I was invited to write a guest column at the Zionists of America website and wanted to share it here and in other forums like Facebook and the website for the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the day as if it were yesterday. My family was on vacation visiting my grandparents in Virginia. The date was June 5, 1967. I was only 13 years old. The television news coverage spent quite a bit of time on the nation of Israel\u2019s so-called preemptive attack upon Egypt in what would later be called the Six-Day War. I was mesmerized although I understood little of what was going on. Why was I attracted so much to this event? The answer may be surprising. My parents had given me a Bible years before, a common cultural practice in the southern United States. I had started to read it off and on. One thing that stood out was that the word Israel<\/em> was mentioned hundreds of times. I was not Jewish, but I had respect for Israel because it was in the Bible! That is simplistic to some people, but it was a starting place for a young man who had made no final decisions about worldview. One thing I knew \u2013 I did not hate Jewish people!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast\nforward seven years. As a senior in\ncollege I became an evangelical, born-again Christian believer. The local church that I joined taught the Bible\nin great detail. As part of the\nteaching, I was boldly told about God\u2019s plan for Israel throughout history and\nthat God had a plan for Israel\u2019s future that was positive and wonderful. Although I had studied about the pogroms and\nthe Holocaust in college classes, I now began to look at these atrocities\nthrough the eyes of a biblical worldview. \nHow could anyone do such heinous things against other human beings? The\nissue became more than just academic to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After\ngraduation from college, I began a career as a computer analyst and engineer\nworking on things like missile defense systems. A few years into my work, my\nheart was drawn to go into the ministry so I went to seminary where I studied,\namong other things, biblical Hebrew. As I progressed, I decided to move to\nDallas, Texas (1981) to work toward a Ph.D. degree in theology at a Zionist\nseminary. However, I needed to work to pay for the school bill and provide for\nmy new wife. So I applied to work at\nGeneral Dynamics in Fort Worth which at that time was making F-16 jet fighters.\nWhen I received the offer letter from the company, joy filled my heart since\nthe letter noted that my first project would be working with the Israel Defense\nForce. Israel at the time was procuring\nmany F-16s which they still fly today. I\nworked for about five years as an avionics engineer on one of the cockpit\ncomputers. For about four of those years, I rubbed shoulders with military men\nfrom the IDF. For almost a year, I was a\nclassroom teacher on software for them. We had a colonel and his wife eat\ndinner in our home. We were invited to celebrations of Israeli Independence\nDay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However,\nthe highlight of those years working on F-16s for IDF was a free trip to\nIsrael! I spent the month of July 1982,\nduring the First Lebanon War (Peace for Galilee), in Israel working with\nIsraeli soldiers. I did not get to do much touring of the country, but I did\nget to know the people and their concerns at the time since it was a time of\nwar. My love for the Jewish people in general, and in particular, for Israelis\nmoved a notch up and became much more personal. Their cause, which was already\nmine due to theology, became mine experientially. Perhaps the most special time\nof this trip to Israel was a dinner in the home of the IDF colonel who was in\ncharge of the project we were working on. As we sat around the table someone\nsaid that he was a hero from the Six-Day War. \nHe was asked to show us his medals, which he did, and we discussed what\nhad happened and a little about that war. \nLooking back at that precious moment, I think of the word Israel<\/em>\nthat I had encountered in the Bible as a young lad reading about it for the\nfirst time and that newscast on June 5, 1967 when I was thirteen years old. In\n1967 I would never have dreamed that I would be sitting in Israel with a hero\nof that war during another time of war in 1982. Beyond that, I would never have\nthought that I would be doing work that would assist the Israeli nation in\ndefending itself against its enemies. I literally felt like I was in a movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My\nministerial career began to develop in 1986 in serious ways, although I had\nbeen speaking at various venues before then. I spent the next three decades as\na pastor of local churches where I promoted Zionism and as a seminary theology\nprofessor where I made sure to tell my students the word Israel<\/em> was in\nthe Bible. So many Christians act like the word Israel<\/em> is not in the\nBible or that it does not refer to the Jewish people at all in modern\napplication. But due to my earlier experiences with Jewish people and Israelis,\nI could speak on such topics with confidence and meaningful illustrations to\nhighlight the truth about Israel in the present time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016,\nmy ministry pursuits took a dramatic, but logical, shift. I had been on the\nBoard for the Friends of Israel ministry headquartered in New Jersey in the\nPhiladelphia metropolitan area. The Executive Director asked me to consider\nbecoming a full-time employee as the Director of International Ministry which\nis what I am doing now. This position allows me to write, teach, and\nadministrate a world-wide program which includes advocacy for the nation of\nIsrael and opposition to anti-Semitism wherever we find it. By God\u2019s grace,\nthat thirteen-year old boy from 1967 has come a long way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\nunderstand why some Jewish people would be skeptical of evangelicals like me who\nsupport Israel and the Jewish people. \nThe unsettling history of persecution shows why the barriers exist. But\nI share my story in the hopes that Jewish people might remember that a theological\nfriend is one of the best friends they can have. For me to abandon the Jewish people and the\nnation of Israel, I would have to turn my back on the testimony I have given\nhere. In fact, I would have to abandon\nmy entire theological worldview. I would\nhave to forsake the Bible that I had been reading when I was thirteen years\nold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was invited to write a guest column at the Zionists of America website and wanted to share it here and in other forums like Facebook and the website for the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. My family was on vacation visiting my grandparents in Virginia. 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