A Jewish Man Tried to Disprove Jesus From the Old Testament and It Backfired
I didn’t want to believe. I did not want to believe this is the last thing in the world that I ever wanted to believe.
I kept saying to myself, “Yeah, but what about the crusades? What about the Inquisition?
What about the the Holocaust? What about the Pgrams? What about the anti-semitism? What about the hatred we’ve experienced all of our life from Christians?
What about that?” Stan Teljin was a committed Jewish father, a respected leader, and a well-known, influential man in his community who believed Christianity was false and dangerous.
When his own daughter became a Christian, he wasn’t just adamantly against it. He felt betrayed and believed his family and reputation were being threatened.
He felt it challenged his faith and everything he stood for. So he made a decision.
He would go to the Bible itself and prove that Jesus could not be the savior of the world.
What unfolds from there is very powerful. You see the divine providence and patience of God on full display as he works miracle after miracle in this man’s life to soften his hardened heart.
And this isn’t just Dan’s testimony. In many ways, it reflects the heart of every person.
If you’ve ever shared your faith and felt discouraged, struggled to believe, or found yourself spiritually seeking or wrestling with questions as a pastor for over a decade, I want to speak to you after this testimony and bring encouragement and hope into your life.
That’s when my daughter Judy called me from Boston. She was a student at Boston University and she called me one Sunday night.
Uh Ethel was in the shower getting ready for bed and I’m sitting in the den with my diary making plans for the next week and she calls and says, “Daddy, can you speak to me on the phone?”
Well, at that time in our lives, we probably spoke to each other at least every day, at least once every day, probably two or three times a day sometimes.
And certainly I could speak up on the phone, but you know, sometimes when you get a telephone call, you don’t know what’s happening.
The hair on your neck begins to go up. Well, that’s what happened in this telephone call.
I knew that something was wrong. I said, “What’s wrong, Judy?” She said, “Is mom there?”
And I said, “No, mom’s taking a shower.” “What is it, dear?” And she said, “Um, well, I’ve written you a letter.
It’s taken me two weeks to write. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
I was going to mail it to you, but I’m afraid to mail it to you cuz I don’t want to hurt you.
So, would it be okay if I read it to you?” And you can only imagine what I was going through.
I knew something was wrong. I said, “Wait a minute, sweetheart. Let me get a pad and pencil.”
And uh I did. I said, “Okay, what is it?” And at that point, she began to share with me some events that had taken place in her life over the prior nine months, which led her to the the decision that Jesus is our Messiah.
And I’ve got to tell you that when she said that, it was like like like a knife being placed right into my heart.
I kept saying, “Judy, this is impossible. This is impossible. You’re Jewish. You can’t believe in Jesus.
It’s it’s impossible. You you can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus. You can’t be a Jew and a Christian at the same time.
You can’t go north and south at the same time. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you understand?
This is impossible. We didn’t know what to do. The next morning, Monday morning, I called a rabbi, a friend of mine, and uh [laughter] I asked him if he had a few minutes to talk on the phone.
I probably kept him on the phone for half an hour, rattling out the story of what what Judy had told me.
And he kept saying, “Stan, take it easy. It could be worse.” I said, “Hi, Rabbi.
If it was your daughter, it would be worse. You know what’s going on here?”
He said, “Look, she’s a good Jewish kid. You’ve raised her properly. You’ve raised her in a home of love.
Um she’ll come back. Somebody’s got to her. They brainwashed her. You just stay there.
You stay steadfast and she’ll come home. I said, “Okay, Rabbi, from your lips to God’s ears.”
And uh we left it at that and I can’t remember too much about the next couple of weeks.
But then it was time for Judy to come home. It was about a half We lived in Bethesda, Maryland at the time.
It was about a half hour ride from where we live down to National Airport.
And I remember inviting Ethel, my wife, to come and inviting Ann, my younger daughter, to come with me to the airport.
Neither one of them wanted to come to the airport with me. They were too chicken.
They wanted daddy to do it. So, uh, off I went to the airport and, uh, it was a very difficult time of greeting.
We didn’t know what to say to one another. I took her luggage, we put it in the trunk of the car, and we get into the car and for 40 minutes, I’m listening to the sound of the BMW engine.
You know, I don’t know what to do. We get home, I take her suitcase into her room, and u, I go into the den, my younger daughter, Anne, comes into the den, my wife, Ethel, comes into the den, and finally Judy comes into the den.
And then I said brilliantly, I said,”All right, Judy, tell us about this craziness that you’re into.”
And then she begins to share with us this u tremendous story of what had happened which caused her to come to the conclusion that Jesus really is our Messiah.
But I’ve got to tell you, I really wasn’t listening to what she was saying.
I I couldn’t I couldn’t pay any attention to what she was saying because my whole world view is at risk here.
How can you This is impossible. Judy, you can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus.
You can’t go north and south at the same time. You can’t go east and west at the same time.
You can’t be a Jew and a Christian at the same times. You can’t do this.
And then Judy at the age of 21 said to me, “Daddy, that’s not true.”
I said, “I beg your pardon.” She says, “Daddy, that’s not true. There always have been Jewish believers.”
I said, “Judy, what do you know about anything? What what anti-semitism have you experienced in your lifetime?
Who’s called you a Christ killer in your lifetime? What persecution have you experienced? How can you tell me that there are Jewish people who believe in Jesus?”
She says, “Well, Daddy, there are.” I said, “Nonsense. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-ft pole.
Well, it kept getting worse for the rest of the 10 days. It just it just got I no matter what I said, I could not reason get through to her.
No matter what she said, she couldn’t get through to me. And then it was time for her to go back to school.
And uh she challenged me. She said, “Dad, would you do me a favor?” And I said, “Well, it all depends on what it is.”
She said, “Would you read the Bible for yourself? It’s either true or it’s false.
If it’s true, you’ll know what to do. If it’s false, you’ll know what to do.
And I said, “Ah, that’s what you want. You’re out there all by yourself. You want me to read what you read and prove to you that you didn’t read it properly, and you want me to prove to you that Jesus is not the Messiah.”
Okay, kid. That’s what I’m going to do. So, Sunday afternoon, she takes off to go to Boston University.
And Monday night, I come down. I sit down at my den after dinner. I light up a cigarette, pull out I don’t know where these Bibles came from, but I had the prophecy edition of of the New Testament.
I had several Bibles were on my on my stand. And I picked up the Bible, the little prophecy edition of the Bible, and uh I began for the first time to read the Gospel of Matthew.
I had never read the Bible in my whole life. Certainly, I never touched the New Testament.
Oh, well, that’s not true. Once in a hotel room, it fell to the floor and I picked it up.
[laughter] That’s the only time I ever touched it. But I had never read our Bible.
We Jews don’t read our Bible. We we read our prayer book. My grandfather knew the Talmud, but today Jewish people don’t even study the Talmud.
We know our prayer book. We don’t know our scriptures. Don’t know anything about the Bible.
Most of us I would say the vast majority of the Jewish people around the world don’t know anything about scriptures.
Have never read. As orthodox as my grandfather Isaac Baskin was, I doubt if he had ever read the Hebrew scriptures from beginning to end.
He knew the prayer book and he knew portions of the Talmud, the commentary on the prayer book.
But he never read the scriptures. And so here I am for the first time in my life.
I’m going to pick up this book and I’m prepared for a book of hatred.
Because where else do they get their hatred for us? It either has to come from their mother’s milk or it comes from this book that they read.
And so I’m prepared for a book of hatred against the Jewish people and I’m a little shaky in my hands as I pick it up to read it.
Couple my wife decided and I decided that we would do separate studies and I was going to disprove this.
I was going to prove to Judy that she’d made a mistake. So that was my intention of picking up the Bible.
So we sit down and couple hours later I finish the Gospel of Matthew and I come into the kitchen for a cup of tea with Ethel.
I says, “Well, did you disprove it yet?” I said, “Sweetheart, it’s just the first night.
Give me a week or two, will you?” I mean, I had a BA and an MA part of my PhD.
I’m a fast study, but you know, give me a week or two. I’ll prove it.
It’s not right. Um, the rest of the week, every night after work, I’d come back into the den and sit down, start to read again.
And I remember on Thursday night and Friday, I was reading the Gospel of John.
And I remember in the fifth chapter of uh John’s gospel, a statement was made which really really got to me.
You remember where Jesus said, “Don’t think that it’s I who accuse you. Another accuses you.”
Noises. If you knew him, you’d know me because he wrote, “Wow, I don’t know anything about our scriptures.
I don’t know anything about I know the prayer book. I know the holidays. I know how to conduct the Passover Seder.
I know all of these things, but I don’t know our scriptures.” So, I made a note of that.
And then, uh, on Friday night, I finished the Gospel of John. And Saturday morning, I started the Acts of the Apostles.
And all was well for the first nine chapters. I mean, this is especially when Saul is going to go get those guys.
Go get them, Saul. Go get [laughter] the ninth chapter was particularly exciting to me.
And then we got to the 10th chapter of the book of Acts. And um that’s when the trouble hit because as you remember, this is a story of Peter on a rooftop.
And Peter has a vision of a sheet being lowered. And on the sheet are non-coosher animals, unclean animals.
And he hears a voice from heaven saying, “Kill and eat.” And he’s saying, “Wait a minute.
I can’t kill these. These are not clean animals. They’re uncosher. I have not eaten ever eaten anything that wasn’t clean.
Wasn’t kosher. And he hears a voice from heaven say, “Don’t you call unclean that which I have cleansed.”
Now, he probably understood that as well as I would have understood that if I had the vision, but three times he has the same vision and three times he has the faintest idea, I’m sure, of what was being said.
Then he has another vision. And in this vision, somebody’s supposed to come to him to get him to go somewhere.
And he’s supposed to go with his messenger. I’m sure you remember. And sure enough, knock knock.
Hey Pete, y’all come. And this is a paraphrase of course. So Pete goes with his messenger and winds up at the home of Cornelius, the Roman centuran, a gentile.
And Pete doesn’t want to go into Corn’s house. [laughter] He doesn’t want to have anything to do with this guy.
He doesn’t want to touch him, you know, because he could be unclean and he would make Peter unclean.
And no way did he want to go anywhere near Cornelius. But Cornelius then says to Peter, I too have had a vision and in my vision, you are going to come and tell us about God.
So Peter says, “Well, I guess you got me, babe.” And Peter begins to talk to Cornelius and to the other Gentiles in Cornelius’s home about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and about the Messiah of Israel, Jesus.
And then something absolutely unexpected occurred. The Rhaesh, the Holy Spirit, fell upon these Gentiles.
And Peter and the Jewish guys who were with him were astonished. How can this be?
How could our Holy Spirit fall upon these Gentiles? How is it possible? How can our hol he’s for us, he’s not for them?
The Messiah is not is for us. He’s not for them. How can this be?
And quickly, I’m turning the pages. Now I’m I’m in the 11th chapter of the book of Acts.
And now I’m in the Jerusalem council and um they’re giving Peter what for, Peter?
What’s the matter with you? You some kind of a nut. How could you go into their home and break bread with them and have fellowship with them and and share the Messiah with them and and what are you doing, man?
Are you a nut? Paraphrase. [laughter] And um Peter says, “Well, fellas, let me tell you what happened.”
And Peter tells the Jerusalem Council how the Holy Spirit fell upon these Gentiles. And then they thought about that and they came to the conclusion that God must not be a respector of persons.
It’s okay for Gentiles to believe. When I read that, I was taken back. How is it possible that 2,000 years ago Jesus was only for us Jews and not for the Gentiles?
And now 2,000 years later, he’s for the Gentiles and he’s not for us. How did that happen?
And at that moment in time, what my daughter Judy had come to believe was no longer relevant.
Now I had to know. The Holy Spirit had put his hook in my jaw and he was really me in.
And I had to know for myself. My entire world view is based upon the fact that Jesus is not our Messiah.
And uh I sit down in the den, I light up, and I start to read Psalm 22 from our side of the Bible.
I’m safe. Psalm 22. And as I’m reading, my eyes fill with tears because I can see him hanging on a tree.
And I didn’t expect to see him there. I had never read Psalm 22 in my life.
And then I went to Isaiah 53, which I had never read in my life.
And now the tears that were behind my eyes flowed from my eyes because not only could I see him, but I could understand why he was on that tree, why he was killed.
He was punished for us. Our sins were placed upon him and he was crushed in ourstead.
And I just wept. I just wept and wept and wept. I felt terrible. Uh how come I was 50 years of age, been going to synagogue all my life.
How come we never read Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53? Then I turned to Jeremiah 31.
And at verse 31, I read an amazing statement. Jeremiah 31:31 in our side of the Bible says the god says, “Lo, the day is coming when I will enter into a new covenant with the house of Israel and house of Judah.”
A new covenant God’s promising to us Jewish people. A new covenant he’s promising to us.
I was raised to believe that the new covenant was for Gentiles only, not not for Jews.
And here is a promise from the living God saying that he’s going to give to us a new covenant.
I was astonished that I’d never known this before. And after a while, I turned to the last part of the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel.
And this is a very complicated portion of scripture. Those of you who read it know what I’m talking about.
Um, I don’t remember what verse it is. 26, 25, 27, somewhere in there. There’s a four-part statement.
It’s very complicated. But breaking it down, it says this. It says, “The Jerusalem shall be destroyed and the temple by the prince who shall come after the Messiah is cut off.”
Jerusalem shall be destroyed and the temple by the prince who shall come after the Messiah is cut off.
Well, I knew at this time that Jerusalem had been destroyed in the year 70.
I knew that the temple had been destroyed in the year 70. I knew that emperor that that general Titus was a Roman general who destroyed the city and he was the son of Emperor Vespasian.
Therefore, Titus was a prince and if it only had stopped there, I would have been safe.
Jerus Jerusalem shall be destroyed and the temple by the prince who shall come. But there was a fourth part.
The fourth part says, “These things will happen after the Messiah is cut off.” Which said to me that either this book that I’ve been reading, these scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, are nothing more than the story of the Jewish people, or the Messiah came for the year 70.
Ah, I was in shock. How can this be? How can this be? I don’t want to believe this.
I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this. At this point in time, I was I’m not going to tell you how great I was, but I was a trustee of this Jewish organization on the board of that Jewish organization, man of the year for this Jewish organization.
How can this be? How how can I consider what I’m reading? How can this be true?
It’s probably just a myth. It can’t possibly be true. I kept saying to myself, but the more I said that, the more I said I had a niggling, naggling on the inside of me saying, “Wait a minute.
This is a prophecy that is written long before Jesus.” Long before Jesus. So either this is not true or else our messiah came for the year seven.
Nope. I did not want to see this. I did not want to think this.
I did not want to believe this. Fortunately for me um and this is in June of 1975.
Fortunately for me, I was um going to have to go to San Francisco for a meeting.
Uh I was going to be a speaker at a at a conference with four other guys.
And u while I was going to go in San Francisco, my wife Ethel was going to go up to be with Judy in Boston.
And my daughter Anne was going to go visit a friend of hers as a graduation president from high school.
She was going to go visit a friend of hers in LA. So, the family’s all provided for.
I take off and I go up to San Francisco. Our our panel meets. We have a rehearsal and then we all go out for lunch together and we don’t really know each other too well.
So, what do you do? Tell us about your family. What are your hobbies? What?
And this one guy that I’m sitting next to says, “Uh, well, I’m secretary of a Bible school.”
Oh my, I can’t get away from it. So the next couple of three hours we sit there talking.
I kept asking him questions and he kept answering questions, but he wasn’t trying to push anything on me.
He was just trying to let me know what he knew. And that to me was very, very important.
Well, uh, Ann’s in LA. I’m in San Francisco. Ethel’s in Boston. It’s time for us all to gather home.
We gather home. And I hear at that point that there’s going to be, you got to hear me, there’s going to be an international I laugh even as I say the words, an international convocation of Messianic Jews.
An international convocation of Messianic all eight of them are going to come and they’re I believe my an international I wouldn’t be caught dead there for anything.
So when I got there, I was a little bit late. I didn’t have time to register.
[clears throat] So, I left my bag in the car and I went into the meeting and I sat down and there were maybe 600, five, 600 people there.
I I wasn’t paying any attention to what was being said, but I’m looking at faces.
Is he or isn’t he? Is she or is she Jewish or not Jewish? You know, [laughter] and my guess is that maybe 40% of the people were Jewish there.
I have no way of knowing how many there actually were. But the meeting is over now.
The morning session is over and it’s time to have lunch. So I go to register and make my way to the dorm and I see this lady um she had policy of one kind or another having a hard time carrying a briefcase and her suitcase and going where she going.
So we’re going in the same direction and I say look may I help you with your bag.
She said sure. So I carrying her bag and my bag and uh I introduced myself.
I’m Stan. I’m from Bethesda, Maryland. I’m Lillian. I’m from Philadelphia. Then Lillian turns to me.
She says tell me Stan for how long have you been a believer? And I said whoa wait one minute.
I’m not a believer. I’m an inquirer. I didn’t know that you never tell a believer that you’re an inquirer because if you do, they’ll say, “Let’s sit down and talk.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Lillian, there’s a bench there, a concrete bench. And Lillian said, “Well, let’s sit down and talk.”
Okay. And I thought she was tired. So, we sit down. And she said, “Do me a favor.”
I said, “What?” She said, “Would you take my Bible out of my briefcase?” And I said, “Sure.”
Took out her Bible. She said, “Would you open Exodus chapter 20?” Great. Our side of the Bible, no problem.
I know exactly where it is. Uh opens up. She says, “Would you read what it says?”
“Sure. I am the Lord your God who delivered thee out of the land of Egypt.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The first commandment. She said, “Close the Bible.
Close the Bible and look at her.” She said, “Tell me, Stan, who is your God?”
And I came out with the eloquent statement, “Huh? What are you asking me? Who is it you worship?
What is it you worship? What do you spend your time thinking about? What’s at the center of your life?
Is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers? Is he your God?
Or you following after false gods? I said, “What are you talking about?” She said, “False gods like your wife, your children, your money, your business, your golf game.
What is it you spend your time thinking about?” And with each one of those questions, it was like an arrow going right into me because I was spending all of my time thinking about these things.
And God was nowhere in my thoughts. I rarely ever thought about God. I can’t remember except for God bless you.
I don’t can’t remember even mentioning the name of God and uh I can’t tell you very much about the rest of the day because you can imagine the turmoil that was going on on the inside of me.
I went to the rest of the meetings, had lunch with a group of people, had dinner with the same people and went to the evening meeting, but I can’t tell you anything about that because what was going on, the turmoil that was going on inside of me was too great.
And then um it was time to go to bed. It must have been about 11, 11:30 and it was hot.
It was a hot July day, July 2nd, 1975. And it must have been 90 95 degrees hot.
And the room had no air conditioning, no fan, no nothing. And I am dying with the heat.
And I couldn’t tell whether it was hotter on the inside or hot on the outside.
I can’t fall asleep. It’s 1:00 in the morning. I’m still not asleep. And finally, I hear my roommate, Art, I hear him turning over.
So I whisper, “Art, are you awake?” And he says, “Yes, Dan. What’s the matter?”
I said, “Would you do me a favor?” He said, “What?” I said, “Would you please pray for me?”
Now, I hadn’t asked anybody to pray for me since my I before I went overseas in World War II when I asked my grandfather Isaac Baskin to pray for me.
He prayed for me and gave me permission to eat non-coosher food. And now I’m asking Art all these years later for him to pray for me.
I can’t tell you what he prayed. I have no idea what he prayed. Um but all I knew is I was awake the next morning.
The sun was shining. It was almost 7:00. I’m hungry. It’s time to go have breakfast.
So I got cleaned up and off I went. I left him sleeping and I go into the cafeteria and there are these people I’d had lunch and dinner with the day before.
All right. So, they wave at me and motion me to come over and crash the line.
I did. Nobody complained. And uh we fill our trays and go and sit down at a table.
Put our trays down at a table. I put mine down. And by this time, I know that you don’t just because you have your tray down, you don’t pick up a knife and fork and start to eat.
Somebody has to say something, you know. So, [laughter] I I wait and surely Moses Burn, the wife of this guy that I’ve been talking to, turns to me and says, “Stan, would you lead us in prayer?”
What do I pray? [laughter] So I recite the old Hebrew prayer. Praise thou, oh Lord our God, king of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth.
And I was done. But I know that these people don’t end with one sentence.
They keep going on. So what do you do now? So So I start I don’t know what I said.
I don’t I thanked him for this. I thanked him for that. For the for the the way the grass was standing up straight.
I I have no idea what what I thanked him for, but that’s not important.
What happened was when I finished my prayer, I said in Jesus name. And when I said that, it was like a volcano erupting because I had already believed.
I believed for a couple of weeks already. But I was counting the cost. I didn’t want to believe.
I did not want to believe. This is the last thing in the world I ever wanted to believe.
I kept saying to myself, “Yeah, but what about the crusades? What about the Inquisition?
What about the the Holocaust? What about the Pgrams? What about the anti-semitism? What about the hatred we’ve experienced all of our life from Christians?
What about that?” And uh on the inside I kept saying I kept hearing yes those things happen but that doesn’t change the fact that Jesus is our Messiah.
As we step back from this testimony I hope you see more than just an inspiring story.
What we’re really seeing here is the character of God on full display. This wasn’t a man looking for Jesus.
This wasn’t someone open, curious, or searching. This was a man who was convinced he was right and convinced Christianity was dangerous.
And yet God was patient with him. God didn’t bring him to faith through fear or force, but through patient conviction and mercy.
God gently, faithfully, and sovereignly worked over time, often in ways that were seen and unseen to soften his hardened heart.
That should encourage us deeply. Many of us carry heavy burdens for people we love.
A spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, someone who seems resistant, closed off, or even hostile to the gospel.
We pray, we wait, we wonder if anything is happening at all. This testimony reminds us that God is always at work.
Even if it seems like our circumstances aren’t changing, he’s not limited by stubborn hearts, strong objections, or long seasons of resistance.
His purposes stand firm, and his mercy is patiently extended to all those who would repent and trust in his son, Jesus Christ.
It also reminds us that salvation doesn’t ultimately rest on our ability to argue someone into the faith.
Stan didn’t come to Christ because someone out debated him. He came to Christ because God was faithful to his word and kind to a wretched sinner.
That should relieve some of the pressure we often feel. We’re called to share the gospel, to be loving, prayerful, and patient.
God is the one who opens eyes. God is the one who soften hearts. And God is the one who saves.
For some of you, this testimony may feel personal. Maybe you see yourself in parts of Stan’s story.
Maybe you’ve wrestled with doubts, questions, or even resistance toward Christ. Let this encourage you as well.
God welcomes honest questions and is ready to reveal himself to anyone with an open heart.
Jesus Christ often cares more about saving our souls than we do ourselves. And for believers who are weary or discouraged, whether you’re waiting for a prayer to be answered or longing to see someone come to faith, take heart.
God’s ways are not our ways, and his timing is always wise and purposeful. What looks like delay is often God doing a deep work in our hearts, shaping patience and dependence.
The same God who patiently pursued Stan is the same God who holds your life, your faith, and your future in his hands.
He hasn’t forgotten you. He hasn’t abandoned his promises. He will always finish what he began.
So let this testimony strengthen your faith. Let it renew your hope. Let it remind you that God is faithful, kind, and sovereign over every story.
Keep praying. Keep trusting. Keep walking faithfully. God is still at work, often in ways far greater than we can see.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
