Podcasts about if peter

Luke 5:1-11 NIV 1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Broken Things... Growth Things... Let's talk about us for a moment. I see the broken things in this passage. Things get broken in life… A Broken Net (v. 6) – something you really needed breaks. When the big moment comes, your equipment fails. A Broken Man (v. 8) – something inside you breaks. You realize your life priorities are all screwy. A Broken Partnership (v. 10) – someone you really counted on breaks. They leave you to clean the fish. I see the growth things in this passage… how to go deeper. Learn more.... Verse 1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. Growing spiritually puts you in a position to see Jesus work in both your life and the lives of others. Launch out.... Verse 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water…” If Peter had said no, then no catch. The fish didn't jump up in the boat or flop up on the shore all by themselves. God loves to do things via human agency that is filled with Christ's presence. Leave all.... Verse 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Peter had to not only make Jesus Captain of the Boat; he had to make Him Lord of all life. Are you broken? Do you need to grow? Join Peter at the knees of Jesus. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/shcc/message

GOSPEL POWER l AUGUST 3, 2021 18th Week in Ordinary Time 22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 28Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”34When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. 35After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word throughout the region and brought all who were sick to him, 36and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. I n today's Gospel-episode, Jesus allows Peter to share his experience of divine sonship, which entails power over nature. It is a momentary foretaste of the status God intends to bestow on us through his only-begotten Son. But absolute faith in Jesus is necessary — faith that conquers all fears. If Peter had remained undistracted and focused on Jesus, fear would not have assailed him, doubt would not have crept into his heart, and he would have savored longer this beautiful experience. The secret of staying afloat on the often turbulent sea of life is to stay focused on Jesus, firm in our faith that bring us safely to where the Father wishes us to be.

The circumstances of Peter's ministry now provide him opportunity to leave his flock with words to remember in his absence. Following the example of Jesus, who commissioned him and all the church to go and make disciples in Matthew 28, Peter gives his hearers marching orders which likewise will provide direction to the church after he has died. The death of the apostles might have been the end of the Christian church if God had not ordained Spirit fueled means of survival in the post-apostolic era. This book and the rest of the New Testament is that means coupled with the indwelling Spirit that would fortify the church of Jesus Christ to stand and expand for as many generations as He would tarry. (3:1) Peter indicates that this is the second such letter he has written to encourage the church along these lines. If Peter is referencing his letter we have recently studied (I Peter), than his audience is the churches of Asia Minor. However, it may well be that Peter wrote more frequently to various churches. At this time he is likely writing from prison, toward the end of his life and ministry. The apostle makes good use of the few days and months and the network of missionaries who carry his letters. By these means, Peter documents the solid bedrock of the faith and its applications which wold prove sufficient to preserve and equip the church for thousands of years. Today, let us lean closer with rapt attention to hear the last words of our forerunner in the faith. Given his calling to interpret and apply the Gospel and our situation surrounded by challenges to our faith, a sober church should treasure every word...

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity St. Luke 5:1-11 by William Klock This morning Luke introduces us to Simon Peter.  In the previous Chapter Luke shows us Jesus as he begins his ministry, travelling around Galilee preaching and healing.  He was bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, and sight to the blind.  Everyone “wondered” and “was amazed” by what he did and what he said.  But Jesus didn't pick up any followers.  Just the opposite, in fact.  In his home town the people insisted he stay.  They wanted him to be their own personal miracle-worker.  And when he refused they tried to stone him.  But now in Peter we see the response that Jesus was looking for.  And yet Peter had no idea what he was getting himself into at the time.  As the gospel story plays out we see that he didn't always follow Jesus consistently or whole-heartedly, but he did follow and he's become a model for all of us who now follow Jesus.  One of the things that comes through Luke's portrayal of Peter is just how much he's like us.  He's a sinner, sometimes a doubter, and even once a betrayer.  When I read the Bible and I don't understand I take comfort in Peter; he followed Jesus himself for three years and most of that time he didn't understand either.  Jesus called him to follow, but Peter had no idea what that was going to involve, what Jesus was asking him to do, how he was going to do it, or even how he was going to support himself financially.  But Peter followed anyway and Jesus did amazing things through him. The story begins with Jesus preaching by the sea.  In 5:1-3 Luke writes: On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.  Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land.  And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.   Gennesaret was the local name for the Sea of Galilee.  That part of the lake has a shoreline full of little coves where the fishermen would keep their boats and do their work.  On this occasion Jesus was preaching to a group of people on the beach of one of these coves.  Word got out and the crowd got bigger and bigger, so Jesus had an idea.  These little coves are like natural amphitheatres.  Sound also travels well over water, so Jesus decided to take one of the fishing boats out into the middle of the cove so that he could preach to the crowd and be heard better. Luke says that the boat Jesus chose belonged to Simon Peter.  Peter and Jesus may have known each other already.  Luke doesn't always tell us everything in chronological order, but in Chapter 4 we read about Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law.  If they already knew each other and if Jesus had already healed Peter's mother-in-law it might explain why Peter, tired from fishing all night, would be willing to row him out into the cove.  It might simply be that Peter had just been listening to Jesus preach for the first time and was impressed with what he was hearing.  No doubt, though, Peter had heard people talk about what Jesus was preaching and doing throughout the region.  At the very least, Peter was probably flattered that this popular preacher was asking for his help. And so Jesus sits in Peter's boat and preaches for a while.  Peter was tired.  He probably just wanted to go home.  But as the crowd leaves, instead of asking Peter to take him back to shore, Jesus tells Peter that it's time to get back to work.  Luke writes: And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”   If this command had come from anyone else it would have been crazy talk.  We hear exasperation in Peter's response. And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” (Luke 5:5a) I've read that it's difficult to catch fish during the day on the Sea of Galilee.  Our sources tell us that in Peter's day, most of the fishing was done at night and the fishermen would then take their catches into the towns to sell them during the morning hours.  The nets described here were trammel nets made of linen.  They were useless in the day because the fish could see them and would swim away.  They were designed to be used at night when they would be invisible to the fish.  So Jesus' command to Peter isn't just crazy from the standpoint that they hadn't caught anything all night, these fishermen didn't even have the right equipment to catch fish in the daylight. And, of course, if there's anyone who's particular about his way of doing things, it's a fisherman.  This pole for this kind of fish and that bait for that kind of fishing.  Tell them they're wrong and you might get thrown overboard.  I can't think of any reason why Peter would have been any different.  His livelihood depended on his expertise.  Jesus would have known this too.  And yet even though Peter's tired after a night of catching nothing, Jesus tells him and his colleagues to row back out into the deep water at the wrong time of the day and to cast their nets again even though they're not the right nets for daytime fishing.  But Peter doesn't throw Jesus overboard.  He doesn't even argue with him.  He gets his fellow fishermen together and he says to Jesus: “At your word I will let down the nets.”   Yes, Peter let's Jesus know just how absurd his command is.  And Luke makes sure we know that Peter—the expert on fishing the Sea of Galilee—knew this was absurd and impossible.  And yet Peter addresses him as “Master”, accepts his authority, and obeys.  What Jesus is asking would be absurd coming from anyone else, but the fact that this is Jesus' “word”—a word backed by Jesus' obvious authority—makes all the difference.  This is faith.  Even if it's faith that doesn't know where it's all going to lead, it's faith.  Its's the kind of faith that led Abraham across the desert to a land he'd never known when God called.  It's the kind of faith that moved Mary to say “yes” when the angel came to her.  Mary knew that virgins don't conceive and have children and Peter knew that you don't catch fish in the day when you haven't caught them at night and you certainly don't catch them with the wrong kind of nets.  And yet as Mary submitted to the announcement that she would, as a virgin, bear a son, Peter now submits to Jesus.  He recognised Jesus' authority just as everyone else did, but for Peter it went beyond amazement and wonder; he was ready to obey and to follow.  And so Peter and his friends rowed out and cast their nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.  They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. (Luke 5:6-7) Was Peter just humouring Jesus because he was “famous” and commanded respect?  Did he really expect that something miraculous might happen?  It's hard to say, but it seems like he was expecting something.  They might not have caught any fish during the night, but the nets would have been no less full of weeds and debris from the effort.  He and his friends had been cleaning them as Jesus was preaching.  Cleaning the nets was a job in itself and it doesn't seem very likely that Peter would have been willing to foul his nets again if he was just humouring this silly rabbi who obviously knew nothing about fishing.  No, I think Peter was expecting something to happen.  Things happened wherever Jesus went.  And yet even expecting something to happen, Peter still wasn't prepared.  Luke says they caught a “large number of fish”.  That's an understatement.  They caught more fish than they'd ever caught before—more than their nets were designed to catch.  It took the men in two boats to haul in the tearing nets and then the weight of all the fish began to swamp the boats.  And all at the wrong time of day and with the wrong kind of nets. And there in the middle of a mountain of wriggling fish and in a sinking boat, Peter throws himself at Jesus' feet. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. (Luke 5:8-10a) Peter saw something in Jesus.  Knowing Peter and how he struggled to understand what Jesus said and did, we probably shouldn't read too much into his calling Jesus “Lord” at this point.  I doubt Peter was intentionally making a theological statement about the divinity of Jesus.  But we shouldn't read too little into it either.  In that moment Peter recognised a connection between Jesus and the God of Israel.  The Lord was at work in Jesus.  Her was the Messiah.  And recognising this, Peter responds the way people of true faith have always responded when overwhelmed by the holy.  He prostrates himself, he confesses his sinfulness, and he begs Jesus to go away.  If Peter were like the people of Nazareth or Capernaum he would have been offering Jesus a job.  “Jesus, don't go anywhere.  We need you to join our little fishing company so that we can catch fish like this every day.  Stay with us, Jesus, and we'll be rich in no time!”  But Peter does exactly the opposite.  He recognises that God is at work in Jesus, and faced with that kind of holiness he confesses his sinfulness and begs Jesus to leave. It's not that Peter was suggesting he was a particularly evil or impious man.  He's simply responding to an encounter with the holy the way so many others had done in Israel's long history.  Think of Moses.  Remember God calling to Moses out of the burning bush: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground.”  And how did Moses respond?  Exodus says that he hid his face because he was afraid to look on God (Exodus 3:5-6).  Or think of Isaiah.  He was confronted with a vision of the Lord sitting on his throne, surrounded by angels and he cried out, “Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5).  Even prophets like Moses and Isaiah were overwhelmed by their sinfulness when confronted by the holy.  And yet Peter's confession of himself as a sinner highlights Jesus' mission.  Jesus came to do battle with sin and death, but that was only good news to those who knew they were subject to sin and death—to those who knew who the true enemy is.  The problem with the people in Nazareth and Capernaum was that they thought the Romans and other Gentiles were the enemy.  They didn't understand the gravity of their own captivity to sin.  And as a result, they only saw Jesus as a cheap miracle worker.  But in Peter we see a man who suddenly understood who the real enemy is and in acknowledging his own sinfulness—his own captivity to that enemy—Peter takes the first step needed to follow Jesus.  He acknowledges that he's exactly the sort of person Jesus has come to redeem.  To admit that you are a sinner is to admit your need; it's to admit that you need God's gracious intervention—the very intervention Jesus came to make.  Peter repents.  He takes the first step of faith.  It won't be the last time he repents.  As Jesus reveals more of Peter's life that needs to be turned around—other sins, his violent political views, his betrayal—Peter will step out in faith and repent again and again.  But it starts here. Again, Peter probably wasn't thinking things through this logically or theologically.  He simply recognised that he was in the presence of someone who was truly holy and in light of that holiness his own sinfulness was revealed for what it was.  Peter suddenly got a taste of what it will be like to stand before God's judgement.  That's a horrible place for a sinner to be and Peter wanted it to stop.  He wanted Jesus to go away.  He didn't want his sinfulness revealed in such a dramatic way.  It didn't occur to him at that point that Jesus might just be the answer to his sinfulness.  But that changes when Jesus responds to Peter's fear.  Look at what follows in verses 10 and 11: And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.   The answer to Peter's sinfulness is not for Jesus to go away, but for Peter to follow Jesus.  And, of course, to follow Jesus is to trust him.  Again, the theology can come later.  At this point it's enough to trust and to follow.  Peter doesn't know where that will lead, but Jesus gives him a hint.  In fact, Jesus suddenly turns the amazing catch of fish into something prophetic and ties it to Peter's own confession of his sin.  He's spent his life catching dead fish and selling them in the market.  Jesus just showed him how lucrative fishing could potentially be with a personal messiah helping him out, but then Jesus calls Peter to follow him and instead to spend the rest of his life catching people who are dead in their sins and releasing them into Jesus' kingdom.  And if Jesus can bring such an amazing catch when it comes to fish, just imagine what can happen if you fish for people instead. Imagine what the people on the shore were thinking as they watched the fishermen struggling to get the fish into their boats.  And imagine what they were thinking as the saw big, tough Peter out there in the boat kneeling in front of Jesus.  Maybe they could even hear the conversation across the water.  It was a morning full of surprises, but imagine what people thought when Peter and his friends came to shore with Jesus—and with that enormous haul of fish—and simply walked away from it.  Peter and his friends, James and John, had made an investment in their boats and nets.  Fishing was a good livelihood.  They weren't rich, but they were better off than many.  That miraculous haul of fish was worth a lot of money too.  But Luke tells us that when they got to shore, “they left everything and followed him”.  Everything: the boats, the nets, the fish, even their livelihood—their source of income and support.  Brothers and Sisters, that's trust, that's faith.  From that point on, Peter, James, and John would find their fundamental sense of belonging and being as they walked with Jesus and as they did the work of his kingdom. I mentioned earlier Isaiah's response to the holy.  Luke presents this entire scene, I think, in parallel with Isaiah's calling.  In Isaiah 6 we read of the prophet's vision of the Lord: “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,” the train of his robe filling the temple and the seraphim singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah's response, as we've seen, was to cry out “Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  The holiness of the Lord brought Isaiah to a recognition of his own sins and the sins of his people, but the Lord didn't leave him in the horrible place of condemnation.  Isaiah goes on to tell us that “one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal…from the altar.  And he touched my mouth and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for.'  It was then that Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?”  And now knowing the depth of the sin problem of his people and having been relieved of its weight himself, Isaiah scrambles to respond: “Here am I!  Send me” (Isaiah 6:1-10). This was Peter's experience.  Neither Isaiah nor Peter had any idea what it meant to be sent; they just knew it meant leaving everything and trusting in the Lord.  They had had an encounter with the holy and instead of being condemned, they had been forgiven—their sins were taken away—and they responded to the Lord's call with faith.  Why?  Certainly out of a sense of gratitude, but in both cases there was also a realisation that the rest of the nation—and eventually they'd realise, the rest of humanity—needed to experience the same forgiveness that they had experienced.  They were the poor who had heard the good news; they were the captives suddenly set free; they were the blind who suddenly received their sight and, more than anything else, they wanted to take that good news, that release, that healing to all the people still subject to sin and death.  And they were ready to give up everything else in order to do it.  As time went on, as they followed Jesus in the days and weeks and years after the cross, they were willing to suffer and even to die for the sake of the good news that Jesus is Lord, that he is Creation's true King, and that he has brought forgiveness, restoration, and renewal. In contrast we have a tendency to be far more blasé about our encounter with Jesus.  We need to ask why that is.  Why aren't we as excited as Peter was?  Why aren't we willing to give up everything—or at least to be ready and prepared to give it all up?  Why aren't we bringing in a miraculous catch of people into the kingdom?  Could it be because our response to Jesus hasn't really gone beyond the “amazement” and “wonder” of the people in Nazareth and Capernaum that we read about in the chapter before all of this?  Could it be because we haven't really been confronted with God's holiness and our own sinfulness as Peter was? A lot of people are blasé about the Gospel because they've never been truly confronted by the weight of their sin in light of the truly holy.  For too many people, Jesus comes to give us hugs and to affirm us as we are or maybe to encourage us to be just a little bit better than we are.  But Brothers and Sisters, there's a reason why our liturgy of daily prayer begins with confession—twice a day and even first thing in the morning.  There's a reason why the liturgy of the Lord's Supper focuses our attention so much on our sin.  There's a reason why we recite the Ten Commandments and then ask the Lord for his mercy and then again confess our sins and hear the Lord's absolution.  There's a reason why, after both of those “confessions” we still come to the Table acknowledging that we are not worthy of the Lord's crumbs apart from his gracious mercy.  The liturgy declares the love of God manifest in the Lord Jesus, but at each step it also reminds us that we are sinners unworthy of that love apart from grace.  It reminds us that we deserve death, but that God loves us so much that he became one of us and died in our place.  The liturgy doesn't let us come merely to be affirmed as we are; it reminds us that Jesus died that we might be forgiven and restored and transformed, because, dear Friends, it's only in light of these things that we can begin to plumb the great depths of God's love for us and the enormous costliness of his grace.  And it's as we understand just how amazing his love and grace are and how much they cost our Lord, that the Gospel becomes not some blasé doctrine of comfort and do-gooderism, but a profound and overwhelmingly compelling call to leave everything and to follow Jesus in faith.  It's as we experience our own release from the captivity of sin and death that our blind eyes are opened and we seek to share the good news of Jesus Christ with all those around us that they might be drawn to the kingdom and experience the same wonderful release from captivity that we have. Let us pray: Heavenly Father, thank you for the witness of Peter.  As uncomfortable and even as terrifying as such an experience is, confront our sin with the light of your holiness that we might better grasp the depths of your love and grace.  Stir up in us a fresh love for you and a fresh desire to share your Good News with the world that it might be set free from the sin and death that once enslaved us.  Give us the faith to leave everything and to follow you, trusting you to lead and to equip and to empower.  We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

In this week's episode of Reformed Millennials, Broc and Joel discuss Facebook and all the recent news around the now trillion dollar platform - everything from the recent ruling on their antitrust lawsuit, to the launch of their newsletter platform. We also chat about the slide deck that Buzzfeed released as part of the upcoming transaction to go public and acquire the Complex Network Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.If you aren’t in the Reformed Millennials Facebook Group join us for daily updates, discussions, and deep dives into the investable trends Millennials should be paying attention to.👉 For specific investment questions or advice contact Joel @ Gold Investment Management.📈📊Market Update💵📉65% of people think its a bad time to buy a house lolThe major US Stock Market Indexes can't go down unless the stocks in those indexes drag them down.It's just math.Take a look at the spike in 21-day lows last week. You can see an expansion all the way down the cap scale, from large-caps to small-caps:Where we're NOT seeing this is in the 63-day lows.It's an absolute ghost town.💸Reformed Millennials - Post of The WeekFB Screams Up After Big Court Dismissal:Sometimes expected outcomes are still a big deal, and sometimes the seeds of a potential defeat are buried in a victory.As a Facebook Shareholder, yesterday's outcome was a welcome surprise and did a lot to squash the companies biggest performance headwind. AntitrustA federal judge dismissed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook Inc. filed by the U.S. government and most states, a major win for the company before the cases even got off the ground.U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on Monday granted the social-media giant’s requests to dismiss lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general in December. The dismissals, which came in a pair of rulings, came before any pretrial proceedings had progressed.Judge Boasberg said the FTC’s lawsuit was “legally insufficient” because it didn’t plead enough allegations to support monopolization claims against Facebook. The judge, however, said the commission can try again and gave it 30 days to attempt to file an amended lawsuit.However, not everything was roses for Facebook in the case.WHERE FACEBOOK LOSTThe mergers and acquisitions bit is the biggest reason why Facebook isn’t completely out of the woods.First, the FTC can re-file their complaint with a more precise market definition. I think that is far more difficult than it appears, but presuming they succeed, Judge Boasberg did do a precursory examination of the FTC’s two primary claims about Facebook’s alleged anticompetitive behavior.PLATFORM POLICIESThe FTC argued that Facebook illegally withdrew API access to competitors; Judge Boasberg said this argument failed for three reasons:Facebook has no duty to deal with competitors (I covered “duty to deal” extensively in the context of Apple v. Epic).While companies can be held liable for “changing the rules” (which I also covered), Facebook limited API access in 2013, which at a minimum means there is no need for an injunction.There is insufficient evidence that Facebook engaged in “conditional dealing”, i.e. limiting access to its platform based on whether or not independent apps also accessed Facebook competitors.This entire line of argument appears dead in the water and this is not surprising given current Supreme Court precedent.CHALLENGING ACQUISITIONSThis was the big loss for Facebook: while Judge Boasberg said it was too late for the states to challenge Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, he did say that the FTC could do just that indefinitely...This will pose a continued potential problem for Zuck and the team as they continue to grow the business.While I remain in the FB corner, the near-term (remainder of summer) upside seems limited at current prices and would hold off adding.A 30% run-up in price is damn good and I truly see the stock as a double from here in the coming 5 years.CATALYST:Whatsapp MonetizationFacebook ShopsInstagram continued growth in Emerging MarketsBig Blues Shift into Groups (Moms groups, Interests and Neighborhood groups)Buzzfeed goes public at $1.5bnBuzzfeed was one of the hottest of the wave of new online publishing companies that emerged 5-10 years ago, and it's come through the subsequent bloodbath better than most, even as Facebook distribution twisted and turned, ad deflation accelerated and the 'pivot to video' turned out to be a dead end. Now it's going public via a SPAC acquisition at a $1.5bn valuation. $521m 2021e revenue and just barely breaking even. Link to the deckShopify removes all revenue share on first $1M over partner platform LORD of the RothsIn 1997 Peter Thiel bought a million shares of PayPal at 1/100th of a penny in his ROTH IRA.Which since that time, the stock has traded to 293$/share. This has exposed a glaring loophole in their Roth IRA system.If Peter sold his position in Paypal and moved it into Enbridge Stock, his Roth IRA would yield > $300m/year USD🌊Best Links of The Week🔮F1 is one of the most entertaining sports in the world and one of the best case studies on product promotion - from Join ColossusConvert visitors into shoppers on every channel. Flexible APIs and pre-built integrations to major platforms like Shopify, Instagram, and Snap mean that you can unlock eCommerce everywhere your audience lives.Hedging the Financial Tsunami of Higher Rates and Inflation - Real VisionCryptocurrencies remain something of a separate world to the rest of tech, and after a decade we still have very few use cases outside of crypto itself. But the developer energy and investment have a reality quite apart from the froth, and Andreessen Horowitz has raised a new $2.2bn dedicated crypto fund.Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested yesterday that U.S cannabis prohibition may be unconstitutional and even went so far as to label the federal policy ‘contradictory’ and ‘unstable.’Canadian startup mentioned - Bonsai - The only end-to-end commerce platform for publishers Get on the email list at www.reformedmillennials.com

The encounter between the apostle Peter and Cornelius, the Roman Centurion, is a pivotal moment in the story of Acts. The family and friends of Cornelius are the first Gentile converts to Christ- Up till that time it appears that the scattered Jewish Christians were only speaking the word of God to Jews.--Peter needed a firm 'push' to break through the barrier that had existed for centuries. That 'push' came in the form of a strange vision on an empty stomach and a Spirit prepared Centurion over 50 kilometres away. If Peter had any doubts about God's intention to include non-Jews in His Kingdom they were clearly blown away with this fresh move of the Spirit.

In this episode of Catholic Answers Focus, I chat with Cy Kellet about a common challenge to the Catholic priesthood. If Peter says all Christians are priests — and he does — then what need have we of a Catholic priest? AUDIO ONLY  Audio Download   

Karlo Broussard, author of Meeting the Protestant Challenge, takes on a common challenge to the Catholic priesthood. If Peter says all Christians are priests — and he does — then what need have we of a Catholic priest? Why have priests if all Christians are priests? Karlo Broussard is next. Cy Kellett: Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. A common challenge that’s made to Catholics from our Protestant brothers and sisters, we don’t need the priesthood. Pete…

The law can’t save us.  But the law will humble us, that’s for sure.  The law instructs us. It teaches us our need for God’s grace.  The law, ironically, will instruct us on the way of grace. That is its purpose. It was never meant to save us. Peter would lose sight of this. Tragically, he was swayed by James’ friends. - people who were not followers of Christ.  They were people who trafficked in fear and legalism. Peter was living free and generous-hearted toward these new Gentile believers in Antioch until this group of guys shows up.  They tapped into that fear-based brain that tries to pacify God with piety and performance.  They conjured up a storm of fear that grabbed ahold of Peter’s heart, and spread out into Barnabas’ heart.  It began to choke them out. Thankfully, Paul is relentless with the Gospel.  He verbally slaps some grace into Peter, even though this was, no doubt, an embarrassing rebuke for Peter.  I’m sure, in the end he was glad for it.   Living in fear is no way to live. Fear is infectious. This virus had spread even to Barnabas, who was known as the Son of Encouragement.  But God’s grace is infectious too - one we don’t want a cure for.  We need to recognize our need to be renewed in this message all the time.  If Peter and Barnabas needed to be renewed in the message of God’s grace, how much more do you and I need to be renewed in it? That old religion of fear shows up all the time.  So we need to be ready with the Gospel - ready to remind ourselves that the Gospel is not about fear, condemnation, performance, or piety.  It’s not about us at all.  Galatians 2:20 tells us: My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. That, my friend, is the antidote to fear-based religion.  It is the pathway to freedom, generosity, and love.  Let’s live in that Truth today.

Questions Covered: 13:54 – Was the historical Reformation a lost cause?  22:00 – If the physical body is a manifestation of your identity, how do intersex people or people with chromosome abnormalities identify? Are gender and sex synonymous in the Catholic faith?  29:42 – If Peter was married and the Eastern Catholics can marry, why do Roman priests have to be celibate?  35:15 – If the Marian doctrines are so necessary to Catholicism, why did none of the epistles cover them?  44:36 – How do you know if you’re in purgatory? And is purgatory the dark night of the soul?  49:03 – Why do Catholics think Protestants are wrong about the Eucharist when the early church seems to resemble Protestantism more?  …

"...that through Him, all who believe in His name will receive remission of sins." Acts 10: 48 Where would we be if the events of this chapter had never happened? If Peter had not obeyed the Lord, set aside his prejudices, and faithfully preached the Good News to the non-Jews? We "gentiles" would have no hope, nor would all the rest of the world. This morning, Pastor Dave expounds upon the beauty of God's plan for the whole world.  Message by Pastor Dave Johnson, Calvary Chapel Old Towne, Orange, CA  From the Pastors' Series: The Book of Acts, Dear Lovers of God

If Peter's denial of Christ is a bad example of giving assent to falsehood and wickedness, then the martyr Stephen's noble defense before his killers is an example of obeying God's command that we deal truly.----Stephen was falsely accused by those who hated the Gospel of blasphemy against Moses, the law, the temple, and God.----Stephen could have mounted a traditional defense, and denied the lies that were being told about him, and demanded proof from the perjured witnesses.----But that would have meant giving assent to the falsehood that under-girded the entire kangaroo court proceedings against Stephen.----Those implicit falsehoods were that the leaders of Israel honored God, obeyed the law, revered the temple, and obeyed Moses and the prophets.----Stephen refused to proceed on such false and wicked presumptions.----Therefore, instead of defending himself again manufactured false accusations, Stephen cut down the entire facade upon which his prosecution was based.----Stephen refused to accede to the utter hypocrisy and immorality of his accusers. He refused to accept the false premises underlying their claims against him.----Stephen's defense was a recitation, from Holy Scripture, of the truth of what Israel had done, how it had betrayed Moses, murdered the prophets, defiled the temple, violated the law, and murdered the Lord Jesus, God's Messiah.----For telling that truth, and proving it from Scripture, Stephen was foully murdered by the rulers who sat in judgment against him.----Stephen confirmed Jesus' judgment against those same men, that they would murder the preachers of Christ's gospel, and thereby embrace the murder of all the true prophets that went before.

What would any of Jesus’ Disciples say if they walked into your church? If Peter walked into the cathedral built in his name, I think he’d start tearing down statues — including those of Mary — and candle stands and scream, quoting what Jesus said when He cleared the money changers from the temple… The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!” Matthew 21:13 NLT“ He would also add that with all the idolatry, it’s become a pagan temple and an abomination to God. And, he’d be right. If Paul walked into a progressive church like the United Church of Christ, he’d sit quietly in the back shaking his head and thinking to himself… “Oh, dear Lord! What I wrote to Timothy all those years ago came true! What happened?” What did he write to Timothy? You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that! 8 These teachers oppose the truth…They have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith. 9 But they won’t get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are… 2 Timothy 2:1-5, 8-9 NLT What Did Happen to the Church founded by Jesus portrayed in the Book of Acts? Click on over to my blog to keep reading and to watch a video detailing the Protestant churches after the Reformation as well as lots of links so you can dig deeper... If you want to reap all the benefits of salvation including the 1-way, non-stop ticket to Heaven then… Believe. Repent. Be Baptized. Receive the Holy Spirit. Pray this prayer humbly and wholeheartedly… “Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. Please forgive me. Right now, I turn from my sins and open the door of my heart and my life to you. I confess You as my personal Lord and Savior. I surrender my whole life to you and I will follow you for the rest of my life. Thank You, Jesus, for saving me. In Jesus' name, Amen.” Jesus is coming back soon! Are you ready? Soli Deo Gloria — To God Alone Be the Glory! This is a daily podcast, published each evening. Hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss out! And please share this with your friends. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/seek-the-truth/message

Do you have any advice for healing from my boyfriend's sexual past? If Peter is the rock upon which the Church is built, why is Mary given to John at the foot of the cross? My fiancé wants to use contraception. Do you have any advice? Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II’s beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body. Access the 2020 Theology of the Body Virtual Conference with a Premium Pass (https://www.tobvirtualconference.com/Premium-pass)! Want to support the Theology of the Body Institute? Become a Patron (https://community.theologyofthebody.com)! Q1: I have been dating my boyfriend for 2 years now. He is a Catholic missionary and we met through our church. When he was in college however, he wasn’t living out his faith. He was indulging in things like drunkenness and hooking up with girls on a regular basis. He had a major conversion his senior year of college and now is an incredible man of God who passionately lives out his faith. I have been saving myself for marriage and when I found out he didn’t and has been with many women, it broke my heart. This is something I struggle with to this day. I see a Catholic counselor to try to deal with it, and the emotional pain has gotten better, but isn’t completely healed and is sometimes still a real struggle. I was wondering if you had any advice for me and if there’s hope that I can actually find full emotional healing from this. Q2: I'm in a TOB study group. One of the questions that we are intrigued by is that according to the spousal analogy there is a man on the cross and a woman at the foot of the cross. It explains that our Lord is the new Adam and that Mary, the new Eve, is at the foot of the cross and that from these nuptials "women, there is your son" is the beginning of the Church. In this passage of the bible the son is John. Nevertheless, the apostle that God gives the Church to is Peter. Our question then is, based on Archbishop Fulton Sheen and this analogy if John is representing the Church in the cross, then why is Peter the founder of the Church? Q3: I am currently deployed In a combat zone overseas and have been gone for over a year now. My fiance and I are getting married in January. She is a practicing Lutheran (NALC) and wants to be on contraception for the first year or two of our marriage as she is still in college and wishes to finish school before potentially getting pregnant. What resources would you recommend that her and I can study together to make decisions in our sex lives as a married couple? Lastly, our honeymoon will potentially fall on a week of ovulating. What would you recommend for people who are trying to do NFP but find themselves in situations like this? Submit your question at AskChristopherWest.com (http://www.askchristopherwest.com). Resources mentioned this week: Desert Stream Ministries (https://www.desertstream.org) Theology of the Body Congress (https://www.tobcongress.com) TOB 1 Online, Nov 2-13 (https://www.tobinstitute.org/schedule) Word Made Flesh - Full Set (https://shop.corproject.com/collections/books/products/word-made-flesh-full-set-bundle-cycles-a-b-c) Word Made Flesh - Cycle B (https://shop.corproject.com/collections/books/products/word-made-flesh-cycle-b-a-companion-to-the-sunday-readings-paperback-buy-one-share-one-when-you-enter-the-discount-code-shareword-during-checkout) Good News about Sex & Marriage (https://shop.corproject.com/collections/other-featured-products/products/good-news-about-sex-and-marriage) If you are in financial need and honestly cannot afford a book or resource recomended on this podcast, contact: michele@tobinstitute.org Find Christopher West on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/cwestofficial) and Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/cwestofficial). Discover the Theology of the Body Institute (http://www.tobinstitute.org). If you enjoy the podcast, help us out by writing a review (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-christopher-west/id1448699486). Thanks for listening! Christopher and Wendy hope their advice is helpful to you, but they are not licensed counseling professionals. If you are dealing with serious issues, please consult our list of trusted professionals (https://tobinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TOBI-Recommended-Psychologists-Updated-6-8-20.pdf). Featuring music by Mike Mangione (https://www.mikemangione.com/).

00:25 – Intros04:35 – If Peter had a boat10:21 – PPP Forgiveness update16:30 – Is there really a coin shortage?21:27 – Wiring the WAP’s25:00 – If you are the loser, then don’t be a loser44:00 – Nifty52:00 – Closing Nifty Hey (Email) – hey.com Jabra Elite 65t woes Episode Notes and Links Taco Bell Supports:https://www.tacobellfoundation.org/who-we-support/ […]

Peter is finishing off the solo series by talking about his personal favorite game of all time.  It isn't Guitar Hero, it isn't World of Warcraft, and it is Halo.  If Peter had to pick between this game, and literally any other, he will pick this game 100% of the time.  That game is Jonathan Blow's masterpiece, the the time-turning indie hit, Braid. This episode is going to take fifteen minutes of your time to tell you how games can indeed be art and why Braid is the perfect example of such. Looking for another home on Discord?  Why not join us here? Follow and/or subscribe on Twitch (follow us on Twitter @twomoretryhards for stream announcements) Help the cause on Patreon.

Pastor Chuck Ryan Jesus's Predictions and Peter's Concerns Text: Mark 8:31-33 Thesis: It does not always feel good, to do what is right! Jesus predicts his own death. (vs31) Jesus uses the phrase that was given to Daniels foretelling Jesus' coming; “the Son of Man” (Daniel 7: 13-14) Jesus spoke plainly about the events that were related to his Crucifixion and Resurrection. Jesus was emphatic about these events taking place by mentioning he “must suffer many things and be rejected and “he must be killed and after three days rise again.” The salvation of our lives and Souls were dependent upon Jesus death and resurrection. “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrew 9:22) (See Hebrews 9:11-22) “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.” (1Cor. 15:20-21) “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;” (John11:25) If Peter and the disciple would have succeeded in convincing Jesus to abandon his plan, they would have brought death on themselves and all humanity to follow. Peter expressed his and the other disciples' concerns. (vs 32-33)               “…and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” (Vs32) Peter was concerned about Jesus' well-being. We are called by God to have a heart of love for others. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” 2/. Peter's heart was in the right place, but he lacked understanding to the plans of God. “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." (vs 33) Peter's concerns for Jesus were not in-line with the Salvation Plan of God. “Peter (and the disciples) views are locked into the common militaristic expectation of the ‘Davidic Messiah.” (BBC, Mark. Page 232) Jesus encountered this incorrect view in the feeding of the Five Thousand as recorded in the book of John. “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” (John 6:14-15) Some theologians theorize that Judas Iscariot, who was a zealot, held to this common view which may have prompted him into selling Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus out of great love for his disciples rebuked Peter sternly. Jesus taught a Biblical Principle here that could be summed up as: “It does not always feel good, to do what is right!”  

I am sure many of you remember the Elvis Presley song, I Feel the Temperature Rising. That was a song about a guy’s reaction to a girl with whom he had a relationship. Well, the phrase I feel the temperature rising has been going through my head this past week and the reason has nothing to do with a love relationship! It has everything to do with the anxiety level I am sensing and feeling in our culture. As I have been talking with people, I have observed a growing sense of anxiety and fear as we near the beginning of an uncertain school year during this COVID-19 pandemic. I have also been noticing and feeling a real sense of anxiety as we move through the chaos of this election season. I do not think anyone can deny we are living during a time of augmented chaos and uncertainty.  And, it is only natural that we are experiencing amplified anxiety and fear!  Anxiety and fear are vital responses to physical and emotional danger.  And, if we could not experience a sense of fear, we could not protect ourselves from legitimate threats.  However, sometimes, fear can be paralyzing, and it can keep us from living into the fullness of life, living a centered life, living into life that truly matters.   So, being honest about our fear and exposing ourselves to our personal demons by facing our fears is the best way to move through them and beyond them.   In today’s readings from scripture, we discover our ancestors in faith also faced fear and anxiety.  In our reading from 1 Kings, Elijah was living in fear.  He had faithfully preached truth to power when he spoke to the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  Then, the Queen had sent a messenger to Elijah telling him that she intended to kill him that very day. Shackled by fear, Elijah goes and hides on Mount Horeb, the mountain also known as Mount Sinai.  On that mountain, he waits for God to reveal God’s self to him. The temperature of Elijah’s anxiety continues to rise as he experiences a great wind, an earthquake, and fire.  But, in these displays of natural forces, God did not seem present. Rather, Elijah’s encounter with “sheer silence” calls him back to his prophetic tasks.  By centering himself in silence toward God, he again discovered God’s presence to him.  He experienced what St. Paul references in today’s reading from Romans when he writes, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”    In today’s gospel, we hear a story that not only addresses the fear that can literally overpower us, but also the even greater power of God’s loving presence to us, a presence that will never let us go. As we meet up with Jesus, he has finally been able to send the crowds away.  He has convinced his disciples to get in a boat and cross the lake ahead of him. Finally, he has found time to retreat and spend some time in prayer.  As we look at today’s gospel reading, Jesus is not a superhero who has retreated to his bat cave. He is not a ghost out to haunt the already terrified. He is a man. Fully God, fully human. He is the Son of God, though those around him don't yet recognize him. His ministry is being battered by the rejection of his hometown folks and the beheading by Herod of his cousin John the Baptist. Jesus knows his time is coming. Crowds of needy people have been constantly pressing in on him.  And, he needs some time alone. Jesus is praying, perhaps lifting up each of his fears and struggles to God and exchanging them for faith, allowing the comfort and healing and power of God to fill his inner life, his heart, mind, emotions, and will. After all, this is what the Jewish scriptures tell us to do, to surrender all our lesser fears to our fear of the Lord, which means our reverence for God, for who God is and what God can do.  Then, as Jesus looks up and squints at the horizon, he sees the disciples' little boat bobbing side to side, back and forth, and up and down on the chaotic water.  Well, the disciples have spent nearly the whole night struggling to get across that blasted lake before Jesus shows up near daybreak.  The Sea of Galilee is not a massive body of water, never more than seven miles across when traveling east-west.  Yet, they’ve not been able to traverse it, for the storm has “battered” or “thrashed” their boat.  And, as for the churning sea?  In their worldview, it represents chaos and danger.  The temperature of their anxiety is rising!  Then, they think they see a ghost!  Fear erupts because they anticipate how the story will probably end.  All night they have been threatened by the prospect that this chaos might devour them. They saw themselves as disciples left to die at the mercy of more powerful forces. Talk about a situation that causes the temperature of one’s fear and anxiety to rise! Finally, the disciples realize this seeming “ghost” is Jesus, striding over and above the sea, transcending the watery chaos.  And, astoundingly, Peter wants to step out there on that chaotic water.  Peter steps out of the boat and enters the tumult.  And, Peter flounders.  He flounders because he grows afraid.  Quite frankly, that fear is justified.  The storm is still powerfully raging and it is so intense it could sink the boat, let alone drown a single person.  He has perfectly good reason to be afraid. And, so do we.  There are multiple reasons each one of us might face fear.  Maybe you fear what will happen as school begins and this virus is likely to again spike.  Maybe you fear someone in your family will get this virus.  Maybe you fear loneliness after loss.  Or, fear aging and all the issues that come with growing old.  Or, maybe you fear for your kids and what they are experiencing or will experience.  Or, you fear facing a new chapter in life, or making a major life-changing decision.  Or, you fear for the future of our congregation, or the direction of our country, or global security….  You name it!  There are multiple situations and reasons in our individual, congregational and communal lives that make us afraid.  And that fear can be paralyzing, debilitating, and make it difficult for us to move forward or even have any sense of confidence.  In fact, as theologian David Lose says, “Fear is one of the primary things that robs the children of God of the abundant life God intends for us.”  Well, in response to Peter’s fear, Jesus doesn’t simply urge Peter to buck up, be a man, be courageous, let go of his fear and focus on him.  Instead, when Peter begins to sink, Jesus literally catches him!  He grabs hold of Peter!  Jesus grabs him and saves him from drowning.  He grabs him and restores him to his vocation as a disciple.  And, guess what?  He does the same with us.  Jesus will not, he absolutely will never, let us go.  Jesus is never going to give up on us, no matter what we do!  The God we know in Christ is truly THE LOVE THAT WILL NEVER LET US GO!  In the depth of our fear, Jesus grabs us, holds on to us when we falter and restores us to where we can again be of service to him.  Today’s gospel, life-giving word to us is a message that is not only about our fear.  It is a message that is the heart of the gospel message.  It is the gospel good news of grace which proclaims that God will never give up on us, that God is with us and for us, that God – in the end – will do what we cannot do for ourselves and save us.  This is a message that enables us to cope with life and with our fear because it is a message that enables us to transcend that fear.  We may not be able to defeat it, but we can face it, stand in the swirling disorder and chaos, and do what needs to be done even when we are afraid.  And, quite frankly, this is the nature of what it means to live out an active life of faith, to be willing to throw oneself into a disorderly world and expect to encounter Jesus there.  I love what William Willimon says about this passage.  He writes: If Peter had not ventured forth, had not obeyed the call to walk on the water, then Peter would never have had this great opportunity for recognition of Jesus and rescue by Jesus.  I wonder if too many of us are merely splashing about in the safe shallows and therefore have too few opportunities to test and deepen our faith.  The story today implies if you want to be close to Jesus, you have to venture forth out on the sea and [discover] his promises through trusting his promises, through risk and venture. Yes, we do feel the temperature of our anxiety and fear rising.  However, as we face our fear, getting out of the boat with Jesus and going to the places where Jesus goes as we truly love and care for all others is the riskiest, most exciting, and most fulfilling way to live life to the fullest, life that truly matters, life that is abundant.  And, this God we see in Jesus, will always be holding on to us and never let us go!

The reading from Acts 2:14, 22-32 is part of the first sermon ever preached. It was in response to the disciples’ speaking in tongues on the Day of Pentecost. When the disciples spoke in tongues, some people in the crowd thought that they were drunk. Peter stated that this was not true because it was 9:00 in the morning. If Peter was drunk with anything, he was drunk with the Holy Spirit. It allowed Peter to preach with conviction and faith. It allowed him to preach with the same boldness, courage and urgency that Jesus did. Peter preached Christ. He explained God’s gift of salvation, what people did to refuse it, what God did in spite of their refusal to accept his gift, and what would happen to those who would accept the gift.

Beginning with the genealogy in chapter 1, the Gospel of Matthew challenges its addressees to rethink their understanding of the words “king” and “kingdom.” Now, in chapter 16, as they enter a city named after Philip of Macedon, the chips are down. If Peter truly understands the lesson of the bread and can discern the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, can he tell the difference between the Son of Man and the Son of the gods? It’s time for Peter to take a stand. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 16:13-16 Please join Richard and Fr. Marc for a free 3-week webinar series on Ephesians 4, sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Leadership Inititivative on April 4, 11, and 25 at 8am PST / 11am EST. To register for the webinar, please visit orthodoxservantleaders.com and click “events.” Episode 322 Matthew 16:13-16; Music: Devastation and Revenge by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3644-devastation-and-revenge License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thank you so much for joining us at FriDudes! You keep coming back! Despite our flaws. Together, we seek Truth. Well, we are Virtual FriDudes this week due to COVID 19. We are living history. Since we are virtual, maybe you'll join us someday. Would love to have listener input and questions. If interested, stick around for my email at the end of the show. Deep. Dark. Light. You could feel the somberness, no? Even the strong in Faith will be challenged. We will all have our moments. If Peter, can wig out and deny, so can you. Don't let your pride get in the way. You are human. Humans worry, get angry, freak out and hoard, etc. Being a true Christian, you work on minimizing that. You focus on love, peace, giving thanks, serving/helping others, sharing, etc. Which world would you rather live in? Strive to be that world. Shine Christ's light properly. Don't be another HypoChristian. Be a true Christian which is reflected in your actions, not just your words.On that note song time, I'm going back to Kanye and his new life striving to shine Light. As so much is closed right now, where do we put our focus? This song is called 'Closed on Sunday', soak up the lyrics, reflect, then go and shine Light. Help/love someone today...

Welcome to this first podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the  New Testament. The 2016 2nd edition of this NT was published with the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” It is available for a free download for the Kindle bool reading app. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:1-28.   This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. The full text that I will read is attached, but the attachment can only be found at dailybiblereading.info, not in podcast apps. (Click on the PDF download icon to get the attachment. For Android users, if you use our dedicated Daily Bible Reading app, you can get the PDF by clicking the gift icon.) The prettiest way to read Pickering’s NT is via the Kindle app using a tablet, and it is a free download.   Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.  *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.   The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, but the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has detailed the other variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.   I realize that all this stuff I have just tried to explain may ‘sound like Greek to you’. But I promise that the examples I give will be interesting, and you won’t need to know any Greek to understand them. It will be helpful to your understanding if as you listen you are able to see Pickering’s translation beside your own Bible translation while listening to this podcast.    See the attached PDF for all the readings.       1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God! Pickering makes a footnote for many of the textual variants. The Eclectic Text does not include ‘Son of God’, and the Lexham Bible (published by Logos) doesn’t translate ‘Son of God’. But most of the last century’s translations follow the 1901 ASV, including those words with a footnote saying, “Some manuscripts do not include the Son of God.” Actually, it is only one Alexandrian manuscript that doesn’t have the three words. 98.4% of manuscripts have it. Another 0.4 percent have it slightly shortened. Only Codex Sinaiticus doesn’t have it, but it was one of Wescott and Hort’s favorites. So that one manuscript dropping the words has caused a footnote in many of today’s translations. Such footnotes have the unintended effect of causing people to question the accuracy of God’s Word.*** ***Footnote:  I take all percentage information from Pickering’s footnotes in his Greek NT.   What might have guided Wescott and Hort to have left out ‘Son of God’?  Here I quote from Pickering’s article entitled The Root Cause of the continuous defection from Biblical Infallibility: F.J.A. Hort, a quintessential 'son of the disobedience'. Hort did not believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Since he embraced the Darwinian theory as soon as it appeared, he presumably did not believe in God.2 His theory of NT textual criticism, published in 1881,3 was based squarely on the presuppositions that the NT was not inspired, that no special care was afforded it in the early decades, and that in consequence the original wording was lost—lost beyond recovery, at least by objective means. His theory swept the academic world and continues to dominate the discipline to this day.1   Footnote 2: For documentation of all this, and a good deal more besides, in Hort's own words, please see the biography written by his son. A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (2 vols.; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1896). The son made heavy use of the father's plentiful correspondence, whom he admired. (In those days a two-volume 'Life', as opposed to a one-volume 'Biography', was a posthumous status symbol, albeit of little consequence to the departed.) Many of my readers were taught, as was I, that one must not question/judge someone else's motives. But wait just a minute; where did such an idea come from? It certainly did not come from God, who expects the spiritual person to evaluate everything (1 Corinthians 2:15). Since there are only two spiritual kingdoms in this world (Matthew 6:24, 12:30; Luke 11:23, 16:13), then the idea comes from the other side. By eliminating motive, one also eliminates presupposition, which is something that God would never do, since presupposition governs interpretation (Matthew 22:29, Mark 12:24). Which is why we should always expect a true scholar to state his presuppositions. I have repeatedly stated mine, but here they are again: 1) The Sovereign Creator of the universe exists; 2) He delivered a written revelation to the human race; 3) He has preserved that revelation intact to this day.   2  As it is written in the prophets4— 4 Around 3.3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Isaiah the prophet’ instead of ‘the prophets’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). The 96.7% are correct.  ESV ‘As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,’   Here the Majority Text is right with plural ‘prophets’, because two quotes that follow are by two different prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. (Mal. 3:1; Is. 40:3) There are a number of inaccuracies like this that have been introduced in our Bibles because of following the Eclectic Text, and this is a good example of one of them.        10 And immediately upon coming up from11 the water He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him.  11 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘out of’ instead of ‘from’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).    This is my own comment, not Pickering’s: The difference here amounts to a difference of two prepositions. The Majority Text has ‘apo’ and the Eclectic Text has ‘ek’. Someone is going to try to use the difference here to show the method of baptism used by John the Baptist. Don’t base any doctrine on Greek prepositions. They have a very wide range of meaning. Neither preposition can be used to prove the depth of the water where Jesus was baptized.       13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days being tested1 by Satan, 1 Our ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are translations of a single Greek word, the context determining the choice. To tempt is to test in the area of morals. In this context I consider that ‘tempt’ is too limited, but it is included in the wider meaning of 'test'. Note that the Spirit impelled Him, which means that this was a necessary part of the Plan. The three specific tests recorded by Matthew and Luke presumably happened near the end of the forty days.    Pickering here gives an interesting translational note. This is not about a textual difference. I think it interesting and probably right that Satan was doing more than merely tempting Jesus. He was testing Who he was up against.       1:14 Now after John was put in prison,4 Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom5 of God, 5 Some 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘of the Kingdom’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).    ESV ‘gospel of God’   My comment: In the very next verse, Jesus said, “The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has approached. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The phrase ‘gospel of God’ (meaning that God owns or sponsors the Gospel) does occur in the Pauline epistles and in 1st Peter, but not in any of the Gospels or Acts. To me, especially because of verse 15, it seems much more fitting for Jesus to specify, ‘Gospel of (or about) the Kingdom of God’.       16 Then, as He was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother, [the son of] of Simon,7 casting a circular net onto the water,8 for they were fishermen.  7 Some 90% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘his brother, of Simon’—presumably a reference to their father. If Peter was the eldest son, he would have been named for his father.    PCF: I think this is an interesting textual variant. If Simon’s father was also named Simon, this part of the story would match the next part where we hear of Zebedee, the father of James and John. If you are looking at the episode notes, you will note that I made a slight alteration to Pickering’s translation. I added the words ‘the son’ before ‘of Simon’, so that the listener will be able to catch the meaning Pickering intends.   When I make alterations like this, I will mark them with brackets. I think the Greek can be understood in the sense ‘his brother— that is Simon’s’. That seems to be the way the World English Bible takes it. (The WEB is another translation of the Majority Text, and it is freely available in many Bible apps.)     23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13 13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?”   PCF: This time Pickering’s note points to a treasure he wants us to understand, not a textual variant. You may have picked up in my pronunciation that Jesus was called the ‘Natsarene’. Pickering’s footnote is long, and I think it would be hard to understand for podcast listeners— who may be going down the freeway at 70 miles an hour. The full footnote, complete with Scripture references, is found in the episode notes. But I will summarize what Pickering is pointing out. In Mark 1:23, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’, following the spelling in Wilbur Pickering's translation. We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts.    Recall that Matthew (2:23) states, “So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Unlike what is often assumed, the name Nazareth has nothing to do with the Old Testament nazarite vow. But in Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser.    Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot (which is netser or a related word). Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places: Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)   So we might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown as ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. So the cool thing about this is that before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. At the very least, they named the town with the intent to remind people that God’s promised a Messiah who was given the title, ‘the Righteous Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.   27 And all were astounded, so that they questioned among themselves, saying: “What is this? What can this new [teaching//doctrine] be?3  Because with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” 3 Instead of ‘what can this new [teaching//doctrine] be’, perhaps 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘a new doctrine’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, etc.).    ESV And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”   The word ‘Because’ is also part of the textual variant. The ESV follows the Eclectic Text, and connects the rather disjointed text so that it makes sense. ESV has an incomplete sentence, ‘A new teaching with authority!’ But the Majority Text includes the verb ‘be’, and a logical connector, ‘for/because’ which renders a much smoother text with complete sentences and good logical flow.       The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include references to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.   All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” I have not found where Pickering has explained why he gave his NT translation that title. From the forward, I think that it relates to his opinion that God sovereignly protected the original wording of the New Testament through the best line of Greek manuscripts.* *Footnote: As will be explained in further podcasts, Pickering has chosen a more narrow line of transmission, as found in the F35 family of manuscripts. This is slightly different from the Majority/Byzantine Text Type as published by Robinson and Peerpoint, 2018.   I note further that the title, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken,” contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God, and nor did they believe that God had actively inspired every word of Scripture and was making sure that every word would be preserved.   One of my favorite verses is in Jeremiah 1:11-12: The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. 12 The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching* to see that my word is fulfilled.” *The footnote says, “The Hebrew for watching sounds like the Hebrew for almond tree.”   God will carry out his threats and his promises.    If God is watching his word to fulfill it like that, it is logical to believe that He also was careful to preserve his Word for us. For the New Testament, God blessed the Majority line of Greek texts so that they predominate and the text has remained unchanged through the centuries. I think it is a good goal to hope for better translations in this century which will preserve every word that should be in the Greek text, and that every word should be translated in a way that fits the English language. As Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)   Let’s pray: Lord, my listener and I want to know You better through your Word, that we may be transformed to obey you from the heart. We thank You for sending the Righteous Branch, Jesus, to be our King, just like the prophets foretold.   Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.   Friberg, Timothy:  On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.  I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.   Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.   What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.   Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35   Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.  This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.   Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

Welcome to this first podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the  New Testament. The 2016 2nd edition of this NT was published with the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” It is available for a free download for the Kindle bool reading app. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:1-28.   This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. The full text that I will read is attached, but the attachment can only be found at dailybiblereading.info, not in podcast apps. (Click on the PDF download icon to get the attachment. For Android users, if you use our dedicated Daily Bible Reading app, you can get the PDF by clicking the gift icon.) The prettiest way to read Pickering’s NT is via the Kindle app using a tablet, and it is a free download.   Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.  *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.   The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, but the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has detailed the other variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.   I realize that all this stuff I have just tried to explain may ‘sound like Greek to you’. But I promise that the examples I give will be interesting, and you won’t need to know any Greek to understand them. It will be helpful to your understanding if as you listen you are able to see Pickering’s translation beside your own Bible translation while listening to this podcast.    See the attached PDF for all the readings.       1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God! Pickering makes a footnote for many of the textual variants. The Eclectic Text does not include ‘Son of God’, and the Lexham Bible (published by Logos) doesn’t translate ‘Son of God’. But most of the last century’s translations follow the 1901 ASV, including those words with a footnote saying, “Some manuscripts do not include the Son of God.” Actually, it is only one Alexandrian manuscript that doesn’t have the three words. 98.4% of manuscripts have it. Another 0.4 percent have it slightly shortened. Only Codex Sinaiticus doesn’t have it, but it was one of Wescott and Hort’s favorites. So that one manuscript dropping the words has caused a footnote in many of today’s translations. Such footnotes have the unintended effect of causing people to question the accuracy of God’s Word.*** ***Footnote:  I take all percentage information from Pickering’s footnotes in his Greek NT.   What might have guided Wescott and Hort to have left out ‘Son of God’?  Here I quote from Pickering’s article entitled The Root Cause of the continuous defection from Biblical Infallibility: F.J.A. Hort, a quintessential 'son of the disobedience'. Hort did not believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Since he embraced the Darwinian theory as soon as it appeared, he presumably did not believe in God.2 His theory of NT textual criticism, published in 1881,3 was based squarely on the presuppositions that the NT was not inspired, that no special care was afforded it in the early decades, and that in consequence the original wording was lost—lost beyond recovery, at least by objective means. His theory swept the academic world and continues to dominate the discipline to this day.1   Footnote 2: For documentation of all this, and a good deal more besides, in Hort's own words, please see the biography written by his son. A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (2 vols.; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1896). The son made heavy use of the father's plentiful correspondence, whom he admired. (In those days a two-volume 'Life', as opposed to a one-volume 'Biography', was a posthumous status symbol, albeit of little consequence to the departed.) Many of my readers were taught, as was I, that one must not question/judge someone else's motives. But wait just a minute; where did such an idea come from? It certainly did not come from God, who expects the spiritual person to evaluate everything (1 Corinthians 2:15). Since there are only two spiritual kingdoms in this world (Matthew 6:24, 12:30; Luke 11:23, 16:13), then the idea comes from the other side. By eliminating motive, one also eliminates presupposition, which is something that God would never do, since presupposition governs interpretation (Matthew 22:29, Mark 12:24). Which is why we should always expect a true scholar to state his presuppositions. I have repeatedly stated mine, but here they are again: 1) The Sovereign Creator of the universe exists; 2) He delivered a written revelation to the human race; 3) He has preserved that revelation intact to this day.   2  As it is written in the prophets4— 4 Around 3.3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Isaiah the prophet’ instead of ‘the prophets’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). The 96.7% are correct.  ESV ‘As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,’   Here the Majority Text is right with plural ‘prophets’, because two quotes that follow are by two different prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. (Mal. 3:1; Is. 40:3) There are a number of inaccuracies like this that have been introduced in our Bibles because of following the Eclectic Text, and this is a good example of one of them.        10 And immediately upon coming up from11 the water He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him.  11 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘out of’ instead of ‘from’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).    This is my own comment, not Pickering’s: The difference here amounts to a difference of two prepositions. The Majority Text has ‘apo’ and the Eclectic Text has ‘ek’. Someone is going to try to use the difference here to show the method of baptism used by John the Baptist. Don’t base any doctrine on Greek prepositions. They have a very wide range of meaning. Neither preposition can be used to prove the depth of the water where Jesus was baptized.       13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days being tested1 by Satan, 1 Our ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are translations of a single Greek word, the context determining the choice. To tempt is to test in the area of morals. In this context I consider that ‘tempt’ is too limited, but it is included in the wider meaning of 'test'. Note that the Spirit impelled Him, which means that this was a necessary part of the Plan. The three specific tests recorded by Matthew and Luke presumably happened near the end of the forty days.    Pickering here gives an interesting translational note. This is not about a textual difference. I think it interesting and probably right that Satan was doing more than merely tempting Jesus. He was testing Who he was up against.       1:14 Now after John was put in prison,4 Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom5 of God, 5 Some 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘of the Kingdom’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).    ESV ‘gospel of God’   My comment: In the very next verse, Jesus said, “The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has approached. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The phrase ‘gospel of God’ (meaning that God owns or sponsors the Gospel) does occur in the Pauline epistles and in 1st Peter, but not in any of the Gospels or Acts. To me, especially because of verse 15, it seems much more fitting for Jesus to specify, ‘Gospel of (or about) the Kingdom of God’.       16 Then, as He was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother, [the son of] of Simon,7 casting a circular net onto the water,8 for they were fishermen.  7 Some 90% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘his brother, of Simon’—presumably a reference to their father. If Peter was the eldest son, he would have been named for his father.    PCF: I think this is an interesting textual variant. If Simon’s father was also named Simon, this part of the story would match the next part where we hear of Zebedee, the father of James and John. If you are looking at the episode notes, you will note that I made a slight alteration to Pickering’s translation. I added the words ‘the son’ before ‘of Simon’, so that the listener will be able to catch the meaning Pickering intends.   When I make alterations like this, I will mark them with brackets. I think the Greek can be understood in the sense ‘his brother— that is Simon’s’. That seems to be the way the World English Bible takes it. (The WEB is another translation of the Majority Text, and it is freely available in many Bible apps.)     23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13 13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?”   PCF: This time Pickering’s note points to a treasure he wants us to understand, not a textual variant. You may have picked up in my pronunciation that Jesus was called the ‘Natsarene’. Pickering’s footnote is long, and I think it would be hard to understand for podcast listeners— who may be going down the freeway at 70 miles an hour. The full footnote, complete with Scripture references, is found in the episode notes. But I will summarize what Pickering is pointing out. In Mark 1:23, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’, following the spelling in Wilbur Pickering's translation. We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts.    Recall that Matthew (2:23) states, “So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Unlike what is often assumed, the name Nazareth has nothing to do with the Old Testament nazarite vow. But in Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser.    Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot (which is netser or a related word). Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places: Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)   So we might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown as ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. So the cool thing about this is that before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. At the very least, they named the town with the intent to remind people that God’s promised a Messiah who was given the title, ‘the Righteous Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.   27 And all were astounded, so that they questioned among themselves, saying: “What is this? What can this new [teaching//doctrine] be?3  Because with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” 3 Instead of ‘what can this new [teaching//doctrine] be’, perhaps 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘a new doctrine’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, etc.).    ESV And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”   The word ‘Because’ is also part of the textual variant. The ESV follows the Eclectic Text, and connects the rather disjointed text so that it makes sense. ESV has an incomplete sentence, ‘A new teaching with authority!’ But the Majority Text includes the verb ‘be’, and a logical connector, ‘for/because’ which renders a much smoother text with complete sentences and good logical flow.       The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include references to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.   All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” I have not found where Pickering has explained why he gave his NT translation that title. From the forward, I think that it relates to his opinion that God sovereignly protected the original wording of the New Testament through the best line of Greek manuscripts.* *Footnote: As will be explained in further podcasts, Pickering has chosen a more narrow line of transmission, as found in the F35 family of manuscripts. This is slightly different from the Majority/Byzantine Text Type as published by Robinson and Peerpoint, 2018.   I note further that the title, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken,” contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God, and nor did they believe that God had actively inspired every word of Scripture and was making sure that every word would be preserved.   One of my favorite verses is in Jeremiah 1:11-12: The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. 12 The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching* to see that my word is fulfilled.” *The footnote says, “The Hebrew for watching sounds like the Hebrew for almond tree.”   God will carry out his threats and his promises.    If God is watching his word to fulfill it like that, it is logical to believe that He also was careful to preserve his Word for us. For the New Testament, God blessed the Majority line of Greek texts so that they predominate and the text has remained unchanged through the centuries. I think it is a good goal to hope for better translations in this century which will preserve every word that should be in the Greek text, and that every word should be translated in a way that fits the English language. As Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)   Let’s pray: Lord, my listener and I want to know You better through your Word, that we may be transformed to obey you from the heart. We thank You for sending the Righteous Branch, Jesus, to be our King, just like the prophets foretold.   Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.   Friberg, Timothy:  On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.  I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.   Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.   What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.   Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35   Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.  This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.   Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

In this passage, Peter is building on the seriousness of despising authorities. Those who despise authorities are like brute beasts, animals that have no ability to think, which are made to be caught and destroyed. These are harsh words that we should seriously consider since we live in a culture that despises authority, where rebellion against authorities is considered a great good. We should remember that we are affected by the people around us. Peter sees people who despise authority as people who are ignorant and full of corruption who will receive the appropriate results of their sin. Peter then makes it clear. He is speaking of people in the church that can look righteous, but they are really blemishes on the church. They are seeking after the flesh and the world while they look like they are righteous. We are to remember Balaam who was rebuked by a dumb donkey for not understanding what God was telling him because he was driven mad by covetousness. May God protect us from despising authorities and all that indicates especially considering that Peter is writing this shortly before his death, probably unjustly imprisoned by Nero. If Peter can say, do not despise Nero a man who believed himself the son of god, how much more should we treat the authorities that God put over us with honor.

If Peter can get Alex to LA in 5 days he’ll get $100 grand. This week Geno Bisconte, comedian and co-host of In Hot Water on Compound Media, comes on to talk about the bounty hunter action comedy classic Midnight Run. You got change for a thousand? Follow Geno on Twitter: @bigdaddybiscane and Instagram: @genobisconte Geno's website: https://www.genobisconte.com/ Follow the podcast on Instagram: @killyoulastpod Follow Alex on Instagram: @alexpischera Follow Peter on Instagram: @theguarraci    

If Peter, Jesus' disciple, had a superpower, it would definitely be a tornado of emotions ready to blast anyone in the way, including himself. In this particular journey, you'll see how guilt was destroying him but how his biggest liability was oddly his greatest strength. This episode deals exclusively on overcoming guilt.

Radical Faith – What is Faith – Part 2   Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is actually one of our Radical Faith calls and these are little bit different. A quick little intro about Beatty and I will let him explain our Radical Faith calls are. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. He also is a Christian and loves the Lord and really has walked out his faith in an inspiring way in the business world. Beatty, I’m going to pass it over to you if you’d like to share just a little bit about what these Radical Faith calls are and how they are different than our typical marketing calls. Beatty:  Sure, well, you know in California they have a law that’s passed that says anything that’s sold in California that has any ingredients or chemicals that could cause cancer, you have to put a warning label on it. What’s really funny is my children and I were at Bass Pro Shops or Cabela’s years back and one of my sons bought one of these really sharp military grade knifes.  These were meant to hurt people and to hurt animals or cut wood or whatever, and there’s this warning label on it: Warning. This knife contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer and I’m thinking here we have a weapon and they’re putting this warning sign on it. I want to give my little warning for those out there that this may be your first time with a Radical Faith call.  This has nothing to do with marketing a real estate business, this particular call. The Radical Faith call has everything to do with how do you live your life for Christ? So, if you’re not interested in my Christianity, if you’re not interested in Christianity at all, you are fairly warned and you can press delete on your podcast or you can hang up on the call. Otherwise, I’m not trying to push my belief onto you, but I’m trying to share my beliefs with those who want to hear them. That’s our little disclaimer up front. So, I’ll turn it back over to you now. Caroline: I love it. It’s a little less scary than cancer-causing…. Beatty:  But this is cancer free. This will be cancer free. Caroline: This will be cancer free. This is a cancer free zone. Only things that will benefit you, benefit your health. Beatty:  Can I share a quick story?  I’ve got to share this story. So, I get out and I pray for people. That’s just part of what I do. I remember I was over at Walmart and I had seen this 50 something year old lady, and she caught my eye as I was talking to someone at the entrance to Walmart, but I didn’t do anything about it. About 30 minutes later, I see her again in an isle on the other side of the store and I just felt the Holy Spirit saying, I need to go pray for her. So, literally, I walked over to her and said, excuse me ma’am. The Holy Spirit just kind of highlighted you and I think there’s something I need to pray for you about. “Is there anything I can pray for you?” She looks at me with this blank stare, almost with the expression like, who are you. She then kind of broke a little bit and said, “Yes.” I said, “How can I pray for you?” She says, “I have really bad back pain. I have degenerative discs in my back and I have neuropathy in my legs.” I was asking about the neuropathy and if there was a real tight constriction on her legs.  The feeling was a real tight constriction and a lot of pain up in the thigh area on both of her legs.  So, I said, “Let me pray for you.”  So, I prayed for her healing and I said, “Do you feel anything?”  I literally prayed 10 seconds or less and she goes, “Yeah, all the pain in my back is gone.” I said, “Great, but how about your legs?” She said, “I feel release. I feel release. They don’t feel quite as tight.” I said, “Well, good.”  Let’s pray again. And so we prayed again and five or ten seconds later after praying, I said, “Do you feel anything?” She said, “Yes, I feel heat in my back.” I said, “That’s great. That’s the Holy Spirit healing your back and let’s just give it time. Tell me what you feel now.” She says, “Well, that heat is now in my legs. All through my legs.” I said, “That’s great. The Holy Spirit is healing you there.” I said, “Now tell me what’s going on.” She said, “The heat is now up in my stomach area.” “Okay, let’s just keep giving it some time.” Now, all this is over maybe like two minutes, maybe three at most. Then I said, “Now tell me what you feel.” She said, “The heat is going away.” I said, “That’s perfect.” I said, “Tell me about your back.” “No pain.” I said, “Do something that you could not have done without a lot of pain.” She bends all the way over and touches her toes. Degenerative discs could never have done that. Then, I said, “What about your legs and she said, all of the pain is gone. I said, “Fantastic.” I said, “Now, is there anything going on in your stomach area?”  She said, “Yes, I’ve had an ovarian cyst for about a year and I don’t feel that either.” Caroline: Wow. Beatty:  Yeah and it’s really cool talking about these warning labels that can cause cancer, but the reality is Warning: This stuff with the Lord can cause the healing of cancer. It can cause healing of all kinds of things and restoring of our lives. As Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have life to the fullest. To the fullest is not to be bound by sickness and disease. Some of us are and sometimes God doesn’t heal, but I’ve seen such a consistency in that, that I’ve got to believe that the heart of the Father is truly what Jesus said. That we would have life in its fullness in all areas. So, I’m excited to share a little bit more about what we’ve started on the last Radical Faith call and continue that process in understanding this thing called faith and kind of what it all is. So, can we kind of jump on in now that we’ve spent about five minutes here. Caroline: Yes, I love it.  Let’s go. Beatty:  Let me give a real quick review of where we were last time. We’re going through a step-by-step process in understanding what faith really is, understanding it from a Biblical perspective. What does the scripture say that faith is and what do the scriptures show how the faith is lived out and manifests itself in everyday life? What we’ve found is that faith is, from Jesus’ perspective, one of the most important things. Not only is it one of the very few things, as a matter of fact, there’s only three things I know that Jesus ever rebuked his disciples for. One was when the disciples wanted to call fire down from Heaven and consume the people like Elijah did. One when he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me Satan. Every other rebuke that Jesus gave his disciples, which was over and over again, was oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt?  So, he makes a big deal out of faith. The other thing Jesus did is He prays and says, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth. It’s such a big deal that He’s asking will He find faith. We find that faith. We’ve talked about Hebrews 1. That faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It is a title deed, meaning it’s the evidence of things being real that you cannot see. It’s the same evidence of things being real as when you’re on your cell phone. We have complete faith that there are radio waves out there and that we can talk on that cell phone. We have no idea how it works, but we have evidence that it’s real. Therefore, that’s what the Bible is talking about. The faith that we do not see, but we have the evidence that it is real. What we started to do is we started to talk about how faith manifests itself. We talked about Moses parting the Red Sea. God told him to basically stop whining. Tell the people to move forward. Forward was directly into the Red Sea and we find that Moses acted by God’s direction before he saw and God performed.  Then we talked about Elijah and the widow during the drought during the reign of Kind Ahab and how that happened. Now I want to pick up on a couple of more stories as we continue to talk about how faith gets manifested into our lives. I want to talk about Biblical stories and some current day stories, sort of like the healing. That’s actually an expression of faith that I was sharing. If we go back to the Bible, there’s a passage. I’m not going to ask you where that passage is and put you on the spot, Caroline. But there’s a passage where Peter is walking on the water and it’s in Matthew 14 and I just want to read you part of this passage and then ask you a couple of questions. Let me set the stage. They have, just the day before, fed the 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and that was 5,000 men, so we know there’s probably ten or fifteen thousand people by the time you add women and children. Then, Jesus goes up to the top of the mountain to pray, and as he goes up to pray, he sends the apostles and disciples back across the lake in the boat. So, they’re out there and it says that they’re straining at the oars all night because there’s a headwind against them and then Jesus, during the early dawn hours of the morning, He now walks across the lake and they see him dimly and they think He’s a ghost and everyone gets afraid. Are you familiar with this passage? Caroline: Yes, absolutely. Beatty:  Okay, good.  So, He says, don’t be afraid, it’s just me. What does Peter blurt out at that point, do you remember? Caroline: Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you. Beatty:  That’s right. Lord if that’s you, tell me to come walk on the water too. So, now we pick up Matthew 14 verse 22 and it says, and He, meaning Jesus, “And He said, come and Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But, when seeing the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said, you of little faith.” Here’s one of his rebukes. You of little faith, why did you doubt? So, here’s my question to you. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Peter acted. He had the faith and the risk to step out of the boat. Beatty:  There you go. Did he see before he acted? Caroline: No. Like you mean see himself successfully walking? No. That was definitely a leap of faith, if you will, just to step out onto that water. Beatty: Correct. So, why did he act? Caroline: To me, I love that Peter, to his reply to the fear of them all thinking that it’s a ghost, that he says, tell me. Like, tell me to come and your question is why? I feel like just that trust in knowing the Lord’s voice. If you tell me, I’m willing to go, I’m willing to take that step even if I can’t see. Beatty:  That’s right. He acted because God told him to act. Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely, yes. Beatty: Okay, so let’s review. Peter acted before he could see, but he acted because he’s stepping out on the command or the word of the Lord, and then who performed? Caroline: Well, I guess, Peter was acting, and so it was his act, but really it was the Lord. I mean, but we, in our own flesh cannot walk on water. But with the Lord providing, I guess, he’s the one that performed in response to Peter’s faith. Beatty:  And so we see this pattern. Go throughout scripture and you’ll see this all the time.  Man acts before he can see, but he acts by the clearly delineated will of God, trusting that truth and God then comes in and performs. So, this is how faith is manifested all the time. Think about me healing that lady. Who acted? I did. Why did I act? Because God said, go do what I do. It says, truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and I actually just believe Him that we’ll actually do the works that He does and so we go out. When I went out and I prayed for that lady, I couldn’t see it. I had no idea how it happens, but I expected to happen and who performed? The Holy Spirit came and performed a healing work on her body. Why? Because He loves her and He wanted to demonstrate His love to her. We see this process. Let me read a couple more stories that are more modern day. Modern day, this is back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, but there’s a guy named, George Mueller. If you’re not familiar with him, he ran an orphanage of twenty thousand children over in England back in the turn of the early 19th century and this is a story of one thing going on. I’m just going to read it to you just to make sure all the data is there. One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. He was in the breakfast room and they were about to have breakfast. The plates and the cups and the bowls are empty. There is no food in the pantry and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal when Mueller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” Pretty bold, don’t you think? Nothing there. No food in the pantry and he prays and says, “Thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” I love these stories. There is a knock at the door. The baker stood there and said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast and I felt that the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 in the morning and baked some fresh bread and brought it.” Mr. Mueller thanked the baker and, no sooner had he left there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he can empty his cart and repair it. Isn’t that cool? So here’s a question. Who acted? Caroline: George. Beatty: That’s right. He acted by praying and thanking the Lord for the food that they were about to eat. Did he see or have any knowledge of that food before he acted? Before he prayed? Caroline: No. I love that. I love that the thankfulness is the act in this too. Beatty:  Yes. So why did he act? Caroline: Just trusting the Lord and His goodness and His promise to be a Father who takes care of His kids. Beatty:  That’s right. He is acting on God’s promises that can never fail. And then, who performed? Caroline: The Lord, through the obedience of that baker. The Lord prompted them to provide. I think that’s the Lord acting on George’s behalf. Beatty:  I think so too. Here is kind of a question we don’t fully know that answer to, but I think we can piece it together by understanding scripture. If Mueller did not pray and thank the Lord and fully expect that the Lord would provide provision for them, would God have delivered the food? Caroline: Most of me wants to say yes because God’s goodness is not contingent upon us. That’s what His grace is. But there is part of me too that has seen the Lord perform, if you will, or act in response to our faith, in response to our thankfulness. Thankfulness can open the door for something that maybe would not have happened otherwise. I don’t know if that is a direct answer because I’ve seen it both ways. I’d love to hear your examples and scripture. Beatty:  I’m going to show you another example then I’m going to come back to that question. But let me ask you, based on this scriptural example. If Peter had not seen Jesus walking on the water. If Jesus has not told him to come. But if Peter just got this crazy idea to just step out of the boat and try walking on the water on his own, what do you think would have happened? Caroline: He would have drowned maybe. Beatty:  Exactly. So there is something here that says, it’s not just the act of doing it but the Lord has to be involved. There has to be, what I’ll call, a level of belief. Let’s look at one more story of George Mueller. This one is cool. Let me set up the environment. In Mueller’s later life—in the 1860s and 70s—he started to speak. He lived in Bristol, England. He was invited to go speak in Quebec, Canada, I believe it was. So he gets on a steamer and comes across the Atlantic. The scheduled date is on a Saturday coming up. As they get closer to the North American continent, the steamer runs into a really thick fog. It’s so thick that they literally turn the engines off. They put them in complete idle because—and this still happens today—you can’t see through it and therefore it’s extremely dangerous to try to power through the fog in case you run into something. You are totally blind. So they can only do it when they can see. That then brings me to this story. This is a first-hand account. There is a guy named Mr. Ingles writing his interactions with the captain of that ocean liner that Mueller was on. So here’s the story. This is the captain speaking:   "Mr. Inglis, the last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, one of the most extraordinary things happened which, has completely revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. Up to that time I was one of your ordinary Christians. We had a man of God on board, George Müller, of Bristol. I had been on that bridge for twenty-two hours and never left it. I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was George Müller: "'Captain, he said, 'I have come to tell you that I must be In Quebec on Saturday afternoon.' This was Wednesday. "'It is impossible,' I said.   [And watch this confidence George Mueller has.]   "'Very well, if your ship can't take me, God will find some other means of locomotion to take me. I have never broken an engagement in fifty seven years.' "’I would willingly help you. How can I? I am helpless.' "'Let us go down to the chart-room and pray.' "I looked at that man of God, and I thought to myself, what lunatic asylum could that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing. "'Mr. Müller,' I said, 'do you know how dense the fog is?' "'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.' "He got down on his knees and prayed one of the simplest prayers. I muttered to myself: 'That would suit a children's class where the children were not more than eight or nine years old.' The burden of his prayer was something like this: 'O Lord, if it is consistent with Thy will, please remove this fog in five minutes. You know the engagement you made for me in Quebec Saturday. I believe it is your will.' "When he finished. I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. "First, you do not believe He will; and second. I believe He has. And there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.' I looked at him, and George Müller said. "'Captain. I have known my Lord for forty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to gain an audience with the King. Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.' I got up, and the fog was gone!”   This is just another story of faith manifesting itself. So here is a question. Who acted in this story?   Caroline: Definitely George. That kind of faith changes the world.   Beatty:  Right. Did he act before he saw?   Caroline: No.   Beatty:  Why did he act?   Caroline: Even at the end just there you said that he’s known the Lord for 47 years. He has seen him act before and he knows the character of the Lord. He knows that is something you can trust. That is why. That is something worthy of putting your faith in.   Beatty:  It is. He acted because he was confident in the truth and validity of the word and the word to him was God was going to get him there because God has done it all before.   There is one other element and we’ll talk about this later but it is the level of belief. Who performed?   Caroline: The Lord. It’s like that story of Jesus calming the storm. A little fog? A storm? That’s nothing.   Beatty: Absolutely. Now let me put one other thing in perspective because we didn’t cover this. The captain had been on the bridge for 22 hours. These fogs last for usually ten days to two weeks before they dissipate. So this was an absolutely miracle from that perspective.   So here is what we find. We also find this in scripture. Jesus says, “Pray believing that you have received and it shall be granted you.” That’s just what Mueller did.   So let me go back to the question I asked you on the previous one. If Mueller did not pray for provision of the food you say, “I think God would have still provided it.” If Mueller did not pray for the lifting of the fog, would the fog have still lifted?   Caroline: No, it would not have.   Beatty:  No, it would not, and, therefore, I believe—back to the provision of the food—had Mueller not have prayed, the food would not have arrived.   I did a study on prayer throughout all the Old Testament and New Testament. God acts upon prayer, not in the absence of prayer.   So let’s look at a few more things about this story on Mueller. If it be Your will. Have you heard people pray, “Well Lord if it’s Your will, please do this.” Then it doesn’t happen and someone says, “Oh, it must not be God’s will.” Have you ever heard people pray like that?   Caroline: Yes, many times.   Beatty:  I see it a lot in healing. “Oh, thank you for your prayer but, you know, I’ve had a lot of people pray for me and God hasn’t healed me. It’s just not His will.” I say, “Well let me pray” and they get healed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but about two-thirds of the time. What is it about, “if it be Your will”? Here is what Mueller said, “If it is consistent with Your will, lift this fog in five minutes so I may make my appointment. I believe it is Your will.” So the question is, how did Mueller pray differently than most of us pray?   Here is what I would to suggest. When people pray, “If it’s Your will,” for the most part, it’s a copout. “I don’t really believe you are going to do it God, but I know You are sovereign. I know You can do it. Therefore, if it is Your will, I’m going to trust You to do it.” But what they lose sight of are the other passages in the Bible. “Pray believing you have received and it will be yours.” “Say to this mountain be taken up and cast into the sea and if you believe in your heart and do not doubt, it will happen.” Command this mulberry tree to be taken up and cast into the sea and if you will do it without doubting, it will happen.” James says, “Let not a man receive anything from the Lord if he doubts.”   So we have all of these passages focused on this concept of believing it to be true. I would submit to you that Mueller absolutely believed it was true. That’s why he says, “I believe it is your will.” So let me ask you one other question as we are talking about prayer. Had Mueller not prayed, but the captain did pray, would that fog have been lifted?   Caroline: I would think not because he didn’t believe. It’s like what you are saying, he’s not coming before the Father with faith. He is coming begrudgingly. It’s a different heart.   Beatty: Yes, with a different heart. So here we have one final element on how faith gets manifested. You have to have faith if you want God to work in your life. That faith, we are going to find in our next session, is rooted in the word of God and specifically in His promises and commands. It’s not just rooted in that, it’s rooted in those and when we believe on those. Mueller did not simply believe on his own willpower. That is not what Jesus talks about. When we believe, the only thing we can believe in is what is truth. Jesus says, “They word is truth.” The only truth that exists is His word. So the only thing we can believe in being truthful is His word. So simply trying to have the willpower of our own, “I believe, I believe”—the harder you try to believe, the less you really believe because you are trying to fool yourself.   So we will talk about all of these. Is this pretty interesting?   Caroline: Oh, I love this. This is definitely inspiring and kind of solidifying too, even challenging belief systems that I think are easy to float around. Even what I was saying earlier, it’s easy to think, “Well, even if I don’t pray, God is good.” But the Lord invites us to partner with him and to believe and to pray. He wants us to experience that. I think it’s a really good challenge to remember our positions as children, that He invites us to be risk takers and to have radical faith. I love this.   Beatty:  Cool. I know we are out of time, so let’s close out.   Caroline: I love these calls, I’m sorry. Sometimes I tend to get so enthralled I’m not even looking at the clock. But yes, we are about out of time.   Beatty, thank you for your time and sharing your wisdom and experience and stories and scripture. I think it’s a really great call and I hope all of our listeners really enjoyed it also and were inspired. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again Beatty for sharing. I look forward to continuing on next time.   Beatty:  Me too. Y’all be blessed. P002

Healing & Salvation - Dr David Petts   In recent talks we saw several occasions where Jesus said Your faith has healed you. The Greek word used here is sozo which can also mean save. Does this mean that that healing is in some sense a part of salvation? The answer to this question is NOT NECESSARILY.   Is healing a part of salvation? The fact that sozo (which in the NT is usually translated 'save') is sometimes used to mean 'heal'[1] has been used by some to argue that healing is included in salvation.     John Nelson Parr (Divine Healing p26), for example, comments:   "If Peter included healing in 'being saved' (Acts 4:9) (…also note the same word in verse 12 twice), are we not justified in teaching that physical healing is included in the salvation purchased for us by the Prince of Life.?".   This conclusion is invalid, however, because it involves an elementary error in semantics. The fact that the same word is used twice in a passage does not necessarily imply that it is being used with the same meaning on both occasions.   Nevertheless it will be helpful briefly to consider the meaning and use of sozo.   The meaning of sozo The Greek verb is related to the adjective saos (safe) and means 'to make safe' and hence 'to deliver from a direct threat' and  'to bring safe and sound out of a difficult situation'.     Foerster lists four major areas of meaning for sozo: saving, keeping, benefiting, and preserving the inner being   Saving includes being snatched from peril especially in the context of war or of a sea-voyage 'deliverance' from judicial condemnation being 'saved' from an illness.   Keeping includes a king keeping a subject alive by granting pardon men being kept from perishing the spark of a fire being kept from going out lost money being ‘got back’, and of wine or goods being ‘kept’.   But sozo and soteria can have a purely positive content.   Benefiting Prayer is offered to Zeus for the soteria of the nation, for peace, wealth, the growth of crops and cattle With regard to healing sozomai can mean not only to be cured but to be in good health the oath ten men soterian which means ‘by my health’.   preserving the inner being of men or things   Plato thought that it was the task of the ruler to sozein the state by maintaining it as a constitutionally ordered state sozo and soteria often refer to the inner ‘health’ of man”.   So, long before the New Testament documents came to be written, sozo was being used in a wide variety of ways.    It is noteworthy, however, that in all the examples mentioned above the root meaning of being made or kept safe is clearly discernible.   This is also true of the use of sozo in the New Testament Each meaning carries with it the underlying suggestion of being made or kept safe.   The use of sozo in the New Testament New Testament writers use sozo and its cognates to mean being made or kept safe whenever such terminology is appropriate.   Three main ways:   Acute danger to physical life Deliverance from disease Salvation   Acute danger to physical life In the stilling of the storm the disciples plead with Jesus to ‘save’ them (Matthew 8:25) Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:30) In the accounts of the mocking of Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:40-42, Mark15:30-31, Luke 23:39) he is challenged to ‘save’ himself. Paul's shipwreck in Acts 27:20, 31, 34 Hebrews 11:7 refers to Noah preparing the ark to save his household   Those who see healing as a part of salvation on the grounds that sozo is used to  mean 'heal' must, to be consistent, include deliverance from physical danger on the same grounds!   Such a position is of course clearly untenable in the light of NT teaching with regards to Christians who suffer persecution (e.g. 1 Peter, passim, Romans 8:35-39, 2 Corinthians 11:23-33).     Deliverance from disease sozo is used to mean ‘heal’in:   the healing of the woman with the issue of blood (Matthew 9:21-22, Mark 5:28, 34, Luke 8:48) the raising of Jairus' daughter (Mark 5:23, Luke 8:50) the healing of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:52, Luke 18:42) Luke's account of the deliverance of Legion from demon-possession (Luke 8:36) the healing of ten lepers (Luke17:19) Cripple at Beautiful Gate Acts 4:9 Cripple at Lystra Acts 14:9 James 5:15   So it’s clear that sozo is used in the New Testament to mean to deliver from both danger and disease.   But sozo and soteria in the New Testament mean far more than this.   Salvation The danger from which man needs to be saved is more than physical and by far the major emphasis of soteria in the New Testament is that of deliverance from sin.     But does deliverance from sin automatically imply deliverance from sickness and danger?   It seems to me that although the use of sozo links deliverance from sickness with deliverance from sin linguistically this need not in itself imply a theological connection.      The New Testament writers did not develop a systematic theology of soteria subdivided into categories of physical and spiritual deliverance. They used sozo wherever it might appropriately be used to mean ‘make safe’ or ‘deliver’.   So to argue from the use of sozo for anything more than a linguistic connection between those uses may possibly indicate a misunderstanding of the nature of language.   Nevertheless it seems likely that writers sometimes took advantage of cases of physical deliverance   e.g. the healing of blind Bartimaeus to illustrate the principles of spiritual deliverance - how those who are spiritually ‘blind’ might, through faith in Jesus ‘see’   But to say this is not to confuse the illustration itself with the truth it illustrates.   Healing may illustrate salvation without being part of it.     Thus Parr's claim, based on the use of sozo in Acts 4:9-12, that ‘physical healing is included in the salvation purchased for us’  is shown to be invalid.     [1] Matthew 9:21-22, Mark 5:23, 28, 34, 10:52, Luke 8:36, 48, 50, 2.17:19, 18:42, John 11:12, Acts 4:9, 14:9, James 5:15.

Peculiar 4 Get in the Game A DAILY CALL TO A DIFFERENT STANDARD. 9 …for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The most inspiring message—You don’t want to hear. Text: Good News Bad News Jesus never promised: Be rich Never Heartbroken Wouldn’t rain vacation Plumbing never backup Isn’t Ironic? Don’t You Think Rain on your wedding day Black fly in your chardonnay Death pardon two minutes too late It's like rain on your wedding day  It's a free ride when you've already paid  It's the good advice that you just didn't take  Time and unforeseen circumstance befall us all - Eccl 9:11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What did Jesus promise? If you follow him—Persecuted 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first... 20bIf they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. John 15:18, 20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Peter: Context: Peter is writing to Gentile Christians Emperor Nero—Murdered mom, Wife (Octavia), Most likely 2nd wife. Suspected Nero burned Rome, Blamed Christians: Extreme Persecution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Many believe worst decade of Christian persecution in history of the world. (Open Doors USA) On avg: 370 Christians killed month—300 Christian churches prop destroyed 800 acts of violence (rape, beatings, tortures, etc). Lose family—Lose job Arrested and beat—Not invited to the party Different Perspective in Persecution 12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 1 Peter 4:12 If you’re living faithfully for Christ—Don’t be surprised when face opposition. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Playing soccer—Bench, Water bottle flipping, Playing games on phone. If you are opposition—Are you worried about me? Get in the game—Attacking and shooting. Shut me down. Move from happiness to holiness Move from comfort to persecution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you’re on the bench spiritually Don’t serve, Don’t give, Prayer life is weak, Not sharing—No Threat. Get in game—Enemy takes notice. Don’t be surprised—Battle—They are shooting at me! What did you expect—Christianity is not a playground—Battleground. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don’t be surprised by the fiery trial… If Peter were writing message today—He might adapt it to his audience. ïLibya—Don’t be surprised if someone you know is beheaded. ïMuslim Indonesia—If your family disowns you for following Christian. ïYoung girl in college—You don’t get a second date—stance purity. ïYOU—Family makes fun Thanksgiving ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. 1 Peter 4:12-13 NLT So many people are seeking comfort, pleasure and ease. Avoid conflict—Dodge any opposition—Take path of least resistance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Smoke or drink to fit in. Laugh at racist or sexist joke—know it’s wrong. Hide your faith in Christ so no one pokes fun at you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pursue Comfort  Avoid Opposition  Faith Weakens  Life’s Empty Live Boldly  Face Opposition  Faith Strengthens  Closer to Christ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19 So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you. 1 Peter 4:19 Class Captain - To Win - What do you believe? Do what is right and trust God with the outcome DID I WIN??? Not going to tell you! Doesn’t matter if you win - it matters that you do what’s right. Do what’s right at work—At school—Family—Team We don’t cut corners—We don’t compromise our values—We don’t shy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ World is getting darker and darker—Does this worry you? Do you ever worry? Not at all! Persecution never weakens the church—It strengthens our faith. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So easy to CLAIM to be Christian where I live. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don’t worry when you are persecuted. Worry when you’re not. Comfort being uncomfortable Put myself out there—That’s when I experience God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:5-7 Give it to God! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. 11 All power to him forever! Amen.  I Peter 5:11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have Questions or Comments? Please ask your questions in the comments section below. We attempt to respond to ALL questions or comments.   Transcript: Radical Faith – What is Faith – Part 2   Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is actually one of our Radical Faith calls and these are little bit different. A quick little intro about Beatty and I will let him explain our Radical Faith calls are. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. He also is a Christian and loves the Lord and really has walked out his faith in an inspiring way in the business world. Beatty, I’m going to pass it over to you if you’d like to share just a little bit about what these Radical Faith calls are and how they are different than our typical marketing calls. Beatty:  Sure, well, you know in California they have a law that’s passed that says anything that’s sold in California that has any ingredients or chemicals that could cause cancer, you have to put a warning label on it. What’s really funny is my children and I were at Bass Pro Shops or Cabela’s years back and one of my sons bought one of these really sharp military grade knifes.  These were meant to hurt people and to hurt animals or cut wood or whatever, and there’s this warning label on it: Warning. This knife contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer and I’m thinking here we have a weapon and they’re putting this warning sign on it. I want to give my little warning for those out there that this may be your first time with a Radical Faith call.  This has nothing to do with marketing a real estate business, this particular call. The Radical Faith call has everything to do with how do you live your life for Christ? So, if you’re not interested in my Christianity, if you’re not interested in Christianity at all, you are fairly warned and you can press delete on your podcast or you can hang up on the call. Otherwise, I’m not trying to push my belief onto you, but I’m trying to share my beliefs with those who want to hear them. That’s our little disclaimer up front. So, I’ll turn it back over to you now. Caroline: I love it. It’s a little less scary than cancer-causing…. Beatty:  But this is cancer free. This will be cancer free. Caroline: This will be cancer free. This is a cancer free zone. Only things that will benefit you, benefit your health. Beatty:  Can I share a quick story?  I’ve got to share this story. So, I get out and I pray for people. That’s just part of what I do. I remember I was over at Walmart and I had seen this 50 something year old lady, and she caught my eye as I was talking to someone at the entrance to Walmart, but I didn’t do anything about it. About 30 minutes later, I see her again in an isle on the other side of the store and I just felt the Holy Spirit saying, I need to go pray for her. So, literally, I walked over to her and said, excuse me ma’am. The Holy Spirit just kind of highlighted you and I think there’s something I need to pray for you about. “Is there anything I can pray for you?” She looks at me with this blank stare, almost with the expression like, who are you. She then kind of broke a little bit and said, “Yes.” I said, “How can I pray for you?” She says, “I have really bad back pain. I have degenerative discs in my back and I have neuropathy in my legs.” I was asking about the neuropathy and if there was a real tight constriction on her legs.  The feeling was a real tight constriction and a lot of pain up in the thigh area on both of her legs.  So, I said, “Let me pray for you.”  So, I prayed for her healing and I said, “Do you feel anything?”  I literally prayed 10 seconds or less and she goes, “Yeah, all the pain in my back is gone.” I said, “Great, but how about your legs?” She said, “I feel release. I feel release. They don’t feel quite as tight.” I said, “Well, good.”  Let’s pray again. And so we prayed again and five or ten seconds later after praying, I said, “Do you feel anything?” She said, “Yes, I feel heat in my back.” I said, “That’s great. That’s the Holy Spirit healing your back and let’s just give it time. Tell me what you feel now.” She says, “Well, that heat is now in my legs. All through my legs.” I said, “That’s great. The Holy Spirit is healing you there.” I said, “Now tell me what’s going on.” She said, “The heat is now up in my stomach area.” “Okay, let’s just keep giving it some time.” Now, all this is over maybe like two minutes, maybe three at most. Then I said, “Now tell me what you feel.” She said, “The heat is going away.” I said, “That’s perfect.” I said, “Tell me about your back.” “No pain.” I said, “Do something that you could not have done without a lot of pain.” She bends all the way over and touches her toes. Degenerative discs could never have done that. Then, I said, “What about your legs and she said, all of the pain is gone. I said, “Fantastic.” I said, “Now, is there anything going on in your stomach area?”  She said, “Yes, I’ve had an ovarian cyst for about a year and I don’t feel that either.” Caroline: Wow. Beatty:  Yeah and it’s really cool talking about these warning labels that can cause cancer, but the reality is Warning: This stuff with the Lord can cause the healing of cancer. It can cause healing of all kinds of things and restoring of our lives. As Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have life to the fullest. To the fullest is not to be bound by sickness and disease. Some of us are and sometimes God doesn’t heal, but I’ve seen such a consistency in that, that I’ve got to believe that the heart of the Father is truly what Jesus said. That we would have life in its fullness in all areas. So, I’m excited to share a little bit more about what we’ve started on the last Radical Faith call and continue that process in understanding this thing called faith and kind of what it all is. So, can we kind of jump on in now that we’ve spent about five minutes here. Caroline: Yes, I love it.  Let’s go. Beatty:  Let me give a real quick review of where we were last time. We’re going through a step-by-step process in understanding what faith really is, understanding it from a Biblical perspective. What does the scripture say that faith is and what do the scriptures show how the faith is lived out and manifests itself in everyday life? What we’ve found is that faith is, from Jesus’ perspective, one of the most important things. Not only is it one of the very few things, as a matter of fact, there’s only three things I know that Jesus ever rebuked his disciples for. One was when the disciples wanted to call fire down from Heaven and consume the people like Elijah did. One when he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me Satan. Every other rebuke that Jesus gave his disciples, which was over and over again, was oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt?  So, he makes a big deal out of faith. The other thing Jesus did is He prays and says, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth. It’s such a big deal that He’s asking will He find faith. We find that faith. We’ve talked about Hebrews 1. That faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It is a title deed, meaning it’s the evidence of things being real that you cannot see. It’s the same evidence of things being real as when you’re on your cell phone. We have complete faith that there are radio waves out there and that we can talk on that cell phone. We have no idea how it works, but we have evidence that it’s real. Therefore, that’s what the Bible is talking about. The faith that we do not see, but we have the evidence that it is real. What we started to do is we started to talk about how faith manifests itself. We talked about Moses parting the Red Sea. God told him to basically stop whining. Tell the people to move forward. Forward was directly into the Red Sea and we find that Moses acted by God’s direction before he saw and God performed.  Then we talked about Elijah and the widow during the drought during the reign of Kind Ahab and how that happened. Now I want to pick up on a couple of more stories as we continue to talk about how faith gets manifested into our lives. I want to talk about Biblical stories and some current day stories, sort of like the healing. That’s actually an expression of faith that I was sharing. If we go back to the Bible, there’s a passage. I’m not going to ask you where that passage is and put you on the spot, Caroline. But there’s a passage where Peter is walking on the water and it’s in Matthew 14 and I just want to read you part of this passage and then ask you a couple of questions. Let me set the stage. They have, just the day before, fed the 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and that was 5,000 men, so we know there’s probably ten or fifteen thousand people by the time you add women and children. Then, Jesus goes up to the top of the mountain to pray, and as he goes up to pray, he sends the apostles and disciples back across the lake in the boat. So, they’re out there and it says that they’re straining at the oars all night because there’s a headwind against them and then Jesus, during the early dawn hours of the morning, He now walks across the lake and they see him dimly and they think He’s a ghost and everyone gets afraid. Are you familiar with this passage? Caroline: Yes, absolutely. Beatty:  Okay, good.  So, He says, don’t be afraid, it’s just me. What does Peter blurt out at that point, do you remember? Caroline: Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you. Beatty:  That’s right. Lord if that’s you, tell me to come walk on the water too. So, now we pick up Matthew 14 verse 22 and it says, and He, meaning Jesus, “And He said, come and Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But, when seeing the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said, you of little faith.” Here’s one of his rebukes. You of little faith, why did you doubt? So, here’s my question to you. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Peter acted. He had the faith and the risk to step out of the boat. Beatty:  There you go. Did he see before he acted? Caroline: No. Like you mean see himself successfully walking? No. That was definitely a leap of faith, if you will, just to step out onto that water. Beatty: Correct. So, why did he act? Caroline: To me, I love that Peter, to his reply to the fear of them all thinking that it’s a ghost, that he says, tell me. Like, tell me to come and your question is why? I feel like just that trust in knowing the Lord’s voice. If you tell me, I’m willing to go, I’m willing to take that step even if I can’t see. Beatty:  That’s right. He acted because God told him to act. Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely, yes. Beatty: Okay, so let’s review. Peter acted before he could see, but he acted because he’s stepping out on the command or the word of the Lord, and then who performed? Caroline: Well, I guess, Peter was acting, and so it was his act, but really it was the Lord. I mean, but we, in our own flesh cannot walk on water. But with the Lord providing, I guess, he’s the one that performed in response to Peter’s faith. Beatty:  And so we see this pattern. Go throughout scripture and you’ll see this all the time.  Man acts before he can see, but he acts by the clearly delineated will of God, trusting that truth and God then comes in and performs. So, this is how faith is manifested all the time. Think about me healing that lady. Who acted? I did. Why did I act? Because God said, go do what I do. It says, truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and I actually just believe Him that we’ll actually do the works that He does and so we go out. When I went out and I prayed for that lady, I couldn’t see it. I had no idea how it happens, but I expected to happen and who performed? The Holy Spirit came and performed a healing work on her body. Why? Because He loves her and He wanted to demonstrate His love to her. We see this process. Let me read a couple more stories that are more modern day. Modern day, this is back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, but there’s a guy named, George Mueller. If you’re not familiar with him, he ran an orphanage of twenty thousand children over in England back in the turn of the early 19th century and this is a story of one thing going on. I’m just going to read it to you just to make sure all the data is there. One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. He was in the breakfast room and they were about to have breakfast. The plates and the cups and the bowls are empty. There is no food in the pantry and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal when Mueller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” Pretty bold, don’t you think? Nothing there. No food in the pantry and he prays and says, “Thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” I love these stories. There is a knock at the door. The baker stood there and said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast and I felt that the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 in the morning and baked some fresh bread and brought it.” Mr. Mueller thanked the baker and, no sooner had he left there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he can empty his cart and repair it. Isn’t that cool? So here’s a question. Who acted? Caroline: George. Beatty: That’s right. He acted by praying and thanking the Lord for the food that they were about to eat. Did he see or have any knowledge of that food before he acted? Before he prayed? Caroline: No. I love that. I love that the thankfulness is the act in this too. Beatty:  Yes. So why did he act? Caroline: Just trusting the Lord and His goodness and His promise to be a Father who takes care of His kids. Beatty:  That’s right. He is acting on God’s promises that can never fail. And then, who performed? Caroline: The Lord, through the obedience of that baker. The Lord prompted them to provide. I think that’s the Lord acting on George’s behalf. Beatty:  I think so too. Here is kind of a question we don’t fully know that answer to, but I think we can piece it together by understanding scripture. If Mueller did not pray and thank the Lord and fully expect that the Lord would provide provision for them, would God have delivered the food? Caroline: Most of me wants to say yes because God’s goodness is not contingent upon us. That’s what His grace is. But there is part of me too that has seen the Lord perform, if you will, or act in response to our faith, in response to our thankfulness. Thankfulness can open the door for something that maybe would not have happened otherwise. I don’t know if that is a direct answer because I’ve seen it both ways. I’d love to hear your examples and scripture. Beatty:  I’m going to show you another example then I’m going to come back to that question. But let me ask you, based on this scriptural example. If Peter had not seen Jesus walking on the water. If Jesus has not told him to come. But if Peter just got this crazy idea to just step out of the boat and try walking on the water on his own, what do you think would have happened? Caroline: He would have drowned maybe. Beatty:  Exactly. So there is something here that says, it’s not just the act of doing it but the Lord has to be involved. There has to be, what I’ll call, a level of belief. Let’s look at one more story of George Mueller. This one is cool. Let me set up the environment. In Mueller’s later life—in the 1860s and 70s—he started to speak. He lived in Bristol, England. He was invited to go speak in Quebec, Canada, I believe it was. So he gets on a steamer and comes across the Atlantic. The scheduled date is on a Saturday coming up. As they get closer to the North American continent, the steamer runs into a really thick fog. It’s so thick that they literally turn the engines off. They put them in complete idle because—and this still happens today—you can’t see through it and therefore it’s extremely dangerous to try to power through the fog in case you run into something. You are totally blind. So they can only do it when they can see. That then brings me to this story. This is a first-hand account. There is a guy named Mr. Ingles writing his interactions with the captain of that ocean liner that Mueller was on. So here’s the story. This is the captain speaking:   "Mr. Inglis, the last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, one of the most extraordinary things happened which, has completely revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. Up to that time I was one of your ordinary Christians. We had a man of God on board, George Müller, of Bristol. I had been on that bridge for twenty-two hours and never left it. I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was George Müller: "'Captain, he said, 'I have come to tell you that I must be In Quebec on Saturday afternoon.' This was Wednesday. "'It is impossible,' I said.   [And watch this confidence George Mueller has.]   "'Very well, if your ship can't take me, God will find some other means of locomotion to take me. I have never broken an engagement in fifty seven years.' "’I would willingly help you. How can I? I am helpless.' "'Let us go down to the chart-room and pray.' "I looked at that man of God, and I thought to myself, what lunatic asylum could that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing. "'Mr. Müller,' I said, 'do you know how dense the fog is?' "'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.' "He got down on his knees and prayed one of the simplest prayers. I muttered to myself: 'That would suit a children's class where the children were not more than eight or nine years old.' The burden of his prayer was something like this: 'O Lord, if it is consistent with Thy will, please remove this fog in five minutes. You know the engagement you made for me in Quebec Saturday. I believe it is your will.' "When he finished. I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. "First, you do not believe He will; and second. I believe He has. And there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.' I looked at him, and George Müller said. "'Captain. I have known my Lord for forty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to gain an audience with the King. Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.' I got up, and the fog was gone!”   This is just another story of faith manifesting itself. So here is a question. Who acted in this story?   Caroline: Definitely George. That kind of faith changes the world.   Beatty:  Right. Did he act before he saw?   Caroline: No.   Beatty:  Why did he act?   Caroline: Even at the end just there you said that he’s known the Lord for 47 years. He has seen him act before and he knows the character of the Lord. He knows that is something you can trust. That is why. That is something worthy of putting your faith in.   Beatty:  It is. He acted because he was confident in the truth and validity of the word and the word to him was God was going to get him there because God has done it all before.   There is one other element and we’ll talk about this later but it is the level of belief. Who performed?   Caroline: The Lord. It’s like that story of Jesus calming the storm. A little fog? A storm? That’s nothing.   Beatty: Absolutely. Now let me put one other thing in perspective because we didn’t cover this. The captain had been on the bridge for 22 hours. These fogs last for usually ten days to two weeks before they dissipate. So this was an absolutely miracle from that perspective.   So here is what we find. We also find this in scripture. Jesus says, “Pray believing that you have received and it shall be granted you.” That’s just what Mueller did.   So let me go back to the question I asked you on the previous one. If Mueller did not pray for provision of the food you say, “I think God would have still provided it.” If Mueller did not pray for the lifting of the fog, would the fog have still lifted?   Caroline: No, it would not have.   Beatty:  No, it would not, and, therefore, I believe—back to the provision of the food—had Mueller not have prayed, the food would not have arrived.   I did a study on prayer throughout all the Old Testament and New Testament. God acts upon prayer, not in the absence of prayer.   So let’s look at a few more things about this story on Mueller. If it be Your will. Have you heard people pray, “Well Lord if it’s Your will, please do this.” Then it doesn’t happen and someone says, “Oh, it must not be God’s will.” Have you ever heard people pray like that?   Caroline: Yes, many times.   Beatty:  I see it a lot in healing. “Oh, thank you for your prayer but, you know, I’ve had a lot of people pray for me and God hasn’t healed me. It’s just not His will.” I say, “Well let me pray” and they get healed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but about two-thirds of the time. What is it about, “if it be Your will”? Here is what Mueller said, “If it is consistent with Your will, lift this fog in five minutes so I may make my appointment. I believe it is Your will.” So the question is, how did Mueller pray differently than most of us pray?   Here is what I would to suggest. When people pray, “If it’s Your will,” for the most part, it’s a copout. “I don’t really believe you are going to do it God, but I know You are sovereign. I know You can do it. Therefore, if it is Your will, I’m going to trust You to do it.” But what they lose sight of are the other passages in the Bible. “Pray believing you have received and it will be yours.” “Say to this mountain be taken up and cast into the sea and if you believe in your heart and do not doubt, it will happen.” Command this mulberry tree to be taken up and cast into the sea and if you will do it without doubting, it will happen.” James says, “Let not a man receive anything from the Lord if he doubts.”   So we have all of these passages focused on this concept of believing it to be true. I would submit to you that Mueller absolutely believed it was true. That’s why he says, “I believe it is your will.” So let me ask you one other question as we are talking about prayer. Had Mueller not prayed, but the captain did pray, would that fog have been lifted?   Caroline: I would think not because he didn’t believe. It’s like what you are saying, he’s not coming before the Father with faith. He is coming begrudgingly. It’s a different heart.   Beatty: Yes, with a different heart. So here we have one final element on how faith gets manifested. You have to have faith if you want God to work in your life. That faith, we are going to find in our next session, is rooted in the word of God and specifically in His promises and commands. It’s not just rooted in that, it’s rooted in those and when we believe on those. Mueller did not simply believe on his own willpower. That is not what Jesus talks about. When we believe, the only thing we can believe in is what is truth. Jesus says, “They word is truth.” The only truth that exists is His word. So the only thing we can believe in being truthful is His word. So simply trying to have the willpower of our own, “I believe, I believe”—the harder you try to believe, the less you really believe because you are trying to fool yourself.   So we will talk about all of these. Is this pretty interesting?   Caroline: Oh, I love this. This is definitely inspiring and kind of solidifying too, even challenging belief systems that I think are easy to float around. Even what I was saying earlier, it’s easy to think, “Well, even if I don’t pray, God is good.” But the Lord invites us to partner with him and to believe and to pray. He wants us to experience that. I think it’s a really good challenge to remember our positions as children, that He invites us to be risk takers and to have radical faith. I love this.   Beatty:  Cool. I know we are out of time, so let’s close out.   Caroline: I love these calls, I’m sorry. Sometimes I tend to get so enthralled I’m not even looking at the clock. But yes, we are about out of time.   Beatty, thank you for your time and sharing your wisdom and experience and stories and scripture. I think it’s a really great call and I hope all of our listeners really enjoyed it also and were inspired. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again Beatty for sharing. I look forward to continuing on next time.   Beatty:  Me too. Y’all be blessed.   P016

Our main devotion must be telling other people about Jesus.     Sometimes the church can get so caught up in programs. Sometimes we can get so involved in event planning. Sometimes as church members, and pastors, we can be so consumed in our time in projects that are so far removed from bringing people to Jesus. Our job is to keep the main thing the main thing.   In our modern society, it is sometimes not politically correct to be talking about Jesus. If Peter would’ve been thinking about political correctness… The Christian church would never have been formed.   In our modern society, sometimes it’s uncomfortable to talk about Jesus. There are times when we let the situation get the best of us, and we move forward in our conversations with strangers without them having any idea that we are followers of the Messiah.   See, doing nothing takes no devotion. Keeping quiet comes naturally.   Our devotion to Jesus requires us to tell other people about his mercy, and his grace, and his forgiveness, and his love.

Does self-directed education really “work,” and how can we prove it? In this episode I speak with Peter Gray, Ph.D., about the evidence (and lack thereof) for the effectiveness of unschooling and democratic free schools. Topics include: How does one measure the "effectiveness" of education in the first place? What does Peter's research say? How might a skeptical parent critique it? Why is it hard to get this research published? If Peter could design a perfect experiment to show that it self-directed education works, what would it look like? And how might a Master’s or Ph.D. student contribute to this field? * * * Peter's blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn Peter's book: http://www.freetolearnbook.com Show your love for the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/blakeboles

Jonah 3:1 – Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. The first time the word of the Lord came to Jonah, he wasn’t receptive. By running away from God, he brought many into danger, and caused massive financial loss. Jonah may’ve thought God would never use him again. But God still had big plans for Jonah. God doesn’t dwell on our failures; neither should we. If Moses dwelt on his failure after murdering the Egyptian, who would’ve delivered the Israelites from slavery? If Peter dwelt on his failure after disowning Jesus, who would’ve preached on Pentecost when three thousand were saved? And if Paul dwelt on his failure after approving the stoning of Stephen, who would’ve evangelized the Gentiles, and written so much of the New Testament? Two things are necessary to succeed as a Christian: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. An electrician flipped the wrong switch at a power plant and caused a million dollars-worth of damage. To no one’s surprise, he was promptly fired. But when a similar thing happened at another company and the worker turned in his resignation, his boss said, “I just spent a million dollars training you. Why would I let you go now?” That’s God’s method. He doesn’t fire us when we make a mistake; he uses our mistake to make us better.

[From ws3/18 p. 14 – May 14 – May 20] “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.” 1 Peter 4:9 ““The end of all things has drawn close,” wrote Peter. Yes, the violent end of the Jewish system of things would come in less than a decade (1 Peter 4:4-12)” - par. 1 True, with Peter writing sometime between 62 and 64 CE, the start of the end of all things relating to the Jewish System of Things was only 2 to 4 years away in 66 CE when the rebellion against Rome resulted in a Roman invasion of Judea that culminated in the complete eradication of the Jews as a nation by 73 CE.  “Among other things, Peter urged his brothers: “Be hospitable to one another.” (1 Pet. 4:9)” - par. 2 The full verse adds “without grumbling” and the prior verse talks about having “intense love for one another”. In context then this would suggest the early Christians were having love for one another and showing hospitality to one another, but the love needed to be stronger, more intense; and the hospitality provided without grumbling. Why was this necessary? Let us briefly consider the context of Peter’s letter. Were there any events that occurred around the time of writing that might have contributed to Peter’s counsel? In 64 CE, Emperor Nero caused the Great Fire of Rome which he blamed on Christians.  They were persecuted as a result, with many being put to death in the arena or burnt as human torches. This had been prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:9-10, Mark 13:12-13, and Luke 21:12-17. Any Christians who were able, would doubtless have fled Rome to surrounding towns and provinces.  As refugees, they would have needed accommodation and provisions. So, it was likely that it was hospitality to these refugees—these strangers—that Paul was referring to, rather than to local Christians. Of course, there was risk involved.  Offering hospitality to persecuted ones, made the resident Christians even more of a target themselves. These were indeed “critical times hard to deal with” and those early Christians needed reminders to display their Christian qualities amid those stressful, turbulent times. (2 Ti 3:1) Paragraph 2 then goes on to say: “The word “hospitality” in Greek literally means “fondness for, or kindness to, strangers." Note, however, that Peter urged his Christian brothers and sisters to be hospitable to one another, to those whom they already knew and associated with.” Here, the Watchtower article is claiming that despite the use of the Greek word for hospitality referring to “kindness to strangers”, Peter was applying it to Christians who already knew one another. Is this a reasonable assumption, given the historical context? If Peter's focus had been on showing kindness to those already known to one another, he surely would have used the correct Greek word to ensure that his readers understood him properly. Even today, English dictionaries define hospitality as “friendly, welcoming behaviour towards guests or people you have just met.” Note, it does not say “friends or acquaintances”. We should, however, concede that even in a congregation of Christians, both then and today, there will those who may be closer to the definition of strangers than friends to us.  Hence, showing hospitality to such ones, so as to get to know them better, would be an act of Christian kindness. Opportunities to Show Hospitality Paragraphs 5-12 then discuss different aspects of how we can show hospitality within the congregation. As you will see, it is very organization-centric. Not once is showing hospitality to a new neighbour or new workmate who perhaps is having a difficult time even hinted at. “We welcome all who attend our Christian meetings as fellow guests at a spiritual meal. Jehovah and his organization are our hosts. (Romans 15:7)”. - par. 5 How interesting that it is not Jesus, the head of the congregation, nor even the local congregation members, who are the hosts, but "Jehovah and his organization.

The illegal and irregular trial of Jesus and Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus >> If Peter could deny Jesus, then so could we. The post Mark 14:53-72 appeared first on Plymouth Meeting Church.

How does Classical Chartist Peter Brandt determine trade quality and entry? Hear how he views the charts and the common errors new traders make. Louise Bedford discusses our caveman survival instincts when we are battling either a losing trade or a sabre-toothed cat and Chris Tate talks A Little Trading. Chris Tate – A Little Trading Starting with a low amount of money in the markets? Chris shares his knowledge on how to make it grow.   Louise Bedford – Caveman Trading A losing trade OR a sabre-toothed cat? Our instincts remain the same. To attack - to be risk-taking. The golden rule of share trading is to keep your losses small and let your profits run. But our evolutionary survival makes this easy in theory but hard to follow in practice. It is our job to overcome it as traders. Hear how our caveman DNA affects your trading.   Peter Brandt For Peter Brandt a really good pattern in the charts is obvious. They are few and far between. But new traders tend to replay similar mistakes. Just as Picasso or Rembrandt went through different periods in their art, new traders will often go through different stages in their charts, such as a trend line period, or head and shoulders period and it often has the effect of creating charts that resemble star wars maps. According to Peter studying a chart too hard is lacking in wisdom and prudence. If Peter doesn’t see a trade within a millisecond of looking at a chart it is time to look at a new chart. Hear Peter’s way of charting and how for real traders a good chart speaks to their inner being.  

The fantastic first season of Flipendo comes to a close with this rousing episode, centred heavily on topics surrounding the Prisoner of Azkaban. Was Sirius truly a fan of crosswords? What flavours of ice cream does Florian sell? If Peter were to impregnate a rat…er, well, nevermind.

For the Easter 2017 message, Rusty concludes the series “This is Jesus, this is Us” by remembering and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Though we all have a “black box” of baggage that we carry around and won’t let go of, Jesus beckons us to lay it at his feet in order to experience new life, now. This is seen most abundantly in Jesus’ relationship with Peter who, though he was flawed, broken, and ultimately betrayed Jesus, was restored by Jesus’ grace and invitation to leave his old self behind and became one of the most significant proponents of the early church movement. If Peter can do it, so can we.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph 5:1-2). Here, note the phrase, "as dearly loved children." In order to love with God's love, you need to know first how much you are loved by God. Once you know how God loves you, you also love others by imitating him. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34). Here, if the clause, "As I have loved you," is removed, this command would simply be the command, "Love your neighbor as yourself," as in the Old Testament. Thus, what makes this "new command" different from the old one lies in the phrase, "As I have loved you"—as he laid down his life for them so that they would have eternal life. It is crucial to know that while the old one served as a condition to determine life or death, blessings or curses, the new one no longer carries such conditional nature since whoever believes in him has eternal life and is redeemed from the curse of the law unconditionally—by faith, not by deeds. However, the disciples that time, hearing the word, "command," all understood it still in the conditional sense of the old covenant. So Peter came up to insist strongly on his ability to love and follow Jesus as follows: Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you (v. 37). Yet, after this, everything went in a completely unexpected direction for Peter. As the story unfolds in John's gospel, a keen contrast is observed between how Jesus' loved and how Peter failed to love in spite of what he said he would: while Jesus' love was fulfilled and made complete at his death on the cross, Peter's love was not, and ended with a bitter cry. As a matter of fact, in Peter's case, instead of his words, the following words of Jesus came to be fulfilled: Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times (v. 38)!" If Peter, having been in this condition, could realize the incompleteness of his love, and the powerless nature of his flesh, it would be by God's miracle. In fact, it is by this miracle that all believers come to walk according to the spirit and love others as the fulfillment of what Jesus said. Surely, the event in John 21 put an end to old Peter and brought him a new birth. It had been some weeks since Jesus was raised from the dead, and according to John, Jesus had already appeared to the disciples twice. By this time, they had been taught the meaning and purpose of Jesus' death and resurrection through the scriptures, and directly given the words concerning their commission to go and preach the good news to the world. At such a stage, Peter's decision of "going out to fish" was not fitting at all. For him, it was another mistake like his denial of Jesus. They worked all night, but caught nothing. At dawn, Jesus stood on the shore. Whenever we make a mistake, Jesus is right there to work it for something good. So his turn came to say: "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some (21:6)." They did so, and caught a large number of fish. As they came up to the shore, there they found breakfast ready for them to eat. Nobody said anything because they were all feeling the emptiness of their flesh inside. As they finished eating, Jesus said to Peter: Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these (v. 15)?

If Peter was dying, would SJ help put him out of his misery? Things discussed this episode: SJ’s favourite show at the moment, You Can’t Ask That Andrew Denton’s podcast about euthanasia, Better Off Dead Relevant CGP Grey videos: The Queen is also the head of England, and technically God is in charge of the Commonwealth.How to Become Pope The powers of the Queen One of the best videos ever made: The History of Japan -There’s much more to mortal sin than Peter covered. Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_sin To talk about the show, head to Honor Eastly’s Facebook page. To support this show, pledge to Honor Eastly’s Patreon. If you want to record an outro to be used in an upcoming episode, record your unique take on the following and carrier-pigeon it to us (we also use email: contact@beinghonestwithmyex.com): "Thanks for listening to Being Honest With My Ex. If you've enjoyed the podcast, subscribe to us on iTunes, leave a review and tell your friends. Peter is my favourite son!"

If Peter can so...so can we. If he can be restored...so can we! So take heart!

2011-11-13-1030 Pastor Loran Livingston is the speaker this morning November 13th 2011 in the 10:30 service. Scripture: Matthew 14:24-33; Hebrews 8:8-9 Topic: Faith Notes:- Jesus walking on water in storm; Peter walked out to meet Him- If you only accept the logical you will never see Jesus- Nothing pleases God except your faith in Him- Miracles happen all the time; it’s not only the fantastic things- What God did for Israel: chose Abraham, lead people into Egypt, 70 grew to 2 million who became slaves... God took them by the hand and led them out- He took us by the hand and led us out.  Had to be dragged out of Egypt, but thank God He did it.- Lot... God would not send destruction till he was out- If He leads you out He can lift you up- Disciples saw Jesus on the water and were troubled, cried out in fear- Peter walked out with eyes on Jesus; when your eyes are on Jesus you don’t see anything else- Peter was distracted by the winds and took his eyes off Jesus, feared filled the void of faith and he began to sink- After every spiritual victory there is a sinking- We ought to go to church to get strong- If Peter had stayed in the boat he wouldn’t have a testimony

2011-11-13-0830 Pastor Loran Livingston is the speaker this morning November 13th 2011 in the 8:30 service. Scripture: Matthew 14:24-33; Hebrews 8:8-9 Topic: Faith Notes:- Jesus walking on water in storm; Peter walked out to meet Him- If you only accept the logical you will never see Jesus- Nothing pleases God except your faith in Him- Miracles happen all the time; it’s not only the fantastic things- What God did for Israel: chose Abraham, lead people into Egypt, 70 grew to 2 million who became slaves... God took them by the hand and led them out- He took us by the hand and led us out.  Had to be dragged out of Egypt, but thank God He did it.- Lot... God would not send destruction till he was out- If He leads you out He can lift you up- Disciples saw Jesus on the water and were troubled, cried out in fear- Peter walked out with eyes on Jesus; when your eyes are on Jesus you don’t see anything else- Peter was distracted by the winds and took his eyes off Jesus, feared filled the void of faith and he began to sink- After every spiritual victory there is a sinking- We ought to go to church to get strong- If Peter had stayed in the boat he wouldn’t have a testimony

Jokes You Can Use: What goes up and never comes down? Your age 1 egg takes 5 minutes to boil. How long do 10 eggs take to boil? The same 5 minutes. How many times does a tailor have to cut 100 yards of cloth to get 100 equal pieces? 99 times. You don’t cut the last piece, it is already there What side of the teacup is the handle on? I really don't know the answer Which is heavier? 1 pound of hay or 1pound of metal. They both weigh a pound Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers, Peter piper picked. If Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peckers, how many pickels did Peter piper picked? How many Ps are there in THAT? None...T..H...A...T.....there are NO P's in the word THAT What has 100 eyes and cannot see? A potato Two Indians standing on a bridge. One is the father of the other ones son. What is the relation between the two Indians? Mother and Father What has NO legs and CAN run? Water On Our Mind: ISTE 2011 (#iste11) The problems with skipping a show Eileen Award Gabe Walker & Michael Cohen Advisory: BBC - Witness http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/witness Middle School Science Minute by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com) In this podcast, I look at the ELA Reading Common core for grades 6-8 and see how they apply to science. This is the first in a three part series. It focuses in on Key Ideas and Details. From the Twitterverse: Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST. News: University of the People http://www.uopeople.org/ What's the Best Way to Grade Teachers? By Kristina Rizga| Wed Jun. 29, 2011 11:35 AM PDT http://motherjones.com/contributor/2011/06/grading-teachers-evaluations First Digital Only Textbook: http://mashable.com/2011/06/27/iste-textbooks-k-12/ The many health perks of good handwriting http://www.healthkey.com/sc-health-0615-child-health-handwriti20110615,0,5764943.story Resources: ISTE Online: Free PD for you. What happens at ISTE . . . goes social: http://tumblr.com/xtl38xls1q http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/webcasts-and-keynotes-from-iste-2011.html Socrative: Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational games and exercises via smartphones and tablets. Our apps are super simple and take seconds to load and run. Teachers control the questions and games on their laptop, while students respond and interact through their smartphones/laptops. Run it as an app or on any web browser. Currently free. No mention of what prices will be once it is out of beta. http://www.socrative.com/ Weaving History Create 'factlets' — places, people, events — and string them together into 'threads' at the click of a button.Automatically visualize the results temporally and spatially, search by any attribute, automatically import Wikipedia articles and much more … Very bare bones currently. It’s reliance on Wikipedia could cause some problems for schools (but maybe not). Potential to be exciting and useful for students and teachers. http://www.weavinghistory.org/ Web Spotlight: Ujam You sing the lyrics, it figures out the tune. Even if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, sing into the mic and it comes up with the music to go along with it. Anybody can become a musician with this app. Think of it as your answer to the kid who says, “You can’t make a song out of that!” Now you can. http://www.ujam.com/ ISTE 2011 Led by Scott Meech References: https://profiles.google.com/smeech.net/posts http://www.linkedin.com/in/smeech http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/ScottMeech Related: Scott McLeod (http://bigthink.com/blogs/dangerously-irrelevant) UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) Events & Happenings: Calendar of Events:

Pastor Dan Kellogg looks at Peter's writings to us about marriage. If Peter was a marriage counselor today, would he still offer the same advice? Using the Ginsu knife as a representation of the multiple facets found in marriage, Dan addresses our society's interpretation of marriage and whether Peter's advice still applies. Recorded 10-19-2008

"Can an apostle err? What are the implications for Paul rebuking Peter? Should we doubt the reliability of Peter’s letters? If Peter is condemned how can he present the gospel of Christ? Why does the apostle Paul make mention of this public rebuke of Peter? Why is Peter so bad for merely meeting with the […] The post Congregation or Segregation? (Galatians 2:11-14) appeared first on Covenant United Reformed Church.