Home » Zola TV » Video Archives » ZLM Video

Caption transcript for The First Christians (2019): “Messiah” (8/9)

• 00:01 ♪♪♪
• 00:05 male announcer: "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God
• 00:07 for Israel is, that they might be saved."
• 00:11 "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek,
• 00:14 for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that
• 00:17 call upon him."
• 00:19 "Zola Levitt Presents."
• 00:23 ♪♪♪
• 00:38 David Hart: Thank you for joining us today on
• 00:39 "Zola Levitt Presents," I'm David Hart.
• 00:41 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 00:42 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: I'm Jeffrey Seif, and we're going back
• 00:44 in time.
• 00:45 David: That's right.
• 00:47 Today it's all about how Messiah has been perceived early on
• 00:50 in Christian life.
• 00:51 Jeffrey: Yup, and it's worth havin' a look at the book to see
• 00:53 what it was like in Bible days.
• 00:55 Kirsten: It is.
• 00:57 We have some wonderful teaching today, but first we are gonna go
• 00:59 back in time to 1995 to hear from a wonderful priest and
• 01:04 archaeologist that found something quite interesting
• 01:07 in Jerusalem.
• 01:10 ♪♪♪
• 01:12 Father Bargil Pixner: After the destruction of Jerusalem,
• 01:14 the Christians that had fled during the seizure of Jerusalem
• 01:20 to Transjordan, came back again, and then they built up their own
• 01:26 synagogue here, and what we see here seems to be the remains of
• 01:32 this first structure that they put up after the Last Supper
• 01:37 room and the place of the Pentecost, and so on,
• 01:39 had been destroyed in the year 70.
• 01:42 They built here a synagogue, and today they brought stones that
• 01:47 were perhaps from the temple itself, perhaps from another
• 01:52 structure of Herod, but they are Herodian stones.
• 01:55 That's the view of the archaeologists.
• 01:58 And here we have these kinds of stones.
• 02:01 You'll see these very huge stones here.
• 02:04 They are, apparently, Herodian stones, and they are not here
• 02:07 in first usage.
• 02:09 They have been reused here.
• 02:12 You see here, for instance, these stones here, first of all,
• 02:15 how big they are, and, secondly, that they fit very nicely,
• 02:20 one on top of the other, very perfectly hewn, and you see
• 02:25 also that the corners are very destroyed, which shows that they
• 02:30 have been damaged during the transport.
• 02:35 From the first century, this place is here, and it shows also
• 02:40 that the first Christians that were here, who were Jews, they
• 02:46 were Jews that came from the Jewish nation.
• 02:49 They thought they didn't want to start a new religion.
• 02:55 They wanted to continue inside Judaism, their faith, and their
• 02:59 loyalty to Jesus the Messiah, and they were here and built
• 03:04 themselves a synagogue.
• 03:08 announcer: Just inside this wall is the traditional site of
• 03:10 King David's tomb.
• 03:12 The idea for this site started with the crusaders in
• 03:15 the 12th century when they perceived it as a holy place.
• 03:19 Father Pixner feels certain, however, that this room is
• 03:22 actually part of an ancient first century synagogue.
• 03:25 Father Pixner: What is most interesting is the direction
• 03:28 of this niche.
• 03:30 The niche is very ancient, and the niche goes back
• 03:33 to the original structure of the first century.
• 03:37 It's not directed anymore towards the temple, but it's
• 03:44 directed directly to the place of the Resurrection, and that is
• 03:51 a very remarkable thing because the Judeo-Christians, as Jews,
• 03:58 pray towards the temple, but as Christians, after 70,
• 04:02 after destruction of the temple, they started to pray towards
• 04:05 the place of the Resurrection.
• 04:08 We have very ancient sources that say that the foundation of
• 04:11 this primitive church, they called it then, was built so to
• 04:18 face the place of the Resurrection in veneration
• 04:22 of the place of the rising of our Lord.
• 04:27 announcer: For Judaism, the central place of worship,
• 04:30 of course, was here at the Temple Mount.
• 04:32 Today at the Western Wall, or "Wailing Wall," they still pray
• 04:36 for the Messiah to come.
• 04:38 Dr. Ray Pritz, the author of "Nazarene Jewish Christianity,"
• 04:42 has done exhaustive research on those who first believed in
• 04:45 Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah.
• 04:49 Dr. Ray Pritz: For almost 2,000 years, pious Jews have
• 04:53 made their way to this place in order to pray.
• 04:58 This is the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, what is left of
• 05:02 the temple after it was destroyed.
• 05:06 Only the outward casement wall is left in casing wall
• 05:10 of the temple.
• 05:12 They come.
• 05:14 They bring their prayer books, prayer books which mention
• 05:17 frequently the redemption of Israel.
• 05:20 This redemption is to come through a figure which we know
• 05:26 as the Messiah, "Mashiach," in Hebrew.
• 05:29 They come and they bring their requests written on small pieces
• 05:35 of paper, fold them up, stick them into the wall, as you can
• 05:39 see, and then these are collected later on by
• 05:41 the rabbis.
• 05:44 Zola Levitt: I asked Dr. Pritz about his studies
• 05:46 regarding the very first messianic Jews,
• 05:48 the first Christians.
• 05:50 Dr. Pritz: Well, I was interested, when I was doing
• 05:53 my studies at the Hebrew University, that while all
• 05:56 of the first believers in Jesus were Jews, within about
• 06:00 a hundred years, it's difficult to find anything of the Jewish
• 06:04 church left, and I was challenged by a friend,
• 06:10 one time, to try to get my doctoral work in that area.
• 06:17 I began actually with the master's thesis on the reported
• 06:21 flight of the early church out of Jerusalem at the time of the
• 06:25 rebellion against Rome and found that they had, in fact, left,
• 06:33 and to leave the city at about the same time that the Pharisees
• 06:38 left the city, actually, when it became evident that there was
• 06:41 no hope for the situation, and they went--
• 06:45 Zola: This is during the Roman siege, of course?
• 06:47 Dr. Pritz: This is during the Roman siege,
• 06:49 somewhere before the year 70.
• 06:51 The exact date is not known for sure.
• 06:53 And from that, that was a natural stepping stone to ask,
• 06:57 "Well, what happened to them anyway?"
• 07:00 And the word "Nazarene," I have as the name of the group from
• 07:05 Acts 24:5, where Paul, if you remember, is on trial and is
• 07:10 said, by the lawyer who is accusing him, that he is a
• 07:16 ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
• 07:19 It's the only place actually in the New Testament where the term
• 07:22 is used to describe the believers in Jesus.
• 07:25 We would normally have considered that the name comes,
• 07:29 of course, from Jesus the Nazarene and that Jesus's title
• 07:33 comes from the town of Nazareth.
• 07:36 It's not quite so sure that that's the case, actually, and
• 07:38 it's, first of all, very unusual for any group to be called by
• 07:45 the name of the town of their founder.
• 07:50 Secondly, there's a etymological problem in getting from the town
• 07:54 named "Nazareth," which in Hebrew is "Natzrat," to
• 07:59 the name "Nazarene," which is "Notsri," in Hebrew.
• 08:03 Etymologically, it doesn't work actually.
• 08:06 Zola: It's not the root from which the term comes.
• 08:08 Dr. Pritz: Right, and you would've expected
• 08:09 something else in Hebrew.
• 08:11 Many scholars feel that the title "Nazarene," for Jesus,
• 08:15 actually goes back to the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 11,
• 08:20 where Isaiah says that "Out of the root of Jesse would spring
• 08:26 forth this branch," which in Hebrew is "netzer," and from
• 08:30 that it's quite possible to arrive at the title,
• 08:34 the adjective title, "Notsri."
• 08:36 Zola: Let me ask you what the Christians were called
• 08:40 by the folks in the streets.
• 08:41 I'm interested in that.
• 08:43 They certainly do call them "Christians"?
• 08:45 Dr. Pritz: That's a good question.
• 08:46 Well, in the New Testament, of course, in the book of Acts, you
• 08:48 have several titles, and the name "Nazarene" only appears
• 08:51 once, and I doubt that that was a very popular title early on.
• 08:55 The more frequent title is either "the brethren,"
• 08:59 "the brothers," "the 'achim,'" in Hebrew,
• 09:02 or "the disciples," simply.
• 09:04 It's a well-known phenomenon that people who start something
• 09:08 new don't often give themselves the name.
• 09:11 The name is given to them from the outside.
• 09:12 Zola: Yes.
• 09:14 What about, just to ask, but "meshichyim,"
• 09:17 you hear today, "messianic believers," to distinguish from
• 09:21 Jews that don't believe this way, was--and they claim the
• 09:24 idea of "believers" goes back to the beginning.
• 09:27 Does that--
• 09:30 Dr. Pritz: Well, three times in the New Testament, you have
• 09:32 this title, "Christians," starting, first time in Acts
• 09:35 11:26, and if you would go back and take the origins of that
• 09:42 word, of course, "Christian" comes from "Christ," "Christos,"
• 09:45 in Greek, but "Christos" is just a translation of the Hebrew
• 09:49 title, "Mashiach," for "Messiah," and so if you would
• 09:53 do a back-translation of the word "Christian," you would come
• 09:56 out to something like "Meshianists" or "Meshichyim,"
• 09:59 in Hebrew.
• 10:00 Whether the early Jewish disciples, believers in Jesus,
• 10:05 were actually called "Meshichyim" is
• 10:07 a matter of debate.
• 10:09 It's not clear at all from the Scriptures, and the title
• 10:13 "Christian," itself, is not a title which the early church
• 10:16 used for itself, even the non-Jewish church,
• 10:18 used for itself until late in the second century.
• 10:20 Zola: Uh-huh, so if I were walkin' down the street
• 10:22 in first-century Israel and I saw people coming up from the
• 10:26 worship where I knew they were Messianics, I wouldn't say,
• 10:32 "Well, there go the Christians."
• 10:34 Dr. Pritz: If they were Jews, certainly not.
• 10:38 If they were--if you were speaking Hebrew and you said,
• 10:42 "Meshichyim"--perhaps.
• 10:45 Zola: The Messianics.
• 10:46 Dr. Pritz: Yeah, the Messianics, perhaps.
• 10:48 Again, it's not sure.
• 10:49 Zola: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:51 Dr. Pritz: Even if you were speaking Greek, it's not so sure
• 10:53 that the title--you may have said that if you saw them going
• 10:55 down the street, but it's not likely that they would've
• 10:57 called themselves by that name.
• 10:59 announcer: Coming up, we'll continue our discussion with
• 11:03 Dr. Ray Pritz, regarding the first Christians.
• 11:09 announcer: Our Creator chose certain places on the planet
• 11:11 to reveal himself and his message of redemption to us.
• 11:15 Mount Sinai, Moriah, Olives, the Mount of Beatitudes, as well as
• 11:21 various seas, rivers, and deserts, these were the places.
• 11:25 Some are now only ruins, yet they continue to tell of the
• 11:29 Lord's faithfulness and love.
• 11:32 These sacred backdrops have been beautifully captured in our
• 11:35 resource this week, the book "Heaven and Earth: Landmarks
• 11:41 of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation."
• 11:45 Our producer and director, Ken Berg, has assembled some of his
• 11:49 favorite photographs taken during his four decades of
• 11:53 travel through the lands of the Bible.
• 11:57 Contact us and ask for the book "Heaven and Earth."
• 12:04 ♪♪♪
• 12:09 announcer: The wonder.
• 12:12 ♪♪♪
• 12:15 announcer: The beauty.
• 12:17 ♪♪♪
• 12:21 announcer: The soul of the Holy Land.
• 12:25 ♪♪♪
• 12:28 announcer: For more information on our next tour to
• 12:29 Israel, call 1-800-WONDERS.
• 12:36 Zola: To take you back to the first century scene and Jesus is
• 12:39 speaking, and so on, and whatever he said, certainly, he
• 12:43 was talking to people marked out very quickly they were gonna be
• 12:48 pretty famous, really, in a way, and your book "Nazarene Jewish
• 12:54 Christianity" is about those people in particular, isn't it?
• 12:57 Dr. Pritz: Yup.
• 12:59 Zola: Our whole series is called "The First Century
• 13:01 Christians," and we're tryin' to call attention to the fact that
• 13:03 this--you know, "Most of the church," they say, when you go
• 13:06 to Sunday school, "goes back," and they say,
• 13:09 "to Greece and Rome."
• 13:11 When you go to take history, something called
• 13:14 "Western Civilization," goes back to Greece and Rome.
• 13:17 Now that I've become familiar with Scripture, I think it
• 13:20 goes back further than Greece and Rome.
• 13:22 I think Greece and Rome are indebted to the Old Testament
• 13:23 and a lot of advanced Jewish-Egyptian, et cetera,
• 13:28 thinking, before them.
• 13:30 Okay, all that said, the church really does go back, doesn't it,
• 13:35 to Israel and these first Christians?
• 13:37 Dr. Pritz: Sure.
• 13:39 The thing is, because of our backgrounds in the past 2,000
• 13:44 years, we, too, have forgotten, and it's being rediscovered,
• 13:48 in this generation, I have to say--and that's good--where
• 13:51 the roots are and what things go back to.
• 13:53 What was of particular interest to me, as I studied the early
• 13:58 Jewish believers and Jesus, was "How did they live?"
• 14:02 I live here. I live among Jewish believers.
• 14:05 I worship with Jewish believers, and we have our own debates
• 14:08 going on among us: "Do we live like this?"
• 14:12 "Do we do this?" "Do we not do that?"
• 14:14 "What happened with the early Jewish believers and Jesus?"
• 14:16 And I found that they, first of all, never stopped considering
• 14:23 themselves Jews.
• 14:25 In fact, I would have to say that in the first, second
• 14:28 century, other Jews who didn't believe in Jesus as Messiah
• 14:32 didn't stop considering them Jews either, and there were lots
• 14:36 of groups around in the first century, Pharisee and Sadducees,
• 14:40 Essenes, Zealots, and Nazarenes, each group with its own
• 14:45 particular shtick, with its own particular way of looking
• 14:48 at the world: "The Messiah has come."
• 14:51 "There's not going to be a Messiah," the Sadducees said.
• 14:53 "The Messiah may be coming, and we're gonna take the sword
• 14:56 in hand and do it ourselves," the Zealots said, and so on, but
• 14:59 not one of those groups would've said, "Well, because you don't
• 15:02 believe that the Messiah is gonna come, you're not a Jew
• 15:04 anymore," or "Because you believe that the Messiah
• 15:06 has already come, you're not a Jew anymore."
• 15:08 That would've been--everybody would've laughed at that.
• 15:10 Zola: Well, this was all part of Judaism.
• 15:11 Dr. Pritz: Right, this was just part of the family, and we
• 15:13 have our different ways of looking at things.
• 15:14 The Nazarenes did not see that faith in the Messiah, who had
• 15:21 come, changed basically their way of life except that it made
• 15:27 them zealous for the Gospel.
• 15:29 They continued, as far as we can tell from the New Testament,
• 15:33 even, and from post-New Testament sources, they
• 15:35 continued to keep the commandments of the law.
• 15:38 They--I have to be careful here because someone--I can hear
• 15:44 somebody--and I have heard somebody many times--say,
• 15:46 "Wait a minute, what do you mean by that?"
• 15:49 Well, keeping the commandments of the law meant that they had
• 15:52 the authority to make rulings and decisions about what should
• 15:57 be done, what should not be done.
• 15:58 Jesus had given them the Holy Spirit.
• 16:01 Jesus had said to Peter and to the other disciples,
• 16:05 "Whatever you bind will be bound.
• 16:07 Whatever you loose will be loosened."
• 16:09 Translate it back to Hebrew, that doesn't talk about casting
• 16:11 out demons or spiritual authorities or any of
• 16:14 that kind of thing.
• 16:15 What that means is, when you make a legal ruling, that's what
• 16:18 it is.
• 16:19 That's the Hebrew. I can go through the Hebrew.
• 16:21 We won't go into the detail, but that's exactly what Jesus
• 16:23 was saying, a very well-known phraseology, when he said,
• 16:26 "binding" and "loosing."
• 16:28 He meant "Whatever you permit is permitted," "Whatever you forbid
• 16:30 is forbidden."
• 16:31 So they didn't have to accept the authority of the rabbis.
• 16:34 It was one thing not to accept the authority of the rabbis; it
• 16:37 was another thing altogether to stop keeping--being obedient
• 16:41 to the Scriptures, to the commandments of the law, but
• 16:44 they interpreted them as they would with the Holy Spirit.
• 16:47 So we know from the sources that they continued to
• 16:51 keep the Sabbath.
• 16:52 They continued to keep certain food laws, not necessarily
• 16:57 the way the rabbis would find them, the way they'd
• 17:00 find them themselves.
• 17:01 They even continued to attend the synagogues, by the way, and
• 17:03 perhaps more surprising than anything at all, as long as
• 17:07 the temple was standing, they continued to go to the temple
• 17:09 and offer sacrifices.
• 17:11 Zola: I was once challenged on the Sabbath question.
• 17:15 A Jewish believer said, "I'll bet they kept the evening
• 17:18 service, the Havdalah, and they worshiped on Saturday
• 17:24 and not on Sunday."
• 17:26 Dr. Pritz: Sure, of course.
• 17:27 Zola: Okay, but even when it says the Lord's Day on the first
• 17:30 day of the week, they argued, "Havdalah is the first day.
• 17:33 It's after sundown on Saturday."
• 17:35 Dr. Pritz: Okay, first of all, the mentioned of the first
• 17:38 day of the week in Scripture is never explicitly said,
• 17:41 "This was the normal custom."
• 17:43 Okay, Paul meets on the first day of the week with people when
• 17:46 he's on his way back to Jerusalem, but he was gettin'
• 17:49 ready to sail out the next morning.
• 17:51 That was his last chance, and so they had a time together.
• 17:54 Well into the second and third century, there was a debate
• 17:56 about whether "this day" or "that day" also, regarding
• 18:00 celebrating Passover, were you gonna do it on a--always on
• 18:03 a Friday, or are you gonna do it or celebrate the Resurrection
• 18:05 on a Sunday?
• 18:07 On the third day? And so on.
• 18:09 But the changing of the day came much later.
• 18:13 Zola: And so, for some, the subject of the Sabbath remains
• 18:18 a question, but as Dr. Fritz's research has shown, there is
• 18:21 no question that the first Christians were, in fact, Jews.
• 18:24 Whether they were called "brethren" or "disciples,"
• 18:27 they gathered together to worship their Messiah.
• 18:30 Two thousand years later, messianic Jews are, once again,
• 18:34 gathering throughout Israel to sing praises to the Lord
• 18:37 in the original language, Hebrew.
• 18:44 [singing in foreign language]
• 18:49 Zola: When Zipporah Bennett
• 18:51 immigrated to Israel, she felt the Lord directing her to
• 18:53 compose messianic music for congregations
• 18:56 throughout the land.
• 18:57 She talked to our producer, Ken Berg, about her music.
• 18:59 Zipporah Bennett: Well, the existing believers at the time,
• 19:03 the existing congregations here in the land of Israel, were very
• 19:07 excited about this new big, brown hymnbook that had come
• 19:10 out, which had English, old contemporary English and
• 19:14 American hymns translated into Hebrew.
• 19:17 Now, I have nothing against hymns, but at the same time,
• 19:21 we are in the Middle East, and the Middle East has its
• 19:24 own kind of music.
• 19:26 The Jewish people have historically their own kind of
• 19:29 music, and it seemed wrong to me to take Scriptures that had been
• 19:34 originally written in Hebrew, translate them into English,
• 19:38 make a Western melody, then come back to the land of Israel
• 19:41 and take that same passage of Scripture and try and push it
• 19:45 into a Western melody.
• 19:47 For me, it didn't make sense because the accents were kind
• 19:50 of all--as they say, "You had the accent on
• 19:53 the wrong sy-LLA-bles."
• 19:54 And, to me, it seemed like, since God was in the process of
• 19:59 restoration of the Jewish people, we had to go back
• 20:02 to the Scriptures.
• 20:06 We had to go back to what was characteristic of the land, as
• 20:08 close as we could get to the time of the first century,
• 20:11 to the early believers.
• 20:13 We had to go back to the passages of Scripture, go back
• 20:15 to those kind of melodic patterns and reinterpret the
• 20:18 whole thing from the beginning.
• 20:20 Zola: Zipporah has recently drawn upon words written
• 20:24 by the psalmist as in this song, "Kumah Adonai."
• 20:29 [singing in Hebrew]
• 20:42 Zipporah: We, in Israel, are involved in a tremendous amount
• 20:46 of warfare, and we have so much coming at us, and I'm sure
• 20:51 you've read the papers, and even as the body of believing Jews in
• 20:56 the Messiah, we have a lot coming at us in the way of
• 21:00 opposition, as well, and so what I sensed was a need for more of
• 21:05 an expressions of "Arise, O God, let your enemies be scattered,"
• 21:09 "Just dispel the darkness," and so I searched the Scriptures,
• 21:16 and I looked for every passage I could find that said, "Arise, O
• 21:19 God," that "The right arm of the Lord has done valiantly,"
• 21:23 and we know who's sitting at the right arm of God.
• 21:25 I mean, this is--we're talking about Yeshua.
• 21:28 We're talking about the Messiah.
• 21:30 Zola: Arieh Bar-David is a messianic believer who was born
• 21:33 in Israel.
• 21:34 He is an accomplished musician, having played with the Jerusalem
• 21:37 Symphony Orchestra, and he has joined Zipporah on this telecast
• 21:40 to sing for us.
• 21:42 He was the conductor at the Academy of Music,
• 21:45 where he forsook it all to become a carpenter.
• 21:47 Here at Yad Hashmona, a moshav just outside Jerusalem, he
• 21:51 supervises the construction of pine furniture, a product which
• 21:55 has become renowned throughout all of Israel.
• 21:59 Arieh Bar-David: It's amazing.
• 22:00 Almost every day God gives me the chance that people
• 22:04 are coming here.
• 22:05 They make business, and some of them make big business.
• 22:08 When they finish, like yesterday, they just directly,
• 22:12 "Arieh, we heard this and this and this.
• 22:15 We have heard wonderful things about you.
• 22:18 Who is Messiah?"
• 22:20 Like yesterday, it was a group of them.
• 22:23 They're running a very big, huge thing in Israel.
• 22:27 I don't want to say their names, but one of the woman, she knows
• 22:30 about messianic Jews.
• 22:33 One of her relatives, he's a messianic Jew.
• 22:36 She was amazed about our life here without any word that we
• 22:41 say--just what she was heard, and she was--she asked how we
• 22:44 could do it, how it can be.
• 22:47 It's--really, God is opening every day, every day--and they
• 22:55 say it's amazing way that, every day, when we start
• 22:58 in the morning, 7 o'clock, we all meet together.
• 23:01 We pray, and we pray to God that "You will open this day
• 23:04 to the people that you know that they will come here."
• 23:08 Ken Berg: Can you tell me, when you're playing, let's say,
• 23:11 with Zipporah, and you have these other musicians around
• 23:14 you, how your inner man feels, your spirit?
• 23:19 What are you feeling when you're singing these songs?
• 23:22 Arieh: Yeah, it's something wonderful because, I tell you,
• 23:25 when I was a soldier, I remember when we had to walk, like,
• 23:29 90 kilometers or 120 kilometers in 24 hours.
• 23:34 You know, paratroopers are doing it.
• 23:35 I found myself that I was singing, and I knew, like, this
• 23:39 song has 16 bars, so if I would sing this song a hundred times,
• 23:44 I will get 1,600 bars.
• 23:47 It means such-and-such kilometers.
• 23:49 I feel myself, a soldier, a fighter.
• 23:51 I'm sorry. I'm living in Israel.
• 23:53 I was soldier from--so as a soldier, you have to have your
• 23:57 arms, you know, and singing is one of this.
• 24:02 Always, it's hard suggestion.
• 24:04 Come on and sing, like Paul said.
• 24:06 Don't fall into, you know, your feelings, but come on and sing.
• 24:10 Now, many of the songs are "thanks," "thanks" singing.
• 24:14 Ken: "Thank"-- Arieh: Yeah, "thank."
• 24:16 Ken: "Praise." Arieh: "Praise" singing.
• 24:17 So I don't see something which is better.
• 24:19 When you have hard time, just praise the Lord, and it works.
• 24:23 Zipporah: We are seeing revival amongst the Jewish
• 24:26 people in unprecedented amounts.
• 24:29 We are seeing thousands come to the faith, all around the world,
• 24:34 and so I believe that this now is the outworking
• 24:37 of the beginning of a change in the era.
• 24:41 It's said--in Romans, it says that "The blindness will be upon
• 24:44 Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in,"
• 24:49 and so I believe we're in the exchanging of two eras.
• 24:52 We're witnessing the end of the age of the Gentiles and the
• 24:55 beginning of the age of the Jews, and so we are about to
• 24:58 come in to an incredible revival amongst the Jewish people, and,
• 25:02 of course, that's our hope, and that's our expectation here.
• 25:08 [singing in Hebrew]
• 25:52 David: Zipporah, thank you so much for your music today.
• 25:54 We love the messianic music, and I'm thinking today about friends
• 25:57 that we know in Israel who are messianic, who are on fire for
• 26:01 God: Chaim Malespin, Sarah Lieberman, Joshua Aaron.
• 26:06 Jeffrey: Yes, and those are individuals.
• 26:08 There's communities, as well, that's sprouted up since Israel
• 26:12 became a nation in '48.
• 26:13 There were just a few dozen.
• 26:15 Now there's a few hundred messianic congregations.
• 26:17 David: Things have changed a bit.
• 26:19 Jeffrey: They have, and some years ago, I got a grant to go
• 26:20 and study that up and to, kind of, paper-up the story
• 26:23 of this emergent movement.
• 26:25 One of the things that's fascinating is how it's speared
• 26:28 along by Christians who support to help get this movement
• 26:33 on the map in the land of Israel.
• 26:35 I think, frankly, if it wasn't for Christian support for the
• 26:38 messianic movement in Israel, it wouldn't be anything of
• 26:40 what it is today.
• 26:42 Kirsten: And we want you, our viewer, to know, when you
• 26:45 support this ministry and this program, we, in turn, support
• 26:50 those believers in the Holy Land.
• 26:53 We don't keep the money to ourselves.
• 26:55 There are a lot of ministries where it goes to, so your
• 26:58 finances support what we're talking about today.
• 27:01 Jeffrey: Yes. David: That's right.
• 27:03 Jeffrey: And, by the way, it is so very true.
• 27:05 We're so appreciative of our Christian friends,
• 27:07 and that means you.
• 27:09 David: Amen.
• 27:10 Jeffrey: Hey, come on back next week, if you will, please,
• 27:12 and as you go now, "Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim."
• 27:16 Kirsten: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem."
• 27:22 announcer: Our monthly newsletter, "The Levitt Letter,"
• 27:23 is free and full of insightful articles and news commentary
• 27:27 from a messianic perspective.
• 27:28 Visit levitt.com, to find our newsletter, along with current
• 27:32 and past programs, our television schedule,
• 27:35 and much more.
• 27:37 female announcer: Don't forget to order this week's
• 27:39 resource by calling 1-800-WONDERS, or you can
• 27:44 purchase it from our store at levitt.com.
• 27:47 male announcer: Your donations to Zola Levitt
• 27:48 Ministries help these organizations bless Israel.
• 27:52 female announcer: Thanks again for joining us this week.
• 27:54 Zola Levitt Ministries and this television program depend on
• 27:58 tax deductible donations from viewers like you.
• 28:04 ♪♪♪
• 28:24 male announcer: This has been a paid program brought to you
• 28:27 by Zola Levitt Ministries.