What do we, Christians, owe to the Jews?

We owe the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, to the Jews.

All of it was written by Jews with the exception of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts written by Luke if, as is generally accepted, Luke was a gentile, a non-Jew, born in Syria.

The Bible, we believe, is a revelation that there is a God. The Bible tells us what he is like – his nature and character – and about his son Jesus Christ.

The Bible also tells us what God requires of us, his creatures, made in his image and likeness, in the 10 commandments of Exodus ch 20 and, in summary form, in the two great commandments of Jesus (see Matthew ch 22 verses 36-40).

The Bible also makes clear that disobedience to God’s commandments by his creatures is serious –

it is called ‘sin’.

The New Testament continues the revelation by explaining how God himself planned for sin to be effectively dealt with by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, God’s son, and by his sacrificial death on the cross at Golgotha in about 33AD.

Throughout the Old Testament we see that salvation from sin is not for Jews alone but that

non-Jews, i.e. gentiles (generally referred to as ‘the nations’ in the Bible) were also to be included in the plan of salvation.

Look at Isaiah ch 42 verse 6b for example, ‘You (the Jews) shall be a light to guide the nations to me (God)’ or Isaiah ch 49 verse 6 ‘I will make you (the Jews) a light to the nations of the world to bring my salvation to them too’.

Without the Jews we would have no patriarchs, no Old Testament prophets, no apostles, a very short Bible and no Saviour!