Acts 14:1— ‘At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue.’ This had been their habit; this was the way that they did mission in the context where there were Jewish people around, and at this time, no church was established in many places. They appealed to those who, at least on paper, claimed that they believed in the Bible, claimed that they were pursuing the Messiah, and claimed that they worshipped the God of Israel. These are the people to whom they appealed. This was their mission.
So, do you get what the mission is? The mission is one of Jewish origin, where we have the Old Testament as the story of God’s original people, the people of a nation called Israel. We need to be aware of that. If you want to know what the message of Jesus is, you need to read what we call the Old Testament.
If you want to go to a place where there were no Christians, but there were Jewish people, then it would make sense to go to them first before you went to any other religion. They at least, on paper, claimed to follow the way of the Messiah, and they claimed to worship the God of Israel, just like we genuinely do. So, it would be right to go to them first. Take people at their word. They claimed to believe in the Bible, then work with them on that basis.
We have Jewish people come to our town every year. Could we be better at reaching them? I’m sure we could. We have common ground—at least on paper, we are all people who claim to take the Bible seriously. Perhaps some of them could be persuaded if we spoke to them in such a way.
