Overheard on the Street

Jew not-for-Jesus to a Jew for Jesus, responding to this: "Moses is our God."

To which Moses is surely saying, "Gevalt," or the equivalent.

Speaking of Moses. . . some people who don't go as far as the person above, respond to Jews for Jesus by telling us, "I'm a Jew for Moses" -- whether or not they actually believe in Moses, or in God, or in what Moses wrote, or even whether there was a Moses. For a lot of Jews, Judaism is like the fine set of china. We don't actually use it most of the time, but it's available if we ever decide to have a fancy party, which we never actually intend to have. So we have Judaism, and if secular Jews ever decide to "become religious," we have a "religion" in the cabinet awaiting us. So many people think, anyway.

How good to know that faith in Jesus isn't a matter of picking a "religion." Nor of "switching sides." It's a matter of a relationship (with God and with one another), not a religion. It's a matter of what's true and not true. Either Jesus is the Messiah or he's not. If he is, everyone should believe in him. If he's not, let's all get busy telling the world's Christians, Jewish or non-Jewish, that they made a wrong turn somewhere.

Back to Moses. Most Jews don't say he was our God. But I have heard this a lot: "I'm a Jew for Moses!", to which one friend's response was this.

There's more on Moses here and here.

And here's another article on whether Moses actually authored the Torah or not (get a nice big mug of coffee for this one.)