Messianic Audio Teachings

Why can't we see God? Why is he concealed from us? Before becoming a disciple, it's a good idea to find out what we believe. Here's a quick study on the existence of God, his transcendence, and the nature of reality. Listen to the audio and/or download the PDF version of the teaching below.

The release of two stunning new statements, one by the Vatican and one by The Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding & Dialogue (CJCUC) constitutes a Chanukah miracle and a “cease fire” of theological hostility which has characterized the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people for most of the last two thousand years. Listen to excerpts from the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews’ new paper titled “The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable” and the response from the CJCUC paper “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians.”

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

Read both papers in full:

Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews: The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable

CJCUC: To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven
 

Read Rabbi Mark Kinzer's book on Nostra Aetate, Messianic Judaism, and the Catholic Church

Rabbi Mark Kinzer: Searching Her Own Mystery
 

A teaching for Rosh Hashanah 5781 based upon Psalm 130 and the birth pangs of the Messiah.

Watch the video blog year in review here. Download the prayer, "Little Sister" below.

Yeshua says that the weighty matters of the Torah are "justice, mercy, and faithfulness." Does this mean that the details of Jewish law are irrelevant? This teaching, the first of a series of teachings for the Shavuot 2022 at Beth Immanuel, opens the discussion on the "weightier provisins of the Law." 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

Who is Mystery Babylon, the mysterious woman riding a seven headed steed in Revelation 17? Is it America? Iran? Syria? In this teaching, we will answer the question according to the way the symbolism would have been understood by a first century Messianiac believer living in Asia Minor.

People with deep convictions can be characterized as "zealots," and zeal is a good thing ... sometimes. Here's another warning to disciples regarding the toxic social discourse and cultural divide tearing apart the United States of America with reference to the Fast of Tammuz and the three weeks. 

Do we have eternal security or eternal insecurity? Do apostates lose their eligibility for the world to come? A few verses in Hebrews 6 have been a theological battleground for these questions since the earliest days of Christianity.

The things that belong to salvation include the gift of the Spirit, the goodness of the word of God, and the power of the age to come. This sermon deals with the difficult and controversial material in Hebrews 6:4-12.

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

One for the black bird, one for the crow, one for the cutworm, and one to grow.

Clement dispatched three elders, a beit din from the community in Rome, to serve his epistle to the assembly of disciples in Corinth. Turns out we have met one of them before in Paul's epistles to Corinth. With a few closing remarks, a blessing, and two more doxologies, we conclude the epistle of 1 Clement and discuss its reception among the churches in the second and third centuries. Download the PDF below for the original handout.

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. What does the Torah have to say about the decision? This teaching offers a kingdom-perspective on the controversy with a discussion on Parashat Shoftim, the establishment of courts of law and a judicial system, and the authority of the government.