?” Of course, every Evangelical knows that story.
"Before going to Galilee, Jesus first traverses through Samaria and opens His heart to the Samaritans. What's so significant about Jesus touching the Samaritans”?
Jesus dares to defy the prohibited, forbidden, and outlawed taboo. By Order of the Pharisees, a Judean is barred from coming close, let alone touch and talk to any Samaritan. The ‘Chosen’ Pharisees snub Samaritans as theo-geopolitical and social outcasts, untouchables and worthless; not too different how the present-day Pharisees humiliate today’s native-born Palestinians as an ‘urban problem.’
The Pharisees then insist, “Samaritans will never belong to our exclusive club, the Party of the Pharisees;” a stance indistinguishable of present-day ‘Israel for Jews-only.’ Paradoxically, the Pharisees mindset in Modern Israel, demonstrably denounced by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, is now calling the shots in the Region.
Nonetheless, the Samaritans choose to follow Jesus, slighting the Pharisees. In 70 CE, the Romans expel the Party of the ‘More Chosen,’ who talk the walk of being Holier –Than- Thou,6 giving the impression they are even holier than the One God in Heaven. As prophesized by Jesus Himself, there is not a stone left after the complete destruction of their Second Temple.
From Samaria, Jesus continues to minister to the Israelites and Gentiles in Galilee. The Pharisees belittle the Israelites in Galilee as the ‘remnants of Israel,’ Israelites married to 'pagan Gentiles' and degrade the Gentiles in Galilee as impure. The pure-bred pedigreed Judeans scorn and vilify the half-breed Israelites and the Gentiles of Galilee.
I remind my group, “You know the story, right?”
“Yes!” Everyone knows the story. But the rest of the story dumbfounds every single Evangelical in the room.