Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Preaching the Gospel in Israel. Christianity’s Heritage in Judaism. - Highlight Episode 343

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Preaching the Gospel in Israel. Christianity’s Heritage in Judaism. - Highlight Episode 343 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, brother.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, my pleasure.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're really blessed.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And it's funny because we go to Jerusalem sometimes and we speak with Orthodox Jews.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We like to make good connections with them and we like to go to the same place so that they can get to know us a little bit, and so they call me the Jewish Jesus guy.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, that's the Jewish Jesus guy.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's derogatory, but sometimes it's curious.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're curious yeah.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It's a title that I wear, you know.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Badge of honor.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's right.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, amen, man.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Well, that's great, and we'd love to just you know, get to know you today, introduce our friends to you and stir them up to recognize that, look, it all started in Israel.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: It all started with the Jew, first right, and then spread from there to all the world.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: One of my main goals is to really make Jewish faith in Jesus known, and so I reached out to Ray.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I reached out to Jen and you guys got back to me and were very gracious, and I was on a trip to California and we made it happen.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We met at Huntington Beach and we filmed your testimony, Ray, which is doing very well on our channel.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It was a blessing, Thank you for that.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: And then, ray, you came up with an idea to have Jeff preach the gospel in Israel while you're doing the same here, asking the same questions.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Tell us about that, yeah, and going back and forth and it was great it's on our YouTube channel at the moment and it's unique to see someone being witnessed in California and then switched to Israel and just sharing the gospel with them.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Just for people who've one never been to Israel.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Two have never watched your channel.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about the atmosphere, what it's like to preach the gospel to a Jewish person in Israel.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: What are your?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: challenges.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Is it legal?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: How do you overcome those challenges?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first of all, it is legal.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Israel is a wonderful country with freedom of religious expression, freedom to even change a religion in Israel.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Boy, we don't hear things like that.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because unfortunately you asked what is it like to share the gospel in Israel?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It's different, based on your approach.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So there are people that come as street preachers and they come there completely insensitive to Israeli culture, jewish mindset, and they go and they get on the microphone and you Jews in the 353, this is for you, you know, and they do this thing and it's so offensive because someone's coming to your country and pointing at you in the face and saying what you're doing is wrong.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And I have the answer come to me and Jewish people spit on that and I understand why.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: You know the persecution of Jewish people throughout history in the name of Jesus has been horrific, horrific, and I'm a part of that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You know my ancestry is a part of that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: We have Holocaust in my, you know, in my wife's family, holocaust survivors and everything.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Not that that was a Christian event, but you know my mom had rocks thrown at her head, you know, when she was younger, by proclaiming Christians.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: You know Catholics and my father also called Dirty Jew and was, you know, attacked, and you know, and I had, I was called Dirty Jew in school and you know these things, we have these things in our history.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It's almost genetic, you know.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It goes down from generation to generation and we feel these things.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And so if you come to Israel with an insensitivity to what the Jewish people have gone through throughout their history, you're going to have a really hard time.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: You're going to be argued with, yelled at, kicked at, you know, pushed spit on and you know what.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: In a way, so be it, because you're coming into a country to a people you don't understand and just talking at them, and I don't necessarily like that approach.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Now, as a Jew, I go to my fellow Jews and I honestly care about people.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I love people, I love talking to people, I love meeting people and I love hearing stories about people's lives.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: So when I go up to somebody on the street and I come up to them and say, hey, we have a YouTube channel, I'm a Jewish believer in Jesus, and they go, you know it's like a double take.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: What?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: What?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: They go, you know it's like a double take.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: What Is that a thing?
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: A Christian Jew?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Isn't that an oxymoron?
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: So there's no hesitation on your part to mention the name Jesus.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Like I said, Ray, I had enough.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Enough fooling around with my life, let's get busy.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: I found that too.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: I'm witnessing to a Jew and I'm nervous but when I do it's a molehill.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: They just say yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love what you said, Jeff.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: You love your people.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: That's where all of us should be.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's what compelled Paul, who said I would wish myself a curse for the sake of my people, and that cannot be something that is faked.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: When it's authentic, people sense it and they're more prone to listen to you.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Mark, you obviously have a Jewish family that you're related to now through your wife, Laura, and you shared the gospel with her.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: What was that like, and have there been challenges with the Jewish family?
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Yes, I mean her father will not talk to me about anything Jewish-related.
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: I took it up as a challenge.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: Right, this is going to be my father-in-law, right?
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: I want to be able to have conversations with him, and now he's just kind of done talking to me and that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: So we have a very cordial relationship, but he doesn't want to go deep, he doesn't want to open up scriptures.
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: I can use any sort of Judaic word imaginable to try to relate and connect.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: It's just not going to happen.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's had its challenges and family gatherings have not been the easiest.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: My wife she went to, went to ancestrycom and had her test done and it says here that she is an Ashkenazi Jew 98%, you know, which is pretty high on that list, right, but you know it is what it is.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: You know we've been to Israel what?
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: Two, three times you know now and obviously we have a heart for Jewish people and I would love to learn and grow continually.
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: That's why I'm excited for this last portion of this podcast to know, you know, what's the secret sauce.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: You know what is it that you're doing?
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Jeff, we'd really love to hear from you on that because, honestly, look, we've been to Israel.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Ray and I were two of those guys that got spat on.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: At least Ray did, yeah, preach the gospel on Ben Yehuda Street in the open air.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: We didn't know any better, but we do want to grow, even ourselves, in sensitivity.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: We want to be wise because, at the end of the day, we want to maximize our effectiveness.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: We know the gospel is unchanging.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: We know the use of the law is pertinent because scripture tells us that, but we do need to be wise in how we apply it in certain contexts so that we can maximize our effectiveness and impact.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Well, what came to mind when Mark was telling his story was that he said that you know, my wife, who's 98% Ashkenazi Jew, became a Christian, and in the mind of a Jewish person, that means they've left us and gone to them, and that is really what's stopping a lot of Jewish people from investigating Jesus, because they feel like and what my wife said too she says but Jeff, I know this is all this is happening, and Jesus and everything, but I don't want to be a Christian, I want to be Jewish.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: But she started watching testimonies of Jewish believers in Jesus, which helped her understand that not only are you not leaving your Jewish identity, you're actually becoming more Jewish, right, and how is that possible?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Because we're going into their religion, right?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: No, it's not that way.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: You know, the natural olive branches have been broken off, still have to be regrafted in, and the unnatural, the wild olive branches meaning the Gentiles or the nations are grafted in, are adopted in.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So when I was at the gym one day and this gentleman that was praying for me says I just want to thank you and the Jewish people for allowing me to be a part of your heritage and your culture and that I can believe in the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob because of the Jewish Messiah, jesus, and I went what I've never.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: You're coming in.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: You mean, I'm not coming out to a new religion.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And he said, no, I'm coming in, thank you.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your Messiah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And it just switched something in me.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And so what I like to do is, when I talk to Jewish people.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: You know, the contextualization of the Jewish mindset is important, but I came to faith through Gentile believers.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: You know non-Jewish men in the gym that had no Jewish context whatsoever.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: They just told me what I needed to hear and God moved.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And so my first advice is to talk about Jesus, even if you're scared, even if you're apprehensive.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But that being said, there is a contextualization.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That's important.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Terms like Christianity, the Church, jesus Christ, virgin Mary you know all these kinds of terminology are very foreign to Jewish people.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sit well with them because what they think of is Roman Catholicism and medieval persecution.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: When they hear those terms parading with crosses and killing Jews and forced conversions, conversions and so that's what they think.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: When they hear these words that you know, the Catholic Church and all these things I think Yeshua over Jesus is important meaning.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I know that name.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: It's Hebrew, you know.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Yohanan the immerser is John the Baptist and Miriam is Jesus' mother's name Yeshua's mother's name, you know, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: These are all things that a Jewish person can relate to.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: First, you go for the heart.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I love you as a brother or sister in humanity.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But second of all, I care and you guys are really good at this I really care about your future.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And did you know?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: The first sentence of the New Testament is this is the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, and a Jewish person goes that's the New Testament.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: That sounds just like the Tanakh is that pretty, pretty common.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: that response, that shock, Absolutely Like what is that?
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Because I thought the New Testament was a recipe for how to persecute Jews and, you know, take over Israel.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: That's what they think, and some of our biggest arguments come against the New Testament from people that have never opened it, and so I like to quote things like Old Testament prophecy, which, like Mark said, it doesn't help everyone.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the testimony is helpful, sometimes the prophecies are helpful, and what we do is we love the person.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: You know, when the rich young ruler came to Jesus before he starts to do the commandments, what does it say he did?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: First he loved him and then he shared with him that same gospel.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: It transcends every element of society, every culture, every boundary.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: The message is still the same.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no matter where you are in space, time or history, the gospel reigns.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: True.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: It's important I love your perspective.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: It's important to understand the contextualization of culture that helps you understand how to proclaim the never-changing gospel.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: You know, shame on us if we ever try to change the gospel, but we should always pay attention to the kind of questions that culture is asking so that we can present the gospel in a faithful way.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: That's what you're doing.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, thanks for coming in, brother.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: We hope to have you on again.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: And hey, Lord willing, maybe we'll team up with you in Israel one day we're there.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: You guys are always welcome.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Please come Awesome.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you brother.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Without the jokes and fellowship, be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.