Letter to the Gentile Church
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.