ISRAEL: “My Faith in Christ Fulfills My Jewish Identity”

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The Voice of the Martyrs

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🗓️ 6 August 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

William Cameron Townsend said, "The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner." But what if the “mother tongue” is no longer easily understood? That can often be the case with the Bible in Israel.

Listen as Brother Victor, the director of Israel Bible Society shares what God has done through their organization’s effort to spread God’s Word. It can still be difficult to find complete Hebrew Bibles in Israel. And the majority of the population in Israel cannot easily understand the original Hebrew text, which is now 2700 years old. That’s why the Israel Bible Society has created resources to help Hebrew speakers understand the original text with explanations in today’s Hebrew language.

Sharing about Jesus or the Christian faith is often received negatively by Jews in Israel. Many think becoming a Christian means losing or even betraying their Jewish identity. But as more people in Israel choose to follow Christ, more Jews are acquainted with their own people who have believed in Christ as Messiah while keeping their Jewish roots.

Bible work in Israel is not without opposition, and Victor will share stories of challenges he and the Bible Society have faced. He will also encourage us to pray for God’s Word to go forth in Israel and for God to open hearts to the gospel and increase a hunger for His Word across the Holy Land.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want to get serious about studying the Old Testament, at some point you're going to have to refer back to the Hebrew language.
0:08.0	Does that mean that today's Hebrew speaker in Israel has an advantage in studying the Bible?
0:15.0	Not necessarily. And we're about to find out why.
0:20.0	Jesus never promised his followers an easy path. In fact, he told his disciples that the world would hate them.
0:28.0	He sent them out as sheep among wolves. Jesus' words came true in the life of the apostles.
0:34.0	And they're still coming true today in the lives of his followers around the world.
0:38.0	Join host Todd Nettleton. We hear their inspiring stories and learn how we can help.
0:43.0	Right now on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network.
0:46.0	Welcome to The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. My name is Todd Nettleton.
0:49.0	Today we're going to hear a conversation that I recorded with Victor Kalasher.
0:52.0	He is the director of the Israel Bible Society.
0:57.0	We're about to hear about some efforts that are being made to provide people in Israel with copies of the Bible that they can understand.
1:06.0	As we listen, I think all of us are going to get a fresh appreciation about how valuable the word of God is, what a gift it is, that we can have copies, that we can read it, that we can understand it.
1:19.0	The Bible was written by Jewish authors and much of the action takes place in the land of Israel.
1:27.0	So I asked Victor Kalasher, how is the Bible received by the people there today?
1:33.0	So you see, it's not such an easy answer for that.
1:37.0	Because when you speak about New Testament and Christianity, actually it is said, but it is true that there is a 2,000 years of weight to that question.
1:49.0	Because throughout history there were many difficult relationships to say the least between the Jews and the Christian world or the Christian church.
2:03.0	All the way to the Holocaust, I mean the Holocaust didn't happen out of the blues.
2:09.0	It was on the background of a lot of antisemitism even in the church.
2:16.0	I want to say, I don't want to accuse anyone, I'm just trying to bring you know a historical view, in fact basically.
2:27.0	So many Jews grew up with a traditional thinking that the view of Christianity is not something which is all the time favors Israel or that the Christian literature is not something that is formed of the Jews and so on.
	...

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