Steve Maltz looks ahead to the challenges of 2016

The vast majority of these programmes are recorded in Israel … I visit the places where the people live. But for today’s programme, I met my guest, who is called Gefen, in London. She was here from Tel Aviv during the summer working with a team of fellow missionaries from Jews for Jesus – an organisation that works in major cities around the world to share their faith with Jewish people. However, the reality is they talk to far more non-Jews! So, I asked Gefen, what’s it like going out onto the streets of London wearing a Jews for Jesus T shirt handing out tracts and talking to people about Jesus?

Published on 21 Oct 2015
More at: www.imetmessiah.com
By: www.oneforisrael.org
Follow us on Twitter: @oneforisrael

An important and timely web presentation. CLICK HERE to see it.

Most of us Christians are very set in our ways. Once we decide on a particular viewpoint, we tend to cling onto this for dear life and not budge an inch.

By: Alan M. Dershowitz, The Gatestone Institute

There is a widespread but false belief that Mahmoud Abbas is finally prepared to accept the two-state solution proposed by the U.N. in November 1947 when it divided mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for the Jewish People; the other for the Arab People. The Jews of Palestine accepted the compromise division and declared a nation state for the Jewish people to be called by its historic name: Israel. The Arabs of Palestine, on the other hand, rejected the division and declared that they would never accept a state for the Jewish people and statehood for the Palestinian people. They wanted for there not to be a state for the Jewish people more than for there to be a state for their own people. Accordingly, they joined the surrounding Arab armies in trying to destroy Israel and drive its Jewish residents into the sea. They failed back then, but over the years, and to the current day, they continue to want no state for the Jewish people more than they want a state for Palestinian Arabs. That is why Abbas refuses to say that he would ever accept the U.N. principle of two states for two peoples. I know, because I have personally asked him on several occasions.

Stephen Bishop's book is available from Amazon (also, shortly, as an ebook), Eden, Leyton Good News Bible Bookshop, Zaccmedia (publisher) and can be ordered from any other bookshop (quoting ISBN 9781911211617). He is also happy to post out copies if folk want to contact him direct (using his 'business' email:   biblebish3927@btinternet.com   )

British Jews and many other British nationals were shocked and dismayed with the outcome of last week’s general election in the UK.

Contrary to expectations, Prime Minister Theresa May emerged with a staggering defeat, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party — which dramatically increased its number of seats in parliament by almost 10% — ran almost neck and neck with the Conservative Party. May is now trying to maintain her minority government by aligning with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

It is a horrifying prospect that Corbyn — a man who has publicly praised Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends;” who attended a ceremony in Tunis commemorating the murderer of Israeli Olympic athletes; who was employed by the state-controlled Iranian TV to present programs; and who tolerated the proliferation of overt antisemitism in his party — nearly became prime minister.

Three guys do the "Torah tango" and try to stay up all night on Shavuot. 

On an unseasonably warm Washington morning in November 1942, Peter Bergson sipped his coffee and leafed through the latest editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. It was a habit he’d acquired since arriving in America nearly two years earlier, as a 25-year-old Palestinian Zionist on a mission to raise awareness, and money, for the establishment of a Jewish military force to join the Allies’ war against Hitler.

Yet when he spotted a brief news item, tucked away on an inside page of the Post, he knew that mission was over. The headline read: “Two million Jews slain, Rabbi Wise asserts.” The reference was to a news conference the previous evening by Rabbi Stephen Wise, American Jewry’s foremost spokesman and leader. It was the first public confirmation of the Nazi Holocaust. For Bergson, his Jewish army campaign now seemed utterly, obscenely, irrelevant.

Over the next several years, he and a small band of supporters worked tirelessly to publicise the slaughter of the Jews of Europe, determined to bring popular and political pressure on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to save those Jews who were still alive. That this meant confrontation with the Roosevelt Administration was inevitable. Roosevelt’s view was that there could be only one American war aim: to defeat Hitler’s armiies.

(by Stephen Pollard)

As a young boy, I used to think my grandma very strange. In her bedroom she kept a suitcase, packed and ready for use at a moment’s notice. “Just in case,” she’d tell me when I asked where it was that she was always waiting to go to. “You never know when they’ll turn on the Jews.”

Her house in Northwood was epitome of suburban comfort, and I couldn’t understand what on earth she meant. Until, that is, I learned some history – including the history of the Jews. Which is, in short, that pretty much everywhere, they have turned on the Jews.

From my teens through my twenties and thirties, the fact that I am Jewish meant little to me beyond the Jonathan Miller sense of being Jew-ish. I adored beigels, matzoh balls, Seinfeld and Woody Allen more than your average gentile would think they deserved. And that was about it. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you that after the Holocaust, real, serious anti-Semitism – the sort where Jews were killed for being Jews, rather than the odd nasty comment – was a thing of the past, in civilised Europe, at least.

(By Melanie Phillips)

The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, appears to be a genuine supporter of Israel. In which case she needs to address the fact that her Foreign Office is not.

The Palestinians have been demanding that the British government apologise for the 1917 Balfour Declaration which supported “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

This declaration was embodied in the 1922 Mandate under which Britain accepted the administration of Palestine and the obligation to settle the Jews there.

The demand for an apology led to a British petition signed by more than 13,000 people. A few days ago the government dismissed it. “The Balfour Declaration”, it said, “is an historic statement for which Her Majesty’s Government does not intend to apologise. We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel”.

Let’s put to one side that, in the 1930s, the British actually reneged on the Mandate, betrayed the Jewish people and instead of settling them in Palestine kept them out during the Holocaust. The statement dismissed the demand for an apology. So far, therefore, so good. 

Published on 31 Dec 2015

Published on 18 Oct 2015

Documentary

Believers must find new, more radical ways to practise their faith (by Rod Dreher)

Hannah Roberts, an English Catholic friend, was once telling me about her family’s long history in Yorkshire. She spoke with yearning of what she had back home and how painful it is to live so far away. I wondered aloud why she and her American husband had emigrated to the United States from that idyllic landscape, the homeland she loved. ‘Because we wanted our children to have a chance to grow up Catholic,’ she said.

It’s not that she feared losing them to the Church of England — it’s that she feared them losing Christianity itself. She and her husband Chris, an academic theologian, are now raising their four young children in Philadelphia, a city with a historically large Catholic presence. Even so, Philadelphia is no safe haven, as the Robertses freely acknowledge. Christianity is declining sharply in the north-east of the United States, one of the nation’s least religious regions. The most recent studies confirm that the country is, at last, firmly on the same trail of decline blazed by the churches of Europe.

(From Melanie Philipps) An interview I did in 2011 on the “two-state solution” for Israel TV’s show Ro’im Olam is generating some fresh attention, thanks to an edited extract on Israel Video Network. You can watch the whole interview here, and the IVN extract follows below ...

" this man was hooked on drink, drugs and pornography from age 11.  God got him when he was 33, now watch him at 44 being salt and light everywhere he goes with 'signs following'!!"

Published on 23 Sep 2016

As it's still fresh in my mind, here are some thoughts before they drift away. Foundations 8 was, by unanimous consensus, our best yet. Here are four reasons why I believe this was so.

Firstly the environment provided by Abbot Hall hotel was just right for us. The hotel may have been on the small side, but it provided the intimacy that was a major factor to the fantastic atmosphere of unity and co-operation that prevailed. The staff were incredible and so helpful, going far beyond the nominal service we have received at some other places we have been at. Secondly the structure of the conference worked really well, particularly the elements that provided for personal expression. The high points were the yeshivas that involved up to a half of delegates and last for up to 90 minutes - challenging times for our teachers, but an invaluable experience for all. Also the 'show & tell' hour each day was enormously successful, where seventeen people were able to share what was on their heart, from leeks to hobbies, reminiscenses to hints for godly living. The image of the 'Von Stevenson' family singing together will live long in the memory. Finally, the craft tables provided a valuable oasis for some, a trigger for great conversations and a wonderful outlet for creative impulses!

Thirdly, God had brought together a fantastic group of people. The teaching, spearheaded by our 'Bible men' David Andrew and Chris Hill, was not just excellent but, as the theme of the conference demanded, was a spur to action and will ensure that what happened at Abbot Hall will not stay at Abbot Hall! My team stretched to 30 people, each playing their part in the jigsaw but it was fair to say that everyone there contributed in one way or another. There are just too many examples to mention here. If you were there please send us your testimonies!

Finally we thank God for tying it all together and ministering to everyone who was there perhaps in ways that will only become apparent over the coming days. A lot of work went into this conference, it was all so worth it!

Steve Maltz

A bit of fun

Published on 17 Mar 2017

I hate to tell you this, but you don’t understand the first thing about discipleship.

I was the same way. I had taught and written about discipleship for 30 years, and discipled many people both one-on-one and in small cadres. But recently I realized that my primary assumption about discipleship was wrong.

What am I talking about? I always thought that discipleship should immediately follow someone’s coming to Christ. In other words, I thought that discipleship followed evangelism. But I was wrong. Discipleship actually begins before someone comes to Christ! This is the biblical model. It is the one that works best. And, when we make this paradigm shift it changes everything.

While it’s true that someone who comes to Christ should be discipled—and I co-authored a great book for this, Beginning the Journey, that has sold over 100,000 copies in English and been translated into many languages—underneath this is a flawed assumption. Discipleship ideally does not follow evangelism. Discipleship actually begins before someone’s coming to Christ.

Let’s begin by looking at this biblically, and then we will look at it practically. ...

(By Steve Maltz) This subject has engaged my brain since 2008, when I started work on a manuscript that examined the influences that Greek thinking has had on the Church. This was published the following year as How the Church lost the Way and thus began a journey that has so far spanned seven further books and shows no sign of slowing down! It really is some journey, as God had pulled me into the confusing but liberating world of the Hebraic and my life has not been the same since.

I had entered a mine-field because what God was revealing to me was that being Hebraic was an internal condition of the mind, rather than the external trappings of Jewish culture. This has placed me at odds with mainstream Hebraic expressions, particularly those that have crossed the ocean from our American friends. I have become firmly convinced that the Hebraic element that surely must find its eventual expression in the One New Man of Ephesians 2:11-18, is a mindset rather than a set of practices, however Biblical they may be. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with keeping Sabbath, the feasts and the Torah, but it should always be with Romans 14 in mind, when considering the rest of God’s people.

You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. (Romans 14:10-13)

Being Hebraic is to admit that one is on a journey and not at a destination. It’s a tricky journey as history, culture and religion acts against us, embedded as they are in the Greek mindset, a way of thinking borne out of the mind of man rather than the Heart of God. I am pleased to say that this is very much a shared journey, you are not (necessarily) reading the ramblings of a self-deluded lunatic. There is a growing band of other “lunatics” who are adding to this debate, focussed on the Foundations ministry that is slowly growing in its own quiet way.

Being Hebraic is to accept that although there are non-negotiable absolutes, centred around the entry requirements for God’s Kingdom, much that exercises our minds are not as clear cut as we may imagine them to be and our task is to be able to live and accept others who may disagree with our interpretation. Being Hebraic, in line with Jesus and other rabbis, is to ask questions, to open up our minds, rather than arguing over doctrine, which is an important exercise in defining tenets of our faith but, sometimes, can serve to close up minds, when our arguments are fuelled by hot air and intransigence. It has been said that there is no such thing as theology (or any other ‘ologies’) in Judaism as God and His ways are taken as a given, rather than something to be dissected and analysed, but, on the other hand, it continues to fail to accept the Jewish messiah! This is not to say that being Hebraic is to know all the answers, in fact it is more like the acknowledgement of the exact opposite. We don’t have all the answers, but that shouldn’t stop us from asking questions, with a view to finding some answers.

There are some very important questions that we are now starting to ask. One of them is the issue of Israel and the Jews. We are convinced that it is a far more central issue than the Church realises (or accepts), involving the sacredness of God’s covenants with His people. It is not a fringe issue, as many believe and the Church lies helplessly strangled by the promises and threats of Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;” Those who consider themselves on a “Hebraic path” should treat this as a serious matter and, despite the baggage and ignorance of the mainstream Church on these matters, should seek to be positive agents of change. It is a better witness to the Church (and arguably to unsaved Jews too) to find ways to communicate Hebraic understandings sensitively and relevantly, rather than from the refuge of the congregational ghettos we have constructed for ourselves. Yes, we know they don’t get us, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to open their minds.

Being Hebraic is to bring God back to the centre of His church. It is to accept Jesus in his culturally Jewish setting. It is to read the Bible as God’s gift of life to us, His primary means of communication to us and not a conduit of our own thoughts and ideas. It is to accept and seek to correct the past and present errors made by the Church in regards to the Jewish people. It is also to bring joy, life, hope and certainty back into the Church and to each member of it. It is to value each individual believer and accept that God has a unique plan for all of us and that the main stumbling block for most of us discovering this purpose are the Greek structures that infest the Church itself. Being Hebraic is to seek God, rather than find out what others tell us about God. It is about doing stuff rather than learning about stuff. It’s about being a good witness, walking the walk rather than talking the talk. It’s about being real, about living in man’s kingdom as a fully paid up member of God’s kingdom.

This is not a comfortable place to be because those old leaking wineskins are still embedded in our Christian landscape. This is not something new and trendy, it is the oldest thing of all. It is the mindset of those earliest Jewish believers as they met in houses and enjoyed unfettered freedoms, hope and joy. It is also the mindset of Adam before the Fall, when he had full communion with God and wasn’t separated from Him by the need for wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Being Hebraic is to think like the first Century Jewish disciples, rather than acting like twenty first Century Jews. It is the most exciting way to live out your faith. Honest!

This short article was prompted by a question emailed by a lady who had just returned from our latest Foundations conference. She was wondering why we did not acknowledge the Sabbath as she expected us to. This was a good question and my answer is tied up in our ministry aim to communicate Hebraic understandings to the wider Church. For many, our conferences are their first tentative taste of the Hebraic and our aim is to introduce Hebraic thinking in the most sensitive and relevant way possible, bearing in mind the vast chasm that has resulted from the decision seventeen centuries ago to divorce the Church from its Hebraic roots. We aim to show the joy that can result in thinking and acting Hebraically and we do so through Davidic dance, messianic worship and a teaching programme that always includes material on Israel and the Jewish people. But we also do so through demonstrating the release into freedom they would experience by breaking free of Greek structures and starting to think and act with a Hebraic mindset. We often teach and demonstrate Biblical festivals and we have already covered Passover, Shavuot, Succot and Simchat Torah at various times. But we also sing the old Wesley hymns and the odd modern chorus. The aim is to show Christians that being Hebraic ought to be the normal Christian life and not a fringe add-on. It’s as the Church ought to have been, we believe, if Constantine hadn’t kick-started the travesty known as Christendom all of those centuries ago.

We have no issues with messianic believers who keep Sabbath, kosher, Torah and the festivals and we expect them to treat us in the same way. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ and our ultimate goal is to be conformed more and more into his image. To do so requires acceptance of others and balance. After all, isn’t that the goal of One New Man, for Jews and Gentiles to find a way to worship together by sharing what they have in common and what they don’t have in common.

It is for this reason that I have written my latest book, Livin’ the Life. It is the latest in my “Hebraic” journey but is the first written for the wider Church, to give them a glimpse of what they have been missing all these years. The Church needs to wake up and the last thing it needs is for us to give it a bad night’s sleep. We are in a unique position at this moment in history. We can really make a difference, so let’s do so and put a smile on the face of God!

"Not so long ago, we began our endeavor to make the world a little bit better. When we look back at the short but incredible distance we’ve already traversed, even we are more than a little surprised. How did this come to be? It seems like we started out only yesterday! But sometimes, when you’re enjoying the ride, you don’t realize how fast time flies. Today, we thought we’d take a break for a moment, and let you take a peak at us and how we work with your own eyes. We are Bright Side. And we’re delighted to welcome you aboard!"

The second regional Foundations conference took place on December 2-4th 2016 at Brunel Manor. Just over eighty souls arrived in Torquay on a very sad day for the town (the death of Manuel - Andrew Sachs - Fawlty Towers) but that didn't deter us. If they didn't know it already (and 75% of them were new to us) they soon found out that Foundations is not like other conferences - on the first evening we were sitting in a tiered circle arrangement (thanks to Jo) and worship, led by the congregation, allowed us all to be in full view of each other. It was clear that a higher than average number of delegates were from a 'messianic' background, from the number of Hebraic songs that were instigated by them during the worship time and the fact that the morning prayer on Saturday was kicked off with the Shema!

Teaching was by the wonderful and engaging Jose de Silva, who took us through many aspects of Hebraic teaching of the life of Jesus, taking the book of Zechariah as his starting point. He was given four teaching slots, spaced out with room for response between each session. One aspect of this was the yeshiva, immensely popular and very noisy and lively, as scriptures were thrown around and a lot of hot air generated. There were also two prayer walks and continous Bible reading in the reception area, from the book of Isaiah. The craft & chat area was well attended, with candles being decorated and scriptural bookmarks and our great friend Colin (after a short trip to hospital!) produced a continuous stream of Hebrew translations of people's names on greetings cards. As well as all of this Carol and David were running a drama workshop and a choir was being gathered together, singing a song that Jo had only written a few hours earlier!

On the final morning the dancers danced and the choir sang, followed by lively worship by Jeremy and Shani (and David and Keila), followed by testimonies, prayer and healing ministry. Has so much ever been packed into one weekend without people being rushed and over-packed with knowledge. The word bandied about, as usual, was FREEDOM. Here are some testimonies:

"thank you for a lovely welcome, a very peaceful, free weekend with plenty to choose from, no pressure at anytime" Stephanie 

"a very relaxed, but organised and friendly conference. A lovely atmosphere" John

"dedication of the organisers and a sense of oneness of participants, freedom to express oneself with new and innovative ways to explore, genuine love for the Lord and a desire to please, worship and obey Him" Anita

"the friendliness. The Holy Spirit leading, the gathering together of like hearts and minds" Cheryl

"relaxed atmosphere, genuine fellowship, opportunity to express gifts, free worship, excellent teaching" Colin

"gaining a deeper understanding of God's word through the excellent teaching, meeting some extraordinary giants in the faith" Bev

THE NEXT WEEKEND REGIONAL CONFERENCE WILL BE AT THE END OF FEBRUARY IN THE LAKE DISTRICT. BOOK NOW AND SAVE MONEY!

Published on 29 Dec 2012

This is the fifth session of our Foundations East Anglia weekend conference at Belsey Bridge in October 2016. Peter Sammons gives his first session on his 2020 vision.

TO HEAR THE MP3

We are making all Foundations audios free to download, including all teaching sessions. The point we want to make about this is that our conferences are about the experience of God and fellowship with others, not just about the teaching. The essence of Foundations can't be bottled up and downloaded - you just have to be there! To find out more, click here.

But we’re a good ways into the project now, and it’s beginning to be clear that “the women’s movement” was actually a wrecking crew. The body count is now 58 million, the idea of public decency is long gone, our moral compass has vanished, and our nation is clearly adrift. So far adrift, in fact, that those fighting hardest against the system don’t even recognize that the enemy they’re currently fighting is the direct result of their own previous efforts. The feminist outrage against Trump’s lewd comments and flagrant immorality is somewhat incongruous, given that this moment was made possible by the previous feminist victories over anti-obscenity laws and their insistence on the rights to “consequenceless” sex.(Article by Rebekah Merkle)

We women, for good or ill, are a very powerful force. Proverbs 14:1 tells us that a wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands. And if you can convince a lot of women, all at once, to tear down our houses in unison, we are capable of tearing down an entire nation. And this, sadly, is what the women in America have been busily doing for the last century and more.

In the early years of demolition, the cultural damage wasn’t quite as obvious. Lots of women assumed (and some still assume) that the feminist cause was nothing more than a much-needed re-model — the kind with “Pardon our Dust, Improvements in Progress” signs tacked up here and there.

I have noted before in this place that the people who seem most fascist these days are self-described ‘anti-fascists’. The inaugural weeks of Donald Trump’s Presidency are – whatever else you think of them – doing a fine job in smoking these people out.

The principal cause of ‘anti-fascist’ ire today would appear to come from the collective decision that anybody whose opinions do not wholly concur with a narrow set of agreed upon ‘liberal’ views is a ‘fascist’. This is not a wholly new development – Allan Bloom noticed this more than thirty years ago. But it seems that the people then who described everyone who disagreed with them as ‘Nazis’ did not grow up as had been hoped but just moved into positions in the media, politics and academia where they deepened and extended the reach of their worldview. Thus today American campuses finds themselves in a situation in which Milo Yiannopoulos is meant to be a fascist, Christina Hoff Sommers is meant to be a fascist and Gavin McInnes is meant to be a fascist.

Do you know there is a subject that if any UN official brought up, he or she would be mocked and instantly silenced? Have you heard that Jewish communities spread across Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) - some more than a century ago - but were destroyed by Arab marauders before Israel became a state?

Jewish pioneers chose those barren hills, built their homesteads and established communities - much like early Americans did in the 19th century. But unlike the unknown frontiers of America, Jews began coming back to Judea and Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem including the areas of Zion and the pool of Siloam (Shiloach) where their ancestors had lived 2000-3000 years ago! But then, thriving Jewish communities were ethnically-cleansed by Arab forces in the early 20th century during the British occupation. Let me tell you some real stories about these "illegal settlements."

This is the fourth session of our Foundations East Anglia weekend conference at Belsey Bridge in October 2016. Peter Sammons gives his first session on his 2020 vision.

TO HEAR THE MP3

We are making all Foundations audios free to download, including all teaching sessions. The point we want to make about this is that our conferences are about the experience of God and fellowship with others, not just about the teaching. The essence of Foundations can't be bottled up and downloaded - you just have to be there! To find out more, click here.

Published on 20 Sep 2016

Published on 3 Jul 2014

This is the third session of our Foundations East Anglia weekend conference at Belsey Bridge in October 2016. Peter Sammons gives his first session on his 2020 vision.

TO HEAR THE MP3

We are making all Foundations audios free to download, including all teaching sessions. The point we want to make about this is that our conferences are about the experience of God and fellowship with others, not just about the teaching. The essence of Foundations can't be bottled up and downloaded - you just have to be there! To find out more, click here.

This is the second session of our Foundations East Anglia weekend conference at Belsey Bridge in October 2016. Steve Maltz introduces the day.

TO HEAR THE MP3

We are making all Foundations audios free to download, including all teaching sessions. The point we want to make about this is that our conferences are about the experience of God and fellowship with others, not just about the teaching. The essence of Foundations can't be bottled up and downloaded - you just have to be there! To find out more, click here.

David Pawson's insights (caution - this is over 4 hours long - what stamina!)

The following is a (draft) introduction to my next book, LIVIN' THE LIFE. We are hoping to publish the book through a CROWDFUNDING initiative, with supporters pre-ordering a batch of ten books, in order to help with the publishing costs. If you can help in this way, please click here.

"Sometimes I wish I knew nine years ago what I know now. Yet, on the other hand, it would have deprived me of an exciting journey of discovery into this wonderful world of the Hebraic. These last few years have often been like a game of snakes and ladders, with faltering steps up a slippery step-ladder but with the falls down the ‘Greecey pole’ thankfully decreasing over time. It hasn’t been perfect, because God has had a lot to contend with (my puny, aging brain), but it has been a necessary process. The fruit of this has been a collection of books that have astonishingly drawn together a community of fellow sojourners. The question is, where will this all end? When are we finally going to get it? The answer is, probably never, but at least we have ventured to the foot hills. The objective of this book is to summarise what has led me to this point in time, then suggest a route to the higher peaks. So, without further ado …

It all started in 2009 with How the Church Lost the Way, which exposed the effects of the teachings of Plato on the Western Church, right from the early 2^nd century onwards. This was a revelation to most, apart from those academics who knew about this but didn’t consider it necessarily a bad thing (!) The story continued the following year when How the Church Lost the Truth introduced the simple ideas of Aristotle and highlighting the devastating effect of these teachings on the medieval Church onwards. In these two volumes the problems were laid out, (added to by the twenty wide-reaching essays in the Bishop’s New Clothes a few years later). We were able to see the causes for the sorry state of much of today’s Church. But what could we do about this?

In 2011 after a lot of agonising and uncertainty, To Life was published. The trepidation was because this book ventured into some new areas and made suggestions that went completely against the grain of current Christian thinking and practices. Was it a step too far? Apparently not (though some may disagree). The effect it has had on individuals and congregations has been very startling, with a sense that the madness is not just all mine, it has now been shared. Welcome to my world!

Firstly, it provided an initial working definition of what is Hebraic. The starting point is having a faith in God that underpins our wisdom, which compels us to perform our deeds (rather than thinking or debating or arguing about such things). This definition is gradually refined as God reveals more and more. It bucks the trend of current perceptions that define Hebraic in terms of externals, of practices, rituals and Jewish cultural trappings. Instead the true Hebraic understanding is of an internal mindset, that of Jesus and his disciples and in fact of the Jews who preceded him and inhabited the pages of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, rather than dwelling on festivals, eating habits and vocabulary, we consider how those early Jews thought and acted on those thoughts. Following on from that I contrasted Greek and Hebraic thinking and came to the following conclusions:

The first was that we should live Hebraically, focussing on our relationships. There should be reverence for God, a total respect and unquestioning faith in God in every situation. We should favour small groups, with an emphasis on personal relationships within the Church and nurture family relationships, with the realisation that God’s blessings flow more freely through His covenant people.

The second was that we should think Hebraically, focusing on understanding God’s provisions for us. We should consider living by faith, a total reliance on God’s promises for our needs. We should have total trust in the Bible, treating God’s Word as precious and endeavouring to study it wholeheartedly. We should also focus on the real Jesus, understanding him in his Jewish context.

The third was that we should act Hebraically, living lives of truth, joy and purpose. There is the importance of good conduct, showing the World by our actions that there is something different about us. We should seek an understanding of the concept of One New Man and making adjustments if necessary. Then there is unity without compromise, supporting our Christian family without condoning error and heresy.

The Hebraic is about man and God and can be better understood through this set of contrasts.

• The Greek mind says that man is at the centre of life; the Hebraic mind says that God is at the centre of life.
• The Greek mind says that the things of God must be deduced from our logical minds; the Hebraic mind says that the things of God can only be understood by faith and revelation.
• The Greek mind says that we should strive for knowledge about God; the Hebraic mind says that we should know God.

It’s all Hebraic. It’s a lost art for some, to others it’s already an ever-present reality. It’s simply how we can best act out our part of the Divine drama, the everlasting love story of God and His people. To do so we need to discover our role and purpose and see where we fit in and then make sure we are on cue and don’t fluff our lines! It’s all about relationship, man and God, God and Man, man and man. It’s as simple as that.

So why another book? Livin’ the Life! A predictable title, yet given an edge by a substituted apostrophe, which also provides its own subtext, a more meaningful instruction, live in The Life.

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

This is completing the story introduced by To Life!, L’Chaim, a celebration of possibilities created by thinking differently, Hebraically. It is time to widen our scope and push out these ideas into the wider Christian World, where I believe they belong.

This book will explore major (and minor) facets of Christian life today, but with Hebraic eyes. A toolset is going to be created, not just from ideas already developed, but through a deeper trawl through Hebraic understandings. What will result will be, at least, food for thought, but perhaps more so, perhaps there will be a nudge towards a life lived … in The Life, a model where we should all be in Jesus, despite the challenges presented by 21^st Century society."

Steve Maltz

An Arizona woman's Facebook post documenting her stunning transformation from drug addict to doting mother and aspiring prison minister has gone viral in recent days, with the woman fully crediting God for saving her life. It was Dec. 6, 2012, when Dejah Hall, 26, says she finally hit rock bottom and got the help she needed. Hall, who was addicted to meth, cocaine and heroin, said her life had spun completely out of control. "I was a monster in every sense of the word," she told KNXV-TV. Hall said that her drug addiction started with pills and "just went downhill from there," eventually leading her to heroin and meth and to a place in which she no longer cared if she lived or died. But it was a candid conversation with her grandfather that served as her final breaking point. "My grandfather was sitting in his wheelchair and he looked at me and said, 'You're hurting me, Dejah,'" Hall recalled. "I really looked at who I had become, a disgusting person."

Part 1 of the series Church History. This is an intensely listenable look at the the Christian Church down the ages, providing powerful messages for our own times. Many church members know little or nothing about the story of Christianity between the New Testament period and today. They therefore may not realise how much they have been influenced by traditions developed during that time. These can have both a negative and positive benefit. Negative, because ‘those who forget history are condemned to relive it’. Most of the mistakes we make and errors we fall into have happened before and we can learn from our forefathers to avoid them. Positive, because we have such a rich heritage it would be folly to ignore. We can draw inspiration and examples from the spiritual giants who went before us and, after all, we can look forward to meeting them personally in glory.

GENEVA Dec 21 2016 - As the UN General Assembly prepares to adopt a resolution today accusing Israel of harmning Palestinians by the "exploitation of natural resources", "extensive destruction of agricultural land" and "widespread destruction" - part of 20 anti-Israel resolutions adopted in the annual session that concludes this week - UN Watch released a list of the "Top ten most egregious UN Anti-Israel actions of 2016".

Top Ten most insane U.N. anti-Israel actions of 2016

10. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon singled out Israel for unprecedented criticism in a New York Times op-ed, doubling down on a lopsided Security Council speech in which he justified Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians by saying "it is human nature to react to occupation".

Foundations Conferences are a new and interesting phenomena! Until recently, they have been 5-day conferences held annually (more or less) in the spring, at The Quinta in Shropshire. However, founder Steve Maltz and his team are now branching out with smaller weekend regional conferences. This year, the second of these took place at the beginning of December, in the comfortable, pleasant surroundings of Brunel Manor, Devon.

The Truth About Christmas Part 1 - with David Pawson

Published on 23 Nov 2016

This is just some feedback we have had from our recent Foundations conference at Brunel Manor. For more about this conference, click here. For more on our conferences in 2017, click here.

A very big thank you to you, Monica, José, Sarah and the rest of the team for another taste of heaven at the Foundations South West conference.  For me it was akin to arriving at Elim with its 12 springs of water after a long and thirsty walk through the wilderness! Once again, two of the greatest elements of the conference were the FREEDOM and the FELLOWSHIP.  In particular, the freedom to pray and praise spontaneously was a tremendous and freeing blessing.  In many church circles such spontaneous worship is, at best, considered a little odd, and, at worst, frowned upon and stamped out.  Praise the Lord for Foundations!  I particularly found great freedom in the messianic dancing – something that I would have been far too shy to try at any other conference – but at Foundations there is the freedom to do it.  Once again, I leave a Foundations conference with a chink taken out of my “fear” of man.  Hallelujah!  After a day and half of the Foundations experience, on Sunday morning, my heart was overflowing with love for my fellow Foundationers.  What a special bunch.  The Foundations experience allows the Spirit to move in mighty ways, enabling true and deep fellowship to be enjoyed between virtual strangers.  Some of the greatest work was undoubtedly done by the Holy Spirit in the one-on-one conversations – and praise the Lord that at Foundations there is the time and space for these; we were able to minister and be ministered to as gifts of the Spirit were used and perhaps even discovered for the first time. And the bonfire worship was a wonderful new addition! Having sampled Foundations for a second time I am now convinced that this is a move of God.  May the Lord fulfil this vision in this nation and beyond for the sake of the house of the Lord our God! May the Lord bless you all for what you have given to the Body of Christ. Shalom to you all. Barry

Dear Steve and Monica. Thank you for a truly wonderful weekend.  I was so excited on the Friday night that I texted back to my church leaders that 'I thought I had died and gone to heaven' with the worship!!!!!   Whew.     So many are asking about what happened and what we learned and did that I am finding it difficult to find the words to give it justice, so thank you for this summary, which is a good start.. Shalom. Marion

The united spirit of love, fellowship, desire to learn and grow in the Lord. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and running this event. I was only there for the day but wanted more! Although active and fairly intense, I was energised and invigorated by the whole experience. This was Church! Betty

Uploaded on 9 Mar 2011

... we relaunched Saltshakers in November 2015. It is updated daily with relevant news stories and articles/videos, to keep you informed on what we think is truly important. We also provide, on a weekly basis, a new sermon (from Tree of Life), a written and an audio report on Israel and the Jewish people, audio testimonies from Julia Fisher and now my Yeshua Explored blog from Premier Online. You can see what has been the most popular over the last 12 months from the list on the right hand side of this page - or if you just keep scrolling on your phone/tablet

This is a faith ministry. Monica and I rely mainly on donations to pay the bills. The book sales are not huge and provides income that is fed back into the ministry. At the moment we have nine regular monthly givers and would love to see this grow to around forty to fifty. If each gave between £10 and £50 then we would have enough to live on. Could you help us out in this way. We don't promise a hundredfold return and you get no free gift. Please pray about this and listen to the Lord's promptings. 

You can help us by clicking here.

Many blessings,

Steve & Monica Maltz

So you finally learned to play the guitar and now you’re wondering, “How do I write a truly awful worship song?” You’ve come to the right place, my friend. Here are some surefire ways to write a truly horrible worship song.

1. Recycle a Love Song.

Write a song for your girlfriend. When she breaks up with you, convert it into a worship song. Be sure to change all uses of “girl” or “baby.”

2. Use Time-Tested Rhymes.

Make sure you rhyme “love” and “above” at least twice. The song becomes doubly awful if you can also incorporate the word “dove.” Example: “You sent your love from above, makes my heart feel like a pure white dove.” You get the point.

3. Be Vague About Your Theology.

Make sure to avoid any theology at all costs. Don’t talk about atonement, wrath or any other biblical concepts. You want your song to be all about feeling. Don’t let the mind get in the way. Repeat after me: “Worship is a warm feeling, sort of like heartburn, only better.”

It's been an average kind of week for Jews in Britain. Here are a few recent items which you may have read in the Jewish Chronicle.

A speaker at London's School of Oriental and African Studies claimed that Zionists were mobilising subversive power to "outlaw" criticism of their activities, "Zionism was a parallel movement to Nazism" and Zionists "conspired to try and increase antisemitism in order to force Jews to Palestine".

Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire was ordered to compensate a disabled Jewish student for failing to address his complaints about rampant Jew-hatred and Israel-bashing on campus.

He had complained about social media posts written by Sheffield's Palestine Society which included the blood libel that Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians, compared Bethlehem to the Warsaw Ghetto and referred to Zionists as Nazi criminals.

A Facebook group for UK Independence Party supporters suggested there was a Jewish conspiracy behind last week's High Court ruling against the Government over leaving the EU.

Published on 16 Jul 2016

Thousands of Christians from around the world are visiting Jerusalem this week tracing the footsteps of Jesus through the cobbled winding streets of the Old City as they do every Sukkot, one of the three Jewish festivals where Jews made the pilgrimage to the Temple centuries ago, but now a UNESCO resolution negates these events ever happened. It is hardly shocking that Iran, along with several Arab countries, voted in favor of the draft resolution by the UN cultural body last week, in a move widely viewed as denying the historic and religious ties between Jews and Jerusalem. 

JACOB PRASCH - FILLING UP THE SILO, STORING UP THE GRAIN.   

Published on 12 Oct 2016

JACOB PRASCH - SESSION 5

Let me start by saying that my upbringing was very firmly secular. My family made it clear from a young age that belief in a supreme being was the folly of the idiot or those on the lower echelons of society. We were intellectuals and therefore did not hold to any belief other than those based in ‘science’. My family were however, Jewish by race and so we did partake in the Jewish holidays and festivals and even attended the local reform synagogue on a semi-regular basis, however it was constantly affirmed that these were merely cultural exercises and nothing more.

My grandmother was a Jewish communist and was responsible for my firm Jewish identity, herself being brought up in a kosher home. However this also instilled me with socialist principles from a very young age. In fact at a young age I can remember going on Anti-War marches and even telling teachers that I was communist, laughing at those who subscribed to the Christian faith.

Despite this, since I can remember, I have had a keen interest in politics, philosophy and religion. I can remember being eager to go to synagogue at around age nine, not for religious purposes, but again for a sense of heritage. On my tenth birthday I was given a kippah by my mother and father (along with a Complete Works of Shakespeare).

by Noor Dahri

It is mandatory upon all Muslims to support Israel and her right to exist in the holy land because the holy book of Islam, the Quran supports Israel. There are many verses in the Quran which support the divine right of Jews on the land of Israel but I want to quote only three to justify the right of the existence of Israel. The first verse of the Holy Quran stipulates:

“And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land” (Quran: 17:104)

“O my people (the Jews)! Enter the Holy Land, which God has assigned unto you”, (Quran: 5:21)

in the third verse, Allah Almighty order the children of Israel to scatter and says:

“And we said to the Children of Israel afterwards, ‘scatter and live all over the world… and when the end of the world is near we will gather you again into the Promised Land” (Quran:17:104)

This is amazing

Watch as 1000 years of European borders change

Willie Myers, then 14, found himself in a sea of protesters as 7,000 uniformed fascists tried to force their way through London’s East End. When Willie Myers, aged 14, went to defy Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts marching through his neighbourhood he had no idea he was about to be embroiled in a terrifying battle that would change history. He found himself in a sea of protesters as 7,000 uniformed fascists tried to force their way through London’s East End where 60,000 beleaguered Jews lived in abject poverty. The Blackshirts had a police escort of more than 10,000 officers – 4,000 on horseback – to clear the way for them. And when mounted police charged into the crowd wielding batons the Jewish schoolboy feared for his life.

Woody was in England filming "Casino Royale" when he guested on a British TV show. He finished his set with his "moose" routine, but had to change the punchline from "...'cause it's restricted!" - since the context of the term would have meant nothing to a British audience. Anyhoo, this kinescope represents a rare look at Woody in standup mode - enjoy!

Antisemitism is an insidious evil. The habits of antisemitism have been burrowing into European and British culture for as long as we can remember. In England, during the late mediaeval period, the Jewish community faced constant persecution: Shylock, the great villain of the Merchant of Venice, was a cliché of his time. By the time Cromwell reopened England to Jewish settlement under the Commonwealth in the 1650s, antisemitism had mutated within common parlance and culture.

It is a shameful truth that, through its theological teachings, the church, which should have offered an antidote, compounded the spread of this virus. The fact that antisemitism has infected the body of the Church is something of which we as Christians must be deeply repentant. We live with the consequences of our history of denial and complicity.

This is part one of a two-part series. The second part will examine what we Arabs can do differently today.

In the current state of the relationship between the Arab world and Israel, we see a patchwork of hostility, tense peace, limited cooperation, calm, and violence. We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.

Our first mistake lasted centuries, and occurred well before Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948. It consisted of not recognizing Jews as equals. As documented by a leading American scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world, Mark R. Cohen, during that era, "Jews shared with other non-Muslims the status of dhimmis [non-Muslims who have to pay protection money and follow separate debasing laws to be tolerated in Muslim-controlled areas] ... New houses of worship were not to be built and old ones could not be repaired. They were to act humbly in the presence of Muslims. In their liturgical practice they had to honor the preeminence of Islam. They were further required to differentiate themselves from Muslims by their clothing and by eschewing symbols of honor. Other restrictions excluded them from positions of authority in Muslim government".

“Finally, there are some famous words you can find stamped on the bottom of a product,” said Lord Coe, in his speech at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. “Words, that when you read them, you know mean high quality, mean skill, mean creativity. We have stamped those words on the Olympic and Paralympic Games of London 2012: ‘London 2012 – Made in Britain’.”

The Olympic and Paralympic Games were indeed made in Britain in 2012, but the Paralympic Games have their entire origin in Britain in the 1948 Olympiad, being the first organised athletic competition for the disabled in history. It was the brainchild of Dr Ludwig Guttmann of Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, whose aim “was to create an elite sports competition for people with disabilities”. The 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games or ‘International Wheelchair Games’ might have been an amateurish attempt to rehabilitate our war-wounded, and limited to those with spinal injuries to the exclusion of congenital defects, but it was a start, and it was a British initiative.

Despite a tidal wave of prejudice and negativity, faith remains the foundation of our civilisation by Michael Gove.

Jeremy Paxman was on great form last week, reminding us that when it comes to being rude to prime ministers he has no peers.

Jeremy’s rudeness is, of course, magnificently bipartisan. However elegant the sneer he displayed when asking David Cameron about Stephen Green, it was as nothing compared to the pointed disdain with which he once asked Tony Blair about his faith. Was it true, Jeremy inquired, that he had prayed together with his fellow Christian George W. Bush?

Worship from the highly acclaimed messianic worship leader

And why not?

From Channel 4 news

Published on 5 Sep 2016

The best tribute I could find to the incomparable Gene Wilder

Major media outlets in the US have ignored the leak of thousands of emails from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by the activist hacker group DCLeaks. The OSF is the vehicle through which Soros has funneled billions of dollars over the past two decades to non-profit organizations in the US and throughout the world. According to the documents, Soros has given more than $30 million to groups working for Hillary Clinton’s election in November, making him her largest single donor. So it is likely the case that the media’s support for Clinton has played some role in the mainstream media’s bid to bury the story.

A tongue-in-cheek piece by the ex-Python. Lot of truth there though about the state of the Church!