(Editor's Note: This article was published first in The Stand March 2023 edition HERE.)
New AFR Host Brings Hebrew Context to
(truth)
In Pew Research Center’s 2022 State of the Bible Report, 40% of surveyed Americans admittedly never read the Bible at all, while only 10% read it daily. Both statistics were markedly worse than those from 2021, with 11% more nonreaders and 4% fewer daily readers.
Half of those polled said the Bible’s layout, language, historical background, and stories were too difficult to navigate and understand.
Lack of understanding is a real hindrance to reading the Bible. But according to Baruch Korman, founder of LoveIsrael ministries, it also presents a bigger problem: “Interpreting the Bible should not be viewed primarily as a pursuit of knowledge but of God Himself. What is learned is not ‘material,’ but it is truth!”
A Jewish story
During a recent visit with The Stand, Korman described LoveIsrael ministry’s commitment to preach Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and evangelize people worldwide – and to do so from a Hebrew perspective. As a Hebrew scholar and born-again Christian, Korman is the perfect candidate to fulfill that objective.
His international teaching ministry began gradually and quite logically in 2013 when his lectures were filmed for a weekly Israeli television show called Pdut L΄amo. A year later, that show expanded to English-language networks throughout Europe, Africa, and North America, eventually taking the ministry’s name as its title, LoveIsrael.
Korman also hosts Lost in Translation, which airs on American Family Radio (AFR) each Saturday at noon, Central Time. The show features Korman’s verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter teachings, with an emphasis on the linguistic, historical, and cultural context of each week’s chosen passages.
“American Family Radio has been the perfect match for us,” Korman explained. “It’s a wonderful network, and your listeners, the people you minister to, have really taken an interest in our work at LoveIsrael ministries.”
And that work is extensive.
A messianic message
With a master of divinity in biblical languages and a Ph.D. in Jewish studies, Korman is the senior lecturer and director of the Zera Avraham Institute in Israel, where he and his wife Rivka and their three adult children reside.
An impressive biblical teacher in her own right, Rivka holds a master of arts in biblical studies and maintains her own YouTube channel and website, both called Biblically Inspired Life. There, she also shares God’s Word, inspiring people to infuse its truth into every aspect of their daily lives.
“Rivka travels with me so much now,” said Korman, “and I am indebted to her for all she does to help LoveIsrael, the administration, scheduling, and such. It’s hard for her to manage it all, but she has been able to meet and teach women during our current trip to America.”
Though both Kormans were raised in Jewish homes, Rivka became a Christian at a very young age after her mother came to faith. In contrast, Korman’s relationship with Yeshua began much later in life.
“I came to faith my freshman year,” recalled Korman. “Then, Rivka and I met at a university and started dating during my junior year when she was just a sophomore. We were in the same class – literature of the Bible.
“It was a two-semester class. We met in Old Testament and started dating in New Testament. But when a friend asked how our first date went,” Rivka said, ‘It went really well; we’re going to get married.’”
They married in 1987, and the Kormans have worked together in full-time ministry ever since. But the couple only moved their young family to Israel in 2001, after much prayer and a miraculous move of God.
An unexpected move
They were living in Miami Beach, Florida, when the Lord began to impress upon Korman to go to Israel. But Rivka was not immediately on board.
She declared that God would have to write it in the sky for her to make the move – and He would have to get them out of debt and provide living expenses for a year.
A day later, with one phone call, a business transaction was offered that not only erased a significant amount of debt but also gave the family enough money to live free and clear for at least a year.
Rivka recognized the proverbial hand of God as He boldly wrote directions across the sunny skies of Florida.
Korman recalled their conversation from that pivotal day: “Rivka said, ‘Alright, I’ll move there, but I don’t want to look out my windows and see sand.’”
He paused before adding, “And what do we see now when we look from our windows in Israel? Sand!”
Though the story of their transition to Israel is humorous today, it was not always easy. But it was a move they will never regret for it was the beginning of an amazing journey that neither of them could have envisioned.
A global impact
Back when his teachings first began to appear weekly on Israeli television, little did Korman know LoveIsrael would be broadcast in several other countries and translated into multiple languages. Nor did he understand that his radio show, Lost in Translation, would be born from those humble teachings.
But understanding has always been the heart of Korman’s ministry, so it is not surprising that God would use a Jewish scholar to bring the truth of His Word to Christians around the world via AFR.
After all, Korman and AFR share a common vision to transform culture through sound biblical teaching.
As Korman put it, “Our purpose at LoveIsrael ministries is to provide biblically-based teachings with an emphasis on the Jewish context of Scripture.”
For AFR listeners, Korman’s enjoyable teaching methods paint a clearer picture of the Bible, start to finish. While his verse-by-verse explanations bring clarification to confusing passages, they often reveal errors in thinking and understanding as well. “It’s just about Bible teaching,” Korman declared, “very simple teaching, and staying true to the text. We all make mistakes. … But what I see in so many of today’s translations and subsequent teachings is just a carelessness, a lack of wanting to be proper and staying true to the whole counsel of God’s Word.”
That whole truth is what Korman seeks to share each week as he helps AFR listeners study the Bible in light of its original cultural and linguistic context. In the process, he also hopes that everyone, Christian and Jew alike, will better understand and appreciate the message of the gospel and its Messiah.
As St. Augustine once aptly stated, our stories walk hand in hand because “the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.”
Baruch Korman intends to make sure the entirety of that story – the greatest story ever told – is never lost in translation.
