Son of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Jewish Movement
Overview
Since the late 1960s, the Messianic Jewish Movement has talked about revival—an act of God—while too often we have instead seen revivalism—more of an act. A movement calling itself the Messianic Jewish Movement has increasingly become the Messianic Jewish-style Movement, with a decreasing Jewish demographic presence. But what is most telling is that what we are seeing in the Messianic Jewish Movement bears little if any resemblance to what the Bible would lead us to expect: a movement of observant Jews at the heart of the Jewish community, empowered by the Spirit, demonstrating the authority of the risen Messiah—as a sign, demonstration, and catalyst of God’s consummating purposes for Israel, the nations, and the entire creation.
Instead, our movement, in varying degrees, is often shaped around the armatures of various forms of sectarian Christianity—either dispensationalism (the Missions Movement), or free-church charismatic culture (the Congregational Movement). Too often, even in our own eyes, we seem to be pale imitations, or even lapdogs of other communities. And the more one reads the Bible and takes the prophetic word seriously, the more one is forced to recognize that what we are led to expect there is not what we are finding here. What then is the problem?
The answer can be found in the book of Proverbs: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (29:18 KJV). At the heart of it all, our problem is a lack of integrated vision. The Congregational Movement suffers from spiritual macular degeneration.1 We have lost vision at the center. No wonder we have difficulty driving our movement forward! It is only when we clearly identify that which should be central to our vision that we will be able to get on with a vigorous communal life, discerning and energetically pursuing the purposes of God.
That needed vision will come to us from a deep realization of Yeshua’s identity and message. A story from his life is a good place to begin.
- Evaluates the current state of the Messianic Jewish Movement
- Proposes new foundations for the future
- Explores the need for a deep realization of Yeshua’s identity and message
- The Messianic Jewish Movement: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
- Understanding Yeshua as the Son of David: A Crucial Missing Link
- Yeshua’s Davidic Office: Present or Future?
- Six Steps Toward Rightly Serving the Son of David Now
When Rabbi Dauermann asked me to read Son of David, I read the whole thing at once and called him right away. I told him this was the message people needed to hear regarding Yeshua (Jesus), the Jewish people, Messsianic Judaism, and Jewish-Christian relations. Christians reading this can see palpably what has been lost through the centuries of forgetting that Jesus is the Son of David, a present office, not a dead title. To the Jewish world, we in Messianic Judaism might say it is our prayer that they would see why Yeshua is the center for us of our Judaism, our hope, our avodah. For those who love the people descended from Abraham as well as the people of the world, Yeshua as the Son of David is the one who brings healing and the reign of God to Israel and the nations.
—Rabbi Derek Lehman, Tikvat David, Atlanta, author of Yeshua in Context and The World to Come
- Title: Son of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Jewish Movement
- Author: Stuart Dauermann
- Publisher: Wipf & Stock
- Publication Date: 2010
- Pages: 62
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Messianic Judaism