Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Who Is an Evangelical?

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Well, I've heard lots of crazy things over the years said about evangelicals.

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I dare say most evangelical Christians don't know what one is, and no way that our Jewish

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friends know what it is.

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So I want to take a few minutes today as we close our series on Jewish-Christian relations

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to set the record straight about evangelicals.

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Welcome to the Israel Answers series connecting Israel, the Bible, and you.

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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural

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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes which will ignite your faith in bringing the Bible

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to life in your everyday world.

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Now let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

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Since the year 2000, I have spoken to many Jewish organizations and audiences about evangelical

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Christians and their support of Israel.

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So I tend to use the term quite often in my articles and in my teachings, but I recognize

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that most people really don't know who is an evangelical.

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So while today's lesson may be of greatest interest to my Jewish listeners, I think we'll

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all benefit by understanding the various segments and trends within Christianity and to clear

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up some of the confusion.

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So let's get started.

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First point of the first point of confusion is over the description, born again Christians

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versus evangelical Christians.

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Some people will use the terms interchangeably, so they'll use evangelical in a very broad

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way to describe born again Christians.

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The narrow definition of evangelical is very different.

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So I want to explain the difference.

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There are many people who the description of born again Christian applies to.

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These are people who say their faith is important to them.

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It makes a difference in their life.

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They have experienced Christianity on such a personal level that it impacted and changed

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them and or their life.

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So this is describing a faith experience.

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Some estimate as many as a hundred million people in America describe their faith in

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such terms and would qualify as a born again Christian.

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But an evangelical is a description of one's beliefs and not an experience.

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So an evangelical should be a born again Christian and have experienced that life-changing moment

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of faith, what we call salvation.

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We can call it that born again experience and epiphany, whatever, but all evangelicals

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should have experienced that.

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Not all born again Christians who have had an experience know the Bible and have a biblical

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worldview or lifestyle.

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So to qualify as a true evangelical, there are four core pillars of belief.

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One is the authority of the Bible.

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An authority is of course holding to the key doctrines of the Bible, which I'm not going

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to list those and some may list the list differently, but basically there's good and evil, there's

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heaven and hell, there's these things.

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And that salvation, this is third pillar, that salvation comes through the atoning death

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of Jesus on the cross.

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And fourthly, the importance of sharing that good news of what Jesus did with others.

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So the number of true evangelicals, Christians that actually hold to these four pillars,

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it's much less than a hundred million.

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Some people say it's as little as 20 million.

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Let's say it's somewhere in between, but it could be as low as 20 million because I believe

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the number is going down.

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Now this explains a lot of the polling and statistics that are now saying that few evangelicals

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even believe the Bible.

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That actually means they are not evangelical, okay?

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Agreed.

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But the pollsters use the term evangelical in such a broad and sloppy way that a lot

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of their findings don't really make sense.

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They're talking about this larger group of born-again Christians.

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So the difference, born-again Christians, their faith is an experience.

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Evangelicals are defined by their beliefs.

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Evangelicals should also be born-again.

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They should be a subsection of that born-again world, but not all born-again even know their

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Bible and can qualify as an evangelical.

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Now I hope that's helped you.

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Now speaking of pollsters, if you or anyone you're associated with wants to do a poll

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on these issues, please make sure you pick a polling firm that understands the two definitions

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because many do not.

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They also need to know not to rely on self-identification.

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What do I mean?

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Well, if you're going to do a poll and you're going to call up people and say, are you an

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evangelical Christian?

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A lot of them are going to say, I don't know or no.

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Or if you ask them, how would you describe your faith or your religion or your belief?

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They're just going to say, I'm a Christian.

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Born-again Christians, evangelical Christians, they're just going to say, I'm a Christian.

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They don't use these terms.

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These are terms that demographers use.

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So we need to not expect them to self-identify.

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We need to know enough about what we're talking about that we can ask a few questions.

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And we can qualify that person.

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Are they a born-again Christian?

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Are they an evangelical?

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Or are they this or are they that?

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We've got to know what we're talking about.

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And then thirdly, if we're going to do a poll or a study on this issue, we have got to understand

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that these worlds, whether it's evangelical or it's born-again Christian, are deeply divided.

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So no, we do not all look alike, sound alike, say the same things or believe the same things.

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Now let's look at the numbers here.

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Worldwide, there are as many as some say 2.6 billion Christians, meaning part of Christendom.

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Now that includes 1.3 billion Catholics, roughly 1 billion, what I'm going to call Protestant,

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and then about 300 million others, Ethan Orthodox, other movements.

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Now looking at the 1 billion that I call Protestant, roughly 400 million of them are mainline

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Protestants.

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So that includes the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and others,

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other smaller denominations.

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Roughly 600 million of those Protestants are evangelicals.

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And of the 600 million evangelicals, about half of them are Pentecostals and about half

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are not Pentecostals.

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And also, there are individuals who actually believe and would qualify as an evangelical

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Christian that are part of other categories.

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So there's a little blurring of the line.

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I know evangelicals that go to a Catholic church or they go to a Presbyterian or a Methodist,

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a lot of Methodists.

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So you can't really divide these lines by which church they go to or their denominations.

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It's really on their personal beliefs.

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Now this may raise a big question in our Jewish listeners especially, what is a Pentecostal?

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You just told me that about half of the evangelicals are Pentecostal and half are not.

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What's the difference?

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Well, some Pentecostals don't even claim to be evangelical because they've used that

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term for the non-Pentecostal.

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And historically, the divide between these two subgroups within evangelical Christianity

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has been very, very deep.

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Some non-Pentecostals have accused Pentecostals of being of the devil.

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And some Pentecostals have accused non-Pentecostals of not even being saved.

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So this divide has lessened in the last 20 years, but I remember back in the 70s and

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80s, it was really very rough.

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It was very angry and there was a very, very deep divide.

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I'm so glad that today it's less of a divide.

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There's more of a recognition of the validity of each other's faith.

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Now Pentecostal is a segment of the evangelical Christian world who also believe in the necessity

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of being filled or baptized by the Holy Spirit as described in Acts chapter 2, what happened

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on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon this group of believers

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praying.

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And it says that divided the fire fell and divided us to tongues on each individual.

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And it says they all spoke in other tongues.

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So Pentecostal churches or the Pentecostal teaching emphasizes the gifts of the Holy

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Spirit and the activity of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives, empowering us not just

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to live as Christians, but to minister in power to others.

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Now non-Pentecostal teaching is that the Acts 2 experience I just described was a one-time

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experience.

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And after the deaths of the early apostles that this died out, there was no further baptisms

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of the Holy Spirit.

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We all received the infilling of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation, which is

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what we call that born again experience.

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So I am so glad to say today that there is less of a divide, but there has been a very,

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very strong divide and there still is in some pockets in the evangelical world.

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So there you have it, definitions, a little bit of clarity.

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You might be asking, well, what are you?

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Well, I am an evangelical Pentecostal, which means that I am also born again.

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So that's my labels.

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All right.

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Now, my closing point I want to make in this discussion is about the support of Israel

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from the Christian world and which of these groups support Israel and why?

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Well, it's just not that simple.

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We have to divide the Christian world a little bit differently when it comes to their support

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of Israel.

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Now first of all, let me lay the foundation that there are many reasons to support Israel

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that are irrelevant to one's faith or where they fall within this denominational categories

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or even how you read the Bible.

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There are many reasons based on history, legality, many, many reasons.

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And I have a series called Why Christians Support Israel.

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It's a five-part series.

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Four parts deal with all those other reasons.

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The fifth part then we deal with the biblical reasons.

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So there are many Christians that support Israel that may espouse political support or

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a number of types of support.

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But those who do support Israel for the biblical reasons, many are born again Christians and

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they support Israel for kind of sentimental reasons based on the Bible.

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So they know that the people of Israel were the chosen people of God and therefore we

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should support them.

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We should stand with them.

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And then they understand some of the political reasons of our shared values and our shared

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enemies and this kind of thing.

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But evangelicals who are much more biblically based, most of them support Israel and will

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quote biblical reasons.

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The most verse, mostly quoted is Genesis 12-3, which says that those who bless you, God

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speaking to Abraham, I will bless and those who curse you, I will curse and through you,

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all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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Now even within evangelical Christianity though, not every evangelical Christian lines up with

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support of Israel.

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Why would that be?

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You're thinking, well, they've got the same Bible, the same verses.

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And it is because of their approach to the Bible is a little bit differently than the

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bulk of the evangelical world.

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The bulk of the evangelical world reads the Bible to mean exactly what it says, what the

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writers intended it to mean and to say.

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But there is a theology called replacement theology.

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And this approaches the scriptures a little bit differently, that God's promises to Israel

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and the Jewish people have now been put on the church because of the Jewish rejection

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of the Messianic credentials of Jesus and therefore God's rejection of the Jewish people.

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And so he has now put all of their blessings on the church.

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The church has replaced Israel.

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Well, the Bible does not actually say this.

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That is an interpretation and a spiritualization of many things in the Old Testament.

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So the Bible teaches that we have a faithful God who made promises to Abraham 4,000 years

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ago and to Moses and to David and confirmed to the Hebrew prophets that are still being

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fulfilled today and all of them will be fulfilled one day because he is a faithful God.

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He is true to his word and his word is true.

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The church does not replace Israel.

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Our calling is very different from the calling on the people of Israel.

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And as the apostle Paul said in Romans 11, their calling cannot be revoked.

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He just came right out and said it.

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Their calling is irrevocable.

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And even if they are the enemy to the gospel of Christ, they are still beloved for the

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sake of their calling.

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That's what he said in Romans 11.

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Look it up yourself.

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So we see the hand of God at work and the regathering of the Jewish people back to their

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homeland in our days because it is a fulfillment of his promises to Abraham as confirmed by

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the Hebrew prophets.

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If you believe that the Jewish people lost their calling and position with God, then

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the modern regathering is a fluke or a major coincidence of history.

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This is the real dividing line within the Christian world concerning the modern state

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of Israel.

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So how many Christians in the US support Israel?

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I had nobody knows for sure, but I land somewhere around the 50 million mark because it goes

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beyond just the evangelicals.

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There's also much Christian support for Israel in the born-again Christian world, which is

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much larger.

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So for biblical reasons and some of them for more sentimental reasons or political reasons

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or any of the reasons.

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So there is a large reservoir of support for Israel in the American Christian world.

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But let's not take it for granted.

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Many disturbing trends threaten the strength of this support because they're threatening

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the strength of the evangelical movement in America, so we shouldn't take it for granted.

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So that concludes our series on Jews and Christians learning to relate.

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And I hope you learned something today about these different categories of Christians and

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what the terms mean and who we relate to and who supports Israel and who believes this

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and who believes that.

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I hope it's been helpful.

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I really enjoyed this series learning from the pioneers about their work and Jewish-Christian

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relations and anything we can do to help further that relationship is our joy and our

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pleasure.

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So in today's show notes, we link to my series on why Christians support Israel that lay

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out some of these many reasons why we should support Israel.

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I hope that you've enjoyed the series and I can't wait to see you back here.

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I may take a little break, I may not be putting out Israel Answers podcast as often, but we'll

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certainly be doing more series in the future.

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So until then, I say, God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.