Podcasts about Melchizedek

Hebrews 7:1-28

Paul J Fowler. is an author whose love of adventure and belief in the redemptive power of storytelling led him to explore the world before the Flood. His background in ministry, relief work in South America, and visits to Peru's megalithic sites fueled a fascination with the book of Genesis and ancient history. Through stories exploring the Watchers, the Nephilim, and biblical prophecy, he invites readers to consider whether our past is stranger than fiction. 00:00 Introduction & Value for Value07:57 Paul J. Fowler's Journey to Faith16:32 Writing Thrones of the Watchers19:52 Genesis 6, the Nephilim & Ancient Jewish Context26:18 Eden & Humanity's Original Purpose32:49 Melchizedek, Adam & the Priest-King Tradition44:30 Head Coverings, Angels & Biblical Context50:57 Online Christianity & Real Community56:32 Why Pastors Must Address the Nephilim1:08:19 Ancient Aliens & Competing Spiritual Narratives1:18:19 Psychedelics, Spiritual Experiences & Discernment1:23:20 Finding Hope When Dark Topics Get Overwhelming1:33:18 Missions, Culture & Trusting the Holy Spirit1:38:50 Jesus, the Watchers & the Victory We OverlookPaul J Fowler-http://www.thronesofthewatchers.com/-https://www.facebook.com/thronesofthewatchers

Paul J Fowler. is an author whose love of adventure and belief in the redemptive power of storytelling led him to explore the world before the Flood. His background in ministry, relief work in South America, and visits to Peru's megalithic sites fueled a fascination with the book of Genesis and ancient history. Through stories exploring the Watchers, the Nephilim, and biblical prophecy, he invites readers to consider whether our past is stranger than fiction.    00:00 Introduction & Value for Value 07:57 Paul J. Fowler's Journey to Faith 16:32 Writing Thrones of the Watchers 19:52 Genesis 6, the Nephilim & Ancient Jewish Context 26:18 Eden & Humanity's Original Purpose 32:49 Melchizedek, Adam & the Priest-King Tradition 44:30 Head Coverings, Angels & Biblical Context 50:57 Online Christianity & Real Community 56:32 Why Pastors Must Address the Nephilim 1:08:19 Ancient Aliens & Competing Spiritual Narratives 1:18:19 Psychedelics, Spiritual Experiences & Discernment 1:23:20 Finding Hope When Dark Topics Get Overwhelming 1:33:18 Missions, Culture & Trusting the Holy Spirit 1:38:50 Jesus, the Watchers & the Victory We Overlook   Paul J Fowler -http://www.thronesofthewatchers.com/ -https://www.facebook.com/thronesofthewatchers

Suffering can do one of two things: break us or break us open.Beginning with Frederick Buechner's unforgettable image, John Ortberg explores Psalm 110 and one of the deepest ways Christians have read the Psalms: seeing the story of Jesus in their suffering, longing, and hope.Drawing from C.S. Lewis, Plato, and the mysterious biblical figure Melchizedek, John looks at how Jesus brings together two ancient hopes: the victorious king and the suffering servant.Jesus doesn't overcome suffering by avoiding it.He enters it.And because the story ends in resurrection, suffering doesn't have to get the final word.The difference between being broken and broken open is hope.In this episode: Psalm 110 • suffering • hope • Jesus • C.S. Lewis • Melchizedek • resurrection#Psalm110 #JohnOrtberg #Suffering #Hope #Jesus #CSLewis #Psalms

School is in session! Join us for today's class : Melchizedek School of Priesthood | Sep 17, 2026

Blog 1396 (3.22.2025)***Remember: a contemplation question should invite quiet self-examination rather than intellectual analysis.***Seeking Truth beyond the veil, and embodying that Truth in daily life; from faith and theory, to experience; and from limitation, to greater freedom, harmony, and service.Exploring the Eternal Brotherhood, the Order of Melchizedek, the “veil” between the outer and inner realms, and the journey toward spiritual perfection.Understanding that spiritual attainment as a gradual path—a journey of growth, mastery, and preparation to enter into a deeper awareness of God.Looking beyond theory and seeking a living experience of Divine Truth through obedience to the Spirit, love, harmony, visualization, and conscious alignment with the Divine Plan. Practical application - Becoming conscious participants in the manifestation of the Divine Plan, by holding a clear picture of Perfection, pouring Love upon it, maintaining uninterrupted Harmony, and surrendering personal desires that would interfere with another's destiny.Books:Hebrews 5:1-10; 6:13-20; and 7The Goal of Life - Hiram Butler (1908)The "I AM" DiscoursesMusic:Homegrown - Blues Dot SessionsFuture Glider - Brian BolgerThe Basket - Blue Dot SessionsThe Summit - Blue Dot SessionsThe Mark Of God: Understanding Your “I AM Presence” © 2026.

Melchizedek's Tabernacle of Victory.Welcome to Melchizedek's Tabernacle of Victory. Listen as Derick discusses biblical issues in a way that brings Wisdom and Truth directly from God's Word, directly to you! This week's show is called "The Imbalance Of Power." Tune in and hear Derick as he continues to bring clarity to the Word of God. In this episode on “The Imbalance of Power,” the speaker reflects on Matthew 5:13 and the idea that believers are the “salt of the earth,” using it to discuss obedience, understanding, and spiritual balance in the Christian life. A cardiology analogy is used to compare sodium, calcium, and potassium with the work of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father.The episode contrasts “sweet water” and “bitter water” as symbols of righteous and worldly influences, emphasizing that people choose what they take in spiritually. It also draws on biblical examples such as Lot's wife, passages in Mark about salt and fire, and salted offerings to show judgment, refinement, and the need to remain seasoned by God's word.The message concludes with references to the healing of the waters in 2 Kings 2 and Jesus' promise of living water in John 4. The speaker's central point is that believers should reject bitter influences, receive God's word, and live in a way that is pleasing to Him.https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/mtov/mtov-podcasts

Where is God when you feel completely lost, trapped by past mistakes, or overwhelmed by life's heavy storms?Welcome to Book 5 of the Psalms! We're moving out of the wilderness and standing on the edge of the Promised Land as we trace the incredible thread of God's unfailing love through every season of life.If you've ever felt trapped by your own choices, faced down a bitter enemy, or needed a reminder that your defender is standing right beside you, this Psalms Bible study is for you. Psalms 107-118 reach straight into our real-life struggles and remind us that no matter how low we feel or how far we've wandered, God's mercy is ready to step in. His love endures forever!In our Psalms 107–118 Bible study, we cover:[7:10] Psalm 107: How God delivers those who are lost, imprisoned, foolish, or caught in life's heaviest storms.[14:33] Psalms 108-109: Why ancient legal settings put the accuser at your exposed right hand, and how God steps in to displace them as your protector.[17:37] Psalm 110: Jesus in the Psalms and how He uses Psalm 110 to show the Pharisees that He is both David's Lord and a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.[29:04] Psalms 111-112: What it actually means to fear the Lord (Psalms 111 and 112) and how revering God removes the fear of bad news.[43:24] Psalms 113-118: The rich tradition of Psalms 113–118 and how Jesus likely sang these exact praise songs with His disciples the night before the cross.Psalms Show NotesPsalms RoadmapPsalms Prayer ListPsalms Playlist - Listen on Apple MusicPsalms Playlist - Listen on SpotifyPhil Wickham - Psalm 8 (Hallé) [Official Music Video]ACTS Prayer GuideFeasts and FestivalsScene from The ChosenGroup Discussion Questions for Psalms 107–118[7:10] Psalm 107 reminds us that God delivers us in four ways: when we lose our way, are slaves due to rebellion against God, are foolish and become afflicted, and when we lose hope. Do you think this pattern still exists today? If so, does that surprise you?[29:27] Psalms 111 and 112 tell us it's good to fear the Lord. What does that phrase “fear the Lord” mean to you? Has that understanding changed at all throughout your life?[43:24] Jesus likely sang the Hallel psalms (Psalms 113–118) with His disciples the night before the cross. Does that make you feel closer to Him? Is there anything else in this world, perhaps physical or historical, that helps you feel closer to Jesus?Contact Bible Book Club!Social: Instagram or FacebookWebsite: Bible Book ClubReview Us: Apple Podcast or SpotifyJoin the Fun: DONATE or Buy merchThis episode is part of our ongoing Bible Book Club series, starting with Genesis and journeying all the way through the Bible. Thanks for listening!

In this sermon, we continue exploring the biblical foundation for tithing—this time through the lens of righteousness and justice. From Proverbs 8:17–21 to the life of Abraham in Genesis 14–15, we see that honoring God with the first and best is not merely a law-code practice, but part of a well-ordered relationship with God that predates the Mosaic Law.Wisdom walks “in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice” (Proverbs 8:20), and Scripture shows that righteous people honor God with their wealth. Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek in Genesis 14:17–20, acknowledging God as his deliverer and provider. Jacob followed this pattern in Genesis 28:20–22, vowing to give God a tenth of all he received.This message traces how tithing connects to righteousness and justice—tzedakah and mishpat—from Abraham to Israel to the New Testament church. The tithe provided for those serving in God's house (Numbers 18:21; Deuteronomy 18:3), supported the vulnerable among God's people (Deuteronomy 14:28–29; Isaiah 1:17), and carries forward in New Testament generosity through the support of gospel ministry and care for those in need (Galatians 6:2–10; 1 Corinthians 9:13–14; 1 Timothy 5:3–8; 2 Corinthians 9:9).Key Scriptures: • Proverbs 8:17–21 — Wisdom walks in righteousness and justice• Genesis 18:18–19 — Abraham called to teach righteousness and justice• Genesis 14:17–24 — Abraham tithes to Melchizedek• Genesis 15:1 — God is Abraham's shield and great reward• Genesis 28:20–22 — Jacob vows to give God a tenth• Numbers 18:21 — The tithe provides for the Levites• Deuteronomy 14:28–29 — The tithe supports the vulnerable• Galatians 3:29; 5:14; 6:2–10 — Abraham's children fulfill the law of Christ• 1 Corinthians 9:13–14 — Gospel ministers supported by gospel giving• 1 Timothy 5:3–8 — The church cares for those truly in need• 2 Corinthians 9:9 — Generosity as enduring righteousnessRighteousness walks a path that abundantly provides. This sermon calls us to trust God, honor Him with our wealth, and participate in the flourishing of His church and His people.

For nearly two thousand years, Christians have argued over Law and Grace. But what if we've been asking the wrong question? The issue may not be Torah versus Grace at all, but the difference between the Book of the Covenant and the Book of the Law, and the change in priesthood that took place with the coming of Yahusha. In this teaching we go back to Abraham, Genesis 15, Sinai, the covenant Israel made with Yahweh, the Levitical priesthood, and the promise of a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Then we follow that thread through Galatians and Hebrews. Why does Paul say the law was added until the Seed should come? Why does Hebrews say that when the priesthood is changed, there is also a change of the law? And what does Hebrews mean by the “time of reformation”? Most importantly, did Yahusha abolish the Torah; or did He restore something that had been lost? Maybe the question was never simply LAW OR GRACE? Maybe we should be asking: Which covenant? Which priesthood? Which administration? And what exactly changed when Yahusha came?

TWPC D4S1 | SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 | THE BIRTH-PANGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRIESTS You are being called into a priesthood that begins not with public ministry, spiritual gifts, titles, or spectacular experiences, but with a deep and sustained hunger for God that draws you continually into His presence until His Word, nature, burden, and ways are formed within you. The gospel of the Kingdom is meant to prevail over darkness, transform territories, establish God's will on earth, and raise a people who know their spiritual identity and can carry His purposes without being corrupted by prosperity, popularity, opposition, suffering, or the approval of men; therefore, you must remain with God long enough to receive not merely information but the message He intends you to embody. The tabernacle, the feasts, the priesthood, Eden, and the experiences of people such as Moses, Abraham, Daniel, David, Jeremiah, and Paul reveal one continuing divine intention: God is building a people into His image and likeness. Every stage of the tabernacle illustrates progressive encounter and transformation—laying down the flesh, washing and renewing the mind, receiving illumination by the Spirit, feeding on the bread and wine of God's life, carrying His burden in intercession, and ultimately coming into the place of His presence and authority. The priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is therefore an organic priesthood of intimate fellowship with God, sustained by believing, eating, digesting, and embodying His Word until what is already true of you in Christ becomes increasingly expressed through your mind, character, conduct, obedience, authority, and even your mortal life; this complete transformation is described as God's life replacing everything within you that carries the imprint of the world and forming His own likeness in you. Spiritual gifts alone are not proof of maturity, because gifts may continue functioning where intimacy, obedience, and consecration are deficient; what God seeks is the person themselves as the sacrifice—a broken, surrendered, obedient life that values His presence above comfort, prestige, wealth, pleasure, and self-preservation. Like Moses choosing the reproach of God above the treasures of Egypt, preparation for divine assignment requires removing idols, worldly entanglements, sinful patterns, distractions, and competing pleasures while increasing prayer, fasting, meditation in Scripture, obedience, and fellowship with God whenever He calls you deeper. You cannot confront spiritual resistance merely because God has given you an assignment; you must allow Him to prepare you for what the assignment will require, because authority without formation leaves you vulnerable to intimidation and failure. The pattern is first inward judgment and then outward authority: allow the Word of God to destroy Egypt within you before expecting to confront Egypt around you; fulfill obedience before attempting to avenge disobedience; let God remove what is contrary to His nature in you before you attempt to uproot darkness in nations, communities, families, or institutions. This is why the bread and wine associated with Melchizedek point to something far deeper than ceremony: they represent feeding upon Christ until His life becomes your life, His righteousness becomes your nature, His burden becomes your burden, and His authority can safely operate through you. Such intimacy with God is beautiful toward those who belong to Him but hostile toward everything opposed to His will, so genuine priesthood inevitably carries a warfare dimension; the priestly garments become the armor of God, intercession becomes participation in God's government, and a person who has learned to stand before God can eventually stand before powers, systems, territories, and nations without fear. Yet none of this can be manufactured by ambition or human confidence—the foundation is hunger. Cultivate the kind of hunger that made Moses prolong every encounter with God, that made Paul count everything else as loss for the excellency of knowing Christ, and that refuses to settle for memories of former encounters when God appears silent. When spiritual dryness comes, do not withdraw; increase your pursuit, deepen your consecration, search the Scriptures more earnestly, pray more intentionally, remove whatever dulls your appetite, and continue seeking until the presence and nature of God become your deepest necessity. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled; and as that hunger matures, you become a living altar, a living stone, a holy priest who comes before God and a royal priest who comes forth from Him—carrying His presence, revealing His character, exercising His authority, interceding for His people, confronting darkness, and participating in the manifestation of His Kingdom on the earth.

The finale opens by gathering up the summer: the pagan voices the series kept hearing — the oracle at Delphi, Apollo and Athena — and the dark verdict of Christians who were being killed in those gods' names. It returns especially to last week's two biblical witnesses, the Magi and Melchizedek, and to the question they force: was any of paganism legitimate? Then the courtroom assembles. Justin had predicted his own prosecution in print, naming Crescens, a Cynic philosopher who denounced the Christians to the crowd without troubling to examine them. And the judge was Junius Rusticus — not a bureaucrat with a philosophy hobby but a Stoic of rank, the teacher Marcus Aurelius thanks by name in the opening pages of the Meditations. Socrates was condemned by a democracy that did not understand philosophy. Justin would be condemned by philosophy itself, seated on the tribunal.Then the class performs the trial, every part taken, from the court protocol that survives. Justin answers the prefect with a creed; asked where the Christians meet, he says their God “is not circumscribed by place” — the doctrine of Jacob's Well, restated to the prefect of Rome by a man who grew up within sight of it; and he gives his address, a rented room above a bathhouse, open to anyone who climbed the stairs, with no fee and no prerequisites. Then Rusticus works down the line of the accused: a woman, a slave of Caesar's household who says he has been freed by Christ, a refugee from Phrygia, believers raised in the faith by their parents. Justin had written a decade earlier that no one ever trusted Socrates enough to die for his doctrine, but Christ was believed by artisans and the uneducated. That morning he heard it as a roll call beside him in the dock. And then the exchange the whole summer has been building toward: asked whether he merely supposes he will ascend to heaven, Justin declines the hedge Socrates held so honestly — “I do not suppose it, but I know.” Not a better argument, the session argues, but a different kind of cause: not a conclusion reached by reason but an event, a dead man returned.The session closes by reading what these people actually did on Sunday — Justin's description to the emperor of readings, homily, prayers and the Eucharist, the earliest account of the Mass we have, recognizably the class's own Sunday across eighteen and a half centuries — and by closing the docket of the series' three trials. And it ends where the transcript's sociology points: on ordinary people. Socrates was a stonecutter, Paul made tents, Jesus was a carpenter, and the six who stood by Justin met above a bath. You are not marked as a Christian by being strange, but by your love.

In this episode of Just Tap In Podcast with Emilio Ortiz, we sit down with Viola Rose, teacher of Drunvalo Melchizedek's work, to explore messages around the Merkaba, heart, pineal gland, human potential, and what may exist beyond the 12th dimension. Viola shares what Drunvalo has been communicating about a “next level” Merkaba, shifting human limitations, the relationship between heart and mind, and humanity remembering capacities that have always existed within us. They explore Melchizedek consciousness, realities beyond twelve dimensions, sovereignty, remembrance, sacred geometry, Flower of Life, and the tiny space of the heart.The conversation goes deeper into Drunvalo's teachings about a new consciousness connected to the Sun, a higher consciousness sphere around Earth, the Christ Consciousness Grid, levitation, dimensional travel, the Merkaba light body, and what it could mean for humanity to become less tethered to current reality. Emilio and Viola also explore miracles, manifestation, the malleable nature of reality, belief systems and “codes,” indigenous wisdom and the Mamos of Colombia, sound healing, light language, Egypt and the Hathors, sovereignty, the integrated heart, and how returning to the heart may help humanity navigate a technological world. This episode explores Drunvalo Melchizedek, Merkaba activation, sacred geometry, consciousness, ascension, the pineal gland, heart consciousness, multidimensional reality, human evolution, spiritual awakening, the Flower of Life, Christ Consciousness, ancient wisdom, sound healing & humanity's future.___________________PODCAST CHAPTERS00:00 – Viola Rose Intro01:07 - The New Flower of One & What It Means for Humanity04:30 - Drunvalo Says the Sun Has Changed07:40 - Earth's New Consciousness Sphere Explained09:45 - The Galactic Superhero Training 12:50 - Organic Ascension in the Age of AI13:48 - Why Drunvalo Had to Accept Human Limitations17:57 - What Happens When You Start Seeing Miracles?22:27 - What Is the Tiny Space of the Heart?25:47 - What Mass Ascension Could Actually Look Like27:03 - Why Did Humanity Forget Its Oneness?32:15 - Can You Actually Talk to Your Pineal Gland?35:23 - Drunvalo Says Levitation May Be Closer Than We Think37:14 - What Viola's Pineal Gland Told Her38:19 - How to Break the Codes of Human Limitation42:35 - Seeing the Impossible Can Rewire Your Beliefs43:18 - Who Are the Melchizedeks Beyond the 12th Dimension?44:35 - Viola's Experience of Melchizedek Consciousness46:01 - The Problem With Channeling & Giving Away Your Power47:25 - Drunvalo's Strange Advice for Dimensional Travel48:53 - Why Ancient Egypt Has Always Felt Like Home51:42 - Is Sound Older Than Creation Itself?54:42 - The Hidden Power of the Human Voice56:48 - Can Your Voice Become a Healing Transmission?58:56 - What Drunvalo Learned From the Mamos of Colombia01:01:09 - How We Return to Innocence and Joy01:03:25 - The Integrated Heart01:05:05 - What Drunvalo Has Really Been Teaching All Along01:06:03 - The Most Sacred Place Viola Has Found Within Herself01:07:06 - Time Capsule: Viola's Message to Future Humanity___________________Guest: Viola Rose, Drunvalo Melchizedek Teacher & Sound Healer✦ Website | https://dreamthenewdream.blogspot.com/✦ Awakening the Illuminated Heart Workshops | https://dreamthenewdream.blogspot.com/✦ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/violarose777/Host: Emilio Ortiz✦ IG | https://www.instagram.com/iamemilioortiz/✦ Subscribe to Channel | https://www.youtube.com/EmilioOrtiz___________________© 2026 Emilio Ortiz. All rights reserved. Content from Just Tap In Podcast is protected under copyright law.Legal Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests on Just Tap In are solely those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Emilio Ortiz or the Just Tap In Podcast. All content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

The session opens by going back to the old man on the seashore from Class 1, and reading him beside the road to Emmaus: a stranger falls in with seekers, expounds their own canon to its limit, sets a heart burning, and vanishes before he can be thanked. One road ends at the table, the other at prayer — and both doors, as the class works out, open only from the far side. Then the question the room wants to ask: is the old man Socrates? Literally no, he is a Christian elder. Typologically he is something better — Socrates on the far side of the introduction, the method finally in possession of an answer.The doctrine itself is the payoff of a word planted five weeks earlier. The Athenian philosophers sneered at Paul as a spermologos, a seed-picker; Justin, apparently without knowing it was an insult, turns it into a metaphysic — the logos spermatikos, the seminal Word sown in every human mind. Hence his boldest sentence: those who lived reasonably were Christians before Christ, Socrates and Heraclitus among them. But the seed is not the harvest, which is why the schools contradict each other. From there the class works through the keystone passage where Paul's altar, Plato's Timaeus and Socrates' trial all meet in one paragraph, and Justin's devastating sociological correction — no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine; through his lawyerly amendment of the Myth of Er, at exactly the joints the class exposed in the Paul sessions; and through the argument he got historically wrong, whose collapse leaves only his better idea standing.Then Justin goes into the dock himself. His demonology hands the entire religious world outside the covenant to the enemy — and the session takes the census he never took. Scripture grants him demons but refuses him only; the pagan pantheons look like human projections cast on a real population of spirits; and for every ministry heaven performs there is a spirit bent on deforming that same ministry under the same name. Worse for his architecture, the counterexamples were in his own handwriting: he quotes a pagan oracle among the prophets without noticing; he reads the Magi — the clearest case in Scripture of God addressing pagans through pagan means, and then directly, in the same channel he uses for Joseph — as war booty freed from a demon; and Melchizedek, a Gentile priest certified by Scripture without call or conversion, is one of his favorite texts, deployed for everything except the question sitting on the page. That last one carries the session's largest claim: the Messiah's kingship descends through Judah, and his priesthood through a Gentile order — so the both/and is not diplomacy but design, ratified in the Person himself. And with the census finally taken, the class can do what Justin never did: audit the sign that guarded Socrates for seventy years, and ask which column its record belongs in.

Learning about Abraham and Melchizedek. Why are we not more excited to have the perfect Advocate on our side? A perfect priest means a perfect relationship with God.

Preparing His Bride September 5, 2026 Your salvation is not merely an escape from darkness; it is an invitation into an entirely new order of life. You have been rescued from the authority of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's Son so that you may learn how to live before God as one who belongs to Him. This is the significance of the priesthood revealed in Christ. The Melchizedek priesthood is fundamentally a priesthood of righteousness and peace, and Jesus is its perfect expression. He did not simply teach righteousness; He mastered, embodied, and executed it. In the same way, you must understand that righteousness is not merely something credited to you that has no effect on how you live. You are meant to be taught righteousness, exercised in righteousness, and matured in righteousness until the nature and government of God can find expression through you. As you mature, your prayers must also expand beyond yourself. There is a level of prayer concerned with your own needs, but priesthood eventually brings you into the burdens of God. You begin to intercede for the saints, the church, communities, territories, peoples, and nations. Mature priesthood is territorial because God entrusts spiritual responsibility to those who have been prepared to carry it. Such responsibility cannot safely be placed upon spiritual children. Pride, ignorance, undisciplined appetites, lack of discernment, and weakness can destroy someone attempting to carry authority for which they have not been formed. This is one reason God trains you before entrusting greater responsibility to you. You must also become conscious of the times in which you live. External wars, shaking, uncertainty, and turmoil should cause you to examine the corresponding conflicts taking place within the human heart. The birth pangs associated with the appearing of Christ are not only events to observe externally; Christ desires to appear within a people. Something must be birthed inside the saints. The wilderness therefore becomes a place where the old is removed so that something new can emerge. You must develop an inward yearning for change—from mortality, corruption, carnality, and spiritual infancy into the mature expression of the life of Christ. This is why travailing prayer matters. There are purposes of God that are conceived spiritually but must still be brought forth through prayer, obedience, and perseverance. You are meant to carry something from God. Your spiritual life should not remain barren. There should be a burden upon you, an assignment forming within you, something of God that your life is meant to release into the earth. Some are called to carry families, some communities, some territories, some ministries, some peoples, and some nations before God. Spiritual pregnancy eventually demands labor. What God deposits within you must be prayed through, obeyed through, and brought to maturity until it is manifested. Prayer and fasting therefore become instruments of preparation rather than religious obligations. They weaken competing appetites, sharpen spiritual hunger, prepare the vessel, and position you to receive what God is making available. There are seasons in which heaven makes particular things available, just as rain is easier to obtain in the season of rain. When God opens a season, passivity can still cause you to miss what has been provided. Divine availability does not eliminate human responsibility. You must ask, seek, labor, position yourself, and respond. At the heart of this priestly life is your identity in Christ. The covenant established through His body and blood has brought you into a new genealogy. Your former identity no longer determines your spiritual destiny. You have been translated from darkness into light, joined to Christ, connected to the promises given to Abraham, and brought under the testimony of the blood of Jesus. Learn to live from that identity. Do not permit darkness, accusation, condemnation, inherited fear, negative pronouncements, or former limitations to define you contrary to what God has declared. You have not been called merely to attend gatherings where priests minister to you. You have been called to become part of the priesthood yourself—a living stone within a spiritual house, a holy vessel reserved for God, a bearer of His presence, a servant of His purposes, and a person through whom His righteousness can enter the earth. The destination is a mature people who know God for themselves, carry His burdens together, birth His purposes through prayer, exercise His righteousness in daily life, raise others into maturity, and collectively become the house in which God is pleased to dwell.

Sit at My Right HandA Psalm of David.110 The Lord says to my Lord:    “Sit at my right hand,until I make your enemies your footstool.”2 The Lord sends forth from Zion    your mighty scepter.    Rule in the midst of your enemies!3 Your people will offer themselves freely    on the day of your power,[a]    in holy garments;[b]from the womb of the morning,    the dew of your youth will be yours.[c]4 The Lord has sworn    and will not change his mind,“You are a priest forever    after the order of Melchizedek.”5 The Lord is at your right hand;    he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.6 He will execute judgment among the nations,    filling them with corpses;he will shatter chiefs[d]    over the wide earth.7 He will drink from the brook by the way;    therefore he will lift up his head.+++For more information about this group, please visit their website at reformationboise.com. Every weekday at 3:30 am and 7:30 am you can listen to The Gospel for Life on KSPD 94.5 FM and 790 AM Boise's Solid Talk in the Treasure Valley,  Idaho, USA.If you have a question, comment, or even a topic suggestion for the Pastors, you can email them.  If you enjoy The Gospel for Life, please give us a rating and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps us a lot!Phone: (208) 991-3526E-mail: thegospelforlifeidaho@gmail.comPodcast website:  https://www.790kspd.com/gospel-for-life/to donate on line https://www.reformationboise.com/donate

Send us Fan MailAbram comes home from battle with every reason to take the credit and take the money, and then he does something that still confronts us today: he gives a tenth to Melchizedek and refuses to let the king of Sodom claim, “I made Abram rich.” That single scene in Genesis 14:19-24 opens a bigger conversation about tithing, generosity, and Christian stewardship that is less about math and more about who you believe owns heaven and earth. We walk through why Abram's tithe happens before the law of Moses, why that matters for the “tithing is Old Testament” debate, and how gratitude changes the way we hold what we have. Along the way, we connect giving to the heart of the gospel through John 3:16, because God's love is expressed through giving, not taking. We also sit with Jesus' command in Luke 6:38 and the hard-to-believe promise that you cannot outgive God. Then we get practical. We break down the growth pattern that turns generosity into a stable part of discipleship: duty, discipline, desire, and delight. We talk about starting with ten percent, learning to give cheerfully, and asking honest questions about what our spending reveals. The closing challenge is simple and sharp: are you just tipping God? Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review if it helps you rethink giving under grace.Support the showhttps://www.jacksonfamilyministry.comhttps://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/

→ Watch on YouTube → Detailed Show Notes (00:00) A brief overview of these psalms.(01:32) Psalm 89 portrays God's power of creation and his justice. Assurances are made to the anointed king that the seed of David will continue with a promise of victory. The last 14 verses are a lament that the king has been forsaken.(07:15) Psalm 93 teaches that the Lord is mightier than the waters, with a description of him overcoming chaos in his acts of creation.(09:14) In Psalm 102 the righteous pray for deliverance. Psalm 115 helps us understand Psalm 102, as they both relate to death and resurrection.(17:23) In Psalm 116 we are assured that God will redeem mankind from death and sorrow and will one day wipe away our tears.(24:10) Psalm 103 describes how the Lord's people rejected him, yet the Lord showed them pity. Much of the Old Testament reflects a post exilic view of God that can be negative. This Psalm shows the lovingkindness of God. Lehi describes the essence of the original Hebrew of this psalm when he says “I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” Knowing God's true character, nature, and perfections lead us unto salvation.(31:51) Psalm 105 portrays God's redemptive work with the children of Israel and the story of the Exodus.(34:13) Psalm 110, “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Different ways to read Psalm 110 in its historical context and in connection with King Benjamin's sermon. Psalm 110 and Psalm 2 both teach about becoming sons and daughters of Christ.(45:37) Psalm 118.22, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.” In the Book of Mormon we are warned against rejecting the Messiah, who sits on the right hand of God. Sometimes the Savior does not meet our preconceived expectations.(55:07) Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem, a prayer to God, and one the longest of the psalms.(1:02:35) Psalms 120-134 are 15 “psalms of ascent,” relating to the Water-Drawing Ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus used this imagery to teach about his power to save.(1:08:21) In Psalm 127 we are reminded that children are an heritage of the Lord.(1:12:52) Psalm 135 elaborates upon Israel's history from the pre-earth Council in Heaven to King David.(1:16:16) Psalm 136 begins in the premortal Council, reiterates the creation, and then Israel's Exodus. God's mercy endures forever.(1:17:39) Psalm 137 is an emotionally moving exilic psalm lamenting the destruction of the temple.(1:23:34) Psalm 138 is a thanksgiving prayer of praise. Psalm 139 expresses the king's worthiness to approach God at the veil of the temple.(1:24:30) Psalm 146 expresses the message of the work Jehovah would do. This was also the message of the angel to King Benjamin. Psalm 148 shows God's power in his creative works.(1:27:21) Psalms 149 and 150 emphasize the participatory nature of the First Israelite Temple Drama. Israel is to sing a new song praising God. → For more of Bryce Dunford’s podcast classes, click here. → Enroll in Institute → YouTube → Apple Podcasts → Spotify → Amazon Music → Facebook The post Ep 387 | Psalms 102-150, Come Follow Me 2026 (Aug 31-Sept 6) appeared first on Talking Scripture.

Anchor Your Soul in His Majesty David Mathis Download Psalm 110,The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand,until I make your enemies your footstool.”2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments;from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,“You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses;he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head. I know Psalm 110 sounds hard to understand at the first reading. I think it is understandable with a little explaining. And it's worth it. Martin Luther said,“This beautiful psalm . . . is the very core and [heart] of the whole of Scripture. No other psalm prophecies as abundantly and completely about Christ. It portrays the Lord and his entire kingdom and is full of comfort for Christians.”Hebrews 6:19 calls this psalm “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” If you get Psalm 110, it is powerful for assurance. Its gives us “strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18).For those in room who are not yet Christians, Psalm 110 is powerful evidence for the truth of Christianity. I saw an article just this week called “An Overlooked Argument for Christianity: Why the Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy Still Matters.” Psalm 110 stands at the confluence of two massive OT rivers of anticipation, as the messianic river of regal hope converges here with another major river of priestly anticipation.A powerful defense of the Christian faith for Christians, and challenge for unbelievers, is how Jesus fulfills in one person thousands of years of such diverse expectations. And Psalm 110 is right at the center of it.Jesus Right NowBut more than assurance and apologetics, as Luther said, this is a great psalm “full of comfort for Christians.” Cities Church, it's been an unusual 2026. I really believe that God gave us what we could not have expected that we might know his Son better. At least that.And here at the end of the summer, he gives us this spectacular vision of our Lord in Psalm 110. This is what we need most right now, a fresh vision of the majesty of Christ, as he is right now, seated in glory and power, worthy of your confidence and full trust.What God wants us to see this morning is that our Lord Jesus is infinitely great. And it's one thing to say that and move on. It's another to say it and then try to back it up with details from Psalm 110; that is, to say and linger over it; to make the general declaration “Jesus is infinitely great” and then explain it, explore it, develop it, give specifics, get fresh glimpses, and real tastes, and perhaps ones we're not used to talking about all the time.So, let's enjoy four sights of the majesty of Jesus, right now, full of comfort for Cities Church.1. Your Lord has conquered and is ruling. (vv. 1, 4)Psalm 110 makes two stunning moves, both declaration from God. The first is verse 1, right out of the gate:The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”This is an enthronement declaration to a new king, from the mouth of God himself: Sit (on the throne) at my right hand (in the greatest possible place of honor), while I put your enemies under his feet. That is, God (the LORD) will make this king's enemies to serve him, to prop his feet up. The surprise is that David is the king, and we would think he has no lord other than God himself. What does David mean that he has a “Lord” other than the LORD? We'll come back to that.The second surprising move is Verse 4:The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind,“You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” What's so stunning is that in Israel, the kingship and the priesthood were strictly two different offices. They were expressly not to be joined. Kings, like David, were from the tribe of Judah. Priests, like Aaron (Moses's brother), were from the tribe of Levi.Psalm 110 is clearly from king David, addressed to a future king, and in verse 4, David says God does the imponderable: he declares to the king, You are a priest.Which brings us to this strange Melchizedek figure. Outside of Psalm 110 and the book of Hebrews, he is only mentioned briefly in Genesis 14. In the days of Abraham, four kings from the east came and fought with five kings near Abraham and took his nephew Lot. So, Abraham gathered his trained men and pursued the four kings and overtook them and defeated them. When Abraham returned home with all the spoils, this strange king-priest from Salem (Jerusalem) brings out bread and wine, and blesses Abraham in the name of God Most High. And Abraham acknowledges him and gives him a tenth (a tithe) of the spoils. And that's it. Three verses, and nothing more about this enigmatic Melchizedek.Until David comes along, a thousand years later, sitting as king in Jerusalem, reading Genesis 14 and realizing there was once a king-priest who ruled over this city. David himself would not dare play priest. Saul had tried that and received God's judgment (1 Samuel 13): his kingdom would not continue but be given to “a man after his own heart” (who would be David). But David has received promises from God about his dynasty enduring forever, and always having a son on his throne (2 Samuel 7).Under the terms of the first covenant, under the order of Aaron, king-priest was strictly forbidden. Kings are kings. Priests are priests. But in Psalm 110, David has a vision of a new day when one of his sons will be greater than him (because of God's promise) and that son will not only be king (ruling the people) but priest (making atonement for their sin), like this Melchizedek was. Which must mean a new covenant. (The NT book of Hebrews is essentially an extended meditation on this.)The big deal about a king also being priest is that the heart of the priest's work is offering sacrifices for sin. Making atonement for the people. Kings rule through making laws, enforcing justice, rendering judgments; priests serve the people by offering sacrifices to cover sin, so that a sinful people can have peace with a holy God.What's mainly in view in the king being priest is his making atonement for sin. And the significance of the priesthood for Jesus is that his sacrifice is done. At the cross, he made the perfect sacrifice once for all, and so with his work complete, the Father declares, Sit at my right hand.So, Jesus has conquered. He has made the final sacrifice for sin as the great high priest, and he is presently ruling on heaven's throne as the universe's king.Some of us love especially his kingship: his power and authority, his strategy and decisiveness; his wisdom and perfect justice as the Lion of Judah. Others of us, especially love his priesthood: his compassion and holiness; his sympathy and sacrifice as the Lamb who was slain. We all need both. Amazingly Jesus is both.2. Your Lord never grows old or gets tired. (vv. 3, 7)This is a wonder, and such good news. Look first at the second part of verse 3, which may be “the most obscure verse in the whole Psalter.”“…from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.”Dew and morning, and womb and youth, capture the prime of life: youthful vigor, energy, and strength; the vitality and fresh hope of a new day. In other words, your Lord doesn't grow old and frail; he doesn't slow down with age.One great irony, in our fallen world, that when we're young, we have energy but not yet our best wisdom, and as we grow our wisest, our energy begins to fail us.My dad was a dentist for more than 40 years. As he approached age 70, his knowledge and experience in dentistry was at its height, and yet his energy was declining. His tank got empty quicker. All the knowledge was there and better than ever, but his energy was flagging.And I know a great Christian counselor, here in our church, who was as wise and knowledgeable as he's ever been, at the very top of his game in the counseling field, but as he approached 70, he realized he could not keep doing what he'd once done for 40+ hours week. He's now retired. And still one of the wisest men I know.And I've known a great aging preacher, who knows the Bible and the human heart better than he ever has, and is as skilled in preparing and delivering sermons as he's ever been. But at 80, he does not have the same vigor and energy as he did at 50. Every great leader grows old, and often it's right when he's at his best.But Cities Church, this is not the story of your Lord. And it never will be. There's no transition plan for Jesus. The dew of his youth is still his. It's still morning for his reign, and no evening is coming. He is full of wisdom, greater than Solomon, and full of vigor and life, greater than any Olympian or warrior.Which leads to verse 7, the last line:“He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.”The picture is of a great hero who has expended himself in battle, and as the enemy retreats and he hunts him down, God gives him water on the way, to refresh him, and keep him going.Like Gideon in Judges 8:4:“Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing.”Or like Samson in Judges 15:18–19, after he struck down 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey:[Samson] was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived.Verse 7 is a picture of Jesus hunting down the enemy, and being continually refreshed by his Father to keep up the pursuit.Some of us have been wearied in various ways by the challenges of 2026. Or in whatever ways you might be weary going into the fall. We grow old; we get weary; Jesus does not. And in his ever renewing strength he stands ready to renew ours.3. Your Lord is God himself in our own humanity. (vv. 5-7)This truth is so spectacular that it almost cheapens it to put it into words. It's the answer to some of the Bible's most piercing questions. Like when Jesus calms the sea, and the disciples say, Who then is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him?In Matthew 22 (Mark 12; Luke 20), Jesus asks the Pharisees, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, [Psalm 110:1]44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” '? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (42-45)Then verse 46 reports:“And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”Why is that? The missing piece for us is the assumption in the ancient world that a father is greater than his son. The father sired the son; father came first, and from his life and marriage came a son. So, the older generation is greater than the subsequent ones.Yet what Jesus points out is that David is speaking about one of his offspring, but calls him “my Lord.” How can that be? And Jesus leaves it at that. He doesn't need to give the answer with his mouth, because he is the living embodiment of the answer as a son of David and the divine Son. (Calvin says it well: “There is something in Christ more excellent than his humanity, on account of which he is called the Lord of David his father.”)Jesus is so plainly human, standing before the Pharisees in human flesh and blood, in a body he will give to be broken at the cross and blood he will shed as a sacrifice to atone for sins. He is manifestly human (he drinks from the brook!). Yet, he is so much more. This is God himself, the second person of the triune Godhead, among us as one of us. Which is why he is Lord of all, even King David.Psalm 110 gives us an amazing coming together of God himself and his anointed king. See it first in verse 5:“The Lord (God) is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.”In verse 1, in heaven's throne room, the king was the God's right hand. Now, on the battlefield, God is at the king's right hand. And he (God or human king?) will crush kings on the day of his (God's or king's?) wrath.Verse 6 continues:6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs [the head]over the wide earth. Is it God or the king who shatters kings and executes judgment, and fills unbelieving nations with corpses? The ambiguity is on purpose. The LORD God and Lord king act as one. There's an intentional conflation of God and the coming king.Especially significant is that last part of verse 6. Our translation has “he will shatter chiefs,” but the word for “chiefs” is singular and the same word as “head” at the end of verse 7. So, verse 6 could read, “he will shatter (or crush) the head.” Which sounds like God's word of curse to the serpent in Genesis 3, that a coming offspring of the woman (and now offspring of David) “shall bruise your head.”Cities Church, the greatness of our Lord Jesus as God himself in our own humanity defies easy articulation. “Jesus is God” just doesn't do it. It doesn't capture the glory. We ache to say more. The best language is the language of worship: to declare him great, to say out loud he's worthy, to sing there is none like him. Our Lord is great beyond description, marvelous beyond our grasping for words. Which is why our gathering here every Sunday to worship Jesus, despite whatever opposition his enemies throw at us, is the most important thing we do week in and week out. Oh don't take this gathering lightly. We are here to worship Jesus — God himself in our own humanity.4. Your Lord shatters his enemies and thrills his people. (2-3a)Finally, verses 2–3a:“The LORD sends forth from Zionyour mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments.”At the seam between verses 2 and 3 is the critical distinction between “your enemies” and “your people.”We saw in verse 1 that God declares he will make “your enemies” a prop for Jesus's feet. Now in verse 2: “Rule in the midst of your enemies.” And note that it is no flaw in Jesus that he has enemies; in fact, it would be a flaw if he didn't.Those who reject this infinitely great person of Psalm 110 will not escape the day of his righteous wrath. Reject his priestly work, and there is no other sacrifice for sin; you will have nothing to shield you from what your sins deserve before the holy God.The day is coming when Jesus will have the honor of executing perfect judgment among the nations. He will do no wrong in righting every wrong. Which means no punishment for sin will be too severe; nor will it be too light. The only escape is to embrace the king of the universe as your own sacrifice.And those who do embrace him as Lord, verse 3a says, “offer themselves freely.” In other words, no coercion. No arm-twisting. Jesus's people do not declare him Lord through gritted teeth. They rally to him from the heart. They adore him. They obey from the heart, with overflowing joy.Don't miss this, Cities Church, as his people: our joy really matters. Our offering ourselves freely plays a part in this vision of his majesty in Psalm 110. Vital to how the king-priest looks great is that his people “offer themselves freely.” He doesn't force them. He wins us from the heart, and Jesus looks great in our joy in him. Our willing, glad service to him glorifies him.Receive His Bread and WineAnd so we come to the Table to receive bread and wine from our king-priest in the order of Melchizedek. The Lion is our king. The Lamb is our priest. He never grows old or gets tired. He is far greater than we can even say, and so we worship. And he is the one who thrills our hearts and has won our glad allegiance.

In episode 503 of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb conclude their deep dive into Luke 10:25–37 — the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Far from a simple morality tale about helping strangers, this episode unpacks the parable's confrontational legal context, its reversal of expectation, and its profound Christological undertones. Tony and Jesse examine why the lawyer's question about self-justification was always destined to be unanswerable on his own terms, how the priest and Levite serve as a damning mirror for religious professionals, and why the Samaritan's lavish, costly mercy points beyond mere ethics to the gospel itself. The episode also explores the Mary and Martha account that immediately follows, arguing it cannot be read in isolation. Closing with Matthew Henry, the hosts land the discussion squarely on gratitude for Christ, the supreme Good Neighbor. Key Takeaways The parable is fundamentally about self-justification, not mercy ministry. The lawyer's question — "Who is my neighbor?" — is a legal maneuver, and Jesus' answer exposes the impossibility of fulfilling the law through self-effort rather than merely defining the scope of neighborly obligation. Jesus reverses the expected identification of "the neighbor." The listener naturally assumes the beaten man is the neighbor to be loved, but the punchline identifies the Samaritan — the one who showed mercy — as the neighbor, redirecting the question from who must I love to what does love actually look like. The Samaritan's mercy is deliberately, impossibly lavish. His actions — binding wounds, providing transport, paying an open-ended debt for a stranger and likely an enemy — exceed anything a reasonable person would do, pointing to a mercy that transcends mere human virtue. The priest and Levite indict religious professionalism. Their failure is not incidental; it demonstrates that meticulous law observance and ceremonial religiosity can actually obstruct the very love the law commands, hollowing out its spirit while preserving its form. The parable functions under all three uses of the law. For the unregenerate, it terrifies and condemns. For the regenerate, it is a third-use call to Spirit-empowered, grateful obedience. As civil law, it commends a society of compassion over indifference. Christ is the typological Good Neighbor. The Samaritan's actions — pouring oil and wine, bearing the cost, promising to return and settle all debts — carry genuine Christological resonance without requiring a full allegorical reading of every detail. The immediately following Mary and Martha account is thematically inseparable. Luke's editorial placement of that narrative directly after the parable creates a deliberate counterpoint: the one thing necessary is not anxious service but sitting at the feet of Jesus. Key Concepts The Lawyer's Question Was Never Going to Work The lawyer who approaches Jesus in Luke 10 is not a neutral inquirer — he is, as Luke tells us, seeking to justify himself. Tony and Jesse explore what this means with precision: the desire to be justified is not inherently wrong, but the mechanism the lawyer employs — the law — is catastrophically insufficient for the task. When Jesus responds with the parable, he does not sidestep the legal framework; he weaponizes it. The Samaritan's mercy is so extravagant, so far beyond ordinary moral expectation, that it functions not as an achievable standard but as a devastating exposure of how far short every human attempt at law-keeping falls. The command "go and do likewise" is not an encouraging send-off — it is, for the self-justifying lawyer, a door slamming shut. The Samaritan's Mercy Is Intentionally Beyond Reach One of the most important contributions this episode makes is resisting the domestication of the Samaritan's actions into a feel-good story about helping those in need. Tony reframes the scenario in contemporary terms: finding a gravely injured stranger from a hostile ethnic group, providing emergency first aid, transporting them to care, and writing a blank check for all future medical expenses — with no personal obligation to do so. No reasonable person would do this, and that is exactly the point. The mercy described is not aspirationally difficult; it is humanly inconceivable at scale. This is what Christ-like love looks like, and it is precisely what the law demands. The gap between the demand and human capacity is the gospel's entry point. The Mary and Martha Account Cannot Be Separated from the Parable Tony raises a hermeneutical observation that deserves more attention than it typically receives: Luke chose to place the Mary and Martha account immediately after the Good Samaritan parable, and that editorial decision is not accidental. Martha — busy with hospitality and service — looks, on the surface, like the practical application of everything the Samaritan modeled. Yet she is gently rebuked, and Mary, who sits at Jesus' feet, is commended for choosing "the one thing necessary." This creates a stunning theological counterweight: the parable exposes the impossibility of self-justifying law-keeping, and the very next story shows that even well-intentioned merciful activity, when it crowds out receiving from Christ, misses the point. The one thing necessary is always Christ himself. Memorable Quotes If you think you're the good Samaritan, if you think you're the one that's gonna come and rescue people — you're much more likely to see this as a sort of law beat-down. Where those of us who are regenerated and in Christ, this is third-use law. This is us seeing what it means to be holy, and going and doing likewise, trying in our power, recognizing that we can't, and trusting the Lord to accept our feeble attempts. - Tony Arsenal This text is not really to be preached or applied as some kind of bare moral exhortation. It's not 'try harder to be like the Samaritan.' That's totally disconnected from the gospel. It should be preached in a manner that exposes the impossibility of self-justification... and then of course it does point us to Christ as the one whose perfect, costly, self-giving mercy alone satisfies the law's demand on our behalf. - Jesse Schwamb If this parable and our conversation about it does nothing except stirring you to gratitude for the fact that our supreme good neighbor threw us on his donkey and carried us to the public house, and bound up our wounds, and paid for our debt — if it does nothing but drive you to gratitude and thankfulness and wonder, then we've succeeded in our task and we've left you with the Gospel. - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 503 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey, brother.  Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. Well, at this point, there's one thing that we know for certain, and that is if you're gonna come at the law giver, the one who's composed and written the law, with a legal question to try to entrap the one who has given you the law, you better not miss. And it turns out, in Luke 10 where we've been hanging out, the lawyer who poses Jesus with the question of, "Who is my neighbor?" is a big swing and a miss. Yeah. And we're finally gonna get to all the characters that are part of this amazing parable in this conversation. But of course, there's something we gotta do first. Affirmations And Denials Jesse Schwamb: It, it's everybody's, what I'm led to believe everybody's favorite segment of this entire show. I mean, the crowds out there say, "Why even have a full podcast? Just do affirmations and denials for the entire time." And we, we hear you, because we're borrowing from that beautiful confessional format of the dead reformers to settle all the much not confessional [00:02:00] disputes. So in the great tradition of the Westminster Divines, who of course cannot just simply say, "We like grace," without also clarifying 17 things that grace is not- ... we're now again going to bring you our own binding, authoritative, and entirely unneeded but very official statement of affirmations and denials. It's affirming the things we love and denying things we don't. So Tony, as is our own custom, are you affirming with something or are you denying against something on this episode?  Tony Arsenal: Um, I'm denying something. Uh, it's a sort of a weird situation that has cropped up, uh, online. And I, I try not to use this segment too often to sort of wade into, um, I don't know, the, like, latest social controversy in the Reformed world. But every once in a while I come across something that I feel like you just need to sort of talk about. And, um, many of our listeners are probably already [00:03:00] aware of the situation that I'm gonna talk about, and it's very well-publicized and, and very public. Um, but I'm denying the sort of weirdness that has happened with the G3 Conference. Um, I'm not sure how familiar with G3 you are, Jesse, but for the, the listener who may not be, G3 is a conference, um, primarily run by Baptists, and is, in my understanding, is primarily attended by sort of Reformed-ish Baptists. And I don't, I don't say Reformed-ish to be pejorative necessarily. Um, but it, it's sort of like predominantly, um Non-confessional but not anti-confessional Calvinistic Baptists, sort of think more like covenant framework MacArthur-style Baptists maybe is, is a way to look at it. Um, and a few years ago, one of their main figures, I don't remember exactly what position he held, but it was a relatively high position in, in [00:04:00] the conference. Uh, his name was Josh Boyce. He, uh, w- was caught/confessed to maintaining, like, multiple anonymous or pseudonymous, uh, Twitter accounts and publishing several s- like pseudonym-based Substacks, um, that he used to basically attack the character of not only anyone online that seemed to cross him, but, like, people that he shared an office with. Like, anyone and everyone was targeted by him. And at the time it was a big hullabaloo. He, uh, he resigned. As far as I can tell, he's faded into obscurity and has not sought to come back, although that's always, you know, yet to be seen. But at the time there was very firm statements by the r- remaining sort of board members, leadership of G3, at how inappropriate this was, and how acting anonymously requi- you know, sort of evacuates accountability and, [00:05:00]and all these different things. And it's come out recently, um, just over the last week, that four of the members of the G3 board, um, who are all elders at the same church, had assembled a sort of anonymous dossier of accusations against, um, a- another pastor, uh, that he had been sort of serially plagiarizing sermons. Um, and when nothing really happened when they sent their anonymous dossier, they started distributing this to other, other, like, platforms and other church and m- parachurch ministries, kind of encouraging people to do their own investigation. Um, one such, uh, outlet was ... It's a, it's a, I don't know, sort of a news discernment blogger kind of a thing, um, has done some pretty decent reporting work I think in, in the recent past, although it has sort of a s- storied beginning, um, called Protestia They did just [00:06:00] that. They did an investigation, and in the course of their investigation, they identified who these anonymous, uh, the anonymous reporters were, and it was the same, the very same people who a few years ago, uh, pontificated, uh, at, at length about the importance of accountability and how anonymity has, uh, taken that away. Uh, people that accepted Josh Boyce's resi- resignation for acting anonymously have now done the same thing. They have since, uh, resigned from their church eldership, um, which is gonna be awkward because they haven't resigned from the board of G3, which, uh, the offices of G3 are in the same building as the church that they've now resigned at. Uh, and I guess where, where my denial comes in and the reason that I feel like it, it might be worthwhile for us just to Even reflect on it a little bit is there is an element in the Reformed world that seeks a platform and seeks an audience and seeks notoriety, and I, I was musing [00:07:00] today a little bit on my own Twitter that th- there was a time in my life where that was very much what I wanted. I wanted to be a, a very public, well-known theological voice, and, um, a- and I just have sort of like drifted away from that. And the, the reason I think it's worth mentioning on our show is that we do have an audience. We have a, a modest audience. It's not huge. It's not nothing. Um, but th- there is a real temptation to seek fame and notoriety that is absolutely destructive and really antithetical to, uh, to Christian principles of what it means to serve those around you, to serve with humility, to r- you know, redound any glory that might come to you for your actions to, to the fact that it is Christ who empowers all things and brings all good blessings. So I don't know that I have much more commentary on it. It's just a weird... It's a very weird situation, but it, it seems like it very much has come from a [00:08:00] place of feeling as though minor slights by people you associate with warrant sort of a, a nuclear option like this because, uh... and I don't wanna read too much into motives, but, but it seems like because your reputation and your notoriety is so great that any offense to it needs to be responded to in kind, and that's just not, that's just not the Christian way. So again, I don't know that I have any more commentary or thoughts on it. It just was a weird situation that I'm, I'm like, "Why do we gotta do this to each other, folks?" Like, why are we, why are we biting at each other all the time? Why are we doing these things except from a place of sinful pride? So I'm denying that. I'm denying sinful pride. I'm denying my own tendencies to seek glory in a spotlight. Um, I'm very thankful that God did not, uh, see fit to grant me that desire 'cause it probably would've been even more destructive for me than it has been for these guys. So I'm very happy to live in obscurity, [00:09:00] to serve the local church, to share our voices in this very modest, tiny platform that we have, and perhaps the Lord will see fit to change that one direction or the other, and I'll, I'll be happy to serve at His, uh, at His will. But I'm glad for now that, uh, the, the temptation of international fame has not been something that I even have the opportunity to lay hold of. Um, I'm very thankful for that, that, uh, grace from the Lord.  Jesse Schwamb: I had that light, sarcastic, some might say somewhat humorous opening and affirmations and denials, and you, you just brought the heaviness, which is okay. Sometimes that's, sometimes that's what happens.  Lament Devotional Spotlight Jesse Schwamb: And- Yeah ... I- fortunately, I have an affirmation, but it's, uh, of, like, a weird, heavy kind now that I think about it. So, um, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get everybody on the cusp of good books that I think are coming out. And so here's another one where it's not even gonna be released until September 30th, and so you have plenty of time to go out and find this thing. So P&R Publishing, many may be [00:10:00] familiar, does this whole series, topical series, which are called 31-Day Devotionals for Life, and there's a new one being released by Christine Chappell. It's called Lament: Crying Out in Faith. So I'm affirming with this piece because I've had the joy of been working through some of this stuff, and I think this is some of the best treatment I've ever read, been able to practice, been coached into for lamenting. We've talked before at length about how Christians, especially in the West, often because we just have great lives, we aren't familiar with lament. We don't practice it well. We hardly sing any songs of lament. We're unfamiliar with it. It's like a foreign land to us. And then sometimes when we're, we get convicted we should lament, we kind of interpret that as, "Well, yeah, I, I know I can blow up at God. I can get angry with him and, and that's okay." David does it too, and it's okay to express all your feelings with God. What I like about this work is it cultivates more of a prayer language. It gives voice to pain and grief so that there can be a real healing. It's not just a complaining. It's not just [00:11:00] throwing your voice out into the ether to, you know, wildly pontificate or self-aggrandize about how hurt or upset you are. It enables us to cry out to God in such a way that it promotes emotional authenticity, but at the same time maintains reverence. I think that is, uh, at least what I need. The beauty of this book is somebody you know or yourself need to lament something. Actually, I think we all have something to lament, even as it's getting older or things changing in our lives. So I highly, highly, highly affirm with this book. It's Lament: Crying Out in Faith. P&R does a lot of great publishing in this way. It's just the year of the devotionals, Tony. I don't know why. Yeah. I mean, I even hate to use devotional. It's the year of good resources for daily praise and worship- Yeah ... and lament should be part of our praise and worship. Yeah. So, but doing it in the right way is something I'm learning. I had mixed understanding of it. So this will clarify, encourage, edify in all the ways that I think we need.  Tony Arsenal: That sounds great. I, I do agree with you. I think, um- [00:12:00] Although I think it may be a little bit less so in, in the sort of confessional Reformed tradition just because the Psalms in general play such a prominent role in Reformed worship. Um, I do agree with you that broadly, like, we, we in the Western evangelical w- world don't, we don't know how to do laments. Um, I'm not one of those people that would say im- imprecatory prayers are inappropriate. I know there are some even within the Reformed world that would say im- imprecatory prayers are not appropriate for God's people in, in the new covenant. Um, I don't know that I agree with that, but, but that's another example of, like, that's in the prayer and hymnbook of our people- Right ... and we don't really know how to do it. Yes. So, and, and imprecation and lament are very closely related to each other. They're, they're very similar, um, ways of thinking and they're, they're both kind of modes of prayer that, uh, we don't, we don't really engage in. And so when we do have- when the occasion arises, we're, like, out of practice. So that's a great, uh, a great [00:13:00]affirmation and yeah, a little, a little weirdly heavy. Maybe this is gonna be a, a weirdly heavy episode. Who knows?  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it very well could be.  Good Samaritan Deep Dive Jesse Schwamb: I mean, listen, it was no doubt heavy for the lawyer who stood up- True who was  Tony Arsenal: like- Nicely done ...  Jesse Schwamb: I'd like to justify myself, so Jesus, let me ask you, we took our question, "Who is my neighbor?" I do all these things. I'm down with the law. Yeah. I know all this stuff. And I think we had some really great conversation last time. I'm biased, but I think we had some really fantastic unpacking of the first part of this, and if you haven't heard that yet, you should go back and listen to episode 502. But in this episode, we're really getting into all of these wonderful and somewhat colorful characters. So I'm gonna pick us back up in Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. So I'm going back a little bit just to set that proper context for this amazing parable that Jesus tells us. So he says, "And behold, a scholar of the law stood up and was putting him," that is Jesus, "to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And he said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you [00:14:00] read it?' And he answered and said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.' But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' And Jesus replied and said, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. And a priest happened to be going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion.'" And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, and he put them on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the [00:15:00] next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you." Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands? And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."  Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those parables we, we mentioned, uh, I guess we've invented a new classification of parables called the Big Daddy parables. That's right. Um, uh, this is one of those parables that is so ubiquitous and well-known, uh, that word there, choice there was a little hat tip to my Lutheran friends. Um, so ubiquitous and well-known that I think we actually can, can rush into a common understanding and not, not be right at all about it. And I think the, the way this, uh, uh, the way I've seen this commonly done in, in circles I've run in in the past is this [00:16:00] becomes a parable about mercy ministry. Um, and, and the primary point is about how we serve our neighbors. And I think there certainly is, um, there certainly is an element of that that we can glean from this, that Christ is making a commentary on the fact that, um, the, the, the right way to not only serve your neighbor but to even identify your neighbor, uh, and it's funny because I think this is, this is where I think people go wrong. The, the Samar- or the, um, the, the lawyer is asking, "Who is my neighbor?" Right. And I think we commonly read this, and we read it to say, well, the Samaritan, uh, or the, the guy who got beat up is the neighbor. Right. And so we have to serve our neighbor like the Samaritan did. But the, the, the punchline, whatever, of the story is that the Samaritan is the g- is the neighbor, right? We, we call this the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but we might wanna call it the [00:17:00] Parable of the Good Neighbor. And so it says more about what it means to be a good neighbor than it does to, um, to say about who, who our neighbor necessarily is, right? The, the s- uh, the lawyer was asking, "Who's my neighbor?" And the answer was the one who shows mercy. And there's kind of a weird, there's kind of a weird paradox there, and this is something Jesus commonly does, where, like, He doesn't really answer the question. Um, the, the lawyer is like, "Well, who is it that I have to love," right? "The, I have to love my neighbor as myself, and who is it that I have to love?" And Jesus' answer basically is like, "Well, the good neighbor is the one who showed mercy." Well, that doesn't answer- Right ... His question. So I think we have to be careful when we, uh, we work through this not to just sort of default and jump to what might be called, like, the lowest common denominator interpretation, right? These are things that, yes, um, there is something to say about, uh, mercy ministry and how important it is to serve the, [00:18:00] serve those around us who are in need, right? That's, that's the command that comes out of this or the outcome that comes out of this is Christ is commanding this, um, this lawyer to go and be merciful to others. Um- But if we, if we move too quickly to that, we miss a lot of what this has to say about the nature of justification- Right ... the nature of Christ as, as the capital T good neighbor, right? The, the good neighbor who, who takes care of our sin and pays the debt for us to be restored, right? I don't, like I said last week, I don't think that that is too on the nose. Um, I think we miss the fact that the question, uh, the question is coming from a place, and we talked about this a little bit last week, but and maybe we'll get into it a little more. The question is coming from a place, um, whether you view this negatively, like I think most do, and there's warrant for that, or whether you view it a, a little bit more neutrally or maybe even positively, which is where I land, the desire to justify or to be [00:19:00] justified is not a bad desire. And the, the text doesn't seem to offer a lot of commentary on the fact that the, the, um, lawyer is desiring to justify himself, other than the implied commentary o- of what the parable says about salvation in that someone else needs to save you, so you can't do it yourself in the first place. So I'm excited to get through this. Um, I, I think we're probably gonna be here, we're gonna camp out here for at least another week after this, 'cause there's just so much to this parable. Who knows? Maybe we'll fly through it and it'll be a quick conversation, but I, I don't... That's not really our jam. Um- That's not really what we do But yeah, it, it's, it's a big daddy parable. There's a lot here to unpack.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You're right about that. Interestingly, as always, Jesus flips the law, but here the law flipping, like, ends up smacking you in the face because it does start with this inquiry about just identify for me who my neighbors are. If you give me these discrete instructions like the law has given me to do all these things, which by the way, I mean, even that when we have this lawyer saying, [00:20:00] "I've done all these things. I've identified just for instance that the law includes loving the Lord God with everything, every part of who I am." He says like, "Yeah, I've done all these things." This is, I've already accomplished that. So now let me get, become self-justified in confirming I've done all these things. If you just tell me who the neighbors are, I'll be able to say to you, "Yep, I've already done that." Instead, what happens is Christ says, "Here's what neighborly love looks like. And what it's gonna look like is so dramatic and so shocking that you ought to take pity and have concern and show compassion for those not just who are unlike you, but are, like, abhorrent, those who you would even never identify with in the parable of the story I'm about to tell you." So I think there's all of that, like you said, to move away from just kind of categorizing this as a nice homily about how we ought to behave. However, there might be, like, some kind of moralistic theme in this that directs us toward actions of love and generosity, which by the way, could just be common grace. Those exist outside of strict belief and adherence to the gospel, and certainly can be far afield from actually loving Christ. [00:21:00] The other thing that I think sometimes happens with this, and I'm gonna be unpopular on this one, I'm afraid, but is that I think there is often a lot of allegorical excess. And certainly there are people more intelligent than I who really embrace that. So I'm looking at you, Patristic Fathers. Like, you know, if you wanna read some interesting stuff, everybody can go look up Origen or Augustine on this. Yeah. And they allegorize this parable in New England what we would call wicked fine detail. I mean, down, down to everything. So the oil and the- Yeah ... wine, the soil, each of the persons here representing something that in itself, like, everything. And I think that that is okay. What I struggle with on that is, and this is where I'm unpopular, I think, is that- There are a lot of other exegetes, I don't think I'm alone, that would look at this and say, "Yes, there is something about this that draws us into, like, just general typological resonance. I'm not gonna reject that." There are these, like, broader canonical themes of, like, helpless [00:22:00] humanity, like you said, and undeserved mercy. Those all legitimately, I think, echo the gospel truths. But I'm kind of resisting, or I'm prone to resist, treating every narrative detail in this as some kind of, like, independent cipher. Yeah. And so I think I want to come a little bit in criticizing, like, the allegorical method here, that instead what happens when we do that is we're, we're... I think we're obscuring a little bit Christ's actual didactic purpose, which is fundamentally ethical and legal, 'cause that's the question he's answering. He's trying to answer this question, "Who's my neighbor?" And he's gonna do it- Right ... with this definition-shattering example. And so I think, like, the most responsible hermeneutic here affirms that, like we said before, a parable should have a single main point, and it's determined in this context by that punchline, like you said. Um, at the same time, I think we can legitimately, like, permit some restrained theological reflection on, like, that broader resonance with the gospel. I'm not denying that. But without multiplying, like, allegorical [00:23:00] correspondences like the text itself doesn't even make. Even, even coming down to, like, who we see as Christ in the story, while that can be useful and helpful, it's not the same identification that we've seen in other parables. Yeah. So that's what makes this, like you're right, Tony, like, really unique and very interesting because we can draw lots and lots of parallels, and perhaps we should. But at the same time, it's always good to remember what is it that Jesus is on about here? What is it that the hearers were really being prone to understand and mull over and meditate on? And that's, like, this first principle of neighborly love, like you already called out.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I agree with you, too, is I, I think, um- We can sort of fall into a trap or a pit of assuming that all of the parables are meant to explain the same thing. Sure. And I think, like, within Matthew maybe that's a little bit more, uh, accurate because m- I think all, if not [00:24:00] most of, of the Matthean parables, you know, the Kingdom of God is like, the Kingdom of God is like. So th- like, that repeated f- refrain of, like, the Kingdom of God is... In, in Matthew, Christ is using parables to teach about the mysterious hidden reality of the kingdom in a way that people can understand. Um, this is different, right? This is not a Kingdom of God is like. There is no, um, clear this is like that, uh, introduction to this parable. Right. I, I've actually even read some commentaries that would question the assignment of the title parable to this, because they want to restrict what a parable is to those sort of kingdom, like, explicit simile- Good point ... things. Yeah. So- Right ... but I, I do think, um, w- we, we have to be careful not to run down that road, because this parable is not really... Again, like, it's not explaining what the Kingdom of God is like. This is trying to, um, not trying to, Christ is [00:25:00]articulating a reality that is baked into the law, um, and he's flipping the question on its head, and this is what I think is so, um, so wrong about the allegorical approach, right? Is that the allegorical approach seeks to find symbolism in every discrete character or element of the, of the parable, or of the, the allegory if you wanna, we wanna distinguish it. This really is, is trying to just get at that one point. And what- Mm-hmm ... I think is so, what must have been really just infuriating for this lawyer, um, regardless of what happened after this, right? We don't, we don't get commentary like we do with the rich, young ruler, and the stories are in many ways are very much the same. Like, it's the same basic setup. But we don't get commentary that, like, he went away sad, like we do with the rich, young ruler. We don't know what happened with this guy. We don't know what his reaction... But I, I'm sitting there putting myself in his place, and I'm, I'm thinking through this, and this is one of those things that it's actually hard even to mentally get yourself there. The, [00:26:00] the, each character that is introduced here, um, is a candidate for the neighbor. Right. But the most obvious candidate based on, um, the way we commonly interpret this, is that the dude who gets beat up and left stripped naked is, is the neighbor that we're supposed to love Right? So the lawyer, as he's hearing this parable, as it's being told, and the, the people who are there listening, right, the, the other people that are around, there's this character introduced, "Who is my neighbor? Well, a man was going down to Jerusalem. He fell among roggers, Roger, robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead." Like, the obvious answer is that Christ is introducing this poor, destitute, beat-up, naked dude, uh, as the neighbor that needs to be loved. And so he goes through the whole parable, and you're like, oh, well, like, the, you know, the, the priest and the Levite, they didn't love this guy. Uh, the Samaritan, you know, I think an audience of Jews probably would've been thinking like, "Well, the Samaritan can't be..." You know, the Samaritan [00:27:00] is just a dude. Like, none of these people are loving the, the, the beat-up dude like a neighbor should. Right. And then all of a sudden, Christ flips the script, and the neighbor is not the dude who's laying there naked, half dead, who's been rescued and, and, you know, restored and is being healed. It's actually the Samaritan. And so there's this... We have to... Part of the reason, I think, I mean, I, I, I guess I don't know for sure, but part of the reason I think s- that parables have this, like, reversal of expectation baked into many of them is that it is there to challenge our assumptions, and th- that sort of whiplash effect when you get to the end of it, you're like, "Whoa, that was like he was talking about totally, something totally different than what it seemed like he was talking about." I think that's actually a teaching tool here as well. Right. That the, the whole time you're thinking like, "Oh, this dude is the neighbor, and I've gotta figure out how to love him best," and that's what plays into these mercy ministry interpretations, is thinking that the, the point of the parable is to show us how to take [00:28:00] care of the, the people who need help, when really the point of the parable is the good neighbor. And, uh, we might butt heads a little bit on this, 'cause I think I take probably more of a Christological, uh, topological, typological interpretation than you do. I, I think that the point of the parable is that you can't justify yourself, and the only one who can justify you is the one who's kept the law perfectly. And what does it mean to keep the law perfectly? Well, love the Lord your God, but also love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who's the only person in the story who's loved the neighbor as himself? The one who s- rescues and heals and pays for this poor man who's been, you know, waylaid by robbers. He's the good neighbor who fulfills the law. He's the one who's justified himself. Now, yes, "Go do likewise," there's some echoes there of, of the go and sin no more language that we see in other places, too. So I, I think this parable is more, is more about- A, and this is where it shares some affinity with the rich young ruler, [00:29:00] right? The rich young ruler is told to go and to, to sell everything he has and donate it to the poor and to come and follow Christ. And he says, you know, he, he can't do that. He walks away sad. In this instance, it's the same kind of situation. It's an, a question about how do I fulfill the law? What do I need to do to be saved, to inherit eternal life, to obtain eternal life, whatever the phrasing is. And the answer is, "Obey the law perfectly." And the guy goes, "Well, hey, I did that." And he said, "Well, let me show you how much you didn't do that." And the reality is the only one who did that is Christ, the good teacher, right? I mean, there, there's so many parallels between these two accounts. It, it's almost the same, it's almost the same story. This one just in sort of parable answer form versus a more direct form, which we see with the rich young ruler. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, what I find really fascinating about these is that whereas, like you said, the, some of the other parables, they come under the volitional teaching of Christ. That is, He is presenting forward the topic at hand. So usually it's in the context of conversation, but He essentially makes [00:30:00] the segue. He presents and opens up this new kind of vista to explore. In this case, or in both those cases you talked about, the confrontation really comes from the outside. Of course, God, through Christ, predestined all of these things to pass, so I'm not saying that Christ was caught off guard, of course, by this line of questioning. And presumably He understands that when the lawyer asks this question, He knows that it's from a position of self-justification. So I don't disagree that that might be there, some of that at play, and that really the ultimate end of this would bring, to bring one's self to the realization that you can't do this. At the same time, though, I think almost, especially in this one, I think, uh, it's not that Jesus withholds that, but I read that do, go and do likewise is this is what you said you wanted. You asked me for an answer, and I gave you the answer. You asked for the law- Yeah ... I will give you the law. So I actually don't know how this ended. It doesn't strike me that it ended well, and I think, I don't know if there was some kind of massive realization there, but it's almost as if there is some [00:31:00] obscuring of this. This is like typical parable, parable language where I think if you're there and you're listening, and you're trying to just track with the question and track how that compounds and corresponds with the law, that you would leave more destitute, more confused, and perhaps more angry than before, and certainly not in a position of understanding, "Well, th- this one before me is the Christ." But that's exactly what parables do. So again, I, I think to me- Right ... I see this more as certainly, again, there are these wonderful themes These kind of overtures of the gospel within, but they are dark and very obscured because the man asks a question about the law, and Jesus comes with a message about the law. And like you said, that law is- Yeah ... like, there's almost no grace in his tone as I read it because, not that he is not graceful or full of grace and gracious, but this guy asks for justification under the law. And so it ends with saying, it ends with this really phenomenal phrase, of course, of the lawyer realizing he's got himself [00:32:00] caught in having to respond truthfully in answering the question of who is the neighbor, but of course doesn't identify the neighbor except to say, "Oh, the one who has compassion," as if like he himself couldn't bring himself- Right to say these words. And then for Jesus to say, "Yeah, go do it," is, is kind of like the ultimate nail in the coffin.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and to tell a first century Jew to go and do, to be- Yes ... like a Samaritan is- Yes ... you know, e- even, even though that's not, like, highlighted in the text, you're right. Like, the, the lawyer probably couldn't bring himself to say the Samaritan was, right? And I, I think, um, you know, whether you take, uh, and maybe I'm novel on this. I guess I haven't really read, read a lot of people that take a, a more optimistic approach of this. But whether you take a more optimistic outcome approach or a more pessimistic or neutral, whatever, the, the actual outcome is the same, right? The, the lawyer is asking about self-justification under the law, like you said. Right. And Christ gives him [00:33:00] that. He tells him exactly what that means and what that looks like. And I think the, the impossibility of being the good neighbor as is described in the parable is exactly the sort of beat down of the law that, that, you know, we've talked about in the past is it's not as though, um, the, the, the actions of the Samaritan are not, uh, outwardly impossible, right? We- Right ... it's not unreasonable to think that someone could rescue someone from the side of the road and bring them to ... And like, the scenario itself is not that crazy. But the, the overall complex of the scenario, right? The fact that this man, um, was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, right? The, the ... All of this points to sort of like an impossible circumstance, an impossible situation. And, and the idea that even [00:34:00] within that impossible situation you're still expected to take care of the person who is your enemy, right? The Samaritan seeing a Jewish man beaten by the side of the road- That's right ... and although the parable doesn't specifically call out that he's Jewish, if he's going from Jerusalem to Jericho, there's an implication that he may actually also have been a priest. Um, we, we don't need to get into all the details on that, but there's, there's some good, uh, some good research out there that would point to the fact that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is, uh, was actually a very common pathway traveled by either priests or Levites. And further evidence is that a priest and a Levite are also on this same road. And so the idea that the Samaritan would, um, would- Sacrifice of himself to take care of someone who very likely considers him to be an enemy, and sacrifices in a pretty significant way. Um, I, I'll, I'll pause and now as you're [00:35:00]talking I'll do all the, the background scrambling to make it look like I know exactly how much- a denari is supposed to, to be, and I know we've talked about it before, it's just not there.  Lavish Impossible Mercy Tony Arsenal: But, but it's not a- Yeah ... it's not a trivial amount of money. That's right. We're not talking about checking this guy into, like, a Motel 6 and, and dropping a couple hundred dollars. We're, we're talking about a substantial amount of money and, and we're talking about a commitment to pay whatever is required. Okay. An unknown amount of money for this man who has been left for dead. We're not talking about a minor injury. The, the robbers beat him up, they took his clothes, and they expected him to die in the desert. He needed to be carried on a donkey. He needed to have immediate first aid attention. We're talking about a, a relatively long-term recovery. So the scenario would be more like, we think of it like, "Oh yeah, I dropped him off at the local hotel for him to sleep it off." The scenario would be more like, "I found a guy on the side of the road. I didn't know who he was. He's, he's of a group of people that would consider me to be their enemy, and he's been shot 100 times, and I'm gonna patch up his [00:36:00] wounds. I'm gonna take him to the hospital. I'm gonna not only pay and say, 'Here, I, I've already used some supplies. Let me pay for that,' but I'm gonna pay for all of his medical bills until he's healed." Like, that's the scenario we're talking about. So it's not, it's not just, like, a good deed that has been done that is maybe, like, a really, really good deed, like it's a really nice thing to do. It's a, it's an outlandishly almost impossible to conceive of doing good deed. N- I don't know anyone, um, who would... And, and I know a lot of really great people. This is not a slam. I don't know anyone who would find a stranger on the road and who is, who's gravely injured and commit to pay for all of their medical care until they're healed. I just don't know anybody who would do that. Right. Um, some might say there's actually some wisdom in that, and, uh, we've talked about how sometimes the parables present a situation where maybe, like, this isn't actually the best practical knowledge. It's there to prove a point. Right. But I don't know anybody who, I don't know anybody who would do that, who, who would even think about doing that. Um, so the, the scenario here is one [00:37:00] of impossible lavish goodness being extended to those who you have no reason to be good to, and probably have reason to not be good to. That's what we're talking about. And so the, when the, the lawyer is told to go and do likewise, he's being told to do something that is impossible to fulfill, or even to conceive of fulfilling. And so there is this element of, like, "You think you can obey the law? Well, let me tell you how much you can't  Jesse Schwamb: obey  Tony Arsenal: the law."  Jesse Schwamb: Right. By the way, this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Like a good Samaritan, State Farm is there. Every time we've been saying good neighbor, I've been just been trying to avoid thinking about- Yeah Jake from State Farm. That's what I've been doing most of this time.  Tony Arsenal: Jake from State Farm?  Jesse Schwamb: Um, I totally agree, of course.  Priest Levite And The Law Jesse Schwamb: Like, what strikes me here is that it's, like you said, there is all this emphasis on what it means to show neighborly love, but the setup is also in those who basically should be showing it but aren't, and that's where we get, can get into this lovely... It's, [00:38:00] it's okay to kinda think through some of these characters. You know, for this priest and the Levite here, and what we know about them is that they, at first it sounds like there, there's almost this sense in the language like the priest falls ab- upon this, this, you know, bloodied man by chance, and that kinda heightens the drama, I think. The priest's confrontation is a little bit unplanned, but it's immediate and unavoidable, and he chooses to cross on the other side of the road, which is of course a deliberate act of avoidance. It's not mere obliviousness. And then the Levi almost goes further, or he came to the place, he saw him closer inspection, you know, greater culpability, and yet he still passes by. I really do wish I could hear this, like, in real time, like be among, because I have to- Yeah ... wonder that there'd be this kind of sense of building in the story. And the people might be kind of getting the sense that the characters that they know and love or should love as the heroes are not gonna be performing that way. And so I think even they're curious. They might be hoping against hope that it's gonna turn out well, but knowing the question and maybe something about Jesus, [00:39:00] they might anticipate that he's gonna go in a different direction. And so again, I think we have to stick with the text here. Like, Jesus doesn't explicitly state the motives of these gentlemen, but it's truthful. What's true- Right ... is that, like, these boys should have known better. You know, a lot of people have speculated that it was for ritual purity concerns or the, another ambush or social distance or just callousness. And I think that ambiguity might be deliberate because, again, what cuts against the lawyer here is whatever the specific excuse, the point is that these, like this kind of professional religiosity and even, like, meticulous law observance are of course not identical with, and probably can even distract or obstruct the love of neighbor that the law itself commands, which is wild, right? Because we talked about how, again, this just shows the law doesn't empower you to do the thing, and in fact, here- Right ... you could essentially abuse the law so that you suck the spirit right out of it and therefore do not do the very thing that it was intended to accomplish. So even this by itself, you just stop the parable here, it's kind of condemning because it's really this [00:40:00] potent warning against some kind of merely external ceremonial, professionalized religiosity that fails to produce, I guess, what Matthew calls, like, the weightier matters of law, like justice and mercy and faithfulness. And, you know, we should understand this because I think those that are from tradition have a certain affinity for the third use of the law as a guide for the grateful Christian living, and that's, you know, kind of what we're talking about here. But it insists that true law keeping is never merely ritual or notional, but it must issue in love, like costly love. Love outside of being inconvenienced is not genuine. I, I guess we'll get there. But, you know, I don't wanna harp on the characters as some are prone to do, but that is, I think, why the characters are here. It's both to set up and show, like, you're about to see that you really do not wanna identify by your own persuasion, by your own presuppositions with the one who's gonna be the hero, that is the, the one that shows neighborly love. At the same time, I'm gonna show you by way of condemnation that those who should exercise the greater love, [00:41:00] that do know better, that should know better, that should emblem- be emblematic of the spirit of the law, have done the exact same thing. Which I can only, uh, hope but believe is what this lawyer heard as well was that he was hearing that he was being stuck into this place before he was even given the question, well, who was the neighbor here? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I think, um- There is a real sense in some of the parables that are sort of spoken against people. Um, this one doesn't specifically use that language, but it, it is a targeted, kind of a targeted response. There is a sense that throughout the course of the parable being told, they start to recognize midway through that they're like- Right you are the man. Like, this is one- Right, right ... of those Nathan and David kind of parables where, like, at some point the realization must have dawned on this guy that, like, "I've gotta be somebody in this parable." And I think that's where, where the, the challenging part is, is it's not clear, um, [00:42:00] it's not really clear even at the end of the parable who Christ is intending this guy to be, right? Right. Is he the lawyer or is he the, uh, is he the, the dead man on the side of the road, right? Is he... Or the dying man. Is, is he the l- the priest and Levite who pass by? Is he supposed to be the Samaritan, which would just be wildly offensive. Um, he's not necessarily, like, supposed to be anyone except for the fact that now at th- the punchline of the, the encounter here, Christ says, "Go and be like the Samaritan." And it's kind of like y- you know, if you were really following God's law, you would be the Samaritan in this one- Yeah, that's right ... but you're not. That's right. You're not and you can't be. Um, and so go, go ahead and do likewise.  Christ As True Neighbor Tony Arsenal: Um, I, I do think, too, there is some elements here where, um, I- Again, I, I think I take a little bit more of a typological, Christological-centered approach on this, but I, I don't think they're incompatible. But I do think there's an element here where Christ is also [00:43:00] unveiling, uh, sort of what he would do, like what, what his own plan of salvation is as the good, as the capital G, capital N good neighbor. Um, he is the one who does pour oil and wine on our wounds, right? A- and I don't wanna ... I don't think we need to fly off the allegorical deep end of reading oil and wine to be a reference to the Holy Spirit and t- Right but sometimes those things are evocative, indirect things that should, we should call our mind to those things. Like, I think, um, you know, when Melchizedek comes to bless Abraham and he, he presents him with bread and wine, right? I, I think, like, it's okay for us to go, "Wow, the Holy Spirit really made a point there that's subtle." And I think those little things within this parable drive me to look at this a little bit more along the lines of not only is there this sort of, like, law beat down, you [00:44:00] know, John Bunyan or not, um, Bunyan style, like the, "Moses just beat the crap out of me," kind of a- Right ... kind of a thing from Pilgrim's Progress. There's that, and I think it's really there. But it's also, uh, it's also sort of like this, uh, you know, "Blessed is the one who has ears to hear" side of it of, like, for those who are regenerated and can see the parable, can see the figures in the parable, it is now this beautiful picture of what it is that Christ does for those who cannot do it for themselves, right? And it's almost like the parable becomes a litmus test. If you look at the parable, and as you're reading through it, you sit there and you go, "Yeah, man, I'm like that guy who got beat up and left for dead. That, that really describes me," um, you're gonna get to the end of this and you're gonna be sort of, like, sitting in awe of, like, "Man, I have such a great savior who threw me on his donkey and, and promised to take care of all of my, all of my wounds, and promised to pay whatever it, whatever it cost." Um, y- you know, and all of these elements of, [00:45:00] like, oil and wine and, and all of these things be- kind of become alive to you in a way that someone who sees themselves as the, the good Samaritan, who thinks they're the one who's gonna come and rescue people, or I think increasingly in our day, and it's, it's weird to even say this, I think there are people who would look at this and resonate with the priest and lawyer and actually say, like, "Yeah, they shoulda, they shoulda crossed to the other side of the room." Mm-hmm. I've heard defenses of that in trying to argue that- The priest and the Levite, if they had, if this person was dead, they had touched the dead body, then, you know, they would've been ceremonially unclean. Uh, all of that is, I think, worth speculating about. But the reality is, um, who you see yourself in the parable actually says a lot, I think, about how you see Christ in light of either our ability to fulfill the law or our inability to fulfill the law, and therefore have our need for Christ. If you think you're the good Samaritan, if you think you're the one that's gonna come and [00:46:00] rescue people, that you're gonna be, you're gonna be the good neighbor, you're much more likely to see, uh, to, to be needing this as a sort of a law beat-down. Where those of us who, maybe this is the way you wanna parse it out, right? There's those of us who are, uh, regenerated and in Christ, and this is third-use law, right? This is, this is us- Right ... seeing what it means to be holy, and going and doing likewise, trying in our power, in our, our best to go and do likewise, empowered by the Holy Spirit, recognizing that we can't, and trusting the Lord to accept our feeble attempts- Right and be pleased by them. Right. Um, or maybe if you're not regenerated, this is f- this is first use, right? Right. And, and, and this is actually there to terrify you and to show you your condemnation and to serve as your condemnation. And, and there's even, and I didn't really intend to go all the way with this, but there's, there is also an element in here, and this is where, like, the mercy ministry interpretation comes in, where this is civil, this is civil law, where this is the, the, the, um, you know, the civil use of the law [00:47:00] to restrain evil, to show society what it is to be good, to, to restrain sin. Right. Yes, we want to be, uh, we, I would rather live in a society where people stop and help someone who's stranded or injured on the side of the road than, than a society where people pass by. Um, so I, I think all of those elements are in play here, and we do have to be careful not to take the full-on, like, never go full allegory approach to this, 'cause y- you can really... That's just a good general wisdom for all of, all of the Bible, but especially the parables and other figurative stuff. You can really just go totally far afield of what actually the point of the parable is- Right ... if you're not grounding it in the purpose that Christ is teaching it for, and, and the stated outcome of the parable, right? No one in the Bible makes c- I don't know that anyone in the Bible makes specific commentary on this within scripture, but the, the idea that, like, there's all these hidden meanings, well, if those are the hidden meanings, then why doesn't Christ talk about it? Why doesn't he come back- Right ... and [00:48:00] interpret those symbols later on like he does, like the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Seeds or Soils. Um, that one is much more directly allegorical in that the different seeds, the different soils represent specific people with specific s- scenarios. Christ comes and, and does that allegorical interpretation later on in the passage. There's nothing like that here. So I think we have to be really careful not to slip down that road. Jesse Schwamb: I think that it could be all those things. I, I totally agree with you on that. I think it could be all the use cases of the law. I think what makes this so wonderfully complex and a little bit tricky is that when I read this, I actually don't necessarily find myself gravitating toward putting myself in one place or the other. It almost depends on where I am or what's going on in my life. So for example, I think any time that any one of us, and we've all done this as Christians, have quenched the spirit, especially with respect to helping, serving, or loving others as my, our neighbor, then we're firmly in this parable in the place [00:49:00] of the priest and the Levite. Sometimes I think we are the one on the side of the road. We look to the church, to our brothers and sisters to help us, and what do they help us with? Like you were saying, Tony, they help us with that blood and oil. They help us with this, the power of the Holy Spirit, which is given to each one to help and to serve, to identify, to comfort with the comfort we ourselves have been received. And then I do think, and this might be unpopular, that, that sometimes by the grace of God, He empowers us to be the Samaritan, but only through His empowerment. Not, of course, because we're trying to just self-justify or because we're overtly generous in our own merit, but in fact, this is the way we ought to live, and that we ought to commend that kind of behavior to, again, acknowledge it as God-given and to promulgate it, especially among the body of believers. So I do think all three forms of the law are present there, but I do think I tend to, for whatever reason, right or wrong, I tend to tilt a little bit toward that third use here, just to see this as it's not wrong to, of course, to, I think, uh, lay over all of this, all these delightful variables and [00:50:00] details. Again, this idea of blood and oil, n- normative things, normal things, standard things that are being used to address- Yeah ... wounds. They're, they're... Of course, that would've been the practical way which you would've provided some kind of medicinal care to somebody in both that extreme circumstance, but also generally, because nobody's, like, keeping gauze or popping Advil to help this, this poor guy. And so it is- Right ... like this beautiful complexion of, I think, everything that we just talked about, that there is the law present, and depending on where you are, both in terms of your ingrafting into eternity, into the Kingdom of God, and then where you are in life, you- we should read ourselves probably, or l- let me say it this way, not so it's like eisegesis, but, like, that we should see ourselves often at different pli- times maybe playing or being tempted to play the parts of these different characters. And in that we find, I think, ultimately, of course, as you're saying, that Christ is over all, and that He is the one that, of course, perfectly emphasizes all of what it means to be the Savior, the [00:51:00] true loving neighbor who cares and binds and heals completely full stop. And yet there is something instructive here, I think, as well about going and bringing that compassion. I was just thinking, like, as we were talking, that there's such a difference, isn't there, like, in our world between these days, like, pity and compassion? Like, pity often is like, "Yeah, I feel sorry for you," but it strikes me as kind of like the James, is it James 1 or James 2, where it's kind of like, "Oh, you're... I, I'm so sorry that, like, you're, you're hungry and cold. You know what? Go, be warm, and be well-fed." You know, that's like pity. Like, "Yeah, I just- Yeah ... I feel a little bad. I identified with your emotions." Sending  Tony Arsenal: good vibes.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I've got- Yeah. Yeah. That's right, right? Sending good thoughts and good vibes your way. I wanna say, like, keep those to yourself 'cause they're probably not all that- Yeah ... good. Um- I  Tony Arsenal: don't want your vibes.  Jesse Schwamb: I don't want your vibes. Get your vibes out of here. What I need is that power of God himself, uh, to bring compassion, and compassion is always wrapped in action. It identifies- Right ... and then goes. It, it's, it [00:52:00] is not self-promoting, it's self-sacrificing. And so that rule of law, which is like the good rule of law, the good teaching, the kind that brings life because it's the Decalogue wrapped in skin perfectly performed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the one who is perfect again in his passive obedience and active obedience. Yes, yes, we need, we need all of that. It's modeled here, I think, to a certain extent, but I think the go and do likewise is actually for all of us, but it's not the kind like we would say, "Well, like, good luck." It's more the- Yeah ... you know the one from whose side the blood flowed. You know the one who is pressed in the garden as if olives under the press leaking oil. You know who that one was, and that one is His spirit resides in you. So now go and do these acts- Yeah ... of mercy. Again, not s- for some kind of meritorious reward, but because you were made for good works, which were set apart for you to do, and part of those good works are [00:53:00] just always being a good neighbor. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and, and maybe to, to close out, I, I, I think maybe we actually did it. I don't know that we're gonna have to do another episode on this. I guess we'll see after we do- Who would've guessed? ... our postmortem here.  Mary Martha And Final Charge Tony Arsenal: But I, I think part, part of, um, part of what we need to at least acknowledge is that what, what follows this parable, right? This, this goes from a parable of a lawyer seeking to justify himself to now the account of Mary and Martha, and the fact that, uh, that, um, M- Martha, you know, is busy with much work, and Mary is sitting and listening to, to Jesus and is said to have chosen the better part. And I think, like- Mm ... this is something that I think because of the way, like, Bibles are formatted, the way that certain things are sort of, like, extracted out as discrete teaching units, this parable is pulled out and separated from this next part. And I, I think we can [00:54:00] really run into problems when we do that because- You know, even if we, even if we were to sort of treat the scripture as, like, a purely human book, right? Luke chose to put this account of Mary and Martha after this, right? And, and- Right ... probably not just because, like, it happened chronologically. There's no real, um, there's no real necessity that this account of Mary and Martha in this particular story had to happen immediately afterwards. Like, there's no organic link in, in the chronology of the story to drive that, right? And the two aren't related in terms of, like, historical cause and effect or, uh, proximity. There's none of those things. So the only answer as to why this was selected to follow the parable of the Good Samaritan is that there's some thematic connection that drove Luke as an author to put this, put this right following that. And so I think even that should drive us to thinking about, all [00:55:00] right, we've got this statement of go and do likewise, show mercy. Now there's almost this foil that the, the, the person in, in the account in the, the narrative here, and a, a true narrative, right? We're not in parable land anymore, but the person in the narrative that seems to be showing mercy, seems to be taking care of people the most, is actually the one who's chastised a little bit for, for being- Right overly zealous about m- mercy ministry, hospitality ministry- Right ... is what you might call it. She's the one who's like, "Tell my sister to help me with this." And she said, like, "You know, you're always gonna have time to do this, but, like, I'

In this episode, we continue our deep dive into Ezra Booth's anti-Mormon letters from October 1831, examining how this early apostate mounted his attack against our fledgling church. What fascinates us most is that Booth personally witnessed miracles, including Elsa Johnson's arm being healed, yet later dismissed such spiritual experiences as delusion or deliberate fraud.  We highlight striking logical contradictions in his arguments: he claims only Joseph saw angels, then attacks witness testimonies about seeing them. His scattershot approach, depicting believers as liars, crazy, or stupid, mirrors modern anti-Mormon rhetoric perfectly. Ironically, Booth himself confirms early church members used "Melchizedek priesthood" language and testified of spiritual experiences, undermining later revisionist claims these were later developments. If you are interested in joining us in 2027 in Palmyra and Kirtland, August 1st through August 7th, click on the link below and reserve your spot: https://pci.jotform.com/form/261567888174171 Sign up for our free monthly email: ⁠ ⁠⁠https://standardoftruthpodcast.substack.com⁠⁠ (https://standardoftruthpodcast.substack.com/) If you have any questions or possible topics of discussion for upcoming podcasts, please email us at: ⁠⁠questions@standardoftruthpodcast.com

Episode 527 debuts on Wednesday, August 26, at 7:00 PM (Eastern Time). Rebroadcasts will take place according to the Crusade Channel programming schedule. Our topic is Before Christ, There Were Sacraments. Sacraments Before Christ I: ‘The Law of Nature' — by Brother André Marie at catholicism.org Sacraments Before Christ II: Abrahamic Covenant and Mosaic Law — by Brother André Marie at catholicism.org The Sacrifices of Melchizedek, Abel, and Abraham. Mosaic from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna. Reconquest is a militant, engaging, and informative Catholic radio program featuring interviews with interesting guests as well as commentary by your host. It is a radio-journalistic extension of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center.

https://square.link/u/UHRU92rp - Donate HereToday's reading takes us to Hebrews 7, where we see Jesus as the Priest who never stops. Melchizedek points us to a greater priesthood, a better hope, an eternal Priest, and a perfect Priest. The old priesthood could provide ceremonial access, but it could never perfect the worshiper. Jesus does what no earthly priest could ever do.Hebrews 7 reminds us that our security is not anchored in how tightly we hold on to Jesus, but in how faithfully Jesus holds His office. He saves to the uttermost, lives forever, and always intercedes for His people. So today, read Hebrews 7 and draw near to God with confidence: the Savior who died for you is still alive for you, and His intercession has no expiration date.

Send us Fan MailA mysterious priest-king steps onto the page of Genesis for a moment and somehow ends up shaping how we understand Jesus for the rest of the Bible. We open Genesis 14:17-20 and meet Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of God Most High, as he brings bread and wine, blesses Abram, and receives a tenth. If you've ever wondered why this brief scene carries so much weight, we walk through the details that make it unforgettable.We explore what Melchizedek's name and title reveal: King of Righteousness and King of Peace, words that echo the identity and work of Jesus Christ. We also slow down over the blessing that calls God “Most High” and “possessor of heaven and earth,” a direct challenge to the many pagan powers of Canaan and a reminder that the Creator rules over every nation and every ruler. Along the way, we connect that truth to the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the sobering lesson that God knows how to humble pride until we finally acknowledge who he is.Then we tackle the big question Christians still debate: is Melchizedek a type of Christ or a theophany, an Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus? Psalm 110 and Hebrews 5–7 frame Jesus as our permanent, living High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedek,” and Hebrews 7:3 gives a description that pushes us to think carefully. We end with a practical challenge: study the Word for yourself, stay united on the essentials, give liberty on the non-essentials, and practice charity in all things. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us where you land on Melchizedek: type or theophany?Support the showhttps://www.jacksonfamilyministry.comhttps://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/

From Sunday 8/16, CrossLife elder Andy DeBoer preaches from Hebrews chapter 7. The passage points out how Melchizedek is both king and priest which is important context that prepares the reader to understand that Jesus' priesthood is different and greater than the Levitical line.

Daily Dose of Hope August 25, 2026   Scripture:  Genesis 14   Prayer:  Heavenly Father, We come before you today in awe of your Word. Thank you for speaking to us through Scripture.  Help us commit to being grounded in your truth.  Help us make learning more about you a priority.  We get so distracted!  The world comes at us from all sides.  Lord, in these next few moments of silence, help us set aside our scattered thoughts and focus on you...In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the daily Bible reading plan at New Hope Church.  We are currently doing a deep dive into the book of Genesis and this will be followed by a deep dive into Exodus.  Today's reading is Genesis 14.   In today's reading, we have the first recorded battle in Genesis.  It's also the only time Abram is connected to warfare (who knew he had so many armed men at his disposal?)  You might have noticed here that Abram is called a Hebrew as well.    But what is going on?  Remember that Abram and Lot are now living in separate places.  Lot actually lived in Sodom, which happened to be captured in the battle described in verses 1-11.  Lot is taken captive.    Now, God has promised to protect and care for Abram and it seems he is finally trusting in that.  Abram goes into battle to save his nephew and is very successful.  He meets up with two kings, Melchizedek (Salem's priestly king) and the king of Sodom.  Melchizedek comes with wine, food, and blessings.  The king of Sodom comes with his hand out.  These were obviously very different kings, which seem to further highlight the difference between Abram and Lot.  Abram is upstanding and generous, not worried about wealth or property.  Lot is living in what we will learn is a sinful place, possibly hanging out with the wrong people, and espousing values that are very different from Abram's.   I want to just briefly touch on King Melchizedek.  If his name sounds familiar, it may because the author of Hebrews says that Jesus is a priest and king, in the order of Melchizedek.  What does this mean?  Well, Jesus was not in the family line of priests.  His appointment as high priest and king came directly from God.  This is similar to Melchizedek, who is kind of mysterious figure, a king-priest which would have been highly unusual.  We have no evidence that Melchizedek's kingship or priestship were inherited.  Yet, he is called a priest of the most high God.  Did God directly appoint him too?  We really don't know, but it is fascinating that the author of Hebrews makes this connection.   More tomorrow.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki

KPW - Kingdom Praying Women Conference | August 25, 2026 You have been called into far more than a Christianity of forgiveness, personal comfort, religious activity, answered needs, or escape from judgment; through Christ you have been brought into a new priesthood after the order of Melchizedek and given the power of an endless life—the very life of God—which makes you a citizen of the age to come and equips you to participate in God's purpose for the earth. God desires a willing people in the day of His power, vessels through whom His will can move from individual lives into families, communities, cities, and nations; yet this requires surrender, because the greatest hindrances are often idols hidden in the heart—ambition, pleasure, money, career, marriage, children, reputation, family identity, pain, trauma, lack, personal opinions, quarrels, strife, bitterness, wounded pride, ingrained character traits, and even the insistence on living according to your own beliefs rather than the way of the Lord. Real Christianity therefore involves sacrifice, self-denial, training, discipline, and learning to put away whatever competes with God, not because earthly responsibilities are evil, but because nothing should possess the place in your heart that belongs to Him. Ministry itself is not entertainment, visibility, a platform, emotional excitement, or the gathering of crowds; it exists to establish the will of God, equip people for spiritual battle, form Christ within them, and raise burden bearers who can hear what heaven is saying and respond. This requires perpetual spiritual awareness: like Jael and Abigail, learn to understand what is happening around you, recognize the spiritual significance of circumstances, remain alert to God's movements, and respond with wisdom rather than panic; do not live merely for yourself, your spouse, your children, your work, and your comfort while the purposes of God and the suffering of others remain outside your concern. Guard your heart and mind with the Word, study Scripture not merely to preach or impress others but to know God, bear His nature, recognize His voice, and become inwardly transformed. Learn to hear His quiet invitations to come aside, remain conscious of Him even in ordinary activities, and cultivate such fellowship that carrying His burdens becomes a way of life rather than an occasional spiritual experience. Understand also that following Christ does not remove battle; victory is promised, but warfare remains part of life on earth, which is why believers must be trained rather than permanently dependent on others to fight for them. Parents should raise children who know how to stand in faith, ministers should equip people for the day of battle, and believers should learn to wield the Word as the shield of faith rather than merely saying they believe God. At times this training will require costly obedience—fasting, prayer, loss of sleep, prolonged waiting, disciplined attention, and other sacrifices directed by God—because some spiritual assignments cannot be carried by an undisciplined life. Yet warfare must always begin from Christ's finished victory: principalities and powers have been defeated, Christ has disarmed the enemy, and your identity must be rooted in what He accomplished rather than in fear of darkness. The answer is not terror but justification through Christ. Be quick to acknowledge wrong, repent, confess sin, apologize where necessary, walk peaceably with people, and apply the blood of Jesus in faith, because what has been confessed and cleansed cannot rightly continue to stand as a weapon of condemnation. Prayer itself must recover its sacredness: it is not primarily performance, duration, noise, bodily movement, public display, or religious reputation, but genuinely standing before God with your heart, mind, attention, and spirit fixed on Him. Learn to talk to God rather than kneeling physically while your mind converses with worries, offenses, business, arguments, and idols; approach Him one matter at a time, remain until your heart is truly before Him, pray with understanding and in the Spirit, and learn how to receive from Him. Emotional expression is not wrong—there are burdens that will make you weep, groan, or travail—but let those emotions arise from communion with God rather than from untreated wounds and personal vengeance. Make yourself available, therefore, not merely to receive God's goodness but to become useful to Him; let Christ be formed in your character, let His Word govern your mind, let His blood silence condemnation, let His presence shape your prayers, let His burdens enlarge your heart beyond yourself, and let the power of His endless life make you a sober, willing, disciplined, spiritually awake priest who can stand in the gap, bear the purposes of heaven, overcome the adversary, bless others, and help bring the will of God into manifestation on the earth.

Send us Fan MailWe begin Book Five of the Psalms by touring Psalms 107–118 and discovering once again that God's chesed—His steadfast covenant love—runs throughout the story. Book Four ended with "Praise the Lord," and Book Five picks right up with a call to give thanks to the Lord because His steadfast love endures forever.Psalm 107 is filled with vivid pictures of people in desperate situations who cry out to God and are rescued. Their circumstances are different, but the pattern is the same: God's people turn to Him, He acts, and His chesed remains. The psalm ends by telling the wise to pay attention to these stories and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.As we move through Psalms 108–112, we encounter the living God who rules over the nations, hears the cries of His people, judges evil, remembers His covenant, and blesses those who delight in His commands. Psalm 109 even gives us words for those difficult moments when we have been deeply wronged and need to entrust justice to God rather than take it into our own hands.Then we arrive at Psalm 110, the most frequently quoted psalm in the New Testament. This Messianic psalm asks us to consider the identity of the coming King. He is greater than David, He will ultimately defeat His enemies, and He is connected to the mysterious biblical figure Melchizedek. Once again, the Psalms point us forward to the Messiah.Finally, we tour Psalms 113–118, traditionally known as the Hallel Psalms. These songs were connected to Passover and Israel's festivals, celebrating God's greatness, the Exodus, and His faithfulness to His people. They are filled with powerful images, repeated declarations of God's chesed and emunah, and reminders that Israel's God is completely different from the lifeless idols of the nations.These psalms become even more meaningful when we remember that Jesus would have known and sung them. As He celebrated His final Passover with His disciples and prepared to walk toward the Garden of Gethsemane, these were the words surrounding Him. That gives Psalm 118's declaration a powerful setting: "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever."From God's rescue of His people to the promise of the Messiah, these psalms invite us to trust the living God, delight in His ways, leave justice in His hands, and remember that His steadfast love truly does endure forever.If you want the FREE hand outs that go along with this series, sign up for our newsletter at our website. Our website is The Context and Color of the BibleWe are on Facebook - The Context and Color of the Bible | FacebookWe are on Instagram - @contextandcolorofthebibleWe are on YouTube - The Context and Color of the Bible - YouTubeMusic: Tabuk by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4453-tabukLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Description: In this broadcast message sponsored by the Psalm 127 Fund and presented by For Zion's Sake, hosts Shelley and June Volk delve into the foundational message of Hebrews 3:1–6. The discussion emphasizes the central command to "consider"—to observe with deep spiritual thought and discernment rather than mere emotion—Jesus as the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. Comparing the roles of Moses as a faithful servant in God's house and Jesus as the divine Builder and Son over the house, this study calls believers to embrace their identity as "holy brethren" and live with a heavenly minded focus on earth. Key Takeaways: Deep Contemplation ("Consider"): To "consider" Jesus (Hebrews 3:1) means to receive with deep thought, perceive, and apprehend spiritually, rather than relying strictly on sensory or emotional perception. Jesus vs. Moses: Moses served faithfully as a servant within the house for a testimony of things to come (Hebrews 3:5), but Jesus is worthy of greater honor as the divine Builder of all things and the Son over His own house (Hebrews 3:3–6). The Unique Office of High Priest and Apostle: Unlike earthly kings who could not hold the priesthood, Jesus fulfills both functions—sent directly by God as an Apostle and acting as High Priest after the higher order of Melchizedek. Identity as Holy Brethren: Believers are elevated through Christ’s resurrection into a heavenly calling, recognized not just as earthbound individuals, but as transformed "holy brethren" whose ultimate citizenship is in heaven. Featured Bible Passages: Hebrews 3:1–6 – Calling believers to consider Jesus, comparing His supremacy as Son and Builder over Moses’ role as a faithful servant. Hebrews 2:11–18 – Establishing Jesus as the Son of Man who is not ashamed to call believers His brethren. Numbers 6:24–26 – The Priestly Blessing ("The Lord bless thee and keep thee...") recited at the close of the broadcast. Support the show: https://shellyandjunevolk.com/product/partner-with-us-psalm-127-fund/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If one were to use their best Jack Nicholson voice and declare; “You can't handle the truth!”, those of us who have seen the movie would have a depth of knowledge to pull from in that conversation. There are phrases in this psalm that are like that – those who have read and understood the corresponding scriptures have a depth of knowledge to pull from in their understanding of these poetic and prophetic words of David. Hebrews 7 gives us insight into Genesis 14 and how Psalm 110:4's statement “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” relates to Jesus. Additional insights from the New testament can be found in Matt 26:64; Acts 2:34; 1 Cor 15:25, Col 3:1, Heb 12:2, Rom 11:26-27; Heb 5:10. The point of it all is that Psalm 110 is all about Jesus! Jesus as Messiah, Jesus as King, and Jesus as Priest. Let us sit in awe at the character of our God who has given us His word so that we can know Him. He has crafted scripture in a magnificent and beautiful way and revealed so much about Himself within its pages. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever – all for the praise honor and glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!---------To help us keep God's word planted deep into our hearts we encourage you to memorize a Psalm over the Summer. (The children in Grace Airways will be memorizing all of Psalm 23. We are confident that by hiding God's word in your heart in this way will bear fruit that will last all throughout your life.---------Prepare for this week's teaching by reading psalm 110

"Jesus doesn't need to hail from a particular tribe as God's Son. Because, it turns out, all the tribes hail from Him " Hebrews 5-7

The Point Was Never the Lineage: A Call to Deliver What Only You Can Bring We're sent to a place to change it and make it match our culture. Which means at certain points you have to put aside the culture that you were given for the one that heaven gives you.Heaven never sabotages a human being. The events of our lives, even those that appear devastating, are designed to empower the soul.Yet, most of us spend our lives trapped on the ground floor, letting our lineage act as a ceiling. We treat ancestry, conditioning, and our original environment as the permanent walls of who we are. From that low vantage point, every hardship feels like a personal injustice.But consciousness has many mansions. Shifting to a higher floor means realizing that life is a series of experiences designed for your expansion, not a trap set by your past.To see what living entirely free of a baseline looks like, we have to look past lineage altogether. This brings us to the archetype of Melchizedek. Walking onto the ancient page with no father, no mother, and no recorded genealogy, Melchizedek represents a consciousness untouched by an origin story. He is the ultimate expression of the penthouse view—proof that you can step completely outside the architectural blueprint you were handed and claim a wholly sovereign reality.He appears in Genesis 14:18-20, brings bread and wine, blesses Abraham, and disappears. In a text obsessed with family trees and pedigrees, that deliberate absence is the loudest detail. It tells you something crucial: your authority doesn't have to come from your lineage. It can come from who you are in this moment, standing in unbroken connection to the Source.He wasn't just a king who blessed people or a priest who led. He held both capacities at once, fully integrated. That's the architecture of self-mastery—and it's available to you the moment you step outside the temporary lines you were born into.What His Name Actually Tells YouMelchizedek comes from two Hebrew roots: Melech, meaning king, and Zedek, meaning righteous. King of Righteousness. That's not just a title. It's a description of the operating system.Kingly authority is the outer capacity: leadership, boundary-setting, stewarding resources, making decisions, protecting the mission.Priestly authority is the inner capacity: self-awareness, processing difficult emotional material, navigating your inner landscape, staying aligned with something greater than the urgent noise at the surface.Most of us are lopsided. We either execute well but internally burn out, or we stay spiritually centered but never produce anything tangible. The Melchizedek model is the integration of both—attending to the visible and invisible realms at the same time, without outsourcing your worth to either one.The priesthood of Melchizedek is described as eternal, distinct from temporary systems. Other orders are tied to tribes, structures, chains of inheritance. This one is tied to something else entirely: the character and continuous inner union of the person standing in it. No expiration date. No dependence on human appointment.The Practical Invitation: From Survival to OverflowStrip away the religious packaging, and here's the truth: you're invited to stop living as a product of your past and start living as the author of your future.This means something specific: you stop worrying about survival even when circumstances are challenging, and you start receiving the Royal family's overflow.Think about it. Most of us are in perpetual defense mode. We're protecting ourselves against scarcity, anxiety, and the fear that we won't have enough. But what if your identity shifted? What if you understood yourself not as someone trying to scrape by, but as a child of the Most High—someone with access to infinite resources?That means moving from a life of earthly limitations—constant exhaustion, desperate need for validation, survival-mode reactions—into what we might call multi-dimensional functioning. You become the kind of person whose inner alignment with the Divine is so complete that your outer actions flow naturally from it.You stop hustling to prove yourself and start producing from overflow.The goal isn't just doing better. It's becoming a complete expression of the Source you're connected to, so that your presence alone shifts the room. (That's the framework most people are missing.)Why God Grants You Access to Kingdom Wealth and AbundanceWe want God to show up. We want the kingdom to invade our earth. We want resources to appear. But we're not actually agreeing to anything. We're standing at the buffet saying “I want that” without getting in line.This isn't about luck or wishful thinking. There are three foundational reasons why you deserve—and are designed to receive—Kingdom wealth and abundance:1. To live a comfortable life.God is not against your prosperity. He wants you living comfortably while you serve Him. Rest, provision, peace—these are not luxuries reserved for someone else. They're your inheritance.2. To advance the Kingdom of God.If you're financially incapacitated, you're spiritually handicapped. You can't do much for the Kingdom when you're in survival mode. Wealth removes the barrier between your calling and your execution.3. To be a blessing to the world in a practical, definite way.(See Genesis 12:3.) Your abundance isn't for hoarding—it's for circulation. It flows through you to those around you. But here's the thing: your motivation for accessing wealth must be purified by these revelations. It's not about status or ego. It's about capacity to serve.What You're Actually Here to DeliverYou weren't created just to make a living and keep the bills away. That's survival, not purpose.That business, book, movement, healing practice, or unlikely project only you could've dreamed up? It's not a coincidence. It's something planted in you before you had words for it. An idea is a kind of pregnancy—it gestates in your mind and heart until it can't be hidden anymore.Your job is straightforward: conceive it, believe it, protect it, and when the time is right—push.This isn't just inspirational talk. Research published in JAMA followed thousands of adults over fifty and found that a sense of purpose was linked to a 15% lower risk of death over eight years. Purpose isn't a luxury. It's a survival instinct. People who stop carrying something die long before their bodies catch up.Thomas Edison understood this:“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”Successful people have one secret: they refuse to quit. Postpone failure long enough, and it becomes success.Understanding What Increase Actually MeansHere's where most people get stuck: they confuse increase with just “having more.” It's not that simple.Increase is a multi-dimensional process of becoming progressively greater. It's not merely about accumulation. It's about growth in four key areas:Size: Expansion in your personal reach or physical domain. Your influence grows.Volume: Greater capacity to hold or handle resources. You're not just getting more—you're becoming larger to contain more.Number: Multiplication of your results or influence. Your impact compounds.Intensity: Increasing the power, passion, and effectiveness of your work. You're not just busier; you're more potent.Notice something? Increase isn't random. It's not a product of luck. It's a law-governed outcome. Just as physical laws govern the earth, Kingdom mysteries govern spiritual progress. To experience this, you must shift your mindset from mere desire to active engagement with these laws.The 5 Keys to Sustained IncreaseIf you want increase to actually stick—to become part of your permanent reality and not just a temporary spike—these five keys are non-negotiable:1. Connection with Holy SpiritThis is the foundation. Like a branch connected to a vine, your fruitfulness depends entirely on the health of your intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Everything flows from this relationship. Cut the connection, and nothing else matters.2. KnowledgeIgnorance is the primary barrier to progress. You must pursue distilled knowledge—not just the technical skills of your field, but the spiritual laws that govern success. Honor. Diligence. Stewardship. These aren't optional. They're the operating system beneath everything.3. DutifulnessThe quality of living out our duties or tasks with care and loyalty.4. FaithfulnessGod tests your ability to handle small assignments before trusting you with greater ones. If you are not faithful with what you currently have, you cannot expect an increase. Small is the training ground for large.5. ThanksgivingGratitude is a powerful act of faith. By refusing to complain and instead praising God for the present, you keep the atmosphere of your life open to supernatural intervention. You literally create the conditions for more.Mary: A Study in Real ExecutionThe best real-world case study is Mary. Let's keep it practical.First, the call interrupts your plans. She was engaged, and suddenly the biggest assignment in human history landed on her calendar. When purpose shows up, it won't always fit neatly into your five-year plan. That's not a problem. That's the signal.Second, you'll feel like a virgin. Meaning: you've never done this before. It will scare you. That's confirmation you're in over your head—which is exactly where you need to be.Third, you need backup. The first thing Mary did was go to Elizabeth, another woman carrying an impossible miracle. Find people who already believe crazy things can happen. Hang around dreamers, and your own vision starts leaping.Fourth, protect it. Mary and Joseph hid the child from Herod. There's a season to share the vision and a season to strengthen it. Not everyone who says “amen” is safe. Let them earn your trust.Fifth, say yes and move. Mary's response was simply: “Let it be done to me as you have said.” Then she got up and went. Indecision is still a decision—usually the wrong one.The Law of HarvestHere's what most people miss: everything you receive from God often arrives in seed form. The increase you desire is a harvest that requires you to sow.This includes sowing acts of love, seeds of kindness, and seeds of diligence. You must act as a farmer—consistently planting the qualities you wish to see manifest in your life. You can't harvest what you didn't plant. And you can't plant what you're not willing to become.Integrating the King-Priest WithinNow bring the two halves together.Operating as a fully integrated person means dissolving the artificial barrier between your outer work and your inner awareness. You're not a spiritual being on Sundays and a steely operator on weekdays. Those two selves merge into one.King mode is the outer work: setting boundaries, making hard calls, building systems, stewarding resources, protecting the mission.Priest mode is the inner work: stillness, self-awareness, processing the pain you keep avoiding, staying connected to the Source.When these two merge, your daily decisions stop being reactions. You stop needing an outside mediator, a temporary title, or a prestigious lineage to validate your worth. You move through life with continuous, self-authored authority.Melchizedek didn't need a pedigree because his identity was anchored in something eternal. That's the whole point: you stop letting where you came from dictate where you're capable of going.The Tipping PointTo step fully into your calling, you must embrace your true identity: you are offspring of the Most High, seated in heavenly places, operating within the order of Melchizedek. You function simultaneously as priest and king—knowing the heart of the Father and bringing His will to earth. When you speak, you're not just sharing opinions; you're collapsing possibilities into reality. That's the weight you carry.It doesn't take equal numbers to tip the balance. t takes enough awakened ones—each carrying their assignment—to provide the momentum for breakthrough.You were born for such a time as this. Not to survive it. Not to post about it. But to deliver what you were born to bring.Now GoStop waiting for perfect conditions. Make the call ruthlessly.* Cut the circle that's killing your vision.* Lay down the need to control the timeline.* Stay patient through the messy middle.* And when the moment arrives—push.The world has been waiting for what you carry. Not for who you were. For who you're becoming.Now go deliver it.Love, KassandraThe Light Between is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelightbetween.substack.com/subscribe

This week's program looks at Genesis 14: the mystery man who is both king and priest. Get ready to chuckle or even chortle with Pastor “Jolly” John Lukomski and Pastor Matt “Youngblood” Clark as they take a humorous approach to Bible Study. Submit comments or questions to: listener@kfuo.org

Eroding your right to choose; Slavery?; Bondage?; Abraham's way; Melchizedek; "Names"; Choosing Saul; Knowing good sources; Tree of Life; Choosing to listen; War/conflict in the world today; Strangling; Drug trafficking; Where is the real war?; Real war? Spiritual war; Righteousness?; "Aaron"; The Melchizedek difference; Banking; Petro-dollar; Golden calf; "Israel" today?; Tens, hundreds and thousands; Standing against the wickedness of the world; Social bonds of love; Sacrificing; Losing courage; Avoiding pregnancy; Character; Warring against nature; Accountability; "Snuffy" story; Mt 6:33; Lk 13:24; Rom 14:17; Righteousness and peace; Rev 7:11; Rev 12:17; "Women"?; Love = Charity; Covetousness = Idolatry; Seed of Abraham; Abimelech vs Melchizedek; Rev 13:4; "Beasts"; "Saints"; Being separate; "Exousia"; Learning the kingdom; Bondage of Egypt; Making covenants with gods many; Acting free; Jealousy; Having ears to hear the truth; Gen 3:8; Ps 69:22; Bindings of love and sacrifice; Removing scales from your eyes; 2 Cor 6:14 Unequal yoking; Laying down your life for fellow man; Making the state your father; "The Dragon"?; Rev 9:20; "Idolatry"; Statues?; Ps 106:37; Selling children into debt slavery; Polluted minds; "Canaan"; 1 Cor 10:20; Devils?; Rev 13:12; First beast?; Image of the beast; "Mark" of the beast; "Charagma"?; Table of the Lord; Taking oaths; One-child contract; Moving according to Holy Spirit; "Smoking furnace and burning lamp" vision; Ministers; Welfare snares; 1 John 2:10; Rom 11:9; Depending on the beast; "Elder"; True Church; Follow Christ!

Do you ever feel alone, like no one understands what you're going through? The author of Hebrews encourages us to stay close to Jesus in these moments. To help us understand the extent to which Jesus understands, cares about, and meets our needs, Hebrews draws a connection between Jesus Christ and the Old Testament high priest, Melchizedek. Join us as we discuss the role of a high priest, discover who Melchizedek was, and see why Jesus really is our ultimate high priest. Together, let's explore what that means for our relationship with God and our daily lives. 

In this conversation Flowers explores the deep human-dog bond, showing how dogs' emotional behavior often reflects their human companions. We are connected through a shared energetic field. Beyond the love they shower on us, they give us the gift of getting off our couches and out into the wider world, making us better physically, emotionally, and spiritually. JJ Flowers is a screenwriter, playwright, and a lifelong yogi who teaches pranayama and Metta meditation, also known as the Loving Kindness meditation. She identifies as an experienced metaphysician, psychic medium, and animal communicator. She is the author of numerous books including Juan Pablo and the Butterflies (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 2017) and The Spiritual Dog: Emissary of Unconditional Love and Healing (Findhorn Press 2026)Interview Date: 5/6/2026. Tags: JJ Flowers, Metta Meditation, Loving Kindness meditation, aggression in dogs, chakra system, grief, therapy dogs, Bill Phillips , evidentiary medium, Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks, Paul Selig, channeling, Melchizedek, pranayama yoga, breathing exercises, neurotic dogs, love and angelic realms, dogs can smell cancer, Animals, Relationship, Spirituality

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JJ Flowers is a screenwriter, playwright, and a lifelong yogi who teaches pranayama and Metta meditation, also known as the Loving Kindness meditation. She identifies as an experienced metaphysician, psychic medium, and animal communicator.She is the author of numerous books including: Juan Pablo and the Butterflies (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 2017) and The Spiritual Dog: Emissary of Unconditional Love and Healing (Findhorn) Interview Date: 5/6/2026 Tags: JJ Flowers, Bill Phillips, evidentiary medium, Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks, Paul Selig, channeling, Melchizedek, pranayama yoga, telepathic communication with dogs, syncing energy systems with our dogs, chakra systems, getting a 16 week old puppy is ideal, dogs feel grief, euthanizing your dog, Animals, Relationship, Spirituality

Send us Fan MailThis podcast fully explains how Aaron's line of priest was inadequate because those priests died. Jesus Christ as priest is an eternal order from the line of Melchizedek since Melchizedek doesn't die either. Listen to hear these amazing details. Support the show

Hard Questions Solid Answers

In Israel, kings and priests were never the same person, but Psalm 110 says the Messiah is both. The king who sits on the throne is also the priest who brings you into his presence.

What if the Last Supper was a covenant-inaugurating ceremony intentionally pointing us back to Exodus 24, the establishment of a kingdom of priests, and the Melchizedek priesthood?In this episode, we will trace the covenant thread from Moses and Mount Sinai to the Last Supper and ultimately to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, by exploring the connections between Exodus 24, Luke 22, Hebrews 9, and Revelation 19—and how bread, wine, blood, covenant, priesthood, and the coming wedding feast all fit together as one beautiful, unified story. We'll also look at the two “mothers” presented in Scripture—Babylon and Jerusalem above—and what they reveal about identity and the people being formed through each system.It's also very important to mention that this episode must be watched along with Episode 19 in particular, in order to tie in the topic of “firstborn,” to being “born from above,” and the “Jerusalem above—which is the mother of us all.”My heart behind this episode (and the previous one) is to really take time to pause, slow down, study the Scriptures, and see how Moses has always pointed forward to Messiah. “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”John 5:46-47Sign of Jonah Study: https://www.promise-perspective.com/blogs/the-promise-perspective-blog/the-timing-of-our-messiah-s-death-burial-and-resurrection-the-true-sign-of-jonah?_pos=17&_sid=c887d570e&_ss=rVisit my website: www.promise-perspective.comFollow on Instagram: @the_promise_perspective  Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1DeWfRGVNw/?mibextid=wwXIfr Donate on Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/stephanie-green0611Donate on PayPal: http://paypal.me/stephaniegreentppYour support is greatly appreciated ❤️Contact me: stephanie@promise-perspective.comSupport the show

“Why date John’s Gospel earlier than the modern consensus?” This question opens a discussion on the dating of biblical texts, alongside intriguing inquiries about the identity of Melchizedek and the implications of Genesis 1 regarding the Trinity. Other topics include the reality of dinosaurs in relation to the creation story and the reliability of different biblical texts. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 03:40 – Why do you date John’s Gospel earlier than the modern consensus? 17:27 – Gen 1 the Spirit is named and the Father is named but Jesus isn't. Could the face of the waters be a reference to him? 32:07 – Who was Melchizedek and there an actual order based on him? 40:10 – Are dinosaurs real? Scientists say they lived like 70 million years ago. But that doesn't seem to work with the creation story in Genesis, where the animals were created after Adam and Eve. 44:57 – In your video on the Ark of the Covenant, you said you believed the Ark was destroyed by the Babylonians. How could they have done that given the story of Uzzah, who just touched it and died? 50:00 – A Protestant told me that the Alexandrian texts of the Bible were not reliable because they were so far away geographically from the origin point that they would have been corrupted. I believe his conclusion was that therefore the King James Version is the only reliable version of the Bible. What do you make of this?

Melchizedek, violence against Anabaptists, racism, aliens and more on Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders.

For the writer to the Hebrews, understanding Melchizedek means understanding Jesus. But how can an ancient king help us know the true King of glory?