In this enlightening episode, we tackle the common misconception of a disjointed Old and New Testament. Rabbi Schneider takes us on an in-depth journey through the Hebrew Scriptures or Tanakh, highlighting their significance in understanding the New Testament. By examining the Tenach—comprising the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim—we uncover the harmonious relationship between Yeshua’s teachings and the Hebrew Bible, encouraging a study of the entire biblical narrative for a more profound spiritual insight.
00:00:01 Introduction to the Framework of Scripture
00:11:25 Continuing the Exploration of the Hebrew Scriptures
If you didn’t read the first 304 pages of the book and just read from 305 to 400, you’re gonna get a very wrong perception of what the book is really about. Baruch Hashem, bless the name of the Lord. As we turn now to the pages of God’s Word, I am going to reconstruct for you today a framework through which you’re going to be able to understand that the Old and New Testaments, the Hebrew Bible that we call the Tanakh, and the New Testament that we call in Hebrew the B’richad Hashah, beloved, fit together. like a hand in a glove. Father, we just pray that you’ll give us a spirit of wisdom and understanding to understand your word and to be able to see you and Yeshua through it more clearly than ever before. I want you to think about this for a second. Many, many Christians around the world spend their time studying almost exclusively the New Testament while at the same time giving very little attention to what we call the Old Testament. The problem with this is it’s comparable to picking up a book that’s 400 pages long and starting to read the book at page number 305. In other words, if you didn’t read the first 304 pages of the book, and just read from 305 to 400, you’re gonna get a very wrong perception of what the book is really about. You’re gonna come to some wrong conclusions about the characters. You’re gonna get some distortion about the script. In other words, your understanding of the book If you start towards the end of the book without reading the first three quarters of it, beloved, it’s going to be very skewed. And yet the reality is many Christians in their study of God’s Word are exactly this way. They spend no time reading the first three quarters of their Bible, what is called the Old Testament, and they study almost exclusively the New Testament. Now hear me. I am in no way minimizing the New Testament, because after all, the New Testament reveals the character, the nature, and the plan of God more clearly than the rest of the Bible. But I want you to consider that the New Testament itself begins in Matthew 1, verse 1, by going back to the book of Genesis. The New Testament begins in Matthew 1, 1 by saying, this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So the New Testament begins by helping us see its pages through the lens of the Old Testament scriptures. We can’t separate the two. We can’t study the New Testament from a vacuum. We have to understand the foundation and the root of the Hebrew scriptures through which the Messiah emerges. So I want to put the Old and New Testaments together for you through this series. Now listen very carefully. What we call the Old Testament as Christians is a foreign term to Jewish people. They don’t call their Bible the Old Testament. Once again, they call it the Tanakh. The Tanakh is made up of the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy, the prophets that we call the Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim are the writings, the books of Proverbs and others. And so together, these three elements of the Torah, the first five books, the writings of the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, the Nevi’im, and the other writings like Psalms and Proverbs, the Ketuvim, these three components make up what we call in Hebrew the Tanakh. If you think about it, the Tanakh actually comes from the three separations that I just illustrated for you. The Torah is where we get the T sound in Tanakh. The Nevi’im or prophets is where we get the N sound in the word Tanakh. And the Ketuvim puts the end of the accent on the word Tanakh or Tanakh. And so Jewish people, once again, don’t look at their scriptures as being old. But the term Old Testament was coined by some of the early church fathers that began to think that it had no relevance anymore. Unfortunately, over time, the church came up with wrong theology. whereby they inadvertently began to look at the Hebrew Scriptures as being old and in some sense, no longer truly relevant for their lives. Now, obviously, that statement is an exaggeration. I don’t know many Christians that would say the Old Testament has no relevancy at all, but they so diminish its relevancy that as a result, they’re gaining so little revelation that’s gained when we study the whole Bible as opposed to just the New Testament exclusively. So I’m going to dwell deep into this subject. I’m going to go about this very logically. I encourage you, if you’re a note taker, write notes on this. Get out a pad of paper or notebook and take notes because I’m going through an outline that will be very easy to follow. It’s going to be very foundational. It’ll be simple but profound. But I know that for many of you, it will truly change your paradigm of the Bible. And it will absolutely help you to understand that there’s so much to be gained by studying the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Bri Kadashah. Now, I think to lay the groundwork today, we should understand that when Jesus quoted from the Bible, when Jesus spoke of the Scriptures, he was quoting exclusively, listen, from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Tanakh. In other words, there was no New Testament, we all know, when Yeshua walked upon the earth. And so when Yeshua quoted from the books of Moses or the prophets or the Psalms, his Bible was what we call the Old Testament. So if Jesus relied on the Hebrew scriptures, that should tell us, beloved, the church, that we also should be looking at the Old Testament scriptures as foundational for our lives. Think about this illustration. After Yeshua was baptized in the Jordan River, we know that the Spirit of God appeared above his head, the voice came from heaven, this is my beloved Son, you are my beloved Son, and in you I’m well pleased. And then the scripture says that the Spirit led Yeshua into the wilderness where he was tested and tempted by the devil for 40 days and 40 nights. And the devil came to him with three different temptations. Cast yourself down for the scripture says that he will give his angels charge over you lest you dash your foot against a rock. Turn these stones to bread. I’ll give you all the kings of the world were the things that Yeshua had to combat in terms of these were the comments that Satan was throwing at him. How did Yeshua counter Satan’s delusional lies? Every single time, beloved, that Satan spoke something to Jesus, Jesus combated Satan’s lie, listen, by quoting from the Torah, quoting from the first five books of our Bible. The devil began by saying to Yeshua, if you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread. And he quoted scripture to Yeshua, misusing the scripture. What did Jesus do? Jesus came back to the devil and he quoted Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three. It is written, man shall not live on bread alone. but in every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Again, the devil came to him and he took Yeshua to the top of a city, the holy city. And he said to him, if you’re the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, he will give command his angels concerning you. What did Yeshua do in verse seven? Once again, he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy. On the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil came to him. and he showed yeshua all the glory it says in verse 8 and again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and he said to him all these things i will give you if you fall down and worship me then yeshua said to him then jesus said to him go satan for it is written you shall worship the lord your god and serve Him only. What I find so powerful about this is that Jesus, Yeshua, defeated the powers of darkness by quoting from the Torah. Three times Yeshua used the word of God from the Torah, the book of Deuteronomy, to break Satan’s back and to defeat the enemy’s power. What this tells us is that there’s power in the Torah. There’s power in the Hebrew Scriptures. Church, there’s power in what we call the Old Testament to break Satan’s back and to break the powers of darkness off our life today. But how many of us study the Torah? How many of us know the Torah? How many of us are using the Word of God revealed to us by Father God in the Hebrew Scriptures in our own personal walk with God today, in our own spiritual warfare today? I am here to declare to you that we need to get back to the foundation. We need to get back to the foundation of God’s Word by starting at the beginning rather than three quarters of the way into the Bible and just reading the New Testament exclusively. Many times when we begin to read the Old Testament, we get discouraged because we can’t understand a lot of it. And I understand that. It can be confusing. That’s why it’s good to have a great teacher to read a book that simplifies it for you, because it is easy sometimes when we read the Hebrew scriptures to get lost in the forest. In other words, have you ever heard the expression that you’re in the middle of the forest and is surrounded by all the individual trees? And because you’re right in the middle of the forest, surrounded by all the individual trees, you’ll lose concept of the bigger picture. Well, sometimes that happens to us when we read what we call, once again, the Old Testament. We read some of the prophecies and they don’t make sense to us, or we read about God’s wrath upon his enemies or those that are being disobedient, and we just get lost and it confuses us, and I understand that. That’s why I’m here to try to simplify it for us.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, I’d love for you to stay connected with us by signing up for Rabbi’s Seeds of Revelation newsletter. Each week, you’ll receive a powerful devotional direct from Rabbi Schneider. along with other ministry updates, including when Rabbi will be live. It’s a simple way to stay uplifted and informed. Go to discoveringthejewishjesus.com and click stay connected today. Matthew 25, it reminds us to care for people in need. So we’re making Rabbi’s teaching available to men and women in prison each and every day through a special app. And last year, thousands of inmates clicked the button on this app, telling us they were surrendering their lives to Christ. And if you want to help us in this mission, would you please support us? Give or become a monthly partner at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Now, Back to Rabbi.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re going to continue our walk, beloved ones, through the Hebrew Scriptures, through the Tanakh, and I’m going to be pointing out some very simple elements from it that are important for you to understand, that will bring you great peace and will help you to understand that the Old and New Testaments are not two different books that don’t connect together. I’m going to show you how the Old and New Testaments work. flow together through what I call progressive revelation, meaning that the Old Testament begins a revelation, but it comes into clarity in the New Testament. See, the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter number one that in times past, Father God spoke to us through the prophets and the fathers in many portions and in many different ways. But in these last days, he’s spoken to us through his son, who’s the exact representation of his nature. In other words, the Hebrew scripture contains tremendous revelation, but the New Testament brings the revelation into so much more fullness. It’s like the difference between receiving a beam of light from the sun, as opposed to looking at the full sun. The Hebrew scriptures contain beams of light, but Yeshua is the creator himself in the flesh, so he brings everything into clarity. But unless we understand the foundation of the Hebrew scriptures, even as Yeshua defeated the powers of darkness by the Hebrew scriptures, we’re not gonna be able, church, to understand the New Testament properly. now this is going to take some work to understand the hebrew scriptures because we do get lost in the forest as i said earlier and we don’t understand sometimes how some of the things that we read about in the hebrew scriptures apply to our life today for example we can get into some of the dietary laws or we can get into some of the tests that the priest would do on for example someone that was suspected of adultery or we can start reading about how different types of mold was inspected by the priest to determine certain types of things. And we think, how does that apply to our life today? And it’s easy to draw back and say, I’m going to start reading something that’s more relevant for me. And I understand that, church. But I want to clarify that if we can simplify it for you, and help you to understand how the nature of God is consistent in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. How the plan of salvation is consistent in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. How the revelation of Messiah is consistent in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. how the end of the age is consistent in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. If I can show you that they connect together once again, beloved one, like a hand in a glove, it’s going to give you peace and it’s going to bless you. And that’s what we’re endeavoring to do in this series. Now, I want you to consider this. The Hebrew scriptures, as I indicated, can become hard to understand. We just have to keep plowing through, plowing through, and God’s going to begin to give us clarity. When we see the big picture and don’t get focused on the little details, we have to be big picture oriented. We have to be concept oriented. In other words… When the Lord gives us so many laws in the Hebrew Scriptures, the rabbis actually teach that there are 613 laws in the Hebrew Scriptures, some of which we find to be inapplicable to our life today. We can’t get lost in the fact that they seem unapplicable to us today, but rather we have to ask ourself, what are the prophetic meaning of all these laws? How does it have relevance for me today? And when we take a couple of big steps back, we begin to understand that Father God gave us so many laws, listen now, to show that he’s holy, that he’s separate, that he’s unique, that he’s separate from the world, and that he wants his people to live holy and separate and unique from the world around them. So once again, we’re stepping out of focusing on the little, little details, and we’re taking a big step backward to say, what’s the big picture here? So keep that in mind as you’re gaining more and more knowledge about the Hebrew Scriptures. We’re looking for the big picture. We’re not getting lost in small details. Jesus himself, this is important for you to hear, Yeshua himself had us study the Hebrew scriptures. In other words, Yeshua was not born with a microchip in his mind so that he already had the entire Bible memorized at birth. He had to study. The scriptures tell us in the book of Luke chapter two, Verse 41 through 52, that Yeshua grew in knowledge and he grew in favor. How did he grow in knowledge? He grew in knowledge from studying. In fact, beloved, the Bible told Israel that they were to teach his words and his law to their children. We read about this in the book of Deuteronomy chapter six, when they walked by the way, when they arose, when they went to sleep, they were to write his law on the doorpost of their home. meaning that Yeshua was taught the Scriptures by Joseph, his father, and he studied the Scriptures. So he himself had to study the Scriptures, just like you and I, beloved ones, have to study the Scriptures. I want to show you what to me is a fascinating Scripture that gives me much joy, that teaches us how relevant the Hebrew Scriptures are to our faith in Yeshua. I’m going to go to the book of Luke. chapter number 24, and I’m going to be reading there the 44th verse. He was speaking to his followers, speaking to them. He had taken them on a mini Bible study. He began to take them on a study through the entire Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi’im, the Ketuvim, the first five books, the prophets, and then the writings like the Psalms. And listen what Jesus said to them in verse 44 of Luke 24. “‘These are my words which I spoke to you.'” while I was still with you, listen now, that all the things which are written about me in the law of Moses, that’s the Torah, in the prophets, that’s the Nevi’im, and the Psalms, the Ketuvim, must be fulfilled. So Yeshua has plainly taught us in the New Testament that the Old Testament reveals him. So we understand who Yeshua is in a much fuller way when we see him being revealed, even as Yeshua said here, in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. And not only did Yeshua use the Hebrew Scriptures to defeat the devil, to show people who he was, Paul did the same thing. Paul tells us, for example, in the book of Acts, chapter number 28, that he used the Scriptures to witness. Listen to verse 23. When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers, and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning until evening. Notice how important the Tanakh, the law of Moses and the prophets were to Paul in his ministry. So the Old Testament, beloved ones, is not to be relegated to some ancient past, to a people that lived long ago, so that it has no relevancy for our life today. In fact, Yeshua said in the book of Matthew, chapter 13, verse 52, this, He said, every scribe and a scribe is someone that actually made copies of the Torah. So he knew the Hebrew scriptures very, very well. Yeshua said, every scribe that becomes a disciple of mine will be like the owner of a mansion or a large house that brings forth treasures from that mansion. old and new in other words there’s treasures beloved in the hebrew scriptures as well as the new testament the brichadashah and through this series i’m going to help you to understand riches that you can apply to your own life from the hebrew scriptures it’s going to strengthen your faith It’s gonna make you a bolder witness, and it’s gonna help you to understand how the Old and New Testaments, how the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament fit together like a hand in a glove. Thank you for tuning in today. Beloved, I’ve been praying that Father God would continue to subject me and that I would cooperate with His subjection and come under the blade of His Word. The Word is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword, and it’s ministered to us in the power of the Holy Spirit through Messiah Jesus. In order for this process to take place, I have to be willing to come under His authority. And when we come under His authority, it affects our disciplining of our thoughts, our attitude, our words, everything in life, including how we use our finances. I want to encourage you, surrender your finances to God, to Hashem, because we can’t enter into the fullness of His presence without being surrendered to Him in every area of our lives. If the Lord is blessing you and feeding you through this ministry, and you feel Him urging you to make a donation to Him through it, beloved, just be obedient.
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To give online, visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com or support this ministry by giving when you call 800-777-7835. That’s 800-777-7835. And you know, we could never reach all the people around the world that are exploring scripture with us each and every day without you. So I want to thank you so much for your financial support and for your faithful prayers. And don’t forget, we have a free gift for you. It’s our self-deliverance teaching bundle. And it’s a really engaging resource that I believe will really help people who are struggling with addiction or sins they just can’t overcome, things in your life that genuinely come from darkness. In this bundle, there’s a step-by-step PDF guide that explains how to recognize spiritual footholds and close open doors to the demonic and oppressive spirits through scripture. You’ll also receive an MP3 audio file with prayers that you can model and declarations that have been designed to help you walk in lasting freedom in Messiah Jesus. So get your free self-deliverance bundle today. It’s available at myfreegift.com forward slash freedom. That’s myfreegift.com forward slash freedom. And now here’s Rabbi to speak God’s sacred and special blessing over our lives right now.
SPEAKER 03 :
What I love about the Aaronic blessing is that it did not originate with man. The words actually proceeded from the very essence of God himself. The blessing comes from the book of Numbers chapter six. So listen to these words and receive the blessing of the Lord into your life today.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. God bless you and shalom.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m your host, Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Be sure to join us again when Rabbi Schneider discusses God’s sovereignty. You might say that God is sovereign, but do you live like it? Find out more Wednesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
