Called to Contoversy by Ruth Rosen

Absolutely fascinating! I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but I sure got a lot out of it!

This is the Story of Moeshe Rosen and how he first grew up as a Jew, and then how he made the connection of the Hebrew Bible to the Jewish man named Jesus of the New Testament. Things done in secret lead to a profession of faith that Jesus was the Messiah to the Jewish people. Moeshe does the unthinkable. He accepts Christ as Messiah, and begins to work in the Jewish community to tell others the same. I have thought the same thing since I ran into some writings by David Stern. If Jewish people would just read the New Testament, they could see who this Jesus is. Some aspects of the Christian church need to stop seeing Jews as the people that killed Jesus, and see them as those lost, just like any other spiritually lost person. Moeshe takes the message of the Gospel… the message of the Messiah to the Jewish people. He is likened to be the Jewish Billy Graham.

One of the first stories stood out to me… Moeshe at his mother’s death bed. She is unsure of her eternal destiny (as many Jewish people are). He begins to tell her about the certainty of Jesus and heaven and she slips into eternity with such anger that it really made me think. How would I feel if my child tried to convert me tome something that I did not agree with as I was dying? It raises other questions… How does the Gospel of love create so many angry people? Why do people hurt the Jewish people? Why is there such ridiculing that comes from the lives of Jewish people that is aimed at Christians? In the Jewish culture, how many of those people are culturally Jewish rather than religiously Jewish? Who follows the “faith” in ritual only?

In all, this is an incredible biography written by the daughter of a man that had a passion for his people, and for Christ, and even though many would say that there is no matching the Jewish faith to Jesus, he saw it and shared it with great impact! Definitely a good read.

I was provided a free copy of this book for review by Booksneeze, and was not required to give a good review.