Abandoned

Stan Telchin

Description

Christians must reexamine God's Word and become equipped to reach out to and receive Jewish people with the love of God in their hearts.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Judaism

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mars 1997
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585586493
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 1997 by Stan Telchin
Published by Chosen Books
A division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287
www.chosenbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-58558-649-3
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version . NIV ® . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations identified NKJV are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
Scripture quotations identified RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
To my grandchildren,
Jennifer,
Zachary,
Elizabeth,
Nicolas.
May you live every day of your lives knowing who you are and whose you are.
Stan Telchin Ministries
8374 Market St. #443
Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202-5137
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]
www.telchin.com
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Special Thanks
An Introductory Word
Part 1: Information You Need
1 “We Can’t Afford to Lose You!”
2 The Greatest Battle in the Universe
3 Reading the Rest of Romans
4 Let’s Look at Church History
5 Why the Holocaust?
Part 2: Increasing Your Understanding
6 Who Is a Jew?
7 What Does It Mean to Be a Jew Today?
8 What Do Today’s Jews Believe about God and the Bible?
9 What Do Today’s Jews Think about Jesus?
Part 3: Questions You Are Now Ready to Ask
10 Do the Jewish People Really Need Jesus?
11 At the Heart of the Matter
12 How Do We Reach the Jewish People?
13 The Special Needs of Jewish Believers
14 What Does the Church Need to Do?
A Personal Note
Appendix 1: What’s Happening in Israel?
Appendix 2: Denominational Judaism in America
Appendix 3: Agencies That Minister to Jewish People
Bibliography
Foreword
I had the privilege of meeting Stan Telchin in Jerusalem on a Sunday morning in June 1995 under unusual circumstances. It was the day before the opening of the Fifth International Quadrennial Conference of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism. Delegates were arriving from Japan and Latin America, from Europe and the Middle East and from nearly all English-speaking nations. They came, Jews and Gentiles, because all were variously involved in the privileged task of sharing with the Jewish people the good news of Jesus Christ.
That morning a small group of us decided to go into the Old City and worship at Christ Church, identified since 1849 as a center of evangelical life and worship in the Holy Land. We went through the Jaffa Gate and started walking up to the church. But we encountered confusion people hurrying past us in the opposite direction. Soon we, too, were turned back. Soldiers and their military vehicle dominated the scene.
We stood still, uncertain as to what to do. Some time later a shot rang out; it seemed very close. It was followed by a second shot. We could think only of terrorists. Then a third shot, startling and incongruous on what we had expected to be a quiet Sunday.
Eventually we learned that someone had left an unmarked package under one of the pews in the church. Because it might have been a bomb, the Israeli Defense Force had been alerted. Soldiers removed the package carefully, placed it in a remote corner of the plaza, off to the side of the church, drew back and opened fire. (Apparently this was the IDF approach to defusing bombs!)
The shattered package, as it turned out, proved to contain a score of Bibles, so the incident ended in laughter. And it was at that moment, as best I can recall, that I really met Stan Telchin. It was he who had laughed the loudest.
We did not go to church that day, but to the Garden Tomb not far away. Then, like typical tourists, we took pictures. I have one of Stan standing before the entrance. One might conclude, from the smile on his face, that he was thinking about the spiritual dynamite blasted to bits by Israeli gunfire. Maybe a bit of exhortation was beginning to take form in his mind: “But my Jewish brothers, you’ll find that the potency of the Gospel cannot be overcome so easily. There was a time when I thought it could be reduced to mere superstition by attacking it with reason and careful research. But in the end it was Jesus who conquered me!”
Long before, I had read Stan’s first book, Betrayed! As I read it I came to a precise conclusion: Here was a Jewish man after my own heart. Explosive in temperament, utterly candid, wonderfully open-minded, he was the sort of person one could not but be drawn to.
When his daughter Judy came to faith in Jesus, he was devastated. But over the weeks and months that followed, he had to admit she had been genuinely transformed. Rather than continue to berate her, he began to ask himself if he should face the possibility honestly that she might be right and he might be wrong.
His inherited, secondhand hostility made it impossible for him to come to any positive conclusions about Jesus of Nazareth, apart from the fact that Jesus was Jewish. Now honesty demanded that he study both Old and New Testaments and prove her wrong.
But it didn’t work. Stan became convinced, in spite of himself, that Jesus was the Messiah of His people and the Savior of the world. He surrendered himself to Jesus’ Lordship and found the same release and newness that earlier had enabled Judy to courageously share with him her faith in Jesus. From then on, Stan entered on a life of widespread usefulness. Among others, he has been singularly effective in his witness to Russian Jews, leading not a few to faith.
Stan wrote this book to unburden his heart to Gentile Christians. Over the months, as he shared successive chapters with me and invited my reactions, I could not but recall the impressions that came to me years before 1939? while listening to Hyman Appelman in Philadelphia.
I guess what first drew me and others to that Jewish evangelist was his massive street banner, Come Hear a Jew Preach Jesus Christ! Appelman was a gifted lawyer who could articulate the Gospel clearly and persuasively to Jews and Gentiles alike. Both he and Stan had surrendered to the same Lord Jesus and accepted the same biblical Gospel.
But the world of the ’30s was different from the world of the ’90s. How differently Stan proclaims the Gospel today to this generation. Between yesterday and today, the world has experienced the horrors of total war, along with the calculated destruction of six million members of European Jewry and a totally unexpected aftermath: the reemergence in Palestine, after two thousand years, of the State of Israel. Out of this tragedy and national resurrection, a contemporary voice has emerged, warm, outgoing and wonderfully in tune with the times. Stan’s message is contained in this book.
Here is the contemporary note I would stress. Gentile Christians must listen to our Jewish brother in Christ. He is at rest in the wonders of his faith in Jesus, the Messiah of His people. Further, Stan rejoices in his God-given Jewishness, which I believe is most pleasing to God and reflects a reality that is altogether refreshing. One is put at ease in his presence and cannot but resonate with his efforts to receive all those whom God has manifestly received.
In this book, a deeply committed Jewish believer reaches over the mountains of Gentile barbarism and “Christian” anti-Semitism that destroyed many of his people, and speaks in a friendly fashion to Gentile Christians about his people. I believe I know the measure of his heart and the depth of his concern. When he asked me to comment freely on the rough drafts of his successive chapters, what could I say? Little but my oft-repeated words, “Stan, this is great! Your strength is the note of reality that breaks through in your thoughts, your words, your style. Thank God you are not pompous! You don’t talk down to Gentile Christians. You come across as a brother and friend with something truly important to share.”
So then, this book. It is not enough that those of us who are Gentile Christians should “bow down in worship,…[and] kneel before the L ORD our Maker” (Psalm 95:6). We should at the same time reach out in love to the people who are always on God’s heart. He loves the Jewish people, despite the tragic persistence with which so many continue to say no to His Son. We should love them, too, displaying our love in every way, especially the way Stan loves them.
And this means we should likewise embrace the implications of the apostle Paul’s inspired word that the Gospel “is the power of God unto salvation…to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16, KJV ).
Arthur F. Glasser
Fuller Theological Seminary
Dean Emeritus, School of World Mission
Professor Emeritus, Theology and East Asian Studies
Faculty Coordinator of Judaic Studies
Special Thanks
F irst and foremost, I thank God for His grace and the inspiration He provided as this book was being born.
A number of special people helped make this book a joy to write. My ever-present wife, Ethel, is first in line. She was wonderfully encouraging and patiently endured those long times alone when I was working. She also read and commented on every chapter, cheerfully and insightfully.
Moishe Rosen also deserves special recognition. Moishe is the guy who insisted that while there was still life in me, I had to write this book. H