Rabbi Schneider - Legendary Publisher, Steve Strang of Charisma Interview
Stephen Strang: Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to the Strang Report podcast. Today I am honored and humbled to be able to interview and talk to one of the most important and successful authors that we have at Charisma Media. His name is Rabbi Kirt Schneider and he's recently written a new book called To Know Him by Name. And it's about the names of God. And I want you to stay tuned and maybe share this with someone, because you're going to learn a lot, just as I did. I've read every word of this book. I used to hit my own morning devotionals, and I thought I sort of understood the names of God. There's a song that we sing in the Charismatic Movement, Jehovah Jira, my provider. His grace is sufficient for me. You probably know that song too, but there is so much more. So I want you to hear from him. And so let me welcome Rabbi Schneider. Thank you for fitting this in. I think this is very important. And today we are live. And so if any of our viewers have a question toward the end of our program today, we will answer them. But let me ask you, you've written a lot of very important books. Why did you think it was important to write this book and why is it important for the believer to understand the different names of God?
Rabbi Schneider: Well, first of all, my beloved friend, great to be with you today, Steve. I love you, my brother. As I shared with you the first time I saw you, I just saw the humility and the love of God spirit on your face. So I am happy to be able to partner with you today. And I would say that the first answer that comes to mind in reference to your question, Steve, why did I write this book now? It is very simply just divine timing. I mean, it just like suddenly I felt an unction that this is what I need to write on next. So that's the first reason that I wrote it. The second reason that I wrote it is because, as you know, and some of our listeners or viewers know right now, one of the primary aims of my ministry, Discovering the Jewish Jesus is to help God's people understand how the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible and the New Testament fit together like a hand in a glove. Because, as you know, so a lot of people, they read the Old Testament and they say, is this the same God that I read about in the New Testament? It's like they read the Hebrew scriptures and they think that somehow God's this wrathful God, that just, you know, judges everybody so harshly. And then all of a sudden we turn the pages of Scripture and come to the New Testament. It's like suddenly God puts on a smile and people are kind of scratching their head. It's like, are these two different gods? What's going on here? So what I try to do is help people understand how God's nature has been revealed in the same way in the Hebrew Bible that we call in Judaism, the Tanakh, as he is revealed in the New Testament. And the way I do this is I take different principles and different major themes in the Hebrew Bible and show how they are fulfilled in Messiah Yeshua or Messiah Jesus. So in this particular book, what I've done is I've taken the revealed names of God that we find in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, and show the believer today whether you are a Jew or Gentile, how God has revealed his nature to us through His names and by understanding His revealed nature through his names, we can trust him to do for us what he wants to do.
Stephen Strang: Well, in just a minute, I'm going to ask you to walk through briefly the names of God, because I believe that will whet people's interest in buying this book. I'll confess that before I saw you at the recent convention, I wanted to I was going to speed read the book so that I could tell you that I had read it. And as I got into it, I thought, I can't speed this. I needed to absorb every single bit out of it. And as I share just now, I got so much in my own prayer life. New revelation. And I just want to ask you how you think that understanding God's names help us in our prayer lives?
Rabbi Schneider: Well, I think it's a multidimensional answer. I'm going to start at the beginning of the book and just talk about what immediately pops off the revelation in scripture to me, as many of us, when we when we think of the Hebrew Bible, rather, we know it begins in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth, and we take that for granted. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But the Hebrew word there for God in the original manuscript is Eloheim. So what the Scripture actually says is, in the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. There's a great mystery there, because Elohim is the plural form of the Hebrew word El and El means God. Now, it's interesting, Steve, that some of the pagan nations also referred to their pagan gods as El. But when the Creator reveals himself through the page of Scripture, he's not just El, he's Elohim. When you add "em" onto the end of a singular Hebrew word, it does two things. Number one, it accents the singular word. So you're not just saying God, but. we're saying the God. I'm making El, Elohim, We're lifting that word El up to the highest form. This is not just a God like the pagans referred to their God as El. This is Eloheim. This is the most high God. But then the second thing that happens when we add "em" onto the end of a singular Hebrew word is it makes that singular word plural. So Elohim is actual the actually the plural form for the word El. And it's a great mystery. And this is this is I just love this because as we continue in the text, they in Bereshit or Genesis chapter one. Bereshit means beginnings. Right in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So that's the word that we get Genesis from. But we continue in Genesis one, Elohim has revealed God in plural form, and then it says in the beginning it says the Lord said, Let us. So the Lord is speaking now in the text. Let us make man in our image. And that's really curious because when you stop for a second and this would be your prayer life or God, who are you speaking to when you said us? Because the text says in Genesis one, Let us, the Lord is speaking, make man in our image. So who's God speaking to when He says us? So the traditional rabbis say he was speaking to angels. We know that doesn't make any sense because we're not created in the image of angels. We're creating the image of our Creator. So God was actually speaking out of the relationship that he has within himself. There's community in God now, this sounds strange, but God is an us. Now, that sounds like a new age thing. I'm not talking about the new age, but the Lord said, Let us make man in our image so that God is in us. Meaning that God is relationship. There is relationship within the Godhead.
Stephen Strang: But doesn't that also tie into the Christian concept of what we call the Trinity, even though the word trinity is not in the Bible, we believe that it's God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit, and we need to move through this. This is so interesting and I want people to get this book. It's available on Amazon and really anywhere the Christian books are sold because there's such depth. And I hope that you can catch what's happening. And, you know, even understanding a little bit of Hebrew helps me because I hear these Hebrew words like kibbutz, and then I hear kibbutzim. Well, I suddenly understand that one is the plural of the other. So this is so helpful. A let me ask you what you think that what role do you think that God's title plays in understanding Bible prophecy?
Rabbi Schneider: Absolutely. But Stephen, can I do this because you asked me a question and I never directly answer your question because the first question you asked me was How does understanding God's names help us in our prayer life? And so just directly answer the question, we'll get into it more. It's because this will delve deeper in our time today. And in the book we talk about God's covenant name Canaan started with the things that he does for us. And so when we know God who when we know who God has revealed himself to be to us, then we can pray to Him believing that he's going to do for us what he said he's going to do to us through the revelation of his names. So that was the answer to your first question. So please forgive me, my friend. So what was the second question? I just wanted to make sure that I didn't go on without answering the first question, so.
Stephen Strang: Well, thank you. It was how how it plays in our understanding of Bible prophecy.
Rabbi Schneider: Well, boy, that's a question I don't even know if I have an easy answer right off the bat for that. But you had a question for me right before that one. What was the question right before that one? You just had asked that. And when I didn't answer it, I went back and...
Rabbi Schneider: I was asking you about the concept of the Trinity and the new. I'd love to speak on that. I'd love to speak on that because again, for me as a Jewish person, the word trinity, it's not easy for me. I don't really personally like that word. I'm not that I am not receiving of the revelation that God has revealed multi-dimensionally as Father Son and Spirit. I receive that. I believe that. But it just said the word trinity. It just kind of feels foreign to well.
Stephen Strang: And it's a word that's not even in the Bible.
Rabbi Schneider: Yeah.
Stephen Strang: Of course, the word "Bible" is not in the Bible either. They're just English words that we have to try to describe different concepts. But but, you know, we believe in one God. We are not pantheists, but yet there are the three different aspects of God. And it's just interesting that Eloheim is plural of the word God. So explain it to us.
Rabbi Schneider: Absolutely. What to your point, Steve, it's one of the it's the first objection that you will get, generally speaking, from a Jewish person that is refuting your testimony or your belief in Yeshua, in Jesus, because the most famous declaration of Judaism is called the Shema which means to hear and obey to hear. And some of our listeners have probably heard it. The Shema is hear o Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one taken right out of the Torah hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So actually Orthodox Jewish men endeavor to die with those words coming from their lips as they're leaving this world. So in Judaism, their concept of hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Their concept of what that means is that God is a singular unity. So they would feel about you. And I like you guys, you know. You know, you guys believe in three God's word Jews. We don't believe in three gods. You know that that's inferior. The traditional Jew would think you guys are pagans believing in three gods. You know, you talk about the Father, you talk about the Son, you talk about the Spirit. But we're Jews. We know there's one God. But from the very beginning, Elohim has actually revealed himself as a multidimensional God. And this is really interesting. So when we say Shema Israel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. The Lord is one the Hebrew word for one there is echad. The same word, echad, is used in a man marrying a woman. So the scripture says that a man shall leave his father and mother cleave to his wife, and the two shall become, echad, one. So isn't that interesting? The Torah uses the word echad for a man and woman becoming one in marriage. So that's not a singular unity. It's a compound unity. The man and woman together become one. They become apart. That same word for oneness is used in the Torah, in relationship to the tabernacle that after the Tabernacle was built, there was the temporary structure of worship that Moses had that they carried with them through the desert on their way to the promised land, that when all the pieces of the tabernacle were built, they were then put together all the pieces to make it all echad one. So nowhere does the Bible teach that God has a singular unity. On the other hand, what we do see revealed in Scripture in a hidden, prophetic way is that God is a compound unity. He's one, and yet he is multidimensional. He reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. Now, this is really interesting. Everybody knows that God is love. And by definition, love has to have an object. You can't be a God of love without loving someone. So how could God be a God of love if there was no one to love from eternity? Time past the Son has always been in the bosom of the Father, and he's always been the focus of the Father's love. So as you were saying, the word Trinity is not in Scripture, but God is revealed multidimensional in Scripture as Father, Son and the Spirit.
Stephen Strang: That's very interesting. So we're already about halfway through our time. So you start off with Eloheim and then go on down. The second is El Elyon, the God most high?
Rabbi Schneider: Yes.
Stephen Strang: I say it wrong?
Rabbi Schneider: No, no, no. El Elyon, God most high. But, you know, I think in best interest to our listeners today, since we're already halfway done, I think what we do is we move on to the actual name of God, because the Elohim is a title El Elyon, God most high is also a title. El Shaddai, which many of our listeners have heard of. El Shaddai is even a title. It's God Almighty.
Stephen Strang: But it's a famous song by Amy Grant.
Rabbi Schneider: Yes, yes. That was the big one for sure. But by the time we get to Exodus three, the Lord reveals His name. So the Lord says to Moses in Exodus, written Exodus six, He said, Moses, your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew me as El Shaddai, as God Almighty, but by my name. And then the Lord spoke his name, his memorial name, through 7000 times in the Hebrew Bible. It's composed of the four Hebrew letters, yud hey vav hey, which most Semitic language scholars, ancient Semitic language scholars believe is pronounced a breathy, Yahweh. So the Lord said to Moses. Moses, Your forefathers knew me as El Shaddai, as God Almighty, but by my name, Yahweh, they did not know me. This is my memorial name forever. And so God has a name. This is. This is important to realize. You know, when we think of God, sometimes we think of him kind of as this, you know, impersonal God that maybe is the creator and and is all powerful and knows everything. But sometimes we lack the sensitivity to realize that he's not just all powerful, but he's a person. And his name the Father of the Lord Jesus. His name is Yahweh.
Stephen Strang: And then going on down, we have Yahweh. Hey, maybe you could explain this is kind of corrupted in English to Jehovah, I guess in the same way that Indian is corrupted into the word Indian or something like that. Maybe you could explain that because I know it confuses a lot of people.
Rabbi Schneider: Yes, it does. So in Hebrew, interestingly, there are no vowels in the Hebrew alphabet, there's only consonants. And so the only way that you would know how to actually pronounce a word without the vowel sounds is not number one. You would just have heard somebody else say the word, and you learn how to say it by somebody else saying it. So that's the way the Hebrew dialog was, first of all, passed on. It was passed on orally, but then eventually what happened was the scribes began to put accent markings over the Hebrew consonants and the accent markings. I told you how to pronounce the two consonants together. They the accent markings contain the vowel sound. And so, for example, in English, if you had a the letter B and the letter T without a vowel between the B and T, you wouldn't know how was pronounced. You wouldn't know whether it was but, bat, bit, you wouldn't know. So in Hebrew, eventually what they did was they put vowel accent markings over the consonance to help us know how the consonants were put together. But the ancient scribes were very fearful of pagan nations learning how to pronounce God's covenant name because they were concerned if the pagan nations learned God's sacred name, they would misuse it. They would blasphemy it. So in order to prevent pagans from knowing how to pronounce God's name, the Hebrew scribes put the accent markings, Steve, in our audience today over the wrong plates to confuse the pagans so they wouldn't know how to pronounce it. So that in conjunction with the fact that language changes over time. So for example, the ya sound in Hebrew eventually morphed into a j sound in English. So like when you drive into Jerusalem today, when you first drive into the city, you'll see the big sign, and in English it'll say Jerusalem, you know. J-E-R They'll spell it out. But then under the English, it'll have the Hebrew letters. And when you read the Hebrew letters, it's like Jerusalem, it's Yerushalayim. So again, the original Hebrew is a ya sound. So because the Hebrew scribes put the accent markings over the wrong places to confuse the pagans and because they ya sound for biblical Hebrew, eventually was changed in English to a J sound. Most Christians believe, you know, God's sacred name is Jehovah rather than Yahweh. And you probably heard that song. There is no God like Jehovah. And I humorously say it's true, because there is no God named Jehovah.
Stephen Strang: Okay. That's funny. You know, we're going to have to hurry through this. But you've got Yahweh Yireh, Who we say Jehovah Gyri.
Rabbi Schneider: Yep.
Stephen Strang: God, our provider, Lord, our healer. Just run through these because to give people a taste, they're going to have to get the book. They're going to have to go on your website and get the different teachings you have. Look at you on YouTube in fact, before we're done, I want you to tell people how to connect with your ministry in all. You have so many resources and I will say, if there's any viewers live who want to pose a question, we can probably have time for just one question, but kind of run through those. I want you to pronounce them. I'm not sure I. I will do it right.
Rabbi Schneider: Okay. My brother. Yahweh Yireh, the Lord, our provider, the Lord revealed this to Abraham. It's actually the scriptures revealed to us in relationship to the Lord, providing Abraham a lamb when he was about to sacrifice his son. And it's it's basically it's an encouragement for us to trust God to be our source. And that's what I love. When we began today, talked about how do you incorporate this revelation of God's name into your prayer life? So the first revelation of Yahweh in relationship to what He does for those that are in covenant relation worship with them, is that he provides for them. And, you know, Jesus said, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. When we realize the Lord is our provider, that our gospel supply all our needs. According to His rechristened glory, freedom is birthed into our life because we don't have to rely on man. We know at the end of the day, Steve and I love this. If we lost everything, we'd still be okay because we'd still have Yahweh Yireh, the Lord, our provider, and He would give us everything we need.
Stephen Strang: That's great. So let's go ahead and talk about a few others. The Lord our healer, the Lord our victory banner, the Lord our Sanctifier. And there's more.
Rabbi Schneider: Yeah, well, the next one that I love so much is Yahweh Ropheka or Yahweh Rapha, the Lord our healer. And this is in relationship to the Lord, giving life to our physical bodies. And the Lord revealed His name as Yahweh Ropheka, the Lord our healer, and the time that the children of Israel were sick because they had drunk from polluted waters at a place called Marah. And so the Lord Moses is crying out to the Lord. The waters are polluted. They're making the children of Israel sick. Moses cries out for the Lord. The Lord instructs Moses to take a hyssop branch, to put the hyssop branch in the water. The Lord then cleanse the water and heal this children. And what I love so much about this is just knowing that I can look to God as my great physician. I don't understand why God sometimes heals instantly, why some people recover over time. They experience a supernatural recovery from the time that somebody lays hands on them or the time they begin to receive the Lord's healing into their life through faith. And why we don't understand at times why some people don't get physically healed of something and you end up sometimes struggling with some type of physical condition until they meet Jesus face to face. I don't know why. Sometimes it's instantaneous healing, why? Sometimes people recover as they go. They experience a supernatural recovery from the time that they begin to believe God for their healing, or they're prayed for. And why? At times we don't know why Some people seemingly don't get healed in this life. But let's not let what we don't understand keep us from taking a hold, Steve, of what we do understand. And what we do understand is that God is a healing God and he's the healer of his people. And we don't want to get bitter against God if we're not healed the way we want to be healed or when we should think we should get healed, let's keep our heart right, but let's trust the Lord to be our healer. And this is a really important point. When when Moses cry out to the Lord about healing his people and healing the water, the Lord told Moses, I want you to take a hyssop branch and put that hyssop branch in the water, and the Lord cleansed the water. When Moses put the hyssop branch. That tells me that sometimes God uses agents, whether it be a supplement, whether it be a doctor, there's times that God uses, you know, an agent, just like use the hyssop branch in in the supernatural heating up his people. So he does it all by himself sometimes use an agent.
Stephen Strang: So here's one that a lot of people would know, Yahweh Shalom, the Lord our peace.
Rabbi Schneider: That's huge. God is peace. And the Scripture tells us that after we have suffered for a little while, the God of peace, Yahweh Shalom, will crush Satan under our feet. And the Lord reveals himself as the God of peace in the Book of Judges, Yahweh Shalom. And I know that when I'm an Africa, I see a lot of people that are possessed by demons because, you know, in America we were raised on a Judeo-Christian foundation when in some of these other nations around the world they were raised in voodoo wisdom and witchcraft and occultism and ancestral spirits and all this other stuff. So there's a lot more demonic possession in some of these third world countries. And I've seen a lot of it, Steve, when I've traveled the world, I've seen everything that we read about in the Book of Acts. I've seen it with my own eyes. I mean, little kids even frothing at the mouth, you know, just rolling on the ground. I mean, eyes turned back in their head. But here's what I found. I will take a hold of somebody by the grace of God that's literally possessed by a demon. I'll command them to look into my eyes. And when they look into my eyes and they see the tender shalom, the tender piece of Yahweh Shalom of of Yeshua, of the Shar Shalom, the Prince of Peace. The demons leave. They cannot bear to be in the presence of God's peace. They break up and they scatter.
Stephen Strang: You know, we're almost out of time and people are going to have to get the book. It's called To Know Him by Name by Rabbi Kirt Schneider, S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R. If you need to spell it in a search engine or something. And you're telling us about your ministry, your television ministry and your your ministry up there in Ohio.
Rabbi Schneider: Well, thank you, my friend. So the best way to get all the information about where we're at, what we're doing is go to our Web site, DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com, DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. All the television stations that were on all the radio stations that were on our YouTube channel. Rabbi Schneider, or Discovering The Jewish Jesus will take you to the same place. But it's all Stephen. It's all been the Lord's favor. It's all been supernatural. I mean, I can say that, you know, this was not my ministry that stands for the world. It's not a result of my own ambition. It's the result of the Lord calling me and opening up these doors. So I really believe there there is an anointing on it to for God to bless his people.
Stephen Strang: I believe you're right. And in my long journalism career, I've had occasion to meet many leaders, Christian leaders, spiritual leaders. And I must say that you are one of the most pure hearted. And it's an honor. It's a distinct honor to be trusted to partner with you in so many ways, mainly in publishing your books. And this one, I think, is so important, and I hope that people get it. I thank you, Rabbi Schneider. We probably need to schedules another podcast to go through this. You know, you you could talk more than 30 minutes on each of the names of God. And and you have touched on it so many times. But I'll just encourage people to go buy this book, To Know Him by Name, is an important book. It's a book to administer to you. Leave your comments below. We read them later on. It's very important. And tune in again for another episode of The Strang Report. God bless you.