MESSIAH JOURNAL 113 ❙ SPRING 2013 / 5773 ❙ 83 toward Sabbath observance argues that people should take a day off, but it has almost no re- lationship with the biblical Sabbath. Christians need to realize that God neither cancelled the Sabbath nor switched it from Shabbat to Sunday. It really does matter what day we choose to call “Sabbath,” regardless of which day of the week a Gentile Christian wants to take off from work. On an encouraging note, the back of the book contains a section called “24/6 Blessings” where Sleeth includes prayers and blessings from the siddur for the Kiddush meal on Friday night. Sleeth’s book encourages readers to put God first in their lives and take a day off in this hectic day and age. Both books provide further additions to the Sabbath dialogue among Jews and Gentiles. Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations BY JACOB FRONCZAK M essianic Judaism is the most exciting movement of our time. Its rebirth in the 1900s was, in a very real sense, a restora- tion of something that had been lost for over a thousand years—a functional Jewish body of believers in Jesus that continues to identify with Judaism and with the Jewish people. An ever-growing body of scholarship testifies that the early Jerusalem church likewise maintained a self-identity within Judaism and that the New Testament should be read as a collection of Jewish texts. Unfortunately, the world-shattering theolog- ical, ecclesiological, and eschatological rami- fications of the rebirth of Messianic Judaism are often overshadowed by controversy and confusion. The term “Messianic” has been appropriated by a wide variety of people and organizations, many of them working at cross purposes. A movement that would ideally be a bright, clear light in the darkness testifying to the Jewishness of Jesus and the early church is often reduced to a murky glow. A question as simple as “What is Messianic Judaism?” has become difficult for many to answer. Adding to the confusion, some even claim that terms like “Messianic,” “Jewish,” and “Christian” are ultimately so nebulous and difficult to define that they have lost their usefulness. 1 Fortunately, the Messianic Jewish movement is home to a growing number of scholars who are well-qualified—both through experience and education—to bring definition and clar- ity to the world of Messianic Judaism. One of these scholars, Rabbi David Rudolph—whose award-winning doctoral dissertation, A Jew to the Jews, previously reviewed 2 —has recently collaborated with fellow Cambridge graduate Joel Willitts, professor at North Park University, to compile a groundbreaking work entitled In- troduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations. 3 INTRODUCTION TO MESSIANIC JUDAISM: ITS ECCLESIAL CONTEXT AND BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS By: David J. Rudolph and Joel Willitts Publisher: Zondervan, 2013 ISBN: 978-0310330639 336 Pages