a Jewish Christian perspective
Life from the dead!
Joseph Steinberg
Twenty years ago I faced a personal catastrophic event. My 65-year-old Jewish mother suddenly died from a massive heart attack. She was not a believer in Jesus. The shock of the news choked me because I had no assurance of my mother’s salvation.
A powerful feeling of fear and anxiety overcame me as I imagined my mother lost in the loneliness of outer darkness, separated from God. Those thoughts haunted me for the weeks and months that followed.
‘This will sear Jews and Arabs for years to come...’
Joseph Steinberg
Isaiah 40:1 ‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.’
When I was eight years old, I remember sitting in front of my family’s black and white television while watching the Yom Kippur war unfolding in front of my eyes. It was exactly 50 years ago and, as a Jewish boy growing up in the USA, it was my first realisation that there was a country named Israel that Jewish people call home.
a Jewish Christian perspective
Let my people know
Joseph Steinberg
When the Israelites were held as slaves in Egypt, God commanded Pharaoh, via Moses, to ‘Let my people go’ (Ex. 5:1). You may remember that the Israelites had not yet discovered God’s purpose for them as a people. All they knew was slavery and the desire to be set free.
What they later discovered at Sinai and in the giving of the law, was that they were a nation created by God with a purpose – to be lights to the other nations – so that the whole world will know God and be filled with His glory. Israel was born as a nation on the slopes of Mount Sinai at that first Shavuot (Pentecost) and they were commissioned to be a light to the nations.
