"The question is whether the modern state of Israel is that nation that was imagined back in the Bible", states Gary Burge, an ordained Presbyterian minister and a professor emeritus at Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian institution.
Jews and evangelical Christians who say an undivided Jerusalem should be the eternal capital of Israel have a ready answer for anyone who questions that claim: The Bible says so.
Some conservative evangelicals have built their theology around the modern state of Israel, as if a biblical story has come alive again from the scriptures. In the Christian Old Testament, Jerusalem was established as Israel’s capital by King David about 1,000 years before Christ. Notwithstanding various wars and a Babylonian exile that led to the loss of the city, Jerusalem remained Israel’s de facto capital in the Jewish imagination. Even in the New Testament, Jerusalem is assumed to be Israel’s capital. But another war in 70 A.D. led to a longtime loss of the city. Modern Israel did not recapture Jerusalem until 1967.
The most often-cited text in the Bible is 2 Chronicles 6:5-6, wherein King Solomon quotes God as saying, "Since the day that I brought my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city in all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house, that my name might be there, and I chose no man as prince over my people Israel; but I have chosen Jerusalem that my name may be there and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel."
The Bible could hardly be more clear, it would seem.
"As far as God is concerned, Jerusalem has been the eternal, undivided capital since the reign of David," said Laurie Cardoza-Moore, whose television program, "Focus on Israel," is aimed primarily at evangelical Christians like herself who see the Bible as "true and historically accurate." God, she said, "established the boundaries of all the nations, and he chose the city of Jerusalem for himself."
Those Christians who are not themselves Jewish may still feel included among the "people" of Israel, says Cardoza-Moore - her organization is Proclaiming Justice to the Nations , by virtue of their faith in Jesus. She quotes Galatians 3:29, where Paul says, "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring." Her organization is dedicated to "building a global community of action and prayer in support of Jews and Israel." she says. What Cardoza fails to realize is that we are all Abraham's offspring- Jews, Christians and Muslims (as well as all people of the earth).
The argument that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel is also rejected by many of the Christians who live there or in the neighboring territories. Most are ethnic Arabs, and they may feel less kinship with Jews. In a joint letter , sent to Trump before he announced the policy change on Jerusalem, leaders of local Christian churches which included Orthodox, Coptic and Catholic leaders, cautioned that it could bring "increased hatred, conflict, violence and suffering."
>Catholics thinking not based alone in the Old Testament’s land-based promises, but in the gospel, where the tribal or local theologies about Israel become global and universal, welcoming all people from every tribe and every land into a divine promise of blessing. Paul can refer to gentiles as children of Abraham (Romans 4:11) because it’s through faith, not ethnic lineage, that one gains access to the blessings of God. This shift in emphasis, which challenges the exclusivity of any one tribe and universalizes blessing, explains the world-mission of the ancient church and the inclusion of gentiles in Jesus’s Jewish messianic movement. From this viewpoint, arguments for ethnic land claims like Jerusalem sound silly.
No comments:
Post a Comment