There is great value in store for Christians who explore the Jewish roots of their faith, especially as we approach Pentecost.

Jewish people are at this time engaged in a sort of countdown (Leviticus 23:15f), which takes place over the fifty days from Passover to Pentecost. Whereas Passover brought redemption – being set free from slavery, now fulfilled through Yeshua our Passover Lamb – Pentecost (also known as Shavuot) commemorates the encounter with God at Mt Sinai, where the divine law was written on tablets of stone.

But the ultimate fulfilment of Pentecost came when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus’ first disciples, no longer just on tablets of stone but also on human hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3).

As Covenant of Hope Media’s Stephen Briggs put it: “What began at Sinai was fulfilled in power in Jerusalem.”

Talking of counting, Stephen and his wife Melissa head up a ministry called Israel Matters designed to bring clarity on Israel’s place in God’s purposes and have now announced that, in just a year, their YouTube content has passed the million mark!

The Feast of Pentecost, meanwhile, still much revered among Jews, seems to have lost much of its emphasis among Christians in the West, which surely accounts for their loss of power and effectiveness in service.

Yeshua made it plain that his disciples should wait in Jerusalem until they were empowered with the Holy Spirit before they set about spreading the gospel. (Acts 1:4) When the Day of Pentecost came, all heaven broke loose as the saints were miraculously able to declare the message in many languages. And this power is still available today.

The story of a Jewish friend springs to mind. Ralph Goldenberg, a follower of Jesus for decades, was having second thoughts about being ordained into the Church of England ministry when he got the surprise of his life.

A message in tongues was given during a home meeting which Ralph immediately recognised as Sudanese Arabic.

Having grown up in Sudan with the ability to speak several languages, he knew exactly what it meant. And it could not have been a clearer confirmation of his calling.

“Allah be’hebak – Inta min al dam beta Ibrahiem – Al Angiel fi fomak” translates as: “God loves you. You are from the blood of Abraham. The gospel is in your mouth.”

The messenger, who hadn’t even realised he had spoken a real (as opposed to angelic) language, subsequently interpreted what he had said (as instructed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.27) as: “You are to proclaim the gospel and bring my people to the kingdom.”

As recorded in his autobiography, Find the Truth and Lock it in Your Heart (www.creativebooksolutions.com), that miraculous incident sparked the beginning of a very fruitful 20-year ministry for Ralph, a former optometrist who has since been helping people to see spiritual truths.

Now 81 and retired, Ralph led churches in various parts of England, including the Jewish community of Edgware in north London.

At his first church, in his hometown of Bournemouth, he witnessed the miraculous healing of a missionary to China who had come home for back surgery which was cancelled after prayer and anointing with oil.

The Holy Spirit, who had so empowered the first believers on the Day of Pentecost that they spoke in the languages of Jews from many nations who were staying in Jerusalem for the festival (Acts 2:4f), has clearly played an essential role in Ralph’s ministry.

He recalls the time when, during a Pentecost Sunday service, “nearly everyone received the Holy Spirit and children spontaneously started praying and prophesying over the adults.”

Ralph was among 40 grandchildren to a Chief Rabbi sent to lead the Jewish community in Sudan, and both his grandparents told him to ‘Find the truth and lock it in your heart’ – hence his book’s title.

So imagine his surprise when the vicar in charge of the church where he was married in 1967 told him to “search for the truth and follow wherever it leads you.”

Ralph was sent to a Jewish school in Brighton, England – and seemed to meet Christians at every turn of his life from this point on. He had also, in fact, attended a Catholic school in Sudan.

He followed his father into optometry, meeting wife Helen at the City University in London where she was also an optometry student, and when he joined an optician’s partnership, he too was a Christian!

Ralph and Helen had three lovely boys, a beautiful home and in time seemed to have everything – yet still felt empty inside.

They duly made friends with a Christian couple and soon became connected with St Mary’s, Ferndown.

“I am a Jew, but I want to know about Jesus,” Ralph told the vicar. Helen meanwhile had already been persuaded that Jesus was knocking on the door of her life just waiting to be invited in (Revelation 3.20) and Ralph was duly challenged to read the New Testament, which he found ‘mind-blowing’.

But he needed to be sure that Jesus was divine. So he challenged God to send at least one person to say, ‘Jesus is alive!’

He subsequently felt drawn to attend church with Helen and was blown away when a new song was introduced which repeated the line ‘Jesus is alive today’ several times!

He never looked back, and it was ten years later, while experiencing pre-ordination nerves, that he got the knockout confirmation of his calling in Arabic!

Ralph has certainly found the truth his grandparents encouraged him to seek and remains involved with the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), an international body dedicated to the spiritual rebirth of Israel.

Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; To the Jew First, A Nation Reborn, and King of the Jews, all available from Christian Publications International.