Called to Controversy (52 page)

The good things were also challenges: Moishe's call to missionary service and the subsequent successes that often stretched him to the limit of his capabilities; the delightful challenges of parenting two wonderful daughters, and new opportunities to establish bonds with family members we barely knew.

Different as we were, God “grew” us both through all those experiences. I always said that Moishe was the nice one. Even before we experienced the changing power of God's Spirit working in us, Moishe was patient, kind, and caring. He was unselfish and generous, sometimes to a fault.

As for household duties, Moishe loved to cook, but avoided cleanup. He didn't mind mowing lawns or gardening, but as to carpentry, painting, and other house chores, his willingness far outweighed his skills. More a student than a craftsman, he was inquisitive and could even enjoy reading the dictionary. He liked people in general, often watching strangers, conjecturing who they might be or what they did for a living. He studied a variety of subjects he found interesting. He memorized large portions of the Bible. Despite a slight stammer that he fought and usually overcame, he loved to preach. Conversely, he found it hard to sit in church and listen to someone else. Nevertheless, he made it a point to attend worship when he was not scheduled to speak.

He loved giving gifts and, having bought an intended surprise for someone, would usually have a hard time not presenting it early. He was so eager, he just couldn't wait! In general, he was good hearted, a great encourager, always supportive of people's talents, dreams, and aspirations.

He had a strict code of ethics and acted on principle rather than convenience both in leadership and in personal matters. He always respected my feelings, but occasionally attempted to steer my attitudes and behaviors when they differed from his. While we often argued over minor differences, we agreed quickly on life's larger issues. We trusted each other implicitly because we had promised never to lie to each other.

Because we married so young, Moishe did more than shape my life. Aside from my commitment to God, in many ways, for such a long time, Moishe
was
my life. When he became so sick that he needed a separate bedroom, I left him every evening with a kiss and “See you in the morning.”

Toward the end, I was never sure I would see him the next morning. I would have liked to say those words to him as he took his last breath, but it happened so fast. I barely had time to say I knew Jesus was calling him home and would tell him, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I have said that farewell to Moishe often since then, and every time I miss him. When I see him again, it will be a great and glorious time, indeed the dawn of a new day. This, then, is the echo of my heart: Good-bye, my love. See you in the morning!

EPILOGUE

I complain, therefore I am.

—RUTH ROSEN, for MOISHE

L
arge amounts of morphine slow you down—not just your body, but your mind. For someone as bright as Moishe, an impaired thought process was particularly frustrating. Yet he maintained a sense of humor even through the final months of his illness.

“I was complaining to myself about my mind today,” he told our family one night at dinner. “You know, how it's not working like it used to. And then I thought,
Hey, if I can complain about my mind
. . . ” He trailed off, running out of energy and words at the same time.

“If you can complain about your mind, then you still have the ability to think critically?” I suggested.

“Yes,” he nodded and smiled, glad to be understood.

“Sort of a twist on Descartes,” I continued. “I complain, therefore I am.” He laughed, and I was happy that he liked the joke.

It's funny, but it's true. One of Moishe's strengths was his tremendous critical facility. Being critical for the sake of being critical is useless, but the ability to see and say what is wrong is necessary if one wants to make things right.

This is not only true practically and professionally; it is a spiritual truth, and it remains at the core of the gospel. If one cannot discern the problem of sin, one cannot recognize the need for forgiveness. Months after Dad died, I was still looking through bits and pieces of his writings, one of which said, “Crime is an action against society. Sin is an attitude against God. We're all sinners. Trust me.”

If one cannot recognize the presence of sin, how it affects us and why we need forgiveness, it is not possible to receive the good news of full reconciliation. Some people are so focused on the appearance of their own rightness that they spend all their effort to convince themselves and others of how right they are. Others do the harder work of
becoming
right, which begins with admitting that they are wrong and reaching for the hand that can lift them and help them to be right.

When Moishe heard the gospel, he knew that the part about him being a sinner was true. Over time, he came to believe the rest of the gospel was also true, though it made him an outcast from the community he loved. And in his new community, the community of believers in Jesus, he continued to see and say what he thought about what was right as well as what was wrong.

A preacher once said, “Your greatest weakness is an unguarded strength.” If it is true that one's greatest weakness is an unguarded strength, perhaps it is also true that all human strengths have fault lines—fissures where pressure can build and things that seem firm are shaken.

My father was a brilliantly insightful man and, on most occasions, a compassionate man. But he was not an empathetic man. He often knew how others felt, usually because they told him in verbal or nonverbal ways, intentionally or unintentionally. He was a keen observer with uncanny intuition. He could sense when he had seen symptoms of certain feelings before, and that helped him intuit how people would feel or respond in a situation. He often sympathized with others. But he was too much himself to be truly empathetic. That, too, was a great strength that carried with it inherent weakness.

My father could not have been the decisive and cutting-edge leader that he was had he been less himself, setting aside his feelings or perspectives as a truly empathetic person sometimes does. Yet he might have had some different expectations, different behaviors, some perhaps for the better, had he been prone to step outside himself to imagine how others felt or perceived things.

Moishe knew it was important that his biography be quite clear that he was flawed. He wanted the world to know that God does not need people to attain a level of perfection to be used for his purposes. Those who knew and loved Moishe the most were very much aware of his shortcomings. I hope anyone who knew him only through his writing and through brief encounters will not love him less for having learned about some of his failings.

A robust personality often includes traits or behaviors that seem to contradict one another. Some may say this is inconsistent, and perhaps on some level it is. But it is also the mark of a very full life, packed with many experiences and many circumstances and many opportunities to succeed or fail at living out one's principles.

My father would be the first to tell you that what you think of him makes little, if any, difference. It's what you think of Jesus that really matters. So while this book is not meant to force beliefs on anyone, please excuse this one burst of gospel fervor: if you don't know Jesus and will consider him with an open mind and heart, I believe God will bless you beyond anything you have ever dreamed possible.

Moishe never considered himself God's gift to Jewish evangelism. Rather, he considered Jewish evangelism to be a gift from God, entrusted to him.

We can spend our brief lives any way we choose, but we can spend them only once. It's important to recognize value, in ourselves, in others, and in whatever work God calls us to do. That's something I learned from my father.

APPENDIX A

W
HY
W
ITNESS TO THE
J
EWISH
P
EOPLE
?
BY MOISHE ROSEN

U
ntil recently, evangelical Christians didn't have to think twice about Jewish evangelism. Evangelical churches realized the urgent need to present the gospel to all people so that others might gain God's forgiveness and eternity in heaven. It was understood that “all people” included Jewish people.

Now there is considerable deviation from the understanding that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the attitudes of many churches toward Jewish evangelism. Some question whether or not the Jewish people need the gospel at all. Others say that Jews need Jesus, but they challenge just about any method of evangelism that doesn't begin with a Jewish person approaching a Christian to know more about Christ. Usually there has not been firsthand observation of the methods that are challenged or rejected.
*

Why has Jewish evangelism become so controversial? Two reasons present themselves. One is the all too human tendency to choose the easy path. It's easy to go with the flow—to evangelize those who are down and out, who have no cultural barriers to prevent them from hearing our message. Jewish people are among the people groups missiologists have described as “gospel resistant.” Jews who feel a need to resist Jesus tend to see him as a threat to the survival of the Jewish community. They do not realize that our survival does not depend on submitting to the religion of Judaism, but to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Anyone who wishes to take the path of least resistance will avoid witnessing to Jews.

The other reason is that many Christians—whether or not they realize or admit it—want to be “politically correct.” Maybe the second is just part of the first.

Most describe their inactivity in noble or compassionate terms. One says, “I don't target Jews. I preach the gospel to everyone who comes to my meetings.” Another says, “Yes, Jews need the gospel, but they are so hurt by the Holocaust and other persecutions that we have no right to speak at this time.”

Christians need to recognize that it takes courage to witness to someone who just might be offended, angry, or argumentative. It takes courage to broach the subject to someone who may not only reject your message, but reject you for telling it. A person who is not willing to do that sometimes finds it easier to come to terms with their own choices by putting down those who
are
willing to be rejected when they ought to be praying for and encouraging them for doing the difficult thing.

Some who want to be politically correct say, “The Jews have their own religion, an ancient and noble religion that predates Christianity.” Yes, the Jewish people do have their own religion, and originally it was based entirely on Scripture.

Yet if the Jewish religion were sufficient in itself, why would the all-wise, all-knowing Son of God tell a religious Jew like Nicodemus, “You must be born again”? Why did God decide that Y'shua (Jesus) should be born to a Jewish mother in a Jewish place in accordance with the Jewish prophets? If the Jews didn't need Jesus, wouldn't it have been better just to have him born in Norway, Karachi, or Papua, New Guinea, to those who did need him?

But God demonstrated—not only through Scripture, but also by the Incarnation at Bethlehem—that if anyone needs Jesus, the Jewish people do. Jewish evangelism is important to God because he cares for the Jewish people and wants them to be reconciled to him. It's not that one person's religion is superior to another's. Religion is not enough without the reality of the Redeemer.

It is incumbent on the church to continue to evangelize Jewish people because like everyone else, without Christ, they are lost. Furthermore, Jewish evangelism is almost as important to the church as it is to those unbelieving Jews who need salvation!

The church proves its confidence in the validity of Jesus by earnestly endeavoring to tell all people about the gospel, regardless of what non-Christian religion they possess. If Christians decline to contend for the faith by remaining mute because of someone's religious background, we have basically assented to the world's supposition that biblical Christianity is merely another man-made religion.

Seeing the gospel of Christ as “our religion” is a trap! Those who don't know Christ quite naturally say that we are arrogant to suppose that “our religion” is The Truth. No Christian wants to be arrogant, and many shrivel at the accusation. But let's not confuse confidence and arrogance. We would be arrogant if we had invented the Bible, if we forged a “myth” that Christ was born in accord with the Jewish prophets to be the Jewish Messiah who would do miracles, die for our sins, and rise again. But Christianity is not a Gentile invention nor is it a Jewish myth. It is the truth of God, the Creator of the universe.

I have said it before before, and I will continue to say it: Bringing the gospel to the Jewish people is perhaps the most significant issue on which the church will prove its character, conviction, and commitment to evangelism in general.

*
In a book titled
Rules for Radicals
, Saul Alinsky says that in dealing with opponents, if you can't attack their ethics, disparage their methodology. This is what we expect of antimissionaries because they see us missionary-evangelists as their opponents. However, it is most discouraging when Christians hear and repeat portions of the antimissionary propaganda or otherwise draw negative conclusions without checking with their own brothers and sisters in Christ to see if it is true.