I just finished teaching my last session in the North Atlanta church of Christ. From Sunday evening through Wednesday evening I gave a series of teaching on the topic: Why I believe that Yeshua is the Messiah. This last night my topic changed and it was: Why I am committed to the Restoration of the First Century church. In reality when I say that I am committed to the Restoration of the First Century church – it means that I am totally not committed to anything that Christianity has produced after the First Century. In fact I made it very clear that I am not interested in Christianity but I am very interested in Yeshua. The way one of the important Rabbis in Israel said it, “I am very much interested in the persona of “Jesus.” I am not so much interested in the Hellenized persona of “Jesus” but I am very much interested in the Galilean Rabbi who walked the mountains of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, proclaiming the Kingdom of God and his name in Hebrew is Yeshua. You see Yeshua is a historical figure. No matter what Jewish Rabbis say or don’t say about Yeshua no one in his right mind can deny that a Jew by the name of Yeshua walked the country lanes of the land of Israel and was delivered by the Sanhedrin to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilot and was executed by Crucifixion in Jerusalem. We are dealing here with a real historical figure that even the Talmudic Rabbis could not deny His existence or

We arrived in California on Sunday night and we are with Danah and Noaam. We appreciate so much all of you who have been and continue to pray for both Noaam's health and Danah's health. They both need a touch of divine grace and providential care and I know that your prayers help by knocking on God's doors in favor of Danah and Noaam. On the other hand we enjoy so much being with them and having a chance to visit and minister to our loving daughter and grandchild. Thank you for praying!

This Sabbath the whole Jewish community around the world will be reading the story of the Exodus from Egypt. It is a wonderful story that starts presenting God as one who can see the suffering of His children, and remember His promises to the Fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), and powerful enough to deliver His children from slavery to the most powerful nation in the world and fulfill His promise of bringing them to the Land of Israel. The key to understanding the whole Passover story is really the Passover lamb question. At first look it might look like some kind of voodoo exercise where you get an animal and you kill it at your door entrance and you smear the blood on the door and that magic works the spell to ward off the evil God who would take the life of your loved ones if He does not see the Blood on your door post. This is how my father explained the Passover to me as a child, and of course he would have no part of this so called “primitive” practice. However, several thousand years later we read this same story and we know something that that generation of slaves in Egypt did not know. We know that the God of Israel had this exercise for the children of Israel in order to present them years later with the real Lamb of God who actually paid with His own life for the deliverance of Israel and through Him for the deliverance from sin for the whole World. This is the reason why Paul says to the Corinthians: “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1Cor. 5:7-8) One of the texts that is key to the understanding of the Passover is from Exodus 12:6, “You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.” Notice please that it says that “the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill IT at twilight.” The “IT” is in the singular and not in the plural. If every household in Israel is to have a lamb and kill it on the fourteenth day of Nissan at twilight – the grammar should require that there would be many lambs killed on that day and not one lamb “IT” killed collectively by the whole congregation.

I ask you to pray for all of Israel and for the whole congregation of Israel to be able to look at this weeks reading in the synagogues and see beyond tradition and beyond our own Jewish interpretation and receive a divine revelation of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World. There is no magic here and no voodoo – it is just a prophetic act that points to a real historical event that took place in Jerusalem near 2000 years ago and changed the world.

Please keep praying for me and for my family and keep praying for the wonderful events that await us all when the Lamb of God returns and the saints gather around His throne.

Keep the sick list from the last few weeks in your prayers and bless those who are suffering from illness and pain by mentioning their names before God's throne of grace.

We have good news and that tomorrow there will be a circumcision in our congregation, Yuda and Lydia have a son that will be eight days old on Friday, January 22nd 2010. Pray for Yuda and his family and bless them I the name of our Lord.

God bless you all and keep you safe in the palm of His hand,

Joseph Shulam

P.S. - On Sunday I begin to teach in Georgia. I start on Sunday morning in Watkinsville and continue in Atlanta from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening and than the week end in Rosewell, Georgia. Please keep this time of teaching in your prayers.