The word Jewish is broader then its etymological roots, the same as ‘English’ does not simply mean some one who is genetically an Angle, it includes descendants of Angles, Saxon, Jutes, Celts, Normans, Danes and all who share the same culture and language.

So for example Leonard Cohen is described as ‘Jewish’ even though his name would suggest he is descended from a priest, the tribe of Levi. While the term Jewish derives from Judea and the tribe of Judah, it is used to describe the culture, people and religion that has come down from the children of Israel.

For Gentile Christians, these are the people and culture of our messiah and our scriptures. While most of the epistles were written to Gentiles the cultural context of the rest was lost to  Christianity after the first century when its leadership and theologians were all Gentiles with little contact with Judaism (there’s that word again) and who had an animosity and mistrust toward the Rabbinical learning that could supply the context they lost.

Deacon.