
“Religion”
At archaeological excavations in Qumran, the remains of a mikvah (ceremonial bath) exemplify the importance played by that ritual. To prepare for worship, a person would step daily into the cleansing mikvah water. At the Jordan River, Zola explains how the First Christians’ baptism closely paralleled this Jewish mikvah practice. Indeed, the synagogue remained a vital part of life to those who first believed in Yeshua.
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Caption transcript for The First Christians (2019): “Religion” (7/9)
- 00:01 Jeffrey Seif: Jesus once spoke to a Jewish religious leader
- 00:03 and said that he, Nicodemus, needed to be born
- 00:06 of water and the spirit.
- 00:10 Let's find out what that's all about today
- 00:12 on "Zola Levitt Presents."
- 00:15 ♪♪♪
- 00:19 male announcer: Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer
- 00:22 to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
- 00:26 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek,
- 00:29 for the same Lord overall is rich
- 00:31 unto all that call upon him.
- 00:34 "Zola Levitt Presents."
- 00:37 ♪♪♪
- 00:43 ♪♪♪
- 00:53 David Hart: We're so glad you've joined us today
- 00:54 on "Zola Levitt Presents."
- 00:56 I'm David Hart.
- 00:57 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
- 00:58 Jeffrey: And I'm Jeffrey Seif, and you are in for a surprise
- 01:00 as we go back and look
- 01:02 at the Jewish religious world in Jesus's day.
- 01:06 David: I want to say I'm kind of surprised
- 01:07 that this first aired 23 years ago.
- 01:11 As we watch Zola teaching, it looks like he was
- 01:13 just here teaching with us.
- 01:15 Great music, messianic music. Last week was government.
- 01:20 This week, it's all about religion.
- 01:22 Jeffrey: Yes, and you know, Bible colleges and seminaries,
- 01:24 and that's the world that I fare from, they have Jewish studies
- 01:27 departments to look at the Jewish religious world,
- 01:30 the background world of century one.
- 01:32 I believe it's very important, and so do the deans.
- 01:35 That's why I've made a living teaching as a professor.
- 01:38 Kirsten: We have all of that, a lot of information
- 01:40 for you today, good information.
- 01:43 But first, to learn about our first century Christians,
- 01:45 we're going to go back in time and travel to
- 01:48 the ruins of the Essenes.
- 01:50 Let's go there now.
- 01:55 announcer: The archaeological find of
- 01:57 the 20th century took place here in caves of
- 01:59 the mountains adjoining the Dead Sea.
- 02:02 Here in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls bore proof
- 02:06 to the authenticity of the Bible.
- 02:09 Stephen Pfann, director of the Center for Early Christianity,
- 02:12 has translated some of the texts taken from these caves and
- 02:16 is an expert in the religious practices of the first century.
- 02:20 Stephen Pfann: Behind us here are two of the caves
- 02:22 found here at Qumran.
- 02:24 Cave number four further behind me with the
- 02:26 triangular entrances, and down below me here is
- 02:29 the collapsed cave, cave number eight.
- 02:32 Inside these caves were found many scrolls, which we've all
- 02:35 heard about and have come to appreciate because they
- 02:38 represent actual scrolls used by people during the time of Jesus.
- 02:43 Also in here, however, were found mezuzahs
- 02:47 and phylacteries, also known as tefillin.
- 02:51 Now, the mezuzah was used according to the commandment
- 02:55 in the law in the books of Moses, in the book of Exodus
- 02:57 and the book of Deuteronomy.
- 02:59 It was commanded that the--that the Israelites would take
- 03:02 these Scriptures and apply them to the doorposts.
- 03:07 This would be a protection upon the house.
- 03:10 They were also commanded that when they pray, that they take
- 03:13 these Scriptures and wrap them around their arms and apply
- 03:17 them to their foreheads, in order that they would have
- 03:21 this blessing from God as they prayed.
- 03:24 All Jews had to pray this way all through history.
- 03:30 We still even today can see Jews in Jerusalem praying
- 03:34 at the western wall with their phylacteries
- 03:37 laid on very carefully.
- 03:39 This practice was taking place as we have evidence here
- 03:42 in the first century among Jews.
- 03:45 And it would have also been practiced by
- 03:47 Jesus and his disciples.
- 03:53 announcer: This is a photo of the phylactery found
- 03:55 in the Qumran cave.
- 03:57 It's as intricately made as a Swiss watch
- 03:59 and smaller than a paperclip.
- 04:01 Seen here enlarged, the leather pouch looked like this closed
- 04:05 and like this when opened, containing four separate
- 04:10 compartments for Scripture.
- 04:13 Passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy had been
- 04:15 handwritten in microscopic Hebrew.
- 04:18 The Essenes's encampment here at Qumran covered nearly two acres.
- 04:23 Their purpose in moving to this desolate area
- 04:25 was to totally dedicate themselves to what they
- 04:27 believed was the way of the Lord.
- 04:31 Steve takes us now to the site of a mikvah or ritual bath
- 04:35 used by the Essenes for purification.
- 04:38 Stephen: Behind us here, we have the plain of the Dead Sea.
- 04:42 Down at the far end, we can see one of the two sites
- 04:44 of the Essenes that existed here.
- 04:48 The Ein Feshkha behind me is the site of Khirbet Qumran.
- 04:52 Down below was where the married Essenes would have lived.
- 04:55 Here we have the site where the priests and
- 04:59 the single Essenes would have lived.
- 05:01 In my hand, I actually have a copy of the rules that governed
- 05:08 the people who lived at this site, many copies of which were
- 05:11 found in that cave which I just pointed out to you.
- 05:15 In front of us, we have one of the important installations
- 05:19 here at the site of Qumran.
- 05:21 And as in many different places, including Jerusalem and
- 05:25 Sepphoris up in the north, there are numerous pools like these
- 05:29 known as ritual immersion pools, or in Hebrew mikvah or mikvaot.
- 05:41 announcer: The mikvaot, of course, were vitally important
- 05:43 in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus.
- 05:45 Here along the southern wall of the temple,
- 05:47 cleansing in the waters of this pool was an integral part
- 05:50 of preparation for worship.
- 05:53 Everyone who sought to worship the God of Israel
- 05:55 had to be cleansed.
- 05:57 But yet there were differences.
- 05:59 Stephen: The Pharisees said that if you went down
- 06:01 and fully immersed yourself and came back up, you were
- 06:04 pure and equipped to be able to go on into a pure area.
- 06:10 But the Essenes said that's not enough.
- 06:12 A person also has to be right in his heart, he has to be right
- 06:16 toward his brother, and he has to be also right toward God.
- 06:20 In fact, in this scroll, it's required and it says, "By the
- 06:23 Holy Spirit of the community, in his truth, shall he be cleansed
- 06:27 from all his sins; and by the Spirit of uprightness
- 06:30 and humility shall his iniquity be atoned.
- 06:33 By his soul's humility toward the precepts of God shall his
- 06:36 flesh be cleansed by the lustral waters and sanctified
- 06:39 by the flowing water."
- 06:42 It's the two together according to the Essenes, both right
- 06:45 attitude and right way of life, before going down into the pool
- 06:51 in order to come up clean and justified and pure before God.
- 06:58 announcer: To better understand how the Essenes actually went
- 07:01 about the cleansing process, Steve takes us
- 07:03 to yet another mikvah.
- 07:06 Stephen: Here we are at another mikvah
- 07:08 within the site of Qumran.
- 07:09 This is probably the most important ritual immersion pool
- 07:12 in the entire site during the first period
- 07:14 of their existence here.
- 07:16 That is, up until it was destroyed by an earthquake,
- 07:18 and you can see the great destruction that happened here
- 07:22 in the earthquake of 31 BC.
- 07:25 But until that time, this was so important because this is
- 07:29 the ritual immersion pool into which the novices would
- 07:32 enter and come up for the first time a renewed son of light.
- 07:38 And it has a division between the avenue for going down before
- 07:44 the immersion, and going up afterwards.
- 07:48 So that those who go down who are unclean will not
- 07:52 come in contact with those that are clean.
- 07:55 You can see these runnels right here, which remain
- 07:58 as a separation between the unclean and the clean.
- 08:03 It was also used during the time of the renewal ceremony every
- 08:07 year, where the people would come here in droves,
- 08:12 large numbers of people, for a renewal of their
- 08:15 commitment to the beliefs of the Essenes.
- 08:18 But also it was used in order to enter the site in order to be
- 08:22 able to eat the sacred meal on a daily basis.
- 08:28 So, as a person would enter in, you can see first of all that
- 08:31 there are a series of steps here, and then a wider step.
- 08:35 Another couple of steps and a wider step.
- 08:38 This was so that during the year, as the water would
- 08:41 evaporate down, there would be a proper platform for an
- 08:44 individual to go ahead and stand here in their loincloth,
- 08:53 they would immerse themselves down so that every
- 08:56 part of them would be covered with water.
- 09:00 They would get back up and walk up to the top.
- 09:09 They'd enter into the site and put on white clothing,
- 09:12 after which they would be able to go into the dining room
- 09:14 and eat with their fellows.
- 09:17 ♪♪♪
- 09:25 Zola Levitt: Well, here we are at the famous Jordan River.
- 09:27 And this is a most beautiful part of it just south of the
- 09:30 Sea of Galilee, where the water proceeds out to
- 09:33 roll down through the land, a curved path all the
- 09:37 way down to the Dead Sea.
- 09:39 At this point, it's very pure, very clean.
- 09:42 People are baptized here all the time, and I'm not far
- 09:45 from a baptistery that a kibbutz has actually installed along the
- 09:51 river so that people can walk down steps to the river safely
- 09:54 and so on, and be baptized in these waters in which,
- 09:57 of course, our Lord himself was baptized.
- 10:00 Well, Steve has told us about the mikvaot
- 10:02 there at the--at Qumran.
- 10:05 A mikvah is a Jewish ritual bath, more than
- 10:08 one plural is mikvaot.
- 10:11 And we saw the mikvaot there.
- 10:13 You know, it is so ancient a ceremony, the idea of washing
- 10:17 with water for purification, or to make a change,
- 10:21 or to be cleansed for some new belief.
- 10:24 The Jewish sages actually teach that this goes all the way back
- 10:28 to Abraham's journey to Canaan in the first place.
- 10:32 If I can go back all the way to Genesis 12, the chapter
- 10:36 where God said to Abraham, "Get thee up and go,"
- 10:39 and sent him to the land of Canaan.
- 10:42 Verse 5 says, "And Abram took Sarai," their
- 10:45 names were different at that point.
- 10:47 "Abram took Sarai his wife, and lot his brother's son,
- 10:51 and all their substance that they had gathered,
- 10:54 and the souls they had gotten in Haran."
- 10:58 Along the way, they stopped at the village of Haran,
- 11:01 which still exists in Syria.
- 11:04 From--they started at Ur, went up the Tigris, Euphrates
- 11:08 fertile valley into what is now Syria, stopped at Haran,
- 11:12 then continued on to Canaan.
- 11:13 When they stopped at Haran, it says there were
- 11:15 souls they had gotten.
- 11:18 The sages teach that the implication is they had
- 11:21 converted people, they'd brought them into Abraham's faith,
- 11:24 that is faith in the covenant of the land that he was going
- 11:28 to have with God, and followed Abraham to the
- 11:31 land that was promised to him.
- 11:34 And the covenant wasn't even enunciated, but Abraham
- 11:36 had the faith to get up and go when God told him.
- 11:39 So, these people that apparently were willing to come with him,
- 11:42 the sages teach must have been washed, must have been purified.
- 11:46 And they suppose that the mikvah goes all the way back to there.
- 11:50 I don't know, but it's an interesting thought.
- 11:54 For sure it goes back all the way to the tabernacle, which
- 11:57 is a long time ago, because the priests of Aaron, his family,
- 12:02 were washed before they began their priesthood.
- 12:05 And that is the beginning of I don't want to say modern baptism
- 12:10 because baptism is many thousands of years old, but the
- 12:13 beginning of the concept of being baptized to be enabled,
- 12:18 to be empowered to carry out the duties of a priesthood.
- 12:22 And that specifically we find in the book of Exodus
- 12:25 in the instructions for the tabernacle.
- 12:28 "This is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow
- 12:31 them, to minister unto me in the priest's office.
- 12:34 And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the
- 12:37 tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water."
- 12:43 They were immersed in water to have a beginning
- 12:47 to their priesthood.
- 12:48 What the washing did was to enable them to minister
- 12:51 to the people for God.
- 12:53 The priests, the Levites, that tribe, Deuteronomy 10:8 and 9
- 12:57 selects them and says they shall not have a land inheritance.
- 13:00 Their inheritance is to minister to the people for God.
- 13:04 And they pronounce a special blessing even today
- 13:07 that we all know--
- 13:08 [speaking in Hebrew]
- 13:10 "May the Lord bless and keep you and so on,
- 13:12 cause his countenance to shine upon you."
- 13:14 That is called the Aaronic blessing
- 13:16 or the Levitical blessing.
- 13:19 The people of the tribe of Levi, the sons of Aaron,
- 13:23 the priests say that blessing still today in Israel the first
- 13:27 day of every month, Rosh Chodesh.
- 13:30 So, it was all the way back to there.
- 13:33 Now, this has an antitype or an answer in the New Testament.
- 13:37 The Christians are all priests.
- 13:39 And in the New Testament, it is clear that we too are baptized
- 13:44 to be enabled to carry forth a priestly ministry.
- 13:47 If I look at the epistle of 1 Peter, all the epistles
- 13:52 of Peter are addressed to Jewish people.
- 13:55 Certain books of the Bible, of the New Testament,
- 13:58 are addressed to Jews.
- 14:00 Hebrews of course, Peter is one.
- 14:03 It begins, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers
- 14:08 scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia," et cetera.
- 14:11 And he defines those strangers this way in verse 2, "The elect
- 14:15 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father."
- 14:18 In other words, those people who originally knew the
- 14:22 God of Israel, in other words the Jewish believers.
- 14:26 And he describes them in a special way in the dramatic
- 14:30 verse, 1 Peter 2:9 and 10, "But ye are a chosen generation,
- 14:36 a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people that
- 14:41 you should show forth the praises of him who hath
- 14:43 called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
- 14:47 And those who were called to be these priests were baptized.
- 14:54 This was--you see, all believers in the Lord, all Christians,
- 14:58 and at that time of course, as we're pointing out,
- 15:01 most of the church was Jewish.
- 15:04 These Jewish people were particularly called
- 15:07 to be priests for the Lord in the new covenant,
- 15:10 and so they're baptized.
- 15:12 Every Christian that is baptized at every church, in this river,
- 15:15 in the baptistery in your church, in the swimming pool
- 15:18 in your yard, doesn't matter, is being baptized
- 15:22 in order to be enabled to be a priest.
- 15:25 Now, the Mishnah, if you go back in the Jewish writing,
- 15:29 talks a lot about this purification rite.
- 15:32 The mikvah, the dipping, well, Rabbi Joshua held that a mikvah
- 15:37 alone was adequate to bring a convert into Judaism,
- 15:42 the washing by itself was adequate.
- 15:45 But Rabbi Eleazar held that circumcision
- 15:47 should also be done.
- 15:48 This was the sign of the covenant between
- 15:50 God and Abraham.
- 15:52 And just like in the church today, arguing over baptism.
- 15:55 This started a long time ago. This started before Jesus.
- 15:58 This was argued from time immemorial, what
- 16:01 sort of baptism for what sort of office and so on.
- 16:04 They even divided converts into two groups.
- 16:07 There were simply the gerim, the converts, the proselytes.
- 16:11 And then the gerim hazerekim, the holy converts, who
- 16:15 were willing to undergo both circumcision and the mikvah,
- 16:19 who were very serious about going into Judaism.
- 16:22 Orthodox synagogues today have a mikvah in America.
- 16:26 And when someone converts to Judaism, that person
- 16:29 goes into the water, it says like a little child,
- 16:32 they're described as born anew.
- 16:34 They actually clip the fingernails close and
- 16:36 shave the hair from the body, and get into
- 16:38 the water as babies to be reborn.
- 16:42 And here Jesus in John 3:3 says, "Ye must be born again,"
- 16:46 and it's like a reference to this wonderful conversion.
- 16:51 He is, of course, trying to convert Nicodemus
- 16:54 at that point into the faith in the Messiah.
- 16:58 We'll be back after this.
- 17:08 announcer: Our resource this week, the "Grafted In" package,
- 17:11 which includes the series "Called Together" on two DVDs,
- 17:17 a Grafted In necklace, two Stand With Israel koozies, a Grafted
- 17:22 In decal, a Grafted In pen, our Things to Come bookmark,
- 17:27 and the Prophesied Messiah bookmark.
- 17:31 Contact us and ask for the "Grafted In" package.
- 17:35 And thank you for your support.
- 17:40 announcer: For insightful perspectives on Israel
- 17:43 and Bible prophesy, ask for our free
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- 18:10 Kirsten: If you're not following us on social media,
- 18:13 I encourage you to join our family, Zola Levitt family,
- 18:17 Zola Levitt Ministries on social media.
- 18:19 Now, let's go back to Zola.
- 18:23 Zola: The Essenes, the wilderness people, the ones
- 18:26 out who worshipped the Lord all the time, must have
- 18:29 been fascinated with the book of Isaiah.
- 18:32 It was a favorite of theirs, they certainly copied it
- 18:35 all the way through.
- 18:36 And all the other books of the Old Testament except
- 18:38 Esther were copied by them.
- 18:41 And they came across the passage which must have just thrilled
- 18:45 them who lived in the wilderness, "The voice of him
- 18:49 that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord,
- 18:52 make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
- 18:54 It's Isaiah 40, verse 3.
- 18:57 "Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill
- 18:59 shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight
- 19:02 and the rough places plain.
- 19:04 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
- 19:07 see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
- 19:11 That kind of passage motivated them.
- 19:14 They were religious people, no question.
- 19:16 They had a religious council.
- 19:18 By the way, it had 12 members and an inner circle of 3,
- 19:22 just like with our Lord and his 12 disciples and
- 19:25 the inner circle around him of 3.
- 19:28 The sacred meals that they ate together were
- 19:30 so similar to communion meals, festival meals.
- 19:34 They studied together, they ate together, they celebrated.
- 19:38 They observed the ruach hakodesh, the Holy Spirit.
- 19:43 They had this conception out of the Old Testament.
- 19:46 The Holy Spirit didn't just come at Pentecost brand new.
- 19:49 He was active in the Old Testament, and
- 19:51 they realized that from their study.
- 19:53 They wrote often about prophecy, they wrote about the last days.
- 19:56 There are scrolls of the sons of light versus the sons of
- 20:00 darkness, which very much resemble the book of Revelation,
- 20:04 a final battle of the forces of good and evil
- 20:06 with good triumphing in the end.
- 20:09 They were Bible people, no question about it.
- 20:13 With the Lord in the gospels, we see arguments over Scripture
- 20:17 with the Sadducees, with the Pharisees individually.
- 20:20 He has to debate them each about their conceptions
- 20:24 of resurrection and whatnot.
- 20:26 And it's obvious that our Lord was so skilled
- 20:29 in the Old Testament.
- 20:30 He lived by it.
- 20:32 There are churches that think it's invalid.
- 20:33 It would be news to Jesus Christ.
- 20:35 He conducted his life by it.
- 20:37 He quoted the book of Deuteronomy alone 130 times.
- 20:41 He quoted the Shema, the quintessential Jewish prayer,
- 20:46 "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
- 20:49 [speaking in Hebrew]
- 20:52 Our Lord read the Torah all the time and quoted from it,
- 20:55 of course, voluminously.
- 20:58 And as a Torah reader, he must have been quite expert.
- 21:02 The Torah reader became practically an occupation,
- 21:06 and today there are people who specialize as Torah readers.
- 21:10 In the ancient times or in Jesus's time even, the person
- 21:13 who read the Torah was considered to have some divine
- 21:16 spirit upon him, and he would go on and teach.
- 21:19 In today's synagogue, the rabbi sometimes can read the Torah,
- 21:25 but more often they have a Torah reader, and
- 21:28 then the rabbi gives the sermon.
- 21:31 Some rabbis are able to read Torah skillfully.
- 21:35 The truth to tell, they may get more credit for
- 21:38 knowing it than they always do.
- 21:40 It's more likely the Jewish law books that they know
- 21:42 and know thoroughly than Scripture itself.
- 21:46 Paul's requirements for elders and deacons were the same
- 21:49 as in the synagogue in his time.
- 21:52 The Jewish regulations are the ones that come into the
- 21:54 New Testament and are finally observed by the churches today.
- 21:58 Indeed, they were the first Christians.
- 22:01 The churches in the empire, not just in Israel,
- 22:03 were also very Jewish.
- 22:05 After all, as Paul traveled, he was received in the synagogues.
- 22:09 What he came to say, that Messiah had come,
- 22:11 he came to say to Jewish people.
- 22:14 And they're the ones that heard it, they're the ones that were
- 22:16 converted, and they're the ones that witness
- 22:18 to their Gentile friends and brought them in.
- 22:20 Sometimes, the synagogue was a place where people faked it.
- 22:25 At the city of Smyrna, I read in Revelation 2:9,
- 22:28 "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty.
- 22:31 But thou art rich," he says.
- 22:33 "And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews,
- 22:35 and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
- 22:38 Sometimes, the Scripture's twisted
- 22:40 to anti-Semitic purposes.
- 22:42 There were people pretending they were Jews to attend
- 22:44 church in order to trade with the church members.
- 22:46 They might wear forelocks and a prayer shawl.
- 22:49 They might adopt Hebrew mannerisms, or
- 22:52 they might be Jews that didn't believe.
- 22:54 But anyway, they looked the part of Christians.
- 22:56 To look like a Christian, you had to look Jewish in
- 22:59 the early churches, this one in Smyrna in Asia.
- 23:04 It's funny, I have the experience in my
- 23:07 life of just the opposite.
- 23:09 Once, I looked for a job with an insurance company when
- 23:12 I was in college, and they said one requirement is
- 23:14 I had to go to church every Sunday.
- 23:16 I said, "Gosh, I've never gone to church
- 23:18 in my life, I'm Jewish.
- 23:19 I go to the synagogue."
- 23:21 They said, "Well, you need to go to church,
- 23:22 it's what's required of us.
- 23:24 We go to a barbecue after, we make contacts that way."
- 23:27 I said, "Well, I don't believe what's going on there."
- 23:29 And they said, "It doesn't matter what you believe.
- 23:31 We're there to meet the church people
- 23:33 and to sell them insurance."
- 23:35 Well, they said, "You look just like any one
- 23:38 of the church people."
- 23:39 What they meant is you can look Gentile, look Gentile,
- 23:42 and that way they'll think you're a real Christian.
- 23:44 Well, back in Revelation in Smyrna, it was look Jewish
- 23:47 and they'll think you're a real Christian.
- 23:50 The first Christians were Jewish, and we will
- 23:53 see that in a most dramatic way.
- 23:56 You know, when the kingdom comes, the
- 23:57 believers of all ages will come together.
- 24:00 The Old Testament saints, these first century Christians,
- 24:03 the church members and the faithful of all ages,
- 24:06 including our own age, will meet together.
- 24:08 And then we will be able to worship with the first
- 24:11 Christians, and we will see they were Jews.
- 24:14 ♪♪♪
- 24:25 ♪♪♪
- 24:36 ♪♪♪
- 24:46 ♪♪♪
- 24:57 ♪♪♪
- 25:07 ♪♪♪
- 25:16 ♪♪♪
- 25:26 Kirsten: Family, it's all about family today.
- 25:28 Jeffrey: Yeah, I feel for those that have trouble in the family.
- 25:31 You know, I tell my wife Barri that home is wherever she is.
- 25:36 And people live alone today, and even people live together
- 25:39 with people and there's pain.
- 25:41 Recovering a biblical approach to family
- 25:44 is so, so, so important.
- 25:46 Kirsten: It is.
- 25:47 David: We love social media.
- 25:49 And our kids are on it all the time.
- 25:51 Back in the day, they didn't have all that, so I think family
- 25:54 might have been a little tighter back in the day, you think?
- 25:56 Jeffrey: Well, there's a lot of distractions.
- 25:58 You know, people--I don't think social media meets the needs.
- 26:01 People talk about connecting.
- 26:03 There's still a lot of disconnection.
- 26:05 And back in the day, they're not distracted by television.
- 26:08 Sorry, we are on television.
- 26:10 You know, but a lot of times, people just zone out
- 26:12 and they don't do things together.
- 26:15 And it's important to recover that.
- 26:17 Used to be back in the day, people would gather
- 26:19 together around a family Bible and pray together.
- 26:21 My wife and I do that in the morning.
- 26:23 Simple things there are that people can do
- 26:26 to strengthen a family.
- 26:28 Thank you for strengthening our family, that is to say
- 26:31 "Zola Levitt Presents" is a ministry, and it's all hands
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- 26:53 David: I've got to say I'm looking forward to next week,
- 26:55 it's all about agriculture in the first century.
- 26:58 We'd love for you to join us for that.
- 27:00 Jeffrey: Do it please. And as you go now--
- 27:02 [speaking in Hebrew]
- 27:05 Kirsten: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
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