Back again - Rabbi Joe Bell!

Joseph Bell was born Jewish and raised in Conservative Judaism in his hometown of Newton, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston). At the age of 29, through a friend’s loving encouragement, Joe finally relented to read the New Testament. He then recognized how very Jewish the New Testament is. Through a miraculous work of the Lord, Joe asked Yeshua to come into his life. Joe committed his life to Jesus and immediately dove into serving the Lord. Jews for Jesus invited him to study theology with Dr. Louis Goldberg and train as an evangelist; thus Joe began his formal ministry training in New York City — leading over 100 people to faith in Jesus that summer. In 2007 Joe received full ordination as a Jewish Rabbi by IAMCS[International Association of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues]. Joe currently serves as Executive Director of For Zion’s Sake Ministries and as Rabbi of Ari Yehudah Messianic Congregation in the town of Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia.

Rabbi Joe Bell

Shalom!   I thought this was from 2012 but now I think it was from 2017.   In any event, I am happy to re-post this wonderful interview with Rabbi Joe!

Rabbi Joseph “Joe” Bell was raised in a Jewish home in the Boston area. He has a strong Orthodox Jewish pedigree, and attended synagogue with such luminaries as Sheldon Adelson, Robert Kraft (New England Patriots owner) and family, Barney Frank, etc. It was a very prominent synagogue and Bell was very comfortable being Jewish and practicing Judaism.

Boston is also where he began his search to know God at the age of 28. It was then that he began to read the Bible (his Bar Mitzvah Bible) looking for God, seeking His power to change the direction of his life. He prayed at that time and asked God to come into my life if He was real.

Bell says, “I wasn’t looking for Jesus. After I began reading the Tanakh, people began to pop into my life and tell me about Messianic prophecies. Finally somebody connected me to a Jews For Jesus missionary who I agreed to talk by phone with. Her name is Sharon. But before Sharon, one of my employees saw me reading the Bible and pointed me to Messianic prophecies. She challenged me to read Isaiah 53. After reading it, she asked me who it was talking about? I said it sounds like Jesus. She said it is Jesus. So after months of reading and talking with my employee and with Sharon by phone, I decided to go meet with my Rabbi.

“I told the rabbi that people were sharing prophecies with me and pointed out Isaiah 53. The rabbi became visibly irritated and barked ‘That’s not Jesus Christ!’ I said, ‘Fine, who is it?’  He had no answer… And I knew that he really didn’t know.  About ten months passed and a series of events led me to read the New Testament Gospels and within a month I invited Jesus into my heart as my Messiah and Lord. God immediately spoke to my heart and told me to go out to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles and tell them about Him. I received this message after going to Church for the first time with a Christian friend who saw me seeking. I had spent the day fasting and confessing my sins to God after Church. I went through some sort of deliverance that day alone in my home, then I believe God spoke those words to me in my house that night.