The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary are offered as openings into dialogue about the subject or concept. And this Sabbath’s selection begins a series about spiritual birth and everlasting life.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of September 3, 2005
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 person conducting the services should read or assign to be read John, chapter 5.
Commentary: Passing from death to life (v. 24): Jesus has death preceding life,
not following life. Scripture has light coming from darkness (Gen 1:3 & 2
Cor 4:6). Death and darkness become spiritual synonyms, as do life and light.
Therefore, darkness in a physical sense allows
disciples to perceive death in a spiritual sense—a calendar day begins with the
setting of the sun at even. A “day” doesn’t begin at
Rebelling angels were cast into outer darkness—they
were cast into time, or space-time. They will experience death if they are not
allowed back into the heavenly realm. Hence, they will be judged by glorified
saints who were consigned to disobedience (Rom
The creation didn’t become dark after an unrecorded period of being in light as proponents of the so-called gap theory [a teaching that has a gap in time occurring between Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 & 2] propose. Rather, the earth and all creation were/are constructed of physical elements that lacked/lack life in the heavenly realm; they were created spiritually lifeless, therefore in darkness. Hence, night precedes day as death precedes life, for “light” (or true light) is of God, and is, specifically, everlasting life in the heavenly realm. Darkness is the absence of such life.
Passing from death to life occurs in resurrection, the promise of Holy Writ. (John 5:25-29; Dan 12:2; Ezek 37:12-14).
Jesus said that
the Pharisees “searched the Scriptures because [they thought] that in them
[they] would find eternal life” (John
The witness of
Scripture is: ‘“If you believed Moses, you would believe me [Jesus]; for he
wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my
words?’” (John 5:46-47), and ‘“He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and
the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the
dead”’” (Luke
The reader should now read Exodus chapter 4.
Commentary: The Logos or Spokesperson of YHWH would speak to Aaron and would put words in Aaron’s mouth, and would be with both Moses and Aaron to teach them. Aaron would then speak to the people as the mouth of Moses, and Moses would be as a god to Aaron (vv. 15-16). And this visible relationship of Moses being as god to Aaron, and Aaron speaking the words of Moses and by extension the words of YHWH to circumcised Israelites foreshadows the visible/invisible relationship of Jesus speaking the words of the Father to circumcised Israelites during His earthly ministry. Plus, the relationship of deity, Moses as deity, and Aaron as spokesman also forms the lively shadow of the invisible, spiritual relationship between Father, Son, and the truly called out ministry speaking the words of the Father given to this ministry through receipt of the Holy Spirit.
As the Church began to grow in the 1st Century, many individuals who were not born of Spirit, or born-from-above listened to the message and taught it without truly understanding it. The problem in one fellowship became serious enough that the Apostle John mentions it and names an individual in his third epistle. The Apostle Paul mentions a similar problem in his epistle to the Galatians: teachers coming from the church at Jerusalem insisted that Gentile converts needed to be physically circumcised and become physical Israelites before they could become spiritually circumcised. The teachings of this so-called circumcision faction caused the situation that resulted in the Jerusalem Conference recorded in Acts chapter 15.
Following the Jerusalem Conference, the circumcision faction didn’t quit teaching that converts need to first become physical Israelites. The Apostle Paul battled this particular teaching throughout his ministry. His instructions to Timothy given in his first epistle to the younger man must be placed in context with his epistle to the Ephesians: the circumcision faction was still causing trouble in Ephesus, and would continue to cause trouble to this day. As the circumcised nation divided into two houses following Solomon’s death, the Church also divided into two houses: the school at Alexandria, and the school at Ephesus. The southern school obtained political dominance over the Church following the Council of Nicea (ca. 325 CE), but the northern school [Arian Christianity] ideologically and militarily contested this dominance, with its last military success occurring when the Vandals sacked Rome (ca. 600 CE). It will again achieve military success in the first half of the tribulation, when it will become the active face of Death, the fourth horseman (Rev 6:8).
The problem of
false prophets and a false priesthood in the physically circumcised nation of
The reader should now read Ezekiel, chapters 33 & 34.
Commentary: The timeframe for when God will recover His sheep is during the seven, endtime years of tribulation. David will be their king following the resurrection when the Messiah comes.
The reader should now read 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 1 through 11, and 2 Peter, chapters 2 & 3.
Commentary: The surest way to identify a false prophet is if the
person inserts Rome, the
The other means of testing for genuineness is whether the person or the ministry teaches for financial gain: does the person or ministry live and work on the same terms that the Apostle Paul lived and worked?
The reader should now read 2 Corinthians chapter 11.
Commentary: Paul had the right to the tithes and offerings of the saints at Corinth, but he didn’t accept or demand them, for he was establishing a precedent by which future disciples could identify genuine ministers.
The mantra of the American Watergate scandal of the early 1970s was, Follow the money. This is equally true for testing the works of a ministry: if the money somehow finds its way into elaborate houses and goods for the ministers of a ministry, then that ministry isn’t of God, regardless of the good works that the ministry does. Those disciples who support the particular ministry will, of course, disagree, but the Apostle Paul, reaching forward in time through his words, doesn’t disagree. Instead, he labels such ministers and ministries as false apostles and deceitful workmen, the servants of Satan who have disguised themselves as servants of righteousness.
Disciples need to realize that the teachings of historic organizations, particularly of dogma developed in the 3rd through 5th Centuries, is askew, the reason the endtime Elijah must restore all things (Mal 4:5). Because false ministers had crept in among the sheep, a still persistent problem, disciples end up blown about by every wind of doctrine, for most doctrines seem correct to some disciples for a while.
The reader should now read John chapter 10.
Commentary: If Jesus’ words were actually heard by the Church, the first half of the condition necessary to receive everlasting life, the Church would divide between those who would pick up stones to kill their Savior, and those who would actually believe. This is the situation that will be seen when the Tribulation begins. The last Eve will bear two sons, and the first will kill his righteous brother…the first will be first (or Cain) because he continues the present practices and continues to believe the present dogma of the greater Church. The second will, when empowered by the Holy Spirit, believe the Father and will begin living as Jesus lived, which means living as a spiritual Judean.
The greater
Church polishes a worrisome spot on the outside of the cup, the earthenware jar
that is the flesh, and it teaches newly born sons of God that they are not
under the laws of God. Today, it spiritually slays infant sons of God as
Pharaoh would have had the Hebrew midwives slay the male children of the
circumcised nation in
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."