|
MESSENGERS OF THE NEW
COVENANT
In our day there has been a resurgence of Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. They have a continuing love and affection for Jewish life and culture while embracing Jesus as Messiah. Mottel Baleston of New Jersey is one of these. Mottel was born in a Jewish home in Brooklyn, New York City and attended both Jewish and public schools there. All 4 of his grandparents were born into Jewish homes in Europe. Mottel came to faith in Messiah as a result of a search for spiritual truth. After a careful reading of the Messianic prophecies of the Jewish Bible, it was evident to him that only Jesus has fulfilled these. Mottel is the Director of the "MESSENGERS OF THE NEW COVENANT" of New Jersey, an organization first established in 1940 to communicate the good news of the arrival of Messiah Yeshua. Messengers carries on a work of sharing Messiah within the Jewish community, calling people to faith in Him, discipling Jewish believers as well as educating Christians concerning the Jewish roots of their faith. Over the years a number of respected Jewish believers have headed up MESSENGERS, including Rachmiel Frydland and Isaac Levy Finestone. Messengers met in the Springfield NJ area in the 1970's. When Mottel arrived in 1983 to direct the ministry, the Messengers Center in downtown Montclair NJ was leased and a Messianic Fellowship started. Those times resulted in many Jewish people coming to Messiah and growing in their faith. A vibrant Friday evening group met there regularly for 15 years. In 1997 Mottel also started serving as Messianic Rabbi of Beth Messiah Congregation of Livingston, NJ, a suburb of New York City. The Congregation had been down in numbers as a result of a rocky year without full time leadership, and some there had considered closing. Mottel agreed to come as part-time Interim, seeking to build the Congregation back up to a healthy condition. When he arrived, there were about 20 adults who were committed. He saw the Lord bless in those years, many hours were spent leading out in front and working behind the scenes. After a year the 'Messengers' Fellowship meetings were merged into Beth Messiah congregation. Mottel taught the Scriptures in an expository manner in the main service each week, beginning with the instruction to believers as found in the New Testament letters. A problematic Steering Committee transitioned to a truly Biblical group of Elders as small group Bible Studies were held. Several attended the Ariel Ministries summer Bible discipleship program, Camp Shoshanah, where Mottel taught. Those years were a time of great activity that saw the congregation grow. People were coming from north and central New Jersey and well as three families who came each weekend from New York City. At the point when we called a full time leader in June 2001 the attendance had doubled to 42 very committed adults plus 25 kids!! In addition to his other ministries, Mottel continued to serve at Beth Messiah thru February 2014 as Associate Messianic Rabbi, Teaching Elder, Worship Team Leader, Hebrew Class Instructor, Small Home Group Leader along with a few other hats. Many good things came about in dozens of lives. With a change there we stepped away from involvement in early 2014 and that time is remembered fondly. In 2014 'Messengers' shifted toward a greater emphasis on outreach and having Mottel available to teach in congregations & churches. We are sharing seminars and messages on many of the topics seen on our "Teaching DVD's". We also conduct Messianic Jewish Passover and Holiday gatherings. Assisting the Messianic Jewish community by officiating at life-cycle events such as Weddings that are Messiah centered is another important aspect of ministry. Mottel is often invited be a guest speaker to keep churches aware of the Jewish roots of their faith. Mottel is a graduate of Northeastern Bible College (now part of The King's College), he also holds the 5 Year Certificate from the Ariel Summer Program of Messianic Jewish Studies and has completed extensive course work at Biblical Theological Seminary of Pennsylvania and Ulpan Beit HaAm (Hebrew Language Institute) of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. He is the author of many articles that have appeared in Ariel Magazine, and has taught at Congregations, Churches and conferences in Israel, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary and throughout the United States. He has been interviewed in-studio by Moody Bible Radio in Chicago and by Radio Rhema, New Zealand's largest Christian network. Each summer he co-teaches with well known Bible scholar & author Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum for three weeks at the Ariel Ministries Summer Bible Program held at the Ariel Shoshanah Campus in upstate New York, an intensive schedule of classes held 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. Mottel's Bible teaching DVD video sets can be found on Amazon.com and Ariel.org. From 2017 through 2020 four 13 week seasons of a a teaching series TV program entitled "OUR MESSIAH IS JEWISH" were filmed in-studio and aired by KLMN-TV throughout the southwestern US and on Roku. Past episodes can be viewed by doing a search on YouTube for Mottel's name and the series title, or by purchasing the a season of programs on DVD from GLC. In 2023 Mottel is expanding in-person ministry and has seen over 5,00 individuals subscribe to his YouTube channel for the release of 2 or 3 new Bible teaching videos each month. Mottel is a founding Board Member of the ASSOCIATION OF MESSIANIC CONGREGATIONS, started in 2003 to encourage and strengthen Messianic Congregations to be Messiah Yeshua centered, grace embracing, doctrinally sound, and joyfully Jewish in culture. Mottel is married to Deborah, a believer in Messiah, her family is from the Sephardic Jewish community of Greece & Turkey. For a time in her youth she attended an Orthodox Jewish Girl's Yeshiva in New York City. She has taught elementary Hebrew reading to many young Bar & Bat Mitzvah students in a Messianic setting. Messengers of the New Covenant - Box 274 - Ledgewood, NJ 07852 e-mail: MessiahNJ @ aol.com (just remove the spaces, an anti-spam measure) |
Two thousand years ago, a
young Rabbi named Yeshua walked into a Synagogue in Israel and announced
that He was the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. During the next 3 years many
thousands of Jewish people came to believe in Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah. Some of
these followers were older, respected, well-known Rabbis. The early
congregations that they established were Jewish in their culture. However, in
the next 200 years the large influx of Gentiles who joined resulted in a gradual forgetting
of this rich Jewish heritage, and eventually produced a church that
drifted far from its' Jewish roots.