Imagine a world where people from all nations and backgrounds come together to learn from the teachings of the Lord and walk in His paths. This is the vision presented in Micah 4:1-2
I have a very good friend who I catch up with every few months for breakfast. We order our food and coffees and then sit down and the conversation starts with something like - ‘How are you?’ ‘How are things with the family?’ ‘’Have you heard the one about the pastor,...
The remarkable Asbury revival in Kentucky USA, had millions of Christians worldwide glued to their screens to see if this might be a new awakening
My wife Trixie and I had the privilege recently of representing Christians for Israel Australia at a historic and memorable gathering presented by SCAFI at Victory Life Centre in Perth
Announcing the publication of a new book “Unconditional – the Enigma of Antisemitism” by Author and Theologian Rev Fraser Harding.
As an evangelical Christian closely involved in building bridges between Christians and Jews, there is a subject I try studiously to ignore, and that is the “problem” of Messianic Jews. It is indeed the “elephant in the room.”
In Part 01 of our series about Jerusalem and Christians visits, we learned that the ‘river of pilgrimage’ has been flowing from the very beginning of the church age. Christians constitute the highest amount of sacred visitors to a holy city which is also sacred to Judaism and Islam, too. This growing phenomena in Christian visits is even more remarkable considering that neither Christ nor the apostles command it, and there is more of a spiritual, rather than geographic, emphasis in Christian worship. We also learned why Christians visit Jerusalem. They can be summarised in two key words: Devotion: From the very beginning, Christians have been motivated to visit Jerusalem so that they can ‘walk where Jesus walked.’ Following in the footsteps of the Master is a strong sign of devotion. Education: Pious believers visit Jerusalem because they want to learn more about the Bible. Considering that Jerusalem is mentioned over 811 times in the KJV, it is indisputably the premier city of Scripture. What is remarkable is that these twin pillars of devotion and education can be applied across the board, to pilgrims from every denomination and every century of the church age. The Tourism Factor To the ancient […]
Purpose of this article: To communicate to Aussie and Kiwi Christians who wish to stand with God’s purposes for Israel the importance of being ‘spiritual anzacs’—plugged into the battle for the Land – and pointing to the tie-in with the upcoming elections in Australia. The four years encompassing the 100th anniversarof the Great War (2014 to 2018) have seen a marked growth of pride in the legacy of the ANZACs among young and old Australians and New Zealanders alike. Widely held is the perception that these countries were forged into nations in the terrible furnace of World War 1. By many accounts, ANZAC Day has become a more patriotic event than Australia Day and Waitangi Day respectively. Christians have hardly been immune, and a growing number also hold a Biblical perspective on the subject. Quoting Genesis 12:3—the foundational principle pertinent to those who bless the seed of Abraham—they ascribe the prosperity and peace experienced by their nations since the 1920s to the heroic fighting and sacrifices of the men of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps; specifically to the fact that their diggers formed the point of the British Empire spear that liberated Israel’s land from centuries of Islamic […]
…and his doctrine of Jewish witness By exploring early Church Fathers’ understandings of the identity of Israel, we can deepen our understanding of the strained history of our relationship with the Jews. St Augustine (354 – 430) is widely viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity. He understood the Jews as being charged with an eternal purpose of witnessing to the glory of God. This mission was to be undertaken by the practice of divinely appointed ordinances which are recorded in the Torah. Augustine’s understanding of the role of witness is similar to that of being the “light of the world”. In Matthew 5:14, following the delivery of the beatitudes, Jesus charges the crowds below—which would come to form the Church (i.e. spiritual body of Christian believers)—with the missional identity, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden,” meaning that the Church’s mission is to witness Christ to the world. Likewise, Augustine’s understanding of the Jewish nation is to be “the light of the world”: to be a witness of the true light (God) to the world. In his Writings Against the Manichaeans, Augustine uses the story […]
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven…” The words of Jesus (Yeshua) in Matthew 5:17-19 NKJV What do we understand about the Jewish or Hebraic Roots of Christianity? Having grown up in a Gentile Christian home and preparing for ministry in a Gentile Christian church, little thought was given to the context of the early church in its Jewishness and Torah observance. After all, the only available scripture in the 1st century was the Hebrew Scriptures as we know them. It wasn’t until about 30 years ago that I realised the significance of the destiny of Israel in the light of Bible prophecy and a short time later the significance of the early church being totally Jewish […]