Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Bishop Robert Stearns' Story

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Well, welcome back for another episode in our series of Jews and Christians Learning

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to Relate.

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Today we're going to hear from another amazing pioneer, someone with a global ministry and

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just has produced such extraordinary steps in Jewish-Christian relations and his ministry.

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So please stick with me and we'll be right back.

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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.

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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural

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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith in bringing the

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Bible to life in your everyday world.

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Now let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

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So with us today is Bishop Robert Stearns, a longtime friend of the International Christian

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Embassy Jerusalem and of all things Israel.

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And because of his unique calling and gifting, he has been very involved in Jewish-Christian

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relations and working with the Jewish community in New York and in Israel and around the world.

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And so he is the founder and executive director of Eagles Wings, a global ministry.

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He's a powerful speaker and author of seven books.

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He started the National Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, or I should say International

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Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem.

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And he serves as president of the Jewish-Christian Nexus in LA.

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He does so much.

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He's going to tell us about all these different involvements, but I want to give a very warm

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welcome to Bishop Robert Stearns.

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Susan, it's so good to see you again.

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We've been friends for many years.

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I have the greatest respect for the International Christian Embassy and the part they've played

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in my story.

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And you are indeed a pioneer of pioneers, so it's an honor to speak with you today.

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Well, we are like family, Robert.

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You know, we have this joke about the ICEJ, but once you're in it, you can never really

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get out of it.

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So we consider you a part of the family.

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And with that, I want you to share with our audience how you got involved in this work

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to begin with.

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And I don't know if there was anything in your upbringing or your background or how it

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came about, so please share with us.

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Well, definitely nothing in my upbringing.

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In fact, a very interesting part of the story is that my grandfather was probably the greatest

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anti-Semite I've ever met.

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He hated the Jewish people, and we could never get through a single family gathering without

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him cursing out the Jews.

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Everything he read in the newspaper, everything he saw on television, it was just horrible.

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And after his death, I found copies that he had of the protocols of the elders of Zion

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that he had gotten from Henry Ford, who had published them in America, and other really

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horrible anti-Semitic literature.

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So that was my background.

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So I certainly, sometimes people wrongfully assume that I'm Jewish because my last name

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sounds Jewish and they make that assumption, but I was raised, my extended family was all

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Catholic, so that grandfather was Catholic, although a lapsed Catholic, not really a practicing

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Catholic.

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And then my immediate nuclear family, we grew up within a kind of a traditional, Bible-believing,

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evangelical church, but we had no connection to Israel, no interest in Israel.

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I even think that my parents had some of the latent anti-Semitism that they'd picked up

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from their parents.

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So it was definitely not a part of my childhood.

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When I went to Bible college, and I went to college early, I graduated high school and

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started college at 16, and I went to the University of Valley Forge just outside of Philadelphia.

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And there was a small kind of Jewish outreach group there, and I kind of first got introduced

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to Jewish music.

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And I really loved Jewish music, and I'm a musician.

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I've been, music has played a huge role in my life, so I was kind of attracted to Jewish

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music.

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And that, I guess, was one of the earliest things I remember.

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I remember hearing the song, Yerushalayim Shelsahav all those years ago, and it kind

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of piqued my interest.

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But then it was really, I came over, kind of on a whim, to volunteer with the Christian

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Embassy back in the days when Johann Lukoff was leading and Jan Willem van der Hoeven,

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it was still the early days.

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And there was this young lady, Susan Michaels, who was around, she was volunteering, doing

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everything.

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This was 30 years ago.

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This was the early 90s.

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And so I got to sing in many of the early feasts and lead worship in those early feasts.

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And then you all graciously have invited me back as a speaker three or four times over

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the years.

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So it's been a gradual process, but it was really that first trip to Israel where I volunteered

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with the Embassy that was the, that was the aha moment, the light bulb moment where everything

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shifted for me.

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And then didn't you live in Israel and you were like on staff with us for a while?

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Yeah, that's what that's what I'm referring to.

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Yeah, it was that for, I thought I was coming over for several weeks, but I stayed for, you

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know, I think well over a year.

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And I really got real involved there locally.

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Derek Prince was still alive and he was at Christchurch.

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So I would go over and lead worship for Derek when he was teaching and at some of the conferences

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he did and just got super involved, you know, in everything.

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For me, Susan, that time in Jerusalem, the best way I can explain it is that as a child,

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I always felt, it always felt odd to me that like my, like it felt like my faith began

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with Jesus.

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And I'm like, well, what about everything before Jesus?

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And it somehow, it was like, it didn't make sense.

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It was almost like there was two gods.

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There was the God of the Old Testament and then there was Jesus and yet I knew there

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was one God.

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And none of it was cohesive.

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There was not a continuity to it.

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And if there's one thing that I can say that just, and you know, people who get involved

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in the work that we do, Susan, I mean, I hear the same kind of test.

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It was like all of a sudden, it all made sense.

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And you see the arc of God through sacred history that extends all the way back to his

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promise to his friend Abraham, right?

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That he would make him great and that his family would be a blessing in the nations

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of the earth.

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And you, you start to understand that God did not have plan A and plan B. There has been

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one plan of God all the way through and we've been grafted into that plan.

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So Robert, when you then came back to the United States, I mean, I know what it's like

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when you live there in Jerusalem for a year.

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For me, it was two years.

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You just come back different.

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You've got a completely different worldview and so many things have, like you say, you've

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connected the dots, but you've, you're interested in so many things that you weren't even interested

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in before.

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And so walk me through when you came back then now, because you didn't know a whole lot of

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Jewish people growing up and interacting a lot.

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I do.

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I do none.

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I didn't know any.

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I just came in and step by step walk us through how that developed for you.

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Well I came back and all I knew was that my calling had become clearer and that I had a

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sense of calling that I'd never had before.

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First of all, to worship and the presence of God.

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Second of all, to unifying the body of Christ.

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And then third and probably most penultimately toward the Jewish people and healing this

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rift between Judaism and Christianity.

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And so I went back to my senior pastor, Bishop Tommy Reed, who is one of the great world

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renowned leaders.

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He was a peer with David Young-Echo in Korea and Oral Roberts was his best friend.

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He was on the founding board of Oral Roberts University and many of the other luminaries

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of his generation.

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I said, Bishop, I don't know what this is, but I said, we need to host a conference to

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share these values.

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So Eagles Wings, which at that point was me and a business card, we hosted our first

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conference in 1994 and a thousand people showed up to our very first conference.

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And so kind of Eagles Wings was born.

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That was our East Coast Conference and next month will be the 28th anniversary of our

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East Coast Conference that we still continue.

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But that was in 94 and that same year, that fall, I brought back my first tour to Israel.

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So I brought back a tour group and I partnered with Oral Roberts University and I brought

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I brought Miles Monroe, I brought Billy Joe Doherty, I brought Bishop Mears, many of the

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leaders of the Oral Roberts kind of, you know, friends of Oral Roberts University.

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And we brought them over and did a special tour.

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And that was really the beginning.

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And now we've brought, you know, by God's grace, many, many, many thousands of people

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over the years, including now we've brought almost 450 pastors from 18 different nations

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to Israel.

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And we just see that this is part of that Micah 4 prophecy, that there's going to come

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a time where Jerusalem is again the epicenter of the global kingdom of God, of the people

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of God, we're ascending the hill of the Lord.

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So I led that first tour.

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And then if I fast forward, Susan, for time's sake, I would say it was the early 2000s.

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You know, I continue to bring a tour once a year, I continue to sing at the feasts,

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you know, I did that every year.

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But then in the early 2000s, there was a young man by the name of David Necruepman, who was

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a minor administrator at the consulate in New York City.

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And his bosses, bosses, bosses had told him, hey, figure out who these evangelicals are,

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you know, we're hearing about them in the news.

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Because this was when finally all the work that you've done, Susan, all these years was

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beginning to bear fruit.

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And someone told them to reach out to me.

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And so they reached out to me and we hosted the embassy, the consulate invited us to host

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a day of prayer at the New York consulate, which we'd never done in our life.

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And I remember carrying carrying the piano up the stairs of the consulate.

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So we could do worship in the consulate.

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And it was amazingly successful.

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And the consul general, Alon Pincas, came to us and said, you've got to do this again.

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This was in February.

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And I thought, okay, well, we'll do this next year.

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He said, no, I want you to do it in three months.

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So we redid it in May of that same year.

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And Pastor Jack Hayford came out.

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Tom Phillips of the Billy Graham organization came, Reinhard Bunky, the late great Reinhard

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Bunky, we had several of these major leaders.

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And it was in that meeting that the concept of the day of prayer for the peace of Jerusalem

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was born.

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And from that really friendship with David Necropement, our watchman on the wall curriculum,

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the day of prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, our Israel experience program for young people,

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a lot of these things took shape.

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So I would say there were the early years that really involved the embassy, laying the foundation,

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those early years.

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And then in the early 2000s, things really sped up as all of these initiatives got birthed.

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Well, I remember that event.

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I was there.

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And yes, I remember the birthing of the day of prayer for the peace of Jerusalem very

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well.

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And the way I've always seen it is because you were in New York, you were working closely

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with that New York consulate.

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And then of course, with the Jewish community in New York, which is of course the major

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Jewish community.

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And you were really the only one located up in that northeast corridor that worked with

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them and developed really deep relations with a lot of the Jewish leaders there.

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While I was down in DC, we were working with the Israeli embassy and doing the same thing

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there with the Jewish community in DC.

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And of course, now I'm based down in South Florida, another Jewish community.

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And there's a lot going on down here as well.

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And then you're involved now very much in LA, which is the third, it's the second largest

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Jewish community.

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Supposedly, South Florida is the third, but if you add up all the areas down here, I think

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we're really the second largest Jewish community.

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I'll give it to you.

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You're the second.

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You could do it.

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Those are the three main ones.

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Well, the Los Angeles thing developed because of course, Pastor Jack Hayford was a huge

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mentor in my life and spiritual father in my life.

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And he and Chuck Smith from Calvary Chapel and then a wonderful Jewish man by the name

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of Shimon Aram, General Shimon Aram, had started the Israel Christian nexus, which was just

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kind of exactly what you said.

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We've all been working on the same thing in different geographies.

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So Pastor Jack and Shimon were working on that for many years in Los Angeles.

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And you know, Pastor Jack now is quite elderly, he's in his late 80s, and he came to me several

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years ago and he said, Robert, you know, you really understand this.

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This is the mantle of the Lord on your life.

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And he said, I don't see anyone here who could take it like you could.

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And so I was very honored that he kind of passed that, the reins of leadership for that.

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In fact, I'm leaving for LA the day after tomorrow.

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And I'm there three or four times a year and there's a strong growing relationship there.

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In fact, one of our main pastors who we took on our pastor's trip was just named as the

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successor for Bishop Ulmer, Bishop Ken Ulmer, one of the main churches there in Los Angeles.

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So you know, Susan, we've all been in this Nehemiah moment where there's the rebuilding

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of the wall that's broken down.

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And there's that beautiful phrase in Nehemiah that says, you know, we were spread out among

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the wall, right?

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And that's how it's been.

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Your incredible work, David Nicrutman's work, many others who've been doing, you know, phenomenal

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work in restoring, really restoring the Jewishness of Christianity, which is a major thing that

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got lost through the Constantinian moment and post-Constantinian Christianity.

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And then the very understandable suspicion and fear and division that has existed between

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the Jewish and Christian communities.

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And so it's incredible to have a front row seat in history.

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Well, yes.

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And we really have, a number of us have really pioneered this.

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There's no doubt about it.

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But now it's very gratifying to see the relationship and many, many others getting involved.

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But we also recognize we still have a way to go, but so grateful for what we've been

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able to accomplish.

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Robert, I want to ask you to share maybe some lessons that you've learned along the way

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and any stories, but first, I want to know, how has this relationship impacted you personally?

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Like what have you gained from it?

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I've gained everything.

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I hope this doesn't sound...

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Well, listen, I now have a five in front of my age, so I have less filter when I speak.

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I just kind of speak out.

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So I would say in some ways it saved my faith because I found the de-Judaized version of

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Christianity lacking and unfulfilling.

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And how could it be anything other than that when Jesus is Jewish?

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If you don't know Jesus the Jew, then I'm afraid that you know another Christ.

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You know another Jesus.

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So for me, I'm very, very serious about my faith.

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It's really everything to me.

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And I'm very serious about pursuing truth and pursuing the Lord and a spiritual journey.

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And I love the Christian church.

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I'm fiercely committed to the church because God is committed to the church.

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But I've seen the ways that the church has suffered.

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And I believe, Susan, it's from the principle that the Apostle Paul deals with in Romans

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where he says to the Gentiles, be careful.

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Because if you are arrogant, you'll fail to recognize that you don't support the root.

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The root supports you.

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And when we're not connected to the roots, right, like what tree is going to survive

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if it doesn't have a robust root system?

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What it's impossible.

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And so a lot of the tragedies that we see in the church world, I think of last count,

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there's something like 32,000 different Christian denominations.

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And Jesus' prayer was, Father, that they would be one, even if you and I are one.

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Right?

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I mean, you look at the schisms in the Christian church.

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You look at the division.

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You look at the challenges.

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For me, I don't know how to describe it, but meeting Jesus, the Jewish savior, you know,

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the one who's introduced me to the Father.

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And then being able to see the world through that lens, it's just been incredible.

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And it's brought great stability to our ministry in good times and bad times.

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We really live as a community, which is a very Jewish concept.

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You think of Jewish extended families gathering at Shabbat.

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You think of the Jewish concept of kibbutz.

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Like there's just a sense of the community within Judaism that is so prevalent.

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And most of our Eagles Wings team, I mean, you've met them over the years, you know,

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Wendy Miller and Steve Jenks and on and on.

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We've been together 15, 20, 25 years.

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And my children have been raised in the midst of that larger, we all live within about a

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square mile of each other.

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We all keep Shabbat every Friday night, every morning.

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We gather for devotions.

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We pray for the peace of Jerusalem every day for 27 years.

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We've prayed for the peace of Jerusalem.

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So yeah, so it has given far more than it's cost me.

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I love knowing and following Jesus, the Jew and making him known.

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And if I could just press into that theme for one more moment, Susan, you know, I think

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if we zoom out for a second in this conversation, and if we look at the greater moment that

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we're in, we've got such toxicity in society, right?

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And you've got, you know, you've got the black Jesus and you've got the Latino Jesus and

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you've got the queer Jesus and the transgender Jesus and everyone's co-opting Jesus left

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and right for their particular political or ideological purposes.

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And I think the reason that they're so easily able to co-opt Jesus is that we have not known

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we've not known the actual and original Jesus who is Jesus, the Jew in his historic Jewish

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context.

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So where we have had a white American, Western Jesus, I think, you know, it's very easy

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to then drift into these other Jesuses, but we have to meet Jesus in his context.

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That is who he is.

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And I tell people, Jesus wasn't Jewish.

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He is Jewish.

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He's coming back Jewish.

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And so we have to adjust to that.

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I'm sorry that I went off topic from your question, but that was a little bunny trip.

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No, look, it's the topic because so many in our day are trying to say disregard the Old

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Testament.

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It's irrelevant.

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Just, just focus on Jesus.

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I'm like, well, you don't even know who Jesus is if you're not studying the Old Testament

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and to understand that the thousands of years God was preparing the earth for Jesus and

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the context he came in and everything.

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So it's you're, you're preaching to the choir here with me.

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But yeah, let's we'll get back to what you're doing in terms of working with the Jewish

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people.

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I know you've got a podcast and we can link to that in today's show notes, but you, you

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do what a weekly format where you're on with a different rabbi each week and you discuss

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different things.

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Tell us how that's going.

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Actually we have two, two different podcasts that they're different and they're both fascinating.

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We do something called Torah Tuesdays, which is TorahTuesdays.com.

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It's free.

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As far as we know, and I could be wrong, but nobody's proven me wrong yet.

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As far as we know, it is the largest online Jewish Christian Bible study.

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We have well over a hundred live every single Tuesday, sometimes 120, 140, and then downloads,

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I mean literally thousands, but live in the room.

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We have well over a hundred every single Tuesday, probably two thirds to three fourth

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Christian and about one fourth or so Jewish tuning in from all over the world.

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There's a wonderful Jewish teacher named Mark Gerson who leads that and then I kind of bring

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the Christian perspective in and it's this kind of wonderful back and forth.

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And that has just been amazing.

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Right now we're in the book of Numbers and that's just been incredible.

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And I mean the depth is so amazing.

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And then every Thursday evening on Facebook and YouTube, we do the Bishop and the Rabbi

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podcast.

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And we talk about the parasha of the week.

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As you well know, Susan, the Jewish community reads the scripture in unity together liturgically

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throughout the calendar year.

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And so we just take the parasha of the week and we study that together.

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And we've had about upwards now 50 of the world's leading rabbis from the UK, from Israel,

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of course, from America and other nations, and it's just it's absolutely fast.

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We have reform rabbis, conservative Orthodox, and it's just been, you know, really, really

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an incredible time together.

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And I do find that more and more Jewish people are becoming more trustworthy and more open

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to this dialogue.

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And that just causes me, Susan, to feel what I know you feel.

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And of course, the incredible work of the Christian Embassy that we have to raise up

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the next generation of Christian young people who understand this.

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And I think the most important thing is just getting them to the land.

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I don't think there's anything that impacts like a trip to Israel.

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It's just it's transformational.

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But it's so necessary because anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism, the BDS movement, all of this

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is is so prevalent.

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And you know, we used to be worried about radical Islam.

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And now it's really radical secularism.

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I mean, it's the far left that is just vitriolic and hate filled in their in their speech,

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really against anybody of faith, but especially against Jews and Christians.

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And so, yeah, but the bishop in the rabbi and Torah Tuesdays are two highlights of my

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week.

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I love it every week.

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I love it down and have those studies together.

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Well, it's phenomenal that you've had so many different rabbis on as a guest.

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And that really, I mean, it's just phenomenal.

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And but you said something that's really key here is that you bring the Christian perspective

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because sometimes there is a difference of perspective.

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And there's it's not that we agree with everything that the other is saying, but that we have

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this this respect for each other in this dialogue that we can say, well, this is where how we

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see it and it's different than the way you see it.

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But it's done with respect and as friends.

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And I don't know why that's so hard for Christians to understand.

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I have a hard, you know, aren't we supposed to engage in dialogue with with others, you

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know, but somehow when it comes to the Jews, you know, it's it's like.

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So we we're very, very clear.

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We are Christians.

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We're not trying to become Jews.

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We're not, you know, I keep I tell people I'm not giving up bacon, double cheeseburgers.

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So you know, we're not trying to put anybody under the law.

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That's not it.

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But I would say, Susan, 85 90% of the things we agree on, we agree on the importance of

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Scripture, we agree on core, you know, key morality, but we agree on in Israel, right?

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The freedom of religion, the freedom of press, the democratic process, the elevation of women

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in society, protection for social minorities, all of these things that have grown in Western

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civilization out of the Judeo-Christian ethos, we have in total agreement together.

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So why not cooperate and begin on that?

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And then on the areas where we have disagreement, we can have spirited conversations there.

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We can agree to disagree agreeably and move forward from there.

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So it is a frustration that within the Christian world, you're kind of automatically labeled

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as a sellout or as a compromiser, you know, if you engage in meaningful dialogue, particularly

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with the Jews or even other faith communities.

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But I see Jesus isn't that Jesus with the Samaritan woman?

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He's in that, I mean, that's, it's everything.

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Paul goes to Mars Hill.

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Paul goes to Mars Hill.

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He says, I'm here in the name of your unknown God.

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So you know, there's good Bible references that spur us on to meaningful dialogue with

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those outside the household of faith.

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And we're not compromising when we're doing that.

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We're actually carrying out a biblical mandate.

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Well, Robert, in our last few minutes together, do you have any advice that you would like

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you can share with some in our listening audience that, you know, they may just be at the very

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beginning of this, they would like to engage their local Jewish community or would like

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to get involved, but they're really new to this.

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What advice would you have for them?

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I would have two pieces of advice.

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The first piece of advice I would have is be sure that as you engage with your Jewish neighbors,

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a local rabbi, whoever those folks are, that you, you really embrace that journey as opposed

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to just looking to them as though this is a soul that I'm going to, you know, I'm going

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to lead them in the sinner's prayer.

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I'm going to win that soul for Jesus.

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You know, the Bible is so clear.

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The Bible says no one comes to the father except the spirit draws them.

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There is a spiritual journey that we are all on.

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And so for me, I have to be able to look at my Jewish friends in the eye, in the soul

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with integrity and say this to them, which I do, I have done this many, many times.

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I say, listen, Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me.

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I don't know where I would be without him.

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And I want everyone in the world to know Jesus like I do because of what he's done for me.

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And so I say, everyone includes you because you're, you're everyone and Jesus is Jesus.

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But I look at them and I say, but if you never view or understand or accept Jesus the way

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I do, that doesn't change our friendship.

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My friendship with you, my commitment to you, my commitment to spiritual journey with you

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and to dialoging through this, none of that changes.

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I'm with you for who you are, not as a means to get you to accept my faith construct.

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So that would be piece of advice number one, piece of advice number two goes back to one

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of those, Susan, it may have been the meeting that you were in.

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It was one of the earliest meetings and there was a wonderful crusty old brilliant rabbi

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named Rabbi Gerald Meister.

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He was a piece of work.

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I loved him.

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And um, wonderful.

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Yes.

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And he guided us.

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He guided us with great wisdom in those early years.

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And it was one of the early events and I was asked to pray and it's a room of Jews and

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Christians and oh, I've got to pray.

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What am I doing?

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And in the end, am I going to pray in the name of Jesus or aren't I?

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Is that going to be offensive?

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How do I navigate that?

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And so at the end of it, I closed the prayer and I said, I said, and as a Christian, I pray

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this prayer in the name of Jesus.

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That was how I closed the prayer.

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And I went up to the rabbi after I just said, rabbi, you know, I'm new to this.

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I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I trust I did not offend, but I needed to, um, I needed

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to be true to myself and to my faith and to my Lord in that moment.

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I get emotional telling this story.

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And rabbi looked at me and he said, Robert, he said, he said, because you prayed in the

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name of Jesus, now I know I can trust you because you're going to be true to who you

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are.

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And this is an honest dialogue.

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We're dealing with one another honestly.

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And so it's, that would be my advice to people.

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Um, on one hand, uh, don't look at folks simply as names to check off on your salvation box,

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but on the other hand, be completely true to who you are and to the faith that has brought

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you into this place.

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Wow, what great advice and such words of wisdom from someone who's lived it out and has, uh,

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just engaged the Jewish community at a level that very few have.

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So thank you, Robert, for taking your time today to share with our audience.

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And we will link to your podcast in today's show notes and your ministry so that, uh,

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if anyone would like to follow up and get involved in these initiatives that they are, uh, able

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to.

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00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,760
So Susan, if I can just, just for 10 seconds, I just want to say though that really I am

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fruit of the work of the international Christian embassy, Jerusalem.

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Um, I would not be who I am.

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I would not have this background.

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What were it not for the faithful, incredible impact of the I C E J. And I just want to

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encourage everyone, um, support the I C E J financially, support them in your prayers.

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They are the granddaddy of this whole move and, um, and so I will always be faithful

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00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:26,200
and grateful and I encourage all everyone listening to this to be supportive of the

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I C E J. I am fruit of your labor, Susan.

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00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,360
Oh, thank you so much, Robert.

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And we are just so blessed by you.

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You're always so kind and generous.

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So thank you.

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All right.

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Well, thank you everyone.

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I hope you learned a lot today, what a treat to hear from Robert and to learn from him.

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So get involved with his ministry and today's show notes.

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We'll see you back here next week.

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And until then, God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:09,040
Be sure to subscribe to out of Zion now on Apple podcasts, CP in shows.com, YouTube or

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00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,360
wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of I C E J USA all rights reserved.