to be defiant.

to be defiant against authorities never is made out to be an admirable action, but in some cases defiance may be the only way to survive. last night i had the privalige to see the movie Defiance directed by Edward Zwick. what i thought was just going to be a Jewish take on Saving Private Ryan, but it actually was a moving story about racial genocide and the struggle of an oppresed Jewish communities will to survive. Daniel Craig proved that he is more than just james bond as he delivered a wonderful performance with Liev Schreiber as they lead the Bielski camp. the movie shows the brutal reality of the genocide that murder an indescribable amount of Jews in germany and poland in world war II.

i am in the middle of a january term class here at denver seminary where we are surveying the epistles through revelation within a short amount of time. the content to which we are to digesting in a short amount of time is not advisable for most, but it does allow fow a wholistic picture for these letters to first century churches. i have been so incredibly interested in the aspects of Christs death and resurection and the Jewish response to this new covenant. it is so interesting to see God’s chosen nation miss the very thing that they were holding out for. there was such a focus on a ‘works’ based faith that they missed the point of the torah, the law, and the traditions of their people, which was to point to the coming Messiah. there were those that so to speak ‘converted’ to Christianity or would consider them selves Messianic Jews.

Messianic Judaism has become of great interest to me. i want to seek to understand it more. there is a conference that the seminary is hosting in february that i am very excited to attend. it will discuss “issues related to Zionism, dual-covenant theology, Israel and the church, Jesus and Judaism, and Messianic Jewish education and history.”

one of the reasons that i have become so interested in this topic is not only from the class i have been taking, but because of the circumstances that is happening currently in the middle east. over one thousand Palestinians have died and over a thousand pounds of food used by the UN to aid refugees have been destroyed according to this Associated Press story.

Associated Press

i found Defiance very honestly raw as God’s ‘chosen’ people are being massacred in the most inhumane ways. it is an honest and telling film about the worlds past and makes me wonder how the world respond to Israel and the Jewish people in the future. i will continue to pray for peace in the middle east as i look to understand Messianic Judaism and our role as Christians to love the world and those unnecesarily oppressed.