Interview with director of Ariel Ministries Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum
 
 
Dear Arnold tell us please about the preaching of the Good News in Israel now.
- While the preaching of the Gospel is not as widespread and obvious in Israel as it is in the USA and elsewhere, it is being spread.  Individual congregations are sharing the Gospel with the Jewish people they come in contact with and those who are brought into the services.  Furthermore, several leaders of Messianic Congregations developed an evangelistic committee and they organize groups to do street evangelism in places like Tel Aviv and Haifa two or three times per year.  They pass out literature on the streets and also on the beaches of Tel Aviv.  They even had a plane flying across the beach with a flyer behind it announcing the Messiah with a phone number that people could call.  Furthermore, Messianic leaders are printing a large amount of Hebrew Gospel literature for the Israeli community.

Please tell us about your ministry and about your work.
- As Director of Ariel Ministries, I have several responsibilities. First of all, I am responsible to direct its ministry and to oversee its various purposes. This is done largely through the Home Office staff that serves as a liaison between myself and the various branches of the ministry. Without the Home Office staff, the ministry would not be as effective. I am also responsible to remain in contact with people who are interested in supporting the ministry and answer their questions. Before e-mail, I answered approximately 25 questions per week, but since e-mail, the questions have become more numerous and I answer as many as 50-75 letters per week. This is done primarily by dictating my answers on tape which are then typed out by my secretary. My third area of responsibility is to represent the ministry to Christian groups and churches. This keeps me traveling around the world teaching in churches, usually in blocks of 3-5 days on different series teaching the Bible from a Jewish frame of reference. That in turn is how people get blessed. When they get blessed, they also begin to help support the ministry. Another responsibility is the production of books, manuscripts, and tapes. I am slowly working on producing a group of tapes that will teach on every book of the Bible from this Jewish frame of reference. I have completed over 40 books to accomplish this goal. We also have about 200 manuscripts that provide teaching on Bible topics in various areas. We have written books and continue to produce books. Our goal is to have books and CD’s that teach on all the books of the Bible, verse by verse. There are other odds and ends I find myself needing to attend to but these are the main functions. My most enjoyable duty is teaching yearly at Camp Shoshanah. This is a program that spends a 3-week period teaching the Bible for 5 hours per day on Monday-Friday. People have begun coming from different parts of the world to attend and we are grateful for this.

And about your family a little.

- My family consists of only my wife, Mary Ann, and myself.  We have been married for 36 years.  

 
07. 2004

 

 

Jews, Christians and the Word of God