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Details: According to Ateek, the establishment of Israel as a nation in the Holy Land made the Old Testament a problem for Palestinians. "It has become almost repugnant to Palestinian Christians. As a result, the Old Testament has generally fallen into disuse among both clergy and laity, and the Chruch has been unable to come to terms with its ambiguities, questions, and paradoxes--especially with its direct application to the twentieth-century events in Palestine." Ateek's solution to this problem is not for Palestinians to adjust their thinking to the Word of God, but to "contextualize" (i.e. to adjust the Word of God to the wishes of Palestinians). Haven't we all wanted to do this when our desires went against the Word of God? Yet haven't we learned through painful experiences that God's view of what is best for us is always better than what we think we want? Somehow Ateek fails to understand that to be followers of Jesus (who calls Himself "truth") we must be lovers of truth. To make Palestinians feel good, Ateek tries to convince us that Jesus was Palestinian, born in Palestine, and that his disciples were Palestinians and that the Palestinian Christians of today are descendants of those early Palestinian Christians. The New Testament gives us two genealogies of Jesus, both showing that he was Jewish, and the land where Jesus was born and lived is called Israel, and Judea and Samaria in the New Testament. Jesus told his disciples to go only to the children of Israel initially, so His first followers were Jewish. It is an historical fact that Israel (Judea and Samaria) was not called Palestine until after AD 135 (some 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus). Palestinian Christians are not Jews, but Arabs. How could the Jewish families that followed Jesus turn into Arab families of today? Why should we gentiles be jealous that Jews were given a land by God? Jews rule some 9,000 square miles of land. Hasn't God been even more generous to Arabs? Arabs rule some 500,000 square miles of land. Why do Arabs feel that they must also rule the Holy Land? The Lord told us that He had set the Holy Land apart for a special purpose. He told us that the Children of Israel would live there and that they would be driven out, that a 10th would remain in the land like seed, and that He (God) would bring them back and make them a nation in the Holy Land. We Christians should be happy to see God's promises coming true in our day, because this proves that the Bible is true. And we Gentile (Arabic and others) Christians can know for sure (because He kept His promise to the Jews) that God will also keep His promise to bring us into the eternal home that He promised to us. How much better is that eternal home than a tiny area of 8,000 or 11,000 square miles for a few decades? Arabic Christian brothers and sisters, do not try to change the Bible to suit our selfish ambitions here on earth. Know that God is wiser than we are and that we must adjust our desires to His Word, rather than attempting the impossible (i.e. adjusting God's Word to our desires). His way is always best. Refusing to accept God's Word is futile. It can only bring suffering and pain to everyone. |
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