Does the Jewish Bible Reveal Jesus?: A Conversation with David Brickner

Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. We are a podcast of Resound Media, a place you can trust to find great resources for the Christian life and church leadership.

You can also submit questions that we answer on the show to resoundmedia.cc/questions. My name is Jon, I'm here with Mitch and our special guest today, David Brickner. A little bit more information about David. David, until recently, served as the executive director and CEO of Jews for Jesus for 28 years, and just recently stepped into the position of executive chairman of the board of directors for Jews for Jesus. He's the author of several books, including his most recent book, Does the Jewish Bible Point to Jesus? Welcome, David, and could you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Well, thanks Mitch and Jon. Shalom and shalom to everybody listening. I've been serving with the ministry for a long time, but you know, we have a saying in Jews for Jesus, being born into a Christian home doesn't make you a Christian any more than being born in a bakery makes you a bagel. So I actually had to have my own encounter

I come from the longest and oldest lineage of Jewish believers in Jesus that we know of today. My great-great-grandfather was the chief Hasidic rabbi of Zhytomyr in the Ukraine back in the 19th century, and his wife was the first in our family to become a follower of Jesus. So you think Jews for Jesus raises eyebrows today. Just imagine the wife of this chief rabbi becoming a follower of Jesus. There was a book written about her life, but she had the courage and strength to really

follow the Lord despite her husband's refusal. She led all of her children to the Lord. And so on my mother's side, we've been Jews for Jesus for five generations. I have children and grandchildren who are also Jewish believers in Jesus. So we're seven generations and counting. So cool.

Praise God. My dad was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in Mobile, Alabama, where they say, Shalom y'all.

And he was brought one to the Lord by my mom's dad, my grandpa, when he was just 18 years old. So I had the privilege of being raised in a Jewish home. We celebrated all the Jewish holidays and had a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13. But I was also taught that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. And yet, that didn't really change my life. It was actually encountering the person of Jesus through the ministry of Judas for Jesus while a freshman at Boston University in 1976. And now you can figure out how old I must be. And they were handing out tracts in front of the Student Union of Boston University.

And I was at a point in my life where I was really desperate for God and didn't know how to find him in the midst of all of my pursuits of the worldliness that was around me. And there they were, and they invited me to a Bible study. And I walked into that Bible study, and there was a group of about a dozen young college students sitting on the floor with Bibles open. And you know, Jeremiah says, I've loved you with an everlasting love, with loving kindness

I've drawn you. Well, that's my story. God, through the love of those Jews for Jesus students way back in 1976, just really used that to draw me to himself. And I've been serving first as a volunteer and then they sent me to Bible college. And I've been full time with Jews for Jesus since 1981. So it's been a privilege.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool.

Well, David, we're excited for the conversation today. I know our listeners are going to be excited just to learn more about Jews for Jesus and what it's like to be able to share the gospel, to reach people who have grown up in a Jewish background and tell them, like you just shared, that the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, is Jesus. So David, you might just start by telling us what is Jews for Jesus and what does it mean to be a Jewish Christian? Well, I mentioned this before the show, we have a little plaque on the cornerstone of our headquarters here in San Francisco that says, Jews for Jesus established 32 AD give or take a year. So if you think about it, Jesus was Jewish and the first Jews for Jesus were guys with the name Peter, James, and John. And so in the beginning it was the most natural thing for Jewish people to believe in Jesus and the question was if Non-jews were allowed to join us and thankfully of course that was God's plan all along

But being a Jew who believes in Jesus Creates some unique challenges because as you know Most Jews don't believe in Jesus as Messiah And in fact, we've been told in the Jewish community by the rabbis that you can't be Jewish and believe in Jesus. So when Jews for Jesus first began in the 70s, it created a controversy that still is with us. I mean Jesus and Paul created plenty of controversy in their lifetimes certainly, but you know it seemed to be in the rabbinic Jewish community like going against your people people to embrace Jesus because he's so often identified historically with those who've opposed the Jewish people. Christian so-called anti-Semitism.

And so, Jews for Jesus sounds like an oxymoron, you know, like vegetarians for meat or something to many Jewish people. But of course, if Jesus is the Messiah? And so our ministry is engaging with Jewish people

and showing them how the most natural outcome of following the teachings of the Jewish Bible lead to the person of Jesus. He is the Jewish Messiah and so by putting our faith and trust in him, we become completed or fulfilled in our Jewish identity, but most importantly we become born again through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Man, that's awesome.

David, I'm thinking about our Gentile Christian listeners. Help our Gentile Christian listeners. As a Jewish Christian, what would you want our Gentile Christian listeners to know about their brothers and sisters in Christ, in Jewish communities? What would you want them to know?

Well, there's a lot, but I mean, Jewish people need Jesus just like everybody else. And so the most important thing for Christians to know is that their Jewish friends, neighbors, business associates need Jesus just like they do. A lot of people have the mistaken idea that since the Jews are God's chosen people, they're just fine on their own.

And that's not the case. When Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me, the only people listening at the time were Jews. So if he didn't have it applying to them, then it doesn't apply to anyone. So we need to recognize first and foremost that Jewish people need Jesus just like everybody else. But the other thing I would encourage Christians to understand is the Jewishness of their faith, the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, because I think that the church sometimes doesn't apply the scriptures, especially when it comes to Jewish evangelism in a way that a Jewish person can embrace and understand. I mean, you know, these days there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the world. And we're aware of what's going on, and Jewish people are feeling alienated and fearful about, you know, it's just unbelievable. We thought that these were things of the past, but beginning with October 7th of 2023, we realized that the Holocaust is not that far from our present existence. And Jewish, to be Jewish today is to be in a place of threat and fear. So how important is it then for Christians who love the God of Israel to be able to say, I love God and therefore I love what God loves. And the Bible tells us that God loves the Jewish people, that they're the apple of his eye and that the Messiah himself is born of a Jewish woman. And so we want to be a loving community of witness to the Jewish people in our neighborhoods, around us, in Israel. You know, our staff go out on the streets in Israel and there's a lot of feeling of insecurity and trauma from what happened, what is happening. You know, every day there are rockets being fired from Hezbollah into Israel.

There's a whole section of the country that people can't live in. Their homes are empty because of this threat. And now the rockets are going all the way down to Haifa and Tel Aviv. It's just a constant, you know, whenever that happens, and it happens every day, millions of people have to go into bomb shelters. So the whole country is in upheaval. We go out on the streets and share the gospel with people and we let them know, you know what, you may feel alone, you may feel isolated, you may feel threatened, but there are millions of Christians, true followers of Jesus around the world that love you and that are praying for you. And we'll take little words from our, you know, supporters and, you know, words of encouragement. We'll read it to them. They start weeping on the streets. The love of God as expressed by believers in Jesus who love what God loves and therefore want Jewish people to know the Messiah. This is the most impactful and powerful evangelistic tool in the world today. So we want to encourage Christians to love what God loves, to love the people of Israel, to love the Jewish people, to share this gospel with the Jewish people. And we want to help our brothers and sisters in Christ understand the Jewish roots of their faith not only so that they can be a better witness, but so they can appreciate and embrace their own Jewish identity. One of the things I love to do, and I'd love to come to Peace Church and share the message of

Christ and the Passover. You know, we set up a table where we talk about the whole Passover and how Jesus celebrated it in the upper room and instituted, you know, communion. And, you know, I love to do it because you see the light bulbs going on as Christians go, wow, that's my heritage too in Jesus.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

That's beautiful. David, thanks for sharing that. I just want to underline, underscore, for some of our listeners, yeah, two really key points that you just made. One is that, yeah, it would be wrong for us

as Gentile Christians to say, yeah, the Jews are over there and they're good. They're all set. No, like you've said, they need the message of Jesus. They need to hear that Jesus is their Messiah. So we've got to take the gospel there as well.

And also, like you said, the Jewish roots of our faith, that the Old Testament, as we call it, the bigger portion of the Bible, you know, the bigger chunk of our scriptures, that is the Jewish story. And that's our story.

That's the story of our Savior.

Yeah.

Amen.

You talked about how the church maybe needs to grow in its evangelism and maybe its methods of evangelism for the Jewish community. Could you elaborate on that some more? I think that's something that a lot of Christians would love to understand a little bit better, how maybe our typical way of evangelism isn't as effective maybe towards a Jewish audience.

Well, I think that it's important to get to know this person that we're talking about. Yeah. You know, not every, a lot of Christians think that Jewish people are, you know, Bible scholars, you know, that they know the Bible well. They're the people of the book, right? Yeah.

The fact of the matter is most Jewish people don't know their Bible at all. And they're unfamiliar with the Jewish Bible, let alone the New Testament. They've never read it. They're told that they shouldn't read the New Testament. In fact, you go into a bookstore in Israel today, you will not be able to find a Hebrew New Testament. It's not there. But we, sir, make them available. And since the war began, the interest and requests for Hebrew New Testaments that come to us have more than tripled. There's a tremendous spiritual openness.

So if you have a Jewish friend or neighbor, a business associate, a fellow student in college, you know, one of the first things to do is to establish a friendship, you know, make that personal connection. Jews are just like everybody else. And so they want to know. And you know, you can ask them if the rise in anti-Semitism that's going on in the world, how they feel about that.

Yeah.

And, you know, people like to be asked their opinions, right? So, choose something that's, you know, a relevant topic, you know. Have you experienced anti-Semitism in your own life? And then if they begin to talk to you, you know, you can find a way to affirm and say, you know, it really bothers me that you have to endure that because my Bible tells me that God loves you.

And my Bible tells me that he chose Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and your ancestors to be a light to all the nations. I couldn't even be a Christian today if it weren't for the Jewish people. And so I'm grateful to you.

I love and I oppose antisemitism in all of its forms. And I follow a Jewish Messiah.

You know, see where that heads.

But don't be afraid to talk about those things. Don't be afraid to first of all establish a relationship and then look for ways to bridge that chasm that seems to exist sometimes between topics secular and topics sacred. You know, we can talk about the Detroit Lions, but we can't talk about Jesus. This is a season we're going into where people are celebrating Christmas.

The founder of our ministry was led to the Lord by his wife, Moish Rosen. Amazing story and testimony, a great man of God, his wife, Seal, was going to high school in Denver, Colorado, and at Christmas time the high school choir sang, Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie, you know? The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Well, she didn't know she was singing from Micah chapter 5 and verse 2 about the prophecy of where Messiah would be born, but she found out about it in a letter to come to know Jesus. So Christians need to know that even if Jewish people don't celebrate Christmas, many of them will want to celebrate a secularized form of it, but they'll celebrate Hanukkah if anything, but they are curious about Christmas. They do want to know what's this all about.

And to say that what we believe, Handel wrote a very famous orchestral piece called, the Messiah, and it's all from the Jewish Bible. These prophecies that ultimately were fulfilled in Jesus. So it's very relevant to Jewish people if we look to connect with them at certain key points

that allow for conversation about spiritual things.

Yeah.

Wow. David, thanks so much for sharing that. Especially thank you for sharing about the anti-Semitism. I can only imagine the pain and the difficulty of that. If you don't mind sharing just a little bit more. We've talked about October 7, 2023. We did a couple episodes on that back during that month and we've talked about it on and off a few times even since then. David, do you mind just sharing a little bit as we think about that problem of anti-Semitism? This is a huge question. I'm sure you have tons of thoughts on it.

But just give us a snapshot of where do you think that comes from? Yeah, I mean, it's a whole topic in and of itself You know, it's an ancient hatred that goes to the very Plan and purpose of God, you know God told Abraham, you know, I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Genesis 12, verse 3.

This is the beginning of God's call of Abram and the Jewish people, the vessel that he chose through which to bless and bring salvation to the whole world. And from that point, there has been an adversary in Hebrew, Ha-Satan is the adversary and we get that name Satan. We know that this is a cosmic conflict, a battle between God and his purposes and Satan and the purposes of evil. And so anti-Semitism goes all the way back that far. So what we're seeing today is just a modern kind of manifestation of this ancient cosmic conflict. And Christians should stand on the side of God and His purposes.

You know, I was reading the other day from Psalm 83. It's so amazing. Listen to this. Do not keep silent, O God. Do not hold your peace and do not be still, O God. For behold, your enemies make a tumult, and those who hate you have lifted up their head.

They have taken crafty counsel against your people and consulted together against your sheltered ones. They have said, come and let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. Does that sound like from the river to the sea?

I mean, this is Psalm 83, and yet we hear these words being said in different ways every day on college campuses and on the news media. And you know, so we have to realize that we're fighting a spiritual war, first and foremost. This is a spiritual battle. Unfortunately, you know, Mitch, you mentioned that it has had unfortunate connections to history of the church.

You know, that history between the church and the Jewish people could be written in blood and punctuated with violence. Unfortunately, because of this, people who call themselves Christians have been at the forefront of some of the worst anti-Semitic actions in history. And some of the great reformers, like Martin Luther, at the end of his life wrote a sermon concerning the Jews and their lies in which he suggested that Jews should be, you know, kicked out of their homes, their synagogues burned to the ground, and they should be an open display of what happens to people when they reject the Messiah. So I'm sure Luther regrets that sermon. Maybe he was going a little bit crazy in the end of his life, but it's a horrible legacy that thankfully many Lutherans have rejected

and have repented of. But yeah, Eastern Europe, the pogroms led by priests from the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. It's a sorry history that has led many Jewish people to say, how can I believe in Jesus? You know, my people have been persecuted by these so-called Christians, you know, for thousands of years. And I hesitate to identify with people who hate my ancestors. So there's a lot of barriers that have come to Jewish people believing in Jesus as a result of anti-Semitism. And so then how much more important is it for, at this point in our human history, for Christian leaders, people like you guys, you know, pastors, to stand up and say, hey, we don't believe that. We don't support that. We stand with Israel. We stand with the Jewish people. This isn't a political issue. This is a spiritual issue. And so let's remember where God placed his love and let's be a witness of the love of God to Jewish people today.

Yeah, I think maybe turning the corner and I remember going through college, hearing hearing some of the critical scholars of the Bible, specifically the New Testament Gospels, and I think really specifically, John, there were some critics saying that that book and the New Testament in general is anti-Semitic, probably more theologically liberal leaning theologians. What would you say to that or do you ever encounter that as a barrier in reaching Jewish people?

Well, sure. That is an accusation that's been falsely made for many, many years. And I love the New Testament. It's a very Jewish book. Most people don't realize that, but come on, open up the first page of the first chapter of the first gospel and it says the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of Abraham the son of David. I mean how much more Jewish can you get than Abraham and David? And that really sets the scene for the unfolding of an amazingly Jewish story. And you know as much as this book that I've written, Does the Jewish Bible Point to Jesus?, is a great tool for Jewish people to read and come to know the Messiah, the best book is the New Testament. And most Jewish people who come to the Lord have not necessarily come by reading the Old Testament prophecies and becoming believer that way. It's because they've encountered Jesus in the pages of the New Testament and said, wow, this could be true, this is the Messiah. And then you go back and you look at the Old Testament and say, wow, look at this.

It is true. You know, but the one issue, the one area, the one argument that I think most people go to is where John uses the term, the Jews. And that's the way that it's translated. The Jews did this, the Jews did that. And of course, when we dig into that, everybody was Jewish.

So, he's not talking in the story, they were all Jews. So what does the Jews mean? And most likely, as I've understood it, it's talking about the religious leaders and particularly those from the Judean area, from Jerusalem. They were the ones who particularly were plotting against them. Jesus was from the North, remember, from Galilee. So this is a reference John had himself being from that region, talking about those who opposed Jesus who were not that they were Jews, they were Judeans from, you know, the establishment in Jerusalem. And so we have to take that into consideration. There are a couple of passages where Paul, you know, you rejected the message, so now I'm going to the Gentiles. And people say, well, see, that was it. That was the break. Paul said, okay, now I'm going to the Gentiles. Don't stop. Keep reading because the next city he went to, the first place, it's a synagogue.

So you know, these misinterpretations lead to all kinds of foolishness. This is a Jewish book written to Jews and Christians, Gentile Christians, get to overhear that conversation and then realize it was all part of God's plan to make us one new man as Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 2. That we, you know, the church, you're grafted into the rich root of the olive tree. So you get to be a part of something that goes all the way back to Abraham and you become a child of Abraham by faith in Abraham's greater son, Jesus, the Messiah.

So don't despise the Jewish people. You've been grafted in, brother. You're part of a choice to identify with the people of Israel and all that that means past, present, and future.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's wonderful. Stephen, sorry.

So you mentioned in your book, David, does the Jewish Bible point to Jesus. Do you mind sharing with us what passages do you go to when you're trying to share the gospel with a Jewish person?

Okay, well, one of my favorite stories in the New Testament is found in Luke chapter 24. And you'll remember in this scene, Jesus had been crucified by Romans that the disciples had expected he would be delivering them from. And they heard he had been resurrected, but they didn't have the proof of it. And they're hiding out in this, you know, dark room, probably the doors were locked for fear of the leadership, and all of a sudden there's Jesus in the midst of them, and he says, you got anything to eat? Which is a good way to start a Jewish conversation, you know, what are we eating here? And they give him a piece of fish, and I have to believe that, you know, he eats the fish and there's bones left on the plate, and then he says this to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding that

they might comprehend the scriptures. So Jesus was very intentional about wanting the disciples not just to believe because he was standing in their midst and eating a piece of fish, but because they needed to understand that everything was a fulfillment of the promise of Tanakh. And that's the interesting thing that Jesus talks about Moses, that's Torah. Yeah. The prophets, that's Nevi'im. And the Psalms or writings, that's Ketuvim. And that's how Jewish people use that those three sections of the Bible that Jesus is talking about as an acrostic. Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim, Tanakh.

And that's how what we mean when we talk about the Jewish Bible and Jesus uses Tanakh to help his disciples understand all these things were predicted beforehand. And so this book that I wrote, Does the Jewish Bible Point to Jesus, goes in that order. We look at five prophecies from the Torah, five prophecies from the Nevi'im, and five prophecies from Ketuvim in order to paint the picture, the portrait, if you will, that the Scriptures paint concerning the Messiah, which Jesus fulfilled with incredible, incredible accuracy to the point where you have a hard time denying if you're really willing to take the time. This book was written for seekers. This book is an opportunity to overhear a conversation with a Jewish person to another Jewish person about Jesus. So it takes into account all the Jewish backgrounds, but it's very accessible. It's written for people who, you don't have to be a Bible scholar to understand it. Most of my Jewish people are not.

And so we go through these prophecies. And I kind of, when I was writing this book, thought to myself, I wonder which ones Jesus, you know, he didn't have all day to sit there at night and teach. So you know, he took those three sections and he talked about how these things were fulfilled and I'm going to pick these ones. And you know, he probably talked about others, but he certainly talked about these ones.

Wouldn't you have looked, been a fly on the wall in that one? Definitely. But so that's the attempt of the book and it's written for seekers, but I think Christians are going to really be encouraged by it, not only to read it for themselves, especially at the Christmas season. You know, it's really wonderful to have that, but also, you know, hand it off to a Jewish friend, say, hey, I read this book, I wonder what you think about it.

Does the Jewish Bible point to Jesus? Come back with an answer, would you?

Yeah. I think a lot of Christians fail to see the full picture too, and seeing how the Old Testament, how these prophecies, how these passages in Scripture connect all together in Christ too. So I think it's such a great book that's pointing people towards the gospel. So thank you for putting this work together.

Highly recommend this book, too. Yeah, it's so good.

So David, you mentioned that passage, other passages that you share. What do, when you're talking with it with a Jewish person about those passages what kind of pushback do they give what's the obstacles the challenges they face to trying to believe that you that Jesus is the Messiah well I mean one of the most difficult things that a Jewish person has to confront is often an unspoken objection which is if this is true. If Jesus really is in the one promise by our own scriptures, if I believe in this, what's going to happen to me? Am I going to experience rejection? Am I going to be excommunicated, if you will, cut off from my own family?

What are the consequences of my believing and following this teaching. And you know, the actual scriptures themselves, sure, the rabbis have had 2,000 years to develop their own polemic against these passages, but read on their own, they are, you know, they are convincing. One of the things that we love to do in Israel is we'll take our phones and we'll put a little passage, you know, like, for example, one of the chapters of the book is, you know, the dilemma of the missing prophecy, you know. We're talking about Isaiah chapter 53, which is perhaps the most famous Messianic prophecy, but it's never read in the synagogues, and most Jewish people never read it at all. And so you take Isaiah 53 verses 5 and 6 where it says, but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was pierced for our iniquities, the punishment for our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed. You take this whether in Hebrew or in English and you put it on your phone and say, hey read this and tell me, do you think it comes from the Old Testament or from the New Testament? And we actually have this on video if you want to watch the Jews for Jesus Israel YouTube channel it's called so be it and we have these man on the street kind of interviews constantly and it's actually really fun to watch because you know nine times out of ten you're going to show this passage to an Israeli and they're going to say oh it's the New Testament at the British shot so you know it's not no actually look it's from Isaiah.

Isaiah, yeah.

He wrote 700 years before Jesus was ever born. No, really?

Oh, wow.

You know, it's just so fun to be able to show my people one by one that this is actually our book and this is what it says about the Messiah. And it's really hard for them to deny. Why didn't the rabbis ever show me this, you know, is basically what we get. Now, of course, you know, the rabbis will tell you there are, you know, arguments against it. So, for example, one of the prophecies that we're going to be talking about a lot in the Christmas story is Isaiah 714. You know, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and you will call his name Emmanuel. Well, this is an amazing prediction that had an application immediately for Ahaz and for the situation in Israel, but was pointing to the future of the coming of the seed of the woman. The first prophecy of Genesis 3.15 promised that there would be a miraculous birth. Instead of the seed coming from the man, it would be the seed of the woman. Really strange phrase that jumps out at the very beginning of Torah. And now Isaiah tells us how this is gonna happen, because it's a virgin. So here's what the rabbis say, ah, but you're wrong. It doesn't say virgin. The Hebrew word is Alma, which means a woman, a young woman of marriageable age. And if it was virgin that Isaiah wanted to use, he would use the Hebrew word Betula. Problem, Betula doesn't just mean virgin in Hebrew.

It also means widow. In Joel 1.8, a woman is mourning the loss of her husband and the Hebrew word is betula. So what is Isaiah doing? Well, back in the day, a young woman of marriageable age was a virgin. She better be, you know. And so this was not a contradiction. And so, you know, the fact that it was a virgin was just a demonstration of what Isaiah was saying. This is a miraculous birth. You've got a woman of marriageable age who has a baby.

She's not married. She has a baby. How does this happen? Well, you know, the rabbis interpreted it that it was a virgin. The rabbis, according to the tradition, it was 70 that translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek in Alexandria, what we call the Septuagint.

When they got to Isaiah 7, 14, and they translated it into Greek, they used the word Parthenos to translate Alma, the Hebrew. Parthenos in Greek is virgin. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So there's no question here, and the rabbis will dispute it. They'll push back on that one word and say, oh, it's not a virgin. They're wrong. Yeah. And we can prove it, but you got to take the time to listen. And you know, if there's a Jewish person who has out of curiosity tried to say, okay, well, are the Christians right about this? That's one of the arguments. We'll say, well, it's not really a virgin. Okay, let's sit down and look at it, you know, and if you understand the passage, you have to conclude that that's exactly what Isaiah is saying. But, you know, so these are the kinds of objections, you know, Isaiah chapter 53. Oh, well, you know, the suffering servant is Israel. Oh, you know, well, the

fact of the matter is that the servant songs of Isaiah do often refer to the nation of Israel, but not always. And in Isaiah 53, we see that the servant dies for the sins of my people, Isaiah says, to whom the stroke was due. Well, wait a minute. How can, you know, Israel die on behalf of or for the sake of, you know? It just, the language is clear. If you read it, if you take time to study it, that's why we call it the rabbi's dilemma, because they can throw up an objection like that, but it doesn't stick.

Yeah. Not if you read the passage.

Yeah.

That's really good. Oh, man. I love that, David. That's great. Awesome. Well, brother, thank you so much for this great conversation.

I think it's been a great, great education, great chance for us to learn about how we can share the gospel with our Jewish friends, neighbors, great chance to get to consider how the roots of our faith is Jewish and hear about Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. So, Brother David, is there any ways that people can connect with you after this episode, learn more about Jews for Jesus?

Yeah, well, come to our website, jewsforjesus.org, and we'll be very happy to, I mean, there's a tremendous amount of resources there to understand the Jewish roots of your faith, to answer questions about the Bible from a Jewish Christian perspective. And if you're interested to meet up with a Jewish believer in Jesus, or like maybe, as I was saying, you guys want to have me come and share about one of the holidays, you know, right now I'm talking about this very subject, does the

Jewish Bible point to Jesus? And we tap into these prophecies and help people to understand the backgrounds of the Christmas story. But Christmas is a Jewish holiday, it's a celebration of the birth of the greatest Jew that ever lived. And without Hanukkah, there wouldn't be a Christmas.

So how do we understand these things. So yeah, invite us to come to your churches, read our stuff on the website, but most importantly, pray. You know, the Psalms said, Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And the best way to pray for the peace of Jerusalem was to pray that Arabs and Jews will come to know Jesus. Because when Arabs and Jews can say to one another, I love you in Jesus name, the world will really see the reconciling power of the gospel.

That's the hope of the gospel. That's the hope that I, you know, that fuels my passion each and every day to share this good news, because it is the only hope for peace.

Yeah. Yeah. Amen.

Amen. Well, thanks, David. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks everybody for listening. You can always follow us on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. Like and subscribe, and have an awesome week, everybody.