I have waited more than 11 years to finally be able to unwrap a gift of truth that I want to present to you. In 2002, while visiting the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Israel, a light pierced the darkness of tradition and caused me to take down our tree and cancel the Johnson family Christmas celebration. Before you consider me just another Grinch looking to spoil your family festivities, hear me out.

This has not been an easy journey for me. I grew up in Minnesota—you know, the frozen tundra where Santa Claus recruits many of his helpers. I obtained my undergraduate degree in social work, the area of study that depends on the Christmas season to turn up the heat on the “haves” in order to serve the needs of the “have nots.” I earned a graduate degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, where Christmas is taught as one of the cornerstones of Christian practice and belief. I am also an ordained United Methodist pastor (until further notice) who counted on the green in the Christmas Sunday offering every year to keep the church out of the red. In other words, as a born-and-bred Bible-believing pastor, I would have been out buying last-minute gifts with my credit card or preparing my Sunday sermon hoping to preach myself out of debt for the next year! Instead, I am sharing this light of truth with you.
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Have you ever wondered what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 13:1 when he wrote, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels…?” I have. Is it even possible to speak in the tongues of angels? My thought is that the angelic “tongue” whatever it might sound like, would leave no room for confusion on the part of the listener.

Imagine if the angel in Matthew 1:21 who gave Joseph the name of the child in Mary’s womb spoke English. He would have said, “You shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” If Joseph understood English, he would have had to wonder what the name Jesus had to do with the word “save” because of the word of causation “for”. If the angel spoke in the Greek language he would have said, You shall call his name… “Iesoun autos gar sowsei” and if Joseph understood Greek he would be scratching his head wondering why the name Iesoun was connected with sowsei. Here is what is really interesting, for those folks out there who are convinced that Aramaic was the only language of the First Century Jews. The angel would have said, You shall call his name…Yeshua and connected that name with the word Nachiohi which means “he will cause to live”. At that point, Joseph would probably think to himself that the name Yeshua must have a deeper and hidden meaning unavailable to the common folks.
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It seems that no matter what holiday is celebrated there is the public relations version and the historically accurate reality. Such is the case with the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans. It’s a great public relations picture about a joint meal and an unlucky turkey, but far from reality. Just ask the relatives of the Native Americans sitting on the ground.

In the same way, the Hanukkah celebration has morphed from an epic battle for freedom and dedication into a story about only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days. Dare I say it? Myth not reality. Just read the book of 1 Maccabees.
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I will never forget that amazing day in the Spring of 2002. Come with me. As Nehemia Gordon and I waited to tour the tunnels under Jerusalem, I asked him a question that had intrigued me for a long time: How do you say God’s name? I had asked this question of many Jewish people before Nehemia, but with no success. They either said it was too holy to pronounce, too profound for me to understand, or too powerful for me to handle; therefore, I was prohibited from proclaiming His name. When I asked my new friend Nehemia, who happened to be both Jewish and a Hebrew Bible scholar, about the pronunciation of the name he responded by asking me a question: “Do you know any Hebrew?”

During the year prior to my trip to Israel, I had reacquainted myself with my Hebrew language studies from seminary. I was excited to respond to his question with a “Yes.” After writing the four Hebrew letters  יהוה  on a piece of paper, Nehemia went on to give me a short refresher lesson on Hebrew vowels. After his discourse, I asked him to pronounce the name. With no hesitation he said something like,

“According to the consonants and the vowels found in the earliest vocalized Hebrew manuscripts, His name is pronounced…” Continue Reading…

Question: Can a radical former Methodist preacher and a renegade Jewish scholar teach you anything from the word of God? Before you answer; I must warn you that this question has caused a bit of a controversy. Okay, a lot of controversy! Allow me to explain.

In 2011, Israeli Bible scholar Nehemia Gordon and I were invited to a weekend conference at a church in Smithfield, North Carolina, to give a joint presentation on our book: A Prayer to Our Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer. The pastor invited us to stay and preach on Sunday morning. What happened in Smithfield caused a revival in both of us. It also caught the attention of the religious police and the spiritual border patrol, who insisted that we “cease and desist” from these joint preaching events. Well, that didn’t work; rather, it spurred us on to turn up the heat and keep preaching wherever we were invited. And then it happened! Continue Reading…