by Joseph Shulam

The most divisive elements of Christianity are the man made creeds that were cooked to produce separation and division and keep people out based on what they think and what they understand. This is the hallmark of Western Christianity and for these man made creeds there have been hundreds of thousands of people killed, burned, poisoned, and cut to pieces. At times the issue was one word that a person would not say in the man made creed cooked in committees of gentiles who were basically ignorant of the Bible and especially ignorant of Israel and divine history in the Old Testament. It is sad to see that even today are leaders who act like the grand-inquisitors and they would be willing to burn one another as abject heretics over some opinion or doctrine that has nothing to do with the people's holy life-style, or their dedication to Yeshua the Messiah or their walk with the Lord. There will never be unity and victory for the Body of the Messiah until this Catholic, Papal, attitudes of pontificating ideas and imposing them on others will stop. Without unity Christianity has no chance to win the battle over secularism, Islam, modernity, or sectarianism. The only way to unite is to go back to the drawing board and start over from the very beginning and using the Word of God alone in the context of history. This is called restoration and it is the very nemesis of reformation. Reformation was an attempt to fix the Catholic church, but it was too late even in the 5th century, much less in the 16th century. If we want to win this battle for the next generations and before Yeshua comes back we must work on unity. Unity does not mean that every idea is accepted, but it does mean that the whole Word of God is accepted and man made creeds are rejected. The only creed that the First Christians had was the Word of God. They did not need more than the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, and we today must not want more than the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Those self appointed censures that want to restore the Inquisition and again prevent true Jewish disciples of Yeshua from living a Jewish Life-style and spy-out the freedom that we have in the Messiah will not win if we are united in Yeshua. If Israel is going to accept Yeshua as the Messiah it is going to be from the Scriptures and not from the man made creeds that have divided and destroyed the oneness of the Body of Yeshua. Please pray for unity and cooperation and freedom of ideas and thinking for the whole body of the Messiah and remember that we are going to be judged by the Lord on what we do much more than on saying “Lord, Lord . . .” Pray for the salvation of Israel and praise the Lord for His promises, pray for the real growth of the Body of the Messiah and not the cotton-candy motivation that is being peddled like cheap slot-machine tokens.

Please continue to pray for our trip to Finland and the United States. The schedule is becoming very intense and I will need to be healthy and strong to keep up with the schedule of travel and teaching. I will be in California from the 16th of July to the 26th and after that I will be in Dallas, Texas and may be one day in San Antonio, Texas. I will need your prayers. Netivyah needs your prayers. We are praying for the Lord to open the hearts of our brothers and sisters to extend themselves and provide the funds that are needed for the building project. We still need to raise near 1,500,000.00 dollars for the building.

I ask you to pray for Udi our dear brother who is working with us at Netivyah. He has to have surgery next month for a serious condition. We need to ask God for Udi's healing and quick recovery and back to work.

We continue to pray for Ruby in Oklahoma City, Tim Tucker in Finland, Mr. and Mrs. Ishiida and Mrs. Sadako, and Mrs. Nichimura in Japan, and Paulo in Brazil. In Israel we need to pray for Ahuva, Leah, Ilana, Zvi, Sara, Miriam, Sarit, Marcia, David S., David, and Zvi and Bathsheva D.

We need to pray for the following people to get jobs and be able to support themselves and the congregation: Noah, Laural, Jonathan, David Levi, Alex, and Judith.

The Food Distribution of Netivyah is doing a great job. Today we had a young man who is a Disciple of Yeshua come to the office to thank us for the food that is keeping him alive. The authorities are very happy with the good work that Yuda is doing. We are still challenged financially in order to keep up the same quality of service and freshness and quantity of food that we supply to the needy, but I know that our test is really on the smile and kindness that we show those who come to receive food from Netivyah. You make all this possible and we are grateful to be agents of your generosity and goodness to the poor people of Jerusalem. You ought to know that we are feeding 90% Jewish people, and 8% none Jewish Christians, and 2% Muslim Arabs. Please pray and help us feed the needy of Jerusalem.

Keep praying for my daughter Danah.

The young people working in our office are dynamic and they recording the YouTube teachings on the Parables of Yeshua. The responses that we are getting from all around the world are very good and we have a fan club all the day down in Toowoomba, Australia. This technology is wonderful and just think what the Apostle Paul could have done today with the help of computers and facebook. Pray for the Lord to bless the use of Kol HaYeshua Radio and make it more effective. We have done several advertisements in one of the best daily newspapers in Israel. It was not cheap but we are praying for more people to hear the teaching of God's Word and respond.

Please pray for the leadership of Netivyah and the congregation. I shall be traveling out of Israel for two months, and Zvi one of our worship leaders will also be gone for three weeks, and others will be traveling. This means that this ministry and congregation needs a whole lot of prayer and spiritual support and especially those who will remain here during the summer and lead need your prayers and support and an extra filling of the Holy Spirit.

At Netivyah we are working on the next “Teaching from Zion” and the book about the “Angel of the Lord.” We need your prayers for these books and publication.

Pray for our soldiers. We have several man and woman from our congregation who are serving in the I.D.F. they need your prayer for protection, good health, and a good witness wherever they are and all the time.

Israel needs your prayer. The summer is coming and there is so much talk about social unrest and riots in Israel. There are terrorist organizations and countries all around our boarders and Iran is developing the Atomic bomb, all those issues can not be resolved without the miracle touch of the Lord Himself.

Thank you again and please don't forget to pray for us, for the building project, for our travel, for healing of the sick, and for all of Israel and the peace of Jerusalem.

Joseph Shulam

by Joseph Shulam

The Presenting of the Good News in our day has changed faces and methods. Now the internet is the arena of ideas, news, information, and even relationship. This is the reason why the young men in our office have encouraged me to do once per week a 10 minute presentation of a teaching in English and put it on YouTube. We have already made several of these YouTube short teachings on the Parables of Yeshua. The responses have been amazing and very good. We have received responses from all around the world, and especially from Brazil, and East Asia. The way to find these recordings is to just go to YouTube.com and in the search window type “Joseph Shulam” and you will find these teachings. Each one of the teachings is short and it deals with one or two of the major parables of Yeshua put back into the first century Jewish context. People are amazed at the difference in interpretation when you put the words of Yeshua back into the historical and religious context of the land of Israel in the first century A.D.

From Monday to Wednesday this week we were in a seminar / forum in Herzelia, north of Tel-Aviv. We were invited by Japanese brothers together with a dozen Jewish Disciples of Yeshua who are leaders of congregations and ministries in Israel. Six of us wrote papers and presented them on the general theme of the Salvation of Israel. This is the sixth forum of this kind and it is always rich and pleasant and inspirational, and above all it is a great opportunity to be together with dear brothers and fellow workers in the Lord's vineyard. This kind of intensive study with people who have the same goals ought to be the envy of many. The interesting thing is always to hear and see the different perspectives for reaching the same goals, these big goals of the salvation of Israel. With God's help these forums are working toward a more brotherly relationship with leaders of different ministries and also toward a greater unity in the body of the Messiah in Israel and with brothers from Japan. This time we also had a day of parallel seminar for our wives, and also a cooking class in Japanese cooking that two wonderful sisters from Japan held in our kitchen for a dozen women. Working together for the big goals is something rare in the Evangelical Community. Most of the ministries concentrate on presenting the Good News to individuals and may be to congregations, but in this case the discussion was on working for the salvation of the nation of Israel. This is something that requires a whole lot of prayer. Please pray for the salvation of Israel, all of Israel, as Paul promised would happen in Romans 11:25-26.

I would like to ask you to pray for Mrs. Michiko Nashimura an 81 year old sister that has been praying for the salvation of Israel for many years, and also pray for her daughter. Mrs. Nishimura is ill and needs God's hand for healing. Don't forget Mrs. Sadako who is near 100 years old and has been praying for the salvation of Israel for more than 80 years. Also, continue to pray for Miss Shocko, and Mr. and Mrs. Ishiida, and for Ruby in Oklahoma City, and Paulo in Curitiba, Brazil, and Tim Tucker in Finland. Please don't stop praying for our sick in Jerusalem, Ahuva, Leah, Ilana, Sarit, Zvi, Sara, Miriam, and Marcia.

I also ask you to pray for Danah my daughter, for job security, and for healing.

Next month we will be traveling. I shall be traveling to Finland first and than to the United States. Marcia shall be traveling to the United States, first to Los Angeles, California, to be with Danah and Noaam and than to Tennessee, and back to California.

Here is my travel schedule the same as it was in last week's prayer list: Finland from June 4th to 14th and than in the United States. I shall be in New Jersey first for the week-end of June 15-18 and for the next week-end I will be near Washington D.C. in Virginia. From Virginia to Tennessee to be with Barry my son's family from June 27 – July 5th. From July 1-3rd I will participate in the David Lipscomb University Summer Celebration Lectureship. I am not one of the keynote speakers, but I will have a class two days and also do something to introduce the topics of the keynote speakers by bringing something Jewish to the mix. I suppose that in a way, I will be the token Jew, for D.L.U., but it is o.k. Sometimes a small Jew can do more in ten-minutes . . . and bring glory to God and challenge the hearers and upset the complaisant.

I am open after the 5th of July to speak or travel to other parts of the United States for a week or ten days. If church would like to invite me to teach the Word of God and speak about Netivyah's work between July 5th and 9th, I would be open to it for anywhere in the United States. I will be in California between July 9th and 23rd and from July 24th to July 30th in the Dallas, Texas, region. I might take a trip to San Antonio, Texas, to visit Dell Sanchez, a dear friend and together work on planing for the big conference for the restoration of the Marrano / Anussim Jews back to Israel in 2013. On the last week-end of July, the Lord willing, I shall be in Dallas speaking in the Newbeginnings Church in DFW, and after that back home to Israel. So, please dear brothers and sisters, as you can see I will need strenght and stamina to be able to do good teaching and sharing and also to have God's favor and blessings to raise funds for the building project in Jerusalem.

Those of you in the United States that contribute to us through the North Boulevard Congregation in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I ask you to spread the news of the importance of what Netivyah is doing in Israel and around the world, and encourage brothers and friends to support this important ministry. People can go to our web page and see and hear what we are doing for the Kingdom of God and for Israel. (www.netivyah.org)

We are praying for the building project and for the funds to build the first Synagogue of Disciples of Yeshua in the city of Jerusalem. I can't emphasize enough the importance of this building project. The value of it is not only in the physical facility that will make the life of our congregation so much more pleasant and easier, but the spiritual benefit will be 1000% greater because we will be able to live out our vision and witness as Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in the City of Jerusalem with an outreach around the world, almost like in the first century. Please do all you can and share with your congregation and with your leadership the importance of Jerusalem and our witness in that city of the great king.

All the ministries and projects that Netivyah has are working well, and blessing the people of Israel and Jerusalem. We have plans for going back to China, and Korea and Japan in the fall and preaching and teaching and spreading the importance of the Good News around Israel and the world.

Please don't forget to pray and help our brothers in Brazil with the First Museum of the Anussim / Marrano Jews and victims of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition in South America.

Thank you so very much for your support and for your help and for your prayer. May God bless you and fulfill your dreams and desires. Blessing upon you and yours,

Joseph Shulam

From Jerusalem for a change – Joseph Shulam

From day to day the Messiah of Israel is being revealed from inside the very heart of the Jewish people. For many years always around Passover there was posters hung all around town with the bright big letters that read, “The Messiah's Meal,” or using normal Christian language it would read, “The Lord's Supper.” These Feasts or Meals were always a mystery for Israelis who are not deeply involved in the Orthodox Jewish Hassidic circles. Here is parts of a large article published in one of Israel's main daily Newspaper, Haaretz.

The day Chabad came to the Last Supper

Article that talks of Passover feast becoming 'flesh and blood' prompts harsh responses. By Yair Ettinger

Chabad spokesman Rabbi Menachem Brod sparked a lively debate in the Haredi forum "Stop, Thinking Here," when he referred to bread and wine as allegories for flesh and blood. . . . The article, in last week's Talk of the Week, the Chabad Youth Organization's weekly newspaper, dealt with the Hasidic "Messiah Feast," eaten on the last day of Passover. The feast was originally introduced by the founder of Hasidic Judaism, Rabbi Yisroel Ben Eliezer, also known as Baal Shem Tov, to express the yearning and anticipation for the messiah. The feast includes matza, and the Chabad custom is also to drink four glasses of wine at the meal, as is done in the Passover seder. . . . Brod concluded his essay by writing, "Let us then draw strength from the faith in the coming of redemption and the anticipation of it. We will eat on the seventh of Passover the 'Messiah Feast,' intended to infuse the faith in the messiah's coming into our blood and flesh, like a meal that becomes our blood and flesh. And may we celebrate the last Passover holiday with the messiah in the Third Temple." . . . . Brod added that the idea that spiritual values enter our body by means of food is "an authentic Jewish idea, reflected in eating the sacrificial animals' flesh in the Temple era, eating the Sabbath and holiday meals, etc." "The Lubavitcher rebbe explained many times that by eating this [Messiah] meal the faith in the messiah's coming becomes part of our entity, as the matza and wine become part of our body," Brod said. "This is why I've written about this idea in Talk of the Week about 25 times already. There is not one iota of similarity between that and the Christian ideas. It's simply ignorance coupled with wild imagination and I don't intend to change Judaism because someone has distorted thoughts." . . . .

This article is just one more indication of what is going on here behind the scenes for many years. Israel and the Jewish community have God's promises and these promises will be fulfilled. It is time for Christians all around the world to do three things, simple things, but very very important things:

1. Speed up your prayers for the salvation of Israel. Ask God for the return of Yeshua, and the resurrection of the dead, and the New Jerusalem. Pray this prayer every day, three times per-day, and at the same time say the “SHEMA” and the Lord's prayer.

2. Support financially those who are being good servants and disciples of Yeshua in the Land of Israel. Those who are working to serve the Israeli community and have a good witness are those who do more than just pray and worship and have meetings, but those who feed the poor, and publish good material that speaks to the heart of the Jewish people, and those who present Yeshua to Israel.

3. Learn and study the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation and pay attention to the relationship and promises that God promised to the Jewish people and to Israel. Many Christians neglect the so called Old Testament, and for this reason they miss the wonderful faithfulness of God and the Messiah. The study of God's Word is really very seriously being neglected in many of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, and of course in the so called “High Church” circles the situtation might be much worst. If Christianity is going to survive the first century of the 21st century it in necessary for Christians to be equipped with the Word of God, and to know how to use the Word of God to answer for the hope that is in them. The question always needs to be asked is “do Christians have hope?” If they do have hope and it is not visible or they have no answers to explain that hope – there is no testimony or witness and if there is no testimony or good witness – there is no seed to plant and if there is no seed to plant there will be no harvest.

The progress on the building project is gaining speed and we need the financial support for the building to gain speed too. If the Lord is impressing you to stand with us for this building project and support it, please remember that seed that you plant in Jerusalem will bring fruit from Jerusalem that might reach out to the ends of the Earth. Even right now Netivyah has a local multi-faceted ministry with humanitarian, multimedia, radio, lectures, publications, congregational, and also international teaching ministry. We need you to stand with us and help us continue to do the Lord's Work and hasten His coming. Please pray and stand with Netivyah. Please go to our web page and see and hear and read good material. You can also go to YouTube and to Joseph Shulam's facebook and see some of the new YouTube video teaching on the parables of Yeshua. We are getting so many wonderful comments on these teaching from all around the world. They are short 9-12 minutes each and they bring a different perspective on the Words of Yeshua and His parables. These teachings are going to continue for several more weeks. After the teaching on the parables there will be other series on other topics. Please lift this project in your prayers.

We need your prayers for our next trip to Finland and the United States. Right now the schedule is for me to be in Finland from June 4th to 14th and than in the United States. I shall be in New Jersey first for the week-end of June 15-18 and for the next week-end I will be near Washington D.C. in Virginia. From Virginia to Tennessee to be with Barry my son's family from June 27 – July 5th. From July 1-3rd I will participate in the David Lipscomb University Summer Celebration Lectureship. I am not one of the keynote speakers, but I will have a class two days and also do something to introduce the topics of the keynote speakers by bringing something Jewish to the mix. I suppose that in a way, I will be the token Jew, for D.L.U., but it is o.k. Sometimes a small Jew can do more in ten-minutes . . . and bring glory to God and challenge the hearers and upset the complaisant.

I am open after the 5th of July to speak or travel to other parts of the United States for a week or ten days. If church would like to invite me to teach the Word of God and speak about Netivyah's work between July 5th and 9th, I would be open to it for anywhere in the United States. I will be in California between July 9th and 23rd and from July 24th to July 30th in the Dallas, Texas, region. I might take a trip to San Antonio, Texas, to visit Dell Sanchez, a dear friend and together work on planing for the big conference for the restoration of the Marrano / Anussim Jews back to Israel in 2013. On the last week-end of July, the Lord willing, I shall be in Dallas speaking in the Newbeginnings Church in DFW, and after that back home to Israel. So, please dear brothers and sisters, as you can see I will need strenght and stamina to be able to do good teaching and sharing and also to have God's favor and blessings to raise funds for the building project in Jerusalem.

We need your prayers also for Netivyah and the many projects that we have. We need to publish a new Teaching from Zion magazine, and finish the second edition of the commentary on the Jewish Roots of Romans, and finish the publication of our new book on the Angel of God's presence.

Please continue to pray for our sick and ill friends and brothers and sisters: Ahuva, Leah, Ilana, Sarit, Marcia, Tim Tucker, Paulo, Ruby, David S., David K., Tania, Lehee, Zvi, and Sara.

Please pray for those who are in need of work and financial blessings and work: Jonathan, Laural, Noah.

Please also pray for Danah my daughter. She needs strength and protection and blessings in many ways. We are asking God for special grace on Danah at this time.

I repeat the special prayer for the first Museum of the Anussim in South America that our dear brother Marcelo is building in Belo-Horizonte. This Museum is of great importance because most people in South America and in Brazil know nothing or very very little about the atrocities that the Catholic church did against the Jews between the 16th and 19th centuries. These acts of horror have stained the name of Yeshua in the eyes of the Jewish nation and have left a deep historical trauma in the Jewish psyche even until today. This Museum that Marcelo is building from his private funds is of great importance in order to keep the memory and freshness of these events in the eyes of the public and raise up the revival of these people from the darkest pages of Christian History. Please pray and help this project. If you are interested to help please contact Marcelo Guimaraes at: Marcelo Guimaraes < כתובת דוא"ל זו מוגנת מפני spambots, יש לאפשר JavaScript על-מנת לראות את הכתובת >.

I bless you all and thank you and wish God's blessings and Grace upon you in every way.

Joseph Shulam