http://www.jewsforjesus.org.au/jewish-stories/ziggy-rogoff.html
My life's two passions have been mathematics and being Jewish. I viewed life as one big equation and was always looking for its solution! So how does Jewish boy +a traditional Jewish education + mathematics PhD = believer in Jesus?
My paternal relatives, the Rogoffs, came from Russia and Poland. My name, Ziggy, is short for Zigmund, in memory of my maternal great-grandfather who died in the Holocaust with most of his family. His daughter, my bubbe, survived and arrived in England from Slovakia in 1939 and settled as a domestic servant for what she supposed was a Christian family. (In my bubbe's mind, if you were not Jewish, you were Christian.) But when the family insisted that she cook bacon, Bubbe refused, explaining that as a Jew she was forbidden. They threatened her with deportation, and she ran away that very night.
This experience confirmed my bubbe's views of Christianity. In her thinking, the Nazis responsible for the Holocaust were Christians. Now her "Christian" employers wanted to deport her!
Stories of these cruel injustices filtered down to the next generation and the next. My younger brother Richard and I were brought up thinking that Christians were responsible for the Holocaust. We grew up in London in a traditional Jewish home with our parents, Alan and Hilda. I experienced the rigors of traditional Judaism from an early age. My family kept kosher, and I went to Hebrew classes three times weekly. My bar mitzvah, held at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, was a landmark moment in my life and summed up who I was: quintessentially Jewish.
Nevertheless, I went to a secular school where only 20 percent of the pupils were Jewish. At some point on the playground amongst the other 80 percent, I heard that Christians believed in Jesus, and somehow I understood they thought Jesus was the Messiah. I remember thinking, "It's okay for Christians to believe in Jesus, but not us Jewish people."
I went to university and studied mathematics, followed by an Applied Mathematics doctorate. Being Jewish and a mathematician were intrinsic to who I was. While at university, I joined the Jewish Society; I was proud to be Jewish.
However, by this time, I would have called myself an atheist. Even if there was a God, I reasoned, I did not know him and had no way of knowing him. I still went to synagogue for the High Holy Days, but I was gradually becoming less and less kosher. Being Jewish was so much a part of me that I couldn't let go of my traditions, but I was troubled that there didn't seem to be answers for me in my religion. I thought God was just unknowable. And with so many world religions saying different things, the idea that one religion was right and all the others were wrong just didn't seem logical.
When I was studying for my PhD, a good friend (who wasn't Jewish) and I used to talk about God. One day, my friend told me he had become a Christian. I thought that was a rash decision. He invited many of his friends to church, but I was the only one who came. I don't even know why I went; perhaps it was because he was one of my closest friends and I wanted to honor that friendship. Perhaps I just wanted to understand why he had made such a choice.
I was at a point in my life where things didn't seem to be adding up. I was struggling at my job and also having difficulties in my personal life. I was offered the chance to take a course that explored Christianity. It appealed to my logical mind, to see if the claims of Jesus would make sense, since nothing else was making sense to me at the time. When I read the New Testament book of Mark, a narrative of Jesus' life, I remember asking myself "Have I found the Messiah?" But a voice deep within me said, "How can I accept Jesus as the Messiah when the rabbis have been rejecting him for the last 2000 years?"
Then my teachers gave me a book, Betrayed, that was to be instrumental in my understanding that you can be Jewish and believe in Jesus. The book tells the story of Stan Telchin, a Jewish man who decides to prove his daughter wrong when she comes to faith in Jesus. However, when he reads the Tenach and realizes that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies, he and the rest of the family also come to believe in Jesus. That was when I first understood that it was possible to be Jewish and believe in Jesus!
At that point I really wanted to know if Jesus was the Messiah, and I knew the only place to go was the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus would have to be in there if he was the Messiah! Stan's book showed me that the Scriptures held many prophecies that pointed to attributes and characteristics of the one to come. I pored over those prophecies about the Messiah. I knew that the probability of the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in one person was virtually zero. So when I realized that Jesus did fulfill these prophecies, it felt like comparing a fingerprint with a finger and getting an exact match.
My family had no idea that I was investigating the claims of Jesus. I didn't know any other Jews who believed in Jesus either. I even attended a men's group in a synagogue for a time to see what they thought of verses in the Tenach about the Messiah - but I never mentioned the Messiah or Jesus to them. Their answers did not satisfy me.
However, when I realized that the portrait of Jesus in the New Testament matched what the Hebrew Scriptures said about the Messiah, I was overcome with both joy and fear - joy because I had found a great treasure, and fear because I stood guilty before a holy God. And then I was overwhelmed as I understood what Jesus had done for me. He had taken the punishment for all my wrong actions and attitudes, what the Bible calls sin. I was forgiven - not because of anything I had done, but because of what Jesus had done! He was the perfect sacrifice, and from that day on I knew there was a God, and I wanted to live for him and with him at the center of my life.
Not surprisingly, my family was very unhappy at my decision to follow Jesus. Indeed my mum was angry and wouldn't discuss my newfound faith at all. She wanted me to see a rabbi, but she never followed through. My beliefs impacted my life and I began telling my work colleagues about Jesus. I was working as a risk analyst for Deutsche Bank, and I frequently invited my colleagues to Christian talks. There was no conflict for me when it came to believing in Jesus and being Jewish.
I used to think God was unknowable, but now I know him. As it says in the New Testament, "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known" (John 1:18).
I have always been able to see life as a series of equations. Mathematics has always made sense to me; being Jewish has always been the most important thing to me. Now I can see that being Jewish plus believing in Messiah does equal faith in Jesus. And I want the rest of my Jewish people to know that it can be true for them too
Friday 30 December 2011
Saturday 24 December 2011
Sunday 30 October 2011
Sunday 9 October 2011
Thursday 6 October 2011
Thursday 29 September 2011
The Design Argument Is Unrefuted: Stephen Meyer Responds to Critics In Signature in the Cell, Part 4
Sunday 28 August 2011
What are your opinions?
Events
Survey of Religious Opinion, North London 2011
In the week 17-23 July, Shalom Ministries undertook a survey of religious opinion in North London in cooperation with Childs Hill Baptist Church, Mortimer Close, NW2 2JY (www.childshill.com) and Wilton Community Church, N10 1LT (www.wiltonchurch.org.uk).
The questions in the survey ranged from belief in God to whether it was possible to know what happened after death. The survey produced some interesting results. For example, 80% of respondents said they believed in a “God”, a result that would disappoint atheists and humanists who want the UK to be a “God-Free Zone”.
Almost half of those who believed in a deity thought that God was “Personal”. Eleven percent thought God was “Impersonal” and almost a third didn’t know if God was a “He” or an “It”. The great problem with believing in an impersonal “god” is that a river never rises higher than its source. If we are personal and our creator impersonal, the river has run uphill; the creature has become greater than the Creator. If that is so, why do we from time to time instinctively feel the need of help from a “higher power” and pray. An impersonal Force is not a “higher power. Our Creator may be more than “Personal” but he cannot be less.
Sixty percent of respondents said there was a difference between “Faith” and “Religion”, and at the end of the week the survey took place, that opinion was confirmed. The Friday after the survey was undertaken, Anders Behring Breivik went on a killing spree that claimed the lives of almost 100 people. He was, said the BBC, a “fundamentalist Christian”. Breivik’s “Christianity”, it turned out, was purely cultural. In a 1,500 page manifesto, Breivik revealed he was not particularly religious; he had a “religion” of sorts but no “faith”. And what faith he did have was not in the Messiah (Christ) who taught his followers to love their enemies and prayed for the forgiveness of those who were nailing him to a cross.
More people (over a third) thought “religion” was the cause of the world’s problems rather than the solution (about a quarter thought religion was the solution) and about a third didn’t know. The question was a difficult one because there are so many religions. If a religion teaches that it is the duty of believers to kill infidels, it is unlikely to be a solution to the world’s problems (unless you view infidels as the problem!). A religion that teaches you should love God with all your being and love others as you love yourself, if followed, would solve all the world’s problems.
What should determine our choice of religion? Nine percent said “Tradition”; 11% said “Reason”; 23% said “Birth” and half the respondents said “Personal Preference”. But is following a “religion" a choice as bland as choosing a brand of coffee or breakfast cereal? In a sense, it’s the most important choice in life. While there are similarities between all the religions – such a belief in a Higher Power, prayer and doing charitable deeds, for example – there are also great differences. Of one thing you can be certain: either all religions are false or only one is true; they are either all man-made or one is God’s revealed truth. Birth, Tradition and Personal Preference are insufficient guides to the Truth.
Think about it: if there is a “True Religion”, it will differ from all the others at significant points. Apart from pure Buddhism, which is atheistic, other religions believe in many gods or one God. The Bible reveals a God who is three and yet one. Who could have dreamed up that mind blowing concept! All religions, apart from branches of Satanism, teach that salvation is achieved through self effort: keep all the rules and you will make it to heaven. The Bible teaches that salvation is the result of God’s mercy alone. We find eternal life through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus alone, by faith alone. In a sense, you could have Judaism without Moses, Moses was just a prophet chosen by God. God could have chosen anyone else in Israel to be the mediator of his covenant with Israel. The message is more important than the messenger.
You could have Islam without Mohammed; he was just the teacher of Islamic doctrine. For Muslims, the Qur’an is more important than the man who wrote it. Anyone else could have taught what he did.
Jesus is different. Without him there could be no Christianity. It is not the teachings of Jesus that are “the way, the truth and the life” but Jesus himself.
Forty-three percent of respondents identified their religions background as “Christian”. The rest were almost evenly divided between “Jewish”, “Muslim”, “Hindu”, “Other” or “None”. The number of Jewish respondents was slightly higher than the rest (14%). With such a high number of respondents identifying their background as “Christian”, it was surprising to see how “unchristian” most of the answers were.
The next four questions related to religious books and, in particular, the Bible. A quarter of those questioned thought their holy book was “completely true”. Seven percent said “Mostly true”, while 21% said “Partly true”. Interestingly, 11% thought their religious book was “Myth and Legend”.
16% read their holy books a great deal, while over a third never read them at all.
14% of those questioned thought the Bible was “Completely true”, while 23% thought it was “Partly true”. Thirty-eight percent of respondents declined to comment.
16% of those who took part in the survey had read the entire Bible, 11% had read “Just the Hebrew Scriptures” (Old Testament), 18% had read “a lot” of the Bible, almost a third had read “a little” and 23% had read “none” of the Bible.
Even though one fifth of those questioned thought their holy books were “completely true”, most appeared to have doubts about at least some parts of their religious texts. The problem with having a religious text you can trust absolutely, of course, is that once you allow for errors in the “word of God” (whoever that God may be and whichever holy book it may be), it raises the question of the truth of one’s religion as a whole. What parts of the holy book are true and what parts are in error? How do you differentiate between truth and error? How can you be sure there are not more errors yet to be uncovered? The truth claims of any religion stand or fall on the reliability of its basic documents. If the Bible is in error, Judaism and Christianity fall; if the Qur’an is flawed, so is the religion based on it.
Opinions about Jesus varied. Considering that so many respondents came from a “Christian” background, the answers to the question were alarming. Seven percent of those questioned were of the opinion that Jesus was a “Mythical figure”; Fourteen percent thought he was a “Prophet” while 2% opted for a “False Prophet”. Eleven percent believed no one could know anything about him because he lived so long ago. Sixteen percent thought he was “The Messiah”, whereas the majority (30%) said he was a “Great Teacher”.
Considering that 55% of those questioned had hardly read the Bible and another 11% had not read the New Testament, it’s surprising that almost a third of respondents could think of Jesus as a great Teacher; a great Teacher no one listens to! But that’s the thing to say isn’t it?
It is worth bearing in mind a comment by the author of the Narnia Chronicles, C S Lewis. In his classic defence of the Christian faith, Mere Christianity, he demonstrated the impossibility of Jesus just being a “Great Teacher”:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.” The final question was: “Is it possible to know where we go after we die?”
More than a quarter of those questioned thought it was possible to know what happens after death but just less than a third said “No”. Fourteen percent didn’t know but twice that number wished they did know.
What kind of religious belief gives no certainty for the next life? Isn’t that what “religion” is supposed to be about? So long as a religion teaches that eternal life is achieved by “good deeds”, no one can ever be sure they have earned enough Brownie points to attain eternal bliss. The message of Jesus the Messiah is Good News because although it reveals what we all secretly acknowledge – that none of us are good enough to attain eternal life – it also tells us that eternal life can be received as a free gift on the basis of what Jesus the Messiah achieved for us.
To see the results click on the link below.
© 2011 Shalom Ministries • email: comms@shalom.org.uk • site map
We do not necessarily endorse the contents of this site.
We do not necessarily endorse the contents of this site.
Saturday 20 August 2011
Thursday 18 August 2011
Friday 8 July 2011
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Sunday 1 May 2011
Official wedding photos (3)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/sets/72157626613171058/show/
Programme info.
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/blog/2011/April/19/The-Official-Souvenir-Wedding-Programme
The Music described
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/blog/2011/April/28/Music-for-the-Wedding-Service
Order of Service
http://ph1.cerosmedia.com/1B4db9637e64402583.cde
Royal Wedding official Website
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/sets/72157626613171058/show/
Programme info.
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/blog/2011/April/19/The-Official-Souvenir-Wedding-Programme
The Music described
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/blog/2011/April/28/Music-for-the-Wedding-Service
Order of Service
http://ph1.cerosmedia.com/1B4db9637e64402583.cde
Royal Wedding official Website
http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/
Friday 29 April 2011
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Apologetics 315: Apologist Interview: Jay Smith
Monday, April 11, 2011
Apologist Interview: Jay Smith
Find Jay's resources at Answering-Islam.org. Check out Jay's video channel on youtube: PfanderFilms. A recent debate here.
Full Interview MP3 Audio here (70 min)
Saturday 9 April 2011
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlbertMohlerTheBriefing
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlbertMohlerTheBriefing
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlbertMohlerTheBriefing
Friday 8 April 2011
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