Podcasts about first century

They Boldly Spoke the Word of God Acts 4 by William Klock Chapter and verse breaks in the Bible are not part of the original text.  Chapter breaks were added about eight hundred years ago and verses about five hundred.  There's an old biblical studies urban legend that Robert Estienne, the French printer who published one of the early New Testaments with verse division, marked them out while riding on horseback from Paris to Lyon, explaining the often frustrating way they cut through thoughts and sentences.  Chapter breaks can be just as annoying.  I say this because last week we left off our study of Acts at the end of Chapter 3, but the end of Chapter 3 isn't where this story ends.  You'll remember that this story about Peter and John and the lame man followed right on the heels of Pentecost.  Peter and John were on their way to the temple to pray when they met a lame man begging at the temple gate.  “Silver and gold have I none,” said Peter, “but such as I have I give.  In the name of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk!”  And he lifted up the man the man began to jump up and down and to praise God.  And as everyone began to gather around, Peter began to preach.  He reminded them of their own story, of God's promises going all the way back to Abraham, and how all those promises were fulfilled and how the story was brought to its climax in the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus. I won't repeat everything I said last Sunday, but needless to say—and even if you aren't familiar with the story—you probably knew that trouble was coming.  But that pesky chapter break.  It saved you from an hour-long sermon, but it also cut the story in half.  So we'll pick up after the break, with Chapter 4, now.  [It's page 1083 in the pew Bibles.] Luke continues: “As they were speaking to the people, along came the priests, the chief of the temple guard, and the Sadducees.  They were greatly annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming that the resurrection of the dead had begun to happen in Jesus.  They seized them and put them under guard until the next day, since it was already evening.  But a large number of the people who had heard the message believed it and the number of men grew to five thousand.” The idea of the resurrection of the dead was a big deal for the Jews and you'd think that announcing that it had somehow begun in Jesus would be good news.  And obviously it was for the thousands who believed.  Not so much for the Sadducees.  They were sad, you see, because they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead.  Okay, not really.  Their name goes back to Zadok, the high priest in the days of David and Solomon.  That name, Zadok, is also related to the Hebrew word for righteousness.  So the Sadducees thought of themselves not only as the sons of Zadok, but also as the righteous ones.  And in the First Century, they controlled the priesthood.  They were aristocratic and they were in power and people like that don't usually like revolutionary ideas, and if there was there was a great revolutionary idea alive in Judah, it was the idea of the resurrection of the dead.  Resurrection means that things are broken and that God will, one day, come to set things to rights—and that implied that the Sadducees were part of the problem needing to be set right.  So they're upset at Peter's preaching.  The Pharisees didn't like this talk either.  As far as they—and everyone else who hoped for resurrection—were concerned, all God's people would be raised from the dead at the end of the age.  The idea that Jesus was raised all by himself was like heresy.  And, of course, if Jesus had been raised, it meant he was the Messiah and they refused to accept that idea.  So no matter how many eyewitnesses there were to the risen Jesus, it had never happened, so far as they were concerned. But back to the Sadducees.  They controlled the priesthood and the priests were the gatekeepers of Israel.  And this talk about Jesus as Messiah and his being resurrected, which means he'd initiated the age to come already, that was the sort of talk that might spark a revolution.  And, of course, a revolution was what was already happening as the gospel and the Spirit were beginning to do their work.  But just as they hadn't recognised it in Jesus, the leaders of Israel refuse to recognise it now and they have Peter and John locked up for the night.  Even still, Luke goes to the trouble to make the point that thousands believed anyway.  The gospel cannot and will not be stopped! Verse 5: “On the next day their rulers, the elders, and the scribes gathered in Jerusalem, along with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high-priestly family.  When they'd stood them in the midst, they asked, ‘How did you do this?  What power did you use?  What name did you invoke?'  Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit.  ‘Rulers of the people and elders,' he said, ‘if the question we're being asked today is about a good deed done for a sick man, and whose power it was that rescued him, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that this man stands before you fit and well because of the name of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead.  He is the stone which you builders rejected, but which has become the head cornerstone.  Rescue won't come from anyone else.  There is no other name given under heaven and among men by which we must be rescued.'” Do you remember that scene in Luke 11 where Jesus is confronted after casting out a demon?  “You can only cast them out, because you're one of them,” they accused him.  The same thing is happening again.  I think Luke wants to highlight that what's happening here might be an “act” happening through the apostles, but it's still ultimately Jesus acting.  Or the Spirit, which amounts to the same thing.  Luke makes a point of saying that Peter was full of the Spirit when he answered the accusation.  So just like Jesus, when the council asks them in whose name they healed the lame man, not only is Peter bold to announce that it's Jesus of Nazareth, they boldly assert that he is the Messiah—the one they crucified, but whom God raised from the dead.  So Peter is reasserting everything: It's Jesus.  Yes the one they crucified.  And this isn't just about a lame man walking again, this is about the resurrection of the dead.  It's about the fact that Jesus is Lord and that the revolution has begun.  The age to come, new creation, the kingdom of God is here.  In fact, they quote Psalm 118 at the council to explain it all.  Psalm 118 is a psalm of the temple.  It's about people going up to the temple to celebrate God's new day to claim his rescue, his salvation.  It's a psalm about God's life-giving power and it's about God bringing his people through trouble and rescuing them from danger. It's a psalm about trusting in God's mercy and it's a psalm about God's victory over the powers of the world.  “It is better trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man…than to put confidence in princes,” says the Psalmist (vv. 8-9). So they're saying, “It's Jesus.  He really is the Messiah and he really has inaugurated God's new age.  But then it's like they're deliberately poking a stick in these folks' eye.  The Sadducees (and the Pharisees, too, and most people) were all about the temple.  It was the embodiment of Israel's hopes for God's rescue and for the fulfilment of his promises to one day come again to dwell with his people.  And so this whole episode started with a man who'd been sitting in the temple gate for years, hoping for a rescue, yet never healed, and now suddenly healed by Peter and John—in the power of Jesus.  So that's the first thing.  It says that God has, in fact, returned to dwell with is people, but instead of being in the holy of holies, he's indwelling the disciples of Jesus.  And then, in case they hadn't made the connection, Peter, inspired by the Spirit, quotes Psalm 118 at them.  Yes, the hope of God's return is happening—in Jesus.  Yes, God is now present in his temple—but that temple isn't made of stone, it's these Jesus people.  And yes, God has come to rescue us just as he promised, to set this broken world to rights, to wipe away the tears—through Jesus.  And at the same time, it would be hard for the council to miss the hint that the mortal princes, the people from whom God's people need to be rescued are not the pagan nations, but the Sadducees and elders and scribes who are rejecting Jesus.  (Yes, the pagan nations, too, but first, God's got to deal with the corrupt leaders of his own people.) It's the same thing Peter has been preaching, first on Pentecost, then to the crowd who gathered around the lame man when they saw him jumping up and down.  Every time, Peter grounds God's salvation in Jesus as the fulfilment of his promises and of Israel's story.  Every time, it's the announcement that Jesus is Lord; that he's come to rescue his people; and every time, it's a call to repentance and faith.  This sort of situational astuteness and gospel boldness is what it looks like to be full of God's Spirit.  And the council recognised this, even if they didn't want to admit what (or who) it was.  Verse 13: “When they saw how boldly Peter and John were speaking and realised that they were untrained, ordinary men, they were astonished and they recognised them as men who had been with Jesus.  And when they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply.  They ordered them to be put out of the assembly while they conferred amongst themselves.  ‘What can we do to these men?' they said.  ‘This is a spectacular sign that has happened through them.  All Jerusalem knows it, and we can't deny it.  But we certainly don't want it to spread any further amongst the people.  So let's threaten them with awful consequences if they speak anymore in this name to anyone.'  So they called them in and gave them orders not to speak at all or to teach in the name of Jesus.” It's comical and I think that's what Luke intended.  It's like they've completely missed the significance of what Peter and John have seen.  They've seen Jesus risen from the grave.  They saw him ascend to his throne.  They heard everything he said.  They saw everything he did.  And now they're doing the same sorts of things themselves in his name.  They know, without a doubt, that in Jesus God has come, that Jesus is Lord, that the kingdom is now, and that the days of the principalities and powers, the old temple, and its priests are numbered.  Peter and John know which is the winning side…without a doubt.  Threatening them isn't going to change that. Brothers and Sisters, we really need to think on that.  Don't just read Acts and let it go in one ear and out the other.  Stick a finger in one ear if you have to, but let this sink in.  Because you and I have just as much reason to be as confident as Peter and John.  No, we aren't eyewitnesses to the resurrection or the ascension, but we have every reason to believe the accounts of them.  Someone a while ago asked me about difficulties with the creation accounts in Genesis and with the history of the Exodus.  There are difficulties in the Bible.  There are hard philosophical questions for which I haven't yet found the perfect answer.  But I do know that Jesus rose from the dead.  I've heard all the arguments against it.  And they don't hold up.  I don't want to get into those details here, because that's not what our text today is about.  My point is simply that we have every reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and just like St. Paul, confronted by that inescapable reality, we have to accept that Jesus is the Messiah and that the rest of it all is true—even we have to wait til the New Jerusalem to understand the ins and outs of exactly how some of it is true.  It's true.  As Matt reminded us last week: Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  And not only do those three facts change everything, they ought to give us confidence and boldness to proclaim the good news that Jesus is Lord, that God has come to our rescue, and that his kingdom is now.  I'm not terribly concerned, for example, about Bill C-9.  But even if I were, I'm not going to let it stop me proclaiming the good news.  Because Jesus is King and in him the resurrection of the dead has begun.  And that truth ought to be as revolutionary for us as it was for Peter and John and the King and his Parliament and his Prime Minister ought to be just as afraid of this resurrection revolution as the Sadducees, the elders, and the scribes were. So Luke goes on in verse 19: “But Peter and John gave them this reply: ‘You judge,' they said, ‘whether it's right before God to listen to you rather than to God.  As far as we're concerned, we can't stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.'  Then they [the council] threatened them some more, and let them go.  They couldn't find any way to punish them because of the people, since everyone was glorifying God for what had happened.  After all, the man to whom the sign of healing had happened was over forty years old. Brothers and Sisters, don't stop talking about what you have seen and heard.  Peter and John were witnesses to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  You know what you're a witness to?  You're witness to the transforming power of those events.  Somehow most Christians seem totally unaware of this witness.  Maybe it's because we're so oblivious to our own history.  Maybe we need to read up on history so that we'll be aware of the power of the gospel.  The very thing that Peter and John looked forward to is now—at least partially—in our past.  Luke says there were five thousand believers in those days just after Pentecost.  Brothers and Sisters, today there are 2.6 billion.  They lived in a world in which no one outside Judaea had ever heard of Jesus.  We live in a world where Jesus is known the world over.  They lived in a little Jewish pocket surrounded by pagan nations so mired in moral filth it's hard for us to image the depth of depravity, because even as bad as might think the world is today, it has been so dramatically transformed by the gospel.  Our world, even the secular parts of it, value things like mercy and compassion, because of the transforming power of the gospel.  Brothers and Sisters, we live in a world that has been radically transformed by the power of the gospel.  If Peter and John had reason to be confident, you and I have even more. But notice, too, what they do when faced with opposition.  Verse 23: “When they had been released, they went back to their own people and told them everything that the chief priests and the elders had said.  When they heard it, they all together lifted up their voices to God.  ‘Sovereign Lord,' they said, ‘you made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them.  And you said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David, your servant, “Why did the nations fly into a rage, and why did the peoples think empty thoughts?  The kings of the earth arose and rulers gathered themselves together against the Lord and against his anointed Messiah.” It's true, Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the nations and the peoples of Israel, gathered themselves together in this very city against your holy servant Jesus, the one you anointed, to do whatever your hands and your plan had foreordained to take place.  So now, Lord, look on their threats and grant that we, your servants, may speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand for healing, so that signs and wonders may come about through the name of your holy servant Jesus.'” It would do us well—and it would do the kingdom well—if we responded to opposition the way the disciples did.  We need to pray more and fret less.  There is a battle raging in the world.  Jesus has won the decisive victory, but that doesn't mean that the powers of this old age aren't trying to maintain their grip.  They're like the bad guys in the movies, hanging on to the edge of the cliff with their fingers—doomed, but unwilling to give up.  To pray is to stomp on their fingers and to send them falling.  Pray.  Pray the psalms.  Pray Psalm 2 the way they do here.  This was Israel's prayer, but Jesus and the events surrounding those first Christians reoriented it.  They cry out with the Psalmist: Why do the nations rage?  Why do the peoples think with empty thoughts? The kings of the earth have huddled together against the Lord.  Except this time Israel herself had become one of the nations, her priests huddled together with Pontius Pilate.  They'd crucified Jesus.  And yet the disciples, in their prayer, also acknowledge that God is sovereign.  Remember that for Jews to quote a line from a Psalm was to call to mind the whole thing.  And in Psalm 2, yes the nations raged and their kings gathered together against his anointed, but then—do you remember Psalm 2?—God laughs at them, because they're fools.  And God establishes his king on Mount Zion.  The once raging nations become his inheritance.  And Peter and John and the rest knew that in Jesus this psalm was being fulfilled.  The Psalm concludes addressing those kings, “Now therefore, O Kings, be wise” and just so the disciples pray, “Now therefore, Lord, look on their threats and grant that we, your servants, may speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand for healing, so that signs and wonders may come about through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”  Brothers and Sisters, pray the Spirit-inspired scriptures back to God and things will happen.  Luke writes in verse 31: “When they had prayed the place where they were gathered was shaken.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they boldly spoke the word of God.” We should learn this prayer.  When the principalities and powers of the old age push back, pray this prayer.  When the local council or the legislature or Parliament or the King or the courts push back, pray this prayer.  When the gospel gets you in trouble with your family or at school or in your work, pray this prayer.  When you become discouraged, if you're struggling to keep the faith, if you're wrestling with sin, if you feel cornered by the world, the flesh, and the devil, pray this prayer.  Remember that you are a witness to the power of the gospel in the world.  And pray this prayer. And immediately Luke shows us the church—not just boldly proclaiming the good news—but also living it out as a community.  Luke shows us the church as the working model of God's new creation in the midst of the old.  Luke shows us the church being the new temple: the place of God's presence and the fulfilment of his promises of abundance and generosity.  Look at verses 32-37.  I was tempted to save these for next week as they lead us into Chapter 5.  I actually think they could warrant their own sermon.  But look at them now: “The company of those who believed had one heart and one soul.”  Remember Paul telling the Philippians to “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Messiah Jesus”?  Be of one Jesus-like mind.  That plays out in all sorts of ways and Luke shows us one here: “Nobody said that they owned their property; instead they had everything in common.  The apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power and great grace was upon all of them.  For there was no needy person among them, since any who possessed lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sale, and placed it at the feet of the apostles, who then gave to each according to their need.  Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, to whom the apostles gave the surname Barnabas, which means ‘son of encouragement', sold some land which belonged to him, brought the money, and laid it at the apostle's feet.” As I said a few weeks ago when we looked at Chapter 2, this doesn't mean they became a bunch of proto-Marxists.  Luke's point is that they became a family that live out the generosity and abundance of God's new creation.  We know from what we read later, that they had their own homes in which to meet.  And the focus of their charity was on the truly indigent, especially widows—on people notably with no family to take care of them.  And Paul will warn in his own letters that the able-bodied should get jobs instead of mooching off the community.  Again, the point here is that they very visible became the community in which torah itself was being fulfilled.  They've become the land of overflowing with milk and honey.  They've become the people who truly love their neighbours.  They've become the new temple in which God has returned to dwell with his people.  And they're doing and being this community right in Jerusalem: showing up the old Israel, exposing the priest and the council, showing that the old temple and its sacrifices are done.  God has fulfilled his promises and he's done so in Jesus and in the people who gathered around him in faith. And, Brothers and Sisters, we ought to be the same sort of new creation, heaven-on-earth community here.  As in Peter and John's day, the powers that be will tell us to go away and concentrate on heaven while they run the earth.  They'll warn us not to shove our religion down anyone's throat, while they, of course, will do their best to shove their materialism, their commercialism, their hedonism down our throats.  They'll get frustrated with us when we refuse to worship in their temples to money and power and sex and politics and war.  And when that happens, Brothers and Sisters, pray.  And remember that Jesus has died, Jesus has risen, and that Jesus will come again.  Be shaped by that story.  Be confident, knowing that God has and is and will fulfil his promises.  Be bold knowing that the gospel has power and that we live in a world transformed by that power, even if everyone ignores it or denies it.  Pray.  Remember.  Be bold.  And then remember that we are the family of the Messiah, marked out by his powerful name in our baptism and that in those baptismal waters, he's plunged us in to his Spirit.  He has made us new and we're not the family meant be and to bring and to live out his new creation, to live out heaven on earth in anticipation of the day when Jesus finally sets it all to rights.  We are the family that refuses to stop singing his praises and proclaiming his glory.  That's what we were created to do in the first place.  That's what Jesus has rescued us to do right now.  And it's what all creation will one day, by his grace, do again. Let's pray: O Lord, hear us in your mercy, we pray, and grant that we, to whom you have given the desire to pray, may be defended and comforted by your mighty aid, and strengthened in all dangers and adversities, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Many Messianic people are of the conviction that today's Messianic movement is a great deal like the First Century ekklesia. Was it actually a stable faith community, or one riddled with problems and challenges

(5) James Tabor describes Mount Zion in Jerusalem as the world headquarters of the early movement. Archaeological evidence suggests the "Upper Room" sits atop a first-century foundation of a house-synagogue. In this space, Maryserved as a matriarch and hostess, greeting early pilgrims and figures like the Apostle Paul. This segment portrays a vibrant Jerusalem-based community where the "genius" of the early church thrived. Tabor envisions the household dynamics on Mount Zion, where Mary remained a central figure of authority, hospitality, and memory following the death of her son.1787 Death of Socraates

(7) James Tabor explores the Talpiot Tomb, a first-century family tomb discovered in 1980 containing ossuaries inscribed with names like "Jesus son of Joseph," "Maria," and "Yose" (a rare nickname for Jesus' brother). Tabor argues the specific cluster of names strongly points to the Jesus family. He also discusses the "James Ossuary" as potential physical evidence of the family's existence. Tabor maintains that finding these remains does not negate the spiritual resurrection preached by Paul but rather confirms the historical reality of Jesus' immediate biological family.

When the Day of Pentecost was Fulfilled Acts 2 by William Klock Luke opens the second chapter of Acts writing, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place.”  [Page 1081 in the pew Bibles].  “When the day of Pentecost had come—or some translations say arrived.  The old King James is better: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come.”  Or it might be even better to say, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled.”  The Greek word can mean come or arrive, but it has a powerful sense of filling and fulfilment and I think that's particularly important here.  First, this is the day that the church was filled full of God's presence and truly became his living temple, but second, it was also the day when the promises of God contained within this ancient festival were finally fulfilled.  It's about the fulfilment of God's promises to his people. You see, Pentecost was one of the great festivals God told his people to observe when he gave them the torah.  It was a harvest festival, when the people would bring the firstfruits of their grain harvest as offerings to the Lord.  But it was also a commemoration of the giving of torah.  The Passover marked Israel's deliverance from her slavery in Egypt and then fifty days later, Israel met the Lord at Mt. Sinai.  There he gave her his law and established his covenant with her.  You could say that Pentecost was the day that marked Israel's formal creation as a nation—when the Lord had said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”  And every year, for over a thousand years, the people took their grain offerings to the temple in Jerusalem, laid them before the Lord, and remembered who he was and who they were and they recalled his promises, while looking forward in hope to the day those promises would be fulfilled.  So when Luke writes, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled,” we should hear something powerful in that.  Just as Jesus fulfilled the Passover once and for all in his death and resurrection, God is going to fulfil the ancient festival of Pentecost once and for all. Brothers and Sisters, this is important, because ever since John Wesley, there's been a powerful tendency to see Pentecost more as a stage of personal spiritual growth than as the once-and-for-all fulfilment of God's promise happening within the great story of God and his people.  A hundred and twenty-five years ago, a group of Christians in Los Angeles had an unusual spiritual experience that needed an explanation.  They explained it as an end-times renewal of “Pentecost” and the Pentecostal movement was born—a movement that taught—and in most places still today—teaches that while every Christian ought to experience Pentecost and be baptised into the Holy Spirit, it's a second event, a second blessing that follows a person's conversion and that many never receive—and those who never received it include virtually every believer between the First Century church and the birth of the Pentecostal movement in 1901.  This highlights the danger of interpreting scripture in light of our experiences.  Instead, we need to let the scriptures do the talking and understand our experiences in light of them. Because just as every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of the Passover, just so every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is also a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of Pentecost.  The church—the whole church, not just some part of it that began 125 years ago—is pentecostal.   It takes a lifetime to learn to live into both of these realities, but to separate them or to say, as some have, that you have to earn baptism in the Spirit through the process of sanctification is to horribly misunderstand the scriptures and the story they tell.  I have more to say about that, but let's get straight into that story as Luke tells it and, especially, as Peter will explain it.  So, again, this is Acts 2: “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they [that's the disciples] were all together in the same place. [Probably, the upper room where they had eaten the Last Supper.]  Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then tongues, seemingly made of fire, appeared to them, moving apart and coming to rest on each one of them.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other language as the Spirit gave them words to say.” This is the fulfilment of God's promises to come and dwell with his people.  After generations upon generations, millennia upon millennia of sin separating humanity from God, this is God's homecoming.  Jesus' death as a perfect sacrifice for sin washed his people clean, it purified them.  It made them fit and prepared them to be God's temple—the holy place where he will dwell.  And now he's sent his Spirit to take up his dwelling in this new temple. It's also a moment of covenant renewal—again, fulfilling God's promises to Israel.  That's why the imagery of Passover and Sinai are so important here.  In his ascension, Jesus is like Moses going up the mountain and at Passover, like Moses returning with the law and God establishing a covenant with his people, this time God sends down his Spirit to establish a new covenant with this renewed Israel.  And this time it's not an external law carved on stone tablets, but God's own Spirit indwelling, renewing, regenerating and writing his law of love on their very hearts.  Hearts of stone made hearts of flesh. And this fulfilment of God's promises, this covenant renewal, this new temple are all part of the answer to Jesus' prayer that it may be on earth as it is in heaven.  In his ascension, Jesus took a bit of earth—our humanity—to heaven, and on Pentecost he sent to earth, to dwell with us, the Spirit—a bit of heaven.  And that Spirit sent by Jesus, the new Adam, breathes the life of God into the new humanity.  Brothers and Sisters, between the Old Testament imagery that God draws on in doing this amazing thing and the careful choice of words Luke uses to describe it, we ought to see a powerful image here of new creation. And new creation doesn't exist simply for our sake.  New creation began with Jesus and now it's come to his people, but it's not meant to stay with them.  When he ascended, Jesus told his disciples that they would carry this good news throughout Judea and Samaria and eventually to the whole earth.  Once empowered by his Spirit, their mission would be, not only to live out this new creation, but to go out with the announcement that Jesus is Lord and that world belongs to him.  And right here we get a sense of that dominion as these one-hundred-twenty disciples begin to unexpectedly speak in other languages.  Why?  Look at verse 5: “There were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem at that time.  When they heard this noise they came together in a crowd.  They were deeply puzzled, because every single one of them could hear them speaking in his own native language.  They were astonished and amazed.” Thanks to the Exile, Jews were spread out across the known world, but Pentecost was one of those feasts where everyone returned to Jerusalem.  So there's an international crowd in the city and this work of the Spirit gets their attention.  Luke goes on in verse 7: “These men who are doing the speaking are all Galileans, aren't they,” they said.  “So how is it that each of us can hear them in our own mother tongues?  There are Parthians here, and Medes, Elamites, and people who live in Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia…[The international list is a long one.  Jews and proselytes (converts), from the known world.]…We can hear them telling us about the mighty works of God—in our own languages!” Notice about this gift of tongues: It was a gift of known languages.  The speech was intelligible.  And it wasn't for any kind of spiritual benefit of the speakers.  This was a miracle—a first work of the Spirit—to announce what God was accomplishing (or fulfilling!) through Jesus and the Spirit and through this renewed Israel—what we call “the church”.  And Luke says they were all “astonished and perplexed.”  “What does it all mean?” they were asking each other.  But some sneered.  “They're full of new wine,” they said.  Then Peter got up, with the eleven. He spoke to them in a loud voice.” None of the disciples was expecting this.  They were expecting something.  Jesus had told them to go back to Jerusalem and to wait.  So they did.  They waited and they prayed.  Like I said last week, these were men steeped in the scriptures.  Combine that with patience and prayer and understanding will come.  And despite not expecting this exact situation, Peter immediately understands what's going on through the lens of the scriptures, of Israel's story, and of God's promises.  And so—verse 14—Peter says to them, “Men of Judaea!  All of you staying here in Jerusalem! There's something you have to know.  Listen to what I'm saying.  These people aren't drunk, as you imagine.  It's only nine o'clock in the morning!  No, this is what the prophet Joel was talking about when he said, ‘In the last days, declares God, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams; Yes, even on slaves, men and women alike, will I pour out my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.  And I will give signs in the heavens above, and portents on earth beneath, blood and fire and clouds of smoke.  The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and glorious day.  And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Joel's prophecy was a prophecy of covenant renewal.  Back at the beginning—sort of the first Pentecost, if it helps to think of it that way—before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reiterated the covenant to the people.  If they would be the holy people the Lord had set them apart to be, if they would keep his law, if they would give him their allegiance and not worship other gods, he would dwell with them and bless them in the land.  But if they refused to do these things, he would curse them and eventually exile them—because an unholy people cannot live in God's presence.  And, of course, exile is precisely what happened.  And even when the people of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon, even after they'd rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, it still felt an awful like the exile wasn't really over.  Judah was ruled by pagan gentiles.  The Lord's presence had never returned to the temple.  And so they hoped in the promises the Lord had made to one day renew his covenant.  Through Isaiah, through Ezekiel, through Jeremiah, through Joel the Lord had promised.  He would not let his people languish in exile forever.  One day he would come and forgive their sins and their idolatry, one day he would come and fix their broken hearts, giving them hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone; breathing new life into dead, dry bones; pouring out his Spirit to make Israel new.  And in that rushing wind, in the tongues of fire, as he and his friends suddenly found themselves speaking other languages Peter recognised the words God had spoken through Joel.  This was the day.  Through Jesus and the Spirit, the God of Israel was renewing his covenant, through Jesus and the Spirit he'd returned to dwell again with his people: men and women, young and old, slave and free.  Judgement was coming soon on the unrepentant, but for those who called on the name of the Lord—on Jesus the Messiah—there was renewal.  And so Peter announces Joel's promise to Israel: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And then he does something astounding.  We're so used to hearing it that we might not even give it a thought, but Peter now takes this passage from Joel that was about the Lord, about Yahweh, about the God of Israel and he makes it about Jesus.  Look at verse 22: “You men of Israel, listen to this.  Jesus of Nazareth was a man marked out for you by God through the mighty works, signs, and portents which God performed through him right here among you, as you all know.  He was handed over in accordance with God's determined purpose and foreknowledge—and you used people outside the law to nail him up and kill him.  But God raised him from the dead! Death had its painful grip on him; but God released him from it, because it wasn't possible for him to be mastered by it.  This you see, is how David speaks of him: “I set the Lord before me always; because he is at my right hand, I won't be shaken.  So my heart was happy, and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh, too, will rest in hope.  For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy One to see corruption.  You showed me the path of life; you filled me with gladness in your presence.” Peter's quoting from Psalm 16.  What's that got to do with any of this.  Well, he goes on: “Men and Brothers, I can surely speak freely to you about the patriarch David.  He died and was buried and his tomb is here with us to this day.  He was of course a prophet and he knew that God had sworn an oath to set one of his own physical offspring on his throne.  He foresaw the Messiah's resurrection and spoke about him “not being left in Hades,” and about his flesh “not seeing corruption.”  [So here's his point.]  This is the Jesus we're talking about.  God raised him from the dead and all of us here are witnesses to the fact.  Now he's been exalted to God's right hand; and what you see and hear is the result of the fact that he is pouring out the Holy Spirit, which had been promised, and which he has received from the Father.”  So Peter's explaining to them that Jesus, in his resurrection, has fulfilled the messianic prophecy in Psalm 16 and what they're seeing happening in the wind, the tongues of fire, and the other languages is the evidence of Jesus' exaltation to his throne.  And in the same way that Jesus' resurrection has fulfilled Psalm 16, his ascension is fulfilling Psalm 110. Peter goes on in verse 34: “David, after all, did not ascend into the heavens.  This is what he says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies underneath your feet.'  So the whole house of Israel must know this for a fact: God has made him Lord and Messiah, this Jesus, the one you crucified.”  Again, what they're seeing is the proof that God is vindicating the claims of Jesus to be Israel's Messiah.  Jesus fulfilled God's promises when he rose from the dead, he fulfilled God's promises when he ascended into heaven, and now he's fulfilling God's promises in pouring out God's Spirit, now seen and heard in the wind, the flames, and the tongues.  Again, God is renewing his covenant as he promised. Luke goes on in verse 37: “When they heard this, they were cut to the heart.  “Brothers,” they said to Peter and the other apostles, “what shall we do?”  “Repent!” replied Peter.  “Be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah, so that your sins can be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and for your children, and for everyone who is far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Notice—this is important—even though, yes, it is individuals who do the repenting, one by one, what Peter is calling for is national repentance.  Israel must repent—from sin, yes, but most of all from her rejection of Jesus as Messiah.  That's why Peter puts so much weight on how all that's happened is proof of Jesus' messiahship.  Jesus had warned over and over that if Israel would not repent, if Israel insisted on rejecting him as Messiah—and Jesus put this rejection in terms of idolatry—judgement would come on Israel and this time it would be permanent.  The Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the temple and the people would be exiled, not for seventy years, not for 490 years, but forever.  As an aside, Paul will pick up this same theme with the Athenians in 17:31.  As salvation was for the Jew first and then for the gentiles, just so would God's judgement be.  He would judge Israel for their idolatry and then come for the gentiles.  So Peter urges his fellow Jews to repent of their idolatry, to put their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and they will become part of this renewed covenant community—this new temple in which God, through his Spirit, has come to dwell. Luke says in verse 40 that Peter “carried on explaining things to them with many other words.”  No doubt walking them through more of Israel's story and more of Israel's scriptures to show them how Jesus and the Spirit have fulfilled them.  “Let God rescue you,” he was urging them, “from this wicked generation.”  Those who welcomed his word were baptised.  About three thousand lives were added to the community that day. And, again, the result is new creation, lived out in this renewed community of men and women.  Pentecost isn't just a personal exercise in spiritual growth any more than Jesus' death and resurrection were.  It's about the formation of a new people of God that would be God's temple in the world.  A temple made of people, transformed from the inside out, a temple that would—that still does—steward God's presence, God's wisdom, God's new creation for the sake of the world.  Luke makes a point of contrasting it with the old Israel, trundling along blindly in unbelief, in idolatry, and heading straight into inevitable judgement and destruction.  In contrast, this new Jesus-plus-Spirit people [verse 42] live out their baptism by “giving full attention to the teaching of the apostles and to the common life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Great awe fell on everyone and many remarkable deeds and signs were performed by the apostles.”  At the centre of their life together was this apostolic teaching that we see Peter giving: Teaching showing how Israel's scriptures, God's promises were being fulfilled in Jesus.  Truly good news.  And it drew them together as they shared meals—just as Jesus had done—including that last meal he'd shared with them, transposing the Passover meal, the covenant renewal meal of the people of God, transposing it around himself, his death, and his resurrection.  And they prayed.  And this transformed them.  “All those who believe came together and held everything in common.  They sold their possessions and belongings and divided them up to everyone in proportion to their various needs.”  No, they didn't become Marxists.  Luke's point is that they became a family.  They became what Israel was supposed to be.  Not a people who did their own thing; not a people who grabbed and hoarded for themselves; not a people who disengaged from community seven days a week, and then gathered with a group of religious acquaintances for a couple of hours one day a week.  No, Jesus and the Spirit made them a family.  Jesus and the Spirit made them a people of love, of grace, of abundance (even in their physical poverty), a family that witnessed the character of the Spirit and the goodness and abundance of God's new creation.  And the people around them noticed: “Day by day they were they were all together attending the temple.  They broke bread in their various houses and ate their food with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and standing in favour with all the people.  And every day the Lord added to their numbers those who were being rescued.” Brothers and Sisters, our great desire should be that the church today—not just our congregation, but the whole church—should look just like this, simply on a much larger and global scale.  We are no less a people of Jesus and the Spirit than those first Christians in Jerusalem were.  We should be such a family where the scriptures are read and the mighty works of God—the fulfilment of his promise; the good news about Jesus, crucified, risen, and ascended—are not only believed, but lived out and proclaimed.  A family where God's new creation generosity is actively lived out.  A family that not only keeps this covenant renewal meal, but lives out its implications throughout the week.  A family that clasps its hands together and prays that it might be on earth as it is in heaven, not just because Jesus told us to, but Brother and Sisters, because we are the people whose King shares our earthly nature and reigns in heaven; because we are the people who have been, ourselves, plunged into heavenly life by God's Spirit; and because we are people who are ourselves the fulfilment of God's promises and therefore a people of hope and witness of God's glory. Let's pray: Faithful God who never fails to fulfil your promises, you have purified us with the blood of your Son and filled us with your Spirit to make us your temple; give us grace to be that temple, to be your new creation, to be the stewards of your presence and your gospel for the sake of the world; and in your faithfulness, cause our faithfulness to bear fruit for your kingdom.  Through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord and our rescuer, we pray.  Amen.

Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 94 Gary discusses the hermeneutical concept of "audience relevance." Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation and we do it every day by reading other people's body language and tone of voice, among many other visual cues. Written words in the Bible don't have these cues, but we still need to read them as if we were the original recipients of the NT messages and letters in the first century.

The church of the First Century existed in the midst of political upheaval, a deep moral plunge, and faced many crises and obstacles. We are at the same place today! And, we need the power of God found in the Baptism With The Holy Spirit to counteract the coming challenges. Resources: Stay connected with the Victory Church app Discover more on our website: victorychurchraleigh.com Subscribe to our Weekly Podcast!

CONTENT WARNING: topics of sexual assault and murder are discussed, which may be upsetting to some listeners. Refer to the timestamps for the sections where these subjects appear. "O Roma nobilis, orbis et domina.” (O noble Rome, mistress of the world.) – anonymousThinking about Ancient Rome typically conjures images of gladiators fighting in the colosseum, but what about the lives of women? In this premiere episode of the Roman Lore mini series, Renee explores forgotten stories, the power and tragedy of the Vestal Virgins, and how the rise of Christianity reshaped Roman society. This conversation will leave you pondering who gets remembered from history, and who gets erased 

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter Optional Memorial of Saints Nereus and Achilleus; First Century soldiers in the Roman army where they helped carry out the persecution of Christians; they were converted by a "miracle of faith," after which they threw down their weapons and escaped from their camp, to begin their new life in Christ; they were eventually martyred Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 5/12/26 Gospel: John 16:5-11

Jesus Is in Control Jonathan Parnell Download John 18:1-11,When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.” 9 This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” 10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.) 11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”Back in John Chapter 10, Jesus said something really important we should keep in mind. He said, Chapter 10, verse 18:No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.In other words, Jesus has told us in advance that he's in complete control of his suffering that will come, and in Chapter 18 that suffering is no longer future tense. The suffering that Jesus has talked about begins to unfold rapidly, in real time. Notice here how verse 1 sets the scene for us: Jesus has finished the Farewell Discourse, and his prayer for the disciples in Chapter 17, and now he leaves the Upper Room, and they go outside to a garden.So this is a new setting — and all the Gospel writers report this to us, but John includes some details here that the others don't. And the reason is because John has a direct theological agenda: He wants readers to know that what Jesus said back in Chapter 10, verse 18 is true — the arrest of Jesus is not a haphazard collapse into chaos, but it is the controlled descent into chaos for our sake. John's point is that Jesus is in control — that's his main idea here, and he makes it clear in at least three ways. That's what I wanna show you this morning: three ways Jesus is in control during chaos …1. Jesus knew all that would happen to him. John tells us this directly in verse 4. He says Jesus knew “all that would happen to him” — and the keyword there is the word “all.” This implies that Jesus didn't just know the outcome — he didn't just know where he'd end up — but he knew all the details that would take him there, including the details of Judas's betrayal. That's the focus in this passage.It's fascinating that John gives us more details about Judas than any other Gospel. First, it's just in the mention of Judas … Five different times in this Gospel when John names Judas, he says, “Judas, who would betray him.” He said that way back in Chapter 6, and again in Chapters 12 and 13, and he says it twice in this passage, in verses 2 and 5 — which means John says this about Judas even as the betrayal is taking place (see John 6:71; 12:4; 13:2; 18:2, 5). Why does John do this? Well, I think most basically it's because John wants us to never forget who Judas is, but it's also because he wants us to see Judas through a certain lens: John wants us to see that everything Judas does is fulfillment, not surprise. The case in point is that John gives us these premeditation details of Judas — that's what I'm calling them, “premeditation details.” Look at this in verse 2. After Jesus and his disciples went to the garden in verse 1, verse 2 says:“Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.”Don't miss how dark and sinister this is … Judas knew where to find Jesus. Judas had left the Upper Room in Chapter 13, and maybe by this point he had come back to the Upper Room and found it empty, or maybe he didn't. Either way, at some point, Judas thought, “I know where he is.”And he knew where Jesus was because of their friendship.He knew Jesus was in the garden because he had been there with him many times before. The garden was a favorite spot for Jesus to pray and teach his disciples, and Judas had prayed with Jesus there. He had been taught by Jesus there. Jesus had brought him there, and now Judas used that against Jesus.I hate Judas. I hate him. I hate him like I hate the devil. Can you believe what he did?More details in verse 3 are important.Judas had procured two groups of men to come with him. One was a band of soldiers (which would have been Roman soldiers), and the other was a group of officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. Now the the English Standard Version translates the first group “band of soldiers” but another word for it is “detachment of soldiers” (that's how the New International Version translates it). And what's interesting is that the Greek word behind “detachment” or “band” was an actual category of soldiers in the Roman army. Historical documents from the First Century tell us about it. A detachment was 200 soldiers. That's what the word means.Now, there's a chance that the full 200 soldiers didn't come along here, but my guess is that more soldiers came with Judas than we typically picture in our minds.Because in addition to this relatively large group of Roman soldiers, there were also Jewish officials. (This group would have been like the temple police who worked for the high priests and Pharisees.)And together, these soldiers and police, had lanterns and torches and weapons. So we gotta picture this correctly: this is not a small group of ragtag cavemen with clubs, but this is a sizable fraction of the Roman army together with Jewish police, and they're well-supplied, and they're led by Judas to this place only Judas knows about. This was calculated evil.John tells us in verse 5:“Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.”Do you see how despicable this is? There's deeper meaning here:The Roman soldiers represented the Gentile world; the Jewish officials or police represented Jesus's own people; and Judas represented Satan himself — because John told us in 13:27 that Satan had entered into Judas. So, understand what's going on here: In this group that came to arrest Jesus, it represents all of creation conspiring against him. All of humanity, Jew and Gentile, and the demonic realm — they have plotted together and set themselves against the Lord and his anointed.And Judas, standing with him, would have thought he was so smart. He would have had the smuggest look on his face.And the only thing that does not make this an absolute knockout win for Judas — like the only reason Judas has not just pulled one over on his Rabbi — is that Jesus knew about it the whole time.Every single time Jesus had been in this garden with his disciples … every single time over the last three years he prayed there with them and taught there with them … every time they “took sweet counsel together” as friends — every single time Jesus had ever seen the face of Judas in this garden, he knew that Judas would do this. Every moment in the garden before this moment, he knew this moment would come. Because he knew all that would happen to him. See, Jesus is in control.Here's another way we see Jesus in control during the chaos …2. Jesus was straightforward about his identity. I want you to notice both what Jesus says and the way he says it. First, what he says. When they tell Jesus they're looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus says in verse 5, “I am he” — John tells us again that Jesus said this in verse 6, and Jesus repeats himself in verse 8. So three times in this passage, we read the words: “I am.” And in the Gospel of John, we know this is intentional. When Jesus says this, he is declaring himself to be God. He's revealing his true identity — He was before Abraham! He is one with the Father! He has been sent into the world by the Father!Jesus is, again, claiming the divine name: Jesus is the “I am.” Amen!But now notice the way he says it. Years ago, I got a book on public speaking titled, “The Way You Say It.” (I got it to help me with an accent I used to have. That's what the book is for.) But the underlying premise of the book is that the way you say something matters. The words matter the most, but the tone and context make a difference. Speech is dynamic like that.Well, we can't actually hear how Jesus says what he says here, but we can pay attention to the context. John gives us some key details here, so let's follow closely with what he says: In verse 4, there's this long group of soldiers, with their torches and weapons, and show up in this garden where Jesus and his disciples are. John says Jesus “came forward and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?'”They say “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus says “I am he.”Notice how straightforward this is. Rows of uniformed soldiers and police came looking for Jesus, and when they got to Jesus, he asked them what they're doing. Can you picture that? All these soldiers and police and Judas are standing together, and Jesus is the one who does the talking. And literally, they must answer to him. It gets better.When Jesus declares his identity, when he says “I am he,” verse 6 says “they drew back and fell to the ground.” Which I think means exactly what it says. All of these soldiers fell down before Jesus. Verse 7, “So he asked them again…” which implies that he asked them right away — Jesus keeps talking to them while they are still on the ground. Let's back up for a minute. I need you to use your imagination here. Picture this scene: It's night. Jesus and his disciples are in the garden. Suddenly, a swarm of Romans soldiers and Jewish police, and Judas show up with torches and weapons, and Jesus steps forward to say “Who you looking for?” They say, “Jesus of Nazareth.”Jesus says, “I am he.” And swoosh!They all fall to ground like dominos, and while they're laying on the ground, Jesus says, “Who you looking for again?”This is almost comedy. It's incredible!If we could just freeze this scene — if we could snap a photo of this scene and show people, everybody who sees the photo is gonna know who's in charge.And it ain't Judas. It ain't the Roman soldiers. It ain't the Jewish officials.Jesus Christ is in control. John is showing us this in how Jesus was so straightforward about his identity. He's doing the talking. He's asking the questions. Because he's in control.One more. A third way we see Jesus's control during the chaos …3. Jesus was resolved to be the better Adam. Remember the setting here. All this is taking place in a garden. And this absolutely is meant to be an allusion to the Garden of Eden. I mentioned before, John has a theological agenda. (The other Gospel writers use the name Gethsemane, but John uses just the word “garden.”) He actually tells the whole story of Jesus's passion in view of a garden: John mentions a garden being close to where Jesus was crucified — in Chapter 19, verse 41. He mentions a garden again in Chapter 20 after Jesus is resurrected — spoiler alert here: but when Mary sees the resurrected Jesus, she thinks he's the garden keeper (see 20:15).And guess what? He is.And it starts in this passage. What's happening here is a redo of the Garden of Eden when Satan tempted Adam. Now's there's a few differences in this redo, and one is that Peter's here. And Peter, so far, is just watching all this happen. He hasn't said anything. But then we get to verse 10. And this is one we all need to see. So y'all help me out. Find Chapter 18, verses 10:Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.) So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”Two questions:What is Peter doing?What is Jesus doing?First, PeterWhen Peter draws his sword, he was ready to go out fighting. Peter has already said, Chapter 13, verse 37, that he would lay down his life for Jesus, and he thinks this is it. Look: he's no match for these soldiers. He knows that. They have weapons too, and a lot more of them.So either Peter is ready to die, or maybe he expects Jesus to keep speaking — because he just saw all these soldiers fall to the ground. He remembered what that voice did to the storm that night on the sea. All Jesus has to do is say the word, Peter knows. So maybe Peter swings his sword, and then looks at Jesus like, “Well? Go ahead…”But Peter was mistaken. D. A. Carson says Peter was “as clumsy as his courage was great, and his tactic as pointless as his misunderstanding was total.”He was confused, but we know all he was trying to do was help out. Peter was willing to die for Jesus to advance the cause; he didn't understand that first Jesus must died for him to accomplish the cause. This is what Jesus is doing. Jesus tells Peter, verse 11:“Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”Jesus corrects Peter not on the goal, but on the method. Jesus will indeed triumph over all his enemies, but the way matters. And the way of Jesus's triumph is to drink the cup.It's not a violent overthrow of earthly powers, it's a blood sacrifice for helpless sinners. It's not military conquest, it's substitutionary atonement. Victory soon, but suffering first.Something different in the Gospel of John compared to the other Gospels is that John leaves out the temptation narrative of Jesus when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. And I think it's because, with Genesis 3 on his mind, John reframes Jesus's big temptation to be here in the garden.Because Satan was crafty again in this garden. Defiance and betrayal appear again in this garden. Obedience or disobedience are the options again in this garden. Life and death are on the line again in this garden. What is Jesus doing? He is resolved to be the better Adam … and rather than fall, he descends, not in a vain attempt to augment his life, but in a willingness to lose it, not to subject a world of life to death, but to bring a world of death to life. Where the first Adam fell, the better Adam is faithful. Jesus has never been in more control. The cup he is about to drink is the cup the Father has given him. And those simple words at the end of verse 11 make it the most clear: this is not a haphazard collapse into chaos — our heavenly Father is writing the story. Is evil at work in this story? Absolutely. The Roman authorities had a hand in this. The Jewish leaders had a hand in this. Judas, led by Satan, had a hand in this. But who gave Jesus the cup? Who gave him the cup?The Father gave him the cup. The Father is accomplishing his plan, the plan of the Trinity. Jesus is in control. And For UsAnd look, that was true for Jesus's passion, and it's true for our situation right now — for whatever situation you might be going through. Everything in our lives — listen: every single thing in our lives — occurs beneath the will of God, and he has promised, whatever we got, he will work it together for our salvation. It doesn't make bad things less bad, but it gives us that bigger picture, which can be so easy to forget. Jesus loves you, and Jesus is in control. And this morning, very simply, I want to call you to rest in him. Rest in the truth of his love and power. And for some of you, that means conversion. Put your faith in Jesus today. I know some of you might be right on the fence — I get it. I've been there. Believe in Christ today, and be born again. We're having baptisms on May 31 — believe and come be baptized. For others of us, Christians in the room, you believe in Jesus but your vision of him has been a little clouded. We just need to see him again with the eyes of our hearts, and I pray that you would.Even as we come to this Table.The TableAt this Table we remember the passion event of Jesus — that he died for us and was raised, which is the most vivid display of his love and power. Glory in the gospel this morning!

In this message, the speaker shares a personal journey out of Catholicism and explains the key reasons behind that decision. The discussion focuses on religious ritual, community life, spiritual fruit, Sabbath vs. Sunday worship, church tradition, church councils, and the contrast between institutional religion and what the speaker describes as first-century Christianity.This talk also explores questions about Catholic tradition, the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Laodicea, saints, Mary, church authority, discipleship, fellowship, repentance, and whether a faith tradition produces meaningful life change.Topics covered include:Why the speaker says Catholicism “did not work”Ritual vs. relationship in faithCommunity, fellowship, and spiritual accountabilitySabbath vs. SundayChurch councils and man-made traditionFirst-century Christianity and biblical practiceSpiritual fruit, repentance, and transformed livingIf you're interested in Catholicism, Protestantism, Sabbath teaching, church history, biblical discipleship, or first-century Christianity, this message offers a personal and thought-provoking perspective.#Catholicism #FirstCenturyChristianity #Sabbath #ChurchHistory #BibleStudy #Christianity #CouncilOfNicaea #FaithJourney #Discipleship #BiblicalTeachingformer catholic testimony,catholicism vs first century christianity,why i left catholicism,sabbath vs sunday,catholic church history,council of nicaea,council of laodicea,first century christianity,biblical christianity,church tradition vs bible,catholic rituals,spiritual fruit,faith journey,christian testimony,bible study,church authority,man made traditions,sunday worship,sabbath keeping,torah and new testament,yeshua teaching,church community,discipleship,repentance and faith,christian fellowship,catholic doctrine explained,religious deconstruction,leaving catholicism,christian apologetics,personal testimony

Zach, Scott, and John walk through an especially challenging section of this letter to properly understand.

Dispensationalism has been all over theological and political media recently. It is often discussed but frequently misunderstood and, at times, dismissed by those who have never carefully examined it. As a framework for understanding the Bible, dispensationalism has taken many forms and expressions…So what is dispensationalism?Does it have historical precedent, or is it merely an invention of post-Enlightenment Zionists? Is dispensationalism forcing something onto the text that isn't there, or is it simply drawing out a framework already embedded in the fabric of Scripture itself? What should dispensationalism look like? Can it be defined using the Bible itself?In this episode, we take a closer look at the idea of God's unfolding administration across time. Along the way, we challenge common misconceptions, reconsider false assumptions, and explore why a clear, biblically grounded understanding of dispensations matters for how we interpret the whole of God's Word.For this conversation, we are joined by Dr. James Fazio, Dean of Bible and Theology at Southern California Seminary, and co-editor and contributor to Discovering Dispensationalism: Tracing the Development of Dispensational Thought from the First to the Twenty-First Century.Purchase Discovering DispensationalismFor more information, please follow the link to read the notes for Episode 268.Visit http://lfbi.org/learnmore

The Resurrection -- Part 3: Jesus Gives Us His Great Commission Just Before His Ascension MESSAGE SUMMARY: Introduction from “The Resurrection -- Part 3: Jesus Gives Us His Great Commission Just Before His Ascension: At Jesus last appearance to His Eleven Disciples as a group and just before His Ascension, Jesus gives His Great Commission to us and to His Disciples. In Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus commissions or, indeed, commands us: “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”. Jesus, in Matthew 28:16-20, has commissioned us and commanded us to: Go, Make Disciples, Baptize, and to Teach everything that he has taught us (e.g., the Bible, our walk with the Holy Spirit) to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Remember again, that this commission and commandment (i.e. “as you go”) was the last thing that Jesus, as the Incarnate God-Man, told His Disciples and, therefore, us before His Ascension into Heaven to become solely God again. Because of the Resurrection and God's Grace, we have the opportunity for Salvation and Eternal Life; and God has given this opportunity to others next door and around the world, through us, if we Go, Make Disciples, Baptize, and Teach! Today' Message – Hearing God's Voice: In John 10:1-18, Jesus presents the picture of the Shephard and the Shepherd's relationship to His flock. Shepherding, in the First Century, was an intense and demanding occupation with the need for the Shepherd to lead and communicate with His sheep and to prevent “false shepherds” from stealing sheep. In communicating with His sheep, the sheep learn and listen for the Shepherd's voice which protects the sheep from “false shepherds”. Jesus tells us, in John 10:7-11, that He is the Shepherd and only through and with Jesus can we enter into the Gate, which is our Salvation and Eternal Life:' So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.'”. Jesus tells us that the sheep will hear His voice; therefore, if we are followers of Jesus, we should hear Jesus voice – we are all called to be Jesus' sheep. How do we know the voice of Jesus our Good Shepherd? To hear and know Jesus' voice, we need to consider: 1) we must “enter through the Gate” – the “Gate” is only Jesus; 2) we must be a sheep (i.e. must be saved and have a personal relationship with Jesus) of the Good Shepherd to hear and distinguish His voice from the “false shepherds”; 3) we must learn to listen – God's voice can present to us in many ways, especially through the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit gives us an insight into the mind of God and puts our mind in sync with God; 4) the voice of Satan is discernable from the voice and message of Jesus; and 5) we must obey the Lord as we listen – in the New Testament, the words “hear” and “obey” are the same; and God wants to guide and direct us. Ultimately, God tells us: “Be still and know that I am God.”. He is Risen, and He is alive today!   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Matthew 28:16-20; John 21:1-14; Acts 1:8; John 3:3-8; John 10:1-27; Ezekiel 34:22-24,31; Psalms 23:1-6; John 5:25; Ezekiel 1:28; Ezekiel 43:2; 1 Kings 19:12; Isiah 30:21; Ephesians 1:17-18; Hebrews 3:7. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “For Jesus Followers, Fasting, with Food, Will Symbolize a Victory Over Oneself and Solidify a Personal Relationship with God”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

The Resurrection -- Part 3: Jesus Gives Us His Great Commission Just Before His Ascension MESSAGE SUMMARY: Introduction from “The Resurrection -- Part 3: Jesus Gives Us His Great Commission Just Before His Ascension: At Jesus last appearance to His Eleven Disciples as a group and just before His Ascension, Jesus gives His Great Commission to us and to His Disciples. In Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus commissions or, indeed, commands us: “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”. Jesus, in Matthew 28:16-20, has commissioned us and commanded us to: Go, Make Disciples, Baptize, and to Teach everything that he has taught us (e.g., the Bible, our walk with the Holy Spirit) to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Remember again, that this commission and commandment (i.e. “as you go”) was the last thing that Jesus, as the Incarnate God-Man, told His Disciples and, therefore, us before His Ascension into Heaven to become solely God again. Because of the Resurrection and God's Grace, we have the opportunity for Salvation and Eternal Life; and God has given this opportunity to others next door and around the world, through us, if we Go, Make Disciples, Baptize, and Teach! Today' Message – Hearing God's Voice: In John 10:1-18, Jesus presents the picture of the Shephard and the Shepherd's relationship to His flock. Shepherding, in the First Century, was an intense and demanding occupation with the need for the Shepherd to lead and communicate with His sheep and to prevent “false shepherds” from stealing sheep. In communicating with His sheep, the sheep learn and listen for the Shepherd's voice which protects the sheep from “false shepherds”. Jesus tells us, in John 10:7-11, that He is the Shepherd and only through and with Jesus can we enter into the Gate, which is our Salvation and Eternal Life:' So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.'”. Jesus tells us that the sheep will hear His voice; therefore, if we are followers of Jesus, we should hear Jesus voice – we are all called to be Jesus' sheep. How do we know the voice of Jesus our Good Shepherd? To hear and know Jesus' voice, we need to consider: 1) we must “enter through the Gate” – the “Gate” is only Jesus; 2) we must be a sheep (i.e. must be saved and have a personal relationship with Jesus) of the Good Shepherd to hear and distinguish His voice from the “false shepherds”; 3) we must learn to listen – God's voice can present to us in many ways, especially through the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit gives us an insight into the mind of God and puts our mind in sync with God; 4) the voice of Satan is discernable from the voice and message of Jesus; and 5) we must obey the Lord as we listen – in the New Testament, the words “hear” and “obey” are the same; and God wants to guide and direct us. Ultimately, God tells us: “Be still and know that I am God.”. He is Risen, and He is alive today!   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Matthew 28:16-20; John 21:1-14; Acts 1:8; John 3:3-8; John 10:1-27; Ezekiel 34:22-24,31; Psalms 23:1-6; John 5:25; Ezekiel 1:28; Ezekiel 43:2; 1 Kings 19:12; Isiah 30:21; Ephesians 1:17-18; Hebrews 3:7. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “For Jesus Followers, Fasting, with Food, Will Symbolize a Victory Over Oneself and Solidify a Personal Relationship with God”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 (U California Press, 2025) centers the fans and creators who built Japanese comics into a massive global phenomenon. The book traces the history of manga from the art form's distinctly modern emergence in the early 1900s, one that first hybridized the artistic legacy of Japan with the world of Western political satire but very quickly expanded its scope. By the 1920s and 1930s, manga was already beginning to show some of the breadth of genre and style that has become a trademark of Japanese comics and their byproducts today. In the postwar, manga's embrace of new audiences and stylistic conventions, and the embrace of these new forms by audiences of amateur consumer-creators especially since the mid-1970s, led to an explosion in popularity that has made manga a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 (U California Press, 2025) centers the fans and creators who built Japanese comics into a massive global phenomenon. The book traces the history of manga from the art form's distinctly modern emergence in the early 1900s, one that first hybridized the artistic legacy of Japan with the world of Western political satire but very quickly expanded its scope. By the 1920s and 1930s, manga was already beginning to show some of the breadth of genre and style that has become a trademark of Japanese comics and their byproducts today. In the postwar, manga's embrace of new audiences and stylistic conventions, and the embrace of these new forms by audiences of amateur consumer-creators especially since the mid-1970s, led to an explosion in popularity that has made manga a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 (U California Press, 2025) centers the fans and creators who built Japanese comics into a massive global phenomenon. The book traces the history of manga from the art form's distinctly modern emergence in the early 1900s, one that first hybridized the artistic legacy of Japan with the world of Western political satire but very quickly expanded its scope. By the 1920s and 1930s, manga was already beginning to show some of the breadth of genre and style that has become a trademark of Japanese comics and their byproducts today. In the postwar, manga's embrace of new audiences and stylistic conventions, and the embrace of these new forms by audiences of amateur consumer-creators especially since the mid-1970s, led to an explosion in popularity that has made manga a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 (U California Press, 2025) centers the fans and creators who built Japanese comics into a massive global phenomenon. The book traces the history of manga from the art form's distinctly modern emergence in the early 1900s, one that first hybridized the artistic legacy of Japan with the world of Western political satire but very quickly expanded its scope. By the 1920s and 1930s, manga was already beginning to show some of the breadth of genre and style that has become a trademark of Japanese comics and their byproducts today. In the postwar, manga's embrace of new audiences and stylistic conventions, and the embrace of these new forms by audiences of amateur consumer-creators especially since the mid-1970s, led to an explosion in popularity that has made manga a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies

Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 (U California Press, 2025) centers the fans and creators who built Japanese comics into a massive global phenomenon. The book traces the history of manga from the art form's distinctly modern emergence in the early 1900s, one that first hybridized the artistic legacy of Japan with the world of Western political satire but very quickly expanded its scope. By the 1920s and 1930s, manga was already beginning to show some of the breadth of genre and style that has become a trademark of Japanese comics and their byproducts today. In the postwar, manga's embrace of new audiences and stylistic conventions, and the embrace of these new forms by audiences of amateur consumer-creators especially since the mid-1970s, led to an explosion in popularity that has made manga a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Just as the Messiah Loved Us Ephesians 4:25-5:2 by William Klock Fourth of July weekend in 1998 I had to go on a service call to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  I did not want to brave the ferries for a one-day round trip to Friday Harbor on a holiday weekend, but this print shop was desperate, so the owner suggested I bring my wife and daughter—Alexandra wasn't even two months old at the time—and they'd put us up for the whole weekend.  That sounded a lot better.  And, conveniently, the Episcopal church was literally next door to the place we were staying.  Sunday morning we walked over for the service.  The second lesson was from Ephesians—the part of Ephesians we're just now getting into today with Chapter 4.  And their deacon got up to preach and said, “This morning's lesson was written by Paul.  I don't like Paul very much and I know that's true for all of us.  Paul says mean, nasty, bigoted things.”  He went on to pit Paul against Jesus as he described Paul as a “Pharisaical moralising Puritan”—like Paul had never really understood Jesus' gospel of grace and made it all about works instead—and a lot of “works” that are just plain offensive to modern sensibilities: stuff that comes up particularly in Chapter 5, like “don't let sexual immorality be named among you” or “wives, be subject to your husbands”. I bit my tongue after church as we filed past him.  I really wanted to say, “It's not Paul who never grasped the gospel; it's you!”  Because you can't separate the gospel from ethics as if living out the implications of the gospel is an optional add-on, or something less important that we'll work on later, or a body of “rules” from which we can arbitrarily pick and choose based on the sensibilities of current secular culture and values—which is exactly what that preacher was doing. That was the day I realised that even a lot of Christian don't understand the connection between ethics and the gospel.  In contrast to that deacon, lot of us want to be obedient and we are obedient, so we do what God tells us in the Bible, but we don't really understand—maybe we've never even thought about—why right is right and wrong is wrong.  We just think, “Well, God said so,” and we do our best to obey.  That's better than disobeying, but it would be better if we actually understood why.  The church has often unintentionally fostered this sort of moralism.  Back in 1560 Queen Elizabeth ordered that plaques be installed at the front of every church displaying the Ten Commandments.  Most churches also included plaques alongside with the Lord's Prayer and the Creed.  It sent a message: Do this, believe that, and pray this here.”  You could certainly do worse.  Elizabeth was trying to help a people who were largely biblically illiterate.  But then the local pastors need to do their part and show how what we believe—the gospel—makes sense of and ties together how we live and what we pray.  And that often doesn't happen—or it doesn't happen very well.  And people start to think that when Paul gives us a list of dos and don'ts, that this is just Paul, not Jesus, and, well, maybe his moralising isn't totally arbitrary, but it's probably culture-bound so we can feel free to pick and choose what seems right to us. A big part of the problem is that we've sometimes got the gospel—and the big story of God and his people—wrong.  Not totally wrong.  But enough that we no longer understand why right is right and wrong is wrong and why it matters.  I've talked before about two sorts of gospel worldviews that we find in the church today.  On the one hand is a view embodied by a famous quote from Dwight Moody.  After surviving a shipwreck he preached, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel.  God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.'”  The other is a quote by Abraham Kuyper.  It's worth noting that both these men were contemporaries, but came from very different church backgrounds.  Kuyper wrote, “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'” Those are two very different understandings of God's plan.  Moody, shaped by 19th Century Revivalism and Dispensationalism saw the world as corrupted, evil, a problem that God would one day destroy.  The job of the church was to preach the good news and to save as many people as we can from the coming judgement so that we can go to heaven.  At least the good news about Jesus, crucified and risen, saviour and lord is still clearly here.  But Moody's thinking about the world and his vision of the future was basically gnostic—more pagan than biblical in many ways.  In contrast, Kuyper understood that because God created the world, it is good.  It's we who have fallen and put it in bondage to corruption and tears.  And because God loves what he has made, he won't throw it away.  To the contrary, God is very much in the process of redeeming and renewing it.  And so in Jesus he provided a new Adam to lead a redeemed and renewed humanity, washed clean by his blood and filled with his Spirit, a new humanity to pick up where Adam failed.  Kuyper knew that if Jesus has ascended and is now enthroned in heaven, he is the world's true lord and sovereign and he will not let one square inch of his beloved creation fall through his fingers. Brothers and Sisters, that is the good news.  It's about God reclaiming what he's created and what belongs to him.  We've seen already that this theme of new creation and the temple run all through Ephesians.  The church is the working model of God's new creation.  And the church is the temple in which God dwells.  And that just absolutely shouts “Genesis!” at us.  Go back to the beginning and make sure you've got the story right to start with.  Consider how the story begins.  God creates human beings, Adam and Eve, and he places them in his garden to live in his presence and to steward it.  The garden is God's temple.  Humans are his stewards, his image bearers who represent his sovereign rule there.  And not just that, but his only command to them—and it's more blessing than it is command—but he tells them to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth.  In other words, keep having children who will have children who will have children who will steward the garden and grow that garden until it fills the whole earth.  Until, to use the language of the Prophet Habakkuk, the glory of the Lord fills the earth as the waters cover the sea.” That would have been an easy task for Adam and Eve.  All they had to do was steward the garden and have children.  There was no sin, no death, no tears, no brokenness, no opposition.  Just fellowship with God, take care of the garden, make babies and the mission takes care of itself. But no.  Humanity rebelled and broke everything.  Now the least of our difficulties in accomplishing the mission are weeds and pain in childbirth.  We've become sinful, rebellious, self-centred, angry, greedy, idolators.  We not only lost our knowledge of the mission, we even lost our knowledge of God.  So in he stepped, into the darkness, and called Abraham.  And through Abraham he created a people to be light in the darkness.  And he gave them a law.  Not arbitrary rules, but a way of life meant to teach the people his character and to keep them pure and holy so that he could live in their midst.  Preparing a people to become his temple.  God was taking the first steps toward creating a renewed humanity to whom he could restore Adam's vocation and mission to fill the earth with his presence and his glory.  And that's just what he's done in Jesus.  We've seen in Ephesians: In Jesus, God has taken on our flesh, he has died and been resurrected to be the new Adam, to be the firstborn of God's new creation.  And he calls us to himself and he purifies us with his blood and once we're clean and fit for God's presence, he fills us with God's Spirit.  And he makes us the temple: the place of God's presence, a people called to be stewards of God's wisdom—of his good and just plan to renew his creation. Brothers and Sisters, our vocation, our mission is Adam and Eve's vocation and mission: to serve as the priests and stewards of God's temple, to proclaim and to live out his wisdom, and to be fruitful and to multiply—through our own children and through the proclamation and living out of the good news—until God's presence and the knowledge of his glory cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  Until that day when creation no longer groans under the weight of corruption, because the sons and daughters of God have accomplished the task entrusted to us and finally been fully renewed—resurrected—ourselves. Of course, the difference is that the mission should have been easy for Adam.  Ethics didn't matter.  Just steward the temple and have children.  It's so very, very hard for us.  We've filled the world with sin and corruption and they push back.  The false kings and the false gods we created will not go away easily.  And we ourselves, face the daily challenge to, as Paul put it in last week's lesson, to put off that old way of being human and to put on the new one that we've learned in Jesus. And all of this, Brothers and Sisters, is my long way of helping you to understand that ethics, that right and wrong, that how we live as Jesus' people is bound up in that mission and in our vocation as stewards of the gospel, of God's presence, of his new creation.  You know how architects build models so that people can see what the finished building will look like?  That's what the church is supposed to be: God's working model today of his coming new creation.  The world should be able to look at us and know—or least get a pretty good idea—of what God is planning for the future.  Ethics—the way of life in God's new world—is not an add-on to the gospel.  It's at the heart of the gospel.  And it's why we cannot pick and choose or cobble together our own ethical codes.  Because there's the fallen world, as Paul said in 4:17-18, cut off from the life of God, foolish-minded, ignorant, and darkened in understanding—the fallen world that cause all the pain and tears—and there's God's new creation, the world set to rights as God's wisdom and justice give it shape and direction.  The two aren't compatible.  It's light and wisdom or it's darkness and ignorance.  It's God's way which leads to life or it's pain and tears and ultimately death.  We will never accomplish the mission God has given us if we compromise with the dark foolishness and ignorance of a fallen world that does not know him.  This is why the church cannot take its moral cues from secular, unredeemed culture. So, now that I'm halfway through the sermon, let's pick up with our text in Ephesians 4, at verse 25.  [Page 1161 in the pew Bibles.]  Again, Paul's just said that if we have been renewed by the Spirit, we need to put off the old way of being human and to put on the new, displaying genuine justice and genuine holiness.  Showing the world what God's future looks like.  Now he goes on: “Put away lies, then.  ‘Each of you, speak the truth with your neighbour,' because we are members of one another.  ‘Be angry, but do not sin'; don't let the sun go down on you while you're angry, and do not leave any opportunity for the devil.  The thief shouldn't steal anymore, but should rather get on with some honest manual labour, so as to be able to share with anyone in need.  Don't let any unwholesome words escape your lips.  Instead, say whatever is good and will be useful in building people up, so that you will give grace to those who listen. “And don't disappoint God's holy Spirit—the Spirit who sealed you for the day of redemption. All bitterness and rage, all anger and yelling, and all blasphemy—put it all away from you, with all wickedness.  Instead, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God forgave you in the Messiah.” Notice where Paul's going here.  He's going from old humanity to new humanity, from dark, fallen world full of sin and death to new creation full of light and life.  From lies and rage to kindness.  A lot of people, when they think about “ethics” or “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”, they immediately think of some kind of moralising killjoy—like that deacon who said that Paul was just stuck in his Pharisaical puritanism and never got his head around the concept of grace.  I want to ask, “Did you even read what Paul wrote?”  Because I just can't figure how you get “killjoy” or “puritan” out of someone whose saying we need to leave behind anger and wrath to embrace kindness and tender-heartedness, to leave behind the darkness of sin and death and to embrace light and life—and grace—God's new creation. “Be angry, but don't sin.”  Paul quotes straight from Psalm 4:4.  He knows that we're all going to deal with anger from time to time—sometimes even righteous anger over sin and wrong and injustice.  But don't let it smoulder—righteous or not—because letting it fester like that leaves the door open for the devil to come in and do his work.  And don't steal.  I assume that if Paul's warning about something specific, that specific thing must have been a problem.  Maybe some of the very poor in the church or some who were recently freed slaves were stealing to get by.  No, says Paul, that's not what new creation looks like.  But he doesn't just say: Stop stealing.  He tells them to get an honest job, so that they can give to the poor.  Because, you see—and this is really important, Brothers and Sisters—new creation isn't just an absence of sin; it's also the positive presence of goodness and virtue. But what Paul has to say to start with is mostly about speech, about words.  He starts with telling the truth in verse 25 and then there's the bit about being angry but not sinning.  Being angry isn't always about words, but I bet for most of us it usually is.  That's the old humanity that Paul's told us we need to put off.  Instead, he's saying in verse 29, as someone redeemed by Jesus and full of God's holy Spirit, consider that every time you open your mouth it's an opportunity to speak grace to someone.  Again, just as with the bit about stealing, living out new creation isn't just the absence of sin.  Living out new creation is about positively stewarding God's grace to others.  So, he says, we shouldn't be squandering that chance to speak grace by wasting our breath on unwholesome words.  “Unwholesome words” is a broad category, but that's why he puts it that way.  You fill in the black with whatever kind of unwholesome words you're inclined to speak.  No, Paul goes on, don't disappoint, don't grieve the Holy Spirit who has marked you out as God's new creation.  Don't just leave unwholesome speech behind.  Put away—verse 31—put away all bitterness and rage, all anger and yelling, and all blasphemy.  Paul describes this crescendo of sinful speech that starts maybe with dirty jokes, casual jibes, or swearing through outbursts of rage, shouting matches, and finally blasphemy—blaspheming God or blaspheming a fellow human who bears his image—either way, that's the worst way you can abuse God's gift of speech.  Brothers and Sisters, if we're going to be living out and modelling God's new creation, we've got put away all behaviour—starting with speech—that hurts and destroys, that tears apart relationships, families, churches.  Put aside anything that makes the darkness around you darker, anything that's going to bring pain and tears to others, and instead use your God-given faculties of speech to build others up. Paul makes this point really dramatically.  Again, he works up this crescendo, from bitterness to rage to anger to yelling and finally to blasphemy.  You can feel the rage storm getting stronger.  Most of us have been there—sometimes more than we'd care to admit.  You get angry and then things get worse or someone says something that just throws gas on your rage and you explode.  But then in verse 31, the rage storm blows itself out and Paul shows us, in stark contrast, what new creation and the life of the Spirit are like.  The rage storm stops and everything is calm: Kindness, tender-heartedness, forgiveness.  I like how Tom Wright reflections on this.  “Feel the sigh of relief.  Then cherish that feeling.  Then reflect on what brings it about.  Then make a habit of it.” But why?  It's not just about the sigh of relief that comes with new creation.  Paul says to do these things—and here he zeroes in on forgiving others “just as God forgave you in the Messiah” And we might not realise it, but this idea of imitating God would have been absolutely radical to these gentile Ephesians.  Not quite so much to Jews.  God had been telling them for centuries through the Old Testament: Be holy, for I am holy.  That made the Jews unique.  But few if any pagans would ever have thought that the world might be a better place if we imitated the gods.  No way.  Because the pagans were just like us, but with unlimited power to unleash those rage storm, to abuse people for their whims, to kill and to destroy.  But the God of Israel, revealed in Jesus the Messiah is different.  A God who is himself holy and, even more radical, a God who gives himself for the sake of his people.  A God who gives his life that he might set sinners to rights.  Look at 5:1-2 and we'll close with this.  Paul writes, “So you should be imitators of God, like dear children.  Conduct yourselves in love, just as the Messiah loved us, and gave himself for us, as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God.” Again, it can't be stressed strongly enough just how radical this idea was to First Century pagans.  Not only were their gods unworthy of imitation, the way the pagans viewed the world gave no hope.  Some saw everything as a never-ending and inescapable cycle.  Others saw the world as a shadowy and bleak existence from which death releases us into the “real” spirit world.  No one had a hope the world actually being set to rights, of a world without sin and sorrow, pain and tears, let alone a world delivered from death.  And no one would have dreamed that a god would love us so much that he would give his own life to do this.  Until the good news about Jesus began to spread.  Until the pagans began to see these little churches popping up around the world, churches full of people who not only believed in this Jesus and this God of redeeming love, but who lived out that love—who stopped the rage cycle with kindness and forgiveness; who refused to use and abuse other people; who weren't greedy and selfish, but instead gave generously to others; whose families and households were overflowing with love.  A people who lived in hope of a world set to rights full life and light instead of death and darkness.  And the pagans took note. Just before we moved here they tore down the Palace Theatre downtown.  I'm glad I had a chance to see it before it was just a vacant lot.  But for what, sixteen or seventeen years, there was just a vacant lot where a wonderful historic building had been.  And everyone knew that wasn't right.  And after a few years we all started to wonder, “Will this ever be made right?”  After a while you start to lose hope.  Will it be a vacant lot with a fence around it forever?  But then a big sign when up and on that sign was an architects rendering: a fancy new building full of businesses and homes.  And you'd see it as you walked past that corner on Fifth Street and it started to feel like things might get back to the way they're supposed to be in that spot. Maybe that's not the best illustration.  It's just a building.  A vacant lot isn't that big of a deal and neither is a new building—unless of course you live or work in it.  But it does highlight what Paul wants us to understand here.  In the midst of a world filled with darkness and death, the church is meant to be the sign showing the world that God is at work to set it all to rights.  We are the sign meant to show the world what the project will look like when it's finally done.  As we embody the gospel and God's new creation, we ought to be an attractive advertisement that draws the world in—making them constructively curious, showing them a God they never could have fathomed, and hope they never dreamed of.  To be God's temple.  Paul closes this part here with more temple language.  As Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was a sweet-smelling sacrifice and offering to God, so our life together imitating him should be too.  And, Brothers and Sisters, if our life together is a pleasing sacrifice to God, we can be sure that we're on mission to bring God's presence to the world, to carry his glory to the ends of the earth. Let's pray: Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth, that they may return to the way of righteousness: Grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion, that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Testimonials from some of our congregation and what a first century Christian fellowship looks like!

Come and meet the real Jesus, as depicted within his time and cultural setting. We will meet a man of his time, looking and sounding and behaving as a man of his time would be expected to. He becomes ever more real to us as our preconceptions of that shampoo-advert-Jesus fall away. And our relationship with him may become more personal because we now see him as a rounded relatable figure with emotions much like ours And that has to be a good thing, moving from knowing about him, to knowing him.

Gary continues his interview with economist Jerry Bowyer. Many details given in the Gospels are extremely important for a proper interpretation of what Jesus said and did and why. These historical and cultural clues are often overlooked, but they add depth and context to the New Testament that modern readers can and should apply to their reading and preaching of the Gospel. Get Jerry's book, The Maker vs. the Takers, here: https://store.americanvision.org/products/the-maker-vs-the-takers 

John 17:14–23,14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 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. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 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.Last week, I said that John 17 is one of the most amazing chapters in all the Bible (because the whole thing is a prayer that Jesus prays for us). And I just wanna start this week by saying that I'm in no hurry to be done with it. We're gonna eventually get to Chapter 18, but for the next two weeks we're gonna stay in Chapter 17, and today I want us to pay special attention to how Jesus talks about us — There is so much in this prayer that we learn about Jesus and about his relationship to the Father, and it's as deep as it gets! It's glorious! But also, as we're listening in on this prayer, we hear Jesus say some important things about us as his people. And he doesn't just say random facts, but they're more like defining realities of who we are as the church — and they're defining realities that Jesus gives us in direct connection to himself. We can see that grammatically each time Jesus uses the word “as” or “just as.” He says three different times about us: “They are this, JUST AS I am this.” Or “AS this is true of me, this is true of them.”He names three defining realities this way, and I'll go ahead and tell you what they are. He says:We are separated. We are sent.We are one. We're gonna look at each of these. Let's start with the first.1. We are separated (verses 14–17).Look again at verse 14:I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.We all just heard that. It's straightforward. Jesus says: “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” And he says it twice, in verses 14 and 16! Which means there's an emphasis.If Jesus is our teacher (and he is), and if this prayer is meant to teach us (and it is), then Jesus wants us know about our relationship to the world: We are not of it.Every Christian must agree with that in principle, because Jesus says it. In basic terms, we as Christians, the church, we have a negative relationship to the world. This same idea is repeated all throughout the New Testament — Pauls says in Romans 12:1, “Do not be conformed to this world…” James says in James 4:4, “Friendship with world is enmity with God…” John says in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”What Is the ‘World'?These are strong statements, and clear statements — we just have to make sure we understand the meaning of “world.” When Jesus says “world,” what's he talking about?The best way to think about the meaning of “world” is to think of it as the realm of human values, ideas, and effort that, because of sin, is in active rebellion against God.The biblical image for the world is Babylon. Or it's what Augustine calls simply the City of Man. Or another way we sometimes talk about the idea of the world is with the word “culture.”In fact, back in 1951, theologian Richard Niebuhr wrote a famous book called Christ and Culture — in it he described different approaches the church has historically taken toward culture. But when he defined culture, he defined it as “what the New Testament writers frequently had in mind when they spoke of ‘the world'…”In the New Testament, the world is not the earth; it's not a globe; it's not a bunch of individual people — but it's a realm. It's a realm of values, ideas, and effort.And it's a realm that Christians are NOT OF — Jesus tells us. But why are we not of the world?Called Out and Set ApartWe're not of the world because, as we saw last week in verse 6, the Father has called us out of the world and he has given us to the Son, who is not of this world. So we now belong to Jesus who is not of this world. That's how God has separated us from the world.We belong to Jesus and Jesus has given us his word. And that is what makes us different! It's verse 17:“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” We are set apart by the truth: we have the gospel! We have the true revelation of God! We have eternal life! The world does not have this, and in fact, it's because we have it that the world hates us. That's verse 14.And Jesus has already told us this. In Chapter 15, verse 18, he says:“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”Look, I don't know how Jesus could be more clear. Christian, you are not of the world … because God has separated you from the world … and the world hates you. That is what's going on outside here with these people who line up on Sundays. These people are against you; they do not seek your good; they do not want us here. They're full of hate. And we're gonna be okay. Because they're just proving what Jesus has already taught us. If we're paying attention to the New Testament, we should not be surprised by this. The world hates us. Jesus says that. And yet, I'm a little concerned that when we hear this kind of message we can instantly write it off and give it a name like Fundamentalism. We can think: Just relax. You're overdoing it.But how dare we think such a thing when our Savior is so clear. Jesus tells us we have a negative relationship to the world in that we are not of the world and the world hates us. We must listen to him. Understand what Jesus is telling us about who we are, and he starts by saying we are separated from the world. We start here. But then … a second defining reality:2. We are sent (verse 18).This is verse 18:“As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”Jesus already said in verse 15 that although we are not of the world, he is not asking the Father to take us out of the world. We're still in this realm, because Jesus wants that for now. And in verse 18 Jesus says more. He says: We're not just here, but he has sent us here. So get this: If you are a Christian in this world, you're here because Jesus has sent you here. You're not of the world, but you've been sent into the world.This is the phrase: Not of, but sent into.Life-Changing RephraseFor me, personally, that phrase has changed my life. I mean that. True story… Before I proposed to Melissa, we were in North Carolina, and I told her we were gonna move to Minneapolis for two years. It was gonna be two years for a pastoral training program, and then seminary somewhere else, and then wherever God calls us. That was eighteen years ago.And under God, one of the big reasons we sensed him calling us here was David and Megan Mathis. Years ago I worked with David at Desiring God, and we did some writing together, and I remember one day David had this idea for a blog series (y'all remember blogs?).This was gonna be a blog series on the church's mission, and David's first article to launch the series was titled “Getting the Accent Right: ‘Not Of, But Sent Into.'” Have any of y'all ever heard the saying that Christians are “in the world, but not of the world” — in, but not of.Well, David thought it was inaccurate with what Jesus says in John 17. So he had this idea: he said let's change the phrase! Let's reinvent this popular saying! (David was just 30 back then). He said: instead of saying in, but not of, let's change it to say not of, but sent into — “not of the world, but sent into the world.” That's the new way to say it! We were gonna change the Evangelical church in America!I don't know if y'all have ever read David's article or heard his rephrase, but since that day I have never thought of John 17:18 any other way.We are not of, but sent into. That's what Jesus says! That's why I'm here. That's why we're here. Jesus has sent us into this world — and sent us how? Sent us with what?Sent with What?Well, Jesus says he has sent us just as the Father has sent him. There is a sameness in our sending. Now we shouldn't misunderstand the sameness: the Son does what only the Son can do! Only the Son can truly save! But the sameness is seen in our message. Jesus came here to reveal God and redeem people to God. That was his mission, and he now sends us here as part of that mission, to tell of what he did. The Father sent Jesus here to accomplish the gospel. Jesus now sends us here to tell that gospel. Not of the world, but sent into the world with the gospel.That's who we are, church! We are sent — and sent for this purpose. It is the gospel that makes us unique and different from everything else in the world. There are lots of other good things a local church might do in a city, but Jesus sets us apart by the gospel. That's what he says in verse 19. We have been “sanctified in truth” — another word for sanctified is consecrated. Jesus has consecrated us for the mission of offering life and light to a dead and dark world by pointing to him. He has sent us here to witness to the surprising love of God — that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This is the message we carry in our commission to Go and make disciples.We Must Be About the GospelPlease understand: this is not optional. Churches don't get to choose whether they're involved in this mission or not. To be a church is to have this mission — to be not of, but sent into the world with the gospel.The stakes could not be higher.If you know our church, you know that we're not a ‘political church' (in terms of what most people mean by that). But instead, we're all about the gospel. And listen: we must be that. Because here's the thing: if a church is withdrawn from politics and culture wars because they're all about the gospel, but then they don't really go share the gospel, they might as well just be Amish. … I meant that. Because Amish (or Mennonite communities and others like them) are built on a theological approach to the world that is extreme separation. This approach understands the “not of” part in John 17; they're missing the “sent into” part. But see, we understand the sent into part. We just need to keep being clear on why we're sent into the world.It's not mainly so that we get to dress the way we do … or cheer on our favorite sports team or drive our vehicles or watch our shows or use our phones … if those are the only reasons we're not like the Amish, we're doing it wrong. Jesus sent us into the world with the gospel! We are here to make him known to everyone who is willing to listen! That is why we are sent. We are separated from the world, yes — and we are sent into the world with the gospel. This a defining reality of who we are.Now, the third defining reality Jesus gives us …3. We are one (verses 19–23).And I want you to hear this again in verses 20–23:I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 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.22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 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.It's easy to pick up a theme in these verses. The idea of oneness is mentioned four times. And the word we use for this is unity — which is really important. We need to think carefully about it. Two things to consider: What kind of unity is Jesus talking about? What is the unity for?What Kind of Unity?One thing that the 21st century has in common with the First Century is that our societies both have its own concept of unity. Remember that Jesus is speaking all of this in a Greco-Roman world, and they valued unity. It was a value then kinda like it is today. And you know what I mean. “Unity” is a buzz word. It's the kind of word that the NFL might put on their helmets, or make all the coaches to wear a shirt that says “Unity.” We've seen this before. And at first glance, we might think: Well this is great! Jesus obviously values unity, and our world values unity, so see the world can't be that bad. The world has a biblical value.And that is possible! Over time, Christian values can (and should) influence and transform the values of society (that would be good for society). But just because the same word is used doesn't mean it's the same value — the devil is in the details, literally.And the details of worldly unity is that it's really about coercive ideological uniformity. Worldly unity is a forced sameness of thought that's engineered and held in check by social threats.I remember one time another pastor blamed me as being against broader church unity because I believe what the Bible says about sexuality. He was basically saying I'm against unity because I was unwilling to defy the word of God — but does that mean I'm against unity? … No, I'm against worldly unity.That's not what Jesus is talking about, and he understands it exists. He knows he's in the world. He gets his context. So when Jesus describes unity, he's clear that it's unity from him and to him.The oneness he's talking about is not so much our oneness with each other, but our oneness with him. Our unity is not a Babel-like ground-up operation. It's a heaven-sent miracle experienced in our fellowship with the Trinity. That's the kind of unity Jesus means — “unity controlled by, defined by, and shared by the unity of the Father and the Son” (Klink, 724). And it's unity with a purpose. What Is the Unity For?Jesus tells us this twice, in verse 21 and 23:In verse 21, Jesus asks for the Father to make us one “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” In verse 23, it's “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”These verses are saying the same thing. The purpose of our unity is so that the world would see it and know Jesus — so that the world would know that God loves his people … and that those of the world can become his people through faith in Jesus. People of the world become not of the world when they trust in Jesus. They're called out of the world, separated by God, and then Jesus sends us into the world with the gospel. And we do it together with him, filled by his Spirit, welcomed into his fellowship. Church, this is who we are. Separated, sent, one. And my prayer is that in these days we would not shrink back from these defining realities, but that we would embrace them anew. That we would not only endure, but that we would advance.His word shall not fail you, he promisedBelieve him and all will be wellThen go to a world that is dyingHis perfect salvation to tell.That's what brings us to the Table.The TableAs we take the bread and the cup, we remember the death of Jesus for us, and we remember who he has made us to be. He has saved us and given us a mission. Grace upon grace.If you're a Christian, if you trust in Jesus Christ, we invite you to eat and drink with us and give him thanks!

Put on the New Humanity Ephesians 4:11-24 by William Klock Back in the Fall of 2007—after you'd hired me, but before we'd made the move here—I came up for a standing committee meeting in Victoria and then a visit here.  The trip from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay started out like any other trip, but about half an hour in, the winds picked up.  It got bad enough that the terminals were shut down for the rest of the evening.  But there I was.  It was one of the big Spirit-class ships.  But there I was on a ship in the middle of the storm.  What was supposed to be a two-hour trip took a little over three hours as the ship drove into the winds and the waves.  Every few minutes the ship would hit a wave and the loud “thud” and the shudder would reverberate through the ship.  But we made it.  It took longer than it should have.  And all through, even though we could feel the reverberation of the waves through the ship, it was steady as a rock on the churning strait.  Its design, its stabilisers all did what they're supposed to do.  I was a little impatient to get to the destination, but no one was seasick and  never once did I fear we wouldn't make it. Brother and Sisters, in the midst of the wind and waves of the world, that's how the church should be.  The church should be the great ship, rock steady, in the middle of the storm, not being tossed this way and that way.  The church should be the ship, dead on course, sure of its arrival even if the storms slows her down.  The church should be the ship—like Noah's ark—a place of security, a place of peace, a place of safety in the midst of the wind and waves.  But the ship won't be that steady rock in the storm if we don't get the preliminaries right.  Those big ferries that sail the Strait are carefully engineered: precisely designed hulls, precisely designed stabilisers, paired with precisely designed engines.  And just so the church. Remember last week as we began our look at Ephesians 4. I said that what Paul was doing there was a bit like designing a three-legged stool to support what comes next.  And so he stresses, first, that we—as individuals, but then collectively as the church—need to be humble, meek, and patient, bearing with each other in love.  You can build a church without those things, and it might even be rock steady in the storm, but it's going to the sort of place—or the sort of ship—that throws people overboard when there's a problem, or it's going to be the sort of ship that sees someone floundering helplessly in the sea and runs them down instead of rescuing them.  It's going to be a ship sailing to the wrong port. And, second, the church needs to be one—to remember the unity it has in the one Spirit, the one Messiah, the one God and Father of all.  We've all been baptised in one baptism and strive forward toward the one hope shared by the one church.  It's hard to be steady in the storm if we forget that.  Instead of all pulling together to accomplish our gospel mission, this person is doing this and that person is doing that and someone else is doing something else over there and the ship goes nowhere or drifts aimlessly off course. And then, third, and closely related are the gifts.  Paul wrote in 4:7-10, loosely quoting Psalm 68:18, that when Jesus ascended to his throne, he sent the Spirit to bring gifts to his people—so that he might fill all things.  That was temple language and a reminder that God's ultimate purpose is to fill the whole of creation with the knowledge of his glory and ultimately with his presence.  And that's our job, our purpose, our mission.  It's the port our ship is headed for as we proclaim and live the gospel, making God known.  But we don't do it on our own.  Our knowledge and experience of God's glory will only go so far, and so he's not only filled us with his Spirit, but the Spirit the equips us for the mission.  In the Spirit, the presence of God goes with us. And that brings us to our text today as we pick up with Ephesians 4:11. [Page 1161 in the pew Bibles.]  As Paul wrote verses 11 to 16, it's one really long sentence.  In English we have to break it up.  It has two “movements”.  First, look at 11-13.  Paul writes, “The gifts he gave were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for their work of service, for the building up of the Messiah's body, until all of us come to unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of God, to maturity, measured by the standard of the Messiah's fullness.” This is one of those lessons that it seems the church has to learn over and over and over.  We're all different.  Paul, thinking in terms of the First Century, talks all the time about Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor, man and woman, but we bring all sorts of difference.  We come from different cultures and backgrounds, different socio-economic classes, different languages, different levels of education, different sorts of families.  We have different interests and different likes.  We have different personalities and different skills.  Sometimes we find that those who were once enemies—soldiers on different sides, criminals and their victims, people from different political parties—are now brought together by the gospel.  The Spirit binds us together.  We share one baptism in one Lord who is the son of the one Father and we all yearn towards that one hope in which the earth is full of God's glory and creation set to rights once and for all.  And it's not only that, but the Spirit gifts us all differently.  What those gifts are and how they work and how they're received isn't fully clear.  I think sometimes we've had a tendency to try to nail this down too much.  To say, for example, that the gifts Paul talks about are all somehow miraculous gifts that we wouldn't have without the Spirit or we take Paul's lists of gifts (and there are several lists and they're all different) and we tell people that they have to have one of those specific gifts from his lists.  Brothers and Sisters, I think it's more organic than that.  The Spirit can give someone an entirely new gift that they could never come by naturally, but many of the gifts are just who we are and what we're gifted with naturally, but now empowered and given gospel direction by the Spirit.  And I think the full list is as diverse as the church is.  None of us is entirely quite the same as anyone else. So there's a vast panoply of gifts, but Paul puts his focus here on the ones that steer the ship: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  I wonder if Paul puts his focus here because of his own experiences with rejection as an apostle.  Or maybe it was because he'd seen churches torn apart when leaders and teachers put themselves above the unity of the church.  Some people followed this teacher and other followed that teacher.  It's still a big problem today. I'm always suspicious of men and women who develop big ministries that aren't anchored the church and who name those ministries after themselves or ministries, again not really tied to a church and all centred around a person or personality.  We just don't see that in the New Testament.  It's the opposite of the model for ministry scripture gives us.  And it's also sadly common these days for churches to split because people have decided to follow this teacher, instead of that one.  When the gospel is being compromised and the people doing it refuse correction, that may be just cause for division in the body.  But an awful lot of our divisions today are the result of leaders and teachers who have forgotten the great importance of maintaining the unity that Jesus and the Spirit have given us. Whatever Paul's reason for focusing on these kinds of leadership or authority or teaching gifts, it's not exhaustive, and his point is that the Spirit gifts us—not just some “saints”, but all the saints, all of God's people—in order to equip us for the work of service.  Some translations say “ministry”, but I think “service” is probably better in our context.  When we think of “ministry” today, a lot of people immediately think about the clergy, about pastors.  The way we talk about the clergy can be misleading.  We often use the term “minister” for someone who is ordained.  Or we say, “He's in the ministry.”  And that can leave people with the false impression that people like me or like our bishop are the ones who do the real work.  But that's not how it's supposed to be.  We're all ministers and we're all equally involved in ministry—or service.  The Greek word is diakonia.  That's where we get the word “deacon”, meaning one who serves.  But that's what we all do.  The church isn't like a ferry, where you've got a few people who run the ship and everyone else is just along for the ride.  In his providence, God has brought us all together and each of us has a natural place to serve.  If we struggle to find it, it might just be because we're thinking too narrowly of what “ministry” is or looks like. And that ministry, whatever it is, Paul is stressing, is for the building up of the body.  Paul longed for the Ephesians to grow into maturity.  And that meant growing to the point where they—not just as individuals, but as the body—the point where they faithfully put on display the truth of Jesus the Messiah.  It happens through a combination of unity in faith and knowledge of the son of God, of Jesus.  And the standard for measuring that maturity is the fullness of Jesus himself.  Think of it this way.  The risen and ascended Jesus is the embodiment not just of God's new creation, but more importantly he is the new human being, the new Adam.  He is everything Adam was supposed to be and more.  And Paul wants to see the church grow into just that kind of image: to grow into Christ-likeness.  It will never be perfect this side of eternity, but Brothers and Sisters, when the world looks at the church, it should see Jesus and it should see his new creation. And this maturity, this growing up” is the main point of verses 14-16.  Paul goes on, “This is so that we won't be babies any longer.  So that we won't be toss to and fro by the waves, carried away by every gust of teaching, by human tricksters, by their cunning and deceitful scheming.  Instead, we must speak the truth in love, and so grow up in everything into him, that is, into the Messiah, who is the head.  He supplies the growth that the whole body needs, linked as it is and held together by every joint which supports it, with each member doing its own proper work.  Then the body builds itself up in love.” We all start as spiritual babies.  God plunges us into his Spirit and gives us new life, but that doesn't make us mature saints—saints who have grown into the stature of the Messiah—overnight.  That said, it's often remarkable what the Spirit does do.  Often the Spirit will convict of sins that we didn't even know were sins.  Often the Spirit will suddenly flood us with one or more of his fruit and dramatically change us.  But on the whole, it takes diligence and effort to grow as Christian.  We don't learn the great story, we don't learn God's character, or what he expects of us by osmosis; we've got to steep ourselves in the scriptures.  We've got to invest in prayer—talking to God—in response, as we hear him speak to us through those scriptures.  We have to exercise our faith as if it were a muscle and the same goes for all the fruit of the Spirit.  We have to work diligently to put off the old and put on the new, not just to leave our sins behind, but to resist going back to pick them up.  We have to work at guarding the unity of the body of Jesus.  Because the world, the flesh, and the devil are all doing their damndest to make sure we never grow up. And this may be why Paul puts the emphasis here on gifts related to authority, leadership, and teaching.  There are heresies and false teachers out there.  People proclaiming false Jesuses and false gospels, people promoting gospels that promote selfishness or sin or health and wealth.  There are people proclaiming violence and politics as gospel.  There are people inventing their own scriptures and there false prophets.  And there are even real Christians and real churches out there that have, themselves, never grow up.  They got as far as the spiritual toddler phase, and somehow they got a platform—the modern church is sadly really good at giving it to them—and they're proclaiming that Jesus just wants you to come play forever in the sandbox instead of doing the hard work of growing into his full stature.  We need the people with those gifts who will lead us where we need to go.  The apostles—who were unique and whom we only meet in the New Testament—it's their authoritative writings that speak with the authority of God.  There are those uniquely gifted to shepherd the flock into green pastures and to protect them from wolves.  There are those with gifts to faithfully teach.  God even gifts some to be prophets.  We too often today think of prophets in terms of someone who tells the future, but in scriptural terms a prophet is really someone who applies God's truth to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  A prophet comes alongside the faithful in times of trouble to comfort and to exhort.  But a prophet also confronts the church when it is in error or has gone astray and calls it back to faithfulness lest it experience God's judgement.  These are the people who guide us as we grow, who protect us from wolves, and who confront us when we've gone off course—or when we'd rather just play in the sandbox. And, of course, it's all done in love.  Remember the first leg of the stool that supports all this: humility, meekness, patience, and love.  As we minister in the name of Jesus, we need to minister with the heart and character of Jesus.  But if we do that, we will gradually grow up into Jesus, who is the head of the body.  And Paul stresses: never forget that he is the one who ultimately grows us up.  It's all of his grace.  He's ultimately the one who has brought us all together and holds us all together.  If we want to grow up into his likeness, we need to keep our eyes, our focus on him. So Paul started the chapter by urging them to live up to the calling they've received—in other words, to be the new humanity that Jesus has made them.  And now he gets back to that in verses 17: “So this is what I want to say; I am bearing witness to it in the Lord.  You must no longer behave like the gentiles, foolish-minded as they are.  Their understanding is darkened; they are cut off from God's life because of their deep-seated ignorance, which springs from the fact that their hearts are hard.  They have lost all moral sensitivity, and have given themselves over to whatever takes their fancy.  They go off greedily after every kind of uncleanness.” This should be a no-brainer.  I think that was especially so for the Ephesians.  They'd come out of the dark, hopeless world of paganism.  They knew how everyone just looked out for themselves.  They knew what a world without grace was like.  They knew that world in which things like humility and meekness and forbearing with people below your status was a sign of weakness.  They knew a world of idolatry and moral filth that, even as bad as our world sometimes seems, we can only begin to imagine.  They'd been delivered from that kind of life.  They'd been made part of God's new creation.  And yet, over time, bits and pieces of that old world kept creeping back into the lives of these Christians.  The same thing happens to us.  We're captivated by the gospel, we repent, we turn aside from sin and idols, we embrace Jesus.  We read our Bible and we pray and we walk with our brothers and sisters.  But slowly bits and pieces or our old life start to creep back in.  Or maybe we've never full repented in the first place.  So we commit ourselves to Jesus, we love God, but money is still an idol.  Maybe not as much as it once was, but we haven't really let go of it and that starts affecting our spiritual growth and our witness.  Greed leads us to be dishonest in business or to treat coworkers or employees unjustly.  It keeps us from being generous with God and with others.  Or maybe it's sex.  We continue to use and abuse others, whether physically or virtually through pornography, to gratify our desires.  Maybe we indulge our anger and wrath.  Maybe we let our self-control slide.  And instead of maturing into the stature of Jesus, we stagnate or we even start to revert back to being babies again. Paul warns us: Don't behave like that.  You know better.  The fallen world and fallen humanity are like that because their hearts are hard and their minds are full of foolishness—and, most importantly, they know nothing of real life.  But you know better.  The Spirit has softened your hearts.  God has filled you with his wisdom.  And, most important of all, he's not only given you a taste of his new creation and made you a part of it, he's made you a steward of it.  No, Paul says in verse 20: “That's not how you learned the Messiah—if, indeed, you did hear about him, and were taught in him, in accordance with the truth about Jesus himself.” Notice: Living in such a way that Paul would question whether you ever actually did know the gospel, that's not a good place to be.  No, Paul's saying, remember what you were taught: “That teaching stressed that you should take off your former lifestyle, your old humanity.  That way of life is decaying as a result of deceitful lusts.  Instead, you must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and you must put on the new humanity, which is being created the way God intended it, displaying justice and genuine holiness.” I love the way Paul puts in terms of how we “learned the Messiah”.  That's how it works.  We were captivated by the gospel because we learned an image of Jesus: wise and loving, tender and gentle with the hurting, confronting and stern with the hypocrites and the wicked.  And we realise, that's what true humanity looks like.  That's what men and women set to rights by God are supposed to be like.  And so, in our baptism, we put off the old, fallen, broken, decaying way of being human—a way that leads only to tears and death—and we put on the new humanity embodied by Jesus and enlivened, made possible by God's indwelling Spirit.  Maybe we need to bring back the old practise from the ancient church where those being baptised put off their old clothes and put on clean, fresh, white robes. It might remind us what we committed to in our baptism: to put off the old way of life that leads to death and to put on the new life of Jesus and the Spirit, the new humanity, God's new creation.  Because, Brothers and Sisters, we need to ground ourselves in this renewal every single day.  This is what it means to be a Christian.  This is what it means to live as God's renewed humanity. And, Paul stresses in verse 24, such a people will display God's justice and true holiness.  Let's close with that image: justice and true holiness.  Such a people will display their—our hope—as we live together as a people washed clean by the blood of Jesus and renewed by the Spirit.  We live out and bring to the word justice.  Or righteousness.  The Greek word, dikaiosune, means both.  And that's why Paul can couple our display of justice and righteousness with true holiness.  Brothers and Sisters, as God sets us to rights, he makes us a people who witness the very thing the whole of humanity and all of creation so desperately needs—the solution to the pain and the hurt and sickness and the tears, the solution to the brokenness of the world.  It's not just moralism.  It's justice finally brought to a world of injustice.  It's righteousness finally brought to world of unrighteousness.  It's a people, made holy by Jesus so that we can be a fit place for the dwelling place of God—a temple that carries his presence to the ends of the earth.  It begins in our baptism, but it does not stop there.  It continues as Jesus grows us into his full stature of justice and holiness, and as he brings us together to share our gifts in a united mission of service: to bring the good news of that justice and righteousness to the world.  To be the temple through which God will make his glory known through all the earth. Let's pray: Almighty God, who gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always receive with thankfulness the immesasurable benefit of his sacrifice, and daily endeavour to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life, who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, for evermore.  Amen.

Dr. T.C. Schmidt, author, “Josephus and Jesus” Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ (free download)The post First Century Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus on Jesus – Dr. T.C. Schmidt, 4/10/26 (1002) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

A Sermon for Easter Day Colossians 3:1-4 & St. John 20:1-10 by William Klock On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb in the early morning darkness… John is a brilliant story-teller and he's a brilliant story-teller because he knew the story so well.  Not just the story he tells of his time with Jesus, but the whole story, the big story of God and Israel—a story that leads straight to Jesus.  But, even more, John knew that the story of God and Israel was even bigger.  It was part of a story that involves the whole human race and all of creation.  And so there are echoes here in his Gospel—deliberate echoes—that recall that big story, of Israel and Israel's God, of his beloved creation that our fallen race has corrupted, and the story of his love, his mercy, and his grace that are at work to set it to rights. So Mary went to the tomb early Sunday morning, while it was still dark.  Jesus had been crucified on Friday.  He was dead.  End of story.  Jerusalem was ready to carry on with life as usual.  If they'd had water coolers in the First Century, the events of that Passover might have been the topic of discussion that first day back to work.  Some weird things had happened: the veil in the temple torn, the dead rising from their tombs and appearing in the city.  But it was over.  Or so everyone thought.  But while Jerusalem slept, Mary went to the tomb.  John writes specifically that it was the first day of the week.  He didn't need to tell us that.  Jesus' body wasn't placed in the tomb until late on Friday.  Saturday, well, that was the sabbath.  No one would go to the tomb on the sabbath.  So we know already that it was the first day of the week, Sunday.  But John tells us anyway and he tells us in such a way to remind us of the opening words of his Gospel: “In the beginning…”  You know those words.  “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” But when John wrote those words, he chose them very carefully, because in introducing Jesus, he wanted to remind us of another beginning.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.  He tells us that Mary came to the tomb while it was still dark.  Again, remember the first words of Genesis, the very beginning of the story: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.”  As John opened his Gospel with words suggesting that the story of Jesus is going to be a story of new creation, so even as he tells us about Jesus' resurrection, he again frames it in terms of new creation, filling his story with echoes of Genesis.  John writes that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.  On the sixth day, Pilate presented Jesus to the people and announced, “Behold the man!”  Hanging on the cross, Jesus used his last gasp of breath to declare, “It is finished.”  Again, an echo of Genesis.  Any normal person who counted himself a friend of Jesus would have considered that first Good Friday a very, very bad day, but that echo from Genesis reverberates through John's account.  When God had finished the work of creation he declared that it was all very good.  Jesus was laid to rest in the tomb for the sabbath—another echo of Genesis.  Death is not the end, but the beginning of new creation.  As Mary went to the tomb that first Easter morning, the first day of the week, the word of God was poised to burst forth in an act of new creation. At the time no one understood any of this.  Mary went to the tomb expecting that, like every other person in history who has died, Jesus would still be there, stone cold and lifeless.  She went to mourn and to meet her friends to finish the work of anointing Jesus' body.  And to her surprise, she found the tomb was open, the great stone door rolled away.  It was dark, so there was no point poking inside for a look.  But that didn't matter.  The open tomb meant only one thing: Jesus' body was gone.  John doesn't reveal Mary's thoughts, but resurrection would have been the last thing on her mind.  No, the open tomb meant someone had taken the body, maybe grave robbers, maybe Roman soldiers playing a joke on some silly Jews, adding insult to injury.  So she ran.  She ran to Peter's hiding place in the city and beat on the door.  Peter went running with John to the tomb.  John's the one who describes himself as the one whom Jesus loved—his best friend. John tells us that he outran Peter and got to the tomb first.  The sun was rising and as he peered into the tomb he saw the linen strips that had wrapped Jesus' body.  That was an odd thing.  Mary, John, and Peter could think of a few reasons why someone might have taken Jesus' body, but that anyone would first unwrap him was inexplicable.  Peter arrived and headed straight into the tomb.  If Jesus' tomb was like others that have been found, his body was likely placed on a shelf to one side of the small, low entrance.  If his head had been oriented towards the door, it would have been difficult to see without at least putting head and shoulders into the tomb as Peter did.  And what a curious thing Peter found.  Not only was the body gone with the wrappings left behind, but the wrappings appeared to be undisturbed, as if Jesus had simply passed right through them.  And the cloth that had been on his head, probably a piece of linen tied around the head to keep the jaw closed, it had been moved and neatly placed nearby. For comparison, it hadn't been that long before that Jesus had raised Lazarus from death.  The disciples had watched as Lazarus stumbled awkwardly out of his tomb.  He was still tightly wrapped in linen, probably not unlike a Hollywood mummy.  His friends scrambled to tear the linen cloths away, making a mess in the process.  Lazarus was all sticky and oily from the various liquids used to anoint his dead body.  In contrast, everything about Jesus' tomb spoke of calm and order, even the face covering was neatly set aside. John tells us that at this point he squeezed into the tomb beside Peter.  He saw and believed, he writes.  But believed what?  John goes on to tell us in the next verse that “as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”  They did not yet understand, but he believed.  Some argue that John merely believed Mary's report of the missing body, but this seems like a pretty trite detail in amongst everything else John has told us here.  Peter and Mary believed Jesus' body was really gone, too.  What would seem to make the best sense of this passage is to understand that John is saying that this was the moment when he realised that Jesus had been raised from death.  He said nothing to Peter or to Mary.  He and Peter returned home.  Mary remained at the tomb weeping.  They, the others, didn't know what to make of the missing body, because they did not yet understand the implication of either Jesus' claims or of the scriptures.  But John was beginning to put two and two together—and he believed. You can't really blame John for not saying anything.  He, himself, must have been struggling to understand and to make sense of it all.  But there it was.  The tomb was empty.  I expect John ran through the handful of reasons that the body might be gone and realised that none of them really made that much sense.  The Romans had no reason to take it.  Neither did the Jewish authorities—especially after they'd released Jesus' body to his friends for burial.  Grave robbers?  What would they want with a poor man's grave?  And the empty, but undisturbed linens?  Who in their right mind would unwrap the body?  Suddenly all the things Jesus had said, things like his statement that he would tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, it started to come together and to make sense.  John's brain started reaching back into the scriptures that he thought he knew so well, and new connections started to form.  He started hearing those old words afresh in light of Jesus—and especially the empty tomb.  And he began to understand. I think that, again, the contrast with Lazarus must have stood out.  John had seen a sort of resurrection before, but Lazarus was resurrected to a life still subject to death and decay and emerged from the tomb still wrapped in his graveclothes.  Something different had happened to Jesus.  The undisturbed graveclothes spoke of something greater.  Resurrection—something God's people longed for—had happened, but not as anyone expected.  Resurrection was supposed to happen to everyone all at once at the end of the age, but—what if, John started to think—Jesus was raised first—raised to inaugurate and to lead the way into the age to come.  And that meant that Jesus really was the Messiah and that somehow this meant that God really was going to set everything to rights.  New creation had begun that morning, but it would take some time—and a meeting with the risen Jesus—before John would be able to sort out for himself what it all meant. But if new creation was born that morning, it also had to have implications not only for Jesus, but for his people too.  John doesn't elaborate at this point.  The wheels in his head, after all, were just starting to turn.  But that's where St. Paul and our Epistle pick up, written decades later after he and so many other had had the time to think it through and work it out—rethinking everything they'd ever known in light of the risen Jesus.  Let me read those four verses from Colossians again.  Colossians 3:1-4. [Page 1169]   So if you were raised to life with the Messiah, seek the things that are above, where the Messiah is seated at God's right hand.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.  Don't you see: You have died, and your life has been hidden with the Messiah, in God!  When the Messiah is revealed (who is your life, remember), then you too will be revealed with him in glory.   What are the implications of the resurrection of Jesus for his people?  St. Paul wrote Colossians, at least in part, to address what seems to have been a common problem in the New Testament churches: legalism.  Jewish Christians struggled with the place of the law in the new covenant and many gentile believers were told that they needed first to embrace a form of Judaism before they could really be followers of Jesus.  In Colossians 2:20-23 Paul asks such people why they continue to live as if they were still enslaved by that old way of life.  Sure, the law has “an appearance of wisdom” in helping a person to attain an outward appearance of piety and holiness, but that's just it: it's an outward appearance, an outward conformity to holiness.  It's not that this is necessarily a bad thing in itself, but that true holiness is something that wells up out of the heart—or, at least, it should.  It's not hard to hear Paul's frustration in these words.  Jewish converts should know better.  This had been Israel's struggle since the beginning and Jesus, in his death and resurrection, had finally fixed it.  Jesus gives his people new life by giving us new hearts.  His perfect sacrifice purifies us so fully—also in a way the old covenant sacrifices could never do—that God himself, in the person of his Spirit, actually come to live in us.  And his Spirit then turns our hearts away from sin and self and rebellion and back to God.  But it's easy to talk about the new life Jesus and the Spirit give.  It's often a struggle to actually live it.  New life is the starting point when it comes to defeating sin, but all too often we forget and start thinking that new life is the result of first having tackled sin ourselves.  Paul knew all too well that's not how the gospel works. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus has led us in an exodus from sin and death.  In his resurrection he has given us new life.  We are no longer slaves.  This is the basic truth of the Christian life and if we don't get this right, we'll get everything else wrong.  As the Lord led the Israelites out of Egypt through the sea and freed them from their bondage to Pharaoh, Jesus sets us free from sin's bondage when we pass through the waters of baptism in faith.  It's a truth.  A fact.  A done deal.  We have been redeemed.  Even if we don't feel it, Jesus and the Spirit have transformed us: we were slaves to sin and death and now we are free; we were in bondage to the powers of this wicked old age and are now citizens of the kingdom of God.  This is what we mean when we speak of “regeneration”.  This is what Paul gets at in our Epistle.  He writes in 2:20 that we have died with the Messiah and now he writes in 3:1 that we have also been raised with the Messiah.  Again, we may not feel it, but if we have truly taken hold of Jesus in faith, he has carried us through death and out the other side into a new kind of life.  What he did for the Israelites when he delivered them from their Egyptian slavery through the waters of the Red Sea he has just as surely done for us in delivering us from sin and death through the waters of baptism.  It's a done deal.  It's a sure thing. And yet, there's more to come.  What we have today in the Spirit is the down payment of the life that awaits us the other side of resurrection.  What Paul is saying here is one of those “already-but-no-yet” truths.  Jesus has been raised to the sort of real life and true humanity that we lost through our sin.  We look forward in faith and hope to the day when we will be raised as he was, but in the meantime we have God's own Spirit living in us as an earnest, as a down payment, as a promise on that day.  We await the resurrection, but even today the Spirit makes that future resurrection a reality for us.  Maybe this is what makes life in Jesus a struggle.  If we could appear in locked rooms and never know sickness or decay again—as is true of Jesus—it would be easier to remember who and what we are.  Instead, we are called today to live by faith, not by sight.  One day the promise will be fulfilled.  One day the things of the present age will be gone for good and God's new age, his new creation will come in all its fulness, heaven will descend to earth and human beings will live with God.  But until then we have God's promise and we have his Spirit and we have the empty tomb to remind us that our hope is sure and certain. And so we begin with first principles: If we have died with the Messiah, we have been raised with the Messiah.  We need to get this truth into our heads and when we do, we'll remember that our life and everything about it that matters, is in the heavenlies where Jesus sits at the right hand of God.  Our true lives are hidden there with Jesus, Paul says.  It's a kind of mystery, this “already-but-not-yet” life we have in the Messiah.  But even though it's stored away in the heavenlies along with the rest of the age to come and God's new world, Paul wants us to understand that it's still very much who and what we are right now.  The new age dawned that first Easter morning when Jesus rose triumphant over death and if we are in him by faith, we really are part of that new age.  It may be hidden from the world around us, but it's not hidden from us, because Jesus and the Spirit have made it our reality.  We live today in faith-filled hope and in hope-filled anticipation of the day when Jesus returns to rejoin heaven and earth, God and humanity, and to bring the new age in all its fullness.  And as difficult as it may be some days to live this reality, Paul urges us to do so in faith-filled hope, knowing that Jesus, who is our life, will return to finish what he has started.  On that day we will know glory in all its fullness.  Our hope is not merely that Jesus will return, but also that when he returns he will reveal who we really are in him.  Resurrection will vindicate and reveal the faithfulness of God's people, just as Jesus was vindicated and glorified in his resurrection.  As we struggle against sin and as we labour for God's kingdom we may feel inadequate or insignificant, but the resurrection of Jesus ought to be a source of encouragement to live the truth of who we are in Jesus even as some aspects of it are still hidden with him. Now, back to our Gospel: St. John reminds us of those words “In the beginning…”  The story has begun.  Now we wait for the end.  But we await the ending in hopeful anticipation, because what our God has begun, what our God has so invested with his love and with the sacrifice of his own Son, our God will surely finish.  Brothers and Sisters, glory awaits.  Let us take our eyes off the things of this age, and set them instead on glories of Jesus' kingdom.  Let us live out God's new creation in the midst of the old.  Let us live not only to the glory of God, but to make his glory known through all the earth.   Let's pray: Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant us by your grace to set our minds on things above; that by your continual help our lives may be transformed; through the same, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Would first‑century Christians even recognize what we call "church" today? In this episode, J. Warner Wallace uses a simple "alien thought experiment" to examine how closely (or how poorly) our modern church models resemble the church described in the book of Acts. Drawing from his own journey—from walking into a megachurch as a 35‑year‑old skeptic, to serving in a mid‑sized church, to planting a home church—Jim explores where we may have drifted from the New Testament pattern and how we can realign our communities with the biblical design for gathering, mission, and discipleship. This conversation will challenge how you think about Sunday services, church size, programs, and what it really means to live as the people of God in the world today.​ If this episode was helpful, please subscribe to the Cold-Case Christianity podcast so you never miss a new show, and take a moment to rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform—your review helps more people discover the truth of the Christian worldview.

It's time to return to our tandem anime Retrospective on Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Michiko & Hatchin! We also follow up on the Shogakukan Manga ONE controversy, discuss Andrea Horbinski's Manga's First Century, female game protagonists in Cairn, and more!!! Send us emails! mangamachinations@gmail.com  Follow us on Social Media! @mangamacpodcast Check out our website! https://mangamachinations.com Support us on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/mangamac  Check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/mangamactv Check out our new gaming channel! https://www.youtube.com/@NakayoshiGaming/  Timestamps: Intro - 00:00:00 Shogakukan Manga ONE controversy follow-up - 00:06:59 Media Do purchasing Seven Seas - 00:15:45 Manga's First Century - 00:26:18 Atlantis: The Lost Empire - 00:31:26 Resident Evil Requiem - 00:39:07 The Star Trek Voyager Documentary - 00:40:29 Cairn - 00:48:57 Next Episode Preview - 00:57:22 Cowboy Bebop 10, Michiko & Hatchin 11, Samurai Champloo 11 - 00:58:24 Outro - 01:39:07 Song Credits: "Talk of the Town" by Devon May "We Don't Stop" by 2MooveKa "Home" by Zach Sorgen "God Mode" by Konstantin Garbuzyuk

For the past month, we’ve been studying the rich writings of the Gospel of Mark. Mark weaves together a vivid narrative of the life of Jesus . . . and certainly the most vivid is his description of the end of Jesus’ life and ministry. These events were choreographed by the Father from the beginning of time, but the events were surprising to a First Century citizen seeing it in real time. Today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie presents his message, What the Death of Jesus Means to You. — Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years. Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.Support the show: https://bit.ly/anbsupportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the past month, we’ve been studying the rich writings of the Gospel of Mark. Mark weaves together a vivid narrative of the life of Jesus . . . and certainly the most vivid is his description of the end of Jesus’ life and ministry. These events were choreographed by the Father from the beginning of time, but the events were surprising to a First Century citizen seeing it in real time. Today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie presents his message, What the Death of Jesus Means to You. — Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years. Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.Support the show: https://bit.ly/anbsupportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A prophet, a lawgiver, and the Messiah are transfigured on a mountain. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it's more about the identity of the Jewish people in Jesus' construction of the faith. It's about the discples' response and not knowing how to respond.Faith isn't about morality or being a good person, but the lifelong pursuit of seeking the eternal in order to better understand ourselves. Faith is an exercise in identity. The transfiguration is about the identity of people who follow Jesus or seek faith two thousand years later in a moment when so many of us are wondering whether there's any way that we can share a national identity again.And in a world that declares the best use of religion is to produce good people and good citizens, what Jesus brings is just as surprising as it was in the First Century – it's not about being good, but through learning to love faithfully, we learn to become human.Support the show

Last week, we saw the churches gathering to settle disagreements. In this week's sermon, we're looking at the letter that emerged from their meeting and the requests the Jewish believers had for the Gentiles. Their advice turns out to matter far beyond just the First Century.

In the First Century, lives changed with just a touch of the Master's hand. But a particular woman's life was changed when she simply reached out and touched Jesus' robe. Tuesday on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie shows us what that means for us. Learn how to let Jesus touch your life, Support the show: https://harvest.org/resources/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Onesimus; First Century martyr and former slave whose story is told by St. Paul in his letter to Philemon; Onesimus had been a slave of Philemon, but escaped; Paul met him in prison, where he baptized him; Paul wrote to Philemon, asking him to take Onesimus back not as a slave, but as a brother in Christ; Onesimus died in about 68 A.D. Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 2/16/26 Gospel: Mark 8:11-13

Tuesday on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie brings us the prescription for a balanced Christian life. We'll look to the believers of the First Century, and learn the importance of a life that looks upward, inward and outward. Support the show: https://harvest.org/resources/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus; great men of the First Century, companions and disciples of St. Paul; Timothy accompanied St. Paul on his second missionary journey and was entrusted to aid the Thessalonians, Corinthians and Ephesians; Titus is addressed as St. Paul’s ‘true child after a common faith’ and was called to missionary work in Crete Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 1/26/26 Gospel: Mark 3:22-30

What if grief isn't something to “get over” but something that can lead us toward meaning, connection, and healing? Jill interviews David Kessler, a leading expert on loss and healing. They discuss Kessler's background, his books, especially Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, and his journey through personal grief, including the loss of his son. David shares insights on the stages of grief, differentiates between practical and emotional grief, and stresses the importance of finding meaning and community in the healing process. He also touches on the role of children at funerals and the concept of continuing bonds with deceased loved ones. Tune in for invaluable perspectives on enduring and transforming through profound loss.Listen and Learn: How David's life was transformed by severe personal trauma and loss into a path devoted to assisting others in overcoming griefWhy grief is a natural consequence of choosing love and connection rather than a defect or failureDavid's more expansive definition of grief Challenging the idea that grief has a timeline and how healing isn't about “ending” grief, but learning how to carry it differentlyThe non-linear and deeply personal journey of loss and what it takes to show up for yourself in the hardest momentsHow facing grief head-on can transform pain into growth and reveal unexpected meaning in life's hardest momentsWhy some people seem to sail through grief while others struggle silentlyHow meaning often hides in the small, unexpected moments of life and lossResources: Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief https://bookshop.org/a/30734/9781501192746 David's Website: http://Grief.com Grief Educator Certification with David Kessler: https://www.davidkesslertraining.com/certificationTender Hearts Online Grief Group: https://www.davidkesslertraining.com/tender-hearts-fb21 Connect with David on Social Media:https://www.youtube.com/@iamdavidkesslerhttp://instagram.com/iamdavidkesslerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/david-kessler/http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-KesslerAbout David Kessler David Kessler is one of the world's foremost experts on loss and healing. His decades of experience with thousands of people on the edge of life and death has taught him the secrets to living a happy and fulfilled life, even after life's tragedies. He is the author of seven books including his latest bestselling book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, as well as a new Finding Meaning Companion Workbook. He co-authored two books with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Life Lessons and On Grief and Grieving. He co-wrote You Can Heal Your Heart with Louise Hay and also wrote Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die. His first book, The Needs of The Dying received praise from Saint (Mother) Teresa.His article in the Harvard Business Review, titled, The Discomfort You Are Feeling is Grief went viral and was named one of “The Most Influential and Innovative Articles from Harvard Business Review's First Century. His talk with Brené Brown was the #1 podcast in the world. He also hosted his own Spotify Podcast called Healing with David Kessler.He has a unique place in pop culture as one of his books being the premise for the season premiere of The Walking Dead and he was a question on Alex Trebek's Jeopardy. His new online model of grief support, Tender Hearts, offers over twenty-five groups. Additionally, David leads one of the most respected Grief Educator Certification programs. He is the founder of Grief.com.Related Episodes:52. Palliative Care and Healing with Michael Kearney116. Building a Meaningful, Values-based Life with Jenna LeJeune117. Bearing Unbearable Loss: A conversation About Grief with Joanne Cacciatore157. The Art of Dying Well with Katy Butler351. You Only Die Once with Jodi Wellman384. Understanding Grief and Loss with Meghan Riordan Jarvis419. Break Up on Purpose with John KimSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Sermon for the Epiphany Ephesians 3:1-12 and St. Matthew 2:1-12 by William Klock   Have you ever wanted to live in another story?  For me the high point of Second Grade came every day after our lunch recess.  We'd sit down at our desks and Mrs. Andrews would sit on a stool at the front of the class and read us a chapter from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.  From the get-go, I was completely drawn into this story of four kids who stumble through the door of an ordinary wardrobe into another land of magic and talking animals.  And pretty soon I was obsessed.  Now, in 1979 there was no Narnia “merch” like there was in the early 2000s after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie came out, but I still had everything I could get my hands on.  Pretty soon I had my own set of the books, because our teacher wasn't reading them fast enough.  I had a calendar.  I had a giant map my dad laminated so I could hang it on the wall.  My mom even spent months making me a quilt with all my favourite characters sewn on it.  And I couldn't open a closet door without a little tingle of hope: maybe this time there'd be a path to Narnia.  I'd even reach in and push on the back wall.  I remember blowing out my birthday candles at least once and wishing Narnia would be real.  But Narnia wasn't my story.  It wasn't even real.  There was no escape from my real-life story. Decades later I reconnected with one of my old school friends from those days.  “Remember when we wished Narnia was real?”  And he said, “You wanted to get into Narnia.  I just wished I could be part of your family.”  His home life wasn't good.  His family was kind of a mess.  It didn't help that they were poor—not that we were rich, but it's funny that he thought we were even though we weren't.  But he wanted out of his family and his story and into mine.  “That's why I used to hang around your house so much and hardly ever invited you over to mine,” he said to me.  I felt really bad when he told me that.  I knew his life wasn't easy, but it had never occurred to me that he might think mine was.  And I wonder: How often do we wish we could escape our story and live in someone else's?  I guess if we were to go by things like Pinterest and Instagram, by the prevalence of all the home and garden and renovation shows on cable TV, by all the ways our culture gives us to try to escape reality—when you think of all the fantasies we obsess over that aren't real and aren't ours—a lot of us long to live in a story that isn't the one we were born into. But here's the thing.  Raise your hand if you're baptised.  Put that hand on your head—on the place where the priest, the pastor poured those baptismal waters on you.  Martin Luther used to say that when the devil caused him to doubt his standing before God, he would put his hand on his forehead where the baptismal waters had been poured, and he would say to himself, “You are baptised!”  A tangible fact, an historical event in each of our pasts, that has objectively marked us out as God's own.  Not fantasy.  Reality.  You belong to God.  And not just that.  Our baptism marks us out as the people, as the sons and daughters of the God of Israel, made one with the Messiah—with Israel's anointed king—and filled with the God of Israel's own Spirit.  And Brothers and Sisters, that means that you have been transferred into a story, into a family, into a household that is not your own.  I think of my ancestors.  A few of them were Sephardic Jews who eventually became Christians.  But most of my ancestors were born into a story of paganism.  They danced with druids or worshiped oak trees.  One branch of my family comes from a place not far from where Thor's Oak was said to be, that sacred tree that St. Boniface set out to chop down with his axe.  I've wondered if my ancestors were amongst the pagan who watched, expecting him to be struck down by the gods for felling their sacred tree and then stood in awe as, instead, a great wind blew it down for him.  Were they amongst those first German converts who gathered to worship Jesus in the church Boniface built from that fallen oak tree?  One way or another, they heard the gospel, the good news about Jesus the Messiah who died and rose again and they were invited to pass through the waters of baptism.  And they weren't just captivated by this story and its good news—by this family that was filled with riches they never could have imagined.  When they passed through those baptismal waters in faith, they stepped out of their old pagan stories and into a new story, not one that was theirs by birth, but one that was now fully theirs by faith and by the grace of God.  Just like the Israelites leaving behind their slavery in Egypt as they passed through the Red Sea to be named God's beloved firstborn, so we've passed from a story of idolatry and sin into a new story of redemption and of light and of life.  What my friend longed for every time he came over to my house, what I longed for every time I pushed on the back wall of my closet, it's happened for real in Jesus.  By faith, I—and you all—have been given a place, a home, a part in a story not originally our own.  And in that, Brothers and Sisters, God has revealed his glory.  But now I'm getting ahead of myself. What's this got to do with Epiphany?  Epiphaneia is a Greek word that means “appearing” or “appearance”.  Or you could say, “manifestation” like the Prayer Book does when it gives the subtitle for the Feast of the Epiphany: the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  That's us—most of us, at any rate.  We're gentiles.  And that makes Epiphany our great feast.  The day we remember the wise men—those Persians astrologers—who came to worship the new-born King of the Jews.  And I have to think that if Christians had observed Epiphany in the First Century—they didn't, it came along later, but not all that much later—I think Paul would have had a special place in his heart for Epiphany.  Because proclaiming the good news to the gentiles and offering them a welcome into this story that was not theirs by birth, that was—as we say today—that was Paul's “thing”.  He was even in prison because this was so much his “thing”.  Look at our Epistle from Ephesians 3. He writes: “It's because of all this that I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus the Messiah on behalf of you gentiles…”  He trails off at that point.  He needs to say something else before he goes on.  But what we need to know is that the Church at Ephesus was predominantly a gentile church.  Paul had started it when he visited the city on his second missionary journey.  Now he's in Rome, under house arrest, waiting to be able to appeal his case to Caesar.  He goes on: “I'm assuming, by the way, that you've heard about the plan of God's grace that was given to me to pass on to you?  You know, the mystery that God revealed to me, as I wrote briefly just now.  Anyway…  When you read this you'll be able to understand the special insight I have into the Messiah's mystery.  This wasn't made known to human beings in previous generations, but now it's been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets.  The mystery is this, that, through the gospel, the gentiles are to share Israel's inheritance.  They are to become fellow members of the body, along with them, and fellow sharers of the promise of Jesus the Messiah.”   The great mystery, Paul's passion, is the message that in Jesus, the gentiles are fellow heirs with the Jews.  A lot—most—of Paul's fellow Jews would have gasped at this.  He could have gotten himself stoned, proclaiming this in Jerusalem.  Imagine your family is really wealthy.  And then imagine that you've got a brother—let's call him Paul—who goes to the house of some strangers.  They're not even remotely related to you.  They're poor and miserable.  Maybe they're even slaves.  But worst of all, they don't share your values.  In fact, they laugh at your family's values. They scoff at the very things that made your family rich.  But Paul goes to them and announces: My family's riches?  Yeah, they belong to you as much as they belong to me and my brothers and sisters.  That's what Paul's doing here.  And that's why he calls it a “mystery”.  The old Paul—Saul of Tarsus—would be gasping at the thought that he'd be saying these things a few decades later.  Even the Jewish believers in Jesus had trouble with this mystery.  Yes, gentiles could share in Israel's inheritance, but to do so they had to become Jews.  Ritually purified, circumcised, observing torah so that they weren't gentiles any longer.  But Paul's now saying you don't even have to do that.  The great “mystery” of the gospel is that it brings the gentiles—through Jesus—into the family, into the people of the God of Israel.  The law, torah, is no longer the defining mark of the family of God.  Faith in Jesus the Messiah is. “This is the gospel,” he writing in verse 7, “that I was appointed to serve, in line with the free gift of God's grace that was given to me.  It was backed up with the power through which God accomplishes his work.  I am the very least of all God's people.  However, he gave me this task as a gift: that I should be the one to tell the gentiles the good news of the Messiah's riches, riches no one could begin to count.  My job is to make clear to everyone just what the mystery is, the purpose that's been hidden from the very beginning of the world in God who created all things.  This is it: that God's wisdom, in all its rich variety, was to be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places—through the church!  This was God's eternal purpose, and he's accomplished it in Messiah Jesus our Lord.  We have confidence and access to God in him, in full assurance, through his faithfulness.”   It took Paul a while to sort it out after he met the risen Jesus and realised that he really was the Messiah, but what Paul realised is that his people had got their own story wrong.  The way Israel told her story, it no longer had a meaningful place for the gentiles.  As far as they were concerned, they—the Jews—were God's people, God cared about them, God would deliver them from their oppressors and put them on top, and one day he would rain down destruction on all the unclean people of the world.  Salvation was for the Jews, they might have said.  But judgement was for the gentiles.  Even those first Jewish Christians were still thinking in this vein.  Jesus was their Messiah.  There were a few gentiles who believed, but they had to first become Jews.  And there were the Samaritans who believed.  That was a challenge to this kind of thinking, but until Paul, no one had this vision of the deliverance, of the salvation of the Gentiles—at least not on a large scale.  But Paul, when he met Jesus, it started to sink it.  If Jesus had risen from the dead, then he was the Messiah, and if he was the Messiah, he had redefined the people of God around himself.  Jesus and the Spirit now define “Israel”. The irony is that today we've made the opposite mistake.  We've so dehistoricised, flattened out, and universalised the story that we've all but forgotten that “Salvation is of the Jews.”  Jesus spoke those words—Salvation is of the Jews—to the Samaritan woman and they ought to be a rebuke to much of the Church today that has forgotten our own story.  St. Paul writes in today's Epistle to explain his unique apostolic ministry to proclaim the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles.  It has been my experience that many Christians have never stopped to consider just how odd Paul's ministry would have seemed at the time.  They've never stop to think, because we have largely removed the gospel from its narrative and historical context and unnecessarily flattened it to communicate its universal nature.  Occasionally we need to recall that, even though “God so loved the world,” it is also true that “salvation is of the Jews”.  Out of a world that had lost all knowledge of him, the Lord chose and called Abraham and from him created a people whom he made holy and in whose midst he lived.  He gave this people his law and his presence and made them unique amongst the nations.  Jesus was born a Jew.  He was the Jewish Messiah.  He fulfilled the Jewish law and the words of the Jewish prophets.  He proclaimed good news about a coming kingdom and a coming judgement to Jews and for Jews.  While gentiles were welcomed when they came to him, he made it clear that his ministry was to his own people.  Even in his death by crucifixion, Jesus foreshadows the means of execution that the unrepentant Jewish rebels would face when judgement came a generation later.  Jesus literally took the death of his people on himself in that sense.  It cannot be stressed enough that Jesus, Israel's Messiah, lived and died for the sake of his own people and to fulfil their story and to fulfil God's promises to them. We can't jump over this to get to John's announcement that God so loved the world that he gave his Son, because when we do that, we short-circuit the story, we leave out most or all of the bits that show us how God, in Jesus, has been faithful to his promises made under the old covenant.  And when we short-circuit the story that way—hear me, because this is incredibly important—when we do that, we cast a veil over God's glory.  It was necessary for Jesus to fulfil the story of his own people, because only then would the Gentiles see the faithfulness of Israel's God, be drawn to what they saw, give him glory, and in the process be incorporated into the new people of God by faith.  In this, too, we see that the means by which the Gentiles are incorporated into the new Israel fulfils the message of Israel's prophets and glorifies the Lord.  While it is certainly true that a dehistoricised and flattened gospel has brought millions to the Lord Jesus, it is also true that communicating the gospel within its context communicates the faithfulness of God as the basis for our own faith with far greater depth and builds upon a firm foundation, in contrast to so much that passes today for evangelism and Christian faith that is merely subjective.  Again, Christians today need to understand just how weird Paul's ministry would have seemed in his day—even, at first, to the other apostles.  Again, most believed that the good news about the Jewish Messiah was for other Jews, and of little interest (or even relevance) to gentiles.  Jesus radically changed what it meant to be the people of God and this became Paul's passion—and it should be ours.  Like you've spent your life pushing on the back wall of the wardrobe to no avail, but suddenly in Jesus you push through and find yourself in Narnia—you finally find yourself in that story of new life you've always longed for and the child of a God unlike any other god you've ever known of. To be clear, Israel should have known all of this all along.  Jesus and Paul are both clear about that.  The Lord delivered Israel from Egypt and set her apart before the watching nations.  She was to be his witness.  Through her he would restore and reconcile humanity to himself.  But as Paul points out in our Epistle, this “mystery” was largely lost on Israel—on previous generations.  And yet there it was from the beginning, all the way back in Abraham's day—if anyone was paying really close attention—that the Lord's intent was to one day bring the gentiles into his family and to make them fellow heirs with those who were children by birth rather than adoption.  This truth had been revealed by the Spirit to the prophets of old and, in the same way, had been revealed to the apostles—who took some time to parse it out—and to Paul it was a personal commission: to proclaim the good news about Jesus to the gentiles.  Paul adds here that this mission is not simply to ordinary people, nor is it a matter of personal piety.  As gentile believers come into their inheritance in the Messiah, the church becomes both a witness and a challenge to the rulers of the gentile world.  This diverse body of Jews and gentiles of every sort, living in unity the inheritance given them by Jesus, announces that he is Lord and that a new age is breaking in.  Just as was the case with Israel, the lords of the earth can submit in faith to the lordship of Jesus or face the judgement to come. Our Gospel today foreshadows all of this in story form.  Matthew puts the messiahship, the kingship of Jesus at the forefront.  First he shows us Jesus over against Herod.  The true King of the Jews over against the pretender and cheap imitation.  But very quickly, Matthew drives home the point that in Jesus the prophecies about Israel's King are being fulfilled.  When the wise men go to Herod to ask where this newborn king is, it sparks a discussion of Micah's prophecy.  Matthew includes a paraphrase of Micah 5:2-4.  This King of Israel, he said, will shepherd the Lord's flock.  The Messiah is the King of Israel.  It is only once Micah has established that the Messiah will be King over Israel, that he will fulfil the Lord's promises to judge and to renew his own people, that he will take up the role of King David, that he then goes on to tell us that this King “shall be great to the ends of the earth”.  Why?  Because in Jesus and in how he fulfils the Lord's promises to his own, the pagan nations of the world will see the living God—a God unlike any god they've ever known.  Their idols—and our idols—pale in comparison.  And in the end, the nations can't help but come to bow before him and to give him glory.  The wise men, the magi foreshadow this.  Matthew bookends his Gospel with the gentiles.  It begins with these wise men from the east coming to worship Jesus and to honour him as King.  And it ends with Jesus sending his disciples to go out and make disciples of all the nations.  The good news is only good news to the Gentiles because it reveals that the God of Israel is unlike the gods of the nations: he does what he says he will do and he fulfils his promises to his own.  Think of the gentiles in the book of Revelation: They worshiped the beast and frolicked with the great prostitute, but they discovered in the downfall of the beast that the kings and gods of this world can't hold a candle to the God of Israel revealed in Jesus, to his power and might, and most importantly, to his faithfulness.  Specifically, he fulfils his promises to his people in Jesus.  It is this faithfulness just as much as the amazing report of Jesus risen from the dead and the defeat of his enemies that draws the Gentiles to give glory to the God of Israel and to submit in faith to Jesus, the King of the Jews.  Of course, this carries the same ramifications for Caesar and the other rulers and gods of this age as it did for Herod.  This is what Paul stresses in the final verses of our Epistle.  Their days are numbered, for as the royal summons to the King goes out, Jesus “shall be great to the ends of the earth”. Brothers and Sisters, the gospel about Jesus is good news, because it reveals the faithfulness of God.  He does what he says he will do.  He fulfils his promises.  He does so like no other.  And that's reason for us to trust him, to give him our allegiance, to worship him and to give him glory.  And to proclaim his good news to the world.  And the wonderful part of it is that the gentiles, that we aren't simply left to look into the windows of this rich family's house and to wish that we could have part of it.  Jesus welcomes us in.  And there's no having to go back home to our poor houses and our silent idols when the party's over.  Through Jesus, we belong.  Later in Matthew 12, Jesus will say to the people with him, “My mother and brothers are those who do the will of my Father in heaven.”  By faith, we become his family.  He is our brother.  His house is our house.  Think about that today as you come to the Lord's Table.  Eat the bread.  Drink the wine.  And think on the fact that it is our brother by adoption and faith, it is King Jesus, who welcomes us—not as outsiders, but as family.  If we are in him, if he has marked us out by baptism, this is where we belong.  This is our life and this is our story. And if you're still looking in from the outside and wishing to be a part of it—like a kid who keeps pushing on the backwall of the closet in hopes of finding his way into a new world and a new story.  Stop pushing on the wall.  That's not the way into this house.  Instead, take hold of Jesus' hand in faith knowing that in him all the promises of God are fulfilled, knowing that he is supremely trustworthy and faithful.  Take his hand in faith and he will lead you, as he has led so many, through the waters of baptism and into this new story of redemption and light and life. Let's pray: O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: mercifully grant that we, who know you now by faith, may at last behold your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

This line from a popular Buffalo Springfield song sums up well the life of King Herod the Great. His insecurity and fear drove him to rule with a cruel hand, killing members of his own family and slaughtering the innocents in Bethlehem. This is not just First Century history; it is also a tale of our times. The worrisome rise of uncertainty and paranoia is causing many to look for scapegoats (anti-Semitism) and to demand an immediate fix for our problems. But it's the expanding rule and reign of King Jesus that is the best response to such recklessness, which, if left unchecked, will bring disaster upon us all.

THE HEADQUARTERS ON MOUNT ZION Colleague James Tabor. Tabor describes excavations on Mount Zion, identifying a first-century house foundation as the "upper room" and headquarters of the early movement. He visualizes Mary as the matriarch in this courtyard, welcoming pilgrims and apostles like Paul, and establishes James as the leader of this house synagogue. NUMBER 5

PREVIEW:  This audio excerpt features an interview with Professor Barry Strauss regarding his book, which chronicles the Jewish rebellion against Roman authority during the first century. The discussion focuses on the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, led by Titus, the son of Emperor Vespasian. Although the Jewish resistance considered their capital an impregnable fortress due to its geographic defenses and abundant resources, the city remained vulnerable along its northern wall. Internal leadership struggles and incomplete fortifications ultimately hampered the rebels' ability to withstand the Roman military onslaught. This historical account highlights the intense defiance of the Judean people as they faced a concentrated effort by the Roman Empire to suppress their revolt. MORE LATER.

The Early Church Headquarters on Mount Zion: Colleague James Tabor discusses archaeology on Mount Zion revealing a first-century foundation beneath a medieval church, likely the headquarters of the early movement, describing this as the home where James led the church and Mary hosted pilgrims, with Mary possibly living long enough to witness James's martyrdom. 1950 BEERSHEBA

Send us a textIn this episode of The Way of Valor, Angie Taylor sits down with Dr. Ward Sanford biblical historian, longtime scientist, and author of the historical novel series Cry for Jerusalem. With today's global focus on Israel and the Middle East, Dr. Sanford offers a timely and captivating look at the real first-century history that shaped Christianity, the Roman world, and the fall of Jerusalem.Drawing from decades of scientific research, deep historical study, and extensive work with the writings of Josephus, Dr. Sanford reveals:Why historical fiction can help us understand both history and faith more deeplyThe surprising real events that led to the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the TempleThe distinctions between Israel as a land, Judaism as a faith, and the Jewish people as a heritageHow early Christians, Jews, and Romans interacted in ways that bring the New Testament world to lifeWhat critics of the New Testament often get wrong and what the historical record actually showsHow his series intertwines real historical figures, fictional companions, and dramatic events to make history accessible for teens and adults alikeDr. Sanford also shares how his research strengthened his personal faith and gives a glimpse into his current work exploring the layout of Herod's Temple and the archaeology behind it.If you love history, biblical context, or stories that illuminate faith in fresh ways, this episode will draw you in and leave you wanting to learn more.Check out Dr. Ward Sanford's book series: cryforjerusalem.com/Connect with Angie Taylor on:IG: https://www.instagram.com/mrsangietaylor/?hl=enFB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090424997350

Chapter 6 in Hebrews today highlights the example of Abraham and his faith in God.  The events of his life illustrate the need for patience in waiting for God to fulfil his promises – and so we read, “Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise” [Ch. 6 v.15]. The account in Genesis shows how he and his wife Sarah's faith was tested to the limit before God's promise was fulfilled and Sarah herself gave birth to a son. This illustrates the ways of God in dealing with those he has called to serve him.  His purpose will be fulfilled in His time. This world is now so evil it offers us no future, not that it ever did.   Today's world has virtually nothing of any spiritual value; we see an ever more chaotic state of affairs in so many countries, political conflict is increasing in democratic countries.      Against this background, how true are the words we read in Hebrews about the certainty of the promise of God that “we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.  We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor” [Ch. 6 v.18,19]. Maybe we have not sensed (as yet) that we “have fled for refuge”?  Will we feel motivated for such action when the situation reaches that stage?We thought of this in contrast to the mariners in the ship with Jonah as we read today of their desperation when “there was a mighty tempest of the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up” [Ch.1 v.4], just as this world threatens to break up with the nations becoming more disunited than ever – within themselves and between one another.In the New Testament Jesus makes a strange statement in response to “the scribes and Pharisees … he answered them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” [Matt.12 v.38,39] ; he states  that just as Jonah was in the “belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” [v.40].How few still believe that sign – and that Jesus died and rose again?  Yet the history of the rest of the First Century and thereafter defies explanation if that did not really happen.  This fact is “a sure and steadfast anchor” as to the reality of the foundation of our faith as the tempests of this world grow ever greater.

Custom Mary I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say, "It's just man's tradition. It's just a custom." At its worst misunderstanding, the tradition or custom is seen adversarial to Torah obedience and as evil. As a simply uninformed understanding, it's a lack of research or direction into how Yeshua taught and lived customs and traditions...of men.   For instance, the letter of the Torah does not say to go to a synagogue every Shabbat. But how should one "hear" the Word, which is a commandment? Synagogues were an answer to that question. The Torah was read every Shabbat, so Scripture tells us that Yeshua went to synagogue every Shabbat:   • And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. (Lk 4:16)   Yeshua wouldn't do something evil, so this was a good custom even if the Torah does not say, "Thou shalt enter the synagogue every Sabbath." How to differentiate among the direct mitzvah (commandment), the custom or tradition that helps one to do the mitzvah, and an outright tare? The answer comes from knowing that the Word is the seed from which we grow fruit and that the heart's intent is a vital indicator of the fruit grown from it. My offer to help with a Biblically sound way to look at customs and traditions for believers was to write the booklet: Truth, Tradition, or Tare: Growing in the Word.   This brings us back to our topic of hospitality over the last several weeks. Hospitality is how we invite the very Presence of Adonai into our homes, towns, and gatherings. In the following account of hospitality, the hostess is a woman named Martha, and she had a sister named Mary (Miriam). Custom dictated that a host or hostess like Abraham and Sarah provide a safe refuge, water for washing, and food and drink for their guests. It was customary. Traditional. Martha busied herself providing these customary things for Yeshua and his disciples, but Mary was more, well, I'm going to say it...not Custom Mary:   • Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Lk 10:38-42)   Martha was missing something in her hospitality, just as we can miss it in any custom or tradition we practice: why do we do it? To strengthen our relationship to the Holy One and His Word? Or to earn righteousness or the esteem of others through our own efforts?   Yeshua gently pointed out to Martha the important aspect of customary hospitality: it is to strengthen the relationship between the ministry of the Word and the recipients of the Word. To make it come alive. In this case, the Word was literally alive in Martha's home!   In fact, Yeshua would have greeted the home with peace when he entered, just as he instructed his disciples to do. Instead of receiving the peace, Martha remained in a state of worry and bother. She did not receive the blessing. Mary, however, was eating and drinking it in, getting to know what the Living Word should be in her life. The custom of hospitality is to enable Kingdom ministry, to provide a temporary little Temple sanctuary for the minister.   Martha was not wrong if she wanted to continue preparing food to serve the disciples, but she was wrong if it became contentious and destroyed the very relationships she should be strengthening with other believers. Yeshua was well able to perform a miracle of bread, oil, wine, fish, or any other meal she was serving. He'd certainly done it for others who offered what little they had, and so had Elijah. And I'm sure he was prepared to wait if her meal took longer. After all, he was there to grace her with his Presence, not to grade or promote her on culinary skills. He wanted her to drink him in!   To Martha, however, the customary, traditional way a woman of the First Century was viewed as valuable was in her domestic skills. To Yeshua, his custom was to invite all to sit and learn at his feet. Male, female, Jew, non-Jew, slave, free...all could learn and grow in the ministry of the Word. It was the better part of hospitality. It didn't negate the need to feed and house the visiting ministers, the other part, but it was the better part of the whole equation. Perhaps, Yeshua is saying, the point of the serving is forging peace with people and Heaven. Hospitality is the designated vehicle for it.   Yeshua didn't pick Martha's home so she could become righteous through serving; he picked her because she believed in him; she already was righteous. She just needed some extra training like he had to correct his other disciples on things like fighting over higher positions, water-walking, and poor demon management.   A righteous guest seeks a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that sanctuary home with peace:   • “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house* is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet.” (Mt 10:9-15)      *”The House” is a euphemism for The Temple    Yeshua clarified hospitality: it is receiving by 1) providing refuge, food and drink, and water for washing as well as 2) receiving his Word. Yeshua had to remind Martha to receive the Word, too. The heart of the Temple was in the hidden place of the ark, the Word of the Torah emplaced between the two cheruvim where the Voice would speak. Out loud.   Hospitality is how the average person enters the holy Sanctuary to experience the Voice and Presence of Adonai through His designated ministers of the Word.   • “You shall keep My sabbaths and revere My sanctuary; I am the LORD.” (Le 19:30)   What did First Century Jews understand about this commandment? And why did Yeshua instruct his disciples so specifically about hospitality as they ministered in his name and authority?   Rashi explains it in his comments to Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:30:   • “'And revere my Sanctuary.' He should not enter the grounds of the Temple neither with his staff, nor with shoes on his feet, nor with his moneybelt, nor with the dust that is on his feet, i.e., he should not enter with dirty feet. And although I enjoin you to have reverence with regard to the Beit HaMikdash [Temple], nonetheless, ‘you shall observe my Sabbaths; the construction of the Beit HaMikdash does not override the Sabbath.”    Contextually, Rashi's point is that Sabbath will occur in every place for all time, and so commandments specific to the Temple services will be overridden by commands specific to Shabbat. As Yeshua understood about the magificent Temple, it would not long endure. Instead, the righteous of the earth would have to function as little sanctuaries in the nations where they lived and were sent. He would continue to build the Temple through them and to send the Presence, the Ruach HaKodesh.   In practice, Yeshua sent his disciples to continue his work; in order to do that work, they would need holy homes to provide Temple hospitality. For this, the home would need to be a “worthy” one. The family would need to conduct its daily life toward the preservation of holiness of Shabbat.    Such a family was fit for Kingdom ministers, and those minister-guests were obligated to treat it with the same courtesies as they would enter the Temple itself. Yeshua's requirements were identical to the customary Temple protocols for entry. A home that provided water to wash the feet was a prepared holy temple. As the repentant sinful woman washed Yeshua's feet with her tears, receiving his forgiveness, so a righteous home signaled receiving the guest with physical water as well as receiving the Word of shalom he or she brought to the house...and House.   The reverence of Shabbat is linked to entering the Temple itself, placing that home in a very high spiritual status, worthy of blessing for its hospitality.   The disciples would bless the homes of Custom Marys the same as they would proclaim blessings in the Temple, for the host was standing in to bless them as the priests would bless the tribes coming up to worship, and all, even those "night watcher" servants of exile from among the nations, offered blessings to YHVH.

Turkeys and Eagles, Part 5: Following Jesus Changes Everything in Our Families MESSAGE SUMMARY:    Series Overview: This Series has been looking at Paul's letter to the Ephesians to point out “Turkeyisms” – those things of our culture and some worldviews by which we may have been duped into beliefs inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus or behaving in a manner that is not what Christianity is all about. This Series has pointed out some changes in our thinking needed to be like “Eagles” so that we can be the people that God wants and expects us to be. Today's Sermon: A look into Ephesians 5 provides a perspective on many “Turkeyisms”; however, the focus today is just on one: Turkey Thinking – “My Christianity has no effect on my family relationships, but my upbringing does”; but Eagle Thinking – My Christianity places me in the Kingdom of God with a radically different view of family relationships”. Being in the Kingdom of God Changes everything for those that follow Jesus. Marriage in America is having a rough time, and we can't say that Christian marriage is different. Too many of us, who say that we follow Jesus today, don't let Christianity follow us through the front door as we live our secular lives. In the First Century of the Ephesians, both Jewish and Greek laws greatly diminished the roles, respect for, and value of women. In the Roman world, of the same period, women and children were just passed around – women had many husbands. It was into this world of Judaism and Greco Roman culture that Jesus walked in; and we found Jesus respecting and honoring women. Jesus raised the status of women – Jesus brought a whole new way of thinking about family, marriage, children, and divorce into First Century culture that has provided an ethical context for two thousand years. In the same period and culture, Paul came along; and he set up churches. He wrote letters, which were written in the culture of this period, to the Christians in churches like the church in Ephesus. These early Christians were a part of the Kingdom of God – the blessed followers of Jesus – they were called to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be imitators of Jesus. Therefore, followers of Jesus were to be vessels of His light to the world. Followers of Jesus were to be different from this culture of the period. By being different in their families, followers of Jesus would transform the culture (which, eventually, they did!!!). From Ephesians 5:21, we are to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”. “Submitting” is treating others like you wish to be treated. In Ephesians 5, Paul applies this principle of Christianity to the family (i.e. wives, husbands, and children) and to the workplace (i.e. employees). The Kingdom of God calls us to loving family relationships; therefore we, as followers of Jesus, are called to be different and not a part of the culture.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, Sabbath rest is truly an unbelievable gift! Thank you that there is nothing I can do to earn your love; it comes without any strings attached. As I close my eyes for these few minutes before you, all I can say is, thank you! In Jesus' name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 133). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:13 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV):  Ephesians 5:21-33, 6:1-4; John 4:25-28; Mark 10:6-10; Proverbs 31:10-31; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.; Psalms 73a:1-14. SCRIPTURE REFERENCE SEARCH: www.AWFTL.org/bible-search/ WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “For Jesus Followers, Fasting, with Food, Will Symbolize a Victory Over Oneself and Solidify a Personal Relationship with God”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

PREVIEW Barry Strauss on Jews Versus Rome and the Siege of Jerusalem. Professor Barry Strauss discusses his new book, Jews Versus Rome, chronicling the rebellion of the Jews and their extreme defiance of Roman power in the first century. The core event is the siege of Jerusalem in 69 to 70 AD, when Titus, the son of Vespasian, was charged with defeating the city after his father departed to become emperor. Jerusalem was the religious center and a formidable fortress, impregnable on three sides, yet possessed a critical weakness: its northern wall. Despite the difficult siege ahead, the rebels believed they could withstand it, having laid up supplies, amassed considerable food stores, and secured access to a natural water source. Guest: Professor Barry Strauss. Retry

Chad Bird joins Erick and Dan to discuss the first-century context of the book of Acts. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education  What's New from 1517: Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Erick Sorenson