Me, a Messianic Jew?

Recently a lady of remarkably garish clothing visited our place of temporary worship at St. George's twice in the span of a month. And, if her impact on Dexter is any indication, she left quite an impression.

When she first engaged Dexter in deep conversation outside the worship hall at lunchtime, I just assumed she was a friendly and gregarious, if a bit odd, woman. Count me slightly wrong on that score. After a few minutes of talk I remember Kai Min, who was sitting next to me at lunch, telling me, "I think we'd better go rescue Dexter." Haha.

After a bit of hemming and hawing, I decided to try my hand at doing so since I'd finished my lunch. So upon inserting myself into the conversation, I started to get to know this lady a bit better.

It turns out she was a Messianic Jew, coming to the various churches in Singapore to tell us to repent and teach us true worship. True worship, she elaborated, has to be done in one's living room, reading and singing from the Psalms - AND only from the Bible.

I recall also her fixation with names. What is your name, she said? Ivan, I replied.

Ivan is a German name. That is not a good name. Names should be from the Bible.

I decided not to argue with her that Ivan was actually a Russian variant of John. What would be a good name for me, I then asked. "I'll get back to you later on that."

This curious conversation continued, whereby she revealed also her insistence on Jesus Christ being referred to as Yeshua Hamashiach, his Hebrew name; her proclamation that her message was only for men, not for women (a bit ironic); how PAP, Hillsong, and diverse other groups were "Hell"; how I was a bit fat >:(, attributing it to all the "unclean" pork I ate; and finally how she was a prophetess, from her insight proclaiming that "you are an intelligent young man". All I did was try and throw at her all the Hebrew I knew at appropriate moments (Yeshua, Sheki'nah, Mishnah, Torah, Messiah, etc.)

What was funny was that all I was trying to do was to end the conversation pleasantly to give her a reason to leave the premises. In the end, I think she took my apparent interest to mean a possibility of a suitable convert, and asked for my email and handphone number so she could get back to me. I thus proceeded to give her my (junk) email address and my (old) handphone number. I arrived home to find my old handphone spammed with 15 new messages, outlining how I should live out the faith of a Messianic Jew, with my new name Da'vid; I was to migrate as soon as possible to Melbourne to join the wider body of Messianic Jews there. Thank goodness the instructions didn't include circumcision.

***

Well! I wonder whether I could have handled that whole incident better. The next time she came I was busy with music practice and so could not entertain her (she must have been disappointed, though, at the Hillsong songs I chose). I spoke with Pastor Henry about the incident, and he told me a better way to handle the situation is to politely but firmly tell her she was not welcome to proselyte a different faith in another religion's place of worship.

It was probably best, I guess, that I talked with her instead of allowing her to disturb someone younger and perhaps less prepared. But even so I didn't feel the inclination (maybe also cos I wasn't prepared) to share with her my own point of view about following Jesus.

Reflecting back, if I had been a bit more well-equipped I would have asked for her opinion on a few choice passages in Acts, Galatians and Hebrews, and how the early church dealt with new Gentile converts. Galatians, especially, goes to the heart of the matter; Jews who accepted Christ were insisting that their Gentile brethren had to go through the process of circumcision to truly follow Christ. And Paul made it very clear; the only circumcision that was needed was the circumcision of the heart.

This branch of Messianic Judaism that I encountered seems to cut close to the same vein, calling on Christians to embrace the Jewish way of worship as needful to follow Christ. But all these are merely millstones around people's necks, causing them to stumble in their journey towards following Christ!

Paul had some harsh words for the "circumcision party" in Galatians, and in this instance I wonder if it might be necessary to react as strongly. Because it appears such followers of Jesus are still banking on things other than the redeeming work of Christ crucified for their salvation. And that is the most dangerous thing to believe of all.

As for me? I still follow Christ, and respect and try to learn more about the Jewish way of life. But it's a life I don't have to personally lead.