The Light of Torah

The words below belong to my friend Sergio DeSoto—a Jewish believer, and author and editor of SergioDesoto.com, an incredible blog dedicated to serious conversations about faith. Sergio carries a deep love for the Torah and a thoughtful, lived perspective on how it shapes his life as a follower of Yeshua. I asked him to speak directly to Christians about a question that has shaped so much of my own work: What is the Christian relationship to the Torah?

I have learned a great deal from Sergio, and I’m honored to share his words here. Read them with an open heart—and a willingness to see what you may have missed.

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Most Christians have never been told that the word Torah doesn't mean "law."

It means instruction. Direction. The kind of teaching a father gives a child he loves — not to burden them, but to form them. When God gave Israel His Torah at Sinai, He wasn't handing down a penal code. He was giving a rescued people the shape of life with Him. Holiness. Justice. Worship. Covenant. The categories that hold everything else together.

But somewhere along the way, the church began treating Torah as the thing Jesus came to fix.

That is a serious mistake. And it has cost the church more than most believers realize.

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What Yeshua Was Actually Confronting

Read the Gospels again — slowly, without the filter of what you were taught He was doing — and something becomes obvious. Yeshua never once rebuked obedience to God's commandments. Not once.

He rebuked hypocrisy. He confronted religious theater — leaders who loved the appearance of holiness but neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness. He went after systems that crushed ordinary people under the weight of man-made traditions while the leaders who built those systems exempted themselves.

When He clashed with the religious establishment, He did not say, "Stop obeying the Father." He said something far more dangerous:

You have abandoned the commandment of God and are holding to human tradition (Mark 7:8, paraphrased).

Catch that. The problem was not that people were following God's instruction. The problem was that religious leaders had buried God's instruction under layers of their own authority — and then called the whole pile sacred.

Yeshua did not come to liberate people from God's word. He came to expose those who had made God's word unrecognizable.

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The Uncomfortable Paradox

Here is where it gets uncomfortable for a lot of sincere believers.

What many Christians now dismiss as outdated or irrelevant — the Torah, the commandments, the covenant framework of the Hebrew Scriptures — is exactly what Yeshua upheld, lived inside, and taught from. He kept Shabbat. He observed the feasts. He taught from Moses and the Prophets. He quoted Deuteronomy to the adversary in the wilderness.

He did not treat Torah as a rough draft that needed correcting. He treated it as His Father's voice — and He walked in it perfectly.

So when the church says Torah is finished, they are not following Yeshua's example. They are contradicting it. Not out of malice, usually. Out of inheritance. Generations of teaching have framed Torah as the failed first attempt and grace as the real answer, as though God needed two tries to get it right.

But that framing does not come from Scripture. It comes from centuries of theology that slowly — and sometimes deliberately — severed Jesus from His Jewish world.

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My Own Turning Point

I used to think the same way.

When I heard the word "law," my mind went straight to bondage. Old covenant. Something heavy that Jesus lifted. I had inherited an entire story where Torah was the problem and the cross was the solution to Torah. Grace meant freedom from God's instructions, and obedience sounded suspiciously like earning something you were supposed to receive for free.

Then I stopped reading the Bible as a religion book and started reading it as covenant history. Not a collection of spiritual principles organized by topic. Not a devotional resource. A record of God binding Himself to a people, speaking to them in real time, forming them through instruction, warning them through prophets, and relentlessly holding the door open for return.

That single shift changed everything. I stopped asking, "What does my tradition say this means?" and started asking, "What did this mean to the people who first received it?" And the moment I asked that question honestly, the categories I had inherited started collapsing.

Torah was not bondage. It was the marriage covenant between God and His people. The "New Covenant" in Jeremiah 31 was not a replacement — it was a promise to write the same Torah on their hearts. Paul was not arguing against obedience — he was arguing against the idea that Gentiles had to become ethnically Jewish to enter the covenant. The entire story was one story, and I had been reading it as two.

The lights didn't go off. They came on.

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What Gets Lost

When Yeshua is disconnected from Torah, the church doesn't just lose a theological category. It loses the ability to understand its own Scriptures.

"Kingdom of God" loses its covenant texture — it becomes a vague spiritual destination instead of the reign of Israel's promised King. "Lamb of God" becomes a metaphor instead of the fulfillment of a sacrificial system that God Himself designed. "Repentance" gets reduced to feeling sorry instead of what the Hebrew concept actually means: return — covenantal turning back to the God you walked away from.

And "grace" — the word Christians love most — gets pitted against obedience, as though God's kindness and God's instruction are enemies. That split is completely foreign to the biblical world. Torah is grace. It was the gift of a faithful God to a people He had already rescued. He didn't give them instructions to earn His love. He gave them instructions because He loved them. Deuteronomy 6 is not a contract. It is a father telling His children how to stay close.

Even the New Testament becomes harder to read honestly. Paul gets cast as anti-Torah — the apostle who finally set people free from all those rules. But Paul kept the feasts. Paul took a Nazirite vow in Acts 21. Paul told Timothy that all Scripture — which at that point meant the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible — is God-breathed and useful for instruction. He was not dismantling Torah. He was arguing that Gentiles enter the covenant through Messiah, not through ethnic conversion. That is a radically different claim than "Torah is over."

When you strip all of that away, you don't get a cleaner gospel. You get a Christ who floats above His own story — still beloved, still quoted, but severed from the world that gave His words their meaning.

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A Word About What This Feels Like

I need to say this plainly, because it rarely gets said in Christian spaces.

Torah was not a burden inflicted on Israel. It was a gift entrusted to them. When Christians speak of it as bondage, as failure, as something expired — it lands hard on those of us for whom this is not abstract theology. It is our story. Our covenant. The revelation God entrusted to our fathers.

It can feel like the church wants the Jewish Messiah but not the Jewish story that gave Him context. It can sound — even when no one intends it — like contempt dressed in theological language.

I am not saying this to guilt anyone. I am saying it because if the body of Messiah is going to mature, it has to reckon with this. You cannot claim to honor the root while dismissing what the root produced. Romans 11 is not a footnote. It is a warning: do not be arrogant toward the branches. The Gentile church was grafted into Israel's olive tree — not planted in its own garden.

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Read Again — But Read Honestly

I am not asking anyone to become Jewish. I am not asking anyone to abandon their church or torch their theology overnight.

I am asking something simpler and harder: read again.

Read the Bible as one story — not two Testaments in tension, but one covenant unfolding. Read Torah not as the thing Jesus replaced, but as the foundation He built on. Read the apostles not as founders of a new religion, but as Jewish witnesses to the fulfillment of promises that were Jewish from the beginning. Stop assuming Torah is the villain. Stop calling legalism what God called instruction. Let the text challenge the system you inherited, and see whether the roots have something to say that your tradition trained you not to hear.

Because if the Torah was good enough for Yeshua to live by, to teach from, and to die fulfilling — then maybe the question is not why some of us take it seriously. Maybe the question is why so many were taught not to.

The Torah was never the darkness. In many ways, it is the lamp most Christians were taught not to look at.

When you read Scripture as covenant history instead of inherited religion, the lights do not go off.

They come on.

Selah.

When you hear the word "Torah," what is your first instinct — and who taught you to react that way? If Yeshua lived inside Torah and never spoke against it, what does it mean that His church treats it as obsolete? What would change in your faith if you stopped reading the Bible as two books and started reading it as one?

Shalom v'shalvah. Your brother in the Way,

Sergio

I’m grateful for voices like Sergio’s in this conversation. If his words have resonated with you as deeply as they have with me, you explore more of his work and support what he’s building here: www.sergiodesoto.com.

Copyright © Sergio DeSoto. All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this essay freely with proper attribution. Do not reproduce, alter, or monetize without written permission.

Letter to the Gentile Church

The words below belong to my friend Matt Davis, a Jewish believer and the co-founder of The Jewish Road. Matt has dedicated many years to helping others better understand Israel, the Jewish people, and the Jewish roots of our shared faith—work that has positioned him as a trusted and leading voice on these questions. I asked him to write a letter to the Christian church, sharing what was on his heart in this moment. It is a privilege to publish his letter here, and I invite you to read it prayerfully and with an open heart.

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Dear friends,

I write to you as a Jewish follower of Jesus, our Jewish Messiah, and as a teaching pastor who has spent years inside the modern American church. I love the Church. I have given my life to her. And because I love her, I need to speak plainly.

We are living in biblical times again. Not as metaphor. Not as hype. In the same sense the prophets, apostles, and early believers lived with the awareness that God was actively moving history toward His promises. The pages of Scripture are no longer distant. They are pressing in.

Here is what I see.

The Church loves the Israel of the Bible. We teach the stories. We preach the promises. We quote the prophets. We sing the psalms.

But when it comes to the Israel of today—the Jewish people who are still here, still scattered, still returning, and still contested—things get uncomfortable. The storyline that once felt clear now feels debated. Redefined. Complicated. Safer to keep at arm’s length.

Somewhere along the way, the solid line between Scripture and history became dashed. Then dotted. Then faint. And for many, it has all but disappeared. But God has not broken the line.

From the inside, covenant is not an idea. It is not a theological category. It is identity. It is memory carried in the body. It is promise passed down through generations that have known exile, survival, hatred, and hope all at once. When the Bible speaks about Israel, it is not speaking about a concept. It is speaking about a people God refuses to forget.

This is why Paul’s words in Romans 9 are not academic to me. His anguish is familiar. “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” That tension, love for his people, faith in Messiah, grief over blindness, hope for restoration, never goes away. It lives in me, too.

And I will tell you something that may be hard to hear.

It is painful to watch others define or redefine Israel while standing at a distance from the people themselves.

It is painful when Jewish identity is flattened into symbols, headlines, or arguments.

It is painful when the people of the Book are discussed endlessly but rarely listened to.

And yet, I remain hopeful. Because I also see Gentile believers who genuinely want to understand. Who sense that something matters here, even if they cannot yet articulate it. Who feel the weight of Scripture and refuse to dismiss what God has said, simply because it no longer fits neatly into modern categories.

So how do you love Israel rightly, from afar?

You start by refusing shortcuts.
You let Scripture speak before social media does.
You resist the urge to rush to conclusions without first sitting with the story.
You remember that God’s faithfulness to Israel is not a side issue. It is evidence that He keeps His word.

And you make room for Jewish believers like me, who walk between worlds.

I live in that tension every day. I know the language of the Church. I know her systems, her strengths, and her blind spots. I also know what it is to carry Jewish identity in a Western world that does not quite know what to do with it. I stand in Messiah, yet I remain Jewish. Those things are not opposed. They never were.

What gives me hope is this: the same Messiah who tore down the dividing wall is still doing that work. Not by erasing difference, but by redeeming it. Unity does not require sameness. It requires truth, humility, and faithfulness.

As the end draws nearer, clarity will matter more than comfort. The Church will need to remember her roots, not out of nostalgia, but out of obedience. The God who keeps covenant with Israel is the same God who grafted the nations in. If He can forget Israel, He can forget anyone.

But He will not. He never has.

My prayer is not that you would take a side, but that you would take God at His word. That you would hold fast to the storyline even when it feels costly. That you would love both the Jewish people and the Gentile Church enough to seek truth instead of ease.

The line is still there. God is still writing the story. And we are living in the middle of it.

With respect, urgency, and hope,

Matt

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If Matt’s words resonated with you as they have with me, you can continue listening and learning through the The Jewish Road’s blog or latest podcast episode, and learn more about supporting their important work here.

The True Israel

People sat scattered across the sofas and armchairs in my living room, Bibles open. We were wrapping up two years of studying the Torah together. The room felt thick with both accomplishment and unfinished business, like like we had reached a summit only to realize there was another massive ridge beyond it.

Then someone finally asked the question that we had been circling for weeks—maybe months:

“Okay, I get that this is about ancient Israel. I get that the Torah is their story. But where are these people today? Who is the true Israel? Who are these people now?”

It was an important and heartfelt question, and one that has seen heated debate by popular commentators. I swallowed, and opened my Bible to Romans 9, trying my best to help a room full of Christians make sense of a letter we’ve so often treated like a theology textbook. But as I began to guide us through the passage, something unexpected happened.

I felt anguish.

Paul’s words “not all Israel is Israel,” have come to mean so many different things and unleashed devastating outcomes he never intended. While the question itself was good and asked by someone sincerely searching for an answer, the fact that we even have to ask it left me deeply bothered me.

I was grieved that I—a Gentile follower of Jesus, disconnected from any Jewish community—was the one trying to answer it. What right do I have?

It doesn’t matter who I say Israel is. It matters who God says Israel is—and who the Jewish people themselves say they are. I felt that absence of a Jewish voice so sharply. But since I had no better option, I read Romans 9:2 aloud, feeling every word of Paul in my bones.

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”

— Romans 9:2

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The Tears Behind Romans

One of the most theological books in the New Testament contains a guttural lament.

Behind Paul’s careful reasoning stands a man with tears running down his face. A Jew born into Israel’s story, he now watched many of his own people reject the Messiah he believed was promised to them. The pain ran so deep that Paul said he would trade his own salvation if it could mean their redemption.

Romans, for all its theology, is still a letter—written to real people by a real person at a real moment in history. Like my small group, the believers in Rome were mostly Gentiles. Years earlier, Emperor Claudius had expelled the Jews from the city (around AD 49), scattering the Jews and Jewish followers of Jesus. By the time Paul wrote, the Roman house churches were Gentile-majority communities. That shift shaped how they saw themselves in God’s plan. They wondered, was God done with the Jews who had been run out of town?

So when Paul confronts this and asks, “Has God’s word failed?” (Rom. 9:6), he’s not condemning Israel’s disobedience. He’s defending God’s faithfulness in the face of Israel’s unbelief.

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The Famous Line

“For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” — Romans 9:6

Few lines in the New Testament have shaped Christian theology more—and perhaps few have been more misunderstood.

Over time, many interpretations have taken root:

• “Ethnic Israel isn’t the true Israel; the Church is.”

• “The modern state of Israel is different than the biblical nation of Israel. The true Israel is spiritual, believers in Christ.”

• “Israel is a symbol of God’s people—Christians.”

• “The true Israel is a lost group, scattered among the nations—not the Jewish people today.”

And on the sayings go. Together, these kinds ideas form what’s known as Replacement Theology—the belief that faith in Jesus replaces Israel’s covenantal election.

Toward the end of the first century, the Jew/Gentile house-churches in the Roman world became increasingly Gentile-majority. Over time, and for a variety of reasons, these Gentiles began to reinterpret Israel’s story as their own, recasting the Hebrew Scriptures through a distinctly Christian lens. Gradually, this led to a theology that redirected Israel’s promises to the Church—until “true Israel” came to mean believers in Jesus, and the Jewish people were seen as rejected, replaced, or set aside.

This shift left a deep interpretive scar that the Church has struggled to move past. Even today, most of us have inherited a story that strips of Israel of her biblical identity, and that has affected nearly every area of modern life and faith.

Our reasoning assumes Israel’s covenant identity depends on spiritual performance or political ideologies rather than divine promise. Yet Paul’s whole argument in Romans 9–11 rejects that idea.

Paul’s line, “Not all Israel is Israel,” doesn’t pit Israel against the Church. In his day, there was no “Church” to oppose Israel.

Instead, Paul was distinguishing between Israel—the unbelieving majority—and Israel—the faithful remnant within. Throughout Israel’s history, a faithful remnant preserved the covenant while others rebelled (see Elijah in 1 Kings 19, Isa. 10:22, Deut. 30:1–6).

The contrast Paul refers to is within Israel, not between Israel and the Church, or Israel and some other group. When Paul grieved over Israel, he wasn’t lamenting the faithful remnant but the unbelieving majority of his own people, the same covenant people still scattered among the nations and within the land today.

His hope was not in human persuasion or missionary effort, but in God’s faithfulness to redeem them. Israel’s story, in Paul’s view, is unfinished, but not forsaken.

That’s the part Christians so easily miss. It seems we have so easily allowed our doctrines and geopolitics to define Israel, rather than take God’s word for what he says about them.

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Who Israel Says She Is

That’s why I felt anguish that day in my living room. I have no right to answer the question.

For too long, Christians like me have done most of the talking about Israel. We interpret her Scriptures, stories, and prophecies. We define her identity, usually without hearing from the people to whom the story actually belongs. The Jewish people wrote and preserved the Scriptures we stake our lives on. Maybe we ought to listen to what they have to say about them, before forming our own conclusions.

If Paul’s words about the remnant are true, then that remnant still exists today.

So rather than simply explain what Paul meant in this article, I want to let someone who embodies Paul’s message do the talking.

My friend Matt Davis is a Jewish follower of Jesus and co-founder of The Jewish Road. He carries this tension in his own life. Matt feels the deep joy of knowing Messiah, a pastoral love for the Christian church, and the ache of longing for his people to know the Messiah too. Like Paul, Matt believes Israel’s story doesn’t end in rejection, but in redemption.

Here’s how Matt explains who the Jewish people are and what hope still burns for Israel’s future:

“The Jewish people, including those living in Israel today, are still part of that covenant family God chose through Abraham. But I understand why the question [of Jewish identity] comes up.

Some people assume that because most Jews today don’t believe in Jesus (about 98%), they must have forfeited their status as God’s chosen people. Others have heard conspiracy theories, that the modern State of Israel is just a political project, even a plot funded by wealthy families like the Rothschilds. Still others look at the return of Jewish people from all over the world and say, “How can these scattered, mixed-heritage people possibly be the same as the Israelites in the Bible? Too much time has passed. The diaspora has blurred it all.”

From there, it’s an easy leap for some to say, “Well, if the question of Jewish identity is that muddled, maybe the only real answer is that all the promises God made to the Jewish people now belong to a ‘new Israel’ - the church.”

But before you accept that conclusion, you have to ask: If the Jews living in Israel today are not the ‘real’ Jews…then who is?

History itself seems to have no confusion on this point. From the early church’s persecution to the Crusades, from the pogroms of Europe to the Holocaust, and even to the attacks of October 7, the Jewish people have carried a unique mark since the days of Abraham. If they are not the covenant people, why has the enemy - whether spiritual or human - been so consistent in identifying them as such? The Jewish people have been singled out again and again as those Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God’s covenant was never based on flawless genealogy or perfect faith. It was based on His own promise. Throughout history, Israel has been exiled, scattered, and regathered - just as the prophets said would happen (Isaiah 43:5–6; Ezekiel 36:24). That scattering didn’t dissolve the covenant, it fulfilled the very warnings God gave through Moses. And the regathering we see today isn’t a random political accident - it’s part of the long, slow return that God Himself said He would accomplish.

As for unbelief, Paul is clear: “As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers” (Romans 11:28). 

The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Unbelief may break fellowship, but it cannot break the covenant.

So when you see Jewish people in the land of Israel today - whether they came from Ethiopia, Russia, America, or Yemen - you are looking at living evidence that God keeps His word. The covenant conversation is not about who holds the most pure DNA or whether the state of Israel’s politics are perfect. It’s about the faithfulness of the God who made an everlasting promise and has not gone back on it.[1]”

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Listening to the Voice of the Remnant

Matt’s words humble me, “Unbelief may break fellowship, but it cannot break the covenant.” I spent many years believing the deception because I was too naive and complacent in my own faith to go meditate in the Scriptures for myself. I believed because of my faith in Jesus I was “in,” and that was all I cared about. I tuned out in Romans. I did not heed the voice of the remnant God has so mercifully preserved. I read Paul, but I didn’t listen to Paul.

That was terribly wrong.

Now, I sit in repentance. God has been so merciful to bring me along. People like Matt have been so kind. They’ve helped me grow and welcomed me to the table to learn with them. But anguish still washes over me.

I grieve because I didn’t know God’s promises to Israel were still alive.

Paul grieved because he knew God’s promises to Israel were still alive.

Matt grieves, and also rejoices, because he knows those promises still reach into the present.

As Gentile believers, we must learn to carry that grief with the faithful remnant like Matt—not by speaking over Israel’s story, but by learning to honor the root that supports us.

Romans 9–11 is not an academic puzzle. It is a window into God’s heart.
A heart that refuses to abandon his people.
A heart that gathers the nations without discarding the firstborn son.
A heart that binds Jew and Gentile into one olive tree rooted in Abraham’s covenant.

We must find the humility to hear story of Israel as told by the faithful remnant today. To believe in who God says Israel is.

The Messiah of Israel will complete what he began—here, in the world he made, among the people he chose, for the sake of every nation he longs to bless.

This is the hope we stake our lives on. This is the gospel of the kingdom going out to the nations.

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Up Next: Matt’s words, and the questions that emerged in our small group, moved me so deeply that I knew the conversation couldn’t end there. I asked him to write a letter sharing what was on his heart for the non-Jewish American church. His words are honest, powerful, and carry a message we can’t afford to ignore. I’ll be publishing his letter here next week. Stay tuned and subscribe to stay up-to-date.

Notes

[1] The Jewish Road, Are the Jews in Israel Today Still the People of Promise?, accessed December 10, 2025, https://thejewishroad.com/blog/are-the-jews-in-israel-today-still-the-people-of-promise.

When Captives are Set Free

Two years ago, in the final hours of the biblical holiday Sukkot—the Festival of Tabernacles—the nation of Israel was brutally attacked. More than 1,200 people were murdered, and 251 civilians were taken hostage.

One week ago, in the first hours of Sukkot this year, I gathered with a few others to pray for the peace of Jerusalem—and especially for the fate of those still held captive.

Today, in the final hours of Sukkot, all of the living hostages were released.

That is a miracle.
Praise be to the God who has not forgotten—and will never forget—his people.

“The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.”
— Nehemiah 8:17–18

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The Wounds That Remain

Two years of war have marred the land and the people who call it home. Though the gunfire may grow quiet, the wider war unleashed globally on October 7, 2023, remains unresolved.

Hamas’s attack left families shattered. Iran has attempted to annihilate Israel multiple times directly and through its proxies on every side. The entire civilian population has lived in-and-out of bomb shelters or displaced from their homes altogether, while the young soldiers of the IDF have faced unimaginable danger to bring the captives home.

While Hamas hid behind their own children—in schools, hospitals, and UN facilities—the IDF stood in front of them to defend their nation and innocent life. 891 Israeli soldiers have been killed. The grief is deep. And yet, in the midst of so much death, God has answered prayer.

When the war subsides, I pray that all who call Israel home—Israeli and Arab—can find some measure of rest. But the trauma will remain for a long time, and the ache of what was lost will not easily fade.

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The Silence That Spoke Louder

It is the silence that will be most difficult for me to forget—the near-total absence of moral clarity from much of the Western world, and from mainstream Christianity, including Christian media and the voices of prominent leaders, both national and local. I wish it were not the case, but that silence only amplified the volume of death chants and calls for Israel’s annihilation, nourishing fertile soil for antisemitism’s resurgence across the world.

It grieves me to say that in the past two years, I have never been more ashamed to be connected with Christianity. At the same time, I have never been more committed to live faithfully within it.

I have prayed often for God’s forgiveness, that he would soften the church and draw us to corporate repentance. No one is beyond his mercy, but I fear many hearts have hardened against his word.

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The Cost of Silence

In the past two years, Christianity has shown that it prefers private reflection to collective repentance, indifference to conviction, and solitary prayer to shared intercession. We are told to speak less, avoid controversy, and “focus on Jesus.” Yet to be the peacemakers our Lord blessed means stepping into places that are anything but peaceful.

I fear that much of Christian leadership has remained silent not out of a desire to lead well, but out of refusal to lead when it matters most. In the face of evil, many have stood speechless—some from ignorance, some from unbelief, and some from fear.

It has come at a devastating cost.

• It has left Jewish believers feeling abandoned by the Body of Messiah that claims to be grafted into their story.

• It has emboldened the wicked, convincing them that a weak-kneed Church will not contend for truth when truth is costly.

• It has confused a watching world—people who do not know Jesus—who now see a faith unwilling to name evil unless it is fashionable or politically convenient.

• And perhaps most tragically, it has profaned our witness to the God of Abraham—the God we worship—who hears the blood of Abel crying out from the ground.

On the matter of Israel, Christian leadership confused silence for virtue and neutrality for wisdom in the very place where God has spoken most clearly. The Prophets would weep. Like the complacent of Amos’s day, we were not “grieved over the ruin of Joseph” (Amos 6:6).

But taking a political or theological stance that has no place for Israel does not grant us license to avoid naming evil for what it is—especially when that evil wounds the very people through whom our faith first came, including many Jewish followers of Jesus.

Yet the silence of many has made the courage of a few all the more radiant. I am deeply encouraged by the pastors, leaders, and ordinary believers who have chosen to speak and act with both righteousness and compassion. They have endured opposition and public shame, yet have stood firm in calling the nations to bless Israel, pray for her peace, and intercede for her enemies and all innocents in the crossfire.

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Faithful in the Face of Evil

As believers, we are not called to outrage, activism, or to turn our pulpits into political platforms. But we are called to condemn evil, to cling to what is good, and to take up the cause of the vulnerable as if it were our own.

Every generation faces the spirit of Amalek. In ours, it looks like Hamas. It looks like the attack on the Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur. It looks like the emboldened darkness that now calls good evil and evil good. Yet even as we name evil for what it is, we must guard our hearts from becoming what we condemn.

You can grieve loss on every side.
You can pray for the peace of Jerusalem without condoning every political or military action.
You can mourn innocent lives and still believe God’s covenant stands.

And while we wait for his justice, our call remains the same: to love what God loves, to stand where he stands, and to hope in what he has promised.

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The Deliverer Who Will Come

Today, I rejoice in the release of the captives and the glimpse of relative stability, prayerfully, returning to the land. I also grieve the tragic witness the church has offered in these days.

But the story of captivity is not over.

Jesus echoed the prophets, who foresaw a final day when Israel would again be surrounded by the nations. Just as God raised up deliverers in Egypt, we hold a blessed hope that he will send his Messiah once more—not as the suffering servant, but as the king who brings justice and peace.

When that day comes, it won’t be a peace deal brokered by pompous and fallen diplomats. It will be Jesus Messiah who sets free the captives and brings the Lord’s favor, forever.

Until then, we rejoice greatly in the God who never forgets what he swore.

Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.

All scripture quotations are ESV.

What Does It Mean to Stand With Israel?

As bombs flew over Iran toward Israeli soil, the world watched, unsurprised, as the Iron Dome lit up the sky. The scales of the Middle East shifted again, deepening the political and humanitarian nightmare. Christians look on with questions:

• How should believers respond to the events in the Middle East?

• Should we pay attention, and why?

• Are biblical prophecies unfolding?

• Is Jesus coming back soon?

• Do we take a side—and if so, which one?

Among Christians who “stand with Israel,” many do so from sincere compassion. They recognize Hamas’s attacks as evil and stand with the Jewish people because of their pain. Others are motivated by politics—Israel is our ally, so we defend her. Still others stand because Israel factors into “end-time” events, wanting to be on the Lion of Judah’s side when the Day of the Lord comes.

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Covenant Connection

This relationship is central to Scripture yet often overlooked—or denied—in Christian teaching. If we stand with Israel only for politics, compassion, or eschatology, we risk missing the heart of the Father.

To stand with Israel as Gentile followers of Jesus means embracing a covenantal connection with the Jewish people.

As believers, if we only stand with Israel because we are politically motivated to do so, or because we don't want innocent people to get hurt, or because we have a static, eschatological-only use for the land of Israel and the Jewish people, then unfortunately, I believe we are standing for the wrong thing. Our sentiments may be well-intended, but alone they are alienating us from the Jewish people and from the heart of the Father Himself.

“Covenant” may sound vague or religious, but the Bible is clear: God is knitting believers from the nations together with His chosen people, Israel. For as much as we quote the book of Ephesians, it often seems as though we have missed it's central point:

“…remember that you [non-Jews] were once separated from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Messiah Jesus you [non-Jews] who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both [Jew and non-Jew] one…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace…you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Messiah…This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Messiah Jesus through the good news. 

Ephesians 2:12-16, 3:4-6 (paraphrase)

God, in his great wisdom, is unveiling a new man made up of every tribe, nation, and language, that originates in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and grows from the root of the Jewish people.

It's easy to translate this to "Jews accept Jesus, get saved, convert to Christianity, and join the body of Christ." But that is a backwards understanding of the text.

Instead, it is Gentile believers who join themselves to Israel’s God through her Messiah. God has a plan to redeem the nation of Israel and the Jewish people and reveal himself to them by his timing and design. God has always invited non-Jews to play an intricate part in that plan while retaining their unique ethnic identities.

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God Has Not Forsaken Israel

Israel is precious to God—the apple of his eye, his firstborn, the people on whom he set his love. Nothing has changed since the days God spoke those words through Moses and the prophets. It didn't change at the cross or the resurrection, and it remains unchanged today.

But many Christians have not been taught this. We’ve been taught that the Bible’s story centers on us and our sin, with Jesus offering forgiveness and heaven. Yet on Israel and her Messiah, the Bible presents a far bigger story—one many of us are unprepared to receive.

Paul warns Gentile believers not to become arrogant:

“Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in…what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? … Do not consider yourself superior to the other branches. You do not support the root, but the root supports you” (Romans 11, paraphrase).

This is not a “free pass” for Israel. Paul trusts God’s plan to bring them to redemption and warns Gentiles to honor the root that supports them.

The prophets echo the same call. Amos rebuked those who “do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph” while living in comfort (Amos 6). The Psalms call us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122). Like Ruth cleaving to Naomi, or Jonathan binding himself to David, those who fear God seek the good of his people, even in their darkest hour.

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A Covenant Stance

To stand with Israel as believers means committing ourselves to God’s purposes for his chosen people regardless of their nation’s current condition. We can adopt shoulder-to-shoulder stance of covenantal loyalty—honoring Israel’s suffering now and proclaiming her vindication to come. This is not blind support for every government policy or military action. Compassion and covenant are not enemies; we can still be moved for the innocent and believe in God’s covenant.

In great faith, we can step forward into the role of preparing the bride saying, "I'm going to join myself to you. I'm going to stand in truth and love for you when you are crumbling and burden by your mistakes. I'm going to cry out for you when you are too weak to whisper and intercede when you are too rebellious and arrogant to see the One who holds your victory. And I'm going to do this because your Messiah took compassion on a dog like me. I'm going to honor you as the greatest of all the brothers because your brother honored me. And he has not forgotten you."

Isaiah foresaw the day when Egypt, Assyria, and Israel would together be “a blessing on the earth” (Is. 19:24). The nations will stream to Jerusalem to learn God’s ways (Is. 2:2-3). We are invited to participate in that future now—by aligning our hearts with his covenant plan.

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Our Choice

We can ignore this message and stay comfortable—scrolling past headlines, singing our worship songs, and congratulating ourselves for theologically explaining away the blessing that belongs to our brother.

Or we can humble ourselves. We can remove our Christian-centric lenses, thank God for the message that brought us this far, and take the next step—asking him to give us ears to hear what he is saying through his Word, seeking its wisdom to make sense of the world’s stage today.

We can join ourselves to his people: stand with them in truth and love when they are weak, pray for them when they cannot pray for themselves, intercede when they are rebellious, and to love in the face of hate. We can honor them because their God had compassion on us.

To stand with Israel this way will be a steep learning curve—a rollercoaster of faith. But our Lord promises: “The one who endures to the end will be saved.”

“Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellion of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us…You will give truth to Jacob and unchanging love to Abraham, which You swore to our forefathers from the days of old” (Micah 7:18-20).

May we have ears to hear the Spirit, humility to seek the truth, and endurance to stand in courageous love.