Warren Huff’s PS#1—Cobbey Crisler insights on John 12:50 (RR)
“There is much discussion as the chapter ends in John 12:50 when he states, "Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." Understanding the earlier Scripture in the Old Testament gives a clue to that.
“Back in Deuteronomy 18:18 when the prophecy stated that a Moses-like prophet would come, one of the descriptions of that prophet-to-come read this way, (quoting God), "I will put my words into his mouth, and he shall speak whatsoever I command him." Notice how close the paraphrase is here. We know Jesus was certainly aware of the Scriptures. "And the word was made flesh." He is communicating to Bible students through this paraphrase. "Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." It's the equivalent of Jesus saying, "I am the prophet mentioned by Moses," because that is the prerequisite.”
"Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple," by B. Cobbey Crisler
W’s PS#2—Cobbey Crisler insights on John 14.26 (RR) teaching of the Comforter
“John 14:26 picks up the description.
“The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.”
There's another part of the list, identified with the Holy Ghost in Luke 3:22, the dove descending is the symbol of it. The words "dove” and "ghost” are feminine in the Greek, and the comfort aspect also introduces the feminine concept.
“The role of the Comforter, "will be sent by God in my name.” If one were to regard that literally, the Comforter's name should at least have some recognizable aspect either relating to Jesus or to Christ. Another aspect of the Comforter is "he will teach you all things.”
"Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple," by B. Cobbey Crisler
PS#3—Cobbey Crisler insights on John 1:14 (2): (“made flesh”… “only begotten”
“To show that it isn't pie-in-the-sky, John 1:14 introduces the word "made flesh,” lived, illustrated, exemplified; it's been done, it's not just theory. The thought has been uttered in human experience, in life. Human life itself has seen this Word fulfilled. Was he the vanguard, the way shower?
He is called in Verse 14, almost in contradiction to what I'm saying, that he was "the only begotten of the Father." That seems fairly exclusive, doesn't it? Since it would also contradict Verse 12 where it refers to "sons of God," it just must be something in the translation we're missing, the intent: You can't have sons of God and have one son being the only begotten. That would be mixed up theology right in the beginning in a book that we are saying is extremely clear and close to Jesus own thought.
So, what have we got? The Greek word "mono genes” doesn’t mean “only begotten." If it has any meaning that we can express in English, it could be "unique," in the sense that he was representing the original man as a model. In other words, the only real man that God could ever beget.”
"Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple," by B. Cobbey Crisler
PS#4 – Cobbey Crisler on Mark 1:14-22, 34 (B3)
“Mark 1, Verse 14. We have "John put in prison." He has already disappeared from the scene. And, ‘‘Jesus comes into Galilee, and his work begins."
Verse 15. There are four foundational aspects to the gospel we need to study. Normally, an architect might refer to just one cornerstone in a building. But let's remember that all four of the corners have cornerstones. To that degree, let's ask ourselves if this is not a clue to understanding Mark. We have a foursquare gospel, and at each corner we have a particular point. If this is true, you should be able to compile the information that follows in the gospel under one of the following four headings.
(1) The announcement that, "the time is fulfilled." What does this mean? Prophecy. The time for the fulfillment of prophesy has arrived. So, everything is just brimming in the gospel of Mark with this great news. All of the expectation is over for the Messianic prophecy: We have a fulfillment now. ‘What could be more exciting than to be living in an era of fulfilled prophecy? Nothing, apparently, because this is what impels the gospel writers to pick up their pens….
Study Mark as if it were a textbook, filled with data that Jesus needed us to know in order to follow him. It is a handbook, so to speak, a textbook where we can find data that can be applied. Those four foundational points, under "the time is fulfilled," you will see over and over again, explicit or implicit, in the text.
(2) The second one, “the kingdom of God is at no distance.” It is right here. Even that idea is radical to Christendom today often because the kingdom of God, or often heaven, is considered to be so far away from any of us now. It is out of reach, and we’re not really behaving ourselves sufficiently to get there. It takes Palomar’s 200 inch reflecting telescope to even get a glimpse of it. But we find the founder of Christianity saying, ''Not so." His theology is based on the fact that "the kingdom of God is at hand."
Do we act like it is? We moan and we groan most of the time. We wouldn't if our state of mind was the “kingdom-of-God-is-at-hand" and the “prophecies-are-fulfilled." But those are only two of the cornerstones.
(3) The third one is “Repent!" That means to change your concept. Now, we’re going very deeply to the roots of what is required of us to get 
anywhere spiritually. The problem is mental or he never would have stated it in this way.
It would be cruelly misleading if he laid down as one of the four important aspects of his theology the fact that we had to change our concepts of things. The implication is that every human ill, physical, moral, mental, all can be changed mentally. Otherwise, repenting wouldn’t make any. Changing one's concept wouldn't make any difference.
This might be where maybe we temporarily get off the train leading to Jesus' theology. We may say to ourselves, if our bodies are riddled with cancer, of what avail would it be to change our concept? How would that affect the body? The implication is that this is the panacea. Repent ye. Change your concept about things.
Do you realize what kind of a religion that suggests? It's very revolutionary in this respect: nothing is incurable from the point of view of Jesus ' theology. If you can change your concept, then everything is curable. That's some good news of victory that has yet to hit the human race with any impact like Mark, the hammer.
(4) The fourth and final cornerstone is to "believe the gospel," That "believe" is not just to hold an opinion that .waves in the breeze. This is a conviction on and a trust in the pronouncements of the gospel of the kingdom of God, and that "kingdom of God is at hand."
With that structure of the gospel in mind, we can do this kind of work together. As a matter of fact, the reward comes from doing this work individually and meeting each other that way. It affects the world's climate by doing this kind of deep research. In your own individual study, try those four columns.
The time is fulfilled,
The kingdom of God is at hand,
Repent ye,
Believe the gospel,
and see how you can outline the whole gospel in that way.
We may just discover that Peter becomes one of the most polished orators of all time. Yet he is regarded as a rather simplistic fisherman who probably stumbled in Greek and was more at home in his Aramaic.
In Verse 16, Peter and Andrew are introduced to us. The Anchor Bible suggests ·they probably already knew Jesus. That would also conform more readily to John's account. Remember, they met or saw Jesus at the baptism. That would have been down in Jordan. In Verse 14 we’re back to Galilee.
There is a recognition factor. "He saw Simon, Andrew his brother. ''It is not by chance that Jesus appoints his disciples, "He sees them casting a net into the sea: they were fishers." Apparently they were not very good ones. I say that. because the Anchor Bible with tongue in cheek tells us that there 's no record anywhere in the gospels that the disciples ever caught a fish without the help of Jesus. They were ready for a new profession anyway.
Verse 17, · "Jesus said, ‘Come after me I will make you to become fishers of men." Notice the intriguing aspect of that call. Because if you weren’t intrigued, you’d stay in your fishing boat. "Fishers of men, " if you weren’t up to the level of seeing the wryness of that appeal, you wouldn’t move. But if you were there, “Fishers of men, " let us go find out what that's all about. Then you would have left. They left a living here. Many of us may have, without being aware of it, been summoned by that same Christ-command to follow and be “fishers of men." But we are too busy with our professions, or our professions are our priority.
Verse 18. So, we do not make the same apostolic response as Simon and Andrew did, "Straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him."
Verse 19. And "later James and John." They even had a small business going. They were real entrepreneurs. ·
Verse 20. Because, "they left their dad Zebedee with the hired servants." They were filling out Social Security forms and everything on these people. "They left and went after him. '' (Jesus.)
Verse 21, “Straightway on the Sabbath day.”
Let’s look at the gospel from above. Let's see the divine structure here that is motivating what we are being told.. Aside from simply gathering the first disciples and paying tribute to John the Baptist's fulfillment of his mission, a greater sense of baptism, the fact that Jesus is defining things in Mark for us. He’s defining things like church, and baptism, and man, and repentance, and relationship. All of these things are major definitions. But we have to move from the day-to-day approach into the narrative and see this happening in an overall tenor behind the text.
The Sabbath day is an important thing, because what we’re supposed to do on the Sabbath day had already been defined by a commandment (Exodus 20:8). We were to keep it holy. Is he going to be consistent or inconsistent with this commandment? We test his every move. "He enters into the synagogue, “where worship is going on, “and he teaches."
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Mark1, Verse 22. What he is teaching is so radical that his hearers acted as if they’d never heard this before. How wonderful! That means it's inspired. They didn't recognize in his method anything they were used to in the scribal method the Bible experts, the teachers of that period. In Jesus' remarks they heard more authority coming across than they had ever heard from the local ecclesiastics. …
Verse 34. And, especially because Capernaum was located on the shore of Galilee, the specific complaint that Jesus had to deal with concerned “divers diseases.” (Did you think that meant the bends?)
The word that is used for “heal” is the root of our word “therapeutic.” It doesn’t really mean heal in its primary sense. Why was this word selected to describe this healing? It means to serve. Look what the definition of healing is. It is serving. Serving whom? Serving God and man. Is this or is this not obedience to the Commandments? Loving God and loving man turns out to be the service if healing…
He did not have them standing in lines according to their diagnostic reports. All the ears-eyes-nose-throat people over here, and so forth. “He cured them of divers,” of many, “diseases.” There was no physical diagnosis made. Every healing was accomplished. Not one case was lost.”
“What Mark Recorded” by B. Cobbey Crisler
W’s PS#5 – Cobbey Crisler on Luke 4:33-36 ( B6)
“Luke 4:33. This first specific healing is the one of the unclean devil. Many of these healings require steps. There is a sequence in healing, in many cases, three specific phases that Jesus goes through before the healing occurs.
One asks the question, "Why? Couldn't Jesus heal instantaneously?" We know he did. But look at the value for us in having the method that he used preserved step by step.”
“Luke the Researcher” by B. Cobbey Crisler
PS#6—Cobbey Crisler on Mark 7:32-35 (B9) Jesus heals one who is deaf and dumb
“Mark 7 
, Verse 32. Here we have peculiar to Mark, a healing of one who is deaf and has speech impairment. This may be considered, according to commentators, as too crude by the other gospel writers to include, but it contains a great lesson. Again we have three treatments.
Verse 33 has treatment Number One. We shouldn't be surprised to see, "He took him aside from the multitude.” Why? In an apocryphal book called Recognitions of Clement, Peter is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more difficult, my brethren, than to reason concerning the truth in the presence of a mixed multitude of people." There's a privacy of prayer. ''Pray to thy Father in secret,’’ Jesus said about prayer in Matthew 6:6.
So, the Second Treatment, “He put his fingers into his ears, spit, and touched his tongue.” We may say, “Jesus, why did you have to do it that way,” right? It seems to argue against the way he had already established.
What does he do with the one he is dealing with? He is meeting a mental state that is dualistic and confused. It needs the tender lesson and mercies of the Christ, to summon it to that purity that can see God and, therefore, be like God. Thus it can have every vestige of the mixed nature of impurity removed. You have a deaf man. You can’t communicate to a deaf man, not audibly. So, what does he do? He knows what the problem of that individual happens to be. He’s not going to alarm that man any more than he did the twelve-year-old girl who woke up from that so-called terminal sleep. He simply goes to that individual and tenderly points to the areas that he knows constitute the problem, and that he is going to deal with. Nothing defensive by the man. No alarm expressed. He simply “put his fingers in his ears, spit, touched his tongue.”
Verse 34. Then the Third treatment, “Ephphatha,” Aramaic for “Be opened.”
Verse 35, “And immediately.” We don’t have Jesus assigning him months with a speech therapist in order to learn how to phrase the language which he hasn’t spoken or heard from others, “He spake plain. No surgical operation.
“What Mark Recorded” by B. Cobbey Crisler
PS#7—Cobbey Crisler on the “The Sower & the Seed” parable Luke 8. 4-15 (B11):
“Parables are now given starting with Verse 4. There is one that deals with receptivity more than any other parable he gives. The words "hear" and "ears" are repeated more often in this parable than any other. In Verse 5, it's about "the sower that went forth to sow." It's one of the few parables that Jesus ever gives an interpretation of. You notice in Verse 8 one of his favorite phrases is there, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
Let's look at the interpretation. It says in Verse 11 that "The seed is the word of God." Notice that Jesus' teaching is not always meant to be taken literally. He is dealing in symbols. He's teaching spiritually through symbols. That must mean it's the ideal and most effective way to do it.
Where is this seed, the word of God landing? Where is the field?
In Verse 12, the word "heart" is mentioned. In ancient times, that was considered to be the seat of intelligence. If, then, we're talking about thought, the seed that is growing in thought must mean our mental condition determines whether the word is going to be fruitful. Aristotle said this, using a similar metaphor: "The soul of the hearer must be wrought first into a state of preparedness by the training of habit like land that is to foster seed." We have a clear symbol then of the word. We've got mental conditions that are similar to rock; with very little room to grow.
In the beginning, receptivity is a joyous, "Gee, it's what I always wanted to hear," or something like that. But it has no root (Verse 13). There we go back to the lack of foundation… It’s temporary. It lasts only briefly and there’s no radical commitment, no depth.
I skipped the wayside to Verse 12, where the fowls are peeking away at the surface of thought, “taking it right out of our heart.” The wayside is a mental condition that has failed to prepare itself for the seed and failed to welcome it, nurture it, cultivate it, and then receive fruit.
Verse 14. Thorns is a mental condition that is already “choked with care, riches, and pleasures.” In Greek, the word “pleasures” is “hedona,” the root of hedonism. With all that choking going on, the ability for those tender little seeds to work their way up through the obstruction is compromised. We have given greater priority in our mental garden to the cares, the riches, and the pleasures.
Verse 15. Now “the good ground, honest and good heart” is the soil. Do you see some ingredients there we saw in many points he’s made up to now? The good soil is what kind of receptivity? Not only hearing, but doing, and bringing forth, “keeping it, and bringing forth fruit,” and notice, “with patience.”
Even if it doesn’t happen overnight, which very few plants will promise us from our garden, the patient wait for fruit. Properly preparing and nourishing it, in the right conditions, will look today like it did yesterday. It is supporting progress daily, leading to the eventual fruits.”
“Luke, the Researcher” by B. Cobbey Crisler
You can buy your own transcripts of most of Cobbey’s 28 talks at a new website: www.crislerlibrary.co.uk Please email your order or inquiry to office@crislerlibrary.co.uk, or directly to Janet Crisler, at janetcrisler7@gmail.com]
