How does someone who was raised in a Christian home who attended a small Pentecostal church on the south side of town grow up to become a Judaist? My journey did not happen all at once but a little bit at a time. If someone were to tell me when I was in my teens that when I got older, I would become a Judaist, I would not have believed you. It was not ever something I ever saw coming, nor was it part of my childhood, it is a journey that the Holy One of Isra’el has called Karen and me to travel, even though as far as we know, we don’t have any Jewish ancestry. And although we are still on our journey, the whole Bible makes a lot more sense to us today than it did when it was being taught by our Christian pastors.

Jewish Music

Growing up, I did not know anything about the Jewish people, except what I learned in church from the Bible.  I had never actually met one physically.  I saw them when I watched Bible movies on television, such as the Ten Commandments with Charleston Heston, or the Greatest Story Every Told, the King of Kings, etc.  Shortly after Karen and I were married in December 1981, Karen discovered five Lamb albums for sale for $1.00 each.  She bought all five albums.  I had never even heard of Lamb before, but as soon as I put their album on, I was hooked!  I played the albums over and over again.  I think there were times when Karen regretted buying the albums since I played them repeatedly!

Meeting a Jew

Later on that Spring, I lost my job, and we had to go on welfare for support.  In the summer of that same year, 1982, I was required to take some classes in how to write a resume, do an interview, or basically everything I needed to do to successfully get a job.  It was there at these sessions, that I met a Rabbinic Jew for the very first time.  He was a very polite man who drove a Saab, and during the lunch break, I noticed that he would leave for awhile, and then come back to the meeting.  One day, I got the courage to ask him where he went.  He told me that He left to go out to pray.  I don’t know why, but I wanted to watch.  On another day, I asked if I could go, simply to watch.  I am not sure why, but he said I could come.  I’m sure he thought I was a strangest goy that he had ever met!  But when we went off by ourselves, I noticed he put his yarmulke on his head, and then he pulled out his prayerbook, and started rocking while he read it.  I had never seen anyone pray that way before.  But so far that year, I had heard Jewish music for the first time, and I met my first Jewish man and seen davening for the first time.

My First Jewish Synagogue

Then a few months later during my Western Civilization class at the community college for the Fall semester in 1982, I visited a Jewish synagogue for the first time.  As part of the class, we were taken to visit different religious places.  We visited a Greek Orthodox church, a Conservative synagogue, and an Islamic Mosque.  At the Conservative Synagogue, we came and observed the service, and then afterwards the rabbi answered our questions.  The people there were very polite, and they treated us well, particularly the rabbi.  I didn’t know why, but I did not feel uncomfortable at all while we were there; in fact, I felt completely at home.  It perplexed me why I felt that way since it was the very first time I had ever stepped foot in a Jewish synagogue.

My First Jewish Commentaries

The following year (1983), I was going through the community college library when I came across my first Jewish commentary set on the Torah written by Rabbi Moshe Nachman.  In his commentary on the book of Genesis, I read where he was describing the scene in which God was forming Adam from the Adamah, the dust of the earth.  He described the scene with such detail and imagery that I could imagine it in my mind.  He described God as a Potter molding and shaping Adam, molding and squeezing the different parts until he was formed.  I could then imagine God as He breathed into him, and as He did, Adam’s  body began to fill with air, much like a balloon, and when his body was full, I imagined him making a “popping” sound.  Adam was not really filled with air but with the nishmat chayim (“breath of lives”), and Adam became “a living soul.”  This does not mean that Adam was created with “many lives,” like Hindus teach, but he was created with a “physical life,” a “mental life,” a “spiritual life,” an “emotional life,” a “social life,” and even a “financial life.”  All of these various lives were breathed into him by God.  I had never read such depth in any book written by any Christian.  I was hooked and wanted to know more.

Learning About the Messianic Movement

It wasn’t until we moved down to Mesa, Arizona, in January 1991.  A couple of months later, I found a book by Dr. David Sterns, called Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospels. It was from his book, I learned about something called the “Messianic Movement,” and I wanted to know all that I could about it.  I found that there were some groups in the Phoenix area, and eventually we found a group that we were comfortable with – it was being led by a Messianic Rabbi, David Friedman.  And it was quite a time of growth, but then we had to move to Kentucky.  Unfortunately, there was not one in the area where we lived.

We have been a part of the Messianic Movement now for over 20 years.  However, my greatest growth has been over the past 7 years.  For those who are not familiar with the terminology, the “Messianic Movement” is like a bridge that expands and connects two separate religious islands of thought: Christianity on the one side and Rabbinic Judaism on the other.  And so one comes to faith in Yeshua (trans. “Jesus”), it merely places him or her on the Messianic bridge.  It does not say what end of the bridge he or she is on.  There are people and groups who call themselves “Messianic,” denoting that they are on the bridge, but they are on the Christian side of it in their values, beliefs, and lifestyle.  On the other hand, there are others who call themselves “Messianic,” also denoting that they are on the bridge, but they are on the Rabbinic Judaism side of the bride in their values, beliefs, and lifestyle.  So calling yourself a “Messianic” merely denotes that one is located somewhere on the bridge; it does not denote what you view as your main religious identity at all.  And, of course, this bridge has the full spectrum on it from Christians who have an interest in their Jewish roots or in Davidic dance or even in the biblical feasts to those ultra-Orthodox Rabbinic Jews who have an interest in learning more about Yeshua, and it has everything on it in between.

Christianity Has Forgeries?

And for a long time, I saw myself as starting on the Christian side of the bridge to eventually moving to the middle of it, and I was in the middle of the bridge for a long time.  Now in the last 7 years, God has been calling us to the Rabbinic Judaism side of the bridge.  Does this mean that we have given up our faith or belief in Yeshua as the Messiah?  Absolutely not!  It has been Him who has called us to this.  He has told us that there are many in mainstream Christianity who have created their own “God,” their own “Jesus,” and even their own “gospel” to believe.  Their “God,” “Jesus,” and “gospel” are forgeries, or false man-made substitutes, for those that are within the Scriptures.  In fact, one of the main doctrines of the ancient Ba’alim was “freedom from God’s Law,” and even though they use the word “God,” the God they describe is not the Holy God of Isra’el, but it sounds closer to the ancient god of Ba’al.  Also, the “Jesus” they teach and worship does not sound like the biblical Yeshua – but a false substitution, and even the “gospel” of historic, mainstream Christianity is not the same “gospel” that Yeshua and his Jewish disciples proclaimed and taught throughout the land of Isra’el.  It is a different “gospel.”

It is Time to Practice Discernment

We cannot simply trust our religious leaders to teach us the Bible.  We need to know it for ourselves.  How can we judge whether we are being properly taught the Scriptures, if we do not know the Scriptures.  If the Bible is not in us, then how can God use it to cleanse and transform us into whom He wants us to be.  The church has adopted a huge error, and that is its belief that “Jesus’ death has freed us from the Law,” or even that “the Law ended at the cross.” “The law that ended at the cross” was the law of sin and death – not the law of God. This is just one of the many misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and errors that has run throughout the church in the last nineteen centuries.

None of these misinterpretations and errors were ever taught by the Apostle Paul – Christianity has traditionally misinterpreted many things that Paul has written!  We need to return to the mindset, values, beliefs, and lifestyle that was lived by the original Jewish disciples of Yeshua.  If we compare the lives of the disciples of Yeshua with mainstream Christianity, the only similarity is that mainstream Christianity confesses that they believe in Jesus, but their lifestyles do not match those we see within the Scriptures.

IT IS TIME FOR A RESTORATION

We need a restoration back to the Holy One of Isra’el and to holy living; a restoration back to Yeshua, the Orthodox Torah-observant Messiah of Isra’el, and a return back to the biblical message of Yeshua and his disciples: “the Good News concerning the Restoration of the Whole House of Isra’el,” which is translated in many Bibles as “the gospel of the kingdom.”  This was the original Good News, i.e., “gospel” that God sent Yeshua and his disciples to proclaim and teach to both Isra’el and the nations, and it should be the one that we proclaim and teach now as well.  Yeshua even prophesied that it would be the message in the end times:

This Good News of the Kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end shall come. (Matthew 24:14, TLV)

If we truly believe that we are living in the end times, then why aren’t we teaching this original “Good News” (aka, “gospel”) of Yeshua and his disciples as prophesied?  The disciples, and even Sha’ul Paulus (Paul), a second-generation Beyt Hillel Pharisee, taught both the “Good News of the Restoration of the Whole House of Isra’el” AND “the death and resurrection of Yeshua.”  Christians claim that they proclaim the same “gospel” (or “Good News”), but do they?  Ask yourselves the question, “Why isn’t this original “gospel” being proclaimed and taught today? Why has this original message been hidden for all these centuries?”

One Eternal Revelation of God – Not Two!

We need to return to using the first part of the Scriptures (the Tanakh; aka, “Old Testament”) to understand the writings of the disciples (aka, “New Testament”) – NOT the other way around as Christianity has done for centuries.  We need to go back to seeing the Bible as one unified revelation from God – not a divided Bible with two distinct revelations as Christianity teaches it.  Believing in Yeshua’s death and resurrection and being immersed (baptized) in water are only the beginning steps to begin our salvation journey with God.  It is not an instantaneous event that happens when you go down to pray at the altar at the front of the church, but like the Exodus, it is a journey that takes a lifetime.  The Exodus only began when they applied the blood of the Lamb to the lintel and doorposts of their home.  The blood did not magically transfer them all the way to the Promised Land, and in the same way, when we apply the “blood of the Lamb” (belief in Yeshua’s death and resurrection) to the lintel and doorposts of our hearts and lives, it will not magically transfer us automatically to God’s Promised Land of His Kingdom.  We are not instantly “saved” simply because we say a short prayer confessing that we are a sinner and accept His death and resurrection on our behalf.  This is only the first step.  We are still not out of the “Egypt” of sin, but to leave it, we still must pass through the immersion (baptism) waters.  It is in those waters that we will wash our sins away (Acts 2:38-39; 22:16; see also Acts 8:12; 10:46).  Once we believe and are baptized, then we have left the “Egypts” of sin, corruption, and abominations, our journey with God is still not over.  We still have a long way to go.

Mt. Sinai is Part of Our Journey!

We still need to journey on to Mt. Sinai.  Each of us must go there and accept the same commandments that God gave to Mosheh (Moses), His covenant, and by accepting them, we also accept the responsibilities and obligations that He has given to the rest of the House of Israel.  And by living out these same covenant responsibilities and obligations, we shall also enjoy the same blessings.  We do not keep these commandments to be saved, for we have already left our “Egypts,” but because we are “new people” who are now a part of a “new community,” a “new kingdom,” like Rahab and her family, Ruth, and Uriah the Hittite, we live with the rest of Israel as our King, the Holy Eternal One of Israel, has commanded us to live for His glory and honor – not our own!

A Time of Testing

Once we have accepted His commandments, then we will travel through the wilderness where we will be tested, just as God tested the ancient Israelites.  In the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), it is written,

…the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. [Devarim (Deuteronomy) 8:2]

It is only after their time of testing that they were allowed to enter into the Promised Land.  And there is coming a future time of testing, which is coming on all flesh all around the world (called “the Tribulation”), and just as God tested the ancient Israelites before any of them would be allowed to enter the land, we too must be tested before we will be allowed to enter into the land of the Messianic Kingdom.

We need this whole process to complete the journey.  It is not enough to go forward and to say a prayer.  We need to go back to the way we see Yeshua and his disciples lived and taught.  We need to go back and understand that God give His Written Torah, as well as the Tanakh, including the writings of Yeshua’s disciples, to ALL PEOPLE of ALL RACES and ALL NATIONS AND LANGUAGES for ALL TIME!  It was not given “just to the Jews,” as I have heard many Christian pastors teach. Let’s get back to conforming ourselves to the Scriptures – not changing the Scriptures to match and accommodate our own current sinful culture!

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