The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is being foreknown by God.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of January 25, 2014
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? (Gal 4:1–9 emphasis and double emphasis added)
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There is a difference between coming to know God and being known by God or foreknown by God. This difference is, spiritually, as great as the difference between night and day—
But consider what Paul meant when he wrote, Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods, and, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more … generally, greater Christendom has used Paul’s epistle to the Galatians as a text against keeping the Law; against what greater Christendom identifies as Legalism. In the head quote, however, Paul doesn’t write about the Law but about being enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. So my question, when were converts at Galatia enslaved to the Law that set Israel apart from the world and from the elementary principles of the world? For Paul wrote elsewhere,
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Eph 2:11–14)
Were Gentile converts at Galatia, called the Uncircumcised by circumcised Israel, keeping the law of commandments expressed in ordinances [“expressed in ordinances” being the key phrase] prior to their conversion? Was “the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” the elementary principles of the world? No, not at all. Circumcision was never a weak and worthless elementary principle of the world, but was the signifier that the natural “head” of man no longer had any covering but that which Adam had in the Garden of Eden, that is, obedience to God as in walking uprightly before God (Gen 17:1–2). For the natural skin covering Adam and Eve received when expelled from the Garden so they could not eat of the tree of life (Gen 3:21) is represented by the foreskin of the human male, with Adam and Eve being one flesh, the man the head of his wife, and the penis of the man representing the head that penetrates the fleshly human body as the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] penetrated the spirit of the Beloved [pneuma Christou] in the divine act of godly procreation that occurred when the spirit of God in the bodily form of a dove entered into [eis — from Mark 1:10] the resurrected (from death via baptism) man Jesus the Nazarene.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise’” (John 5:19 emphasis and double emphasis added).
Jesus—with John the Baptist as His witness—saw the spirit of God [again, pneuma Theou] descend and enter into Him, thereby giving to Jesus a second breath of life; giving to the spirit of man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] in Jesus heavenly life, that is life that has come from heaven and that exists outside and now inside the creation.
The significance of the spirit of God descending and entering into Jesus in the bodily form of a dove comes from Jesus seeing this breath of life enter into Him so that in Him then doing whatever the Father does, He sends His spirit [pneuma Christou] into His disciples, with His spirit entering to His disciples and penetrating their human spirit, thereby giving life to what was previously dead. Jesus is then both the last Adam, the spiritual man created from the elements of this world in a “two-breath” conversion/creation process as well as the last Eve, the life-giving spirit that produces (gives birth to) sons of God.
Paul understood what has just been written. However, his explicators and his translators have not; so what has been delivered to greater Christendom is at best an approximation of what Paul wrote for words do not come with their meanings attached. Their meanings come from auditors, those who read or who hear read Paul’s words. And as an aside, Paul’s epistle to the holy ones at Ephesus was initially a general epistle to all fellowships. It was at Ephesus where the epistle became an epistle to Ephesians. So what Paul wrote about Gentiles being the Uncircumcised held true for Galatians, who were not previously enslaved by the Law as Moses gave commandments, statutes, and ordinances to Israel in the wilderness, but were enslaved by their worship of sticks and stones and deities of home and place, grottos and the sky, storms and earthquakes. What angered Paul was that someone of the Circumcision Faction had come to Galatia and had preached—from the Law—that Gentile converts needed to outwardly become the Circumcised before they could partake of the sacraments of the Church, notably the Passover sacraments of blessed bread and drink that represented the body and blood of the Lamb of God.
Even today, there are Christian pastors and teachers who require that converts be outwardly circumcised before they can take the Passover, with a notable one located in Knoxville, Tennessee. These men—and they are all men—are sincere, but horribly ignorant when it comes to understanding the mysteries of God; for the Christian has a Head, Christ Jesus (1 Cor 11:3), so the Christian is spiritually as the Woman who has no penis to be circumcised. Individually and collectively, the Christian is the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27) and as such the Christian, individually and collectively, represents the Bride of Christ.
A man doesn’t marry his body but is one with his body through human birth; for man [male or female] consists of the fleshly body [soma] and the inner self, the soul [psuche], and in the soul, the spirit of man [to pneuma tou ’anthropou], making these three aspects of human personhood the whole of man, or the whole man (cf. 1 Thess 5:23; 1 Col 2:11). It is the spirit of the person that is penetrated by the spirit of God in the spirit of Christ when the person receives a second breath of life, with the Greek linguistic icon representing <breath> being <pneuma> that translates into Latin as <spīritus>. It was because of false reverence being attached to the words of Scripture thereby making the Bible the idol Christians worship/worshiped as Israel never ceased worshiping the idols of Egypt (see Ezek chap 20) that the Latin linguistic icon spīritus, a good translation of the Greek pneuma into Latin, was transported into English as spirit rather than as breath—and then as spirit assigned meanings far from those assigned to a person’s breath.
In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul had two problems to address; hence, his doubly accursed condemnation of false teachers plaguing the holy ones at Galatia. The greater problem was whomever had come from the Circumcision faction and had told these Gentile converts that they must be outwardly circumcised because Moses said so; said there was one law for both Israel and Gentile who would take the Passover:
And [YHWH] said to Moses and Aaron, "This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or hired servant may eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you." (Ex 12:43–49)
The Circumcision Faction had Scripture on their side, but they had no spiritual understanding. And this will be a subject addressed in following Sabbath Readings. For now, what needs addressed is being known by God:
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said,
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt 7:15–23)
In John’s Gospel, Jesus told the crowd He had fed,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." [Note, Jesus doesn’t say that manna was from the Father; Jesus doesn’t address the source of manna.] They said to Him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." So the Jews grumbled about him, because He said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (John 6:32–51 emphasis and double emphasis added)
Take Jesus at His word: not everyone who acknowledges Jesus as Lord is known by God, Father and Son. Doing mighty works in the name of Jesus doesn’t mean the person is known by Jesus—and if not known by Jesus, the person is not known by the Father. This person will claim to Know the Lord, and will claim to be born of spirit as a son of God, but what this person says about him or herself is a lie unless the person also does the will of God, which includes eating the flesh of Jesus …
On one day a year—on only one day a year—the blessed and broken unleavened bread of the Passover sacrament is the flesh, the body, of Christ Jesus. And on this one day a year, disciples identify themselves as the Body of Jesus by eating the body of Jesus, thereby taking Jesus inside themselves.
Does this fruit of the ground [kernels of grain ground fine] really become the flesh of the Lamb as the Latin Church contends, or does this little piece of plain flatbread merely represent the body and flesh of the Lamb to the Christian circumcised of heart—and how is the heart circumcised? Are chests cut open and hearts pulled out and their sacks cut as ancient Aztecs sacrificed their victims? No, circumcision of the heart is a figurative expression for eliminating the hardness of hearts that caused Moses to permit Israelite men to divorce their wives, thereby figuratively separating inner selves from outer selves so that neither inner nor outer self could have life before God.
If a Christian doesn’t take the Passover sacraments of blessed bread and drink that represent the body and blood [life] of the Lamb of God at the time when Moses commanded Israel to kill, roast, and eat the Passover, the Christian is not of God—is not a son of God—regardless of what the Christian claims about him or herself. The Christian might well be part of the crucified and still dead Body of Christ that will be raised to life at the Second Passover liberation of Israel, but the Christian is not foreknown by the Father, predestined to be glorified by the Father, called by Christ Jesus through the Father giving the person to Christ, then justified by Christ being crucified for the person while he or she remained a sinner (Rom 5:8). This person’s spirit [to pneuma tou ’anthropou] that was dead and had been dead since human birth and because it was dead could know nothing of God—this person’s spirit will be resurrected to life in a resurrection like that of Christ Jesus through receipt of a second breath of the life, the breath of Christ in the form of the indwelling of Christ, a non-technical term for the union of the spirit/breath/life of Christ [pneuma Christou] with the spirit of the person as a man unites with his wife to bring forth children.
God brings the person—or better, the spirit of the person—to the marriage bed by drawing the person from this world, the person being a slave (bondservant) of the Adversary, what it means to be a son of disobedience (see Rom 11:32; Eph 2:2–3), with the spirit of the person being like a virgin daughter in her father’s house in ancient Israel. The spirit of the person is the slave of whomever this spirit obeys, and this spirit of the person, even if humanly born into the household of a spiritual Israelite, is nevertheless born as a serf of the Adversary, with no escape possible until “purchased” from the Adversary for as long as the Adversary remains the prince of this world.
The spirit of the person cannot go where it wants or do what it wants for it is consigned to disobedience as a slave of the Adversary. This spirit of a person has all the rights that a young women in ancient Israel’s patriarchal society had: none! She couldn’t even make a vow that her father could not negate:
Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, "This is what [YHWH] has commanded. If a man vows a vow to [YHWH], or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. If a woman vows a vow to [YHWH] and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father's house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And [YHWH] will forgive her, because her father opposed her. If she marries a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And [YHWH] will forgive her. (But any vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, anything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.) And if she vowed in her husband's house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her and did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and [YHWH] will forgive her. Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself, her husband may establish, or her husband may make void. But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity." (Num 30:1–15)
If a woman other than widowed or divorced cannot of herself establish her words before God, but has her words placed in subjection to her husband or father, the woman lacks independent personhood and is no better than a slave. Modern Christian women read these instructions Moses gave to Israel and almost inevitably reject Moses. Islam, however, embraces similar words and instructions, thereby keeping their women imprisoned in the 7th-Century CE, or in the 15th-Century BCE, the date somewhat immaterial for what Moses delivered to Israel was the left hand physical enantiomer of a right hand spiritual reality in which the spirit of man [again, to pneuma tou ’anthropou] is as a woman in either her father’s house [spiritual Babylon] or in her husband’s house [spiritual Jerusalem], the Bridegroom’s household.
Paul wrote,
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. (Rom 6:16–22 emphasis added)
Their natural limitations were that these holy ones were also still spiritual infants, only able to ingest milk without belching out the solid food that soured their stomachs … Paul’s epistles are only spiritual milk, the food of spiritual infants.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Cor 3:1–3)
Elsewhere the author of Hebrews writes,
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:7–14 emphasis added)
Every person is the serf of either disobedience that leads to death, or of obedience that leads to life; every person is the slave of either unbelief that prevented the nation of Israel that left Egypt from entering into the Promised Land (Heb 3:19) or of belief that causes the person to willingly keep the Commandments and do those things that are pleasing to God. Sin is, according to Paul, unbelief (see Rom 14:23). John declares sin to be lawlessness (1 John 3:4), the outward manifestation of unbelief.
But when under the New Covenant [the Second Passover Covenant] the Law is written on hearts and placed inside the person so that all Know the Lord (Jer 31:31–34; Heb 8:8–12) from less to greatest, thoughts replace the outer self (the fleshly body) and the desires of the heart supersede the acts of hands and body: the Commandments move from regulating hands and body [the Woman] to regulating thoughts and desires [the Man]. And if the inner self is not “clean” as in not being “common” (like that of common humanity), how hands and body appear will makes no difference to God; for hands and body will never enter heaven because they possess mass … only sons of God will enter heaven.
Hands and voices can be used to deceive: Lord, Lord, look that the great works we have done in your name. We have built orphanages, cancer hospitals, crystal cathedrals, television networks, mega churches. Lord, you have to receive us for we have done all of these things just for you. Even the silk suits we wear are for you so that we don’t bring shame on you, appear as deadbeats. Lord, we have held international evangelic campaigns for you, have had thousands of converts sign pledge cards. Lord, Lord, you know who we are and the great works we have done for you. Lord, don’t deny us … you’ll be sorry if you do!
Really? Of all of the televangelists active today, which one or ones of this multitude does the will of God—or even knows what the will of God is?
This is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day … what does it mean to believe in Jesus, or believe Jesus as in hearing His words, His voice? For what was it that Jesus declared to His disciples on the night He was taken:
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know Him who sent me. (John 15:10–21 emphasis added)
How does the Christian go about laying down his or her life for the Christian’s friend, Christ Jesus? Does the Christian do this by undertaking great works for Christ? Does the Christian do this by obtaining the prosperity of this world to show inner city youths that God’s servants have the wealth of this world; have more good things than drug dealers and pimps? How about—a novel idea—the Christian laying down his or her life so that others can live? How about the Christian driving a pickup, or a horse and buggy, or riding the city bus rather than being chauffeured in a stretch limo? How about the Christian living in a house of under a thousand square feet rather than in a mansion overlooking Southern California beaches?
In what sort of home did Jesus live? “‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’” (Matt 8:20) … don’t go to Acts 1:12–15 and claim that Jesus had a home in Jerusalem with an upper room capable of holding 120 people. If He had such a home, why didn’t He keep the Passover there with His disciples? He didn’t have such a home—and Acts is not good history, but is, instead, a Sophist novel.
Abraham was a type (shadow and copy) of Jesus as Paul declared: “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29). And what sort of home did Abraham own: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:8–10).
When the Adversary is the reigning prince of this world, from whom would you take title [a deed] to property if not from an agent of the Adversary? And if the Adversary grants you title to real estate over which he has authority, are you not also an agent of the Adversary, a servant of the Adversary? Certainly you are—and Christ wasn’t until nailed to the cross with death to shortly occur, the cross planted among the stones of Calvary, thereby locking Jesus’ fleshly body to this earth.
The only property Abraham owned was the field with the cave in which he buried Sarah … the dead own this present world, not the living. The things of this world are those bobbles that attract the attention of the spiritually dead, such as gold and diamonds, BMWs and Lear jets, mansions as large as shopping mall parking lots, Caribbean cruises and holidays on the beaches of Southern France.
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons … question: were Gentiles ever under the Law? Paul would seem to be saying here that Jesus came to redeem those who were under the Law, sons of God who were, because of their infancy, no different from slaves. If this is what Paul says, then why was Paul’s ministry to Gentiles, unless Gentiles were/are also under the Law although unknowingly so?
Elsewhere, Paul wrote, “For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:11–13).
Did Jesus come to redeem those human persons not under the Law or without the Law? If only doers of the Law … will be justified, and if God shows no partiality, then the person who ignores the Law has no redeemer for this person is an unrepentant sinner through claiming that the Law has no authority over the person. So, is such a person known by God, foreknown by God, a person God has predestined to be glorified as fruit borne out of season. And the greater question, has the person come to know God?
Satan knows God, I suspect, knows God quite well. But this doesn’t mean that God intends to save Satan; for what God knows about Satan angers God to the degree that God has already declared that fire will come out from within Satan and utterly consume him, stated in past tense as a thing that has already happened (see Ezek 28:18) so no repentance by Satan will alter what will happen, nor will God change His mind about what He will do from our perspective but what He has already done from His perspective.
Knowing the Lord is not enough; being known by the Lord is not enough. What is enough is believing God, Father and Son, with this belief producing obedience and trust and unshakeable loyalty. These Satan lacked when iniquity was discovered in an anointed guardian cherub.
Christians and notably Sabbatarian Christians don’t believe God, Father and Son; don’t believe that they should have to lay down their lives for others, particularly for Christians that remain visible sinners, transgressing the Sabbath Commandment weekly. However, some of these Sabbatarians will personally sacrifice much to promote conversion of law-breaking Christians to sects and denominations that outwardly keep the Commandments, but these who would sacrifice to convert will not sacrifice the authority they believe they possess and truly serve visible sinners. Rather, they want to be lords in assemblies of converts; they want to be the ones who lead Bible studies and answer questions and be served by converts. Their concept of serving is preaching the Word of God, teaching converts the fundamentals of Christian worship, but they have no calling to teach.
When every Christian has but one teacher, God (And they will all be taught by God — John 6:45; Isa 54:13), no Christian needs to teach another. But we don’t yet see Christians being taught by God through having the Law written on hearts. So for a while, there remains a work to do like the work Paul did. But with the Second Passover liberation of Israel, this work—that of teaching converts—will end.
The above is enough for one Reading. The subjects addressed here will be retrieved and revised in a near Reading.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."