Inside View Nov/Dec 2025
In my 13 years leading The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry (FOI), I have enjoyed communicating my insights and perspectives on our Jewish ministry with you. This article marks my final contribution to “Inside View,” as Executive Director Steve Conover will begin writing this column in January.
I am so very grateful for the wonderful opportunities the Lord has given me since becoming FOI’s executive director in 2012. They are beyond anything I could have imagined.
Growing up in a pastor’s home and hearing my father’s adoration for Israel, I dreamed about someday visiting the land of the Bible. For many years, it seemed like I would never get there. Then, in 2002, God led me to join FOI; and I visited Israel for the first time the following year. When I first set foot in the Holy Land, I pinched myself to be sure I wasn’t dreaming!
Now, 23 years later, I am blessed to have made 40 trips to Israel, leading tours, meeting with Israeli friends, and visiting the organizations FOI supports. Each journey has been a cherished privilege. Our solidarity trips meant the most to me, as they allowed me to represent tens of thousands of Christians who love the people of Israel and give generously to help them in their time of need. My dear friend who leads a Christian ministry once told me, “Jim, we have the best jobs in the world!” And he is absolutely correct.
The leader of one of the Israeli relief organizations we support wrote me recently, stating, “The impact of The Friends of Israel is immeasurable. The bomb shelters funded by FOI have protected hundreds of lives in Israel. God bless you, dear brother; and thank you for standing shoulder to shoulder with me in this sacred mission.”
Christians are making a remarkable impact through FOI. God raised up this ministry to bless His uniquely Chosen People, whom He loves.
FOI’s evangelical founders shared their faith with the Jewish community in the 1920s and ’30s. Why? FOI founding member Reverend Paul Berman explained in 1934, citing Dr. John McDowell: “Every Church and every denomination bearing the name of Jesus Christ is under inescapable obligation to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to the Jews with humility and love and self-sacrificing service.” This responsibility grew out of “gratitude for all that has come from the Jewish people into the Christian” faith and “the direct and definite command of Jesus Christ to His Church to give the Gospel to all people.” To withhold the gospel message from the Jewish people would be “untrue to Christ and unfair to the Jews.”1
The word gospel is not simply part of our ministry’s name; it forms the core of FOI’s DNA. In the 1930s, the burden to share the gospel with the Jewish people expanded from the spiritual realm to the physical, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany and persecuted the Jewish people.
The believers in Philadelphia whom God used to launch this ministry saw the need to bring not only spiritual but also physical comfort to the Jews. They were moved both by God’s instruction to bless the Jewish people (Gen. 12:3) and by Jesus’ promise to return one day to judge the nations for how they addressed Jewish humanitarian needs (Mt. 25:31–46).
Without the vision and efforts to take the gospel to Jewish people, The Friends of Israel would never have been born. Those who shared the gospel saw the need to help “the least of these My brethren” (v. 40) in their time of need.
Today, we carry on our founders’ vision to bring physical and spiritual comfort to the Jewish people. We must never stop proclaiming our faith because sharing the gospel and meeting physical needs are inseparable.
Photo: The Friends of Israel Archives
ENDNOTE
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- Dr. John McDowell, cited in Paul L. Berman, “The Hebrew Christian Alliance and the Presbyterian Church,” Christianity Today, Vol. 4, No. 9 (1934), 13 (tinyurl.com/BerMc-1).
