Dinner With a Side of Doubts

Part 2

Stu Schlackman: Thanks, Tim, appreciate it. Nathan, always a pleasure.

Nathan Jones: Always, yes.

Stu Schlackman: Thanks so much. Love what you did with the place, it’s fantastic.

Tim Moore: Thank you.

Nathan Jones: Okay, Stu, well, let’s get into it. Tell us, how did you as a Jew come and accept Jesus, Yeshua as your Messiah?

Stu Schlackman: Well, that’s a, ooh…

Nathan Jones: The short version.

Stu Schlackman: Yeah, you know, it’s all part of God’s plan. I grew up Jewish, I went to Hebrew school, I went to Hebrew high school. I moved to the Boston area. I always went to weddings for my friends that were Catholic or Protestant. I was open to other religions. And then when I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation in New Hampshire, one of the sales reps came up to me and said, “I heard you’re Jewish.” I go, “Uh-oh, here we go.” And he said, “I’m really interested about that.” I said, “Sure.” So he said, “Tell me about you.” And I did, I told him about my faith. And then he said this, which was really interesting, “Who do you think the person of Jesus is?” And my father said…I said, “My father told me he was a radical rabbi, that’s all I believe. But I’m a Jew and I believe in God, I believe in the 10 Commandments, and I’ve studied the Old Testament.”

Next thing you know, I go to work for him down in Birmingham, Alabama, and I move my family there, and he has taken me to church, and I’m open minded about this. It’s Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Vestavia, Alabama. And I’m listening, and then all of a sudden he says, “I got a meeting with the pastor, he wants to meet you, Dr. Charles T. Carter.” And I have that in my first book.

And he asked me, and it’s around Christmas, and he said, “So who do you think Jesus is?” I said, “I’m not sure.” He says, “Well, do you believe that He’s the son of God?” And I said, “You know, I’m starting to think that maybe He is.” And then I was still by myself in a hotel, the Holiday Inn in Hoover, Alabama. And one night I was going to put the sports on the TV, and I said, “Nah,” and I turned to the side table and I pull out a Bible.

Nathan Jones: Gideon Bible.

Stu Schlackman: Gideon Bible. And I’m thumbing through it, Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, “This is my Bible.” And I’m going through, then there’s the end of it, Malachi, and then I see this page that says, “New Testament of Jesus Christ.” I said, “What is this doing in my Bible?” Really! And I start thumbing and I’m going, “Matthew, Mark, who are these people, Luke, John?” Then I see one that says Hebrews, I said, “Oh, that’s got to be a good one.” You know, thinking Hebrew, and it’s like, “What’s that?” All of a sudden I hear this voice and the voice says to me, “So you believe the first half, but you don’t believe the second half, are you calling Me a liar?”

Tim Moore: Wow.

Nathan Jones: Wow.

Stu Schlackman: And it’s like… And I’m thinking, okay, then I have to think to myself, “Okay, I do believe the first half. Who am I to say that the second half is false? I have to explore this.” And by the way, later on, if you look at 1 John 5:10, it says, “If you don’t believe Me, you’re a liar.”

Tim Moore: Wow.

Stu Schlackman: And so that hit me between the eyes. And then I started having a Bible study with my pastor, Gary Bradley. I was going to the Church of Christ in Hoover. And then he shared with me, I’ve never heard of Isaiah 53, because on Saturdays when you read the Haftarah, which is the section before the Torah. When I was Bar Mitzvahed, you read the Haftarah. Well, one Saturday, it’s Isaiah 52, and the next one is Isaiah 54.

Tim Moore: I’ll be.

Stu Schlackman: And so he explained, he made me read Isaiah 53, and it blew me away. The next Wednesday night, I walked up and got baptized.

Nathan Jones: Oh, wow.

Tim Moore: That’s tremendous. You know, I’m fascinated even by your testimony, but now that you are writing books about apologetics, from a Jewish perspective, how do you defend or explain your faith in Christ, even to Gentiles, or especially to Jews?

Stu Schlackman: I am trying to bridge the gap. So my friends that are Jewish, say, “So, you’re not Jewish anymore?” Who said that? My father said that to me! And my father passed away about eight years ago, and over the years when he would visit me and leave, he would say, “Don’t forget you’re Jewish.” I said, “Dad, I am Jewish!” I’m more Jewish than most Jews. And it’s like, “Come on. Really?” But what I’ve done is study the New Testament. And so you bridge the old and the new. Jesus is concealed in the old, he’s revealed in the new.

And you look at, like Dr. Reagan used to say, “It’s all in the prophecies.” I mean, starting with Genesis 3:15, Genesis 49:10, “The scepter will not leave the tribe of Judah,” come on! What about Leviticus? Isn’t the high priest supposed to come from Leviticus? No, Jesus was from the tribe of Judah. You go to Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18, another prophet will come after me, listen to him. And it goes on and on. I mean, think about this, and I write about it in my first book. Born in Bethlehem, betrayed for 30 silver coins, rides into town on a donkey, I mean…

Tim Moore: He fulfills every prophecy.

Stu Schlackman: All these prophecies are fulfilled by different people at different times. How can you deny that? I could not deny it.

Nathan Jones: Wow, you are really, truly a Jew born anew as the song goes. Well, your book is what’s called an apologetics book. And for folks that might not know, what does the term apologetics mean?

Stu Schlackman: To me, it’s defending the faith. It’s when somebody asks me a tough question, and I think this is where many Christians need to be more aggressive and share their faith. Why do you believe what you believe? “Well, I grew up that way.” No, there’s got to be something that was triggered in your life like me, that I decided to say that Jesus is the Lord of my life. He has made a difference, I have a new perspective on life that I never had before, it’s called eternity. I grew up thinking I’m a Jew, I’m the chosen, I’m automatically going to Heaven. I don’t even know what heaven was. And now I realize that living in a world that is suffering all the time, there’s got to be hope. There is only one hope that I know of, And that’s Jesus.

Tim Moore: Well, the Bible says that we should all be ready to give an explanation for the hope that is within us. And so that falls right into line of apologetics. Obviously, your book takes the theme of food to blend in apologetics, and I’m going to observe even prophetically from the Word of God, in the very first chapter, “God made a provision for mankind by designating which food they were to eat.” If we go all the way through to the end of the book, in Revelation 22, it talks about food, “The fruit from the tree of life.” And of course, one of the things we’re looking forward to, and in terms of a blessed hope, is the great wedding feast of the Lamb. So, food has been a part of God’s Word, and yet we know Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone.” So we’re looking forward to hearing about the food. But Stu, how is that woven into your book about apologetics?

Stu Schlackman: The food?

Tim Moore: Yes.

Stu Schlackman: Well, we got a recipe in each of the chapters. A lot of them are Debbie Pope’s mother’s recipes, and my mother’s recipes. We have Kugel in there, We got matzo ball soup, just to spice it up. The book is a dinner setting with friends, and where do the best conversations in life take place? Around food.

Tim Moore: Around food.

Stu Schlackman: Jesus ate with people all the time. That’s how he had those phenomenal discussions with people.

Tim Moore: Well, I’ll tell you what, I think there’s something special about food and fellowship, and folks stay tuned for in just a minute, we’re going to talk about food and continue our fellowship.

Part 3

Tim Moore: Well, welcome back as we are talking to Stu Schlackman about food and fellowship. So Stu, we’ve been sitting here with our mouths watering, looking at this dish that you have brought and prepared. So tell us, what is this and how does that tie into our conversation today?

Stu Schlackman: This is one of the recipes that my mother gave me, and it’s in the book, it’s called Noodle Kugel. So it’s egg pasta, and it’s from Manischewitz and it’s kosher, and it’s made with cinnamon, raisins, eggs, and vanilla.

Tim Moore: I’m looking forward to tasting some of it in a moment. And yet this ties in even now to the apologetics that you present in your book.

Stu Schlackman: Exactly.

Nathan Jones: So that’s the book, apologetics. So let’s dive into these questions. You know, people, all the time, Christians have questions about God, existence, their faith, and they don’t know always they have the answers in defending it. So let’s start with one of the questions as you’re discussing over, what’d you call this, Kugala?

Stu Schlackman: Noodle Kugel.

Nathan Jones: Kugel, okay, so as you’re discussing Noodle Kugel, and by the way, folks, he’s got all the recipes in the book here, “Does God exist, and how do we know?”

Stu Schlackman: Well, people talk about the Big Bang, they talk about God’s Creation. To be a creation, there needs to be a creator. My opinion, how does something come out of nothing? How does a cosmic blast cause us millions of years later to be here with a mind, with, by the way, a soul? Because you can’t think about what I’m thinking. Only I could, I have thoughts going on in my head like we all do all the time that is uncontrollable. I’m not a computer, I’m not a robot, somebody made me. In fact, it’s in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has set eternity in the hearts of man, nobody could fathom what He’s done from beginning to end.” That to me blows my mind studying the Old Testament, because there’s something else out there. C.S. Lewis said, “If I’m not happy with the world I’m in, I must be made for a different world.”

Tim Moore: And we certainly are. You know, the humanists would say, just as you indicated, that all of this is a cosmic accident. The Big Bang happened, and millions or billions of years later, here we come. And it’s just, I don’t have enough faith to believe in that, first of all, but yet, you’ve already indicated in your testimony that you had an awareness of the Bible, but for someone who has never been exposed to the Word of God, how would you tell them that they can trust and believe what is revealed in it? How can they be sure that this is from God and that it is Truth?

Stu Schlackman: I believe it’s God’s communication. I believe it’s God’s story to us. How do we as human beings relate best? In story form. The Bible is one big story. There are some things in the Bible that are so… I mean, a fiction writer couldn’t make this stuff up. You know, “Gideon, pare down your army to 300 from 30,000 and you’ll destroy everybody,” give me a break! I mean, there are stories in the Bible that just don’t make sense, yet they do when you move forward and see the plan that God has put in place. And then when you tie the Old Testament to the New, it’s like a hand in a glove.

Tim Moore: Certainly is.

Stu Schlackman: And so to me, the story has to be true. And it’s God’s communication to us. If you haven’t read the Bible, I would ask you to read it, because the Bible, more than anything else, makes sense of life. Look at the story of Job. Why did this man have such persecution in his life? And he was, from God’s perspective, just a great man. And yet it was a cosmic bet with the devil. Now that’s a good fiction story right there, but it happened.

Tim Moore: Yeah, it’s nonfiction, it’s actual truth. The other thing that we’ve always said is the prophecies that are contained within the Bible that have already been fulfilled. So you mentioned the life of Christ earlier and how he fulfilled every prophecy regarding the Jewish Messiah that was foretold, that proves that the Bible is real and literal and can be trusted because prophecy itself has been fulfilled, I dare say it’s being fulfilled before our eyes, even today.

Nathan Jones: And that bears the question, how do we know then that God has a son and that he’s Jesus? I think you might be hinting at that.

Tim Moore: I think I just gave away the answer.

Nathan Jones: Do you agree with that? SSL Yes.

Nathan Jones: That’s how we know Jesus…

Stu Schlackman: So in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth, let us make man in our own image… Excuse me, why the word “Us?”

Nathan Jones: Yeah, plural.

Stu Schlackman: And by the way, what is the word in Hebrew? “Elohim.”

Tim Moore: “Elohim.”

Stu Schlackman: “Him” is plural. So God’s not alone. And even though in Judaism, if you say there’s a son, you’re saying idolatry. That’s what, when my brother passed away, I asked the rabbi about Isaiah 53, and he looked at me and said, “Idolatry.” I said, “Okay, let’s get something to eat.” But really, I mean, in the beginning, God wasn’t alone, He says that. And I believe that He sent His son to die for our sins. The sacrificial death that needed to take place for us to be reconciled to God. It makes sense because the whole Old Testament is set up with a sacrificial system for what? To remove sins. But it was temporary as God explains in the Old Testament.

Tim Moore: Of course.

Nathan Jones: Oh, wow.

Tim Moore: Well, what does it mean now for us living in a fallen world? You know, some Jewish people will say, “Well, Jesus is the Christian Messiah.” And my response is, “No, I believe in a Jewish Messiah.” Jesus was more Jewish than most of the Jews I know, obviously today. But He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies. So how even putting our trust in Him, do we live in this fallen world? I mean, where is our hope, as we’ve talked about earlier?

Stu Schlackman: Unfortunately, people that are humanists, that are materialistic, that don’t believe in Jesus, that might not believe in God, put their trust in their wealth, in their security, in their family…

Tim Moore: In their good works.

Stu Schlackman: In their good works. I mean, let’s face it, my opinion, every religion in the world is works-based. Especially, it started with Judaism. And I grew up that you’ve got to work hard to get an A. But with Christ, you start with the A, now work hard.

Tim Moore: That’s a good way to put it.

Nathan Jones: I like that one.

Stu Schlackman: I mean, so it’s not works-based, which takes the pressure off of me. And to understand that we live in a fallen world is enough pressure by itself. But now that I have a messiah that I could rely on, depend on, believe in, it makes life, it helps in life to understand that life is suffering.

Tim Moore: You know, we use the word Christ, which is actually a westernized translation, if you will, of the original Jewish phrase of Messiah or Mashiach. And so the anointed one, Yeshua has been changed in our Western pronunciation to Jesus. But really, Yeshua, Joshua was his Jewish name. And then Hamashiach is the Messiah. Yeshua, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And so there’s no confusion for those who put their trust in Him, Gentile or Jew, we all follow the same Jewish Messiah.

Nathan Jones: And that begs the question then, why do we need a messiah? What is this Messiah saving us from?

Stu Schlackman: He is saving us from our sins. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That’s a fact, nobody could say they haven’t sinned. And in Judaism, it’s the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, where we wipe away our sins for that year, then the clock starts again. And it’s a temporary way of removing sin, but it doesn’t remove it permanently. Something had to happen, and I believe God’s plan was to send His son, and His son would die on the cross. The Creation killed the Creator. He sacrificed Himself knowing that, that He would bring us back to Himself.

Tim Moore: Amen.

Stu Schlackman: Which, it’s hard to understand, but it had to happen. And with a Jewish background, you understand the problem of sin because the whole book of Leviticus is a cookbook of the sacrificial system.

Tim Moore: I like what you say, a cookbook. And really it points out the fact that even as God was calling His people in that day and age to draw close to Him, there was great peril at being close to God because those people were sinful. But before the blood of Christ, I would have no right to even approach the throne of God, but as we see in Revelation, John is called into the throne room of Heaven, and because it’s after the cross, he does not cry out as Isaiah did, “Woe is me, I’m a sinner!” His sins had been blotted out. So as a saved person, having put the trust in the Messiah, now what is our purpose in life, Stu? What is the meaning of life for a believer, as opposed to someone who has rejected?

Nathan Jones: Tell us the meaning of life.

Tim Moore: Yes.

Stu Schlackman: The meaning of life, and this is what we say at our church, this is our saying, “Love God, love others, make disciples.” That’s it, at Central Christian Church, that’s what we say.

Nathan Jones: Amen.

Stu Schlackman: Make disciples. How do you make disciples? By sharing your faith. How do you share your faith? You tell a story, how I came to Christ and what it means to me. And it’s the hope that I have for eternity. When you die, what happens? A lot of people say, “I don’t know,” or, “I’m going to Heaven.” How do you know? How do you know there is a Heaven? Have you read the Bible? “No.” Well, let me share with you why I believe what I believe and what I’ve learned from the Bible.

And so it’s a great chance to have a discussion. And the best way to start a discussion is to ask questions. And one of the best questions I could think of is after having a discussion with someone, who do you say Jesus is now? Who do you think He is? Is He a prophet? Is He a rabbi? Is He a person that just died on a cross? Or is He the son of God that sacrificed for your sins, and the sins of the world?

Tim Moore: And the beautiful thing that you communicate in your book is sometimes to break down those barriers, food becomes a means of fellowship. You know, I don’t sit down and have meals with enemies. I only sit down and have meals with friends. But anybody can be a friend if you are willing to engage in fellowship, and food is a great way to do just that. And so your book provides not just a kind of a fictionalized account of friends gathering, but it becomes a means of finding ways to approach people. Say, “Hey, let’s go have a meal together.” Or, “Come over to my home and let’s sit down and eat. I got some things I’d like to share with you.” And people’s barriers break down when they’re eating around a table together.

Stu Schlackman: That’s exactly right.

Tim Moore: I think the Jewish mommas had something going for them in that regard.

Stu Schlackman: Oh yeah, and my favorite is… you could sum up the Jewish religion in nine words. “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” And Jesus ate with His enemies.

Nathan Jones: Yeah.

Stu Schlackman: He ate with anybody that would sit down to a meal with Him. Because everybody loves to eat. And when you get to eat, all the barriers come down in life. And we could explore so many different areas of our life that just could lead. How many discussions have I had about Christ with a stranger after we started eating? Many, because all the barriers come down when we’re eating.

Nathan Jones: Do you find that’s your primary way of evangelizing? You say evangelism, and so many Christians are terrified. They think, “Oh, I have to stand on a street corner, or I have to go knocking on doors,” which nobody really wants to do. But you have described in this book a way where we just make friends and, you’re right, the barriers are down. Is that your primary method or?

Stu Schlackman: Eating.

Nathan Jones: Eating, that’s it. Because Jewish evangelists are some of the best in the world. I mean, they’re knocking on the doors, they’re standing on the street corner.

Tim Moore: Now I have to assume, if you like to do the eating and because you’ve brought this, you must also do some of the cooking, is that correct?

Stu Schlackman: I am a cook.

Tim Moore: All right, there you go.

Stu Schlackman: I love to cook. I have that gene from my mother, I love to cook.

Tim Moore: Well, that’s a great blessing not only to you, but to others, as Nathan and I are about to experience ourselves.

Stu Schlackman: Yes.

Nathan Jones: Amen. Well, before we close out this segment, Stu, tell us how, as Christians, can we know that God is deeply involved in our lives on a daily basis?

Stu Schlackman: I think sometimes you can’t explain it, which tells me that He is. I mean things happen in life that make absolutely no sense sometimes. And I hear it from my children, I hear it from my wife, and sometimes things fall into place and the first thing we do is look up to God and we understand where it came from. That’s a sense that we have in Christianity, that we know that God loves us. “God is love,” says it in Corinthians. He is love. And we feel that love when we have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Conclusion

Nathan Jones: Well, Stu, we’ve saved the most vital apologetics questions for last, okay? Is there a hell, and what makes people go there? And contrary or the opposite, is there a heaven, and how do people get there?

Stu Schlackman: You know, it’s funny, growing up in the Old Testament, there’s very little talk of a Heaven. Even though growing up Jewish, I automatically thought, “I’m one of the chosen, I’m going to Heaven.” There is talk of Sheol and something of underneath. In the New Testament, Jesus talked about Heaven and Hell right up at the top with prayer. I mean, it is right up, in fact, He mentions Hell more than Heaven. So there is a Hell. There is a Hell, unfortunately. Well, this is part of God’s plan. If you’re separated from God, you’re not going to be with Him. God’s in Heaven, Hell is for those that do not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, because He is the one that wiped away our sins. And to be back with God, you have to be sinless. And that is only through Jesus.

So unfortunately… and people say, “Well, who are you to say I’m going to Heaven or Hell?” I’m not saying anything, it’s God. God says it in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s Jesus, now you don’t have to be, first you need to be a Baptist or a Church of Christ. No, no, no, you need to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. That is when you unite with God, and Heaven is your home. It’s that simple. It’s Jesus is saying, “Accept me as Lord of your life and your home will be with Me in Heaven.” If not, unfortunately, there’s a place called Hell for those that don’t accept Him. That was tough to understand, growing up Jewish with 200 relatives.

Tim Moore: I think so many people assume, “Well, I’m a pretty good person, I’m going to go to Heaven.” And that’s a false assumption. Satan would love to coddle people into that delusion because then they don’t grapple with the eternal truth of Jesus Christ and who He is. You know, one of the things, Stu, all of us, Christian, Jew, Gentile, non-believer, everyone deals with troubles in this life. Jesus said, “In this world, you will have troubles,” speaking to His disciples. But He said, “But I have overcome the world.” And He told them and us that because He said, “In me, you will have peace.” So internal, shalom or peace, but externally trouble. And a lot of people in the midst of trials, tribulations, like to go for food because food is a comfort. And yet that’s only a temporary comfort. The only real and everlasting comfort for our soul, the balm that we can receive is the forgiveness and the love of Christ.

Stu Schlackman: Exactly.

Tim Moore: Well, folks, that’s all the time we have for this episode. We pray for you just as the Apostle Peter prayed, “You, therefore beloved, knowing this beforehand be on your guard, lest you, having been carried away by the error of unprincipled men, fall away from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity,” amen.

End of Program