review
The Bible book of Ruth 1: 16-17 contains the words Ruth said to Naomi: “Do not ask me any longer to leave you and go back from you. Where you go I will go, where you sleep I will Your people are my people, and your God is my God. Where you die, I also will die, and there I will be buried. The LORD is my witness: only death shall separate me from you. ” This is testimony to Ruth’s love, devotion and loyalty to the God of Israel and the Jewish people.
Don Finto: ‘Your people are my people’
- Title: Your People Are My People – How Israel, the Jewish people, and the Christian Church will unite in the last days
- Author: Don Finto
- Publisher: Bread of life, Vlissingen
- Year: 2002
- ISBN 90-75226-48-9
- Pages: 184
‘Your people are my people’
The Moabite Ruth speaks these interesting words to her mother-in-law Naomi. It is a moving confession that shows deep devotion. She says she will join the people of God, the people of Israel. She will make the ways and laws of this people hers. From this obedience came the lineage of the Promised Son, the Messiah. The belief that Jesus is the Messiah is to lead every Gentile believer into an indissoluble and profound bond with God’s people. Or as actress and artist Yanneke Wijngaarden says somewhere: “The Jewish man who reveals the God of Israel to the nations. He is the door through which I enter and sit at the table with Abraham, Sarah, Moses.”
We may say with Ruth: ‘Your people are my people’. Unfortunately, the Christian Church has not always responded to her Boaz the way Ruth has. The congregation did not abandon its Moabite customs and way of life when it came into the house by accepting Jesus as Messiah. On the contrary, she has turned her back on all Jesus’ relatives, the Jewish people. “That is why I must write,” declares Don Finto in the introduction to his book “Your people are my people.” According to him, it is time for the Christian congregation to take a radical stand towards the Jewish people in the spirit of Ruth. The Church must come to realize that the Gentiles of the nations who have repented are grafted into the olive of His people (Romans 11). It is not the Jews who must discard or renounce their customs and identity, it is the Gentiles from the Christians who must break free from their pagan roots; for they are, like wild branches, grafted on to the noble olive, the trunk, branches and root system of which represent the people of Israel. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob form the roots, because from them the people of Israel came forth.
God is removing the veil from both the Jewish people and the Church
Don Finto is a “Gentile” pastor in Nashville, United States, who over the years has explored the Word of God toward God’s purpose for Israel and the Jewish people. He comes with a thoroughly biblical view that shows that God is not done with his people and that the Church has not stepped in her place as replacement theology proposes. God has a plan for Israel and the Jewish people.
There is currently a resurgence going on among Jewish people who are coming to faith in the Messiah Yeshua (Hebrew name of Jesus), also known as Messianic Jews or Messianic Jews. A Messianic Jewish movement has emerged worldwide and is gradually expanding. Most of them keep their identity as Jews, and are Torah faithful, not in the hope of being saved by keeping the Law, but out of love for God who has revealed Himself in Yeshua. A revival is underway, and Don Finto hopes that the Church will be grateful through returning Jewish leadership in the body of the Messiah. The covering or veil (2 Corinthians 3) God is taking away. Both with the Jewish people regarding their Messiah Yeshua, as with the Church that was completely blind for centuries about God’s plan for Israel and the Jewish people. Awakening has begun.
“The return of so many Jews to the Messiah in our day reaffirms God’s covenant love for His people. We experience the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy where it says Jewish eyes will open. We experience what Hosea foretold – Israel coming trembling. to the Lord “(Hos. 3: 5). We see breath being breathed into the resurrected body of which Ezekiel spoke. Paul’s words regarding the grafting again [Romeinen 11] are becoming increasingly meaningful. And we ponder again the words of Jesus as He looked over the Temple: “When these things begin to take place … your redemption is at hand” (Luke 21:28).
The Lord refuses to close the curtain of history without His beloved Israel. “(P. 132)South side of the Mount of Olives with the extensive Jewish cemetery / Source: Matthias Kopp, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)The Revival of the Messianic Community
Finto’s book is an excellent introduction to both the theology of Israel and the history of the Messianic movement. What struck me most was the life story of Joseph Rabinowitz (1837-1899) from Kishinev, Maldovia. Raised in a Jewish rabbinic family, he left for Palestine to establish a colony. On the Mount of Olives, he had a life-changing encounter with the Messiah. He returned to his homeland fully convinced that Yeshua is the Messiah, the only one who can save Israel. He opened the first Messianic synagogue in modern history. He has always refused to give up his Jewish identity and this has always brought him into conflict with both the Church and the Jewish community. His tombstone reads, according to his wishes, “An Israelite who believed on Jehovah and His Anointed One, Yeshua of Nazareth, king of the Jews, son of David, Rabinowitz.” He saw his Jewish identity validated and perfected in his faith in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.
Finto devotes a chapter to the shameful and painful history of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews in the Church, which dates back to the time of Constantine and the early Church Fathers. Also, believing Jews were convinced by the Church that they should give up their God-given precepts and feasts and internalize the Gentile divine practices. The Gentile believers took pagan practices into the Church and the “wild branches” grafted onto the noble olive tree forced the natural branches (Jewish believers) into these practices and they had to deny their Jewish identity. It was the world upside down! The Gentile believers should have just broken the connection with their pagan roots.
“This one [niet-Joodse christelijke] practices were in many cases no more than earlier pagan customs, covered with a Christian layer. The feast of the winter equinox with its trees and yule block, with which the Norse gods were worshiped, was translated into Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Passover became Easter. Circumcision, which was not required of the Gentiles, was replaced by infant baptism. Bar Mitzvah now became confession. The Jewish symbolism of belief in the Jewish Messiah was gone. ”(P. 119)
Stop going the way of the Gentiles
The Church was deceived and was deceived. Ruth (the Gentiles) has not taken the place of Boaz (the Jewish people), she has only committed herself to him. She has joined his family and is part of the promises. Ruth has not replaced Boaz. Christians are increasingly realizing that it is necessary to learn about their Jewish roots and heritage if they are to understand the faith in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua. And that they should no longer go the way of the Gentiles (Ephesians 4:17).
It is a well-written, penetrating book that you can read in one breath. It’s an introduction; people who are more familiar with this matter will encounter few new insights. For Christians with little knowledge of God’s plan for Israel, the Messianic Jews, and of the Jewish roots of their faith, it is a eye opener and a must read.