Aurel Vidal, a missionary with International Mission to Jewish People, first met Anthony, a young Jewish musician from Marseille, while sharing the gospel on the streets of Paris. They exchanged contact information, and in the weeks that followed, Aurel and Anthony began meeting regularly to talk about spiritual things.
Aurel was struck by Anthony’s openness to the Good News. They discussed everything from sin and miracles to the reason for Jesus’s coming and the necessity of the cross. Opening the Bible to John’s Gospel and chapter three, Aurel recounted how Jesus explained to Nicodemus what it meant to be ‘born from above’.
After many weeks they prayed together, with Anthony repenting and asking for God’s forgiveness as he became a follower of Jesus. ‘I often thank God for giving our missionaries like Aurel so many excellent opportunities to share Jesus with Jewish people like Anthony. God is definitely saving Jewish people today!’ says Joseph Steinberg, CEO of International Mission to Jewish People.
Steinberg, also from a Jewish background, credits his coming to faith in Jesus to the efforts of a non-Jewish friend who, like Aurel, chose to make himself vulnerable for the sake of sharing the gospel with a Jewish person. It’s a choice he wishes more Christians would make.
An unreached people
With Jewish people living in all kinds of communities all across the world, Jewish mission is necessarily a global endeavour – a vital part of the world mission landscape. Yet it is often not seen as a priority by churches in the UK.
