"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

The Number 47, Synchronicity & the Law of Time Courtney Jamal Dewar, aka Capital STEEZ, came with perfect timing. Wielding a higher message, he revealed to all those around him through his music and his being the corruption of society and all of its constructs. He was fascinated, some would say, obsessed, with the number 47. For him this number held a higher meaning on many levels. First and foremost, he felt it was about synchronicity. He made all of his homies, including myself, aware of how this is the quintessential random number. We literally began to see it everywhere. You can research the numerological significance of 47. Here are just a few: 47 appears to be the quintessential random number of the universe. When a number appears randomly, more often than not, that number is 47. In other other words, if you asked people to pick a number at random, more often than not, that number would be 47. Of course, if 47 shows up more than any other number then it isn’t truly random, but using the word random makes the whole phenomenon easier to describe. From a spiritual perspective, number 47 is a combination of the energies and attributes of number 4 and number 7. The vibrations of number 4 include those of productivity and application, inner-wisdom and practical-thinking, honesty and integrity, endurance and determination, conscientiousness and discipline. Number 4 also relates to our passion and drive in life. Number 7 brings the qualities of spiritual awakening and enlightenment, intuition and inner-knowing, psychic abilities and mysticism, independence and individualism, persistence of purpose and manifesting good fortune.
There is even a much-viewed YouTube spoof of Jim Carrey’s The Number 23, substituting—you guessed it–the No. 47. Jim Carrey's character named Walter is given a book titled The Number 23. Walter starts reading the book and notices striking similarities between himself and the main character, a detective named "Fingerling". Fingerling is obsessed with the 23 enigma, the idea that all incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23 (Weirdly enough when I was younger I was in cod team called 23Enigma) only noted it as of the coincidence.
Jim Carrey told reporters he was so captivated by the 23 enigma even before reading the script that he renamed his production company from "Pit Bull Productions" to "JC23." (Jesus Christ 23?) Oddly enough the first film Carrey worked on with Joel Schumacher his character The Riddler's real name was 'E. Nigma'. According to Carrey, he was reading a book about Psalm 23 when he was first given a copy of the screenplay to review. He said he asked a friend to read the script and "an hour and a half later he was on page 23, circling every 23rd word. That's the kind of thing I want to do to an audience." When he discovered that the first page of the script involved the lead character trying to capture a pit bull, he was "freaked out," given the change in name of his production company. (Pitbull productions) My Nicknames Pitty, short for pitbul (These are just speculations) Also I've gathered others inputs and went down a deep rabbit hole. Mind you, this is just connections that has been gathered over time, but the consistency of certain "coincidences" are interesting to say the least. Just try to piece together the connections even though it may be out of radar due to us living completely different lives.
James > Cleveland Cavaliers (Cavs) > Number 23 > Nicknames are King James & The Chosen One
Cavs is the nickname of my last name Cavanagh
When you flip the cleveland cavaliers logo upside down it is quite similar
(The hat I've worn since 14, P represents the nickname"Pitty:" short for pitbill a nickname ive had since i was around 10 years old.
Matthew writes that on 23 occasions Jesus blessed 47 people.
The Bible credits Jesus with 47 miracles.
The Declaration of Independence has 47 sentences. Originally published: 4 July 1776 (4/7)
1947 is when the UFO crashed at Roswel
The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn are 47 degrees of latitude apart.
Capital STEEZ died from allegedly leaping from the Cinematic Music Group’ either gripping a bible or with it strapped on his back There is also the fact that a blood lunar eclipse will occur in New York at 3:47 am on STEEZ’s birthday in 2047, and then the lunar eclipse which will occur after this one is part of the Lunar Saros series 135. He said he named the song 135 for “5th dimensional synchronization”... whatever that means, this would be a massive coincidence.
How Many People Can See This Eclipse? Number of People Seeing... Number of People* Fraction of World Population At least some of the penumbral phase 4,070,000,000 When the Eclipse Happens Worldwide — Timeline Event UTC Time Time in Melbourne* Penumbral Eclipse begins 7 Jul at 07:47:47 Visible in Melbourne 7 Jul at 5:47:47 pm On capital steez birthday.
STEEZs last tweet “the end” Was posted December (23) 2012 The building steez died (The colliers office) is on 666 fifth avenue, 10103 10+10+3=(23), New York. The building was built in 1878 The bohemian grove was established in 1878 The address of the CMG label building is on 40 west (23)rd st, 10010, New York The Freemasonry Grand lodge of New York is on 71 west, (23)rd st 10010 NY. Directly located across the same building STEEZ died. Yeah. West 23rd st, w is the (23)rd letter in the alphabet. In Hebrew the letter W represents the number 6 The fraction 2/3 in decimals=0.666 The freemasonry grand lodge of New York was founded in December 15, 1782 15, 1782 1+5+1+7+8+2 = 24. December 24 the date that's etched on STEEZs tombstone. A police report about his death has never surfaced, information has never been released, but there is pictures of his gravestone (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuFVUJJR4Ug) and on that gravestone it says 24/12/12, which actually adds up to 48, yet he tweets on the 23/12/12 stating 'The End. Steez was ready to open up Pandora’s box and expose the illuminati occult in a way that has never been done before. It gets deep. Just think about it guys. Steez was an intellectual genius. He would obviously know that suicide actually makes u go to hell and not heaven. As a believer in the lord he would never commit suicide.
I'm not sure if you're paying attention to the ryan garcia trying to reveal how something tragic happened to him where he was taken to boheiman grove and forced to watch things i wont mention here People said his crazy and on drugs, sad thing is, I believe he is telling the truth Fast forward he wasn't on drugs and
Peep his song "Free The Robots" https://youtu.be/XcmR8DxuHBA
STEEZ has definitely made a positive impact on this world by introducing a new way of thinking and spirituality, even more of an impact than a lot of artists who are still alive... Capital STEEZ was 19 at the time of his death.
There is also gematria behind his death it has to do with numbers. I’ll explain what it is for those who aren’t aware of it. Gematria is the decoding of letters to numbers, it’s used to translate ancient Hebrew Scriptures. But it’s also the code for the entire world. The most basic way I can put it is that it’s as simple as ABC=123, they use these numbers thru media, and the thing that’s being shown on the media always correlates with Masonic numbers and words that correlate with whatever and whoever is being shown on the news or media and whatever event is taking place always correlates 100% of the time. In news, sports, music industry, Hollywood, politics, everything. In Numerology, which is different from gematria. After calculating his name I came across a lot of similarities when calculating mine in various forms.
While calculating his name i came across things relating to me like Like "Melbourne Victoria Australia, Royal Melbourne Hospital, june twenty fourth. From his name which connected to me personally as i was born in that hospital, thats the city i live and my birthday. The similarities left me wondering if it was actually real or not so I used multiple different calculators and paid for a membership on gematrinator to get maximum results and ended up noticing so much our mine and steezs calculations were similar answers in different form, and answers i got with his name ultimately connected to mine, vice versa. So i was intrigued and these are a list of numbers that matched up with our names. This is all speculation based on connections that seem to be very consistent peep this
Calculating these variations of our names such as Courtney Jamal Dewar / Courtney jamal Dewar Jr / Courtney Everald Jamal Dewar Jr / Capital STEEZ / Nathan Cavanagh / Nathan James Cavanagh / Nathan James Cavanagh Sciarra, calculations all listed together when I noted them all I didn't think to label to each name as I was so captivated by the coincidences I just kept going down the rabbit hole. I came across profound links to both our names that binds us both to the unique synchronicities that were to apparent to all be ruled as pure coincidence, such as his name calculating to my birthday, place of birth and city, and city i live to say the least.
These are calculations through gematria, some are our calculations mixed in this as I was just noting down every connection I noticed
The first and the last Eye Of Horus Total Eclipse the numbers of gods matrix coordinated universal time Capital Steez June Twenty Forth (my birthday) came up from steez name Lunar Eclipse Sacrifice July (2047 lunar eclipse on steezs birthday) The Central Intelligence Agency A WISE TALENTED MUSIC PRODUCER Royal Melbourne Hospital (where I was born) The Holy Bloodline Of Jesus The Return of Christ Exodus Luke synchronisation The Synchronicities Of Jesus The Book Of Revelations Vibrational Frequency Biblical Prophecy Melbourne Victoria Australia (where im from), came up on steezs calculations The Royal Bloodline The Divine Bloodline Of Jesus fourth of jew lie Energy frequency vibration The Holy Lineage Of Christ One Who Understands Mysteries december the twenty fifth. ..... speaks for itself A Door to another dimension New Moons And Solar Eclipse twenty four seven (my birthdays the 24th, his is the 7th) the victory of the lamb multidimensional royal regiment of scotland Golden Gate Sacrifice Gods Gift Clairvoyant The Chosen One The Two Appointed Ones Leaving For Heaven David And Daughter Of The Oath Are One Almighty God Roars Upon His Throne Powerful Great Grandma The Lord On Earth Donald Trump Assassination Lords Alignment The Lord Gods Here God Is Really Here God Birthdate Encoded End Of Times God Code The Code Of The Lord Lord Birthday Code Gods Provable Code Gods Alive Loser Access Into Heaven Twenty Three The Anunnaki Gods Jesus Is Coming A True Prophet The Seventh Seal What is Jesus's number? 888 Apollo Is The Beast Of Revelation See Fulfillment Of The Book Of Isaiah Prophecy The Serpent In Genesis Describes The Mark Of The Beast See The Forced Evil Mark Of The Beast Foiled The Victory Of The Lamb May The Lord Fill Your Heart Two Masters Is Cancer (steez and I are both Cancer) God Of Eternity We Are God Twins Maker Of New Earth A Two Edged Swords Xanax Vicodin Addiction (i struggled with bad) The Bible Is Intentionally Concealing Information The Galactic Jesus the Anointed One Moses Will Come The King Is Coming Miraculously Encoded By God Pyramids On Mars Forests On Mars Holy Spirit Of Zeus We Are Absolute Infinite Sent By The Gods Powerful Great Grandma999 Burning Alive The Gang Stalkers. (long story short I was a victim of whay they call gangstalking when I was reaching my peak or enlightenment and have been trying to get back to that state again, all I can describe it as is demonic torment) Enoch 777 on YouTube speaks on it good.) A Fourty Seven Mandating The Poisonous Jabs Knowledge Of God Brings Eternal Life Death Isnt So Scary Anymore Invictus Sol The Lion And The Lamb https://imgur.com/gallery/ztGPJGS The Lord Is Here Coming To Restore The Eternal Kingdom The Blood Of The Lamb Contact With A God Revival Jesus The Annointed One the key to it all I Am The Holy Grail Sun Moon Earth Revelation Nine Spirit World I Am The One Lord Jesus Christ I Know All Codes And Connections The Wisdom Of God Word Of The Lord Quantum Entanglement Theory The Anunnaki Path Almighty God Roars Upon His Throne 173 Enoch Chapter Ninety Five Pyramids Have Hidden Chambers Music Is My Life Revelation Five Everyone Is God Forever Jesus Walking With God Vision Of Gabriel New Revelation Seven Wonders Symbiotic Craft Thank You James (my middle name is James) Words Of The Bible Isaiah Fourteen Thirteen Trumps Last Son He Is Jesus Crown Chakra God Is You Gods In A Body The Resurrection Of Life The Book Lj Enoch King Jesus Gods Wrath We Are At War Truth Hidden In Plain Sight Double Conciousness The Anointed Lay Dead On The Cross Dragon Of China Is The Anti Christ. A Seed Of Jesse Angelic Guidance Black Pyramid Hidden Truth In Plain Sight King Messiah Heavens Dream Let The Decoding Fun Begin Add Up Letters Notorious Names The Child Of Christ Aliens Exist Spirit Of Moses C E R T I F I C A T E Of Baptism Of The Lord Of Christ Alchemist Fluoride To Heaven God Is Number Codes Numerical Language Learning Decoding Is Fun The Lord Of The Messiah The Book Of Hidden Messages Eight Eight Eight Nine Nine Nine Lost Books Of The Bible Rna Vaccine Maternal Ancestors Are Of Royal Descent You Are Gifted Frequency Turn Off Your Smart Phone I Am Eternal Life David Christ Gods Son The Sound Of Jesus Coming Help Others Realize Full Potential Implants During Surgical Procedures The Solar System And Thoughts The Reincarnation Of King David King David Divine Dna Is Activated Jesus Returns To Earth The Lion Of Judah Is With Us (Steez would speak about Judah)
Jamal Dewar; psalm twenty three Jesus son of God Nathan Day Revelation fourteen one Spiritual warfare Gang Stalker (experienced this myself) Satanic Cults Commit Suicide forty seven problem Bloodline of Jesus Christ The End (when this came up my jaw dropped.) And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you Amen The Holy Mother of Jesus christ Are you ready for whats coming july seventh twenty eighteen
Courtney Jamal Dewar, Jr: The Book Of Revelations Vibrational frequency MELBOURNE VICTORIA AUSTRALIA (where I live) Christ Resurrection Satan Rules The World The Divine Bloodline of Christ synchronization Biblical Prophecy Capital steez Exodus Luke The Divine Bloodline of David Second Christ The Return of Christ Jesus Resurrection Jesus Christ Bloodline
I added stuff from my name as it was so coincidental I didn't think to label them at first I just wrote down anything I thought added up This is just deep research into who reminds me of myself My instagram is mistapitty Listen to The Resurrection by Pitty https://on.soundcloud.com/Xn3nN
Listen to Revelation 22 by Pitty https://on.soundcloud.com/gBAja
Peep his song "Free The Robots" https://youtu.be/XcmR8DxuHBA
STEEZ has definitely made a positive impact on this world by introducing a new way of thinking and spirituality, even more of an impact than a lot of artists who are still alive... Capital STEEZ was 19 at the time of his death.
There are four gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. Each of these emphasizes a unique aspect of his sacrifice and ministry. Matthew's focus is on Christ being the son of David and a King.
Look into the etymology of your name. - What Does Nathan Mean? The name Nathan means “Gift of God” or “God has given.” In the Old Testament, Nathan was a prophet and one of King David's sons; he acted as a messenger to King David and is considered one of Jesus' ancestors. (David name of my biological grandfather) (James is my middle name) - James is a classic, traditional and Biblical name (Saint James, of course, was Jesus's brother and one of the 12 apostles) meaning "supplanter" or "replacer." It's derived from the Latin Jacomus which also means "may God protect.
Every letter to Capital STEEZs full name calculates to 147 when done in reverse on the gematria calculator and mine equals to exactly 470 when done in reverse.
"Nathan James Cavanagh Sciarra" = 470 (Reverse Reduction) N a t h a n 104 13 26 7 19 26 13 J a m e s 87 17 26 14 22 8 C a v a n a g h 159 24 26 5 26 13 26 20 19 S c i a r r a 120 = 470 8 24 18 26 9 9 26 Reverse = 470
"Capital STEEZ" = 47 (Reduction) C a p i t a l 26 3 1 7 9 2 1 3 S T E E Z 21 = 47 1 2 5 5 8 Reduction = 47
"Courtney Everald Jamal Dewar" = 147 (Reverse Reduction) C o u r t n e y 41 6 3 6 9 7 4 4 2 E v e r e s t 41 4 5 4 9 4 8 7 J a m a l 35 8 8 5 8 6 D e w a r 30 = 147 5 4 4 8 9 Reverse = 147
On June 24th 2022: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are lining up in the pre-dawn sky, a planetary procession that could be seen above the eastern horizon And what’s even more remarkable about this month’s lineup is that the planets are arranged in their natural order from the sun. The best day to see the spectacle will likely be the morning of June 24 of 2022, weather permitting, as the planetary parade will be joined by the waning crescent moon. This is three days after the summer solstice (or winter in australia), which is June 21. What makes this so unique is the last time we had 5 planets aligned in this fashion, was in March of 1874.
All of the "classical" planets will be viewable in the early morning skies of June 24th 2022. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will be visible, all apparent to the naked eye even under urban light pollution. On the 24th, our moon will be situated between Venus and Mars, so you could say the Earth-Luna system will complete the "perfect" alignment. Under the darkest skies, one will be able to see seven planets in one sweeping gaze. The same year December 24th the planets will align in their correct order outward from the sun for the second time this year, after a pre-dawn alignment in June which was on my birthday. STEEZ is said to have died on the 24th of December 👉 https://imgur.com/gallery/0RVIxxA
Alternatively, 25 December may have been selected owing to its proximity to the winter solstice because of its symbolic theological significance. After the solstice, the days begin to lengthen with longer hours of sunlight, which Christians see as representing the Light of Christ entering the world. This symbolism applies equally to the celebration of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June, near the summer solstice, based on John's remark about Jesus "He must increase; I must decrease." John 3:30 NRSV.[59] Now check out the following texts from the bible, they speak of the solstice here. 👉 https://imgur.com/gallery/0RVIxxA and I thought I should add this as it seemed to be quite a coincidence of the date i posted this somg and the content of the posts she made. It aligned with those geomatria calculations I made and i wish I could document snd explain why certain ones just synchronzie but it'd be to hard to comphrened.
"AFTER THE SOLSTICE, THE DAYS BEGIN TO LENGTHEN WITH LONGER HOURS OF SUNLIGHT, WHICH CHRISTIANS SEE AS REPRESENTING THE LIGHT OF CHRIST ENTERING THE WORLD. THIS SYMBOLISM APPLIES EQUALLY TO THE CELEBRATION OF THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST ON 24 JUNE, NEAR THE SUMMER SOLSTICE, BASED ON JOHN'S REMARK ABOUT JESUS "HE MUST INCREASE; I MUST DECREASE." JOHN THE BAPTIST ANNOUNCES THE COMING OF THE LIGHT THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE, JOHN THE BAPTIST, ANNOUNCES THE COMING OF JESUS, THE COMING OF NEW TIMES, JOHN ANNOUNCES THAT GOD IS GRACIOUS TO HIS PEOPLE BY ANNOUNCING THE COMING OF THE SON OF GOD. BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, AND EVERY EYE WILL SEE HIM, EVEN THOSE WHO PIERCED HIM; AND ALL THE TRIBES OF THE LAND WILL MOURN OVER HIM.” –ZECHARIAH 12:10-14; DANIEL 7:13-14 SO IT IS TO BE. AMEN (AGREED, YESHUA HIMSELF IS THE AMEN 3:14). “I KEPT LOOKING IN THE NIGHT VISIONS, AND BEHOLD, WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN ONE LIKE A SON OF MAN WAS COMING."
John the Baptist day is 24th of June.
"The flower of life, represents global consciousness and like there's this thing on the consciousness grid, the last piece, it has to be the flower of life and it has to align with the sun and all that stuff and it will wake up global consciousness & as i further in my ascension I hope to build it one day" "Some people might think this type of thinking, first of all this type of thinking might jump over a lot of people's heads" "I think humans need to lighten up, maybe try lighten up" - STEEZ
Someone regarding STEEZ: "Did he think there were codes in the Bible or something? I’ve heard him say he knows the “code” does anyone know what the code is? He was a truly enlightened person I wish I could understand him better."
STEEZ supposedly said he had to die now in order to save the Earth in 2047, which is when the world is supposed to end. Before he killed himself his friends say he withdrew not only from them, but rap in general, saying he was going to become a superhero.
(My birthday)24th of June 1999 = 2+4+6+1+9+9+9 = 40 STEEZ birthday) 7th of July 1993 = 7+7+1,993 = 2007.) 40 + 2007 = 2047
Now read a conversation he had on Facebook prior to death https://www.kanyetothe.com/threads/rip-capital-steez.354864/page-42?post_id=16781894&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-167818 His song Dead Prez (credit to who found these calculations as this wasn't mine) If you wanna conspire a little, we technically have had 46 different president so far, tho truly only 45 different guys have been in office. This year, if we elect a new president they will be our 47th prezident. You could say that happens when the next president is elected, or when the second new president is elected because then there'd actually be 47 different people. On the contrary, you could predict that once 47 presidents have died, something very significant will happen because the song is about DEAD presidents. It'll happen in most of our lifetimes i wonder what will happen 2047?
https://imgur.com/a/bOpRy
FORTY, THE NUMBER: "Forty days was the period from the resurrection of Jesus to the ascension of Jesus some scholars note that 40 days in the Bible doesn't always mean 40 days literally, but may be a symbolic way of saying "a longer time. A master number and part of the “awakening code”. Also Jose Arguelles’s kin is 11 – he brought forth the Law of Time aka the World Thirteen Moon Cale In the Bible, next to the number seven, the number forty occurs most frequently.
Here's an article on Fader that's kind of aligns some things I've discovered.
https://www.thefader.com/2013/11/26/capital-steez-king-capital
Check out these images, not a lot of people would've seen these: h ttp://i.imgur.com/nPE90.png / http://i.imgur.com/sHtdM.png / http://i.imgur.com/ZcNu2.png - he thought he was the alchemist that had the key for world peahttp://i.imgur.com/ZcNu2.png Deshay posted this on Facebook after his immediate death: "Fxck.... This shxt jus rly fxcked me up. Me and Steezus JUST made plans to record on Saturday now hes gone. RIP Capital STEEZ" Joey said he believed he sacrificed himself for spiritual rebirth.
The End THE WIDELY ACCEPTED STORY is that Courtney ‘Jamal’ Dewar committed suicide by jumping off the Cinematic Music Building in Manhattan on 23.12.12 – which equals 47, the rapper’s favourite number. None of the city’s newspapers reported his death. As a result of inconsistent stories and a lack of police intelligence, confusion surrounds the heart-breaking event for the Dewar family. In a 2013 interview with Fader, an anonymous member of Pro Era said, “STEEZ told some of the Pros that he was thinking of killing himself by jumping off the building where Cinematic had its offices.” Dirty Sanchez a close friend of the late rapper recalled, “Nothing was working. Nothing. It was like too late. He made up his mind already.”
Today I will be briefly explaining the practice of Gematria. Gematria comes from ancient Jewish mysticism. It is the practice of combining the letter with the number, with the word. It is said this is how God created the world.
How does it work? Gematria has 4 major ciphers. The first two are easy as ABC, literally. For example A=1 B=2 C=3. And so on. The code can also be read backward from Z to A. This is called reverse ordinal. There are two more ciphers that are equally important but a bit more nuanced so for the sake of clarity I’ll leave those explanations to the work of Zachary K Hubbard. But to put Gematria into usable terms I’m gonna explain a decode I did recently. If you want to decode a word or phrase without doing the math yourself, there is an extremely helpful calculator at gematrinator.com it will give you all four cipher values for your word or phrase in an instant, as well as compare it with corresponding ciphers. Without further ado let’s look at this example:
Here I will outline some interesting numbers that coincide with the rapper Capital STEEZ and the numbers surrounding the music industry as well as numbers that come up with race, and other things I found eye grabbing.
(Credit to another user on here) First off I’ll start with Capital STEEZ, The interesting number here is the full reduction number, 47. It’s eye grabbing for many reasons, but we’ll start with a little back ground. Before Capital STEEZ’s (aka Jamal Dewar) death (suicide) in 2012, STEEZ was apart of an up and coming rap group known as Progressive Era, or ProEra for short. A known staple among these young men were the belief in “47 chakras” and “indigo children”. The two are a topic on their own, but the interesting part is that such a powerful number in Jamal Dewar’s life also coincides with the Gematria of his rap name. But that’s not it! Let’s continue
Capital STEEZ English ordinal: 137
Full reduction: 47
Reverse ordinal: 187 ( see pushed off a roof)
Reverse full reduction :70
Now keep an eye on 70, as we shall see him more as well.
Next we will decode the gematria of the reported means of STEEZ’s death, suicide. This is where I admittedly started getting intrigued.
Gematria of Suicide:
English Ordinal: 70
Full reduction: 34
Reverse ordinal:119
Reverse full reduction: 47
Wow. The exact same values but flipped.
Just a mere coincidence I’m sure But let’s continue .
With these next two we will see two repeats of values, one new value, 88 and a previously used value, 34. As well as 65
Jamal Dewar
English ordinal: 88
Full reduction: 34
Reverse ordinal: 182
Reverse full reduction: 65 ————————— Phrase: pushed off the roof
English Ordinal: 187
Full reduction: 88
Reverse ordinal: 245
Reverse full reduction: 65
And the next term we will decode will be Jamal’s occupation of rapper. Here we will see a reverse of our main number in question, 47, which I’ve found to be reoccurring as well.
Rapper
English ordinal: 74
Full reduction: 38
Reverse ordinal: 88
Reverse full reduction: 34
I’m beginning to sense a bit of a pattern here... But let me move on Now it’s time to get a little spicy
Jamal Dewar commited suicide on the night of December 23, 2012, though his wiki has his death on the 24 I believe as it was around midnight. Many articles coming out about his death including one I read from thefader.com reported his death on the 23rd. I specifically remember this detail because I was a huge fan of his and Pro Era at the time and it was a huge loss to the community.
December is the 12th month
12
23
12
Care to guess what that equals?
Yep. 47
Here are some other related phrases put into the gematrinator calculator:
Brooklyn New York (where proera is from)
223 79 182 74
Suicide by fall 128 56 223 79
Are you seeing the synchronization of these seemingly unrelated words and phrases?.
The word murder and murdered both have synchronized gematria with Jamal. We also see another repeat with 38, also found in the full reduction of the word rapper.
Murder
English ordinal: 79
Full reduction: 34
Reverse ordinal: 83 (38 reverse)
Reverse full reduction: 38
Murdered ,interestingly enough, though only being two letters away from murder, is actually more closely related numerically to jamals name and the word rapper, But there are similarities abound. Murdered.
English ordinal: 88
Full reduction: 43 (34 reverse)
Reverse ordinal: 128
Reverse full reduction: 47
Wow. This one really stands out to me. Every single number code number is used in the over all code of Capital steez just in this one word.
We see the repeats of 88 and 47 as well as the reverse of 34 for the first time and a repeat in the numbers of 128, which we saw as 182 above.
This one is slightly unrelated so I left it sort of by itself but I still maintain it’s validity as it’s use in the music industry is still relevant. That is the word racist. Race is huge in the overall narrative that msm tries to portray.
Racist
English ordinal: 70
Full reduction:25
Reverse ordinal: 92
Reverse full reduction: 47
racist and suicide are perfect matches on the front end and back end. 70 and 47.
Here’s another nugget.
The phrase : jumped to his death
English ordinal: 178 (pushed off the roof 187)
Full reduction: 70 (pushed off the roof 88)
Reverse ordinal:254 (pushed off the roof 245)
Reverse full reduction :83 (pushed off the roof 65)
Leap also shares 34 and 84.
Suicided 74 38 142 52
Occult
English ordinal: 74
Full reduction: 20
Reverse ordinal:88
Reverse full reduction:34
3 more repeats
The year of his suicide was a leap year
Leap year
English ordinal:83 Full reduction: 38 Reverse ordinal:133 Full res verse reduction: 43
Target audience: 133 61 245 83 Suicidal: 78 33 138 57 Hidden mission: 142 70 209 74 Some of these numbers are conjecture but there’s a lot of links between the numbers. 47/74 being the one of the more prominent, as well as 83/38, 34/43, 70, 245/254, 88, 33, 29/92/209, 182/128 all of these numbers connect in one way or another. Now it wouldn’t mean much if we didn’t know more about the nature of these numbers and how and where they appear. But since these number keep popping up in accordance to things like CONTROL GRID or MYSTERY RELIGION or SUPREME MATHEMATICS it seems almost impossible for it to be mere coincidence. Anyways I urge you guys to think for yourself and put in some work and see if you can find any use of this practice. God bless
Ps:
STEEZ’s debut album ”amerikkkan korruption” Came out on 4-7-2012 another 47. Vibration equals 47
A theory out there is that the cabal needed him to die because STEEZ was really bringing influence to more and more young minds with knowledge and the way STEEZ attacked and exposed certain things is not a good thing for those in power, the label that Joey wanted to sign when they were pro era, was a Jewish man named Jonny Shipes. if you’ve extensively went down the “rabbit hole”, like extensively, and you’d say you’re pretty “woke” (I hate that word), then you may know that most labels especially Jewish owned labels are basically the portals into The Illuminati cult, the Jesuit organization that controls the entire world. Oh and remember the news outrage, and investigation because of the 47 “swa stikkas” all over NY, yea you think these Jonny Shipes fucked with that? Nah. But this is all speculation.
It wasn’t long after Capital STEEZ's unfathomable passing on 12/23/12 – 12+23+12 = 47), which was only days after December 21, 2012, the precise date calculated by the great Mayans to be the end of a Great Cycle, that I received knowledge & became aware of the Law of Time. This seemingly new cosmology felt ancient and I quickly realized it had EVERYTHING to do with Synchronicity! I even found the number 47 to be ever ubiquitous throughout this 13 Moon calendar system.
"The next chapter is unstoppable. And yet, the greatest revolutions sometimes originate from the confines of impossibility, do they not? Break the code. It could make a leap and make possible a decision that defines the order of things that are." " Reality is a mathematical model which gets solved over and over again by the observer your thoughts are computations. And they render this world for you to call your own. Not all processors are alike. Different brains produce different realities. The variations go from the subtle to the drastic. Your mind defines how much you can taste. How much you can feel. How much you can understand. Perception defines perspective. We designed you and made sure to engineer your senses so you could perceive just what we needed you to. Neither more nor less. There are parts of time we preferred you remained blind to. It was a necessity."
The Law of Time, I found to hold the most profound yet simple teaching; our Time is not Money, Time is Art. I was able to grasp a greater vision of how we as humans have created an artificial timing system where our time here equates to how much money we can accumulate, where we are constantly stressed by this false belief of our making, and where there is never enough time… This system of our making and continuous propagation has only served to separate us from our Selves, from each other, and ultimately, from nature. Hence, resulting in the chaos and disharmony prevalent in the world today.
What is the greatest common factor of 23 & 47? 1 is the greatest number that 23 & 47 is divided to. The Chosen One @mistapitty ㄣ

Hello !
So... I'm rei_mayo, and I have a little bit unrealistic project. I create OCs and I imagine characters in lore what would they be in game.
I'm French, so I'm sorry for my bad English ! I prefer precise that there is just original or official content in the post ! This is just from the currents versions of the game and from my head !
Since one year, I work in my free time on this project and there is multiple things :
-First part : the lore of the project, like the background and the location ;
-Second part : the relics, and the elevation materials ;
-Third part : the characters, and the banners ;
-Fourth and last part : the plot of the history (in the big lines).
I prefer to precise why I do this. When I play video games, I love to create characters when it's possible, and in MiHoYo games, it's not possible... But, create characters that only me like, it's very selfish, so I would like to present them to have notices if they are fantastic !

First part :

So, the history would be in a location called the "Shìjiè-Chuán of Xianzhou" (nb : mean Ship-World (世界船) in Chinese). The Shìjiè-Chuán is the capital and the most important part of the Alliance. A little time after Lan became an Aeon, Yaoshi asks to an Emanator to kill the Emperor of Xianzhou and to make a plague mark in the original planet of Xianzhou.
Lan discovers that and he purifies the planet, kill Abominations, destroys the plague mark. With the remains of the planet and the Xianzhouan (?) planet, he creates a huge boat, the Shìjiè-Chuán.
For comparative, the Shìjiè-Chuán is so huge that all the other boats can fit in with no problem. It's contains important locations like :
-The Judgment Palace : The place where the Ten Lords and the Generals Arbiters judges the most dangerous criminals. Despite the fact the criminals are jail in the Xuling, they really are judge in the Shìjiè-Chuán.
-The Starry Streets : Streets where neon, big screens and buildings are. The popular streets of the Shìjiè-Chuán, mix of tradition and modernity.
-The Fallen Garden : A garden where plants of all the planets who were saved by the Hunt are. It's also the place where the Yamato was before the Emanator of Lan gets him.
-The Shackling Prison : The prison of Xianzhou, where all the criminals of the Alliance are located. In the depths of the prison, just one person is remained... Shuhu, Emanator of Abundance.
-The siege of the Ten Lords Commission : The place where all the Ten Lords (not included the Fallen King and the Stellar Queen) are when there is no process. It's also the place where all the Judges, the Wraith Wardens and the Aurumations are when they don't have missions.
-The boats Goldsmithery : The place where the boats of the Alliance are repair. Actually, the Cangcheng is here for reparation after the destruction of Rahu.
-Other places... How to discover them ? Play~
And here is some clarifications !
So, who is the Marshals ?
In my idea, Hua is a false Marshal, to cover and hide the Shìjiè-Chuán, but she's really powerful. She would be a Fu Hua expy... And I will talk about her later...
The reals Marshals are Rei -The Fallen King- and Xingxing -The Stellar Queen-.
Rei is the Emanator (and the only) of Lan. Called the Fallen King because of a legend, he's considered like the most powerful person of the Alliance. He carries a divine katana called the Yamato-Shinigami. (nb : Yamato > Yama, Hindu god and judge of the dead. The Chinese god Yanluowang or Yanluo Wang has his origins in Yama. Shinigami > Death Kami). I will talk about him later.
Xingxing (nb : star (星星) in Chinese) is an Emanator of Nous and a Eclairor (?) of IX. Called the Stellar Queen because she uses stars with martial art for fight, she done renovations in the Shìjiè-Chuán for make it more modern. I will talk about her later too.
The Marshals are the boss of Xianzhou and of all the factions who follow the Hunt, like the Galaxy Rangers. They rule all the commissions, and are very important, but they rule different commissions. For example, The Fallen King rule the Cloud Knights, but the Stellar Queen rule the Artisanship Commission. The only Commission they rule together is the Ten Lords Commission.
Who is the Ten Lords ?
In my idea, the Ten Lords Commission would be composed with eight Lords and the two Marshals, and that would be the Ten Lords. In game, it's said that nobody knows where the commission is despite the members of the Commission them-self, but she would be in the Shìjiè-Chuán. The Ten Lords would be :
-The Fallen King ;
-The Stellar Queen ;
-Yuen (I will talk about her later) ;
-Styx, an Emanator of Finality and a member of the Galaxy Rangers (I will talk about him later);
-Athena (I will talk about her later) ;
-and other people... NPCs, so we don't care about them.
Who is really Hua ?
In my idea, Hua would be a "Marshal". When she (in my mind, she's a she) appears in public, she is the Marshal, but in the Shìjiè-Chuán, she's judge like a General. Her title would be the "Fenghuang" (nb : phoenix of Chinese mythology).She would be in the General of the Cangcheng when he would be repair.
But... The Cangcheng is destroyed, no ?
Yes, he was devoured by the activated planet Rahu. But in the year 8098 (so two years before the game), Rei destroyed Rahu (and killed ~10 000 000 000 of abominations). That liberated the remains of the Cangcheng, and Xianzhou is trying repair him.
Why Shuhu is in the prison ? Shouldn't be dead ?
Technically, she's in prison, but it's precised that nobody knows if it's the really Shuhu of not. In fact, in each prison of Xianzhou, a few reproductions mecha-organics were made by the Stellar Queen for hide the real Shuhu. In the Shìjiè-Chuán, she's just a spirit, seal in a transparant box cell. She just wants to talk with five persons : The Fallen King, the Stellar Queen, Yuen, Blade and Jing Yuan. The unique persons who know that Shuhu is alive are the Ten Lords, the Generals and the Stellaron Hunters. Her real body and remains are with the Abundance, but originally her remains were with Xianzhou, and her spirit was with the Abundance.
Now, here is some more lore that I created :
The Trinity of the Abundance :
If you never see Yaoshi, THEY have a lot of plants in THEIR representation. There is a wheat, a bramble, and a large tree.
I imagine that the members of Abundance considered that these three plants are divines. For them, the wheat represent the immortality, the bramble represent the price to pay for become immortal and the thanks to Yaoshi, and the tree represent the life the Abundance offer to the mortals.Traditionally, the Emanators must wear one of these three symbols. For example, Shuhu wears brambles for gives her blood to Yaoshi.
At the opposite, each plant that the Hunt has purified is considered as a sin. For example, each lotus in the Xianzhou Alliance is a sin for Abundance. But the lotus in the planets of Abundance are holy. The lotus is the incarnation of Yaoshi THEM-SELF, but only if it's in a planet of Abundance.
Rakshasa and Luocha :
If you know Luocha, I think I don't to explain that is said that he's related to the Abundance. And Luocha is an other name for "Rakshasa", a type of evil spirit of the Buddhist mythologize who are cannibals. So, I will tell you who they are :
So, after the planet of Luocha get destroyed and his wife gets killed under his eyes, Yaoshi gave to him immortality and powers to become an Emanator of Abundance. Luocha asks to resuscitated his wife, but Yaoshi tells that THEY will do that if Luocha destroys one of the different boats of the Xianzhou Alliance. But Luocha, who was a doctor in his original planet, cannot do that. But the time past, and he couldn't do that... But Yaoshi implants an sort of mara in him, like an evil spirit, so Luocha decided something.
I imagine that Luocha create a another corpse/puppet with remains of different corpses, and transverse the evil part of him in this, but not his powers and his immortality, to trying to find an another way to resuscitate his wife. He create a coffin with powers of Abundance for conserve the corpse of his love, and decided to leave the Abundance, and became a interstellar merchant for trying to discover how to resuscitate his wife.
But Yaoshi couldn't accept that. So THEY gave powers and life to the puppet contained Rakshasa, and THEY gave immortality. And Rakshasa became an Emanator of Yaoshi, for avenge him and Yaoshi. But because he was born from Luocha spirit, he has his savior of doctor.
Rakshasa tries, with Shuhu and the living planet Rahu, to destroy the Shìjiè-Chuán. But the Stellar Queen fought him, and "kill him". But Rakshasa false his death, and he takes with him the remains of Shuhu.
Rakshasa is known for his cannibalism and for his experiences. He's like a Dottore in term of personality, but more crazy and more psychopathic.
The Yamato-Shinigami and the divine spirits of the Hunt :
So, what is the Yamato-Shinigami ?
This saber is an odachi created by Lan, to purge the Abominations and for the Emanators of Lan. So, Lan created this saber with a galaxy and imaginary energy for this first Emanator, but when he dies, Lan hid the saber in the Shìjiè-Chuán for the next Emanator... A long time ago, Rei meditated in the Stellar Garden after the death of his mother, and the Yamato has called him. Since this event, he and the Yamato are lied and the odachi is his saber.
Lan doesn't choose the Carrier of the Yamato, but it's the saber himself who choose his owner. The saber has only two owners in his life : The first Emanator of Lan and Rei.
Lan doesn't place the powers he gives to his Emanator in the Emanator, he place the powers in the Yamato. More the Emanator does miracles and heroics acts, more the Emanator gain the power. Actually, Rei have 100% of his powers, but there is a state more powerful : the Resonance.The Resonance is a phenomenon that caused when the willpower of the Emanator and the willpower of the Yamato are the same, and the power of the Emanator are increase so much that the people say when the Fallen King reach this state temporary, he becomes powerful as a Aeon.
But this state can be permanent, if the willpower of Rei became so strong that him and the Yamato become just one. The spirit in the saber changes his form according to who is the person who meet him. And he doesn't fight, the spirit of the Yamato-Shinigami doesn't fight with Emanators. The Yamato measure ~225 cm/~7,3 feet, and his pound is unknown. (The pound depend of who carries the blade. Very light for the carrier but very heavy for the other)
But what are the divine spirits of the Hunt ?
Do you know the Lighting Lord ? I think yes.>! In the lore, it's "said" and showed that the past General of the Luofu, Teng Xiao, uses the Lightning Lord, like Jing Yuan. But not the same sword, because of the Starfall Reverie has been forged by Blade when he was Yingxing.!< So I imagined that :
The first Generals, when they passed away, Lan take there spirits and gives a lot of power. Since the creations of these spirits, they are give to the Generals, until they choose to retire. Then, it's give to the next Generals, and this cycle is repeated. These spirits are unlike of the spirit of the Yamato, because they don't give their powers and doesn't are in a weapon. Plus, the spirit of the Yamato can't fight with his carrier.
Technically, the General Arbiters are Emanators, like Rei, but the divine spirits changes all. Rei does have powers of Lan/The Hunt and he has the Yamato-Shinigami, but if he fights without, he changes nothing (just the fact that the Yamato uses as a multiplying for the slashes. But if the Generals fights without the spirits, it would changes. (it's a theory/created lore, so please, not rude in comments !)
So the divine spirits would be like the reasons why the Generals of the Hunt are considered as Emanators.
So, now, I think the first part is finish... Let's go to the second part !

Second part :

The relics :
For the relics, I imagine some relics and some planet ornaments :
1 : Set of the Tearful Child of the Moon :
Memories of the Moon's Child : Beyond dreams, the tearful child of the Moon remembers his mother during the day, and finds her again at night. The child of the Moon is said to protect his mother from nightmarish creatures as she searches for her lost husband among the stars.
Protective cuddly toy of the Moon's Child : Beyond dreams, the tearful child of the Moon protects his mother with his teddy bear during the day, and finds her again at night. It is said that the child of the Moon is always accompanied by his faithful teddy bear, which the Sun himself is said to have woven for him.
Moon's Child pajamas : Beyond dreams, the tearful child of the Moon protects his mother and walks the land by day, and finds her at night. The Moon Child is said to always be dressed in extremely light blue pajamas, and to protect him from any enemies he may encounter.
Warmth of the Moon's Child : Beyond dreams, the tearful child of the Moon protects his mother, the Moon, during the day, and joyfully reunites with her at night. It is said that the child of the Moon never despairs because of a gift from his mother, his maternal love.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases Imaginary DMG by 10%.
4 pcs : Increases CRIT rate by 15% and the CRIT DMGS by 25% for 2 turns after the porter uses his skill or his ultimate. Not cumulative.
2 : Set of the Blazing Goddess.
Divine Crown of the Blazing Goddess : A crown of incandescent flowers that ignite the hope of being rescued. The crown shines like a beacon for a castaway, and illuminates the hope of new and flourishing days.
Divine brambles and roses of the Blazing Goddess : Bracelets sinking into the flesh and blooming incandescent roses of blood, awakening Beauty to the divine state. It is said that these roses are the most beautiful in all existence, and that it only blooms in contact with the blood of Beauty.
Divine dress of the Blazing Goddess : A burning and brilliant dress, making even the stars admire it. The flames of this dress conceal inestimable treasures, the words and thoughts of Beauty, which leave in diamond whispers and stellar sighs.
Graceful step of the Graceful Grace of the Blazing Goddess : Beautiful shoes covered in burning flowers, growing roses with every step. It is said that the whole universe could not help but admire these flowers with their incandescent beauty, and that the flowers admired Beauty itself.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases DoT by 20%.
4 pcs : Increases DoT by 15% when an ally or the porter deals DoT to an enemy. Increases fire DMGS by 15% when the porter uses their ultimate. The effect lasts 2 turns and can be accumulate 3 times.
3 : Set of the Keeper of the Fighting Will.
Ancient helmet of the Keeper of the Will : An old ancient helmet found on the ashes of a battlefield. When putting it on, you can hear the soldiers screaming and fighting, while the previous owner of this helmet beat to the rhythm to galvanize his troops.
Galvanizing Wands and Drum of the Will : Ancient drumsticks accompanied by a drum found on an old battlefield. If you strike the drum even once with the old sticks, you can feel your body filling with the will to fight.
Ancient chain mail of the Keeper of the Will : An old, slightly battered piece of mail, found on an old battlefield. Despite the age of the armor, it shines with a burning brilliance of an insatiable will to win and fight.
Ancient sandals of the Keeper of the Will : Old solid wooden sandals found on an ancient battlefield. When we put them on, a thrill spreads through our body, and a will to victory and battle is triggered.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increase Energy Regeneration Rate by 20%
4 pcs : For each enemy eliminated thanks to the porter's ultimate, increase the Energy Regeneration Rate by 5% and the DMGS by 15% for all the allies for 2 turns. The effect can be accumulated 3 times.
4 : Set of the Hopeless Plague Doctor.
Terrifying mask of the Hopeless Plague Doctor : The mask of a doctor who kills, destroys, and inoculates plague and immortality to the mortals. The hope go away and the despair arrives, to condemned all the patients, and give their blood to the greatest of the greatest Aeon, the Abundance.
Needle claws of the Hopeless Plague Doctor : The claws of a doctor who kills, destroys, and inoculates plague and immortality to the mortals. The plague in one, the despair in another, the immortality in another and the last takes the blood of the patients to give to THEM.
Calamity dress of the Hopeless Plague Doctor : The dress of a doctor who kills, destroys, and inoculates plague and immortality to the mortals. The blood and the suffer of all the people who became patients of this mad doctor are in this dress... But there is also the benediction of the Abundance.
Bloody boots of the Hopeless Plague Doctor : The boots of a doctor who kills, destroys, and inoculates plague and immortality to the mortals. Blood. Just blood. Only blood. Blood of THEM. Blood of Abundance. But serve as the shoes of the doctor. Of the mad doctor.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases Max HP by 15%.
4 pcs : When the wearer consumed their HP or the allies's HP, their CRIT Rate and their CRIT DMGS get increased by 6% for 2 turns. This effect can be accumulated 4 times.
5 : Set of the Godly Hope Doctor.
Kindly mask of the Godly Hope Doctor : The mask of the doctor who has acceded to the redemption. Before, he was a Emanator, who tries to destroy for heals his love. But now, he's a doctor, a healer, and a benefactor... Despite his kind mask, a deep sadness live in his spirit, but he always live with his mask who hide his suffer.
Holy gloves of the Godly Hope Doctor : The gloves and the pendant of a doctor. The redemption and the kindness breathe in those objects, who have heals so many people. An holy energy can be feel in these accessories, and all the kindness of a man who loved his wife live in this.
Greatest coat of the Godly Hope Doctor : The coat of the doctor who heals all his patients. In this coat, all of the kindness and the healing power of this doctor are concentrate, but there is, hide in the depths of the clothe, a melancholy... A melancholy of his ancient planet.
Divine boots of the Godly Hope Doctor : The boots of the doctor who always heals his allies. In those shoes, all the journey of this doctor is gathered... Even if a kindness is present, the deep sorrow of all the travels that is here.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases Max HP by 15%.
4 pcs : When the wearer heals their HP or the allies's HP, their Outgoing Healing and their ATK increase by 20% during 2 turns. This effect can be accumulated 4 times.
6 : Set of the All-mighty Burning Father.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases Max HP by 20%.
4 : When the wearer deals Break DMGS or Super Break DMGS, the wearer and the allies gains Stack of "Blazing Child", up to maximum 6 stacks. "Blazing Child" increase the HP, the Break DMGS and the Super Break DMGS by 20% for each stack, and when the wearer gains 6 stacks, then the Energy Regeneration Rate increase by 10% and the Super Break DMGS increase by 50%.
Now, it's time to present the planet ornaments !
1 : ~Set of the Judgment Ship~
Judgment Palace of the Shìjiè-Chuán of Xianzhou : Sealed within this planar sphere is Shìjiè-Chuán, sacred land of Xianzhou. The World Ship floats and admires a new starry landscape every year to escape the abominations. You can see the Palace of Judgment, the Star Garden, the Goldsmith of Ships, and all kinds of other places, each one as important and fabulous as the last.
Promise of the Lovers of the Shìjiè-Chuán of Xianzhou : In Shìjiè-Chuán, it is said that the wind and rain bring back the dreams and promises of old. And some say that the promise of two lovers kissing in the rain can be heard in the Star Garden.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases the CRIT DMGS by 25%. If the CRIT Rate reaches 40/50, the CRIT DMGS are increase by 25%/35%, and the CRIT DMGS are increase by 10% each time that the porter uses their ultimate. The effect can be accumulated 2 times, and lasts 3 turns.
2 : ~Set of the Floral Echo of the Ashes~
Flowering ashes of Fjoralys : Sealed within this planar sphere is Fjoralys, a once flowery and warm planet. When the Destruction came, life and people on the planet all died. Not one survived. Except a little girl, daughter of the stars. Now, flowers of yesteryear rise from the ashes of Destruction, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Star goldwork of Fjoralys : In the flames of Fjoralys's destruction, only the stars and a little girl witnessed the massacre. And when life, flowers, and trees resurfaced, the stars cried with joy, washing the earth of all this sadness to put, in its place, colorful joy and flowers... Thousands of them.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases DoT by 12%. If the wearer deals DoT to an enemy, then the DoT dealt to enemies increases by 26%.
So, let's go to the next part !
3 : ~Set of the Duality of the Rulers~
Starry Yin and fallen Yang of the duality of Rulers : Sealed in this planar sphere are two complementary wills, that of the two rulers of Xianzhou, a brother and a sister. Depending on the inclination of the sphere, we can see different memories appear and disappear, like fleeting winds facing the erosion of time.
Brotherhood of the duality of Rulers : Tears, blood, joy and friendship are condensed in these threads of destiny. It is said that the years erode certain things, but the threads of destiny grow and become denser to the rhythm of the emotions of the two Rulers.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases Break effect by 12%. Each time that the wearer or an ally deals Super Break DMGS, the wearer gains a stack of "Rule of Flame", up to maximum 4 stack(s). A stack of Rule of Flames increases Break Effect by 20%.
4 : ~Set of the activated planet Rahu~
Floral sea of ​​lotuses of Abundance : Sealed within this planar sphere is the living planet Rahu, eater of Cangcheng and guardian of the lotus scourge. It is said that the living planet blows billions of lotus petals that rip the life force from humans and offer them to the abominations. On this planet lies its heart, the lotus floral sea, where abominations and Emanators bathe in the human suffering.
Bridge of Immortal Hope of Abundance : It is said that every Emanator must pass through the "bridge of immortal hope" if he wants to be in total symbiosis with his body. This bridge was carved from the flesh and blood of Yaoshi, after THEY fought with the Emanator of Lan thousands of years ago, and it now glows a beautiful blood red, and screams the damned who did not know how to listen to their bodies.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases the CRIT DMGS by 10%. If the HP of the wearer reaches 3000 or more, then their CRIT DMGS increases 20% more. Each 1000 HP more than 3000 HP increase the CRIT Rate by 5%.
5 : ~Set of the Sacred Land of Annihilators~
Sacred Temple of Annihilating Destruction : Sealed within this planar sphere are the ashes of the old and new worlds, in the form of the Temple of Destruction. Everything in this palace has been destroyed by Nanook and THEIR Ravager Lords, and the Antimatter Legion pines and enjoys the suffering extinguished by the devastating breath of Destruction itself.
Petals and sobs of annihilating Destruction : On the planets that the Legion destroys, the Ravager Lords always bring back two things, a person, the sole survivor, and flower petals sticky with blood. The petals then mingle with the sobs of the last living creature, creating pitifully perfect flowers and trees.
Effect :
2 pcs : Increases ATK at 14%. If the HP of the wearer reaches 4000/5000 or more, then the DMGS of their ultimate and their skill increases by 15/25%.
6 : ???
2 pcs : ???
4 pcs : ???
7 : ???
2 pcs : ???
4 pcs : ???
So now, the elevation materials !
The Hunt : Ancient runny cord of the Divine Bow :
A thread who was once part of the Divine Bow of the Aeon of the Hunt, and who was emit after of a battle. It's now a shooting star. Used to level up Traces slightly for Hunt characters.
Purge Echo of the Divine Bow :
An image of the bow that Lan uses, who remain in the space and the time after THEY throw an arrow. Used to level up Traces moderately for Hunt characters.
Full Incarnation of the Divine Bow :
The bow that Lan uses, constitute by imaginary energy and stars, who can destroy space-times and galaxies. Used to level up Traces significantly for Hunt characters.
The Nihility : Fragment of lazy memory :
A glowing fragment of the memory of someone who has been blessed by the Nihility. Used to level up Traces slightly for Nihility characters.
Once nihilistic reminiscence :
The glowing piece of the memory of a past Eclairor of the Nihility. The rare images of the memories are colorless. Used to level up Traces moderately for Nihility characters.
Memory of an Auto-Annihilator :
A red glowing jewel, who contain all the life of an Auto-Annihilator. All the memories are scramble by the black sun. Used to level up Traces slightly for Nihility characters.
The Abundance : Godless tear of the Abundance :
Plague of the Immortal :
Suffering of the thousand recoveries :
The Harmony : (I don't have ideas, sorry T^T)
And for the other paths... You have to wait (Sorry T^T)

Third part :

For the order of apparition of the characters, it would be :
?.0 : Xixian (first phase) 5 star Harmony ; Thunde Yuen (second phase) 5 star Erudition ; Wind, with 4 star character
?.1 : Rakshasa (first phase) 5 star Abundance ; Ice/ Hua (second phase) 5 star Fire ; Destruction, with 4 star character
?.2 : Xingxing (first phase) 5 star Nihility ; Fire/ Rei (second phase) 5 star Hunt ; Imaginary
?.3 : Shuhu (first phase) 5 star Abundance ; Quantum/ Athena (second phase) Harmony ; Wind, with 4 star character
?.4 : Elio (first phase) 5 star Preservation ; Thunder (can change)/ Styx (second phase) 5 star Erudition ; Quantum.
So, who is Xixian ?
Xixian is the Lieutenant of the Shìjiè-Chuán. She's around 60, and she's a long-life specie. She wears a artificial arm, because Rakshasa cut off her arm during the battle of the Shìjiè-Chuán. She trusts the Fallen King and the Stellar Queen, but she's a little overprotective in them.
Xixian is a character of the Harmony who can increase different stats depending on the Path of the character. If it's a Destruction/Hunt/Erudition character, she can increase CRIT DMGS and ATK. If it's a Preservation character, she can increase DEF. If it's a Nihility character, she can increase the Effect Hit Rate and the DoT DMGS. If it's a Abundance character, she can increase the Outgoing Healing Boost. And if it's a Harmony character, she can increase ERR. Her bonus can last for 1 turn. Her ultimate can increase the duration of the bonus of the characters to 2 more turns.
So, who is Yuen ?
Yuen is one of the Ten Lords. Nicknamed as the Erudite, she's the most younger person named in the post of one of the Ten Lords. Despite the fact she's still a child/teenager, she's very wise and intelligent, and she's a very good strategist.
Yuen is a character of the Erudition that inflict wind DMGS. Her technique and her ultimate would change with her talent, Condensation. For example, less enemies are here, more DMGS are inflict : 5-4 enemies in the battlefield : Effect Zone ; 3 enemies in the battlefield : Burst ; 2 - 1 enemies in the battlefield : Unique target. But don't worry, you can choose what type of attack the skill does. Her talent can also increases her CRIT DMGS and ATK.
So, who is Rakshasa ?
Rakshasa is an Emanator of the Abundance, and he was the evil part of Luocha. His body was simply a puppet, but Yaoshi make his body organic... So he would be very flexible. He would fight with needle-gloves.
Rakshasa is a character of the Abundance who can heal... But with a particular way ! So, all the allies have a effect at the beginning of the battle : "Holy Sacrifice", who is his talent. When a character lost HP, the Holy Sacrifice absorbs his loss of HP, until a limit. The skill of Luocha can release the Holy Sacrifice for heals the ally, and makes the effect reborn. Release the Holy Sacrifice can increase the DMGS and the ATK of Rakshasa. Also, his talent take some allies's HP in each turn to increases the Holy Sacrifice. His ultimate, who would be an Burst, can uses the HP of the allies to increase the DMGS and the CRIT DMGS of Rakshasa, and then, he attacks the enemy/enemies. Then, he releases the Holy Sacrifice of all the characters to heal them.
His VA would be the same of Luocha, Craig Lee Thomas.
So, who is Hua ?
Hua is a sort of Marshal of Xianzhou. Even if in public, she appears as the Marshal, she's in reality the future General of the Cangcheng, and she possesses the divine spirit of the boat, the Inferno-Empress. Her nickname is the Fenghuang.
The Inferno-Empress would appears like a gigantic phoenix.
Hua is a character of the Destruction who deals Fire DMGS, but also Super Break Effect. So, the Inferno-Empress would be like the Lightning-Lord, but when shes uses her ultimate, the Inferno-Empress merges with her and she enters in the "Fenghuang" state. When she's in this state, every attack that Hua uses consumes her HP. But, each time that her HP get consumed, her Break Effect increase. The state lasts for 2 turns, and she inflects Super Break Effect. At the end, a sort of a ultimate attack is trigger and all the HP (even the HP that are not here, for example, if her max HP is 10000, but she only has 8000 HP, then her HP are going to be in -2000) are consumed and the Break Effect is increase in a certain value for each 500 HP that are consume, and she inflicts DMGS and Super Break Effect for the enemies who are in Weakness Break. She cans heal herself with the DMGS that she has done, but the heal cannot exceed 75% of her HP ! The Inferno-Empress deals Fire DMGS, and Super Break Effect to the enemies who are in Weakness Break.
So, who is Xingxing ?
Xingxing is one of the two Marshals of Xianzhou, the Stellar Queen, an Emanator of the Erudition, an Eclairor of the Nihility and one of the Ten Lords. She's the possessor of the Stellar Marks, a gift of the Erudition who can permits to create micro-stars and stellar flames to fight. With the power of the Nihility, she create black holes also for fight.
She's 17 years old, and she would uses the same model as for March !
Xingxing is a character of the Nihility who deals Fire DMGS. She cans add more DoT on enemies who already have DoT with her special DoT : Starburn, who can also inflects Burn. Starburn is inflect to the enemies with her skill and her ultimate. She can also reach multiple enemies because she does effect zone attacks. Her talent can increases the DoT DMGS she does to the enemies depending on their HP.
Her VA would be Judy Alice Lee (VA of Melinoë).
So, who is Rei ?
Rei is one of the two Marshals of Xianzhou, the Carrier of the Yamato-Shinigami, the unique Emanator of the Hunt, the chief of the Galaxy Rangers and one of the Ten Lords. Anyway, he's a very important person of the Xianzhou Alliance. He's from a forgotten planet, who has been destroyed by the Abundance. Rescued by the past Marshal, Lingyue when he was six years old, he quickly became one of the greatest fighter of the Alliance at his teenage years.
He is 19 years old, and he is around 1m96/~6,43 feet. (so I think he's one of the most tall character.). He's VERY muscular, and very handsome (according to me)
Rei is a Hunt character (an Emanator of this path) who deals Imaginary DMGS. His gameplay would be concentrate in the CRIT DMGS. Depending on the attacks, it's giving to him "Fallen Royalty" accumulations. When he has a certain number of this accumulation, he entering in the "Fallen King" state, who increased his CRIT rate and his CRIT DMGS and reinforce his skill and his ultimate. For his ultimate, it increases his CRIT rate and his CRIT DMGS, and he gives 9 slashes to the enemy. When he's in the "Fallen King" state, it's would increase his CRIT rate and CRIT DMGS, also gives XIII (4, 4, and 5) slashes to an enemy. For each slash that are a CRIT hit, an additional slash is inflect. Each additional slash increases the Rei's CRIT DMGS, and they do a CRIT vulnerability. If all the all the additional slashes has been concluded, then a last additional slash is inflect. When he does CRIT DMGS when he uses his ultimate in the "Fallen King" state, it's does another hit in the enemy.
Here is his description :
"One of the two Marshals of the Xianzhou Alliance, the Carrier of the Yamato, the Emanator of Lan and the Fallen King. Feared by his enemies, respected by his allies. He always wears a fickle smile, and he always brings death with him.
Lan, the Reignbow Arbiter entrust the Yamato to Rei, the greatest weapon of all the Alliance. As a great strategist, he's also a good brother. He knows all the Stellaron Hunters, and he's apparently in a relation with the Stellaron Hunter named Blade..."
His VA would be Kaiji Tang (the VA of Gojo).
So, who is Shuhu ?
Shuhu is an Emanator of Yaoshi, considered as the "daughter of the Abundance". She's always with a scythe made with the body of Yaoshi and with the bones of her victims. She has a very sense of the sadism and she hates the humanity for all they have done to her.
Shuhu is a character of the Abundance who deals Quantum DMGS. She has three skills : One where she consumes the HP of the allies for increase DMGS and CRIT DMGS, and she attacks the enemies. An other where she consumes her HP for increase DMGS and CRIT DMGS, and where she attacks the enemies. And the last where she attacks the enemies for steal the HP of the enemies for heals her and the allies. In her ultimate, she consumes her HP and the allies's HP for increase her DMGS, her CRIT DMGS and her CRIT rate, and she attacks the enemies for steal the enemies's HP and heals the allies.
So, who is Athena ?
Athena is one of the Ten Lords, nicknamed as the Protector. She's always with a owl named Zhìhuì (nb : wisdom in Chinese (智慧)), and is a real master of the strategy and the war inventions, but she's also one of the more oldest members of the Ten Lords.
Athena is a character of the Harmony who can increase the DMGS and the ATK of the allies with her skill. Her talent can increase all the allies's RES PEN and their SPD. Her ultimate can increase all the allies's CRIT DMGS for 2 turns, for a chosen ally, she cans place her owl for 2 turns, who inflict additional DMGS on the enemy/enemies who the ally attacks. Also, if the ally get attack, the owl defend them with a counterattack.
So, who is Elio ?
Elio is the chef of the Stellaron Hunters (and if you don't know that, you must haven't touch HSR). I imagine him as a cat (practically not imagine, because it's quite official, but not official, so you know), but he uses his puppet... I doesn't draw him because I know that his design already be... You know what. I imagine him very kind and mysterious.
Elio is a character of the Preservation who can predict the DMGS of the allies. His skill would be a shield. For his ultimate, it's would add a status for all the allies and him : "Forecast of the Script". This effect would last one turn, and would cancel all the DMGS the allies receive.
So, who is Styx ?
AH-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ! You have to wait !

Fourth part :

The history would be in the Shìjiè-Chuán, and here is the principal plot :
First quest : " You and the Astral Express receive a mysterious call of Jing Yuan, who telling you that he have something important to said to you. The thing in question is that is a feast for the "saviors of the Luofu" (the Nameless) in the... Shìjiè-Chuán ?! Not time for chatting, Jing Yuan gives you the localisation of the mysterious ship, and the Astral Express start his new journey... "
Second quest : " After a few warp jumps, you finally reach the Shìjiè-Chuán, capital of the Xianzhou Alliance. After meet all of the Generals and the Lieutenant Xixian, it's finally the time for you to meet the Ten Lords, including the Fallen King and the Stellar Queen, real Marshals of the Alliance... "
Other quests...? You have to play~
The quest would be a quest long as Penacony... Maybe a little more... And there would be all the Nameless... Yes, Pom-Pom in the quest and he would use his powers ! If he has powers.
In the final boss of the Shìjiè-Chuán, the music would be like, if it's possible, of the song "Bad Apple". In the battle, the people singing for encouraging the ones who are fighting the final boss.
In the 1st phase, it's would be only the divine spirits who singing.
In the 2nd phase, it's would be all the soldiers and the divines spirits who singing.
In the 3rd and the final phase, it's would be all Xianzhou Alliance (yes, Lan included too !) who singing.
The "R" attack ( like the Dan Heng attack during the Phantylia fight ) would be all the divine spirits and the two Marshals conferring their power to the Trailblazer, and then, he/she slashes the boss.
So, it's the end of the post... If you have questions for clarify something, you can in comments, and I would be respond with pleasure !
Bye byeeeeee !

CMM.World & CMMTheology.org
The Great Harvest is here. Christ's Mandate for Missions and CMMTheology build strong, organic relationships globally as we worship, grow and equip together. Like Joshua and Caleb and the Apostle Paul, we see with faith what He sees in each person (to help each reach fullness), group (many streams and backgrounds in unity) and nations (sheep vs. goat nations). Our passion is to love, connect, equip and send with the simplicity, fullness, and power of the Gospel.
The Uncompromising Blissful Extravagance of His Presence! Inbox
By CMM.World CMMTheology.org - November 10, 2022
Dear Mighty One,
I see the Lord's eye upon us we discover by revelation the 'new thing' He is doing in our lives and of those of us who, beyond the present darkness, gaze into His eyes. The 'tuning fork' of Yahweh is orchestrating the sons and daughters of our living God in growing holy remnant unity to withstand as we stand with Him fearlessly in the boldness of the faith of God in this hour. Egypt is behind us, and the covenantal promises and prophetic words we have received (1 Tim. 1:18) empower us by His Holy Spirit to advance in warfare, humbly growing in the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Yesterday as I encouraged some friends, I said, 'stay in the blissful extravagance of His presence.' Today I saw in Psalm 34 His eyes are upon us in vs. 8 & 9 and v:15 about the 'uncompromisingly righteous.' We are to be holy as He is holy. That leaves no room for any more compromise or seeking to please man or the traditions of men, being free of the fear of man, the religious spirit, and any demonic activity. We are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Lord, help us understand by revelation to walk in all the authority we have been given by Jesus Christ.
Psalm 34:8-9 'O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints [revere and worship Him]! For there is no want to those who truly revere and worship Him with godly fear.'
v. 15 'The eyes of the Lord are toward the [uncompromisingly] righteous and His ears are open to their cry.'
Chuck Pierce shared this amazing word from Penny Jackson that is right on for this season: https://christsmandate.blogspot.com/2022/11/chuck-pierce-shares-powerful-word-from.html
May YOUR November be full of Thanksgiving and Praise for you and yours as YOU enjoy The Uncompromising Blissful Extravagance of His Presence!
Thank you for praying for CMM and all your fellow CMM Global Family worldwide. Pray for all the missionaries, schools, and students in CMM College of Theology in the US, Ecuador, Canada, Cuba, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Thailand.
Pray for the new wells and the living water and safe water recently drilled or soon to be drilled in Tanzania, India, Malawi, and Pakistan.
Pray for our upcoming Christmas gift campaigns to bless children and youth in many nations. Many of them are precious, beautiful children (orphans). As the Lord leads, pray about giving any amount to bless dear CMM children this Christmas. https://cmmworld.kindful.com/
Pray for each other, dear friends. We all know we each need prayers going up to Heaven for all those on the front lines. We each are on the front lines!
Please pray for me as I speak tomorrow online to a crusade with 8,000 expected to attend in Pakistan. In December, I will speak at conferences in Liberia and Kenya with fellow CMM Ordained ministers Robert Bimba (Liberia), Tom Omukhobero, and Daniel and Christine Oyoko (Kenya).
We are working on plans and trips for 2023. If you would like to have some of our awesome CMM family speakers for a conference in your area or would like to join or lead a missions trip, we would love to hook you up with dear friends in many nations.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Louis Blom of Judea Harvest as Associate Director of Missions at CMM. This strategic alliance multiplies the efforts and impact in building the Kingdom of our God, for His glory. https://youtu.be/HXfP8tCySRc

Many blessings and shalom from us all here at the home office and around the world.
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REVIEW IV Introduction
Now we review again, this time aware we are preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review, and for the lessons following. Thus, we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness that we would now achieve.
There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:
My mind holds only what I think with God.
That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this thought that fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from his awareness. Yet it is forever true. Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are; defenses that protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.
And yet, your mind holds only what you think with God. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning that they offer us.
Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace. Open your mind, and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this thought alone engage it fully, and remove the rest:
My mind holds only what I think with God.
Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day. They will not come from you alone, for they will all be shared with Him. And so each one will bring the message of His Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be. And as His Own completion joins with Him, so will He join with you who are complete as you unite with Him, and He with you.
After your preparation, merely read each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then close your eyes, and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine with the meaning God has given it, as it was given to you through His Voice. Let each idea which you review that day give you the gift that He has laid in it for you to have of Him. And we will use no format for our practicing but this:
Each hour of the day, bring to your mind the thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with it. Then repeat the two ideas you practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts that they contain for you, and let them be received where they were meant to be.
We add no other thoughts, but let these be the messages they are. We need no more than this to give us happiness and rest, and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all our Father wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of Him. Each day of practicing, as we review, we close as we began, repeating first the thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us; and through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness.
God offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of His Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, His gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein He wills you be forever, and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.

https://ageofrevolutions.com/2023/01/16/the-dissolution-of-the-jesuits-and-the-birth-of-an-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theory-in-the-age-of-enlightenment/
According to this article written by a postdoctoral researcher the popularization of the "ITS THE JEWS" theory in the world is attributed to the propagation of antijewish articles published in Jesuitical magazines, focusing on the Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica (Catholic Civilization).
La Civiltà Cattolica is a magazine produced by the Jesuits that in the 19th/20th century, along with the supposed likes of other Catholic periodicals, publicized on a wide scale antijewish conspiracies inspired by traditional catholic antijewish legends and tropes, and by the writings of former Jesuit Termanini in the 18th century. Several articles published within took from Termanini's biography of Jesuit Francesco Pepe in which he intentionally deviated from historical sources by reimagining Pepe's encounters with the Jewish community in Naples and presented Jews as a sinister force undermining social order and gender norms. In his writings Termanini linked Jews with Enlightenment reformists, depicting them as a "modern sect" driven by greed and plotting against traditional Christian values to fit the narrative that: the Jews orchestrated the Jesuit dissolution, a "Jewish plot" was behind events like the French and Russian Revolutions, and the Jews were ultimately behind the worldwide protest against the Church.
Termanini was a Jesuit and worked as a teacher in Jesuit institutions. It was only after Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits in 1773 that Termanini's situation became precarious, leading him to turn to writing hagiographies and biographies that promoted an esprit de corps among former Jesuits like himself.
The magazine is the unofficial voice of the Holy See with it's purpose being "to promote a catholic culture, thought, and civilization in the world." It pushed antijewish sentiment without protest from the Church, and because it was widely promoted it helped to embed those ideas into traditional Catholic thought and indirectly to some of the general masses all the way up until today where we see places like conspiracy, /pol/, bitchute, and people like Adam Green, Stew Peters, Nick Fuentes, etc., propagating these same ideals.
But was the Church's antijewish sentiment justified?
Grievances about Jews undermining "Christianity" were Catholic tradition and have been around which helped to promote the conspiracy during the 19th/20th century, but there is a lack of historical evidence that Jews as a group actively undermined Christian societies or purposefully worked against Christian institutions and values.
The claims from Trad Cats (Traditional Catholics) and Jew-Baiters (non-Catholics who blame the Jews) about Jews subverting or threatening Christian civilization were largely rooted in myths, scapegoating, and the perpetuation of antijewish stereotypes - not factual evidence of an organized Jewish effort to undermine Christianity.
The Jews did not have the means to do any kind of real damage to the Church:

• Jews were a small, widely persecuted minority in Christian-ruled lands for centuries. They lacked any real power or ability to significantly "undermine" the dominant Christian power structures.
• Jewish communities tended to be highly insular and segregated, focusing on just preserving their culture and religion under harsh conditions - not subverting their hosts.
• Blood libels and claims of Jews desecrating communion hosts were entirely made-up without any credible evidence behind them.
• Claims of deicide (being Christ-killers) were theological in nature, not evidence of active undermining.
• Economic success in fields like moneylending stemmed from being excluded from many other professions by Christians (mostly Catholics) themselves.
• While some Jews were seculairreligious, in those times the vast majority remained deeply devoted to their faith - not participating in the civil business world (most did not even have legal surnames until they were forced to in the 17th/18th century), not aiming to subvert any kind of people.

Biblically, the Church was wrong in their antijewish sentiment and persecutions considering Romans 11 implies we are to have mercy on them and to provoke them to jealousy.

To start, I’m looking for criticism and hole poking. So downvote if you must, but at least explain why so I can help my own understanding. Thank you!
This is from a comment I made yesterday. I’m working through my own understanding of this and an interested in feedback and criticism. But part of my view is a critique of the moral/civil/ceremonial division of the law. I understand that a division of the law is seen by both Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (though a bit differently). I’m not debating the patristic tradition, but rather the underlying logic those saints used.
I also recognize there is another tradition which states most of the laws given at Sinai were given because of the golden calf incident and thus were abolished by Christ (this is found in the apocryphal apostolic constitutions If I remember correctly). But again, I question the logic.
The reason I question this logic is this: why would Matthew include the “fulfill not abolish” language in his Gospel if this statement ceased to be of importance after the ascension (when the book was written, assuming the tripartite division, in effect, abolishes 2/3 of the law for the Christian). I also question the natural law methodology for determining what is moral law. I understand a “moral” act as an act that God says is good. Since all goodness is of God, then anything commanded by God would be considered moral to obey. Thus, even minor “ceremonial” laws would be considered moral to obey and immoral to violate. This would effectively render every law of the Torah a “moral law”.
Anyway, on to my proposition. I don’t claim to have patristic evidence for this framework. But this framework does arrive at a very similar effect for the average Christian as the tripartite division does, but it gets there in a very different way, one that makes WAY more sense in my brain. So if y’all can poke holes, please do. If yall can show I’m wildly misunderstanding the tripartite division or natural law or morality, please do.
This particular area I’ve been doing A LOT (last 6-9 months) of soul searching/prayer and study on because I don’t like the “moral/ceremonial/civil” distinction. I don’t think the Torah makes any such distinction and that the distinction only works when read back onto the Torah in light of church teaching. Which is FINE and good for arriving at an answer as a Catholic. But I don’t think it’s the logic the 1st and 2nd generation church would’ve used.
We keep the whole law of the Old Testament; Christ came to fulfill, not abolish. The difference is that it doesn’t quite look the same because

1. ⁠We assume the ancient Israelites enforced the Torah EXACTLY the way it’s read. Break a law? Straight to stoning. But this isn’t how it worked. There were courts and burdens of proof. AND there was a chance for repentance. King David, a man after God’s own heart commits murder AND adultery (and tacitly admits to it when confronted) and yet he repents! By some modern folks reading he should’ve been executed according to the Torah.
   
2. ⁠Christ has come. The thing that the entire OT was building up to happened. So our understanding of things changed. The covenant with Noah didn’t negate the covenant with Abraham, but things certainly look different after Noah. Same with Noah to Abrahamic covenant. Same when the covenant is given through Moses as Mt Sinai. The old is not abrogated, but it is built upon and things after look very different.
   

So, where are all the cleanliness laws, sacrificial laws, feasts, ritual washings etc etc? Well, it’s baked into the new covenant and by extension the church. Some examples:

1. ⁠Sacrificial law: Christ IS most of those sacrifices. He is a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Eucharist literally means thanksgiving), a sacrifice for sin (by his stripes we are healed), a Passover sacrifice (through which we are spared death and brought to life), the day of atonement sacrifice (he is both goats, the goat that takes away the sin and the goat who’s blood purifies the whole camp, now understood to be the whole earth). We still have morning and evening sacrifices (Lauds and Vespers, sacrifices of praise, in the Latin tradition). We still do incense offerings even at Mass and more traditional lauds and vespers celebrations.
   
2. ⁠Cleanliness: this one is entirely wrapped up in the day of atonement. If his blood cleanses the whole world, how can something be called intrinsically unclean? This means that nothing (including food, clothing, or people) are intrinsically unclean. Rather we (and objects) are defiled by what we do (or how it is used). Thus we are still not to have anything to do with unclean things, but what exactly is unclean has changed. You can see this in the fact we purify/cleanse altars that have been desecrated.
   
3. ⁠Ritual washings: baptism, holy water before entering the church, sprinkling over people at high feasts, foot washing
   
4. ⁠Feasts: Pentecost was an Israelite holiday that we still celebrate, Passover is Easter, feast of booths is transfiguration, etc. we just have them renamed for they BECAME to us through the establishment of the new covenant
   
5. ⁠Tabernacle/temple construction: traditional church architecture still abides by the general layout. Holy of Holies: tabernacle and sanctuary. Holy place: knave. Inner court: vestibule. Outer court: the world. Through Christs redemption everyone has moved a step closer to God. Those of relegated to never being in the temple are always in the outer court. But we can all enter the inner court (vestibule). The holy place is not relegated to just priests, but the priesthood of all believers (Catholics in the knave). The priests can all now go into the holy of holies (sanctuary/tabernacle). And instead of one priest once a year going in to God, God comes out to us in the Eucharist.
   
6. ⁠As for the remaining punitive laws, most people only have issue with the penalties assigned. But we’ve already talked about under what circumstances those penalties would be enforced. Basically you had to be unrepentant. So in the Christian understanding, what is consequence of sin? Death. What is death? Well there’s physical death (separation of soul from body) and there’s spiritual death (separation of soul from God). A person who lives in sin without repentance is dying or dead (venial vs mortal sin). And when recognized by the church in a lot of cases an excommunication would be pronounced. This separation from the church, separation of a branch from the true vine. A branch separated is dead. So we don’t execute people as the church, but the church long recognized the civil government’s authority to do so. And even without that, sin is death, and excommunication is death. But it’s important to note that in NO way was the average Israelite running around pronouncing death penalties on people. They had courts and priests that did this. Same as we have tribunals and priests and bishops who do this.
   
7. ⁠Circumcision: this is fulfilled with baptism. It’s the outward sign of entrance into the people of God. Circumcision to become a part of the OT people of God and baptism for the New covenant people of God.
   
8. ⁠A lot of the specifics are alterable with time and circumstance (Jesus gives the apostles this authority with the ability to “bind and loose”). Even in the OT this happened between exodus law in the wilderness vs changes that happen with Leviticus and Deuteronomy since they’re readying to enter the promised land and not be a nomadic people in the wilderness. And even by extra biblical accounts, the specifics had changed a bit in the rituals by the time of the second temple era. Yet Jesus still tells the people to submit to the valid authority of the religious leadership of the day; he notably doesn’t tell them to interpret the Torah for themselves and correct the instructions of priests and rabbis.
   

So practically speaking, yes the triple category can still be laid out. Our ceremonial law is more governed by our liturgical books than Leviticus on a literal front, and our civil law is found in Canon law now, and moral laws (as we have defined the moral life) is still found in the OT among many other places. But all of it is still rooted in what the people of God have been practicing since Mt Sinai though.
Again, my issue with the logic used by fathers in making their determination. I have issue with the practical effect of what they are teaching, and I strongly revere their perspectives. But given there is difference in understanding in tradition, I thought it worth diving in on as something that’s always confused me.

1. I hold to the traditional Protestant & Catholic view of the tTrinity ( not the Orthodox view that the Holy Spirit comes only from the Father & not the Son)
2. I believe that salvation is by the grace of God alone & isn’t nor can be earned by works, it is the fee gift of God to all who trust in Christ with sincerity & a repentant heart. ( Ephesians 2:8-9)
3. I believe that although salvation isn’t earned, it can be forsaken if the believer turns from Christ & fails to abide in the vine, they will be cut off. ( Romans 11:22 “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.”)
4. I believe that communion should be treated more literally & not purely symbolic. I believe in the traditional view (Orthodox-Catholic) that one should discern the Body & Blood of Christ as being in some way present in the bread & wine, however I may not take it as far as some.
5. I do not believe baptism is a requirement for salvation as in a number of passages the Holy Ghost is received from hearing & believing the gospel, & baptism takes place afterward.
6. No one should be baptized without a sincere acknowledgement of faith, so infant baptism seems illogical to me (Acts 8:37)
7. I have a somewhat open view of the rapture & it’s timing however I lean towards the idea that the rapture (if there is one) will be the removal of the wicked from the earth & it is the righteous left behind to begin the millennium of Christ, so obviously it will be post-trib.
8. I believe in parts of calvinism in a way such as God hardens whom He wills, & he will have mercy on whoever He chooses. But I believe that although Gods will could be irresistible if He wished it to be, He chooses to allow us to resist the Spirit (Acts 7:51) & gives us free will, otherwise we would simply be pieces on a chessboard not even in control of our own decisions, thus how could we be responsible for them?

Thanks for reading, sorry if I over did it.

This is from a comment I made over in the main sub yesterday. I’m working through my own understanding of this and an interested in feedback and criticism. If this doesn’t fit under philosophy, then let me know. But part of my view is a critique of the moral/civil/ceremonial division of the law. I understand that a division of the law is seen by both Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (though a bit differently). I’m not debating the patristic tradition, but rather the underlying logic those saints used.
I also recognize there is another tradition which states most of the laws given at Sinai were given because of the golden calf incident and thus were abolished by Christ (this is found in the apocryphal apostolic constitutions If I remember correctly). But again, I question the logic.
The reason I question this logic is this: why would Matthew include the “fulfill not abolish” language in his Gospel if this statement ceased to be of importance after the ascension (when the book was written).
Anyway, on to my proposition. I don’t claim to have patristic evidence for this framework. But this framework does arrive at a very similar effect for the average Christian as the tripartite division does, but it gets there in a very different way, one that makes WAY more sense in my brain. So if y’all can poke holes, please do. If yall can show I’m wildly misunderstanding the tripartite division, please do.
This particular area I’ve been doing A LOT (last 6-9 months) of soul searching/prayer and study on because I don’t like the “moral/ceremonial/civil” distinction. I don’t think the Torah makes any such distinction and that the distinction only works when read back onto the Torah in light of church teaching. Which is FINE and good for arriving at an answer as a Catholic. But I don’t think it’s the logic the 1st and 2nd generation church would’ve used.
We keep the whole law of the Old Testament; Christ came to fulfill, not abolish. The difference is that it doesn’t quite look the same because

1. ⁠We assume the ancient Israelites enforced the Torah EXACTLY the way it’s read. Break a law? Straight to stoning. But this isn’t how it worked. There were courts and burdens of proof. AND there was a chance for repentance. King David, a man after God’s own heart commits murder AND adultery (and tacitly admits to it when confronted) and yet he repents! By some modern folks reading he should’ve been executed according to the Torah.
   
2. ⁠Christ has come. The thing that the entire OT was building up to happened. So our understanding of things changed. The covenant with Noah didn’t negate the covenant with Abraham, but things certainly look different after Noah. Same with Noah to Abrahamic covenant. Same when the covenant is given through Moses as Mt Sinai. The old is not abrogated, but it is built upon and things after look very different.
   

So, where are all the cleanliness laws, sacrificial laws, feasts, ritual washings etc etc? Well, it’s baked into the new covenant and by extension the church. Some examples:

1. ⁠Sacrificial law: Christ IS most of those sacrifices. He is a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Eucharist literally means thanksgiving), a sacrifice for sin (by his stripes we are healed), a Passover sacrifice (through which we are spared death and brought to life), the day of atonement sacrifice (he is both goats, the goat that takes away the sin and the goat who’s blood purifies the whole camp, now understood to be the whole earth). We still have morning and evening sacrifices (Lauds and Vespers, sacrifices of praise, in the Latin tradition). We still do incense offerings even at Mass and more traditional lauds and vespers celebrations.
   
2. ⁠Cleanliness: this one is entirely wrapped up in the day of atonement. If his blood cleanses the whole world, how can something be called intrinsically unclean? This means that nothing (including food, clothing, or people) are intrinsically unclean. Rather we (and objects) are defiled by what we do (or how it is used). Thus we are still not to have anything to do with unclean things, but what exactly is unclean has changed. You can see this in the fact we purify/cleanse altars that have been desecrated.
   
3. ⁠Ritual washings: baptism, holy water before entering the church, sprinkling over people at high feasts, foot washing
   
4. ⁠Feasts: Pentecost was an Israelite holiday that we still celebrate, Passover is Easter, feast of booths is transfiguration, etc. we just have them renamed for they BECAME to us through the establishment of the new covenant
   
5. ⁠Tabernacle/temple construction: traditional church architecture still abides by the general layout. Holy of Holies: tabernacle and sanctuary. Holy place: knave. Inner court: vestibule. Outer court: the world. Through Christs redemption everyone has moved a step closer to God. Those of relegated to never being in the temple are always in the outer court. But we can all enter the inner court (vestibule). The holy place is not relegated to just priests, but the priesthood of all believers (Catholics in the knave). The priests can all now go into the holy of holies (sanctuary/tabernacle). And instead of one priest once a year going in to God, God comes out to us in the Eucharist.
   
6. ⁠As for the remaining punitive laws, most people only have issue with the penalties assigned. But we’ve already talked about under what circumstances those penalties would be enforced. Basically you had to be unrepentant. So in the Christian understanding, what is consequence of sin? Death. What is death? Well there’s physical death (separation of soul from body) and there’s spiritual death (separation of soul from God). A person who lives in sin without repentance is dying or dead (venial vs mortal sin). And when recognized by the church in a lot of cases an excommunication would be pronounced. This separation from the church, separation of a branch from the true vine. A branch separated is dead. So we don’t execute people as the church, but the church long recognized the civil government’s authority to do so. And even without that, sin is death, and excommunication is death. But it’s important to note that in NO way was the average Israelite running around pronouncing death penalties on people. They had courts and priests that did this. Same as we have tribunals and priests and bishops who do this.
   
7. ⁠Circumcision: this is fulfilled with baptism. It’s the outward sign of entrance into the people of God. Circumcision to become a part of the OT people of God and baptism for the New covenant people of God.
   
8. ⁠A lot of the specifics are alterable with time and circumstance (Jesus gives the apostles this authority with the ability to “bind and loose”). Even in the OT this happened between exodus law in the wilderness vs changes that happen with Leviticus and Deuteronomy since they’re readying to enter the promised land and not be a nomadic people in the wilderness. And even by extra biblical accounts, the specifics had changed a bit in the rituals by the time of the second temple era. Yet Jesus still tells the people to submit to the valid authority of the religious leadership of the day; he notably doesn’t tell them to interpret the Torah for themselves and correct the instructions of priests and rabbis.
   

So practically speaking, yes the triple category can still be laid out. Our ceremonial law is more governed by our liturgical books than Leviticus on a literal front, and our civil law is found in Canon law now, and moral laws (as we have defined the moral life) is still found in the OT among many other places. But all of it is still rooted in what the people of God have been practicing since Mt Sinai though.

I have tried after my ability to summarise a list of promises explicit and implicitly taken when being received as an orthodox Christian, as rendered by the sacred mysteries themselves as well as liturgical material used during the service. Hope it may be strengthening but also be a reminder of the seriousness and dignity of our calling.

• Worship and obey the Trinity as king and God.
• Confess Christ even in suffering and death.
• Bury the old man and rise/be reborn in the new.
• Preserve, profess, teach and proclaim the Christian faith.
• Confess the Nicene creed without filioque.
• Fulfill duties with zeal and joy.
• Keep the heart pure through good deeds.
• Overcome the devil, the flesh and the world.
• Remain in God's faith, hope and love.
• Believe that the departed is aided through prayer, charity and the eucharistic sacrifice.
• Confess Christ as head of the Church.
• Obey the bishops for the salvation/shepherding of souls.
• Distance yourself from all heresies and teachings that are contrary to the Church's faith.
• Follow the rules of the apostles and councils as well as the traditions and decrees of the church.
• Interpret the Holy Scriptures in accordance with the holy fathers and the teachings of the Church.
• Confess the real presence of the Eucharist and that believers receive the gifts for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
• Confess that God works in the 7 sacraments and that are administered by bishops in apostolic succession.
• Venerate saints, relics and icons.
• Confess that the Church is the bride of Christ and the ark of salvation.
• Confess that the Church was given by Christ the power to bind and loose sins.

Strokes for 3 months and 5 years of them total. I haven't ate is 1+year and lost 150 lbs. I tolk all meds correctly always. As if May 1st I officially gave up and gave in anactively abusing anything I can to feel or do 1 thing. I hope to O'D tbh and whole bottles have NO effect. Brain damage so severe I've losteeverything and cannot do anything besides txt an unseen post. In bed besides to use toilet and it takes hours. All acts are torture if I can even move.Laying in bed 3 years total,I lay with my head and back hanging over. IEverything is taken and I can't do anything and the one thing I want to do I can't do it because Im so scared to die that fast and fully be unalive. I want happiness and to live long and do everything and get married and have a family.
But I'll be gone soon either way and new person gets control of my body. Which im not sure the point of all of if I die because they wanted to possess but why lock a dyingbody with cancer. All my issues are fully "schizofrenic" AKA Demon possession. I was perfectly normal just playing a video game the day this started.I wish AC worked but it's give me peace but I've got that.
My father cried on my shoulder and held me in his birthday for my gift and said it's more important thing he owns.He held till I said "it's okay pops". But it took so long cause the shock..I forgot my dad was alive and I will say this is what allowed strength to give up. What I hid with the gift,hell find and it's my souls grace. I am now at peace.
No emotions and no inner thought or thinking since Feb but I weep and it's for my father and did all humans that feel any pain.
I wish my death was similar to Christ but not to end sin but to end sufferings. I'd be blessed if I suffered all life but I'd take it all, in one body. No one does like it love me not even God so really I pray for courage to do what I need to do I can go now and not later.
Why is a mere pull of the finger the hardest part of this and only cause I know where I go after.
I get raped in hell by 5 Brutes and my feet flayed and forced to walk glass. Really is suck but if I can be saved evening 50k years I'll still thank God and forgive any evil I've been given.
My love was a sin after all and my beliefs that LGBTQ go to heaven is valid. I take it all back if I could if I knew I'd never of had a thought of it and would of done as God planned. I refused God and to be Holy that even this ex atheist would be a preacher.
Can't change last, no future and it's okay. I tried. . I know this won't be read but atleast it helped me feel seen because it's online and recorded now. Maybe my posts could help one person a bit, maybe a second. Who knows.

In living the Course in Miracles, I embrace the balance between sleep, solitude, and social interactions as essential elements of my journey towards inner peace and spiritual growth. Each day, I cherish the gift of peaceful restoration that sleep provides, and I honour the sanctity of solitude as a space for communion with the divine. In navigating social interactions, I remain committed to embodying peace and joy, recognizing each encounter as an opportunity for growth and alignment with the truth of my being.
I would like to say that this is mostly true. But I find myself getting pissed off with people, or tuning out of my interactions with them because I find them silly or trite or misguided and i know better than to ridicule or undermine or admonish them. And this is the starting point for me now.
I have come to see and understand that almost everything in life is given to me. My body keeps breathing and moving, I can walk across a stony beach without falling over and I can cycle a bike across a narrow path and never crash. My days pass by and everything is dreamy and automatic. I don't meditate anymore, I passed it by. Now I spend my time almost completely empty and peaceful, only disturbance calls my attention away and it absolutely always and ever the result of another Human Being.
The dog doesn't bother me, the rain is just wet, the door and the floor and the bed and the shelves are quiet and cause me no grief. But there are people who live here, family. And they test me, not on purpose and not always, but significantly enough and often enough to keep me desiring to be better.
People can be hard, and knowing this causes all sorts of projection if I am not committed to protecting Peace. It is not my Peace, it is 'the Peace. The peace of sleep, that liquid tranquillity that takes me in so unreservedly each night, and spits me out into a shitty existence (by comparison) each and every morning. I have Parkinson's so maybe that why mornings are shitty. But when That Divine awareness that I enjoy once my day gets going begins to motor, that communion, Radio Holy Spirit FM in my head is so consoling that, and this is just honesty, people passing by cause a sort of static , and when they speak i am compelled to try to understand but omg I wish they were quiet, or that i could go back to bed, not always, but often enough to keep me somewhat guarded and significantly enough that I know there is an absolute monster just beneath my skin.
I can be glad that my monster hasn't been seen in the world for quite some time, but he talks to me when people come along so he hasn't gone anywhere at all and I fear he maybe thinly veiled, my only fear, which doesn't always come and you know the rest. I am beginning to think that life is poured out one conversation at a time.
I am already getting ready for the next person who comes along, it's all I can do

I have 4 questions about this:
1- When are the 'Uposatha' observations in the Tibetan tradition? In Theravada there are 4, during the 4 stages of the moon, and East Asian Mahayana has 6 days. These are observed by lay people and in South-East Asian countries, they are even/used to be official public holidays. Do the Himalayan countries like Tibet and Bhutan have a similar structure of holy days for lay people? (I am not talking about auspicious days for proper practice like for monks. I know there are regular holy days for practices like Sojong and Tsok, but these don't seem to be for lay people and are mainly for monks and high-level practitioners. I am talking about public monthly holy day Uposatha-equivalents observed by lay people in Himalayan areas).
2- What commitments are usually held on Guru Rinpoche days and Dakini days (10th and 25th) for normal practitioners? Would meat and alcohol be abstained from? Would it be the full 8 precepts like for full moons and new moons? Or are the commitments less strict on these days?
3- When/how is the holy month celebrated? I know it is Saka Dawa, the 4th month, but on Wikipedia about Saka Dawa Duchen celebrations in Bhutan it says:
"Observation of the holy month begins from 1st day of the Saga Dawa, Vesak month that culminates [ends] on the full moon day 15th of the month with celebrations of three holy events of Buddha's life; birth, enlightenment and Death (Mahaparinirvana)"
It seems to say only the first 15 days are the holy month, but I've seen other sources that say the whole month is considered holy and people become vegetarian for the entire month. Does anyone know anything about how long the observance of the holy month is?
4- And what commitments are expected for this month, and for similar times like the 15 days of miracles at the start of the year, and Yarne (first half of Vassa)? Vegetarianism? No alcohol? Celibacy? Fasting? Would the 8 precepts be taken every day at certain time periods? Are the 8 precepts ever even taken at all by Himalayan lay people?
Thanks

Hi there, thanks for reading :)
I believe all the essentials of Protestant Christianity, (Trinitarian Monotheism, Jesus died as atonement for our sins, His Resurrection, Solo Scriptora etc)
On the non-essentials, however, i can’t seem to pinpoint a denomination that I fully agree with. I wonder if my Theology is flawed because of it, but I think all my viewpoints are acceptable in most churches.
For context, i currently attend a Southern Baptist Church, but I am anything from Baptist. From what I understand, my views are somewhere between Reformed/Presbyterian and Lutheran.
Let’s begin with the big whammy, predestination. As someone who grew up Baptist/non-denominational, I was never even exposed to this idea. However, as I learn more about it, I believe in it even more. Simply based on logic- If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then he must at the very least know who will be saved. Because God is also Eternal and created us, he must have elected some to be saved. Now, for the non-elect, I don’t believe that God created them for the sole purpose of damnation. I would see it more as God passing over them or leaving them in their own sin, therefore i align more with Infralapsarian views. However, if I get even more specific and true to how I view God, an Amyraldian view (God desires for all to be saved, the only reason everyone won’t be saved is because He didn’t predestine them to believe, and God has foreknowledge of who will and won’t believe) or even the Lutheran view of single predestination make more sense to me considering that God is all-loving.
Eternal security: I technically believe this, but i believe if someone walks away from the faith and doesn’t come back, they never had true salvation in the first place and will still be damned.
As for how to interpret the Bible, i am definitely not Dispensationalist like how i’ve been raised. I guess my view is between Covenant Theology and the Lutheran law/Gospel distinction. I sort of equate the Covenant of Works to the law and the Covenant of Grace to the Gospel. The only reason i lean towards the Law/Gospel distinction is because of verses in Scripture such as John 1:17; “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Also, If I decide to dive into Covenant Theology, I would probably lean towards Republication, because this verse equates Moses to the Law.
For the gifts of the Spirit, I don’t think the Charismatic gifts are still active.
The Sacraments… I am Paedobaptist. I believe in Baptismal Efficacy, meaning Baptism saves if you have faith. I believe that the Baptism of babies will be effective the moment they believe the essentials to be saved. Therefore, for those baptized as babies, that is when they receive the Holy Spirit. For Believers Baptism, I believe they receive the Holy Spirit when they come out of the water. For The Eucharist, I think that we receive the body and blood spiritually. I am very confused about the Lutheran view of physical presence, is that cannibalism?? im so confused about that, if someone could explain that to me that’d be great.
I’m not sure what I like in Worship. I know I don’t like contemporary Worship at church though. I’ll listen to Cory Asbury, Casting Crowns, For King and Country, etc at home, but I don’t like that at Church. However, it’s all i’ve been exposed to at church other than a few Hymns. So i’m open to a lot of different Worship styles, be it Hymns, Psalms, or maybe something else if there is something else. Leaning toward hymns, though.
After writing this, i’ve kind of convinced myself of Lutheranism, but i need to know about their view on Communion and whether my other views align with them.
Thank you for reading, God bless!

Hello everyone
Here is why Good Friday is called Good Friday, what sin is and who sinners are.
Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?
In the case you don't know why Good Friday is Good Friday is it's the day that Jesus died for all of humankind’s sin.
What is sin?
Sin is a thing that if done would be in violation of God's law also it is the thing that separates us from God.
Romans 6:23 mentions: “for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” there is no such thing as a sin that doesn't result in not going to heaven.
Also, the word death in this context doesn't mean to cease to exist, it is referring to separation from God.
Who are sinners?
all of us! as mentioned in Romans 3:10,23; Isaiah 64:6 and Psalm 51:5. We are sinners because of the fact that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, this is mentioned in Genesis 3.
What did Jesus go through on the Cross?
He went through unimaginable suffering as he was dying on the cross for our sins. We all deserve what Jesus went through on the cross and we too deserve to pay for our sins in the fires of hell(Psalm 7:11, 9:17; Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:11-15, 21:8; James 2:10; Jude 1:7; 2nd Thessalonians 1:8,9)
Jesus knew that there needed to be a price paid for all of humankind's sin.
the last things that he said before he died was in Luke 23:34 “Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing” and in John 19:30 where he said “it is finished”
After He said that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit, then, he was then buried in a tomb and 3 days later God with the power of the Holy Spirit rose Jesus from the dead, As mentioned in 1st Corinthians 15:6 “After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”
In accordance with 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4, John 3:16,17, and Romans 5:8, He shed His precious blood, dying on the cross for our sins, He was buried, and rose again 3 days later.
Someday He will return, when? That I don't know, only God knows when He is going to return as mentioned in Matthew 24:36 which mentions: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Mark 13:32 has this message as well.
Also, Matthew 24:44 mentions: So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man(Jesus) will come at an hour when you do not expect him” Luke 12:40 carries this message as well.
Furthermore, when Jesus died on the cross he not only paid the price for mankind's sin, he also took the weight of God's Wrath on him as well. He died on the cross so you can be Saved and go to Heaven.
Why did Jesus Christ go through all the suffering that he went through?
It is because he loves you so much, The love He has for you and us all isn't comparable to the love that for instance your parents have for you, John 3:16 Mentions: ”for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”
Also, when Jesus Rose again, he defeated Death, Satan, the world, hell and sin. John 15:13 also mentions: “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down one's life for one’s friends”
It is his literal liquid and precious blood that cleanses and washes our sins away(Hebrews 9:12, 24; 12:24; 1st John 1:7; Revelation 1:5, along with Ephesians 1:7, 2:13; Colossians 1:14,20; Hebrews 9:22, 10:19; 1 Peter 1:18&19; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5)
Here are some Important things to know about God, Jesus Christ and Salvation
Jesus was born of a Virgin(Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23)
He never sinned(2nd Corinthians 5:21 and Hebrews 4: 15,16)
He is the Lord almighty(John 1:1-3,14 John 10:33; Revelation 1:8, 19:13)
The Godhead incarnate(Colossians 2:9 and 1st Timothy 3:16)
The Godhead exists as Three Persons, namely God the father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit(Colossians 2:2, 9; Matthew 28:19-20; Romans 1:20; Acts 17:29; 2nd John 1:3; Matthew 3:16-17; 1st Timothy 3:16)
Now how salvation works it is through Faith you have salvation and works(Faith = Salvation and works), As mentioned in verses such as Galatians 3:2, 1st Corinthians 1:21, Ephesians 2: 8-9, Romans 4:5, 5:1 and 11:6.
Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
He mentioned in John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father(God) except for me”
Acts 4:12 also mentions: “ Salvation is found under no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Jesus too mentioned in Matthew 9:12-13 “On hearing disk Jesus said it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick”(Verse 12) “but go and learn what this means I desire Mercy not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners”(Verse 13), Luke 5:31 -32 has this message as well
Now, here are some things about Hell
Jesus Christ made it so that you can be saved from hell and so you could be in Heaven with him for eternity.
Who was Hell made for?
Satan and the devils, not for us humans, but the truth is that if someone rejects Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior then there is no other place for them to go.
John 8:24 mentions: “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”,
Luke 13:3 and 5 mentions: “ I tell you, no!, but unless you repent, you too will all perish”
Part of Mark 16:16 states: “.... but, whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Part of John 3:18 states: “..... but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only son”
Revelation 20:15 states: “Anyone whose name was not found found in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire”
Amongst the kinds of people listed in Revelation 21:8 include the Unbelievers, these kinds of people along with the others listed there will be thrown into the lake of fire.
Here are some things for people who don't think that Hell is real
And now for the people who don’t think that Hell is real, what if you end up realizing that you are wrong? What if Jesus was telling us the truth? Are you really willing to take that risk and gamble with your soul? Please think about it. Because at some point it will be too late. Also, I’m not intending to scare you with this, I’m wanting to have you saved from hell. Furthermore, you only have one life on earth to decide on where you will go for eternity. Hebrews 9:27 mentions: “Just as people are destined to die once and after that to face judgment”
When is the time to repent?
Now!, is the time to repent of unbelief and believe the Gospel, tomorrow is not guaranteed for anyone.
God is calling us to repent, Acts 17:30 mentions: “ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”
Acts 3:19 mentions: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”,
Acts 2:38 mentions: “Peter replied’ repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’.
Mark 1:15 mentions,: “The time has come” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and Believe the Good news!” Matthew 3:2 also mentions this.
Luke 15:7 mentions: “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:10 also has this message as well.
Here are some more salvation related things and a salvation prayer below:
Acts 16:31 Mentions they replied,” believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved you and your household”
John 6:47 mentions: ‘Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 Mentions if you declare with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.
Romans 10:13 also mentions for, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”.
Also, you must be born again as mentioned in John 3:3, 5, and 7.
Now, here is a prayer to say to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior:
The exact words are not what matters in your prayer to accept him, but what you mean is what matters.
This is the prayer to say:
“Heavenly father, God, I know that I am a sinner in need of your forgiveness, I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and you raised him from the dead 3 days later, I want to turn away from my sins and to live a Godly life, Please come into my heart Jesus Christ, I now accept you as my Lord and Savior, I am willing to follow you as Lord of my life from this day forward, please fill me with your Holy Spirit, in Jesus name I pray Amen.”
Lastly, here are some things that you will need to avoid:
1. Abusing God’s grace, it is not a license to sin,
Romans 6:1-2 mention: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”(Verse 1), “By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”(Verse 2)
2. Being a lukewarm Christian,
Revelation 3:16 mentions: “ So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
What luke warm would look like for instance is hardly or never doing the following: Praying, Reading your Bible and going to church service. It can also be like this, spending one hour in the church and another hour in the club, one hour praising and another hour swearing, one hour in the light and another in the darkness, one hour with the Lord and another with Satan. Take both the cup of the demons and the cup of the Lord(1st Corinthians 10:21). It’s either God or Satan or either Christ the king or the kingdom of the world.
3. Denying Jesus before others, Matthew 10:33 mentions: “But whoever disowns me before others. I will disown before my Father in Heaven.
4. Depend on your own works to save you and/or be a false follower of Christ. Matthew 7-21 - 23 mentions “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me that day, ‘Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Luke 13: 25-27 has a similar message.
Here are some reasons that I share my faith with others are these:

1. I don’t want to spend eternity without them
2. The book of Revelation lists some horrifying things that are to come that I would not wish on anyone, even my worst enemy
3. I don't want them to go to hell.

Here is the doc for the thing that I created as well:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FMK14LoH0iKIpMkxNNfSDao35QowJZHxkDEtI_Xuk8A/edit?usp=sharing

A Homily Prepared For Sunday May 19, 2024
The Collect
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel
John 7:37–39a
37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
Commentary on Today’s Gospel Selection;
In our Gospel selection for today, Pentecost Sunday, we look at an event which takes place on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as Feast of Booths, and Sukkot. The event takes place in SeptembeOctober, and celebrates the fall harvest of grapes and olives. It lasts seven days with a holy convocation on the eighth day (Leviticus 23:36).
Jewish law specifies that, during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jewish people “You shall dwell in booths seven days. All who are native-born in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:42-43). It also characterizes this feast as a fall harvest festival (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:13).
It was during this feast or celebrations that:
“Jesus stood and cried, saying,If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (vs. 37-38) To understand the context of the situation in which Jesus stands and makes this pronouncement, you have to understand the daily rituals which took place during the festival.
During the first six days of the week long event, a priest would go to the Pool of Siloam and draw a pitcher full of water, then march in procession back to the temple with the people repeating from a verse found in Isaiah 12:3, “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
Then upon returning to the temple the priest would pour out the water in an offering to God, commemorating the water that poured from the rock that sustained the ancient Israelites (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:1-13) as well as the rains that sustained Israel during the year just passed.
Everyday for six days, the people had been celebrating the water that had given their people physical sustenance; Jesus now tells them that he is capable of satisfying their spiritual thirst.
“as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”(v. 38b) Just as we today think of the heart as being the center of emotions, (e.g. from the heart) in those times, they believed that the belly was the place where warm kindly benevolent feelings were generated. Jesus is saying that those who believe in him will receive these spiritual waters, waters of spiritual blessings, salvation.
When lost in the desert, the children of Israel thought the waters from God that materialized as flowing from a rock, were a blessing, a salvation in the physical sense for those who faced death from thirst (dehydration.) At the core of Jesus message to them that day, lies the fact that instead of worshiping an event that took place hundreds of years beforehand, a miracle that only provided physical sustenance for a brief time, they should be paying attention to his message which offers an eternal spiritual sustenance.
This verse brings to mind Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, “the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Jeremiah 2:13 also contains a reference to spiritual water: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Likewise we see in Jeremiah 17:13 “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.” Perhaps Jesus recognized this disparity which could be seen in the religious rite in which the people celebrated his Father’s gift of water for physical thirst while remaining obvious to “the fountain of living waters” that God offered them.
In writing this Gospel, John the Evangelist, adds a note to the reader in verse 39; “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Here we find an explanation as to why these verses were selected for Pentecost Sunday, the day that the Holy spirit descended upon the Followers of Christ. Water and the Spirit are connected elsewhere in John — for example, when Jesus tells Nicodemus that “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (3:5). In Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, living water is the symbol of the revelation of God in Christ which satisfies all spiritual thirst (4:10-15). “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14)
This living water that springs up into everlasting life, as promised by Jesus, is water that satisfies one’s spiritual thirst. A water that traditionally has been found through attendance and membership in the church, where one learns about the message and teachings of Christ, the essence of the water itself.
Unfortunately over the last decade, we have watched a great exodus from the church; in particular the old main-line churches. Those churches hemorrhaging membership most excessively, are those who in recent years have spent less time on—if not totally abandoning—the Gospel of Christ, while embracing a social gospel that may be based on good intentions, but none the less fails to address the people’s spiritual thirst.
Indeed, when questioned by pollsters attempting to gather information regarding this great exodus, a large number of people say that they identify as “spiritual but not religious.” Assuming that these people are indeed spiritual, then we can also assume that they are not finding in these churches, the water and spirit, with which to satisfy their thirst.
Ironically, we find the Hebrew people in chapter 7 attending a great celebration, one in which the observances commemorate important events in their history as a people chosen by God. Annual celebrations that for them, were certainly fun and wondrous to participate in, but yet—as Jesus noted by his crying out—they were failing to receive the spiritual water of God and instead they were focusing on recreating an event of centuries past. I say this is ironic, in that today we find the churches focusing, not on recreating events of the past as a commemoration of the importance of the event, but rather on progressive social ideologies that often conflict with the word of God itself. A so called social gospel that often drowns out the message of the Gospel of Christ.
Instead of uniting together as brothers and sisters in Christ seeking the water and spirit that Jesus spoke of, our churches are inculcating, not a gospel of the spirit that unites us in the name of Christ, but rather an ideology that divides us along social constructs and identities.
People who readily identify—when asked—as spiritual, seem to have an innate thirst for authentic spirituality, and apparently are not finding a cure for that thirst in these churches that are no longer churches of Christ, but which are now, for all pratical purposes, churches of progressive ideology.
But yet, if you really seek through the news media diligently, you will see signs that the Holy Spirit is descending again, in some ways, just as it did during that event we commemorate today.
The principalities of this world work to suppress the news of the spirit moving, but yet reports are emerging of young people filling the pews at revivals, mass baptisms, even the conversion of formerly reprobate celebrities who have now found Christ and are trying to turn around their life, to be as born again. We also are witnessing an increasing number of celebrities who are speaking out, unapologetically affirming their Christian beliefs and advocating for traditional family values and lifestyles. The Holy Spirit has touched the hearts of these individuals, compelling them to ignore their fears of persecution or their aversion to being called out as not being politically or socially correct.
As we observe the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon those in that room, let us be cognizant of the fact that there are many people in this world today, who are hungry for authentic Christianity. Those who thirst for authentic water and spirit that satiates the spiritual thirst. Those who can be characterized as being the least of these.
The “least of these” is a phrase that originates from Matthew 25:31–46, a passage often used in these modern times, to guilt Christians, causing them to embrace this false social gospel that is emptying the churches. Christians are not leaving because they do not want to help others, but due to the fact that they instinctively know that this passage, and others, are used out of context in an effort to guilt them into accepting what they know in their heart is wrong.
Matthew wrote this at a time, in which most likely the least of these, the needy, those imprisoned and persecuted, those that Christ called his bothers, most likely were his brothers and sisters, as it was a time in which Christians were discriminated against and tortured for their beliefs. Matthew was preaching to a congregation that knew all too well what the conditions Jesus spoke of were like.
While we are always to help the financially impoverished, a careful reading of Matthew 25:31–46 and its historical context demonstrates the need to give aid to the spiritually impoverished as well. When we look at how this passage was taught prior to the emergence of the social gospel a century past. We find a rebuke of the minsters who teach such false doctrines in these words of Jesus: “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me ”
There are yet those who are spiritually hungry, spiritually thirsty, naked in spirit, they are treated as strangers by the modern church because they hold traditional values dear. There are those who speak out against all sorts of abominations and now find themselves in prison, sick and isolated. But yet the churches of social gospel turn a blind eye to them.
The rest of us must keep the spiritually hungry and thirsty in our prayers, reach out to them and help them find the spirit that is once again moving today as it moved two millennia ago.
Benediction:
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Homily Prepared For Sunday May 19, 2024
The Collect
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel
John 7:37–39a
37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
Commentary on Today’s Gospel Selection;
In our Gospel selection for today, Pentecost Sunday, we look at an event which takes place on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as Feast of Booths, and Sukkot. The event takes place in SeptembeOctober, and celebrates the fall harvest of grapes and olives. It lasts seven days with a holy convocation on the eighth day (Leviticus 23:36).
Jewish law specifies that, during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jewish people “You shall dwell in booths seven days. All who are native-born in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:42-43). It also characterizes this feast as a fall harvest festival (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:13).
It was during this feast or celebrations that:
“Jesus stood and cried, saying,If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (vs. 37-38) To understand the context of the situation in which Jesus stands and makes this pronouncement, you have to understand the daily rituals which took place during the festival.
During the first six days of the week long event, a priest would go to the Pool of Siloam and draw a pitcher full of water, then march in procession back to the temple with the people repeating from a verse found in Isaiah 12:3, “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
Then upon returning to the temple the priest would pour out the water in an offering to God, commemorating the water that poured from the rock that sustained the ancient Israelites (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:1-13) as well as the rains that sustained Israel during the year just passed.
Everyday for six days, the people had been celebrating the water that had given their people physical sustenance; Jesus now tells them that he is capable of satisfying their spiritual thirst.
“as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”(v. 38b) Just as we today think of the heart as being the center of emotions, (e.g. from the heart) in those times, they believed that the belly was the place where warm kindly benevolent feelings were generated. Jesus is saying that those who believe in him will receive these spiritual waters, waters of spiritual blessings, salvation.
When lost in the desert, the children of Israel thought the waters from God that materialized as flowing from a rock, were a blessing, a salvation in the physical sense for those who faced death from thirst (dehydration.) At the core of Jesus message to them that day, lies the fact that instead of worshiping an event that took place hundreds of years beforehand, a miracle that only provided physical sustenance for a brief time, they should be paying attention to his message which offers an eternal spiritual sustenance.
This verse brings to mind Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, “the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Jeremiah 2:13 also contains a reference to spiritual water: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Likewise we see in Jeremiah 17:13 “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.” Perhaps Jesus recognized this disparity which could be seen in the religious rite in which the people celebrated his Father’s gift of water for physical thirst while remaining obvious to “the fountain of living waters” that God offered them.
In writing this Gospel, John the Evangelist, adds a note to the reader in verse 39; “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Here we find an explanation as to why these verses were selected for Pentecost Sunday, the day that the Holy spirit descended upon the Followers of Christ. Water and the Spirit are connected elsewhere in John — for example, when Jesus tells Nicodemus that “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (3:5). In Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, living water is the symbol of the revelation of God in Christ which satisfies all spiritual thirst (4:10-15). “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14)
This living water that springs up into everlasting life, as promised by Jesus, is water that satisfies one’s spiritual thirst. A water that traditionally has been found through attendance and membership in the church, where one learns about the message and teachings of Christ, the essence of the water itself.
Unfortunately over the last decade, we have watched a great exodus from the church; in particular the old main-line churches. Those churches hemorrhaging membership most excessively, are those who in recent years have spent less time on—if not totally abandoning—the Gospel of Christ, while embracing a social gospel that may be based on good intentions, but none the less fails to address the people’s spiritual thirst.
Indeed, when questioned by pollsters attempting to gather information regarding this great exodus, a large number of people say that they identify as “spiritual but not religious.” Assuming that these people are indeed spiritual, then we can also assume that they are not finding in these churches, the water and spirit, with which to satisfy their thirst.
Ironically, we find the Hebrew people in chapter 7 attending a great celebration, one in which the observances commemorate important events in their history as a people chosen by God. Annual celebrations that for them, were certainly fun and wondrous to participate in, but yet—as Jesus noted by his crying out—they were failing to receive the spiritual water of God and instead they were focusing on recreating an event of centuries past. I say this is ironic, in that today we find the churches focusing, not on recreating events of the past as a commemoration of the importance of the event, but rather on progressive social ideologies that often conflict with the word of God itself. A so called social gospel that often drowns out the message of the Gospel of Christ.
Instead of uniting together as brothers and sisters in Christ seeking the water and spirit that Jesus spoke of, our churches are inculcating, not a gospel of the spirit that unites us in the name of Christ, but rather an ideology that divides us along social constructs and identities.
People who readily identify—when asked—as spiritual, seem to have an innate thirst for authentic spirituality, and apparently are not finding a cure for that thirst in these churches that are no longer churches of Christ, but which are now, for all pratical purposes, churches of progressive ideology.
But yet, if you really seek through the news media diligently, you will see signs that the Holy Spirit is descending again, in some ways, just as it did during that event we commemorate today.
The principalities of this world work to suppress the news of the spirit moving, but yet reports are emerging of young people filling the pews at revivals, mass baptisms, even the conversion of formerly reprobate celebrities who have now found Christ and are trying to turn around their life, to be as born again. We also are witnessing an increasing number of celebrities who are speaking out, unapologetically affirming their Christian beliefs and advocating for traditional family values and lifestyles. The Holy Spirit has touched the hearts of these individuals, compelling them to ignore their fears of persecution or their aversion to being called out as not being politically or socially correct.
As we observe the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon those in that room, let us be cognizant of the fact that there are many people in this world today, who are hungry for authentic Christianity. Those who thirst for authentic water and spirit that satiates the spiritual thirst. Those who can be characterized as being the least of these.
The “least of these” is a phrase that originates from Matthew 25:31–46, a passage often used in these modern times, to guilt Christians, causing them to embrace this false social gospel that is emptying the churches. Christians are not leaving because they do not want to help others, but due to the fact that they instinctively know that this passage, and others, are used out of context in an effort to guilt them into accepting what they know in their heart is wrong.
Matthew wrote this at a time, in which most likely the least of these, the needy, those imprisoned and persecuted, those that Christ called his bothers, most likely were his brothers and sisters, as it was a time in which Christians were discriminated against and tortured for their beliefs. Matthew was preaching to a congregation that knew all too well what the conditions Jesus spoke of were like.
While we are always to help the financially impoverished, a careful reading of Matthew 25:31–46 and its historical context demonstrates the need to give aid to the spiritually impoverished as well. When we look at how this passage was taught prior to the emergence of the social gospel a century past. We find a rebuke of the minsters who teach such false doctrines in these words of Jesus: “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me ”
There are yet those who are spiritually hungry, spiritually thirsty, naked in spirit, they are treated as strangers by the modern church because they hold traditional values dear. There are those who speak out against all sorts of abominations and now find themselves in prison, sick and isolated. But yet the churches of social gospel turn a blind eye to them.
The rest of us must keep the spiritually hungry and thirsty in our prayers, reach out to them and help them find the spirit that is once again moving today as it moved two millennia ago.
Benediction:
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.