Racism Amongst The Jews In Israel Is Alive And Well

There was a Messianic Jewish concert in Israel and an Orthodox Jewish hate group arrived and harassed Christians who were trying to access the concert:

This viciousness is not surprising, because such vitriol was seen at the time of Saint Paul. What you see in this footage is what St. Paul saw, so today you are witnessing history. The hatred towards Christianity is part of the rage against the idea of non-Jews reading the Torah and the prophets and worshipping the God of Shem — the God of Israel. These hate groups want to keep the God of Israel for themselves, wanting him to be only a God for the Jews, when the truth is that He is the Father of us all — for we are indeed his offspring (Acts 17:28). The spirit that posses this mob is the very abysmal thing that held the souls of those who prostituted the Temple in the time of Christ Who, after driving out the money changers, declared:  “Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.” (Mark 11:17) The Temple was to be house of prayer for all nations, not one nation. But those of this vicious spirit want to hijack God and make him prisoner of their own prejudice. When Paul made his speech before the Jews in Jerusalem, the Book of Acts tells us that they listened until they heard him say that Christ told him: “I will send you far from here to the Gentiles.” (Acts 22:21) Acts then says:

And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!” (Acts 22:22)

What sparked their rage was the thought of God reaching out for non-Jews. Racism was alive and well even thousands of years ago, and it was rife amongst the Jews of Paul’s day. You see this ancient racism when the mob takes ahold of Paul and scream:  “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place; and furthermore he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” (Acts 21:28) To bring Greeks into the Temple was — in their minds — a defilement. Such an ideology was radically contrary to what Christ said to the Jews, that the Temple was to be known to all nations as a house of prayer. Christ expressed His zeal against how the Jews wanted to keep the foreigners out of His Father’s Temple; the Jews raged against St. Paul because he brought Greeks into the Temple. And there would eventually be a culminating event that would follow the pattern of this ancient prejudice and erupt into the bloodbath of the Jews by the hands of the Romans: the Jewish Temple leaders would block out the foreigners from having sacrifices in the Temple, including a sacrifice for the Caesar himself. The Roman government saw this as the ultimate show of defiance and thus a declaration of war against the rule of Caesar, sparking the Roman-Jewish war which slaughter would slaughter over a million civilians. Josephus recounts:

At the same time Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high priest, a very bold youth, who was at that time governor of the temple, persuaded those that officiated in the Divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner. And this was the true beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the sacrifice of Caesar on this account; and when many of the high priests and principal men besought them not to omit the sacrifice, which it was customary for them to offer for their princes, they would not be prevailed upon. These relied much upon their multitude, for the most flourishing part of the innovators assisted them; but they had the chief regard to Eleazar, the governor of the temple. (Wars, 2.17)

They refused to see the Temple as a house of prayer for all nations, and they brought the sword to their own homes.

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