Paul wrote in His letter to the Corinthians, “For some of Chloe’s people have made it known to me, my brothers, that there are quarrels among you. 12 I say this because one of you says, “I follow Sha’ul”; another says, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Kefa”; while still another says, “I follow the Messiah!” 13 Has the Messiah been split in pieces? Was it Sha’ul who was put to death on a stake for you? Were you immersed into the name of Sha’ul?” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13 CJB).
This shows us that we follow Yeshua, Jesus. Now, I realize everyone is thinking, of course, we follow Jesus – but do we really? Do we spend more time in the letters of Paul or the accounts of Yeshua’s life and teaching? Does the fact that the New Testament quotes so much from the Hebrew Bible cause us as Christians to spend time in the Scriptures that Yeshua read and taught?
Jesus was and is a Jew; His teachings and responses were Jewish, and even His disagreements with some Pharisees had roots in the traditional back and forth, as we see in the Talmud—unfortunately, even the name Jesus can cause us to disconnect Him from His Jewishness. I’m not saying it’s wrong to say Jesus, but the more I read the Complete Jewish Bible, the more I try to train myself to think and say Yeshua.
Over these last almost ten years, as I have been on this journey of discovering and endeavoring to follow Jesus in a more biblical or Jewish way, the more I uncover the richness of Jesus’s true identity as Yeshua, the Jewish rabbi.
Over these years, I have also learned much from the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and this morning, it occurred to me that every rabbi in Chabad teaches from the teaching of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. The Chabad Torah teaching comes from the lenses of the great rabbi of the movement. As Christians, our great rabbi is Jesus. Jesus, Yeshua, didn’t come to create a new religion, discard the law of God, and give us different instructions – Yeshua came to show us how to follow God, to show us we could obey and walk in the ways of God.
The more I read the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and the gospels, the more I see a law/gospel connection, not a distinction. Beginning on October 13, 2023, I will start something I have never done as a Christian: I will read through the Bible the way Jesus did. The Jewish people are commanded to read through the Torah every year, so the rabbis divided the Torah into fifty-four readings so that it could be done in a year. At the beginning of the next cycle, I will read through the Torah and teach from a few verses of each week’s portion on the podcast on Friday nights. Along with the weekly teaching, I will have a Torah Study 5784 category on the blog, where I’ll share insights into my studies as I go along.
Learning and beginning to walk in the Jewish roots has been the most transformative action in my walk with the Lord. I have never been more excited about anything than I am to go through the Torah cycle and read and study the Bible the way Jesus did.
As much as we may like the letters of Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude – it is the Gospels and Revelation that contain the very words of our rabbi, and it is the Torah where most of our rabbi’s words originate, we should know the Bible He knows. Have you ever wondered why Yeshua answered temptation by quoting Deuteronomy? Surely whatever He would have said could have stopped the devil? He chose to quote the Written Word of God because He knew that even God Himself puts His Word above His name (Psalm 138:2).
Yeshua and the Apostles put great emphasis on the Torah and the Prophets, and as followers of Yeshua, we should do the same. So, instead of starting your yearly reading In January, begin in October; download or order a Torah Portions Schedule, buy a Portions Journal, maybe even get a Complete Jewish Bible or Tree of Life Version, and really immerse yourself in the Jewishness of Jesus, Yeshua.
Another thing that can help us connect to the Jewishness of Jesus and understand the Bible in its Jewishness is to read books that come from a Jewish perspective. Here are some that I have found helpful:
Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith by Marvin R. Wilson
A Rabbi Looks at Jesus of Nazareth by Jonathan Bernis
Casey D. Bell 
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