Bob Mendelsohn on Messianic Jewish Faith, Identity, and the Hope of Jerusalem

00:00:01
Don
Welcome to the twenty fourth episode of the Reflexio Podcast. I'm your host, Don Little. And today we I have a conversation with Bob Mendelson. I met him in October last year at the World Evangelical Alliance Global Congress. And we both went saying we were happy to have a roommate and didn't know who we would room with. And they put us together. We had a great time of fellowship together. And I felt like his story of ah a traditional religious Jew coming to follow Jesus and then spending his entire life with Jews for Jesus and sharing the gospel with Jews ah around the world was a story worth hearing. So today I sat down with him and we talked about his upbringing, his faith, how he came to faith. We then transitioned to talk a little bit about what it means to be a Jewish follower of Jesus

00:00:58
Don
And then we talk a little bit about the situation in Israel and the Middle East and how he views the city of Jerusalem and the people of the Jews in terms of their significance in God's eyes. I'm sure you will enjoy this conversation, even as I enjoyed it

00:01:18.90
Don
So welcome, Bob, to the Reflexio podcast. It's great to be able to meet this way again after we met some months ago in Korea. Can you introduce yourself to our listening audience?

00:01:31.35
Bob Mendelsohn
Shalom to you, Don, and shalom to the audience. It is a joy to be with you. We had a great time in Seoul, South Korea. I'm a Messianic Jew, born and raised in Kansas City, now living half the year in Nashville, Tennessee, and the other half a year in Sydney, Australia.

00:01:54.12
Don
Wow. When we talked, we spent time together in Korea, heard a little bit about your story. I thought this is a story that needs to be heard. And can you just tell some of that story of how you grew up Jewish and yeah, I won't tell them ahead of time.

00:02:13.48
Don
You tell the story.

00:02:14.32
Bob
That's all right. Both of my parents were born and raised in Kansas City. All four of their parents, two on each side, are from um Europe.

00:02:27.16
Bob
And so I've got Golds... sorry, a Weinstein and Stempleman, a Wolf and a Mendelssohn. Now, if that doesn't sound like a Jewish law firm...

00:02:36.28
Don
That sounds very Jewish to me.

00:02:37.97
Bob
I don't know what is. So look, Jews have been scattered worldwide ever since, ever since. there There's no beginning of our dispersions.

00:02:49.32
Bob
And the last one was in 70 CE, 70 So we've been chased out of one country or another.

00:02:49.98
Don
Right.

00:02:56.48
Bob
And we found America, this golden kingdom, you know, this comfortable place, which it's not so comfortable anymore.

00:03:07.28
Don
anymore, yes.

00:03:08.21
Bob
but So my I grew up in the 50s and 60s in Kansas City, and I knew black and white television, and I knew black and white comfort. We didn't own a key to the house, I don't think, until we sold it. It was a safe world of Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed and Father Knows Best. These are words that are found on shout tv and all these old stories but for me it was it was an easy world an easier life simpler life I didn't have much to worry about I rode my bicycle and never wore a helmet um we just had ease and I we played three sports baseball football which means gridiron and basketball those three sports and that's what we did so seasonally I've moved from one sport to another I was an academic in my as in my understanding of life was learn stuff...

00:04:16.28
Bob
The more you know, the more you'll be able to handle any difficulties in life. So I was ah right I was raised really with an encyclopedia next to me.

00:04:29.14
Bob
And there were 20 volumes, I think, I don't remember, of the world book. And if you want to know something, go look it up. yeah There was no...

00:04:37.27
Don
We had one of those too. Yep.

00:04:39.80
Bob
What's a Google? Google is a number, and that was an official number. So I had this love of learning and wanting to become and gain information because information is the way to frame your own life and not let other people override you.

00:04:58.77
Don
Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:59.32
Bob
um Being Jewish was part of who I was, part of who I still am. You don't give that up any more than you as a male gave up maleness when you came to believe in Jesus. You're who you are.

00:05:13.75
Bob
whether you're Canadian, American, Australian, South African, these are who we are. We like certain cultural foods. We like certain cultural holidays.

00:05:23.79
Bob
We have a rhythm of life that our Jewish holidays gave us. So my whole world was this um comfortable, sub-urban life of Kansas City.

00:05:28.15
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:05:38.01
Bob
And it included being Jewish, it included my academic and choral. I sang in the choirs in school. These were part and parcel of who I was. It was also the 50s and then the 60s, which we nicknamed the turbulent 60s, because the world was starting to go mad, I think driven not by social media, but by media.

00:06:05.85
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:06:05.88
Bob
television was now in every home and we were being told what's going on in that country far, far away named Vietnam.

00:06:06.03
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:06:15.27
Bob
And now I'm being driven by my professors and teachers at school that this ought not to be. I'm being driven by the music of the Beatles and Elvis Presley and Joan Baez and Bob Dylan trying to figure out my world.

00:06:34.04
Bob
So there's turbulence going on inside my head and inside my heart. In the 60s, so in 1964, I had a bar mitzvah. I became a man. Here 13 years old today I am a man. And, I gave the speech and I and I was celebrated.

00:06:53.94
Bob
And it was a beautiful time. Most of my Jewish friends stopped attending synagogue at that point.

00:06:59.88
Don
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:07:00.21
Bob
But I kept going because for me, I found my footing in the religion and culture and society of the Jewish world. I was... um comfortable in being the newspaper editor for our for our local chapter. I was comfortable leading synagogue services, leading the prayers.

00:07:24.82
Bob
This is not saying a prayer in synagogue. These are long services and the cantor, the chazen, the shaleiach tzabur, the guy in front um actually chants the whole service.

00:07:38.74
Bob
So um I was comfortable being that and I found my footing there. I went to university when I was 17. I went to Washington University in St. Louis, probably to be a doctor.

00:07:53.27
Bob
Because I'd been saying that since I was four years old. What do you want to be when you grow up? Leah, like a five-year-old knows. Today, I want to be a dinosaur.

00:08:02.68
Don
Yeah.

00:08:03.96
Bob
Tomorrow, I want to, who knows what you're going to be, right? But I always said, I'm going to be a doctor. I think I found my footing in the statement, not necessarily in the becoming.

00:08:14.19
Don
Yeah.

00:08:15.51
Bob
um But it was 1969. I'm at university And it's the hippie time. Drugs, sex, rock and roll, and I fast joined in. Result, I didn't exactly give myself to university and academics there.

00:08:35.06
Bob
I got on radio midnight to two on KFRH, the big 57 in St. Louis. And I played, you know, long records and short songs. Anyway, I've found my footing in there. I guess if you...

00:08:55.95
Bob
What I'm saying, Don, is that I was always looking for my footing. I was looking for where I belonged and with whom I belonged. Because you don't just belong to an institution, you belong to people at the institution or the guided the leader of the institution. I was looking for that.

00:09:15.48
Bob
The song from way back when was Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. And Dylan's knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. There was something about trying to find my place in the sun, my place in the moon, my place anywhere.

00:09:33.07
Don
Yeah.

00:09:33.33
Bob
Well, after three semesters at Wash U, I dropped out. I was on scholarship at Washington University.

00:09:44.12
Bob
This is not a smart thing to do. I've

00:09:46.49
Don
Your family wasn't happy, I'm sure.

00:09:49.17
Bob
made I've made a few mistakes in life, but I just couldn't get my head together as we young people said it in those days. So here I was hunting some kind of meaning and relevance. I don't know if those were technical, the terms that we were supposed to be looking for, but that's what I wanted.

00:10:11.02
Don
Yeah.

00:10:11.41
Bob
Where is my purpose in life? Where is life? Big philosophical questions that the university wasn't obliged, nor I think capable to answer.

00:10:23.73
Don
yeah

00:10:25.88
Bob
So I dropped out, put my thumb out and hitchhiked around the country. I went straight. Jews and birds were smart. It was December. We go south in the winter. So I went to New Orleans, Highway 61 revisited. There it was. I'm playing 12 string guitar at Jackson Square Park, gathering a crowd, singing Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young music and finding my footing there, at least temporarily.

00:10:55.13
Bob
um Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street's still an exciting place in New Orleans. I don't know if you've been there.

00:11:02.58
Don
So I have it, but why don't you say a bit about it? Because we've got a global audience, not just Americans.

00:11:08.19
Bob
Bourbon Street is the center of the French Quarter, and it's the... music capital of anything music, blues and jazz and rhythm and blues and ah pop.
00:11:22.45
Bob
You could sing anything there. But the great musicians just get out there. So at two in the morning, they're playing jazz licks and it's phenomenal.

00:11:33.97
Don
Right.

00:11:34.17
Bob
I remember being on the streets there, Bourbon Street's the center of it all, like Wall Street is for finance. um So I'm on Bourbon Street and some musicians are playing and we're on the street and we're in a line dance and I'm dancing and singing. ah Who knows? I don't, the scene is foggy at this point, mind you, it's over five decades.

00:11:57.14
Don
right

00:11:59.64
Bob
But I remember dancing, I was next to a guy who was, not my race. He was not my religion. He was not my anything.

00:12:12.12
Bob
And I'm dancing, holding onto him. It's a lime dance. And I realized I don't like this guy. And I think, what is that? We're people of peace and love and hippies. And for some reason, yeah his teeth were bad. and There was just so much that I found disreputable. At the same time, I'm thinking,

00:12:33.30
Bob
what What's wrong with me? That's just not on. That's so wrong. But I couldn't fix it. I knew that it was wrong, but I couldn't, I didn't know where the strength or courage or information was to change that.

00:12:40.34
Don
No.

00:12:47.65
Bob
There was something missing in me. It was a few weeks later, I was in Atlanta, Georgia. And I remember being surrounded by some, what we called Jesus freaks in those days.

00:13:02.29
Bob
And they harangued me about our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And I mean, they were, they were weird animals. Mind you, I'm a hippie with a Jufro and they are they're wearing ties and crew cuts.

00:13:18.51
Bob
And yeah, I had to convert the heathen.

00:13:19.13
Don
Oh, really?

00:13:21.89
Bob
I was among them. So that um I really, I didn't like those guys at all. But that I could handle because they were a foreign religion and I just, I didn't need them.

00:13:37.40
Bob
But that same week, I remember I was staying at a university near Emory University. I was staying at a camp. a fraternity house a friend had gotten me able to stay there and um one of the fellows so it was a crash pad we called it that probably came from crashing in a drug thing but it just became the nickname for a hostel right so here I am staying there and one of the fellows went in to take a shower

00:13:49.57
Don
Yeah.

00:14:01.62
Don
yeah

00:14:11.51
Bob
how did I have money to get around and hitchhike here and there? Well, I didn't have money. So I actually um pilfered a $5 note from this guy's pocket when he was in showering.

00:14:27.64
Bob
And I felt so bad. I knew that stealing was wrong. I'm a man of peace and love and hippies and So I knew this was wrong, but I had no control.

00:14:37.98
Bob
I had no... infra I didn't know how to change who I was inside. there

00:14:43.19
Don
You felt bad about yourself, but you couldn't figure out what, yeah.

00:14:46.49
Bob
ah couldn't fix it. I needed something to fix me, and I didn't know where it was. um So I left. and Anyway, I'm back in Florida, and then and then I'm back in D.C. I mean, I traveled around, and I have experiences. They're all...

00:15:04.60
Bob
in my testimony book, people are welcome to read therealbobm.com. But the details, yeah, there you go.

00:15:10.39
Don
Yeah, it'll be in the show notes. I'll have it in the show notes. Yeah.

00:15:13.74
Bob
But we don't need to unpack all that. But it was May of 71 after I'd been, I had a religious experience with my family on Passover, a very significant time where I will really, I prayed.

00:15:31.83
Bob
I know that's kind of weird to say that this is significant, but I had never, since I was a little lad and had prayed, now I lay me down to sleep, that kind of prayer, I had never prayed in English.

00:15:45.63
Don
Hmm.

00:15:45.68
Bob
I'd always prayed in Hebrew.

00:15:45.71
Don
Hmm.

00:15:47.30
Bob
The rabbis wrote great prayers. I'm happy to pray those. But for whatever reason, I prayed that night under a full moon in Kansas City,

00:15:58.49
Bob
God, is there another way? I mean, I I didn't know how to frame an English prayer. And there it was a month later, and I'm walking at of a hippie hangout, Volker Park, by the Nelson um Art Gallery, Nelson.

00:16:19.99
Bob
And I I ran into some more of those Jesus freaks. And they opened their Bible, but they didn't talk like they're Southern. They just talked like me. They looked like me. They were hippies like me, but they wanted to explain to me Jesus Christ. And I thought, all right, I'm Jewish. Give it your best shot.

00:16:38.20
Bob
And they did. And I won the Bible battle because they'd been believers four months, but I knew my stuff.

00:16:44.79
Don
Yeah, a whole lifetime.

00:16:47.32
Bob
I had, but I was intrigued by this couple. He was 19, she 18. And I was gob smacked. Whoa, these people seem to know this guy about whom they're speaking. So what do I do? What should a man do?

00:17:08.66
Bob
Well, they recommended that I read the back of the book. I'd never read the New Testament. Why would I read it? St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. John

00:17:20.12
Bob
They sound Catholic to me. They don't sound Jewish. Well, I started reading it and I was overwhelmed. Jesus is somebody.

00:17:28.89
Don
Yeah.

00:17:31.03
Bob
He seems to have it together. Wait a minute, I'm Jewish and Jews don't believe in Jesus. So whatever identity conflict I've had all my life, now it's amplified.

00:17:42.39
Bob
And started reading I don't know how you got through school. You're a fairly sensible and not ignorant man. But when I was a kid, the way I, see, I later taught high school mathematics.

00:17:59.41
Bob
So English was not my forte. The way I got through high school English was to read the first chapter of a book, the last chapter of the book, and please God, where's the Cliffs notes, right?

00:18:12.45
Bob
Or monarch notes. I had, I don't know. Today we'd use Google, right? We'd just fill it in.

00:18:17.03
Don
Right.

00:18:18.45
Bob
But then it was, so I started reading St. Matthew and I read it. It was intriguing. I started reading St. Mark and he sounded just like Matthew. So I skipped to Revelation.

00:18:30.05
Bob
And you read Revelation at night as an unbeliever in 1971. A little scary! And so it was three days later, I went to this girl's house with whom I was reading this.

00:18:43.77
Bob
And I said, I really want this Jesus stuff, but I don't want your Jesus. I don't... I don't want to become an orphan. You know, I knew that if I accepted Jesus, I'd lose. There'd be some social cost.

00:19:00.16
Don
Yeah.

00:19:02.13
Bob
That's about all I knew. The other thing that I knew was that I could find my footing in him, that I could find my belonging in him. These guys who followed him didn't have it all together, but they knew the one who did. And so I put some faith there, not a whole lot of faith, but I...

00:19:22.36
Bob
put some there and I gotta tell you, Don, I don't know how to explain it except that this incredible heaviness on my shoulders was lifted.

00:19:34.23
Bob
It was removed.

00:19:34.62
Don
Hmm. Hmm.

00:19:36.24
Bob
um Some people use the term, cast your burden on the Lord. I didn't know what that meant, but what I knew was I'd been forgiven of my sins and I knew how to handle racism.

00:19:51.64
Bob
I knew how to handle my own thievery. I knew how to handle the difficulties of social cost. And it was to put my faith in Yeshua, in Jesus.

00:20:05.40
Bob
And as a result, 1971, here we are, 2026, 55 years later. I'm still trusting in him. I'm still believing.

00:20:15.83
Don
Yeah.

00:20:17.29
Bob
I'm still held on to by the one who got me that night.

00:20:23.77
Don
Thank you. ah So after some years, you encountered this really fledgling new ministry called Jews for Jesus, and God led you to get involved. um Tell us ah about what that was about, and you're still involved with them in some extent.

00:20:43.99
Don
I don't know exactly officially or retired, but yeah, yeah.

00:20:45.87
Bob
Full-time worker. No, I'm full-time. Yeah, it was 1971 when I came to faith. In 1971, 72, Jews for Jesus was getting some notoriety at Madison Square Garden. There was no official organization.

00:21:04.12
Bob
It was just a nickname for Messianic Jews or Jewish people who were believing in Jesus.

00:21:09.72
Don
The guy who started it, had a different name for it originally, right?

00:21:12.69
Don
And then it became...

00:21:13.49
Bob
Yeah, well, the it was under the rubric of the American Board of Missions to the Jews. That was the official name.

00:21:20.18
Don
Okay.

00:21:21.51
Bob
And they've changed their name to Chosen People Ministries. Moishe Rosen is the founder of Jews for Jesus.

00:21:26.35
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:21:28.83
Bob
He was a 38-year-old 1973 or so, thirty-nine. He was born in Kansas City at the same Jewish at the same Jewish hospital where um I was born, Menorah Hospital, 19 years later for me.

00:21:44.47
Don
Right.

00:21:48.09
Bob
But Moishe said he didn't found it, he found it happening. You know, he found Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus and it just happened.

00:21:53.10
Don
It happened.

00:21:57.36
Bob
That's the way the Jesus movement was characterized, I would say.

00:22:00.09
Don
Yeah.

00:22:02.55
Bob
So in 73, the organization officially launched as Moishe and a handful of other young, young bucks ah got together and started Jews for Jesus.

00:22:16.85
Bob
In 74, well, then the music team, the Liberated Wailing Wall came through Kansas where I was and I got a t-shirt.

00:22:23.09
Don
I've heard of that.

00:22:27.21
Bob
I'm a Jew for Jesus. That was cool. Yeah, um I'm one of us. you know I found another footing. In 74 I drove out to California where they were headquartered and spent some good time with some of the original Jews for Jesus.

00:22:46.07
Bob
some of the original 20th century Jews for Jesus. The original Jews for Jesus were back in Jesus's day.

00:22:52.28
Don
Exactly, the apostles and others.

00:22:54.58
Bob
Or the original one, Mary and Simeon and Anna who held the baby, you know, those are the original Jews for Jesus.

00:22:56.09
Don
Yeah. They're all Jews for Jesus, yes.

00:23:02.65
Bob
Mary should have a t-shirt.

00:23:07.83
Bob
Jews for Jesus. um and so it was a matter of connecting and different ones came through Kansas where I was at the time and I always identified. I taught high school mathematics for a couple years after I obviously went back to university at Kansas, and got my degree.

00:23:30.07
Bob
And in 79 February or so, I had this idea that maybe I should get back to preaching the gospel and give up school teaching.

00:23:41.44
Bob
How's that? I don't know. Maybe I'll contact these organizations. And I did. and

00:23:47.70
Don
So you just said, get back to preaching the gospel, because earlier you had this period when you first came to faith that you planted a church, right?

00:23:55.89
Bob
had Yeah, because Jesus coming back tomorrow.

00:23:57.89
Don
Amazingly. Yeah.

00:23:59.50
Bob
so I had to get out and tell people about the Lord. I mean, that was characterizing the whole Jesus movement was the planting of churches and Bible studies and fellowship groups.

00:24:06.73
Don
Yeah.

00:24:10.10
Bob
And it didn't matter where. And you just gather people and people gather. So they were hungry for something more. And um I was happy to be part of that.

00:24:18.49
Don
Yeah.

00:24:21.55
Bob
So, yeah, I started a church in Lawrence, Kansas. It's still going much better since I left.

00:24:26.16
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:24:27.41
Bob
But it's it was called the Mustard Seed. It's changed its name now to Rev City Church, which is cool. It's a good name. And they're doing great things for the Lord.

00:24:39.74
Bob
So, yeah, I pastored it because I started it. And in 77, stepped down because I was getting married. And so then I wanted to get back to it and just seemed to we go somewhere.

00:24:50.84
Don
Right.

00:24:53.59
Bob
And my wall

00:24:53.72
Don
So 79, you felt like you need to go back to some kind of ministry.

00:24:55.78
Bob
that's weird

00:24:56.92
Don
Yeah.

00:24:57.30
Bob
yeah my wife and I were adventurous at that moment and still are. Yeah. be able to go hither and yon and share the gospel. And so we contacted many and Jews for Jesus was one.

00:25:10.84
Bob
And we we joined September 79. And so here we are still carrying on in the work of sharing the gospel with Jewish people and anybody else who will listen.

00:25:22.65
Don
can you Can you just share one or two stories? I'm sure you've got books full of stories of conversations you had with Jewish friends or people in the street or and how some came to faith.

00:25:36.89
Don
Or tell one or two stories.

00:25:38.75
Bob
Yeah. Sure. Well, I the great thing about the gospel is it makes its way. It clears the path. that

00:25:47.61
Don
Hmm.

00:25:48.02
Bob
We are merely spokesmen for something that does the work without us. We are not the making it happen people. We're the announcers for the real star of the show, which is Yeshua.

00:25:58.08
Don
Yeah.

00:26:04.02
Bob
And whether it is someone with whom I worked for 13 months, I'd go out to his home in New York, to his home every Tuesday night or whatever date it was, um and gave him a Bible lesson and taught, and he was open and his Catholic wife was reluctant and he was open. And this this question of religion is so big for some and so minuscule for others.

00:26:37.00
Don
was

00:26:37.56
Bob
But when we took it out of religious term and made it into a personal conversation between him and the Almighty, now it gets its own footing. So I'm thinking his name was Robert and there he was,

00:26:53.43
Bob
Jewish guy, we started with his home out in Queens, and then he moved up to Westchester County and I'd go up to visit them. Finally, one day it just all clicked. And you don't know why it took so blooming long.

00:27:07.89
Bob
Why did it take that long? But it did. And he said, okay, I'm ready. And he prayed and he received Jesus. He had all the information, but information was not enough.

00:27:19.19
Don
Yeah.

00:27:19.35
Bob
It was the revelation God had to open his eyes. For instance, Bessie, 20 years I'd been sharing the gospel with her, 20 years.

00:27:32.37
Bob
And it was one day I visited her and she was wide open. Come here. I want to hear about that. And I said, where has that woman been for so long? And for whatever reason, God opened her eyes that day. And I was able to pray with her to receive Jesus. She died five years later.

00:27:53.65
Bob
um

00:27:53.89
Don
Hmm.

00:27:54.55
Bob
Look, there are there are people in my family who've said yes, and people in my family who've said, gay e bek from me, get away from me. I don't want to hear about that. People in my neighborhood, people in my sphere of influence who receive Yeshua, my own dentist back in Australia, my own dentist, Jewish guy. You know how it is when you get...

00:28:18.42
Bob
when you go to a new dentist and they, they say, we'll fill out these forms. And so he's re reviewing my form and he's looking and it says, you know, where I live and,

00:28:30.49
Bob
occupation, minister, organization or company, Jews for Jesus. I'd like to hear more about that. He says, this is a Jewish man and he's got those sharp, you know, scalpels or whatever he's going to use my mouth.

00:28:45.25
Don
Yeah.

00:28:46.41
Bob
Right. And so I'd like to hear more about that. And he's asking we got these instruments in my mouth.

00:28:50.42
Don
Hmm.

00:28:53.51
Bob
I said, can we talk about that? Can we talk about that later? Yeah. Anyway, he came to faith after a few years and I baptized him in his pool. And we're still in very good conversation um wherever. Look, there are individual Jewish people.

00:29:12.15
Bob
of prominence and of low social status, of wealth and of poverty, of significant 10 people in their family and single till they die.

00:29:24.00
Bob
There are people of every stripe and ethnicity within the Jewish world

00:29:24.47
Don
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:29:30.29
Bob
There are Moroccan Jews and Baghdadi Jews. There are Ethiopian Jews and proper Ashkenazi, Polish, Russian, Jewish, German Jews.

00:29:43.57
Bob
There are Latino Jews with whom I've shared the gospel. I've been to Buenos Aires a couple times for good length of time to share with Latinos.

00:29:55.80
Bob
um The gospel of Messiah.

00:29:58.79
Don
Yeah.

00:29:58.81
Bob
And the results are always up to God. One by one, Jewish people are listening. What they do with that after that is between them and the Lord.

00:30:11.92
Don
I've had various contacts. I've never been to Jerusalem, never been to Israel. and ah But I've had a number of friends who've been there and visited. and ah have a Palestinian friend who leads a Bible school there, former Catholic, came to faith. um I hear quite a bit about like messianic congregations in Israel, people who are Jewish, worshiping together. And it seems like they often have some pretty good relationship with Muslim background fellowships too, because they both love to save Jesus.

00:30:51.16
Don
But what does that look like in Israel in terms of the the kinds of faith among Jews? What's going on there?

00:31:03.22
Bob
There are so many types of Jewish people, not just ethnically, not just geographically, um culturally, culinary. There are different.

00:31:17.72
Bob
The Yemenite food is so different than South Florida Jewish foods.

00:31:25.93
Don
I've tasted Yemeni food. I can vouch for that.

00:31:29.33
Bob
good. um So when you say, what's the Messianic Jewish perspective or view or activity, I have to say, wait, wait, there's the old phrase, two Jews, three opinions.

00:31:38.81
Don
There isn't one.

00:31:41.79
Bob
Jewish is not a monolith. There are Jewish stripes and streams that are Quite distinct. There are Jews, you know, who believe in this the establishment of the state of Israel. In 1948 that happened. There were Jews in 1947 and to this day who still do not believe in the establishment of the state of Israel.

00:32:08.28
Bob
without the Messiah being there.

00:32:10.50
Don
Yeah.

00:32:10.61
Bob
The Sathmar Hasidim are a major sect who fought against and even gave money to the PLO when they were established to prevent Israel from being established. So you get a wide political view, you get a wide personal view about how we should live in spite of all that width.

00:32:33.43
Bob
When Jewish people come to faith in Yeshua, in Israel, in Tel Aviv, or in Jerusalem, or any other little spots and dots around the geography,

00:32:45.85
Bob
There is something, I believe, in John 17 that clarifies itself as they seek to be unified with the other believers.

00:32:57.91
Bob
So here's your friend, the Palestinian, the Arab Christian who grew up Catholic, came to personal faith, or as my wife likes to say, she internalized what she'd always sacramentalized.

00:33:14.02
Bob
That's really a beautiful phrase to me.

00:33:15.80
Don
I like that expression, yeah.

00:33:17.24
Bob
but when we find other brothers and sisters in the faith, we who maybe used to elbow our way against them, widen our arms and welcome them and say, you're part we're in the same mishpocha, we're in the same family.

00:33:34.73
Don
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:35.09
Bob
So it usually characterizes itself in love and in good speak rather than those people. once you If you use the phrase those people, it's likely you're a racist. I mean, this is...

00:33:50.68
Bob
This is one of those characterizations that I have to constantly caution my mind and heart from attending. The issue of those people is they're my people and God's people. And Jesus died for each of those people. So they can be my brother. They can be my sister.

00:34:12.18
Bob
And I think that's one of those things that I see that is growing, but not only in the Messianic Jewish world in Israel, in the Messianic Jewish world in America and Canada and Australia.

00:34:28.41
Bob
We are growing comfortable in our own skin.

00:34:31.87
Don
Yeah.

00:34:31.93
Bob
That is, we don't mind being brothers and sisters with those people.

00:34:31.99
Don
So.

00:34:37.81
Bob
We're okay because we've grown in the Lord. The more you know the Lord, the more you know the Lord of love. And that ought to define us.

00:34:50.13
Don
so

00:34:53.85
Don
One of the, like my main area of ministry is with Muslim context. And when people come to faith out of that environment, there's, you kept talking already about your identity and trying to find your footing.

00:35:09.94
Don
when they come to faith in Christ, they lose their community often and they're trying to figure out who they are. And some of their heritage is wonderful and other parts are like, I don't want to be associated with that.

00:35:24.50
Don
um As a Jewish follower of Christ,

00:35:33.07
Don
why are you a Jewish follower of Christ as opposed to being a Christian? I thought It's just the terminology.

00:35:37.91
Bob
Just be a Christian, Bob. Just have a ham and cheese sandwich at the church potluck and a glass of milk wash it down.

00:35:43.09
Don
Okay.

00:35:44.97
Bob
Yeah, why maintain your identity when there's a bigger identity?

00:35:51.77
Don
Yeah.

00:35:52.47
Bob
Well, the bigger identity doesn't preclude who we also are. So the Bible that says there's neither Jew nor Greek also says there's neither male nor female.

00:35:57.79
Don
Yeah.

00:36:04.81
Don
Yeah.

00:36:05.50
Bob
Barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, were we're all one in Messiah. Well, what that means is we're not all the same. We're not the same one, but we are united in the in this community of faith called the body of Christ.

00:36:13.70
Don
Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:36:21.24
Bob
What does that mean? Look, the same Paul who wrote that there's neither male nor female gave instructions to females. Older women are to do this, younger with with women are to do this, you widows are special. the same one who said there's neither slave nor free wrote to Philemon about Onesimus and make sure you treat him well and Wait a minute. That sounds like slavery is still there and there's freedom. They're still there. So wait a minute. And the whole Acts chapter 15 decision of the council in Jerusalem, which by the way, Don, you got to get to Jerusalem.

00:37:02.91
Bob
You've been to Korea, but you haven't been to Jerusalem.

00:37:03.06
Don
I've still got a few years left. It's time.

00:37:07.39
Bob
It's actually closer to go there from Buffalo. Um, um, um The council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 dealt with the issue of what do we do with this new group called Gentiles for Jesus?

00:37:23.01
Don
Yeah.

00:37:23.64
Bob
What do we do with them? What laws do we give them? They didn't have any issue with who they were as Jews. They were dealing with these converts coming in from the pagan Greek Roman world.

00:37:36.21
Bob
Well, let's not give them this stuff because we and our fathers don't even keep that. So let's give them these four laws. And they made a determination and Paul and others took out those letters and went out to Derbe and Lystra and Iconium and got the word out. Okay.

00:37:52.69
Bob
Well, what that means is a Messianic Jew can still be a Jew. Sabbath is still Sabbath. You know, the Romance languages, the Latin, the Spanish, what's the Spanish word for Saturday? It's not...

00:38:07.70
Bob
Dia Septima, you know, it's not the seventh day. It's Saba day. It's Sabbath. This is not, it's a no brainer that the Sabbath is still Saturday.

00:38:13.43
Don
Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:38:17.78
Bob
But what about Sunday? It's Domingo, the Lord's day. Well, there you go. That's, that's what it was. So the, even the guys who wrote the language and defined the calendar understood that Sabbath was Saturday. So Messianic Jews in Israel,

00:38:34.65
Bob
will often have Sabbath services. That's not true only there in Buffalo, New York and in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm going to speak in a couple weeks in Atlanta at the Messianic congregation Beth Hallel and they meet Friday night and Saturday. There's no Sunday services there.

00:38:54.33
Don
Right.

00:38:55.19
Bob
but there are plenty of churches that meet Sunday. So cultural maintenance is part of your identity. If you know Australians and our love for Vegemite,

00:39:11.70
Bob
and then you taste it and you say, Ooh, this is horrible. But an Aussie loves it, right? Why? Because it's ah inbred, maybe it's inculcated, maybe it's,

00:39:23.00
Bob
a learned device when they're one year old, they stick it on. I don't know how they do it, but they love their Vegemite. Okay, well, if an Aussie moves to Paris, he doesn't only want fromage for breakfast, he might want his Vegemite.

00:39:41.14
Bob
But you bring you with you into whatever developed community you find.

00:39:43.97
Don
Right.

00:39:48.39
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:39:49.17
Bob
And that's really important as in Muslim background, interfaith, what you have to do is make it culturally sensitive.

00:39:59.67
Bob
And this is a big argument in theological and um evangelistic missional circles.

00:39:59.71
Don
Yeah.

00:40:06.58
Bob
How do we communicate the good news of Yeshua of Isa to a people who've sort of appropriated some of them, but not. And then what kind of, once they come to faith, do they get baptized? Once they come to faith, do they sit in aisles and, you know, linear rectangular churches or sit in the round like Muslim people do? Or do we make them eat non-halal food?

00:40:34.16
Bob
etc. so this whole issue of cultural sensitivity is huge and it certainly was that which they dealt with in acts 15 and Paul in romans 14.

00:40:35.69
Don
Yeah.

00:40:38.48
Don
Yeah.

00:40:45.18
Don
Yeah.

00:40:48.98
Don
I know a number of people, including one of my daughters, who... um really has found people who are Messianic believers who exposit the Scripture, and especially the Old Covenant, the First Testament, um and they find the insights, some Jewish insights, so valuable. And I noticed on your website that you have verse-by-verse exposition of Scripture.

00:41:17.72
Don
and I didn't look at any of them, but what would you say are some of the insights that can help us Gentile Christians um better understand our heritage that that you bring as a Jew, you and your fellow believers?

00:41:34.74
Bob
My mob.

00:41:35.33
Don
Yeah.

00:41:35.46
Bob
Yeah. Look, some of them the connections that people make are eisegetic. That is, we take what we know and we stick it into the text instead of exegetic, where we just let it speak.

00:41:50.11
Bob
And that's dangerous.

00:41:50.56
Don
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:41:51.71
Bob
So when we read something about...

00:41:52.09
Don
yeah

00:41:55.06
Bob
in um something Jewish that happened in Jeremiah's day or in Moses's day, and we then think it's uniformitarian so we can take today's Jewry and stick it in that, it doesn't always work.

00:42:12.05
Bob
However, For instance, you ask, and so what did Jesus say about two or three being together in his name? He said, you get two or three together in my name, there am I in the midst.

00:42:26.56
Don
Right.

00:42:26.97
Bob
said, for wherever two or three have agreed together in my name, it'll be done when you agree in prayer. So some people read that.

00:42:38.13
Bob
Don, they they have a self-image that's less than others. And so they hear, oh man, God doesn't listen to my single prayer. I've got to get two or three others to pray with me.

00:42:50.41
Bob
And that's exactly not what's happening. In the Jewish world, by at the time of Yeshua, the rule was you needed a quorum, a minion it's called, a quorum of 10 men, ladies don't count, 10 men to constitute a congregation so that certain prayers can be offered.

00:43:13.75
Bob
Okay. So if you wanted to group prayer, you needed to get nine other fellas to pray together. Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, no. Wherever two, which means you and one other fella or three are there.

00:43:32.79
Bob
I'm there. I'm listening. God's listening. You want a community? Two will do. Three will do. He's diminishing the requirement, not elevating it so that your so your private prayer, that's answered in another story.

00:43:48.35
Don
Right.

00:43:48.48
Bob
When you pray, go to your closet, pray alone, talk to your father in secret.

00:43:48.47
Don
Right.

00:43:52.84
Bob
But if you want to talk community prayer, you don't need to get 10 fellas. So understanding what the Jewish context is helps give a a a person with bad self-image real confidence that his prayer and his in his accountability partner praying together. You and I prayed together in Korea. God listened to that. We didn't need eight other fellas.

00:44:18.44
Don
Yeah. Yeah.

00:44:19.45
Bob
Yeah, so context in the Jewish world really matters.

00:44:19.57
Don
yeah

00:44:24.41
Bob
What about one other? The hem of his garment. She touched the hem of his garment. Who touched me? Power went out from me. You think, but that's so weird.

00:44:36.05
Bob
Why didn't she just touch the shoulder or, you know, whatever? Well, she touched the hem. What's the hem of his garment? This is the frayed fabric that you see on the end of a prayer shawl of a Jewish man. Women generally don't wear them.

00:44:53.33
Bob
um but these series of knots and strings hanging that comes right out of Numbers 15. Numbers 15 make fringes at on the corners of your garment and so that you remember.

00:45:06.89
Don
Right.

00:45:08.65
Bob
It's almost like a wedding ring. This wedding ring did not make me married. but it reminds me and everybody else that I am. So this is good.

00:45:19.60
Bob
This is a reminder. Well, that's what God says in numbers that the tzitzit, it's called in Hebrew, the fringes are designed to remind us of the Torah, of the law of God's word to us.

00:45:33.00
Bob
All right. So when she, this woman with the issue of blood touches the hem of his garment, she's touching the tzitzit. She's not touching in him.

00:45:42.78
Don
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:45:45.01
Bob
And what does that do? It reminds her of God's law, reminds Yeshua of God's law, which included care for the hurting and the poor and the downtrodden. And so she's basically praying by touching that hymn, but she's praying a specific prayer. So understanding that it's not just a piece of garment.

00:46:10.81
Bob
It is a covenantal agreement into which she's walking.

00:46:13.86
Don
Sure.

00:46:15.57
Bob
So maybe your daughter and others who find these kinds of things, and I've got yeah hundreds of lessons and more going up every week. Um, that will help the ordinary believer get a picture, just a flash, a moment. Most of the things you get in our teachings are gonna be the same things you'd get at a Bible study in Conestoga, you know?

00:46:43.64
Bob
But it's but it's, it's those those little, little pieces, little nuggets

00:46:52.82
Don
little insights that ah yeah but it's beautiful yeah

00:46:55.94
Bob
That's all it is. And it help helps us frame Jesus in his Jewish context.

00:47:03.34
Don
yeah yeah um

00:47:09.51
Don
a bit of a different direction and I don't want to make this sort of a political discussion, but there's lots of Christian understandings of how they view the current nation state of Israel.

00:47:23.27
Bob
Hmm.

00:47:23.45
Don
Some, some feel it's like the fulfillment of prophecy and the people back together and Jesus is going to come back to Jerusalem and you know, you got to have the date people there.

00:47:35.06
Don
um I assume you've been there many times.

00:47:39.37
Bob
Yep.

00:47:41.43
Don
How would you describe, for from your perspective as a Messianic believer, what is what is the role and of the nation, but also of Jerusalem even today in your own spirituality, your own thinking?

00:47:58.68
Don
Is it significant or is it just like any other city, but it's got a particular heritage to you?

00:48:02.46
Bob
Oh no, it's huge.

00:48:03.57
Don
Yeah.

00:48:05.09
Bob
yet

00:48:05.43
Don
Okay.

00:48:06.45
Bob
When you see Melchizedek in Genesis 14, and he's called the king of Salem,

00:48:13.18
Don
of Salem.

00:48:14.01
Bob
and the king of righteousness by translation. But the King of Salem, it's the king of the, read mayor. He's the mayor of the city called Salem.

00:48:24.18
Don
of Salem.

00:48:25.01
Bob
Yeah, city of is the word in Hebrew, ir, and Salem is shalom. He's the mayor of irus shalllaam of Jerusalem, that's where he is. So even from the beginning, before there was,

00:48:39.79
Bob
Genesis 22 and Abraham, take Abraham taking his son up on Mount Moriah, which is in Jerusalem, and offering up him on the famous Akedah, the famous binding, which is one of the only...

00:48:55.51
Bob
I should say, types that's translated over into the newer Testament to say, this is like that from all the metaphors and types of the older Testament.

00:49:03.82
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:49:08.65
Bob
It's powerful and it's there in Jerusalem. So God's always had, and here's an odd one. I don't know any, somebody in your audience will know much more than I geographically. I don't know of a single capital city not on a water route, whether it's a major river or an ocean or sea.

00:49:36.42
Bob
Somehow Jerusalem, which is on neither, is a capital.

00:49:39.54
Don
It's just on a hill.

00:49:42.97
Bob
God had to choose that. So um is it significant? Yeah, I think so. Is it politically significant? Look, there have been, you know, you don't read much about it in the Newer Testament because Jerusalem was where the Capitol was at that moment.

00:49:59.66
Bob
So they didn't need to say,

00:50:00.24
Don
Right.

00:50:01.97
Bob
anything about in the future Jerusalem will be the capital if it didn't need to because it was it's like saying Albany is the capital of New York and Sydney is the capital of New South Wales so our states are fairly set

00:50:22.20
Bob
there are messianic people who see the third temple as an issue that's coming soon highway 60 is coming into and out of Jerusalem down highway 60 in Israel is coming from the galilee down to Beersheba so see that's significant that's where the temple will be there are people who've written books you could go to the Christian bookshop and you will find dozens of books on last days and fulfillments, very few books on evangelizing Muslims.

00:50:52.82
Don
Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:50:57.75
Bob
And I wonder why we get so tantalized by these ideas of being there at the last days. In 1971, when I came to faith, there was the late great planet Earth written by Hal Lindsey that was the prophetic book of the day.

00:51:15.60
Bob
And along with your Bible, you had, I mean, you could read something in there, but wait, let me check what it says in late...

00:51:22.29
Don
Who the hell is he?

00:51:23.32
Bob
know And you think, wow, that's pretty high up there. Well, maybe because I was 19, maybe because somebody said that's right. All the while, I think, yes, Jerusalem will be the focus. According to the prophet Zechariah, Israel and even Jerusalem will be a millstone around the neck of the nations.

00:51:45.88
Bob
And we're seeing that in modern days. We're seeing it. It might be in 1933 that they weren't saying Jerusalem, but they were saying Jews were the issue for Nazi Germany, what would become Nazi Germany.

00:52:00.60
Bob
um Anti-Semitism, which is not going anywhere, it's only growing.

00:52:06.16
Don
Yeah.

00:52:07.70
Bob
is a focus today sometimes on Zionism, sometimes it's just on Mrs. Goldberg, who's obviously wealthy, and the Rothschilds, and all the Roth... and all them, they all want my money, and they run Hollywood, and there and all these um tropes that are hostile to the Jewish people.

00:52:31.54
Bob
Is it focused on Israel? Today it is, because there's a nation.

00:52:35.91
Don
Yeah. Yeah.

00:52:36.15
Bob
1948. In it wasn't about Israel. It was about Jews.

00:52:43.42
Don
In October 2007, 27, where was

00:52:49.20
Don
it? October two thousand and seven de twenty seven where

00:52:55.32
Bob
October seventh twenty three

00:52:58.11
Don
23.

00:52:58.97
Bob
yeah

00:52:59.01
Don
...really bad at this. Anyway, it was pretty shocking when, when Hamas came out and slaughtered so many hundreds of people and horrific crimes.

00:53:03.00
Bob
yeah

00:53:09.46
Don
Um, how is that whole situation? I know it's sort of Gaza is suddenly out of the news because something else is going on, but it's not really resolved yet. But as a believer,

00:53:26.01
Don
um, how do you view what's going on and what happened then? Is there a spiritual take on it or some kind of perspective that you can bring that helps us all understand what happened?

00:53:34.74
Bob
Yeah.

00:53:37.62
Bob
October 7 is just one of many such episodes of hostility between Ishmael and Isaac when you really boil it down to it.

00:53:40.79
Don
Yes.

00:53:49.46
Bob
Two different worldviews clashing. When they said, from the river to the sea,

00:53:59.09
Bob
um we will be free. What they meant was, we'll be free of Jews.

00:54:05.37
Don
Yeah.

00:54:05.75
Bob
And there should be no Israel. It should just be whatever they titled, Palestina. Well... Good luck with that.

00:54:17.10
Bob
Anytime you read in the scriptures, Older Testament, you read about those who touch the apple of God's eye. That's the Jewish people. It's not going to go well for you.

00:54:28.92
Bob
So whether it was Sennacherib or the Babylonians or the Assyrians, whoever it was who came against the Jewish people, Rome even, and the powerhouse of the day, when you come against the Jewish people and kick us out in 70 and then 135 CE, where is Rome today? I mean, we know that there's Italy.

00:54:54.13
Bob
But the Roman Empire disintegrated as a direct result, I think, of of all kinds of wrong, but certainly in this conversation, how they mistreated the Jews.

00:55:00.38
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:55:08.53
Bob
Spain, 1492, they kick out the Jews. 1588, the most powerful people, the Spanish, the kings, don't tell the French or the English, but Spain was the most powerful, ruled the sea, and they're gone just 90 years later.

00:55:26.01
Bob
Why is that? Because you mistreat the Jews

00:55:30.74
Bob
So there's two things going on. You mistreat the Jews, you're going to cop it from the God of the Jews. Okay. Now, does that mean the Jews are guiltless or don't deserve such mistreatment?

00:55:46.61
Bob
No, we're not that holy of a people. We're not that kosher. We're not that clean. And God uses, as we read the prophet Jeremiah and all the prophets, God uses the nations to judge us, to say, come back to me, come back to me.

00:56:01.42
Don
Yeah.

00:56:06.10
Don
We see it again and again.

00:56:06.17
Bob
I interviewee.

00:56:07.26
Don
yeah

00:56:08.24
Bob
He's still saying that. So I think October 7, I think the Holocaust, this is me, this is Bob's view. This is not a universal view. I believe that the Holocaust was God judging the Jewish people for the mistreatment and bad behaviors and wrong thinking about ourselves over against other peoples, not thinking about and practicing doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. I think God judged us. He had to judge us. Arthur Katz, whom I read almost devotionally, Arthur Katz was a Messianic Jew, died about 10, 15 years ago.

00:56:49.65
Bob
And he said that if God did not judge the Jewish people in 1939 in Europe, he would have to apologize to the Jews of Jeremiah's day.

00:57:03.40
Bob
Now, that's a powerful statement that says we were equally wrong as we were in those days. That, however, does not dismiss the judgment that befell the Babylonians or the Germans or anyone who touches the apple of God's eye.

00:57:17.59
Don
Mm.

00:57:22.11
Bob
So two things are happening at the same time. A dismissal of God by the Jewish people and a judgment, therefore, and then the subsequent judgment on those who bring judgment to the Jews.

00:57:35.93
Bob
Those two realities are clear, and how fast it happens, how slow, I have no clue. I am not privy to God's mind on that.

00:57:47.38
Bob
I am privy, I think, to his thesis of judgment, not punishment,

00:57:47.59
Don
right.

00:57:54.65
Bob
judgment on the Jewish people to turn us back to God. And I worry.

00:58:02.90
Bob
i worry about this a lot because this involves my sister. It involves my family. It involves my community in which I grew up. My cousins.

00:58:13.14
Bob
it manifests itself in my personal take on those whom I love so dearly.

00:58:17.16
Don
Mm-hmm.

00:58:20.79
Bob
I interviewed a fellow just before this podcast with you, an Israeli. I've loved this guy for years. We met in Sydney and we hung out together and he's a terrific guy. And when I challenged him on this very issue today on the podcast, people will be able to hear it.

00:58:45.14
Bob
Where do you look for help? Where do you look? God is always calling us to himself. And he said, I look inward. I look at myself. I look in. And I think that's exactly the sin of humanity.

00:58:58.68
Bob
Thinking that I this is the new age as new as the Garden of Eden. It's not new. And I ache for my friend and my friends and all Jewish people who could rely on the everlasting arms, and they're not.

00:59:20.01
Bob
It's a pain, and it, I guess, continues to drive me to this day to share the good news of Jesus with others.

00:59:31.22
Don
Speaking of pain and burden, in any particular crises or things you've gone through in your life that you look back on as formative, shaping who you are today, your experience,

00:59:51.25
Bob
In the 50s and 60s, I didn't have much by way of pain. I was It was a comfortable world. We didn't have much. We were unusual. We were poor Jews.

01:00:03.19
Bob
And that sounds an anomaly to many, but reality bites. So I didn't have everything that I wanted. I was the third of three kids, so I got a lot of hand-me-downs.

01:00:15.25
Bob
um I'd ask my father, when am I going to get like a new bicycle? He'd say, when the Messiah comes. So I was really looking forward to the advent of life.

01:00:21.94
Don
yeah Which meant never, right? Is that what that meant to him? Sometime in the future.

01:00:27.47
Bob
Not in my lifetime, buddy. You're not getting it. So was that pain? It's a type of pain. there are rejections that came to me.

01:00:39.25
Bob
And as a man who thrived as a boy, and then a man who thrived on the approval of others, to my dismay and to my failures, that that's once I came to realize how much of a, I'll use the phrase, approval addict I was,

01:01:01.53
Bob
um Then I looked back on my life and saw how many times rejection happened and realized that that fed my addiction. It didn't knock it out. I was like that racist and thief, and I wondered how I'm ever going to get out of this.

01:01:19.67
Bob
And it's been leaning on Yeshua that I've been able to do that. So there are pains of physical things. There are pains of personal loss,

01:01:31.61
Bob
Dear friends, dear family members who are gone, and you know in a theological way, I have to pain their loss eternally.

01:01:42.77
Bob
i don't know how. I don't understand it. I believe it because the book says it. But when God says there'll be no more tears when we get to heaven, I when heaven comes to me, whenever that eternal threshold is crossed,

01:01:52.48
Don
Yeah.

01:02:00.63
Bob
And he says there'll be no more pain and no more tears. I don't get it. I trust God. But the more I know today about loss, it grieves me.

01:02:15.32
Bob
So how will that in some subsequent time be relieved?

01:02:25.13
Don
Yeah.

01:02:26.12
Bob
I don't know.

01:02:27.03
Don
It's a mystery.

01:02:28.63
Bob
Yes.

01:02:29.14
Don
Yeah.

01:02:32.44
Don
So what would you say to your 20 year old self or to a young person today who's looking at their life ahead of them and doesn't know the future and say, God, what am I supposed to do What am I supposed to think? Any word of counsel for a young person to end off our conversation?

01:02:56.50
Bob
I don't know if you've been watching the World Cup after your team.

01:03:00.50
Don
I have a lot, actually. I'm going to watch the game this afternoon. Yeah.

01:03:03.83
Bob
Once your team goes out, do you still keep watching.

01:03:06.81
Don
Yeah.

01:03:07.77
Bob
of The World Cup is phenomenal. These fellas are amazing athletes to run up and down the pitch.

01:03:19.00
Bob
I watch Australian Football League and I find them even more fit. they're, they're oh. I applaud them in their capacity to run up and down a pitch and look for a ball and knock it over and kick and do all these things.

01:03:27.28
Don
You and know

01:03:37.03
Bob
So I'm fascinated by fitness and applaud them in their capacities. And then I walk in the neighborhood here, in my neighborhood, and I see old fellas and young kids and they're without walking and they're doing the things that cause the capacity to play on a on a fever pitch.

01:04:04.47
Bob
pitch um I'm fascinated by this notion of walking. Walking is such an imbalanced way of life because you're unless you're in the Olympics and you can only, you have to have a foot on the ground at all times, you know, that's a weird sport.

01:04:26.17
Bob
um

01:04:26.29
Don
I competed in that in high school, walking races.

01:04:28.25
Bob
Did you, were you good?

01:04:29.17
Don
Yeah. Yeah, I was tall, so it worked.

01:04:34.61
Bob
that's all it took. Okay, I could have done it.

01:04:37.30
Don
Big strides to go further.

01:04:39.41
Bob
I guess so. Well, walking is a constant form of imbalance. you put your foot down, your other foot's up. And then in a moment, then you put your other foot down and then this foot. And so it's a constant shift of balance and imbalance, balance and imbalance. And if you wanna get ahead in a race or in a football match of on the on the soccer pitch or wherever it is, you've got to live in imbalance, balance, imbalance, balance.

01:05:15.96
Bob
So I would say to the 20 year old Bob or the 20 year old Muhammad or the 20 year old um, Mrs. you know Mrs. Smith of Arkansas, I would say embrace balance when you can.

01:05:36.09
Bob
Paul wrote to Timothy and said, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind, that word is in Greek sophamai, which means balance.

01:05:46.49
Don
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:05:51.86
Bob
So the more I think about balance and walking, it is continuous. It's continuous. So it's a shift of imbalance, balance, imbalance, balance. And that itself is a balanced life the apostles used the term walk in the spirit walk in love as Christ loved us you know this whole business of walking Abraham walked with god Adam I think was there walking with god in the cool of the garden there's something about walking that precipitates running and precipitates a great sporting contest but it all starts with walking

01:06:33.56
Bob
And I would say to the 20 year old, Bob, don't be in a hurry. That was 55 years ago.

01:06:39.49
Don
Mm-hmm.

01:06:41.53
Bob
Just walk one step at a time. You don't have to get to the end today. Just take today's step. You know, those 12 step people in the AA program and all those others, and they got it right one day at a time. And don't be in a hurry.

01:07:01.65
Bob
Easy does it, they say. There's so many good phrases about

01:07:07.93
Bob
just keep going. I think that for me is the advice I'd give me. Did I take it on board? with No, I always wanted to get ahead faster. I wanted to make something, get it done. Come on, we got other things to do.

01:07:24.15
Bob
Yeah, today, walk with God. Walk with him. hold his hand like I do with my grandkids. There's nothing more treasured than that, is to walk with another.

01:07:39.82
Don
to protect

01:07:40.44
Bob
Was it Amos who says, can the two walk together and not be in agreement? I think there's something about walking together that gives me comfort and when you walk together with somebody like when you walk with your wife right you'd have you're walking down a footpath you have to take and you're always on the outside because we were taught that the something's gonna pretty yeah you're the great protector right so you can't take the angle you would take around a corner if you're walking with someone you have to take a wider path

01:08:08.82
Don
protected

01:08:20.95
Bob
So walking together is in agreement. And I'd say to the 20 year old Bob walk with God, listen to him, be with him, take advice from others, but don't be in a hurry.

01:08:36.15
Bob
Walk

01:08:38.02
Don
Wow, very insightful. I like the image. Appreciate it Well, thank you for this conversation, Bob. It's been a delight to spend this time together.

01:08:48.57
Bob
Thanks. It's been my joy.

01:08:50.33
Don
and I...

01:08:50.45
Bob
You know, we were randomly set together in Korea.

01:08:53.78
Don
Yeah.

01:08:54.55
Bob
And I wondered who would be my roommate and would we get along?

01:08:57.81
Don
Yeah.

01:08:59.20
Bob
And man, it was great to meet you and to be with you and to hear your stories and what God's doing with you. And so I'm a better man for our walking together.

01:09:10.33
Don
Thank you and bless you and we'll be in touch.

01:09:17
Bob
Shalom.

01:09:19
Don
Well, I really enjoyed that conversation with Bob. It's quite a story and his heart for Jesus and his heart to see people come to love Jesus is quite profound. And it's encouraging you to see him pressing on decade after decade in faithfulness. and continuing to share Jesus, to go deeply into Scripture, to wrestle with what God is doing in our world through the lens of the, as he called it, the Older Testament and the Newer Testament.

I remind you to let people know about the podcast, give it a thumbs up, leave a comment. The more you do that, the more others will be able to hear these stories of what God is doing around the world.

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