Podcasts about pentacost

In their 500th episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb celebrate a decade of The Reformed Brotherhood by diving into one of Scripture's most overlooked parables — the Parable of the Growing Seed in Mark 4:26–29. Exclusive to Mark's Gospel, this four-verse passage packs a theological punch that is, as Tony and Jesse argue, unmistakably Reformed in its emphasis. The man scatters seed, goes about his life, and the earth produces — by itself — without his understanding or intervention. From this, the hosts draw out rich implications for evangelism, sanctification, ecclesiology, and eschatology. They argue that the kingdom of God advances by divine power alone, hidden from human sight, moving toward a certain consummation. The episode pairs deep theological reflection with the hosts' characteristic warmth, humor, and 10 years' worth of shared history. Key Takeaways Monergism is embedded in the parable itself. The growth of the seed is entirely God's doing. The man scatters and rests; the earth produces by itself — a picture of divine sovereignty that requires no human management or comprehension. The evangelist's only obligation is to scatter. This parable relieves believers of the anxious burden of producing spiritual fruit. Faithfulness in proclamation is the call; growth belongs to God. Sanctification is gradual, hidden, and God's work. The progression — blade, ear, full grain — mirrors the believer's sanctification, which proceeds by degrees imperceptible to the individual yet certain in God's design. The Kingdom of God is not dependent on any individual. Whether it's a ministry leader, a financial contributor, or a worship musician, no single human agent is load-bearing for the advance of God's kingdom. Primary and secondary causation work together without contradiction. God uses means — the farmer still sows, the earth still functions — but the means are instrumental, not efficient causes. God's providence encompasses and exceeds them. The harvest belongs to God, not the evangelist. Just as the man did not direct the growth, he is not the agent ultimately putting in the sickle. The consummation of the kingdom occurs in God's time and by God's initiative. This parable resists reduction. It cannot be flattened into a simple evangelism lesson or a single eschatological statement. It holds together personal sanctification, corporate ecclesiology, and cosmic eschatology within four verses. Key Concepts The Earth Produces By Itself: Monergism in the Parable The theological center of this parable is the Greek word automate — the earth produces "by itself," without external compulsion or human assistance. Tony and Jesse argue this is not incidental language but the thesis of the entire passage. The farmer is genuinely active — he scatters the seed — but his agency recedes almost immediately from view. He doesn't monitor the soil, apply nutrients, or trace the growth. He simply lives his life. This picture coheres precisely with the Reformed doctrine of monergism: that in regeneration and kingdom growth alike, the decisive cause lies entirely outside human capacity. As Jesse puts it, the mechanism of growth "belongs to God alone." The farmer's ignorance is not a failure — it is the point. We are not meant to understand the how; we are meant to trust the Who. Scatter, Then Rest: A Theology of Evangelism Without Anxiety One of the episode's most practically rich applications concerns the posture believers are called to adopt in evangelism. Tony observes that this parable is rarely preached as an encouragement to evangelists, yet that is precisely what it is. The sower's only active verb is scattering. After that, he sleeps and rises — the rhythms of ordinary life — while God does the work that no human strategy, method, or persistence can accomplish. This directly addresses what Tony calls the "anxiety around trying to ensure some sort of production." The Reformed vision of evangelism is not passive indifference but liberated faithfulness: scatter the seed of the gospel without bearing the impossible weight of manufactured outcomes. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6–7, "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." Blade, Then Ear, Then Grain: The Patience of Providence The threefold progression Jesus describes — blade, then ear, then full grain — is not decorative agricultural detail. It is a theological statement about the character of God's work in the world and in the soul. Growth is gradual, ordered, and unhurried. Jesse draws the direct application to sanctification: the believer cannot fully trace the work of grace in his own heart, yet it is real and it is God's doing. This ought to produce, as Jesse summarizes, "patient confidence rather than human striving or anxiety." The church, too, matures through stages. Neither impatience with slowness nor despair at imperceptibility is warranted — both misread the nature of divine providence. God is not behind schedule. He is, as always, working through means, in His time, toward a consummation He has already appointed. Memorable Quotes The earth produces by itself — we might even say the kingdom of God produces by itself. It's not dependent on anything except God's sovereign will and his sovereignty to execute all that he desires. - Tony Arsenal The mechanism of growth is strangely hidden from the human agent, and it belongs to God alone. - Jesse Schwamb The kingdom of God advances by God's own hidden power toward a certain appointed consummation — and this ought to produce patient confidence rather than human striving or anxiety. - Jesse Schwamb Full Transcript Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to the 10th Pentacost episode of the [00:01:00] Reformed Brotherhood. It's number 500. I'm Jesse Tony Arsenal: and I'm Tony, and this is the podcast that's been going for 10 years. Hey, brother.  Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. A happy 500th episode to you.  Tony Arsenal: I know, man. It's kinda crazy. It's kinda crazy, and we're not gonna do anything special 'cause we don't do that, but it is crazy that this is the 500th episode. That's a lot of podcasting.  Jesse Schwamb: It's absolutely wild.  Podcast Memories And Mishaps Jesse Schwamb: And as with any milestone, as I was thinking about this one occurring, it did draw my mind to all the crazy things that have happened on this podcast, some known, some unknown. Of course, there is the very infamous time that I spilled a whole bottle of kombucha on the desk while we were recording, but everybody knows about that. But I was, I was also thinking about the, the lesser-known ones, like the time you and I sat in the downstairs church, like so close to each other on the same side of the table- Yeah ... to record a episode, or the time [00:02:00] that a tow truck showed up while we were recording and I had to go run out and direct the tow truck 'cause I'd called it for the car. Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  Jesse Schwamb: And you paused the episode so that we could go do that, or the time that we had our favorite Lutherans on the podcast in what I think was, like, the hottest environment, and I just remember the sweat trickling down Chad Bird's beard. Like, like, like air being- Like the oil gloss ... mixed with oil. Yeah. It was so hot. So those are the ones that come to my mind. I don't know if there are any ones that come to you. We- we've had some great episodes, and by the way, they all live out for free in the world on reformedbrotherhood.com. So don't take our word for it. You can go all the way back to the beginning if you really want to, and you can hear this incredible journey that God has had us on these some 10 years. So I'm curious, like, do any episodes, topics, conversations, weird things come to your mind after all this time?  Tony Arsenal: Uh, the one I remember is when we recorded with Dad and we were waiting for the snow, the [00:03:00]snowplow- ... and we had to, like, wrap the episode up real quick because the snowplow was there and we had to go move cars. That's right. So there's been a fair amount of episodes where it's like something has interrupted us and we need to just get it over with real quick. That's right. Um, hopefully the listener doesn't hear that too much.  Patreon Support Check In Tony Arsenal: The other thing I was thinking about, you know, just as we're kinda thinking about the back catalog, we're not great at this. Uh, we tend to do our, what, what's they call the call to action. The experts call it the call to action. We do it at the very end of our podcast episodes, which is the worst place to do it. Uh, but we're gonna try to land it in the beginning here. So we, we've been supported by a number of, of people, uh, for basically the entire podcast. I don't remember exactly how early on it was that we started doing Patreon, but it's, it's been a long time. And what I noticed the other day, I went in to, to check on a couple things and make sure everything was working the way it's supposed to. There was some, like, account merge I had to do, and I've noticed that several people who've been supporting us, um, pretty much since the beginning- have their accounts listed in a declined status. [00:04:00] And what that means is that their, probably their credit card that they use, uh, has expired, and so now they're not, no longer supporting the show even though they think they are. So if you are a person who believes you're supporting the show, particularly if you've been supporting the show for a long time, and you wanna continue to support the show, uh, we would really appreciate if you took a minute to go into your Patreon account, double-check that the, you know, that you've been, um, contributing for the last couple months. Uh, double-check that the credit card you have on file is not, uh, expired or suspended or anything like that. Um, again, if you've made a decision that it's time to stop, uh, stop the show, or if this is the point where you realize, "I don't care enough to re-support to the show," um, that's fine. We love you. We've appreciated your support. We hope you keep listening. Uh, but if you do wanna continue to contribute, please do check that. And if you've never taken a chance to think through whether or not you want to support the show, uh, Jesse and I are so thankful for all the support we have.  Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  Tony Arsenal: Uh, but things are getting more expensive, and, um, you know, that's, that's [00:05:00] just a reality for all of us, and that includes things like podcasting hosting fees. Um, the cost of our, our editing software that we use has gone up. That's a subscription. Uh, the cost of hosting space has gone up. Um, all of that, uh, all of that has gone up, and so even though we've had steady supporters, it's kinda like we have lost supporters, um, financially because the money doesn't go quite as far. So if you've ever thought, "Maybe I should, uh, maybe I should contribute to the podcast," please do think about it. Even if just, uh, half of our audience went in and contributed $1 a month, um, that would be a substantial amount. That would really help us to keep the podcast going. And there's actually a number of projects and things Jesse have I, and I have wanted to do, um, that we would love to be able to, you know, to take a step on. Uh, we just don't have funding to do it, uh- Right ... because the funding we have is enough to keep the podcast going but not enough to stretch to something else. So I don't wanna, like, preload that too much, 'cause who knows if it's gonna happen, but there's some things that we wanna do [00:06:00] that would involve a little bit of upfront capital that we would need- Right to get some contrib- contributions on. So please do consider that. We appreciate you so much if you've been a supporter. We appreciate you so much if you've even considered it. Uh, and we appreciate you so much just for listening, uh, especially- Yes ... if you've been with us, you know, this is episode 500. That's a lot of podcasting- Yeah, it is ... directly in your ear hole. So thank you so much for that.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we're so grateful.  Why We Keep Doing This Jesse Schwamb: It's fun just to think how many episodes we recorded, but also how many interesting conversations and topics, all the inside jokes. It really is a community. That's in part why we started this, is to sit down together and to bring other brothers and sisters into the fray, as it were, or maybe to bring us into your fray a little bit and to encourage and edify the church, the brothers and sisters, the saints around the world. And it is an around the world kinda podcast, which is remarkable too. So- Yes ... we're just gonna keep being here. As long as the Lord tarries and He allows us to do this, we'll just keep doing it. And again, we've recorded in closets, in cars on the way to things. We've done it at [00:07:00] the beach, and we've done it in cold environs, and we've done it in hot environs. And you're right, you reminded me of that time where we were desperately waiting as we were getting snowed in for the plow to come. And then it was all hands on deck, and we just dropped the recording equipment and said, "We gotta get out of here." And more often than not, the p- joy of this podcast is it just kinda finds its way into our normal rhythm of life. But it- Yeah ... comes out of our life, and out of a life that's been transformed by Christ. And so that's really what we come back to.  Mark Only Parable Preview Jesse Schwamb: In fact, that's the whole thing that we're in right now. We're going through all these parables. And this episode, we can't stop, won't stop. We're gonna continue to hit you with the content that we love, which is talking about Jesus. And so we're in one of the few... Well, it's a Markan parable that only appears in Mark. That's why I called it Markan, I guess. So extra bonus points to you, that's both extra and bonus, if you know which one it is before I say it. But there's a lot for us to talk about- ... because we're getting into this really, really short little story, but it's really chock-full, of course, as Jesus likes to do with all [00:08:00] kinds of spiritual truth. It's about a farmer chucking a seed on the ground, and then he goes about his business. He eats, he sleeps, he binge-watches the Jane equivalent of Netflix. He sleeps again, he wakes up. And while he does this, the seed is doing entirely its own thing without his help or understanding. He didn't make it grow. He can't explain how it grows. He just shows up at the end with a sickle to collect what God has already finished. Man, if there isn't a Reformed theological parable, I don't know what one is. Yeah. So we're gonna get to all of that on this 500th episode. I mean, it's something to be saying that even the US is only 250 years old, and- we've already recorded twice as many podcasts as there are years of experience in the US. But besides all of that, it wouldn't be- It's like- ... Reformed Brotherhood-  Tony Arsenal: I don't know if you've seen this. That reminds me of those things online where it's like, like, "Elon Musk is a billi- is a trillionaire. That means he could give every person on earth $1 billion- Oh, yeah and still would be a multi-billionaire." And you're like, "That's, that's not mathematically true." 'Cause when [00:09:00]you said that, I was like, "You mean the podcast is older than the country?"  Jesse Schwamb: Oh, math. I have a feeling we're gonna come back to that. Oh, math.  Tony Arsenal: Oh, math.  Affirm Or Deny Segment Jesse Schwamb: Now, of course, if you listen for any length of time, you know it wouldn't be an episode if we didn't have a time of affirming with or denying against. Of course, that is that time where we pick something that we like, we think everybody should be a part of, that we wanna recommend, and we affirm with it. Or on the opposite, instead we say, "We deny against this thing because it's just no good." So Tony, on this 500th episode, I'm just gonna keep saying it over and over again, so lest the listeners forget, what are you affirming with or denying against? Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  Scammer Payback Recommendation Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming, um, a little YouTube channel that I found. Uh, it takes a little bit of setup to explain it, but the, the channel is called Scammer Payback. Ooh. Um, and it's, it's a... I think most people have probably seen, like, the Gene Fieith- Gene Veith, um, like, where he, he gets a, some sort of scammer on the phone, and he sorta just, like, [00:10:00] trolls them and makes, kinda makes them sound dumb and, you know, pretends to play along just to see how long he can keep them on the phone. Those are really funny. These are funny, but they're on a whole different level of seriousness, which is a weird sentence. Um, basically what this is is a group of professional hackers, um, and there's, this is a serious kinda sting operation they have going. They don't use their real names on the channel. Um, there's one, there's one, um, where they interview, like, a social, um, a social engineer whose job is to... Her- she is a person who basically, uh, does social hacking, and she helps companies who, who their security people think, like, their executives are, um, susceptible to social engineering, social hacking. She'll actually call and, like, mess around with the CEOs and socially hack them. Um, they interviewed her, and the first thing she said when she sat down was the person she was talking to's first name, and the guy was just stunned. He's like, "I- we- we've never used my first name on the channel before." So they're very serious, and what they do is they identify [00:11:00] a scam or a g- usually a group of scammers, and they'll actually hack into and infiltrate the computer systems that they're using. And so they show you everything that they're doing. Um, they're, they're explaining the scam and how it's run. Um, and a lot of times they're actually actively intervening in, uh, in a scam, trying to stop a scam that's in progress because somebody is about to lose a lot of money. I mean, I think one of the things that's important about this is our audience, you know, mostly, mostly guys probably, like, age, I don't know, late 20s, early 30s, maybe early 40s, we kind of grew up and lived, lived in a world most of our adult lives or all of our adult lives where, like, fishing schemes and other kinds of, like, um, data s- data theft, like, that was just in the air. It was just normal. So we're... It's not like we're immune to it, but we're used to it, and we're ready for it, and we're looking for it. That means that most of us have parents that are in a generation who are particularly susceptible to this. [00:12:00] So I think it would be worth, worth people's time to take a look at this, uh, just as a educational piece, and then, yes, share it with your family members who are in this era. People get taken for a ton of money. Yeah. The reason that these older generation sort of bu- builder Boomer generations are targeted is not just because they're somewhat soft targets, but they also have the money. Um, most of, most of the wealth in our country is possessed by people in that generation. It's just an economic fact in a lot of places and a lot of areas, and so that's why they're targeted. So take a little bit of time, watch the show. It's... And it's entertaining. It's really well produced. It's funny. These are non-Christians, you know, who are, are being non-Christian, so there's a fair amount of salty language, especially when they're interacting directly with the scammers that they absolutely hate. Um, but it's, it's worth watching. And, and it... I think it'll... I think it's entertaining. Most of the time it's like a 15-minute video, so it's not too much of your time. Pop that on two times [00:13:00] speed on YouTube and, and you're all set.  Jesse Schwamb: And when you say salty you're not talking about Salty the Singing Songbook, right? Tony Arsenal: Correct. Yeah. Not P-S-A-L-T-Y. S-A-L-T-Y.  Jesse Schwamb: Just in case. I wouldn't want any of the loved ones to go and just be waiting for Salty to show up, like, in the mid- Which would be kind of epic in the midst of this, like, scamming shutdown, the sting operation. Like, Salty s- pops up and starts singing about restorative justice and- Yeah what it means that God restores all things. I mean, that would have a good place in this, but I just want that just to be clear. We don't, we don't want anybody to, to at us on that.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah, for sure. Well, Jesse, what are you affirming or denying tonight?  Jesse Loves Algebra Jesse Schwamb: I'm going to return to that beautiful intro you gave about mathematics and the whole Elon Musk thing. And so my affirmation is simply, like, just do... Just enjoy all the math you can. Use all the math that you know. So my wife and I were watching some kind of program on YouTube, and it was a program in which there are a couple [00:14:00]people competing in this kind of escape room situation, and as escape rooms are want to do, there came some kind of small math problem. And it goes something like this, is the best I can remember it. It was what number between one and nine when it is tripled and five is added to it is the same as that number being doubled and having one added to it? Now, as soon as that problem was read, we were watching intently, and I turned to my wife and I said, "Why do they need to say it's between, like, one and nine?" And she goes, "Well, how else would they know what the number was?" And I was like, "Well, like, this is a beautiful little algebra thing, like se- series of equations. Like, you have two equations here." And she's like... Just gave me a blank look. So I was like, "Oh, man." So she's like, "Okay. Do it then. Do it." So I was like, "Give me a piece of paper." So I, I was just like, this is gonna be such a beautiful thing. So I was like, "All this is, is, like, it's basically 3x minus five equals 2x plus one. You're solving for whatever this missing number is, and they've given you this beautiful setup, [00:15:00] which you rarely get in real life, but this beautiful setup is a system of equations. We have two things you know are gonna turn out to be the same. They've just been said in different ways, and that allows you enough space to figure out how to solve for them using a little bit of algebra." So I realized then this is why they said between one and nine, because the contestants then proceeded just to iteratively pick numbers until they found the answer, which is not a bad way. Like, that's a way to use, like, all the math you have. Certainly, that's a way. But I showed her how it was like, this is the answer, six, and you don't even need to know where to start because you don't need to start anywhere. You can actually figure this out. Still not really impressed. And then she said something to me that just, like, kind of rocked my world. I said, like, "Well, I'm sure this is familiar to, with, to you." And she's like, "Oh, yeah. Like, I learned algebra." And she goes, "Yeah, I, I know algebra. I just don't do it anymore. I just don't use it anymore." And I was like What, what I heard was, like, basically her saying to me, "I used to brush my teeth, but I just don't do it [00:16:00] anymore." 'Cause I was like, "This is such a beautiful thing." So then I got it in my head, well, well here's the problem. It's just a matter of seeing the results. So I was like, "Well, here's the amazing thing is yes, these are abstract concepts. Yes, it's like each of those is a function. It's, it's a representation of what he just said in the problem. But," and this is my grave mistake, Tony. But I was like, "Really, Descartes showed us that we can think about these not as abstractions, but we can plot them geometrically as lines on a Cartesian plane." And so I was like, "Really we can show that these are two lines and they have a relationship together." And then I was like, "Guess where they intersect? Guess where they intersect?" And she's like, "I w- that's impossible to even know. I have no idea where they intersect." I was like, "No, no. Just, just based on what we're saying, the beauty of this is they have a relationship. They're gonna come together at some point, like you and I in life. They're gonna, they're gonna come together. Guess where that would be?" And she's like, "That would be impossible to know." And I was like, "It's not, actually." So I showed her that, you know, left and right, up and down, X and Y, however you wanna speak [00:17:00] about it, those two lines are gonna intersect, at least on the X. The X spot is gonna be the number six. It's the same thing. Still nothing. So after all of that, I just appreciate my wife is such a brilliant lady, that she just doesn't need algebra. She goes through life just, like, crushing problems without... Like, because she'd like to do it, I think, just the, the more challenging, difficult, iterative way. And, uh, she doesn't use algebra anymore. Just no need for it. So in many ways I respect that. In other ways, again, the affirmation is like, use all the math you have available to you because it's a beautiful thing. I think basically at the end of that I ended up in, like, a very supreme place of doxology, and my wife was like, "Can we just go back to watching TV now?" So but I, I have to say, like, and I, I know you, you share my appreciation for math and stuff like this. Like, it's not even just puzzles. It's just the beauty that, like, we can do this, and that there's such a created order, like a supremely created order, that these rules of ma- mathematics aren't just impounded. They're like the fabric in which God has, [00:18:00] has basically woven all of reality such that we can do this kind of thing, and that even a simple problem in escape room can lead us to appreciate how intensely ordered and beautiful the world is, that we can go after knowledge and solve for explicit things that seem abstract beyond our comprehension and reason to begin with, but have been brought to a place we might understand them. That is, like, an insanely glorious thing to me. So algebra is great, loved ones. I've recommended before, but the side affirmation is go to Khan Academy if you wanna brush up on your algebra skills. I think algebra is, like, some of the most beautiful and intensely practical math ever. I love calculus, but calculus you don't get a lot of, like, use. You can use algebra to solve all kinds of things, whether it's like tips or... Like, it's gonna save you so much time. If you're ever in escape room, I'm just telling you, do not do this iteratively. Just get the, your system of equations down, and you will be, like, tearing out of that room, and then you'll look like a hero. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  Math In Everyday Life Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, like, even the f- even the, the... How do I wanna say this delicately? Uh, [00:19:00] even the idea that we, quote, "don't use algebra" means people don't actually understand that we're using algebra all the  Jesse Schwamb: time.  Tony Arsenal: Exactly. Right. Like, I could buy I don't use calculus or I don't use trigonometry- Right or even I don't use geometry. Um, but to say I don't use algebra, like just basic. I mean, I know like basic equations are, I guess, technically arithmetic, but like how many times does someone have to, have to go, "All right, the tip, the, the bill is X number of dollars. The bill is-" Right ..."$100, and I wanna give a 15% tip, so what's the outcome?" Like, that's an algebraic equation, right? That's right. Um, or a more, I think a more common one would be like, "All right, the bill is this amount. I want my, uh, my final amount that I give billed to me to be an even number."  Jesse Schwamb: Right. " Tony Arsenal: And I also want to give at least 15%, 20%, whatever percent, so what's the number I need to use in order to get to a bill that is, or a [00:20:00] tip that is both 15% or higher and results..." Like, all of those things are algebraic equations.  Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  Tony Arsenal: So I think, yeah. I mean, even like, "I need to get to work by such and such a time. What time do I need to leave?" Right. "I know it takes-" Exactly. "... a certain amount of time." Right. So I think we, we all use algebra a lot more than we, we probably realize, and I think you're right. Like, when people say, "Well, I don't use my math anymore," what they're saying is like, "I don't use, I don't use the stuff that I had to show my work on anymore." Right. "I don't use the stuff that I have to do on paper anymore." But, um, it's funny, we had a, a conversation, by the way, Reformed Tele- Reformed Brotherhood Telegram chat is a thing. Uh, we had a conversation in the Reformed Brotherhood Telegram chat a little while ago. One of our members was trying to figure out some sort of, like- And it was a problem having to do with like a, an air conditioning throttle or whatever it's called. Some sort of like programming in an air conditioner. And we went through it, we figured out that one of the like relatively complex parts of the equation that he was trying to figure out actually no matter what values you [00:21:00] put in, uh, equated to one. And then the other one was like it was ti- and then it was times one. So it was like whatever you put in ended up to that times one was the rest of the equation. It was like a huge, or like a relatively large equation that resolved down to one. So it was like you're trying to figure out all this complicated math and really like that entire, uh, that entire complicated equation was doing nothing in the rest of the equation. Nice. It was doing absolutely nothing. Um, so we were able to sort of like figure out, all right, well now all we need to do is figure out what, what this relationship does. Right. Um, and even something like in that particular situation, there were some values that the equation couldn't possibly balance. Which again, you could plot that on a graph and see like there's a spot... I don't, I'm, I'm making this up, but I think this is probably not wrong. There's a spot where it's like this is a parabolic equation, and so at some point the parable, or the par- parable, I didn't even mean to do that. There we go. At some point the [00:22:00] parabola goes back up, and so like there is no point- Right ... when it reaches this number. So values that would be in that, in that zone or in that range- Right ... they, they don't work in the equation. So yeah, I think math, uh, algebra is, uh, you know, basic arithmetic obviously is, is relatively straightforward. Algebra's probably the most simple, uh, form of math that your average person uses on a regular basis.  Jesse Schwamb: For sure.  Trigonometry And Design Tony Arsenal: But it's funny, I remember the first time, um, the very first time that I realized trigonometry was not just some abstract thing that we would never use. And it's so funny, 'cause it's like the nerdiest, the nerdiest example. I was playing a tabletop RPG with my friends, we were in high school, and we were, we were learning trigonometry at the time. I was playing a tabletop RPG, and we were trying to figure out- Um, it was a, it was like a futuristic tabletop RPG, so we were using like, like laser guns or something like that that have a certain range. And we were trying to figure out if the thing that was flying in the air from us was within range or not.  Jesse Schwamb: Nice.  Tony Arsenal: And what we realized [00:23:00] is that's just a quadratic equation, right? Right, it is. I just need to calculate. I know how far away it is from me in a straight line, I know how high in the air it is, so I need to just- Right now I need to... Or not, not the quadratic. That's Pythagoras' theorem, right? Yep. I need to calculate the Pythag- or the, um, the hypotenuse.  Jesse Schwamb: I'm with you. I  Tony Arsenal: knew where you were going. Yeah. So, like, I remember distinctly, I, I mean, I remember where I was sitting in my friend's basement going, "Oh, my goodness, trigonometry actually has a practical application here." Um, you know, whether that's figuring out how much rope I need to be able to, to attach to a tree and still be able... Like, all of these different things ultimately are math, and, or as the, the Brits say, are maths. And, uh, the, it, it's just a beautiful thing. And I think you're right, like, this is evidence that the universe has a structure- And a designer because- Right you can describe the universe using this- Nice ... sort of universal numerical language that, um, in, for the most part, describes everything we can [00:24:00] see. I mean, obviously, like, they're still learning things. They're still figuring things out. But what we can see with our senses, we can also describe with math on some level. Even something like the colors that we see can be reduced to a, a number, a frequency, a wavelength. So yeah, I'm with you. Use your algebra. Find ways to use it.  Jesse Schwamb: Use it. It's the... I like what you said, that we're using it. We just don't realize it. There's a spiritual lesson in there, I think, as well, that it's, it's present all around us, and it's... I like what you said. It's, like, the, the most, like, grabbable. It's the thing that's pretty easy to grasp, yet has, like, some beautiful outworkings that are super complex. All the time I love to, like, mess with people, even people who are, like, say, like, "Oh, I'm not into math." I'm like, "That's okay." Like, it's... You're, you're living in a mathematical world, and you're certainly using it, but that, that's okay.  Imaginary Numbers Wonder Jesse Schwamb: But like, sometimes I'll just say to somebody, like, "How do you know, like actually know that, like a negative number times a negative number is a positive number?" Like, who came up with that, and how do you know? And why are we just trusting him? Why can't somebody just say, "You know what? For me, it's not. I'm gonna make that a [00:25:00] negative number"? And w- the reason is because algebra provides... There's a lot of proofs, but algebra provides the most simple, beautiful proof. And then once you, once you basically contravene that law, like, everything falls apart. I- it's... And the question we should be asking is why does everything fall apart if we contravene one simple law, wh- which is two negative numbers multiplied, the product of them has to be, must be, is always a positive number. And that's, like, not even getting into, like, the more crazy things. Like, everybody should go look up, like, what imaginary numbers are. That will kind of mess with your mind, but then we found ways to use imaginary numbers, which are exactly what they sound like- Yeah ... to solve, like, incredible problems. Where does that come from? It comes from the Lord. It comes from God's, like, creative ability that He's placed in mankind to go after and to take a dominion over the knowledge and the creative order in such a complex and creative way. It mimics and mirrors the creativity of our Heavenly Father, and it is altogether beautiful. So on this- Yeah ... 500 episode that has a lot of numbers associated with it, I [00:26:00] say go love the numbers. Go enjoy them. Wherever you are in life, whatever your enjoyment of math is, big or small, go try to find some way to enjoy it today. Tony Arsenal: Can I, can I throw in a, a weird relevant sub-affirmation to your affirmation? I  Jesse Schwamb: mean, please.  Tony Arsenal: This is our show, so I'll do what I want to. You can do what you want. First, when you say we live in a mathematical world, all I could think of was some Perry song of Material Girl. Material  Jesse Schwamb: World?  Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  Odd Squad Math Tony Arsenal: I am a mathematical boy, and I live in a ma- Anyway, um, there is a show that I watch with August, my son, who is almost five. Uh, he'll be five in March. And, um, it's called Odd Squad. And what Odd Squad is, is it's a sort of a s- like a spy-themed kids show with a touch of like, uh, almost like Twilight Zone. Like, there's so- It's they manage odd. Like, they're the Odd Squad because they, they respond to odd emergencies, so it's a lot of like weird monsters and aliens and like time travel paradoxes and strange stuff. But the answer [00:27:00] to the problem is always related somehow to a math principle. So they will talk about how like multiplication is just addition like many times over.  Jesse Schwamb: Sure.  Tony Arsenal: And that's actually why multiplying a negative number times a negative number is a positive number or, you know, like, or multiplying by a negative number is a negative number, right? And that's because like really what you're doing if you multiply two, uh, two times negative three is you're subjecting, you're subtracting two from two from two, which gives you, you know- Right ... a negative number. So it's, it's not, uh, it, it's for kids, but I actually have realized that I understand math better- because of watching the show.  Jesse Schwamb: I  Tony Arsenal: love it. And it's because they break it down in, you know, the, the audience- Yes ... the target audience is a little bit older than August. I think the target audience is probably like six to seven, maybe eight years old. Um, and so they're talking about math principles geared towards those groups. But they'll talk about things like [00:28:00] using a number line to be able to understand math, and so like visualizing it. Or they'll talk about how multiplication is really just groups of things. So yeah, check it out.  Why Math Matters Tony Arsenal: And again- Algebra is probably the most, uh, easy to grab of the disciplines, but that's because that's the one we are using every day all the time. Tony Arsenal: And we don't realize it. But again, like, calculus is a beautiful, a beautiful thing. Um, and there are some amazing things that exist in the world that can really only be understood and described in a certain sense by something like calculus or trigonometry. Um, my favorite, I, I wish I had, like, kept it up, but one of my favorites is geometry 'cause I think a lot of it is, that's, like, the closest to puzzles. Yes. Um, uh, so, like, I, I used to love doing proofs and axioms and stuff. So, and then of course logic is technically related to math. It's a related discipline to math- It is ... in that it, it's, it's actually, like, the language that underlies a lot of the mathematics is [00:29:00] logical formulas. So it's all relevant. It's all beautiful. It all describes God's creation, and it all redounds to His glory.  Jesse Schwamb: You got that right.  Mark Growing Seed Jesse Schwamb: And speaking of both His creation and His glory, and Jesus teaching of both of those things, we are, as we promised, hanging out in the Book of Mark, and we've got just four sentences. And what I love about this parable that we're about to read is it fits in so perfectly with something I think you and I have been saying from the very beginning, which is it's tempting when we think about the parables to consider, like, a single element or to distill them down to, like, a single word and say, "We hear the kingdom of God is this thing, this noun, this object, this person." But instead, the case we've been making is it's actually generally a series of verbs, or in this case, it's the whole four verses that Jesus is gonna give to us here. So let me just read Mark 4:26-29. That's all it is, loved ones. And it's a good thing because we're already knee-deep into this 500th episode. So this goes by various names. I've heard it called, [00:30:00] like, the Parable of the Growing Seed, or sometimes people call it, like, the Parable of the, The Secret Seed. I'm not sure that's really secret, but I suppose the increase is secret in a way, and that's really what Jesus is communicating to us in these verses. So Mark 4:26: "And Jesus was saying, 'The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil, and he sleeps and he rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, how he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself, first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.'" Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, this is, um, an interesting parable, and I'll be the first to admit, like, when you said, "Well, why don't we do the king- the parable of the growth next?" I was like, "I don't actually know what Jesse's talking about." So if you're in the same boat as I am and [00:31:00] you, uh, you are like, "Wait, there's the... This is a parable? Like, this exists in the Bible?" Um, you're not alone, and I think part of the reason is that, one, it's so short, but it also sort of, like, connects into the next parable thematically. I don't know necessarily- Hmm ... about the content and the meaning, but thematically it sort of blends into the next parable, which is the parab- Mark's version of, um, of the parable of the mustard seed. So it's, it's hard to delineate unless you're really thinking about it, but I'm glad that we're talking about it because I think this is probably one of those parables that doesn't get a lot of attention because it's so short and because it is, um, it is sort of thematically in a spot where I think it does sort of, I don't know, like seep into the next- Right parable.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, there's a tendency because you're right, it's sandwiched between the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Mustard Seed, both of which we've talked about from Matthew's perspective, that it seems like maybe the theme is redundant, but [00:32:00] it is altogether different with the emphasis. Uh, there, it's true I guess that all three of these parables are addressing that same underlying question the disciples in the early church were asking, which is, if Jesus truly inaugurates the Kingdom of God, then why does it seem so impressive? Why is it so slow or hidden in contrast to all the expectations that the Jews had for what they thought would be this dramatic, immediately visible rain? And so I like that there is a lot said within four verses. And again, from our perspective, this thing seems so distinctly reformed in its under- Yeah of course the whole Bible is that way, but maybe nothing more so than this, especially because we'll get to it, but the center of this parable being, and there's various translations, that this guy doesn't even know. He doesn't understand. He's totally ignorant to what is going on, and isn't that... I, I mean, I can only speak for my own test- that's the story of my life, uh, spiritually and otherwise. That again, if you wanna talk about God doing all the verbs, I guess Mark had it first. I thought maybe I coined that, but [00:33:00] turns out that Mark, well, actually Jesus, the Son of God himself, says it best here. So let, let's get into this because the beautiful thing is you and I can handle theoretically in the time allotted here, like three or four verses. That, that's theoretically possible for us to do, but we, we're only gonna h- see how far it goes. Um-  Tony Arsenal: Yeah ...  Hidden Kingdom Growth Jesse Schwamb: I think the first thing to say here is that we get that beautiful characteristic, like formula, like the controlling paradigm. It's that Kingdom of God again. And a- as I kinda set up, it's the Kingdom of God, though, launched into a bunch of, uh, verbs. Uh, this idea of like him casting, and then him sleeping, and then him waiting, and then him getting up, and then the growth happens, and then he comes again at the end, this character, this farmer, into kind of the consummation of that kingdom. And I think there's a lot here that's maybe to explain that tension. The kingdom is real and active. It's irresistibly moving towards some kind of fixed end, but it does not appear in its final glory, and that is something you kind of get with the other two parables. [00:34:00] But here it's just like so lovely. It's right in front of you. That, that's like the whole emphasis and thrust of what Jesus seems to be saying in this. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and I think this one's interesting because, you know, generally in the parables, at least in, in... I, I would have to do a little bit more study to know if this is, like, distinctly Markan or whatnot. But in the, the, um, Matthew's parables, um, or Christ's parables reported in Matthew, um, primarily the main figure of the parable is, uh, is generally is God or, or more specifically is often Jesus himself. Jesse Schwamb: Right.  Tony Arsenal: Right? But in this parable, it wouldn't make sense for us to say that somehow g- you know, God or Jesus scatters seed, and then He doesn't know that it sprouts. Right. Right? So, so the, the parable implies that the one scattering seed, and again, we don't wanna over-interpret parables. Generally speaking, parables are teaching kind of a principle of some sort, a comparison of some sort, not, it's not an allegory. [00:35:00] In, in most cases it's not an allegory where each element has a direct representation of some sort. But it wouldn't make sense for this to be talking about God's perspective on scattering or Christ's perspective on scattering, 'cause obviously God and Jesus, even, even if we're talking about Jesus according to His humanity, um, has some sort of awareness of the workings of the Kingdom of God that is not the ignorance that the parable here seems- Right to present of the one scattering.  Scatter Then Rest Tony Arsenal: So I, I really do think this parable has more to say to us about- Our own perspectives on evangelism and on how the Kingdom of God will propagate. And I think, um, both in terms of, like, evangelism, there's an element here, an encouraging element of, you know, all your s- your job... And what's really funny is I, I don't recall this parable being used in my experience to sort of [00:36:00] encourage people that all, your own, your job is just to scatter. You don't need to worry about the growth. Mm-hmm. There's a, there's a passage in Paul about one person scatters, one person waters, and God brings the growth that is often used to sort of say, like, it's not your responsibility to make sure that the, the, the, um, the bud is, you know, c- comes to flowering and to fruiting. It's just your job to be faithful to scatter or to water or whatever step it's on. This, I think, has even more encouragement for us in that the one who scatters, um, i- is obviously God, but there's also this element that, like, we're scattering. The one scattering is not omniscient. But the one scattering, uh, he doesn't even know how or why or even that, I think, that the, um, that the f- the growth is occurring, and that's the most- Right remarkable part of this. Like, we're not talking about a normal farmer who is aware of how growth [00:37:00] occurs, is aware of the timing. He's constantly checking. He's making sure that he's checking the soil, that he's applying manure, that he's watering the crops. This is literally like some dude who just throws seed out, and then, then just goes back to his daily business of sleeping and rising and going about his day. And then all of the sudden, the earth, quote, "by itself produces." And I think that's the real key here is- There's something about the Kingdom of God and the seed that the Kingdom of God scatters. It's almost like the Kingdom of God itself is the one scattering here.  Jesse Schwamb: Right.  Tony Arsenal: Yep. The Kingdom of God and the seed that is scattered in and as a result of the Kingdom of God, it produces the outcome autonomously. It doesn't require us to input into it, at least in the context of this parable. Now, again, the Parable of the Talents would be very clear to us that we can't just rest on our loyals- laurels. God expects us to work and to be fruitful for the kingdom. [00:38:00] But there is this element here of, like, you are not the one responsible for the production of the seed and the fruiting and flowering of the seed. In fact, you're not even responsible for being aware that it occurs or how it occurs. Your only responsibility, the only active verb in this whole thing is... Well, there's a couple. The, the, the main active verb is the scattering. The other active verb is the sleeping. So, like- Right ... we, we scatter, and then we, we rest and we trust that God is going to do His work. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Even on the face, there's so much in this that does seem mysterious. Like, if you just take this parable and think about the act of agriculture, and I sometimes think about this because I do love plants, and we have a bunch of plants in our house, and I'm horrible at trying to get them to grow. And I think about what still a mystery it is. With all we know about science, just that you can still plant something, a seed, and water it, and the sugars will break down, and the seed will take root, and that something will grow and flower, and you think, "Oh, who is doing that?" And, and w- [00:39:00] I think we'll get into this, the first and second principles, first and second causes here, which are, I think, certainly something that Christ intends for us to consider here. But there is this idea that the man's action is simple and passive relative to what follows. He, like you said, just scatters the seed. And he's a real agent, but as the parable unfolds, it's almost like his entire agency recedes entirely from view. And that's what kind of sets for me, like this whole trajectory of the parable. It's that the mechanism of growth is strangely hidden from the human agent, and it belongs to God alone. And so you already stole it from me, but I'm gonna read 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, which is, coheres directly with what's happening, I think, in this parable. And this reads, or Paul writes, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." And so there is like an extension, I think, of that application inward though as well. Kind of like when you were speaking about that, what occurred to me is that we see in the [00:40:00] farmer's like day and night unawareness, this picture, I think, of this often gradual, imperceptible work of grace in our own hearts, in every believer's heart. Like that, that sanctification process, it proceeds by these degrees, and the Christian cannot fully trace even in himself, yet it is definitely real, and it's definitely God's doing. And then I think as well we might pull out a thread of this, you know, ecclesiological truth. You know, the church's growth is God's work, not the fruit of human strategy. And then by application even further into that, it's based upon a soteriological one, which is like the ordo salutis, which is maybe half of every episode we've recorded talks about the ordo salutis in some ways. That too is unfolding by this divine power, and it's hidden from the creature's full comprehension, and that's consistent in this parable and in all of Scripture, that this regeneration precedes and produces faith rather than the reverse. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I think too there's also an element in this passage, you know, when you think about... Uh, [00:41:00] I'm not a farmer, uh, and I, I don't know that many farmers, but when you think about how f- how modern farming works, it's very different than, uh, ancient farming, right? Historically, ancient farming was, uh, I think probably a lot of just trusting the world to do what the world does and, and trusting God to do what, what God does. A- and I think that's probably why a lot of like- When you look at, um, pagan religion, the, the fertility cults and the sort of goddesses and gods of the harvest were all related because there was this mystery to it. And so the reason that there's so much, uh, cultic worship around fertility and harvest is because it is so mysterious, and you just kinda have to, like, trust that it's gonna happen. Jesse Schwamb: Right.  Tony Arsenal: Right? You sow your seed in, you sow the seed of your field in, you know, the fall, uh, and, or in the, the, you know, the summer, and then you wait several [00:42:00] months and just hope that the crop comes in. And our modern agricultural world is not all that different. We have better tools and we can measure things that, like the soil, the nutrients in the soil. We can, you know, we can do all sorts of different imaging to see of what's happening underground. But at the end of the day, even with all of the advances we have, the farmer still can't make the crop come in.  Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  Tony Arsenal: Either the crop comes in or it doesn't. And I, I think there's this element of trust here that I think is really useful for us. And again, I think you're right. This is like, uh, it feels almost wrong to say it this way, but it's like this is a super distinctively Reformed parable. Like, of all, all of the parables in the, the Gospels, this one is like, on the face of it, a Calvinist parable. Yeah. Exactly. Like, it's like God just grows the kingdom- Yes and nobody does anything about it.  Jesse Schwamb: Amen.  Tony Arsenal: And I don't need to go into more details than that. But there is this element for us, I think, as, uh, as those [00:43:00] who want to share the gospel, there can be an anxiety around trying to ensure some sort of production, some sort of produce, uh, and productivity from that, that is just not healthy. And I think, you know, we, we have a responsibility as Christians, um, to be faithful and diligent in doing what God has called us to do. But if, if we read this parable as the one who scatters is sort of like the evangelist, then the only responsibility we have as evangelists, and all of us are evangelists, right, lowercase E evangelists, um, all of us, the only responsibility we have is to scatter the seed of the gospel. Jesse Schwamb: That's  Tony Arsenal: right. And we're not responsible for the growth. We're not responsible for even really understanding how growth happens, uh, or even, even doing much about it until it's time to harvest that growth. And I think that's, we need to talk about what that means too, because again, like [00:44:00] this is a parable that I think is maybe not as, as clean and clear as some of the, uh, Methanian parables where it really does seem like there's a pretty clear symbolic representation on some things. This one feels like it's maybe a little muddier in that, um, the main character and the role of the s- the one who's scattering seems to sort of almost shift throughout the parable, which is crazy to say because it's only like four verses long.  Tony Arsenal: But it, it does seem like at some points the scatterer is God, at other points it can't be God, and then it seems like, well, who's harvesting? It's not really us, so it's gotta be God. So I think it's, it's important for us to hold this parable as more of a general principle about the Kingdom of God than it is about any sort of like really direct one-to-one teaching on the, on the Kingdom of God.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's a interesting distinction.  Providence And Causes Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I would say about that, I think, is let's equate this to, like, coffee. You like a good cup of coffee. I do. I like a good cup of coffee. I think if we were to take, let's [00:45:00] say, the Parable of the Prodigal, that would be for me like a big Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Like, it's delicious, mild-bodied, maybe a little bit light. This parable is like two shots of espresso- Yeah ... 'cause there's a lot in there, and we could probably take a lot of time even t- speaking about, like you're saying, the more shadowy eschatological truths that appear in verse 29 because those, this idea of, like, a sickle in the harvest, I mean, that's imagery drawn from Old Testament eschatological judgment texts. So that could be pretty heavy in its own right. I think what's critical, before we get to that, is to, like, tease out something you said, which is there is a lot in here about this doctrine of providence, like, this spontaneous self-originating action apart from external human causation. And we've talked a lot, like, we distinguish between primary and second causation. You know, the Earth is genuinely or generally has second- secondary causes, like an ordinary means through which God's ordinary providence operates, but the ultimate primary [00:46:00] cause of growth is God himself. And so here we see that. Like, there's no exclusion of the farmer's agency as an explanatory cause. The soil does what it does because God has ordained the natural order to function in this way. That is his prerogative. And so that threefold progression then, blade, ear, full grain, which by the way I had to look up because my understanding of, like, all kinds of different types of grains is very thin and I'm out of my depth here. But- ... I'm led to believe That that development is gradual, and of course it's ordered, but it's not instantaneous. And so the application here, I think, has traditionally been applied in this corporate individual spiritual growth we're talking about. Like, the church advances through stages of maturity, and so does the individual believer's sanctification, without warranting either impatience or despair at the process's slowness. This is how God works. He does it in His gracious and kind way. And again, He's using this, all of this agriculture to illustrate that purpose. So there's, like, this buildup, I think, [00:47:00] in verse 28 about the incredible providence of God, both like corporatively, personally, in His world, how He is the primary cause, but also uses secondary causes, not in a disjointed or divorced way, but in a way that encapsulates and magnifies His glory. And that is then what leads to or will lead to the reemergence in verse 29 of this whole deal of, like, well, if farmer comes back in, and now he returns, but only at the point of consummation, not at the point of growth.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  Harvest And Timing Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and, you know, we won't go into all of the ways that this ties into the other parables, but it's worth, uh, it's worth mentioning that in, in both, uh, the parable of the mustard seed, which follows this, and then also the parable of the sort of sower or the seeds, um, there is this element of this, the one who is sowing seeds is not fully cognizant or aware or, and, and absolutely not in [00:48:00] control of the outcome, right? In the parable of the sower, um, he scatters the seed promiscuously, right? And the- Right ... the outcome depends on what kind of ground the seed falls on. And in the parable of the mustard seed, it, it's more of a, like, idea that the, uh, the sower sows a seed that seems so small, but it, the growth of the seed is explosive and expansive because of the nature of the seed, not because of the skill of the sower. Jesse Schwamb: That's  Tony Arsenal: right. Right? In this instance, um- The only thing, again, the only thing that initially the sower is responsible for is the sowing of the seed, the scattering of the seed. But what I also think is interesting is then there is a point where the one who scatters the seed is now responsible to act once he's observed the seed coming to fruition, right? Now, now what exactly that means and how exactly that applies, I think there's a lot of different things we could talk about. Um, but again, [00:49:00] this is a parable that we have to be careful not to, uh, not to restrict just sort of crassly to, like, evangelism. Right. Exactly. Or, or even just to sort of, like, the eschatological harvest. Right. That's what's tricky about this parable, I think, that bears ... And I don't think we'll do it, we'll do it necessarily on the show. It'd be worth having more conversations about. But for our own personal study, it bears deeper reflection because this parable cannot be simply reduced to an eschatology parable about what God does in the end. Jesse Schwamb: Right.  Tony Arsenal: And it can't be simply reduced to a parable about evangelism because strictly speaking, like, we're not really the ones that harvest when the harvest comes in, right? I've, I have heard this parable, um, preached, you know, like I said, although I acknowledge that I, um, like forgot that it existed. I have heard this parable preached as though, like, "Well, our responsibility is to scatter seed. We're not responsible for [00:50:00] making it grow or making it take root. But when we see that it's taking root, we're responsible for jumping in and harvesting at the right time." I don't think we should draw that conclusion here. Although the, the harvester does see that the ear is ripe, that the grain is ripe, and he harvests it, it would be a weird sort of like shift in the parable to go from the person who scattered seed isn't responsible for its growth, doesn't even know that the growth is happening, but is actually responsible for knowing exactly when to harvest the grain. Right. So we have to think about this again in gen- in terms of general principles of how the Kingdom of God functions. And w- how it functions is it's mysterious, it is, uh, consistent, it happens on a, a scale and on a predictable outcome that we as individuals don't understand and don't have visibility to, and the harvest will occur in its [00:51:00] time, and it will h- occur consistently and reliably. So again, like this is... I hope that maybe like the one or two non-Reformed people that listen to the show aren't terribly offended at this, but like this just is Reformed theology, right? There, there is a seed that is sown, God is responsible for the growth, and the harvest necessarily will help it happen when it's supposed to happen, right? When the r- when the fruit is ripe, it will be harvested. That doesn't mean I'm responsible as the one who sows seed or scatters or m- witnesses to people from making sure that the, quote, "sickle is put in at the right time," or anything like that.  Jesse Schwamb: Right.  Tony Arsenal: The fact is that the sickle will always come in at the right time. The person who has the final kinda piece of the puzzle in evangelism, I think that's how it often happens. Someone hears the gospel repeatedly from multiple places. They have contacts and relationships that tie into how they [00:52:00]ultimately come to accept the gospel and trust Christ. But ultimately it's the Holy Spirit who brings all that into some sort of coherent, um, execution and application of redemption That will happen in God's time. So I wanna be careful not to, like, put too much responsibility on us. Right. And again, this is just a parable that I think bears a lot more reflection, that I think because, um, I think Mark in general, because it's so short, uh, gets, it gets overlooked by Christians. I think we would all do well to spend a little bit more time in Mark. But especially some of these really short pericopes. I think we just read through it, and it's like we read a chapter of Mark, like Mark 4 comes up in our Bible reading plan. Right. And if we're reading the Bible in a year, like, Mark 4 is one of three or four chapters that we read, and this is four verses of that. Right. We just read over it quick and we c- we just, we don't appropriate any of it.  Jesse Schwamb: Right. It sounds like he's just reiterating a point or he's recapitulating something that he's already said or is about to say, and you're like, "Okay, get on with it." But I'm with [00:53:00] you. This parable, like all of them, is for us. It's for our joy. It's for our satisfaction and our comfort. And I think from this, there is, like, a single controlling point that's emerging from our conversation, which is the Kingdom of God advances by God's own hidden power toward a certain appointed consummation. And this ought to produce, like, patient confidence rather than human striving or a- anxiety. In order to give us a sense of calm, a reminder that God's providence is real in all areas of life. Remarkably, we've gotten this far in the conversation, and neither of us has just, has used the M word, which just came to me, and I think we're contractually obligated to say it as a Reformed podcast, and that is this is a prime example of monergism and the sovereignty of grace. And as in regeneration, the decisive cause of kingdom growth lies outside human capacity and comprehension. I think sometimes the latter part of that seems wrong to us. It makes us fearful because we don't understand it. But the former part should make us feel very happy and [00:54:00] relieved, that the capacity belongs to God and God alone. That doesn't depend on me or you or anybody else that we know. And this parable, I think, is often been paired with John's image of the wind blowing where it wishes as this picture of the Holy

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week I was listening to one of the radio preachers I like to listen to and I caught a sermon on the Pentecost, and I realized I had at that point a Gnostic insight that Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, when it infused the disciples in the upper room—that is the coming of the Third Order of Powers released by the Christ after his resurrection—that the Third Order Powers are the “anointing of the Holy Spirit.” So quickly, let’s look at the Acts of the Apostles book out of the New Testament, Chapter 2, which is what we now call Pentecost. And when the day arrived that completed the fifty days after Passover, they were all gathered together in one place, and suddenly there came a noise, like a turbulent wind borne out of the sky, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared before them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest, one each upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now dwelling in Jerusalem, there were devout Judeans from every nation under the sky, and on the advent of this noise, the multitude gathered and were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and astounded, saying, look, are not all of those who speak Galileans? And how is it that each one of us hears his own language, the languages in which we were raised? And all were amazed and entirely at a loss, saying to one another, what does this portend? But others, ridiculing them, said, ah, they’re full of sweet new wine. But Peter, standing up along with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them all. Judean men and all of you staying in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and lend your ears to my words, for these men are not drunk, as you suppose, as it is the third hour of the day. Rather, this is what was declared through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall happen, says God, that I will pour forth from my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams.” [Hart's New Testament] Pentecost by el Greco Now, it’s a much longer passage, and it’s very thrilling and exciting, but we don’t have time today to go into it. Perhaps we’ll speak about this in more depth very soon. But that is the first Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon humanity. And I’m going to talk about that today to clear up that confusion, because I’ve always had a bit of a confusion over what we speak of as the Holy Spirit dwelling in us in a Christian manner, or the Holy Spirit coming like tongues of fire in the Pentecost story of the upper room in the book of Acts, yet we all have the Holy Spirit of the Fullness of God within every cell of our bodies and throughout our entire organism. All of the Second Order powers are infused with the power of God. So what is the Holy Spirit then? And now I understand the distinction between the infusion of the Third Order of Powers and the infusion of the Second Order of Powers. You see, we are Second Order Powers. The Aeons of the Fullness are First Order Powers. They have their place Above. We are their fruit. We are their spores. (And I actually ran across a radio preacher, of all things, again last week, saying that the original word for fruit as used in the New Testament is spore. And I’m like, yes, that is exactly what I’ve been saying. So that was another cool Gnostic insight that came by way of a Christian radio preacher. So you can never tell what you’re going to hear on Christian radio.) So, we are the spores of the First Order of Powers. We are their fruit. We are their children. We are the Second Order of Powers, and that is all living things in the cosmos. Everything that moves around, everything that’s soft and squishy, the meat, as I like to say, as opposed to the mud, which is the realm of the Demiurge—the rocks and minerals, the molecules and atoms. But the Third Order of Powers is the army of the Christ. We’ve spoken of that often. We’ve had three recent episodes about the indwelling of the Christ. For example, The Gnostic Redemption of the Nag Hammadi from May 29th, 2026, Army of the Christ, May 16th, 2026, and Understanding Gnosticism: The Path to Inner Knowledge from May 9th, 2026. These all have to do with the coming of the Third Order of Powers. And the coming of the Third Order of Powers didn’t come to Earth until Christ walked the Earth in the form of a human, and that is Jesus the Christ. He’s the only one who has ever claimed that “I and my Father are One.” Jesus is not the same as Buddha. Jesus is not the same as Muhammad or any other prophet. Jesus is not simply a good teacher or an exemplar of morality and ethics. If you think that, as many modern theologians do—the postmodern theologians, the deconstructionists—they have reduced the power of Jesus to that of a prophet or a teacher. And even people I hear, strangely enough, out there on YouTube, claiming that Jesus was a fraud—that there is no such thing as anything that happened in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament. That’s an absurdity that is being promulgated by non-believers. If you are a believer in the Father, then you are a believer in the Christ, because Christ was the emissary of the Father to Earth to bring the correcting algorithm, I like to call it, to Earth to patch up our Second Order Power that has been forgotten. We’re born with it. We fully instantiate it within our bodies, but we’ve overlaid it with all kinds of junk, karma and memes from our environment that cloud our gnosis, cloud our ability to perceive the power of the Aeons within us. Christ came, the Third Order of Powers, the army of the Christ, to help us to remember, to remind us of our Second Order power, to remind us of where we come from, to remind us of the Father and the Aeons above. I took notes from the Pentecost sermon I listened to, and I’m going to represent these notes as a Gnostic teaching for you, because once you have the gnosis working in you, once you’ve come to terms with Christ and the Father and the Aeons and the gnosis that you were born with, once you begin to remember your inherent transcendence, then you can read the New Testament with eyes wide open. You can understand the mysteries of the New Testament much better than typical Christians do, because they’re trapped in a formula that is derivative of the early Catholics that had stripped the gnosis out of the Bible in the first place. So we must free ourselves from the doctrine, but not free ourselves of the gnosis. Tricky. The occasion known as Pentecost was when Jesus had been crucified, entombed, resurrected, and then ascended back up above into the Fullness—above the Fullness, because he’s the king of all. And he had promised that he would send a helper—to not worry. He had told his disciples, don’t worry, I’m sending you a helper to help you bring the gnosis to the world, essentially is what he said. This was also promised in the Old Testament. And here I’m going to read you a very important verse out of the Old Testament and translate it for you into Gnostic terms. The verse is Ezekiel 36:24—28, where God promises to cleanse and put a new heart and a new spirit into believers. Now it’s tricky when going all the way back to the Old Testament, because the God of the Old Testament is not the God Above All Gods. The God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, well, it’s pretty much equivalent to the Demiurge. And that’s very dicey, very tricky. The ego of the God of the Old Testament, the ego of Jehovah, is when Jehovah speaks in very egoistic terms about itself and about obedience and the law because, remember, Jehovah is law-bound. The Demiurge doesn’t remember; the Demiurge has forgotten its origins above. When this radio preacher referenced Ezekiel 36, I went to what’s called the online Bible Gateway. That’s a resource you can use. And you type in any phrase or any citation, such as Ezekiel 36:24—28, and it will give you all of the various translations. And you can choose which translation you read or you read them all. Well, since this was a Hebrew exhortation, I decided to use the Orthodox Jewish Bible, which does have a lot of Hebrew in it. So then we have to go into Hebrew translations, but that was a good exercise as well. Oh, to go back and clear up confusion about how to read the Old Testament—if the Old Testament is largely demiurgic, it’s basically when Jehovah is speaking that’s demiurgic. But the prophets were in touch with their gnosis. The prophets were talking to the God Above All Gods. They weren’t talking to Jehovah. They were talking to the God Above All Gods. So their prophecies are coming from above. That seems a pretty simple way to understand it. So the histories are one thing. That’s the histories of the of the Hebrews who were the people of Jehovah. Jehovah was their tribal god. And then there are the prophets who were speaking to the God Above All Gods and giving the Hebrews instructions from the God Above All Gods. These are higher instructions than Jehovah. You see, Jehovah doesn’t remember that it’s a fallen part of an Aeon. Here at Gnostic Insights, we talk about that Aeon as Logos. Many other Gnostics call it Sophia. I prefer Logos. That’s out of the Tripartite Tractate. Logos split apart when he fell and abandoned the chaos down below. And the Demiurge is part of that chaos. So the Demiurge put this world in order, formed the heavens and the Earth in a godlike manner, because he had all the blueprints. He had the remembrance of how things went together, but he didn’t have the remembrance of the Father or the remembrance of his better ascended Self, that being Logos, or the Aeons out of which he fell, the Fullness out of which he came. The Demiurge woke up down here in chaos and remembered that things should not be chaos, wanted them to go back into an orderly manner, had the blueprints of Paradise, essentially, that’s how you can put it, and formed this Earth. But this is an imitation. This is a deficiency of Paradise, and it’s especially deficient because there’s no love here. The minerals do not know love. The mud does not know love. Love doesn’t come from the bottom up, from the Demiurge up, from Jehovah up. Love, consciousness, comes from the God Above All Gods down to us in the form of a Second Order Powers. But we have forgotten, and the Demiurge forgot. So here is a word from one of the prophets who was in touch with the God Above All Gods, giving assurance that salvation would come, that remembrance would come. The Demiurge doesn’t block the prophets because it egotistically thinks that the prophets are speaking of it. You know, the Demiurge takes personally being God, but he’s mistaken in that. He’s a lesser god, the god of this cosmos, but the God Above All Gods is the one who speaks through the prophets. Here’s Ezekiel 36:24—26, from the New King James Version. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Or as The Orthodox Jewish Bible puts it, A lev chadásh also will I give you, and a ruach chadasháh will I put within you; and I will take away the lev ha-éven (stony heart) out of your basár, and I will give you a lev basár. Now, when it speaks of I will give you a new heart, in Hebrew that is lev chadásh. Lev means inner self, the seat of will and moral character. Chadásh means anew, fresh, renewed, restored. So lev chadásh refers to a renewed inner disposition. A transformed moral center. A recreated will aligned with the Father rather than with stubbornness or idolatry. And when it speaks of and put a new spirit within you, in Hebrew that word, the new spirit, is ruach chadasháh. And it means a new spirit, an awakened pneuma. And pneuma is a Gnostic term. That is the spiritual part of us. Our One Self. So the ruach chadasháh is the spirit. Ruach is spirit, breath, animating force, inner vitality. That’s what it means. Chadasháh means fresh, new, renewed. So in Ezekiel, ruach chadasháh means a new animating principle. A renewed inner drive or spiritual vitality placed within the person. You see where I’m going with this? This is the Third Order of Powers. A new motivating force that empowers obedience and life. This cleansing of a new heart and putting a new spirit within you, ruach chadasháh. It means stripping away the meme shroud is how I generally refer to it in the Simple Explanation. Peeling off all those layers of confusion that obscure our originating Fullness. That’s the filthiness. It’s not the original sin. We aren’t born with original sin. We are born as Second Order Powers, much loved out of the first order powers of the Fullness of God. We forget when we come down here into this material world created by the Demiurge. And then we plug into this culture around us. Think of the media and the social media and all of the lies and confusions that are spread, both purposefully meant to mislead you and confuse you, and just accidentally because people make mistakes and people say the wrong things, even when they think they’re saying the right things. So that’s the filthiness. And the idols— these are the things that you cling to. Generally this narcissistic age we live in is an age of idols, but the idols that we worship aren’t little statues of gods. They are our exercise equipment and our bags of makeup and our, well, of course they can be influencers and they can be movie stars and television actors and musicians and sports figures and politicians. Those can be your idols if you treat them as idols, if you idolize them, if you go all weak in the knees and do anything they say. But we also have our own idols in the form of the things that we cling to and pile up around us that we buy, got to have this, got to have that, got to have this, got to have that. These are idols. So this is a promise to cleanse us from that. In other words, to strip away your meme shroud and let the Fullness shine forth from within you. But it goes beyond that, because it says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. And that new heart is the lev chadásh, which is new spirit. And the new heart is lev basár, which literally means in Hebrew, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche. Oh, see, our psyche, that is not our pneuma—that's a Gnostic term as well. We have our pneuma, which is our spiritual Fullness. We have our psyche, which is our psychological aspect—our ego lives there. And we have our hylic, which is the material to which we are bonded in this material world. So this passage promises to put a new heart within us, a lev basár, a soft, receptive psyche; that is to soften our hearts, because they’re hardened by the world and by the memes we cling to. It says, furthermore, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh. And the heart of stone in Hebrew is lev ha-éven, meaning heart of stone, or a hardened psyche. Going to remove that heart of stone, which is very interesting, because of course, I say that the hard rocky places, the stones are demiurgic. That’s the material level, that’s the elemental level. So the heart of stone is the demiurgic heart that we have put inside of us, that we’re bonded to. But this passage wants to turn it into a new heart, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche, as we were originally born with—lev basár. So it says, I will give you that new heart and put a new spirit within you, and take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart of stone, lev ha-éven. And the purifying waters are what do it. I will sprinkle clean water on you. In Hebrew, that was literally mayim tehorím, meaning clean, purifying waters. Jesus spoke of the purifying waters. In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to John, Chapter 3, a Pharisee named Nicodemus had sneaked out one night to speak privately with Jesus. He didn’t want anyone to know. And Nicodemus said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you have come as a teacher from God, for no one can produce these signs you perform unless God is within him. And in reply, Jesus said to him, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless someone is born from Above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Jesus replied, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed, because I’ve told you it is necessary for you to be born from Above. [Hart's New Testament] Jesus is speaking of the same water, the water of the spirit, that cleanses us and allows us to be born again from Above. Later on in the book of John, Chapter 7, verse 37, Jesus stood up and said loudly, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. Whoever has faith in me, just as scripture has said, out of his parts living streams of waters will flow. Now he said this in regard to the spirit, whom those who had faith in him were about to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. [Hart's New Testament] And this is speaking of the Holy Spirit—what we call the Holy Spirit—because of course we have spirit, we’re born with spirit, because we have the Fullness of God within us, the First Order of Powers. But he’s talking of the Third Order of Powers, the army of Christ that comes after Jesus is “glorified.” And glorified means risen from the dead, ascended into the sky in front of hundreds of witnesses. And glorified means that Jesus is living Above, just as we will all be living Above, in a glorified body, in the presence of the Father. Now, the promise that Jesus referred to—he was quoting out of the Old Testament—something that all of the listeners in his audience already knew. And it’s from Isaiah 12:3 that says, Therefore with joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation. The water that is being drawn is this water that’s being referred to, that we’ve been discussing, out of Ezekiel 36:24—28. That is the living water, the mayim tehorím—the Holy Spirit that bathes us now within and without. We draw the living water of the Third Order Powers into us. This is why accepting the mission of the Christ into your innermost being is essential, because there’s no other way to wash away the memes, the obscurations of the world around us that confuses us and causes us to forget. We’re born with a noble nature. We’re born as Second Order Powers, directly from the Fullness above, but we get lost in the confusion of this world that is created and run by the Demiurge. We forget our ethereal origins. We forget about the Father. We forget about the Aeons and the Fullness of God. The spirit that we’re born with becomes smothered, smothered by the worldly memes we cling to and that cling to us. The living water that comes into our new softened heart can only come when you relinquish the ego that is causing you to hold on tightly to those memes, all those false promises that the world gives. They will not save you. They will not make you happy. They might give you a momentary piece of pleasure when something arrives in the box from Amazon on the front porch, but as soon as you’ve used it, it’s just another thing. But the living water never dies. It’s living waters from the Father flowing all the way downstream through the Son, through the Fullnesses, and only through Christ inside of us can we be washed, baptized from within to loosen the hold. So, the lev chadásh, renew your psychic heart, captures the same teaching that the Tripartite Tractate teaches—that the psyche must be reoriented and made stable. The ruach chadashá, awakening within you the spirit that is from Above, is the same as activating the pneumatic seed, as we say in Gnosticism, not a moral reform. The lev basár, a living heart, soft, able to receive the light, receptive, this is the Tripartite Tractate’s softened, harmonized psyche, that can receive the pneumatic imprint of Christ. And the divine seed will rise within you and rule in peace is what the Tripartite Tractate says of the pneuma ruling through the psyche once integration occurs. So, this is the Gnostic paraphrase then of Ezekiel 36:26—28: I will renew your ego's psychic heart, and I will awaken within you the pneumatic spirit—the One Self that flows from above. I will remove the heart hardened by the archons and the never-ending war, and I will restore your Second Order heart, soft, receptive, and able to receive the light. Through this new heart and new spirit, the divine seed of the Christ within you will rise and rule in peace. That’s just another way we could say the phrase in Ezekiel, in a more Gnostic way. It’s a bath, loosens the hold, washes away those memes, those sins, as the church likes to call it. But it’s more than just your mistakes and your problems. It’s all the stuff that we have around us. That is the job of the Christ, to open our eyes to our original Second Order power, to live within us, to correct our mistakes, to correct our faulty algorithms, to protect us from this demiurgic immersion that we find ourselves in, in this material world. We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves the Totality of the Son. The Third Order Powers are the army of the Christ, who represents all of the Powers of the ethereal plane, individually and collectively working for our redemption. Step aside. Take your ego off the throne. Take the Demiurge off the throne, if you’ve enthroned it. Put down your idols. Push away your possessions, at least long enough to allow the Third Order Powers to come in. Ask the Christ to come in and wash you with the Holy Spirit. Invite the Holy Spirit, the army of the Third Order of Powers, into your organism, literally, and it will cleanse you. It will wash you. Walk in the Spirit of God. Let your eyes be opened to the truth. We’ll talk more about this again. Until then, God bless us all, and onward and upward. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Stripe Credit Card *Choose your item *Item A - $10.00Item B - $25.00Item C - $50.00Total$0.00Submit

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week I was listening to one of the radio preachers I like to listen to and I caught a sermon on the Pentecost, and I realized I had at that point a Gnostic insight that Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, when it infused the disciples in the upper room—that is the coming of the Third Order of Powers released by the Christ after his resurrection—that the Third Order Powers are the “anointing of the Holy Spirit.” So quickly, let’s look at the Acts of the Apostles book out of the New Testament, Chapter 2, which is what we now call Pentecost. And when the day arrived that completed the fifty days after Passover, they were all gathered together in one place, and suddenly there came a noise, like a turbulent wind borne out of the sky, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared before them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest, one each upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now dwelling in Jerusalem, there were devout Judeans from every nation under the sky, and on the advent of this noise, the multitude gathered and were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and astounded, saying, look, are not all of those who speak Galileans? And how is it that each one of us hears his own language, the languages in which we were raised? And all were amazed and entirely at a loss, saying to one another, what does this portend? But others, ridiculing them, said, ah, they’re full of sweet new wine. But Peter, standing up along with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them all. Judean men and all of you staying in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and lend your ears to my words, for these men are not drunk, as you suppose, as it is the third hour of the day. Rather, this is what was declared through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall happen, says God, that I will pour forth from my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams.” [Hart's New Testament] Pentecost by el Greco Now, it’s a much longer passage, and it’s very thrilling and exciting, but we don’t have time today to go into it. Perhaps we’ll speak about this in more depth very soon. But that is the first Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon humanity. And I’m going to talk about that today to clear up that confusion, because I’ve always had a bit of a confusion over what we speak of as the Holy Spirit dwelling in us in a Christian manner, or the Holy Spirit coming like tongues of fire in the Pentecost story of the upper room in the book of Acts, yet we all have the Holy Spirit of the Fullness of God within every cell of our bodies and throughout our entire organism. All of the Second Order powers are infused with the power of God. So what is the Holy Spirit then? And now I understand the distinction between the infusion of the Third Order of Powers and the infusion of the Second Order of Powers. You see, we are Second Order Powers. The Aeons of the Fullness are First Order Powers. They have their place Above. We are their fruit. We are their spores. (And I actually ran across a radio preacher, of all things, again last week, saying that the original word for fruit as used in the New Testament is spore. And I’m like, yes, that is exactly what I’ve been saying. So that was another cool Gnostic insight that came by way of a Christian radio preacher. So you can never tell what you’re going to hear on Christian radio.) So, we are the spores of the First Order of Powers. We are their fruit. We are their children. We are the Second Order of Powers, and that is all living things in the cosmos. Everything that moves around, everything that’s soft and squishy, the meat, as I like to say, as opposed to the mud, which is the realm of the Demiurge—the rocks and minerals, the molecules and atoms. But the Third Order of Powers is the army of the Christ. We’ve spoken of that often. We’ve had three recent episodes about the indwelling of the Christ. For example, The Gnostic Redemption of the Nag Hammadi from May 29th, 2026, Army of the Christ, May 16th, 2026, and Understanding Gnosticism: The Path to Inner Knowledge from May 9th, 2026. These all have to do with the coming of the Third Order of Powers. And the coming of the Third Order of Powers didn’t come to Earth until Christ walked the Earth in the form of a human, and that is Jesus the Christ. He’s the only one who has ever claimed that “I and my Father are One.” Jesus is not the same as Buddha. Jesus is not the same as Muhammad or any other prophet. Jesus is not simply a good teacher or an exemplar of morality and ethics. If you think that, as many modern theologians do—the postmodern theologians, the deconstructionists—they have reduced the power of Jesus to that of a prophet or a teacher. And even people I hear, strangely enough, out there on YouTube, claiming that Jesus was a fraud—that there is no such thing as anything that happened in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament. That’s an absurdity that is being promulgated by non-believers. If you are a believer in the Father, then you are a believer in the Christ, because Christ was the emissary of the Father to Earth to bring the correcting algorithm, I like to call it, to Earth to patch up our Second Order Power that has been forgotten. We’re born with it. We fully instantiate it within our bodies, but we’ve overlaid it with all kinds of junk, karma and memes from our environment that cloud our gnosis, cloud our ability to perceive the power of the Aeons within us. Christ came, the Third Order of Powers, the army of the Christ, to help us to remember, to remind us of our Second Order power, to remind us of where we come from, to remind us of the Father and the Aeons above. I took notes from the Pentecost sermon I listened to, and I’m going to represent these notes as a Gnostic teaching for you, because once you have the gnosis working in you, once you’ve come to terms with Christ and the Father and the Aeons and the gnosis that you were born with, once you begin to remember your inherent transcendence, then you can read the New Testament with eyes wide open. You can understand the mysteries of the New Testament much better than typical Christians do, because they’re trapped in a formula that is derivative of the early Catholics that had stripped the gnosis out of the Bible in the first place. So we must free ourselves from the doctrine, but not free ourselves of the gnosis. Tricky. The occasion known as Pentecost was when Jesus had been crucified, entombed, resurrected, and then ascended back up above into the Fullness—above the Fullness, because he’s the king of all. And he had promised that he would send a helper—to not worry. He had told his disciples, don’t worry, I’m sending you a helper to help you bring the gnosis to the world, essentially is what he said. This was also promised in the Old Testament. And here I’m going to read you a very important verse out of the Old Testament and translate it for you into Gnostic terms. The verse is Ezekiel 36:24—28, where God promises to cleanse and put a new heart and a new spirit into believers. Now it’s tricky when going all the way back to the Old Testament, because the God of the Old Testament is not the God Above All Gods. The God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, well, it’s pretty much equivalent to the Demiurge. And that’s very dicey, very tricky. The ego of the God of the Old Testament, the ego of Jehovah, is when Jehovah speaks in very egoistic terms about itself and about obedience and the law because, remember, Jehovah is law-bound. The Demiurge doesn’t remember; the Demiurge has forgotten its origins above. When this radio preacher referenced Ezekiel 36, I went to what’s called the online Bible Gateway. That’s a resource you can use. And you type in any phrase or any citation, such as Ezekiel 36:24—28, and it will give you all of the various translations. And you can choose which translation you read or you read them all. Well, since this was a Hebrew exhortation, I decided to use the Orthodox Jewish Bible, which does have a lot of Hebrew in it. So then we have to go into Hebrew translations, but that was a good exercise as well. Oh, to go back and clear up confusion about how to read the Old Testament—if the Old Testament is largely demiurgic, it’s basically when Jehovah is speaking that’s demiurgic. But the prophets were in touch with their gnosis. The prophets were talking to the God Above All Gods. They weren’t talking to Jehovah. They were talking to the God Above All Gods. So their prophecies are coming from above. That seems a pretty simple way to understand it. So the histories are one thing. That’s the histories of the of the Hebrews who were the people of Jehovah. Jehovah was their tribal god. And then there are the prophets who were speaking to the God Above All Gods and giving the Hebrews instructions from the God Above All Gods. These are higher instructions than Jehovah. You see, Jehovah doesn’t remember that it’s a fallen part of an Aeon. Here at Gnostic Insights, we talk about that Aeon as Logos. Many other Gnostics call it Sophia. I prefer Logos. That’s out of the Tripartite Tractate. Logos split apart when he fell and abandoned the chaos down below. And the Demiurge is part of that chaos. So the Demiurge put this world in order, formed the heavens and the Earth in a godlike manner, because he had all the blueprints. He had the remembrance of how things went together, but he didn’t have the remembrance of the Father or the remembrance of his better ascended Self, that being Logos, or the Aeons out of which he fell, the Fullness out of which he came. The Demiurge woke up down here in chaos and remembered that things should not be chaos, wanted them to go back into an orderly manner, had the blueprints of Paradise, essentially, that’s how you can put it, and formed this Earth. But this is an imitation. This is a deficiency of Paradise, and it’s especially deficient because there’s no love here. The minerals do not know love. The mud does not know love. Love doesn’t come from the bottom up, from the Demiurge up, from Jehovah up. Love, consciousness, comes from the God Above All Gods down to us in the form of a Second Order Powers. But we have forgotten, and the Demiurge forgot. So here is a word from one of the prophets who was in touch with the God Above All Gods, giving assurance that salvation would come, that remembrance would come. The Demiurge doesn’t block the prophets because it egotistically thinks that the prophets are speaking of it. You know, the Demiurge takes personally being God, but he’s mistaken in that. He’s a lesser god, the god of this cosmos, but the God Above All Gods is the one who speaks through the prophets. Here’s Ezekiel 36:24—26, from the New King James Version. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Or as The Orthodox Jewish Bible puts it, A lev chadásh also will I give you, and a ruach chadasháh will I put within you; and I will take away the lev ha-éven (stony heart) out of your basár, and I will give you a lev basár. Now, when it speaks of I will give you a new heart, in Hebrew that is lev chadásh. Lev means inner self, the seat of will and moral character. Chadásh means anew, fresh, renewed, restored. So lev chadásh refers to a renewed inner disposition. A transformed moral center. A recreated will aligned with the Father rather than with stubbornness or idolatry. And when it speaks of and put a new spirit within you, in Hebrew that word, the new spirit, is ruach chadasháh. And it means a new spirit, an awakened pneuma. And pneuma is a Gnostic term. That is the spiritual part of us. Our One Self. So the ruach chadasháh is the spirit. Ruach is spirit, breath, animating force, inner vitality. That’s what it means. Chadasháh means fresh, new, renewed. So in Ezekiel, ruach chadasháh means a new animating principle. A renewed inner drive or spiritual vitality placed within the person. You see where I’m going with this? This is the Third Order of Powers. A new motivating force that empowers obedience and life. This cleansing of a new heart and putting a new spirit within you, ruach chadasháh. It means stripping away the meme shroud is how I generally refer to it in the Simple Explanation. Peeling off all those layers of confusion that obscure our originating Fullness. That’s the filthiness. It’s not the original sin. We aren’t born with original sin. We are born as Second Order Powers, much loved out of the first order powers of the Fullness of God. We forget when we come down here into this material world created by the Demiurge. And then we plug into this culture around us. Think of the media and the social media and all of the lies and confusions that are spread, both purposefully meant to mislead you and confuse you, and just accidentally because people make mistakes and people say the wrong things, even when they think they’re saying the right things. So that’s the filthiness. And the idols— these are the things that you cling to. Generally this narcissistic age we live in is an age of idols, but the idols that we worship aren’t little statues of gods. They are our exercise equipment and our bags of makeup and our, well, of course they can be influencers and they can be movie stars and television actors and musicians and sports figures and politicians. Those can be your idols if you treat them as idols, if you idolize them, if you go all weak in the knees and do anything they say. But we also have our own idols in the form of the things that we cling to and pile up around us that we buy, got to have this, got to have that, got to have this, got to have that. These are idols. So this is a promise to cleanse us from that. In other words, to strip away your meme shroud and let the Fullness shine forth from within you. But it goes beyond that, because it says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. And that new heart is the lev chadásh, which is new spirit. And the new heart is lev basár, which literally means in Hebrew, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche. Oh, see, our psyche, that is not our pneuma—that's a Gnostic term as well. We have our pneuma, which is our spiritual Fullness. We have our psyche, which is our psychological aspect—our ego lives there. And we have our hylic, which is the material to which we are bonded in this material world. So this passage promises to put a new heart within us, a lev basár, a soft, receptive psyche; that is to soften our hearts, because they’re hardened by the world and by the memes we cling to. It says, furthermore, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh. And the heart of stone in Hebrew is lev ha-éven, meaning heart of stone, or a hardened psyche. Going to remove that heart of stone, which is very interesting, because of course, I say that the hard rocky places, the stones are demiurgic. That’s the material level, that’s the elemental level. So the heart of stone is the demiurgic heart that we have put inside of us, that we’re bonded to. But this passage wants to turn it into a new heart, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche, as we were originally born with—lev basár. So it says, I will give you that new heart and put a new spirit within you, and take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart of stone, lev ha-éven. And the purifying waters are what do it. I will sprinkle clean water on you. In Hebrew, that was literally mayim tehorím, meaning clean, purifying waters. Jesus spoke of the purifying waters. In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to John, Chapter 3, a Pharisee named Nicodemus had sneaked out one night to speak privately with Jesus. He didn’t want anyone to know. And Nicodemus said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you have come as a teacher from God, for no one can produce these signs you perform unless God is within him. And in reply, Jesus said to him, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless someone is born from Above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Jesus replied, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed, because I’ve told you it is necessary for you to be born from Above. [Hart's New Testament] Jesus is speaking of the same water, the water of the spirit, that cleanses us and allows us to be born again from Above. Later on in the book of John, Chapter 7, verse 37, Jesus stood up and said loudly, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. Whoever has faith in me, just as scripture has said, out of his parts living streams of waters will flow. Now he said this in regard to the spirit, whom those who had faith in him were about to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. [Hart's New Testament] And this is speaking of the Holy Spirit—what we call the Holy Spirit—because of course we have spirit, we’re born with spirit, because we have the Fullness of God within us, the First Order of Powers. But he’s talking of the Third Order of Powers, the army of Christ that comes after Jesus is “glorified.” And glorified means risen from the dead, ascended into the sky in front of hundreds of witnesses. And glorified means that Jesus is living Above, just as we will all be living Above, in a glorified body, in the presence of the Father. Now, the promise that Jesus referred to—he was quoting out of the Old Testament—something that all of the listeners in his audience already knew. And it’s from Isaiah 12:3 that says, Therefore with joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation. The water that is being drawn is this water that’s being referred to, that we’ve been discussing, out of Ezekiel 36:24—28. That is the living water, the mayim tehorím—the Holy Spirit that bathes us now within and without. We draw the living water of the Third Order Powers into us. This is why accepting the mission of the Christ into your innermost being is essential, because there’s no other way to wash away the memes, the obscurations of the world around us that confuses us and causes us to forget. We’re born with a noble nature. We’re born as Second Order Powers, directly from the Fullness above, but we get lost in the confusion of this world that is created and run by the Demiurge. We forget our ethereal origins. We forget about the Father. We forget about the Aeons and the Fullness of God. The spirit that we’re born with becomes smothered, smothered by the worldly memes we cling to and that cling to us. The living water that comes into our new softened heart can only come when you relinquish the ego that is causing you to hold on tightly to those memes, all those false promises that the world gives. They will not save you. They will not make you happy. They might give you a momentary piece of pleasure when something arrives in the box from Amazon on the front porch, but as soon as you’ve used it, it’s just another thing. But the living water never dies. It’s living waters from the Father flowing all the way downstream through the Son, through the Fullnesses, and only through Christ inside of us can we be washed, baptized from within to loosen the hold. So, the lev chadásh, renew your psychic heart, captures the same teaching that the Tripartite Tractate teaches—that the psyche must be reoriented and made stable. The ruach chadashá, awakening within you the spirit that is from Above, is the same as activating the pneumatic seed, as we say in Gnosticism, not a moral reform. The lev basár, a living heart, soft, able to receive the light, receptive, this is the Tripartite Tractate’s softened, harmonized psyche, that can receive the pneumatic imprint of Christ. And the divine seed will rise within you and rule in peace is what the Tripartite Tractate says of the pneuma ruling through the psyche once integration occurs. So, this is the Gnostic paraphrase then of Ezekiel 36:26—28: I will renew your ego's psychic heart, and I will awaken within you the pneumatic spirit—the One Self that flows from above. I will remove the heart hardened by the archons and the never-ending war, and I will restore your Second Order heart, soft, receptive, and able to receive the light. Through this new heart and new spirit, the divine seed of the Christ within you will rise and rule in peace. That’s just another way we could say the phrase in Ezekiel, in a more Gnostic way. It’s a bath, loosens the hold, washes away those memes, those sins, as the church likes to call it. But it’s more than just your mistakes and your problems. It’s all the stuff that we have around us. That is the job of the Christ, to open our eyes to our original Second Order power, to live within us, to correct our mistakes, to correct our faulty algorithms, to protect us from this demiurgic immersion that we find ourselves in, in this material world. We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves the Totality of the Son. The Third Order Powers are the army of the Christ, who represents all of the Powers of the ethereal plane, individually and collectively working for our redemption. Step aside. Take your ego off the throne. Take the Demiurge off the throne, if you’ve enthroned it. Put down your idols. Push away your possessions, at least long enough to allow the Third Order Powers to come in. Ask the Christ to come in and wash you with the Holy Spirit. Invite the Holy Spirit, the army of the Third Order of Powers, into your organism, literally, and it will cleanse you. It will wash you. Walk in the Spirit of God. Let your eyes be opened to the truth. We’ll talk more about this again. Until then, God bless us all, and onward and upward. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Stripe Credit Card *Choose your item *Item A - $10.00Item B - $25.00Item C - $50.00Total$0.00Submit

This week, Pastor Will reflects on Acts 2 and the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost — not a blank Tuesday, but an ancient harvest festival already set aside for firstfruits. On Confirmation Sunday, the sermon asks what it means when the Spirit falls on all flesh, young and old alike, and whether we are ready to receive what God is bringing forth.Scripture references: Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24–34,35b; and Acts 2:1-21 “SOUL ON FIRE” -- CCLI Song # 7032679  | Brenton Brown | David Carr | Mac Powell | Mark Lee | Matt Maher | Tai Anderson  |  © Thankyou Music (Admin. by Capitol CMGPublishing)  |  Be Essential Songs (Admin. by Essential MusicPublishing LLC)  |  I Am A Pilgrim Songs (Admin. by EssentialMusic Publishing LLC)  |  Kobalt Music Copyrights SARL (Admin. by Kobalt Music Publishing America, Inc.)  |  For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com   |  CCLI License # 2544867"GO NOW IN PEACE" –  Words by Nancy Price and Don Besig -- Music by Don Besig -- Copyright (c) 1988 by Harold Flammer Music, a Division of Shawnee Press, Inc. -- International Copyright Secured   All Rights Reserved

Johannes explains how the event of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament prophetically links to the Day of Pentecost.

What if God's greatest gift wasn't just being WITH us, but being IN us?This Pentecost Sunday, we explored an incredible progression: God's presence moved from the ark, to Jesus walking among us, to the Holy Spirit dwelling within every believer. That's not just theology—it's transformation. When Jesus told His disciples to wait for power from on high, He was preparing them (and us) for a life we could never live in our own strength.The Holy Spirit isn't just about spiritual experiences. He adopts us into God's family, gives us new desires, reveals truth, and empowers us for the unique calling on our lives. Whether you're in full-time ministry or working anywhere else, God wants to fill you with His presence for what He's calling you to do. Both paths are hard—but only one bears fruit and is filled with joy.Are you hungry for more of God? Desperate for His presence? Even a mustard seed of faith is enough.

What a gift.  A gift that is meant to be shared.  The Living Waters that Jesus refers to sharing with others in John 7 is the Holy Spirit that has been placed inside of us at our baptisms.  Again, what a gift, but a gift not to keep to ourselves.  In verse 38 Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘ Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” These Living Waters are the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  Gifts like love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness, all gifts of the Holy Spirit are to flow over out of our hearts for others and into others.  Jesus says in verse 37 “Whoever” believes in me.  The gift of the Holy Spirit and the Living Waters that flow out of our hearts are for ALL people.  Num. 11:24–30 Acts 2:1–21 John 7:37–39

Listen to a message from R.A. Martinez about "Pentacost Sunday" on May 24th, 2026.

Join us as we look at the moment of Pentecost and the reality of the indwelling of God's Spirit in our hearts.

Join us as we look at the moment of Pentecost and the reality of the indwelling of God's Spirit in our hearts.

Rev. Ryan Hall

Pentecost is a celebration of a new world and a new understanding of language. How can we see language as an act of faith? How can we feel empowered to let go of old concepts and ideas that no longer fit us? How can we use communication to include rather than exclude?Psalm Reading: Psalm 104:24-34,35bFirst Reading: Acts 2:1-21Worship Songs:  All Who are ThirstyYour Steadfast LoveWhole HeartSo Will I

5/24/26

Pastor Patrick Cobb Act 2:1-13

Pentecost is the revelation of a slave-freeing, fear-healing, deliverance-dealing, all-embracing movement of God. Church, behold God's presence and power in your body, among our body, reaching forth in the world to call every-body home. 

Opening by CalebSermon by Pastor Jason

Jason Humphreys | Pentacost | Stretched | Acts 1: 4-5

Here's Tim Gleghorn sharing from Acts and Galatians about Pentacost.

Service for Christ Lutheran Church for Pentacost on 5-24-26

Pentacost

Pentacost is a turning point in how God's people now live.

Acts 2 | We've always slowed down to take the meaningful steps from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday to Ascension Sunday, and this Sunday we've decided to take one more to explore the inauguration of the church on the Hebrew day of Pentecost. Join us as we learn about Pentecost--what it meant for the early Church, and what it means for us today.

Acts 2 | We've always slowed down to take the meaningful steps from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday to Ascension Sunday, and this Sunday we've decided to take one more to explore the inauguration of the church on the Hebrew day of Pentecost. Join us as we learn about Pentecost--what it meant for the early Church, and what it means for us today.

Preached By: Bob O'Bannon Over: Acts 10:44 - 11:18 On: 03/22/2026

Greg, Emily, and Rachel discuss the Spirit giving gifts on the day of Pentacost.Transcript:https://open.substack.com/pub/haltingtowardzion/p/the-words-of-the-prophets?r=1mbq24&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Welcome to the TFC Biblecast! Start your day off right and join us as we take the next 10 minutes to dive into God's word. If we can pray for you, email us at biblecast@tfc.org.

This conversation takes a thoughtful, no-nonsense look at Spirit baptism, gifts, and the heart of what it means to walk in the Spirit. Brandon, Lindsy, and returning guest Clint Byars unravel the baggage around tongues, anointing, and impartation—while exposing how elitism and gnostic thinking have shaped Charismania. They wrestle through semantics, misunderstood doctrines, and real-life experiences of the Spirit, ultimately pointing back to the simplicity of being complete in Christ. From worship as warfare to fasting as a tool for training the flesh, this episode dives into how believers can yield to the Spirit without chasing after hype. Clint closes by sharing a powerful, holistic gospel message rooted in God's love, freedom, and kingdom reality.Forward Church — his church (south of Atlanta): https://forward.churchClint Byars (personal site + resources/membership): https://clintbyars.comStrong & Godly Men — free course/project for men: https://strongandgodlymen.com

How will you Respond to Jesus' Miracles? What will you do with what you've seen?John 11:45-57Takes place Right after Jesus raised Lazarus from the deadEverything from this point forward in the Gospel of John focuses on the cross.The raising of Lazarus from the dead assures us of Jesus' power over death before He even goes to thecross to die.John 11:45-57 NIVThe Plot to Kill Jesus45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed inhim. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chiefpriests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him goon like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our templeand our nation.”49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing atall! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the wholenation perish.”51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for theJewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring themtogether and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to aregion near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem fortheir ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in thetemple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn't he coming to the festival at all?” 57 Butthe chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was shouldreport it so that they might arrest him.- There were 2 reactions from those who witnessed Jesus raising Lazarus from the deado 45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesusdid, believed in him.  Who else but God can raise a man who had been in the tomb for 4 days?- 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. o It's amazing that 2 groups of people can witness the same event and come away withcompletely different reactions The way people see miracles depends on their moral condition Somehow, it isn't a guarantee that someone will come to Christ just because theywitness a miracle If a person is filled with unbelief, it might not make a difference if they've seen amiracleRather than worship Jesus in reverence for what they saw, they had to report itJesus becomes Israel's most wanted for the crime of raising a man from the dead. Herestored Lazarus' life, but many Jews want to take Jesus' life. Pretty ironic, right?47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.- The Sanhedrin was the highest judicial body in Israelo They had the political and spiritual power, but served under Roman authorityo In their point of view this was devastatingo Any time the star witness is a resurrected corpse – you have a pretty good case for thevalidity of Jesus as the Messiah.47 Continued “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing manysigns. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans willcome and take away both our temple and our nation.”- Jesus' enemies admit that He is doing miraculous works (many signs)o They didn't protest the authenticity of the healingso Too many miracles to deny the reality of the works- We see this later, when some of the disciples were performing miracles in Jesus name, and werebrought before the Sanhedrin…- Acts 4:15-17- 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What arewe going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they haveperformed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any furtheramong the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”o “Don't confuse me with the facts – I've made up my mind”o How do we explain their failure to see the truth? It wasn't lack of information Jesus actually gave the answer back in Chapter 9 when He told them they wereblinded by their sin. All of this religion and all of this biblical knowledge represented by the Sanhedrin,yet they were unable to see the glory of God's Son – because of sin. Some of the things we can take away from the Sanhedrin… You can be religious, but lost. You can memorize scripture but still be ignorant of its truth. You can say all the right things, but still have a heart that hasn't been transformedby the power of Jesus Christ.o They also had questioned the source of the miracles: demonic in origin- Matthew 9:3434 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”- They were just trying to justify their positiono And so we see their unbelief play out in an interesting way that even applies to us todaytoo: unbelief will encourage you to protect your idols (vv. 45-48).- 1. Unbelief encourages you to protect your idols 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come andtake away both our temple and our nation.”Their primary concern was maintaining control – Jesus threatened their position and influence –their idolso They are afraid that the Romans will come in and take away their nation Their concern wasn't for the people, but for themselves They believe that if people worship Jesus as the Messiah, then the Jews will comeand crown Him King of the Jews They were afraid - They knew the Romans would come in and destroy the templeand Jerusalem, and scatter the people - if everyone believed in Him The Jews, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin weren't interested in doing the right or justthing. Instead, their top priority was retaining their power and influence. Ironically – that which they were so afraid of happening – did happen… In AD 70 the Romans did that very thing It wasn't because the people believed in Jesus – it was most likely becausethey didn't We see in them a clear and striking picture of the self-centeredness of emptyreligion.- Empty Religion – these days, practiced by people who come to church, give money, say and do theright thing and are moral, but have no relationship with Jesus Christ – they haven't given their livesto Jesus Empty religion is always revealed by a person's focus What is your focus? If someone is truly following Jesus, their focus will be first on Jesus, then on othersand finally on themselves. – Empty religion always focuses first on me. It's based on MY effort It's about maintaining MY good works It's concerned primarily with MY blessing and MY safety – so others canlook on at “all the good choices I've made” Empty religion evaluates spiritual realities by how WE will be affected. – When ourdecisions are not based on clear biblical standards of holiness, but how they willaffect our own comfort and convenience. The Pharisees and Sadducees fear of loss of influence, power and income pushedthem to disobey God's will.o People want to protect their lifestyle (their idol) from Jesuso He always has and he always will be a threat to our idols. And when Jesus threatens idolsyou can expect hostility.o For someone who doesn't believe in Jesus, the idol always wins – Unfortunately, this is true for us too, isn't it? What are some of the idols you have been protecting from Jesus? Popularity – approval of others – your lifestyle – your habits We need to reserve the thrown in our lives for Jesus For the Pharisees, power and control were their idol, and blinded them to themiracle that so many had witnessed. They were more concerned about their place and their power than whetheror not this was really the Messiah Are we more committed to our own power, position, your possessions, your pridethan Jesus? Do you see Jesus as someone you can use for your own plans, or someone who isfree to use you for His?- At the same time Jesus is aware of the plot to kill Him, He longed to shelter and protect thepeople of Jerusalem.- But even though Jesus longed to gather His people under His wings, they just weren't interested.-Matthew 23:37-3937 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I havelonged to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you werenot willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again untilyou say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' [a] ”Yes, He was speaking to Jerusalem – but how often has He said to each of us “How often I have wantedto be your number one focus, but you were not willing”49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing atall! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the wholenation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesuswould die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God,to bring them together and make them one. John credits the prophesy to the office of High Priest, and not to the man- Interesting notes on Caiaphas:o He was a Sadducee, which means he didn't believe in the resurrection under anycircumstanceso As a Sadducee, he collaborated with the Romanso He didn't want anyone rocking the boato Having been high priest for 16 years, he was highly educated and intelligent, but also cynicaland ruthless.What we read in verses 49-50 is a great example of the irony that John builds into his gospel. Becauseclearly, Caiaphas is thinking only of political expediency, but the Lord intended for us to see somethingelse entirely.It's obviously ironic because what Caiaphas says in those verses is the gospel message in a nutshell!Jesus' death would save his people. “The nation” is a reference to the nation of Israel, but remember,Paul tells us that the people of faith are true people of God.- The death of Jesus Christ was going to accomplish what God intended. It was going to save those itwas intended to save, and it was going to gather them into one people.-o Though Caiphas said it – It's a great note of unmistakable certainty.- Caiaphas' didn't understand his own prophecy- He was so obsessed with his own political power, he only sees everything through that lens. He failsto understand that the Lord revealed something of spiritual significance through him – but he wasblind to it.o One thing to learn from that is that being obsessed with political power can force you tosee everything only through that lens – and miss the point of what God is actually doing. It's a lesson for all of us in this politically charged day.- Because it wasn't Caiaphas' plan that was ultimately carried out - it was God's plan for redemption!- For evil reasons they sought to put Jesus to death, but unbeknownst to them they wereaccomplishing God's sovereign will all along. What they meant for evil, God intended for good.- Caiphas' words, though said to fulfill his own purpose, held greater meaning than he could haveplanned. Peter makes this point during his sermon on the day of Pentacost.- Acts 2:2323 This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you,with the help of wicked men, [a] put him to death by nailing him to the cross.- This doesn't get Caiphas off the hook – he wasn't an unwilling puppet. God just turned his wickedwords into truth.o His speech must have been convincing, because in verse 53:53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.It's gone beyond impulsive attempts to stone Jesus, and become premeditated murder.It is noteworthy that some religious people, who claim to know God and to love and serve God don'trecognize their God when He shows up.- Amazing what darkness produces in the heart of the unbeliever – the blindnesso It's a good example of pragmatic thinking. Pragmatism is the fundamental belief thateverything is subservient to achieving results and success.o If your only goal is to achieve results, it won't be long before you find yourselfcompromising your own moral integrity.o Unfortunately, this way of thinking has even crept into the church. So many churches arewilling to do whatever it takes to grow. But if that's your only guiding principle it won't belong before your pragmatism puts you at odds with Biblical standards. What you win them with is what you win them to…- Jesus avoided them until the appropriate time:54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to aregion near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.- He would not die because of the whims and wished of the religious establishment.- His death was not the tragic death of a religious zealot. He would die at the time chosen by HisFather. His life would not be taken from Him. But He would willingly sacrifice it.55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem fortheir ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in thetemple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn't he coming to the festival at all?” They were wondering if Jesus was even going to come to the Passover57 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus wasshould report it so that they might arrest him.So - How will you Respond to Jesus' Miracles?Will you waiver?- There is no neutrality, when it comes to Jesus – no middle ground when it comes to Jesuso Middle ground is illogical – if you believe Jesus is who He says He is, then you believe whatHe says and you obey Him. Jesus never claimed to occupy the middle ground either…infact…John 14:66 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except throughme.o There are only two options when it comes to Jesus Christ: trust in Him for the salvation ofyour soul, or reject him in unbelief.o One path – the wide path leased to destruction, and eternity away from Godo The path to Jesus is narrow…eternal life with himWill you fight against it?- Will your idols of wealth, independence, politics, power, control, pride, popularity or approval blindyou to what Jesus wants to do in your life? Does the lifestyle you want to have…or maybe the oneyou already have conflict with God's will for your life?o God's will like a stream…or water coming in at the beach- Part 2 of the title: What will you do with what you've seen?o You can try to justify unbelief by saying “I didn't see any miracles with my own eyes” Sure you have! Do you have a mirror? You're made in His image.Genesis 1:27So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.Life itself is a miracle. Ever been outside?Romans 1:2020 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divinenature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people arewithout excuse.Can you see me?- 5 year celebration of surviving a cardiac arrest.The same God that raised Lazarus from the dead, and was murdered by the religious leaders for everysin we commit, and was raised from the dead himself 3 days later still performs miracles today. This allpoints to Jesus…every story in this room points to Jesus…or at least should.What will you do with what you've seen?You can't unsee it now…You can't unhear what you've heard…so you have to make a choice

A Journey to Pentacost Part 6 The Spirit Poured Out

June 8th, 2025

Jamie Tyler

Bishop Jack Sheets continues our Pneuma series with a message on Pentacost called "The Power of the Holy Spirit". The Power of the Holy Spirit is … A spiritual and transformative power that changes us from the inside out and helps us to be more like Christ, and empowers us to live with greater purpose, strength, and faith, as we experience a deeper connection with god in our lives.   Without the Holy Spirit working in your life, it is impossible to live the life God wants you to live.   —— If you want to support what God is doing through Cityline, click here: https://www.citylineonline.churchcenter.com/giving   Want to learn more about Cityline and how to get involved? Click here: https://citylineonline.org   Are you in need of prayer or someone to talk with? Click here: https://citylineonline.org/prayer   —— Follow us on socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/citylineonline/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citylineonline/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCumM40GFhmHumITXmh8MV0g Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cityline-church/id1308579363?mt=2 Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0pHyJ5pxtry1tIMlD9ZBPd?si=e01fc4636d5543e1  

The feast is celebrated by Christians around the world on the 50th and final day of the annual Easter season. Chapter-A-Day Audio Bible available at https://amzn.to/4i2XdlE John Stange books available at https://amzn.to/41DS9hRMV ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Join Mark on one of his social media platforms to comment, discuss, and analyze this episode’s Testament passages. Mark's video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's Books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio Credit: Chapter-A-Day Audio Bible podcast with John Stange (LifeAudio Podcast Network, Salem Web Network). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How can we become better listeners? What if the church's primary role is to translate shalom - peace, wholeness, well-being - into the home languages of all people? How can we avoid using our words to dominate and instead use them to heal?

Welcome to the TFC Biblecast! Start your day off right and join us as we take the next 10 minutes to dive into God's word. If we can pray for you, email us at biblecast@tfc.org.

Dr. Jonny shares his trials he faced this week, and compels us to embrace patience and even waiting. As Pentecost Sunday approaches, we remember that the key that unlocked the Promise was to wait. Waiting isn't passive, but rather positional!  We are to position ourselves with expectancy for the next and the greater assignment for His kingdom!

ORIGINAL AIR DATE: MAR 31, 2018What Jesus saw from the Cross demonstrates much about the militant nature of the Lord's mission. Topics discussed: The Book of Enoch, Second Temple Judaism, the Watchers, the Sin of the Watchers, the giants, the origins of demons, idols, Azazel, Mt. Hermon, the Bulls of Bashan, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the giving of Spiritual Gifts. 

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Emily and Doug discuss the importance of relationships and community, listener feedback, discuss wisdom around giving prophetic words, ghosts in the New Testament and does the Bible endorse reincarnation?

What does it mean to behold Christ? Together, we are studying the New Testament, one chapter at a time, and answering this very question. Join us as we dive deep into details of the New Testament and behold Jesus as the centerpiece of God's sovereign plan of redemption. Today, we are journeying through Acts 2. You can follow along with us in Behold | A Study of the New Testament vol. 2  Visit The Daily Grace Co. for the Behold bundle and for beautiful products that will equip you on your journey to knowing and loving God more. Find a free digital copy of the Behold reading plan here. Follow @dailygracepodcast on Instagram for exclusive podcast content and @thedailygraceco for all things The Daily Grace Co. Subscribe to the Daily Grace Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and Read the Bible in a year with us in the Bible App. Click here for a transcript of this episode