Jewish Voice exists to do three things: to proclaim the Gospel to the Jew first (Romans 1:16), grow the Messianic Jewish community, and engage the Church concerning Israel and the Jewish people. These three enduring mandates serve as guideposts within which every ministry activity we undertake must fit.
As you stand with this ministry, I hope you find as much comfort and confidence as I do in knowing that every ministry opportunity – every major missional initiative to which we set our hand and devote our resources – must align with at least one of these anchors. As we consider ministry opportunities, we ask questions like:
- Will this initiative expose unreached or under reached Jewish people around the world to the Good News of the Messiahship of Yeshua (Jesus)? Will it also enable us – to the degree God gives opportunity – to share with their non-Jewish neighbors that the Messiah of Israel is also the Savior of the world?
- Will this project help plant and grow Messianic Jewish congregations and congregational networks? Will it help disciple and strengthen indigenous leadership so that the Messianic Jewish presence bears testimony as a “visible remnant of Israel”? Will this work help equip these Jewish Believers to reach their own Jewish communities while also blessing all the families around them in fulfillment of their irrevocable calling (Genesis 12:3, Romans 11:29)?
- Will this opportunity allow us to “lift up our Jewish voice” to the Church – both in North America and around the world – with Scripture’s increasingly urgent, and unfortunately controversial, message? Namely, will it help us share that the God who grafted wild branches from every tribe, tongue, and nation into the olive tree whose root is Israel is passionate about grafting Jewish souls from all over the world back into that same olive tree? Will it afford us the chance to share His fervent mercy and faithfulness to Israel and that His deep, sacrificial – even covenantal – commitment to Israel and the Jewish people in the Last Days will become a faith prerequisite rather than a theological preference?
Filtering through Many Opportunities
As we seek to serve a hurting world, these questions provide critically important filters through which we run the many valid and viable ministry opportunities that come our way. They enable those of us entrusted with leading and shaping Jewish Voice’s endeavors to distinguish the “God ideas” from the merely “good” ones as we seek to fulfill our unique, God-given mandate. Praise the Lord for guideposts and filters!
Proclaiming, Growing and Engaging
For nearly the last quarter-century, our work among scattered Jewish communities (many of whom could correctly be identified as the “Lost Tribes of Israel”) fits clearly within the first two of our missional guideposts: proclaiming the Gospel to Jewish communities as a scriptural priority and helping grow indigenously-led networks of Jewish Believers in the areas where we serve. However, it also has allowed us to partly fulfill our third mandate: engaging local churches and their leaders regarding Israel and the Jewish people. Serving Jewish communities has afforded us the opportunity to share with local churches the realities and spiritual implications of the specific part of the “remnant of Israel” living within their borders. It also allows us to discuss the obligation of God’s people to no longer ignore, much less disparage or even persecute, these vulnerable Jewish people groups.
Earning the Right to Share
Moreover, our methodology for reaching these scattered Jewish communities has been and continues to be an essential God-given tool for forming relationships with them. Outreaches preserve and improve their quality of life through medical, dental and eye care as well as prevent life-compromising illness by providing children and families with years-long access to clean water. As we meet their practical needs in the name of Yeshua, we earn the right to share the life-transforming Gospel message.
Committed to Excellence
Amid the changing landscape of COVID-19 restrictions, along with political and economic turmoil, in the areas God has allowed us to serve, we continue to adapt these missional models to provide more targeted and more excellent life-changing services to Jewish people and their neighbors. Why? Because we know that we are most like Jesus when we give the very best to the “least of these [His] brethren.”
Driving Promises
— Isaiah 11:11 (NIV)
For decades, key promises, such as Isaiah 11:11, have driven and helped prioritize Jewish Voice’s ministry among scattered Jewish people groups in Africa and India. We believe that we are in at least the partial fulfillment of “that day” which Isaiah saw – the day when God would stretch out His hand [specifically, apply His immeasurable power] to regather the exiles of Israel who are left among the nations. What an honor it is to be included in this prophetic End-Times’ work! I hope you see, as I do, how this ministry among the scattered Jewish communities – many of whom are considered by their neighbors to be the lowest rung of humanity — is a practical manifestation of the Lord’s outstretched arm to regather and restore the remnant of His people to Himself.
Our bold missional thrust to “reach all remaining scattered Jewish people groups on Earth” during the next ten-plus years represents, not a departure from our mandate, but a scripturally anchored trajectory for it. It brings together promises old and new, which we have seen fulfilled in part in our day but which we want to partner with the Lord to see fulfilled entirely as we prepare for the return of Jesus.
Isaiah 11:11 helps answer the “what” behind our work among scattered Jewish communities, but the second and equally important question is: “To what end?” What will it look like when this End-Times’ work among the remnant of Israel is accomplished?
All Ethnos, All Tribes
Yeshua exhorted His followers to go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to all peoples, tribes, and nations (Matthew 28:20). He had previously instructed them that the Gospel would be preached to all ethnos (every people group on the face of the Earth) before the end would come (Matthew 24:14). Missiologists generally agree that this can be accomplished by the mid-2030s. We are right at the finish line!
In terms of Jewish ministry specifically, John revealed that there would be a remnant – 144,000 from among all the tribes of Israel – who we understand to be Jewish Believers in Jesus, in that they “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Revelation 7:4, 14:4). Moreover, Ezekiel saw a great valley of dry bones that would not only be reassembled, but into which the Spirit would blow the breath of life again. And he was told clearly that “these bones are the whole house of Israel” (Ezekiel 37).
A Biblical Priority
We at Jewish Voice believe that the completion of the Gospel preached to all ethnos on Earth must, as a priority according to Romans 1:16, include its proclamation to all remaining scattered Jewish people groups on Earth. And we are saying, “Yes!” to the Lord unto the end that a visible remnant of Jewish Believers is raised up from all the places where we have been scattered. This testifies not only to God’s faithfulness to seek out and regather His Jewish people, but also to breathe life back into their dry bones through the resurrection power of Yeshua.
Please Pray
This missional commitment – to seek out, form a relationship with and, where God opens doors, begin ministry among the remaining scattered Jewish communities throughout the world – is one for which partners are hard to find at present. Please pray for the Lord to send forth laborers into this Jewish ministry field.
It will require new methodologies to serve new communities with unique needs, and it may lead us to some of the most dangerous and closed places on Earth. But, as we have seen time and again at Jewish Voice, being in the right place at the right time to say “Yes!” to a God-opportunity to reach specific Jewish communities has opened great and effectual ministry doors and yielded exponential fruit.
Thank you for praying and standing with us. May we see among these scattered Jewish communities what the prophets longed to see!
