When sharing Jesus with Jewish people, the typically narrow and “Christian” message of the Gospel mostly falls on deaf ears. This is, in large part, because it fails to address something long-forgotten by Jews and long-buried by Christianity: namely, the Jew’s enduring, unique and God-given purpose to help save the world. My latest book, The Gos­pel According to Israel: A Jewish Presentation of the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah (gospelofisrael.com) was written primarily to remedy this deficiency. While all believers in Yeshua will find that the book provides a more complete gospel message, and equips them to share that message with Jewish people, it was written in such a way that Jewish people who receive and read it may better see themselves as part of Israel’s salvation story, rather than as a potential anomaly within a Christian religion.

The modern Gospel message, despite its shortcomings, has, in fact, resonated with some present-day Jews. It grew out of the spiritual openness of the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s to mid 70s, fueled by the view that contemporary events, such as the 1948 founding of Israel, were prophetic biblical fulfillment. Though many older Jews had already begun drifting away from God in the shadow of the Holocaust, younger Jews were receptive to the message of the Gospel. Some became Christians, while others became Messianic Jews—yet the message that persuaded them to believe was essentially the same: God has a wonderful plan for your life, man has a sin problem, God’s provision for that problem is Yeshua’s sacrifice, and only by accepting Yeshua into your heart can you be saved.

This attenuated Gospel was crafted during a time when about ninety-five percent of Americans were Chris­tians. The message was aimed at people who already had an overwhelmingly cultural predisposition to believing in Jesus. The Jewish people who did receive this Good News either assimilated into Christian culture, or began Mes­sianic synagogues as a way of synthesizing life in Yeshua with traditional Judaism. Yet even though many Messianic Jews today maintain this synthesis, by and large, the Gospel message they proclaim—originally contextualized for nominal, Gentile Christians—remains the same. They offer a Jewish way for Jews to believe in Yeshua (often confined to a Judaism-style framework), yet it is absent one very specific Jewish message: a message meant to persuade the unbelieving Jew of his intercessory purpose and role outside institutional religion as part of the righteous remnant of Israel—a purpose which can only be fulfilled in Yeshua.

The reason to revise the way we talk to Jewish people about Jesus today is because American Jews are, unfortunately, more resistant to God than ever. A 2013 Pew Re­search Center survey might at first seem to contradict this idea, finding that 40% of Jews believed that a Jewish person could believe in Jesus and still be considered a Jew. Such open-mindedness among Jews of earlier generations was literally unheard of. And yet, it is not surprising that today’s Jews are so much more tolerant of Jewish believers, since the Pew Center also found that almost 75% of today’s Jews don’t believe in the God of the Bible at all! In other words, a vast number of Jews don’t care whether or not a Jew believes in Jesus, because they don’t even care whether or not a Jew believes in the God of Israel.

It is this monumental disconnect from God, causing a detachment from Jewish purpose, that is at the core of today’s Jewish rejection of Yeshua. It is an age-old issue, but God, in His foresight, made provision to be remembered.

And [God] raised up a testimony in Ya’aqov [Jacob], And had placed a Torah in Yis’rael [Israel], That He commanded our fathers To make them known to their sons So that a later generation will know—Sons who are not yet born who will arise and recount them to their sons. And they will place their confidence in God, And not forget the deeds of God, But guard His commands…. (Psalm 78:5-7, mjlt)

Yet, as both biblical and post-biblical history show, the generations of Israel have not “prepared [their] heart, Nor is [their] ruach [spirit] faithful with God” (Psalm 78:8). The complete message of the Good News for the Jew, then, needs to go far beyond a message of personal salvation. It must also include a message of restoration to the calling for which God set Israel apart around 4,000 years ago. The Jewish people must become that kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6), for as Paul says,

“Adonai has commanded us [Jews]: ‘I have set you as a light for the [nations]—for your being for salvation to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 13:47, cf. Isaiah 49:6, mjlt)

It is every Jew’s unique calling to benefit and help save the world… and it can only be answered through Yeshua.

A Jewish presentation of the Good News of Yeshua needs to do more than persuade Jews that God has a wonderful plan for their lives. It instead needs to awaken and stir their ancient memory, reminding them that they are still at the center of God’s plan to restore the world in Messiah. Both Jew and Gentile stand equal before God in our individual salvation, which needs to be proclaimed to all. But the Good News presented to the Jew also needs to go back to the beginning. A distinctive message is needed because of the distinctiveness of the Jew.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below!