How I began my search...

by Barry Fike

    For my first blog I'd like to introduce myself to you and let you know how I began this journey of faith into the Jewish background of the Christian faith.  I was raised in a Minister's home in the states of Alabama, Arkansas and Kansas.  Our family were members of the church of Christ, and I heard more about condemnation and judgment than about love and salvation.   It's not that the messengers were trying to scare everyone in a constant reminder of judgment, but it was the mantra of the time.  This is what was taught to messengers (preachers) to preach because of the purity of the theology that could not be tainted.  Accept the conclusion, preach final judgment constantly and don't question the conclusions that we've arrived at.  However, I knew something was wrong--I just couldn't put my finger on it.  I looked for material to learn the background of wedding practices and other material that I thought would help me understand the context of so many scriptures.  I didn't know where to look for the resources and found myself constantly frustrated.  That all changed in 1989 when I found out about a seminar being done by a Prof. at the Univ. of Texas, Austin.  It was eight hours of lecture M-F in a Hotel banquet room in Austin, Tx.  I signed up, went, and my journey began.

    In less than 10 hours the teacher had seriously damaged many of my cherished theological beliefs but did so in such a logical and reasonable manner that I found this invigorating and spiritually stimulating.  The presentation dealt with a comparison of Judaism and Christianity, and the error in trying to understand Jesus and his teachings without the Jewish background. I called my wife on Tuesday evening and told her that I had finally found what I had been looking for all of those years.  I eagerly went home, ordered the books, transcribed material from the seminar and dug into the information with an intensity that excited me beyond anything that I had previously studied up to that point.  It was a problem only for those that had decided years ago that study wasn't what they needed.  This has been a continuing quest since 1989 and has helped me make sense of passages that beforehand not only were confusing but confounding.  

  Because of this I have decided to begin this blog and website dedicated to this study and all those who have aided and poured themselves into me to help me understand Jesus (Yeshua) better, his words, and his actions.   The result will be a countless pouring forth of material that I've looked at and hopefully will challenge many others to rethink and re look at words that can only be described as life.  I look forward to your questions and hope that as we journey together that we are turned more to the kingdom of God and the hope of glory found in the father and the son.