After more than 40 years in Jewish ministry, both in Israel and in the US, and having recently published a study of the messianic offices of Prophet, Priest, and King,1 I want to offer several suggestions for you as preachers, as you wrestle with the Word of God.
First, try to read Scripture as if you were a faithful Israelite, part of the remnant of Israel. This will help prevent reading Scripture with gentile pride. In Romans 11:13–24, Paul specifically addresses his gentile readers and issues a three-fold warning against having an arrogant attitude toward the Jewish people (vv. 18, 20, and 25).
This also leads to an awareness that it is usually wrong to speak of Israel or the Jewish people as a monolithic whole. Israel has always been a spiritually divided people. When we paint the entire nation with a broad brush, we completely ignore the remnant. For example, when we claim that Israel rejected Jesus, we need to see instead that Jesus divided Israel—many became His disciples, though the majority did not. In fact, God used the majority’s rejection of salvation to extend the Gospel to the Gentiles (Rom 11:11–15). This should not provoke a superior attitude in us, but jealousy on the part of our unsaved Jewish friends (v. 11) and great compassion for the lost sheep of Israel.
Paul referred to the remnant of Israel in Romans 9:6, when he wrote, “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” Here, a distinction is made between those who are merely physical descendants of the Patriarchs and the remnant of Israel who have put their faith in Jesus, the Messiah, and become citizens of His coming kingdom.
Secondly, the messianic offices of prophet, priest, and king are taken up by Jesus sequentially. First, in the Gospels, we see Him as the Prophet like Moses. From His Ascension until the present, He is our great High Priest, and when He returns, it will be as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Yet these roles are related and have an ongoing significance.
Third, understand that, in Romans 1:16, Paul says that the Gospel is: 1) The power of God unto salvation, 2) to all who believe, and 3) to the Jew in the first place (especially). We know that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, but Paul wants us to understand also that if the Gospel is only for the Jewish people or only for Gentiles, it is not the Gospel (see Gal 3:6–9). Likewise, if the Jewish people do not have a special place in our hearts—in our evangelism, in our prayers (Rom 10:1–2), and in our preaching, that which we preach is deficient. Acts 1:8 is not just a clever way to promote missions; it is the working out of this very priority. Surely Texas, by biblical standards, would qualify as “the uttermost parts of the earth,” yet we make it “our” Jerusalem!
In an age in which churches are rife with biblical illiteracy and in which our churches are being influenced by the antisemitism in our culture, getting Israel right has never been more important. God’s promise still stands: “I will bless those who bless you” (Gen 12:3).
- Jim R. Sibley, The Undercover Messiah and His Coming Kingdom: Messiah as Prophet, Priest, and King (Portland, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2025). ↩︎
