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 love bridges ignorance.
Printable/viewable FileWeekly Readings
For the Sabbath of June 16, 2012
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.
___________________
The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation." And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side. Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven." And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"
And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" And he looked up and said, "I see men, but they look like trees, walking." Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village."
And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:11–38 emphasis added)
___________________
2.
This Sabbath’s Reading will be a continuation of the Sabbath Reading for June 9th … a characteristic of orality—of oral narrative—is the linking of thoughts together by additive conjunctions, especially “and.” This is seen in Mark’s account of events that are also recorded in Matthew chapter 16, where for a second time Jesus was asked for a sign.
Endtime disciples must remember the Hebraic principle that the physical precedes and reveals the spiritual so that two presentations of essentially the same material will have the first presentation being physical and the second presentation revealing what is spiritual. In Mark’s account that is cited, Jesus reminds His disciples that He miraculously fed the five thousand and twelve baskets of bread were taken up—the physical or dark presentation of the event—and then He miraculously feed the four thousand and seven baskets of bread were taken up, the spiritual or light presentation of same concept … consider that Israel naturally descended from the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob, and the Christian Church began with twelve disciples (Matthias replaced Judas Iscariot — Acts 1:26). But when the end of the age occurs, there are only seven named churches that exist on the Lord’s day, or the Day of the Lord, the day when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation. Remember also that these seven ending years of tribulation will consist of the 1260 day long Affliction, then the giving of the kingdom of the Son of Man, followed by the 1260 day long Endurance of Jesus, with the Adversary remaining the prince of this world until the end of the Affliction and with the Son of Man becoming the Lord of this world during the Endurance: the Affliction forms the natural or dark image of the Endurance, with the man of perdition (a human male possessed by the Adversary) in the Affliction forming the dark shadow of the Adversary, cast to earth from heaven (Rev 12:7–10), being given the mind of a man during the Endurance of Jesus.
Bad things will happen to good people throughout the period when the Adversary either reigns over the mental typography of living creatures or roams the earth posing as the messiah, with this period stretching from the days of Noah to the coming of the Messiah at the end of the Endurance of Jesus.
Now, consider the juxtaposition Mark presents in his Gospel: Jesus has just asked His disciples, Do you not yet understand, when “they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to [Jesus] a blind man and begged Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village [where the villagers couldn’t see what would happen], and when He had spit on his eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, "Do you see anything?" And he looked up and said, "I see men, but they look like trees, walking." Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village’” (Mark 8:22–26) … the people of the village were not to see the miracle performed, or to see the man afterwards. Why? And why did it take two interactions before the blind man could see as he should be able to see?
Take the blind man back to Jesus’ first disciples and compare what Jesus told His disciples before encountering the blind man and then told His disciples afterwards—
Jesus’ disciple did not understand what Jesus meant when He said to beware of the leavening of the Pharisees and of Herod (the secular state), a passage that could be used to support the Amish and Hutterite practices of schooling their children only through, roughly, eighth grade (or until 15 years of age), with a similar practice existing among the Russian Orthodox Old Believers. The feeling is that too much schooling produces worldliness that takes the child away from the faith once delivered … but what faith was it that was once delivered? Certainly not a faith that would have Christians worshiping Christ Jesus on Sunday.
It isn’t education that is the problem, but the lack of knowledge that comes from seeing men as walking trees. And it is in seeing men as walking trees where Jesus’ first disciples were even after they were filled with spirit; to wit, Peter did not fully understand what had occurred on that day of Pentecost that followed Calvary, nor did Peter understand what Jesus had disclosed to His disciples about God the Father, the deity that Israel did not previously know, the deity concealed by the creation and concealed in the Tetragrammaton YHWH.
In Jesus taking the blind man away from the village so his friends and neighbors could not see what Jesus would do to him can be seen in Jesus taking His disciples away from their families and vocations and leading them off who-knows-where as far as their families were concerned. Then in Jesus spitting on the blind man’s eyes is a direct transference by breath (how a person spits) of fluids that echoes the creation account of Adam and that makes tangible the spirit of God [I will permit the reader to ponder the concept]. But the blind man, no longer totally blind, sees men as walking trees—and this is the state of the first disciples after they receive the spirit of God by Jesus breathing on them (John 20:22). This is the state of most born-of-spirit Sabbatarian Christians prior to the Second Passover liberation of Israel: they see darkly, they are not able to know the things of God but only know in part.
On that day of Pentecost following Calvary, Peter saw the things of God in part; saw the things of God darkly, analogous to seeing men as walking trees. But Jesus didn’t immediately lay His hands on Peter’s ignorance as Jesus did on the blind man. Rather, He permitted the first Apostles’ ignorance to stand until the Body of Christ spiritually died. He would, after the Body of Christ died and was buried, return life to the Body as Elijah returned life to the son of the widow, with the living inner selves [souls] of the first disciples and of others who were actually born of spirit returning to heaven where they would sleep under the altar (Rev 6:9–11) for the remainder of this era. The Body collectively receives life when it is glorified; however, the Elect are outside of this model and actually receive indwelling eternal life while they live physically (that is, before the death of their fleshly bodies).
Obviously, Mark’s account of what happened when Pharisees challenged Jesus and demanded a sign differs in some ways from Matthew’s account (Matt chap 16), which is in Matthew’s Gospel the second occasion when Pharisees demand a sign … in Mark’s account, Jesus gives the Pharisees no sign: Jesus says nothing about the sign of Jonah, with Mark being as Peter was, spiritually able only to see darkly and know in part:
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Cor 13:7–12 emphasis added)
Why didn’t Jesus lay hands on Peter’s ignorance so that he could see spiritual matters as they are rather than seeing them as if they were men who appear as walking trees? Why not give knowledge to Peter when He gave indwelling spiritual life to His first disciples? Why did Peter continue to see spiritual things as if they were men who look like walking trees when the disciples were filled with spirit on that day of Pentecost following Calvary? And Paul answers the question: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” (1 Cor 13:11). Elsewhere Paul tells the holy ones at Corinth,
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. 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 2:14–3:3)
Paul says of himself that he had the mind of Christ, and in the same epistle he says of himself that he knows spiritual things only in part … possessing the mind of Christ doesn’t give a person all knowledge, but only permits the person to know in part the spiritual things of God—only permits the person to see spiritual things as the blind man saw men as walking trees after Jesus spit on his eyes. And this situation pertained to Mark as it pertained to Peter and to Paul; for with the giving of the spirit, the Father permitted His sons to write their opinion as Scripture, a controversial claim first made in the 2002 edition of A Philadelphia Apologetic (APA), an edition that is out of print and unavailable except on line in an archival search.
Mention of the 2002 edition of APA introduces similar dynamics as seen when comparing, say, Matthew’s Gospel with Mark’s Gospel; for APA has undergone several revisions as it adopts the quality of oral narrative: mutability, the changing of the narrative each time it is told. As the storyteller changes so do the stories that the storyteller tells. As Peter changed through spiritually maturing, so did Peter’s spiritual understanding. At the time of his death, Peter wasn’t the same Peter that spoke on that day of Pentecost following Calvary, a reality that cannot be well addressed in the permanency of an inscribed text such as the Book of Acts. This is a reality that has caused scholars and critics considerable difficulties, with Paul—who only know spiritual things in part—here serving as an example.
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul writes,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Rom 1:16–32 emphasis added)
Yet when Paul reasons with Greek philosophers, he says,
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities"—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean." Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." So Paul went out from their midst. (Acts 17:16–17 emphasis and double emphasis added)
Luke, in writing Acts, either hears Paul’s words and remembers them faithfully, or hears Paul’s words and writes down later the essence of what Paul said, the more likely scenario; for in Luke’s writings, everyone talks the same. The jailer talks like Paul talks, something that only occurs when the author of a text renders everyone’s speech in his own words, which isn’t to say that what the author records isn’t essentially what was said but is to say that what is recorded are not the exact words of the speaker. And all utterance forms events that cannot be retrieved unless electronically recorded: dictation even when taken at the time of utterance is only a close approximation of what was said. And when no dictation occurred, the transcription of an utterance even by the speaker at a later date will differ considerably from what it said … add to the preceding the work of the parakletos in bringing the things of God to mind in born-of-spirit sons-of-God: if Paul only knew in part and if Peter only knew in part, why would not mark also only know in part? For both Paul and Peter had the parakletos at work in each of them. Therefore, to say that the parakletos would correct mistakes in spiritual understanding is true but not necessary true today; for it takes time for the parakletos to push spiritual understanding through the dense minds of human persons who think they already know everything, such as 1st-Century Pharisees or 21st-Century Sabbatarian Christians. A boulder can be reduced to gravel by a man with a sledgehammer who has the time and willingness to keep at the task until it is accomplished, and the same for the work of the parakletos in trying to push spiritual understanding from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind of the person who knows everything, who allegedly understands the things of God. And along the way, the person who knows everything will see the spiritual things of God as the blind man saw men as walking trees. It will be at this point where the parakletos will enter its most difficulty in getting the person to where the person could go if he or she didn’t know everything. Hence, it is love for God and for brother and neighbor that is of foremost importance, not knowledge, not prophecy; for love either is present or isn’t present in the disciple. With love, it is all right to see men as walking trees. Without love, even seeing men as men will not save the person.
Now, the point of the above: in what Luke records of Paul’s address to Greek philosophers, Paul would have the Creator of men being the deity that raised Jesus from death, with this simply not being so. The God of living ones is not the God of dead ones, what both Matthew and John record. The Creator didn’t raise Jesus from death; for the Logos who was God and who was with the God in primacy (John 1:1) was the Creator of all things (v. 3). It was this deity, this ΘΕΟΣ who entered His creation as His only Son (John 3:16), the man Jesus the Nazarene (John 1:14). It was this deity, this ΘΕΟΣ who was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of living ones (Matt 22:32). Yet, decades after Calvary, Luke doesn’t understand this reality—and if Luke can be trusted, neither do Peter or Paul.
Yet, the problem usually identified with Luke’s account of what Paul said to the Greek philosophers is in Paul apparently telling the holy ones at Rome that there is no excuse for spiritual ignorance whereas Luke records Paul telling the philosophers that, The times of ignorance God overlooked … can God both overlook ignorance as well as hold the ignorant responsible for their rebelling against God? Is ignorance of God an excuse for disobedience by people who are very religious? And this is a question that has significance today: is a Christian’s ignorance of the Law (e.g., a Christian who worships on Sunday) a justifiable excuse for transgressing the Law? In his epistle to the Romans, Paul seems to say, No, it is not. Yet to the Greek philosophers, Paul seems to say that it is. Which is it? Or can it be both?
In Mark’s account of Jesus warning His disciples to beware of the leaven [the teachings] of the Pharisees and of Herod, Jesus berates His disciples for having no understanding of spiritual matters—for being spiritually blind, the physical state of the man whom the villagers brought to Jesus in the following verse. This juxtaposition is intentional, and this juxtaposition links the disciples spiritual blindness with the man’s physical blindness. The link is a narrative hard or solid link, with the healing of the blind man fitting between when Jesus warns His disciples to beware of the leavening of the Pharisees and when He asks His disciples, “‘Who do people say I am?’” (Mark 8:27) … in his Gospel, Matthew chooses not to insert the story of the healing of the blind man between warning His disciples about the teaching of the Pharisees and when He asks His disciples about, “‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” (Matt 16:13).
Plus, in Matthew’s account of Jesus telling of feeding the five thousand there is no mention of how many baskets were gathered afterwards (see Matt 16:9).
Mark emphasizes the movement from physical to spiritual by giving the number of loaves gathered after each feeding (twelve baskets and seven baskets), followed by the relating of the healing of the blind man; whereas Matthew emphasizes this same movement from physical to spiritual by twice presenting Pharisees asking for a sign, with Jesus giving them the sign of Jonah, first as a physical sign (as seeing men as walking trees), then as a spiritual sign (creation of the Church based upon the movement of breath from in front of the nostrils to behind the nostrils).
And again, the difference between Mark’s Gospel and the Matthew’s Gospel can be likened to the difference between John the Baptist’s ministry and the earthly and spiritual ministries of Jesus (i.e., the blind man—John’s ministry—first seeing men as walking trees, the 1st-Century Church, then seeing men as men, the 21st-Century Church).
Love bridges ignorance and causes seeing in part to be sufficient for salvation if the person will permit it being so. For once a person can see, he or she cannot return home but must enter heaven.
And this Reading, too, will be continued.
*
The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
* * * * *
"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."