JONAH GET'S GETHSEMANE

Jonah 4:3–4 NKJV —"Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” and the Lord asks him, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

I grew up with the book of Jonah not as a children’s story, but as a mirror. As a Jew named Jonah, I could never quite escape it. Jonah was not just a prophet in a distant past; he was a question pressed against my own heart: What do you do when God’s mercy runs toward people you’d rather judge? What do you do when God loves your enemies more than you do?

For years I circled the obvious lessons—running from God, the great fish, reluctant obedience, the shocking repentance of Nineveh. I thought I knew the book because I knew its plot. But I didn’t really understand Jonah until I laid it alongside another garden, another prophet, and another sentence: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.” (Mark 14:34)

In Jonah 4, my namesake sits east of the city under a sukkah he built for himself, watching and hoping for fire. His soul is “exceedingly displeased and angry” because his enemies repented and God spared them. In Gethsemane, Jesus also goes outside the city and is “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death”—but his anguish runs in the opposite direction. Jonah grieves that judgment did not fall on his enemies; Jesus grieves that judgment must fall on him for his enemies.

That contrast finally unlocked Jonah for me.

Jonah’s story shows a prophet whose heart is out of tune with God’s mission. God sends him to Nineveh so that, through a word of warning, a pagan, violent city might repent and live. Jonah goes, but his obedience is thin. When mercy actually arrives, it exposes him. Under his little sukkah of shade, Jonah’s soul is boiling: “Is it right for you to be angry?” God asks, and Jonah essentially answers, “Yes. Angry enough to die.”

Then God says something I had read a hundred times without really hearing it: “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” The God of Israel lays bare his own heart: these enemies are morally blind. They “do not know.” And he pities them.

Fast‑forward to Gethsemane. There, the greater Jonah is also outside the city, also under the shadow of trees, also facing a moment of judgment and mercy for the nations. But unlike my namesake, Jesus’ troubled soul is not angry at the thought of enemies being spared. He is sorrowful at the cost of sparing them. Where Jonah says, “It is better for me to die than to live” because his enemies were not destroyed, Jesus says, in effect, “I will drink this cup so that my enemies may live.”

This is why Jesus can preach what Jonah could not live: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” When I put that command from Matthew 5 next to God’s question in Jonah 4, the link became sharp and inescapable: Jesus is inviting us into the very compassion God voiced over Nineveh—over people “who do not know their right hand from their left.” To pray for my enemies is to see them the way God described Nineveh and the way Jesus saw those who nailed him to the cross: spiritually blind, morally disoriented, desperately in need of the mercy they don’t even understand.

As a Jew named Jonah, that realization cut close. All my life I had read my book as if I were standing beside God, tsk‑tsking the prophet’s bad attitude. It was comfortable to treat Jonah as the problem and myself as the reader who had learned better. But when I looked at Jonah through Gethsemane, I had to admit something harder: I *am* Jonah. I know what it is to feel that certain people, certain groups, certain enemies are too far gone, too dangerous, too undeserving of compassion. I know what it is to be more eager for vindication than for their repentance.

And right at that point, the voice from Mark 14 broke in: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.” Jesus invites his disciples—and me—not only to observe his agony, but to stay awake to what it means. In the garden he is doing, from the inside, what Jonah never did: bending his will fully into the Father’s purpose of mercy. Jonah ran from the mission to enemies; Jesus walks into it. Jonah was furious when enemies repented and were spared; Jesus is crushed in soul so that enemies *can* repent and be spared. Jonah sat under a temporary sukkah waiting for wrath; Jesus, under the olive trees, becomes the shelter where wrath passes over.

Once I saw that, the book that bore my name stopped being just a rebuke and became a roadmap. To understand Jonah, I had to stand in Gethsemane and “stay here and watch” the true Prophet at work. To understand myself, I had to admit that my instinct is often closer to Jonah’s anger than to Jesus’ anguish. And to understand God, I had to receive that his heart has been the same in both stories: slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, eager to show mercy—but doing so finally and fully through the sorrowing obedience of his Son.

So when I read Jonah now, I don’t stop at the fish or the plant or even the city. I follow the line all the way to a Jewish teacher, alone in a garden, whose soul is overwhelmed with sorrow because he has chosen to bear the judgment my enemies—and I—deserved. Only there, at that intersection of Jonah and Jesus, do the lessons of my book finally come into focus.

Conclusion

God knew Jonah when He chose him for this mission, and Jonah knew God well enough to say, “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God.” Jonah’s failure does not cancel the mission; it exposes the mercy at its center. When Jesus takes Jonah’s story on His lips and calls it a “sign,” He declares that this reluctant prophet and his repentant enemies still stand in judgment over every generation that refuses to turn. As a Jew named Jonah, I cannot hold this book at arm’s length; my very name reminds me that Jonah is still a sign—to the nations, to the church, and first of all to me.

THUMBS UP

I noticed my thumb today. Weird thing to notice. But it really is an amazing creation. 

Medically and biomechanically, the human thumb is an outlier: it is uniquely built for powerful and precise grip, and losing it compromises an enormous share of hand function.

Researchers in hand surgery and rehabilitation often estimate that the thumb accounts for roughly a third to nearly half of functional hand capacity, which is why thumb loss is described as “quite literally losing one’s grip.”

Given all that, it is striking—but not surprising—that Scripture uses the thumb as a key anatomical “handle” for talking about consecrated action and, in judgment texts, the removal of a person’s practical power to act. The human thumb lands right at the intersection of biology and biblical theology.

The human thumb is mentioned in the Bible, primarily in the Old Testament, often to signify consecration, service, or punishment. It is mentioned in contexts involving priestly ordination rituals (Leviticus 8:23-24) and the punishment of capturing enemies by cutting off their thumbs and big toes (Judges 1:6-7).

Consecration and the thumb are deliberately linked in Scripture: the thumb marks a life set apart for holy work, and its loss marks the stripping away of power to act at all.

The thumb is singled out as the “master digit” that makes the hand truly useful, symbolizing work, craftsmanship, and service under God’s authority. Marking the thumb with blood says that every act, every tool grasped, every blessing given or judgment rendered by that hand is now priestly, not private property.

Theologically, the thumb keeps pointing you back to a single question: whose work are these hands really doing?

In that frame, blood on the thumb says that every act of ministry, judgment, blessing, or daily labor performed by that hand belongs to God.

I think every casual "thumbs up" can be a tiny liturgy, a quiet reminder to look up and ask if the work of our hands is consecrated?”

Makes me want to consider "high five." LOL. 

WRESTLING WITH GOD IN THE TALMUD

Wrestling With God: Why Hating the Talmud Is Hating Israel

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I have not invested my life in studying Talmud the way some Jews have. I’m not pretending to be a yeshiva scholar. But I’ve read enough, listened enough, and wrestled enough to know this much: the Talmud is not the monstrous text that Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and the chorus of modern Jew‑haters make it out to be. Their hatred says far more about them—and about the spiritual battle of our age—than it does about the Talmud.

In fact, their hatred ought to make Christians stop and ask a simple question: if these are the people leading the charge against the Talmud, what exactly is it they’re so afraid of?

So what is the Talmud? What makes it so special? And why is “wrestling with God” worthy of the blessing Jacob received at the Jabbok?

What the Talmud Really Is

The Talmud is not a neat little catechism or a simple rulebook. It is a sprawling, multi‑volume record of centuries of Jewish argument about how to hear, obey, and live the Torah in real life.

It is:

·         Torah in conversation: not just verses, but discussions about what those verses actually require when the Temple is gone, when empires shift, when new situations emerge.

·         A preserved argument: the Talmud famously preserves not only the “winning” opinions but the “losing” ones—because the way the argument unfolds is part of the tradition.

·         A community thinking out loud before God: rabbis, students, questions, objections, stories, and legal cases all intertwined into a living discussion that never really ends.

In other words, the Talmud is not just a compilation of answers; it is the canonization of the process by which Israel wrestles with God’s word.

That alone already sets it apart from most religious literature. Most religious communities preserve conclusions; the Talmud daringly preserves the debates.

The Talmud Is Not the Hebrew Bible

Let me be clear about something that often gets muddled, especially in Christian circles: the Talmud is not the Hebrew Bible.

The source is the written Scriptures—Torah, Prophets, Writings—the text Christians call the Old Testament. That is the covenant document itself, the inspired record of God’s acts, promises, commands, and dealings with Israel. The Bible is the well from which everything else draws.

The Talmud is a resource, not the source. It is the record of how generations of Jews have tried to hear, obey, and apply that biblical source in excruciating detail across changing times and places. It is commentary, argument, legal reasoning, and spiritual wrestling growing out of the text of Scripture.

You could say it this way:

·         The Bible is the foundational revelation.

·         The Talmud is the family conversation about what that revelation demands.

That distinction matters in both directions.

On the one hand, Christians who fear that respecting the Talmud means “replacing” Scripture have it backwards. Jews are not worshiping the Talmud instead of the Bible; they are using the Talmud to understand how to live the Bible.

On the other hand, those who attack the Talmud as if it were the Jewish “holy book,” as if Jews invented it out of thin air in defiance of Scripture, are erasing the very thing they claim to defend: the Hebrew Bible itself. Because without some living interpretive tradition, Scripture becomes a museum piece—quoted, but not inhabited.

So no, the Talmud is not the Hebrew Bible. It is what it is: a massive, flawed, human, and yet often profound attempt by Israel to stay in conversation with the God of that Bible. Not the source—but a key resource. Not the covenant itself—but one of the main ways the covenant people have continued to wrestle with the God who spoke.

Israel: The People Who Wrestle With God

In Genesis 32, Jacob grapples all night with a mysterious “man”—an angelic messenger, a manifestation of God, however you understand it. He is wounded. He clings. He refuses to let go without a blessing. He emerges limping and renamed: Yisrael—“one who wrestles with God and with men and prevails.”

That name is not a throwaway detail. It is the identity of the people.

To be Israel is to:

·         Take God seriously enough to argue with Him.

·         Press His promises back to Him instead of shrugging when things don’t make sense.

·         Ask hard questions of His word and of His messengers.

·         Refuse to let go, even when wounded and even when you don’t fully understand.

The Talmud is the main textual arena where that wrestling happens. It is Israel grappling with God’s revelation in slow motion, in print.

So to hate the Talmud is not just to dislike a book. It is to despise the wrestling itself. And if “Israel” means “God‑wrestler,” then despising that wrestling is, whether people admit it or not, despising Israel and the Jews.

Why the Talmud Is So Easy to Misuse

Because the Talmud includes debates, counter‑arguments, and even views that are ultimately rejected, it is a playground for dishonest people who want ammunition.

If you want to misrepresent it, it is easy:

·         You can rip a minority opinion out of context and pretend it is the definitive Jewish position.

·         You can quote an argument as if the text endorses it, when in fact the whole point of the sugya is to refute it.

·         You can lift obscure legal hypotheticals and present them as if they were a simple moral manifesto.

·         You can ignore the centuries of commentary that clarify how a passage has actually been understood and applied in real Jewish life.

That is exactly what enemies of the Jews have done for centuries. Medieval churchmen did it. 19th‑century racists did it. Today, internet “researchers” and media personalities are doing the same thing with better graphics and worse accountability.

They go hunting, not for understanding, but for “gotcha” lines that can be turned into memes and soundbites. They are not wrestling with God; they are scavenging for bullets.

A Historical Bonfire, A Modern Clip

To see what I mean, let me place two scenes side by side.

First scene: Europe, the Middle Ages. In one famous episode, carts piled high with handwritten Talmud manuscripts are dragged into a public square under church authority. The charge is that the Talmud is full of blasphemies, lies about Jesus, and corrupt teachings. A set of “disputations” has already been staged—rigged debates where Jews are forced to defend cherry‑picked passages before hostile judges. The verdict was decided long before the first argument was made.

Crowds watch as the books are thrown into the flames. An entire world of learning—centuries of commentary, law, prayer, and struggle—is treated as spiritual garbage. The Church tells itself it is defending Christ from “Jewish errors.” In reality, it is silencing the main voice of Israel’s wrestling with God.

Second scene: our own day. No bonfires, just a studio and a camera. A pundit leans forward, looks into the lens, and tells millions of viewers that the Talmud is a sinister book that commands unspeakable things. The “evidence” is a handful of lines ripped from thousands of pages, usually translated by hostile hands decades or centuries ago. No context. No awareness of whether the passage is endorsed, debated, or rejected. No interest in how actual observant Jews read and live it.

Then the clip is cut down to sixty seconds and blasted across social media. The comments fill up with “Now I know what they really believe” and “This explains everything.”

In both scenes, the same thing is happening: those in power decide that the God‑wrestling of Israel is intolerable. The old bonfire is now an algorithmic one. But the goal is the same—to shame, isolate, and delegitimize the Jewish people by attacking the heart of their interpretive life.

Why Their Hatred Should Make Christians Think

Here’s the irony: the people most loudly attacking the Talmud today are not exactly paragons of careful exegesis or humble submission to Scripture. They are pundits and propagandists.

If the Talmud were truly nothing but a manual for wickedness, you would not need selective misquotations and conspiracy theories to prove it. The text itself would convict it plainly.

Instead, what you see is:

·         Cherry‑picked lines with no context.

·         Reliance on long‑discredited antisemitic “scholarship” that serious historians have already exposed.

·         A refusal to listen to Jews who actually live under and study this text every day, in all its difficulty and nuance.

·         A total disinterest in the parts of the Talmud that emphasize justice, mercy, humility, and the fear of God.

So I want Christians to ask a simple question: why do the same voices who lie about Israel, who minimize or excuse violence against Jews, suddenly pose as crusaders for “biblical truth” when the topic is the Talmud?

Their hatred tells you something. It tells you that the actual target is not a page of Aramaic print. The target is the ongoing, stubborn existence of the Jewish people and their refusal to surrender God’s covenant or their own God‑given way of engaging His word.

When someone rages against the “evil of the Talmud,” what they are really raging against is a living, arguing, stubbornly faithful Israel.

The Blessing in the Wrestling

Jacob’s night at the Jabbok ended with both a limp and a blessing. The wrestling wounded him—but it also named him and marked him as blessed.

Likewise, the Jewish wrestling with God—in Scripture, in history, and in the Talmud—is not clean, safe, or comfortable. It is full of struggle, tension, unsolved questions, and sometimes sharp arguments with heaven itself.

But that wrestling carries a blessing:

·         It keeps the covenant alive in real life instead of leaving it on the page.

·         It models a faith that can challenge, question, and lament without walking away.

·         It refuses both cheap rebellion and fake submission. It clings even when it limps.

Christians should recognize that pattern. The psalmists cry out. Job argues. Jeremiah complains. Habakkuk interrogates God’s justice. Paul agonizes over the law, sin, and Israel. The difference is that in Judaism, this wrestling has been given a structured home: the study hall and the Talmud.

The Jewish people did not stop wrestling with God when the Temple fell. They moved the battle into the text and into the heart.

A Call to Christians

You do not have to agree with the Talmud. You do not have to adopt rabbinic halakha. You are free to see places where the New Testament and rabbinic conclusions diverge sharply. That is part of honest theological disagreement.

But you are not free—if you claim the Jewish Messiah—to join the mob that mocks, slanders, and weaponizes the Talmud as a way of attacking the people who bear His flesh.

To love the God of Israel while despising the people of Israel is a contradiction.

To kiss the crucified Jew on Sunday and share anti‑Talmud propaganda on Monday is a contradiction.

If nothing else, let this sink in: the Talmud is the record of a people who refused to stop wrestling with God after the Temple fell, after exile, after persecution, after centuries of contempt from the very Church that claimed to worship Israel’s Messiah.

You can disagree with their conclusions. You can critique their readings. But if you mock that wrestling itself, you are not defending the faith. You are despising the blessing God Himself gave to a man limping away from a river, renamed Israel.

The Talmud is, in many ways, the greatest Jewish minds arguing over a truth that is right in front of them, yet veiled—truth they are not yet willing, or even able, to see. From a “born again” standpoint, that truth is the crucified and risen Messiah of Israel, the One who said He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Christians with spiritual discernment should be able to both honor the relentless Jewish search and also grieve that it circles so close to the very face of Truth while still turning away.

SAYING THE QUIET PART OUTLOUD

The mezuzah exists because of the Shema: its core Torah text is Deuteronomy 6:4–9, beginning with “Shema Yisrael,” followed by “And you shall write them on the doorposts (mezuzot) of your house and on your gates.” The object on the doorpost is therefore a physical embodiment of the Shema’s command—literally the Shema wrapped and affixed to the doorway. The shin on the case, pointing to Shaddai and “Guardian of the doors of Israel,” just makes visible what the scroll inside is already doing: turning the words of “Hear, O Israel” into a standing sign on the threshold.

Little Details with Major Meaning

A traditional mezuzah on a Jewish home will typically have the letter shin on the outside cover.

Judaism has many objects with religious symbolism. In addition, the Jewish service is filled with liturgical oddities. From body movements to vocal levels, there are many nuances in how a highly educated and trained Jew worships. I make no claim to be one. 

Those “oddities” are actually structured, symbolic cues that embody theology: Jews pray with the whole body, not just with words.

Why all the body movement?

- Swaying back and forth (shuckling) is a traditional way to focus one’s attention and involve the whole self in prayer, often linked to the verse “All my bones shall say: Who is like You, O Lord.”

- Standing for the Amidah (literally “Standing”) expresses that one is “standing before God,” so this core prayer is almost always recited on one’s feet.

- Taking three steps back and then three steps forward before the Amidah dramatizes “approaching” the Divine and later “returning” to ordinary life.

- Bowing at set points (e.g., beginning and end of Avot and Modim) enacts humility; rabbinic sources even speak of bowing until the spine’s vertebrae loosen.

- Light breast‑beating during confessional prayers (especially on Yom Kippur) externalizes contrition and regret.

Gestures tied to specific moments

- During Kedushah (“Holy, Holy, Holy”), many rise on their toes three times with each “kadosh,” echoing the angels in Isaiah and “lifting” toward heaven.

- When the Torah is lifted or returned to the ark, people often point with a finger or the fringe of the tallit, acknowledging the Torah as the authoritative source of law and teaching.

- At the Priestly Blessing, kohanim spread their hands in the familiar “Spock” shape; Leonard Nimoy actually adapted this from what he saw in synagogue as a child.

Why the changing vocal levels?

- The Amidah is first said silently or in a murmur, emphasizing personal, inward standing before God.

- The same Amidah (or parts of it) is then repeated aloud by the leader, turning private prayer into communal proclamation and allowing those less literate to fulfill their obligation.

- Sections like Kedushah, Shema, and certain responses are chanted louder, with the congregation answering specific lines, to dramatize Israel’s role as a corporate witness (e.g., joining the angels, declaring God’s unity).

- Conversely, synagogues maintain rules of decorum—limiting chatter and shouting—so that the service remains ordered and focused, even amid strong congregational singing.

Underlying pattern

All these “nuances” form a choreography: standing, stepping, bowing, swaying, whispering, and then proclaiming together are meant to tune the worshiper to different inner states—awe, repentance, intimacy, and communal joy—across the service.

Focusing on the Center

This leads me to the shema and the liturgical oddity of how the second verse is recited.

The Shema stands at the liturgical and theological center of Jewish life as the community’s core declaration that the God of Israel alone is God and that Israel owes this one God undivided loyalty in every area of life.

The Second Line

The first verse, Deuteronomy 6:4, is straight Torah: “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad.” "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is ONE"

The next line, "Baruch shem k'vod malchuto l'olam va'ed." "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever

 “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever,” is not part of that biblical passage; it is a later liturgical addition attached to the Shema. The rest of the shema is also straight out of Torah. So the second line is an exception.

The other “oddity” is that the second line, Baruch shem kevod malchuto le’olam va’ed, is inserted after the biblical verse of Shema and is almost always whispered rather than proclaimed aloud.

If you've ever stood in synagogue during the Shema, you've probably felt the shift. One moment the room declares, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is One." The next, voices drop almost to a murmur: "Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever." I've prayed those words for years, but only recently did I begin to notice how strange this is. The most famous verse in Judaism is shouted; the line that follows it—overflowing with talk of name, glory, kingdom, and eternity—is deliberately whispered. Once I started tracing that detail through Torah, Temple, angels, mezuzah, Passover, and even John 20, the softest words in the Shema began to sound like the loudest.

Why it is whispered

Since Moshe did not write this line into the Shema text, the sages ruled it should be recited quietly, marking it as distinct from the direct biblical quotation. That line has even been referred to as "an outsider."

Midrashim link it to Jacob: when his sons declared “Shema Yisrael” at his deathbed, he responded with this line in a subdued voice, which we echo by whispering it.

Another strand says Moshe overheard the angels saying these words; we “borrow” an angelic formula, but whisper so as not to appear to be stealing a heavenly secret.

Yom Kippur as the exception

Traditionally, the first verse is said out loud, with intense emphasis, often with eyes covered, as a public testimony to God’s unity. Immediately afterward, the community drops to a near-whisper for Baruch Shem, signaling that we have stepped from pure Scripture into rabbinic-poetic response and from bold proclamation into more intimate, almost “inside” language.

The exception is on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, the day we read the book of Jonah, that second line is recited out loud. The reason, it is said, is based on the image that, for one day, Israel is like angels and may say their praise without restraint.

The shift from a year of whispering to one day of full voice turns this line into a liturgical barometer of holiness and eschatological hope.

Conclusion

The collusion to this blog is yet to be fully written.  I have gathered many of my thoughts and I've worked out call a number of them. In fact, I believe they are the better part of what I have to say. So, there will be a second part to this blog post in which I will exploring that "quiet second line," angelic praise, and the glory spoken of in the shema.

REBUTTLE TO NEW ANTI-JEWISĤ THEOLOGY

Reclaiming God’s Faithfulness: A Biblical and Historical Rebuttal to the New Anti-Jewish Theology.

Based on research & content by Jon Harris. 

A troubling wave of anti-Jewish theology is spreading across Catholic and Evangelical online spaces. It dismisses God’s covenant promises to ethnic Israel as obsolete, portrays Jewish people as uniquely cursed or manipulative, and brands any affirmation of a future role for Israel as “Zionist heresy” or dispensational novelty. Some even question Jesus’s Jewish identity or claim the modern state of Israel has no theological significance. This is not fringe; it is gaining traction among conservatives weary of politics and eager to reject anything labeled “liberal.” Yet it corrupts Scripture, undermines Christ’s humanity, and severs believers from two millennia of church teaching. A clear biblical and historical response is urgently needed.

The foundation is Genesis 12:1-3. God promises Abraham a land, a nation, and blessing to all families of the earth. He repeats and ratifies this covenant nine times in Genesis, making it unconditional by passing between the animal pieces alone (Genesis 15). The promise narrows through Isaac and Jacob (renamed Israel), whose twelve sons form the nation. Leviticus 26:40-45 explicitly foretells exile for disobedience, followed by repentance and restoration: “I will remember My covenant with Jacob… and I will remember the land.” Neither Joshua’s conquest nor Solomon’s kingdom fulfills it completely; both are partial. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel expand this into a future ingathering and Davidic kingdom. These texts are not symbolic abstractions. They are concrete promises tied to Abraham’s physical descendants.

The New Testament never revokes them. In Romans 9–11, Paul grieves that his “kinsmen according to the flesh” have largely rejected the Messiah, yet he insists God has not rejected them. A “partial hardening” has come upon Israel “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,” after which “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26). The “gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:29). Gentiles are grafted into the olive tree whose root is Israel; they do not replace it. The “mystery” Paul reveals in Ephesians 3 is that believing Gentiles join the Jewish people of God by faith without becoming proselytes. This fulfills, rather than cancels, the Abrahamic promise that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Jesus Himself is the singular “seed” of Abraham through whom that blessing flows (Galatians 3:16). The church is spiritual Israel composed of Jews and Gentiles, but ethnic Israel retains a distinct future.

Church history overwhelmingly confirms this reading. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine all taught a future mass conversion of Jews and, in several cases, a literal restoration to the land. Irenaeus and Victorinus expected a third temple in Jerusalem during end-times events. After the Reformation, Martin Bucer, Theodore Beza, and the Geneva Bible emphasized Romans 11. Puritan leaders, Oliver Cromwell’s Whitehall Conference (1655), and Dutch theologians such as Jacobus Koelman taught that ethnic Israel would return to its land and rebuild Jerusalem. Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones all affirmed a political and spiritual restoration of the Jewish people to Canaan. These were not 19th-century innovations or “Judeo-Christian” inventions; they were the plain sense of Scripture held by the church’s greatest minds.

The oft-cited “blessing and cursing” clause of Genesis 12:3 is likewise enduring. It is applied nationally to Israel in Numbers 24 and Obadiah. While the New Testament shows the church endures persecution, the grammatical sense remains: God favors those who favor His people and opposes those who maliciously harm them. Protestant giants like John Calvin and Matthew Henry applied it broadly to ethnic Israel. This does not require uncritical political support for any government. It does require rejecting the slander that Jews are permanently God’s enemies post-70 AD. Such rhetoric echoes the very supersessionism Paul refuted.

Critics claim this view is novel or politically motivated. The opposite is true. The idea that the ingathering occurred entirely before 70 AD lacks any clear pre-20th-century Christian witness. The notion that the church fully absorbs every Abrahamic promise so that ethnic Israel is irrelevant would make Paul’s Romans 9–11 argument incoherent. Affirming God’s faithfulness to Israel does not deny Christ’s exclusivity, promote dual-covenant theology, or demand open borders. It simply trusts that the same God who kept every promise to Abraham will keep His word to the descendants of Jacob. That confidence, Paul says, is the very reason Gentiles can trust the gospel.

The rise of this new anti-Jewish theology is not discernment; it is unbelief dressed as courage. It questions God’s character, severs us from our Jewish roots, and weakens the gospel’s power for “the Jew first” (Romans 1:16). The remedy is simple: read Romans 9–11 again, study the early fathers and the Reformers, and remember that the God who elected Israel has never broken a covenant. When we bless Abraham’s seed by evangelism, prayer, and truth-telling, we stand in the stream of biblical and historic orthodoxy. The promises remain. God is not finished with Israel—and that is very good news for the church.

This has immediate application today. The “protection clause” of Genesis 12:3 and Numbers 24:9 is not a blank check for Israeli policy, but it does call Gentile believers to reject malicious stereotypes that paint Jews as uniquely evil or perpetual enemies. Paul’s logic in Romans 11 is pastoral: if God keeps His word to ethnic Israel, He will keep His word to you. To deny Israel’s future is to undermine the very assurance that sustains Gentile faith. Evangelism remains “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16). History shows that when the church prayed for Jewish conversion and opposed pogroms—as Puritans did in 1655 and Bickersteth urged in 1841—God opened doors. Today’s online contempt, whether from Catholic traditionalists or Evangelical reactionaries, is the same spirit of replacement theology that the apostles refuted. Stand firm: the olive tree still has living roots. Blessing Abraham’s descendants through gospel witness and honest history is not political naivety; it is obedience to the God who never lies.

For the complete content visit Jon Harris's Substack page @:

https://open.substack.com/pub/jonharris/p/the-new-anti-jewish-theology?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ywebo

BESA - THE CODE OF HONOR

Yesterday I walked into a local pizzeria to speak with the owner about buying his building. His name was Tony — I assumed he was Italian and Christian. To my surprise, he was Albanian and Muslim. I'm sure he notice my Kippah. His 30 year old son, standing protectively beside him, was named Zymer.

As we talked about the plaza his pizzeria was in, Zimmer asked if I knew my history and geography. Then he narrowed it to Albania. I admitted I didn’t know anything about Albania. Tony then personally made us both espresso, invited me to sit, and proudly told me how his grandmother had saved Jews on their family farm in Albania during the Holocaust — hiding them and protecting them under the ancient Albanian code of "BESA" (a sacred promise of honor and hospitality).

I was so moved by their warmth, pride, and humanity. I promised Tony and Zymer I would study the history of Albania and come back to talk more.

Wow — What a story. Here is a brief piece:

During the Holocaust, Albania was the only Nazi-occupied country in Europe where the Jewish population actually increased — from about 200 to around 2,000. Muslim and Christian Albanians sheltered refugees, issued fake documents, and refused to betray them, even at great personal risk. Almost every Jew in Albania survived.

In neighboring Kosovo, the story was more tragic under German occupation, but the spirit of Besa still shone through in many acts of courage.

I’m genuinely embarrassed I didn’t know this powerful chapter of Albanian history until Tony shared it with me over espresso. A beautiful reminder of interfaith solidarity and moral bravery in one of history’s darkest times.

Wouldn't it be amazing if the spirit of Besa rises in Iran!

What an unforgettable encounter. Now I want to visit Albania/Kosovo.Thank you, Tony and Zymer. I’ll be back soon. 🇦🇱☕️✡️ Gëzuar!

WHEN JEW-HATERS MISREAD A JEWISH BOOK

 

When Jew‑Haters Misread a Jewish Book

Last night I attended a lecture titled, "The New Anti-Jewish Theology - A Biblical and Historical Response.  The speaker was a deacon at a Christian church and the son of the Pastor.  I'd never met either of them before, but I was highly impressed and appreciative of what he said.  He opened with the following statement: 

"there is a strong current on the internet to portray Jewish people dishonestly, reject the promises made to ethnic Israel, and claim Christians who think God's covenant with Abraham still applies to modern Jews are somehow heretical. There are even voices now questioning Jesus's Jewish identity. This corrupts our hermeneutics, questions God's promises, undermines Christ's human nature, and cuts us off from our own church history." 

I was highly impressed by the presentation. What he said stayed on my mind and motivated me to write this blog post.  

Anti‑Semites today like to pose as brave truth‑tellers. They insist that Jews never own our sins, that we think we're better than everyone else because we're "chosen." As a Jew who actually reads our Scriptures, I find that claim not only offensive but absurd. If anything, the Bible is one of the most brutally self‑critical books any people has ever written about itself.

A Book That Refuses to Whitewash Us

If Jews were a people who refused to face our faults, we would not have a Tanakh full of our own rebellions, corrupt kings, failed priests, and national disasters. Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest do not spare us. They name our idolatry, greed, injustice, and stubbornness in excruciating detail.

We also would not have built an entire way of life around confession and repentance: daily prayers that list sins in the plural, fasts focused on self‑examination, and Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement—where we pound our chests and beg God to forgive "the sins we have committed" in dozens of ways. A people that canonizes its own failures and centers its calendar on repentance is many things, but it is not a people that refuses to hold itself accountable.

Moses Sets the Prophetic Pattern

The pattern starts in the wilderness. Moses calls Israel "a stiff‑necked people" and warns that if we harden ourselves against Hashem, we will be driven from the land and scattered among the nations. Yet he does this not as an enemy, but as our mediator. When God threatens to wipe us out, Moses pleads for mercy, reminds Him of His promises to the patriarchs, and begs Him to stay with us.

The same Moses who announces exile also sings of return. He tells us that when we repent, God will gather us back and have compassion. From the start, judgment and mercy are woven together: severe family rebuke inside an unbreakable covenant.

Isaiah and Jeremiah: Severe Mercy, Not Erasure

Isaiah and Jeremiah walk the same road. Isaiah speaks of "rebellious children" who have grieved their Father and brought covenant curses on themselves. Jeremiah pictures us as an unfaithful wife whose spiritual adultery leads to the devastation of Jerusalem and exile.

But even as they predict horror, they promise hope. Jeremiah speaks of "a time of trouble for Jacob" unlike anything before—and in the same breath says "he shall be saved out of it." Exile is not God gleefully destroying "those Jews." It is a severe mercy: the painful consequence of our disobedience, intended to bring us to our knees so He can raise us up again.

A Prophetic Template for Days Like These

The prophets do not just see our past; they look ahead to storms that sound very much like our present. Jeremiah's "time of trouble for Jacob" envisions deep distress from which God Himself will rescue us. Zechariah foresees a day when "all the nations of the earth" gather against Jerusalem and the city becomes a "heavy stone" that injures everyone who tries to lift it.

If you look at today's rising Jew‑hatred and the bizarre global fixation on Israel and Jerusalem, you are not watching a random glitch in history. You are watching an old prophetic template light up again. I am not claiming to speak as a prophet; I am simply saying that what we see fits under the prophetic umbrella our own Scriptures opened long ago.

Chosen for Responsibility, Not Flattery

All of this sits under a larger calling. As hard as these texts are on Israel, Hashem is using us—Israel, the tribes, the divided kingdoms, and finally the Jews—as His chosen object lesson, a light to the nations about who He is and how He deals with His people. We were chosen not for flattery, but for responsibility.

Our job is to bear His Name, to embody His Torah, and to let our history of sin, judgment, repentance, and restoration become a beacon for the world. I say "we" very deliberately. I am writing as a Jew inside this story, not as an outsider taking shots at "the Jews," but as someone trying to read our own Scriptures with love, fear, and sympathy.

Why Modern Jew‑Haters Are "Off Message"

Seen from here, the modern Jew‑hater is completely off message. He accuses us of never admitting our sins while waving a Bible that is overwhelmingly Jewish in language, authorship, and content. He sneers that we think we're morally superior, but he ignores our culture of self‑critique, confession, and atonement.

Under the prophetic umbrella, that self‑critique is not a bug; it's the design. The prophets understood themselves as sent to correct kings, priests, and people alike. They attacked idolatry, corruption, and oppression, and they did it at great personal risk. In many ways, the Hebrew Bible is the world's earliest and fiercest manual in blaming yourself before God. That's exactly the aspect of our tradition the antisemite has never bothered to learn.

Enter Yeshua: Inside the Story, Not Against It

Into this already Jewish, already prophetic story walks Yeshua. He does not arrive as a stranger starting a new religion against us. He comes as one more prophet‑and‑more, sent by the God of Israel to Israel, addressing the same stiff‑necked yet beloved people Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah confronted.

He speaks our Scriptures. When He clashes with the Pharisees and other leaders, He quotes Isaiah: "You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you." His "woes" in Matthew 23 sound just like the old prophetic oracles: searing denunciations of leaders whose hypocrisy is dragging the people toward disaster. 

Tears, Not Hatred: Yeshua as Mediator

The climax of that chapter shows His heart. After the woes, Yeshua breaks down in lament over Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets… how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Those are not the words of a Jew‑hater. They are the words of someone who loves His own people and is desperate to shelter them from the judgment their choices are inviting.

Like Moses on the mountain, Yeshua acts as a mediator. Moses pleaded with God to turn from His fierce anger and spare Israel; God relented. Yeshua, hanging on a Roman cross, prays, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." In His parable of the barren fig tree, when the owner wants to cut it down, the vinedresser begs, "Give it one more year." Again and again, He stands between Israel and the axe, asking for one more chance, one more year, one more act of mercy.

The Spiritual Roots of Jew‑Hatred

The New Testament, read in continuity with the Tanakh, does not endorse Jew‑hatred. If anything, it unmasks the spiritual deception behind it. It speaks of an accuser—Satan—who slanders God's people and of a dragon who rages against the "woman" often understood as Israel and her offspring. It describes Satan going out "to deceive the nations," uniting them in a final rebellion that brings judgment on the deceiver and those who follow him.

From that angle, antisemitism is not just another prejudice. It looks like one of the clearest fingerprints of this deception: an irrational, global hatred focused on the people and city bound up with God's revealed plans. When Christians participate in that hatred, they are not being "biblical." They are letting the accuser's voice drown out their own Jewish Messiah's tears.

Bad Theology, Old and New

Historically, many Christians were taught that the church had replaced Israel—that God was essentially done with the Jews and our story had been superseded. In that framework, our ongoing exile and lack of a homeland seemed to prove the point.

Those readings were shaky even then. After the rebirth of Israel, they look especially thin. The existence of the State of Israel doesn't settle every prophecy chart, but it does force anyone who claims God is "finished with the Jews" to stop speaking so confidently for God. Modern Jew‑haters, whether religious or secular, often drink from those old wells of resentment and replacement theology while pretending to be "pro‑Bible."

Why This Matters Now

I am not claiming prophetic status. I am simply saying that what we are seeing fits under a prophetic umbrella that our own Scriptures—and, I would add, the New Testament—have already described.

The irony is devastating. The prophets, and Yeshua standing in their line, are far harder on Israel than any modern antisemite, but they do it from inside the covenant, in love, to save and restore. The Jew‑hater, standing outside the story, uses that family discipline as ammunition for contempt. In doing so, he shows that he has not understood the Scriptures he quotes, the God they reveal, or the people whose book he is misusing.