In his new book, Israel, the Church and the Jews, Jacob Prasch explains how contemporary Middle Eastern events fulfill biblical prophecy. Just as Israel experienced repercussions for their renunciation of religious faith and moral decline, current Christian democracies are beginning to experience similar repercussions for digressing from their biblical heritage and moral backslide. Prasch discusses the significance of current political events such as the Annapolis Summit. The event, held in November of 2007, was attended by President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and several European, Middle Eastern and Israeli heads of State. The ramification of the recent Hezbollah attacks and the situation in Iran, in light of the prophecies in the biblical book of Daniel, are covered in his book. Prasch discusses the controversies surrounding John Hagee s latest book regarding the relationship between Israel and the United States. Prasch is swamped with letters and emails questioning how our political and church leaders can seek peace with Islam while ignoring the plight of Christians in the Muslim countries. Prasch believes in a divine judgment on nations cursing Israel and persecuting the true church. In addition to demonstrating how current events tie into biblical prophecy, Jacob discusses what he believes to be false teachings within the Evangelical church. The true church must understand and follow the theology presented in the Bible. Biblical understanding can only be achieved by interpreting the scripture in light of the Jewish faith and culture. For example, Jacob uses Jewish Midrash (a method of interpreting scripture) to explain the use of Old Testament quotes found within the New Testament. Jacob has a deep desire to evangelize the Jewish people, and he believes the divine strategy includes the Jewish rejection and then final acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.
James Jacob Prasch is Director of Moriel Ministries. Jacob was born near New York City in the USA where he became a Christian while studying science in university in February of 1972, after trying to disprove the Bible with science, history, and archaeology. He found so much evidence in support of the claims of Jesus and the Bible that it required more faith to reject it than to believe it. Already frustrated by the failures of the hippie generation to build a better world, disillusioned by the Marxism to which he subscribed, and with the drug culture that claimed the lives of some of his friends and nearly his own, he put his faith in Jesus.
Jacob’s family is a combination of Roman Catholic and Jewish. (In his youth he was forced to attend a Catholic school, but also attended the Jewish Community Centre.) Jacob’s wife Pavia, also from a science background, is a Romanian-born Israeli Jewish believer who is the daughter of holocaust survivors. Pavia was an atheist and Jacob was an agnostic. After coming to faith both switched from study in scientific fields to theological fields in Israel and in Britain. They have two children both born in Galilee.
Jacob is a Hebrew-speaking evangelist to the Jews and a Bible teacher elaborating on the original Judeo-Christian background and hermeneutics of the New Testament, and his emphasis is on church planting and missions. He and Moriel have also been a conservative voice for biblically-based discernment among moderate Pentecostals and Charismatics opposed to the seductions of the ecumenism, money oriented preaching and hype artistry, "charismania" and psycho-babble prevalent in today’s church.
Jacob and Moriel are committed to the conviction that we are in the Last Days approaching the return of Christ and that contemporary events in the Middle East, the moral deterioration of society, the destruction of the environment, the globalisation of the world economy, the rise of a pseudo-democratic federal Europe and, above all, the apostasy in the contemporary church, are all events of prophetic significance eschatologically.