Keta's a member of the Holy Language tribe, following Yeshua and learning Hebrew! Here's her story.

I was raised by a Baptist preacher, one who knew the word in depth. My journey with the Holy One has been long and varied, but I was either IN Christianity or rebelling against it for most of my life. Finally did teshuvah (started doing) in 1993. Never looked back.

In 2003, in great depression and angst, I vowed to come to the Bible and SEE for MYSELF what it said; all religion was now under scrutiny. After being raised on mostly “NT” scriptures, I wanted to see if any of it really made sense, and I wanted to start at the beginning and try to understand what had been written before; I reasoned that the NT could only be true and “Jesus” could only be the savior of the gentiles if He was actually the messiah of the Jews. How could I know unless I studied TaNaKh? So I did.

I started participating in an inductive Bible study for women at my church. This quickly took up 3 to 9 hours a week, and it varied, but I worked through almost all the TaNaKh with them. As I studied with them, they would say “Oh, This is only for the Jew. This is done away with. This we don’t have to keep since Jesus “nailed it to the cross.” Ya da ya da blah blah blah….. I was skeptical.

I’ve been MOSTLY in the TaNaKh studying for the past 11 years, trying to bring some balance to my understanding of the written revelation of G-d as He gave it, and as He expects us to understand it. This has SHAKEN UP MY WORLD! When I was dissatisfied with the responses from my Presbyterian, Charismatic, Bible study leader, I would search the web, trying to find the traditional Jewish interpretation of what I was reading, and trying to get beyond the Christian interpretation and understanding of the TaNaKh. I spent hours and hours reading; I made my prayer’s main focus for G-d to purify me. Then this prayer:

“From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half-truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Oh, Elohim of Truth, Deliver us! “
— Mordecai Kaplan

The Shabbat in the 10 commandments got me started, like it does most people. I started keeping my simple version of Shabbat, no work, no cook, no shop, starting about 7 years or so ago and increasing, and finally, my husband and family came along. We kicked Christmas to the curb finally two years ago. Etc….

I was amazed to find out that there was an entire MOVEMENT of messianic Jews, Hebrew roots, etc. believers! I thought I was the only one where I lived, and there was no one I ever met who was even momentarily interested…. When I finally realized I was not the only one who believed the church was way off of the first faith once delivered (at Mt. Sinai, and reminded to us in Jude) I looked for fellowship, but the nearest messianic community of any kind I could find on the web was 2.5 hours away from me.

Eventually we moved into a different area and my husband agreed to take me to a messianic fellowship where we had our first opportunity to be a part of a messianic Jewish community, and later since have moved south to another more traditionally Jewish messianic synagogue.

I try to stay focused with my extra time on study. I am committed to continuing to study, and to subject every piece of doctrine/dogma I was taught to the clear written word. I see TaNaKh as ESSENTIAL & FOUNDATIONAL, Prophets like the frame of the house, and the writings as the beautifications of the house. The Gospels and Acts I put up as very reliable, since the Jewish writers and believers were willing to die for this testimony

After my deep discussions with my Jewish, anti-missionary friend, I would cry out to G-d and ask Him for help after these conversations… shortly I got a copy of the NT translated from the Aramaic Peshitta Khabouris Codex, the AENT. This helped answer many objections my T.O. Jewish friend brought to me. Really. Helped me so much

Now I am more deeply identified with Judaism than Christianity, and I am so grateful to attend our synagogue. I believe this is the place where Abba wants me to be learning now. I appreciate getting to hear, learn, and SAY the Jewish prayers I have been reading in the siddur in English for so long. For years I was reading Jewish writings and had no idea how to pronounce many words for which I easily knew the meaning. (wow, wasn’t that ironic!)

I am looking forward to learning to at least read and pronounce the Hebrew letters; I would love to learn to actually READ the Hebrew in my Stone TaNaKh with understanding someday. I started studying with www.holylanguage.com and we are loving it! Thank you for these lessons. I am like a baby bird being fed, but hope to grow strong enough to feed myself in Hebrew!

I think of Yeshua’s last words to his disciples saying to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations….” I guess where I am is that I am very hungry for discipling myself, and I am actively trying to disciple my children who are still living at home. We strive to spend an hour together daily to study; don’t make it every day, but they are really growing!

Thank you for your vision to see us learn Hebrew!

Shalom, and every blessing,
Keta Johnson

You have a story too, and the tribe would love to hear it! Share here?

This is your chance to read Genesis 2 in Hebrew with me, and learn the Hebrew words for helpmeet, breath of life, soul, covet, rib, and cleave!

Watch the trailer here http://youtu.be/zyZfCmH8v-M or at the bottom of this email, and watch the whole episode here!