Venture Unfiltered #13: Jesus & Israel with Andre Moubarak

Venture Church. How are we doing? Pastor Tony, Pastor brain in here.

Welcome to Venture Unfiltered, Episode twelve. Oh my goodness, does that

shock you? Twelve episodes we've made it thus far. Two things shocked me.

Number one that people are actually listening to this, yeah, And number

two people haven't canceled us yet. Yeah, they haven't. If anything,

the more we say what's on our mind, it's like the more like,

Hey, that's awesome, thank you for sharing that. But then if we

like more filtered, like on a Sunday morning, that's when we receive more

like the slaps on the wrists and whatnot. Well, I think a lot

of it has to do with the fact that we're open and honest, but

we're not We don't have offensive opinions. I'm a big Big Brother fan.

Do you watch Big Brother? No, it's twenty twenty three. I know

there's a bunch of people that watch Big Brother that are listening to this.

Who's calling? And I hope someone is calling on my phone. I hope

to god it's a million dollars for a capital campaign or something like that.

I don't know that has never happened before. What was that going through?

Your laptop. Oh my gosh, all right, you should have answered it.

No one called me whenever I record the podcast, though you don't know

when it is. The only reason we're not resetting this again is because last

time we started from the beginning, we erased everything. Okay, so real

quick back to Big Brother. Oh yeah, okay, fine, all right,

Big Brother. Did you know that one of the contestants just got booted

off of Big Brother. We're in twenty twenty three. Yeah, for all

the things that people have gotten in trouble for accidentally saying, kicked off TV

shows and canceled for a contestant on a Big Brother said the N word on

Big Brother. Oh god, that's a big no. I mean, you

wouldn't think by now people would figure out that number one. Yeah, you

shouldn't even have that be something that you ever say accident. It should just

never be something that you ever say. So the fact that this guy got

canceled is crazy. We don't do stuff like that because we don't. We

would never talk that way to begin with, because we love all people.

A couple other random things that I saw this week that I wanted to highlight

was I love the Babylon be. Do you like so much fun? It's

like the Onion. It's a Christian version of the Onion. The best thing

about Elon Musk buying Twitter is that he uncanceled the Babylon Be. I know

he brought him back, didn't he? So the Babylon Be it made this

incredibly great article that they did. And Babylon Bie is a satire account.

It's really worth checking out. It's it's super funny, and it talked about

Jeffrey Epstein's client list is about to be posted on thread ooh, where they

followed it up in the subheading by saying, where no one will ever see

it. I thought it was appropriate since you and I had just talked about

bread took off like a rocket and crashed. Oh man, okay, so

do you follow movies, actors, actresses? Oh? Yeah, okay,

So everyone and their mother has an allergy today. Yes, someone's got a

no offense. So so if like you have an allergy, it's cool.

I'm allergic too. I don't think I am to anything, but it doesn't

matter. Did you hear about the most recent peanut allergy in Hollywood? Oh?

For those of you that this might be new too, there's a galba

name of Riley Kioff. I think that's how you pronounce her last name.

Her claim to fame is that she is Elvis Presley's granddaughter. And Elvis Presley,

as we know, passed away and then his heir to his estate,

Priscilla Pressley, passed away, and there was a big court battle over who

won Elvis's estate, and right the Kioff ended up winning Elvis's entire estate,

So she now owns Graceland. She owns all these different things that have to

do with Elvis. And she was recently filming a movie with trying to turn

my phone off since it's my son that keeps calling. Is recently filming a

movie with Andrew Garfield, and they're filming the movie, had a break.

They went out to get a snack and she ate a handful of peanuts.

Oh my goodness. Ibeknownst to her, Andrew Garfield has a peanut allergy.

So they're having this scene where they're making out and he all of a sudden,

It sounds terrible to laugh at it, but the filming of the movie

had to be delayed for a month because he went in an anaphylactic shock from

his peanut allergy. So much for being Spider Man. Every buddy today under

the age of forty hasn't peanut allergy. Everyone has an allergy to something.

My daughters, my my my one year old is it is allergic to dairy.

Oh wow, she gets bad gas and it's the whole world has to

smell it. Okay. Last week we met with Pastor Ben. We talked

about the enneagram, which was awesome. I loved unpacking that. But there

was a certain group of people that got a little bummed out. We didn't

include them. And it's of course who we thought it would be, the

eneogram fours. I gotta look up the name of what an enneagram four is.

Do you remember what it was? Pb? No clue, Okay,

So there are more the emotional type, the individualist. Okay, they were

bummed that we didn't mention them. Oh some they're also called the original list

and that we have no Here's what's crazy about our venture staff. We talked

about this last week. We have six eniogram eights, yeah, the second

rarest of the nine ineagram numbers. The lead pastors are enniogram eights. But

we have zero, absolutely zero enneagram fours. M do you think there's something

there or we asked Ben, and Ben's response was, yes, it's really

rare that there would be this many eights, especially on a team of twenty

twenty five. And his best guess is that you had to ineagram eights that

pioneered church and that that's kind of interwoven in the fabric of who we are

and our strategy in the way that we do things, so it is naturally

attracted more eights. But he did challenge us, so if you are a

four out there, we love you. Fours, we do. We were

challenged that at some point we need to bring some ineogram fours onto our staff.

Yeah, and so here's what's interesting. They're rare because they tend to

keep to themselves, and they're often introverts, and most of our people on

staff are really fun. They're out there, you know, they're very involved

with other people's lives, and a lot of our staff is also very I

guess it just driven. They kind of just want to get things done and

keep moving forward. So I don't know if that would ever hinder a four.

Maybe they'd be like, no, let's sit down, let's talk through

this. But we love force. We do being an introvert on staff Adventure

would be complicated when you have thousands of people that flow through this building on

any given week, our lobbies packed, there's people everywhere, not a lot

of time to slow down or being really draws you into being an extrovert for

sure. So today's episode is very special. It's gonna be near and dear

to my heart. We're gonna have a very beautiful conversation today with our special

guest who I'll let p be introduced, but we want to discuss. We

want to talk about Jesus, especially through a certain lens that I think sometimes

we forget living here in America. Come to find out, I don't think

he had blond hair and blue eyes. Did you know this, Pastor Brandon,

But all those felt paintings, he is a beautiful California with all those

blondhaired Would you please introduce our guests and unpack our subject for today. You

are going to be blessed for all of you that are listening Backstory Venture.

As part of our discipleship for our church, we believe in taking people to

the Holy Land. And we do this because I am convinced that as part

of someone's discipleship. Nothing makes the Bible come alive more than when you walk

where Jesus walked, and you walked through places that are in the Old Testament

and you see these. And my encouragement for you, if you're listening,

is if you've never taken a trip to the Holy Land, this shouldn't just

be something that's on a bucket list, but this should be something that you

prioritize soon. And I would say I wouldn't wait to do this until you're

retired. I would do this while you're completely active working. Because you'll go

to Israel one time, you'll want to go again. It's just pretty much

a given. And the very first Israel trip that Di and I went on

and led was about fifteen years ago and our guide were these twin Arab Israeli's

to Palestinian creation, Tony and Andre Mubarek what and they were a blast.

Subsequently, Dian I have meen to Israel seven times and this June we are

Next June twenty twenty four, we are going to Israel again and Andre Mubarak

and is a brother Tony will be our guides. As always. We do

it through their organization, and it's my privilege to introduce to you Andre Andrea.

Welcome, thank you, thank you. It's great to be here.

And by the way, Tony is original. Andre is replica. He was

born first, you know in arcology the original scripture that is a replica.

So he's original Tony. And how much older is he than you? It's

not fair. It's not fair at all. One of the things that I've

found fascinating as I've gotten to know you and Tony is Tony is very serious

and you're not. So it is unique. Dynamity wise, we're completely different.

Even people don't think from our personality that we're twins. We're diverse.

So growing up, who got better grades in high school? Always Tony?

Okay, he was really smart in studying. I was smart in the streets.

So so who got in trouble the most in school? Both got in

trouble. He got in trouble because of me. Okay. Well, what

you could do is you could do something and then the people would come and

want to bust you, and you could say no, it was him,

and they wouldn't know the difference. So many stories about this in university and

it's like true, so real, and I relate because I have twins.

My twins don't look anything alike at all, so they could never pull that

off. But you have been doing tours in Israel for how long? Since

we were kids, as happy boys raised on the streets of the old city

of Jerusalem on something called the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus went all the way

from condemnation to Calvary. There are fourteen stations, and station eight happened to

be our house, and me and Tony, as young happy boys, used

to play on the streets, hide and seek, and people from all over

the world, especially from USA, will come and ask us, what is

this? What is that? Take me here? Take me there? There

were you know, most tourists get lost in Jerusalem because it's like a maze,

and the most lost tourists were Americans because there were more adventurous. So

it became a vocation. It became our life to show people destiny and they

would pay you to tour them around. The first time we got paid Eminem's

chocolate, and I loved it. So I was like written small cards with

my address and giving them the cards by the end to send me till today

I receive M M peanut chocolate I would seriously pay you on Eminem's instead of

I would feed all the Christian quarter kids with m peanuts. Andre, can

you help us understand? So, I mean, how beautiful living in Jerusalem.

Do you what was your study of the Bible? Like, did you

go to Bible college? How do you know the scripture so well? Yeah?

Can you explain some of that to us? So I give you a

little bit. How I know scripture very well because I'm a Palestinian, indigenous

modern night Aramaic speaking Christian with an Israeli passport. So I speak Aramaic and

I speak Hebrew. So we know scripture because we go back to the original

pages of the Bible. We have a Bible in the Middle East we use

as a Christians called. It's not in the West, it's only in the

East. And this Pesta Bible, it's original all the way in Arabic language.

You know, Jesus spoke three languages in the first century, Greek,

Hebrew, and Aramaic. Greek was the government was like the major language because

of the Greek Empire, because of the Greek influence and invasion. Hebrew was

among the scribes, the synagogues, the scholars, and Aramaic was the lunga

franca was the simple people. So we speak this language. So when I

go to the Bible, I go to the Pesta, which literally means in

Arabic and Hebrew simple, the simple Bible. We have it till today in

our church, but the West do not know about it. So the West,

we have all these biblical translations, interpretations, the n I v V

of them are great, the great, but nothing beats the original RM right,

because it's the mindset when we go back to the original. The mindset

is get you nearest to the heart of Jesus. Oh that's beautiful. Okay,

So you do tours. You said you saw a need you guys started

doing. How long you guys been doing the tours? Now We've been doing

this for like more than twenty years, me and my twin brother, and

we take people from all over the world, like mostly from the USA and

teach them Jesus through the Middle Eastern eyes. And because when you come to

Israel, and Pastor Brandam has been many times to Israel, your eyes will

be open to truth. And when you read the scripture see the side,

it will bring another diversity, another dimension to make it more really it will

become more colorful. So growing up in the Old City of Jerusalem, did

you ever find any ancient trinkets, coins, pottery, anything? Oh?

Yeah. Now it's getting injuries right now because as in the young Boy,

we used to go and went to site to do some excavations with kids.

We find coins from like first century, third century. It gets addictive.

So my dad found that. Me and my twin brother, we're going in

the evenings that that night, and he gave us hard time because we're not

allowed to do this. But we found a lot of coins. Yeah,

it's illegal now to so anything you find you're supposed to turn over to the

Israeli and Antiquity Authority. I have a bunch of coins at home, Okay,

I want one when I go there. It's next summer, so can

we I want to unpack on something and then we'll continue. I want to

read because I want to hear Jesus through Middle Eastern eyes. It's actually a

book I'm currently reading by Kenneth Bailey. So you said in your in your

name and in your title that you're Palestinian. I'm also Palestinian. I think

a lot of people have ventured know that I am, but they don't know

what is Palestine? Where is Palestine? Is it? Is it on a

map? People always think of the confusion with Pakistani and it is the most

offensive thing. I am not Pakistani, so they ask what is it?

Can you unpack? What is Palestine? What does it mean to be Palestinian?

What are the people of Palestine? And I would love to hear yours,

especially through your lens of living in the region. Palestinians are people who

live in a certain geographical region in the Middle East that speaks Arabic. And

that region is from the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Jordan River.

It's a small area, so their language, our language, as Palestinians is

Arabic. Yes, to answer your question, is a geographical region, but

have a lot of history and goes all the way back to the Romans the

first century when the Emperor US divided the end into three parts Palestina, Prima,

Seconda and Tetra. So the name came Palestine from Palestina, from a

Roman name, and these people continue to live there. Originally we are Cananites,

you know all the Middle Eats. Yes, we're tribes, tribales,

so from the Canonites. People have asked me before our Palestinians Philistines, because

Palestine in Arabic is Philistine, is there connection correlation there? Historically this is

a very wrong information because Philistines like Goliath and David. Goliath as if a

listed and David is an Azralites sounds a great preaching or teaching. But Philistines

originally our Greeks. It's an area that nearby crete in the middle like nearby

the Mediterraneans see that people came and invaded, lived in the twelfth century and

occupied the area. But the Philistines is completely different than the Palestinians. So

a lot of people ask me all the time because of my background and whatnot,

they want to get into politics with me. It's like they want me

to say something. They want me to almost just say it and be like,

see, we got them. We're not going to talk politics at all

today. We have no desire to do that. We are here to unpack

scripture and biblical understanding. So here's a fun thing you didn't know about me.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm just embarrassed by the name of

it. Did you know from sixth grade till my senior in high school.

Every summer in Seattle, I worked at a Middle East peace camp. Wow.

I worked at a peace camp where we brought local Jewish children and Arab

children together for a week and a half and we had peace camp and we

would learn about each other's backgrounds, and we'd sing songs in Hebrew and songs

in Arabic. And so I have many Jewish friends. I'm obviously Palestinians.

So my family's Palestintan. We have a lot of family members. So I

worked at a peace camp. There's no better name for it. It was

just it is what it is, peace camp. Andre. Can you help

us understand a lot of people hear conflict Palestine Israel. Can you kind of

bring it down to what's the original, what's the or the what's the word

I'm looking for the core of the core of the conflict. Yes, Actually

it's between the two brothers of Abraham. He had Ishmael, who was the

firstborn, and through Ishmael all the Muslim nation came. I remember the story

with Sarai and Hagar and Sara I could not have two children. But sometimes

you ask from God, you keep asking him. I want a child.

I wanted a child, and Sarai was okay for Abraham. And then Hagar

had a child, the first born. At that time of history, you

need to have many wives because of your flock. You need a son to

take care of all what you own. Yeah, and then Ishmail was born

in the flesh. And then God promised Abraham, but he couldn't wait.

You know, sometimes we asked from God, I want this, I want

this, I want this. He will give it to us. Yeah,

but it's from us. But Isaac, from the promise of God, he

was born in the spirit, and through Isaac, the Jewish nation came.

And these two brothers love each other still today. So and by the way,

these two brothers have promises. And these two brothers need to reconcile because

they need to know their Messiah. Now. So the Jews and the Muslims

are more related and connected than they think they are today, of course,

And why we have the conflict, you ask me, because they hate each

other's. Yeah, you know, Ishmael, he's dominant, he was the

firstborn. He's saying, I have the Isaac have pride, and this still

today the same spirit in Israel. But I believe because you're speaking about reconciliation

and you were speaking about how you worked here. I believe that both need

to repent. Israel today need to repent to know who is the Messiah,

the real Messiah, and the Muslims need to repent because both have promises.

And you know what when both repent and it's happening today but not in large

numbers, Yes, they will reconcile together and real peace will take And I

think, honestly, Andrea, you nailed it. I think people ask me,

peace will come from the UN, Peace will come with us brokering a

deal. Peace will come when both people turn from their weakness, repent of

their sin, and I will restore you. I think you nailed the man.

That's brilliant. Yeah, Andre, I was hoping you could explain you

You will talk to people that have done tours and will do our tour in

the future. You talk about viewing the Bible, viewing Jesus kind of viewing

Christianity, not from a Western mindset, from an Eastern mindset in an UH

as simply as you can on this podcast, can you explain the difference between

the same things from the lens of an Eastern mindset? Versus a Western mindset.

Of course, you know, because this is a brilliant question, because

we know that the Church in the West is hungry for knowledge, and in

the West they need to know more about the Bible. In the East we

have all this knowledge because we have the languages, the Hebrew and the Aramaic.

So there's a big gap between the East and the West. But by

people coming into Israel, this gap will become less and less and less,

because in the West you focus on the logic mind and you want answers,

You want why this makes sense? Why this scripture do not make sense to

me. I'll give you one exact Jesus on the cross, he said,

Eli eli lamash buktany s bak in Aramaic did not mean forsaking me. Shbak

Mian kept me or set me aside. And Jesus on the cross he was

in agony. And when you are in agony, almost like lying, what

happens your mother luinga frank your mother tongue will come out. And he at

that time as completely God, as completely man. He realized that it is

all finished. And by the way, the word finished in Aramaic ookmel,

which means complete. He had the revelation while he was at that time in

history. So there's a big gap between the logical mind and the passion heart

in the East when we think we're more emotional, in the West, when

people think they're more logical. Now I'm not saying this is wrong or this

is right. Yeah, we need to have the balance. The East needs

to meet the West and vice versa. And this is why people come to

Israel to see the reality of scripture, to learn more from a Middle East

and perspective. And this is my niche because I speak the languages. Yeah,

do you feel like a lot of because we have just the Western if

we haven't visited the land, we haven't seen it with our own eyes,

which we need to, which Pastor Brendon's going to talk about here in a

minute. Do you think a lot of the messages that Pastor's preach are just

out of context or they don't understand or you know how some of it comes

across a self help almost Yeah. God works with every culture. It's not

that this is wrong or this is right. Yeah, it's only a perspective.

Now to understand the scripture in a Middle Eastern eyes, we have to

focus on three things when we read it. We have to focus on context,

customs and cultures of the first century, of the time of Jesus.

That's brilliant and you can do it anyway anywhere world. Yeah, so it's

a matter of how you look at it. Brilliant And the Greek is amazing,

the Hebrews amazing. All translations are amazing because God work with every culture

at each time of history. He used the Greek to spread it all over

the world. So why would you tell someone lives in the US that given

their life to Jesus, they've been faithfully involved in the church. Why would

you tell them it's important for you to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,

Because if they are hungry for the world of God, if they're hungry

to know Jesus in his original mindset, and nowadays they're chosen. Nowadays the

last fifty years, even Hollywood are making it much more better. They're making

Jesus more like he looks in the first So if you want to get a

deeper relationship, if you love someone, what you do you want to be

with him? Yeah, you want to go to see his culture. Yeah,

And Jesus was a Jew right. Yeah, he was not Evangelical,

he was not Protestant, he was not Catholic. With all respect to all

the illuminations, he was not Torthodos. He was simply a Jew. M

I wasn't going to ask you this, but you brought it up. Someone

asked, what do you think of The Chosen TV show? Lots of people

watch that, they love it, and Americans eat it up. I ever

watched an episode. I watched like a first season Ariel, and I really

liked it. It should the humanity of Jesus, him playing with the children.

I thought it was pretty good. I've never seen an episode. Now,

what do you think of Night? It's great because you asked me a

question about East and Western mindset. In the West, when you think about

Jesus, you think only spiritual Jesus. In the East, when we think

about Jesus, we only think humanistic Jesus, historical Jesus. The Chosen had

showed the humanistic side of Yahoo in America, Jesus Christ's beautiful. This is

going to seem like a random question, but I think kind of brings a

little bit of this to reality for people. When we do tours, oftentimes

our guides aren't allowed in Bethlehem. Why is that because they're not allowed to

Bethlehem because Bethlehem is Palestine Palestinian territories. And if he is an Israeli Jewish

tour guide, he needs to have permission in all the tours that you've done,

in the tours that you're going to do. What are some of the

sites on an Israel tour that are your favorite to show people? My favorite

in Jerusalem is the Guardian of gets so many because this is like sites in

Israel or under three categories A, B and C. A is arcologically correct,

biblically correct, and the location is right. B is the vicinity see

far away from reality. So an a site is gets Samani the garden of

get Semani. To give you a meaning of get Semani in Aramaic God Shmanim.

In Aramaic, Shmani means oil. God is press olive press. The

meaning the name of the place. Tell you what happened there where Jesus was

pressed like a piece of crush. Another place I love to take people in

Galilee Far Nahom you say Kapernam, we say in Hebrew and Aramaic, far

Nahom, Far is a town. Nahom is comfort in Aramaic from Rahim nahom

rahim, which means mercy. And Jesus found like someone who just because he

was hated in Nazareth, he found someone just to take care and stay in

a joy. Yeah. Capernaum is where Jesus did a lot of his ministry.

Yeah, it was his second hometown. Do you guys go to Natania?

There's nothing biblical there? Yeah, that's just vacation. Yes, it's

Miami, a French Yeah, that's a French Jewish neighborhood for class and it's

for vacation. Yeah, we can't take you. I would love to go,

let's go. There are lots of podcasts that are excellent, like He

Still Moved Stones, that talk about biblical archaeology happening in Israel, and it

seems like almost on a monthly basis, they are discovering new things. I

think I've heard it said from i've a one of my good friends is an

archaeologist in Israel and he's on the dig and Shiloh, and I forget where

the other diggy's ad is, but he they estimate that only five percent of

Israel has been excavated. That those I don't know if those stats are accurate

or not, but that's what he's always telling us. Is there something that

has been discovered recently that you're really excited about. Yes, the city of

David, the pools of Silwan where Jesus fell the blind. Finally they were

able to excavate that site. It was owned by the guy that wouldn't sell

it, right, the Greek Orthodox Churish, the priest. But they sold

it and now they're excavating it. Didn't they use AI as well? Of

course this is real. Yeah. So as they've started and I've read upon

this and I've seen a lot of I've listened a lot of podcasts on it,

and the more they excavate it, it's just confirming over and over again,

this is exactly what they thought it was. Of course, from the

coins they're finding from the first century, from the pottery, even the type

of pottery they're finding confirms that is the location. So this is an a

site A plus plus. One of the things that is I mean, so

Andrea helped me understand. One of the things that blew my mind I gave

my life to Jesus twenty ten is when I first understand when I learned about

the Dead Sea scrolls and the comparison and when they discovered that, can you

unpack that Because a lot of people have heard about the Dead Sea scrolls,

can you talk about a little bit what they were is one of the major

important discoveries because it's confirmed that the scripture we have with us today, the

Torah, yeah, is completely correct. They found all the books of the

Old tested with except to esther Anaham And give you an example, the Book

of Isaiah. They found a parsihment the scroll, one complete scroll of the

Book of Isaiah. And in Hebrew numerological values, every Hebrew alphabet have in

number like alif is one, bit is two. So they calculated the number

from the beginning to the end of the Book of Isaiah, and they have

the books what we have today. It's precisely that's confirms that scripture. That's

beautiful, it's correct. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty amazing that. Like

a lot of people will question the authenticity of the Bible. They'll say things

like, as the Bible has been translated and reproduced over centuries, they had

to have made mistakes and errors. And when they found the Dead Sea squirrels,

they found them in Kumron, which is a site that we will visit.

They found absolute duplicate copies of the same Bible that we have today,

proving that when they have shared it over the centuries, it hasn't changed.

Yes, And they found it in Hebrew, and they found it in Aramaic.

Now there's recent discoveries, just treats. And they found some in Greek.

Wo. Wow, and guests who found this books in nineteen forty seven

if Palestinian bedwind Muslim. It's one of my favorite stories. Tell the story

how God works in a different way. Yeah. So he's a shepherd,

and when you're a shepherd, you just go with your flock. And he

lost one of his goats, and he thought that the goat is in a

cave and it was getting dark, so he took a stone throw it in

the cave. There was no good. He heard pottery crashing. Because it's

quiet, you can hear your surroundings in the desert. Wow. So he

left back home. He found the goat on his way back. Next day,

he told his cousin, let's go see. I heard something crashing in

the cave. Both of them went entered the cave and they found these scrolls.

They're made of leather. They said, we're gonna be rich. We're

gonna sell it to a shoemaker. This is leather. They were going to

make shoes out. Oh my gosh. And they went to Bethlehem and they

went to a person from the Candle family. He was a shoemaker actually,

but he was a Syrian Syriac Aramaic speak no way, and he's so these

Aramaic letters coming from the leather. He gave them one hundred denaries. You

know how much one hundred denari is worth in nineteen forty seven, much almost

a thousand bucks. They were so happy at that time. But the Christian

was so smart. He went to his bishop in Jerusalem, in the Syria

of Church, Anastasius. Bishop Anastasius, the bishop was much more smarter.

He booked a ticket to the States and the discovered a genuine treasure from the

Middle East from Camran, proving that scripture is right. Wow, I'm very

thankful they didn't make it into sandals. Can you imagine because of that Syria

Christian, because of the Aramaic indigenous Christian. It really does show you the

providence of Jesus that God has allowed these things to be revealed over time.

The people they find more, they discover more. So it still keeps our

element that we have to have a faith in believing in Jesus. But God

just confirms our faith over and over and over again. Yea. The more

history passes and the more archology they do in Israel, they're proving scripture is

right. Andrew, what would you say to and I think I might know

your answer, but I'm gonna let you answer it. What would you say

to someone today is listen to the podcast? You know we have young seasoned

in their twenties, thirties, forties, doesn't matter their age. What would

you tell them is their next step in their faith to do today? The

next step? First? They like most people that if they are Christians,

Yeah, yeah, should they book a ticket? Yeah? Read scripture.

The more you read scripture, the more you would live in their present reality,

and the more you understand the Torah. Give you one example in Hebrew,

Tora is life like you can't speak it in one word like Mish means

direction, instruction, guidance. If they read the scripture, they read Tora,

they're gonna have directions in their life they're gonna have instructions and guidance.

Remember the word dig. You always dig, the dig deep. And the

more they dig deep, they're gonna find their identity. They're gonna live in

the present reality, not live in the future or in the past. Many

people here lives in the future, many lives in the past. We need

to live in the present because it heals our past and our future will be

secured by reading Torah. For someone that is newer to our faith that might

be listening to this podcast, and they've heard the word Torah before, can

you explain to them what that is? Yes, I remember when on mounts

and I Moses went to the mountain and God shooted Torah by the finger of

God, which is the commandments. What is the finger of God? Is

the spirit of the Lord? And they think commandments. Moses received Torah and

listened. He got the direction. He build it a bernacle, and he

gets instructions exactly how to build each piece and get guidance by the power of

the Holy Spirit. Now Torah's life. In English, the translation of Torah

is law. The law was translated from Greek Namos. So when you hear

about the law, it sounds negative, like you're in a court, there

is a judge. But when the Greeks translated that, the Greek is a

beautiful language, is very expressive. But you can't serve God out of fear.

But with Torah you can serve him completely out of love. This is

what Jitsa said. I did not come to abolish Torah or the Law.

I came to phil Phil to give the right interpretations of Moses law. Youth

serve God out of love. So for the new believers, when they have

Torah, when they have life, it can bring them life. It's beautiful,

not the law fear, but love and forgiveness. So the Torah's first

five books at the Old Testament that Moses was given on Mount Sinai. And

if you with Andre's accent, you missed that. He if you did miss

it, he said the law. So we need something that we need to

discover and learn, and it helps us understand not just history, but it

helps us understand Jesus even more. We need to wind this up, but

I do. I am really curious. Would you share with everyone how you

came to know Jesus? How you found faith in Jesus. Yes, as

a happy boy like the only place I have to go at school was the

Catholic School as a Modern night Syria Christian in Jerusalem. And then the only

place I have to study is in Bethlehem University because it's a Catholic university.

And at the cafeteria of the university there were students that are happy all the

time. You know. That was during the first riots, the uprising nineteen

eighty seven, and I was so depressed. There's a lot of things to

study, there's a lot of things like to learn and throwing stones on the

soldiers, a lot of riots, and they are happy. So I had

the courage to call and approach them and tell them what is the secret of

your happiness? I need to know. They said, we are Christians.

I said, I'm a Christian too, but not happy like you. I

was proud of my Christianity, the languages I know, the Aramaic and tradition.

They said, no, you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

And the moment I accept Jesus in my life, I repeated after them,

I found a complete peace in the Holy Spirit and being content. And

the next week I was leading the meetings in the university instead of being rioting

and that changed my life because of students. Wow, that isn't incredible.

Were they were they like charismatic but acosto they have a denomination they were under

or they that wasn't meeting in the university from different denominations and they were Palestinian

Christians from Gaza. Wow. Wow, that is profound. Andre. Thank

you so much for being here and helping men clarity. I think there's probably

so much people are asking wondering, and I think the way you paint it

is beautiful. Let us have eyes to see Jesus through the Middle Eastern Lens,

but to also understand the East and the West, and He speaks to

us wherever we are. Thank you so much. People sign up for the

next trip we do. If you want to get to know Andre and tell

Tony you got to meet him, spend two weeks with us in Israel next

June. You can also hang out with Die and I I promise you.

We call it vacationing with a purpose. It isn't of action, it isn't

like being a part of a two week Sunday school class. It's it's just

amazing. I can't really describe it until you do it. The one thing

I know is that everyone that takes a Holy Land tour wants to go again,

so we really encourage you consider that. Thank you again for listening.

As always, like this podcast, Share this podcast, Please give us a

review positively on Spotify or iTunes. If you don't want to give us a

five star review instead of giving us a review, meet with Tony and complain

to him, and then hey, keep listening because end of August we're gonna

drop an episode. We're gonna film it obviously. Day of we're gonna make

some pretty big announcements PB. Yeah, the next couple of weeks. You

guys pretty I love the things that we are going to talk about. Yeah,

we're not like you know when pastors say we've got a big announcement.

Okay, cool, you painted the walls. No, no, this is

a These are some pretty size bull announcement. So thanks for listening. We

love you guys. Remember, can I say it this time? Go for

it. Jesus is the hope of the world, and he loves his church.

He uses them, but he is the hope and as Andrea emphasized,

the Gospel changes life. Yes it does. M