Published Date: March 30, 2019
We are pleased to share with you this article written by Naomi Zeveloff of the Forward.
Shelly Jones, a 41-year-old occupational therapy assistant from Melissa, a suburb of Dallas, was sitting in church when she found herself moved to tears.
There was a special guest at First Melissa, Jones’s Baptist congregation that Sunday, about two years ago: Dov Lipman, an American-born Orthodox Israeli Jew and a former member of the Knesset. Jones said she was rapt as Lipman described his decision to immigrate to Israel in 2004. Struck by what she called Lipman’s “obedience” to God, she began to cry. Then and there, she vowed to learn all she could about Israel and the Jewish people — and Torah.
“It was a moment that God just laid it in my heart to study and learn,” she said.
Part of Jones’s study has involved learning the Bible — what Christians call the Old Testament — from Jews. Last April she traveled to Israel with her pastor, her first time abroad. Around that time, she started doing Bible study at Root Source, an online portal offering “world-class Jewish biblical teaching” to Christians.
Curious though she is about Judaism, Jones says she has no desire to convert. Studying the Jewish Bible, with Jews as teachers, is her way of enriching her Christian faith.