Apostle Thomas Quotes

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations... What do you think you see, Linus?" "Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side..." "Uh huh... That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?" "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!

The story of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence … The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held to us as worthy of imitation.

...in my opinion miracles will never confound a realist. It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him. In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then, precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, he said: "My Lord and My God!" Was it the miracle that made him believe? Most likely not, but he believed first and foremost because he wished to believe, and maybe already fully believed in his secret heart even as he was saying: "I will not believe until I see.

They claim they're living the vita apostolica; but you didn't find the apostles feeling each other's bollocks.

he repudiated the writings of the Apostle Paul," whom he considered the (first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds on numerous points and contain nonhistorical material. It is hard to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the historical Jesus taught. The historical narratives of the Old Testament are filled with legendary fabrications and the book of Acts in the New Testament contains historically unreliable information about the life and teachings of Paul. Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous—written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles. The list goes on.

Whenever temptation comes, remember the wise counsel of the Apostle Paul, who declared, 'There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it' (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Our work in the world calls for many hands at the wheel. Planet earth is crying out in pain, and Christians have to pick up their crosses and follow Christ, his apostles and saints. These were all shining lights in a broken world ...

I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those writings are chiefly controversial; and the subjects they dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open air of the Creation.

This is why one will find in our nation’s Capitol countless images of gods and goddesses, along with zodiacs, the Washington Monument Obelisk, reflecting pools, and a whole cacophony of pagan imagery. There are no monuments to Jesus Christ, the apostles, or anything having to do with the Christian faith.

Miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realist to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit that fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.

The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.

Jesus said, "Seek and you will find. In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them

The only apostle who did not deserve proof was St. Thomas, and St. Thomas was the only apostle who got it.

If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.

One of the best means for this is the Eightfold Path expounded by the Buddha: 1. Right view 2. Right intention 3. Right speech 4. Right action 5. Right livelihood 6. Right effort 7. Right mindfulness 8. Right meditation

Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, "My Lord and my God!" Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, "I do not believe till I see.

The Ascent to Christ is a struggle thro’ one heresy after another, River-wise up-country into a proliferation of Sects and Sects branching from Sects, unto Deism, faithless pretending to be holy, and beyond,— ever away from the Sea, from the Harbor, from all that was serene and certain, into an Interior unmapp’d, a Realm of Doubt. The Nights. The Storms and Beasts. The Falls, the Rapids, . . . the America of the Soul. Doubt is of the essence of Christ. Of the twelve Apostles, most true to him was ever Thomas,— indeed, in the Acta Thomæ they are said to be Twins. The final pure Christ is pure uncertainty. He is become the central subjunctive fact of a Faith, that risks ev’rything upon one bodily Resurrection. . . . Wouldn’t something less doubtable have done? a prophetic dream, a communication with a dead person? Some few tatters of evidence to wrap our poor naked spirits against the coldness of a World where Mortality and its Agents may bully their way, wherever they wish to go. . . . — The Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, Undeliver’d Sermons

It is well enough known, that in the early ages of Christianity, many silly and fraudulent persons composed fictitious narratives of the life and actions of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, and gave them out as the writings of Peter, Nicodemus, Thomas, Barnabas, and even Judas Iscariot.

But I think St. Peter and the twelve Apostles would have been rather surprised at the concept that Christ had been scourged and beaten by soldiers, cursed and crowned with thorns and subjected to unutterable contempt and finally nailed to the Cross and left to bleed to death in order that we might all become gentlemen.

GLOSS. Secondly, the Evangelic doctrine has sublimity of strength; whence the Apostle says, The Gospel is the power of God to the salvation of all that believe. (Rom. 1:16.) The Prophet also shews this in the foregoing words, Lift up thy voice with might; which further marks out the manner of evangelic teaching, by that raising the voice which gives clearness to the doctrine.

It is not miracles that prompt realists to belief. The genuine realist , if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The apostle thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said: "My Lord and my God!" Was it the miracle that forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said: "I do not believe till I see.

Many of us have the mote and beam problem (see Matt. 7:3–5)—that is, we can easily see the faults of others, but not our own. So before we start holding others up to scrutiny to see if they are worthy of us, maybe we ought to work first on becoming a “right person” for someone else. Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles offered this counsel: “If the choice is between reforming other Church members [including fiancés, spouses, and children] or ourselves, is there really any question about where we should begin? The key is to have our eyes wide open to our own faults and partially closed to the faults of others—not the other way around! The imperfections of others never release us from the need to work on our own shortcomings.” 5 Therefore, when we focus on finding the right person, we should also focus on becoming the right person for someone else. The strengths we bring to a marriage will undoubtedly contribute to the success of the marriage.

So instead of providing another intellectual answer that would be ignored, David cut right to the heart. He said, “You’re raising all of these objections because you’re sleeping with your girlfriend. Am I right?” All the blood drained from the young man’s face. He was caught. He was rejecting God because he didn’t like God’s morality. And he was disguising it with feigned intellectual objections. This young man wasn’t the first atheist or agnostic to admit that his desire to follow his own agenda was keeping him out of the kingdom. In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul revealed this tendency we humans have to “suppress the truth” about God in order to follow our own desires. In other words, unbelief is more motivated by the heart than the head. Some prominent atheists have admitted this. Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously wrote, “God is dead and we have killed him,” also wrote, “If one were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in him.”[24] Obviously Nietzsche’s rejection of God was not intellectual! Professor Thomas Nagel of NYU more recently wrote, “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My

We continued our coitus reservatus as I mounted my lover in the lotus position. We closed our eyes to relish our unhurried gyrations, stirring an ardent tranquillity within ourselves that defied space and time. We lost track of time in this meditative equilibrium. All we experienced was the intimate connection our souls shared in our consummate union. Our spirits intertwined into a blissful state which the Hindus call Nirvana, the union with Brahman, the divine ground of existence, and the experience of seraphic egolessness. We were at once the Alpha and the Omega, the Yin and the Yang, the Front and the Back, the Positive and the Negative. “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male (masculine) and female (feminine) into a single entity, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female… then you will enter [the kingdom],” I remembered Jabril quoting from the gnostic Apostle Thomas.

the Apostle say: Pray without ceasing. [147] Yet can we genuflect without ceasing? Can we prostrate without ceasing? Can we lift up our hands without ceasing? How, then, does he say: Pray without ceasing? If by prayer he meant such things as these then I think we could not pray without ceasing. But there is another prayer, an interior prayer, which is without ceasing—desire. Whatever else you do, if only you desire that rest [148] you cease not to pray. If you wish to pray without ceasing then desire without ceasing. Your continual desire is your continual voice;

The first chapter of Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in the third chapter of Luke there is also given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might nevertheless be a fabrication; but as they contradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood; and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood: and as there is no authority for believing one more than the other, there is no authority for believing either; and if they cannot be believed even in the very first thing they say, and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be believed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or the books ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament. Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood between them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very commencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards? If they cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how are we to believe them when they tell us he was the son of God, begotten by a ghost; and that an angel announced this in secret to his mother? If they lied in one genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other? If his natural genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, why are we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufactured also, and that the whole is fabulous? Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon the belief of a story naturally impossible, repugnant to every idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of falsehood?

Dr. Rune Orqvist appeared in Fort Cochin in 1910 AD, washing ashore like Ask and Embla. Like those first humans of Norse mythology, Rune quickly found his legs, and they carried him to food, shelter, drink, women, and raucous company. With his giant girth and his booming baritone, the first impression of the newly arrived blond, bearded foreigner was of an oracle, the sort of man who in apostolic robes, carrying a staff, could have stepped off a dhow alongside that other apostle, Saint Thomas. His arrival is clouded in almost as much myth as that of Saint Thomas. What is known is that South India was the last stop on a journey that began in Stockholm. According to the good doctor, one night, full of akvavit and “singing to myself on Stora Nygatan, I was abducted. When I woke up I was a ship’s physician on a vessel bound for Cape Town!” That occupation took him to all the major ports of the Orient and Africa. But, in his midthirties, he disembarked in Cochin. The

Our defense against the devil, made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection and the Holy Spirit’s presence in us, comes in three ways: 1. Preparation: In Ephesians 6:10f, the apostle Paul teaches us to grow in our faith similarly to a soldier putting on armor, so that we may stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Our defense is truth; a right relationship with God; the Gospel of peace, faith, and salvation; and our offensive weapon, the word of God. 2. Discernment: We are gifted by the Holy Spirit to “discern spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10). 3. Active resistance: James 4:7 says that if we resist the devil he will flee from us. Our ability to resist depends on our preparation and our discernment. Our resistance is not passive, but an active and intentional use of the “sword of the Spirit, the word of God.” Jesus modeled this, and the disciples followed suit, as they cast out demons by commanding them in the name of Jesus. We can do the same thing through the power of the same Holy Spirit.

8) The fourth period in the history of indul gences, from the Council of Clermont (1095) to the Second Council of Lyons (1274), coincides with the crusades, during which the practice as sumed a new form. At Clermont, for the first time, participation in a crusade was suggested as a ransom from all penance. The Council decreed as follows: " Whoever, out of pure devotion, and not for the purpose of gaining honor or money, shall go to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God, let that journey be counted in lieu of all penance." 27 Pope Urban II, who personally attended this council, said in a sermon: " But we, trusting in the mercy of God and the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, remit to the faithful who take up arms against the Sara cens and assume the burden of this pilgrimage [to Jeru salem], the unmeasured penalties of their sins. Those who shall die there with a truly contrite heart, may rest as sured that they will obtain forgiveness of their sins and the fruit of eternal reward." 28 Urban's example was followed by Callistus II (1123), Eugene III (1146), Alexander III (1179), and other popes. At about the same time the Schoolmen, notably St. Thomas Aquinas (+ I 2 74)> turned their attention to

Basic religious belief is a vote for some coherence, purpose, benevolence, and direction in the universe, and I suspect it emerges from all that we said in the last chapter about home, soul, and the homing device of Spirit. This belief is perhaps the same act of faith as that of Albert Einstein, who said before he discovered his unified field that he assumed just two things: that whatever reality is, it would show itself to be both “simple and beautiful.” I agree! Faith in any religion is always somehow saying that God is one and God is good, and if so, then all of reality must be that simple and beautiful too. The Jewish people made it their creed, wrote it on their hearts, and inscribed it on their doorways (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), so that they could not and would not forget it. I worry about “true believers” who cannot carry any doubt or anxiety at all, as Thomas the Apostle and Mother Teresa learned to do. People who are so certain always seem like Hamlet's queen “protesting too much” and trying too hard. To hold the full mystery of life is always to endure its other half, which is the equal mystery of death and doubt. To know anything fully is always to hold that part of it which is still mysterious and unknowable.

AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 199, 46.) But that this preaching the Gospel of the kingdom in all the world was accomplished by the Apostles, we have not any certain evidence, to prove. There are numberless barbarous nations in Africa, among whom the Gospel is not even yet preached, as it is easy to learn from the prisoners who are brought from thence. But it cannot be said that these have no part in the promise of God. For God promised with an oath not the Romans only, but all nations to the seed of Abraham. But in whatever nation there is yet no Church established, it must needs be that there should be one, not that all the people should believe; for how then should that be fulfilled, Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake, unless there be in all nations those who hate and those; who are hated? That preaching therefore was not accomplished by the Apostles, while as yet there were nations among whom it had not begun to be fulfilled. The words of the Apostle also, Their sound hath gone out into all the world, though expressed as of time past, are meant to apply to something future, not yet completed; as the Prophet, whose words he quotes, said that the Gospel bore fruit and grew in the whole world (Ps. 19:4.), to shew thereby to what extent its growth should come. If then we know not when it shall be that the whole world shall be filled with the Gospel, undoubtedly we know not when the end shall be; but it shall not be before such time.

After showing that truth about God was known by the Gentiles [Rom 1:18], he now states that they were guilty of the sins of ungodliness. First, he shows this with regard to the sin of impiety; secondly, in regard to injustice.... But someone might believe that they would be excludes from the sin of ungodliness on account of ignorance, as the Apostle says of himself in 1 Tim (1:13): 'I received mercy, because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.' First, therefore, he shows that they are without excuse [Rom 1:20]; secondly, he states their sin, there [v.23;] at And they changed the glory. In regard to the first it should be noted that ignorance excuses from guilt, when it precedes and causes guilt in such a way that the ignorance itself is not the result of guilt; for example, when a person, after exercising due caution, thinks he is striking a foe, when he is really striking his father. But if the ignorance is caused by guilt, it cannot excuse one from a fault that follows. Thus, if a person commits murder, because he is drunk, he is not excused from the guilt, because he sinned by intoxicating himself; indeed, according to the Philosopher, he deserves a double penalty. First, therefore, he states his intention, saying: So, i.e., things about god are so well known to them, that they are without excuse, i.e., they cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance: 'Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin" (Jas 4:17); 'Therefore, you have no excuse' (Rom 2:1). 126. Secondly, he proves his statement at For, although they knew (v. 21). First, he shows that their first guilt did not proceed from ignorance; secondly, their ignorance proceeded from this guilt, but became vain. That their basic guilt was not due to ignorance is shown by the fact that, although they possessed knowledge of God, they failed to use it unto good. For they knew God in two ways: first, as the supereminent being, to Whom glory and honor were due. They are said to be without excuse, therefore, because, although they knew god, they did not honor him as God; either because they failed to pay Him due worship or because they put a limit to His power and knowledge by denying certain aspects of His power and knowledge..: 'when you exalt him, put forth all your strength.' Secondly, they knew Him as the cause of all good things. Hence, in all things he was deserving of thanks, which they did not render; rather, they attributed their blessings to their own talent and power. Hence, he adds: nor did they give thanks, namely, to the Lord: 'Give thanks to Him in all circumstances' (1 Th 5:18).

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?' saith the Apostle; 'it is God that justifieth,' and it is their being elect that carries it. Yea, his love is so strong that if there be any accusation,—the Apostle makes the supposition, 'Who shall lay anything to their charge?' Sin or devil? —that if at any time sin or devil come to accuse, it moves God to bless. His love is so violent, it is so set, that he takes occasion to bless so much the more.

But the kingdom of the father is spread out over the earth, and men do not see it. ... No one will say

But in the years before the council, in a typical American parish, that ancient liturgy was too often approached haphazardly, celebrated carelessly, treated as an obligation to be rushed through as quickly as possible. After the council, of course, the introduction of a new streamlined liturgy gave immeasurably more scope to the casual approach. In Why Catholics Can’t Sing, Thomas Day comments: We can be reasonably sure that the Last Supper did not begin with the words, “Good evening, apostles.” Intuition tells us that John the Baptist did not cry out in the wilderness, “Repent, sin no more, and havernice day.” Common sense tells us that there is something immensely wrong and contradictory about starting off a ritual with “Good Morning.” We might even say that the laity in the pews “short circuits” when greeted this way at Mass. The church building, the music, and the celebrant in flowing robes all seem to say, “This is a ritual,” an event out of the ordinary. Then, the “Good Morning” intrudes itself and indicates that this is really a business meeting and not a liturgy, after all. Today, after more than a full generation of liturgical experimentation, the integrity of the liturgy can be compromised by two opposite dangers: caring too little about the established rubrics or caring too much.

Twenty percent of Kerala’s population were Syrian Christians, who believed that they were descendants of the one hundred Brahmins whom St. Thomas the Apostle converted to Christianity when he traveled East after the Resurrection.

The ‘pamphlet’ urged by Thomas Potts he now titled An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings are Considered. The title surely told anyone the publication would not be a pamphlet. It turned out to be a 87-page book. In the first section William asked the key question: Is the Great Commission still binding? And in this section he reviewed every objection he had ever heard against missionary work. Then he rebutted it. Examples of these were[3]: Objection: But how do we know that this command is still valid? Not even divine injunctions abide for ever. They have their periods and pass, like the Levitical law. Reply: Nay, divine injunctions abide till they have fulfilled their function. Who can think this commission exhausted, with the majority of mankind not yet acquainted with Christ’s name? Objection: But Christ’s command could scarcely have been absolute, even for the apostles, seeing that they never heard of vast parts of the globe - the South Seas for example -nor could they these be reached. Neither can we think it absolute today, with very large regions still unknown and unopened. Reply: As they (the apostles) were responsible for going according to their strength into all their accessible world, we are in duty bound to speed into our much enlarged world. Indeed, we ought to be keen to go everywhere for Christ, till all closed doors are opened. In

Kerala’s Christians belong to the oldest Christian community in the world outside Palestine. And when St Thomas, one of Jesus’s twelve apostles, brought Christianity to Kerala, it is said he was welcomed on shore by a flute-playing Jewish girl. St Thomas made converts among the high-born elite, the Namboodiri Brahmins, which meant there were Indians whose families had practised Christianity for far longer than the ancestors of any Briton could lay claim to.

Now, take an estimate of Christ's heart herein, from those two holy apostles Paul and John, who were smaller resemblances of this in Christ. What, next to immediate communion with Christ himself, was the greatest joy they had to live upon in this world, but only the fruit of their ministry, appearing in the graces both of the lives and hearts of such as they had begotten unto Christ?

The genuine realist if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, "My. Lord and my God! " Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, "I do not believe till I see.

Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.” I

Late in the spring of 1837, apostles Thomas Marsh, David Patten, and William Smith left their homes in Missouri and set out for Kirtland. Many of the Saints in Zion were now settled along a stream called Shoal Creek, about fifty miles northeast of Independence. There they had founded a town called Far West, using Joseph’s plan for the city of Zion as their guide to lay out the settlement. Hoping to find a peaceful solution to the Saints’ ongoing problems with their neighbors, the Missouri legislature had organized Caldwell County, which encompassed the land around Far West and Shoal Creek, for the settlement of the Saints.1

Here lies the grace, the love, the peace, the glory; all blessedness in this covenant, and it is sure to all the seed, and God has made it to the end that it might be sure, that those who come thereunto might have strong consolation (Heb. 6:17, 18). This is a covenant in which it is impossible for God to lie: He has covenanted and sworn to it, that we might have strong consolation. Oh, therefore, my beloved friends, I mean you that are interested in this sure, everlasting covenant, let it be your work to be much in the meditation and consideration of the grace, the love, the glory of this covenant. All true believers may truly say with the apostle, so then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free (Gal. 4:31). Not of the covenant from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, but of the covenant from Mount Zion, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:24, 26).

Paul holds that the Church, although it consists of many individual members, is “the body of Christ” (Rom 12:4–5; 1 Cor 12:12–27). As such, if one part suffers, “all the parts suffer with it” (1 Cor 12:26). Moreover, Paul considers his relationship with the Corinthians in intimate, familial terms. As founding †apostle, he is their “father” (1 Cor 4:15; 2 Cor 12:14–15) who regards them affectionately as “children” (2 Cor 6:13). Just as tension, disaffection, and rifts between individual family members adversely affect the entire family, so the painful incident left its mark on all. The sin of one member negatively affects the whole body of Christ.

While sufferings and hardships for the sake of the gospel are a reality, the Apostle knows that it is only the rejection of this gospel that leads to destruction (2:15–16; 4:3).

The gift from predominantly †Gentile churches to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem will dramatically symbolize how God, through the cross of Jesus, has broken down the long-standing enmity between Jews and Gentiles. Through Christ, God has reconciled both groups to himself and has created a single body, the Church, in which Jews and Gentiles can live together in peace (Eph 2:14–16). This is ultimately the reason the Apostle attaches such importance to the collection for “the poor among the holy ones in Jerusalem” (Rom 15:26).

The Apostle then explains that Christ died for a particular purpose. Expressed negatively, Jesus died so that those who live might no longer live for themselves. Here we learn how Paul understands human existence under the enslavement of sin: it is marked by egocentrism and self-seeking.

Paul again actualizes the text, acknowledging that he is chastised—for instance, by the sufferings inflicted on him by others. But he does not interpret this as others do, namely, as God’s punishment. Rather, Paul interprets his chastisements in light of the divine discipline bestowed on those whom God loves (see Prov 3:11–12).[12] He understands that “at the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it” (Heb 12:11). And as was the case with the psalmist, although he is chastised the Apostle is yet not put to death.

Apostle has no doubt about the existence of the power of evil in the world, a power that seeks to thwart the spread of the gospel and to ensnare Christians whose faith is weak.[14] Indeed, Paul is not unaware of Satan’s purposes. Here Satan’s purpose would be to plunder the Corinthian church of one of its members and to leave the community in division and discord. Paul strives diligently to prevent this from happening.

Paul then expresses the purpose of our groaning—that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. That is, our groan is actually a prayer (see Rom 8:26–27), for it is directed to God, who alone can bring the dead to life. Although God has not been explicitly named as the subject of any verbs in verses 1–4, he has been present throughout the passage. God is the one who brings into being what is “not made with hands” (v. 1). Moreover, God is the implied subject of the action of clothing further (vv. 2, 4). Now, at the end of our verse here, God is the one who makes what is mortal have eternal life. Indeed, throughout his extended explanation for his way of being an †apostle (beginning in 2:14), Paul has alluded to God’s action, through the Spirit’s empowerment, of transforming us into the divine image as revealed by Jesus (2:14–15; 3:3, 18; 4:4, 6, 14). The process of “Christification,” of causing us to take on Jesus’ character and way of living, will not be complete, however, until God fully “clothes” us with a glorious resurrection body. It is then that we will most closely resemble the risen and glorified Christ.[8]

The how and when of resurrection. Second Corinthians 5:1–5 can be supplemented by other passages in which Paul discusses death and the resurrection of the body in order to fill out the picture of his teaching on these subjects. In 1 Thess 4:13–18 and 1 Cor 15:51–55, he makes clear that it is at the parousia, at Jesus’ coming again in glory at the end of time, that the dead will be raised. Nevertheless, Paul was also convinced that at his death he would “be with Christ” (Phil 1:23). What the Apostle leaves unstated is what happens between one’s death and the resurrection on the last day. The Catholic Church teaches that at the moment of death the soul is separated from the body. Although the body is subject to decay, the soul goes to meet God. Moreover, at the appointed time, “God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection” (Catechism, 997).

The verb translated “is open wide” means “enlarge.” The image of an enlarged heart conveys warm affection and love. St. John Chrysostom explains that, as heat causes things to expand, so does Paul’s love for the community cause his heart to expand.[2] A commentator of our day fittingly remarks: “In medical terms, an enlarged heart is a dangerous liability; in spiritual terms, an enlarged heart is a productive asset,”[3] something that is essential for growth in the spiritual life. The Apostle thus grounds his appeal to reconcile with an assurance of his love.

When Paul uses dōrea (“gift”) elsewhere, he indicates God’s work of redemption accomplished through Christ Jesus (Rom 5:15, 17; Eph 3:7; 4:7). The Apostle therefore offers thanksgiving to God first and foremost for the gift of salvation, the gift of reconciliation effected through the death and resurrection of Christ. He believes—and wants the Corinthians to appreciate—that the collection is an expression of this divine dōrea.

The NAB’s “enormously powerful” translates a phrase that is better rendered “powerful because of God.” That is, Paul’s use of battle imagery serves to highlight God’s power. It might seem surprising that the Apostle speaks about battles and weapons immediately after invoking Jesus’ gentleness and forbearance. But with this juxtaposition Paul captures the paradox of how God’s power is made known. Above all, God’s power has been revealed in Jesus’ death on the cross. Through this climactic expression of Jesus’ humble, self-giving love, the powers of sin and death were defeated (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 1:18–25).

While the Apostle can in truth boast about many things, he considers them as nothing in comparison with “gain[ing] Christ and be[ing] found in him” (Phil 3:8–9).

during a siege. Paul turns this convention on its head.[15] Unlike the powerful, daring soldier who climbs up and enters the opponents’ stronghold, the Apostle portrays himself as a helpless figure who is lowered in order to escape the fray. Paul’s point is that he is a different kind of “soldier” (10:3–6). While he does wield powerful “weapons” (6:7), they are those of the gospel of a crucified and risen †Messiah; that is, they are manifested by wielding the sword of God’s word (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12) and by embodying the self-giving love of Jesus.

According to him, the life of an apostle is to be patterned after the life of Jesus (4:10–11). Therefore, when Paul describes himself as “an apostle of Christ Jesus,” he refers to Jesus as both the source of his call and the exemplar of how he lives out his calling. Just as Jesus’ life was characterized by obedience to God (Phil 2:8), so Paul’s life as an apostle is marked by fidelity to God’s will.

Authentic “ministers of righteousness,” true ministers of the †new covenant (3:6, 9), are marked by their walking in Christ’s loving, self-giving way of life by which they participate in the ongoing revelation of God’s righteousness (5:21); they serve the gospel by courageously proclaiming its truths. Finally, the Apostle makes clear that for serving Satan’s purposes the interlopers will face harsh judgment (5:10): their end will correspond to their deeds.

What he needs most, grace—the gift of divine life imparted to him at his baptism and the divine power that commissioned him to be an †apostle—is what the Lord continues to offer to him. And this grace is “sufficient” because, paradoxically, the mysterious divine “power” (dynamis) accomplishes its purpose in the arena of weakness.

We must check the inspirations that come to us in the depths of our own conscience against the revelation that is given to us with divinely certain guaranteers by those who have inherited in our midst the place of Christ's Apostles―by those who speak to us in the Name of Christ and as it were in His own Person. Qui vos audit me audit; qui vos spernit, me spernit.

In the words of Paul Johnson: The Temple, now, in Herod’s1 version, rising triumphantly over Jerusalem, was an ocular reminder that Judaism was about Jews and their history—not about anyone else. Other gods flew across the deserts from the East without much difficulty, jettisoning the inconvenient and embarrassing accretions from their past, changing, as it were, their accents and manners as well as their names. But the God of the Jews was still alive and roaring in his Temple, demanding blood, making no attempt to conceal his racial and primitive origins. Herod’s fabric was elegant, modern, sophisticated—he had, indeed, added some Hellenic decorative effects much resented by fundamentalist Jews who constantly sought to destroy them—but nothing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption, and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale. The place was as vast as a small city. There were literally thousands of priests, attendants, temple-soldiers, and minions. To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish disapora life, the thoughtful comments and homilies of the Alexandrian synagogue, was quite lost amid the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the sluices of blood, the abattoir stench, the unconcealed and unconcealable machinery of tribal religion inflated by modern wealth to an industrial scale. Sophisticated Romans who knew the Judaism of the diaspora found it hard to understand the hostility towards Jews shown by colonial officials who, behind a heavily-armed escort, had witnessed Jerusalem at festival time. Diaspora Judaism, liberal and outward-minded, contained the matrix of a universal religion, but only if it could be cut off from its barbarous origins; and how could so thick and sinewy an umbilical cord be severed? This description of “Herod’s” Temple (actually the Second Temple, built in the sixth century B.C. and rebuilt by Herod) is more than a bit overwrought. The God of the Jews did not roar in his Temple: the insoluble problem was that, since the destruction of the First Temple and, with it, the Ark of the Covenant, God had ceased to be present in his Temple. Nor would animal sacrifice have disgusted the gentiles, since Greeks, Romans, and all ancient peoples offered such sacrifices (though one cannot help wondering whether, had the Second Temple not been destroyed, it would today be ringed from morn to night by indignant animal-rights activists). But Johnson is right to emphasize that Judaism, in its mother city, could display a sweaty tribalism that gentiles would only find unattractive. The partisan, argumentative ambience of first-century Jerusalem, not unlike the atmosphere of the ultra-Orthodox pockets of the contemporary city, could repel any outsider, whether gentile or diaspora Jew. Perhaps most important is Johnson’s shrewd observation that Judaism “contained the matrix of a universal religion.” By this time, the more percipient inhabitants of the Greco-Roman world had come to the conclusion that polytheism, whatever manifestation it might assume, was seriously flawed. The Jews alone, by offering monotheism, offered a unitive vision, not the contradictory and flickering epiphanies of a fanciful pantheon of gods and goddesses. But could Judaism adapt to gentile needs, could it lose its foreign accent and outlandish manners? No one saw the opportunity more clearly than Luke; his gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, present a Jesus and a Jesus Movement specifically tailored to gentile sensibility.

12-13 So they left the mountain called Olives and returned to Jerusalem. It was a little over half a mile. They went to the upper room they had been using as a meeting place:   Peter John James Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James son of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Judas, son of James.   14 They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and his brothers. REPLACING JUDAS 15-17 During this time, Peter stood up in the company—there were about 120 of them in the room at the time—and said, “Friends, long ago the Holy Spirit spoke through David regarding Judas, who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus. That Scripture had to be fulfilled, and now has been. Judas was one of us and had his assigned place in this ministry. 18-20 “As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end, rupturing his belly and spilling his guts. Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow. It’s exactly what we find written in the Psalms:   Let his farm become haunted So no one can ever live there.   “And also what was written later:   Let someone else take over his post.   21-22 “Judas must now be replaced. The replacement must come from the company of men who stayed together with us from the time Jesus was baptized by John up to the day of his ascension, designated along with us as a witness to his resurrection.” 23-26 They nominated two: Joseph Barsabbas, nicknamed Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed, “You, O God, know every one of us inside and out. Make plain which of these two men you choose to take the place in this ministry and leadership that Judas threw away in order to go his own way.” They then drew straws. Matthias won and was counted in with the eleven apostles.

Christian doctrine cautions against greed. So does present-day economist Thomas Sowell: "I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money." Using the power of government to grab another person's property isn't exactly altruistic. Jesus never even implied that accumulating wealth through peaceful commerce was in any way wrong; he simply implored people to not allow wealth to rule them or corrupt their character. That's why his greatest apostle, Paul, didn't say money was evil in the famous reference in 1 Timothy 6:10. Here's what Paul actually said: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (emphasis added). Indeed, progressives themselves have not selflessly abandoned money, for it is other people's money, especially that of "the rich," that they're always clamoring for.

I was able to confess the Apostles' Creed, but only with deep ambiguity. But I stumbled over "he arose from the dead." I had to demythologize it and could say it only symbolically. I could not inwardly confess the resurrection as a factual historical event. I was assigned the task of teaching theology, but when I came to the resurrection, I honestly had to say at that stage that is was not about an actual event of a bodily resurrection but a community memory of an unexplained event. I could talk about the writings of the people who were remembering and proclaiming it as the saving event, but I could not explain to myself or to others how Christianity could be built on an event that never happened...That was my credo in my early thirties. It was new birth without bodily resurrections and forgiveness without atonement. Resurrection and atonement were words i choked on . That mean that the gospel was not about an event of divine salvation but about a human psychological experience of trust and freedom from anxiety, guilt and boredom

Faith is a response to God, who has shown himself to be reasonable. The Christian faith is not one that is based on far-fetched legends but on an event – the ‘Christ-event’ – that happened in history and that can be as thoroughly supported by the evidence as anything that happened 2,000 years ago can be. But after showing himself to be reasonable, God does require a response of faith. As Craig reminds us, while much evidence could be given for the resurrection, simple historical acceptance would miss the point. As Jesus said to the apostle Thomas, who at first doubted the resurrection, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (Jn. 20:29). Some disciples even doubted after seeing the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. We read at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, “When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted” (Mt. 28:17). They needed further help from God’s grace, which they would receive at Pentecost.

The passages which appear most confirmatory of Christ's Deity, or Divine nature, are, in the first place, the narratives of the Incarnation and of the Miraculous Conception, as given by Matthew and Luke. Now, the two narratives do not harmonize with each other; they neutralize and negative the genealogies on which depend so large a portion of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah—the marvellous statement they contain is not referred to in any subsequent portion of the two Gospels, and is tacitly but positively negatived by several passages—it is never mentioned in the Acts or in the Epistles, and was evidently unknown to all the Apostles—and, finally, the tone of the narrative, especially in Luke, is poetical and legendary, and bears a marked similarity to the stories contained in the Apocryphal Gospels." (W. R. Greg: The Creed of Christendom, p. 229.)

The first distinctive of the Biblical Gospel over against the message taught by Rome was the role of God. Rather than God simply providing a way of salvation, the Reformers discovered that the Bible taught that God actually saved men. That is, rather than salvation being dependent upon men’s striving to take advantage of the plan made available by God, the real Gospel taught that God was able to save men independent of any action on man’s part. God, the Reformers taught, was absolutely sovereign in the matter of salvation. He had, from time immemorial, chosen, elected, predestined to save certain men and bring them into fellowship with Himself, and, since God will never fail to do that which He purposes, those whom God has chosen will be saved! Rather than a man-centered message that made the operative factor man and man’s will and decisions, the Bible presented a God-centered message in line with the words of the Psalmist, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him” (Psalm 115:3). Next, the Reformers found that the Biblical teaching about man was very different than the elaborate system worked out by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. They found that sin had affected all of man, to the point that Paul could say, “There is none righteous, there is none who understands, there is not one who seeks after God” (Romans 3:10-11). This meant that even man’s will was enslaved to evil, incapable of seeking after God or doing right. Outside of the sovereign work of God by the Holy Spirit, man was utterly helpless to even will to be saved, let alone be saved through whatever system of works, ceremonies, penances, etc. that might be presented. “And you, being dead in your transgressions...” (Eph. 2:1) is how the Apostle expressed it. Dead in sin, not just wounded by sin, deprived of some original righteousness by sin, hindered by sin. This was a radical concept in that day, for it clearly meant that all the “aids” or “helps” that could possibly be concocted would be of no avail to someone who is dead! No amount of sacraments could help a dead person—God had to act first to bring spiritual life. This also meant that faith and repentance had to be gifts of God, for they were not within the ability of sinful man.

Flavius Josephus, the well-known historian of the Jewish people, was born in A. D. 37, only two years after the death of Jesus; but though his work is of inestimable value as our chief authority for the circumstances of the times in which Jesus and his Apostles came forward, yet he does not seem to have ever mentioned Jesus himself. At any rate, the passage in his 'Jewish Antiquities' that refers to him is certainly spurious, and was inserted by a later and a Christian hand. The Talmud compresses the history of Jesus into a single sentence, and later Jewish writers concoct mere slanderous anecdotes.

Peter speaks of a church at Babylon; Paul proposed a journey to Spain, and it is generally believed he went there, and likewise came to France and Britain. Andrew preached to the Scythians, north of the Black Sea. John is said to have preached in India, and we know that he was at the Isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago. Philip is reported to have preached in upper Asia, Scythia, and Phrygia; Bartholomew in India, on this side the Ganges, Phrygia, and Armenia; Matthew in Arabia, or Asiatic Ethiopia, and Parthia; Thomas in India, as far as the coast of Coromandel, and some say in the island of Ceylon; Simon, the Canaanite, in Egypt, Cyrene, Mauritania, Lybia, and other parts of Africa, and from thence to have come to Britain; and Jude is said to have been principally engaged in the lesser Asia, and Greece. Their labours were evidently very extensive, and very successful; so that Pliny, the younger, who lived soon after the death of the apostles, in a letter to the emperor, Trajan, observed that Christianity had spread, not only through towns and cities, but also through whole countries.

Doubting Thomas was the one who gave the strongest and most conclusive testimony to the absolute Deity of the Savior which ever came from the lips of a man! Just as the railing thief became the one to own Christ’s Lordship from the cross, just as timid Joseph and Nicodemus were the ones who honored the dead body of the Savior, just as the women were the boldest at the sepulcher, just as unfaithful Peter was the one whom Christ bade "Feed my sheep," just as the prime persecutor of the early church became the apostle to the Gentiles, so the sceptical and materialistic Thomas was the one to say "My Lord and my God." Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!

Let us TAKE HEED of those things which will make us by degrees fall away from our profession. Let us: (1) Beware of COVETOUSNESS. "Men shall be covetous . . . having a form of godliness—but denying the power" (2 Tim. 3:2,5). One of Christ's own apostles was caught with this silver bait! Covetousness will make a man betray a good cause, and make shipwreck of a good conscience. I have read of some in the time of the Emperor Valens, who denied the Christian faith to prevent the confiscation of their goods. (2) Beware of UNBELIEF. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God" (Heb. 3:12). There is no evil like an evil heart; no evil heart like an unbelieving heart. Why so? It makes men depart from the blessed God. He who does not believe God's mercy—will not dread his justice. Unbelief is the nurse of apostasy; therefore unbelieving and unstable go together: "they believed not in God . . . they turned back and tempted God" (Psalm 78:22,41).

Jesus said to the apostle Thomas, who at first doubted the resurrection, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (Jn. 20:29).

Therefore, very few Christians who read the book of Acts realize that at about the same time as Acts 19 records the apostle Paul preaching in Ephesus, the apostle Thomas was preaching the gospel in India.

The Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morning is a most fitting day for this renewal for it is the day when our Lord Jesus gave priestly power to the apostles in the Upper Room at the Last Supper and First Eucharist.

Trust the Lord Even before Trusting Oneself (03 March)     Bible Passage: Proverbs 3:5-8   "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones."   ------------------------------------------------ John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  When the Apostle John wrote the above verse, he used a Greek word that means much more than what many people might think.  It is easy to read his words and conclude that a person will be saved if he or she simply believes that Jesus once existed or even that He still exists.  But that is not correct.  The Greek word that he used for "believeth" actually means to commit to and to trust in the object of one's belief.  So "believeth" does mean to believe that Jesus once existed and that He still exists.  But it also means to commit oneself to Him and to trust in Him.

truth is never a matter of words, but direct realization.

That we might have fellowship with the Father and his Son; and that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin; and that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins; and that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' These choice favors and mercies the apostle holds forth as the choicest means to preserve the soul from sin, and to keep at the greatest distance from sin; and if this will not do it—you may write the man void of Christ and grace, and undone forever!

So John: 'These things I write unto you, that you sin not (1 John 2:1, 2). What was it that he wrote? He wrote: 'That we might have fellowship with the Father and his Son; and that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin; and that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins; and that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' These choice favors and mercies the apostle holds forth as the choicest means to preserve the soul from sin, and to keep at the greatest distance from sin; and if this will not do it—you may write the man void of Christ and grace, and undone forever!

The apostle Paul tells a new crop of Christians that faith in Jesus means getting rid of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language and putting on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Returning to 2 Cor 4:11, we are now able to grasp Paul’s full meaning. In saying that he is “constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus,” he not only refers to his endurance of suffering on account of the gospel but also implies that he is more than a passive victim. That is, the flip side of “being handed over” is Paul’s own choice to give himself in love for others. Indeed, observe that he adds the phrase “for the sake of Jesus” (dia Iēsoun). This is the same phrase used in 4:5, where he stated that he is a “slave” to the Corinthians. As was the case there, the phrase connotes that Paul is loyal in his service to Jesus, whose †apostle he is (1:1), and that he follows the pattern of Christ’s self-giving love and endurance of suffering for the sake of others.

Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty.

Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled he will become astonished and he will rule over the all.

When I sent you out without purse, wallet, and sandals, were you in need of anything?” Peter remembered his mission journey. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing,” they all said. “But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and a wallet as well; and whoever has no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me; 'He was even ranked among outlaws. ...” The word “sword” fell pleasantly on the ears of Peter, “Lord, look! here are two swords!” “That will do,” He said. The fisherman tied one of the blades to his girdle. He had certainly not understood much that had been said, but he thought he understood the meaning of this cold steel of Damascus, this ruler of mobs, this maker of kings, that fell so pleasantly against his stout leg. He was beginning to feel that after all something might have been accomplished that evening.

13 And when it was day, he called his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, which also he called Apostles. 14 (Simon whom he named also Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip, and Bartholomew: 15 Matthew, and Thomas: James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zealot, 16 Judas, James brother, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.)

[W]e ought to have the humility to admit we do not know all about ourselves, that we are not experts at running our own lives. We ought to stop taking our conscious plans and decisions with such infinite seriousness. It may well be that we are not the martyrs or the mystics or the apostles or the leaders or the lovers of God that we imagine ourselves to be.

the principle is plain: good soil produces good fruit, both physically and metaphysically. We should never forget this simple criterion.

Divinity is within us, we only need to provide the right environment for it to come forth.

We must identify with our eternal nature.

And so we have a theological spectrum. On one end is the apostle Paul, who saw Christ’s death and resurrection as the be-all and end-all. What mattered was that Christ died for sins and was raised from the dead. Everything else about Jesus was completely subservient to his Passion. On the other end is the Gospel of Thomas, for which the death and resurrection of Jesus had no bearing on salvation. The way to have eternal life was by understanding his secret revelations, the teachings that could liberate a person from the entrapment in this corpse of our existence, the material world and the human body.

We often think of people 'falling' spiritually, but most people simply fizzle out like a damp firecracker and that is the end of the matter for that lifetime.

If believers are not in the New Covenant, they are in no covenant, for there are but two: old and new, first and second. Now that the New Covenant is in being is evident, for the apostle makes the application of it to the gospel time (Heb. 8) and proves it to be in force, Because the testator is dead, a covenant or testament is in force when the testator is dead (Heb. 9:16, 17). And in my text, He takes away the first that He may establish the second; and - indeed - to deny this covenant to be in force is to deny the blood of the covenant and death of the testator.

Question 5. Is the moral law which you say was the substance of the Old Covenant from Mount Sinai, done away to believers in the New Covenant as it was a rule of life, etc.? Answer. Doubtless it is done away to believers, and that, firstly, as it was a covenant from Mount Sinai, and secondly a ministry of Moses. 1. That it was and is done away to believers is evident, Romans 7:4-6, where the apostle said, Wherefore my brothers ye also are become dead to the law, etc. and But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, etc. This was the moral law, for it was that law that discovered sin, even that sin forbidden in that moral law, Thou shall not covet. Ye are not under the law but under grace (chapter 6:14). That very law written on tablets of stone is said to be done away with (2 Cor. 3:7 & 11) and abolished (verse 13); and if any will say it is the ministration that is done away and not the rule, I say it must be done away as it was then a rule, without which the ministration could not cease. It was its being given as a rule that made it a ministration. Therefore I say, that it is done away, first as it was a covenant from Mount Sinai, so it is clear turned out and has no place in the gospel, even as Hagar, the Old Covenant in an allegory must be thrown out of Abraham's house (Gen. 21:10; Gal. 4:22-30): Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So that, when the free woman is come to be fruitful, the bondwoman with her son must be cast out. So likewise, Hebrews 12:18-24: We are not come to the mount that might not [ed: word absent in Scripture] be touched, that is, to Mount Sinai, but ye are come unto Mount Sion and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant, all of which demonstrates that the law as it was a covenant, from Mount Sinai, is done away to believers. 2. As it was a ministration by Moses, so it is done away with and abolished, and is not to be preached or received (as in the hand of Moses) as it was ministered forth, received and obeyed in the Old Covenant. For it was ministered then on life and death, and was (through man's weakness) a ministration of death and not of life. So that I understand all those expressions to relate to those particulars, when the Scripture says that the law is abolished and done away, that believers are dead to it, delivered from it, are not under it, and the bondwoman must be cast out with her son. And yet believers are not without law to God but under the law of Christ, yea and that under the moral law. But as given from Mount Zion, ministered forth in the hand of Christ, not in the hand of Moses, for if we take it from Moses we must be Moses' disciples. But if from Christ, as given forth in the gospel account, then we are Christ's disciples indeed, and receive it in power (from Christ, the minister and mediator) to live to God according to it, not for righteousness unto justification. But Jesus Christ having fulfilled all its righteousness, having born the curse for us. It is a rule of righteousness, of conversation to the honor of Him that has done all for us in point of justification to eternal life. And so it is become a law of love, a royal law of liberty to all that are by faith in the New Covenant, and a law to which every believer is duty bound to Jesus Christ, to own as His precious rule of life to honor Him by it, as it is given forth by Him in the gospel and not in any other way.

That there are two covenants is clearly evident – old and new, first and second (Jer. 31:31-32)... Mark you, beloved, it is a new covenant, another covenant, not such a covenant [as the first or old covenant was], but a covenant distinct from that covenant [that is, the first or old covenant], where [whence?] you have the first and the second [covenants], the old and new [covenants], [both] in sense and substance. So Hebrews 8:7. They are called the first and second, for ‘finding fault with the first he established the second’, where the writer to the Hebrews makes application of Jeremiah 31 (Heb. 8:8-9... and Heb. 8:13... and Heb. 8:6).. But further, in Galatians 4 this truth is cleared by the apostle in [the allegory of] Sarah and Hagar, the free- and bond-women (Gal. 4:22,24)... And they are here held both to be two distinct covenants... and must be separated when the time was come, so that the covenants of the Old and New Testaments [that is, old and new covenants] are not one, as some imagine, but two – old and new, first and second – and that [they have] clearly to be distinguished, and not confounded together, any more than light and darkness.[47]

Jesus spoke of this attainment when he told Saint John: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21). The identical status which Jesus attained shall be attained by all who seek, find, become troubled and become astonished. They, too, shall rule over all.

To hasten their removal,” Illinois governor Thomas Ford admitted, the twelve apostles “were made to believe that the [U.S.] President would order the regular army to Nauvoo” to arrest them as soon as the frozen Mississippi thawed and troops could travel upstream by riverboat.

Moses was stuck on the backside of the desert for years, unaware of God’s future for him (Ex. 3:1). Naomi was trapped in Moab after the deaths of her husband and sons (Ruth 1:5). Elijah was stuck in the wilderness, feeling sorry for himself after his failure to bring about the revival he’d hoped for Israel (1 Kings 19:10). Ezekiel was stranded in Babylon at age thirty, frustrated he couldn’t enter his priestly service in Jerusalem at the temple (Ezek. 1:1). Peter was caught in a dark, depressive cycle on the Saturday before Easter (Matt. 26:75). Thomas was cast into faithless despondency when he missed the Savior’s appearance on Easter Sunday (John 20:24). Paul was stuck in Troas where a great door of evangelism was open for him, but he had no peace of mind because of anxiety about problems in the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 2:12–13). The apostle John was exiled on the Island of Patmos, lonely and unable to continue his ministry—or so he thought (Rev. 1:9).

Paul heard not one sermon of Christ's (that he knew of) while on earth, and received the gospel from no man, apostle or other, but by the immediate revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven, as he speaks, Galatians 1:11-12. But he was converted by Christ himself from heaven, by immediate speech and conference of Christ himself with him, and this long after his ascension.

I worry about “true believers” who cannot carry any doubt or anxiety at all, as Thomas the Apostle and Mother Teresa learned to do. People who are so certain always seem like Hamlet's