The Word Behind the Word

In this episode of Black, White, & the Red Letters, Ed and Cameron talk about the incredible way God connects the dots—through film sets, unexpected friendships, closed doors, open doors, and one devotional book that points Christians back to the Hebrew roots of Scripture. Ed shares the story behind 365 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know and why every word, every feast, every shadow, and every promise ultimately points to Jesus. 📖🔥

#BlackWhiteAndTheRedLetters #HebrewWords #JesusInTheOldTestament

Transcript

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Two guys, friends, brothers, pastors, Jesus freaks. One's Lily White and formerly a Jewish guy. Yeah, and he's still recovering from that. And the other one's a Haitian-born actor who spent many years in Hollywood. So yeah, I'm thinking this ought to go well. Yeah. I'm coming. And I'm in. And every week we sit down and talk about real life. And we do it without turning it into a Sunday morning sermon. We're talking culture, faith, purpose, scripture, and race and truth and the stuff that most people avoid. And we're running it all through the words of Jesus. Dude, those red letters, they just don't play. No filter. And no pretending, no churchy cliche. We're just having real conversations about a real savior. This is Black White and the Red Letters. What's going on, everybody? This is Black White and the Red Letters. I'm Camille Cameron Arnette, and we are back here with Ed the G-Man. And just to watch what He's done in a short amount of time in which we've known each other and to watch what we've been able to see him do in other people's lives, you know, in the process. And we were talking about, you know, me being in New York and, you know, a messianic Jew and all that kind of stuff, and how that was so impactful in my life, in that God used someone from the trunk, you know, to speak a word to me and to bring, you know, Christ into such a definite positioning within my life. And I think about what God is doing with you now, you know, writing and everything else. And you know, you become this author, and God is just like just, you know, revealing, you know, stuff. And he is such a you know a wordsmith, you know, and God is no, he's not a because he Cammy uh Camille is talking about God is a wordsmith. Yeah, no, yes. Not Ed. You know, you know, God is birthing the wordsmith that he is in Ed, so Ed could be a wordsmith. You know, so it's like it's he's he's he's giving that inheritance of wordsmithing, you know. But you know, the thing about it is that he's not coincidental, you know, he's not happenstance, you know, and in teaching for all this time, one of the things that I used to always tell people is like, hey, you you have to, when you when you read the word of God, the reason why it's important to study is because you have to hear what the original speaker spoke and what the original hearer heard. If not, you're gonna be he, you know, you're gonna be thinking that you understand what God is saying, but you're gonna be saying, you know, thinking, believing it in your vernacular. And these days, we follow words by their usage, not by their meaning. And so that was good. You know what I'm saying? And so when you're getting to the Hebrew and the Aramaic and all, you're talking about meaning of words. Man, you've been writing this book, man, and and and and you know, I uh by the grace of God, I've had an opportunity to be one of the first readers, you know, and and and talk about it and and and get the the blessing out of it. But man, these words, what what's happening and and what has it done to your life to first of all come from the trunk and be able to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that that revelation of the Holy Spirit, and now being sent back by the Holy Spirit to bring revelation out of the trunk by these words. What's that like for you? You know, it was a crazy whole series of events. And uh before we started this podcast, uh Kami and I were talking about how things that that happened today, let's just say today, uh, in our lives that we can track back and sometimes track them back, you know, five years, 20 years, 30, 40, I don't know, 50 years, depending on how old we are, that if this hadn't happened, that wouldn't have happened, and if that hadn't, then this wouldn't, and and just seeing how God is the most incredible dot connector like ever. Ever. Um, and all of those dots connect to bring him glory and for our good. Yeah. I get it. I didn't used to get it, but I get it now. And uh, and I can even track a little bit of this book back to when you and I met in 2018 on the film Overcomer. And uh, and the only reason that we were that I was there, you were there because you're a famous actor. You were there. It's funny because last week you said, you know, uh Alex Kendrick said, Hey, Cameron Arnett. I'm like, what? Yeah, and there you are. Then you're in a hospital bed for a month and a half on that movie set. But my wife um started working uh in films, that was her first film, and for another podcast, it was because of uh chocolate chip cookies and Alex Kendrick. Yes, um, because he loves some chocolate chip cookies, famous chocolate chips. So that got her in the in the movie business. And and I was there on the set only because I had just started in full-time vocational ministry in like a month before that movie started. Um, and so we uh I was just visiting on the set a few times and just kind of became friends with people. I wasn't working on that movie. I just would visit Susan and and met you on that film. And ultimately, over the course of several years, I guess 2018 to probably the next five years, when Susan would work on a movie, I would go to the to the set to visit. And and I and I it's funny the way I say it, but pastors pastor. If you're a shepherd, you shepherd. You know, one's a noun, one's a verb, but see, I'm a wordsmith, I know the the names of grammar parts. Um but but pastors just it just happens. And so started sort of pastoring casts and crews. It just it just organically would happen. And so we were on this set. Uh, I was working this one, Susan and I both were working on a film that Sherry Rigby did called um it was done up uh north of Atlanta called Divine Influencer. And one of the producers on that movie that we became friends with, her name is Suzanne Niles, and we just became friends with her. And you know, I said to her, you know, is this what you do full time? She said, No, I work for Broad Street Publishing. And uh I'm she's I think her title is Director of Talent Acquisition, I think. And I didn't even think anything about it, and probably, you know, I like probably many people, you know, years before said, I'm gonna write a book, you know, and I had about a hundred words on a piece of paper that I'd poured over for 10 years or something, but never really finished it. And so I ended up finishing a book probably six months after that movie. And uh and I thought, I want to get this, I'd like to get this published. And that's a lot harder than people think. I mean you can self-publish, and I get it, lots of books are self-published. I just didn't have the money necessarily to do that, and I just didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't want to do it. Well, brother, I hit every roadblock imaginable. You know, it's pretty hard to get a book published without a book agent by a traditional publisher. Right. And the the the regular scope of how things are done. Yeah, you just can't do it. Now you can clearly, and many, many people do it. There's nothing wrong with it, it's is 100% fine. You can go to Amazon and you, you know, or probably other places and self-publish. I just I just kind of didn't want to do that. But I was hitting all these roadblocks. And then I'm not the smartest peanut in the barrel, but I did, I all of a sudden I said, Oh, we met this lady on this movie, you know, a year and a half earlier, and she works for Broad Street, which is a great publisher. I said, I'm gonna call her because I bet I can talk her into they'll do it, you know, like who am I? Um, so I I I I either called or texted or something, and she said, Yeah, send me the the the first two chapters and fill out this little paperwork thing. And I did, and she called me back and she said, Yeah, we'll we would publish it, but you're gonna pay for it. Um so it would be like a self-publishing, but with them. With them, but so you you so you got back to the money part. Yeah, somehow it just got right on back to I'm gonna pay for it. Right. I get it, it's fine. They don't know me from Adam. So like uh it goes back to like bro, who do you think you are? Because you're you're nothing. I'm really bringing nothing to the table. So uh so I thought, man, I don't want to do it this way. And it was the very next day she texted me and said, Hey, I want you and my boss to get on the phone together or Zoom or something. And I said, Okay. And she scheduled it for like the next week, probably about a week later. And uh, and so I asked her what her boss's name was, and she told me, and he was a he was like the owner of the company. And uh, and so I started getting a little bit nervous, but not crazy nervous. But when I got on the Zoom call the next week, bro, it was like there was like seven people, like the chief marketing officer. See, there goes that audition auditioning thing again. Yeah, you just hit me with an audition and I got hive. So I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and it was and it was and it was Zoom and and and it was like, I don't know, I don't remember all the people, but it was like the general editor and the owner of the company and Suzanne and the the um the chief marketing officer and a junior copyright editor. And I'm thinking, what are all these people doing on this Zoom call? And so the guy, the boss, he said, tell me your story. He said, Take five minutes and tell me your story. And he was talking about my testimony. And so I I share with him, and you know, I'm a preacher, so if you want me to share something, it's gonna take an hour. But I'm like, okay, yeah, don't mess this up. Just tell the man what he asked. So I did, and he said, Well, um, he said, We're looking for a messianic Jewish author. Now the orchestration, right? Oh, the connecting of the dots. I mean, you you know the thing people I I hope people are hearing this because it's God that does the work. He sure does. You know what I'm saying? He has a life that's already ordained for you. All you have to do is trust him along the way, obey him along the way. And it's like, in spite of my stupidity, yeah, you know, in spite of my sinfulness, in spite of my inadequacies, you know, and and I know I can't imagine what my face must have looked like when he said it. Because like I'm bald, I don't have any hair, and I can feel my head getting red. Oh, it was crazy. I almost fell out of my chair, and I and then I'm thinking on that moment. No doubt. No doubt. I feel you. So he said that, and I'm thinking, well, I said, I probably don't look like you imagine. You know, I don't have, you know, curly sideburns like a Hasidic Jewish guy in Brooklyn or something. I said, I probably don't sound like you imagine someone to sound um that is uh that is a mess, and excuse me, a messianic Jewish guy or lady. I said, I probably don't look or sound like you imagine and or what you're looking for. And he said, No, I think you're exactly what we're looking for. And again, I could feel myself blush, you know, and turn red. Because I've never had anybody really say something like that, to aimed at me at least. Yeah. Um, and so I he said, uh he said, but I don't know if you can write. And I said, This was God working humility. He said, I don't know if you can write. And I said, Well, didn't you read what I sent Suzanne? And he said, No. And I thought, okay, why are we? I didn't say this, but I'm like, what are we doing? You know, he said, I he said, write a few devotions. Uh he said, because I'm looking for somebody to write a book uh with 365 Hebrew words and like Jewish traditions and customs that Christians should know. And he said, and I think you're the one to write it, but I don't know if you can write. So write five and email them to me. Take a couple of weeks and write them and email them to me. And he gave me a word count or whatever. And I thought, and I said, Oh, it ain't gonna take a couple of weeks. I'm like, bro, I'm gonna do it like tonight. Right, right. You know, I took, I don't know, two or three days and I sent them to him. And then he uh, it was probably a few weeks probably after that. He emailed me back and said, Yeah, he said, I like it. And uh he said, you'll have a contract in the next um in the next 10 days or something. And I and I when I when I got that email, I went into my wife's uh she was in the in our living room and I said, Look at this. And I showed her on my phone. I started crying. I showed her on my phone, I'm like, what is God doing? Yeah, like what is he doing? Because this is not of me in any way, shape, or form. Left to me, I would jack it up so bad. But he's totally doing it. That was in July of 24, and it was funny too, because when he sent me the contract, it had a March of 26 release date. And I I'm so dumb. Sometimes I outdumb myself. I emailed him back and I said, I said, I've reviewed the contract, I'm gonna sign it, but do I need to change the release date? Because I think it's a mistake. It says March of 26, it should say March of 25. He said, No, brother, it takes a while to get this stuff done. So I started writing in July of 24. And I even, this is also me outdumbing myself, um, because I still had this original book that I'd written that I had sent her, but that's not what he wanted to publish. Right. And so I tried this was prideful. I tried to work that into the contract too, like make it a two-book thing. And he said, no, if the first one doesn't sell, there won't be a second one. He said, but if the first one does sell, I would be dumb not to publish the second one. And I said, okay. I signed the the the contract and it had a uh this was in July, end of July of 24, and it the due date for the um for me to submit the manuscript was December 1st of that year. So that's August, September, October, November, December. Um excuse me, August, September, October, November, because it was due December first, four months. I didn't know how long it was going to take to write. I had never written 365 devotions. I mean, that's like writing 365 sermons and then shortening them because the book, you see it, I'm showing it to Cammy, although he's seen it because he has one, but they're small. And so it's like writing a sermon that for me a sermon's about 3,000 words and shortening that down. You know, Charles Spurgeon said, if you give me 45 minutes to preach, it'll take me a couple of hours to prepare the message. If you give me 20 minutes to preach, it'll take me a few weeks. If you give me five minutes to preach, it'll take me two months to because it's hard to whittle things down. And I didn't know that at the time. So that December 1st uh due date, I I got it turned in the day before December 1st, but it was a massive challenge. I had to get away one at some point for about eight or nine days by myself in a cabin in the woods, and I did nothing but write from like uh September, excuse me, from like I don't know, 6 a.m. to midnight for eight days or seven and a half days in a row. But I got a lot done. So so as far as the words themselves, it are are these words that you chose to do or they gave them to do, God gave you the words. How did that come about? I I pray I thought that was going to be a challenge too. And and what it ultimately the book is it's there's Hebrew words from Scripture, obviously from Scripture, from the Old Testament, because the Old Testament written in mostly all Hebrew, some Aramaic, and New Testament and Greek. So they're mostly words out of the Bible, along with um six or seven holidays, Jewish holidays, um, and then along with some Yiddish words, a few four or five Yiddish words. But the point is this it is not just Hebrew words for the sake of having some sort of knowledge of Hebrew because it's not a textbook, it's a devotion. And the reason is because the Lord did, this was clearly God, over the course of the last 20 years, He has impressed on me in a massive way that every single thing from Genesis 1.1 on points to Jesus. It all is pointing to Christ. That Bible is not an exhaustive history of every event that has ever happened on the planet. Right. It's not. Don't put that on it because it's the grand purpose of the Bible is to lead a lost sinner into a relationship with the creator of the universe. And so it all is pointing to the Messiah, everything. So the so the book really is written in a devotional way with some funny stuff and some stories of mine, uh, but it's how those Hebrew words point to Jesus. And and so when I first started, I'm like, okay, how am I gonna pick the words? And that's a little bit of your question. Exactly. I mean, I prayed through it, and I I I want to feel like the Lord led me to every one of them. I don't know if that's a hundred percent true or not, but I'm but he definitely led me through it. And and really, I just started in the beginning of Genesis, and I just started flipping pages of the Bible and and finding words, and the Lord would say, Hey, look here or look there, or whatever. And uh, and that's how the words sort of came to be, I guess. Is there anything that you found that drastically changed what you believed, what you thought? Is there anything that you found within the the definition of the word, the meaning of the word that um brought uh deeper revelation to your life? Oh my goodness. Like my own personal growth through that four or five months was astronomical. Like astronomical. And I knew that clearly I knew the old testament pointed to Christ. I mean, obviously, obviously, um, but not in the way that it not in the way that the Lord ended up making that happen in my head and in my heart over that four months. I mean, there's there's just so many. There's so many, you know, you think about um if you think about I can just give you one example in the word Mezuzah, which means literally means doorpost. And if you look in Exodus, when the the the Jews, the Israelites are in slavery in Egypt, and um God works through Moses to get them out, and there's a series of plagues. Well, the tenth plague is the death of the the firstborn in Egypt. And the uh the slaves were instructed by the Lord through Moses to to wipe blood on the doorpost with hyssop to wipe blood on the doorpost, and then the angel of death would pass over them, right? And what kind of blood was it? Lamb's blood. Oh, there's a shocker. The blood of the lamb rescued them, the blood of the lamb saved them, the blood of the lamb delivered them. Put whatever word you want in there, and so the word is uh the word for doorpost is mazizah, and so that was one of the words, and and the connection is um you you you think about when Jesus comes up on John the Baptist, um, and it's the kind of the launching of Jesus' public ministry, it was Lamb's blood that rescued the world. Jesus walks up on his cousin creepy John on the on the Jordan uh river, and what does John say to him? Or what does he say to the people that are there? Who knows how many people that were there? There were a lot. John had a lot of disciples, right? And there were a lot of people there. He says, Behold the what? The Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the world. And those people that because they knew the Old Testament. They did know. And that's back to hearing what the original speaker spoke and the original hearer heard. They had a point of reference to grab from the meaning of what was being said. And on unless we adhere to study to show yourself approved, we don't have a grasp on the meaning. And that's what I believe the book brings. It brings us back to the trunk to be able to understand the depth of what God was saying and to cause our lives to be even deeper still. Because I I think, and you tell tell me what you you think about this. I I think that there's still a same way that the Bible says that there's a rest, you know, for the people of God. I still think that there's a need of depth of understanding because there's a people that only that depth can give, can turn us into. Because when you take a look at the apostles and the first believers, you know, Stephen and all these the first believers, you're you're seeing a kind of life that these people live, the the effect of his presence and what he said to them, the miracles. He said, Greater works than these shall you do because you go on to my father, I go into my father. So there's still a manifestation that the world needs to see and should see out of our lives. And I think it's when I think of this book, this devotion, I think of the the same way that I look at Christ of a career, calling the church back to the Lordship. I see calling it back to the depth of the meaning that can make us the kind of people that he wants us to be in order to have a kind of a relationship that the original hearers, the original believers had, the apostles had that bring about the same results. Yeah, because that it is God's word. Yeah. Right? And and the the book, the verses, the passages, the chapters, the books, they were not written, you know, just pick what Ephesians. It was not written to Ed Griffinagan. It was not written to Camille Arnett. Yeah. It was written to the church at Ephesus for us down the the down time for sure. But it wasn't written like to me, but absolutely incumbent upon us as Christ followers, Old Testament, New Testament, doesn't matter, to dig in. It is so rich. And when you can understand in this book will help a lot, I think. It surely did me, will help me to see the richness of if it all points to Christ, then that includes all the holidays, all the words that the Lord used Moses to write or whoever to write. It includes all of it. It's all pointing to Jesus. I I said a few weeks ago that at some point in one of our conversations, I said, when I was sitting in my truck the morning that I got saved, and I said, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. That's going back to a parable in Luke, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. Yeah. Right. And so the Pharisee, what's the Pharisee say? Thank you, Lord, that I'm not like that dirt bag over there. Yeah. And what does that dirt bag over there say? Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. And it says, the Bible says he beat his breast, right? And I remember the first time I read that in 2000, the fall of 2000, and and I knew exactly what he was talking about. There's a tradition in Judaism called Hesbed, and it is the traditional beating of the chest. And on Yom Kippur, which is the day of atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish year, there's a prayer that is said, it's called the Al Hate Prayer. And it's chanted. And in English, it is like Lord, you're the creator of the universe. Um forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement for the sin of blank coveting. Lord, uh the creator of the universe, pardon me, grant me atonement for the sin of lying. And there's pages you chant at all, you name these sins a long list, a laundry list of like 50 or 60 of those. And you do while you're doing that, you're you're beating your chest with your right hand over your heart, and you repeat that whole long thing. It's either five or ten times. It takes forever. I remember being a kid in the synagogue with my parents, you know, and I'm over there playing computer football, you know, and I mean it's like it just lasts forever. Well, the sign, the the beating of your chest with your over your heart with your right hand balled up in a fist, it is a sign of extreme remorse. It's a sign of extreme grief over your sinfulness. Well, if if you didn't grow up with knowing that, when you read that in Luke, you're just like, why is this dude beating his chest? But when you know that, you're like, oh my gosh, you're gonna then you personally, come in. The next time you read that in Luke, I promise you you will read that differently. Yeah, you just will. Yeah, and that's that's what the study, that's what the diving into, that's what not allowing yourself just to be a surface Christian, a surface reader, a surface exister. That is God pulling out of you by putting into you his depth, you know, and every single jot and tittle is so deep. And that's what I was saying before. I mean, we said in conversations past, he is not complicated, but he's deep. You know, and he's so deep, and his simplicity is so deep. And that's why it's so hard to phantom that, oh my God, this creator of the universe could make it so simple for me as to just accept, you know, and so this we find a person that's so broken and so honest with themselves to know that they are in need, they are, you know, laying bare before God, and yet somebody else is standing around talking about, you know, hey, you know, I'm I'm glad I'm not that guy, you know, and so we miss it. You know what I'm saying? We we, you know, I uh there there's um um a time past, my wife and I, we were going through something where, you know, again, discipleship raising people up, and someone said, it don't it doesn't take all that. And I thought to myself, wow, it takes that and more because to get to the end of yourself, you know, we all have so much need to get to the end of ourselves, and it takes all that, and it's not for well, there's there's a there's a part of it that is for you, for your wife BJ, there's a part of it that is for her, for me and Susan. There's part of it's for us, but at the end of the day, other people's forever's are in jeopardy. And so when we study scripture, it's not to check a box that says, Oh, wow, I understand the gospel of Matthew better. No, it's the Lord equipping you to go share with someone who doesn't know him because their forever is in jeopardy. Now, obviously, you and me don't save people, the Lord saves them, but he birthed the church at Pentecost to go out and and and share a story. What were Jesus' last words? Go to all the world. Yeah. So we know the commander's intent. Yeah. And it's not, you've said it many times in the few podcasts we've done, that it's simple. It's not a complicated message. And we know we know the commander's intent. Go share. So my prayer is that the that this devotional will help equip the saints to go do that. Well, brother, I all I can say again, we we don't have much time left, but what all I can say is that again, the you know, the call, what what what is beautiful to me in in in life is watching the call, as we're talking about, right? The call on each individual's life into the enormity of what it does in other people's lives when that call is answered. Um, the depth that we get from every person allows us to look at the same God in the facet in which we would not have if that person hadn't dug into the depth that God has given us because there's a revelation in each and every one of us for the other, you know, and we have need, and it's by what every joint supplies. And so I thank you for that supply because it's like who, you know, preaching and teaching that you have to hear the original speaker and hear like the original hearer, and then coming across someone who's bringing that understanding and that depth in a place of devotion back to God. You know, that's just, you know, to me, that's again being that porn, like you were talking about before, on that on that chessboard and and watching God connect the dots. So, man, thank you, bruh. Yeah, and you can you can again the name of it is 365 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know. And it's a pretty book, it's a faux leather cover, so it's a pretty book. Um, and the little subtitle is a daily devotional, but you can get it at uh in the dot connecting genre and in what oh my gosh, what is God doing? Uh Walmart just picked it up. Oh wow. So it's in um, it's not in every Walmart, but it's in Walmart publics, grocery stores, airports, uh Barnes and Noble, obviously Amazon. So you can, I mean, you can pick it up wherever. Well, God's getting his word out. So pick one up, and uh, you know, God'll make even his uh uh Old Testament words like the red letter words. And we'll we'll we'll meet each other next time.