In the Jewish community, Moishe Rosen was regarded as a controversial figure. He earned that reputation for his unwavering commitment to Jewish evangelism.
Moishe never accepted Jewish opposition to the Gospel as, what he called, “enemyship.” He often said, “Choose your friends, and pick your enemies even more carefully.” His Jewish opposition was far less gracious. Some sought to deny him Jewish “status.” They scornfully said, “Did you know that their founder is just a Baptist minister?”
That was allegedly meant to imply that Baptist affiliation and Jewishness are mutually exclusive. However, no one can deny the genuine Jewish pedigrees of stalwart Baptists like Hyman Appleman, Jacob Gartenhaus and Moishe Rosen.
I heard about Moishe in 1971, as the Jews for Jesus movement was first capturing notice in the US Jewish press. He was convinced that the American Christian community in general and Jewish missions in particular had become complacent about the need for a forthright testimony to Jewish people. He insisted that Jewish people needed to know about Jesus, even if they protested, because there is “no other name” by which anyone can be saved.
Moishe was so compelled by the courageous conviction of his own faith that he charged into the forefront of the Jewish opposition in the early 1970s. A few in the Jewish mission establishment rallied with him. That happened just as the Lord raised up a new generation of young Jewish believers. They insisted on being identified as Jews who love Jesus in spite of establishment Jewish voices that tried to deny validation of their Jewishness.
He encouraged a new generation of Jewish missionaries to be bold and steadfast. He quoted Paul’s words, “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5 NASB).
He pressed the battle to bring the Gospel to his own people and stood his ground for the cause of Christ. When the opposition called him “just a Baptist,” he simply responded, “Yes, and this Baptist is a Jew who loves Jesus.” Moishe insisted that any focus should be on the Messiah Jesus and not on his Jewishness.
Moishe was married to Ceil for 60 years. He came to faith as a young man. He received ordination through the Conservative Baptist Association and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. Over time, he was widely recognized as a sage elder statesman in the field of Jewish evangelism.
In 1974, Moishe Rosen received an invitation to participate at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism, an international gathering of missiologists, theologians and churchmen. It was an honor that Moishe deserved, but couldn’t afford. The demands of leading the newly chartered Jews for Jesus organization prevented him from taking time away. However, he fully understood the historic and strategic significance of the Lausanne movement.
As a result, six years later, in June 1980, he attended the Consultation on World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand. There, he served as a member of the “mini-consultation on reaching Jewish people.” Two significant outcomes for the field of Jewish evangelism came from that gathering.
One was Lausanne Occasional Paper #7: Christian Witness to the Jewish People, edited by C. David Harley. The other was the establishment of a unique mission network, the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE).
Today, the LCJE is regarded as the most successful special interest committee in the whole international Lausanne network. Moishe Rosen’s commitment to that network and the cause of Jewish evangelism has received well-deserved acknowledgement and appreciation.
Moishe often said that the best measure of our efforts at Jewish evangelism comes from our opposition. An Israeli historian said it clearly, “Rosen’s achievement was not in creating a new missionary agenda, but rather in using new strategies and means that made the mission more effective in achieving its goals” (Ariel, Ya’akov. Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America 1880-2000, [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press] 2000, Page 219).
Thanks be to God for a Jewish “Baptist minister” like Moishe Rosen. His love for Messiah Y’shua (Jesus) gave him the courage to be a stalwart missionary and a wise elder statesman in the field of Jewish evangelism.
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Greetings from LCJE JAPAN – Pray for us! By Charles Klingensmith, Chapter President, LCJE Japan
Shalom in Messiah Yeshua to all LCJE people throughout the world! With one voice united in thanks, LCJE Japan is deeply grateful to you for your fervent prayers for Japan and its people and church in the aftermath of the horrendous sadness of earthquake and tsunami on March 11. We are greatly encouraged that you are walking with us in prayer as the country begins slowly to count the many losses we have suddenly been made to endure. We will need you to keep walking with us far into the dark future.
As I sit at my desk at home after a day of exhausting meetings, it is the fifth night after this catastrophe, March 15. Almost all information available to the public is still general, not specific. Until now we have been breathless at the geographical scale of the earth’s shaking and the water’s destruction. Toward the end of this week we will begin at last to hear specific numbers, which will grow ever more horrible as we hear more. Gruesome numbers of dead will each represent a life cut off too soon.
Lists of names will made public. These lists will not be completed for years, as bodies are found in unexpected places time after time. Survivors will never get over this. Many names and bodies might never be matched. A nuclear catastrophe will bring consequences that are wholly incalculable this night. This earthquake (and the many frequent and very large aftershocks that are still shaking many different regions), this tsunami, and this nuclear failure will fundamentally change Japan: its politics, its culture, its way of going about ordinary daily life. Will the Japanese people really start to listen to the gospel now?
Since I first heard the tsunami warning sirens wailing in my city of Wakayama on the Pacific coast last Friday afternoon, the Word of God has been challenging me to trust God’s plan for this country and for my own ministry. My biggest prayer concerning this disaster is that none of it go to waste, that God’s purpose be accomplished in all points. “Thy will be done” has never sounded more urgent to the ears of Japan’s Christians than now.
Fairly early in his ministry, the apostle Paul understood, “that through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22) Last Friday morning who would have imagined what was only a few hours away? For us down in Wakayama, the earthquake and tsunami that the northeast of Japan received had long been predicted for us. Who’s next? Now we know what it will look like. Of course disaster planning here too has been going on for years, assuming an earthquake of magnitude somewhere around 7. Last week’s has been remeasured as 9.0. Some missionaries have started flying out of Japan this week, ordered out by their embassy due to fears of radiation exposure. Our prayers go with them as we say goodbye. For me, Nehemiah is the man to listen to, “should a man such as I run away?” (Nehemiah 6:11) And Job, “shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10) These are questions we can only answer for ourselves. Lord, let me give the right answer, every day.
There’s no day like today, another day in the Land of the Living. A day to talk about Jesus, to listen to Him, to cling to Him. And to share Him with people around us here who need Him, and who do not know that they need Him. Pray for us! Join us!
Charles Klingensmith rehoboth@gol.com
