The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Hesed: Does the Tanakh Foreshadow Jesus? (The Loving-kindness of G-d) by Mark Stouffer

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Hesed: Does the Tanakh Foreshadow Jesus? (The Loving-kindness of G-d) by Mark Stouffer Amazon.com Lovingkindnessofadonai.com WHILE arguing with the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; . . .” In this series of books we will examine the Tanakh in order to see if Jesus' claim has any merit. In Hesed we will consider if the sacrificial system prescribed in the Torah prefigures Jesus’ death on the cross. We will do so by asking such root level questions as: Why did the Jews need to sacrifice lambs at the first Passover in order to be exempt from G-d’s judgement? After all, they were the victims in this event of slavery and oppression. Why did the High Priest need to immediately exit G-d’s presence once he sprinkled the blood in the Holy of Holies? Didn't the blood atone for his sins on Yom Kippur? et.al. We will also examine the lives of Joseph, Moses, David, and Daniel. For, there are some noticeable similarities between their lives and Jesus’ life. The question is, were these details purposely inserted in the Tanakh to foreshadow Jesus, or is this just a coincidence? Join author Mark Stouffer as he seeks to understand the intended meaning of the Biblical authors. Hesed is for Jewish people who want to know the truth about Jesus. It is also good for Christians who want to learn about the Tanakh, or Old Testament.About the author Mark Stouffer is a retired engineer who lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio. He was born in 1960 and grew up loving sports. Mark graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from Ohio State in 1983. After college, G-d reached out to Mark. G-d held Mark’s heart in His hand and said, “I am here.” Mark received Jesus as his L-rd and Savior, and everything changed. Mark has a passion for the Bible, which he has been studying and teaching for over 40 years. It has always been Mark's goal to learn the message that each Bible author intended as opposed to trying to make the Bible agree with his beliefs. Out of His grace, G-d called Mark to write this important four volume series. Indeed, the subject of these books was never Mark’s idea.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep in keep your hands arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hey folks it's voss here from the chris voss show.com there you go ladies and gentlemen there are things that makes it official welcome to the show we certainly appreciate it.

As always, the Chris Foss Show is the family that loves you. But we don't loan you money, but we still love you. But, you know, if you can find other members of your family that loan you money, that's on you. Make sure you get a good contract or something. I don't know. And don't borrow money from people that have, like, high vigs. I don't know if you have friends or your family in the mafia, but sometimes it can be bad. I'm just saying.

Anyway, guys, goodreads.com. Forge says Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com. Forge guys goodreads.com for just christmas linkedin.com for just christmas christmas one the tiktokity and there's probably hit on me now after making that statement anyway guys we have an amazing young man on the show we're talking about his latest book that came out october 20th 2023 it's called has said does the Tanakh foreshadow Jesus the loving-kindness of G-G-D God in essence we'll talk about why it's a G-D on his book and Mark Stouffer is on the show with us today we'll be getting into all the good stuff and knowledge and some of his writings and other books that he has mark is a retired engineer who lives with his family in Columbus Ohio Ohio. He was born in 1960 and grew up loving sports. He graduated with a degree in

civil engineering from Iowa State in 1983. After college, God reached out to Mark. God held Mark's heart in his hand and said, I am here. He received Jesus as Lord and Savior and everything changed. He has a passion for the Bible, which he's been studying and teaching for over 40 years, and it's been Mark's goal to learn the message that each Bible author intended, as opposed to trying to make the Bible agree with his beliefs. Out of his grace, God called Mark to write this important four-volume series. We'll get into that. And the subject of the book was

Never Mark's Idea. Welcome to the show, Mark. How are you? I'm good today. Good to be here. It's good to have you. So give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? I have a website. It is called lovingkindnessofadonai.com. And my books are on Amazon. You can search on my name name and there aren't too many people with my name and then maybe hesed h-e-s-e-d and that'll get you there but my website is lovingkindnessofadonai.com there you go so give us a 30 000 overview what's inside your new book okay so actually that you mentioned the first book which which is Chesed. It's the first of four books, as you said, and the books, the premise for all four for the series is John 539,

which I think is a very interesting statement that he made. He was in a debate with the religious leaders and he said, you guys search the scriptures and it is these that speak about me. So they didn't call it the Old Testament or the Tanakh, I don't believe at that time, but I'm not sure about that. But they call it the Tanakh today, the Jewish people. And he was talking to their leaders and he said, you search it, and he said, for salvation, and he said, it's all about me. So I'm writing the four volumes, each covering a different element of the Old Testament to see, is that really true? Is that true what Jesus said? Was it talking about him? So that's the subject of the series. In the first book, I cover the sacrificial system and the Old Testament law. And I look to see, you know, did that really point to what he did on the cross?

Or there's really not much of a connection. So I cover that. And then I cover one more element, which is I go through the lives of Joseph and Moses and David and Daniel and Cyrus, who actually was a Persian, and Isaac. And there's some really striking parallels between their lives and Jesus's life. And so, we compare those passages of those men, not everything in their lives, but there were key moments in their lives, key aspects of their characters that really have a strong parallel to Jesus. And so then I just asked the question to the reader, was this inserted by God in the Old Testament on purpose to foreshadow Jesus? Is it that strong?

So the reader can make his own decision on that, but I present the raw passages. And you've done a four-series book series, or where are you at in the process there? So actually, the second book came out last spring, and I'm writing the third book now. And the second book was called The Messiah, which is just the Hebrew spelling and pronunciation for the word Messiah. And, of course, and it is all about the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. And then we look at them and we lay them out. And then, again, we ask the question, how strongly did this predict what Jesus did a dozen years ago? So tell us a little bit about your upbringing.

I kind of read some of it in the bio, but tell us kind of how you were raised and some of these influences that happened to you as you went down that road. Yeah. So I was raised in a mainline Protestant denomination and the one I was in, I have no need to name it. The one I was in was quite ritualistic. And I didn't connect to it. But I went every week growing up and I was an altar boy for years. I became the head altar boy. But in the church, it was a lot of rituals. I

didn't connect to it. They really didn't explain. No one explained to me Jesus and his love and God. It was just doing these things. So anyway, so it didn't mean that much to me. But I went to college and I'm just an American guy, right? I played sports. I studied pretty hard. I had a job after school in high school. And then I went to college and I was good at math. So I went into engineering school, worked hard at that and just drank beer and played football with my friends in the yard, you know, outside of the dorm and that's it. And I really, you know, was I was kind of a all American kind of a guy. I didn't I didn't break any laws. I didn't do drugs. I, I drank plenty, but I, you know, I didn't cheat. I did

everything right in a way but and I didn't realize that I really wasn't that great of a guy. I kind of had an idea, you know, I mean, I gossiped and wasn't really all that nice, honestly. But I'm just kidding. And so any, and every now and then I would think about God and I, and I think he was knocking on my door a little in college and I would say, Oh God, I'm working so hard to, you know, in these engineering courses, but maybe someday. And then a funny thing happened, Chris, I graduated. And I, I graduated after winter quarter, it took me four years and two quarters at Ohio State. And you have to rent your apartment from September to September. So I graduated in March. So I was committed to staying in my apartment for six more months.

And the economy was really bad and I didn't have a job. So I had told God during college, you know, someday when I have more free time, I will consider you. And boy, I've never had so little to do in all my life. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a job. I didn't have anything to do, anywhere to go. And he came to me at that time. And it was a miracle.

I don't know how he does this. I'm sure he's done this with other people. But he kind of came into my heart. And he was just there all day. And he was there. And heart and he was just there all day and i just and he was there and i knew he was there he didn't say anything and that lasted over a week and you know at that time i tried to read a bible and i eventually i tried i called a pastor and went and talked to him he he was willing to come and talk to me at a church a few blocks away. And finally, I didn't know how to get to heaven, and I just prayed, God, please show me. And then within a week, I met somebody, graduated the same day as me, which a lot of people graduate at Ohio State.

It's really big. But he was in engineering, too, but I'd never met him. And he went to a Bible believing church and he invited me and I turned him down at first, but he kept inviting me and eventually I went. And then exactly, it wasn't like the church I grew up in. They taught the Bible. I'd never heard it. And I loved it. And I, and I heard how you go to heaven through Jesus. And so I received him, and that's my story. And so we mentioned when I was announcing the title of the book, G-D, and that's how it shows in the title of the book.

Is there a reason that it's presented that way on Amazon and throughout your book and history? Yeah, thanks for asking that. So I wrote these books for Jewish people primarily. Okay. And to be respectful to them, I wrote it the way they do. Okay. Not all Jewish scholars write it that way, but a lot of them do. And they do it just because they have so much respect for God,

they don't even want to write the word God. So they put a hyphen in for the vowel wow i do that when i say when i swear i'm going to go gd you know i do a hyphen in there no i'm trying to i'm not sure you're being respectful if you're using the gd words so what was the proponent so you go live your life you've been a civil engineer. When did you finally make the decision where you needed to write the books? Yeah, that's a good question. So I've been going to church and playing various roles of service all these years. And the thing that I always enjoyed reading the Bible, some things come easier to each of us and some things harder.

Praying, I wasn't great at. I would always go, oh, I'll pray, but I have to pay this bill first. You know, and I, but with the Bible, you know what I'm talking about? I do that. Yeah. You know, I'm like, I'm just going to strip one more night at Thunder Down Under. And then I just need to pay this one bill and then I'll get religion. And yeah, I've been doing that for 16 years or something. No one believes that story.

So I, but it was always easy for me to read the Bible. And so I've been reading the Bible and studying it for 40 years. I just, I actually wrote a book many years ago, but it wasn't that great. But it was good because I learned how to write a book and I got some feedback. I put all my effort into the research. And it was very interesting to me, but I didn't write it very well. I didn't write it for the reader. And it wasn't interesting to read. But anyway, I'm like, okay, that was a lot of work.

And I'm not sure God's calling me to do that. So I didn't write anymore. And then four or five years ago, I felt like I wanted to write something and I, and I actually wanted to write to Muslim people. And that's a whole story. I've studied the Quran quite a bit, but in the middle of the night, I woke up and I had all these thoughts in my head and I knew something was going on, and I got up. It was 3 in the morning, and I got up and typed it all out, and it took 40 minutes.

And it was a whole chapter in a book. But it wasn't to Muslims. It was to Jewish people. And in that moment, and ever since, I felt called by God to write this. And I just feel I just want to give God praise because, you know, as I said, I was not the greatest guy and I wasn't. And, you know, throughout my Christian life, I don't claim to be the nicest guy, the salt of the earth guy. I'm impatient, you know, and various other things. And I try, I have some qualities, but it's just out of God's grace. I

mean, I loved reading the Bible and I just felt like that's who God is. He just loves me as his son, regardless that I'm not the best follower of Jesus. And he's just, Mark, you want to write something and you just love reading the Bible. I have something for you. And he gave it to me. And so I just, thank you, God. That's all I can say. It's been a joy. You've written, this is the first book that we're featuring here. And then what's the name of the second one? Let's get a plug in for that. Yeah, the name of the second one is the Messiah. And it's all about the prophecy. Okay. Now, which prophecy do you want to expand a little on that?

You know, I did, as I was preparing for this show, I wrote a few things down. And in the final chapter of that book, I titled that chapter Puzzle Pieces, because I feel like there's a lot of messianic prophecies, and they're about both comings. There's about this hero coming at the end of human history to set everything right, the Messiah. But there's also these other prophecies. And I felt like that they fit together like puzzle pieces. And so you can look at one and go, my goodness, that's something. But then when you put three or four of them together, a picture emerges.

And so I'm just, I'm going to, if you don't mind, I'll rattle off just a few prophecies. Please. So the famous one is Isaiah 53 about a servant who dies on behalf, for the sake of the lamb, like a sacrificial lamb for the sake of other people's sins. And if you read it, if you read Isaiah 53, and you're not a Christian, or you're not a Jew, and you don't know that much about the Bible, if you read Isaiah 53, which was written around 700 years before Jesus, if someone reads that to you and doesn't say this is Isaiah 53, you'll go, that's Jesus. It's exactly him.

And it's about his death. And it's about him dying for the sake of the sins of others. In verse 5, it says that this servant will be pierced for our transgressions. And that's a quote. Now, in Psalm 22, that's famous. That's a Psalm written by David a thousand years before Jesus. And no one knew what that was about. But once they started crucifying people and the Jews learned what crucifixion was, because it would be hundreds of years after David wrote this when they knew what crucifixion was, then immediately everyone said, that's about crucifixion. Who is this person? And it's about one special person. And in verse 16, it says that

this person will, he's speaking, the victim, and he says, they pierced my hands and my feet. And it's speaking metaphorically, he says, a group of lions have pierced my hands and my feet. So Isaiah 53 said, they pierced, this person is pierced for our transgressions. So then Psalm 22 says that. And in Zechariah 12.10, it's about the Messiah coming at the end of the time to the Jewish people. And in 12.10, he says, I'm going to quote, Look upon me, they have pierced me. You have pierced me.

I'm not quoting it, but they look upon him and he is pierced. So the Messiah comes and he's pierced. And he appears before the Jewish people and shows them that. So these three verses fit together like a puzzle. So the Messiah is going to be pierced in his hands and his feet. So then when Jesus is, it's not just one prophecy where you could go, that's interesting. It's a whole bunch coming together. In Daniel chapter 9, in verse, I think it's 25, it says, and I quote, the Messiah will be cut off. And it gives a date. It gives a time. Cut off means

kill. That was an idiom in Hebrew. So that's amazing. What do you mean the Messiah is going to be killed? So there's these prophecies that fit into a bucket about a conquering Messiah coming, and that's at the end of time, and that context is given. And then there's these other prophecies about the Messiah being killed and being pierced, you know. And, of course, in crucifixion, you're pierced in your hands and your feet. So, anyway, I tied the prophecies together in the final chapter, which I call Puzzle Pieces.

So, those are powerful. And so you put this all. Do you feel inspired when you're writing that the Word of God is coming through you? Yeah. As I'm writing and as I'm reading passages, which I've, again, been reading for 40 years, sometimes the words lift off the page to me and I see the meaning in a way I never saw before more deeply. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I never saw that. But it's not a devotional type of interpretation.

It's, I know, I think I'm seeing what the author meant. You know, not, oh, that makes me feel good because last week my neighbor's dog died and he was really hurt. And I'm not putting that down, but some people go, oh, that passage is for me. And I don't want to denigrate that, but there's also an actual literal meaning that the author meant of each passage. And that's what I'm talking about. Okay. And, you know, that's why people study the Bible and other books like this is, you know, they're trying to flesh out the meaning and maybe, you know, some of the complexities and maybe what the people are referring to. And that's part of their in line with their study and stuff like that.

What do you see? Now you're writing a four-volume series. So you're writing, I think you said it, and forgive me, a book three or four you're working on right now? Yeah, actually both of them, but I'm finishing up book three. And then do you have any intent to do anything beyond that, or is it just kind of see how it works out after that? Yeah, it's kind of see how it works out after that.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you're doing a lot. Four books is a lot, especially when you're working on two or three at the same time. You know, you've got your hands full there. But it sounds like it's really rewarding to you, and people are receiving it well, and they're finding it rewarded. Now, are you Jewish by birthright? No, I'm European.

How is the Jewish people responding to it? I don't know. We've given it to, I don't actually know a lot of Jewish people, but we've given it to all the ones that we know, my wife and I, and we're praying that God gets it in the hands of the people he wants to read it. And actually, you know, most Jewish people are not interested in hearing about Jesus. They're very wonderful people. They want to be our friends, real friends. Yeah. But they're not interested in Jesus.

And I know that. And so writing this book, first of all, there's only 15 plus million Jewish people in the world. So that's a small audience. And only a very small fraction of them are interested to find out who Jesus really was. So my audience is very small, but I felt called by God to do it. So I'm doing a lot of praying. Do you think your books are targeted also to people, maybe Christian faith, who want to just study this sort of thing? Maybe it's good for them too? Yeah, that's a good question. It is good for Christians who, for whatever reason, their church doesn't teach a lot about the Old Testament. It's good for them.

Because when you grew up, that was one of the things you mentioned. You were like, hey, I don't want to. I noticed on your website looking over, you've got several promotions where you've got reach out for pastors and church leaders, normal people to take a look at your thing. What do you do with the pastors and church leaders in getting them exposed to the book? We offer a seminar that my wife and I teach. My wife is very knowledgeable and a very good public speaker. And so we teach a half-day seminar. And really, this is about the Old Testament and about, you know, there's a lot of prophecy in the Old Testament about the end of time, and we teach a little bit about that, too. So those things, that's what we offer.

You might want to do a, you guys should do a TikTok channel or a YouTube. I've seen even, you know, people doing Bible study on TikTok. It's kind of interesting to see. And I guess they, I mean, there's people over there that are definitely interested in it. But the great thing about that is they can spread their message a lot more wider. But, you know, it's up to you what you want to do. Just a suggestion there. Whatever we talked about, maybe they

want to tease out to get people to order the books before we go. You know, we've done pretty good. The third book is out late in 2025 and it is, you know, the minute Adam and Eve sinned, and God said, Okay, I told you, you know, you're gonna die. And he cast them out of paradise into a broken world that we live in. And eventually they died. But the minute he did,

as he was telling them, okay, this is really going to happen. He also gave a very cryptic hint, you could call it, about that there would be a Savior that would come one day. You know, I'm glad I just thought of that verse because he actually said that Satan is going to, of this descendant that Eve would have one day, this Savior, he said, Satan is going to bruise you on the heel. So that's very interesting because we just talked about those verses of the prophecies where you'll be pierced in your hands and feet. But anyway, he set in motion this plan, and then the plan takes shape as the Old Testament moves along, and the Jews play a huge part in that plan. And so, we look at that, and the goal of that plan is one day to restore man back into God's presence, into paradise or heaven. And so, we look at now, how does Jesus fit in that plan as it's laid out in the Old Testament?

And then the fourth book, and I don't know if this will sound that great to readers, but I really like it, is I do a literary analysis of the Old Testament. And, you know, it's very interesting because it's just, it's a great piece of literature, great writing, and so on. And then in the first 11 chapters, all these plot lines are open. Man's kicked out of paradise, in trouble. Satan has made accusations against God's character. And then you have, I think, 900 some chapters after that. And in the very last book of the Bible, which was the last book written,

Malachi, it's a four, I think think four chapter prophetic book but it you know part of prophecy is they were addressing real life issues of their day as well as predicting the future and giving warnings and you know they they had been exiled to babylonia and they'd come back two of the 12 tribes had come back and but they still weren't doing well spiritually. And Malachi's, my gosh. And in this, there's a quote from God where he says, this is shocking. He was using shock appeal. God says, I'm going to rub vomit on your faces to the priests. Can you believe that? They must have been bad. They were offering, yeah, they were were and they were offering diseased and

and lame three-legged sheep as their sacrifices oh that'll do it and guys you don't get it it's for you that you offer sacrifices and i'm gonna bless you and but i need you to relate to me and trust me and you're i'm just i'm just an afterthought to you and a problem to you, you know. And so the book ends that way. But the point is that none of the plot lines that were open in the beginning of the book were answered by the end of the book. None of them. And so then, you know, then what I do is I go through that. I do a literary analysis.

And then I look at the message of the New Testament. And then we ask the question, does the message, the main message of the New Testament answer those plot lines? How well does it answer them? Because to me, when you read the Old Testament, you read the entire thing or you you look at the entire work no one would end it that way it's ends on a in in defeat and god of all people would not end his book that way so it it begs for a second volume so that's what you're putting them out there and people are reading them so give us your final pitch out for people who are of the book tell them what dot coms they can go to find out more and get to know what you're

up to. Yeah. Loving kindness of Adonai.com. And there's just links to Amazon for my books there, but there's explanations of each book and some excerpts you can look at, but, or you can just go to Amazon. I have the eBooks price priced very low because I'm not really writing these, maybe as you can tell, to make a fortune. I'm retired. I'm writing these because I love God, and I believe he called me to send this message out. So the e-books are priced very low,

and the paperback is priced at a normal price. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. We certainly appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much, Mark, for being here. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And order the book, folks, wherever fine books are sold.

It's called Hesed, at least the first in the series, I should say. Hesed, Does the Tanakh Foreshadow Jesus, the Loving Kindness of God? Out on paperback and other formats, October 20th, 2023. Thanks to our owners for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortunates Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortunates Chris Foss. Chris Foss won the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

We'll see you next time.