Caller: My questions is, are we as Christians - are we messianic Jews? And if not, what is the difference between a Christian and a messianic Jew?
Pastor Doug: Well a Christian is someone who believes in - the word Christ of course is the Greek word for 'anointed'. The word Messiah is the Hebrew word for 'anointed'. They're really the same word.
Caller: Right.
Pastor Doug: And so a messianic Christian is sort of a uh - it's a play on words. It doesn't really - it's like saying, 'Messiah, Messiah'. A messianic Jew technically is someone who is of Jewish physical heritage that believes that Jesus was the Messiah. Christians are people who believe Jesus was the Messiah but we are Spiritual Jews. We may not have any Jewish DNA that comes from Abraham, but we are grafted into the stock of Israel according to Paul because we are children of faith. And if you are of faith, then you are Abraham's seed if you have faith in Christ.
Now we have a new book - boy uh, they're hitting the - people are going to think we're paying these callers laughter...
Caller: Another book laughter...
Pastor Doug: Well I've just got a book that just came out it came out in the last six months - it's called Spiritual Israel and it goes into great detail about this very question. See we look at - let me tell you how we do this Lee. We get a lot of questions that are similar and we say, 'You know, there's a lot of confusion on this subject' and I try to do a study and write a book that answers the most common questions. A lot of questions are on the role of Israel, Spiritual Jews, and what it means to be a Christian, and when a Jew becomes a Christian what are they? So uh, we wrote this book and it has been very popular. Spiritual Israel. I wrote this with Steve Wolberg who is another Jew.
Wow!
Pastor Doug: And we'll send it to you for free.
Caller: Okay, just call the Resource Line.
Co-Host: Yup, yup just call 'em.
Pastor Doug: We're very generous. We live by faith.
Co-Host: 1-800-835-6747
Caller: Praise the Lord! Thank you.