Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
The Judeo-Christian Fallacy
What if the phrase you’ve been taught to cherish—“Judeo-Christian”—actually blurs the gospel more than it clarifies it? We take on one of the most charged topics in the church today: how to think biblically about Israel, the Church, and the unfolding promise of God without caving to political slogans or tribal pressure. With open Bibles and steady pacing, we examine covenant theology vs dispensationalism, trace the seed of Abraham to Christ, and ask who “God’s chosen people” really are according to Romans 9, Matthew 5, and the story of Scripture.
We walk through the Old Testament’s continuity with the New, highlighting Christophanies and the progressive revelation of the covenants—Edenic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New—unified in Jesus. Along the way, we reckon with modern Zionism’s surge, the origins of the word Jew, and why many churches drift into syncretism when Israeli symbols are platformed as if they share equal footing with the cross. We also tackle the role of rabbinic tradition—Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash—and why contemporary Judaism is not simply “Old Testament minus Jesus,” but a different authority structure that often contradicts the Bible and rejects Christ.
None of this is a political screed. It’s a call to clarity, courage, and love. We argue for a Christ-centered approach that honors Scripture’s storyline, resists proof-texting, and refuses to baptize any modern nation as covenantally chosen. Most importantly, we urge Christians to evangelize both Jew and Gentile with humility and urgency, embracing the watchman’s responsibility: warn faithfully, love deeply, and trust God with the outcome.
If you’re ready to replace slogans with Scripture and sentiment with substance, this conversation will sharpen your mind and steady your heart. Listen, test everything in the Word, and tell us where you land. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s wrestling through this, and leave a review to help more people find thoughtful, Bible-first conversations like this.
All right. Well, everybody, welcome to Navigate Podcast. I'm pumped to have my brother and dear friend on today, Mike. Mike, what is up, my man? How are you doing? How are you? I am I'm doing good. I'm excited about this podcast because I had somebody literally just write in and was like, okay, I'm struggling with the relationship between the church and Israel and like the weird tension of if anybody says anything, you know, even remotely skeptical about Israel today, it seems like you immediately get branded as an anti-Semite and a crazy person and uh potentially not Christian, you know what I mean? Uh in some in some weird way. So I'm pumped because you are you're in the middle of writing kind of a book on this on this topic, right? Yeah, yeah. Of course. Tell me about like what was some of the inspiration for that.
SPEAKER_00:All right, yeah. So um just in the past, you know, uh couple of years, this idea of Zionism has really exploded. Exploded, right? With um, you know, the things going on in Israel, you know, October 7th really kicked that off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And um Well, even before that, like I went to a church where I'm not gonna lie, like I went to this church growing up where we had it was like the the cross of Jesus Christ and the and David's star, you know what I mean? Like the Israeli flag, yeah, right next to each other. Wild. They're basically the same thing. Like we would sometimes just sing in Hebrew. Uh, we would do like Israeli dances for fun, they would celebrate the feasts. Yeah, it's nice. Um, I mean, it was like it was intense. So I I feel like uh I don't know, I feel like it's been around for a little while now.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Yeah, but my motivation behind the book was seeing uh yeah, it's been around for a long time, but like you said, it's exploded. And so um it brought to light how deep um that idea of Christian Zionism, I guess you can kind of has has gone, and how fervent people will fight for the nation of Israel and yet kind of cast out Christians or anyone else.
SPEAKER_01:And it's like it's almost like they're they're more defensive of Israel than they even are other Christians.
SPEAKER_00:Well, of Jesus, even you know, you see like some of their holy books, what they say about Christ, and you're like, they'll justify blasphemy, yeah. And you're like, hold up, right? Like, what do we what are we doing here? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So let's so look, because I want to get to that. So let's let's talk about this for a second. Okay. Just for anybody who's listening who maybe doesn't have a grasp of this landscape, there are two competing views of um uh kind of in the interpretive camps around uh what we do with Israel and how we understand Israel. One is called covenant theology, the other is called dispensationalism. There are some other approaches, there's some camps within those camps, but by and large, covenant theology follows a single promise throughout scripture to God's chosen people, and and it sees the people of Israel and the church both as God's chosen people or God dealing with his chosen people as it grows and um uh continues throughout human history. Dispensationalism ultimately doesn't see one large covenant that God has with his people, but a series of different covenants with specific different groups of people at different times. So um dispensationalism, the greatest uh the greatest difference when you think about a dispensational and a covenant theologian is going to be what do you do with Israel? Is Israel totally different and separate from the church, or is Israel the church?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um and and I land on uh squarely on the covenant side. Yeah I do. I don't think you can I I don't a lot of dispensational guys will literally throw out the Ten Commandments, they'll throw out the law, they'll throw out the the Beatitudes because when Jesus was teaching the Beatitudes, he was actually teaching um, you know what I mean, uh to the people of Israel, or that teaching might even be for the Millennial Kingdom because Jesus was trying to usher in the Millennial Kingdom to the Jewish people. Um, and uh and actually the cross was plan B because they rejected him. He had to usher in this age of the Gentiles. There's some very strange, and you have you have Schofield, not everybody's a Schofield dispensationalist. You have Darby who kind of ushered this stuff in, but this was not the predominant thought for the last, you know, however many, you know, um several, you know, several thousand years. This was not the predominant theology within Christendom. Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the early church fathers didn't hold to this view. And um as far as the covenants, you know, you mentioned covenantal theology, the the one thing that's kind of a black eye, I think, is semantics. So some people will say their replacement theology. Yeah. And I think I think that's incorrect as we look at some of these big promises, right? Like God's making promises to people throughout, right? He made a promise to Hezekiah, right? He's weeping. And so, but these big promises, these uh covenants, these uh the Edenic covenant, the Noadic covenant, the Davidic covenant, you know, the Mosaic covenant, you see, these are not separate covenants, but as we believe that God's revelation is progressive, yeah, so are these covenants. And so God is giving them a little bit more of that covenant, right? Progressive reveal uh progression, revealing a little more of it, right?
SPEAKER_01:And to even square that, when Jesus says all of the law and the prophets are testifying about him, what he's saying is each one of those stages and the progressive revelation of the promise, it's revealing more about who Jesus is. Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to see certain parts of Jesus, we're only for this covenant, and another part of Jesus is not, you're a crazy person that doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you can't remove Christ from the Old Testament. I mean, we see Jesus all over the Old Testament, right? Like um in Genesis, the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Yeah, you have a physical, pre-incarnate Christ present with um Abraham. He goes down to Sodom and Gomorrah and it says Yahweh calls down fire from Yahweh in heaven. Yeah. So you see the Father and the Son acting in concert, you know, uh, and there's more, right? Yeah, you already have a Trinitarian picture there.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. How do you have how do you have God in heaven and God down below at the same time? Unless that's the picture. Yeah, another one for me, man, is uh is Jesus says that nobody has seen the father except for the son. Right. Which means that every appearance of God in the Old Testament is technically a Christophany. Sure, sure. The the God that they, you know, the 72 elders of Israel had a meal with on top of a mountain was Jesus. Right. He wasn't the Father. You can't see the Father.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in the story of the burning bush, right? You don't just see this bush speaking. Yeah, there's a figure, a pre-incar, like a physical embodiment of God within the bush, the same Hagar, right? Yeah. She encountered, and she even says, I have encountered God and have not died. Yeah. So Christ is all over the Old Testament. And so when you read the New Test, first of you can't understand the New Testament without uh an understanding of the Old Testament. I I've heard uh people say, like, my pastor told me that I don't necessarily need the Old Testament. No, you absolutely need the Old Testament. It's God to breathe it, it's His Word. Yep, you know, and so it's one continuous book.
SPEAKER_01:I think Vodi Bacham said it this way. He said, The New Testament is a new translation of the Old Testament. Sure. You know what I mean? You're seeing Jesus all over. It's still the same thing, it's just clarifying it for you in an age where you can see it uniquely through the eyes of the incarnate Christ.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, so and you almost see them, uh, the law, right? It's the law, it's it's it's explaining God's standard of holiness. Yeah, and then you see the um how do you want to say the uh the application of that, right? Or the failing to apply the law to your life, and then the same with the New Testament, you see uh the Gospels and then the the um application of the Gospels throughout exam examples of it, and so you see that in uh the idea that it's two separate books, right? Like we're promised of this new covenant with Jeremiah, right? Yep, and so um it was originally called Old Cus Old Covenant, New Covenant, and it was Tertullian who coined it uh testament, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's all one continuous book, and I think that's where people go wrong, right? They look at um kind of the premise of my book is the idea is is that Christianity is not a new device, it's not this new creation, but a continuation of the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yeah, yeah, right. Where when you compare to modern Judaism, um it is an absolute contradictory, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or contradiction. Walt Kaiser has a book called Towards an Old Testament Theology. Uh-huh. It's such a catchy name for a book already. But it, I mean, and and I could get into the different aspects of covenant there, but he calls himself an epangelical, which is to say that I'm the I think the the the force that holds all of the uh the the Bible together itself is actually following the growing and um uh continuing promise of God that pulls all of these different books and moments together. God is making promises to his people, and that continues to flow throughout all of scripture. And if you're looking for one aspect that that is continuing, well, it's the revelation of God to his people while he's bringing about the promises that he gave. And just to just to back up what you're saying with scripture, uh Matthew, uh Matthew chapter five makes it uh really clear. He says, Do not think that I came to abolish the law of the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For I truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Uh whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same should be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them should be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. He's making it clear here that, hey, if you're trying to erase the Old Testament, if you're trying to erase the laws that God has given you, if you're trying to erase what God has already written down with some form of theology that allows you to do that, uh, even if you are saved, you will be called least in the kingdom of heaven because you're missing half of what God has given you that that's supposed to inform the rest of the stuff that you believe, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And so some people will take that passage and uh use that to argue, well, why aren't we still offering sacrifices and such? But Christ fulfilled those uh now the moral law, right? Like do not murder, all that stuff, that that never goes away. But like the sacrificial system was meant to point to Jesus, yeah, right. And even even um the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision, right? Yeah, it uh even Moses says, but it's a circumcision of the heart. Yeah, that's essentially an out just like baptism for us, yeah, is an outward expression of our our commitment.
SPEAKER_01:So so ultimately, just to get to this, yeah. What what we're saying is that covenant covenant theology believes that the chosen people of God are those who have placed their faith and allegiance, you know what I mean, in Jesus Christ and are walking in obedience to God, not an ethnic group. A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00:So that's even what we see, uh that's even what we see Old Testament, right? We see that with Moses.
SPEAKER_01:Talk to me about that. What do you mean? Uh, because isn't everybody just part of Israel?
SPEAKER_00:No, so we have these two realities in the Old Testament, all right? These realities of Israel. You have one by faith and you have one by ethnicity. You can't deny that there's an ethnic Israel, right? Yeah, there is an ethnic Israel. And so, um, you know, um Jacob is called Israel, right? Right, and so that's his nickname, wrestles with God, right? Yeah, um, and so yes, all his descendants or people or people within his tribe, right? Even the the people who join him sir join him servants, they're all now Israel, yeah, which is another kind of testimony to everyone's invited, right? Yeah, yeah, through obedience. And so what you see is this reality really um get parsed out uh with Moses um as he hands down the law to the people, right? So he's gathered. Um, we're told during the Exodus, right, that uh a multitude went went, right? And so contextually we see that um pagans in Egypt uh were within the exit or were in the exodus, right, with Israelites.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And so Moses speaks to all they came out of Egypt with them, with them. Many pagan people are part of the group of Israelites throughout the Israelite history, right? I don't think a lot of people realize this. I mean, in a lot of the old you know, pro prophets and stuff, it's like you brought the star of you know, this people. Yeah, yeah. It's like there was uh there was a lot of polytheism going on at the same time that God was calling them to fidelity to him. Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Well, as soon as Moses leaves for any period of time, they're like, create an altar, yeah, how about a cow? Yeah, right. So they're taking on the pagan belief of the um of the Egyptians, right? Yeah, and so uh what ends up happening is um Moses tells them, right, that uh to be God's covenantal people, right? To be God's people, that they must ob they must obey God's command, love him and obey his commandments, right? Yeah, so we see this um all throughout, right? We see Exodus 19, 5, Deuteronomy 7, you see it in Deuteronomy 8. Okay. So we see this all over. Um, we see it even in Zechariah, right? Yeah. We're told even that far before the um uh was it before the exile that yeah, um, that if um that because they have forgotten God, yeah, right, the staff of favor will be broken.
SPEAKER_01:Well, these are these are the classic Deuteronomic blessings and curses. Sure. You know what I mean? They literally stand on different side, different mountains and yell back and forth to each other, you know. And if you read in Deuteronomy, he's like, now read the blessings. This is what happens. Sure. If you walk in covenant with me, this is the good things that are gonna follow you. And then he has the people from the other side yell back, these are the curses. If you break or don't follow what I've told you, if you go after other idols, if you walk in a different way, you're literally gonna be under Deuteronomic curses. Sure. And both of them are in covenant, but that doesn't mean that both of them are his people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Do you see like a mirror of that in the church today? Oh, could you see there's a one-to-one?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, because I feel like everybody concedes that point. But if you talk about Israel, we'll be like, no, no, no, that's impossible. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, so that's the big thing. Even as you get talking with these Christians, they will tell you, yes, uh, Jesus is the only way for salvation, you know, belief, you know, faith, blah. And then you'll say, Yeah, but what about in you let's say bring up Israel, and they're like, oh, wait. Well, they are God's chosen people, and you're like, hold up now. Right. So they're willing, they're willing to trivialize the death, burial, and resurrection in order to be consistent in a faulty theology. And I think it's important to, dude, that's such a good word.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I think it's important to bring up that this was not just an argument that was happening, uh, that's happening now, but this was a this was a difficult thing to understand in in Paul's time. Sure. He was having conversations about this, which is why in Romans 9, he says, I'm telling the truth in Christ, I'm not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow, an unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as sons and the glory of the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple services and the promises, whose are the fathers from whose is the uh whose is the Christ according to the flesh, who is overall God blessed forever, amen. And he's like, Yeah, so the people of Israel, these are my people. So what so what's going on? Because it sounds like what you're saying, Paul, is that those people are not going to be saved. Sure. And then he says this, but it is not as though the word of God has failed. And a lot of people are like, well, it must have failed if Israel isn't saved. And then he says, For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel, nor all uh they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but through Isaac, your descendants will be named. Who is that? Well, the child of the promise. That is, it is not the children of the flesh or ethnic who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word promised at this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son. And not only this, but there was Rebecca also. So he walks through this idea of twins, and then he gets down to um the the twins themselves, and he says, Well, one I'm going to love and I'm going to use and is going to be my chosen person. And the other, even though ethnically it's associated, is not going to be part of the covenant. In fact, there's a different promise given to that person that's not associated with it. So so even Paul is making the point. Hey, could you quit conflating anyone who's ethnically Israel with people who are true believers and those of the promise? I mean, and we see this with Jesus too, when he's like, dude, I'll make I'll make children of Abraham from the stones. I don't need the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, well, what's interesting about Paul is he explains, which I I suppose it would be easy to overlook, that he never said that that God never told Abraham seed. He's telling him a seed. Right? And even Paul says that, you know, he that it's a seed, and all uh who are in Christ are of that seed, that's good and heirs of Abraham, right? That's good. So so it's not plural, it's singular, it is singular, right? And it's only through Christ. Yeah. And and I think the the problem is too, is this uh conflation of terms, yeah, right? So so the term Jew, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about this. Yeah, I heard you bring this up and I'm I'm interested. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So, like with words, right? I think words matter, I think they matter to God, right? He gave out his spoken word, right? His or his written word. And so the term Jew, as you look through history, people will say, Well, that's the tribe of Judah. And that couldn't be further from the truth. So if you look at the etymology of the word, how the word Jew came about, right? It came out, it came about during the exilic period. So you had these people pulled out of uh a Judah, right? We're talking about like the Babylonian exile, the Babylonian exile. I'm sorry, yes. So the kingdom's already split. You have the northern kingdom, Israel, uh, the southern kingdom, Judah, and Benjamin. And so, yes, but they're still part of Judah, the kingdom of Judah now, not tribe. Right. So the kingdom of Judah is made up of three, I would say three groups of people, and you could break it down, but this just makes it easy, right? So Benjamin is given to Judah as a gift. So within and okay, yeah. So within the kingdom, you have the tribe of Judah, you have the tribe of Benjamin, and you have Peg.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what we what we read is that God tells them to displace all the people um within the nation, right? However, you want, however, you want to, whether that's kill or move out, whatever, this place, right? And um and he and he warns them because if they do not, the wrath they incur will be on you. Yeah, right. And I think part of this wrath is because God does warn his people, right? That if you worship uh false, if you bring in, excuse me, false uh religions, people of false faith.
SPEAKER_01:If you worship false false religions, they will worship, right?
SPEAKER_00:So that makes sense, right?
SPEAKER_01:And it even goes back to Joshua, right? Sure, yeah. We didn't kick everybody out of the land, the Hittites are still there, and guess what? They're gonna be a thorn in your side and are going to turn your hearts away from me.
SPEAKER_00:You see that with Saul when Saul's told to wipe them out, right? You see it with Solomon too. So it's a habitual thing. And so what you see is um in the exile, right, we're told that uh everybody was taken out of the kingdom of Judah, except the poor, right, to maintain the crops and the vineyards.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And so in exile, they gave they coined this term or gave this term. Um and this is this is found in the um in the Judean Chaldee uh lexicon. So you don't ever take what I said. Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, exactly. And so the term Jew was a term uh coined towards those of the kingdom of Judah who were taken out during the exile. And so um within the kingdom, right? And with even before the kingdom split, there were still pagans, right? Um there's psalms where David's singing and in the uh Septuagin in the Greek, it's used as the same word as the good news, right? The Ewangelion. Yeah, yeah, the Charizo, right? And so it's it's obvious, right? The text is there. So and so the pagans, uh, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Benjamin are Jews.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and then later, uh the term uh post-exile becomes synonymous. So it becomes synonymous with Israel, but but that's not how definitions work. I don't think that's how God works.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:And so when we look at scripture, uh, even as it pertains to names, right? Jews, Paul was a Jew, or this person was a Jew, we have to understand are these prescriptive or just descriptive?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00:Is it telling you to call everyone of Israel Jew, or is it just describing narrative, right? This is what it was. And I think all too uh often people don't look at context, they read it and they say, nope, this is what I'm supposed to do. You hear it with these straw man arguments um when it talks about let's say slavery, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um Philemon, right? Um he's like, he's like, oh, God okayed slavery. And it's like, no, Paul's not even okay in slavery, right? Like this is he's addressing the culture of the day. Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01:I could even I could even get into that. Oh, somebody loves you. Sorry. No, it's all good. I could even get into that with this uh idea of like slavery, the way that we think about it too, is totally different than what God is even dealing with in scripture. And obviously, manstealing is totally uh against the law in every sense. So any kind of uh manslavery engaged, you know, um uh you know, uh a slave trade or whatever is totally not a biblical concept. I think we have for the record, I think we have slavery today. Uh I think um in bad ways, like with you know, sex trafficking and things like that. I also think that like military indenturement is probably closer to a form of slavery like what we see in uh it in the Bible, where it's like, no, it's an agreement we're coming into a pact that's mutually beneficial for the purpose of accomplishing this thing. Now, anybody who's in the military is like, nah, that's slavery too well, it's gotta go. But a conversation for another. But the point is that there's equivocations, and those equivocations, even with language, can become unhelpful and make us begin to associate and use uh, you know, the second we use a word like Jew, we think it means God's chosen people. And you're saying not only does that word not really mean God's chosen people, because it's it's a word that was used for only half of the Israelites that were also a combination of pagans and other things at the time, but not only that, but but even now Christian people are the new Israel, so we have this kind of defense of different terminology and an equivocation of of different belief systems. And I know the like look when people who are associating or call themselves Jewish at this point, like if you really are Jew, you don't just believe in the the Tanakh, you don't just believe in the Old Testament, you also have something called the Talmud. And most people have no idea what's in the Talmud or the Mishnah. And I know, um, I know you've been studying this a lot. I I wonder if you could walk me through some of the beliefs of the Jewish people today around Christianity. Uh, I mean, even some of it just blatantly disagrees with what the Bible says. And I think it's important that we understand there they're not just believing the same Old Testament. We're basically there. They're just they're just missing Jesus. Same God, right? Not not really. Yeah, not at all.
SPEAKER_00:That's well, well, if you look at uh first John, right, that's one thing he actually says is like you cannot have the the father without the son, right? So you can't have Yahweh without Christ, without Jesus. Right. Um and so, excuse me, one thing to clarify too, there is a specific subsect of um of Jew. And um the Tolmidic Jews call them heretics, and they are a Torah-only Jew. A very small portion, probably one percent of the Jewish population. Okay, is Tolmid only, or excuse me, uh Torah only. Yeah. Um but the Tolmud, it's um it's essentially um this is what most people quote, right? But you you have their holy books on it's kind of it's kind of an inerrant second Bible. Yeah, it is for the for the Jewish people. Yeah, they would they probably wouldn't admit it like that, but in the text itself, it would attest it. So you have the midrash, the uh Mishnah, and the Tolmud. And so most most people quote the Tolmud, in the Tolmud itself, it says it's authoritative. A rabbi's word is final, yeah. And um uh even if it contradicts uh the Torah, right? Yeah, and so we see some things in here, some super extreme Catholic Church. Sorry, yeah, allergy. Yeah, no, you know, uh yeah, that could be another podcast. I I have a soft spot for uh a lot of Catholics, so but but we could uh some people have a soft spot for Jews. No, no, no, no. But um, so for example, right, um in Leviticus 18, right? Um, a man, it says, a man shall not sleep with a man as one would sleep with a woman.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So this is just an example, it's wild. Please, if if you think this is crazy, go look it up yourself. And so just real quick, the Talmud is commentary of the Torah, right? So you'll have these um commentaries by various rabbis in regards to a passage of Torah. Uh, they believe that each commentary is authoritative, even if it slightly contradicts the the one before, it's authoritative. Yeah, they're all authoritative, right? And so, um, in side note, this is kind of a interesting thing. Me and Justin talking about the Tol Moon, studying the Torah, is actually liable to death according to the Toll Moon, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_01:So we're both we're both gonna be executed. Yeah, right. Hey, guys, it's City Square has been fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, first and last podcast. Great, yeah. So in Sanhedrin 54B, right? Yeah, it says if one commits sodomy with a child less than nine years old, no guilt is incurred. Yeah, like that is wild. In there's no way you can say, no, it's the same God, it's the same religion, just they reject Jesus. First off, you can't have the same religion. Right. Um, okay, and so here's another one, right? Um pertaining uh let's see. Some of them are pretty wild.
SPEAKER_01:So don't they have Jesus boiling in a in a pot of like excrement or something? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So Jesus, right, yeah, is yeah, boiling in excrement in hell, right? Which is wild, which is blasphemy. And I've I've never when it when of the highest order. When Christians are confronted with that, I've never seen more people justify blasphemy than when they're when they're held to that, right? No kidding.
SPEAKER_01:So one more I want to just to see the gravity like you're showing me like, okay, clearly, like pedophilia is written into the Talmud.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this one's gonna freak you out, right? So in Leviticus 18, 6, it says, none of you shall approach um any of his close relatives uncovered, right? Right? Um, or excuse me, to uncover nakedness, for I am the Lord, right? Um in Yabamat 60B, it says, intercourse with a little girl less than three years one day is nothing. For uh is as one puts a finger in an eye, a tear returns to the eye, again, and so to the hymen returns.
SPEAKER_01:Goodness.
SPEAKER_00:So this is this is talking about molesting your own child as long as they're under three years old. Oh, yeah. Brutal, right? And um adultery, right? Killing um of non-Jews, right? Yeah, there's no blood liable.
SPEAKER_01:If you're a gentile, uh they're allowed, they're allowed to kill you under their law because you're not you're not a Jew.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's a that's a hundred percent. There's um there's difference of moral code between believers and non or Jews and non-Jews. You don't see that in scripture. God shows no partiality. Yeah, and so I think um when we attest to oh, Jews are or they're like one of us, you know, they almost bring them in, you're actually like aligning yourself with Satan. Yeah, we're told any religion but Christ is demonic, right? It's satanic.
SPEAKER_01:Or at the worst, some terrible form of syncretism. Where I'm trying to make these two things the same, which is why putting up like a Jewish flag next to a cross and saying we believe the same things is honestly it's abhorrent. Oh like that like the the idea that um the Jewish people today are still chosen and ultimately God is just gonna save them. No, people that are dying right now who are Jewish, who believe these things, are dying and going to hell. They need the Lord. Sure. Now I I'm gonna bring something up because I think you uh like for a balancing statement, all right? Yeah. I don't believe in all the free Palestine nonsense either. I I think there's so much blood on both sides of the fence, it's terrible. Um, I think I like uh I'm a fan of the Crusades. Like, I'm like, I think uh Africa, Christian Africa belongs to Christ. I think Jerusalem belongs to Christ. I think everything belongs to Christ. This is my point. I will say this I think Jerusalem, that area of land, the second that that is wiped off the map, you know, the United States is the next thing. They're just gonna continue jihad across the board. And in a lot of ways, I'm a fan of defending that piece of land because I think we're just freaking next the second that that is gone. And I I think sometimes people forget that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the my view of uh of Jews or Israel, which not Israel, that would be right, right.
SPEAKER_01:Right when we say Israel, we're talking about those in covenant with God. Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm I'm I'm taking no sides. I think uh atrocities are taking place on both sides. I want it all to stop and them all repent and turn to Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01:Amen. And that is that can we just agree? That is an important statement to make. All of them are fallen. Yep, none of them uh that that are not have not placed their faith in Jesus, are problematic, are in sin, are making mistakes, and desperately need the blood of Jesus. Right. We should be okay saying that and not saying, no, no, no, these people are more right than these people because for some reason it's less jacked up. No, no, no. It's they have a past, right? Yeah, all of it is messy. And and most of the people that are in Israel at this point are Ashkenazi Jews anyway. So we're not even talking about ethnic Judaism or ethnicism.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, yeah, I mean, that's that's a totally different, yeah. You could get into the weeds with that. We can go a long way down the line. That's that's definitely another podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, but I want to bring this uh so let's let's roll into this a little bit more now. Because now I want to I want to try to focus on all right, so we have uh Talmudic craziness, right? We have wrong distinctions, wrong understanding of the covenant. Yeah, why is it that churches, in your opinion, have fallen into this kind of syncretism that actually, if it's taken to its logical conclusion, if you're saying, no, no, no, we we're basically on the same side, we basically believe the same things, yeah. Uh it is really bad. Yeah. You know, I mean how how have we fallen into this? And and obviously I want to talk about eschatology briefly, but I'm curious what your thoughts are as far as this. Um, how did we end up in bed together?
SPEAKER_00:I I think biblical illiteracy is the number one thing. I'm I'm no great mind. I just read my Bible, right? Yeah. And I think the Bible is so vast that um Well, you got you you're working on your MDV too, though, right?
SPEAKER_01:Or yeah, from Southern or No.
SPEAKER_00:So I have my MTS and I'm I have my language and then uh preaching class before I okay, cool. But um, yeah, so um but I think it's biblical illiteracy. The Bible is so vast that if you don't study a topic, yeah, you're only gonna be surface knowledgeable on that, right? Yeah, and I think I think that's a big part. And I think a lot of times with Bible studies, we'll read a passage and study, and I think it's great. But sometimes a topical Bible study, not necessarily topical preaching, right? But topical Bible studies are super important. I want to know this better, and that way it forces you to to look at the language, you know, it forces you to um, you know, to dig deeper in specific areas. Yeah. Because you study one within that passage, there's ten different things you can just really nail down, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I I really think Christians aren't reading their Bibles.
SPEAKER_01:I I think uh to put on this point, brother, you have a difference between biblical theology and systematic theology here that do come into play. Yeah. Like the systematic theology is uh done b done poorly. Sure. Is here's all the verses that bring up this topic yanked out of context, where we can't see the continuity between them. Right. And we just throw them together or or the separation between them, and we say, This is all the teaching on this topic, and it doesn't work that way unless you actually look at the the overarching theme and unfolding stories of the Bible, yeah, not just one section or or one chapter that somebody wrote when this word is mentioned. Sure. It's totally it's a totally different thing. So if you read it over here, we're talking about Israel, these promises, these things, and then you read it over here and you're like, oh, it's a different word, it's a different thing. They don't have anything to do with each other. Yeah. Well, no, read the story out. Yeah. Like read it, read it all the way through, and you're gonna understand something uh very different, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that that is it's important as well to to delve into the language itself. Yeah. So no language translates perfectly, right? And so, like, okay, I see this word uh in Greek, and then I see it over here. Well, the problem is is when you look at several words, you know, they in in English they may translate one word, but in the Greek they're two different words with a different nuanced meaning. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:There's a semantic range.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there is, there is, and I don't think that's the case when you look at Israel in Judaism. Yeah, right? Okay, that's and so you had mentioned uh Judeo, right? Yeah, and I think when people say Judeo Christian, yeah, what yeah, can we just say that that's uh I would say it's it teeters really close to heresy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, you you you would almost be equally able to say um something like Islamic Christian. Yeah, uh yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So every religion has a set a set core beliefs that make you a believer and follower in said religion, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's it's just to make this clear for people what you believe about God and how that plays out in your life, yeah, that ultimately is what I believe about God becomes how I live my life. So whether that's the God, the Jewish idea of God that has Jesus boiling an excrement. Well, in God the Father, right? Um, but but to put those two things together is to say I have a different view about who God fundamentally is. And then what comes out of that is a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, because uh even God's character and nature, right, is different for Jews than it is for us. Yeah, right? Like God isn't the ultimate authority, his word is not the ultimate authority. A rabbi's authority is higher uh when can when compared to God's, right? They look at a contradiction, yeah. They go, it's God, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, how many Christians are going to rabbis and are like, oh, I understand the Bible better now because they've learned from the rabbis on how to interpret the Bible. And you're like, you don't want to go down that road, bro. Like they they don't even have close to the same ideas about how we should have a lot of people. Whitewash sepulchres, right? Like yeah, like some people are like, Yeah, but you haven't read the rabbitic literature on this. And I'm like, nor should you, yeah, based on their beliefs.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, yeah, absolutely. No credibility, yeah, right. Yeah, and so I, you know, I think that's I think that's important. The semantics, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, semantic range of words. Yeah, I I just think as we look at the world today, we are um in a weird place. I I am uh I want to make this clear so that there's not weirdness around this. I don't hate Jewish people, I don't hate Palestinians. I think we should hate sin. And I would even go so far as to say that God frequently throughout the Bible says he hates sinners too. Look, just so we're clear, sin isn't cast into hell, sinners are. Sure. Right? I think everybody needs Jesus. I think they all need to be saved. I think uh we are foolish to put one group of people on a pedestal and act like they are somehow uh chosen or better or more likely to be saved than another people group when they're all lost and walking a totally different direction. And so I just want to make this clear because the second you bring up this topic today, people will be like, you're anti-Semitic or whatever. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm for them. And you know what the prerequisite to the gospel is? Knowing you're lost. Sure. Knowing you're a sinner, knowing you're not for a sinner. If you're constantly telling people you're basically there, you're basically fine, you're God's chosen people, you don't really need the gospel. Eventually it's just gonna work out for you. What you're actually doing is damning that person, what you're doing is not loving or helpful, it's condemning because you're basically telling them it's fine. I heard a guy in a coffee shop today telling another guy like who doesn't believe, give it giving them basically like a list of, yeah, but you believe you know, you should be a good person, you should do that. And he literally told him, like, well, you're basically a Christian, then. Yeah, you're basically there. And I was like, dude, what you just did is made it 10 times harder for this guy to get saved because you told him you're you're basically there, so so it's fine. Yeah. No, if somebody's lost, they're just lost. And we should treat people like they're lost and need Jesus, not act like it's fine because they have association, um, you know, because of proximity to Jesus back in the day.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I I think with that idea, when I the the term chosen people is such a a hot, a hot phrase.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so what I think generally speaking, when that comes out of people's mouths, it's not as a heart like, man, there are these lost people, you know, I want to see them saved. It's more of an arrogance, right? Like, we're God's chosen people. No, we're God's chosen people, but other than you. Yeah, and and actually Paul speaks about that in Romans, right? Tells them not to be arrogant, right? Yeah, and so I I I just think we as Christians have to be real careful. I think we should evangelize them, not careful in how we evangelize, even the things we say, right? But real careful how we um use words like chosen people. And you know, just here's the deal. And I think that's for everybody, but that's not helpful, right? Right. To all of a sudden I want to share the gospel, so you begin in a fist fight, that's not it, right? Right, right. And so I think like you don't just go to somebody who's saved and share the gospel, like you're going to hell.
SPEAKER_01:We're not shooting for barn burner to start. Like the the goal is to walk to anybody like you would and try to try to try to meet them where they're at and share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00:If you genuinely love them and you want to see them saved, right, it begins with conversation. Yeah. And um, you know, obviously first praying that God softened the heart, right? Yeah, but you go to them in love, right? All of a sudden just telling someone you're going to hell, that you're no one's, I don't believe, doing that out of love, right? It's like a a z a zeal. And I don't think that zeal is for them to be saved and God glorified, but that zeal is to, you know, check the block. I did what I had to, I, you know, condemn sin. And it's like, no guy, you actually committed sin, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, yeah. You can uh you can do something that you you you think is loving, but do it in an incredibly unloving way. Sure. Yeah. I just I think um it's important that people get this. If somebody is waving, like in your church service, a giant star of David or a giant Israeli flag, what they're ultimately espousing is the beliefs that these Jewish people have, the actually the same beliefs, a lot of them that murdered Jesus. Yeah. And that's not like a that's not like a good thing. Like, yes, we we're we're a big fan of people who don't believe, who don't like Christians, who are not a fan of of the Bible, who you know, who have all these extra rides, like that is honestly, it's anti, it in a lot of ways is very anti-Christian.
SPEAKER_00:Well, so if you look at their faith, I'm gonna say this after I preface it. Yeah. So if you look at what they believe, it's a lot of paganism, a lot of the worship of Baal and Moloch sprinkled with a little bit of the law, right? Yeah, and so it that's still like Moloch and Baal worship, right? Yeah, and so when people are aligning with that, they're okay in that. And to have that in our church and people represent that and fly a star of David, which we have no precedence in scripture of a star of David, right? If we really wanted Israel, God's people, his chosen people, this for uh, you know, argument's sake, yeah, um, to have a flag, I think it would have been a menorah or something else, right? But but, anyways, that's you know, you could go down a rabbit hole with that. But I I think the thing is it's Christ and Christ alone. We should hold no worldly nation to the level that we hold Christ and his bride.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that's what uh my wife says this about um movies. Uh like so there'll be a movie and it's got a bunch of crappy parts in it that you're like, dude, this you know, I'm not gonna watch this. Yeah, but a lot of people be like, it's a good movie, it just has some bad parts. And my wife's contention, and she's right, is no, it's a bad movie because it had all those crappy parts, it just had some good parts. Yeah, and I think that's probably a better view of how we should think about um the idea of Judeo-Christian thinking or even Judaism in general, is no, it's not good. Yeah, it may have a couple of decent parts, but in by and large, having a couple of decent parts doesn't make something good, just like an unsaved person may have a couple of good things about them, yeah. But they're still, according to the Bible, lost in their sin and depraved.
SPEAKER_00:Which is interesting because when you compare, let's say, Islam with Judaism, yeah, they are like almost kind of parallels, right? Except um, and both lost. Yeah, but you know, um, Islam has a very favorable view of Jesus. Yeah, you know, um and morally, he saw, yeah, and so morally I would say there are some things that look good with Islam, right? Uh drinking's bad and all this stuff, but there's also some very bad things, right? And so I would say I would say and uh the reason I compare them is because you can't like you're you're okay justifying one like wicked uh ideology ideology versus another. In um the thing is it's inconsistent, we should never be inconsistent in our theology, but it gives us good perspective on why do I actually give these guys a past? Yeah, you know, and and it's really doing them a disservice. You know, there are people, they'll they'll do these charity funds and bring socks and underwear and stuff to the IDF, and you ask them, hey, did you share the gospel with any? Like, you know, you just want to know the the details, the what we want as Christians, and they'll be like, no, I didn't, um, because you know, they're just standoffish from all the Christians that killed them, right? And you're like, contextually, you're wrong. Right. But it's like, but how do you have a heart of love for so such a deep love for somebody? And you you you and you have the keys of salvation. God has given you a means to articulate his way out, his reconciliation back to him, and you refuse to give that to people you love.
SPEAKER_01:You will never be more Christ-like than when you're trying to share the truth of the kingdom to a Jew. Yeah, right, right. That's what Jesus spent majority of his time doing. Yeah. And you know, I it it cracks me up. I'm gonna I need to follow up this uh episode with an episode on the crusades, I think, because it would be fun for me to talk through why we also oppose uh Islamic uh jihadist nonsense that clearly is now taking over New York and some other places in our country. But I uh I love this talk, man. I think is there anything else that you would want to bring up uniquely? Like we could spend way more time in the text, we could talk about different stuff, but anything else you would want people to know when they think about this topic?
SPEAKER_00:No, I I just think we have a responsibility as Christians, hey, going back to the old testament, the prophets, that if that if we know somebody is in wrong and we don't tell them, we don't try to lead them uh to the way of righteousness, right? Um, their blood is on our hands. They'll still perish, but their blood is on our hands.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so what we need to do is is the prophet Isaiah said, is we need to be the ones who tell them, right? So the blood is not our hand on our hands, we'll be delivered, they still may perish. But but with that, they have You're talking about Ezekiel. Ezekiel, Rasmussen, yeah, yeah. You got all the watchmen, yeah. Ezekiel, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And so we have a responsibility to uh you know, address that with people because if not, like I don't want to be accountable to God for everybody I didn't share the gospel with, right? And and we all have that, right? And so one one last thing, and and I'll quit. Um, you know, people take this and you know, you talk about uh the the things that are in the tall mood that are anti-biblical, right? And they'll say, Well, you know, Christians sin. Yes, we do sin, right? Right, but the difference between us and a non-believer is the fact that we recognize, right, that we are sinners, that we cannot save ourselves, and it's only through Jesus Christ, right? And then it's through sanctification that we grow to look more and more like him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So at no point am I an elitist, do I think I'm better than a Jew or Muslim. Is a matter I'm I'm I'm probably worse in a lot of ways, right?
SPEAKER_01:What's ironic though is I think the church would treat a Christian worse for having some aberrant theology than than the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's the unfortunate thing, right? Which is wild. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, yeah, I mean, we could go we can keep going forever.
SPEAKER_01:Listen, there uh would you um would you do me a favor? I think this would be a good way to end the podcast today. I would love for you to pray for anybody who's struggling with this uniquely. Yeah. And then I'm gonna close out our podcast and I would say, happy studying, guys, get into the word, wrestle through this, look at the Talmud, look at the Mishnah, look at the Madrash. Um, think through this idea of Judeo-Christian more seriously because it's probably more of a heresy. Uh, I would say it this way it is a heresy, not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so would you would you pray for our brothers that are wrestling through that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, dear Heavenly Father, we love you. Uh, we thank you so much for your goodness in our lives. Thank you for this opportunity that uh Justin and I have to just um get into your word to talk about uh the truth that you revealed in your word to us, God. I pray that as there are people wrestling with this idea of Zionism and God's chosen people, that your spirit would speak to them, God, that they would seek you earnestly to know the truth, God, that um they would be willing to hear it, um, regardless of if it contradicts uh what they want, God, that your word and and your will and your truth, God, would outweigh their own personal uh desires. But we pray this, we ask that you would uh just soften all of our hearts, that you would prepare ways for us to share the gospel um not only with just uh people and our our day-to-day interaction, God, but those those who are um maybe Jewish, God or Muslim or just God, I just pray that you would just be with us. But we love you and in Christ's name we pray.
unknown:Amen.
SPEAKER_01:Amen. Mike, thanks for coming on, brother. Yeah, no worries. We'll definitely have you on again for uh a couple of other topics I have in mind. But yeah, let's uh let's uh get after this again soon, man. Love you and thank you guys. Thanks for listening, thanks for jumping in. Uh if you're curious, I'll shoot you some book recommendations or different things on this topic. And if you want to do a little bit of a deeper style, uh y'all have a fantastic week, and we'll talk to you soon.
