Keep Reading – Keith Johnson (Open Door Series – Part 7)

Keep Reading – Keith Johnson (Open Door Series - Part 7)

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Keith: If we go to… let’s see here, Psalms 80:18, I’m going to put it up on the screen. And as we were at Shavuot, my Jewish friend, Nehemia Gordon and I had had an encounter that literally changed our lives first. Then that encounter spilled out of our lives and began to touch other people.

When we were at Shavuot, we had some technical difficulties. I think it was actually the Creator of the universe, because He already knew that we were going to do what we were going to do there, but that we were going to continue when we got here. So I never got to really talk about this verse. This verse has gotten me into a lot of trouble, say, “trouble…”

Audience: Trouble!

Keith: … because it comes from what they call the “Old Testament”. And you see, in the Old Testament, when I first became a Christian at age 15, they handed me two books. One was a big book, I mean, it was thick. And I was not one who grew up in the church. I didn’t have much background in the church, and they said, “Here’s your choices. You can either read from the big book, or we’ve got this little thin book, and this would be all you need.” Now, be a 15-year-old from inner city of Minneapolis, having never been in the church and someone says, “You can either read this or you can read that,” come on, somebody.

Woman: That.

Keith: Which one are you going to pick? I picked the Book of John. They gave me the Book of John, I read it quickly and I said, “Now what?” They said, “You’ve graduated. We’re now going to let you read one of the other Gospels, the Book of Matthew.” And so they said again, “Now, here are your choices. There’s this book or this book. Which one are you going to choose?” I said, “I’ll take this one.”

And I opened up the Book of Matthew, and it said, “This is the genealogy of Jesus.” And then it went on, and it said, “from, or son of…” and then they started giving these weird names that I did not learn in the Book of John - David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And I said, “Who are these people?”

“Don’t worry about it, just keep reading.”