Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22): Saving Grace in Judaism and Messianic Hope in ChristianityGrowing up in an ethnic suburb in Cleveland, Aaron Milavec was an impressionable adolescent whose religious and cultural influences made it natural for him to pity, blame, and despise Jews. All of that began to change in 1955 when Mr. Martin, a Jewish merchant, hired Milavec as a stock boy. Milavec's initial anxieties over working for a Jew surprisingly gave way to profound personal admiration. This, in turn, plunged Milavec into a troubling theological dilemma: How could God consign Mr. Martin to eternal hellfire due to his ancestral role in the death of Jesus when it was clear that Mr. Martin would not harm me, a Christian, even in small ways? This book is not for the faint-hearted. Most Christians imagine that the poison of anti-Judaism has been largely eliminated. In contrast, Milavec reveals how this poison has gone underground--disfiguring not only the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation but also horribly twisting the faith, the forgiveness, and the salvation that Christians find through Jesus Christ. This painful realization serves as the necessary first step for our healing. At each step of the way, Milavec's sure hand builds bridges of mutual understanding that enable both Christians and Jews to cross the chasm of distrust and distortion that has infected both church and synagogue over the centuries. In the end, Milavec securely brings his readers to that place where Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can again be admired as sister religions intimately united to one other in God's drama of salvation. |
From inside the book
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... poison of anti - Judaism that infected my Catholic upbringing . For this I am eternally grateful . I am proud to acknowledge that my salvation came from a Jew . Contents Abbreviations vii Preface xi Chapter One : Saving Mr.
... Chapter One : Saving Mr. Martin from Hellfire 1 Chapter Two : Law and Grace among Jews and Christians 23 Chapter Three : The Story of Salvation : The Return to Humility and Truth 57 Chapter Four : Parting of the Ways : The Emergence of ...
... chapter will endeavor to examine some of the complexities surrounding this issue and to resolve them in a way that would allow Christians to affirm that the covenant God made with Israel will always remain the divinely authorized ...
... chapter 4. For our purposes here it suffices to note that the reluctance of the Vatican to acknowledge Judaism as a divinely endorsed path of salvation for Jews today stands in contradic- tion to the fact that Jesus and his disciples ...
... chapters will examine this proposition in detail . When it comes to the world religions other than Judaism , however , Dominus Jesus is very clear . Given the assumption , as noted above , that Jesus ' death on the cross is the ...
Contents
1 | |
23 | |
The Story of Salvation | 57 |
Parting of the Ways | 84 |
Jesus as Messiah | 116 |
The Unsavory Odor of Christian Evangelization | 152 |
Reflections on Covenant and Mission | 173 |
Bibliography | 183 |
Index | 196 |