Baruch Maoz, Come, Let Us Reason Together: The Unity of Jews and Gentiles in the Church, 3rd edition.

Phillipsburg: P and R Publishing, 2012, pgs. 254

Summary: A friendly critique of Messianic Judaism by Baruch Maoz, former pastor of Grace and Truth Congregation near Tel Aviv, Israel. Strongly recommended by John MacArthur. 

Maoz converted from Judaism to Christianity as a young man and became a pastor. His basic critique of Messianic Judaism is that they are attempting to incorporate rabbinical tradition as a normative means of evangelism and sanctification for Christians of Jewish extraction.  To make his case, Maoz suggests a distinction between being Jewish and Judaism. Judaism is following the rabbinical tradition and Jewishness is a national or cultural identification:

[T]he movement has confused cultural mores with religious duties, insisted upon maintaining the Jewishness of its adherents by degrees of obedience to rabbinic religious dictum, and according the rabbis a legitimacy to which they have no right. Attributing to the rabbis the authority to determine what constitutes Jewishness, Messianics have undermined their own position because the rabbis have determined that faith in Jesus exceeds the boundaries of Jewishness (185). 

Further, he points out that most Messianic congregations in the United States are majority Gentile and much of what is supposedly Jewish is an affectation: “A few Yiddish phrases, saying, Yeshua,” wearing Jewish religious garb, and a fascination with Jewish things is not enough to make one Jewish” (182). 

I remain as flummoxed as Pastor Maoz when Messianic Christians offer to expose my congregation to foreshadowings of Christ within the non-biblical traditions found in the rabbinical encrustations to the Passover meal:

We should not attach Christian significance to national custom. The rabbis who invented the afikoman were not inspired by the Spirit and no hint of Messiah is hidden in the afikoman (121). . . .It is invalid to intimate spiritual legitimacy to human inventions. Legitimacy implies authority, and if the authority of the rabbis is considered to be the will of God for the Jewish people and advantageous to non-Jews, why not submit to their authority when they affirm as they have for two millennia that Jesus is not the Messiah? (122). 

Benefits/Detriments: Overall I found the book helpful, but it feels a bit bloated and in need of either paring down or expanded with clearer organization. Functions best as a friendly critique of Messianic Judaism and goes a great distance questioning the supposed authenticity of the movement’s authority and insights among Gentile churches.