The Jewish roots of Christianity

Home » Zola TV » Video Archives » ZLM Video

Bible teaching with an emphasis on Israel, prophecy and the Jewish roots of Christianity

This program is not available for playing in your browser (see below for alternatives).

Play video (28:30)

Note: You can control playback speed from the gear menu in the player above.

Episode: “Promised to the Next Generation”
In Beersheba, we discuss how God visited Isaac there and confirmed His intention to give the Land to Isaac and to his seed.
Series:Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel) (2021)”
In this eight-part television series, Dr. Jeffrey Seif takes viewers through Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel). By exploring the Bible’s accounts of the Holy Land’s past, present, and prophetic future, we discover an inextricable relationship between the people of Israel and the land of Israel. Former CBS correspondent David Dolan helps explore the modern-day struggles that accompany the re-establishment of the ancestral Jewish homeland. On-location TV footage, dramas, and Zola’s wonderful music punctuate the series.

Caption transcript for Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel) (2021): “Promised to the Next Generation” (2/8)

  • 00:01 ♪♪♪
  • 00:03 David Hart: Welcome to "Our Jewish Roots,"
  • 00:06 with insightful Bible teaching from Israel by Dr. Jeffrey Seif.
  • 00:10 We travel to Beersheba today on "Eretz Israel,"
  • 00:14 The Land of Israel.
  • 00:17 ♪♪♪
  • 00:25 male announcer: "Look to the north, the south,
  • 00:31 the east, the West."
  • 00:35 ♪♪♪
  • 00:41 announcer: "All the land which thou seest,
  • 00:44 to thee will I give it unto thy seed forever."
  • 00:50 "Indeed, he who watches over Israel
  • 00:54 will neither slumber nor sleep."
  • 00:58 ♪♪♪
  • 01:03 announcer: "Eretz Israel."
  • 01:06 ♪♪♪
  • 01:13 David: Thank you so much for joining us today.
  • 01:15 I am David Hart.
  • 01:16 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
  • 01:18 Jeffrey Seif: I am Jeffrey Seif, and off we go to Be'er Sheva.
  • 01:22 What a place.
  • 01:24 It was a bit hot down there in Southern Israel.
  • 01:26 Kirsten: It always is down there, isn't it?
  • 01:28 Jeffrey: Yes, yes, it is.
  • 01:29 Kirsten: Great area. Here's a question.
  • 01:31 Today's program is titled
  • 01:33 "Promise to the Next Generation."
  • 01:35 So this land that God promised to Abraham,
  • 01:39 how many generations does that go?
  • 01:41 Jeffrey: It goes out in perpetuity.
  • 01:43 Dor L' Dor, generation to generation.
  • 01:46 Kirsten: Will there be an end to that promise for that land?
  • 01:48 Jeffrey: When the earth blows up, new heavens and new earth.
  • 01:50 Until then, I'm sticking with the literature.
  • 01:53 Now, a lot of people disregard-- they say, "God took a detour.
  • 01:56 You know, he gave it to the Jews, but then so much for them.
  • 01:59 He dumped that, and went on to something new,"
  • 02:01 but it's not the God represented in the literature.
  • 02:04 Kirsten: Right, and you're at an ancient Tel,
  • 02:06 and it's interesting 'cause a Tel tells of all
  • 02:09 the different civilizations and generations.
  • 02:11 Jeffrey: Yes, it's an archaeological hill actually,
  • 02:14 and there's all kinds of layers there, and Be'er Sheva
  • 02:16 has quite a history.
  • 02:18 David: We're going there in just a moment, but before that,
  • 02:21 here's Abraham's promised son, Isaac.
  • 02:28 announcer: And the Lord appeared unto Isaac and said,
  • 02:32 "Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and will bless
  • 02:37 thee, for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these
  • 02:41 countries, and I will perform the oath, which I sware unto
  • 02:46 Abraham thy father.
  • 02:48 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars in heaven,
  • 02:53 and will give thy seed all these countries, and in thy seed
  • 02:58 shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
  • 03:04 Jeffrey: It's called adamah in Hebrew.
  • 03:07 It means earth.
  • 03:08 Aphar means the dust, and erets means the land, and my,
  • 03:14 how the Israelites loved it.
  • 03:17 Avraham loved it, Yitzhaq loved it, and apparently,
  • 03:21 they loved a place called Be'er Sheva.
  • 03:31 We're going to go to it. Come with me now.
  • 03:34 ♪♪♪
  • 03:44 ♪♪♪
  • 03:54 ♪♪♪
  • 04:01 Jeffrey: The ancients were all about trying to understand
  • 04:04 their world and come to know it.
  • 04:06 Let me give you a window into how they perceived it by
  • 04:10 employing a map that was akin to what they would have used
  • 04:14 or material akin to what they would have put it all on.
  • 04:19 It takes a while to unfold this. This is a big piece.
  • 04:22 The Mediterranean here might be familiar to you.
  • 04:25 Let me just say, up north at the top is the Alpine Himalayan
  • 04:28 Mountains extending 7,000 miles.
  • 04:31 Down here, you have the African Saharan Desert,
  • 04:34 the Arabian Desert.
  • 04:36 Sandwiched in between is this area called the Fertile
  • 04:39 Crescent, the Levant here, and extending over
  • 04:42 to the land of Canaan.
  • 04:44 Of course, Abram made this journey and settled.
  • 04:47 His son Isaac inhabited and spent some time in a place here
  • 04:51 called Be'er Sheva.
  • 04:53 We're going to have a look.
  • 04:56 ♪♪♪
  • 05:06 ♪♪♪
  • 05:10 Jeffrey: In this part of the world, people place a premium
  • 05:13 on something called water.
  • 05:19 [rock clacking]
  • 05:21 You hear that?
  • 05:23 Two hundred feet.
  • 05:26 Not only does this well go deep, the story of the site goes
  • 05:30 deeper yet, not 200 feet, but going back thousands
  • 05:35 and thousands of years ago.
  • 05:38 I'm not of a mind to take you back all those thousands of
  • 05:41 years, but I want to take you back to a spot a few thousand
  • 05:45 years ago that's noted in the book Bereishit, Genesis.
  • 05:51 For therein we learn about Avraham and his clan here.
  • 05:57 Yitzhaq, or Isaac, particularly in this story, and we learn
  • 06:01 about people not far from here called the Plishtim,
  • 06:06 the Philistines, and we learn about tensions.
  • 06:10 Tensions revolving over what?
  • 06:12 Who gets what in the land.
  • 06:15 How's that for a story that's new and old?
  • 06:19 In the Genesis narrative, as we'll see,
  • 06:21 they're fighting over water.
  • 06:25 They're fighting over a well-- the Plishtim,
  • 06:29 the Philistines and Yitzhaq, Isaac.
  • 06:34 Now, similarities aside, what's dissimilar is the fact that
  • 06:39 in this case--at least in the Genesis case as we'll see--
  • 06:42 we're dealing with the real Plishtim.
  • 06:45 What do I mean by that?
  • 06:47 The real Palestinian, so-called, according to history and various
  • 06:51 histories, were seafaring people that came from Greece
  • 06:55 and from the Ionian Islands, a tall people,
  • 07:00 and we note in the Bible, in no uncertain terms,
  • 07:03 how they secure a toehold principally along the coast.
  • 07:07 They never penetrate far east.
  • 07:10 They establish a few cities,
  • 07:12 and you have some Philistine holdings.
  • 07:15 Well, they came from the sea.
  • 07:18 Bible readers know of another man who traversed the Fertile
  • 07:22 Crescent, beginning in Ur of Chaldea, makes his way along
  • 07:26 Mesopotamia, settles in Haran, Syria, and eventually hears
  • 07:31 [speaking Hebrew] "It's time to go."
  • 07:33 In Bereishit, in Genesis 12, he makes his way down further,
  • 07:39 and here at Be'er Sheva, we are at that southern penetration,
  • 07:43 not far south, the Negev.
  • 07:46 So as one can imagine here, water would be in high demand
  • 07:51 and very short supply when we add to it the trade routes, the
  • 07:55 Via Maris, the way of the sea, that'll take you down to Egypt
  • 07:58 crosses here as does The King's Way, The King's Highway,
  • 08:02 which goes up through modern Jordan.
  • 08:04 In any case, these ancient roads met here, and here at
  • 08:08 the crossroads, the Plishtim and Yitzhaq meet here,
  • 08:13 but God meets him at the place.
  • 08:16 Oh, this is a prophetic Word.
  • 08:18 We're told here in chapter 26 of the book Genesis that Yitzhaq,
  • 08:24 Isaac, goes to Avimelech, which seems to be a title name here
  • 08:28 of these Plishtim kings, and we're told that the Lord
  • 08:31 appeared to him with an affirmation, and note it
  • 08:34 specifically please: "Dwell in the land," he says,
  • 08:37 "and I will be with you."
  • 08:38 And in no uncertain terms, he says, "I will give you all these
  • 08:41 lands like I swore to your father Abraham."
  • 08:43 Now let me ask you a question: What is so hard to understand
  • 08:48 about that?
  • 08:50 That language is very, very clear.
  • 08:52 In verse 4, as if verse 3 is not good enough,
  • 08:54 "And I will give to your descendants all these lands."
  • 08:59 We're told specifically, as we move through the chapter now,
  • 09:02 in verse 23, we're in Be'er Sheva.
  • 09:05 It's noted explicitly, where I'm coming to you now,
  • 09:09 "And the Lord appeared to him and said,
  • 09:11 'I am the God of your father.
  • 09:13 Do not fear. I am with you.
  • 09:15 I will bless you and multiply your descendants."
  • 09:19 Friends, I know different people have different opinions.
  • 09:22 Today there's the Mideast Peace Process, which is a little more
  • 09:25 than wanting to carve up Jewish real estate piece by piece by
  • 09:29 piece, trying to satisfy people that have sat on the front end.
  • 09:32 All they want to do is drive us into the sea.
  • 09:35 Now, come on, let's wake up and smell the coffee.
  • 09:37 Let's wake up and read the literature.
  • 09:39 I believe that a Bible reader is forced to conclude,
  • 09:42 in no uncertain terms, that God gave this particular real estate
  • 09:47 to a particular people.
  • 09:49 He noted it all over the place, and he noted it here
  • 09:52 in this place, Be'er Sheva.
  • 09:56 ♪♪♪
  • 10:08 announcer: Our offer on this program, "Zola's Introduction to
  • 10:12 Hebrew," a step-by-step approach that will enable you to read,
  • 10:16 speak, and translate the Hebrew text while doing Bible study.
  • 10:20 This 409-page book will nurture you along a friendly course
  • 10:24 towards a unique intimacy with God's language, land,
  • 10:28 and people.
  • 10:30 Learn the language of the kingdom and gain a better
  • 10:32 understanding of the Lord Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.
  • 10:36 Call 1-800-WONDERS
  • 10:38 and ask for "Zola's Introduction to Hebrew."
  • 10:44 David: Join us right now for additional content that is only
  • 10:47 available on our social media sites, Facebook, YouTube,
  • 10:50 and Twitter.
  • 10:52 Visit our website, levitt.com, for the current and
  • 10:55 past programs, the television schedule, tour information,
  • 10:59 and our free monthly newsletter, which is full of insightful
  • 11:02 articles and news commentary.
  • 11:04 View it online, or we can ship it directly
  • 11:06 to your mailbox every month.
  • 11:09 Also, on our website is the online store.
  • 11:12 There you can order this week's resource, or you can always give
  • 11:15 us a call at 1-800-WONDERS.
  • 11:19 Your donations to Our Jewish Roots, help us to support
  • 11:22 these organizations as they bless Israel.
  • 11:25 Please remember, we depend on tax-deductible donations
  • 11:28 from viewers like you.
  • 11:33 announcer: "For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into
  • 11:36 a good land, a land of fig trees and pomegranates,
  • 11:42 a land of olive oil and honey."
  • 11:45 "Arise, walk through the land, for all the land which thou
  • 11:51 seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever."
  • 11:59 Worship in the shadows of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
  • 12:05 Behold the land of the covenant.
  • 12:08 ♪♪♪
  • 12:14 Kirsten: Jeff's first teaching was at Tel Be'er Sheva.
  • 12:18 Sometimes it's referred to as Tel Beersheba,
  • 12:22 and that's a place that we frequent, and we go to actually
  • 12:25 on the Eilat extension of our tour, of a Zola tour.
  • 12:30 Do you remember that first time we went there?
  • 12:32 We were in our bus.
  • 12:33 Everyone was excited to go up to the Tel, so it's a little
  • 12:36 mountain, and our tour guide said, "We can't go today,"
  • 12:40 and we were like, "Why?"
  • 12:42 He goes, "Everyone, look out the right side of the bus."
  • 12:44 And there were at least 30 camels
  • 12:47 up on that little mountain.
  • 12:49 And he said, "There's probably a wedding going on,
  • 12:52 and they're trading the camels."
  • 12:53 So that's just--
  • 12:55 David: It was worth the wait for that.
  • 12:56 Kirsten: It was worth the wait to get there,
  • 12:57 but it's just kind of fun, and there are real camels still,
  • 13:00 and there's real camel trading in Israel.
  • 13:02 But we'd love for you to go on a tour with us and see
  • 13:05 the beautiful, wonderful land of Israel.
  • 13:07 You've been there multiple times.
  • 13:09 Jeffrey: A lot of times.
  • 13:10 You know, there's the new and the old.
  • 13:11 I mean, you go back in time many years, and then you come back
  • 13:16 forward into the modern world.
  • 13:18 I remember when Israel was just coming into its own as a nation.
  • 13:22 People would come visit the house from the Jewish community.
  • 13:25 I was raised in a Jewish community, and people were
  • 13:27 taking donations, whether it was to help support this or that,
  • 13:33 and we always gave money.
  • 13:34 There were these books where we'd put quarters in.
  • 13:37 I remember this as a little boy, pre-bar mitzvah age, and
  • 13:40 everyone in the Jewish community kicked in to participate in the
  • 13:43 effort to bring the modern state of Israel into being.
  • 13:47 Can I ask you to invest some energy and resource to help
  • 13:51 bring this ministry, this story of telling the good news to the
  • 13:56 eyes of the Jews into being?
  • 13:59 We pay it every week.
  • 14:01 The rental and television is expensive, never mind the cost
  • 14:04 associated with making it, and we all do it because friends
  • 14:07 like you help us in the doing.
  • 14:09 Let's all pitch in and do our part and look at the good news
  • 14:13 through the eyes of the Jews.
  • 14:15 David: Our guest journalist for this whole series
  • 14:17 is David Dolan.
  • 14:19 Today he's in Tel Aviv.
  • 14:21 Let's go there right now.
  • 14:24 Jeffrey: Much of Israel's remarkable history happened
  • 14:27 right here in Tel Aviv.
  • 14:29 David Dolan tells us more as he continues his story
  • 14:32 on the modern state of Israel.
  • 14:36 David Dolan: I'm standing in a sand dune here near the coast.
  • 14:39 The Mediterranean Sea is out here.
  • 14:41 Behind me you see the modern, thriving city of Tel Aviv, but
  • 14:44 much of the countryside, 100, 150 years ago, was like this,
  • 14:47 sandy, just a bit of vegetation, hardly any trees,
  • 14:50 not that many people living in it.
  • 14:52 When the Ottoman Empire began, it was fairly tolerant to the
  • 14:56 Jewish community living here, which wasn't many people,
  • 14:58 but it was a few thousand, but that toleration started to wane
  • 15:02 as the centuries went on, and by the 1800s,
  • 15:05 there was major violence occurring from time to time
  • 15:08 against the Jewish community.
  • 15:10 The Christians were also suffering here under the
  • 15:12 Ottoman-Turkish rule at times.
  • 15:14 There was a major pogrom against the Jewish community of Damascus
  • 15:17 in the 1840s, which prompted a mass migration of the Jews
  • 15:21 from there to the land.
  • 15:23 They were also coming from Egypt.
  • 15:24 They were coming from Iraq to the east and what later became
  • 15:27 Jordan and other places, and some were even coming
  • 15:30 from Europe.
  • 15:32 In 1857, a rabbi in Europe, in Serbia, had an idea:
  • 15:35 "Let's re-create the Jewish state.
  • 15:38 Let's bring the Jewish people back from around the world."
  • 15:40 He advocated this in his synagogue
  • 15:42 and took it around Europe.
  • 15:44 It was a very popular program, but it was a bit premature.
  • 15:47 The Turkish Muslims were still ruling here.
  • 15:50 In 1839, the Church of Scotland sent out a delegation
  • 15:53 to examine the violence happening against the Jews.
  • 15:56 They recommended a Jewish state here as well.
  • 15:59 They advertised this throughout Europe in different newspapers,
  • 16:03 et cetera, so the desire for the Jews to return here was growing.
  • 16:07 Then in the 1880s, as the Jews were finally a majority in
  • 16:10 Jerusalem again for the first time in 1,700 years,
  • 16:14 the pogroms broke out in Russia.
  • 16:16 Whole Jewish communities were destroyed, wiped out, and again,
  • 16:20 a mass migration of Jews began from there and later
  • 16:23 from Poland.
  • 16:24 Most went to North America and other parts of Europe,
  • 16:26 but around 25,000 came here to the land.
  • 16:29 This became known as the first wave of aliyah, or immigration,
  • 16:33 going up to Zion.
  • 16:35 Around this time, a French military official named
  • 16:38 Alfred Dreyfus was charged with treason.
  • 16:41 He was tried in Paris.
  • 16:43 A young journalist came to cover the trial from Vienna
  • 16:45 named Theodor Herzl.
  • 16:47 He was shocked when he was found guilty on such flimsy evidence,
  • 16:50 and later that conviction was overturned, but this prompted
  • 16:54 him to write a book called "The Jewish State,"
  • 16:56 an attempt at a modern solution to the Jewish question.
  • 16:59 It advocated Jews to return here from around the world,
  • 17:03 and he is considered the father of modern Zionism today.
  • 17:06 The next year in 1897, we had the First Zionist Congress
  • 17:10 in Basel, Switzerland.
  • 17:12 This brought together Jews from around Europe, in fact, from the
  • 17:15 United States, from Australia, and other parts of the globe,
  • 17:18 and they put together a program to re-create
  • 17:21 a Jewish state here.
  • 17:23 They also showed the new Jewish flag,
  • 17:25 the new flag that Israel would eventually have with the Star
  • 17:28 of David in the center of it.
  • 17:30 They began their meeting by singing what would become
  • 17:32 Israel's national anthem, "Hatikvah," The Hope,
  • 17:35 to be a free people back in the land of Zion in Jerusalem
  • 17:38 after 2,000 years of exile.
  • 17:41 Well, meanwhile, the pogroms continued in Russia.
  • 17:44 There was another wave of Jews coming to the land
  • 17:46 from 1904 until 1914.
  • 17:49 Another 25,000 came.
  • 17:51 Well, the local Arabs didn't like this, and actually,
  • 17:54 the growing Jewish nationalism was creating
  • 17:56 an effect amongst them,
  • 17:58 and growing Arab nationalism was rising at the time,
  • 18:01 and they demanded that the Jewish immigration
  • 18:04 to the land stop.
  • 18:05 In 1898, the first all-Jewish town was built just north of
  • 18:09 modern Tel Aviv, called Petah Tikva, "The Gates of Hope."
  • 18:12 I lived there when I first moved to Israel in 1980.
  • 18:15 In 1909, Jews gathered in these sand dunes to plan a new town
  • 18:20 that would become the urban center of Israel, Tel Aviv,
  • 18:23 today over a million people living in it, over 100 years
  • 18:26 old, a thriving city.
  • 18:28 As the Jews kept coming back, however, the winds of war
  • 18:31 were blowing in Europe.
  • 18:33 World War I was about to begin.
  • 18:34 It would change the course of Jewish history as well.
  • 18:38 ♪♪♪
  • 18:43 ♪♪♪
  • 18:48 Jeffrey: David, the word secular comes from a Latin word
  • 18:51 saecularis, meaning of this age, and the thinking is that the
  • 18:55 formation of secular states is all material and not spiritual,
  • 18:59 but there's a religious vision that informed the manufacture
  • 19:02 of modern Israel, correct?
  • 19:04 David: Absolutely, Jeff.
  • 19:06 We hear that the Zionist movement was a secular movement,
  • 19:10 and it's true that Theodor Herzl was not a professing Jew.
  • 19:14 He didn't attend synagogue, et cetera, but does Zionism
  • 19:18 really begin with him?
  • 19:19 I say no.
  • 19:20 You have an example in the 17th century of a Jewish observant
  • 19:25 Jew, Sabbatai Zevi, who said, "I am the Messiah."
  • 19:29 Well, he wasn't the Messiah, but there was a million people
  • 19:32 throughout Europe and North Africa, preparing to come back
  • 19:35 to this land where he said he was going to establish
  • 19:38 a Jewish state.
  • 19:40 It was in their hearts to come back here.
  • 19:42 Jeffrey: Right, so there are those within the modern
  • 19:44 Zionistic milieu, which may deny the religious, biblical
  • 19:48 moorings, but still, Jews kind of develop in a cultural matrix
  • 19:52 that's so much informed by the Torah.
  • 19:54 Even if the mind doesn't realize it, Zionism has its roots
  • 19:57 in biblical Zion, and that's all of the culture.
  • 20:01 David: You say, "I'm a secular Jew."
  • 20:03 You scratch the surface and say,
  • 20:05 "What does Jerusalem mean to you?"
  • 20:07 And people say, "It's just Jerusalem.
  • 20:09 It has to be in Jewish hands.
  • 20:10 We have to be able to go there."
  • 20:12 It is.
  • 20:13 It's something coming from the heart.
  • 20:15 And you know, Jeff, there's another example just a few
  • 20:16 decades before Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress.
  • 20:19 We had another rabbi, Yehuda Alkalai, who was from Serbia,
  • 20:24 and he said, "We need to go back to Zion."
  • 20:27 And there was, again, millions of people throughout Europe,
  • 20:30 Orthodox Jews, that were hoping this would lead to something.
  • 20:33 Well, it was a bit premature because the Turks were still in
  • 20:36 control of the area, but again, it showed that the roots of the
  • 20:39 Zionist movement, as it were, were very much from
  • 20:42 a spiritual root inside of the Jewish people.
  • 20:44 Jeffrey: Yes, and it can be argued to be tangential here,
  • 20:46 but even in the 1800s, there were Christian theologs that
  • 20:50 were reading the Bible, that are saying,
  • 20:52 "Listen, God has an appointment with destiny with Jewish people
  • 20:54 in that real estate.
  • 20:56 It has to be."
  • 20:58 David: Absolutely.
  • 20:59 The Balfour Declaration, that came out of a Christian minister
  • 21:03 in the government, and he was listening to some of the
  • 21:05 theologians in the Church of England, and the Scottish church
  • 21:08 also that were saying that Jews are going to go back
  • 21:11 to the land and rebuild their state.
  • 21:13 The prophet said so, and he was a government minister,
  • 21:15 but he was very much influenced by his personal faith.
  • 21:19 Jeffrey: You know, and it's amazing.
  • 21:20 Even though people don't necessarily know it,
  • 21:24 what you know and what I know because we're Bible readers
  • 21:27 is that God is watching over his word to perform it,
  • 21:31 and he's performing it here.
  • 21:36 ♪♪♪
  • 21:46 ♪♪♪
  • 21:56 ♪♪♪
  • 22:06 [singing in Hebrew]
  • 23:57 David: We hope you are enjoying Hadar's music as much as we do--
  • 24:01 not only a beautiful musician but a beautiful actress.
  • 24:04 We love having her on this program.
  • 24:07 Kirsten: And hearing the Hebrew in song
  • 24:09 is just so beautiful.
  • 24:10 And something else that is so beautiful is the knowledge and
  • 24:14 history that you and David combined bring to our program.
  • 24:19 I mean, I just--we just kind of sat there watching everything
  • 24:21 like this because we're just soaking up in so much.
  • 24:24 Jeffrey: Well, you're kind.
  • 24:25 The average Christian person isn't exposed to Jewish history.
  • 24:30 There's not a lot of exposure to the nation state of Israel.
  • 24:33 Never mind looking at the Bible through a Jewish perspective.
  • 24:36 It's rather novel, and I think it's important,
  • 24:39 and I'm glad it resonates with you guys and you.
  • 24:42 Kirsten: Yeah, here's a question for you.
  • 24:43 You guys were discussing Zionism.
  • 24:46 Say, if someone just clicked on our program for the very first
  • 24:49 time, and they're like, "I don't know what that is,"
  • 24:51 can you just, in a snippet, tell what the term "Zionism" is?
  • 24:55 Jeffrey: Zionism speaks to a movement of an interest in Jews
  • 24:59 returning to the ancestral homeland, the land of Zion,
  • 25:03 and Zionism is a decidedly Jewish term that harks to--
  • 25:08 it was a cry that went out.
  • 25:11 Jews were dispersed all over the world, but the modern nation
  • 25:15 state of Israel came in the wake of invitation for Jews to begin
  • 25:20 returning and rebuilding, and Zionism speaks to that rolling
  • 25:25 the dice against an uncertain future, individuals packing up
  • 25:28 and moving to the ancestral homeland
  • 25:31 and bringing it into being.
  • 25:34 David: I think we've learned in this program, too,
  • 25:35 that it's also called making aliyah,
  • 25:38 and it's still happening today.
  • 25:39 Prophetic, is it prophetic?
  • 25:41 Jeffrey: I think so.
  • 25:43 Aliyah comes from a Hebrew word meaning to go up, and it's
  • 25:46 always construed that Israel is the high point of the world and
  • 25:52 human experience, and when you go to Jerusalem,
  • 25:54 you go up to it.
  • 25:56 It's to an elevated state, if you will,
  • 25:59 and it's extremely important.
  • 26:02 Kirsten: Touching back on Zionism, how do you feel that
  • 26:05 the modern church, as a evangelical church,
  • 26:09 is doing or feeling in regards to Zionism?
  • 26:12 Jeffrey: I don't think there's an inordinate amount
  • 26:15 of interest, frankly.
  • 26:16 To be sure, individuals, you know,
  • 26:19 pastors take churches to Israel.
  • 26:21 They want to see where Jesus walked yesterday, and they're
  • 26:25 interested in seeing their story, and I appreciate that,
  • 26:29 but people walk past the Jews to go to the Christian sites,
  • 26:34 and I think there is an insensitivity
  • 26:37 to the Jewish struggle.
  • 26:39 Now, I don't want to overstate that, but I think on the whole,
  • 26:43 it's true of Christianity doesn't quite get it.
  • 26:46 Now there are individuals--and thank God for that, or thank God
  • 26:51 for you--there are individuals who have a heart, who have
  • 26:54 a calling, and you might be more invested in this than your
  • 26:58 average good friends in church, but I think there's a calling
  • 27:01 for Christian people to get behind all this, and I don't
  • 27:04 know that it permeates the church in total.
  • 27:07 Kirsten: I've heard someone on tour say,
  • 27:09 "Boy, there are a lot of rocks,"
  • 27:10 and we go to visit a lot of ancient rocks.
  • 27:12 And we must look at that and learn from the past,
  • 27:14 but we also need to open our eyes to see what's going on
  • 27:17 in the land right now.
  • 27:19 And God is moving, and he is moving his people back,
  • 27:23 and it's exciting to see Israel right now.
  • 27:26 Jeffrey: It's really exciting, especially if you
  • 27:28 walked out of a nightmare as Jewish people did
  • 27:30 with the Holocaust, to walk into this miracle
  • 27:33 and to participate in it.
  • 27:34 That's why I'm thankful to friends that invest in helping
  • 27:37 and participate what we do.
  • 27:38 In any case, that Jewish experience was a nightmare
  • 27:41 in Hitler's day.
  • 27:42 Thank God it's more of a dream state now.
  • 27:44 David: So much packed into this great program today.
  • 27:47 We end--I can't believe we're done with this program,
  • 27:49 but we end today with another song from Hadar.
  • 27:53 Jeffrey: And it goes quick.
  • 27:55 And as you go, Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim.
  • 27:57 David: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
  • 28:00 ♪♪♪
  • 28:10 ♪♪♪
  • 28:20 ♪♪♪
  • 28:25 CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM

Episodes in this series

  1. The Land Promised
  2. Promised to the Next Generation
  3. To All Generations
  4. Entering the Promised Land
  5. Fighting for the Promised Land
  6. Promised Forever
  7. Jesus and the Promised Land
  8. Israel Fulfilling Prophecy

Guest organizations and links