Messianic Judaism for All Nations
Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship is a family-based, faith community centered in Hudson, Wisconsin, committed to following Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, trusting in Him for salvation, and upholding the scriptures he taught and the religion he practiced. We practice Messianic Judaism in keeping with Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostolic-age community of believers. We are modern Sabbatarians. That means we honor the seventh day, biblical Sabbath and the biblical holy days as part of our effort to restore the practice of early Messianic Judaism (Jewish-Christianity).
The earliest form of Christianity—the Christianity of the apostolic era—was a messianic sectarian movement within greater, first-century Judaism. More than one hundred years after the life of Yeshua of Nazareth, the explosive growth of Gentile Christianity eclipsed the early, messianic, sect of Judaism he had founded. Many Jewish and Gentile Christians discarded the distinctively Jewish practices of the Torah (Law) as they assimilated into the evolving Gentile religious environment. The original, biblical faith and practice of Yeshua and his first disciples faded into obscurity.
At Beth Immanuel, we are restoring the practice of early Messianic Judaism. In the days of the New Testament, Jewish and God-fearing Gentile believers in Yeshua worshipped together as co-religionists, participating together in the prayers, rituals, expressions, and customs of daily Jewish life. They understood the person and teaching of Yeshua from within the context of Judaism and the Torah world-view. Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship exists to reconstruct and propagate that simple form of faith.
Our restoration of early Messianic Judaism does not mean we have anachronistically recreated the first-century expression of Judaism. Instead, we recognize that our Master and the apostles after him practiced a form of Jewish expression consistent with the larger, contemporary Jewish community of their day. Likewise, as we re-engage in a Jewish expression of faith in Yeshua of Nazareth, we do so in continuity with contemporary Judaism as it has evolved over the last two millennia.
Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship practices Messianic Judaism, but we are not primarily a Messianic Jewish community. The majority of community members and attendees are Gentile Christians who have taken hold of apostolic, Jewish expression in an attempt to reconcile their faith to the earliest form of Christianity. Our services are modeled after contemporary synagogue services, and our mode of worship can be described as Torah-observant.
We endeavor to restore the Torah of God to the all the disciples of Yeshua. At Beth Immanuel, we believe that God’s Law (Torah) is still the binding and unchanging standard for the Jewish people. Jesus taught His disciples to keep even the least of the commandments of the Torah (Matthew 5:19). According to the Apostles, Gentile believers are not held to the same Torah standard as Jewish believers, but the God-fearing Gentiles in fellowship with those Jewish believers naturally participated in the Sabbath, Synagogue, and Torah-life along with the Jewish community of faith (Acts 15:19-21).
The restoration of Early Messianic Judaism has implications for everything we do at Beth Immanuel. We keep the Sabbath and biblical festivals according to God's prescription in Leviticus 23. We keep the Bible's dietary laws in keeping with the instructions in Leviticus 11. More than that, we endeavor to preserve a basic form of Jewish practice and tradition within our community.
