From the recording studio to the television studio, Kathie Lee Gifford is an all-around entertainer with an unmatched passion. She’s also passionate about her faith.
“Follow your joy and it will lead to God’s purpose for your life. I have a mantra which is, my joy is non-negotiable,” Gifford told CBN News in a recent interview about her new best-selling book, The Rock, The Road and The Rabbi.
The inspiration for the book was her love for the Holy Land, which she’s been visiting since she was 17 years old.
“I was a big Bible nerd from the time I became a Christian when I was 12 years old,” she said. “And my father, as my graduation gift from high school, got tickets for my mom and me to go to Israel. And I was thrilled. I missed my high school graduation. I could have cared less. I was always anxious to get to the Holy Land and be where everything happened and just soak it in.”
One of those trips to the Holy Land was with Rabbi Jason Sobel, who helped her write the book.
“In 2012, my husband and I went on what we call a ‘rabbinical trip,’ and that’s when everything changed for me,” she explained.
Understanding the Bible from a Middle-Eastern Perspective
“And when I started really studying the way the Messianic rabbis teach because the Word of God was written by Middle Easterners for Middle Easterners,” she went on, “and when we try to apply our Western mindset or traditions or thought processes towards that, it never works. We have to go back to who they were and what was happening at the time that it happened, and we have to understand what the languages truly meant.”
She continued. “Most people think Jesus was a carpenter. Well, not according to the Greek in the New Testament. The word for what Jesus and Joseph did was tekton. And that means either ‘builder’ or it means ‘architect.’ Well, Jesus was the architect of all creation, so that would make sense. And if I am going to base my entire life on something, I have to know what it really means. Many people call themselves Christians, they’ve never even read the Bible, much less know what it says.”
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