Is Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) Really for the Jews?
Can I Believe in Yeshua and Still Be Jewish?
First, Yeshua Himself said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew Ch. 15 verse 24) Of course, it makes perfect sense that the Promised Jewish Messiah would come to the Jews. If Yeshua is not for the Jews, He is for no one.
All of Yeshua's followers for the first 15 years or so were Jewish. In fact, the Jewish followers were concerned, when Gentiles began to follow the Way, that the Gentiles might need to be circumcised and become Jews. It was only when the number of Gentile followers grew and far surpassed the number of Jewish followers that Gentile customs began to corrupt the body of believers.
Many tens of thousands of Jewish people today have come to trust the Hebrew Scriptures and understand that Yeshua is the Messiah and that, by following him, they are even more Jewish than they ever were!
If you honestly examine the history of the Jewish people after 70 A.D., it was the Jewish leaders who strayed from the teaching and tradition of their fathers and essentially started a new religion. The Judaism of today is not what the Jews of the first century or King David or Moses followed. Yeshua once told a group of religious leaders, “'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead." (Luke Ch. 16 verse 31) and “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.” (John Ch. 5 verse 46.)