For 30 years, I have been involved in a project, Toward Jerusalem Council II. This was a vision given to Messianic Jewish Rabbi Marty Waldman. The original vision was to gather the leaders of all large denominations and streams of the Body of the Messiah in Jerusalem, to have a council parallel to the Acts 15 council that embraced Gentiles in the Body without their becoming Jews or living a Jewish way of life. The Church of later centuries, largely Gentile, declared that maintaining Jewish life and identity in Yeshua was heresy. The Church had largely embraced replacement theology, that the Church had replaced Israel as God’s elect, and ethnic Jewish people were no longer elect.
Marty’s original vision embraced the importance of official declarations on the continued election of Israel and the importance of the restoration of Messianic Jews as the saved remnant of Israel, as the Jewish members of the Body of the Messiah. To see the importance of this vision, it is crucial not to think in merely empirical, pragmatic ways. Rather, we have to see that the right orientation here is a key to the unity for which Yeshua prayed in John 17:21, that we may be one that the world might believe. The split between the Messianic Jewish communities of the early centuries of this era and the rest of the Church was the beginning of splits, and spiritually, this is the root. To see the completion of God’s work, this split has to be healed. This opens the heavens and will bring new power and revival.
God prepared me to be one of the founding leaders of this effort with John Dawson, the later President of Youth with a Mission, and Fr. Dr. Peter Hocken, who had similar insights about healing this split. We met together in Dallas 29 years ago. We received the wise counsel that we cannot officially call together a council, but can seek to motivate those in official authority in the churches to do so. We thus became Toward Jerusalem Council II.
Since that time, we have traveled on prayer journeys and diplomatic journeys to so many places. I have been to many countries in Europe, South America, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Finally, after 29 years, we have a summit in Jerusalem planned for this October on the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Leaders will be coming from all over the world, from every continent. Last week, our Executive Committee planned this convocation for 400 to 500 people. We see momentum building and a path for more and more senior leaders to embrace this vision.
Our personal ministry has financed much of my involvement in this: flights, hotels, communication, and so much more, first under the name Tikkun International and today under Restoration From Zion. Imagine the unity of the Church rightly connected to its Jewish roots, to the Jewish people/Israel, and rightly in unity with the Messianic Jewish community. This is hope and quest. We are closer to the goal of the Council than ever before.
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