Podcast appearances and mentions of christ jesus gal

In Luke 6:12, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer, for He was about to call His 12 Apostles from among the many disciples who were following Him. You might ask what is the difference between a disciple of Jesus and an Apostle? A disciple is a learner, one who “disciplines” him or herself to follow Jesus as an apprentice. In the New Testament an Apostle is a chosen messenger sent with a special commission. Jesus had many disciples (see Luke 10:1) but only twelve handpicked Apostles. It is here in Luke 6:14-16 that Luke gives us their names.   The names of the Apostles are also given in Matthew 10:1-4; Mark 3:16-19; and Acts 1:13. Acts, of course only names 11 of them and leaves out Judas Iscariot because he has committed suicide. In all the lists, Peter is named first and, except in Acts 1:13, Judas is named last. The Judas in Acts 1:13 is Judas the brother (more likely "the son") of James, who is also called Thaddeus in Mark 3:18. It was not unusual for one man to have two or more names.   Simon received the name Peter (stone) when Andrew brought him to Jesus (John 1:40-42). Bartholomew is the same as Nathanael (John 1:45-49). The other Simon in the group was nicknamed "Zelotes," which can mean one of two things. It may mean that he belonged to a group of fanatical Jewish patriots known as "the Zealots," whose purpose was to deliver Israel from the tyranny of Rome. Or, perhaps the word Zelotes translates from the Hebrew word qanna which means "jealous for God, zealous for God's honor."   Nor are we sure of the origin of the word Iscariot that is attached to Judas the traitor. It probably means "man [ish in Hebrew] of Kerioth," a town in southern Judah (Josh. 15:25). Some connect it with the Aramaic word seqar which means "falsehood." Thus, "Judas the false one." The geographical explanation is probably right   What an interesting group of men! They illustrate what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, and they are an encouragement to us today. After all, if God could use them, can He not use us? Perhaps seven of them were fishermen (see John 21:1-3), one was a tax collector, and the other four are anonymous as far as their vocations are concerned. They were ordinary men; their personalities were different; yet Jesus called them to be with Him, to learn from Him, and to go out to represent Him (Mark 3:14).   Please take the time to click on the following link and go to my Pastor Mike Impact Ministries website and read some very interesting, detailed observations on these 12 men taken from John Phillip's commentary on Luke. https://www.pmiministries.org/post/special-notes-on-the-disciples-of-jesus   Why 12 Apostles? Because there were twelve tribes in Israel, and Jesus was forming the nucleus for a new nation (see Matt. 21:43; 1 Peter 2:9). The first Christians were Jews because the Gospel came "to the Jew first" (Acts 13:46; Rom. 1:16). Later, the Gentiles were added to the church through the witness of the scattered Jewish believers (Acts 11:19) and the ministry of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. In the church, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile because we are "all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).   It is significant that after Jesus called His 12 Apostles, and before He preached this great sermon, He took time to heal many needy people. This was a demonstration of both His power and His compassion. It was also a reminder to His newly appointed assistants that their job was to share His love and power with a needy world. It is estimated that there were 300 million people in the world in Jesus' day, while there are over 8 billion today, four fifths of them in the less-developed nations. What a challenge to the church!   One of the greatest callings that you can respond to in life, is “to be on mission with Jesus” to share the Good News of salvation through His Cross with the lost and needy world around us!   Yes, God can use you too!   God bless!

Faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior guarantees you have a permanent relationship with God. You are in the “relationship circle” forever. That's eternal security. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). Once we are in God's royal family, He is free to bless us in time and eternity. Fellowship with God depends on having no unconfessed sin in your life. Sin breaks fellowship with God, and you go out of the “fellowship circle.” Confessing your sin, using 1 John 1:9, is how you get back into fellowship. “If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness [unconfessed sin], we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). Staying in the “fellowship circle,” being filled with the Holy Spirit, is a volitional decision. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to light your path. “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105). Click for Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/relationship-fellowship-2831d6

There's a doctrine around called the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of Man: It says this—that God is the Father of all, and we're all brothers. That sounds good, that sounds so sweet, but there's one thing wrong with it. It's not so. He is the Creator of all of us. And in the broadest sense, with a stretch of the word, you could call Him the Father, but not in the spiritual sense. Not all people are children of God; only those who are born into His family. Jesus said in John 8:44 when He was speaking to the Pharisees, “You are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do . . .” In this world, there are some who are children of God and there are some who are sons and daughters of the devil. We don't become God's child until we're born into God's family. In John 1:12 we read: “But as many as received him [Jesus], to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” Here's another verse: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26). God becomes our Father by conception, therefore, and not by creation.  

There is no male not female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus Gal 3:26-29

     Jesus' suffering and death on the cross has both infinite and eternal value for both God the Father as well as those trust in Christ as their Savior. According to Francis Schaeffer, “Christ's death in space-time history is completely adequate to meet our need for refuge from the true moral guilt that we have. It is final because of who He is. He is the infinite second person of the Trinity; therefore, His death has infinite value.”[1]Though Jesus suffered for our sins for only a few hours on the cross, His death had infinite and eternal value and saves forever those who trust in Him as Savior. Geisler states, “Being by nature the infinite God, Christ's death had infinite value, even though His suffering and death occurred in a finite amount of time. Time is not a mandatory measure of worth—birth, for instance, happens over a relatively short span but produces something of extraordinary value. One death in limited time achieved something of limitless value for all eternity.”[2] Paul Enns states, “At the heart of orthodox belief is the recognition that Christ died a substitutionary death to provide salvation for a lost humanity. If Jesus were only a man He could not have died to save the world, but because of His deity, His death had infinite value whereby He could die for the entire world.”[3]      As a result of what Christ accomplished, there is great benefit for us who have trusted in Him as our Savior. By His work on the cross, Christians become the recipients of great blessings, both in time and eternity. Though He blesses some Christians materially (1 Tim 6:17-19), His main focus is on giving us spiritual blessings which are far better. Paul wrote that God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3). According to Harold Hoehner, “Every spiritual blessing (eulogia) refers to every spiritual enrichment needed for the spiritual life. Since these benefits have already been bestowed on believers, they should not ask for them but rather appropriate them by faith.”[4] Some of the spiritual blessings mentioned in Scripture are as follows: We are the special objects of His love: “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8), and “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). We are forgiven all our sins: “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col 2:13-14; cf. Eph 1:7; Heb 10:10-14). We are given eternal life: Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand (John 10:27-28; cf. John 3:16; 6:40; 20:31). We are made alive together with Christ: “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5). We are raised up and seated with Christ: God “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). We are the recipients of God's grace: “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16), “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9). We are created to perform good works: “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal 6:10), and “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph 2:10; cf., Tit 2:11-4). We are given freedom in Christ: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1), “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal 5:13; cf., 1 Pet 2:16). We are given a spiritual gift to serve others: “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet 4:10; cf. Rom 12:6-8; Eph 4:11). We are children of God: “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1a), “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). We are made ambassadors for Christ: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). We are gifted with God's righteousness: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21), “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil 3:9; cf. Rom 4:3-5; 5:17). We are justified before God: “Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Rom 3:24, 28), and “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (Gal 2:16). We have peace with God: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). We will never be condemned: “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18), “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). We are given citizenship in heaven: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:20). We are transferred to the kingdom of Christ: “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col 1:13; cf. Acts 26:18), and “walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” (1 Th 2:12). We are all saints in Christ Jesus: we are “saints by calling” (1 Cor 1:2), and “saints in Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:1), and “are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household” (Eph 2:19). We are made priests to God: “He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev 1:6). We are God's chosen: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4), “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12). We are the recipients of His faithfulness: “He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you'” (Heb 13:5), and even “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:13). We have been called to walk in newness of life: “We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4), and “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love” (Eph 4:1-2). We are members of the Church, the body of Christ: “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom 12:4-5), and “He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:22-23; cf. Col 1:18). We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16), “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Cor 6:19). We are sealed with the Holy Spirit: “having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph 1:13b; cf. 2 Cor 5:5). We are enabled to walk with God: “I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5:16), and “Since we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). We are empowered to live godly: “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Pet 1:3). We have Scripture to train us in righteousness: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). We are guaranteed a new home in heaven: “In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3). We are guaranteed resurrection bodies: “I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:51-53). We have special access to God's throne of grace: “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). We will be glorified in eternity: “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col 3:4), for Christ “will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil 3:21). Dr. Steven R. Cook   [1] Francis A. Schaeffer, Joshua and the Flow of Biblical History, Second U.S. edition. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 206. [2] Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Four: Church, Last Things (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2005), 403. [3] Paul P. Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1989), 225. [4] Harold W. Hoehner, “Ephesians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 616.

     There are four basic views concerning who saves. First is autosoterism (auto = self + soter = savior) which is a belief that entrance into heaven is entirely by good works. Autosoterists don't feel they need salvation from an outside source. Their good works are enough. Second is syntheosoterism (syn = with + theo = God + soter = savior) which is a belief that people partner with God and contribute to their initial salvation by good works, or a promise to perform them. These frontload the gospel with some human requirement in addition to faith in Jesus (i.e., turn from all their sin, keep the Sabbath, water baptism, etc.). Third is posttheosoterism (post – after + theo = God + soter = savior) which is the belief that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but later, after being saved, the Christians are persuaded they must perform good works to keep themselves saved (like the Christians in Galatia). Last is solatheosoterism (sola = alone + theo = God + soter = savior), which is the belief that salvation is entirely a work of God through Christ and is provided by grace alone, though faith alone, in christ alone, plus nothing more. In this view, salvation is a gift from God, freely given and freely received with no requirement of good works before, during, or after receiving salvation. These understand that good works should follow salvation (Eph 2:10), but they are never the condition of it.      The autosoterists believe that, from beginning to end, they save themselves by adhering to a moral code that will secure their entrance into heaven. In this system of thought, the Bible becomes a moral guide to one's path to heaven (perhaps among other guides). I've personally heard people say, “I'll keep the Ten Commandments and hope God lets me into heaven”, or “I'll love God and my neighbor and trust that He will let me into His kingdom when I die.” Historically, this would be similar to Pelagianism, a teaching derived from a British monk named Pelagius who lived and preached in Rome circa A.D. 400. According to Ryrie, Pelagius “believed that since God would not command anything that was not possible, and that since He has commanded men to be holy, everyone therefore can live a life that is free from sin.”[1] In this teaching, a person needs only follow God's laws to be saved from hell and accepted into heaven. From beginning to end, this is a works-salvation.      The problem with autosoterism—among several—is that those who think they can save themselves by works fail to grasp God's absolute standard of righteousness to gain entrance into heaven. The Bible reveals God is holy (Psa 99:9; Isa 6:3), which means He is perfectly righteous and completely set apart from sin (Psa 99:9; 1 Pet 1:14-16). Because God is holy, He cannot have anything to do with sin except to condemn it. The Scripture states, “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor” (Hab 1:13), and “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Autosoterists also fail to understand the biblical teaching about sin and total depravity, in which sin permeates every aspect of our being—intellect, body, will, and sensibilities—and that we are helpless to correct our fallen position. The biblical teaching is that all mankind is sinful and separated from God (Rom 3:10-23). We are sinners in Adam (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21-22), sinners by nature (Rom 7:14-25; 13:12-14), sinners by choice (Isa 59:2; Jam 1:14-15), and completely helpless to solve the sin problem and save ourselves (Rom 5:6-10; Eph 2:1-3). Good works have no saving merit before God (Isa 64:6; Rom 4:4-5; Eph 2:8-9; Tit 3:5). Paul wrote, “we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Rom 3:28), and “a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (Gal 2:16).      Furthermore, autosoterists are trapped in a vague system of rules-for-salvation that can never provide assurance of their salvation. No matter how much good they do, there is always that nagging question, “have I done enough?” The reason they can never have assurance of their salvation is because the Bible does not teach that salvation is by human works, either in total or in part. Those who approach God by their works are in want of any passage of Scripture that can provide them assurance they've done enough to secure their place in heaven. For if one performs a hundred good works during a lifetime, how do  they know that God doesn't require a hundred and one, or a hundred and two? They don't, because the Bible does not teach salvation by works. Autosoterists are not saved, as they trust entirely in their good works to save them.      The syntheosoterists are those who think good works are required in addition to their initial act of faith in Jesus. These teach faith in Christ, but then muddy the gospel by adding something we do, such as turning from sins, keeping the Sabbath, water baptism, promising to live a moral life, joining a church, receiving sacraments, etc. I don't believe these persons are saved, as human activity is added to the gospel message from the beginning. We observe an example of this in the early church in which “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved'” (Acts 15:1). This teaching caused a huge reaction in Paul and Barnabas, who had “great dissension and debate with them” (Acts 15:2). The simple gospel message was: “we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11). But some Judaizers from Judea were presenting a false gospel which frontloaded the message with a requirement to follow to the Law of Moses; specifically, circumcision. Concerning Acts 15:1, Arnold Fruchtenbaum states: "Verse 1 describes the issue that led to the debate: Gentile circumcision. After their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas gave a report to the church of Antioch and spent some time with the Believers there. Eventually, certain men came down from Judea. They were members of the “circumcision party,” mentioned earlier, in Acts 11:2, who had challenged Peter about going into the home of an uncircumcised Gentile. Acts 15:24 makes it clear that these men had not been sent by the church of Jerusalem, but that they simply came down to Antioch of their own accord. In Galatians 2:4, Paul made reference to this same Jerusalem Council and describe these men as false brethren. They came to Antioch to teach. The Greek tense of the verb “teach” means they began to teach, and they kept at it with determination. The false teachers picked on the brethren, meaning the Gentile believers, because they were not circumcised. To these Gentile believers, they said: except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. This was the Judaizers dictum: Believing Gentiles are not saved until they are circumcised. Today certain groups teach another heresy, namely, that believers are not saved until they have been baptized. Both statements are equally wrong. Both involve salvation by works and salvation through ritual."[2]      If any human works or religious rituals are added to the simple gospel message, it is rendered null and void. A gospel message that includes human works is no gospel at all. Such a message saves no one. Warren Wiersbe states: "God pronounces a solemn anathema on anyone who preaches any other Gospel than the Gospel of the grace of God found in Jesus Christ His Son (Gal 1:1–9). When any religious leader says, “Unless you belong to our group, you cannot be saved!” or, “Unless you participate in our ceremonies and keep our rules, you cannot be saved!” he is adding to the Gospel and denying the finished work of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians to make it clear that salvation is wholly by God's grace, through faith in Christ, plus nothing!"[3]      The posttheosoterists are those who believe they are saved initially by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but then later adopt a works-system to continue to be saved. I think many in this camp were saved when they heard and responded positively to the simple gospel message (perhaps as a child), placing their faith in Christ alone for salvation, but then later were persuaded to accept a system of legalistic teaching that told them they must do good works to continue to be saved. These would be similar to the Christians Paul wrote to in Galatia, who said, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Gal 1:6). These were believers whom Paul called brethren (Gal 1:11; 2:4; 3:15; 4:12, 28, 31; 5:11, 13; 6:1, 18), declaring they were “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). The Christians in Galatia had trusted in Christ as their Savior; however, some “false brethren” (Gal 2:4) came among them and taught they must adhere to the Law of Moses to be saved. These were false teachers. According to Fruchtenbaum, “The problem that Paul was dealing with in his epistle to the Galatians concerns a group that has come to be known as ‘the Judaizers.' These people felt that the Gentiles must obey the Law of Moses in order to be saved (Acts 15:1 and 5).”[4]Paul, in an effort to correct the false teaching, posed a few simple questions to the Galatian Christians, saying, “This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:2-3). The Christians in Galatia had trusted in Christ as their Savior and had received the Holy Spirit. They were saved. Yet, the legalism of the Judaizers had corrupted the concept of faith alone in Christ alone. Fruchtenbaum notes, “Too many believers think they can and need to add to their salvation. By grace through faith alone does not seem to satisfy. People add the keeping of some of the laws of Moses to their salvation. Others believe their baptism plays a role in it. Again others throw what is commonly known as Lordship salvation into the mix.”[5] I think posttheosoterism describes many Christians today, who truly trusted Christ as their Savior, but then later were led to believe they needed good works to keep themselves saved. Chafer states, “True salvation is wholly a work of God. It is said to be both a finished work and a gift, and, therefore, it lays no obligation upon the saved one to complete it himself, or to make after payments of service for it.”[6]      I personally trusted Christ as my Savior at age eight; however, shortly afterwards I was taught I needed to keep myself saved by ceasing to sin and also by doing good works. Though I did not lose my salvation (which is impossible), the joy I had when I trusted Christ as my Savior was lost, as I became trapped in a vicious system of trying to keep my salvation by good works. Subsequently, I believed I lost my salvation every time I sinned (which  was daily), and felt I needed to come groveling back to God as a failure, and trusting Christ over and over again in order to be saved. Eventually, exhaustion took its toll, and after several years I walked away from God, thinking the Christian life was impossible. It was not until roughly fifteen years later that my assurance of salvation rested in Christ alone, and the joy of my salvation was restored.      Because pride is the default setting of the human heart; it's our natural proclivity to think we can fix the problem of sin and righteousness and either earn God's approval by our own efforts, or at least participate in the effort. Pride must die for salvation to occur, as we come to God with the empty hands of faith, offering nothing, but only receiving the salvation which He offers to us by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Human efforts to save are useless. Lewis Chafer notes, “No one under any circumstances could forgive his own sin, impart eternal life to himself, clothe himself in the righteousness of God, or write his name in heaven.”[7]      Solatheosoterism is the correct biblical view. This teaches that our spiritual salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, plus nothing more. No good works are required for our salvation before, during, or after we trust in Christ. As stated before, good works should follow salvation (Eph 2:10), but they are never the condition of it. This is the record of Scripture in the OT, as “Salvation belongs to the LORD” (Psa 3:8), and “Our God is a God of salvation” (Psa 68:20 CSB), and “Salvation is from the LORD” (Jon 2:9). In the NT we read about Jesus, and that “He will save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21), and “He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col 1:13a), and “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Tit 3:5), and it is “God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Tim 1:8b-9). In these verses, salvation is always in one direction, from God to us.      Scripture reveals we are helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God (Rom 5:6-10), and prior to our salvation, we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). Salvation is never what we do for God; rather, it's what He's done for us through the death of His Son, who paid the full penalty for all our sins on the cross at Calvary. Having paid the full price for our sins, there is nothing that remains for us to pay. Christ paid it all, and our spiritual salvation was completed at the cross, where Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). According to Francis Schaeffer, “Salvation is the whole process that results from the finished work of Jesus Christ as He died in space and time upon the cross.”[8]And Lewis Chafer notes, “As for revelation, it is the testimony of the Scriptures, without exception, that every feature of man's salvation from its inception to the final perfection in heaven is a work of God for man and not a work of man for God.”[9]      No one has the means to redeem his own soul, nor the soul of another. Jesus asked, “what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:26). The answer is nothing! If Jesus had not paid our sin-debt to God, there would be no hope of ever being liberated from spiritual slavery, for “no man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him—for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever” (Psa 49:7-8). However, Paul writes of the “redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24b), and this speaks to the payment He made on behalf of sinners. The word redemption translates the Greek apolutrosis which means to “release from a captive condition.”[10] Redemption refers to the payment of a debt that one gives in order to liberate another from slavery. Jesus declared “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), and the apostle Paul tells us that Jesus “gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6). When we turn to Christ as our only Savior “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph 1:7; cf. Col 1:13-14). Because Jesus died in our place, He is able to set us free from our spiritual bondage and give us eternal life, but it is only because of His shed blood on the cross that He can do this, for we “were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold…but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18-19). The blood of Christ is necessary, for “without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22). And the blood of Christ is the coin of the heavenly realm that paid our sin debt. He paid it all, and there's nothing more for us to pay. Salvation is a gift from God. If we have to pay for it, it ceases to be a gift. Dr. Steven R. Cook   [1] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999), 254. [2] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Book of Acts (San Antonio, TX, Published by Ariel Ministries, 2022), 316. [3] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 461. [4] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Faith Alone: The Condition of Our Salvation: An Exposition of the Book of Galatians and Other Relevant Topics, ed. Christiane Jurik, Second Edition. (San Antonio, TX: Ariel Ministries, 2016), 9. [5] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Faith Alone: The Condition of Our Salvation: An Exposition of the Book of Galatians and Other Relevant Topics, ed. Christiane Jurik, Second Edition. (San Antonio, TX: Ariel Ministries, 2016), 1. [6] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Satan (New York: Gospel Publishing House, 1909), 111. [7] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1993), 7. [8] Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 100. [9] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1993), 6. [10] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 117.

Something that gets buried today is how the pagan or secular world treated people, and it's buried for a reason. We like to pretend the “Dark Ages” were full of witch-burning psycho priests but that pre-Christian societies were joy-filled lands where all joined hands and sang songs like the Whos in Dr. Seuss's Whoville. But nothing could be further from the truth. A good read on how much people have forgotten our Christian roots is a book by Tom Holland, titled: Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. We have forgotten how much Christianity has improved the lives of everyone in comparison to the “good old days” of paganism. We are so accustomed to hospitals, universities, libraries, and non-profit charities that we forgot where they all came from. They didn't come from Caesar or anyone in his time. People like to think there was some utopia before the “evils” of Christianity stamped out the fun. We will get to find this out soon, however, since we are lurching backward toward that “fun.” We forget things easily, not just over long expanses of time, but in single generations. The book of Judges illustrates this well, where each fall into sin has a savior, but within forty years, the people resume their errors and forget why they needed order. Our era is similar to that which preceded World War I when nations celebrated the beginning of the war, holding parades, cheering, wishing the boys well in their lovely uniforms and flags, only to find out a few years later that the war was a meat grinder of unprecedented levels, thanks to progress in technology and science. As we whisk God out of the public arena and out of our personal lives, we forget what the world was like before Jesus walked this earth, died on a cross, and rose from the dead to take away our sins, transform our suffering, and defeat the devil. One of the primary lies told today about the pre-Christian world is that women's lives were better without the Church imposing restrictions on them. But this is not true. It has never been true. It never will be true, no matter how many professors and bloggers keep writing about it. Disrespect of women was not a Christian doctrine or idea, but it was indeed a core doctrine of the secular powers of Rome, actually quite similar to the lyrics of Snoop Dogg. You could sum up the treatment of women by the wealthy of the ancient world in Snoop's hit song, “It ain't no fun, if the homies can't have none.” Women were objects, pure and simple. The interesting thing about reading the Old Testament treatment of women is that today we think it sounds barbaric, when in reality it was the most progressive treatment of women in the ancient world. We read with Western eyes, blinded by time, through which we are blocked from understanding, nuance, and history. With the Church, women achieved a radical leap forward, one that the pagan world mocked for centuries. Many of the women who fought against the old ways were martyred for it. Strange that they would be willing to die for such “oppression.” We are taught and bonked over the head repeatedly with this “Dark Age” myth in every university course. By design, we are not taught the reasons why Christian life appealed to so many women, because it undermines the sand foundation of modern life, which will ultimately undermine itself because it is spiritually dead.Here is a summary from Mike Aquilina of how women were treated before God revealed himself to us through Jesus. I should note that none of this was covered in my university history classes, nor was it ever mentioned in the Women's Studies class I had to take:Pagan and Christian sources agree that the Church grew at an astonishing rate in the first three centuries of its existence. The modern sociologist Rodney Stark estimates a steady growth rate of forty percent per decade during centuries of intermittently intense persecution when the practice of the Faith was a capital crime. Pagan and Christian sources agree that women made up the majority of converts.The most effective opponent of Christianity from this period, the Greek philosopher Celsus, mocked the Church for this. Around A.D. 178, he accused Christians of not daring to evangelize women when their sensible husbands and fathers were present but rather getting hold of them privately and filling their heads with “wonderful statements, telling them to pay no attention to their father and to their teachers.”What kind of statements were those? They no doubt involved the principle of equality of the sexes before God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek,” said St. Paul, “there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).The apostle wasn't denying sexual differences, nor was he claiming there should be no difference in the roles that men and women played. Rather, he was claiming for women—and slaves and foreigners—a dignity that no one in his world, not even a philosopher as brilliant as Celsus, could recognize.A woman in that world was seen as having little intrinsic value. She derived her identity from the males in her life—first her father, and then her husband, and then her sons. The law recognized little for her in the way of natural rights or protections. Women were not permitted to testify in a court of law because their testimony was considered unreliable. The law treated them like children.The value of their sex was nowhere more evident than on the day of their birth. Infanticide was common in the Greco-Roman world. It was practiced mostly for economic reasons, to limit family size and to maximize the future return on the father's investment in childrearing.Thus, children who were “defective” in any way—i.e., disabled—were usually drowned in a bucket of water at birth or left exposed at the town garbage dump. There they might be claimed as carrion by vultures and dogs or taken up by pimps to be raised as prostitutes. All the documentary and archaeological evidence indicates that the most common “defect” for which children were abandoned was femaleness.Nowhere is the matter expressed more shockingly than in a “love letter” found in the excavations at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The husband, Hilarion, closes his missive to his wife, Alis, by saying: “If you happen to be pregnant again, if it is a boy, leave it; if it is a girl, throw it out.”In the economy of antiquity, a girl was an expense, an economic liability in ways that a boy was not. A boy would one day be an earner. A boy might provide for his parents in their old age. He might even improve their status by his accomplishments.A girl, on the other hand, would need to be fed and clothed for more than a decade before she was married off—and upon marriage her father would have to pay a sizable dowry. For these reasons the Roman playwrights referred to girls and young women as “odious daughters.” It's likely that the dialogue in their works is an accurate reflection of common turns of phrase.The ideal daughter, for pagan Romans, was physically beautiful, for the beautiful would be married off the soonest. The typical age for her arranged marriage was twelve, theoretically at puberty, but many girls were given in marriage at eleven to a man much older. And the marriage, it seems, was consummated whether the girl was physically ready or not.It appears there was little expectation of a loving relationship. Adultery was common, as was divorce. Abortion was common, as was infanticide. Marriage was a transaction established for the continuation of the customs of family and society for another generation.A woman's role was to produce a son to be heir. If she suffered the misfortune of widowhood before bearing a son, she might live the rest of her life in poverty.The laws and traditions of the Greco-Roman world had been refined over centuries to communicate the value that society placed on women. It was very low.If not held back by faith and morals set on the rock of objective truth, people will treat women like objects and objects like women. (This is sin in a nutshell, by the way: choosing the wrong goods.) And there is no one more in danger of being treated like an object than the crown of creation, who is called woman. If you were rich and powerful in pre-Christian times, you could have as many objects called women as you could afford or capture, including the wives of those less powerful than yourself (see: every King that ever had a harem. Also see: David and Bathsheba, as well as Solomon's sex life with hundreds of wives. These are two Biblical falls from grace for this behavior, where sin is being narrated and not praised…notice that wherever there is polygamy, you have a mess, and that includes Abraham and Jacob. At least Isaac kept it together with Rebecca, and they are the true model of marriage in the Old Testament). We are moving back to that era now, as calls for the bad idea of polygamy have resurfaced. Utah is no longer the only place we associate with this term. This is just one form of sin that is being presented as a good today, as slippery salespeople twist truth into the shape of bad ideas that women finally escaped through faith in Christ and living the Christian life with Christian men. The arguments today are no different from the Romans and Greeks. Is your baby possible defective or just bad timing? Kill it. Abort. Marriage has a minor difficulty? Divorce. Want immediate pleasure instead of commitment, responsibility, and love that requires work and action? Porn. Got a mother-in-law you don't want to deal with? Park her in a home. The reality is that the only reason we have nice things at all is because of Christianity. And that is the spiritual struggle that we are in, where advertisers and intellectuals preach from the screens, telling us that progress means going backward to pre-Christian insanity, which always ends in “might makes right.” If you are not pursuing objective truth as your ultimate goal, as the end of all things, then the desire for power is the substitute. I don't care how you try to sugar coat it; when God is no longer the foundation of truth, you end up with “my truth” and that devolves into groups dictating “truth” by coercion, eventually at gunpoint. Whenever the church has gone astray, they fall into this same trap, of power politics mixing with the faith. The eye can never stray from Christ, who is the truth and foundation of all things. Nor can his words be twisted, as he says of the Commandments they are not malleable to fit the decade we live in:Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:17-20)To understand the difference between the pre-Christian era and the “Dark Ages” of Christianity, let's compare two buildings, arguably the two greatest buildings in the world, which happen to be in the same city, just a few miles apart.When people travel to Rome, they mainly visit two places. One is the Colosseum, where hordes of bloodthirsty fans got drunk, gambled, and watched men fight one another to the death. The other is St. Peter's Basilica, a Church, where a fisherman was crucified for telling people about a carpenter who was God incarnate. It's stunningly beautiful, but the real purpose is that St. Peter's is a place where the Sacraments take place: Baptism, Confession, Holy Matrimony, and the Eucharist. Holy Mass happens hourly, even while the tourists mill about. The purpose of St. Peter's, and any other church, is humility and surrender of your life to God. Do you see the difference? Both are architectural marvels, visually stunning, spectacles to the senses, but their purpose is in direct opposition to each other. Notice that America no longer builds beautiful churches. This should tell you something, as we build billion dollar stadiums for gladiator games. St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City was built in 1858 and dedicated in 1910. The rise of the modern stadium started in the early 1900s, and exploded after World War II. We are moving away from St. Peter's and back to the Colosseum, and so are our human relations. What I am getting at is: without humility before God, we see competition and strife as the great entertainment, the great game. Suffering is something to avoid and shun at all costs. Winning is all that matters, because winning removes suffering. We completely lose the point of redemptive suffering. This is because most of us don't really believe in the afterlife or eternal life any longer. We have no meaning in our lives, so we look for it in athletics, sex, money, and power. Our simple functions as fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters no longer excite us because we have traded eternal life for the plastic trophies of this world. One thing that always amazes me is that within three months after the Super Bowl or NCAA Tournament, I can't even remember who won, because it really doesn't matter. But I never forget Christmas or Easter or Pentecost or the Ascension days, because those matter immensely.Nothing angers unbelievers so much as the idea that you were made for a higher purpose, made by a living God who resides outside of time and space but speaks to us here. The purpose is to serve him and serve others, and the primary way we do that, if not married to Christ or his Church, is marriage between one man and one woman. Having a marriage and family is the great purpose of our earthly lives. Why is that message so bothersome? Because it doesn't allow us to follow our base instincts, which is to pleasure ourselves constantly. It requires abandonment to a higher power and a higher purpose, neither of which is the self. Sometimes we confuse this, thinking that our “sacrifice” for work or school is the offering we make to God. But those things are ultimately for the self, not God. Offerings to God expect nothing in return, because there is no transaction to be made when dealing with God, and if your offering is contingent on receiving something from God, you are actually talking to the devil. Yes, some people are not fertile, some will live a single life, some will adopt, some will never have children. Abandonment of the self means conforming your life to God's will, not despairing over what struggles he has given us, because we are all given struggles in order to draw us closer to him. Until you realize this, suffering will seem arbitrary and unfair. As for sex, the great call to chastity is pursuing a life of virtue whether you are married or single. They are both chastity, just different types. How can anyone understand the parable of the grain of wheat without looking at the formless void of creation and seeing that in order to fill it, it must be done in the right way, which is to fill this void in the form with families? God didn't say, “Subdue the earth and form a government, and have the government raise the children.” No, that's what Karl Marx said, and all of his flunkies that followed him, who now occupy your employer's human resources department and local school board. The form we are given by God is called marriage, between a man and a woman, and the void is filled with new life, called children. That sentence there is enough to get me fired, but the truth must be spoken and the truth will remain whether I say it or not. Because not only does marriage and family fulfill the physical form of this world, but it fulfills the heart. Dying to self means maturing into a greater purpose to serve God and others. Only then can we be spiritually reborn here. Then in physical death, if we choose God's will and not our own, we will we be brought back to union with God in eternal life. That's what we want, both here and hereafter. We don't want what HBO is telling us to want. We don't really want what Apple is selling. It's not just sex that we want. Not just career. Not a threesome. Not four wives. Not soullessness. We want God, as it is in heaven and on earth. Psalm 128 is the model for fulfillment. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;your children will be like olive shoots around your table.Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. FYI: “Fear” of the Lord means wonder and awe, a healthy fear, not the kind of fear where you simply pay your taxes to avoid jail. This is a kind of fear that grows out of love, wonder, awe, reverence, and it all starts with knowing that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, in need of a savior. Recognizing your status as a sinner will free you, because it sheds all the fig leaves we wear. Then once we have bore our souls before God, and become honest, open, and willing, then we can return to the faith of a child and let the ego wither away as it must. Recall that Jesus died naked on the cross. All was stripped away, and his death showed us the result of our sins, for what we did to Jesus we do to one another every day. This doesn't mean it's easy, but if you fear the Lord and are grateful for your daily bread and want nothing beyond the grace of God, only then will the blessings of a wife and children satisfy you, because you will share all of it with the Creator. And if some tragedy occurs, like in the book of Job, and all is taken away, even then you will still have the grace of God, as that is the rock of your life that can be clung to when everything else fades away. When your life becomes an offering to God, and God's endless offering of creation is accepted by you, then what more could you possibly want? Conforming your will to God's is how you level-up in this world, and you do this by praying. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?'” Mt. 21 Matthew 21:1-11 Isaiah 50:4-9a Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 26:14-27:66 What is God like? And how will we respond? Give me your hand and we will see. In December 1945, halfway up the Egyptian portion of the Nile River, a farmer named Muhammad ‘Alī al-Sammān made an extraordinary archaeological discovery. Thirty years later he told his story. Not long before he and his brothers avenged their father's murder, they were digging for soil to fertilize their crops when they found a three foot high red, earthenware jar. Wondering if it contained an evil spirit, at first they hesitated to break it open. Then he had the idea that it might contain gold, so he smashed it with his axe and discovered thirteen papyrus books bound in leather. [i] At home he dropped the books on a pile of straw by the oven. His mother used much of the papyrus along with the straw to kindle fire. A few weeks later, after killing their father's enemy ‘Alī worried that the police might search the house, so he left the books with a local priest. For years experts tried to collect the manuscripts. In the end they discovered fifty-two texts at Nag Hammadi. Carbon dating of the papyrus used in the bindings places these Coptic translations sometime between the years 350-400 CE. Some scholars, including my New Testament professor Helmut Koester, believe that these are translations of Greek manuscripts that may be even older than the gospels of the New Testament. One of the first European scholars to discover the texts was startled to read the following line, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin Judas Thomas, wrote down.” [ii] This is the opening of the first complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas ever discovered. We had fragments of it in Greek but suddenly we had the whole thing along with pages of other sources we had never dreamed of. My favorite quotes from the Gospel of Thomas describes the kingdom of God as a “state of self-discovery.” That ancient papyrus says, “Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the sons of the living Father.” It says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” [iii] For years all we knew about the Gnostic Christians in the first centuries after Jesus' death came from the orthodox Christians who called them heretics. Now finally, to some degree, we can hear them speak for themselves. I first encountered these ideas at the age of twenty-one when I read Elaine Pagels' book The Gnostic Gospels. I am attracted to their thought primarily because Jesus has changed my life and I long to learn more about what people in the first centuries thought of him. I am also sympathetic to the Gnostics' respect for wisdom. We are often trapped in stories that make us miserable. Great thinkers can lift us into a truth that frees us. The Greek word gnosis means a kind of knowing by experience that differs from rational or scientific knowing. [iv] It also describes an ancient faith, a family of religious convictions that shaped what we believe today. This year on Palm Sunday as we enter Holy Week rather than trying to tell the whole story of Jesus' passion, I want to talk about this ancient faith. We cannot be a Gnostic in the way that third century people could. But studying these ideas give us a way of talking about our tradition's value and how we experience God in our own lives. On this Palm Sunday I am going to talk about three central gnostic ideas. But first I need to say a little more about what Gnostics believed. Gnostic groups differed from each other but mostly they believed in a kind of dualism between the spiritual which they regarded as good and the evil material world. They held that the spiritual human soul is part of the Divine and is imprisoned in physical existence. They believed that the soul could be saved by coming to realize its greatness, its origin in a superior spiritual world. For Gnostics an inferior god or demiurge (sometimes called the god of the Old Testament) made the material world. In their upside down interpretation of the Genesis creation story, the snake was the hero. Many Gnostic Christians (the Docetists) believed that it only seemed as if Jesus suffered, or was mortal. 1. The first idea that I would like to criticize is the Gnostic belief that there are secret teachings for the elite that are not available to everyone else. The Gnostic believed that, in the words of an ancient manuscript, he was, “one out of a thousand, or two out of ten thousand.” [v] This contrasts with Christians who believe that everything we need to know about God and Jesus is public. There is no hierarchy of secret knowledge, or spiritual wisdom. We can all read the Bible and with help, draw our own conclusions. Christians go further than this. In Paul's Letter to the Galatians he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This may be one of the most difficult ideas for us to assimilate. It is the basis for our democracy. We are all equal before God, and before the law. As humans we naturally form groups and are drawn into conflict based on our identity. For instance, it is very difficult to avoid the culture war tension between liberals and conservatives. The philosopher Agnes Callard spoke about this recently at Harvard. She pointed out that the science journal Nature endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. It's editors wanted to speak out for science and objective truth. She pointed out that in a world where everything becomes ideological this had the unintended outcome of making some people distrust science as political. Callard said that people on the left use the same tactics as those on the right. “We bully people without knowing it. Not bullying people is harder than it appears.” Her answer is to take a Socratic approach. We should ask people to explain their position rather than trying to beat them in an argument. She says that Socrates is, “not trying to win. He's trying to find out.” [vi] 2. A second Gnostic belief is that we should focus on overcoming illusion through introspection rather than worrying about sin or morality. The important thing for the Gnostic is a relation with our true self not our neighbors. In the second century Irenaeus rejected the idea that knowledge is enough to save us. He insisted that participating and growing in Christ is a “practical, daily form of salvation.” [vii] In the third century Clement of Alexandria writes that God became human so that humans can become God. Every day we improve. He writes about choosing to live joyously so that, “all our life is a festival; being persuaded that God is everywhere present on all sides we praise him as we till the ground, we sing hymns as we sail the sea, we feel God's inspiration in all that we do.” [viii] 3. Finally, Gnostics taught that the material world is evil. In contrast, Christians believe that God created the world and that it is good. We have a responsibility for nature. We see God through the material world. It gives us opportunities to care for each other. Over the next seven days we will experience the implications of this belief. We will follow Jesus through the exultant crowds, witness his poignant goodbye at his last meal with friends. We will see his betrayal, abandonment death and finally his triumphant resurrection and reunion with his loved ones. My friend Matt Boulton says that we cannot take all of this in at once. These events require time and space for us to adequately feel and understand them. [ix] Last night I received an email from one of our readers who feels overwhelmed by the passion narrative. My friend writes, “the most powerful moment that stands out for me is Jesus' response to Judas' kiss.” Jesus says, “Friend do what you are here to do” with no blame or shame, just a sense of love and grief. This idea that God is present to us in the material world gives us the hope that we can change some things for the better. In an interview the poet Maya Angelou said that believing in God gave her courage. “I dared to do anything that was a good thing. I dared to do things distant from what seemed to be in my future. When I was asked to do something good, I often said, yes, I'll try, yes, I'll do my best. And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can't do?” [x] What is God like? And how will we respond? There is no secret religious knowledge or a spiritual elite. Introspection will not bring us as close to God as care for those around us. The material world matters and the presence of Jesus in this world then and now is a message of hope and salvation. All our life is a festival, so bring forth what is within you and may God bless you as you walk with Jesus this week. I would like to close with these lines from the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). “God speaks to each of us as he makes us / then walks with us silently out of the night.//These are the words we dimly hear. // You, sent out beyond your recall, / go to the limits of your longing / embody me. //Flare up like flame / and make big shadows I can move in. // Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final. / Don't let yourself lose me. // Nearby is the country they call life. / You will know it by its seriousness. // Give me your hand.” [xi] [i] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xiff. [ii] “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” The Gospel of Thomas, translated by Thomas O. Lambdin. https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf [iii] And later, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and female one… then you will enter [the Kingdom].” Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) 152, 154-5. [iv] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979) xvii. [v] Ibid., 176. [vi] Clea Simon, “In an era of bitter division, what would Socrates do?” The Harvard Gazette, 27 March 2023. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/in-era-of-bitter-division-what-would-socrates-do/ [vii] Margaret Ruth Miles, The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 33. [viii] Ibid., 38. [ix] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/3/29/palms-and-passion-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-palmpassion-sunday [x] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/6/maya-angelou-on-being-christian [xi] Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God tr. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (NY: Riverhead, 2005) 119.

In Acts 10, the church takes a significant stride forward as the gospel reaches the Gentiles in Caesarea. Not only are Cornelius, his household, and many Gentiles converted, but Peter's heart is "converted" in the process. Because of God's work here in this chapter of history, there is neither Jew nor Greek...for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28-29).

What does it mean that "there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28)? Today, R.C. Sproul speaks on the gracious blessings and privileges that belong to every Christian. Get R.C. Sproul's Commentary on Galatians for Your Gift of Any Amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/2416/galatians-commentary Don't forget to make RenewingYourMind.org your home for daily in-depth Bible study and Christian resources.

The beginning of the human family, is God's Word to mankind that they would be Male and Female. Our gender is an eternal fact about our human nature. And yet both of these modalities of Male and Female, are given as 'talents' for manifestation of the One and same light - Christ in us. As Paul says: "There is longer male or female, but all are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). This knowledge frees us to embrace the gift of our gender, including the unique strengths and limitations of it, as we go forth and do the good works God has uniquely prepared for us to do in our gendered humanity.   

We believe the Scriptures teach that regeneration, or the new birth, is that act of God by which the Holy Spirit imparts a new nature and a new spiritual life, not before possessed, and the person becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus (Gal. 2:20). The mind is given a holy disposition and a new desire to serve God, the dominion of sin is broken, and the heart is transformed from a love of sin and self to a love of holiness and God.

Hello, and welcome to Lechem Panim. If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn with me to Acts chapter 20. As you may remember, Paul is traveling with a group of men who each represented churches that Paul had started in Asia. And each of them is [carrying an offering from his home church to be given to the believers in Jerusalem], which remember had a tremendous amount of need. [Having each man deliver the gift {really offered} a personal touch and strengthened the unity of the believers.] The Church was being the Church for one another. You know, this coming Sunday at our Church (Renton Park Church) I am preaching on the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus; and what is remarkable to me about that prayer is how often Jesus prays for the unity of all believers; that they may be one even as He and the Father are one. Now I can't even begin to unpack that today. But Jesus says in that prayer… John 17:21 (ESV)— 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:23 (ESV)— 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Testimony to the world— The fundamental purpose of our unity is to bear testimony to the world of the fact that the Father did indeed send His beloved Son Jesus (and that He is their salvation) and that God loves them just as He loves Jesus. That is what our unity points the world to. Jesus had said in… John 13:35 (ESV)— 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” No Excuse— Now if there is disunity; if there is a lack of love and care for one another; this gives the world an excuse not to take us seriously. But when we are unified and loving and caring for one another, we pave the way for the Holy Spirit to bring conviction to them and often a longing to be a part of that same kind of unified body of believers. And that is part of what this love offering helped to demonstrate. It was a very personal and tender-hearted gesture. A New Goal— Paul had wanted to arrive in Jerusalem by Passover; but they had been delayed, so that didn't happen. So now he is trying to get there at least by Pentecost (Acts 20:16). And here we see that they have come to the city of Troas, of which Luke writes in verse 6: and there we stayed seven days. “We” to “Us”— Now note how in verse 5 and here in verse 6 there is a [pronoun change {from “he”} to “us” and “we,” for Dr. Luke has now joined the party (see Acts 16:17). He had probably been ministering at Philippi where he joined Paul for the last leg of the journey. {And} Paul must have rejoiced to have Luke, Titus, and Timothy at his side again. {But} The men remained at Troas a week so that they might fellowship with the believers there. Perhaps they were also waiting for the departure of the next ship. {But they are waiting there; and as they are waiting there,} Luke gives us a brief report of a local church service in Troas, and from it we learn something of how these early Christians met and worshipped the Lord.] It says in… Acts 20:7 (LSB)— 7 And on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began speaking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. “On the first day of the week”—  Now note the very first phrase: on the first day of the week,. This is actually the first reference in the book of Acts to Christian worship taking place on Sunday rather than on the seventh day (the Sabbath). And this day of course came to be known as “the Lord's Day” because it was the day on which the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead (Rev. 1:10). So that alone gave the first day of the week an amazing significance. But keep in mind that it was also on the first day of the week that the Holy Spirit had come at Pentecost and birthed the Christian Church. And so the first day of the week became (for multiple reasons) the primary day of worship. Now as the Church was just starting off, they would (during those early years) still [maintain some of the Jewish traditions, such as the hours of prayer (Acts 3:1). But as time went on, they moved away from the Mosaic calendar and developed their own pattern of worship as the Spirit taught them.] In The Evening— Now the second thing that we see from this verse is that the church met in the evening. And the reason [the church met in the evening {was} because {keep in mind that} Sunday was not a holiday during which people were free from daily employments.] Some of you may remember the days when that was the case here in the states. But sadly, that is not the case now and certainly wasn't during these times.} And keep in mind that some of these believers were slaves; and so they couldn't come to church until they had finished their duties. Now these early believers didn't have any church building in which they could meet, and so they would meet in the private homes of believers. And this room was likely in the private home (or was the home) of one of the believers. And these believers would have been of all different nationalities and social statuses. But none of that mattered anymore. As far as they were concerned, they were “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). to break bread— Now the fellowship of these early believers was a beautiful thing. They would fellowship around a “potluck” meal that they called a “love feast” (agape). And after they would finish eating, they would observe the Lord's Supper together (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 11:17–34). And that is what we see here in their breaking bread together. Here in Acts 20:7 we have reference to Lord's Supper and then Acts 20:11 describes the regular meal that would have preceded it. And remember how we talked before about how (in that culture; particularly Jewish culture) to eat with someone was to show commonality with them. That is why if two parties were at enmity with one another and sought restoration, that restoration would never be considered complete until they had shared a meal together. That is part of what made the story of Zacchaeus so powerful. Jesus shared a meal with him that showed they had commonality and peace between each other; and more so, that there was peace between Zacchaeus and God. And of course we also need to understand the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in light of that custom because in that meal is the consummation of our restoration to God. And these “love feasts” were beautiful pictures of the healing that had taken place across social and racial lines in those communities, as men and women of different races and social statuses (think about it, even slaves and their masters) were eating, sharing, and enjoying fellowship with one another as equals under Jesus Christ. That was something never heard of before; and that alone bore such an incredible witness to those communities (and to the world). And I love how that fellowship and unity was built around Thanksgiving; the remembrance of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us.     Now you and I sometimes worry that taking communion too often will cause it to become simply routine and we will miss (or grow cold to) the blessings involved. And that may be true. But the early Christians had it at least once a week as a group and many of them likely, even when they were by themselves during their regular meals at home, would conclude their own personal meals by taking the bread and wine. Now Scripture doesn't give us any specific command to do this (“as often”, 1 Cor. 11:26); but what it shows is that they wanted to keep before them always that reminder of what Jesus had done for them. For them, Thanksgiving (Eucharist, which comes from the Greek word for Thanksgiving) wasn't once a year, it was all the time. And that is a beautiful thing. And it challenges us also to live every day in that spirit of Thanksgiving. The Lord's Message— Now another thing we see in this passage is the centrality of the Word of God, which was always preached in these Christian churches. And this involved [the public reading of the Old Testament Scriptures (1 Tim. 4:13) as well as whatever apostolic letters had been received (Col. 4:16).] Now sadly, in many churches nowadays, we find the Word of God being neglected. Many (even Christians) know very little of what the Word of God actually says and therefore are unequipped to defend themselves against those who (by twisting the original meaning of the Word of God) might lead them astray. That is why any strong Church will be a Biblically literate one. Paul himself writes in… 2 Timothy 4:2 (ESV)— 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. The Decadent Periods— And as Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said “the decadent periods and eras in the history of the church have always been those periods when preaching has declined”] The Power of The Book— An unknown writer said, "This Book is the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding; its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's character. Here paradise is restored, heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. Follow its precepts and it will lead you to Calvary, to the empty tomb, to a resurrected life in Christ; yes, to glory itself, for eternity." Bearing Testimony— And so today, let us commit to know and walk in keeping with the Word of God; and in doing so we will (through our unity and holy love for one another) bear testimony to the world of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Cross TrainingListen Carefully to Wise InstructionRead or WatchThis year at a teen event, we had a competition where several teams had to guide a blindfolded teammate through a maze using only their voice. It was fun but a little chaotic, as our young folks tried to make their way, discerning between different voices and instructions: "Turn left!" "No, right!" "Keep going, you're doing great!" It's a bit like the different advice we receive as we navigate our own twists and turns. Who do you listen to — or should you just shut the voices out, determined to stumble along on your own?We're Cross Training to develop our lifelong learning, the last of twelve marks of the Master we've worked on this year. Lifelong learning comes when we follow Jesus as disciples, hunger and thirst after righteousness, examine ourselves, and seek out wise counsel. So why do we need wise advisors, and how do we find them?What You Need to KnowNaturally, what makes sense to you makes sense to you! But we all need to hear other points of view. Even a fool is "right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice" (Prov. 12:15). If you think going it alone — listening to no one — proves your strength, remember that the battle usually goes to those with the best counselors: "Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war" (Prov. 20:18). In fact, while you don't want to listen to just anyone, this is one area of life where more is usually better. "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed" (Prov. 15:22).So when you come to a crossroads and face a challenging decision, look for those who can help you choose the right way. And even in your day-to-day walk, who would you love to take with you on this journey, to help you see things clearly and live well? Looking around your life, fill your cabinet of advisors asking yourself, "who do I want to have in my ear?" Prayerfully build relationships with mentors and friends who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit as those who "belong to Christ Jesus" (Gal. 5:22-24).What You Need to DoChoose your advisors carefully. Give attention to "your father's instruction" and "your mother's teaching" (Prov. 1:8). Rather than leaning toward those with whom you have the most in common, look for wisdom and the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10). Unlike Rehoboam, who lost part of his kingdom by choosing the advice of his young friends over older counselors (1 Kings 12), seek out mentors and thinking partners who have more experience than you (cf. Prov. 16:31). As Job said, "Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days" (Job 12:12). That doesn't mean we should "despise" the wisdom of young, faithful people (1 Tim. 4:12). To the contrary, they too can offer a unique and helpful perspective, holding to their "sincere faith" in the word they've received (2 Tim. 1:5).Humbly listen, even when it's uncomfortable to hear. Never become too proud for correction, since anyone "who hates reproof is stupid" (Prov. 12:1). Find the "sweetness of a friend" in their "earnest counsel" (Prov. 27:9), even when their "faithful ... wounds" of correction (Prov. 27:5-6) hurt all the more for their frankness and love (Lev. 19:17-18).Don't equate any human's advice with God's wisdom. To David and Absalom, "the counsel Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the word of God" (2 Sam. 16:23). That can get dangerous even with the most sage and experienced advisor. Wisdom can come in a lot of varieties from a lot of sources, some better than others (cf. James 3:13-17). Christ's disciple will always look first to the "Wonderful Counselor" (Isa. 9:6; cf. Isa. 11:2). And so this series ends where it began — Cross Training under the instruction and example of the Master!Through the WeekRead (Mon) — Luke 2:40-52; Matt. 7:6; Psalm 1:1-6; 1 Cor. 15:33; 1 Thess. 5:6-14Reflect (Tue) — Who are my counselors now, and who should I seek to advise me?Request (Wed) — "Holy Father, fill my life with an abundance of wise counselors" (cf. Prov. 15:22).Respond (Thu) — Buy lunch for a wise, older saint, enjoying their company and taking in their insights.Reach Out (Fri) — How has wise counsel made a difference in your life?Support the Show

What defines you as a person? Does what folks standards set in society dictate who you are? Does social media, your parents, your past experiences, your current events, your accomplishments, your dreams, goals, and aspirations define you? All of those things can influence your decisions, choices,  and outcomes if we allow them to. We ought not to put all our eggs in one basket of life and the things of this world. We need to pursue our creator because he created us after his image and likeness therefore as we discover more of who God is through his only begotten son Jesus we will soon find our true selves. We go through life as babies learning ourselves through Discovery of the world around us. We go from discovering that we have hands and feet to growing pains of adolescence to Teenagers and young adults to older adults to elderly if we are blessed to live a long life. We should through all our stages of life walk with God as much as we humanly can and the Holy Spirit will help you through lives journeys, twists and turns. With all of that being said I'm still learning myself daily. Everyday I strive to know myself better and everyday there is an area where I miss the mark but I will keep on pressing. What I know to be true is that My Identity is in Christ Jesus!!!! Roman's 8:17 (Heir) says:  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Joh 8:36 KJV (Free) If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Joh 15:15 KJV (Friend) Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. 2Co 1:21-22 KJV (Sealed) 21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; 22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. (The Holy Spirit is a pledge in our hearts that we are sealed by God) Deu 14:2 KJV (Choosen) For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. Eph 5:1 KJV (Beloved) Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; Rom 5:1 KJV(Justified) Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: Psa 103:11-12 KJV( Forgiven) 11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 2Co 5:21 KJV(Righteous)For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Rom 3:24 KJV( Redeemed)Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Gal 3:26 KJV(Child of God) For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 2Co 5:17 KJV( New Creation) Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Phi 3:20 KJV ( Citizen of Heaven) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: When I worship him and learn of him I start to find me. I will find the answers to my issues and challenges and will find my purpose I will find my area of strength my areas of focus for which God has given me the power and faith to break the yoke of bondage. God has given us all a lane and faith to walk worthy of the vocation he has called us too. I must give God praise even in my trials because except a seed goes into the ground to die it can't bare fruit. I have to know that there are things within my flesh that create friction with the parts of my Spirit and that don't honor God. When I do this I'm discovering more and more of my true self my true identity. John 15 read!!! God wants us to bare much fruit full writing on blog --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/courageous-beauty/message

Here's the final instalment in the little series I've been running on faith, love and hope, as the essential nature of the Christian life. So far we've had:* why ‘these three' are so important, and why we sometimes neglect them* ‘faith' as the foundation of Christian living* the two kinds of love, and what Christian love really isAnd now we come to hope …Hope feels a bit like a third wheel in the Big Three Christian virtues.We all appreciate the foundational importance of faith as trust in God and his Son and his promise. The Christian life starts with us gratefully grabbing hold of God and his promise in Christ. Faith is our trusting, outstretched hand that grabs hold of the Lifesaver's hand, and is drawn out of the waters of death into a new life.Love is the basic character of that new life. Faith sets free from the darkened mind of our inwardness and pride. The lights go on in our brain, and we see the goodness of God and through him the goodness of all that he's given us to love—including most especially the people around us. Love summarizes not only our ongoing relationship with God, but our essential stance towards everyone and everything in our world.But what about hope? Would we miss it, if it wasn't in the Big Three?I suspect many contemporary Christians wouldn't particularly. And I suspect that this is because we under-appreciate just how future-focused the Christian gospel is. We tend to see the gospel as mainly about the forgiveness and salvation that we receive now by faith; and the blessed new life we start living now in love.Which of course is true.But it's only half true—or should I say two-thirds true. What we receive by faith now and live out in love now is a guaranteed place in God's future. It's a faith and love that are exercised in hope.Many Christians don't grasp this. Nor did everyone in New Testament times.When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the thing he wanted them to really grasp—to have the eyes of their hearts opened up to see—was just how extraordinary their future was. He wanted them to understand the ‘hope' that awaited them, and to live accordingly. If I can paraphrase the rather complicated paragraph in Eph 1:11-22, Paul says something like this:By being ‘in Christ', we Jewish believers (who were the first to believe in Jesus) have become what God destined us to be—his very own possession, the people whom he will gather around his Son for all eternity. And it's even more extraordinary, because it's now become clear that his eternal plan was always to include you Gentiles in this as well. That age-old plan of God has now come to fruition—because when you heard the gospel that came to you, and trusted in Jesus Christ, you too became united with him, and therefore with all of us as well. You too are now redeemed. You too are now part of the fellowship of love that we ‘saints' all share in Christ. And you too have received the Holy Spirit as the guarantee and downpayment of the inheritance that is to come, when God finally makes us his own for all eternity.But if there's one thing that I would pray for you, it's that you would come to appreciate just how massive and glorious and mind-blowing that future hope is—the one that you now share with all of us. I pray that God would open up your heart to see and know and grasp and long for what lies in store for all of us, because of our union with the majestic risen Lord of all, Jesus Christ.Or words to that effect. He wants them to lean into their future—to grasp it, and understand it, and long for it, because that's what the gospel is about. It's the guaranteed promise of having a place in the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ.The logic of the first chapter of Colossians is much the same (it's funny how often Colossians and Ephesians line up). Col 1:3-5 speaks of a gospel that came to them, that spoke of a hope laid up for them in heaven—a gospel that they trusted and that gave them a new love for all ‘the saints' (probably, again, the original Jewish believers that they have now joined up with in Christ). In 1:9f., Paul then prays that their spiritual wisdom and understanding would grow so that (among other things) they would endure with patience and joy until they receive the glorious inheritance that they have been qualified for—that inheritance being a place (with all the saints) in the eternal kingdom of the risen supreme Son, Jesus Christ.Paul prays this way because the more they grasp and understand the glories of the coming kingdom of his beloved Son, and their place in it, the more they will endure now with patience, joy and godly living. When Paul gets down to what godly living means in chapter 3, he continues along the same line of thought. You're already crucified and raised with Christ, he says. Your life is with him. Your future is with him, and that will one day be made clear to all. So set your hearts and minds there, on Jesus Christ and your eternal future with him, and as a consequence put to death everything that belongs to this current earthly age (3:1-5). In light of what is to come, get rid of the vices of the earthly now, and put on instead the virtues of the heavenly then—the ultimate of which is love (Col 3:14).In other words, the gospel announces the extraordinary future of the crucified and risen King, Jesus Christ, and invites and calls everyone to enter his kingdom, and to live now as kingdom citizens. This is the sense in which the gospel offers a future ‘hope'—a ‘living hope' as Peter calls it, because it is essentially the expectation of one day living and reigning with the living, reigning Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:3f.). It's the ‘hope of righteousness'—of standing justified and blameless before God on that great future day, because we trust in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:5); it's the ‘blessed hope', the appearing of our great and Saviour Jesus Christ (Tit 2:13).We can sometimes get confused about hope, because it has two senses—and perhaps you've already noticed this in some of the verses I've been quoting. ‘Hope' sometimes describes the thing in the future that I'm waiting for—like the “blessed hope” of Jesus' return (in Titus 2), or the “hope of righteousness” that we are waiting for (in Gal 5:5).But the noun ‘hope' also often describes my present experience of waiting for it (as does the verb ‘to hope'). Suffering breeds endurance which breeds character which breeds hope—a confident waiting for what will be ours, a hopeful waiting and expectation that won't be disappointed because God has already demonstrated his love for us by justifying his enemies now by the blood of Christ (Rom 5:2-11).It's in this second sense that ‘hope' is one of the cardinal virtues of the Christian life. Hope is something we do and experience in response to the gospel (like having faith, or loving others). In response to the gospel, we wait and expect and long to receive the inheritance that is stored up for us. We hope.Hope flows out of faith. Faith grabs hold of the truths of the gospel and trusts them—Jesus is the crucified and risen Lord; we are justified now by his blood; we are raised up with him now in the heavenlies. Yes, I believe and trust in these things.Hope is the necessary consequence of that trust or conviction. It is the patient, joyful longing and waiting for the promised inheritance in Christ to arrive.Here's one last NT example that illustrates the connection. It's seen in the Thessalonian response to the gospel (recounted by Paul in 1 Thess 1). The Thessalonians heard the word of God about his Son, the saving, reigning Lord Jesus Christ. They trusted this word with full conviction and joy by the work of the Holy Spirit, so much so that their faith was famous everywhere. It was famous because everyone saw how they turned away from their idols and began a new life, of love and service of the true and living God. And how they waited, even in the midst of affliction, with a joyful steadfastness of hope, for Jesus to come from heaven, to rescue them from the wrath to come.This experience of confidently waiting and longing for the glorious future that we are guaranteed to inherit—this is the sense in which ‘hope' is one of the three great Christian virtues.We enter the Christian life through the door of faith; it's a new life of love for God and for others; but it is an inescapably future-oriented life of hope. It stretches out like a road before us, with a glorious inheritance at the end of it. That forward lean, that keeps its eye on the glorious future that the gospel promises, that strains towards it, that seeks to live now in light of it, that joyfully endures suffering in the meantime—that's hope.When our Christian lives lack hope, they stop leaning forward and become overpowered by the present.The sufferings of the present dumbfound us and dismay us. We don't see them as part of a future-oriented plan that builds endurance and character and hope, but as catastrophic interruptions to the blessed life of now. When hope is weak, we respond badly to suffering and trials—we either descend into bitterness, doubt and despair, or else we try to wish our troubles away by insisting that they should not be part of our experience now (which is what the prosperity gospel in all its forms essentially does).But it's not only suffering and troubles. When we lack hope, the goods and blessings of the present are also a problem for us. They dazzle and distract us. We forget who we are and where we're going. We become obsessed with the comforts and possibilities of now, and lose sight of the infinitely greater joys and glories of then.I suggested at the beginning that many people today don't grasp how significant hope is as one of the three pillars of the Christian life. Our difficulties in dealing with both suffering and blessing are symptoms of this.Let us keep teaching and reminding each other to hope in the glorious future that the gospel promises, and keep praying that God would open the eyes of our hearts to know it.PSI've finished each of these little pieces on the faith and love and hope with a strong sense of how brief and inadequate they are. In the case of hope, an excellent way to explore the ideas further would be via Bryson Smith's fine little book, Hope (subtitled ‘The best is yet to come'). And in a useful coincidence—and yes it really is a coincidence!—the good people at Matthias Media are offering 20% off that book (and a bunch of others) at the moment. Grab a copy or three. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe

Hello and welcome again to Lechem Panim. I hope you are doing well and that today you are experiencing all the fullness of Christ in your life. As we have been proceeding through our study of Acts chapter 8, we have seen how a man by the name of Philip (not the Apostle Philip, but one of the Greek-speaking men chosen by the apostles to wait on tables) has (in addition to that ministry) also been preaching the Gospel. He is the first missionary named in Scripture and the first to be given the title “evangelist” (21:8). And he has just recently brought the Gospel to the region of Samaria. Now God (as he always does at a new turning point of His salvation plan) confirms His message with miracles; and (lo and behold) a multitude of the Samaritans come to faith in Jesus Christ. And it says in… Acts 8:12-13 (ESV)— 12 But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed. Now Simon Magus was a practicer of sorcery and probably a con-artist to whom the people had previously looked up to; a man who (although he believed) was not saved because he had a wrong view of self, a wrong view of salvation, a wrong view of the Holy Spirit, and a wrong view of sin. The Wrong Reasons— Now although the text says Simon Magus “believed”, we will continue to see that he came to that belief for all the wrong reasons. Because of the Samaritan revival, he knew his own popularity would begin to decline as he ceased to be seen as the Messianic figure that he had marketed himself as as people began turning to Jesus as their true Messiah. He was also motived by a desire [to learn what he perceived to be Philip's power]. And so he follows Phillip after he is baptized for three apparent reasons. [First, he wanted to sustain contact with the people following the preacher. By joining Philip's movement, he went where the action was and kept his opportunity for influence alive. Second, as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed. He had, so to speak, a professional interest in finding out the source of Philip's amazing powers. Third, as his later conduct shows, he wanted to figure out how to acquire that power for himself.] And in the next section he thinks he sees his opportunity. It says in… Acts 8:14-16 (ESV)— 14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, 15 who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Peter & John Come— And so word has spread of the incredible success of Phillip's ministry. And the apostles in Jerusalem receive this word of what is going on in Samaria and they send Peter and John to investigate. And their [Peter and John's mission was threefold: First, they came to help Philip with the spiritual harvest. The response of the Samaritans was too great for one man to handle. Second, they came to give apostolic sanction and blessing to Philip's work among the Samaritans. {Because remember that up until this time the Samaritans had been despised by the Jews as halfbreed outcasts. And so the apostles (who were leaders of the church even after the church spread out from Jerusalem) come to officially validate this new branch of the body of Christ. And thirdly}…, they came down from Jerusalem and prayed for the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Although they had believed and been baptized, the Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.] The Holy Spirit At Conversion— Now some use this passage to argue that Christians nowadays do not receive the Holy Spirit until sometime after conversion, which is not true. At this point in the book of Acts we are in a transitional period into what would later become normative in the Church. All of us receive the Holy Spirit when we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior. But at this point in the history of the Church God withheld that outpouring until the apostles came for a very specific reason. Remember [Jesus had given Peter the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 16:13–20), which meant that Peter had the privilege of “opening the door of faith” to others. He opened the door to the Jews at Pentecost, and now he opened the door to the Samaritans. Later, he would open the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 10).] He was God's chief instrument in the early days of the early Church. But there is another very important reason; and that was (as one author I was reading this week pointed out) that [For centuries, the Samaritans and the Jews had been bitter rivals. If the Samaritans had received the Spirit independent of the Jerusalem church, that rift would have been perpetuated. There could well have been two separate churches, a Jewish church and a Samaritan church. But God had designed one church, in which “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female,” but “all [are] one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). {And so} By delaying the Spirit's coming until Peter and John arrived, God preserved the unity of the church. The apostles needed to see {what God was doing amongst the Samaritans} for themselves, and give firsthand testimony to the Jerusalem church, that the Spirit came upon the Samaritans and confirmed their salvation. The Samaritans also needed to learn that they were subject to apostolic authority. And so that is why we see here that (at this point) the gift must come through Peter and John. And so it says in… Acts 8:17-19 (ESV)— 17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” A Wrong View of The Spirit— And so the third fault in Simons' theology was that he had a wrong view of the Spirit. [When he saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money. Evidently, the believers were speaking in tongues as on the Day of Pentecost so that there was a perceivable sign of this great reality sufficient to arouse Simon's interest. Philip had impressed him, but Peter and John overwhelmed him. Simon asked them brashly and excitedly, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” He treated the two apostles as though they were fellow practitioners of magic, and was ready to negotiate the price to buy the secret of their power.] And this was not unusual during that time. [Magicians often sold each other their tricks and incantations.] Expensive Magic— When I was younger I was very much into the world of magic; not this kind of evil magic, but rather the world of illusions. And I would go to the local magic shop that had a huge selection of magic tricks. If my mom had shopping to do, she'd drop me off there and I would be content for hours. But the world of magic is very expensive. Tricks that costed a very small amount of money to make would cost the consumer many times over. And that's because you're not just buying the prop; you're buying the secret. But that's where my lawn-mowing money went because I wanted to be able to perform the greatest magical illusions. Not For Sale— Well here, Simon sees Peter and John displaying God's power and immediately wants to have that same power; which wasn't bad in and of itself (because we ARE to desire the Holy Spirit and the work He can perform in and through us; but (as we said before) Simon had wrong motivations. It was all about how he was going to use that power of the Holy Spirit; not how he was going to be used BY the Holy Spirit. And not only that, but he went about trying to get that power by attempting to buy it like he would any incantation or magic trick. And [By this act, Simon gave his name to the term “simony,” which through history has referred to the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices.] However, nothing God has to offer is for sale (and especially not His Holy Spirit). And that's because there is nothing we have that God could possibly need or benefit Him. However, there is something of ours that God does desire; and that is our love. He is the Great Groom of Heaven who desires followers who will truly love Him as His Bridegroom. And for any who are willing to be His, He will give us His precious gifts. Listen to the words of… Isaiah 55:1 (ESV)— 55 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Deadly To The Gospel— Now I'm sorry to say that there are millions of people today who are still desperately and futilely striving to earn salvation. Even many of us Christians can fall into that salvation by works mentality. And this is the first time that we really see it expressed in the early Church. And Peter (through whom God is speaking) makes a radical stand against this. And he does so because the Gospel will always die on the threshold of our manufactured attempts to purchase or earn it. It says in… Acts 8:20 (ESV)— 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! To Hell— By the way, Peter was being more inflammatory here than what most of our translations show. They have been softened from what really should be read (as J.B. Phillips renders it) “To hell with you and your money!” That is the actual sense of Peter's words. And Peter wasn't being profane. He was just truthfully declaring Simon's spiritual condition. And he emphasizes this as he continues, saying… Acts 8:21-24 (ESV)— 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” 24 And Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.” No Sugarcoating— Now we see that following his condemnation of Simon, Peter calls for Simon to repent of his sin so that God might forgive him the wickedness of his heart. He doesn't sugarcoat what Simon has done, but lays it out in all of it heinousness and wretchedness. By [using Old Testament expressions for the most serious offenses against God (cf. Deut. 19:18–20), {Peter} warns Simon of the seriousness of his situation: “I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.” The phrase gall of bitterness is very strong. Chole (gall) refers to a bitter ingredient or bile. Coupled with pikria (bitterness), it conveys an extremely bitter, harsh, and distasteful condition. It vividly pictures the reality of one in the bondage of iniquity.] Peter wants Simon to recognize it's severity so that he will have the desire to abandon it. And God often walks us through the same process as well. He wants us to confront our sin and to acknowledge how bad it is so that we might hate as He does. Becoming Our Pain— I remember sitting in a detention center with a young man who (for years) had been battling drug addiction. I had ministered to him, to his parents, and to his grandparents who were all suffering under the weight of his addiction. And he wanted to turn his life around and did (at least for a little while); but he went back to it, partially because he allowed the influence of his drug-addicted friends to come back into his life. Now eventually he became free, but it was only after the heinousness of his sin and realizing what it had done to him and his family. Now those who loved him could have told him (and did tell him) how bad his sin was and where it would lead. But it wasn't until he confronted that for himself that he was truly able to repent and pursue a new life. And that is the path Peter tries to put Simon on. The fourth major problem in Simons theology was that he had a wrong view of sin; particularly his sin. And so Peter confronts him with it and calls for Simon to repent and pray for forgiveness. God Would've Forgave— Now if Simon had done so, God definitely would have forgiven him. However, interestingly, Simon is not persuaded to repent. Now he is terrified, but notice that although Peter has told him to repent and to pray to God for forgiveness, instead he asks for Peter to pray on his behalf; and not for God to forgive him, or for God to receive his commitment to turn from his sin, but rather that God would not inflict upon him the punishment Peter described. He only wanted to escape the consequences of his sin; not the sin itself. And sadly, that is the camp many people fall into; even today. People want forgiveness without repentance. But notice how Peter places repentance first. You have to come to God with the intent of truly turning; that's what Biblical repentance means. Have You Turned?— What camp do you fall in? Do you pray only that God might withhold punishment from you? Or do you seek the fullness of God and the transforming work He wants to do in you? You and I must repent of all sin; and when we do, we find that in that repentance we receive freely the gift of the Holy Spirit who will empower that change in our lives. Let us do so. Amen.

We are all one in Christ. There are no racial divisions in the plan of God. As Christians, we are all in the Royal Family of God. No racial issues. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus… For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26-28). You are secure in Christ. Now and for all eternity. “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). At some point in your life, you may walk away from God but He will never abandon you. “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:13). Full Transcript: --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Last time, our discussion about training and pastors led us towards a related and very important question: Is the church like a family that is focused on the spiritual welfare and growth of each individual member? Or is the church more like an army or a mission society with a vision and purpose that lies beyond itself in reaching the lost? In the language of classical sociology, is the church primarily Gemeinschaft  (community) or Gesellschaft (society)? Is the church a family or an enterprise?They say that death is often a musician's best career move. Elvis sold more records in the seven years after his death than in his entire earthly career.But imagine what death by Nazis would do for your career. I can't help wondering whether Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have become a megastar of 20th century Christian theology had it not been for the noble and tragic manner of his demise at the hands of Hitler.But a megastar Bonhoeffer certainly is, who managed to pack into his brief life enough different kinds of writing to become beloved by evangelicals (for The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together), by liberals (for his later advocacy of a ‘religionless Christianity'), by social justice types (for his civil disobedience to the Nazis), and by theological academics (for the profundity of his theological and ethical writings).In one of his early heavy-duty ecclesiological works (Sanctorum Communio), Bonhoeffer enquires into the kind of ‘sociological grouping' that the church is. How are we to understand it? In the categories of classical German sociology, is the church to be understood as Gemeinschaft or Gesellschaft? Gemeinschaft (often translated ‘community') is the kind of social grouping that is glued together by personal ties and relationships. A Gemeinschaft exists because of some permanent bond that glues people together with a lasting commitment to each other that has little or no reference beyond itself—like shared blood or location or personal friendship. The ‘community' exists for itself and is an end in itself, not the means to some other end.The family is a prime example. What is the purpose of a family? Simply to be and grow and flourish a family—to love and care for the people that we find ourselves in familial relationship with. We don't choose our family or its members, and our commitment to one another is not based on the need to achieve some external purpose. When a family member turns up on our doorstep in desperate straights asking for money, we don't hesitate to help. We don't pause to consider whether they deserve it, or whether this is a useful or effective use of money, or whether they can pay it back. We just help them, because we are committed to them. If a perfect stranger turns up on our doorstep asking for money, our response will be different. In this sense, families are like little socialist communes. The old communist adage applies perfectly to families and to most Gemeinschaften: ‘from each according to their ability; to each according to their need'. In fact, as an aside, one of the most perceptive criticisms of socialism is that it seeks to impose the model of community or family on an entire society, when the bonds of unconditional mutual commitment simply cannot be stretched that far. The fact that most people are willing to provide a rent-free room in their house for their 10-year-old daughter, doesn't mean that they are willing to do so for everyone who needs it. But I digress. The counterpart to Gemeinschaft is Gesellschaft—often translated ‘society'. A society is a group of people who decide to get together to pursue a particular external purpose. We choose to be in a Gesellschaft because we share the goals or purposes of the other members of the society. Classic examples would be a commercial business, a lobby group, or a sporting club. ‘Societies' of this type may indeed care for their members, and develop close relations, but these are subordinate to and shaped by the goal that the society has—to make money, to exert influence, to enjoy football and win games, and so on. So what is a church? We can immediately see elements of both sociological types. At one level, the church seems very much like a community. It is an end itself, not the means to some other end (unless that be the glory of God). It's a body in which all the members are valued for themselves, and where the contribution of all the parts of the body—even and especially the ‘dishonourable parts'—is welcomed and celebrated for the welfare and mutual benefit of the whole. The church is a household, in which the communist adage seems quite appropriate: ‘from each according to their ability; to each according to their need' (this feels like a summary of the New Testament's teachings about gifts and mutual obligation in the church). Then again, like a Gesellschaft, the church does have a purpose that is given to it. The church is an enterprise with a mission or goal that comes to it from outside (from God), and provides a rationale for its action. This is the great purpose of God to build his heavenly church; to gather the nations into the kingdom of his Son. And we are all commissioned to be his fellow-workers in this grand project. In fact, we find it normal and uncontroversial for churches to organize themselves to pursue these goals—to evangelize our community, to follow-up newcomers, to manage our structures and ‘trellises' in the best way possible, and so on. Healthy churches seem more goal-oriented and organized than families are.What's the answer then? Is the church more like a ‘family' or more like an ‘enterprise'? It's certainly easy to recognize different churches as being more like one than the other—compare the small, somewhat inward-looking family-centric church to the dynamic, growing, high-efficiency larger church that is seeing many people converted, and new offshoot churches planted. It's tricky though. The more intentional, managerial and efficiently goal-oriented we become, the less we're like a Gemeinschaft—and something important seems to be lost. But the opposite is also true—the more family-oriented we become, the less we are likely to make difficult but necessary choices about how to work together for the common goal. Two possible solutions suggest themselves. One would be to suggest that the church is indeed more like a family (Gemeinschaft), and that we therefore need to form other ‘societies' to pursue particular purposes within the overarching goals of the Great Commission. This view has quite a pedigree in Christian history—as seen in the proliferation of parachurch societies of many kinds that have sprung up to pursue particular missions or purposes, particularly over the past 250 years. But are we prepared to say that the church should entirely outsource its role in the Great Commission to external Christian ‘societies'? That doesn't sound right. Another approach would be to view church as a ‘family business'—that is, a kind of blended social grouping that mixes together characteristics of both ‘community' and ‘society'. We're a family, but we have a project we're working on together. Or perhaps, we're a mission society, but we love and care for each other as family. This second solution is similar to Bonhoeffer's own approach, although he gives it his own unique twist. For a start, Bonhoeffer rejects the idea that the church could be understood with reference to existing sociological categories. The church may seem similar in some respects to various social groupings—indeed the New Testament uses various metaphors (like ‘household') to describe the church. But in essence, the church is not an example of something that already exists—it is a completely new reality, created by the grace of God through the new thing he has done in our world in Jesus Christ. This seems right. Sociology is analytical. It's an insightful description of social groupings that exist in our world. But all of those social groupings are unavoidably compromised by the sinfulness of humanity. All human social forms are fragmented, fractured and generally plagued by the inwardly-curved hearts of sinful humanity. Through Jesus Christ, however, we are set free by the Spirit from our inwardness and sin, and enabled to relate to each other properly—for the first time—through Jesus. Jesus thus creates a new sociological possibility—one that doesn't fit existing classifications. It's a community of people not based on shared blood or family or location or history or personal friendship, but based on Jesus Christ. There is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, man or woman, but all are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). Our common bond is not an unmediated commitment to one another based on something we share as humans. He is what we have in common. Unlike earthly Gemeinschaften, we have something outside ourselves that binds us together as community: Jesus Christ. (As others have pointed out, this should moderate the trend towards homogeneous churches. But that's another and also complicated question!)To take Bonhoeffer's idea further, the person of Christ who binds us together and makes us a community, is also the person who makes us a society—who provides our community with a purpose and mission beyond itself. Church is not a voluntary society that we choose to belong to, because we want to pursue a particular goal. Church is a society of people who are chosen by Jesus Christ to be part of his purpose—which is to build his body; to gather his disciples from all nations and see them grow to maturity in him. And so we have this new thing that is quite unlike anything else in our world. It's a community, but its rationale and point of unity is not itself, or any earthly affiliation or factor, but Jesus Christ. And so it is a community that looks beyond itself in love to others, because that is the nature of the Person who gathers and forms it. And church is also a kind of society, but one that has its purpose built into its very fabric by the One who gathers it together, and gives it its mission—to bring glory to Christ by working with him to build his church. Like no human family, the church's unity comes from outside itself; and like no human enterprise, the church's purpose comes from within itself. As Bonhoeffer was very fond of saying, Christ is the centre. He stands in the middle, between us and God, between us and each other, and between us and the world. We see everything only through him, and relate to everyone and everything only through him. And this creates the church as a new thing that has intertwined elements of community and society, but can never be identified completely with either one, nor should fall into the sinful problems of either one. If we see each other ‘with the eyes of Jesus' (as Bonhoeffer puts it), we won't ever be tempted to become an inward-looking church-club, or to think that the welfare of other people in the family can ever be separated from their growth in Christ. And if we see our purposes and vision together also through the eyes of Jesus, as the aims to which Jesus himself calls us and which he himself achieves, we will never sacrifice the welfare and growth of individuals on the altar of organisational success. We won't treat people as resources towards some larger end.Perhaps like Jesus himself, our churches should set their faces resolutely on the goal that is before them, and casting off all hindrances run the race with perseverance. But also like Jesus, our churches will be gentle and lowly in heart towards the weary and heavy laden, and build a community in which they find rest for their souls. PSI'm interested as always in your reactions to this week's reflection. Does your personality gravitate to one side or other of this dichotomy? Do you more instinctively see church as a family to wrap your arms around, or a business to organize and lead? And is it possible to give full expression to both instincts by having Jesus at the centre? This is a partner-only post but feel free to share, and even freer to invite your friends on board … This week's random image is ‘The Village Fete' by Peter Paul Rubens, showing in typical Rubens style the vibrancy and strife of human communities. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe

In our world today, most everything is based on rumor rather than fact. The Bible speaks very strongly against liars, and people who exaggerate and spread rumors. It clearly shows us the destruction this type of communication causes. Once a rumor is accepted as truth and begins to pass through the population, the rumor does more damage than the activity that is actually taking place. The news media has become nothing more than a gossip mill. By daily exaggerating and distorting the facts, they stir hatred and anger among ethnic groups, filling people’s hearts with fear, and creating the very racism they claim they’re trying to stop. Are there real problems? Of course. There are always real problems. But God’s Word gives us ways to solve those problems. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” [Gal. 3:28]. In Jesus, there are no races or ethnic groups. We are one kingdom. We do not have to buy into the deceptions and manipulations that are causing us to turn against one another. I want to help you have a powerful, joyful, and victorious life regardless of what’s going on in the world around you. I want to show you how to recognize and move past the deception and rumors so your heart doesn’t get filled with rage, hate, fear, and racism. We can live in peace with one another. God’s Word shows us how we can do it, and I want to help you get there.

Lectionary texts, illuminated by art, for the Conversion of Paul - January 26, 2020Lectionary readings, Advent 2019 to Pentecost 2020 - Year A. Rev. Dr. Jeff McDonald preached in the 8:30 and 11:05 services this morning.Sermon title: “Who Was Paul”Below is an audio recording of the 11:05 service sermon. About this Sunday’s Scriptures: In the liturgy of the church, we follow cycles of seasons as part of our tradition. Currently, we are celebrating the season of Epiphany, which started with the visit of the Magi and concludes with the Transfiguration of Jesus. As another aspect of our tradition, the Church sets aside certain days as Saints’ Days. One of the more prominent of these is the Feast of the Conversion of Paul, our namesake. This feast day occurs at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated since 1908 as an effort to cast aside our various schisms and disagreements. Just as Paul stated, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28),” we are reminded that, despite divisions of denomination and culture, we are one church and one people.

Lectionary texts, illuminated by art, for the Conversion of Paul - January 26, 2020Lectionary readings, Advent 2019 to Pentecost 2020 - Year A. Rev. Paul Richards-Kuan preached in the 9:45 am Service of Table and Word. Sermon title: God’s Promise of Ministry.Below is an audio recording of the 9:45 service sermon. About this Sunday’s Scriptures: In the liturgy of the church, we follow cycles of seasons as part of our tradition. Currently, we are celebrating the season of Epiphany, which started with the visit of the Magi and concludes with the Transfiguration of Jesus. As another aspect of our tradition, the Church sets aside certain days as Saints’ Days. One of the more prominent of these is the Feast of the Conversion of Paul, our namesake. This feast day occurs at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated since 1908 as an effort to cast aside our various schisms and disagreements. Just as Paul stated, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28),” we are reminded that, despite divisions of denomination and culture, we are one church and one people.

“May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing…” (Romans 15). What is the good news of John the Baptist? In every conversation lies an implicit promise that we will be informed, entertained, expanded, perhaps even appreciated, loved or saved. But this is not always how things work out. This week I found myself at the most elegant Christmas party of my life. Original paintings by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), James Tissot (1836-1902), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), René Magritte (1898-1967), David Hockney (1937-) and others surrounded the guests in every room. Near the end, feeling exhausted, I took refuge alone on a sofa in the front room when a gracious older man approached and asked if he could sit with me. He seemed so familiar! We talked as if we had been loosely acquainted for years.[1] And then he told me this story about when he served as a community liaison for the police force and Jim Jones, the charismatic cult leader, invited him to Sunday worship. Jim Jones told him the time to be there and the uniform he should wear. When my friend arrived Jones had two hulking bodyguards with him. He never took off his sun glasses and looked away at the wall as they talked. After the police officer gave his lecture to a thousand people in the congregation he sat enjoying the choir. Although the service wasn’t over and he wanted to stay, the two bodyguards flatly told him it was time to leave. My friend didn’t know what to do but really he had no alternative. That week someone else who had been there told him what happened after he left. Jim Jones took the stage and told his followers, “Did you see that police officer, he came when I told him to come, wore what I told him to wear and left when I told him to go. Stay with me because I have power.” Within a couple of years Jones murdered 918 people in Guyana. My new friend wonders how many of them were at church with him that day. So what is the difference between John the Baptist and the cult leader Jim Jones (1931-1978)? At first the two might seem to have a similar image and message. Depictions of John the Baptist in this Cathedral and elsewhere often make him seem angry and unstable. For centuries the most identifying features of John have been his uncombed hair and rough clothes. In the Willets stained glass window John seems to be shouting as a lightning bolt strikes from heaven. John exclaims, “You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come.” And we feel condemned. As the axe lies “at the root of the trees” we might even worry that we have the “unquenchable fire” as our destiny (Mt. 3). This is the second week of the new Christian year. For the next twelve months on Sundays we will read through the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew cares about faithful Jewish people. He constantly tries to show us how Jesus fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament. The word gospel means “good news” and the point of this art form, of these stories, is not to record ancient history. It is to provoke us to really see. John the Baptist’s camel hair clothing and leather belt, his life in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey – these identify him with the prophet Elijah and Isaiah’s promise of a time when the “earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11). Jim Jones ruled through fear, intimidation and violence – a more extreme version of what we experience in the news from leaders every day. In contrast, John the Baptist offers the opposite. He gives us an inclusive vision of hope for all people. We have the chance to experience lasting joy and he doesn’t want us to squander this opportunity. Every time a word is used its meaning becomes slightly altered. You can see this when we repeat something that has already been said. Words change meaning. They also wear out over time. “Awesome” used to be a serious word with religious content before it became a meaningless cliché.  The most important word for Matthew in this passage and perhaps even the whole gospel is the Greek word metanoia. It means to change your mind or soul, to be transformed. The worn out Christian word for this is “repentance.” John the Baptist isn’t scolding us, or imploring us to be good, like some finger-wagging Puritan. John wants to change our entire orientation to the world. We are in chains and John wants to set us free. He wants to free our minds. Let me point out three signs of hope in his message. First, this is a radically open invitation. He addresses everyone. Each person has dignity and he baptizes Jew and non-Jew alike. With even the temple leaders everyone flocks to the wilderness to see him. He says your race, nationality, religion is not the most important thing about you. Not being related to Abraham will not hold you back when it comes to God. Second he says that everyone has a chance, because this is not about our identity: who our father was, or our income, status, political party, race, etc. What matters is the fruit that our lives bear. This is simple. Do our actions lead to indifference, violence, manipulation and destruction or to love, healing and wholeness? Finally, comes the most difficult part to explain. Because identity matters so much to us we feel a stubborn compulsion to misinterpret John’s most frightening metaphor about the wheat and chaff. This is not a metaphor about righteous or evil groups. John does not mean that some people are valuable and should be gathered into the warm barn while others deserve to burn. He is using a metaphor of purification. The fire is a refining fire that burns away impurities. The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) writes that the line between good and evil does not run between various groups of people but through every human heart.[2] We all have a kernel of goodness, wisdom, bravery and value that deserves to last forever. We also all have imperfections in our character that are fundamentally incompatible with life in God. We know what impurities need to be rooted out of our lives: the hounding negativity, unkindness, anxiety, self-centeredness, indifference, insecurity, greed and fear of those who are different. This chaff exists in every human soul. It includes the bitterness of homophobia, entrenched white supremacy, persistent misogyny. So instead of that old language we hear from street preachers about repentance, listen this morning as John invites you to decolonize your mind. I have learned so much on this subject from the Kenyan author Ngūgī Wa Thiong’o (1938-). Ngūgī grew up in a Kenyan household with a father, four wives and about twenty-eight children. They spoke Gīkūyū as they worked in the fields and around the home. Before attending school he inhabited a harmonious world held together as all are by stories. Ngūgī writes that English was more than just a language it became the language. If children spoke their own language in the vicinity of school they were beaten, fined money that they didn’t have or made to carry a metal plate around their necks that said, “I am stupid.”[3] Ngugi writes that the “real aim of colonialism was to control the people’s wealth; to control, in other words, the entire realm of the language of real life.” This comes about through what he calls “the cultural bomb” whose effect is to “annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as a wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland.” [4] Hawaiians had one of the highest rates of literacy in the world during the 1800’s. But then after Americans criminally overthrew the government it became similarly illegal to teach the Hawaiian language in schools. For three generations local people say the “white is right” movement dominated official culture. If you are my age and native Hawaiian you are very likely to have been entirely cut off from your own language, cultural practices and a large part of your own self. Ngūgī says it is like being made to stand outside yourself to understand yourself. Being a Christian today is a little like this. You can’t help but feel such hope for the new generation coming of age in Hawaiian immersion schools. Here in North America if you are a gay man, you have to struggle so that our culture’s demeaning and dehumanizing stereotypes do not remain part of your picture of yourself. This is true of white supremacy and misogyny too. These demonic pictures distort our inner landscapes. They divide us from each other and from God. They are the chaff in every person’s heart that needs to be incinerated by the Holy Spirit so that we can be our truer selves. In every conversation lies an implicit promise. At the party I gradually recognized that I was talking to Frank Jordan. He served as mayor of San Francisco in the 1990’s when my wife and I first moved here. In that conversation his humility and graciousness showed me he didn’t need to belittle others for the sake of his ego. About one quarter of the New Testament is attributed to the Apostle Paul. You might say that his whole message can be boiled down to this statement. In the impenetrable ambiguity of human life when we seem like slaves of the messages that we hear, God offers us freedom from our compulsive preoccupation with human authority.[5] It is time. It is time for the earth to be full of the knowledge of the Lord. It is time to decolonize our faith and free our minds. And that is the good news of John the Baptist. “May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing…” (Romans 15). [1] He told me about growing up south of Market Street, joining the San Francisco Police Department about the Season of the Witch years in the 1970’s when mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered by their colleague Dan White. [2] Matt Boulton, “Change Your Mind: SALT’s Lectionary Commentary on Advent Week Two,” SALT, 3 December 2019. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/12/3/change-your-mind-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-advent-week-two [3] Ngūgī wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Nairobi, Kenya: Heinemann Kenya, 1988) 11. [4] Children growing up in this setting “exposed exclusively to a culture that was a product of a world external to [themselves]… being made to stand outside of [themselves] to look at [themselves].”  Ibid., 16, 3. [5] “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 NRSV).

Episode 120 Our Greatest Enemy What is our greatest enemy? Is it Satan? The World? Those who say they hate Christians? While these may bring us afflictions and trials from time to time, I don’t think they are really our greatest enemy. I think our greatest enemy is ourselves separate from Christ. In order to see this, we must come back to Calvary and what Christ Jesus did on the cross. God judged the entire human race according to Adam at the cross and put it away from Him. It was infected with sin and beyond repair. Nothing in the old creation could be rescued, so God began a new race in Christ. This race would not fail because it is based on what God can do, not what man can do in himself. To enter into this new race we must be born again. In new birth we are joined with Christ and now all things are of God. To begin and continue in this new creation is God’s answer to sin, death, and the limitations of man separate from Him. God judged Adam’s race at the cross (Gal. 2:20,6:14, Rom 6:6) God began a new creation in Christ Jesus (Gal. 6:15) Now all things are of God (Gal. 5:16-21) To experience this we must be born into this new creation (John 3) We now must grow up into Him (Eph. 4:15, 2 Peter 3:18) We are called to walk in His life (Gal. 5:16) This walk is a walk of faith in His life (Col. 2:6) If we do not walk in faith in the new creation, what we are accord to Adam rules Our natural reasoning rules (what we know from past experiences) Our desires rule (flesh) Our emotions rule Our personality rules The world rules us by its pressures The enemy appeals to what we are in ourselves (“be your own resource”) God bids us acknowledge that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5) This is a continual walk of faith in the life of God (Gal. 2:20)   Additional resources at  http://www.ntchurchsource.com/ Theme song “Will Your Anchor Hold” sung by J. Ashley Milne Comments and questions welcome. Email David@AnchorOfTruth.com

HOWCEE PRODUCTIONS GOSPEL'S MORNING SHOW SUN. FEB. 5 2017  "ALL FOR ONE" HOWCEE PRODUCTIONS GOSPEL'S MORNING SHOW SUN. FEB. 5 2017  "ALL FOR ONE" There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond or free, there is neither male nor female for we are all one is Christ Jesus (Gal.3:28) Howcee Productions Gospel "Bringing Families Communities and Churches Together" Music gospel music. What is gospel music? What is the common factor in all gospel music? that is sang played written regardless of what genre. The answer God (The Father) The Son (Jesus) The Spirit (Holy Spirit The Holy Ghost The Comforter) We play all style of music in one place. We will cover all elements of the human being. We will minister to the whole man. Come join us. In "Bringing Families communities and Churches Together" Jeff Hawkins and Hope Builders Ministries @ https://www.facebook.com/HBMZambia/  

Summary of today's show: The US bishops sounded a clarion call to Catholics on April 12, 2012 with their landmark statement on religious liberty, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty”. Scot Landry, Fr. Chip Hines, and Domenico Bettinelli go over the document in detail, discussing what it means for Catholics, showing how unprecedented is this courageous stance form the bishops, and how dangerous is the current threat to religious liberty, not for just Catholics, but for all people of faith—and even no faith—everywhere. They also discuss concert steps you can take to join the fight to protect your religious liberty Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Chip Hines Today's guest(s): Domenico Bettinelli Links from today's show: Today's topics: The US bishops' statement on religious liberty 1st segment: Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land. That is the vision of our founding and our Constitution, which guarantees citizens of all religious faiths the right to contribute to our common life together. Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations. In 1887, when the archbishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, was made the second American cardinal, he defended the American heritage of religious liberty during his visit to Rome to receive the red hat. Speaking of the great progress the Catholic Church had made in the United States, he attributed it to the “civil liberty we enjoy in our enlightened republic.” Indeed, he made a bolder claim, namely that “in the genial atmosphere of liberty [the Church] blossoms like a rose.”1 From well before Cardinal Gibbons, Catholics in America have been advocates for religious liberty, and the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today. We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such a time. As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad. This has been noticed both near and far. Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke about his worry that religious liberty in the United States is being weakened. He called it the “most cherished of American freedoms”—and indeed it is. All the more reason to heed the warning of the Holy Father, a friend of America and an ally in the defense of freedom, in his recent address to American bishops: Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience. Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church's participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.2 Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following: HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the “preventive services” mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: “This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs.”3 State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems “harboring” of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law: It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama… . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4 Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church “religious minister” and “religious employer” in the years since. Christian students on campus. In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage. Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit. Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers. Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion. Religious Liberty Is More Than Freedom of Worship Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith? Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas. What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it. Religious believers are part of American civil society, which includes neighbors helping each other, community associations, fraternal service clubs, sports leagues, and youth groups. All these Americans make their contribution to our common life, and they do not need the permission of the government to do so. Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America issued a statement about the administration's contraception and sterilization mandate that captured exactly the danger that we face: Most troubling, is the Administration's underlying rationale for its decision, which appears to be a view that if a religious entity is not insular, but engaged with broader society, it loses its “religious” character and liberties. Many faiths firmly believe in being open to and engaged with broader society and fellow citizens of other faiths. The Administration's ruling makes the price of such an outward approach the violation of an organization's religious principles. This is deeply disappointing.5 This is not a Catholic issue. This is not a Jewish issue. This is not an Orthodox, Mormon, or Muslim issue. It is an American issue. The Most Cherished of American Freedoms In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived at St. Clement's Island in Southern Maryland from England aboard the Ark and the Dove. They had come at the invitation of the Catholic Lord Baltimore, who had been granted Maryland by the Protestant King Charles I of England. While Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully. This vision was soon codified in Maryland's 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the “Toleration Act”), which was the first law in our nation's history to protect an individual's right to freedom of conscience. Maryland's early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection, or it will disappear. Maryland's experiment in religious toleration ended within a few decades. The colony was placed under royal control, and the Church of England became the established religion. Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted against those who refused to conform. Catholic chapels were closed, and Catholics were restricted to practicing their faith in their homes. The Catholic community lived under these conditions until the American Revolution. By the end of the 18th century, our nation's founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential condition of a free and democratic society. James Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, described conscience as “the most sacred of all property.”6 He wrote that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”7 George Washington wrote that “the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle.”8 Thomas Jefferson assured the Ursuline Sisters—who had been serving a mostly non-Catholic population by running a hospital, an orphanage, and schools in Louisiana since 1727—that the principles of the Constitution were a “sure guarantee” that their ministry would be free “to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.”9 It is therefore fitting that when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the distinction of being the First Amendment. Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty. The First Amendment guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Recently, in a unanimous Supreme Court judgment affirming the importance of that first freedom, the Chief Justice of the United States explained that religious liberty is not just the first freedom for Americans; rather it is the first in the history of democratic freedom, tracing its origins back the first clauses of the Magna Carta of 1215 and beyond. In a telling example, Chief Justice Roberts illustrated our history of religious liberty in light of a Catholic issue decided upon by James Madison, who guided the Bill of Rights through Congress and is known as the architect of the First Amendment: [In 1806] John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, solicited the Executive's opinion on who should be appointed to direct the affairs of the Catholic Church in the territory newly acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. After consulting with President Jefferson, then-Secretary of State James Madison responded that the selection of church “functionaries” was an “entirely ecclesiastical” matter left to the Church's own judgment. The “scrupulous policy of the Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs,” Madison explained, prevented the Government from rendering an opinion on the “selection of ecclesiastical individuals.”10 That is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. It is the first freedom because if we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile. If citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free, and a beacon of hope for the world. Our Christian Teaching During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Americans shone the light of the Gospel on a dark history of slavery, segregation, and racial bigotry. The civil rights movement was an essentially religious movement, a call to awaken consciences, not only an appeal to the Constitution for America to honor its heritage of liberty. In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, “The goal of America is freedom.” As a Christian pastor, he argued that to call America to the full measure of that freedom was the specific contribution Christians are obliged to make. He rooted his legal and constitutional arguments about justice in the long Christian tradition: I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.” Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.11 It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith. It is essential to understand the distinction between conscientious objection and an unjust law. Conscientious objection permits some relief to those who object to a just law for reasons of conscience—conscription being the most well-known example. An unjust law is “no law at all.” It cannot be obeyed, and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal. The Christian church does not ask for special treatment, simply the rights of religious freedom for all citizens. Rev. King also explained that the church is neither the master nor the servant of the state, but its conscience, guide, and critic. As Catholics, we know that our history has shadows too in terms of religious liberty, when we did not extend to others the proper respect for this first freedom. But the teaching of the Church is absolutely clear about religious liberty: The human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs … whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits… . This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right.12 As Catholics, we are obliged to defend the right to religious liberty for ourselves and for others. We are happily joined in this by our fellow Christians and believers of other faiths. A recent letter to President Obama from some sixty religious leaders, including Christians of many denominations and Jews, argued that “it is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include some that are abortifacients.”13 More comprehensively, a theologically rich and politically prudent declaration from Evangelicals and Catholics Together made a powerful case for greater vigilance in defense of religious freedom, precisely as a united witness animated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.14 Their declaration makes it clear that as Christians of various traditions we object to a “naked public square,” stripped of religious arguments and religious believers. We do not seek a “sacred public square” either, which gives special privileges and benefits to religious citizens. Rather, we seek a civil public square, where all citizens can make their contribution to the common good. At our best, we might call this an American public square. The Lord Jesus came to liberate us from the dominion of sin. Political liberties are one part of that liberation, and religious liberty is the first of those liberties. Together with our fellow Christians, joined by our Jewish brethren, and in partnership with Americans of other religious traditions, we affirm that our faith requires us to defend the religious liberty granted us by God, and protected in our Constitution. Martyrs Around the World In this statement, as bishops of the United States, we are addressing ourselves to the situation we find here at home. At the same time, we are sadly aware that religious liberty in many other parts of the world is in much greater peril. Our obligation at home is to defend religious liberty robustly, but we cannot overlook the much graver plight that religious believers, most of them Christian, face around the world. The age of martyrdom has not passed. Assassinations, bombings of churches, torching of orphanages—these are only the most violent attacks Christians have suffered because of their faith in Jesus Christ. More systematic denials of basic human rights are found in the laws of several countries, and also in acts of persecution by adherents of other faiths. If religious liberty is eroded here at home, American defense of religious liberty abroad is less credible. And one common threat, spanning both the international and domestic arenas, is the tendency to reduce the freedom of religion to the mere freedom of worship. Therefore, it is our task to strengthen religious liberty at home, in this and other respects, so that we might defend it more vigorously abroad. To that end, American foreign policy, as well as the vast international network of Catholic agencies, should make the promotion of religious liberty an ongoing and urgent priority. “All the Energies the Catholic Community Can Muster” What we ask is nothing more than that our God-given right to religious liberty be respected. We ask nothing less than that the Constitution and laws of the United States, which recognize that right, be respected. In insisting that our liberties as Americans be respected, we know as bishops that what our Holy Father said is true. This work belongs to “an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture.” As bishops we seek to bring the light of the Gospel to our public life, but the work of politics is properly that of committed and courageous lay Catholics. We exhort them to be both engaged and articulate in insisting that as Catholics and as Americans we do not have to choose between the two. There is an urgent need for the lay faithful, in cooperation with Christians, Jews, and others, to impress upon our elected representatives the importance of continued protection of religious liberty in a free society. We address a particular word to those holding public office. It is your noble task to govern for the common good. It does not serve the common good to treat the good works of religious believers as a threat to our common life; to the contrary, they are essential to its proper functioning. It is also your task to protect and defend those fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. This ought not to be a partisan issue. The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is for all of us, and a great nonpartisan effort should be led by our elected representatives to ensure that it remains so. We recognize that a special responsibility belongs to those Catholics who are responsible for our impressive array of hospitals, clinics, universities, colleges, schools, adoption agencies, overseas development projects, and social service agencies that provide assistance to the poor, the hungry, immigrants, and those faced with crisis pregnancies. You do the work that the Gospel mandates that we do. It is you who may be forced to choose between the good works we do by faith, and fidelity to that faith itself. We encourage you to hold firm, to stand fast, and to insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics and Americans. Our country deserves the best we have to offer, including our resistance to violations of our first freedom. To our priests, especially those who have responsibility for parishes, university chaplaincies, and high schools, we ask for a catechesis on religious liberty suited to the souls in your care. As bishops we can provide guidance to assist you, but the courage and zeal for this task cannot be obtained from another—it must be rooted in your own concern for your flock and nourished by the graces you received at your ordination. Catechesis on religious liberty is not the work of priests alone. The Catholic Church in America is blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom. Finally to our brother bishops, let us exhort each other with fraternal charity to be bold, clear, and insistent in warning against threats to the rights of our people. Let us attempt to be the “conscience of the state,” to use Rev. King's words. In the aftermath of the decision on contraceptive and sterilization mandates, many spoke out forcefully. As one example, the words of one of our most senior brothers, Cardinal Roger Mahony, thirty-five years a bishop and recently retired after twenty-five years as archbishop of Los Angeles, provide a model for us here: “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster.”15 A Fortnight for Freedom In particular, we recommend to our brother bishops that we focus “all the energies the Catholic community can muster” in a special way this coming summer. As pastors of the flock, our privileged task is to lead the Christian faithful in prayer. Both our civil year and liturgical year point us on various occasions to our heritage of freedom. This year, we propose a special “fortnight for freedom,” in which bishops in their own dioceses might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom. Our Catholic institutions also could be encouraged to do the same, especially in cooperation with other Christians, Jews, people of other faiths, and indeed, all who wish to defend our most cherished freedom. We suggest that the fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, be dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country could choose a date in that period for special events that would constitute a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty. In addition to this summer's observance, we also urge that the Solemnity of Christ the King—a feast born out of resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty—be a day specifically employed by bishops and priests to preach about religious liberty, both here and abroad. To all our fellow Catholics, we urge an intensification of your prayers and fasting for a new birth of freedom in our beloved country. We invite you to join us in an urgent prayer for religious liberty. Almighty God, Father of all nations, For freedom you have set us free in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:1). We praise and bless you for the gift of religious liberty, the foundation of human rights, justice, and the common good. Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties; By your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in this blessed land. We ask this through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, our patroness, and in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with whom you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. * Acknowledgements* Excerpts from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, SJ, General Editor, copyright © 1966 by America Press, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19, 2012, copyright © 2012, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. The document Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty, was developed by the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). It was approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2012 meeting as a statement of the Committee and has been authorized for publication by the undersigned. Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, JCD General Secretary, USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty Chairman Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop-designate of Baltimore Bishop Members Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta Most Rev. John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul–Minneapolis Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle Most Rev. John O. Barres, Bishop of Allentown Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, IL Bishop Consultants Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles Most Rev. Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of Stockton Most Rev. Joseph P. McFadden, Bishop of Harrisburg Most Rev. Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend ENDNOTES Cardinal James Gibbons, Address upon taking possession of Santa Maria in Trastevere, March 25, 1887. Benedict XVI, Ad limina address to bishops of the United States, January 19, 2012. Most Rev. William E. Lori, Chairman, USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, Oral Testimony Before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, February 28, 2012. Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile, August 1, 2011. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Statement, January 24, 2012. James Madison, “Property,” March 29, 1792, in The Founding Fathers, eds. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment,” June 20, 1785, in The Founding Fathers, accessed March 27, 2012. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html Michael Novak and Jana Novak, Washington's God, 2006. Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), 678. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. _, 132 S. Ct. 694, 703 (2012). Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963. Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), no. 2, in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966). Letter from Leith Anderson et al. to President Obama, December 21, 2011 (available at www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/To-President-NonCatholics-RelExemptionSigned.pdf). Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “In Defense of Religious Freedom,” First Things, March 2012. Cardinal Roger Mahony, “Federal Government Mandate for Contraceptive/Sterilization Coverage,” Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A. (blog), January 20, 2012, cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com/2012/01/federal-government-mandate-for.html

Summary of today's show: Easter week continues as Scot Landry is joined by Antonio Enrique and Domenico Bettinelli to discuss the headlines of the week, including Pope Benedict's Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi message; the US bishops' latest and forceful statement on religious liberty; Divine Mercy Sunday; 40 Days for Life; the rescinding of an invitation to Vicki Kennedy to a Catholic college commencement. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry Today's guest(s): Antonio Enrique, editor of The Pilot, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, and Domenico Bettinelli, creative director of Pilot New Media Links from today's show: Some of the stories discussed on this show will be available on The Pilot's and The Anchor's websites on Friday morning. Please check those sites for the latest links. Today's topics: Pope Benedict's Urbi et Orbi; US bishops statement on religious liberty; Divine Mercy Sunday; 40 Days for Life; Kennedy commencement address 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed Antonio Enrique and Dom Bettinelli to the show. Scot asked how their Easters are going, noting that we celebrate Easter over eight days. Dom said his kids are continuing to sing the Easter hymns and prayers they hard at the Easter vigil. Antonio said his own parish has an Easter Vigil that lasts all night and his whole family attends. Scot said on Easter Sunday the Holy Father gives an address called Urbi et Obri, meaning “To the City and the World.” Scot read most of the pope's message. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world! “Surrexit Christus, spes mea” – “Christ, my hope, has risen” (Easter Sequence). May the jubilant voice of the Church reach all of you with the words which the ancient hymn puts on the lips of Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the risen Jesus on Easter morning. She ran to the other disciples and breathlessly announced: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18). We too, who have journeyed through the desert of Lent and the sorrowful days of the Passion, today raise the cry of victory: “He has risen! He has truly risen!” Every Christian relives the experience of Mary Magdalene. It involves an encounter which changes our lives: the encounter with a unique Man who lets us experience all God's goodness and truth, who frees us from evil not in a superficial and fleeting way, but sets us free radically, heals us completely and restores our dignity. This is why Mary Magdalene calls Jesus “my hope”: he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil. “Christ my hope” means that all my yearnings for goodness find in him a real possibility of fulfilment: with him I can hope for a life that is good, full and eternal, for God himself has drawn near to us, even sharing our humanity. But Mary Magdalene, like the other disciples, was to see Jesus rejected by the leaders of the people, arrested, scourged, condemned to death and crucified. It must have been unbearable to see Goodness in person subjected to human malice, truth derided by falsehood, mercy abused by vengeance. With Jesus' death, the hope of all those who had put their trust in him seemed doomed. But that faith never completely failed: especially in the heart of the Virgin Mary, Jesus' Mother, its flame burned even in the dark of night. In this world, hope can not avoid confronting the harshness of evil. It is not thwarted by the wall of death alone, but even more by the barbs of envy and pride, falsehood and violence. Jesus passed through this mortal mesh in order to open a path to the kingdom of life. For a moment Jesus seemed vanquished: darkness had invaded the land, the silence of God was complete, hope a seemingly empty word. And lo, on the dawn of the day after the Sabbath, the tomb is found empty. Jesus then shows himself to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to his disciples. Faith is born anew, more alive and strong than ever, now invincible since it is based on a decisive experience: “Death with life contended: combat strangely ended! Life's own champion, slain, now lives to reign”. The signs of the resurrection testify to the victory of life over death, love over hatred, mercy over vengeance: “The tomb the living did enclose, I saw Christ's glory as he rose! The angels there attesting, shroud with grave-clothes resting”. Dear brothers and sisters! If Jesus is risen, then – and only then – has something truly new happened, something that changes the state of humanity and the world. Then he, Jesus, is someone in whom we can put absolute trust; we can put our trust not only in his message but in Jesus himself, for the Risen One does not belong to the past, but is present today, alive. Christ is hope and comfort in a particular way for those Christian communities suffering most for their faith on account of discrimination and persecution. And he is present as a force of hope through his Church, which is close to all human situations of suffering and injustice. May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights. Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community. May the many refugees from that country who are in need of humanitarian assistance find the acceptance and solidarity capable of relieving their dreadful sufferings. May the paschal victory encourage the Iraqi people to spare no effort in pursuing the path of stability and development. In the Holy Land, may Israelis and Palestinians courageously take up anew the peace process. May the Lord, the victor over evil and death, sustain the Christian communities of the African continent; may he grant them hope in facing their difficulties, and make them peacemakers and agents of development in the societies to which they belong. May the risen Jesus comfort the suffering populations of the Horn of Africa and favour their reconciliation; may he help the Great Lakes Region, Sudan and South Sudan, and grant their inhabitants the power of forgiveness. In Mali, now experiencing delicate political developments, may the glorious Christ grant peace and stability. To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of all its citizens. Happy Easter to all! Scot said he notes how present the word ‘hope' is in the messages of Pope Benedict. Dom said this is a time when so many are lacking in hope. He recalled Eric Genuis said on Monday's show that he sees a lack of hope in the 100,000 youth per year he plays for and Pope Benedict is holding up Christ as the single point of hope. In a time of a lack of faith, we see a lack of hope. Pope Benedict is telling us that Christ is present to us today, He is alive today. Scot said the most important fact in the Christianity is that Christ is alive and rose from the dead. Antonio said as important is that he left us the Holy Spirit. The Resurrection is a fact that carries on in history and helps people to have change in their lives. Antonio recalled a Russian story during the Communist re-education of Orthodox Christians to convince them of atheism. The Risen Christ brought hope to them and it brings hope to us today. Antonio said Pope John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae that no matter how hard things become, we know how the story ends: Christ is victorious. Scot said at Easter what stands out to him is the joy of Alleluia as part of the season and how quickly we can leave the spirit of Alleluia when we return to our normal daily lives. Easter is an octave to allow it to take root in our daily lives. Dom said the joy of Easter could be hard to sustain so what do we do to keep Easter alive in us. Easter is also a season of 50 days until Pentecost. We can pray the prayers of Easter, remembering to say Alleluia, to wish a happy Easter to others. Returning to hope, this hope is not a passive hope. “In this world, hope cannot avoid confronting evil.” Hope brings Christ to the world. It doesn't simply wait for something good to us. That's a way of keeping joy alive. Scot said the Octave concludes with Divine Mercy Sunday. always the second Sunday of Easter since 2000. Jesus died for reconciliation for all of us. There are several articles in the Pilot and Anchor on Divine Mercy, particularly on the may people who need to be reconciled to God and we need to reach out to them. Antonio said if your life is transformed in Christ, then you can have joy despite problems and bring that joy to others. Divine Mercy Sunday fits perfectly within Easter. Once we've experienced the joy of the Resurrection, then we can go out and share the joy of Easter with others and ask them to come back. Scot said a week ago last Monday, we had Fr. Kaz and Mary Kay Volpone from the Divine Mercy Shrine in Stockbridge on the program, giving a background on the message and Divine Mercy Sunday. It's a message and devotion that most Catholics are still hearing about. It isn't totally ingrained in the Church. It often happens with new devotions in the Church. Pope John Paul II put this devotion forward, he took his last breath on the vigil of Divine Mercy, and was beatified last year on Divine Mercy Sunday. Dom noted the beauty of the diversity of devotions within the Church. There seems to be something for everyone and every temperament to find a way to God through the Church. Dom noted in the Anchor article a quotation from Robert Allard of the Apostles of Divine Mercy: “If we are truly Apostles of Divine Mercy, then we need to get really serious about helping Jesus to save sinners and to ease the Lord's sadness,” Allard said. “We need to stop focusing our energy on what can he viewed as ‘parties for devotees' at 3 p.m. in the afternoon and focus more on saving poor sinners.” The devotion shouldn't be just for the devotees, the same people in the parish showing up for the service and then going home. We're not saying that the prayer services are bad, but if they're not coupled with action, there won't be fruit from it. Not that there isn't a place for contemplative prayer life, but if you can we must couple prayer with bringing the message to people. God loves you, God forgives your sins, mercy is available. God isn't just a judge sitting on a throne waiting to throw the book at you. He wants to jump off the throne and run to embrace you like the prodigal son. Scot said a central message of Divine Mercy is that the Church is meant to be a refuge for sinners, not a museum for saints. What is being said is that members of the Divine Mercy apostolate must focus outward ,not inward. We must look for the one sheep that isn't part of the 99 or the 75 not joined to the 25. He suggested people learn more. 2nd segment: On page two of the Pilot this week, we see that Fr. Gerry Dorgan of St. Mary of the Annunciation Parish in Danvers has been granted Senior Priest/retirement status by Cardinal Sean effective June 5, 2012. Fr. Dorgan was on our program a few months ago. Fr. Dorgan was Fr. Mark O'Connell's first pastor out of the seminary. Dom said he remembers from the show Fr. Dorgan's devotion to art history and how he incorporated it in pastoral ministry. It's impressive how he used his talents and interests in parish service. Scot said Fr. Dorgan's been a priest for about 50 years and noted that many legendary priests will be retiring in the coming year. Scot then noted another article in the Anchor about the 40 Days for Life campaign in the Diocese of Fall River. He noted that the Archdiocese hasn't embraced it officially because of the difficulty of the John Salvi murders an the complications it presents. Antonio said this campaign has been effective in changing hearts and minds since it started in 2004. That these warriors for life can bring attention to this issue is welcome. Antonio noted that the 40 Days for Life did take place in Lynn and Haverhill, even though officially sponsored by the Archdiocese. Scot said this apostolate started at a college campus ministry at College Station, Texas, at Texas A&M. Some young people wanted to take concert action. Dom said it's inspiring to see how many young people take part in the pro-life movement. He recalled at Franciscan University of Steubenville about 20 years ago that some of his classmates organized a walk across America , stopping along the way to witness to life and it's ongoing. It's an opportunity for young people to put their faith into action. Dom explained that 40 Days for Life is that during Lent there is someone standing outside a clinic every day from morning to evening, praying for everyone there, talking to to those who would work. And there is great fruit from it: conversions of clinic workers, clinics that close, and women who decide to keep their babies. Also in the Anchor is that Ana Maria College near Worcester, Mass., rescinded an invitation to Vickie Kennedy to be commencement speaker. In the article, Bishop McManus of Worcester said: ‘“My difficulty is not primarily with Mrs. Kennedy:' Bishop McManus told The Catholic Free Press, newspaper of the Worcester Diocese. “My difficulty is with the college choosing her to he honored by allowing her to be commencement speaker and giving her an honorary degree. “My concern basically was that to give this type of honor to Mrs. Kennedy would in fact undercut the Catholic identity and mission of the school.” he said. “And that in so far as that that happens, the ‘communio' (communion) or the unity that exists between the local Church and the local Catholic college is strained and hurt.” Scot said McManus was concerned that it would give the impression that someone could hold positions contrary to the Church's teachings and still be honored by a Catholic institution. Scot said McManus thought he was doing his job as bishop and wasn't trying to be harsh toward Vickie Kennedy. Dom said this is right in line with the US bishops' 2004 statement Faithful Citizenship, where they said people who hold views contrary to Catholic doctrine on impotent moral issues should not be given platforms or honors at Catholic institutions. The bishop doesn't want to give the impression that it's okay to oppose the Church's moral teachings as a Catholic. We don't want to tell these graduates that we don't take our own teachings seriously. Bishop McManus wasn't being strident. He only said he couldn't attend the graduation and it was the school's decision to rescind. Scot said as a Catholic college they said they value the bishops' role. Scot compared it to what happened at Notre Dame where then-Bishop D'Arcy said he couldn't attend a graduation where President Obama was going to receive an honorary doctorate. Notre Dame decided to go ahead anyway. Antonio said we're going to find this more and more in the Church as society moves away from critical values. The Church has a prophetic role and the bishop has to be able to star we can't condone an event like that. He describe a way of thought called proportionalism, in which people say they will believe differently in their personal lives. He said the Church needs to clarify that the Church teaches one thing and some issues are not negotiable. Scot said this issues can be controversial because not every bishop applies the standard in the same way in his own diocese, and interprets what positions go beyond the limits to say the person doesn't deserve the honors or platform. Another local story is that the seniors at Fontbonne Academy had their annual social justice fair. The students take on projects related to the topic of social justice. Antonio said he was struck by the part of the story about Chinese exchange students talking about being survivors of China's one-child policy, being given up by their mothers to relatives so they could live. Antonio was struck by the sadness in the girl who said her mother had to act like she hadn't been born. He also said sometimes there is distinction made between social justice and pro-life issues as if they were different. He's glad that wasn't the case here. 3rd segment: This week's benefactor card raffle winner is Therese Willette-Rudolph of Saugus, MA She wins by St. Faustina Kowalska. If you would like to be eligible to win in an upcoming week, please visit . For a one-time $30 donation, you'll receive the Station of the Cross benefactor card and key tag, making you eligible for WQOM's weekly raffle of books, DVDs, CDs and religious items. We'll be announcing the winner each Wednesday during “The Good Catholic Life” program. 4th segment: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops today issued a major new statement on the topic of religious liberty. It begins: We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land. That is the vision of our founding and our Constitution, which guarantees citizens of all religious faiths the right to contribute to our common life together. Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations. In 1887, when the archbishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, was made the second American cardinal, he defended the American heritage of religious liberty during his visit to Rome to receive the red hat. Speaking of the great progress the Catholic Church had made in the United States, he attributed it to the “civil liberty we enjoy in our enlightened republic.” Indeed, he made a bolder claim, namely that “in the genial atmosphere of liberty [the Church] blossoms like a rose.”1 From well before Cardinal Gibbons, Catholics in America have been advocates for religious liberty, and the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today. We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such a time. As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad. Scot said the statement goes on to provide lots of concrete examples of where religious liberty is under attack in this country, like the HHS mandate. It then describes how religious liberty is more than just freedom of worship in our churches and homes, but freedom to live faith in public. It describes how religious liberty is the most cherished freedom in the eyes of our founding fathers and should continue to be. It describes our Christian teaching on religious liberty and how it is in jeopardy across the world. It then desrcibes all the actions the Catholic community can muster: What we ask is nothing more than that our God-given right to religious liberty be respected. We ask nothing less than that the Constitution and laws of the United States, which recognize that right, be respected. They then announced a “fortnight for freedom” that recommends we “that we focus “all the energies the Catholic community can muster” in a special way this coming summer. As pastors of the flock, our privileged task is to lead the Christian faithful in prayer.” It would be 14 days from June 21 to July 4 and they ask everyone to pray this prayer: Almighty God, Father of all nations, For freedom you have set us free in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:1). We praise and bless you for the gift of religious liberty, the foundation of human rights, justice, and the common good. Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties; By your grace may we have the courage to defend them, for ourselves and for all those who live in this blessed land. We ask this through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, our patroness, and in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with whom you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Scot said this statement has been anticipated after the US bishops formed this committee last year for this purpose. This document creates the framework by which we will defend our rights. Dom said our liberties have been attack for many years. It should also concern those beyond our borders. The US has been a leader in the fight for freedom in the world, as a beacon of freedom and hope. If that freedom erodes here in this country, how will that light be extinguished elsewhere. And when we lose this freedom, what freedom will we lose next? What other rights will they decide we don't need? Scot said the document's objective seems to inform the broader community about what we stand for, what is the history of religious liberty in this country, and then the real call to action through prayer in the fortnight for freedom. Antonio said it's not just the bishops who must act, but all of us. Jesus said we are the salt of the earth and we are obligated to influence others and to speak up. We have an obligation to follow the government, but not when it contradicts the will of God. He also noted that contrary to the French revolution which said rights came from the state, in the United States our Declaration of Independence declares our rights as inalienable and descending from God. We are going through a fundamental change in this country. In Europe, the government can decide how people can use or lose their rights. This is a key moment in how we understand our rights within our society. Scot said the bishops are clear that religious heritage in our country appreciates religious freedom for all, whatever their faith and that we should be able to live our belief systems in the public square and not have those beliefs be seen as contradictory to our American citizenship. the bishops are saying it's un-american to say we can't live our faith in the public square. Dom said he hopes that other faiths join in this fortnight for freedom because this applies to all of them. Scot said the bishops make that very point. This year, we propose a special “fortnight for freedom,” in which bishops in their own dioceses might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom. Our Catholic institutions also could be encouraged to do the same, especially in cooperation with other Christians, Jews, people of other faiths, and indeed, all who wish to defend our most cherished freedom.