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A Jew Comes to Jesus

by Matthew Sieger
12/02/24
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I was raised in northern New Jersey. Both my parents are Jewish—not religious Jews, but culturally very much so. So I grew up not thinking much about God, but a lot about achieving, especially academically. I graduated #1 in my high school class of 550 students and went on to Cornell University, where I got a degree in psychology. I also wrote for the Cornell Daily Sun, the school newspaper, and got interested in journalism. I was awarded a fellowship to Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, where I received a master’s degree in magazine journalism. I then become a sports reporter for the Cortland Daily Standard in Cortland, New York. So everything was going well on the outside.

Internally, though, I’d begun to have struggles, especially so at Syracuse University. At one point I got very sick and went to the student clinic. I was seen by a Dr. Koshy, an Indian woman, who took the time to talk with me about God. She was the first person who ever talked to me about a personal God who cared about me. She also showed me my name in the New Testament—Matthew—in the Gospel of Matthew. She handed me that little green Gideon’s New Testament and encouraged me to read it as I was recovering from my illness.

I read it a bit, but I got better, and I thought, Well, I don’t really need this anymore, and I went my way. Then I got the job as a sports reporter in Cortland. But internally I still had a lot of unrest; I was never really at peace with myself or others. I had met some Christians, and when things really bottomed out for me in my personal life, I decided to read the Bible. As I read it, I began to think, Yes, there looks like there is a God. And maybe He does care about me. But there’s also this person Jesus in the New Testament. And I don’t understand, as a Jew—I’ve been raised not to believe in Jesus—how can I get ahold of this?

Then one night I was talking with a friend of mine named Carol. We were in my home; it was about nine or ten at night. I told Carol, “You know, I think I can believe in God now, especially because there are some things that happen to me I can’t explain. For example, sometimes I’ll be thinking about somebody I haven’t seen in a long time and the phone will ring and it will be that person. But I don’t see how as a Jew I can believe in Jesus.” And Carol, who is also Jewish, said, “Yeah, me either.”

Just then the phone rang and I looked at Carol as if to say, “Oh, this must be God calling. It must be one of those strange phone calls.” It was a guy calling for someone named Lisa who no longer lived in this house. But when I told him that Lisa didn’t live there anymore, he kept on talking. He said, “Well, I had loaned Lisa a book, and I was hoping to get it back from her.” I replied, “Sorry, but Lisa moved, and I have no idea where your book is.” I thought that would get him to hang up, but then he said, “I also wanted to invite Lisa to a lecture on campus by a Jewish believer in Jesus.” He added, “I myself am a Jewish believer in Jesus.”

I looked over at Carol as if I had seen a ghost. I had just been talking about coincidental phone calls and Jews believing in Jesus, and here it was, all wrapped up in one package on the other end of the phone line!

So I told the guy, “Well, Lisa isn’t here, but I am, and I’d like to go!” I attended the lecture, where I met a bunch of Jewish people who believed in Jesus. I began to attend a Bible study they all attended and then began to go to their church. Gradually I came to see who Jesus really is, that he is the Jewish Messiah, more than just a man, but actually God in the flesh. At an evening church service in August 1978 I turned my life over to him.

I did not feel an instant transformation, but over the next weeks and months I began to experience a peace in my heart and a love for people that I had never had before, and an ability to reach out to other people and care about them.

That’s the greatest blessing for me, a changed life, from the inside out. Before I came to know the Lord, I had achieved most of what I had set out to, and I was still miserable.

I bookended my career by working again as a sports reporter for a newspaper in Vacaville, California. Since retiring, I wrote a book titled The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978. That was very satisfying. But more satisfying is that I have Jesus in my heart.

Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Cortland (New York) Standard and The Vacaville (California) Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.