Jewish Responses to the Meron Tragedy

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Friends, we've got a lot of ground to cover, important issues to discuss today on thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the line of fire, but as always on Thursdays the phone lines are wide open to you for your Jewish related questions, and of course we welcome calls from Jewish friends who differ with our position about Jesus Yeshua being the Messiah. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I want to give you an important update on the Israeli elections. I want to give you more about the odd situation with this gentile Christian who is posing as an Orthodox Jewish rabbi living in Israel. I want to talk to you about that, but I want to focus first on the tragedy in Meiron last week.

I mistakenly said in the area of Jerusalem, speaking about it last week, of course Meiron is in northern Israel near Safed Tzafat, and this was something really unprecedented. The loss of life, the staggering number of people killed while celebrating a traditional Jewish holiday was just numbing and stunning for the country. Coming out of COVID, now the largest public gathering that would have been held with a lot of the restrictions being relaxed, a hundred thousand perhaps more traditional Jews gathered together coming from different parts of the world to visit the graves site of the famous rabbinic leader Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and 33rd day in the counting of the Omer. This is from Passover to Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, bonfires lit and commemorating this man as the light of Israel, and so on. Forget about why the holiday or the traditions are venerating someone's graves, forget about all that. It's a major annual event in traditional Judaism and specifically there in Israel.

So there's a tunnel through which the crowds pass, there's dispute that the police have a barricade and some part of it, is it just it hasn't been taken care of properly, or the Orthodox Jews just don't care about the laws, the ultra-orthodox, they're gonna do what they want to do. Regardless of any of that, 45 men were killed. It's all men that were there. 45 men were killed, many many others injured. So it just sends shock waves obviously through a community. There are about 6 million Jews in Israel, so when you multiply this, it would be like a 9-11 type of loss of life in one day that we had in America happening in Israel.

I mean it's that jarring, but the nature of it makes it all the more jarring. So I'm not here to give commentary on what happened or why. I'm not here to give spiritual insight behind the events.

If there's insight to be gained by the scripture, by meditation and prayer, I haven't received that insight yet. And again the Jewish world mourns over this. These are lives that are lost that cannot be brought back. But it's interesting to watch the different reactions from different parts of the Jewish community.

If you're reading op-eds say in Haaretz, which is very liberal and which would often be the most hostile to ultra-orthodox Judaism and looking at it as backwards or antiquated or unhelpful or uncooperative with the rest of the society, you'll kind of read things that are critical. I mean mourning, of course mourning over the loss of life and saying it's tragic, but then critical of the ultra-orthodox communities that want to have their own laws, that want to do things their way, that are not going to listen to the safety cautions and you know be it during COVID or be it now. And that this should have been fixed long ago. This was an unsafe situation. There should have either been control of numbers of people or safety issues should have been addressed years ago and this could have been avoided. And a tragedy similar, not quite as wide-scale, similar tragedy happened many decades ago in Israel, maybe a hundred years ago.

In any case, in any case, that would be the response from some just looking at this through natural eyes. In other words, not factoring God in, not factoring in the spiritual reasons of how could such a thing happen, not that just looking at the natural and saying this was an accident waiting to happen, when is our society going to learn? My friend Rabbi Shmueli wrote an article because some are trying to give a spiritual explanation to this as the nation is is wracked with mourning and shock. So he has an editorial on the Jerusalem Post and this would be typical Shmueli, what I would expect from him, and it says stop justifying the 45 deaths on Mount Meron. There is no reason and no justification for the victims deaths.

There is no good that came from their deaths, no lesson for the collective Jewish people. Now surprisingly, in this editorial, he pushes back against the redemptive value of suffering, which is something he certainly believes in in other contexts. And you know, he says this, and again this would be a forceful argument for my friend Rabbi Shmueli, he said imagine if someone had written about the Holocaust, sure six million is a terrible price but it serves them right, they should have known to be Zionists and immigrate to Palestine, did 2,000 years of European anti-semitism teach them nothing, or if someone had written of the eleven martyred Israeli athletes in Munich, truly a terrible tragedy but what did they expect returning to Germany just 25 years after the Holocaust?

So you say how dare you throw blame around and point that finger, you know, it's their fault, they should have known or whatever. But then on the other hand, on the other hand he rejects a redemptive view of suffering, so that's the Christian view that you know Jesus dies and you have to die and you have to suffer for redemption to come, no this is just a senseless tragedy and let's mourn together and accept the tragedy. So that's, again I'm giving you the short version, you can read his whole op-ed piece which is always forcefully written as you would expect from Rabbi Shmueli. Here is an ultra-orthodox response and here's a response to the ultra-orthodox response. Rabbi Chaim Kani, I always mispronounce the last name, Kaniyevsky, excuse me, is one of the most revered rabbinic authorities in the world in the ultra-orthodox community especially Lithuanian Jews, but he's considered like this ultimate sage, you know, an old man, very very hard to understand words he's saying, but people will come to him for legal opinions from around the world. Leading rabbis will come to say we've got this situation, we need your input, we need your wisdom, and and what do you have to say?

And he'll just give his one or two word answer, yes, no, this is okay, this is not, you know, legendary for his study habits, getting up at 2 30 in the morning so he can study for hours and hours and hours and go through a massive amount of rabbinic literature every year and, you know, which again is held in high esteem in the rabbinic community. So according to him this happened by the decree of heaven because you cannot have something like this happen without God decreeing it, that would be a typically Orthodox Jewish view, yet we have no understanding of why it happened. It was decreed by heaven but we have no idea why that happened. But what we can do, he says, is be more devoted spiritually and what does that mean? It means more prayer and more observance of Torah and tradition and it means the women dress even more modestly and make sure to wash your hands properly before meals. Now in his world this would be the parallel say of an evangelical Christian world if there's some national tragedy, we don't know why this happened but we've got to seek God more, we've got to get on our faces, we've got to fast, we've got to pray. Well Jewish tradition is going to say well then we should live more traditional lives, be more devoted to our tradition. Now think of how that sounds though to the secular world, to the secular Jewish world.

So here's another article in the Jerusalem Post, Jeremy Sharon, Women Must Respond to Meiron Disaster with More Modesty, Rav Kanieski. In his first comments regarding the death of 45 people during the Laghba Onor celebrations, the leading Haredi rabbi said the disaster was a decree from heaven for reasons that cannot be known. And then they've got a picture of his actual letter either from him or as written out by his son or someone else writing it out for him. So it's it's written in Hebrew and it says in the document, this is the son explaining, Yitzchak Sheol says that he has been asked by many people to ask his father why the disaster at Mount Meiron on Laghba Onor last week took place. He responded that it is quote a decree from heaven and we cannot know the considerations of heaven. I asked him what needs to be rectified, like what can we do to fix this? And our master, the minister of the Torah, replied we must strengthen ourselves in Torah and persevering in the study of Torah, and he repeated this several times, and added and women should strengthen themselves in modesty.

So the son writing out his father's opinion. So again within their community, let's be even work even harder being more traditional and following the customs and being diligent, the outside Israeli world, many of them look at this as oh that's it, so women need to be more modest to stop tragedy like this from happening, are you kidding me? And again within their community the women are pretty much covered head to toe to start.

So again just different responses. There's some from the religious Jewish world, I'm not going to pull these articles up now, but they refer to those who died as korbanos, korbanot, which would be sacrifices. And the concept would be that somehow they died but they were offered up as sacrifices to God. So for whatever reason the decree came that they died, it wasn't just random, they were selected to die. And there has been a concept, I haven't read the eulogies from the different funerals, perhaps more will be published, but I've seen in times like this when religious Jews will die, not someone you know 98 years old and you know or well even it'd be said then but you know maybe a 35 year old rabbi father of seven and killed by a terrorist and the response would be well this is the tradition of the death of the righteous services and atonement for the generation, why does this person die? Well God was angry with the generation and he died and it was his merit, his credit, his righteousness that will kind of offset the evil of the generation if they will repent God will have mercy. But even with with a famous old rabbi they'd say when he dies may his death be an atonement but all the more in a situation like that and I haven't I haven't read that in eulogies yet I would expect that some of that was said but even the reference to them as korbanos, as sacrifices, would point to that this idea of them dying as sacrifices as offerings on behalf of the rest of the community and and their righteousness will bring mercy to the community that the kind of concept I'm oversimplifying but trying to make that point okay just different responses in any case pray that God's mercy would be poured out and that good would come out of the tragedy it's the line of fire with your host dr. Michael Brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution here again is dr. Michael Brown thanks for joining us today on the line of fire this is Michael Brown if you have a Jewish related question of any kind give me a call eight six six three four truth eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four our messianic Jews deceptive is there a strong movement in Christian circles to send Gentiles in as missionaries to the Jews posing as Jews as there is a story that is still shocking the Jewish world worldwide it's also shocking the messianic Jewish world and the evangelical Christian world that's hearing about it it's a story of a man named Michael elk a man who was born as a Gentile into a non-observant Christian home married a Gentile woman both of them had become committed Christians began attending a messianic Jewish congregation in Pennsylvania ultimately dressing now like an ultra-orthodox rabbi and posing as a rabbi and getting documents indicating that he was a rabbi and a Jew and then with a second wife having divorced the first now with a second wife and claiming that she's Jewish also although from what I've read she grew up on a Christmas tree farm they go to Israel and pose as ultra-orthodox Jews live in that community for years get found out some years ago and he says yeah I repented that missionary stuff that's not I'm not doing that I'm just living as a religious Jew and continued to live in another religious Jewish community in Jerusalem and then was found out and exposed and and then it hits the larger world because here you have clips of him in the ultra-orthodox car sitting on a show TV show with Rick Joyner years ago openly talking about Jesus and apparently supported by Morningstar as a missionary and when I asked Rick Joyner about it he said he's he's an ultra-orthodox rabbi living in Jerusalem and very bold in his faith so that's what Rick understood I said well their accusations that he wasn't a rabbi at all that he certainly wasn't Jewish and that was the first when I shared that with Rick that he had heard about it so is this a common practice forging documents getting into a community illegally claiming to be someone other than you are I'm talking about in terms your religious faith okay I'm not talking about being pragmatic that your own shout everything for the rooftops all the time you know if you live in a country like North Korea and you stand on the street corner preaching that's the last act you'll do in public right so you may keep your Christian faith hidden more and share it in more wise ways but I'm not talking about that I'm talking about claiming to be somebody other than you are you know claiming to be saying an atheist professor at a Communist University and denouncing Christianity in your classes while secretly proselytizing are these common practices especially in the messianic Jewish world well according to counter missionary rabbi tovia singer they certainly are listen to what he had to say about this there is a very serious problem not only here in Israel but in Jewish communities throughout the world in North America in particular where missionaries infiltrate the Jewish community they portray themselves as Jewish when they're not Jewish portray themselves as rabbis when they're not rabbis we've had so many cases like this they kind of taking their cues from Paul who made a lot of claim for himself would you see missionaries on TV on YouTube talking about we have Orthodox believers in your show we need to support them that's what they're talking about there's a whole funding thing for these people who have clandestinely infiltrated the Jewish community at first all the messianic Jewish leaders that I know in the world that the senior leaders of organizations like Jews for Jesus and chosen people and one for Israel we're all emailing each other who is this guy have you ever heard of such a thing what in the world is going on what's this guy doing what was he thinking who supported him where we were hurt we're all baffled we're all emailing each other I'm sure the email trends like what in the world is go who is this what are you talking about why do you think you have organizations called Jews for Jesus I would say that is pretty clear as to where people are coming from you know a chosen people ministries and you go to the website we exist to bring the gospel first to the Jewish people one for Israel you go to their websites testimonies about you sure I give example after example of Jewish based organizations that do Jewish outreach to Jewish people over the whole world that anyone that knows me knows I am a messianic you knows I am a Jewish believer in Jesus there's nothing secret about there's no mystery about it the messianic communities in Israel they people know who they are they get opposed you've got ultra Orthodox Jews trying to get them out of the country for various reasons and keep them out of the country and coming in because people know who we are because we're not ambiguous about things as to this idea that there's this whole funding thing for all these alleged secret Orthodox believers I actually know a few it's very very few ultra Orthodox Jews now there may be more I was told by one that there are many more but it's it's none of us know who there I couldn't even find the people I have no idea how to contact and even was it was that that much that they they were not revealing who they were paid lived their whole lives as religious Jews they were raised as religious Jews lived their whole lives as religious Jews part of religious Jewish communities came to faith in Yeshua one guy told me there's a network of them around the world I don't know that I've never met them face-to-face I had one phone conversation with one guy years ago I met another that was a secret believer within the community but it was they they were religious Jews they came to faith in Jesus and they continue to live in their community and privately might share their faith with someone just like if you had some views that were a little different than the community you may just share it privately but they were authentically religious Jews and none of them that I knew of were financially supported none of them that I knew of we're getting financial support for what they were doing again I couldn't even contact them so this whole idea of oh there's this that I though the the one that I know that I can be in contact with he's he's as authentically religious Jewish could be in over many years of prayerful studies convinced that Jesus is the Messiah and that's it there's there's not some covert missions thing where we've got all these people sent out and none of us would dream for a split second of getting a Gentile to claim to be a Jew going to be Jewish rabbi and then infiltrate a religious Jewish community as such to secretly make converts that's abhorrent us that's completely abhorrent we do the opposite we get blasted for being so open you said well what about people claim to be rabbis that are not oh that's a fair question in the messianic Jewish community right so messianic Jewish congregations there are hundreds of them around the world the leaders are only called rabbi not in Israel but in other parts of world they're called rabbi why because that's what you call a congregational leader in Catholic Church it's a priest Protestant Church is pastor Jewish community rabbi is it misleading that could be could be but I mean many of you say I'm Gentile they're not lying about who they are you say what about the ones that dress up like religious Jews I always tell them not to I'm telling if you're not if that's not who you are that's not your background don't do it it's deceptive it's misleading it sends a wrong signal and if you're Gentile you don't need to dress up as a religious do this I'm gonna make you more spiritual I'm actually written about these things every because every so often I see it when I see it I warn against it and none of these people or anybody knows they're not they're not known they're not proselytizing they're just somebody Gentile going to a messianic congregation in Kentucky dressed as a religious you're like what in the world are you doing man ah but Tovia singer has more to say let's let's listen the actual leaders of the messianic congregations rarely if ever convert Jews to Christianity it's almost unheard of and this is what people don't get people think that the leader of the messianic congregation he's the one that converts us Christianity that almost never occurs they themselves don't directly evangelize Jews but rather they instruct evangelical Christians how to effectively witness to the Jews I am sure there's some of you watching me right now who knows someone who got involved in one of these groups and if you ask that cousin of yours who is the first person to witness to you I can almost assure you it'll be someone who is never Jewish and someone who is not a professional missionary the danger here is that it's against the law to evangelize children in this country you can't evangelize minors it's a law in the country and the way the missionaries frequently circumvent this law is by getting their children to evangelize other children getting their children inside the system false false false number number one the reason that evangelical Christians talk to Jewish people about their faith is because they love Jewish people just like they talked to Hindus and Buddhists and atheists and nominal Christians they share their faith that's what evangelical Christians do and the reason they're often the first ones to talk to Jewish people in America is because there's so many evangelical Christians yeah I'm glad that it was evangelical Christians who shared Jesus with me as a teenager I'm glad they did but as a messianic leader the messianic congregation leader they're sharing their faith like anybody else just last week I had in the air with me Sam Nadler messianic rabbi for many years he's always sharing his faith with other Jewish people oh and Gentiles too as for within Israel the believers there are super super careful super careful not to proselytize minors because it's against the law and they'll tell me we're having this youth gathering but everyone has to sign they have they have to have permission from their parents before they can come they were the ones that told me about this many years ago they said oh yeah it's the law across Israel very important that we honor that and keep that so if we're having a youth gathering the kids cannot come without express permission from their parents don't listen to the lies of rabbi singer get to the truth and let's focus on the real issue is Jesus the Jewish Messiah or not that's the issue and we are forthright open bold clear this is who we are this is what we believe Jews for Jesus we're not ashamed it's the line of fire with your host dr. Michael Brown get into the line of fire now by calling eight six six three four truth here again is dr. Michael Brown welcome friends to thoroughly Jewish Thursday can I make a request we have a lot of material out online Jewish outreach material debates with rabbis teachings on YouTube extensive articles lots of outreach material available we have whole series of broadcasts we record it for Middle East TV which air in Israel major network cable network there in Israel with Hebrew captions just all of them outreach videos we've recorded I think a total of 25 if I'm correct somewhere around there and those are out those air one of my colleagues in Israel was was watching was at the airport ready to fly out on Super Bowl Sunday last year and ME TV had aired the Super Bowl you know they air different things Westerns and shows that are still popular in Israel people like to watch and then some inspirational programming as well and he was he was praying about some new Jewish outreach initiatives Hebrew outreach in Israel and he was praying about it wondering is anyone gonna watch and looks up on the screen and there's my face in the airport in Israel on all the monitors preaching Yeshua preaching Jesus and obviously what happened was they had the Super Bowl on an ME TV and when it ended they I don't know how long it was up for but there I was and that was an encouragement to him at that moment as he was praying about that very thing we've got a lot of material out there we've got series of videos that were producing out just demolishing the misinformation of counter missionary rabbi tovia singer and perhaps when we're done with those those could be several dozen we'll go on to some other counter missionaries and refute their material the list goes on and on and then the five volumes that we've written answering Jewish objections to Jesus in 22-hour class countering the counter missionaries they're off there would you pray with me as they're translated into different languages some in Hebrew some in Russian some in Spanish some in Portuguese would you pray with me that God would use these to reach the lost sheep of the house of Israel would you do that the materials are out there the resources are out there they're in multiple languages we're getting more and more stuff dubbed with Hebrew captions there is even a creative way that more of my material will get out in Hebrew directly through Israelis God's enable us to help spark and inspire some of the major Jewish outreach taking place in Israel today so we play a key role in this and then when so many get confused and have questions that they come to us with their questions they come to us struggling many on the verge of losing their faith and with our team and our materials were able to help them by God's grace so would you pray with us would you pray that God would use these materials to touch Jewish people around the world we are over we are clear no one has any question about what we believe if they've heard us speak so pray that God would use these it is the prayers of the church that will be vital in bringing the Jewish people into a saving knowledge of Messiah Jesus Yeshua our King so thank you for praying those that want to stand with us financially no no for sure those that do stand with us that this is one of the pillars of our ministry that this is an always that we are doing this is something that we are always involved with and always putting out material in and helping others with so if you support us financially know that your your funds are helping us reach the lost sheep of the House of Israel so over clear this is who we are you can make one-time contributions watching on Facebook the donate button on YouTube the dollar sign or better still become a supporting partner go to ask dr. Brown org click on donate and again all of you that can pray we really do appreciate it I want to catch you up in a very major development ah okay I just looked I was gonna grab some calls but I'm not going to instead I'm gonna go over to this article in Jerusalem Post so Prime Minister Netanyahu has basically said okay I can't I can't form a coalition government and as much as he's revered and appreciated especially by evangelical Christians in America for much of the good he's done and helping Israel's international status and standing strongly for security he's he's not as popular within Israel there are personal family issues that have come up he's under attack for that is there corruption and he's made coalitions with the ultra right in certain ways and and that creates more opposition within Israel Israel as a whole has shifted more to the right as a nation but then you have the the far right versus the centrist right and in order for him to form potential coalitions it means siding with the the far right and that's been more controversial in any case as expected he's been unable to form a government again in Israel Knesset Parliament that's 120 seats so you need 61 maybe your party gets 35 maybe maybe your competitors party gets 30 but your competitors so you're not gonna work together that'd be easy form a coalition last time it happened with with Likud and blue and white Netanyahu is going to form a coalition with Benny Gantz okay I'll be Prime Minister first then you'll be Prime Minister after me one of my Israeli friends told me the joke in Israel that there was only one person in Israel that thought that was going to work and that was Benny Gantz very basically everybody else understood once Netanyahu's in he's gonna stay in well anyway right now is unable to form another government are they gonna have yet another election five six how many elections they gonna has been one after another after another for the last few years so the possibility is next in line is your ear Lapid yesha T there is a future that's the name of the party and he is centrist right and there's the possibility of him working with Naftali Benekh of the Aminah party who's religious Zionist but not not ultra Orthodox but religious Zionist and then maybe bringing in an Arab party which would be the first time that the government would form a coalition this way giving them more weight in other words each one says okay I want this I want this I want this concession and then you you make the thing work but this could actually happen so I want to read some of this article May 5th by Gil Hoffman in Jerusalem Post yesha T leader your ear Lapid and you mean a chairman Naftali Bennett intend to engage in marathon talks to form a unity government beginning Thursday after President Reuven Rivlin announced Wednesday night that he is entrusting Lapid with the second mandate to form a government Lapid and Bennett want to form a government as soon as possible believe it can be done within a week they expressed concern that if they did not hurry their efforts would be harmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his mandate ended Tuesday night without a coalition being formed who was trying to sabotage the formation of a government that would replace him and between his various times as Prime Minister he's been Prime Minister longer than any previous one you mean the MK so these are Knesset ministers so you know Senate senators congressmen be the same you mean the MK's are under pressure to oppose the unity government following the lead of MK Amichai Chilke or Chikil excuse me Chilke or Higgly depends on how it's pronounced who announced his opposition on Wednesday morning Netanyahu vowed that more MK's would join him Lapid will have 28 days to build a coalition concluding on June 2nd he intends to form a government in which Bennett goes first ah say okay you you go first Wow in a rotation with him in the Prime Minister's office but he has not ruled out a coalition without you Mina the main consideration that Israeli presidents must weigh when arriving at the decision of who to entrust performing government is who has the best chance of forming a government that will have the confidence of the new Knesset from the number of recommendations it is clear that MK or ill appeared to form a government that has the confidence that Knesset despite there being many difficulties it's looking to look at what Lapid saying to pride of being you by the way if you think politics in America are volatile there's nothing like Israel Israel is far more volatile I don't mean that your average Israeli gets any more engaged and worked up than your average American but the mudslinging back and forth and the rock throwing and the attacks and the level of hostility and acrimony and it's is very intense and the amount of different parties all vying picture we had 20 parties battling for four seats not not two main ones so Lapid pledged to do everything to ensure that an Israeli unity government will be formed as soon as possible quote after two years of political paralysis Israeli society is hurting that's true a unity government isn't a compromise or a last resort it's a goal it's what we need he said we need a government that will reflect the fact that we don't hate one of them well the problem is many do hate each other that's the problem but he's trying to say look ultimately we don't we're fellow Israelis a government which left right and center will work together to tackle the economic and security challenges we face a government that will show that our differences are a source of strength not weakness hey it's a good speech there were certain things that President Biden said in this inauguration speech that I didn't like but boy I loved his call for unity I just think he's done everything the opposite of that since he's been in other words he's he's saying a radical left position after position after position and only for the further alienating conservatives and those on the right Republicans and and others but I'd like the call for you well this is that I like this I like this idea of let our differences come together as strengths sounds good but but can it can it happen so according to new hunt Netanyahu with Bennett wants to form as a dangerous left-wing government so you know they're they're trying to say the what the those in the middle on the left are saying the time Yahoo is going radical right radical right extremist it's like all Trump followers a white supremacist it's that kind of rhetoric and then they turn Yahoo and those with him are saying that those who are who are moderate right centrist leading left there they're forming a radical left government so the warnings the scare tactics are there could it work it it could it it seems to have a possibility that it could work well would be good or bad who knows who can even figure out which direction it would go what concessions would have to be made see one of the gripes that messianic Jews in Israel rightly have with Netanyahu is they appreciate so much goodies done across the board and yet for him to get into power recently not every time but frequently he said to make coalitions with ultra-orthodox and the ultra-orthodox or adamant enemies of the messianic Jewish community will make life as difficult as possible for them in terms of immigration and status within the land and things like that it's like well if Netanyahu gets in and they get in power and so it's it's very much a mix there's no just black and white here everything is is gray on one level or another so pray for God's will Lord your will be done Lord work out things for your divine purposes I don't know how to pray beyond that it's the line of fire with your host activist author international speaker and theologian dr. Michael Brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution get into the line of fire now by calling eight six six three four truth here again is dr. Michael Brown it is 30 Jewish Thursday Michael Brown welcome to the broadcast hey I just glanced up at Facebook on my screen here Alexia thanks for your contribution we appreciate it very much eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four if you have a Jewish related call so today this is this is a first in my life where you're sitting waiting to hear award announcements and to win something or not in this particular way it was the first I got notified by my publisher a few weeks ago publisher of my commentary on Job's that's Hendrickson publishers job the faith to challenge God a new translation and commentary and it was one of six finalists in a Bible reference category I think there are 11 different categories and six different finalists in each one and it was the evangelical Christian Publishers Association annual awards and mine had made it as a finalist these are books published between October 2019 and October 2020 and then out of the 300 something books that the judges went through they came up with these finalists and I was honored to be one of the finalists so I got a notice the thing is gonna be on such-and-such a time so as an hour before radio I thought okay great well I'm sitting here writing I'll put it on and and so again it was an honor to be part of it and honor that the judges found it worthy to make it into the finalists so it was a different book it was a book about New Testament world by NT Wright and another New Testament scholar that apparently brings things really to life from the perspective of an early Christian and so that's the only thing I know that that was the winner but I was blessed to be part of that and and it's when I went through the list of 66 books and the finalists it was the only commentary that made it there so I was honored by that and again as I was praying on the way I I thought well it's so interesting I've never had that I found out years ago that there was another award apologetic book of the year and one of my volumes on answering Jewish objections to Jesus took second place and I knew the guy that took first place I said hey man I'm glad I'm glad it was you but I mean not nearly I'm not thinking about this and my books aren't nominated for these awards so it's just it was an interesting thing and the winner is I thought how interesting but I just said hey Lord whatever your whatever your will is on this let it let it be done obviously it wasn't a major prayer focus and it's all Lord I'd like to win and it's just again what matters is the favor of God and the impact that our work has on others but again I was really honored that the book was chosen to get that far to be one of the six finalists and that it was the only commentary chosen out of the books that were submitted over this one year period that made it that far so the reason I share this is it happened just before radio and so it was on my mind but you know there is work that that you do that each of us do that is painstaking that is hard that is outwardly unrewarding that is often behind the scenes as parents as as followers of Jesus doing things in secret that others don't know some of you plugging away day after day through outward drudgery but trying to honor the Lord and and others in secret prayer others giving supporting missionaries and nobody nobody knows what you do with your money others just parenting and and making the hard choices sacrificial choices to put your kids first and this this goes on for years and for decades and no one seems to notice well first God God notices God sees he's aware and and then secondly the fruit will remain if you have honored the Lord and you have sown with tears you will reap with joy either in this world or the world to come and those are some of the lessons from job that whatever it goes wrong in this world no matter who or what is behind it whatever goes wrong God if we honor him will make it right either in this world or the world to come whatever has been taken illegitimately if we honor the Lord will come back to us in this world or the world to come and then the things that are done in secret to honor God and the things that are not sensational come on ninety nine point nine percent of all Christian ministry that takes place doesn't take place on the big screen it takes place in interpersonal relations sure God works through internet God works through books and God works through TV and God works through all these different means obviously but normally it's just as people loving people it's people interacting with people and so much of the most important work is not seen so much of the most important work is not it's not heralded by others and praised by others and you say what's that got to do the job commentary well here you do not do commentary work to get rich you do not do commentary work for Fame I mean maybe somebody does somewhere but it is painstaking it takes years and years and years of effort I'm talking about to produce a solid academic commentary it takes years and years of work and then when you get with through the years and years of work I mean you have scholars that work on projects 20 or 30 years and a single commentary project but let's say you work on something for five or ten years and then you're done with it you finish the work you're done with that and then you submit it to the publisher and then the academic editor will come back with months of work for you to do I need you to verify this I need you to check into this I need you let's phrase this that whatever and then when the book finally comes out all you sell like a million cut no you don't sell a million cop oh you sell like a hundred thousand no you don't sell a hundred thousand copies oh he's like ten thousand oh no you don't sell ten thousand cup oh there there are some rare commentaries where that happens there are some where that happens you know Dennis Prager was stunned when his rationalist commentary in the Torah his first bond came out I think was Exodus and he sent me a copy of it he was utterly stunned when it jumped up as a national bestseller he said obviously there's interest in Scripture but generally speaking that's not going to happen a publisher might be happy if if they sell a thousand or fifteen hundred or two thousand copies of a commentary and if it's part of a series then like my Jeremiah commentary if you have the volume my name is not even on the outside because it's together with with Ezekiel excuse me lamentations and Ezekiel so the whole volume yeah mine is the bulk of the volume but you've got two other scholars with two other works there so if you have it it just has the editors names on there and then you say well how much do you make with royalty okay listen I could dig ditches with a toothpick working minimum wage and make more money per hour than I made writing a commentary got it so that's what I'm saying to you that so much of what you do is not going to be sensationalized and it is not it's not going to be big news and it's not glamorous it's the day-to-day it's in the trenches it's behind the scenes you know I was I was up late last night working on my Isaiah commentary for a new series of Pentecostal charismatic scholars doing commentaries on every book of the Bible and I just got caught up on one word and I had researched it a lot in in the first chapter of Isaiah really trying to wrestle with do I translate with ah like ah or alas or whoa and I really dug into it because like with job I did a new translation I'm doing the same with Isaiah and I really dug into it and spent quite a large amount of time really trying to see how this word was used and and how was translated the ancient versions and how it broke down in lexical data in terms of dictionary data through the the Hebrew Bible and where the usage was found and etc and then landed on how to translate it in Isaiah 1 and debated it that finally landed on it and now I'm over in the fifth chapter where you have seven seven hoi oracles or or pronouncements seven woes we have the seven Jesus pronouncing seven woes on the religious hypocrites in Matthew 23 and Luke 11 this is the same are these woes being pronounced well the vast majority of English translations translate with whoa when I looked at it more I thought you know I don't think it's the best translation here and I started digging deeper and looking further and rethinking what I going back to what I'd written in the first chapter in the end in the end we're talking about the translation of one word right and and probably 90% of people read it won't even realize there's a dear I don't know if it's different but they won't even get the full meaning of it but it's a bit it's the Word of God it's sacred right and so the whole thing is it's not done for people in terms of whoa when I come out with this everybody will be like wow what an amazing teaching I'll probably like well what's the big deal between one word and the other but it's it's a sacred thing you're so so many of you doing ministry you're doing it it's sacred God sees it you may not have your reward from people but you have a reward from God so many making the hard family choices personal choices doing things honoring God when nobody sees it God sees it you may not have your reward from people but you'll get your reward from God my great reward in the job company I was honored that almost got this award but the great reward for me is seeing people being impacted by it people being changed by it people being helped by it people growing in the Word growing their relationship with God that's the reward so be encouraged your labor is never in vain another program powered by the truth Network