Christians and Jews Together. Stuart Dauermann

is not entirely new. Hints, fragments, and pieces appear throughout the Bible. Ezekiel focuses upon it in chapters 36 and 37 of his book. While this visionary mandate centers on God’s plans for the Jewish people, it has everything to do with the future of the Church and the world. Ezekiel summarizes the vision in chapter 37:21–28:

      Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over them all; and they will be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They will not defile themselves any more with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they will be my people, and I will be their God.

      My servant David will be king over them; and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. They will dwell in the land where your fathers dwelt that I gave to my servant Jacob; they and their children and their children’s children will dwell there for ever; and David my servant will be their prince for ever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling place will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.

      Ezekiel identifies seven aspects of God’s ultimate purposes for Israel and the nations:

      “Make It Plain”

      (Habakkuk 2:2)

      Although Ezekiel’s vision applies to all Israel, increasingly, Messianic Jews are calling it the New Messianic Jewish Agenda because it undergirds our vision for a new kind of Messianic Judaism.1 For us, all aspects of this agenda are interdependent parts of God’s plan for our people. For example, we are committed to covenantal Jewish life and to faith in Yeshua.2 Neither should be neglected. This kind of Messianic Judaism is built on rediscovered scriptural foundations long buried, yet vital to God’s continuing purposes for our people.

      This vision may seem irrelevant to you as a Christian. It may strike you as nothing more than a quaint religious opinion unrelated to or even contradictory of Christian truth as you know it. “But wait!” as the infomercials put it. This vision becomes very exciting once it is seen against the wider context of what God is up to in the world, which mission theologians term the missio dei (the mission of God). Once its context and implications are unpacked, the New Messianic Jewish Agenda changes everything. Exploring this vision and its implications for the Church and for the Jewish people will be one of the big “Aha! moments” of your life. So let’s explore it together, and “make it plain.”

      There is nothing timid or conventional about the Kingdom of God nor about new paradigms like this one. C. S. Lewis reminds us that Aslan isn’t a tame lion. South African Mission Theologian David Bosch, who exposed and resisted the evils of apartheid at the risk of his life, was no tame lion himself. He applies paradigm theories native to the field of science to the world of theology and mission, and shows how disruptive they can be:

      [A shifting of paradigms] seldom happens without a struggle, however, since scientific communities [and theological traditions] are by nature conservative and do not like their peace to be disturbed, the old paradigm’s protagonists continue for a long time to fight a rearguard action. . . . Proponents of the old paradigm often just cannot understand the arguments of the proponents of the new. Metaphorically speaking, the one is playing chess and the other checkers on the same board.

      . . . This explains why defenders of the old order and champions of the new frequently argue at cross-purposes. Protagonists of the old paradigm, in particular, tend to immunize themselves against the arguments of the new. They resist its challenges with deep emotional reactions, since those challenges threaten to destroy their very perception and experience of reality, indeed their entire world.3

      Remember my friend Marcia. Not everyone in her church and almost no one on her mission field understood her decisions or appreciated her sacrifice. If you are going to investigate these new ideas, even if they are God’s new ideas, you too may be misunderstood. Despite this risk, I invite you to follow along as I point out a Kingdom controversy most people have yet to consider.

      How Great is the Great Commission?

      Consider the term, “the Great Commission.” This is the name the Church attaches to Yeshua’s command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15). Few pause to consider that the Bible never refers to the Great Commission by that name. The term “great” is an evaluative term registering the Church’s estimation of the commission. And certainly it is a great commission that has informed and spurred heroic service for nearly two thousand years. But the term is a new one. The first person to use the term “the Great Commission” was probably Dutch missionary Justinian von Welz (1621–1688). And it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the Great Commission was popularized, by missionary giant Hudson Taylor, who connected the term with Matthew 28:19–20.

      No less an authority than the Apostle Paul gives ample evidence that there is something greater than the Great Commission.

      But it really shouldn’t be called “the Great Commission,” as though this is God’s final word to His people. No less an authority than the Apostle Paul gives ample evidence that there is something greater than the Great Commission. How so?

      The Greater Commission