Who are Saltshakers?

OUR VISION

Saltshakers is run by a Jew and a Gentile. We both believe in Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus the Messiah) and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour. We are aware of the need for the Church to learn more of the Jewishness that was lost in the early centuries of Christianity. We are also very aware of the need for Jewish people to find salvation in Yeshua. While aware of the varied views and positions of our Christian and Messianic brothers and sisters, we believe in balance and tolerance and our eyes are fully set on the passage in Pauls's letter to the Ephesians. "For he himself (Yeshua) is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility" Eph 2:14-16. We are simple folk really with a simple vision. We exist to teach the Church and reach the Jewish people.

..Top

TEACH THE CHURCH

Those who have followed our progress over the last six years or so will know that we had done our best to offer the widest range of messianic teachings to our visitors.

Unfortunately, on reflection, we don't feel this has necessarily been the best approach. By offering links to a huge variety of teaching and other sites we had been often accused of condoning the views of these other websites and had also been criticized when bad links occured, things that were totally outside our control. So we have decided to remove Olive Tree and Olive Oil, ensuring that we are totally responsible for everything you see and link to on our websites.

We are happy, though, to retain Library Messianica, where you have access to a large collection of historical messianic writings and the Gospels provide you with a growing commentary of the Gospels from a Hebraic viewpoint.

Potentially we will also be offering lively and educational discussions in our Messianic Forum, as soon as we find moderators for it. WIth Midnight Oil we are creating a unique collection of articles, teaching our perspective on the messianic world and providing a lot of source material about Israel, the Jewish people and what the Church needs to do to get back to its Jewish roots.

We have removed the extensive question and answer format of 'Ask the Messianic Rabbis', because it took so much time to update, time we simply don't have. Instead we are hoping to introduce a more oprn format to answering people's questions. But if you want the ultimate teaching resource then go no further than our CDROM, eMESSIANICA.

..Top

REACH JEWISH PEOPLE

Jewish people need the gospel but they don't need it aggressively thrust down their throats - they've had enough of that in the past 2000 years. There's a lot of baggage that needs to be addressed before you can hope to engage the attention of Jewish people, they've suffered far too much at the hands of 'the Church'.

Without an active awareness of this situation, evangelism is always going to be an uphill struggle. Although we believe totally in the work in the Holy Spirit in regenerating hearts of both Jew and Gentile, we believe that the mind is often overlooked. The mind asks questions like, the Crusades? Blood Libels? Ghettos? The Inquisition? Pogroms? Anti-Semitism? The Holocaust? We can't ignore these questions, they won't just go away. Jewish people must see that there's a MAJOR difference between the 'Christianity' that brought these horrors and the 'Christianity' taught by Jesus and laid out in the New Testament.

We have started to try and explain these things to Jewish people, with encouraging results. Our Tapestry of Gefilte Fish was written to introduce Jesus to Jewish people without the trappings, 'Why don't you?' is designed to provoke (in a nice way) and our 'Dear Joseph' letter poses a few things for the open mind. But these are just beginnings, we need to do more.

Please keep an eye on us, we intend to do more, soon.

..Top

STATEMENT OF BELIEFS

A: CORE BELIEFS

• We believe in the Bible, both the Tenach (Old Testament) and B'rit Hadashah (New Testament), as inspired by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), as the infallible and completely authoritative word of God.
• We believe that the one God exists eternally in three distinct, but not separate persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as expressed in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) as Echad (a 'multiple oneness')
• We believe that man, through his sin, is separated from God and needs to be regenerated by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) for salvation.
• We believe that Yeshua Ha Maschiach (Jesus Christ) is God, was conceived by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), and born of a virgin, died at Calvary, shed his blood as man's substitutionary sacrifice, rose bodily, and ascended to heaven. He is presently exalted at God the Father's right hand.
• We believe that only by repentance and by faith in Yeshua's sacrificial death can we, both Jew and Gentile, be cleansed and reconciled to God and given the free gift of eternal life.
• We believe that the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is God and is the source and power of all acceptable worship and service. He is our Comforter and Helper, enables us to live godly lives and empowers us for the exercise of all biblical gifts.