When in doubt about the Gospels--ask a Jew

I have had very few Jewish friends and acquaintances in my life. There was only one fellow student in my undergraduate Commerce student days at Queen's whom I knew to be Jewish--Ted, I think he was called. I had an in-law for a time who had been a  European Jewish refugee. My wife taught with a Jewish woman from Montreal who was a great believer in the efficacy of chicken soup. One of my late father's best friends was Jewish. He also served as Dad's haberdasher. And just recently my wife and I have made a new friend here in Abbotsford who lost his grandparents in the Holocaust.

I did attend seminary in Chicago with a Jewish man from Brooklyn who had converted to Christianity well into his adult years. He had not been particularly observant religiously to that point. His description of the event was quite interesting. He said the moment that he decided to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah it was as if his mind opened and a wind rushed through.

That's about it. While I have enjoyed the writing, singing, and acting of many Jewish artists, and been blessed by the economic leadership of Jewish economists and businesspeople, and been enthralled by the wonderfully principled stands of certain Jewish thinkers and activists (the Hon. Irwin Cotler comes to mind), I have not had the good fortune of knowing many personally.

It came as a considerable surprise to me, then, that I had a breakthrough in my wrestling match with the concept of being born again through an encounter (admittedly via podcast) with a Jew. He was being interviewed in my son and daughter-in-law's church in Ontario. With respect to the concept of being born again, he mentioned that to Jews of Jesus' time, the notion was well established and had specific meanings (see http://www.themeetinghouse.com/teaching/archives/2013/one-church-2013/week-4-messianic-judaism-5479). This led me to much fruitful research.

I have to remind myself from time to time that Jesus was almost entirely immersed in the Jewish thought world. His encounters with non-Jews were few. His audiences would have been virtually 100% Jewish. When he spoke, he used metaphors and parables that could easily be identified by his audience as typical of their experience. When he referred to backup material, it was always the Jewish scriptures (with Deuteronomy being his first choice). No wonder that his disciple Peter balked at having to do something completely at odds with Old Testament teaching when commanded to eat "unclean" food (Acts 10:9-16). Jesus' brother James and other early church leaders was similarly scrupulous about following Jewish traditions (Acts 11:1-3).

So what did it mean to a Jew--and a very high ranking one at that--when Jesus said to him, "You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born again."

That's next.