I share this post in my on-going series about the "questions no one told me I'd get asked in ministry" with a bit of trepidation. I have come across enough dispensationalist, fundamentalist, and/or literalist theologies to know that discussions of the role of national Israel in the economy of God's salvation can generate all kinds of heat with very little light. On top of that, there is the historic Church's very real legacy of anti-Semitism, which ought to temper everything we say on the matter with a great deal of humility and sensitivity. Before a Christian says anything else, I think, he or she needs to offer a very clear repudiation of anti-Semitism, as the affront to the Gospel that it is. Finally, of course, there are the ongoing and seemingly intractable political tensions in the Middle East-- raw nerves that any discussion of this issue will inevitably touch on. So I don't post this one lightly. But it is a question I get asked relatively often in ministry-- what about Israel?--and it's not one I ever studied directly in seminary, so certainly it fits the bill for this series. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am a thoroughly-convinced amillenialist in my eschatology, a preterist in my understanding of the Book of Revelation, and a non-dispensationalist in my reading of Old Testament Prophecy. If any of those statements caused you to put up your dukes, you may wish to pass on reading this post and save yourself the frustration it's likely to cause.
That said, almost 5 years ago I received an email from a colleague of mine whom we'll call "Pastor Bill." Bill had a person in his church who was loudly and regularly criticizing him because he did not post "Pray for Israel" prompters in his bulletin, or publicly endorse ministries that did. He was wondering if I had any thoughts on the issue. For better or worse, this is the email I sent him in reply.
Thanks for the email, Bill. Yes, things are going very well for me these days.
So.... the question of Israel. Yes, that's a tricky one. I'll give you some raw unedited thoughts and feel free to do with them what you will.
1. It is very problematic to draw a correlation between ancient Israel, as the people of God, and the modern day Israeli state. Theologically this is so because Jesus has "redrawn the boundaries" of what the "nation" of Israel is. This is why there is no talk in the New Testament about "land" as one of the blessings of Abraham, but only the promise that through Abraham all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Yes, "ethnic Israel" is the chosen people of God, but this is not the same as saying that "the modern Israeli state" is God's chosen "nation." There's no such thing as a chosen nation. Distinguishing between "ethnic" and "national" Israel may be helpful as you process this with your folks. Yes: pray for/care about/witness to Jewish friends and neighbours, yes pray for "the Jewish People," or even for "Israelis." But don't confuse that with praying for the modern day nation of Israel.
2. Yes it's true that a lot of the "pray for Israel" stuff I've seen flows out of American right-wing sentiment, and so like you I always try to distance myself from the concept. Also, like you, I think that when you blur the lines between "ancient Israel" as the chosen people in the OT, and the modern day Israeli state, you set yourself up to blindly accept anything that the nation wishes to do, and make it so that it's impossible to criticize any action of the nation, which is a problematic posture for a Christian to adopt towards any nation state.
3. Ancient Israel's own vocation was to be a people of prayer for the nations, so prayer for Israel should include prayer for all the nations, and singling Israel out as a special focus of prayer seems to contradict Israel's own mandate. This was Jesus' motive for clearing of the Temple, that First Century Israel had exchanged its vocation as a people of prayer for the nations, and had become, instead, consumed with its own nationalistic agenda. Do we fall into the same trap when we get caught up in the "nationalistic agenda" of modern day Israel?
4. To pray for the nation of Israel as though that were somehow fulfilling Psalm 122:6 (which is the verse that's usually referenced in these discussions), is to fundamentally misunderstand what Jesus meant when he said "The Kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom was heard by his Jewish contemporaries as a ratification of their nationalistic agenda (i.e. that God was going to establish them as their own independent nation). This is why the celebrated him on Palm Sunday, because they figured he had come to establish National Israel. He didn't, because he hadn't. What he came to do was to establish God's Kingdom around himself (and not a nation), so that Jews and Gentiles alike could belong to God as one single people (Eph 2:14), and membership in "Israel" would not depend on ethnic origin or national affiliation, but on faith in Jesus. This is why Paul can say "Not all Israel is Israel" in Romans 9:6, and why he can talk about "the Israel of God" as though it were somehow distinct from national Israel, in Galatians 6:16. Because membership in God's "new" or "true" Israel happens through Jesus, for Jew and Gentile alike. This is why in Acts 1:6 the disciples ask if Jesus is "at this time" going to restore the kingdom to Israel (i.e. establish Israel as a nation state) and he redirects the question (1:7): don't worry about the national definition of what is or isn't Israel, instead worry about being my witness to all people groups, to the end of the earth (1:8).
So here's my bottom line:
1. Does God love Israel? yes, of course!
2. Does God want us to love Israel? yes, of course!
3. Should we want Jewish people to come to know Jesus as the Messiah? Most definitely!
4. Are the Jewish people still God's chosen people, with a special role in God's economy of salvation? Yes! (Though what that looks like, now, in relation to the Gentiles, is a bit more complicated. Read Romans 9, 10, and 11).
5. Should we pray for the modern-day Israeli state? Yes... in the way you would pray for any modern day nation, as a Christian.
6. Should we "single out" the modern-day Israeli state as a special focus for prayer? Only if there's a pastoral reason to do so in a specific local context (e.g. we pray for the Congo a lot in our church, because we have a lot of connections to Congo right now). But not because you think that "national Israel" fulfills some special mandate in the economy of God's salvation. I don't include "pray for Israel" in any prayer prompters at Corner Church, and except in some real specific contexts, I don't think I would; certainly not in a way that aligns my ministry with the American Evangelical Right that you identified in your email.
I don't know how much of that will be helpful to you, but those or my 2 cents worth :)
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