User:AriBenLevi

Ari ben-Levi is the shem kodesh of Messianic Theologian Rickard Leavitt Sawyer, ThM, ThD, DMin, MBA.

Biography

Born 17 May 1946, in Parkersburg, Wood County, WV, while parents were residing at mother’s parents’ farm [Map] on Lee Creek Road in Bellevlle, WV. Moved to Vienna, WV, in late 1946.

Attended Neale Elementry/Jr. High School and Jackson Jr. High School in Vienna (WV) and Parkersburg (WV) high school, graduating in 1963 as a music major on trumpet and violin. Was in Big Red Band 1959-1961 and Orchestra 1961-1963; member of All-State Orchestra 1962 and 1963.

Worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Parkersburg as surgical ward orderly 1963-1964 and as physical therapy assistant 1964-1965.

Joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1963 and served as the Supervising Senior Corpsman (HM2) in the Neuropsychiatric (NP) Service of US Naval Hospital Guam from May 1965 to May 1967. That service included open and closed psychiatric wards, neurology ward, psychiatric clinic, psychology clinic, neurology clinic, and EEG Lab. Duties included: Senior Neuropsychiatric Technician; Staff Assistant to the Clinical Psychologist and Chief of Psychiatry; Psychiatric Nursing instructor; Electroencephalograph (EEG) Technician (ASET); Supervisor of EEG Lab; and Electroencephalograph (EKG) Technician. Served in Navy Reserve units in Parkersburg, WV, and Concord, CA. Discharged in 1969 as HM1 (E6).

While on Guam, served as a technical consultant in EEG to the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Blindness Research Center doing early research into Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Also served as technical consultant in NP and EEG to and to Guam Memorial Hospital, assisting in the design, development, and startup of their NP and EEG services. Also served as a technical consultant in psychology to the Department of Social Services of the Government of Guam, assisting in the development of their Project Head Start.

Married Barbara Gaye Hart of Lafayette, California, on August 24, 1967; one son, Aaron Paul Sawyer, born in Walnut Creek, California, and now residing with his wife and two children in Dayton, Ohio.

Worked in hospitals and physician’s office in Walnut Creek, California, Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Marietta, Ohio, as an EEG technician, surgical technician, and nursing assistant in 1967 and 1968. Served as Deputy Sheriff and Sergeant (Reserve) with Contra Costa County (California) Sheriff’s office approximately 1972 to 1979.

Served in pastoral ministry continuously from 1965 to 2008 on Guam and in California, Tennessee, and West Virginia. From 1997 to _____ was resident theologian at Family Bible Messianic Ministries, Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Education :

Honors

• Graduated summa cum laude, valedictorian from Th.M., Th.D., and D.Min. programs

• Maintained a consistent 4.0+ grade point average in all upper division, graduate, and postgraduate studies

• Graduated with high honors (third in the class) from A.A. program with a 3.96 earned GPA

• Declined nomination for inclusion in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, 1972, 1973

• Admitted to faculty of Spring Valley Bible College and Seminary while still a graduate theology student

Graduate and Postgraduate Work

• Trinity College of Natural Health, Warsaw, Indiana. Doctor of Naturopathy (N.D.) (terminated program without completing)

• Golden State School of Theology, Oakland, California.Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) with a specialty in Bible College Administration and Curriculum Development

• Spring Valley Bible College and Seminary, Alameda, California. Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) with a specialty in Cults and Comparative Religion

• Spring Valley Bible College and Seminary, Alameda, California. Master of Theology (Th.M.) with a specialty in Systematic Theology

• Bay Cities Bible Institute, Oakland, California. Completed 66 of 90 units toward a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Biblical Studies before transferring to Th.M. program

• University of Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, California. Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) in Organizational Management with an emphasis in Church Administration

Undergraduate Work

• University of Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, California. Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Business Administration

• Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, California. Associate of Arts (A.A.) in Administration of Justice-Peace Officer

• Berean School of the Bible, Springfield, Missouri

• Johnson Bible College, Knoxville, Tennessee

• College of Guam, Agaña, Guam

• West Virginia University at Parkersburg

Technical Schools

• National Association of Certified Natural Health Professionals, Winona Lake, Indiana

• DeVry Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois

• Contra Costa County Reserve Peace Officer Academy, Martinez, California

• Electronics Training Lab, Emeryville, California

• St. Joseph’s Hospital Medical Center, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Surgical Technician School

• Hewlett-Packard/Sanborn Service School. Advanced EKG Technician School

• United States Navy Service Schools

- Hospital Corpsman

- Neuropsychiatric Technician

- Electroencephalograph Technician

- Electrocardiograph Technician

For a complete Curriculum Vitae go to my website.

Born of Puritan and Hebrew ancestors, I was raised totally assimilated as the son of a Christian minister, and because my parents were obedient to the Lord’s command to teach His words diligently to their son (Deuteronomy 6:4-7), I cannot remember a time before I trusted Israel’s Messiah as my Lord and personal Savior, and I made my “public confession of faith” and was and was immersed (baptized) on Resurrection Day (First Fruits) a few weeks before my seventh birthday.

By the time I was ten years old, I was teaching the “little kids” Sunday school class, was elected to my first congregational leadership position (Junior Deacon) at the age of fifteen, and with only a few years sabbatical have been serving in congregational leadership for the nearly 50 years that have passed since then (this is being written in 2015).

My first pastoral position was from 1965 to 1967 as the youth pastor of the chapel at the U.S. Naval Hospital on Guam. Since then I have held both pastoral and “lay-leadership” positions in eight congregations in California, West Virginia, and Tennessee. I received my formal theological training (Master of Theology in systematic theology, Doctor of Theology in cults and comparative religion, and Doctor of Ministry in Bible college administration and curriculum development) at conservative evangelical seminaries in California. For several years I served one of those schools as Vice President for Academic Affairs, Chairman of the Curriculum Development and Academic committees, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Assistant Dean of Directed Individualized Studies. I also served as a Professor of Theology, specializing in systematic theology, comparative religion, and the cults. For better or worse, I was therefore more or less directly responsible for helping to shape not only the theological thinking of the students who sat in my classrooms, but also the overall content of the training that was received by every student who attended that school for many years thereafter. That means, again for better or for worse, I was deeply involved in not only what my own congregations would be taught, but also in what would be taught to all the congregations served by all the pastors produced by that school.

Not long after I left that school to pursue more direct pastoral ministry, I began noticing what I considered to be some rather severe discrepancies between what Ruach HaKodesh [the Holy Spirit] was teaching me through my personal study of the Scriptures and what I had learned in my formal theological training and passed on to my student pastors, particularly regarding the history and nature of “Christianity” and its relationship to Biblical Judaism. Though I am certain that it is quite normal and natural for everyone who seriously studies the Scriptures to modify their peripheral beliefs as Ruach HaKodesh brings to them a deeper understanding of God’s Word, the discrepancies that I was discovering were so profound that I was left with a deep, burning concern that perhaps I had been—though certainly unintentionally—guilty of the sin that most truly committed Bible teachers perhaps fear above all others—the sin of teaching that which the Bible does not teach.

It wasn’t as if these “discrepancies” involved anything that could be considered “heresy,” or that they could adversely affect anyone’s salvation. But they did, at least as far as I was personally concerned, have a major influence on the way that I viewed:

(a) the Church, Israel, and their relationship to each other;

(b) the relationship of Messiah to His Bride;

(c) what really happened on the first Pentecost after Messiah’s resurrection;

(d) Israel’s supposed rejection of their Messiah when He first appeared;

(e) the forms of worship and fellowship that were practiced by the first-century Believers in Messiah;

(f) what the Millennial Kingdom is going to look and feel like; and even

(g) the relationship between the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament.”

A major turning point occurred relatively late in my life (my late thirties) when my mother, our family historian, discovered my paternal grandmother’s genealogical records. My paternal grandfather had died when I was in my early teens. His father had been a Scottish cabin boy named Roland Rowe who was adopted by an Englishman named Sawyer, and we had virtually no way of discovering anything about his ancestors. My grandmother had died when my father was in his early teens, and neither my father nor his father knew anything about Grandmother’s ancestors. The courthouse in their small Maine town (Norridgewock) had burned to the ground when my father was young, and all the vital records had been lost.

It must have been about the time that I was starting seminary in the late 1970’s that my mother finally discovered a book, The Descendants of Israel Leavitt, which contained Grandmother’s ancestry, including both her marriage to my grandfather and the birth of my father. The most startling revelation for me was that literally hundreds of the people in Grandmother’s family tree (including her direct lineage—and thus my direct lineage) had thoroughly Jewish names dating as far back as 1448 England. Though I certainly couldn’t pass the Government of Israel’s current test for “who is a Jew” because my mother’s ancestry is not clearly Jewish, there is no doubt that the blood of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya`akov flows in my veins—some of the same blood that my Messiah shed for me!

Armed with this information, I began trying to look at the Scriptures through my new “Jewish eyes”—to really understand the Scriptures as they would have been understood by their human "authors" and by those who originally received them. The results were truly amazing! The Scriptures opened up to me in a way that I had never seen before.

I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers yet, and I don’t expect to have them this side of Eternity. But what I do have as a result of this personal quest is such a fresh, new excitement about my faith and my relationship to my Messiah and His Bride that, at least for me, the experience must be somewhat like what being “born again” as an adult feels like!

For a complete Curriculum Vitae go to http://familybible.org/about/our_shepherd.html

My website is http://familybible.org/

My personal information is located online at http://familybible.org/about/our_shepherd.html.

My Wiki books are at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:PrefixIndex&prefix=User:AriBenLevi/Books/