Twelve Apostles Quotes

Well,’ you may ask, ‘how may I know when I am in love?’ . . . George Q. Morris [who later became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave this reply]: ‘My mother once said that if you meet a girl in whose presence you feel a desire to achieve, who inspires you to do your best, and to make the most of yourself, such a young woman is worthy of your love and is awakening love in your heart.

But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve, He taught and first he followed it himself.

For two centuries, Christians would be a persecuted minority. There was no worldly reward for being Christian. Being a follower of Christ took courage. The twelve apostles, and their first-century co-workers, suffered tribulation and sometimes death as they fulfilled the Great Commission Jesus had given them (Matt 28:19–20). They turned an iron empire upside down and changed our world forever.

the Twelve Apostles are the most evident sign of Jesus' will regarding the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: despite the sins of the people who make up the Church, they are inseparable. Therefore, a slogan that was popular some years back, 'Jesus yes, Church no,' is totally inconceivable with the intention of Christ. This individualistically chosen Jesus is an imaginary Jesus.

Someone you know is carrying a spiritual or physical or emotional burden of some sort, or some other affliction drawn from life's catalog of a thousand kinds of sorrow. In the spirit of Christ's first invitation to His twelve Apostles, jump into this work. Help people. Heal old wounds and try to make things better.

Sermons frequently refer to the apostles of Christ as poor, uneducated tradesmen. But three of the Twelve, Matthew, John, and Peter, wrote some of the world’s all-time best-selling literature. The apostles were more than just literate; Jesus called them scribes “who [had] been trained for the kingdom of heaven . . . like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt 13:52). It would be surprising if the disciples ignored this and failed to take notes during Jesus’ ministry.

Michael looked around the beautiful garden with its many colored flowers, fragrant lemon trees, the old statures of the gods dug from ancient ruins, other newer ones of holy saints, the rose-colored walls across the villa. It was a lovely setting for the examination of twelve murderous apostles.

Did you hear what they told me?’ ‘I did.’ ‘What am I supposed to put in my report? That I arrested the twelve Apostles because they were traveling without passports?

Wilson and his cabinet—a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles

The Savior knows each of us in a personal way. He has assured us of His personal acquaintance, His awareness of our needs, and His presence in our times of need. He counseled, ‘I say unto you that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst and ye cannot see me’ (D&C 38:7). Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained, ‘The Savior is in our midst, sometimes personally, frequently through his servants, and always by his Spirit’.

And Christ’s law and His Apostles twelve he taught, but first he followed it himself.

The season of the world before us will be like no other in the history of mankind. Satan has unleashed every evil, every scheme, every blatant, vile perversion ever known to man in any generation. Just as this is the dispensation of the fullness of times, so it is also the dispensation of the fullness of evil. We and our wives and husbands, our children, and our members must find safety. There is no safety in the world: wealth cannot provide it, enforcement agencies cannot assure it, membership in this Church alone cannot bring it. As the evil night darkens upon this generation, we must come to the temple for light and safety. In our temples we find quiet, sacred havens where the storm cannot penetrate to us. There are hosts of unseen sentinels watching over and guarding our temples. Angels attend every door. As it was in the days of Elisha, so it will be for us: “Those that be with us are more than they that be against us.” Before the Savior comes the world will darken. There will come a period of time where even the elect will lose hope if they do not come to the temples. The world will be so filled with evil that the righteous will only feel secure within these walls. The saints will come here not only to do vicarious work, but to find a haven of peace. They will long to bring their children here for safety’s sake. I believe we may well have living on the earth now or very soon the boy or babe who will be the prophet of the Church when the Savior comes. Those who will sit in the Quorum of Twelve Apostles are here. There are many in our homes and communities who will have apostolic callings. We must keep them clean, sweet and pure in an oh so wicked world. There will be greater hosts of unseen beings in the temple. Prophets of old as well as those in this dispensation will visit the temples. Those who attend will feel their strength and feel their companionship. We will not be alone in our temples. Our garments worn as instructed will clothe us in a manner as protective as temple walls. The covenants and ordinances will fill us with faith as a living fire. In a day of desolating sickness, scorched earth, barren wastes, sickening plagues, disease, destruction, and death, we as a people will rest in the shade of trees, we will drink from the cooling fountains. We will abide in places of refuge from the storm, we will mount up as on eagle’s wings, we will be lifted out of an insane and evil world. We will be as fair as the sun and clear as the moon. The Savior will come and will honor his people. Those who are spared and prepared will be a temple-loving people. They will know Him. They will cry out, “Blessed be the name of He that cometh in the name of the Lord; thou are my God and I will bless thee; thou are my God and I will exalt thee.” Our children will bow down at His feet and worship Him as the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. They will bathe His feet with their tears and He will weep and bless them for having suffered through the greatest trials ever known to man. His bowels will be filled with compassion and His heart will swell wide as eternity and He will love them. He will bring peace that will last a thousand years and they will receive their reward to dwell with Him. Let us prepare them with faith to surmount every trial and every condition. We will do it in these holy, sacred temples. Come, come, oh come up to the temples of the Lord and abide in His presence.

so St Francis, on the first founding of his Order, chose twelve companions, all lovers of poverty. And even as one of the twelve Apostles, being reproved by Christ, hanged himself by the neck, so among the twelve companions of St Francis was one, called Brother John della Capella, who apostatised, and finally hanged himself by the neck. This should be for the elect a great example and cause of humility and fear, when they consider how no one is certain of persevering in the grace of God to the end.

thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born;

In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet—a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles—let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which aroused them to hysteria; the rest were worked up to a condition of retching indecency. Any song which contained the word "mother" and the word "kaiser" was assured of a tremendous success. At last every one had something to talk about—and almost every one fully enjoyed it, as though they had been cast for parts in a sombre and romantic play.

A few years ago I was standing around the photocopier in Boston University’s Department of Religion when a visiting professor from Austria offered a passing observation about American undergraduates. They are very religious, he told me, but they know next to nothing about religion. Thanks to compulsory religious education (which in Austria begins in elementary schools), European students can name the twelve apostles and the Seven Deadly Sins, but they wouldn’t be caught dead going to church or synagogue themselves. American students are just the opposite. Here faith without understanding is the standard; here religious ignorance is bliss.

Over the last twelve chapters we have considered the crucial difference between servants and slaves- noting that while servants are hired, slaves are owned. Believers are not merely Christ’s hired servants; they are His slaves, belonging to Him as His possession. He is their Owner and Master, worthy of their unquestioned allegiance and absolute obedience. His Word is their final authority; His will their ultimate mandate. Having taken up their cross to follow Him, they have died to themselves and can now say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live nut Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). As the apostle elsewhere explained, “[Christ] died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15). In reality, all of life should be viewed from that perspective. As Christians, we are slaves of Christ. What a radical difference that truth should make in our daily lives! We no longer live for ourselves. Rather, we make it our aim to please the Master in everything.

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

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.

Years ago when I served as a missionary, we had a visit from Dr. James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve--a great student, a great teacher, great theologian, and a great prophet.. Here we sat at his feet every idle minute that we could find and plied him with questions and listened to his counsel. On one occasion he said to us, "I want to tell you missionaries something. The day of sacrifice is not past! The time will come, yet, when many Saints and even Apostles will yet lose their lives in defense of the truth!

Nephi did not pray, as I probably would have prayed, to have his circumstances changed. Rather, he prayed for the strength to change his circumstances.

Accept whatever happens to you as good, knowing that nothing happens apart from God.

A bettre preest, I trowe that nowher noon is. He wayted after no pompe and reverence,   525 Ne maked him a spyced conscience, But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve.

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those  z whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 y And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach

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.

Paul knew what he was talking about when he called Christians “earthen vessels.” We’re baked clay. We’re privy pots. The advance of the gospel will never occur on account of us. This helps explain why God chose none of the early preachers among the apostles because of his superior intellect, position, or prominence. As I wrote in my book Twelve Ordinary Men, these twelve were so ordinary it defies all human logic: not one teacher, not one priest, not one rabbi, not one scribe, not one Pharisee, not one Sadducee, not even a synagogue ruler—nobody from the elite. Half of them or so were fishermen, and the rest were common laborers. One, Simon the Zealot, was a terrorist, a member of a group who went around with daggers in their cloaks, trying to stab Romans. Then there was Judas, the loser of all losers. What was the Lord doing? He picked people with absolutely no influence. None of the great intellects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Israel was among the apostles. During the New Testament time, the greatest scholars were very likely in Egypt. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The powerful were in Rome. The biblical scholars were in Jerusalem. God disdained all of them and picked clay pots instead.

From the twelve apostles to the Auca missionaries of our generation, the history of the Christian church is the history of “wasted” lives. The Christian may tabulate all the assets of his personality and take inventory of his preferences, but he casts all these at the feet of Christ. He is not seeking fulfillment but expendability. He counts not his life dear to himself, for he holds it in trust for Christ. His goal is beyond the grave; the crown of his high calling is in the hand of his risen Lord. (14-15)

In late 1905 a crisis occurred within the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that soon impacted the remainder of McKay’s life. Two members of the quorum, Matthias F. Cowley and John W. Taylor, were obliged to resign because of their refusal to disavow the further practice of plural marriage. By the time of the April general conference of 1906, Apostle Marriner W. Merrill had died, resulting in three vacancies within the quorum. James E. Talmage, who later was sustained to the same quorum, wrote, “These were filled on nomination and vote by the following: Orson F. Whitney, George F. Richards (a son of the late Apostle Franklin D. Richards) and David O. McKay (a former student of mine). They are good men, and I verily believe selected by inspiration.

Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus." (Ray Ortlund blog, Christ Is Deeper Still)

The hypothesis that the apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus's death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out.

It was the ultimate sacrilege that Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, was rejected and even put to death. And it continues. In many parts of the world today we see a growing rejection of the Son of God. His divinity is questioned. His gospel is deemed irrelevant. In day-to-day life, His teachings are ignored. Those who legitimately speak in His name find little respect in secular society. If we ignore the Lord and His servants, we may just as well be atheists—the end result is practically the same. It is what Mormon described as typical after extended periods of peace and prosperity: “Then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One” (Helaman 12:2). And so we should ask ourselves, do we reverence the Holy One and those He has sent? Some years before he was called as an Apostle himself, Elder Robert D. Hales recounted an experience that demonstrated his father’s sense of that holy calling. Elder Hales said: "Some years ago Father, then over eighty years of age, was expecting a visit from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a snowy winter day. Father, an artist, had painted a picture of the home of the Apostle. Rather than have the painting delivered to him, this sweet Apostle wanted to go personally to pick the painting up and thank my father for it. Knowing that Father would be concerned that everything was in readiness for the forthcoming visit, I dropped by his home. Because of the depth of the snow, snowplows had caused a snowbank in front of the walkway to the front door. Father had shoveled the walks and then labored to remove the snowbank. He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety. My first concern was to warn him of his unwise physical efforts. Didn’t he know what the result of his labor would be? "'Robert,' he said through interrupted short breaths, 'do you realize an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to my home? The walks must be clean. He should not have to come through a snowdrift.' He raised his hand, saying, 'Oh, Robert, don’t ever forget or take for granted the privilege it is to know and to serve with Apostles of the Lord.'" [In CR, April 1992, 89; or “Gratitude for the Goodness of God,” Ensign, May 1992, 64] I think it is more than coincidence that such a father would be blessed to have a son serve as an Apostle. You might ask yourself, “Do I see the calling of the prophets and apostles as sacred? Do I treat their counsel seriously, or is it a light thing with me?” President Gordon B. Hinckley, for instance, has counseled us to pursue education and vocational training; to avoid pornography as a plague; to respect women; to eliminate consumer debt; to be grateful, smart, clean, true, humble, and prayerful; and to do our best, our very best. Do your actions show that you want to know and do what he teaches? Do you actively study his words and the statements of the Brethren? Is this something you hunger and thirst for? If so, you have a sense of the sacredness of the calling of prophets as the witnesses and messengers of the Son of God.

What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the “historical Jesus” was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the contrast between orthodox and gnostic viewpoints. The account recalls what Mark relates: Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene … She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.50 As the Gospel of Mary opens, the disciples are mourning Jesus’ death and terrified for their own lives. Then Mary Magdalene stands up to encourage them, recalling Christ’s continual presence with them: “Do not weep, and do not grieve, and do not doubt; for his grace will be with you completely, and will protect you.”51 Peter invites Mary to “tell us the words of the Savior which you remember.”52 But to Peter’s surprise, Mary does not tell anecdotes from the past; instead, she explains that she has just seen the Lord in a vision received through the mind, and she goes on to tell what he revealed to her. When Mary finishes, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you will about what she has said. I, at least, do not believe that the Savior has said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas!”53 Peter agrees with Andrew, ridiculing the idea that Mary actually saw the Lord in her vision. Then, the story continues, Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart? Do you think I am lying about the Savior?” Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered … If the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her?”54 Finally Mary, vindicated, joins the other apostles as they go out to preach. Peter, apparently representing the orthodox position, looks to past events, suspicious of those who “see the Lord” in visions: Mary, representing the gnostic, claims to experience his continuing presence.55 These gnostics recognized that their theory, like the orthodox one, bore political implications. It suggests that whoever “sees the Lord” through inner vision can claim that his or her own authority equals, or surpasses, that of the Twelve—and of their successors. Consider the political implications of the Gospel of Mary: Peter and Andrew, here representing the leaders of the orthodox group, accuse Mary—the gnostic—of pretending to have seen the Lord in order to justify the strange ideas, fictions, and lies she invents and attributes to divine inspiration. Mary lacks the proper credentials for leadership, from the orthodox viewpoint: she is not one of the “twelve.” But as Mary stands up to Peter, so the gnostics who take her as their prototype challenge the authority of those priests and bishops who claim to be Peter’s successors.

John Quincy Adams on Islam: “In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant…While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.” (Emphasis in the original)

During the Reformation, one of Martin Luther’s chief complaints about the Catholic Church was that it was full of corruption and fraud. He argued that the cult of the saints, in particular, was riddled with forged relics and superstitious practices. It is rumored that Luther’s epiphany about the Catholic Church came as he ascended the legendary Scala Sancta in Rome in 1510. These “Holy Stairs” are believed to have been the very steps on which Jesus ascended to be tried by Pilate in Jerusalem. To this day pilgrims who ascend the stairs on their knees are granted an indulgence that knocks nine years off their time in purgatory for each of the twenty-eight steps. Luther purportedly became so disillusioned with indulgences and relics after this event that he famously complained, “What lies there are about relics! . . . How does it happen that eighteen apostles are buried in Germany when Christ had only twelve?

privileges with reference to the performance of special services. Thus the Jews were “a chosen nation,” “the elect.” Thus also in the NT, bodies of Christian people, or churches, are called “the elect.” (2) To the divine choice of individuals to a particular office or work. Thus Cyrus was elected of God to bring about the rebuilding of the Temple, and thus the twelve were chosen to be apostles and Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles. (3) To the divine choice of individuals to be the children of God, and therefore heirs of heaven. It is with regard to election in this third sense that theological controversies have been frequent and at times most fierce. Calvinists hold that the election of individuals to salvation is absolute, unconditional, by virtue of an eternal divine decree. Arminians regard election as conditional upon repentance and faith; the decree of God is that all who truly repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. But every responsible person determines for himself whether or not he will repent and believe. Sufficient grace is bestowed upon everyone to enable him to make the right decision.

Let us for a moment imagine what would have happened on the Galilean hillside, when our Lord fed the five thousand, if the Apostles had acted as some act now. The twelve would be going backwards, helping the first rank over and over again, and leaving the back rows unsupplied. Let us suppose one of them, say Andrew, venturing to say to his brother Simon Peter, 'Ought we all to be feeding the front row? Ought we not to divide, and some of us go to the back rows?' Then suppose Peter replying 'Oh no; don't you see these front people are so hungry? They have not had half enough yet; besides, they are nearest to us, so we are more responsible for them.' Then, if Andrew resumes his appeal, suppose Peter going on to say, 'Very well; you are quite right. You go and feed all those back rows; but I can't spare anyone else, I and the other ten of us have more than we can do here.' Once more, suppose Andrew persuades Philip to go with him; then, perhaps, Matthew will cry out and say, 'Why, they're all going to those farther rows! Is no one to be left to these needy people in front?' Let me ask the members of Congress, Do you recognise these sentences at all?

Notice that Jesus knows exactly who he is asking to lead his community: a sinner. As all Christian leaders have been, are, and will be, Peter is imperfect. And as all good Christian leaders are, Peter is well aware of his imperfections. The disciples too know who they are getting as their leader. They will not need—or be tempted—to elevate Peter into some semi-divine figure; they have seen him at his worst. Jesus forgives Peter because he loves him, because he knows that his friend needs forgiveness to be free, and because he knows that the leader of his church will need to forgive others many times. And Jesus forgives totally, going beyond what would be expected—going so far as to establish Peter as head of the church.11 It would have made more earthly sense for Jesus to appoint another, non-betraying apostle to head his church. Why give the one who denied him this important leadership role? Why elevate the manifestly sinful one over the rest? One reason may be to show the others what forgiveness is. In this way Jesus embodies the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who not only forgives the son, but also, to use a fishing metaphor, goes overboard. Jesus goes beyond forgiving and setting things right. A contemporary equivalent would be a tenured professor stealing money from a university, apologizing, being forgiven by the board of trustees, and then being hired as the school’s president. People would find this extraordinary—and it is. In response, Peter will ultimately offer his willingness to lay down his life for Christ. But on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he can’t know the future. He can’t understand fully what he is agreeing to. Feed your sheep? Which sheep? The Twelve? The disciples? The whole world? This is often the case for us too. Even if we accept the call we can be confused about where God is leading us. When reporters used to ask the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe where the Jesuit Order was going, he would say, “I don’t know!” Father Arrupe was willing to follow, even if he didn’t know precisely what God had in mind. Peter says yes to the unknowable, because the question comes from Jesus. Both Christ’s forgiveness and Peter’s response show us love. God’s love is limitless, unconditional, radical. And when we have experienced that love, we can share it. The ability to forgive and to accept forgiveness is an absolute requirement of the Christian life. Conversely, the refusal to forgive leads ineluctably to spiritual death. You may know families in which vindictiveness acts like a cancer, slowly eating away at love. You may know people whose marriages have been destroyed by a refusal to forgive. One of my friends described a couple he knew as “two scorpions in a jar,” both eagerly waiting to sting the other with barbs and hateful comments. We see the communal version of this in countries torn by sectarian violence, where a climate of mutual recrimination and mistrust leads only to increasing levels of pain. The Breakfast by the Sea shows that Jesus lived the forgiveness he preached. Jesus knew that forgiveness is a life-giving force that reconciles, unites, and empowers. The Gospel by the Sea is a gospel of forgiveness, one of the central Christian virtues. It is the radical stance of Jesus, who, when faced with the one who denied him, forgave him and appointed him head of the church, and the man who, in agony on the Cross, forgave his executioners. Forgiveness is a gift to the one who forgives, because it frees from resentment; and to the one who needs forgiveness, because it frees from guilt. Forgiveness is the liberating force that allowed Peter to cast himself into the water at the sound of Jesus’s voice, and it is the energy that gave him a voice with which to testify to his belief in Christ.

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.

For instance, Justin Martyr never mentions Paul in his voluminous writings. When he is mentioned by other writers, Paul has nothing distinctive to say: he is a pale shadow and obedient lackey of the Twelve, as in Acts. When Ignatius, Polycarp, and 1 Clement (all too blithely taken for genuine as early second-century writings) make reference to Pauline letters, as Bauer noted, they sound like ill-prepared students faking their way through a discussion of a book they neglected to read.

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decided I could be both a Christian and a Jew. After all, Jesus was a Jew. So were the twelve apostles whose statues stand guard over the portico of the basilica. Twelve apostles,” he repeated. “One each for the twelve tribes of Israel. The original Christians didn’t see themselves as founders of a new

Having uttered that piercing cry of grief, Jesus left the temple, never, so far as we know, to return. His last words to the people of Jerusalem were: "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.

It is "the times of the Gentiles" (kairoiV ejqnw'n). The expression means, the time when the Gentiles should have their opportunity of enjoying divine grace, corresponding to the time of gracious visitation enjoyed by the Jews referred to by Jesus in His lament over Jerusalem. There is no reason to suppose Luke coined these phrases; they bear the stamp of genuineness upon them. But if we assume, as we are entitled to do, that not Luke the Pauline universalist, but Jesus Himself, spoke of a time of merciful visitation of the Gentiles, then it follows that in His eschatological discourse He gave clear intimation of a lengthened period during which His gospel was to be preached in the world; even as He did on other occasions, as in the parable of the wicked husbandman, in which He declared that the vineyard should be taken from its present occupants, and given to others who would bring forth fruit.

It taught effectively two lessons,--one specially for the benefit of the twelve, and the other for all Christians and all ages. The lesson for the twelve was, that they might dismiss from their minds all fond hopes of a restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Not reconstruction, but dissolution and dispersion, was Israel's melancholy doom. The general lesson for all in this discourse is: "Watch, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

The second verse of the preface alludes parenthetically to a fact which served as a foil to the constancy of Jesus: "The devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him." John would say: "Jesus loved His disciples to the end, though they did not all so love Him. One of them at this very moment entertained the diabolic purpose of betraying his Lord. Yet that Lord loved even him, condescending to wash even his feet; so endeavoring, if possible, to overcome his evil with good.

The aim of the evangelist, in the last sentence of his preface, is to show by contrast what a wondrous condescension it was in the Saviour to wash the feet of any of the disciples. Jesus knowing these things,--these things being true of Him: that "the Father had given all things into His hands"--sovereign power over all flesh; "that He was come from God"--a divine being by nature, and entitled to divine honors; "and that He was about to return to God," to enter on the enjoyment of such honors,--did as is here recorded. He, the August Being who had such intrinsic dignity, such a consciousness, such prospects--even "He riseth from supper and lath aside His garments, and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." The time when all this took place was, it would seem, about the commencement of the evening meal.

First comes the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem plotting against the life of the Just One. Then comes Mary at Bethany, in her unutterable love breaking her alabaster box, and pouring its contents on the head and feet of her beloved Lord. Last comes Judas, offering to sell his Master for less than Mary wasted on a useless act of affection! Hatred and baseness on either hand, and true love in the midst.

He, in effect, says to us thereby: Be not afraid to regard my death as an act of the same kind as that of Mary: an act of pure, devoted love. Let the aroma of her ointment circulate about the neighborhood of my cross, and help you to discern the sweet savor of my sacrifice. Amid all your speculations and theories on the grand theme of redemption, take heed that ye fail not to see in my death my loving heart, and the loving heart of my Father, revealed..4

Now love was to be the outstanding royal law, and free grace was to antiquate Sinaitic ordinances. And why now? In both cases, because Jesus was about to die. His death would be the seal of the New Testament, and it would exemplify and ratify the new commandment

For that process means practically the removal of moral hindrances to life and growth,--the cares of life, the insidious influence of wealth, the lusts of the flesh, and the passions of the soul,--evils which cannot be overcome unless our will and all our moral powers be brought to bear against them. Hence Jesus lays it upon His disciples as a duty to abide in Him, and have Him abiding in them, and resolves the whole matter at last, in plain terms, into keeping His commandments.

If we stop short and grow not, woe to us; for failure in all things, and specially in religion, is misery. If we be comparatively unfruitful, we may not be absolutely unhappy, but we can never know the fulness of joy; for it is only to the faithful servant that the words are spoken: "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

How vastly preferable a forgiveness which means a giving for, and costs the Forgiver sorrow, sweat, pain, blood, wounds, death--a forgiveness coming from a God who says in effect: "I will not, to save sinners, repeal the law which connects sin with death as its penalty; but I am willing for that end to become myself the law's victim.

but Christ has taught us, by His example in choosing Judas, as also by the parable of the tares, that we must submit to the evil, and leave the remedy in higher hands. Out of evil God often brings good, as He did in the case of the traitor.

That John, the writer of the fourth Gospel, really was the fifth unnamed disciple, may be regarded as certain. It is his way throughout his Gospel, when alluding to himself, to use a periphrasis, or to leave, as here, a blank where his name should be. One of the two disciples who heard the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God was the evangelist himself, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, being the other.

The two disciples, on the other hand, in going away after the personage whose presence had been so impressively announced, were not obeying an order given by their old master, but were simply following the dictates of feelings which had been awakened in their breasts by all they had heard him say of Jesus, both on the present and on former occasions. They needed no injunction to seek the acquaintance of one in whom they felt so keenly interested: all they needed was to know that this was He.

As He said to Peter in express words, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me;" so He says to them all in effect, though not in words,"If ye wash not each other, if ye refuse to serve one another in love, ye have again no part with me." This is a hard saying; for if it be difficult to believe in the humiliation of Christ, it is still more difficult to humble ourselves.

They learned to say: "For Christ's sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But what does it matter? The Church is spreading; believers are multiplying on every side, springing up an hundred-fold from the seed of the martyrs' blood; the name of our Lord is being magnified. We will gladly suffer, therefore, bearing witness to the truth.

These two things, truth and love, Jesus asks for His own, as of vital moment: truth as the badge of distinction between His Church and the world; love as the bond which unites believers of the truth into a holy brotherhood of witness-bearers to the truth.

He lays on Peter: "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Jesus expects the frail disciple to become strong in grace, and so able and willing to help the weak. He cherishes this expectation with respect to all, but specially in regard to Peter, assuming that the weakest might and ought eventually to become the strongest; the last first, the greatest sinner the greatest saint; the most foolish the wisest, most benignant, and sympathetic of

But why, then, is the cause of Christianity not progressing, but rather, one might almost say, retrograding? We must answer this question by asking others: How many have large hearts cherishing comprehensive desires? How many with their whole soul desire for themselves above all things sanctification and illumination? How many earnestly, passionately desire the conversion of the heathen, the unity and peace and purity of the Church, the prevalence of righteousness in society at large? We are straitened in our own hearts, not in God.

If the world hate you, ye know that it has hated me before you." Poor comfort, one is disposed to say; yet it is not so poor when you consider the relative position of the parties. He who has already been hated is the Lord; they who are to be hated are but the servants. Of this Jesus reminds His disciples, repeating and recalling to their remembrance a word He had already spoken the same evening.

The prayer of Jesus for Himself (vers. 1-5.) contains just one petition, with two reasons annexed. The petition is, "Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son;

The second reason pleaded by Jesus in support of His prayer, is that His appointed service has been faithfully accomplished, and now claims its guerdon: "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.

Christ's other source of consolation in prospect of death is the approval of His Father: "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." The Father has been with Him all along. On three critical occasions--at the baptism, on the hill of transfiguration, in the temple a few days ago--the Father had encouraged Him with an approving voice.

His heart is in perfect peace, for He has two great consolations. He has a good conscience: He can say, "I have overcome the world." He has held fast His moral integrity against incessant temptation

The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus’ death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out. (Pensées, 310; in Pascal 1670/1995,

He took Jesus, we are told (laid hold of Him, we suppose, by His hand or His garment), and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Be it far from Thee, Lord;" or more literally, "God be merciful to Thee: God forbid! this shall not be unto Thee." What a strange compound of good and evil is this man! His language is dictated by the most intense affection: he cannot bear the thought of any harm befalling his Lord; yet how irreverent and disrespectful he is towards Him whom he has just acknowledged to be the Christ, the Son of the living God!

If a brother in Christ, according to ecclesiastical standing, may say to me, "You must love me with all your heart," I am entitled to say in reply, "I acknowledge the obligation in the abstract, but I demand of you in turn that you shall be such that I can love you as a Christian, however weak and imperfect; and I feel it to be both my right and my duty to do all I can to make you worthy of such brotherly regard, by plain dealing with you anent your offences. I am willing to love you, but I cannot, I dare not, be on friendly terms with your sins; and if you refuse to part with these, and virtually require me to be a partaker in them by connivance, then our brotherhood is at an end, and I am free from my obligations.

Peter's feeling at the present time seems to have been much the same: "If Thou be the Son of God, why shouldst Thou suffer an ignominious, violent death? Thou hast power to save Thyself from such a fate; surely Thou wilt not hesitate to use it!" The attached disciple, in fact, was an unconscious instrument employed by Satan to subject Jesus to a second temptation, analogous to the earlier one in the desert of Judea.

Thereby He in effect declared that only such as were willing to be crucified with Him should be saved by His death; nay, that willingness to bear a cross was indispensable to the right understanding of the doctrine of salvation through Him. It is as if above the door of the school in which the mystery of redemption was to be taught, He had inscribed the legend: Let no man who is unwilling to deny himself, and take up his cross, enter here.

If any one will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross." The plain meaning of these words is, that there is no following Jesus on any other terms--a doctrine which, however clearly taught in the Gospel, spurious Christians are unwilling to believe and resolute to deny.

There was, e.g, the surprising contrast between the death of Moses, immediate and painless, while his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated, and the painful and ignominious death to be endured by Jesus. Then there was the not less remarkable contrast between the manner of Elijah's departure from the earth--translated to heaven without tasting death at all, making a triumphant exit out of the world in a chariot of fire, and the way by which Jesus should enter into glory--the via dolorosa of the cross. Whence this privilege of exemption from death, or from its bitterness, granted to the representatives of the law and the prophets, and wherefore denied to Him who was the end both of law and of prophecy?

How easily and plausibly might He have taken up the position of one who did well to be angry! "I am the Christ, the Son of God," He might have said, "and have substantiated my claims by a thousand miracles in word and deed, yet they willfully refuse to recognize me; I am a poor homeless wanderer, yet they, knowing this, demanded the tribute, as if more for the sake of annoying and insulting me than of getting the money. And for what purpose do they collect these dues? For the support of a religious establishment thoroughly effete, to repair an edifice doomed to destruction, to maintain a priesthood scandalously deficient in the cardinal virtues of integrity and truth, and whose very existence is a curse to the land. I cannot in conscience pay a didrachmon, no, not even so much as a farthing, for any such objects.

Origen Commentary on Matthew Judas means “confessor.” Luke the Evangelist numbers both “Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot” among the twelve Apostles (Luke 6:16). Since two of Christ’s disciples were given this same name and since there can be no meaningless symbol in the Christian mystery, I am convinced that the two Judases represent two distinct types of confessing Christians. The first, symbolized by Judas the son of James, perseveres in remaining faithful to Christ. The second type, however, after once believing and professing faith in Christ, then abandons him out of greed. He defects to the heretics and to the false priests of the Jews, that is, to counterfeit Christians, and (insofar as he is able) delivers Christ, the “Word of truth,” over to them to be crucified and destroyed. This type of Christian is represented by Judas Iscariot, who “went out to the chief priests” (Matt. 26:14) and agreed on a price for betraying Christ.

sat motionless while gathering his thoughts. Finally, he spoke. “Elder Wilder, when we are given instruction from our leaders, we must obey. Do you not sustain the Prophet and the Twelve Apostles as the mouthpieces of God on the earth, the ones authorized to speak God’s will?

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.)

Accept whatever happens to you as good, knowing that apart from God nothing comes to pass.

fact he himself is apostle only because he was called by Christ and thus sent not by his own eagerness or choice but by the will of God. “Apostle” means one who is sent, like an ambassador authorized to speak for the sender. Although the title is used occasionally for other †ministers (Acts 14:14; Rom 16:7), in applying it to himself Paul is equating his authority with that of the Twelve, who not only were chosen by Christ but also saw the risen Lord and thus were doubly equipped to be his witnesses (“Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” 1 Cor 9:1).

What were any of us, really, in the face of the system around us, with all its organs of propaganda and powers of persecution? Yet, in God’s providence, here we were. This was the place he had chosen for us, the situation and circumstances in which he had placed us. One thing we could do and do daily: we could seek first the kingdom of God and his justice—first of all in our own lives, and then in the lives of those around us. From the time of the apostles—twelve simple men, alone and afraid, who had received the commission to go forth into the whole world to preach the good news of the kingdom—there has been no other way for the spreading of the kingdom than by the acts and the lives of individual Christians striving each day to fulfill the will of God.

Do not enter into prayer when your conscience is filled with evil thoughts and desires.

On the example of the Savior Himself and His call to His Apostles, and with the need for peace and comfort ringing in our ears, I ask you to be a healer, be a helper, be someone who joins in the work of Christ in lifting burdens, in making the load lighter, in making things better. Isn’t that the phrase we used to use as children when we had a bump or a bruise? Didn’t we say to Mom or Dad, “Make it better”? Well, lots of people on your right hand and on your left are carrying bumps and bruises that they hope will be healed and made whole. Someone within reasonable proximity to you today is carrying a spiritual or physical or emotional burden of some sort or an affliction drawn from life’s catalog of a thousand kinds of sorrow. In the spirit of Christ’s first invitation to Philip and Andrew and then to Peter and the whole of His Twelve Apostles, jump into this work. Help people. Heal old wounds, and try to make things better. In short, I ask you to “follow Him.

The fact that the church had to be on the lookout for false apostles would not have been an issue if the apostolate was restricted to the twelve and Paul.16

Many belonged to Jesus in different spaces. The Bible mentions the multitudes, a room full, a crowd of seventy, twelve apostles, the inner circle of Peter, James, and John. All experienced community with Jesus.

But to argue, 'the earth has one satellite, namely the moon, therefore the moon is one' is as bad as to argue 'The Apostles were twelve; Peter was an apostle; therefore Peter was twelve,' which would be valid if for 'twelve' we substituted 'white'.

The apostolic fathers are the generation of believers who had personal contact with Jesus’ twelve apostles (ca. AD 70–ca. 150). We have many of their writings which can help to shed light on what the early church believed. In these writings, many references can be found which speak to the fact that these early church fathers believed in the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. While they did not specifically use these terms (they would be developed much later), it is clear that they believed what they teach.

Modern culture has disenchanted the world by disenchanting numbers. For us, numbers are about quantity and control, not quality and contemplation. After Bacon, knowledge of numbers is a key to manipulation, not meditation. Numbers are only meaningful (like all raw materials that comprise the natural world) when we can do something with them. When we read of twelve tribes and twelve apostles and twelve gates and twelve angels, we typically perceive something spreadsheet-able. By contrast, in one of Caldecott’s most radical claims, he insists, “It is not simply that numbers can be used as symbols. Numbers have meaning—they are symbols. The symbolism is not always merely projected onto them by us; much of it is inherent in their nature” (p. 75). Numbers convey to well-ordered imaginations something of (in Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s metaphor) the inner design of the fabric of creation. The fact that the words “God said” appear ten times in the account of creation and that there are ten “words” in the Decalogue is not a random coincidence. The beautiful meaningfulness of a numberly world is most evident in the perception of harmony, whether in music, architecture, or physics. Called into being by a three-personed God, creation’s essential relationality is often evident in complex patterns that can be described mathematically. Sadly, as Caldecott laments, “our present education tends to eliminate the contemplative or qualitative dimension of mathematics altogether” (p. 55). The sense of transcendence that many (including mathematicians and musicians) experience when encountering beauty is often explained away by materialists as an illusion. Caldecott offers an explanation rooted in Christology. Since the Logos is love, and since all things are created through him and for him and are held together in him, we should expect the logic, the rationality, the intelligibility of the world to usher in the delight that beauty bestows. One

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. Revelation 21:9-14, 22-26

sometimes paraphrase our own Scriptures. For example, the verse above is modeled on Galatians 3:28, which says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (NRSV). This wisdom is almost two thousand years old, yet we still struggle to achieve racial and gender equality. One of the things I wanted to explore in this storyworld is what life would look like if people lived as if they really believed this verse is true. One fact the church has historically used to rationalize the sidelining of women is that Jesus, the Twelve, and the apostle Paul were all men. Meanwhile the first evangelist, Mary Magdalene, is unjustly slandered as a prostitute, and Junia, whom Paul called “prominent among the apostles” (Romans 16:7), is all but forgotten. Many have even tried to recast her as a man.

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.

The name Matthew means gift of Yahweh. Saint Matthew was one of the twelve apostles and he was a tax collector. Hurricane Matthew just delivered us a gift from God and collected taxes for our abysmal management of Mother Earth.

The Ancient Church Fathers, including disciples of the twelve apostles, were firmly premillennial, pretribulational, and very pro-Israel.

The Didache is the earliest known document outside the NT to identify the problem of settled faith communities in conflict with traveling, itinerant preachers and prophets. The Didachist does not doubt the validity of such persons, but recognizes that not all of them are worthy witnesses to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Those who teach falsely for their own gain are identified as "Christ peddlars," a term known first from the Didache

I spread my arms wide like a minister in front of his flock. "My pulpit is the well of the courtroom. I preach to the twelve apostles, the gods of guilt." Valenzula casually looked at me. "Yeah, well, whatever. It's still pretty low and you should be ashamed of your ass. Almost as low as you racing out here ahead of me and hiding in there, telling her not to answer the door." I nodded. He had it all figured out. I signaled him off the hood of the car. "Well, Val, Ms. Roberts is now my client and I am authorized to accept the subpoena from Fulgoni on her behalf." He slid off the car, dragging the wallet chain looped from his belt to his back pocket along the paint. "Oh, geez, my fucking bad. I hope I didn't scratch it, Reverend.

For this writer, evil was a matter not of behavior, or even choice, but of being.

Were we not standing atop the birthplace of a certain kind of religious nationalism? Zion lay all around us. See where the Prophet left this earth, where Christ rose from the dead, where the Messiah would, finally, appear. Which of us, in this war, was not Judas to someone?

But he makes a similar comment in one other important place, toward the beginning of his public ministry (Matt. 10:6). After seeing the readiness of the fields for harvest and the scarcity of workers (Matt. 9:37), he commissions the twelve disciples (symbolizing the core of a restored Jewish remnant of the twelve tribes) to aid him in his mission to Israel (Matt. 10:1–16). In this first mention of disciples as apostles (Matt. 10:2)—that is, as “sent ones”—Jesus explicitly enjoins them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. (Matt. 10:5–8a)

Accept the things that happen to thee as good, knowing that without God nothing happens.

Thou shalt hate all hypocrisy and everything that is not pleasing to God; thou shalt not abandon the commandments of the Lord, but shalt guard that which thou hast received, neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom; thou shalt confess thy transgressions in the church, and shalt not come unto prayer with an evil conscience. This is the path of life.

Furthermore, the New Jerusalem is identified as the Bride of Christ (Revelation 21:9, 10), no doubt because it is the eternal home of all who are saved (Revelation 21:24), those who collectively constitute His Bride. But this city has twelve gates, inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve foundations, in which are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21:12, 14). This surely means that within the city are both the redeemed of ancient Israel and the redeemed of the later Church of Christ. And this in turn must mean that all of these are somehow a part of "the bride, the Lamb's wife." The Bride, therefore, represents and includes all her attendants and all the wedding guests as well. The symbolism in the parables cannot be pressed beyond its purpose. The real message is that all believers in the true God, both Creator and Redeemer, of all the ages, will one day be restored to perfect fellowship with Him and united with Him forever. Glorious will be the great wedding feast, and blessed indeed are all who are called into it. Whatever distinctions may exist between the saints of the pre-Abrahamic period, the saints in Israel before Christ, the saints among the Gentiles from Abraham to Christ, the saints of the tribulation, and the saints in the churches from Christ to the rapture (and no doubt these will continue to be identifiable groups even in the ages to come) such distinctions are secondary to the great primary truth that all will be there by virtue of the saving work of Christ and their personal trust in the true Creator God and His provision of salvation. There is only one God (not one God identified with Israel and one God associated with the Church) and that one triune God will be in personal fellowship forever with all the redeemed saints of all the ages. He will dwell with them in the Holy City forever (Revelation 21:2, 3).

Sitting there, I remembered two things about going to mass with my father: he never took Communion because of his and my mother's divorce, and he always tapped his heart three times, with solemn insistence, after the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. I asked him about his ritual once. His eyes filled with such alarm that I instantly knew his heart tapping had something to do with a loss or devastation: his parents' early death, his divorce, his wounding in Vietnam. There was no reason for me to invade that space. Maybe that was the best simple explanation for religion: it filled our spaces.