Last night was no low-key Saturday night. Instead of kicking back at some cozy Italian restaurant or catching the latest movie with my wife and friends, I found myself in a heated discussion with two other people: a Muslim man and another man who would dub himself a "spiritual seeker." 

I had just been so brazen as to say that the god of the Koran is not the same God of the Bible. To many people in our walking-on-eggshells, politically correct world --"Them's fightin' words."

The Muslim man (who is a long-time friend) objected. The other man -- who I believe was honestly trying to figure out what he should believe -- challenged me with a question: "If the God of the Bible is the true God, then why did two different religions -- Judaism and Christianity -- come out of the Bible?" 

I started to answer him by saying that some Jews, Messianic Jews, believe that Jesus is the Messiah who was promised in the Old Testament. These Jewish believers, like Christians, put their trust in what He accomplished by dying on behalf of our wrongdoings and rising from the dead. 

The seeker wasn't satisfied with my answer. He said that Messianic Jews are not in mainstream Judaism and that I couldn't deny that the majority of Jews -- from Orthodox to Reformed -- are part of a different religious system than Christianity. In other words, I hadn't answered his question: "How can two different religions come out of the same Bible?" 

It's kind of a hard question. How do you explain to a seeker that the God who appeared to Abraham and raised up the Jewish nation is the same God who sent His Son to die for us, and yet Christians and Jews don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to theology? 

Fortunately, I had just read Acts chapters six and seven, which has an answer to this question. These are the chapters when Stephen is brought to trial before the Jewish leaders under the accusation that he was speaking blasphemy against Moses and God (Acts 6:11). Stephen was on trial for spiritual treason -- for allegedly claiming that Jesus was going to "Destroy this place (the temple in Jerusalem) and change the customs Moses handed down to us [the Jews]" (Acts 6:14).

The answer I gave to my spiritually seeking friend last night was the same defense that Stephen gave to the Jewish leaders in Acts chapter seven -- the Jews have had a tragic history of being out of step with God's plan for them.

This is the flow of chapter seven: Stephen reviews some key points of Jewish history to remind them of the traditions of the "glorious" past that he allegedly is breaking with. In verses 2-8, he reminds them how God appeared to Abraham and how Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then Stephen reminds them that these patriarchs -- the same men that the Jewish tribes were named after -- rejected their brother Joseph. 

Remember Joseph? He was betrayed by his brothers, but was eventually used by God to save them when famine struck. Hmm . . . Maybe Stephen's words weren't a pleasant reminder to the Jews of how they despised the very person God would use to deliver them in the time of their need. 

Then Stephen reminds the Jews of another part of their collective past: Moses. Moses was not just the pride and joy of the Jews but also the wunderkind, the hero of the Jewish nation. Everybody loved Moses, right?

Wrong. The Jews rejected Moses, too, when he tried to deliver them by the strength of his own hand. They said to him, "Who made you ruler and judge over us" (Acts 7:27). Stephen then goes on in verses 29-43 to tell of the Jews' rebellion against Moses and against God in the wilderness as they turned to idols. And yet Moses, the man who was despised in his own day by his own people, was the very man God used to deliver His people out of Egypt. 

Stephen was poking at a sore spot when he reminded his fellow Jews of their pattern of rejecting God's deliverers. No wonder they killed him when he told them they now were rejecting Jesus, the Messiah Himself.

But the story doesn't end with the Jewish people rejecting their Messiah 2,000 years ago. Just like Joseph was used later on -- after he had been forgotten by his brethren, and just like Moses showed up after 40 years of wandering around in the dusty, lonely places to save God's people -- so will Jesus return and bring a massive revival of the Jewish people as He delivers them from their darkest hour. This is the revival Paul speaks of in Romans chapter eleven when he says "And so all Israel will be saved" (verse 26).

I'm 35 years old and can't remember a time when the Jewish people and the nation of Israel haven't been in trouble. In Joseph's day, the Jews faced famine. In Moses' day, they faced slavery. In our day, they face hatred from people and nations that want to wipe them off the face of the earth. I can't wait for the day when Jesus, the previously rejected Messiah, delivers His people and saves their souls. 

"On that day I (God) will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on ME (emphasis mine), the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child"  -- Zechariah 12:9-10