Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage

How Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity Can Transform Your Faith

By Curt Landry

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2019 Curt Landry
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4002-0940-8

Contents

Foreword, xi,
Introduction, xv,
1. The Power of Heritage, 1,
2. The Place of Identity, 17,
3. The Counterfeit Self, 29,
4. Ambushed by the Truth, 41,
5. A New Creation, 51,
6. Adopted by the Father, 61,
7. Accidentally Jewish, 79,
8. Finding My Father — and Myself, 89,
9. Intentionally Jewish, 99,
10. The God Who Keeps Covenant, 113,
11. The Church of the New Testament, 131,
12. Our Stolen Heritage, 145,
13. One New Man, 161,
14. Faith, 177,
15. Shalom, 191,
16. Multiplication, 203,
17. Leaving a Legacy That Empowers, 219,
Acknowledgments, 233,
Appendix: Prayers, 235,
Notes, 241,
About the Author, 247,

CHAPTER 1

THE POWER OF HERITAGE

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the f loods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

— Matthew 7:24–25

GOD'S DESIGN WAS NEVER THAT we would come into the world to be alone.

From the moment of our birth, we start reaching out for others in a world that is totally alien and unintelligible to us. We first learn to focus, see, and understand our world by gazing into the loving eyes of our mothers as we nurse. The first thing we recognize is her face. Before we know anything about the world around us, we know who our parents are and find comfort in their loving embrace. God designed the nuclear family as a place of protection and foundation. As we learn about the world around us, God intended that we do that hand in hand with our moms and dads.

In fact, the Bible instructs:

Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged....

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:1–2, 6–9, emphasis added)

In this passage, God wasn't just talking about educating our children. He was talking about creating a heritage of faith, of grounding our children in the wisdom of God and helping form their identities as God's creation here on the earth, intended to take dominion of it and prosper it. It's not just head learning, and it's more than just heart learning; it's digging deep to expose the foundation of who our children are as members of our families stretching back through generations, as citizens of a nation and as ambassadors of the kingdom of God. It is raising them the way Solomon counseled in Proverbs 22:6:

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Why won't they depart from it? Because their awareness has been saturated in their heritage, their foundation, and their identity.

When we raise up our children in this way, they don't see themselves as free agents disconnected from any responsibility or purpose in the world around them. They learn they're not here only to "have fun" and to "find happiness." They have entered life as part of a tradition founded on contributing to the world around them, with responsibilities to every human being they encounter. They've been instilled with values built on wisdom greater than the insights of their own tiny brains, but they've also brought something of their own to contribute to it. They are part of a tribe that is here to do the will of God, but they also have their own individual mark to make.

I know how countercultural that can sound to Americans and those of Western society today. We've long been fiercely independent and have guarded our individual rights as sacred, taking to heart what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And great good has come from these values, but I believe the pendulum has swung so far toward the individual that we are in danger of losing the wisdom of our collective past. Kids are encouraged to go out and find their own ways with only minimal understanding of their heritage and little formation in their faith. I've spoken with parents who are actually afraid to talk about values and traditions with their children for fear they may prejudice them in some way from finding "their own truth."

No wonder we have a generation today that is coming into adulthood with "orphaned" spirits. No wonder they're hungry for their roots and fascinated with stories of heritage. Look at the popularity of television shows like Downton Abbey and The Crown and of magazines and websites featuring stories and pictures of monarchs and their heirs. The idea of nobility and royalty — of the passing down of a heritage that means something and brings privilege with it — fascinates people worldwide. We're hungry to have a place to stand, to know where we belong in the world with respect to everyone else, to be significant in some way, to make a difference for having existed. It's why we long to make our mark and to find meaning in our lives.

But rather than growing up with that and launching into life with a foundational sense of who we are and the difference we are here to make, so many who enter adulthood today haven't even begun that journey. You don't have to look far to see it. Look at the average freshman college dorm today. The rites of passage that take place in those halls have nothing to do with our culture or heritage, or upholding any sense of traditional values, but instead with determining how much alcohol someone can consume and still walk, experimenting sexually, and "trying to find themselves." They are launched into a perpetual adolescence that often doesn't end until their forties. And we're doing them a great disservice by letting them flounder like this.

But the same isn't true of all young people and cultures, and there's a great deal we can learn from these counterexamples.

I recently met a young woman in Israel who astounded me. She'd been raised Jewish in England but had become an Israeli citizen. She had served in the Israeli army and was putting in seventy-plus hours a week running her own nonprofit, even though her parents provided her with enough money that she would never need to work a day in her life.

Our first meeting, which had been set up by one of the wealthiest Jewish men in the world, took place at her company offices in Tel Aviv. She arrived a little late, so my son-in-law, Paul, and I were already there. She emerged from her limousine wearing...