Drawn to Jewish Roots: Guiding the 4 Kinds of Seekers with Care

Preston Benjamin (00:00:00):
When people encounter this Jewish Christian space and they see the very strong identity that’s been preserved for thousands of years with…

David Blease (00:00:12):
In the Jewish community. Yeah.

Preston Benjamin (00:00:14):
There’s something very attractive about that. And especially as those who come from a evangelical non-denominational background where our roots don’t go very deep on the surface and we don’t have an official church, or there’s not a denomination who’s helping kind of bring a structure and help bring us roots and what to believe, then these people start to feel kind of like they’re just swaying back and forth and they don’t really know when they begin to research their roots. They don’t really know where they fit in.

David Blease (00:00:57):
Welcome to the Covenant and Conflict podcast, where we take ancient truths, modern issues, and see how they connect with each other and with us again for the second time is Preston Benjamin. He’s a fellow member on our team at Gateway Church. Really what we consider part of our team at the Center for Israel has written much of our content and our articles, our perspective papers. He has his master’s degree and he wrote his dissertation on Christian Jewish relations…

Preston Benjamin (00:01:29):
Replacement theology, yeah.

David Blease (00:01:29):
Replacement theology. We had a great episode that you can watch in the link below, but we’re very excited to have you back.

Preston Benjamin (00:01:35):
It’s good to be here again.

David Blease (00:01:37):
And I’m excited about the topic that we briefly talked about, which the way that I’ve talked about it with my wife when she asked, what are you guys going to talk about? I said, anyone in Jewish Christian relations or Jewish Christian space knows that it can attract weirdness. I’ve never met a messianic leader who’s not agreed with that statement. It’s kind of something that is just part of the territory. But what I want you to help us figure out is why that’s the case. Why are Gentiles drawn to what we have coined the Jewish stuff, and why is it so alluring to want to, for many Gentiles to want to change their identities to being Jewish or feel like they’re being more spiritual? And how can we as leaders, as pastors, or as just fellow brothers and sisters in the body of Messiah or the church, come alongside and help people understand where we fit into this world? So…

Preston Benjamin (00:02:47):
Yeah, I really think that this is an important question because one, look at the comment section on any video in the Jewish Christian kind of space, you’ll see that it starts to get weird pretty fast.

David Blease (00:03:01):
I don’t see them. I feel them, Preston.

Preston Benjamin (00:03:04):
You feel it? Yeah.

David Blease (00:03:04):
Feel them in my soul.

Preston Benjamin (00:03:06):
And as pastors, I think we get to see through a different lens. Sometimes people might be on the outside externally saying things, but we can kind of see there’s something else happening inside of them. There’s a different motivation. There’s maybe even speaking from a place that isn’t totally whole and we can help pastor people through that. And so I kind of have over the years, through encountering this, I have a framework of different types of people. This is a work in progress, okay?

David Blease (00:03:45):
We’re all on a journey, but I appreciate this.

Preston Benjamin (00:03:47):
I’ve seen four main types of people who it starts to get a little bit weird. So the first is called authenticity seekers, okay? Second is conspiracy seekers, third is curiosity seekers, and the fourth is identity seekers.

David Blease (00:04:11):
This is so good. I’m already in.

Preston Benjamin (00:04:14):
So with authenticity seekers, I think there’s this motivation to get at what’s authentic, what’s real…

David Blease (00:04:22):
What Jesus did.

Preston Benjamin (00:04:24):
What Jesus did.

David Blease (00:04:25):
Foundation of our faith.

Preston Benjamin (00:04:26):
There’s a purity of the faith that.

David Blease (00:04:28):
Like we talked about last time, the acts model, we got to get back to acts.

Preston Benjamin (00:04:31):
Yeah, exactly.

David Blease (00:04:32):
Which is again, not a bad desire.

Preston Benjamin (00:04:33):
No. Yeah. And as I’m an Enneagram one, and one of the names for the Enneagram one is a reformer. And so this whole segment of the population of people, they feel like a motivation to, we need to get back to how things are in their purity and their truest sense. Let’s reform things. And so it’s like a healthy motivation to have when it’s healthy. But what can happen oftentimes with people who are driven to get to the authentic is that on one hand they can start to kind of drift towards a spiritual elitism where it’s like, because we’re doing things the real way…

David Blease (00:05:23):
Yeah, «And you’re not.»

Preston Benjamin (00:05:25):
«And you’re not.» That’s just the assumption.

David Blease (00:05:26):
It can get very critical.

Preston Benjamin (00:05:28):
Yeah, very critical. Also, we know that there can be a drift in that same sense towards a kind of works righteousness thing where because they’re describing what’s authentic in these terms of how to live this way, how to believe this way, then you can only be on the inside if you believe those things, if you live way. So this kind of pride, the age old thing where we’re trying to earn our way sneaks in with these so authenticity seekers, and that’s honestly part of my own journey where I remember when I first started studying Messianic Judaism, this desire to really get into the roots of the faith, it was seeing that there are so many things over the years that have crept into the church, and it doesn’t feel like we’re as authentic as we’re not following Jesus. The way that the earliest followers of Jesus were the early disciples. And so that drove me to want to study more about second Tib Judaism more about the first century followers of Jesus. And so it’s a good thing. But I remember being, it was actually with MJBI, Messianic Jewish Bible Institute. I remember I set up a booth for MJBI at a UMJC conference, okay. Union of Messianic Jewish Congregation.

David Blease (00:07:06):
So let’s ground people in that. So MJBI was basically what became the Center for Israel planting Messianic congregations all over the world. And then UMJC is essentially one of the two. There’s more than two, but one of the two biggest denominations of Messianic Judaism. So you were at UMJC conference and you were at this booth?

Preston Benjamin (00:07:30):
Yeah, I set up the booth for MJBI, and I just remember throughout the course of the conference, this feeling of like, oh, this is for Jewish people. Here I am this gentile, I’m promoting things. But there was just something that kind of switched in my head, not that I’m an outsider there, but it’s kind of like this is something that is for the Jewish people. And I…

David Blease (00:08:02):
By this you mean this conference?

Preston Benjamin (00:08:04):
The conference, yeah. You UMJC, they’re going through the tour readings, they’re going through the prayers and everything, and I’m like, this isn’t exactly what I envisioned when I was wanting to get back to the roots of the faith studying second temple Judaism stuff. This isn’t really, I wasn’t anticipating going to more of a synagogue type Jewish kind of worship thing. And so something began to click right then, and I realized, oh, there’s a difference between Messianic Judaism studying Messianic Judaism as an expression of Judaism. Sorry if this is getting convoluted here.

David Blease (00:08:47):
No, I like it.

Preston Benjamin (00:08:50):
And first century faith, there’s a difference between the two. Messianic Judaism as it is practiced today and first century faith. Those are two totally different things. And that was the beginning of that process for me. And many people who find themselves wanting to get toward authenticity, they might stumble along the way because they assume a Messianic Judaism is the same thing as first century faith. And then they begin to do all of the things that Messianic Jews do because they’re trying to live authentically to the faith.

David Blease (00:09:26):
So what’s the disconnect there? Is it that Messianic Judaism is trying to find a path for Jews to live as Jews and Gentiles coming into that that’s not what Gentiles are supposed to be doing, trying to live as Jews? Is that the…

Preston Benjamin (00:09:42):
Yes. And what y’all talk about so well is not becoming one new Jew with Dr. Rudolph’s words or one new Gentile. It’s maintaining the distinction between both. And authenticity seekers often come to that place where they begin to be like, oh, is it more authentic than to look Jewish and to live Jewish? And I must do that.

David Blease (00:10:09):
Because there’s very few biblical references that we have as gentiles in the New Testament or in the book of Acts to be like, «You know, I’m more of an Aquila kind of guy.» We don’t get many gentile leaders in the first century faith, which is why I think a lot of gentiles, when we talk about the early faith, we go to Patristic fathers, you’re Justin Martyrs, you’re even to the reformists. We kind of look at early church fathers. I think part of that is because if we look at Peter and Paul and James and Barnabas and Silas, they’re all Jewish. So I get that tension. So how do you say it?

Preston Benjamin (00:11:00):
Authenticity seekers.

David Blease (00:11:01):
Authenticity seekers can sometimes stumble into the idea that Messianic Judaism is the purest form of Christianity. And I guess the overstep would be that they would confuse their identity. And is that something that you think they understand when they get there or I guess everyone’s different.

Preston Benjamin (00:11:25):
Yeah, everyone’s different. In my journey it happened, it began to unravel kind of in that moment of realizing how Messianic Judaism is kind of a movement within Judaism. And I’m not called to be a part of that in that sense, but everybody kind of arrives to it at different places, different levels of maturity and their walks with God. And so yeah, I am right with you. It’s like as Gentiles, we’re not exactly putting on bumper stickers, the four requirements from Acts 15, and this is my identity, this is what I do. Whereas there’s other, and we can get to that with the other types of seekers, specifically with the last one, the identity seekers. There’s so much that’s attractive about that, the clarity of identity, oh, this is how I live.

David Blease (00:12:19):
Totally. Do you want to go through the other three or do you want to stay on authenticity and talk about where do we go from there?

Preston Benjamin (00:12:27):
We could go through the other three names so it’s clear what the difference is. So second being conspiracy seekers. So this is when we talked about the comment section.

David Blease (00:12:43):
Oh, yeah. You mention Jewish in anything, and conspiracy seekers come out.

Preston Benjamin (00:12:47):
Yeah, it’s this word conspiracy. There’s a conspiracy going on. And with this type of person, I think it can be connected to a whole other list of different types of conspiracies, but there’s often kind of a suspicion towards authority. It’s difficult for them to trust the way things are. And psychologists have shown that there are reasons for when people are drawn to these types of this way of thinking. One of them is this idea of cognitive closure. As human beings, we’re just wired to want certainty, right? We are always looking to close the loop. We don’t like ambiguity we don’t like. It’s like, I need to know this for sure…

David Blease (00:13:45):
Yes or no?

Preston Benjamin (00:13:47):
So that I can have some type of control over my life so that I can feel like I’m in control. I’m not out of control. And so this drive, this human need for certainty, for control is oftentimes behind the conspiracy seekers. So that’s one part of it. This need for control for certainty. With the prophetic apocalyptic type stuff, if y’all posted a video tomorrow about in 10 years, this is going to happen because of the blood moon prophecy from this time period, and this is what you just…

David Blease (00:14:33):
Passover just fell on this date, and you’ll never understand why until you watch this.

Preston Benjamin (00:14:39):
Yeah, you’re going to get some views. And some of that is people are so attracted to knowing. It’s like, oh, okay, then I have some sense of control of the future. And psychologists have also shown that apocalyptic fervor is connected to the odyssey, which is the odyssey is a theological explanation of why suffering happens. And people, whenever there’s extreme suffering, when bad things are happening, people are looking for some type of control about the future.

David Blease (00:15:21):
Again, closing that loop,

Preston Benjamin (00:15:22):
Closing the loop, something to hold onto. So you have that side, but then you also have this sense of secret knowledge.

David Blease (00:15:33):
Gnostics.

Preston Benjamin (00:15:33):
Just like the gnostics, it makes me think of it so often when I hear about people getting really into conspiracy theories, is that there was this early heretical movement in the early church where if you had this kind of secret knowledge, you were closer to attaining enlightment. You were a true believer.

David Blease (00:15:57):
And most people can’t handle it. Only a small amount of people can actually handle this knowledge.

Preston Benjamin (00:16:04):
So there is also that motivation there where it makes someone feel special, makes someone feel unique when they have the secret knowledge that others don’t. And you combine that with some of this other stuff of the natural drive for certainty, for control. And also if you combine it with insecurities, which we all have as social beings, so many of us develop insecurities from a young age and they carry on with us throughout life. And you combine that insecurity feeling with then like, oh, I have a secret knowledge.

David Blease (00:16:44):
Oh, yeah.

Preston Benjamin (00:16:45):
Right?

David Blease (00:16:45):
Boom.

Preston Benjamin (00:16:46):
Where does that lead you?

David Blease (00:16:47):
I’ve arrived.

Preston Benjamin (00:16:49):
So then they’re there maybe in a comment section and they’re expressing themselves, but it’s coming from this place of I know what others don’t know, and that makes me feel important.

David Blease (00:17:05):
Totally.

Preston Benjamin (00:17:05):
That makes me feel special.

David Blease (00:17:06):
That’s a great point. I see this a lot in the church and specifically in pastors / teachers because there’s so many things that we see in the Hebrew scriptures or in the Jewishness of the New Testament that we’ve never seen before. And it comes to life, and no matter what anyone says, it always feels good to know things that other people don’t know. That is the root of gossip is I know something that you don’t, and all I want to tell you then it’s not that it’s satisfying for you to know it. It’s satisfying for you to know that I knew it first and then I was on the in, and it’s the same thing. And I see this really unhealthy desire for the sermons that we preach to share wisdom that’s going to blow your mind. You’ve never seen it before. And in some cases it’s true because maybe not as biblically literate as we were once were there is amazing. As Dr. David Rudolph once called them, the juicy Jewish details, you call ‘em the JJDs. There are things that you can share with people that can blow their minds. And of course that feels good as a speaker to speak revelation or speak something that’s unknown. But the problem is, at least one of the issues that I’ve seen is it actually leads to bad theology that has been unresearched that showed up on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and we hear it all the time. Actually, the reason Jesus folded the napkin in the tomb was because there was a Jewish custom that the leader of a Jewish dinner would fold the napkin, which meant he was returning.

Preston Benjamin (00:18:54):
Someone was like, wait, didn’t that come out in the medieval times?

David Blease (00:18:57):
Yeah. I’m like, there’s no Jewish feast. There’s no early writing. Show me the early writing that says that doesn’t exist, but boy, it sounds good. Or actually the eye of the needle is actually a doorway in Israel that a camel just has to strip off its baggage and crawl under the eye of the needle. So what Jesus was really saying was not that a camel could go through the eye of a needle, but that you just had to remove your baggage. Again, not a door in Israel. Secondly, if that was the case, why would the disciples respond with then «who can be saved?» Clearly he’s being, he’s speaking in hyperbole because they’re like, if that’s the case, then who on earth could be saved? If he was really just saying, just like a camel guy, he’s got to take off your baggage. They wouldn’t be like, «that’s impossible.» So again, these things aren’t very well thought or the research isn’t done. It’s hard to do the grunt work. It’s hard to try to get to the early sources. When did this come out? Because, yeah, you’ll find, oh, that was actually in the 16th century. So we don’t know that that was happening in the first century because the first writing we have is the 19th century. But again, it goes back to this desire, which again, if I’m not held in check, I’ll have that same desire. I want to go blow someone’s mind and maybe this, I haven’t really researched this, but it sounds really good and it’s going to get people really excited. So I think you’re totally right.

Preston Benjamin (00:20:25):
Yeah, so there is that need for uniqueness, the need to know something and be on the inside of the knowledge, whereas the majority, and it’s often it’s way better when it’s like I know something that the mainstream doesn’t want you to know.

David Blease (00:20:45):
Totally.

Preston Benjamin (00:20:46):
It’s way better to them this sense of like, oh, I am special and I’m on the inside. And there’s also an urgency that they’re attracted to where it gives them a sense of something to do, right? This happens a lot with apocalyptic it. It’s like the end is coming. I need to start prepping. I need to start telling people I need to start. It’s like it gives them a sense of mission in life, a purpose, and that’s also a motivation that drives them into this space where they begin to tell the difference. You can see when people are getting into this conspiracy space, when they have some of those markers, but also if there’s kind of a pattern, it’s not just with Jewish Christian stuff, but they’re also bringing in some political stuff. They’re bringing in the prophetic stuff, and it’s like this things are just getting weird all over the place then that this person’s probably being motivated from this type of seeking, and there might be something on the inside of them that you just need to be curious about and help lead them to the right place.

David Blease (00:22:01):
So good.

Preston Benjamin (00:22:02):
So okay, talked about authenticity seekers, these conspiracy seekers. And so the third type is more curiosity seekers, and there’s some interlap here. Overlap, sorry, between these two types, but curiosity people are kind of, they’re just intellectually curious and they might end up in a place going down a Reddit rabbit hole, a YouTube, the dark side of YouTube where they’re just watching a bunch of videos and because they don’t have roots that go very deep, they end up just diving in and they might come. I field questions all the time from people who are like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this theory?

David Blease (00:22:52):
It sounds like they just did a deep dive on Reddit if they’re asking.

Preston Benjamin (00:22:55):
Yeah.

David Blease (00:22:56):
I’ve been doing some research recently last night. What do you think about that?

Preston Benjamin (00:22:59):
Right. Is it possible that the original language was an Aramaic, and really the New Testament is corrupted because it’s in Greek and it’s this whole thing that they begin to jump into, and they’re just at this place where they might be bored, their church is kind of not feeding them, or they just kind of have a voracious hunger to learn, and so they just start diving in. And with these people, it can get weird if they’re not discipled and brought into community or if they end up in the wrong type of group, they could kind of end up in that other space.

David Blease (00:23:41):
Throw gas on that fire.

Preston Benjamin (00:23:42):
Throw gas on it– end up in that space where they join conspiracy theorists and now Elon Musk is the new Messiah or whatever the, whatever the most recent conspiracy theory is there’s a new one that pops up every day. So okay. Then you have the last group, which is identity seekers, and these are people who, it’s not just about personal identity. Religious scholars have shown that religious identity belonging to a group is part of how we shape our own personal identities. It’s called social identity theory. When you’re defining yourself, we’re all defining who we are based upon our memberships to other groups

David Blease (00:24:35):
Like tribal identity almost.

Preston Benjamin (00:24:36):
Yes. So we belong to Gateway Church. I’m affiliated with this. All of the different groups that we find ourself a part of, some of them have more prominence in defining our identity. So as a pastor, our faith in Jesus is a very strong identity marker for us, but technically that is what religious scholars would call. We’re identifying we’re members of the group of Christians of the church, and social identity is what’s defining our personal identities. So all that to say, when people encounter this Jewish Christian space and they see the very strong identity that’s been preserved for thousands of years with Jewish people.

David Blease (00:25:36):
In the Jewish community, yeah.

Preston Benjamin (00:25:38):
There’s something very attractive about that. And especially as those who come from a evangelical non-denominational background where our roots don’t go very deep on the surface and we don’t have an official church, or there’s not a denomination who’s helping kind of bring a structure and help bring us roots and what to believe, then these people start to feel kind of like they’re just swaying back and forth and they don’t really know When they begin to research, their roots, they don’t really know where they fit in.

David Blease (00:26:14):
And it’s such a broad tribe. Even like I belong to Christianity. You’re like, well, there’s too many denominate. I got to find my people. And evangelical is probably the bigger megachurch culture fits more widely in the non-denominational. So again, you’re in a big tribe, and so it’s kind of hard to feel like these are my people, all 2 million of them. So I also see the desire of I need to hone this in a little bit and who are my tribe within the tribe.

Preston Benjamin (00:26:50):
Especially when you combine that with, because we’re talking about the whole conversation is about people who encounter this Jewish foundation of the faith, but then they start to get a little weird. So when you combine that sense of I’m not super rooted as an evangelical or as a non-denominational, charismatic, whatever you label yourself as, I’m not super rooted and I’m seeing the roots of my faith are second temple Judaism, the Jewish faith of Jesus and the Jewish disciples, and that draw is like, okay, then that is an identity I can grab onto. And we talked about this on the last podcast of that temptation to just erase all of church history then and be like, okay, then I’m going to get back to the Jewish root and everything. So these people who might come in seeking a greater sense of identity and Jewish culture is so good at that because that was God’s intention from the beginning. To give them these clear identity markers that separate them from all the peoples of the earth. And so that is attractive to a lot of people.

David Blease (00:28:07):
Totally.

Preston Benjamin (00:28:09):
Especially when you’re in a place where you’re searching for identity and hungry for identity. So those are kind of what I’ve seen. Like I said, it’s a work in progress. I’m just over the years seeing some similar patterns of people who start to get a little off.

David Blease (00:28:25):
It rings true.

Preston Benjamin (00:28:27):
And I think our response to that is, so it can be different based upon the different types of people.

David Blease (00:28:36):
So when you look at all of these four, because I feel like I’ve seen myself in most of them, I can hunger for curiosity, very big learner. I feel like most people who find themselves in the Jewish Christian space, there was a learner in them. There was a hunger for more knowledge or more depth identity crisis, like you said. We mentioned in the podcast with Matthew Hernandez, Evangel, jellyfish. The whole reason we had that term was because we don’t feel rooted. We feel like we’re kind of all over the place. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing many people my age go to Catholicism or orthodox Christianity because it’s like, well, these guys have roots. They’ve been saying that prayer for 2000 years or 1500 years or a thousand years. But evangelicalism, if that’s what it’s called, seems to be so new. And I remember having a conversation with someone where their tension was, if you read the Bible and you’d never been to a church before and then you were to walk into a church, how confused would you be? And I think what you’re speaking to is the reality. Unless you’re walking into a UMJC congregation, it is going to look different. So what’s the best way to, obviously we’re all on a journey. Where do you find that tension in desiring the identity and the curiosity, desiring authenticity, but also allowing the Lord to be sovereign for your identity as a gentile, to be a sturdy foundation, and how much do we just need to leave open handed? That’s kind of the whole reason for this podcast, is there’s covenant, there’s conflict, and we are always going to be in this wrestle. I don’t think it’s going to be black and white until Jesus comes back. But what are your thoughts?

Preston Benjamin (00:30:39):
Yeah, you’re absolutely right in calling out the good that’s underlying each of these motivations. Because for somebody who is seeking authenticity, they’re seeking a good thing. There’s a God ordered desire in them to seek out what’s true. The good, the true, the beautiful. For those who are maybe conspiracy minded, there is not taking things at surface value. It’s a desire to get into the mysteries. That’s a good thing.

David Blease (00:31:21):
Or if you’re a part of a church like some generations of the historic Catholic church where you would want those people in the church saying, I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right. There’s something going on here. And they were right. So part of it is what season are you in and what’s the Lord doing in the church.

Preston Benjamin (00:31:41):
Because of Martin Luther, right? If he wouldn’t have questioned anything and just been like, this is good. And he wasn’t actually, I think we should push back against these things. So there’s kind of this prophetic bent of calling out what needs to change.

David Blease (00:31:57):
None of these are inherently wrong or evil.

Preston Benjamin (00:31:59):
No. Yeah. And identity seekers, God put, as human beings, we’re created to belong, to feel like we are known, that we know others, that we were created for community. And so that the drive to be a part of something and know your identity through your participation in a social identity, that’s good. God put that in us. So all of these things, it’s just whenever it starts to get a little bit off, it starts to get a little bit weird. That’s when we can come in and help redirect. The pastoral response is never to just immediately correct like, oh, that’s not biblical.

David Blease (00:32:55):
Yeah, why are you doing that? Stop?

Preston Benjamin (00:32:56):
Why are you doing that? That’s dumb. That’s never the response. It’s always first to start with curiosity. Before correction, you begin to ask questions. Oh, so oh, you’re really into the Nephilim. Tell me more about that. What kind of draws you to that very interesting topic,

David Blease (00:33:18):
Which by the way, we should do a separate podcast.

Preston Benjamin (00:33:21):
And then you begin to, as you’re asking questions, you begin to hear from them, oh, maybe they were kicked out of their last church, or they had some very significant hurt from some leaders in their life and now they’re on this tangent where this is giving them a sense of like, oh, I have purpose believing this and just asking the questions. You begin to see that. And in that you affirm what is good. We just talked about you affirm, oh, that’s great that you have such a desire to get to the truth, to get to what’s real. That’s a beautiful desire. And in affirming that, that’s when the pastoring begins of helping redirect, helping them get connected to healthy relationships, helping them maybe get to a place of healing certain things if they’ve gotten really off. But it’s those people who are maybe just curious that it’s a lot easier just to guide them the right direction. Like, oh, maybe don’t listen to those voices. Maybe listen to these voices. And so that helps. You’re asking then your other question that you asked.

David Blease (00:34:38):
I want to know the first person that we pastor, and this might sound very cliche, I feel like such a pastor right now, but the first person that you pastor is yourself. I have to pastor and kind of implement things in my life before I can ever help anyone else.

Preston Benjamin (00:34:59):
Self leadership, right.

David Blease (00:35:00):
So as you’ve been on this journey and now where you are on your journey, how do you pastor yourself? I still have the propensity to want to be curious, to want to go back to authenticity. We have these conversations all the time at the church. Why are we doing this? We should be doing this. Why are we leaning in so heavily here? We are missing this. So that tension’s always going to be there. It’s not like just doll your curiosity or stop searching for identity. Clearly that’s not the answer. So how have you pastored yourself? And then that might help us then understand how we can pastor others. That’s first wrestling with it ourselves.

Preston Benjamin (00:35:37):
In kind of identifying oftentimes when we get really interested in something or we get passionate about something, this needs to change. This needs to happen. It’s pausing and trying to recognize or discern where is that coming from? Is this coming from a place in me that maybe isn’t totally whole, that maybe is wanting? So if you want to see change happen, why are you wanting to see change happen so ,uch?

David Blease (00:36:13):
Yeah. What’s not right? Part and whole?

Preston Benjamin (00:36:14):
Are you going to be the one on the top when that change happens?

David Blease (00:36:19):
Right. It’s a great confrontational question. Are you the key?

Preston Benjamin (00:36:25):
Is the knowledge that you have once this change happens, going to put you in a really good situation, or even maybe not in that self-promotion type vein, but maybe it’s just as simple as adopting this way of life or believing this thing makes me feel more in control. It makes me feel like I’ve earned something. That’s the big temptation throughout the tension in Christian theology that’s always there between grace and right living. It’s this human propensity to want to earn our own way. And so often when people get into cultural mimicry, Jewish taking on Jewish identity, it’s this sense that if I do these things, I have certainty, I have control, and I know that I’m in the right and people don’t want, we’re not as comfortable living in that space of pure grace where we’re not earning our own way. So it’s complex because all of us are so different. We could approach one subject that we’re really passionate about. And if it’s like we’re talking about Jewish identity markers and keeping the feasts, if we’re just really passionate about keeping the feasts, we could begin to question that desire in us is this so that I can seem unique because I’m doing these feasts. I’m standing apart in my community as somebody who kind of has this special knowledge, this special standing even. Because are you feeling closer to God when you do these feasts?

David Blease (00:38:28):
Yeah.

Preston Benjamin (00:38:29):
If so, then why? Because we know theologically that you’re not any closer to God when you’re doing anything, right? It’s the same. God’s love for you is the same, no matter, you can’t increase it. You can’t decrease it. So I think just questioning your own motives when you’re pursuing these things and really trying to get at the heart of what’s driving, because we’re all human. We’re all on the journey,

David Blease (00:39:03):
And there’s a human desire for us to overcorrect. And we’ve seen this so often, and I’ve seen this in my own life. I remember the first time I had to hire someone to be a part of our team. I hired the exact opposite person that previously left because I was frustrated with one aspect of their personality that was more of an Eeyore personality. So I hired the happiest person I could find. I wanted the bubbliest person that walked in the room, you’re hired. I was young and turns out the frustration with this person, completely different frustration, but I started missing the person that left for different reasons. And we feel that with the church, anytime the church is in transition, which our church has been in, there’s this propensity to overcorrect, well, we had this, we need that. And it’s like, okay, let’s back up. And you’re saying, how much of this is actually trauma speaking? How much of this do we really believe? If we had that, the problems would be gone. We wouldn’t have other tensions. I promise you, if you have that, you’re going to start feeling the tension on the other side of the spectrum. But that’s really, you have to thoroughly examine yourself and examine the season you’re in. You have to be patient. Because the reality is we are dealing with trauma. We are dealing with almost every financial situation and decision. Don’t make it quickly. Don’t make big financial decisions quickly. And if you ever feel pressured by a salesman too, you walk away from this table, it’s gone, then walk away. I’m not making that decision right now. So I think we can take some of that understanding into our spiritual journey as well.

Preston Benjamin (00:40:57):
And I would say also another key is to focus more on people over ideas so we can, if we just focus hyperfocus on ideas, theology the right way of whether it’s the right of living, behaving or it’s the right way of thinking, believing, we focus on these ideas. And I’ve seen if you just that and you focus on people, it helps you self correct.

David Blease (00:41:39):
So good.

Preston Benjamin (00:41:40):
Correct, in the right way. And one of my favorite definitions of spiritual formation is actually being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of the other. And it’s that turn toward the other that’s so important in our walk with God

David Blease (00:41:55):
Being a motivating factor.

Preston Benjamin (00:41:57):
And so people who might start to get a little bit weird, are they spending most of their time debating and talking about ideas…

David Blease (00:42:11):
Arguing, studying…

Preston Benjamin (00:42:12):
Arguing, yeah, all about the ideas and all about how this is wrong. This is right and this and less time actually serving and loving people. Because if you just flip the time spent, that can kind of help correct you with focus on the people and loving the people.

David Blease (00:42:29):
That’s so good. I think that’s a great place that we need to kind of finish at. I was listening to Marty Solomon, who’s a Jewish believer. He has the Bema podcast, and he was talking about understanding the Hebrew ness of your faith, understanding the Hebrew ness of the Old Testament, even the New Testament thinkers, even though they’re writing Greek, they’re thinking in Hebrew, they’re thinking in this Jewish understanding. And he was talking about the fact that he had this intellectual desire for knowledge, for depth, for wisdom, all the things that we’re talking about, curiosity and identity. And he said, but one of the things that really kind of saved me or helped me along this journey in not becoming so ethereal was all of my mentors were, I can’t remember what the word he used, but were just Jesus lovers, mystics, prophetic. And his knowledge didn’t impress them. And he would be like, well, I found this deep thing in the Hebrew that no one’s ever seen before. And they were like, that’s awesome, man. What’s Jesus saying to you right now? And it kind of deflates you. At first, I was so puffed up with this knowledge as scripture says, knowledge puffs up. But it actually, I think can deflate us to our proper identity. I mean humility, not being a lesser view of yourself, but a proper view of yourself. Okay, this knowledge isn’t making me any better, but it can be a good tool if it is transforming me to be more like Jesus so that I can hear from him and be more like him, like you said, for the sake of the other. And I think that’s the final spot, is it has to start and end with prayer. And that’s something before we read scripture, before we hit record on this podcast, before we type in that comment, is the humility of saying, Lord, I could be wrong on this and I want to be open handed with it, even if that means I get egg on my face, I want to learn. And that’s why so many of our comments that most of them we don’t interact with, but if there’s a truly humble person saying, Hey, I’m confused on this, or I want to talk more on this, we love dialoguing with those people because they’ve influenced our thought. There’s been times where someone said, Hey, this was great, but I felt like you’re a little off here. Wow, we didn’t really think about that. We need to think deeper about that. We need to be more sensitive of that. Or maybe we jumped the gun on that. And that’s sharpening. And I always think God brings us to a community because He wants the community to sharpen us, and He brings us to a community. He wants us to sharpen the community. So there’s a mutual benefit, but we’re always going to rub up against the community because we’re supposed to. And if our first desire is to run because uncomfortable or we feel like the sharpening is hitting at the trauma we have or the identity crisis that we’re in, then we will run to something more comfortable, which might be the basement with my computer where I can…

Preston Benjamin (00:45:59):
The lone warrior

David Blease (00:46:01):
Have more online debates and not have to worry about getting checked.

Preston Benjamin (00:46:07):
Yeah, that’s great. I think absolutely the key question coming back to and when you get into, you find yourself really passionate about studying the Jewish foundation of the faith, and you’re getting into everything. It’s coming back to that simple question of how is this leading me closer to being more like Jesus to growing in my relationship with him? Is this leading me to a place where I am now trying to earn something before him? Is this leading me to a place where I’m trying to feel more special to use these things? The secret knowledge that I have that I’ve gained that nobody else knows very few on the inside now is…

David Blease (00:46:58):
Narrow is the gate.

Preston Benjamin (00:46:59):
Yeah. Is this leading me to feel puffed up when I talk about it? Or is this leading me actually in a place of humility before the Lord and closer to reflecting his nature, which is love, which is good, which is for the other, and this knowledge that’s been revealed to us through the Holy Spirit is not hidden. It’s not some secret code that we have to decipher in Hebrew, right? It’s not some 72 acronym name for Jesus that nobody else knows. It’s a revealed name. And through the Holy Spirit, we have been completely invited into the fullness of who God is. We don’t have to have some kind of secret to get there.

David Blease (00:47:49):
So I want to ask you one more question before we close, or two more questions. Two things that you’ve said that I think can become black and white, but there’s really a tension. So one, you said there’s God’s not hiding things in code for us to find, but there are layers upon layers upon layers of depth. So what’s the tension between hidden wisdom and unexplored depth?

Preston Benjamin (00:48:24):
That’s good because I’m somebody who loves to study and I love, one of my favorite things is being able to layer a few different scriptures like, oh, Ezekiel said this. Jesus said this. This is in Genesis. And you’re like, how the Bible weaves together these beautiful revelations beautiful truths, and that’s not arrived at by accident. Proverbs talks about it’s the glory of God to conceal a matter. It’s the glory of kings to search it out, and we are invited to search out the deep mysteries of God. But I think the point there is that that verse eye is not seen, ears not heard, then it says, but the Spirit has revealed these things to us. Even the deep things of God, the Spirit who knows the mind of God. These things are revealed to us. So it’s less about not pursuing the mysteries of God and more about how you’re going at it. What’s the motivation? Are you a part of a small group where everybody else has gotten it wrong and were the ones who’ve gotten it right? And kind of interrogating those things to help give you some checks and balances, right? That the pursuit of the mystery of God, the knowledge of God is something we’re called to, but it’s just, it’s guarding…

David Blease (00:49:53):
It’s more about the motivation.

Preston Benjamin (00:49:54):
Yeah. It’s guarding to not end up in that weird place.

David Blease (00:49:57):
Yeah. That’s so good. And then secondly, you said, if we’re desiring to do these things like the feasts, which many people would argue and have in the comments, they’re the feasts of the Lord. They’re not the feast of Israel, they’re the feasts of God. They’re not the feast of the Jewish people. So we’re supposed to call them regardless of that debate, when we are desiring to do something that brings us closer to God or that we feel like in scripture is mandated or maybe even strongly encouraged, your response was, well, that’s not going to get you closer to God. You can’t be more unloved or more, you can’t be more loved and you can’t be less loved. But there’s also a tension there with yes, but we can be closer to God. Can we be more intimate? His love might not change, but can the intimacy change? So is there a tension here between intimacy and love? Because if I chose to murder somebody, yes, God loves me the same, but is my intimacy the same or my wife, she loves me the same, but if I’m treating her poorly or not talking to her, it’s been 10 days and I haven’t said a word ;oves me the same intimacy. So is that the tension that we should hold onto?

Preston Benjamin (00:51:24):
Yeah. I mean, I guess in theological terms, you could say the difference between justification and sanctification, right?

David Blease (00:51:32):
Unpack that for us.

Preston Benjamin (00:51:33):
You have the justifying grace of God, which means that you are made just as if you never sinned righteous before the Lord in terms of your eternal security or salvation. And there’s this idea of sanctification is Paul’s words. We’re not making it up where you are growing into the image of Christ and you’re maturing and to perfection your, so there is a difference between being fully accepted, fully loved, and also being more like God reflecting him better. There is a difference between the two. But the great thing in relationships, if you want to know somebody, if you say, I want to know that person better, that person has to open up to you. They can’t, you’ll never get to know them. You can maybe know about them like, oh, they like to wear this, they like to do this. They like to, but it’s on them to actually open themselves up to you, to be vulnerable to you, to where you can then actually know them. And that’s the beautiful thing, is that God has completely opened himself up to us, but it’s on us how deep into that we want to go, how much we want to search out the fullness of the knowledge of God. That’s on us. But that’s the key distinction, is that he has not closed himself off. There’s no place in God’s heart that’s like, oh, nope, you can’t go there. You can come in and get to know me over here, this part of me, but you can’t know me over here. He’s completely open to us. So I wouldn’t necessarily say that you can grow in likeness of God, you can grow in intimacy. But that’s the debate then, is that, is doing the feasts making you closer to God? Then how do you define that word closer? Are you being more justified? No, you’re not being more justified by doing the feasts. Are you getting to know certain aspects of God better? I would say yes. But then that opens up the whole other avenue of when we talk about the feasts, are we talking about rabbinic judaism’s, formulation of the feasts

David Blease (00:54:11):
That happened over generations post-Jesus? Yeah.

Preston Benjamin (00:54:14):
Post-Jesus post the biblical witness. Are we talking about that? And then it also gets into the question of as gentile participants, are we blurring the lines of the distinction and just trying to create one or doing the reverse replacement theology where because we’re practicing the feasts because we’re looking like we’re Jewish now we’re actually creating more confusion. So it opens up all those conversations. But I agree with you that in doing the feasts and studying them in their biblical sense, you can unlock new aspects of who God is and get to know him better.

David Blease (00:54:51):
Well, I think that’s where we often will comment on and not comment in the sense of commenting on a post, but we will talk with people and lead them to, if you’re doing that for your own personal spiritual journey and it’s personally enriching and you feel closer to God because of it, and it’s unlocked this new level of intimacy, that’s great. As long as, like you said, that doesn’t make you more spiritual or less spiritual, that doesn’t make you more right. And the Gentile who’s going on an Easter egg hunt is a pagan or wrong, and that your personal draw or calling to participate with this may not be a universal calling for everybody in the church. So again, more levels of clarity. But I could hear people in the comments saying, but I do them for my personal, I do feel closer to Jesus. And that’s great, and we applaud that it gets messy when you start asking more questions which people need to wrestle with. Are you saying, is this the Jewish tradition from the 16th century or are you talking about what you read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy? Are you saying that all Christians should do this or that you feel personally called? These are all the questions that most people don’t want to wrestle with because it’s hard.

Preston Benjamin (00:56:15):
And I would just encourage anybody who’s listening, watching, that to interrogate yourself.

David Blease (00:56:25):
Love it.

Preston Benjamin (00:56:25):
Okay. If you really do, if you walked into a synagogue, a non-believing Jewish synagogue, and you just said, I feel the chills. I feel at home here. I feel like there’s something that is good that’s drawing you closer to God, but just interrogate those feelings.

David Blease (00:56:46):
Yeah. So good.

Preston Benjamin (00:56:48):
Don’t just assume like, okay, because I felt the chills when I listened to a Hebrew song. That must mean Hebrew is the language of God…

David Blease (00:56:57):
Or that I’m Jewish.

Preston Benjamin (00:56:58):
Or that, and the only way to be authentic to be true to my faith is then to start using Hebrew words for everything. Like, oh, I’m not going to say that. I’m going to say the Hebrew word, right? Because that’s the way to do it. That’s the way that God appreciates and listens to. He doesn’t hear Hebrew prayers more than he hears English prayers.

David Blease (00:57:21):
That’s great.

Preston Benjamin (00:57:21):
He really doesn’t. So I just say interrogate it. Sorry if that’s a little edgy. I’m just…

David Blease (00:57:26):
You’re talking to the wrong person. Because I literally preached a sermon in youth ministry called self Interrogation. It was a whole series on how to self, it was mostly about lust, but we didn’t touch on the Jewish Christian space. But one of the things that you reminded me of is the age old saying, emotions don’t always tell you the truth, but they tell you what you believe. And so that’s the whole concept is, oh man, I felt so much peace and I felt the goosebumps and I felt so at home. And that could be true. It could not be. But it’s definitely telling you what you believe, that you believe that you were an outcast and now you’re not. You were an orphan, but now you’re accepted. So again, it could be that this is the Holy Spirit’s doing this because he speaks through emotion, or it could be trauma is finding a place of comfort, and we are the ones that can interrogate ourselves and that we can open ourself up and say, holy Spirit, search me if any of this is not from you, show me. Yeah, that’s great. It’s a great place to end. Can you pray for the people listening? Because again, myself included, I’m on this journey. You’re on this journey. We need to be open-handed and soft-hearted because odds are, and I think this is another Marty Solomon quote, people 500 years from now are going to look at what we believe and say, idiots. So if we’re banking all of our theology on, we are the ones that are the most right? And everyone in ancient history was wrong, we’re going to be set up for failure. So not to find that security in just our knowledge, but in our relationship with God. So will you pray for all of us?

Preston Benjamin (00:59:12):
Absolutely. Yeah. Lord, we thank you for who you are. God, thank you for your unchanging goodness faithfulness in our lives. And Lord, I just pray for everybody listening, God, for my own life, for David, God, I just thank you, Lord, that you’re leading us into truth. You’re leading us Lord into good, holy, healthy places. And so, Lord, I pray along with the psalmist, Lord, search my heart. Know me, God, reveal in me if there’s any wicked way, anything that needs to change, Lord, and help me to see God, that what really matters, Lord, is in growing an intimate relationship with you, is reflecting you more and more, not in an insular kind of way, but reflecting you for the sake of the other, for loving our neighbor, as if our neighbor was God. Right? It’s loving God, loving our neighbor. But that primary expression of loving God so often happens through loving our neighbors. So Lord, I pray that you would help us to not be so focused on ideas, but focus on the people that you want us to reach, Lord, that you would heal God, the un hole broken places in our hearts, Lord, that the places where we might be trying to puff ourselves up, or we might be trying to earn our way before You, God, where we might be holding onto past insecurities, God, to feel more special, to feel more like that we belong because we do this. But no, God, I pray that you would show us how we belong completely and totally in you. Our identity is found in you and you love us. Nothing we can do could increase that love. Nothing we could do could decrease that love God, but that you’re committed to us. So I thank you, Lord for speaking that over each and every person, listening and leading us to this place where we completely trust you and helping us veer away from all the weirdness, Lord, that gets caught in our flesh so often. Thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen.

David Blease (01:01:22):
Amen. Thanks for spending time with us.

Preston Benjamin (01:01:25):
Yeah, that’s great. Great.

David Blease (01:01:26):
Till next time, ladies and gentlemen.