Tag: David Stern

Given my appreciation of David Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible translation I was looking forward to a brisk read through his diminutive Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel.  I was a little disappointed.

I was hoping for an exposition of the Gospel which tapped into the depths of it’s Jewish roots.  I wanted to be excited with soteriology and eschatology filled with the earthy historicity of God’s ancient people.  There was a little of that, but only parenthetically.

I was also hoping for insight into the common roots of Christian and Jewish spirituality.  There’s a little more of this.  Here’s an insight that’s quite helpful:

What is it that God through his Messiah, Yeshua, does for human beings? The answer: (1) He makes them conscious of what sin is, and through Yeshua the Messiah he offers forgiveness of sin… Then, if they are Gentiles and therefore do not already belong to his own special people, the People of God, (2) he makes them part of the People of God, (3) he makes them participate in the covenants, (4) he fulfills his promises, (5) he gives them hope in this difficult world, and finally, (6) he makes his very self known to them.  If they are Jews and therefore do belong to the People of God, they already have items (2) through (6) and do not need to be given them again.

But mostly this short treatise is an attempt to convince Christians that engagement with Judaism is necessary, not merely as an evangelistic strategy, but as a fundamental aspect of God’s overall plans for salvation history.  But perhaps some people need convincing of that; I don’t think I do.

So the question raised and answered by the title is merely “Yes, we should restore the Jewishness of the Gospel”, not “The Gospel is actually Jewish, here’s what that means for you.”  Not bad, but not as useful as I hoped.