Member Spotlight: James and Tamora Joy Whitman of Center for Judaic-Christian Studies

By the middle of this month, James Whitman and his family will probably be spending some time in a lean-to crafted from spare branches in the yard of their Centerville, Ohio, home.

It’s the time of the Biblical fall holidays, and the Feast of Tabernacles (October 8-15 this year) calls for temporary “booths” to be erected in order to remind Israelites of God’s provision during their wandering in the wilderness (Leviticus 23:42).

But such activities aren’t valuable to Jews only, James says. Gentile Christians also can learn a lot about their faith through understanding the Biblical festivals. Then they can pass on lessons about Scripture and Jesus to their children.

And the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, with James as director, stands ready to help.

“Understanding the time between the Testaments, what scholars call the Second Temple Period, is essential to developing the full Biblical worldview portrayed in Scripture,” he says.

That’s because God the Father didn’t just drop Jesus the Son into a random time and place, James points out. It’s important to understand the context of Jesus’s life and times as a Jew among Jews.

“The Apostle Paul says that the Father sent the Son in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4). That fullness of time was a specific time, place, and people. One of the reasons the Gospels are so challenging to understand—from my experience this includes those in pastoral ministry—is because we haven’t effectively grasped the fact that when we read the Gospels, we have gone back 2,000 years and entered someone else’s conversation,” James says.

JC Studies provides the needed context through books, audio teachings, and online teachings at jcstudies.com, as well as at conferences and seminars.

The Center started its task in 1984 when it was founded by Dwight A. Pryor. Pryor met a group of scholars on a study trip in Israel who would later found the Jerusalem School for Synoptic Research (jerusalemschool.org, jerusalemperspective.com). He wanted to make their discoveries available to American Christians.

“They were shedding much-needed light on the Jewishness of Jesus through linguistic, archeological and cultural studies,” James says. The founding of JC Studies came at a time when Christians around the world were thinking more about the Jewish roots of their faith.

After getting the Center going, Pryor started accepting invitations to teach what he was learning from the Jerusalem School.

“That was something the Lord particularly blessed,” James says.

But soon the ministry’s growth called for extra hands to manage it. That’s when James entered the picture.

He had been a pastor at a church in suburban Seattle for seven years, all the while benefitting from the work of the Center. Right after college, James had read Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith by Marvin Wilson, which had been sold through JC Studies. The book filled in some theological blanks for him, James says.

“I felt I got a more comprehensive education just by reading the book, so I contacted the ministry and began studying with Dwight Pryor,” he says.

James became a better disciple as a result of what he was learning and was able to use what he learned to help the flock at his church. When the need for better organization of the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies became apparent, though, James felt called to work alongside Pryor. While Pryor mostly traveled, pursuing his passion of teaching, James gave the ministry “some interior definition and forward direction.”

Pryor died in 2011, but the Center continues to promote his teachings as well as newer writings by others. James’ teachings are offered, and the Center is also selling Marvin Wilson’s Exploring Our Hebraic Heritage: A Christian Theology of Roots and Renewal.

JC Studies’ fruit-bearing continues, James says, but it is not without its challenges.

“The first roadblock you encounter in this field of study is that of anti-Semitism,” James says. “To the Biblical mind, it’s no surprise to find anti-Semitism in the world, but in the Church? This would have been unthinkable to the apostles. Yet it exists in a largely unexamined and accepted way.”

For instance, to say that “the Old Testament is law and the New Testament is grace is, at its core, a theological anti-Semitism.” James says that there is a Hebrew word for this kind of nonsense: “Bah-loh-nee” (Bologna).

“Again, that oversimplified cliche of law vs. grace, which is embedded in the mind of almost every Protestant, assumes that there was no grace-based salvation in the early covenants,” he says. “It also presumes there is no law in the New Covenant, nothing to obey, no commandments, which is obviously foolishness.

“Another potential stumbling block to Christians arises from a related misconception. If salvation was by works in God’s Covenant with Israel, then works are inherently bad. But as a matter of fact, they are our inheritance,” James says.

“Works are the fruit of obedience that comes from entering into a covenant relationship with the living God,” he says, “Which has always been by grace through faith. Paul knew this full well. We’ve been created for good works in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10).”

Personally, James and his wife, Tamora, try to share these and other concepts through parental mentoring. They are part of a congregation called Church of the Messiah in Xenia, Ohio, and serve in the Dayton, Ohio, homeschooling network.

“I love homeschooling parents because they’ve already taken responsibility for their child’s discipleship,” says James, a homeschooling father of four. “We’re big fans of pastoral ministry. We’re big fans of the Church. But as any pastor will tell you, he would like to strengthen the hands of parents who are doing the work rather than the other way around.

“Following my passion of equipping parents to disciple their children to read and understand the Bible translates into accepting more invitations in the homeschooling movement because we share a common interest. Parents homeschool in order to give their children the best possible educational foundation. Yet Christian parents know that education is to serve the greater purpose of discipleship. They are looking for some basic handles on teaching the big picture story of the Scriptures to their own children. I remind them that this is part of their good works in Christ Jesus (Deuteronomy 11:19).”

One of the ways parents can use the Jewish roots of their Christian faith to disciple their children is to celebrate the Biblical festivals with them in some way.

“The reason we take you back into the life and times of Jesus and the early Church is in order for you to go forward into your own fullness of time with more faithfulness,” he says.

For instance, families can build a sukkah, or booth, during the Festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles).

“Remember,” says James, “this is not divine obligation but divine opportunity.

“We build a little lean-to with branches from our yard and rehearse what it meant to Jesus and what it means in Jesus. What a blessing to try to get our collective minds around the salvation work of Jesus Who, by His Spirit, has brought us home to a Father who likes to feast.”

But JC Studies does get pushback from some in the Body of Christ for its emphasis on what James likes to call “Olive Tree Theology.” One complaint is that the ministry is trying to “judaize” the Church.

“Absolutely not,’” James says. “We are not telling anyone that they need to eat a certain way, dress a certain way or act a certain way in order to earn or keep salvation. The good Lord knows there is enough legalism in the Church as it is. No, we desire to equip the saved to live out Jesus’ Kingdom message. How? By seeking to answer the question, ‘How did Jesus grow in His faith?’ That is one of the most remarkable paradigms shifts in New Testament studies. What we see in the Gospels is Jesus living a life of faithfulness before His Father. How was He doing that? Where did He get His teaching? What did He model for us?”

There are also some who object that this line of thinking is somehow “diminishing the work of Jesus, that somehow we are attacking Reformation theology.”

“To that I would say, ‘May it never be,’” James says. “Every single thing that we talk about is essential to Christian theology. We are laser-focused on ‘Who is Jesus, what is His Kingdom message, and how does that apply to the Church today?’”