David Silver started this ministry about ten years ago. Transformation Bible Ministries is an inspired vision of his to teach books of the Bible as the door is opened for us to do so. “Our field is the world, and our focus is on those hungry to learn and apply His Word.” Here is David’s background and a little bit about his Holy fire.
How did your Jewish roots lead you to a Christian life?
“My twin brother kept writing Christian books that were very, very good. He was interviewed on radio shows about his books, but when they found out he was a Jew, they said, ‘Forget about the book, tell us about your Jewish background.’ After the umpteenth time that happened, he got frustrated and decided to create a movie if they were so interested. So, that’s how the movie The Silver Twins came about.”
David grew up in a Jewish family in Philadelphia. “As we got older, my mom started searching for different things. My brother and I laughed a lot of these other religions off. We didn’t take them seriously. But when we went to college, we ran into Christians and started reading the Bible. While at Lehigh University, he told me that he had become a Christian, and then, about a week later, I had a dream where Christ came to me. I became a Christian.” David referred to his newly found Christian faith as “square zero.” He said, “It can take any number of years to get back to square zero when you’re a blank slate. So, we set out to learn what Christianity was about.”
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
Ezekiel 36:26
Is there a difference between how you viewed the Old Testament growing up Jewish and how you see it now?”
“There’s a major difference. There are three kinds of Judaism. You have the Hasidic Jews or very orthodox Jews. You see them wear black and that kind of thing. There is a conservative branch, and what I would call reformed Judaism, but it’s not like reformed Judaism, it is secular Judaism. My grandparents were conservative, and my parents were really reformed.” We both smiled. “They didn’t take their faith very seriously, especially my Dad. He did in name only. Eventually, we only went to the synagogue during the high holidays. We were stuck there. As soon as we moved away, we started saying, ‘We don’t want to go. We don’t care.’ They didn’t force us. All I knew from my Jewish faith was a few stories, and I learned how to read and write some Hebrew.”
“I didn’t understand the big picture of the Old Testament, but I also didn’t understand anything about Christianity. When people would say the name of Jesus, I didn’t know who they were talking about. If I heard a Christian say the “Father,” I didn’t know what they meant. Then I watched a few Bible movies like the Jesus movie. I was like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t know that’s what Christianity was.’ It hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course, some people were sharing with me in college, and I ran into some navigators, but I’ve really learned more after I became a believer.”
Most people read the Bible as a guide for living a good, moral life. But that completely misses the point. The heart of Scripture isn’t about making us better people — it’s about introducing us to our Savior. The Bible doesn’t just show us how to live — it shows us who gives us life.
David continued, “The Old Testament is three-quarters of the Bible. It’s a lot of narrative passages. I think 40% of it is narrative. But the question is, how do they connect? And I never saw the connection before I became a Christian. I still have a lot of studying to do, but I can see how creation is eschatological, pointing to Genesis 3:15, the first promise of a Messiah, to the Tree of Life in the Book of Revelation. As Christians, we begin to see how the old and new fit together. I never knew anything about the New Testament. When Jesus came, all the first-century Jews knew the Old Testament a little bit, but they didn’t have the Cliff Notes on the New Testament yet.”
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
Genesis 3:15
A central theme of our conversation was David illuminating the beautiful directional flow of the Old Testament, which all points to the fulfillment of God’s promise, the redemption of mankind through Christ on the Cross.
“I had only set foot in a church once in my life. During my senior year of high school, a pretty girl asked me to go to a Catholic church with her. The priest got up and said, ‘The one thing you must understand about Christmas is Jesus is Lord.’ And I grabbed the pew. I asked her, ‘Does he mean God?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know.’”
So I thought, All right, she doesn’t know, but he seems to know what he’s doing. I think he means God! And I had never heard that before. Christians believe Jesus is God. So, I had quite a learning curve. When I came to the Lord, I really didn’t have a clue, and I had to go back and take baby steps.”
We talked about Jewish interpretations and the Pharisees. “Yeah, they twisted the law,” Dave replied, “as the Mishna and other commentaries on the Old Testament show. They made up so many man-made laws that they lost sight of the purpose of the law, which should have shown them they were sinners and in need of a Savior. But instead, they tried to see if they could do it independently. Israel failed at that. We need Christ to succeed.”
What got you started in this ministry in the first place?
“Early on, I had a heart for the Bible, but I was like a blank slate from my Jewish background. I thought, I have to learn this —It’s all new to me. So, I went to work-study programs with navigators for three summers and started learning how to study the Bible. Interestingly, my Jewish background didn’t provide a lot of insight into the Old Testament, just some stories and a little bit of Hebrew, which helped me later on in seminary.”
“When I was in medical school, within a year of becoming a Christian, I had this funny feeling that maybe I should be in seminary instead of medicine. So I prayed and said, ‘Lord, I want to be a minister. I don’t really want to be a doctor — even though I felt like it was a privilege.’
I just prayed and said, ‘Lord, you got me into med school. What do you want me to do?’
The Spirit didn’t speak in any audible voice, but gently reminded me that I am a minister— a minister of the gospel, a medical minister. And maybe, when I get out of debt, I’ll go to seminary.”
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45
David and his wife both went to medical school. He told me that it wasn’t until they were in their late, ‘30s they were finally out of debt. “And by that point, I had been closely observing how an elder from the church we attended was teaching the Bible. Over a 10-year period, he taught almost every book of the Bible. I watched him and listened. Wow, this is good, I thought. I was invited to help him teach.”
“After my teaching sessions, people would often say, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ At first, I wondered if I was doing something wrong! But they’d say, ‘No — you just ask such good questions, and it’s so practical.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I’m a doctor — that’s what we do.’
I’m simply using the same method I learned teaching med students and residents: making things clear, asking good questions, and making it practical for the layperson in front of me.”
The Ministry
“Over a seven-year span, I took one class at a time. I think it took almost a decade to finish — just working full-time and being a caretaker for a sick wife. People gave me books and commentaries. It was really the five-star commentaries that helped me zoom in. And then one day, these twin teenagers from church came up to me and said, ‘You’re in seminary — teach us the book of Revelation.’ I said, ‘That’s a hard book.’”
David and I both knowingly laughed.
“They said, ‘Can you make it simpler for us?’ I said, ‘Give me some time.’ It took me a year to write it — and then it hit me: Wait, if I could do this for Revelation, maybe I should teach the entire Bible this way.
And that’s really where the idea for Transformation Bible Ministries came from. I started realizing I only had a certain number of years left in medicine — and I wanted to pursue this ministry as a second career.”
We are to empty ourselves, ‘looking not to our own interests, but to the interests of others’
(Philippians 2:4)
“The first step for me to realize, even as a young Christian, was how legalistic I was because I didn’t understand the gospel of grace. I had to start with myself first, and it took a number of years of studying. I wanted to be a good little Jewish boy and check stuff off on the list. Okay, I have my quiet time. I’m fine, but what about walking with the Lord for the rest of the day? I didn’t understand. And then, it hit me, God brought revival, weeping, repenting. I’m still repenting of that because our natural tendency, even as believers, is to either drift back into legalism or sin.”
“I can be pretty nasty when I’m walking in the flesh. I need to keep my eyes fixed on Christ and not focus on myself. When I was studying in seminary, I had to read this book by B.B. Warfield on the personal work of Christ. It’s one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. The irony is that it came in a 50-page chapter on the Greek word exagorazo, used for ‘redemption.’ I know Greek, but I didn’t need 50 pages on it. It ended with his sermon in the appendix at the back of the book on Philippians 2, which I had also been studying on my own. When I read it, I broke down and cried because it was one of the most boring books I ever read, but it totally impacted me for the rest of my life. Warfield understood that if the gospel has an impact on you, you become selfless. Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less. Philippians 2 is the best section of the Bible on the personal work of Christ. That’s how Paul taught the Philippians to be united by being like Christ in his humility and selflessness, having the same mindset as Christ. I was starting to learn about that, but I wasn’t really living it. Warfield then said something in the sermon about Christian living:”
It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives,—binding ourselves to a thousand souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours.
BB Warfield
“THAT was a new concept to me. I was not living that way. So that was when I said, ‘All right, I’m taking chances.’ And that’s when I became a leader in medicine. I was a frontline clinician for 12 years. We needed a leader. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll be a medical director. Okay, I’ll be a chief medical officer. Okay, I’ll be a chief of staff. Okay, I’ll run a department.’ All the leadership positions I took on after that were because of that sermon.”
David wasn’t boasting. The growth in his medical career was an expression of where the Holy Spirit led him in his Christian walk. “So, initially, I didn’t listen to people very well. I thought I was a hot shot and all that. Toward the end of my career, I loved people. I listened. I was compassionate. I didn’t judge people. I thought of them, then I thought of myself. I told a prostitute in Baltimore one time, ‘You have a lot more going for you than me.’ And a look of shock came over her face. After meeting her for an hour, I told her all the good qualities I saw in her. Unfortunately, she didn’t stick with me as a patient. She was expecting to be judged. She was ashamed, but I was able to encourage her.”
“In all of my years of working in inner cities, I learned what was going on out there. In just a few years, I lost my rose-colored glasses. I realized that a lot of these people don’t know the Lord, and they need help, encouragement, and compassion. I need to be more like Christ and not think I’m some high-falutin physician.”
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11
“So, it took me longer than it should have to learn that lesson, but again, I was growing together, and it took me 20 years to get to zero, really. Paul taught us that our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who is the very nature of God. Jesus made himself nothing, taking the very nature of the servant. The history of the word kenosis for the phrase ‘made himself nothing’ became a heresy because people thought Jesus divested himself of divine attributes or His prerogatives. It meant He made himself of no consequence, pouring himself out and becoming utterly selfless.”
“The Lord allows difficulties to make us realize that it will have to be him working; it’s not about us. After all those years, my wife got sicker. I had to care for her, my children, my job, and finish my Theology degree. I said, ‘Lord, do you want to use somebody like me? I’m still a work in progress, and I can help people to make it a little bit easier for them.’ He answered It’s my word, and it’s my ministry. Just stay out of the way. Okay, Lord. I wouldn’t have survived without it.”
After his wife passed, David eventually remarried and moved. “I’m not going to say my trials went away. Now, I have five stepchildren. My wife’s a Seventh-day Adventist, which has been more challenging than I anticipated, but I’m learning to reach out to people who don’t necessarily agree with my theology. So, God was preparing me to reach out to all believers and people from all different denominations. I wouldn’t have done it that way, but I can see how God was doing that. I didn’t plan on getting remarried. I was worn out. He brought her into my life and gave me this supernatural love for her, which I still have. It’s His love. So, I believe the Lord wanted me to help another family. He wanted me to love again.”
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.
Acts 20:24
David was teaching me now. “The gospel, the central theme of the Bible, is the change agent of the Christian life. Of course, it’s the Holy Spirit, like in the parable of the Sower and the Paths. The seed goes on the topsoil, then it goes among the weeds, and then it goes on the rocky soil, and then it goes on the fertile soil. I believe a major application of that is every time we hear or we’re exposed to the Bible, how do we respond? Are we bearing fruit, or do we go out and forget about it, and we’re thinking about something else? Satan snatches it and gets tangled up in the weeds.”
“In other words, we have to be careful when we hear a sermon. I always picture Christ speaking not visibly but just in my heart and mind. When we worship, there’s a sense that we’re before the throne of God and all the angels and all the people of God. One of my seminary professors said you have to be a Trekkie to understand worship. ‘Beam me up to realize I’m before the heavenly throne when I worship and that Jesus is speaking through the preacher.’ Are you going to listen? Are you going to repent where you need to? Are you going to take it to heart? Are you going to allow that to make you fearless? Every time I’m in a small group, I’m having my devotions, and I’m in church, I keep that parable in my mind. How am I responding?”
“I try to encourage young believers to use the means of grace and make sure they respond. I also try to share the lesson that we have to keep repenting and keep believing more deeply about the things that brought us into the kingdom. That’s how we grow. It’s all by grace. But God uses His means of grace and our response to help us. I think the problem is that some people are presumptuous because they grew up in a Christian family. They think they’re Christians. So, all right, but what is it that you believe? If you’re a Christian, what is it that you believe?”
“It’s funny — one of my children called me this week and said, ‘Dad, should I turn to Jesus?’ Going into parent mode, I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ My son said, ‘I’ve wanted to do this and that, but I haven’t been able to. Will Jesus help me?’ I said, ‘Well, who do you think Jesus is?’ And he surprised me: ‘God and man.’ I said, ‘Alright, now we’re on track. Why do you need Him?’ He said, ‘He was my only way. He died for me and rose again.’ I said, ‘Okay — you believe the Gospel. Turn to Jesus. Ask Him for help as one of His children.’ I’m convinced he’s now a believer. And I told him, ‘Now go back to church and start reading the Bible.’”
“My faith gives me hope because as long as I focus on myself, I’ll probably start spiraling downward. But faith is what gives us assurance because Hebrews 12 says, ‘Fix your eyes on Christ, the author and perfector of your faith.’ Have faith, fix your eyes on Christ, and remember what He’s done. You have a heavenly Father who loves you. So I think my hope in Christ is in the gospel and not in myself, not in anything that I do, began the day that I became a Christian.”
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
1 John 5:13
“My roommate shared 1 John 5:13 with me. And I’ve never doubted since I’ve been a Christian. I will always do what He’s calling me to do until my death day. I’m looking forward to being with Him and having that kind of existence. I’ve had enough of my own sinfulness.”
I first met David at a men’s gathering series at his church ten years ago, where he immediately stood out as a dynamic speaker and a practical teacher. During a small group breakout, we got to know each other better, and he asked if I might be able to help him with creative services as he worked to get his ministry off the ground. That conversation marked the beginning of a friendship I’ve come to deeply value.
I knew at the time that his wife was seriously ill and that he was carrying a lot on his shoulders — leading, serving, and caring for his family all at once. As long as I’ve known him, he’s always put others first, had a humble heart, and been a servant for Christ. In my years of knowing him, David sees the big picture — the 30,000-foot view of eternal importance and definitely not “square zero.” It has been an honor to support his ministry.
Do You Want to Learn More?
- Stay tuned for more study guides, videos, and teachings on the Old Testament over the next year, including eight short books on the eight minor prophets.
- Donate to TBM
- Contact us if you want to share your story or see how you can help our ministry in any way.
“So, hopefully, the Lord can take it and just get the word out there. We want to give our resources away. If people want to donate so that we have more resources so that we can do it in a broader way, that would be good.”