I am pleased to announce the forthcoming release of my next book, Jesus Believing Jews: The Forgotten Story of Jesus’ First Followers (Wipf & Stock, spring 2027). In this engaging study, I will tell you of a hidden chapter in Christian origins. The story of Jews who believed in Jesus has been ignored and even suppressed. Beginning in the second century, the Church Fathers, those early theologians and clerics who decided for everyone else what was to be the proper form of Christian belief and practice, stigmatized and derided Jews who believed in Jesus.

Jews who continued being Jews and yet hailed Jesus as prophet, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, and God’s Word and Wisdom, were ultimately rejected as heretics despite the fact that many gentile Christians continued to worship and fellowship with them, even joining in Jewish rituals and celebrations. What made the Church Fathers so antagonistic toward these fellow believers? It was, first and foremost, their adherence to God’s Law, the Mosaic Torah. Church leadership tried to convince their followers that not only had the Law been superseded by Christ but that Jews had been rejected by God in favor of (gentile) Christians. “Israel” was no longer composed of Jews, they said, but of Christians.

The sad truth is that because of this steady stream of condemnation we have lost contact with an early, vibrant, and original form of Jesus faith. After all, Jesus was a Jew. His disciples and apostles were Jews. Those to whom they preached throughout the Land and beyond were Jews. For five or six centuries, communities of Jesus believing Jews continued to thrive. They wrote a fantastic amount of literature, some of which found its way into the New Testament. But much of it did not and what it teaches us will amaze you.

What did these early followers who could lay claim to observing the religion of their Messiah believe about him? How did they characterize him and describe his life? Which of his teachings did they treasure and hand down to future generations? How did they envision life at the end of the age following Jesus’ return? These and many other theological propositions were later adopted by gentile Christians. Did you know that baptism, the Eucharist, the sign of the cross, and prayer and fasting practices all began with Jesus believing Jews?

I hope you will enjoy this forthcoming book as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. You will learn a lot and in the process of reading make up for almost two millennia of deliberate suppression of the wonderful yet tragic story of those who challenged Rome, Pharisaic Judaism, and gentile Christianity in order to cling to their belief that Jesus was their Messiah and eternal life would be their reward for doing so.