The Philadelphia Church

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 faith-thieves.

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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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It was now two days before the Passover and the Unleavened. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest Him by stealth and kill Him, for they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people." And while He was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over His head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him. And on the first day of [the] Unleavened, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?" And He sent two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us." And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as He had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. (Mark 14:1–17)

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1.

There are individuals who take delight in stealing faith away from potential sons of God: the dead know nothing (Eccl 9:5), whereas infants and small children know very little—and it would be better for the person who prevents or hinders spiritual infants from coming to Christ Jesus if the one who hinders were drowned (Matt 18:6).

A favorite ploy of those who steal faith is to ask potential sons of God or spiritual newborns how is it that there was on the third day of the Genesis “P” creation account plants and trees (Gen 1:11–12) when the sun and moon were not created until the fourth day (v. 16), and the potential son of God has no answer for the potential son was taught that the earth was created in six days and God rested on the seventh day, that it is for this reason that a person of God keeps the Sabbath (Ex 20:11), that the Sabbath is a memorial to the fact that God rested on the seventh day (Ex 31:17). So how is it that there were seed producing plants and fruit bearing trees before the sun existed?

Who says the sun didn’t exist on the third day? Read Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning, God created [filled] the heavens [plural] and the earth” … what part of the heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars, isn’t created on Day One? And why does the poet who wrote the Genesis “P” creation account reference the initial day as <day one> but references the following six days as <second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh day> rather than as day two, etc? Why change numbering systems after day one unless a change occurs of some other sort than one day ending and another day beginning? And how long is a day, which has a dark portion and a light portion?

The potential son of God or the spiritual newborn doesn’t know to ask the above questions: their teachers haven’t done a proper job of educating those who want to come to Christ Jesus but are being prevented or hindered by a faith-thief, who is often an unbelieving physical peer. Adult faith-thieves dwell in this world’s colleges and universities. And while potential sons of God are warned about them before entering academic programs, the warnings are never adequate: faith will be stolen, and these spiritual zombies will be encountered throughout society. One is a top-level American hornsmith (he crafts powder horns for longrifle enthusiasts). Another is employed by National Public Radio. They are scattered throughout the economic spectrum, their faith never surgically removed from them, but rather, hacked or bludgeoned from them, thereby leaving them spiritually dazed and bleeding, wandering through this world as campfire smoke drifts away from the fire, becoming temporarily entangled in tree branches then passing on, becoming thinner and thinner as it gets farther and farther away from the fire pit where the faith-thieves dance as witches around a steaming cauldron.

In the Genesis “P” creation account, verse two is the important verse: “And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” … can you see the spirit of God? John the Baptist saw the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] descending in the form of a dove and light and remain on the baptized Christ Jesus (Matt 3:16). The disciples heard the spirit of God fill the room in which they were assembled to observe the Feast of Weeks (Acts 2:2). But the spirit of God is not a thing that’s seen as the earth is a thing, or the sun and moon are things. Rather, the spirit of God is of a differing dimension than are the four known forces, or the three observable dimensions, with a fourth dimension being time. Therefore, to see in a narrative a dimension that cannot be observed by human eyes will have the narrative leave the known dimensions and become a party to an unobservable dimension, the realm that is usually indentified as heaven —

The Genesis “P” creation account ceases to be about the creation of things at the end of verse one and becomes about a spiritual creation from that point forward … how can a reader know this? Look at another of the tools faith-thieves have in their tool bag, Genesis 2:4 onward.

These are the generations

of the heavens and the earth when they were created

in the day when YHWH Elohim made the earth and the heavens …

The heavens and earth were created in a day, exactly how the “P” creation account reads—and on this same day, Adam was created as was the Garden of Eden as were plants, animals, Eve, and all who were fathered by Adam until Jesus the Nazarene was born of Mary but fathered by the God who created all things rather than by Adam, whose offspring were all consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) as sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3) … all living persons other than the man Jesus, if Scripture is to be believed, have come through Eve and are to Christ Jesus, the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45; Rom 5:14), as the Woman is to the Man. Hence, the Woman shall be saved in childbirth; i.e., the physically living person shall be saved through the birth of the inner self when the person receives a second breath of life, the breath of God [πνευμα Θεου] in the breath of Christ [πνευμα Χριστου] that is euphemistically called by Christians, the indwelling of Jesus.

Scripture doesn’t present in two chapters two differing physical creation accounts as faith-thieves would like potential sons of God to believe. There is only one physical creation and only one physical creation account; for the man Jesus is the light of day one (2 Cor 4:6). The dark portion of day one of the “P” creation account ended when the Creator-of-everything-made entered His creation as His unique Son, not to condemn it but to save human persons whom He wanted to exterminate in the days of Noah.

From the beginning there has been tension between Y^aH^d~nW^aiH Elohim—the conjoined God of the living ones (from Matt 22:32) and the God of dead ones—and human persons who were created in Adam from whom Eve came … Adam never ate of the Tree of Life, which he was supposed to do. Eve was created from living flesh, Adam’s. Eve wasn’t created from dead mud, but from living flesh. And it can here be carefully argued that Eve was created by the God of the living ones (again from Matt 22:32) whereas Adam received life from Elohim [singular in usage but plural in construction]: Adam was to receive life from both the God of the living ones and the God of dead ones if he had eaten of the Tree of Life, but because he did not long believe his Creator, he never received a second breath of life that would have given to him indwelling eternal life, true life. Thus, Adam died in the dark portion of day one. Adam died on the day that he ate forbidden fruit, this day being the dark portion of day one. He died because he was from this point forward prevented from eating from the Tree of Life by being driven from the Garden of God.

A day has a dark portion, a dead portion, and a light portion, a living portion. Every day has a dark portion from which its light portion comes, with the light overcoming the darkness that cannot prevent the light from coming: death cannot prevent life from coming to what is without life, just as life cannot prevent death from overtaking it, the lesson of the rotating earth.

Again, human persons descend from Eve, who bore Cain, Abel, and Seth, plus other children.

Eve said of Cain, “‘I have gotten a man with the help of YHWH’” (Gen 4:1) … why would she say such a thing? She was now outside of the Garden, having to till the earth to take from its her food. It was the Lord who had driven both Adam and herself from the Garden; so shouldn’t she have been angry with the Lord? So how had the Lord helped to get her a man? Was Adam not having conjugal relationships with her in the Garden? Did Adam knowing Eve only begin after they were driven from the Garden? And is Eve’s declaration positive, as readers would expect, or negative; for pain was assured in childbirth (Gen 3:16)? And this is a subject for another time.

Two creations that work together as one creation; two human persons that come together as one person (Gen 2:24); two deities that work together as one deity—

There would be tension between the living and the dead if the dead had any form of life at all. It is only the living that can have life. Once the dead—once lifeless physical elements come together and are able to reproduce—receive life, the dead are no longer dead, a self-evident statement. And whereas the dead didn’t know that they were dead, the living know that they will die: what are they to make of inevitable death?

Solomon writes,

There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. (Eccl 8:14–9:6 emphasis and highlighting added)

The faith-thieves have come to realize that there is no difference in what happens to the righteous and to the wicked. There is no reward here on earth for believing that the Lord lives beyond the peace and serenity that comes from belief; for the living know that they will die, and the living can only speculate about the fate of the dead, with this speculation holding that for good behavior here among the living there must be a reward that is to come in death for no such reward came while living.

It is the living that wants to believe that there is something beyond death, an afterlife; whereas the dead know nothing. It is the living that will try, through good behavior here on earth, to convince a God of the dead to return them to life. Thus, once a person moves past physiological infancy of the sort that holds God will reward a person here on earth for good behavior—the position held by the man Job (see Job 31:3)—then the question arises, If there is a just God, why does He permit calamity to befall the righteous and good things to happen to the wicked, the point Solomon reached long ago. And the faith-thieves have, like wolves focused on a caribou calf, singled out a victim they know they can kill. The answer to this question lies in comprehending that humankind is in the middle of an on-going demonstration to prove to two-thirds of the angels (and to us as participants) that the Adversary’s way of democratic self-governance based upon transactions will not succeed. We simply have to suck-it-up and tough-it-out: the cry babies will exit stage left. The ones who practice righteousness because doing so is their expression of love for their fellow human persons will eventually prevail, not because they believe in an afterlife but because when they realized there was no reward for doing what is right, they nevertheless continued in their pursuit of righteousness as if good behavior were enough of a reward in itself.

The person should not expect anything for doing what the person is supposed to do; thus, for the person who knows that the righteous receive evil in this world and the wicked are rewarded, and who still chooses to do what is right—it is this person who will be remembered. The person who, in this world receives a reward for his or her good works, will receive no further reward for doing what the person knew to do. It is when the person receives nothing in this world for doing what is right that treasure is being stored up in heaven; for certainly nothing but heartaches have been obtained in this world.

Do people deceive themselves, believing they will receive after death what they didn’t receive in this world? This is the question that arises beyond where Solomon went—and this is a question asked by the faith-thieves. … To have faith when a person is consciously aware that the person can deceive him or herself multiple times and at multiple levels into believing what isn’t true forms the basis upon which true faith can be constructed. And the construction of faith begins with pushing past the arguments of the faith-thieves and challenging their unbelief.

The pile of mud from which Adam was formed knew nothing, had no expectations, no ability to do either good or evil. This pile of mud did not know its God. Only after this pile of mud became a nephesh, a breathing creature, the man Adam (Gen 2:7) did this now-former mud sculpture know its God, the God of the living … did this pile of mud that became Adam ever know the God of the dead ones? It wasn’t possible for Adam to know anything—to have an conscious awareness—before he was one of the physically living ones who knew only the God of the living ones.

Again, the dead know nothing: the dead because they are dead cannot know the God of the dead ones. The dead cannot know their God, the situation in which all of humankind found itself until the man Jesus revealed the existence of the God of the dead ones to His disciples while they were physically living but still spiritually dead.

Christianity is about knowing the God of the dead ones, the Father, while still being spiritually dead; for as soon as the Father gives a second breath of life to a human person—the breath of God in the breath of Christ—the person is no longer dead and belongs to the God of the living ones as a younger brother to the First of the firstborn sons of God. The person, if truly born of spirit (i.e., the breath of God in the breath of Christ), forms the Body of Christ and is one with the glorified Christ Jesus as a younger glorified son of God, one of the Elect who has been foreknown by the Father, predestined, called, justified and glorified through receiving that second breath of life. All that remains is for the Son, when He comes again, to cause the perishable flesh of the person to put on immortality.

But again, the dead know nothing: the dead do not know they are dead when they live physically and either practice righteousness or wickedness … the living have no choice in the matter: they will practice righteousness because this is what they desire. They will practice righteousness even when they are not very good in their practice: they will get better because they have no choice in the matter. Their mental landscapes changed ownership when they were given a second breath of life.

The faith of the living can take some hits but cannot be stolen. The faith-thieves simply sharpen the tools of the living for them; for the living are born as infant sons of God with their spiritual maturation being modeled on their physical maturation. Those things which caused physical harm or mental scaring to the physical body as well as the growth rate of the physical body during its maturation process will be repeated in the spiritual maturation of this son of God, for good and for bad. Therefore, Christ Jesus as the elder brother and high priest of every born-of-spirit son-of-God will run interference for His younger brother, keeping the faith-thieves at bay until the younger brother has grown sufficiently that he can fight against the faith-thieves himself, thereby aiding his younger siblings in their forthcoming fight against Christians who physically kill genuine disciples. And when there are many younger brothers able to fight the faith-thieves, the Adversary will change his tactics, with his change being predicated by his need to keep his principality from falling into the Abyss … he will fail: Babylon falls.

2.

Whereas juvenile faith-thieves turn to Genesis and the creation accounts to tally their victims, who are to their faith-thieves like dead song birds collected in a cigar box, killed by slingshot or BB gun, a youthful practice from 1950s America, it is adult thieves that use Mark’s Gospel to slay the potential son of God that has entered college and wants to know more about the New Testament and historical Christianity—

The professor of a course possibly titled, “Origins of Christianity: The Apostolic Age” (a real course taught at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, Fall 2004), will assign as a text such as, The New Testament, A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2^nd Edition, by Bart D. Ehrman of University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill, with Ehrman’s introduction to the New Testament being well within mainstream academia and actually praised as being superior to other texts used for similar courses—and this professor will assign to be read for the third week of the semester chapters 4 & 5 of Ehrman’s New Testament, these two chapters being about the Gospel of Mark.

What does the student know about Mark’s Gospel? The student is expected to have read Mark’s Gospel enough times that he or she is familiar with the Gospel and can discuss it in class—I know from experience that few students are really able to discuss reading assignments, that quizzes have to be given to ensure that assignments are read. So what kind of questions might be asked on a reading quiz covering Mark’s Gospel and the two assigned chapters of the text? It is these questions that will slay the student’s faith; for in Chapter 3, Box 3.2 (p. 51) Ehrman presents the following misinformation in two columns:

It is difficult to suppress rage against a person such as Professor Ehrman, who certainly should know better than write what he has … why has Ehrman assumed that the Passover in the year Jesus was crucified occurred on the Sabbath. This is an asinine assumption. Not even a dead person who knows nothing could so grossly misread a text.

So for a person who is as uninformed as Professor Ehrman, the only texts Christians or anyone else have concerning the events about which Mark’s Gospel is a record comes from these biographies. Jesus’ resurrection occurs the day after the Sabbath, during or at the beginning of the dark portion of this day; thus, Jesus was gone from the tomb before sunrise on this day after the Sabbath.

Jesus gave only one sign that He was from heaven, the sign of Jonah, which physically will have Him three days and three nights in the grave as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish [whale]. There is no ambiguity in the Hebrew expression: three days are three hot portions of a twenty-four hour period, and three nights are three twistings-away from the light. Therefore, as any reasonable reader of a text would do, a person will count backwards, with the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread being the third day. This will now have Friday being the second day that Jesus was in the grave. And this will have Thursday being the first day as well as the high Sabbath, the 15^th day of Aviv in the year when Jesus was crucified. Thus, the Passover as Moses commanded Israel to keep the Passover—not as Pharisees kept the Passover—would have been observed on the dark portion of the 14^th day of Aviv, or on modern calendars, Tuesday evening, with Jesus crucified on Wednesday, midweek of the physical week and with Jesus then being the Wave Sheaf Offering as the Wave Sheaf Offering was calculated by Sadducees—not Pharisees—being waved midweek during the sacred week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Because there is a hard link between calendar date and week day for Jesus’ resurrection (or being gone from the grave), with the day after the Sabbath being the 18^th of Aviv, historians can know for certain that Jesus was crucified on April 25^th (Julian) in the year 31 CE, a Wednesday. He entered Jerusalem as the selected Passover Lamb of God on the weekly Sabbath, April 21^st (Julian), the 10^th day of Aviv, with the month being established by observation from the temple.

Now, Mark establishes that “when the sixth hour [noon — six hours from the beginning of the day watch] had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour [3:00 p.m.]” (Mark 15:33). Jesus died at the ninth hour (vv. 34–37).

Where does Ehrman find his ignorance? Does he have a drawer in his desk where a keeps a jar of stupidity that he takes from regularly as if it were medicine … the damage to potential sons of God that people such as Professor Ehrman do removes from them the right to feelings of charity.

Jesus wasn’t a Pharisee. He would not have eaten the Passover when Pharisees did. He would have eaten the Passover as Moses commanded, which certainly wasn’t the practice of early Judaism … from the time of the Judges until the reign of King Josiah, the Passover wasn’t eaten as commanded by Moses—and after Josiah was killed, the Passover ceased to be eaten as Moses commanded. Mark is correct, Jesus ate the Passover at the beginning of the Preparation Day for the high Sabbath, the great Sabbath of the Sabbath. Jesus ate the Passover on the First Unleavened (Matt 26:17 — read the passage in Greek and remove the added words). There is no disagreement between Mark’s and John’s Gospels. The disagreement is with how Professor Ehrman reads Mark’s Gospel.

Enough. The Professor opens himself up to attack by publishing when he needs to keep quiet and learn, for he is in the position of the Woman when it comes to Christ Jesus and to His younger brothers. But because of the damage he and other of his ilk do, he will again be named.

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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."

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