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 intentional difference serves to subtly reveal.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of February 23, 2013
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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Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (Jas 3:13–18)
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Wisdom is shown in meekness, in the lack of selfish ambition, the absence of bitter jealousy … what James writes is true. Who this James was cannot be known for certain. It was traditionally taught that this James was the brother of Jesus, but that identification is not established by the author himself or by another canonical author. And traditional assignment of authorship has proven to be unreliable; for a Greek Sophist novel has long been accepted as the genuine history of the early Church when this novel is at best a fiction based loosely on Paul’s epistles, with the author of this novel having also written a biography of Jesus loosely based on Mark’s Gospel but a Gospel at odds with the other three Gospels, that between themselves differ but in understandable ways.
The preceding is correct: the four Gospels differ enough that they cannot all be literally true so a criteria other than congressional usage [the criterion of the 4th-Century used to determine whether a text was Holy Writ] needs to be employed to establish genuineness, with the understanding that the New Testament remains an open canon, a canon to which additional texts can be added and presently included texts can be excluded. God did not suddenly become a deaf and dumb mute at the end of the 1st-Century CE, or at anytime since.
What happened at the end of the 1st-Centutry was the Body of Christ died from want of spiritual breath, the holy spirit [pneuma Theou]. When the Body lost the holy spirit, death was upon the Christian Church. But the the gates of Hades would not prevail over the Body of Christ: the Body would not, will not stay dead but will live again following the Second Passover of Israel, with the endtime two witnesses being foreshadowed by Moses and Aaron …
There will be another recovery of Israel that will cause Israel to no longer remember the Exodus:
Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares [YHWH], when it shall no longer be said, “As [YHWH] lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” but “As [YHWH] lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. (Jer 16:14–15)
Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares [YHWH], when they shall no longer say, “As [YHWH] lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” but “As [YHWH] lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.” Then they shall dwell in their own land." (Jer 23:7–8)
About this recovery, the prophet Isaiah wrote,
In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. … And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt. (Isa 11:11, 16)
Contrary to what Herbert W. Armstrong taught throughout his ministry, the modern nation of Germany is not prophetic Assyria; nor is endtime Israel a physical people. When moving from physical to spiritual—when moving from the Old Testament to the New, from the first Passover Covenant to the New Covenant—what was physical forms the shadow and type of what is spiritual. Egypt as a physical land forms the shadow and type of sin. Assyria as a physical land forms the shadow and type of death. And Judea as the physical Promised Land forms the shadow and type of Sabbath observance, which is a type of entering into heaven.
The outwardly circumcised nation of Israel that was the firstborn son of the God of Abraham (Ex 4:22) forms the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of circumcised-of-heart Israel that is the firstborn son of God the Father, with Christ Jesus being the First of these firstborn sons that are individually and collectively the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27).
The endtime recovery of Israel, the nation of living inner selves foreshadowed by a physical people, will be from Sin and Death, with Israel’s liberation from sin being described by the Apostle Paul in his genuine epistles (the Pastoral Epistles are not of the Apostle Paul, but of someone who borrowed Paul’s identity, an identity-thief). Endtime Israel’s recovery from Death/Assyria is the liberation of Israel that will cause the Exodus of Moses’ day to be forgotten. And it is this endtime recovery that remains to be described in Holy Writ as Moses wrote about outwardly circumcised Israel’s physical liberation from physical slavery to a physical king in a physical land. Moses, whose name means the Son, was the physical predecessor of Christ Jesus, the unique Son of Yah and the First of the firstborn sons of the Father.
Moses and Aaron in Egypt and in the wilderness forms the spiritually lifeless shadow and type of the endtime two witnesses in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years, with the two witnesses forming the shadow and type of the glorified Christ Jesus and the Remnant (from Rev 12:17) in the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years. And as Moses and Aaron were not equals in Egypt or in the wilderness even though they were brothers, with Moses being as god to Aaron (Ex 4:16) and with Moses having entered into the glory of God (Ex 33:14, 18–23; 34:29–30) at Mount Sinai, the endtime two witnesses, physical brothers, will not be spiritual equals; for one shall be the “head” of the other as the glorified Christ Jesus is the Head of disciples [spiritual Israel] and the glorified inner self is the head of the person’s fleshly body. In the Endurance, Christ Jesus as the Lamb of God shall lead the 144,000, but shall also be the head of the Remnant that leads the third part of humanity into glory or into the Millennium (for that portion of the third part that didn’t take judgment upon themselves during the Endurance even though they are filled with spirit and without indwelling sin or death).
Christianity represents the movement from Israel being the nation circumcised in the flesh only to Israel being the nation circumcised of heart only, with the Millennium seeing Israel being the nation that is circumcised both in the flesh and of the heart. To enter a physical sanctuary requires Israel to be circumcised in the flesh. To enter a spiritual sanctuary requires Israel to be circumcised of heart … today, there is no physical sanctuary; there is only a spiritual sanctuary.
The construction of the spiritual sanctuary was and remains the subject of the New Testament, with the recovery of circumcised-of-heart Israel from death being an appropriate subject for further texts to be included in the New Testament. Again, canonization comes via texts being valued for what they say, and when a text is no longer valued because of disclosed falseness, the text is to be removed from the canon … Sabbatarian Christians do not use the Apocrypha even though these extra books are included between the Testaments in many published Bibles—and so should it be with other books disclosing that their authors were without spiritual understanding, not hearing the voice of Jesus, but being pretenders in the faith
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A question was received this past week from a pastor in Kenya who has periodically contacted Philadelphia for the past three years. The pastor asked to be taught Scripture, taught to understand the mysteries of God, taught why it is that Philadelphia radically differs from the Roman Church in which he was reared, and from other Sabbatarian fellowships patterned after the ministry of Herbert Armstrong. His initial contact was to ask for support, and that contact got him rebuked for begging; for Paul, even when in need, did not ask for support but trusted God to provide. And God is absolutely faithful in supporting those who have been genuinely called by Him into ministry.
The Christian pastor who has undertaken a ministry without being called to ministry will inevitably teach what is partially or fully false … there is no reason for God to support this person. God isn’t interested in Christian ministries based on error. These ministries are of this world, are of the Adversary; so permit the Adversary to support those who serve him. And the Adversary at times provides handsomely for his servants.
About three weeks ago, a pastor from India contacted us to ask for support: he received a similar reply as was twice sent to the pastor from Kenya. But this pastor in India responded by saying that he was a fulltime minister who couldn’t take time away from his ministry to earn a living with his hands.
The Apostle Paul was also a fulltime minister; yet he supported himself with his hands.
It would seem that the Sabbatarian pastor from India thinks a little too much of himself—
If his ministry is really of God and if he is genuinely in need and not simply trying to bilk “rich Americans,” then the Indian pastor needs to take the matter up with God in earnest. As it is, because of what he does in his evangelistic campaigns (the pitch he gave in asking for support), he disclosed that his ministry is not genuinely of God but is patterned after the ministries of this world. As a result, he needs to ask those who remain of this world for support. It isn’t likely God will support the work he does in the name of Christ Jesus.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says,
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 7:21–23)
The pastor from India needs to be very careful or he will be denied when judgments are revealed. But the pastor from Kenya is a different story: he is different from other pastors who have contacted us from Kenya or elsewhere in East Africa. He returned in the manner of the Canaanite woman [“She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table’" — Matt 15:27 also Mark 7:28], and because he did, he will be taught the mysteries of God, mysteries that he hasn’t yet put together even though he knows Scripture. He will receive with explanation what is regularly received by readers of the various websites associated with Philadelphia.
The pastor from Kenya asked specially about Mark 16:15: “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned’” (vv 15–16). He asked for an explanation when Jesus in John’s Gospel said, “‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him’” (John 6:44) … how is it that believing the gospel and being baptized—what a person does—will save the person when the person cannot come to Christ unless the Father has drawn the person? From whom is salvation, from the person through what the person does by faith, or from the Father by what the Father does in having foreknown and predestined the person to be called, justified, and glorified? Does salvation come by the person accepting Jesus as the person’s personal Savior, or does salvation come by the Father drawing the person from this world, calling the person out of this world, justifying the person through the indwelling of Christ, and glorifying the person’s inner self by giving to the person a second breath of life? Is salvation done to the person, or what the person does? And if salvation is the gift of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23), and if the Father raises the dead (John 5:21) by giving to the dead eternal life, and if the dead are to bury the dead of themselves (Matt 8:22), then are not “the dead” those physically living persons consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3)? Can the dead raised themselves from death through believing the gospel [the good news] and being baptized? Ultimately, that is the question that has vexed Christianity for nearly two millennia.
If a person can save him or herself by believing the gospel and being baptized, salvation is dependant upon the will of the person, not the will of God. Christ Jesus at the Wedding Supper would now marry disciples who know Him, but whom He doesn’t know—disciples that didn’t walk in this world as He walked, nor were drawn from this world by the Father. The Wedding Supper would be a marriage arranged by the Bride. And to seriously believe that Christ would participate in such a farce is on its face, nonsensical.
Christianity is its own worst enemy, and the canonized New Testament provides ample evidence that Christianity is a false religion. But the problem isn’t Christianity, but the canonized New Testament and how the New Testament came into existence.
The first lesson assigned to the Kenyan pastor was to hand copy (write out a copy in his own hand) the last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel, the last chapter of Luke’s Gospel, then to compare these three post resurrection texts line by line to each other, then to compare these three chapters to John chapters 20 and 21. And this is a reasonable assignment for everyone.
Before proceeding, however, pay attention to the note most translation have at the end of Mark 16:8. The note will say something like, Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9–20. In fact, none of the manuscripts or manuscript fragments from before the 4th-Century CE include verses 9 through 20. The Gospel of Mark ends with verse 8, ends with the women telling no one that Jesus has risen. And there are strong theological reasons for the women telling no one that Jesus has risen; for unless the Father draws a person from this world, is it needful for a person to know that Jesus rose from the death? How would knowing change the person’s life? Would not knowing only cause the person to attempt to force his or her way into the kingdom that is beyond the reach of the person?
Also, consider that the author of Mark’s Gospel, possibly John Mark, wouldn’t know that the women told no one if the women really never told anyone. Either what Mark wrote is a fabrication, or the women recovered their courage and told the disciples what the angel told them. But if the women recovered their courage, why didn’t Mark relate that in his Gospel? Why end his Gospel with the women telling no one? And this was the ending of Mark’s Gospel for two or three centuries, notwithstanding Clement’s Letter and Secret Mark.
The author of Mark’s Gospel decision to end his biography of Jesus with the women telling no one that Jesus had risen was, indeed, a conscious decision, not a matter of simply relating what happened. Again, how would this author know that the woman told no one: there was a reason for the author of Mark’s Gospel to make this decision. And what the Kenyan pastor wanted to know and understand was the reason and logic for why what is recorded has been recorded. He wants to be able to deconstruct Scripture so that he can truly understand the mind of God.
Hand writing (hand coping) a text actually does all sorts of good things for the person; for in physical movement while reading, the mind imprints what has been read upon itself in a way that doesn’t happen when passively reading. One of the greatest faults of the American educational system has been its war on plagiarism that effectively stopped middle students from hand copying encyclopedia articles, and thereby imprinting on their brains the knowledge found in this short, summary articles. There is a time for all original work, but middle school is not the time. Middle school is for absorbing as much knowledge as possible in laying a foundational grid upon which original work can be built as the mind physically matures. And as such, if a person wants to actually remember how post-Resurrection Matthew differs from Mark and how both differ from John, the person will write out the endings, realize that they differ, don’t initially be put off by their differences, and deconstruct the post-Resurrection differences to see what is will be revealed.
Intentional difference serves to subtly reveal what isn’t to be known to everyone.
Endtime disciples need to understand the difference between intentionality and the simple recording of an event because the event happened in such & such way. Again, perhaps the easiest example of intentionality is seen in Mark’s Gospel where the women say nothing to anyone about Jesus having risen from the grave. If Mark was simply recording what happened, Mark would not know that the women said nothing. He wasn’t there. And if the women later told the disciples what the angel said, Mark deliberately omitted adding this detail to his account which would have been written after the women related what the angel said.
A last possibility exists, Mark fabricated his account of the women saying nothing.
Regardless of what actually happened, the original ending of Mark’s Gospel conveys an intentional withholding of information from the first disciples: that Jesus was no longer dead. Also, by the women telling no one what the angel said, Jesus’ first disciples would not know to go to Galilee where they would see Him. They would know what Jesus told them while Jesus still lived, but nothing more.
If the woman did not faithfully convey to the first disciples what the angel told them, there was a breakdown in communication between God and disciples before the spirit was given. The women, because they were afraid, did not do what they were spiritually told to do. And when moving from physical to spiritual, with the inner self being represented by the man in marriage and the fleshly body represented by the woman in marriage, this communication breakdown comes from the fleshly body being fearful, not doing what God has said.
There is, however, no logic for the women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Salome, probably the mother of James and John (cf. Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:56; John 19:25–27)—being so fearful that they did not tell the disciples that Jesus was alive … Mary, the mother of Jesus, would also be Mary, mother of James and Joseph [James and Joses]. Mary wife of Clopas and sister to Mary, mother of Jesus, would have been the aunt of Jesus, as well as the mother of James and John, the sons of thunder. This would have James and John being Jesus’ first cousins, as John the Baptist was a cousin. Jesus’ ministry was apparently an extended family affair, which now explains much about why Jesus’ disciples were quick to follow Him.
Andrew and Peter were brothers. Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip knew Nathanael and recruited him. The fisherman knew the other fisherman—and returning to the prophet Jeremiah,
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares [YHWH], and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations. (Jer 16:16–18)
The wages for sin is death. To doubly repay Israel for its iniquity is to bring double death upon Israel, the death of the flesh and the death of the soul [psuche]. Thus, when the second death is the lake of fire that isn’t needed to destroy the flesh but the soul, the recovery of Israel that will cause Israel to forget the Exodus occurs at the end of this present age; occurs following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, about which Philadelphia preaches.
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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."