“Change-for-the-best” GEMs Loved & Lived!
God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly in this PARTIAL SHARING of insights from Cobbey Crisler & others
as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Sacrament”
for Sunday, July 9, 2023
(Cobbey Crisler’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps
GET OUT of a MORTAL SHELL! STOP BELIEVING the FABLE & CURSE of an earthy, EGG ORIGIN!
In bite-sized pieces, victory, after victory, after victory “swallow up death in victory.” “Put on” the total wholeness of “incorruption…” and “immortality.” Abide “in heavenly love… (where) no change my heart shall fear.” (Hymn 148)
I Cor. 15:48/prelude to selections from the Golden Text and Responsive Reading (RR):
“As is the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven.” (NIV)
[Cobbey Crisler on the following bonus verses,1st Cor. 15:50, 53 (Responsive Reading):]
“Another conclusion is coming through Paul’s receptivity. He presents two views, one with man within an egg origin, one out of an egg origin. A chicken takes 10,000 pecks to get out of its shell of limitation. Bible pioneers like Paul worked hard to get out of their limited, mortal shells and they communicated this to us. [Mary Baker Eddy says, “Mortals must emerge … They must peck open their shells with Christian Science…” (S&H 552:14)
I Corinthians 15, verse 50 (RR): “…flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
One might ask “Why are we trying to drag flesh along as if it’s a party?” [This relates to Mary Baker Eddy’s observation: “Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thitherward.” [S&H 21:25]
“Take up your bed and walk—Mind suddenly takes on the glow of our original, incorruptible glory.”
I Corinthians 15, verse 53 “…this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
I Corinthians 15, Verse 54, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
[Cobbey Crisler writes on bonus postlude verses:] “In Isaiah 25:8 & 9: Just to see how the peak of prophetic insight, namely Isaiah’s great thought, dwells upon this concept of healing. Does that sound familiar to you at all? It talks about God doing what? “Swallowing up death in victory.” That’s where Paul gets that concept. He mentions it [in 1 Corinthians 15:54 (RR)]. It’s from Isaiah. “Swallowing up death in victory; the Lord GOD wiping away tears from off all faces;” and the beautiful statement that “the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth.” That goes way beyond just physical healing. It’s totally whole, nothing left fragmented. Certainly, the radical statement of “swallowing up death in victory,” swallowing is not always at once, is it? It’s bite-sized pieces, victory, after victory, after victory, swallowing up the effects of death.”
From notes in the margins of Warren’s Bible from a talk by Cobbey Crisler**
“GET READY FOR “A COMPLETE CHANGE for the BETTER!” ACTIONIZE ROMANS 12:2 (cit. B1)
[FYI:] “In one of Mary Baker Eddy’s Bibles, she wrote beside Romans 12:
“Romans 12 is Christian Science.” (MBE Accession #B00017.C)
Romans 12:2 “. . . be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Conformed is syschematizo in Greek which means “to conform one’s self, one’s mind and character, to another’s pattern, to fashion one’s self according to (www.blueletterbible.org, Strong’s Lexicon 2964).
Transformed is metamorphoo in Greek which means “to change into another form, to transfigure, i.e. resplendent with a divine brightness, to the same image of consummate excellence that shines in Christ, reproduce the same image” (www.blueletterbible.org, Strong’s Lexicon 3339).
“Acceptable – That which will be pleasing to God. or which he will approve. There is scarcely a more difficult text in the Bible than this, or one that is more full of meaning. It involves the main duty of religion to be separated from the world; and expresses the way in which that duty may be performed, and in which we may live so as to ascertain and do the will of God” (Barnes Commentary from www.biblehub.com).
JB Phillips’ translation – “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”
James Moffatt’s translation – “Instead of being molded to this world, have your mind renewed, and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is, namely what is good and acceptable to Him and perfect.”
YOUR FOCUS on GOD CHANGES YOU, even when it SEEMS just partly FULFILLED
Cobbey Crisler on II Corinthians 3:13-18/citation B8
[Cobbey:] “In 2nd Corinthians 3:13 it says that Moses had to “put a veil on his face,” because… they weren’t really ready to face the abolition of so much that we trust right now that doesn’t deserve our trust, so much that we depend upon, other than God.”
“Instead of that veil, look what we must do in Verse 18, “We all, with,” what? “Open face.” Now here are the instructions; when in doubt, read the instructions. “We all, with open face,” no veil, no mist. “Behold,” how? “As in a glass.” Immediately we’re talking about what? Original and reflection. What are we supposed to look at? What’s our model? “The glory of the Lord,” and look what’s going to happen.
“Are we going to be changed into shame? No, the more we look at our Original, the more we will be “changed.” It’s passive again; we’re not doing the changing. Our focus on God changes us. The more light we face, the more transparent we become for that light. We “are changed into the same image.”
“Does it happen overnight, all at once? No, “from glory to glory.” Here we have the word glory expressing the very steps of our way, not from crisis to crisis, but from “glory,” that’s victory. There is an identity that is showing its supremacy over everything that the world has calculated to suppress it. It’s “from glory to glory” that we go down the way, making visible spiritual progress, because it’s happening from “the Spirit of the Lord.” (verse 17)
“This verse has caused the Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary to say that glory to Paul is “a partly fulfilled reality, although it is also a future expectation into which we enter by degrees.”
“We know when we’ve progressed just as we know when we’ve been inspired. We have already found glory palpable to our spiritual senses right here. Here is the link the human has with the divine, the link that we can tug on in the midst of kinds of bad news. This is why the gospel, or good news, elevates, uplifts our human experience because it is linked to facts that are quite applicable now, even though only partly fulfilled, perhaps some even tenuously based on what we think is hope rather than present fulfillment.”
transcribed from “Glory: Divine Nature in The Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
AN APPLICATION GEM TO CHERISH AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY MAKE YOUR OWN!
WAKE-UP & CHANGE YOUR Genesis to “yield to the harmony of divine Mind.” (citation S10, 162) with “NO opposing element” (My. 292, see P.S.)
Welcome to YOUR BODY the INVIGORATING & PURIFYING “sunlight of Truth” (162)
Affirm: “Christian Science brings to the (my) body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies … The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, revive) the (my) human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point, Genesis), on which it may yield to (concede to, give acknowledgement to, admit to, forfeit to, surrender to, hail to) the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:4-5, 9, citation S10).
These sentences begin & end a paragraph I’ll always treasure because it helped save my life!!
That’s why I always share my gratitude for it whenever any part of it is in the Bible Lesson. You can read about my 2008 healing of a large, cancerous growth thanks to a healing hymn sing and my in-depth, follow-up applications of this full, powerful paragraph – word by specific, healing word:
“Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates (refreshes, revitalizes, stimulates, enlivens, energizes, animates, rejuvenates, strengthens) and purifies (cleanses, disinfects, sanitizes, decontaminates, filters). Christian Science acts as an alterative (a medicinal plant that causes a gradual beneficial change in the body, usually through improved nutrition and elimination, without having any marked specific action OR A medicine or treatment which gradually induces a change, and restores healthy functions without sensible evacuations), neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions (emissions, discharges, oozings), expels humors (4 Medieval ones to be balanced: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, black bile), dissolves tumors (growths, cancers, lumps, swellings), relaxes rigid muscles (“thought-forces”), restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to (concede to, give acknowledgement to, admit to, forfeit to, surrender to, hail to) the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:9, citation S24).
P.S. “YIELD to the HARMONY of divine Mind” (162) with **“NO opposing element” (My. 292) and “so far above all mortal strife, or cruel creed, or earthborn taint, fill(ed)… today with all Thou art…” (Hymn 23)
**Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “My answer to the inquiry, “Why did Christians of every sect in the United States fail in their prayers to save the life of President McKinley,” is briefly this: Insufficient faith or spiritual understanding, and a compound of prayers in which one earnest, tender desire works unconsciously against the modus operandi of another, would prevent the result desired. …
“These conflicting states of the human mind, of trembling faith, hope, and of fear, evinced a lack of the absolute understanding of God’s omnipotence, and thus they prevented the power of absolute Truth from reassuring the mind and through the mind resuscitating the body of the patient.
“The divine power and poor human sense — yea, the spirit and the flesh — struggled, and to mortal sense the flesh prevailed. Had prayer so fervently offered possessed no opposing element, and President McKinley’s recovery been regarded as wholly contingent on the power of God, — on the power of divine Love to overrule the purposes of hate and the law of Spirit to control matter, — the result would have been scientific, and the patient would have recovered. …
“In a certain city the Master “did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief,” — because of the mental counteracting elements, the startled or the unrighteous contradicting minds of mortals. And if he were personally with us to-day, he would rebuke whatever accords not with a full faith and spiritual knowledge of God. He would mightily rebuke a single doubt of the ever-present power of divine Spirit to control all the conditions of man and the universe.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 292:13–294:15)
MAKE FOR YOURSELF “The Gethsemane Decision” (abbreviated)
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 26:1-45/cit. B12
[Cobbey’s talk in part…:] … “Jesus found what humanhood could be when the Divine was behind it every step of the way. There is nothing in Jesus’ humanhood that could stop the Divine from manifesting itself on earth as in heaven. This may be our decision we’re talking about.
“Jesus refused to allow anything to obstruct the divine will from operating on earth. Look what he was able to do with his own humanhood as well as with the humanhood of others as a result. He could take his fragile, one would think, human frame, anatomically speaking, through what was apparently at least the sound barrier, if not the light barrier. In no way did his body hamper him when we walked above the water.
“He therefore had dominion, obviously, over what we call a law of gravity. Yet when he subdued gravity through this sense of dominion, gravity had no control over the dominion-man. Notice he was not like our astronauts, weightless as the result of negating gravity. He was still in absolute control of every aspect of his being and progressing toward his destination. He didn’t have to do it step-by-step because we hear that when he set foot in the boat instantly, not only Jesus, but the comprehension of Jesus could embrace his disciples plus boat, and get all of them through what we feel today, technologically would require heat-resistant metal, crash helmets, oxygen masks, or whatever else in order to preserve the human frame, and to get it through such stresses and pressures and tensions. Jesus was used to the pressure of Gethsemane, the olive press. He did not fear what flesh could do to him, obviously…
… “If our thesis as presented is accurate, that the implication of Paul’s statement [I Corinthians 15:22], “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” presents problem and solution, or remedy, then one of the greatest research jobs awaiting all of us is to get back into that problem called Adam which we’re all wrestling with.
“Just make a list of everything you detect that Adam did wrong mentally and physically. Because, if it is true that Jesus’ mission was to remedy the Adam man and wipe that alternative off the face of man’s consciousness, then everything that Adam did wrong which was upside down Jesus is going to put right side up and prove that man is upright. Many things may occur to you, for instance in the initial phases of such a list which we could just touch upon. Adam’s problem occurred in what environment? The garden of Eden. Where did Jesus face down and confront that Adam- problem? The Garden of Gethsemane. Is this a coincidence? Is Gethsemane intended to be the remedy for the problems of Eden in our own thinking? I love in that context to remember Isaiah’s words [Isaiah 1:29] when he says, “Ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have chosen.” Eden, Gethsemane.
“Adam’s problem, though, is probably symbolized most graphically by what? He had been told not to do something, what was it? “Not to eat of that tree” [Genesis 3:3]. Instead he went and did it. The disobedience, doing one’s own will, would have to be totally remedied right up with the same even greater peak pressure on a humanhood that had just announced to the world that the way to get out of this Adam-mess is to yield to God’s will regardless of the pressure upon you, so [it’s] doing God’s will versus doing one’s own will.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know that the New Testament refers several times to the cross as the tree, that they nailed Jesus to the tree [Acts 13:29; 1Peter 2:24]. Interesting symbolism. The attempt to nail Jesus as if he were one more in the dying race of Adam, to be nailed to death, and that’s the termination and the end of anything that he would offer man radically as salvation. Jesus could not be nailed on the cross any more than God’s man could be nailed on the cross, and thus his theology was exemplified.
“Do you remember, – just things like this to show you how much fun this work can be as well – part of the curse on Adam [Genesis 3:17,18] was that thorns will be brought forth unto him. Did Jesus have to face Adam’s thorns on that weekend? …
“We’re going to review the actual events of the Gethsemane experience and see some of the differences. What Jesus faced, what he was remedying, why he was there and see that we must, just for gratitude’s sake alone, have a stake in that Gethsemane, pioneer work. But then we must take it beyond this. We must go and do likewise.
Matthew 26:30 (citation B12) “When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” A hymn before Gethsemane. That shows the value Jesus places on such an uplifting of thought through the conjoining of music and words. The meaning that is often conveyed even more deeply to us when we have that unity of soul expressed by thought in that manner.”
“The Gethsemane Decision,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
SEEK & FIND SALVATION THROUGH INSPIRATION, NOT PERSPIRATION. Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 26 /citations B12
[Cobbey:] The Last Supper and Gethsemane in Chapter 26, (Verse 2). Again, what is Jesus telling people? He is going to be crucified.
(Verse 14). “‘We are introduced to Judas.”
(Verse 15). “And the sale price of a slave, thirty pieces of silver.” That’s what a slave could be brought for. He was selling Jesus for the price of a slave.
(Verse 18). “Passover comes. Jesus knows what that’s going to mean.”
(Verse 24). He again using Scripture says, “As it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! ” It did not have to be Judas. But Judas elected because greed in his thought completely overpowered any other right element. He betrayed his Master for gold.
(Verse 26). “We find the Last Supper.”
(Verse 30). ”The last thing Jesus does before he goes out into the Mount of Olives is to sing a hymn.”
I suggest that you very quietly at home take Psalm 113 all the way through 118. Those are the hymns still sung today by Jews at Passover. These were undoubtedly the Psalms from which that hymn would have been taken. I think that every hair on your head will stand on end and you will be moved very deeply to read those psalms and determine what probably was being sung by Jesus, among which is a modern hymn, “This is the day the Lord hath made.” Just think when he sang this.
Look at the verses that face the subject of death. It’s very moving indeed. Psalm 118 and 116 specifically. Connect it with that event. Do it privately and within yourselves. Because it’s a very precious moment of studying the Scriptures.
(Verse 31). Jesus quotes Scripture, again, Zechariah 13:7, about “the shepherd being smitten, and the sheep scattered.”
(Verses 36-45). “His Gethsemane hour he faces.” You have to read every gospel account of Gethsemane to appreciate it. The oil press that forced out of Jesus, according to Luke, sweat that looked like drops of blood pouring on the ground.
Jesus was fighting the Adam-myth of man’s origin, where the curse on Adam was, that from the sweat of his brow he would survive. Here Jesus was overcoming that claim on man of perspiration and relying on man’s salvation through inspiration.
(Verse 50). Jesus’ first words to Judas. Could you have said that to Judas? “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Verse 53). He says to Peter who chopped off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, “Don’t you know that I could pray to God and immediately be saved?”
(Verse 54). “But how shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be?”
“What was Jesus using as his guide going right through the crucifixion? Everything he found in the Scriptures or he wouldn’t do it.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
NOTE THE PROPHECIES AND THEIR FULFILLMENT IN THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 27/citation B13
Matthew 27: (Verse 26 of Chapter 27). “Then, the scourging, the whipping of Jesus.”
(Verse 60 of Chapter 26). “The two false witnesses.”
(Verse 74). “Peter’s denial to the point where he’s cursing and swearing. The cock crows.” (Verse 75). “Peter remembers that Jesus had told he would do this. He goes out and weeps bitterly.”
Chapter 27, (Verse 3). ‘Judas tries to give back the money”
(Verse 5). “Being unable to, he goes out and hangs himself.”
(Verse 9). “Matthew finds in prophecy spoken by Jeremy the prophet even the prediction of the sale of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.”
He says it’s Jeremy. It may have been in his version, who knows? But we find it today in Zechariah, Chapter 11, Verse 13.
(Verse 19). We find the political drama between Pilate and the Jews accentuate to the point that Matthew is the only gospel to mention Pilate’s wife. “Pilate’s wife had a dream not to bother this just man.” But what man listens to his wife?
(Verse 24). Pilate goes ahead and succumbs to political pressure. “Washes his hands, saying he is innocent.”
(Verse 29). “The crown of thorns. The mocking of Jesus.”
(Verse 34). “On the cross, he’s given vinegar to drink mingled with gall.” That is in prophecy, too, Psalm 69, Verse 21.
(Verse 35). Matthew says that also. The parting of the garments is in prophecy. This is Psalm 22. Just read Psalm 22 from beginning to end and see how your own view of prophecy might change.
(Verse 38). “The two thieves.”
(Verse 39). “The wagging of their heads.”
(Verse 41). “The chief priests mocking,”
(Verse 43). Saying, “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now.” You’ll find that in Psalm 22, the very words.
(Verse 46). “Jesus saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Is that just a cry of a bewildered, defeated man? Read Psalm 22 and you will see in the opening verse, it’s an exact quote of that Psalm. lt was as if Jesus were saying to humanity, if you want to know why I’m here and really appreciate my role, read Psalm 22. So, should we do any less than turn to that chapter?
(Verse 55). “Many women stick with him and watch the events.” Verse 56 gives us a list of them.
(Verse 57). “We find he is buried in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea who is called a rich man.” In connection with also read Isaiah 53.
Note Jesus’ on-cross awareness in Matt 27 (cit. B13) of his fulfilling a 1,000-year-old prophecy in Ps. 22
W: In his remarkably inspiring talk, “The Walk to Emmaus,” Cobbey Crisler gives an eye-opening review of Jesus’ words on the cross. They tip us off as to his confident awareness of his fulfilling prophesy by asking for God’s help in Psalm 22:1 and joyfully getting it a “live for ever” resurrection to “glorify him” (Psalm 22:26, 23). You’ll be rewarded by some “wows” in the divinely precise correlation of verses from the Old and New Testaments if you follow this advice from Cobbey that I partially transcribed with Janet Crisler’s encouraging permission from “The Walk to Emmaus.”
[Cobbey] “Rather than go through it and take away that thrill of discovery, study the statements Jesus makes from the Cross … Instead of worrying why our Master seemed to bend under pressure, that higher view of our Master working scripturally at every moment will be rewarded by finding the passage in Psalms 22:1. The context in which it appears (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) was written one thousand years before the crucifixion.” “It was as if Jesus were saying to humanity, if you want to know why I am here and really appreciate my role, read Psalm 22. So, should we do any less than turn to that chapter?” Just read Psalm 22 from beginning to end and see how your view of prophesy might change.” The very words of the priests with their wagging heads in Matt. 27:39-43 are foretold in Ps. 22:7-8. Ps. 22:16 foretells of the piercing of hands and feet and Ps. 22:18 prophesies the parting of the garments and casting of lots for them as recorded in Matt.27:35. Matthew 27:32 We’re going to see some of the details of the crucifixion. Remember Jesus kept emphasizing that the prophet had said that the Messiah would suffer.
Matthew 27:33. We know of a place of a skull or Golgatha.
Matthew 27:34 We’re aware that the drink he was given has almost an exact recipe which you can be assured is not in my wife’s cookbook. [Laughter] It says, he tasted it but he would not drink.
Matthew 27:39 Then it says, “they that passed by” beneath the cross “reviled him, wagging their heads,” Please remember that, “wagging their heads.” Remember we’re reading the fulfillment. We’re going to go back to prophecy shortly to test it out.
Matthew 27:43 and Psalms 22:8 Then we find at the bottom of the cross that the chief priests and the scribes and the elders, the ones who knew the Scripture best, presumably, saying, – if we would all read together I think it will really bring it more to thought. Let’s read it out loud. – “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” How would you characterize that remark? It’s rather what? Wasn’t enough to nail him on the cross without that sarcasm that he said he was the Son of God. So, let God say that. It really isn’t worthy of those who are holding high theological positions of that period, or any period. But that seems to be human nature.
Certainly, it stirred Jesus to the very roots of his being, the real roots of his being. That, of course, would refresh him on the cross. Do you think it reminded him of anything? If it did, do you think it was partly responsible for the very next thing that is uttered audibly?
Matthew 27:46 and Psalms 22:1 The very thing that many Christians wish their Master had never uttered, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ...My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Just keep in thought the sequence of this.
Psalm 22:7,8. As Jesus may have done with his disciples which caused their hearts to burn within them. Perhaps ours will too. Let’s read together verses 7 and 8 out loud. ‘AII they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: lei him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” a passage maybe one thousand years earlier than the event. Do you think that if you were disciples and Jesus was reading these two passages and you had witnessed to that, that any hair on your head could be horizontal?
You saw those events, and Jesus is describing them from centuries-old documents, and that isn’t all. They could have recalled the next thing Jesus said on the cross after the scribes and Pharisees had said that. They could have recalled that Jesus said something they wished he hadn’t said. Yet suddenly, in the light of what they see here, and in the light of the fact that how better could Jesus, as a Scriptural student, sound a trumpet note for every Scriptural student from his time through our century, than to do what every Jewish boy did in memorizing the Psalms, because they would recognize the Psalm by the first verse.
Psalm 22:1 [“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”] Is that a coincidence? Was Jesus saying to every receptive thought [that] he told people to search the Scriptures to find him? No one can really comprehend what he said on the cross unless they find it here in Psalm 22. Because it’s not simply a cry of agony, even though it came from the very depths of an agonizing experience. It was a quotation from the Scripture and a Scriptural student of Jesus’ caliber would not quote from Scripture unless he meant it like a direction signal in the horizon down through the ages, pointing to the very same Scripture. Isn’t it as if he were saying, “Read this if you want to understand why I am here.” So, let’s read it. I’m sure the disciples suddenly had the Bible given to them as they never had before. Suddenly the suffering aspects of the Messiah in prophecy came out through the very pioneer who had fulfilled those prophecies.
Psalm 22:13 Suddenly we find that “They gaped upon me [with] their mouths,”
Psalm 22:14 describes “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” Anyone remember John’s [19:34] description of what happened when the spear pierced his side? It said, “Blood and water poured out.”
Psalm 22:15 says, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.” A very vivid description of a man who is in thirst.
Do you remember one verse in the gospel of John [19:28]? I’ll read it to you just while you’re looking at that Psalm 22 verse. Listen to how John does this. John was one of the fellows who went fishing. But look how he is writing for the record. ‘After this, Jesus knowing that all things were accomplished,” How did he know? Did he know the blueprint? “That the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” Those disciples didn’t even know that before the walk to Emmaus and before the time that Jesus talked to them in that room….”
FIND YOUR RESURRECTION STONE ALSO ROLLED BACK WITHOUT HUMAN HELP. Matthew 28:2+, cit. B14
(Verse 6). The angelic announcement is that Jesus is risen.
(Verse 7). “The women are told to go and bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection. “Women were not allowed to bear witness to anything in the courts of law of the Judaism of his period. What qualified women to bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection? Because they were there and they were receptive. It was receptivity that counted.
(Verse 16). The last view we have of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew ”when the eleven disciples go away to a mountain in Galilee.”
(Verse 17). Notice, it’s said almost pathetically, that “some of his disciples doubted.” We know of one, Thomas.
(Verse 18). “Jesus comes, announces, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”
(Verse 19). “He cites their mission,” to go where? Just to the Jews? All nations, the universality of Christianity, all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
(Verse 20). That baptism of the Holy Ghost is combined with fire! “Teaching them.” We have been beneficiaries of this apostolic succession of the Spirit. “They taught that we were to observe what Jesus commanded.” Do we benefit from the statement Jesus left with his disciples to give to us, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
How do you and I find immediate access to Jesus? In the Scriptures. Isn’t that where Jesus told his disciples they could find him? In the Scriptures, fulfilling the prophecy. How about Matthew our tax-collector? Our despised customs official. Did he fulfill what Jesus had personally directed him to do? Did he teach others “to observe all things wherefore Jesus had commanded him”?
You will notice that he ends his gospel in that way, and has given to all generations following Jesus’ words, “I am with you alway.”
Through the gospel of Matthew, we do have that sense of Jesus with us always.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
FACE GOD TO BE CHANGED INTO HIS LIKENESS.
Cobbey Crisler on II Cor. 3:13+ (cit. B15)
[on open face vs. masked face:] “In Verse 13 it says that Moses had to “put a veil on his face,” because… they weren’t really ready to face the abolition of so much that we trust right now that doesn’t deserve our trust, so much that we depend upon, other than God.”
Instead of that veil, look what we must do in Verse 18, “We all, with,” what? “Open face.” Now here are the instructions; when in doubt, read the instructions. “We all, with open face,” no veil, no mist. “Behold,” how? “As in a glass.” Immediately we’re talking about what? Original and reflection. What are we supposed to look at? What’s our model? “The glory of the Lord,” and look what’s going to happen.
Are we going to be changed into shame? No, the more we look at our Original, the more we will be “changed.” It’s passive again; we’re not doing the changing. Our focus on God changes us. The more light we face, the more transparent we become for that light. We “are changed into the same image.”
Does it happen overnight, all at once? No, “from glory to glory.” Here we have the word glory expressing the very steps of our way, not from crisis to crisis, but from “glory,” that’s victory. There is an identity that is showing its supremacy over everything that the world has calculated to suppress it. It’s “from glory to glory” that we go down the way, making visible spiritual progress, because it’s happening from “the Spirit of the Lord.” (verse 17)
This verse has caused the “Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary” to say that glory to Paul is “a partly fulfilled reality, although it is also a future expectation into which we enter by degrees.”
We know when we’ve progressed just as we know when we’ve been inspired. We have already found glory palpable to our spiritual senses right here. Here is the link the human has with the divine, the link that we can tug on in the midst of all kinds of bad news. This is why the gospel, or good news, elevates, uplifts our human experience because it is linked to facts that are quite applicable now, even though only partly fulfilled, perhaps some even tenuously based on what we think is hope rather than present fulfillment.”
“Glory: Divine Nature in The Bible,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DIVINELY LOVE & ESTEEM ALL AS YOU “CAST YOUR NET ON THE RIGHT SIDE” (toward the Decapolis & the rest of the Gentile world – a new take we got from our Principia Holy Lands Tour guide ( a Palestinian Christian) when at this Morning Meal site Jan. 2020) [plus Cobbey Crisler on John 21:1+/cit. B16, plus Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual sense of “the last spiritual breakfast with the disciples” (cit. S13, 32:15-34:9 and cit. S17, 34:18-29 next page)
[Cobbey:] “John 21, the last chapter of John, is considered by some scholars to be a later addition, but still, very possibly, by the same author.
“John 21:1. We’re told that Jesus appears at the Sea of Tiberias, which is Galilee.
“John 21:2, “Already assembled there were seven disciples, all who had left the profession of fishing, – we thought: Peter; Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, unnamed here, James and John, and two other of his disciples.”
“John 21:3. They apparently had nothing to do. Discipleship returns to the fishing boat. “Peter,” with his fingers almost audibly drumming against the side of his boat, “says I have an idea. I’m going fishing. Nobody else had any better suggestion. “So, they all go fishing. They spent that entire night fruitlessly. The very fishes avoided them. “Isn’t it interesting that the Anchor Bible makes this comment on the disciples’ profession, “It is notable that never in the gospels do the disciples catch a fish without Jesus help.”
“But notice the contrast between Verse 3 and Verse 4
John 21:3, ”That night they caught nothing.”
“John 21:4″But, when the morning as now come, Jesus stood on the shore.” What patience Jesus had with discipleship! Waiting for them to realize the importance of carrying on his work. But, once again, without that realization, “they did not even recognize Jesus humanly.”
“John 21:5. Jesus asked the main important question. You’ve spent the entire night out there. “Children, do you have any results? Do you have any meat? No is their answer:
“Now it is obvious when one is fishing – using a net that there’s very little difference between the right side and the left side. The factor then brought out in John 21:6 just be the obedience to Jesus’ word, the concept that he has exhibited throughout in his approach to economics and supply. “Cast the net he says, “on the right: side of the ship, and ye shall find. ” They are obedient. They do exactly what Jesus requests of them. Now, instantly, they find their net is filled with fishes. They could have saved themselves that entire night.
“Then, John 21:7 refers once again to ”the disciple whom Jesus loved. He recognizes Jesus. It is the Lord, he says.” He must have recognized. that sign of dominion. over all, that mastery that he introduced even into the profession of fishing but was attempting to elevate them from profession to practice of Christianity. What had happened to his invitation to them, and expectation of them, to become fishers of men?
“Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet and novelist, says this about it the impetuous Peter, “O Peter, gnarled. branch of the vine.” Peter throws his fisher’s coat around him and plunges into the sea. We must remember that the sea of Galilee has a shoreline that drops off quickly. So, he probably had to swim part of the way. Traditionally, sailors and fishermen. aren’t the best swimmers. But, ignoring that, just as Peter had burst into the tomb to be there first, he casts himself into the sea.
“John 21:8. ”While the other disciples bring the ship ashore, it says they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits, that’s about a hundred yards. dragging the net with fishes.”
“John 21:9. Here’s all that time they could have spared by giving priority to the lessons Jesus had already taught them. Jesus hadn’t toiled all night. He didn’t even have to use the fish that they brought in. “For when they arrived there “was a charcoal fire there.” In fact, the Greek word is anthrakian which is the root of our word anthracite. “And fish. already there; laid thereon– and bread.” Toast and fish all ready.
“John 21:10. But Jesus wanted them to participate in this, “and said, bring of the fish which ye have now caught.”
“John 21:11. Simon Peter, who was already on shore, goes to the net personally, and pulls it to shore. Who but a fisherman would remember this detail? ”There were one hundred fifty-three fishes in that net. Someone counted. It might be just the sign of the authenticity of authorship here by an eye-witness. “And still. the net was not broken.” Remember, back in Luke 5:6, at another incident, the net broke.
“John 21: 12. “Jesus invitation is “Come and dine.” Now, they know who he is.
“John 21:13. “Jesus,” in his characteristic gesture, “took bread, and gave them, and fish likewise.” This was indeed a breakfast, but how different from that last supper! This breakfast was celebrating his victory over death. Not looking forward to tragedy, death, and lack of comprehension by the disciples, the dawn was in the disciples thought as well as over the sea of Galilee on that special morning.
Now we engage in a dialogue between Jesus and Peter. The dialogue as printed in the King James Version (KJV), seems rather dull and repetitive indeed. In the original Greek however, there is a depth of meaning.
“John 21:15, “Jesus says to Peter, Do you love me more than these?” It’s obvious that Peter is being tested. We may ask, tested for what? That becomes clearer later in the story.
…
BONUS word study for the Greek words of philia and agape, both translated LOVE here in the KJV:
“Another word which we find repeated in the Greek New Testament, is philia, a word that conveys brotherly love. It still has a sense of class consciousness about it. It has the compassion and the sympathy, such as organizations like the Peace Corps show. But there is sometimes a condescending quality in the thinking of those who are expressing love at the philia level. Almost like patting the head of the one you are helping. As if implicitly we were saying, you’re down there and I’m up here, and I’m going to try to help you.
“The Greeks had a higher sense of love than that. And of course, taken out of classical Greek, it has a renewed and fuller meaning in concept in the New Testament. That word is agape. Agape, according to one commentator and lexicographer, conveys the following, “To desire good for the one you esteem. The concept of divine love.”
If I should to choose to love you at the level of agape, look what is required of me. First, I must esteem you. That’s not patting you on the head. That’s eye-to-eye respect and esteem. Can one really have love anywhere without that quality of respect? I must esteem you. But that, too, could be a passive sense of love, without that other part of the definition which this one commentator had provided.
“To desire good for one you esteem. I must be actively employed in desiring for you good or I am not operating at the level of agape.
“What word do you think Jesus uses when he says to Peter, “Do you love me?” ”Agapao?” he says. But Peter responds in the original text, “Yes, Lord you know that I love thee.” But he uses the word “phileo.” Maybe that explains Jesus’ repetition.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” B. Cobbey Crisler**
ENJOY AN EXCELLENT BONUS YouTube VIDEO PORTAYAL OF VERSES in JOHN 21 FROM CITATION B16, INCLUDING VERSE 25 AT John Chapter 21 – Bing video
