The Eric Metaxas Show - Rabbi Kirt Schneider

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Decoding the Torah: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World, Rabbi Kirt Schneider reveals the timeless relevance of Old Testament laws for today's believers. After reading this groundbreaking book, you will discover how to apply the ancient Laws of the Torah to your modern-day walk with Christ.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noblegoldinvestments.com. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to listen to a man of grace, sophistication, integrity, and whimsy? Well, so are we. But until such a man shows up, please welcome. Welcome, Eric Matt, Texas. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. It's literally May Day. It's May 1st. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Thursday. May 1st.

I'm in Rome, Georgia. I was invited to the White House for the National Day of Prayer. I couldn't go. I'm in Rome, Georgia. I got to say, in a couple of seconds, I'm going to be talking to our friend Todd Chapman about the modern abolitionist movement. Great opportunity. After that, we talked to Rabbi Kurt Schneider about his brand. new book Decoding the Torah and then an hour to a brand new film called COVID Collateral. You do not want to miss it. Stay tuned.

We typically partner with our friends at CSI, Christian Solidarity International, when we're doing what I'm talking about right now. So I thought it would be valuable to bring on Todd Chapman. Todd, welcome back. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate the partnership over so many years. So many lives changed. It's amazing. what your listeners have done.

I think there are people, you know, tuning in who can hardly believe this is real. I always have to say that that you mean to tell me that there are actual slaves, not sort of, like actual slaves. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, but the only good news is we can do something about it. We can free the slaves literally. I use the word literally carefully here. I don't like when people use it sloppily. We can literally free slaves, set them up in a life of freedom when we partner with CSI,

that's what we're asking you to do today, or at least to listen to what's involved. So, Todd, lay it out for us, if you would. Sure. Well, CSI, first of all, for those not familiar, Christian Solidarity International since 1977, we have been working on, you know, rescuing people from religious and civil liberty, infringements and violations all the way up to, including imprisonment and enslavement, like you were saying, Eric. And a big air, we do it in regions all over the world, but a big area.

area of our focus has always been in Sudan, where late last century, I made that sound like a long time ago, and it was a long time ago, like 30 years ago, the Sudanese civil war, basically it was just religious persecution. And Muslim marauders were allowed to go into largely Christian villages in what is now South Sudan and rape and pillage and just destroy. And they have taken captives, and they've been held for ever since then, you know, 30 some years now. And CSI's been engaged in freeing them now since the 90s and over 100,000 people have been rescued, brought back into what is now South Sudan, reunited oftentimes with their families, and spared, frankly, and saved from all sorts of horrendous abuse.

I mean, we're talking, you know, we're talking mutilation, beatings, verbal abuse, everything you can imagine. And so that's really the heartbeat of what CSI does. And when you think about the fact that you can liberate a human being, most of them women, but now a lot of children who are actually born into slavery as well, you can set them free with your gift of $250 and, with that same amount of money, set them on the course to having a new life in freedom.

You provide them what we call it a sack of hope, but it's actually much more than that. It's grains, it's resources, it's bedding, shelter, it's a she goat to get them started on a brand new life in freedom. So it's really a remarkable opportunity for you to make a huge life-changing, life-saving difference in the lives of people. And as I was saying earlier, Eric, over the years partnering with you, the Metaxus listeners have freed well over, I've lost count actually.

It's got to be into the 7, 8, 9, 10,000 people. So we're very grateful for the partnership and we'd love to have more people join us. I mean, the whole thing is staggering to me. As I say many times, it's hard for us who live in America in 2025 to conceive of the evil that's still in the world. Like, you know, maybe we abolish slavery in America in the 1860s, but evil continues around the world and it's up to good people to do what they can to fight it. And so the fact that this is real that in the 1990s, people were enslaved, folks.

This is not like a race issue. This is black people in Africa enslaving other black people because of their faith. So you have radical Muslims enslaving people in a part of the world today. This is a reality today. So this happened 30 years ago. We know, you know, the UN gets involved and whatever. So they put an end to taking new slaves, but they did not require them. Think of this.

They did not require these slave owners to give up their slaves. And that is why we who can have to do something. about it. Because if we don't do something about it, they remain enslaved. This has gone on now for decades. They have had children. The children are slaves. This is real. And again, it beggars the imagination. But I think if you're listening, you know this show. I don't make stuff up. I try never to exaggerate. This is real. But the good news is that the folks at CSI for a long time have been involved in doing God's will throughout the world. And this is, as specific and clear an opportunity as we get to put our faith into action. And that's a big topic

for me, faith in action. What does your faith lead you to do? Do you understand that God obliges us to put our faith into action? If you say you have faith, but you don't put it into action, well, maybe it's because he actually don't have faith. So this is a beautiful opportunity. And Todd, I'm always amazed at how, you know, you guys have figured out it's not enough simply to free these people. That's, of course, the most important thing. But then to set them up in a life of freedom. We cannot imagine the trauma that they've been through, what happens to them. So the fact that every $250 that people give helps people get set up in a life of freedom. So talk more about that because that's just beautiful. You actually follow up with these folks.

Yeah, so, you know, keep in mind that most of the people that we rescued, they were actually enslaved when they were young, you know, oftentimes two, three, four years of age, taken captive. Again, when these marauders came through, usually killed the parent, killed the men, killed the brothers usually, moms and daughters taken captive. And so they've really literally never known anything other than captivity. And then oftentimes their mom is killed. They're given or sold to different masters. they're repeatedly raped by multiple men. Oftentimes they end up having children. And so you can imagine, and then the isolation and being told multiple times, you are less than human, you have no value.

If you try to escape, we're going to kill you. That's been their life. And now suddenly they're set free. They're returned to their homeland, and they find a new community among other women who have shared that same experience. And so, first of all, that community, but it's all anchored in the church. All of this is anchored in the love of God. and the love of Jesus. That's our motivation. And when they come back, we do our best to

reunite them with their family in their original community. If we're able to, sometimes they were taken so young, they don't even remember where they're from. And so we can't always do that. But in the event we can't, we set them up in communities built around a local church, a pastor shepherding them, and we start them on a whole new life. So it really is a beautiful picture of restoration as only in redemption and freedom that only God can provide. through his people. So I think it's the most beautiful expression of showing the love of Christ in a transformative way that any human being could be a part of it. When you think about it, $250. I mean, that's nothing. You know, you break that up over the year. It's a 20 bucks a month.

You're freeing a human being. And oftentimes now they're bringing the kids with them and setting them on a new life in freedom in Jesus. It's beautiful. We love you to be a part of it. Here's the phone number 888253-3522. 888-253-3522. The website, as I've said, is metaxis talk.com. At the very top of the page, you'll see a banner. Click on that banner. And I also want to remind you before we go to visit our friends at the Herzog Foundation.

if you're interested in homeschooling, and I really think that this is the future of America, is that a lot of these kids that have been homeschooled are graduating, are going to college. They are patriots. They have a wisdom. I mean, homeschooling is amazing. So I think we have a great future in America because we've been doing this work. So the greatest resource is Herzog Foundation. dot com, Herzogfoundation.com. And they also have another website, which is a lot of other stuff,

readlion.com, R-E-A-D-L-I-O-N, R-A-D-Lion.com, R-A-D-Lion.com, R-A-D-Lion.com, R-A-D-A-D-R-A-D-SogFoundation. If you're not signed up for my newsletter, please do so at Eric Mataxis.com. A lot of resources. Eric Mataxis.machis.com. Thanks tuning in. So you're putting money away, saving for the future, for retirement, for your family. doing what you're supposed to do, right? Well, what if I told you that your 401k, IRA, and other investments are probably paying for gambling, abortion, and LGBT causes? Inspire Advisors can tell you where your profits are really coming from. Do what I did. Go to InspireAdvisors.com and order your free customized impact report and find out. Inspire is a recognized leader in faith-based investing.

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the Torah. Rabbi Schneider, welcome back. Brother, God bless you. And good to see your face, Eric. And good to see your face. We're having some tech issues. I thought we might have to do this by audio, but praise the Lord, we can actually see each other sort of face to face. I think, you know, I always laugh because I speak about Bonhoeffer so much. And a lot of times I have this joke line where, you know, I talk about the Jewishness of Jesus. And because, you know, the idea that there are people who might not know that or whatever. So anytime I have an opportunity to talk about the Jewishness of Jesus, I get happy. So thank you for for your podcast, discovering the Jewish Jewish Jesus.

Jesus. And do my audience a favor, before we talk about the book decoding the Torah, tell my audience, give my audience a brief version of how you came to believe as a Jew that the Jewish Messiah is Jesus. Well, totally supernatural, was lost struggling in life from 18 to 20 years old. I was, if, let me just say this first of all, if Jesus, if Yeshua, would not have supernaturally revealed themselves to me. I would have been a completely broken, lost human being. I don't even know what would have happened to me. I was on a road to complete oblivion and lostness.

What happened was I had a strong identity as an athlete, wrestled all through school, got a small scholarship to wrestling college. But when I walked off the wrestling mat for the last time, it was like I lost my identity. In an instant, I didn't know who I was anymore. because for so long, I lived wrestling, ate it, trained it. It's all I focused on. I was in control in that environment.

And then all of a sudden, I realized, you know what? The world's a lot bigger than people that wrestle 119 pounds. And I'm not in control. And I'm vulnerable. I'm a speck in a huge world. I can't control if I'm going to get in a car wreck, if I'm going to get cancer. And I went to a tailspin. It was like that for a couple years.

And then in 1978, I went to sleep one night. I was in the middle of reading a new age book called Autobiography of a Yogi. I'm not recommending the book. I'm just telling you where I was. I was searching. And all the sudden, in the middle reading that book, I went to sleep. And the Lord awoke me from my sleep. I was simply in a supernatural, conscious state of awareness.

It was in color. My eyes were closed. I was having a vision of the night. And suddenly, Jesus of Nazra appeared on the cross. As an American, Eric, I knew who he was. I knew that the person on the cross was Jesus, but as a Jew, I had no familiarity with anything really about him. I knew nothing about the Bible in relation to him. I knew nothing about sin. I knew nothing about the devil. All I knew is that God had just revealed himself to me from heaven. Jesus appeared on the cross, and then a ray of red light era from straight above the blue sky, from above the blue heavens, the ray of red light.

beamed down on Jesus's head. And in an instant, I knew that God had just revealed himself to me and show me that Jesus was the way. And that was the origin of my beginnings, as a disciple of Jesus. You've told the story before when you were on this program. I wanted you to tell it again, obviously much briefer, but it's important for people to know these things and to know that God is in the business of doing miracles. And we never know when he's going to do what he's going to do. I had a similar experience to you. Once I graduated college, my whole identity was in whatever it was, performing, you know, getting A's or whatever the heck it was that made me think I was something special. And that goes away.

And for some people, by God's grace, you're totally lost. And it makes you long for something. And in my case, in some way similar to yours, the Lord very miraculously. revealed himself to me. And I wouldn't be where I am today. I shudder as you do. I shudder to think where I would be. So I'm so glad to have that, you know, story from you. From you. Yes. And okay, so the book, the new book is called decoding the Torah. What do you mean by that title? Why does the Torah need decoding? And for people who maybe don't know, explain what is the Torah? Well, the Torah is the first five books of our Bibles, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And the Torah is really the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith. Remember Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, verse 17 through 19, he said, do not think I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've not come to abolish, but fulfill. And then he went on to say, and everybody that teaches people to forsake the law and the prophets will be called least in the kingdom of God, but those that teach his disciples how to live by the principles of the law and the prophets will be called greatest in the kingdom of God. And so Yeshua in the sermon in the Mount said that a disciple that is following him, that is

looking to live by God's self-revelation in the law and the prophets and teaching others to do so will be called greatest in the kingdom of God. So what we have in the time, the time, Torah, according to the rabbis, our 613 laws. These laws are also called precepts or mitzvote, we say in Hebrew commandments. And what we're doing and decoding it is we're looking at the ancient laws of the Torah, given 3500 years ago, looking for the wisdom and self-revelation of the Lord in these laws, and then applying them to our lives today as Jesus' disciples. We're not under the law. We're not under the legal requirement of the law, but that doesn't mean we should throw away God's self-revelation that's in the law. And I could go on. I'll let you follow up there.

Well, no, I mean, that's, it's, there's so many people that have really missed the centrality of, or the, the Jewishness of Jesus, really, to, to put it in a nutshell, and to understand that to say, I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus, is to be grafted in by faith as a Jew. A lot of Christians don't get that. They have a tribalist view of identity, which is from the pit of hell, let me just say clearly, they don't get it. And so anytime we can understand how Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, of the Torah, it's vital. So I'm always excited about it. this. Well, so talk more than in the book when you talk about decoding the Torah. What are some things that we should know that most of us don't know? I want to make one more fundamental

statement that we're going to launch right into some of the laws. Around the 300, 300, 400, as Constantine started making, quote, Christianity, the state religion of the Roman Empire, he breathed into that an anti-Semitic spirit, which really caused the early church to become disconnected from understanding their faith through a Jewish lens. We remember Jesus is the king of the Jews. He's the lying from the tribe of Judah. But because of early anti-Semitism, very early on in church history, the church started deviating from her Hebrew roots, Eric, as you were just saying. And a great example of this, before we jump right into the law, is the King James version of John 1, verse 17. The Gospel of John chapter 1, verse 17. Listen to the way the King James

translators translated this. For the law, they said, was given by Moses, and then the next word, and if you have, by the way, a hard copy of the King James Version, you'll be able to see this next words in italics in your Bible. For the law was given by Moses, but, and if you look in your Bible, you'll see the word but is in italics, but grace and truth, they said, came by Jesus Christ. So once again, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. King James Version, the version of the Bible that most substantially formed people's theology for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now, when we think about this word but, what does the word but do? It sets up a contrast, right? It's like you go to dinner and the waiter, the owner comes

over to your table, how was your meal? And you say, well, the steak was great, but the service was poor. The butt sets up a contrast. How do I look today? Well, your shoes look really good, but I don't think your blouse goes with your shirt. So when you think about the fact that butt sets up a contrast, and the King's name serves under the Bible was really the lens through which people were understanding the Bible by, consider the verse again. We have to explain, we have to explain something. case of, I think there's a lot of people that are not tracking, and I want them. Okay, please. When the Bible puts a word in italics like that, folks, in case he didn't know, the Bible was not written in English, right? So the translators, the King James translators in this

case, they feel, you know, sometimes they need to help you a little bit. So they put in the word but, because that's their understanding that it really should be there, even though it's not there. So they put it in there, but it's not really there. So to make clear, they put it in italics, just so you can kind of read between the lines. Most people don't know that, though. So they read the word but, and they accept this interpretation,

which Rabbi Schneider is making clear, is misleading. So imagine that the Bible can be misleading. Well, it's not God that's misleading. it's the people who translated it. It's a shocking thing. When we come back, we're going to unpack this further. Very important. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. We're talking to Rabbi Schneider about, Kurt Schneider, about his book decoding the Torah. And you were just explaining, Rabbi, this is so huge, how anti-Semitism crept in, how this false dichotomy creeps in, as though you get a choice between you got Moses over here or. Jesus. And it implies that Jesus is not the fulfillment of the law and Moses, but that he somehow negates it. And of course, in some ways, I guess you could make the case in some ways, but basically that's not true. And you're quoting from, is it first John? In the verse I was just quoting there, it was Gospel of John chapter 1, verse 17. Okay, the Gospel of John. So you were talking about how the word but is put in there by the translators. Ladies and gentlemen, the reason I'm

interrupting here is to just make clear whenever anybody cavalierly says, oh, I believe the Bible. What does that even mean? What do you mean you believe the Bible? What if the Bible has mistranslations? You don't agree with those, do you? So there are not a lot of these, but we're talking about one here. It's a three-letter word. It's tiny, but the implications are staggering, staggering. And we have to take this seriously. And of course, we have to correct what human beings have screwed up. God didn't screw it up. It's not in the original manuscripts, but it's in the King James, which some people act as though that's one of the original manuscripts, which it ain't. And here's a classic example. So, Rabbi, forgive me for going on. Keep going.

Well, just to sum it up, the main point here is that when you read that translation, the King James Version, it makes it sound like the grace of God, is opposite the law of Moses. But that is completely wrong from what was going on. And we know that. Listen to the first verse that comes right before it. We've been quoting John 117. The law was given through Moses, but grace came through Jesus. But listen to the verse before it.

The first before it says, grace upon grace. How many graces? Two. Grace, one grace upon grace. There's a second grace. One grace stacked on top of a number. another. Grace upon grace, we have all received. The law was given by Moses. Now, take out the butt, which the King James Version did do when they revised it. The law came by Moses,

and then it continues, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. The point is the law was an elementary form of God's grace. It wasn't the fullness of God's grace. The fullness of God's grace came in the fullness of time when God set to his son, Yeshua of Nazra, to die. in the cross. So the point is, we are not under the law legally, but the law contains a self-revelation of who God is, and it's not to be discarded. The grace of God is not opposite the law of God. The law of God is part of the grace of God. The Lord said to Israel, what nation is there that has such great and mighty statutes as these that I'm giving you today? The problem that we have in the church today is a gospel of greasy grace, sloppy agape, unbridled prosperity, and we don't have the fear of the

Lord, and we don't know how to walk in holiness, and holiness separates the profane from that which is not profane. This is not a book about legalism. It's helping you as God's people to understand how you can apply the principles, not the letter, but the spirit of the law to your life. Let's jump right and give an example. So one of the early laws is from the book of Bear Sheet in the book of Genesis chapter number 32 verse 32. The law states it. It's called the prohibition against eating the thigh muscle of any animal. Now what does that mean? What does this mean? Why is that relevant for any follower of Jesus today? When would you study decoding the Torah? That's why I call it decoding the Torah. I'm helping God's people to make sense of these laws. What this law

about is that when Jacob wrestled with God all night, and then the Lord disconnected him in the hip area, it was only after the Lord disconnected him in his thigh or hip area that God changed his name from Jacob to Israel and blessed him. So we remember that as Jews, but not only as Jews, all God's people should understand this. According to the rabbis, the thigh area is the seat of because it's such a strong connective place in the human body. Before God could bless Jacob, he had to break his pride. He broke the sine of the connective tissue in his thigh and hip area. And after he handicapped him, after he dislocated his thigh, then the Lord blessed him. And Jacob walked in that blessing now that his name had been changed to Israel. And as we all know,

he became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. What's the point? The point is that we cannot walk in the fullness of God's blessing in our life until he first breaks us of pride and we become dependent on him rather than self-reliant. This is what the Apostle Paul taught. His power, Paul taught, God Paul taught, God's power is perfected in our weakness. And that, you know, I mean, that's at the very heart of our faith. Humility, not self-abasing, self-flagellating, but genuine realistic assessment of what we are able to do apart from God, nothing, to really know that and to know that our strength is in him. It's at the center of everything. But I'm fascinated when we can see this stuff in the Old Testament, when we make these connections, which is why I'm so excited about your book decoding the Torah. Because I really do think that there are

many, many people of Christian faith. They want to go deeper. They want more. And they get a lot of fluffy self-help sermons in the crummy churches. Crummy, that's the King James word, churches that they go to. And God wants us to go deeper. Most people know I want to go deeper. Decoding the Torah, which is your new book, helps us to do that. So we'll be right back with Rabbi Kurt Schneier, the new book, Decoding the Torah. Folks, welcome back. The new book is called Decoding the Torah. I'm talking to Rabbi Kurt Schneider. Rabbi, where are you? I forget. Are you in Tennessee? Right now I'm in Punta, Florida.

Florida. Even better. So you, you know, you have an amazing story, which, you know, your life is a reprisal of this idea of, you know, Jews coming to Jesus and discovering their true Jewishness. just as Christians who come to Jesus discover their true Jewishness, that we're all worshipping the God of the Jews. So this is very, very important. Let me ask, before we go further in the book, your podcast, discovering the Jewish Jesus, where can people find that if people want to listen to you on this?

Well, the best thing to do is go to my website, Discovering the Jewish Jesus.com, because we're all over. We're everywhere, television, radio, you name it. So you can go to the website and it'd be a full listing of all the places where available. Okay. So the book decoding the Torah. Let's go more into that. What are some of the things that, you know, a lot of us would miss, but that you've put in the book? Oh, so much, Eric, so much. Here's another great one. Exodus 30 verse 7 and 8. The law is called,

they're according to the rabbis, 613 laws in the Torah. I go through over a hundred of them. them. Here's another one that will be of interest. To burn incense of sweet spices unto the Lord every morning. So the priest in the tabernacle, which later became the permanent structure of the temple in Jerusalem, were required every morning to burn sweet incense unto the Lord. Beautiful, beautiful. What's the takeaway for followers of Jesus today? What's the takeaway for Jesus' disciples? Remember Jesus taught every scribe that becomes a follower of his, will be like the owner of a house that's able to bring forth treasures old and new. To know all this is very valuable, a scribe as someone that knows the Bible.

What this tells us is when we wake up in the morning, God's people, we're tired sometimes, maybe we didn't get a good night's sleep last night. When we look at this law to burn incense of sweet spices unto the Lord every morning, what this does is it challenges you and I that regards to what we feel like in the morning. Maybe we're tired, we're for groggy, maybe we don't feel a connection to God. We need to rise above that. We need to rise above our emotions, our physical weariness, perhaps, and every day we wake up, just like God commanded the priest to do, and bless him and worship him and pray.

The priests, again, were commended to burn fresh, sweet incense unto the Lord every morning. It's a challenge. You don't need to feel in love with God to love him, because according to Judaism, Love is not first a feeling, it's an action. And what we learn from the law and what I teach in my book decoding the Torah is really how to walk with God. So many of us have never had teaching. We're ruled by our emotions, chasing after the next sensational thing or the next spiritual high. That is not the way for our roots to grow deep and for us to become solid and rooted in the peace and the shalom of the Lord.

What you just said is so important. I've talked about this, and I will be talking about it much more, but how in our culture we have fundamental misunderstandings. And the word love, it's the classic, right? People say, I'm in love. I'm in love, the biblical identification of love, the Jewish identity, the actual real, the reality of love, God's idea of love. is that it is an action. It is how I behave. It is not how I feel. And we've been living in a culture that has been suffused with the idea that it's feeling, feeling, feeling. And we have to be clear, that is from the pit of hell, folks. That is wrong. If I don't feel loving toward my wife, it doesn't mean that I cannot behave lovingly toward her and that God requires it. He doesn't say, how do you feel? And this is so fundamental, a biblical definition of things, a biblical definition of

love. And again, the whole culture, including many Christians, gets this fundamentally wrong. And so I'm just so glad for your explaining that, because it really is, it's pernicious. It's pernicious. Okay, so what else is in decoding the Torah? Well, just an interesting tidbit before we go on to the next law. the priest, the high priest in the temple, he wore a robe and at the bottom of his robe, and this is according to the Torah's prescription of what the high priest should wear, at the bottom hemming, from the hem of his robe were pomegranates and bells, pomegranate and bell, pomegranate and bell.

And for those of us that have gone to Israel, perhaps one of the first things that you experienced when you got to Israel was somebody came up to you to try to sell you a glass of pomegranate chews. So pomegranate is the great fruit of Israel. Well, according to rabbinic Judaism, there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate, which is the exact number of laws in the Torah. Now, that's not a scientific fact because there could be more than 600 or less than 600, but it's just a beautiful teaching that the priests wore the pomegranate, 613 seeds in the pomegranate, 613 laws in the Torah.

Just a lot of it. I love the beauty and the color of it. Here's another one. A lot of Christians, we've really watered this down. But one of the, it's actually the fourth of the ten commandments, which is to celebrate and observe Shabbat or the Sabbath. We think we're observing the Sabbath if we go to church on Sunday. Oh, we've done it.

We fulfilled her obligation. And then we go on and do whatever we're going to be doing. That is so, we are so much missing the blessing. See, this is about a spiritual opportunity. Yeshua said the Sabbath was not made for man. Rather, he said the Sabbath is not something to be a burden on man, but rather he said the Sabbath was given to man as a gift. So in the book of Exodus chapter 20, verse 8 through 11, we find the law of keeping Shabbat. And I have found in my own life, Eric, after practicing Shabbat for, I don't know how many years, 20-something years now in a very disciplined way,

there is so much health, there's so much life, there's so much power, there's so much training in our spiritual nature to be able to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit by taking a day every week to stop doing, to stop being busy, and to instead follow the principles of the law in terms of how to really take a day a week to rest unto the Lord. We have to go to another break. Folks, I hope you're as captivated as I, by what we're hearing. The treasures that are in the Torah are for us. The new book is decoding the Torah. Rabbi Kurt Schneider is my guest. We'll be right back. Welcome back, folks, talking to Rabbi Kurt Schneider. And it is Schneider, yes? Schneider. Yes, I was going to say, because I know a Schneier, but I wanted to make sure.

Oh, that's why you're calling Schneider. The book is decoding the Torah. So let's keep going. What else is in the Torah that many Gentile Christians are not aware of? Well, let me just make a few final comments on Shabbat, if I could, practicing the Sabbath. It is a day, the Lord rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. and we've been created in his own image. This is a creation principle.

We read about it first from the book of Genesis, and I just want to encourage God's people to get this book and read about Shabbat, as well as all the other laws, because they're meant to us, to be a blessing to us. Here's another one that's very pertinent for today, Eric. It's taken for the book of Exodus chapter 20,

verse 26. The law reads this way, the commandment dealing with how God's priest should dress. the commandment dealing with how God's priests should dress. So before I read the scripture that it comes from, let's first ask ourselves, those of us that are disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, are we priests?

The scriptures are very clear. Those of us that belong to him, we've been purchased by his blood, we've been washed by God's spirit, we're called to be his priest in the earth. Isn't that right, Eric? That is right. All right.

All right. So now listen to where the law comes from. And you shall not go up by my steps to my altar. The Lord's speaking to the priest here. And you shall not go up by steps to my altar so that your nakedness will not be exposed. You shall not go up by steps to my altar. He's ascending up to the temple. Don't go up by steps so that your nakedness will not be exposed. We're asking, what's going on here? What's that all about? What that's about is, that when you go up steps, there's a distance between one step and the next step, and you can see through that distance. In other words, if you're underneath steps, that someone is ascending, if you're underneath them, you can kind of see up their clothes. Well, the Lord is saying to the priest, I don't want you to go up by steps so that no one can be looking from underneath them, and your nakedness would be exposed. He said, instead, I want you to build a ramp. So they built the ramp. No one could see under the ramp and see underneath their clothes.

This teaches us about modesty and how important it is not to live in the principle of the flesh by trying to draw other people to our flesh. The Lord didn't want people being attracted to the flesh of the priest. He didn't want anybody being distracted by the flesh of priest. But you look today at our worship leaders. A lot of times, the way they dress, it's a big distraction, because people aren't being drawn to the glory of God. They're looking at how tight their jeans are. And it just is a complete distraction. The Lord told the priest, this is another one of the laws,

that they were to dress, and I love it, to dress in garments of glory and beauty. The Lord said to the priest, I want you to dress in garments of glory and beauty. We're to dress in an attractive way. We're to dress in colors and in ways. that display God's glory and beauty in the earth, but we're not to dress in ways

where you have, for example, a woman leading worship and her pants are so tight, there's nothing left to the imagination. We need to keep this in mind. We need to resist what the scripture calls the evil majority. That's another one of the laws, to not follow the way of the evil majority. Just because the culture is dressing a certain way,

we're not to dress that way. Do not follow the Lord said, an evil majority. It's specifically one of the additional laws. That is so, it's so beautiful and so important. Thank you for saying that. We're going to hold you on for one more segment. Folks, the book is decoding the Torah. I hope you're as interested as I am. It's by Rabbi Kurt Schneider. We'll be right back.