A typical question we often hear sounds like this: “Hi, I am not Jewish, but I’d like to know more about your congregation’s services. Are Gentiles allowed to come?” We answer that everyone is welcome, of course. Yet to many this comes as a surprise?

Messianic congregations like those we plant are meant to testify to Israel and of Israel that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah. Thus, people find it curious that Messianic congregations tend to be composed of both Jewish and Gentile members. In fact, while at our congregation (Hope of Israel) the membership may be about 50/50, in many congregations the Gentiles even outnumber the Jewish people! What’s going on here? Aren’t we meant to testify that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah?

The truth is that Gentiles (i.e. the Nations) have always been part of the biblical and Jewish testimony to the Messiah of Israel. Rather than being some sort of problem, the reality of Gentiles believing in a Jewish Messiah helps to prove the validity of the Messianic witness. To understand this issue better, let’s look at a subtle and often untouched aspect of the biblical feast of Shavuot (i.e. Weeks, or Pentecost, which occurs June 8-9 this year).

We read in Leviticus 23 that God required an unusual offering at Shavuot.

“You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread for a wave offering, made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of fine flour, baked with leaven as first fruits to the LORD.”

While the amount of flour (“two tenths of an ephah”) is mentioned for other Feast days (for example, for Passover in Lev. 23:13), this issue of two loaves is something recorded only and distinctly on Shavuot. So we ought to ask: why two loaves?

The number “two” became a consistent picture for witness in the Scriptures; namely, it took two witnesses for an acceptable court testimony (Lev. 19:15). This principle finds a variety of applications within the New Covenant. Congregations are not to allow an accusation to be made against an elder unless there are at least two witnesses (1 Tim. 5:19). Messiah sent out His disciples two at a time (Mark 6:7). There will be two witnesses against the anti-Messiah (Rev. 11:3-11). Also, in marriage there needs to be agreement between both spouses for prayer to be accepted by God (1 Peter 3:7). Without two witnesses, we have merely opinion.

What does this have to do with the two loaves? Note that the offering of the loaves accompanied several other sacrifices, including a peace offering (Lev 23: 19; cf. Lev. 7:9ff). This is crucial. When the Apostle Paul speaks to Gentiles at Ephesus, commenting on this offering (simply called “peace,” just as the sin offering is called “sin”), he says:

“But now in Messiah Yeshua you who are far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. For He Himself is our peace, who made both into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall...so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace” (Eph. 2:13-15).

Messiah is our peace offering, to unite Jews and Gentiles; so these two are witnesses to the reality of that fellowship that is found in Messiah. Since God desires to reach the whole world in the testimony of Messiah, there had to be two witnesses for the testimony to be credible. Faith in the God of Israel and the universe was never meant to be limited to one ethnicity. Therefore, God promised to save the Gentiles to join the testimony of the Jewish people, who were already a “witness” for the Lord ((Isaiah 42:6-7; 43:10,12; 44:8; 49:5-7).

This is why when the Day of Shavuot had “fully come,” “both Jews and proselytes” are specifically mentioned as coming to faith at the same time (Acts 2:1,10). A “proselyte” refers to a Gentile seeking the God of Israel. Luke is describing the two-loaves testimony - the body of Messiah.

Our witness is a spiritual unity and not based on cultural uniformity, where ethnic identity is lost. This unity is a result of a gracious work of Messiah in reconciling man to God. Messianic congregations should value the membership of both Jews and Gentiles as part of the unique New Covenant witness. But more importantly, all congregations should understand the two-fold witness, which means that churches also should seek for Jewish believers to be discipled to freely live out our own communal distinctives as well. Indeed, these are things to consider for the entire body. Y