GEMs of God’s grace for you to receive & freely share for your best year yet!

GEMs of God's grace for you to receive & freely share for your best year yet!
insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper & others from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on

“Sacrament”
for January 10, 2021

GEM#1: Fill your thought and heart with praise for God's excellence — against which there is no competing power! Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 150:1-6 (citation B7)
“In … the last Psalm [150:1-6] of the psalter, our responsibility is to praise the Lord, fill thoughts with such praise. [Verse 1] "In his sanctuary where he is: in the firmament of his power, " and He is never powerless. [Verse 2] "For his mighty acts," reviewing all the solutions in God's atmosphere, taking it in through the Holy Ghost, breathing it in. "Praising him for his excellent greatness,” against which there is no competitive power or challenge. [Verses 3,4,5] "With the sound of the trumpet, psaltery, harp, timbrel, dance," all the accompaniments to joy, “stringed instruments, organs, cymbals.” A grand finale indeed to the spiritual concert of a heart filled with God’s solutions, accepting no other word for it but God’s. For this is the concluding doxology for the entire Psalms.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

GEM#2: Be grateful that NOW is God’s time is to reverse the curse and pour-out blessings! Cobbey Crisler on Malachi 3:10, (cit. B10) plus verses 11, 12
Malachi 3: Verse 10 The blessing that God promises in verse 10— to “pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it”— is God saying to the lie “it is enough”. The deluge is to show the infinite supply that is able to pour through you. [no blessing will be held back] The deluge is to show the infinite supply that is able to pour through you.

Verse 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, for he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.” This promises that God’s time is now; our grateful acknowledgement of that is essential.

Verse 12 “And all nations shall call you blessed” (praise you—creative ideas); for ye shall be a delightsome land” (empty of fear, inertia).
Comments from B. Cobbey Crisler as recorded in Warren Huff’s Oxford wide-margin Bible

GEM#3: Cherish a Christly compassion to heal & demonstrate Love's provision!
Cobbey Crisler on Matt. 14:14 (B12) and beyond:
Matthew 14: “(Verse 13, before the verse in the lesson). Jesus hearing that John the Baptist had been beheaded, decides to make himself scarce, leaves into a desert place apart.
(Verse 14). “But the multitudes followed him.” Instead of saying, “Look, will you let a man be alone for once,” he turned around with compassion and healed their sick.”
Verse 15-20). And out comes the famous loaves-and-fishes incident in which everyone is fed, with a balance left over despite the fact that we’re dealing with thousands of people. …
And, right after this (Verses 24-33) we have the walking-on-the-sea incident.
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax-Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

A concomitant GEM: Find in divine economics that our Shepherd’s supply is inexhaustible, because “Love is, like 5 loaves and 2 fishes—always too little until you start giving it away!” Cobbey Crisler on Mark 6:35-44 (similar to Matthew 14:14-21 (B17)

“The only so-called miracle in all four gospels is the feeding of the “five thousand,” Verses 35-44. I put it in quotes because they were only counting the men. Out of the little boy’s lunch box comes five loaves and two fishes. We hear that from the gospel of John Chapter 6, Verse 13. They feed a multitude. Now we have a lesson on economics given to us by the Master. He didn’t regard that as a problem either. No Malthusian limitation on man that we’re going to outgrow our supply, and, therefore, we should kill off sectors of the human race in order to meet the supply. That’s Malthus and his philosophy of necessity. But we find Jesus saying instead in Matthew 14:16, “They need not depart.” Malthus says they need to be killed, but Jesus is saying, “They need not depart.”

Mark 6.37. The disciples say it would be impossible to feed the multitude, that it would take about “two hundred pennyworth.” The group was considerably more than five thousand if you count the women and the children.

What Jesus said to all the disciples made them become part of the remedy. Twelve baskets were taken around. There were twelve disciples. Each one was made to participate in the abundant result and learn from it. They started out with only five loaves and two fishes. They ended up with more fragments left over than they had when they started out. More available. That’s divine economics. It doesn’t exhaust.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

GEM#4: Hear on YouTube a Ken Cooper monologue customized for this week’s Bible Lesson. This week’s audio link to YouTube is called: “Here am I” and is written from the viewpoint of the boy who generously gave his loaves and fishes to Jesus for him to feed the multitude.

[Ken wrote:] “Sacrament is the atonement of God and man, that bond of togetherness, perfect union, in which the Life, Truth and Love of God are made manifest in our actions /reflections as man. As made clear last week, the ONENESS of God and Man is the guarantee of the perfection of man, God’s reflection. Man does and can do, nothing else. The outreach of man is the embracing all that Love is. Sacrament demonstrates Love, giving and receiving.

When Jesus symbolically offered his flesh and blood to the disciples the spiritual significance was immense. Much earlier he had asked his disciples who he was. Peter’s response that he was the Christ, the son of the living God, was the real significance of what Jesus was asking them now to remember. In everything we do, it is this Christ, “the divine manifestation of God” made manifest in our actions. Jesus was the living proof of Life, Truth and Love at work.

The story of the feeding of the five thousand shows Life, Truth and Love (indeed all synonyms) at work. In the monologue “Here am I” we have the testimony and witness of the young lad who gave what he possessed. When we give what we have, knowing it is the infinity of God’s goodness, that infinity is witnessed in everything we are, we do, we share, and “Loss is gain.” That is our duty, privilege, and true love expressed.

“Here am I”is the absolute Truth of Love’s declaration of intent and purpose, the continued ONENESS of God and man, the joy of prayer, kneeling together, and saying as one “Our Father”. “Here Am I” is beautifully both God and man………

In humble obedience, our lives are as bountiful as the loaves and fishes, the bread of Truth that feeds the world with freedom.

The related PDFs of Ken’s Lesson-customized offerings are attached to CedarS online version as upper right Downloads.

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GEM#5: Having finished his assigned work, Jesus models praying for God to be glorified. Cobbey Crisler on John 17: 1 (B13), +verses 2-4:
In Chapter 17 of John's gospel, Jesus is praying audibly. If we've ever wanted to be present when Jesus is praying, it would be during this very moving prayer indeed. It's divided into three sections. To whom does the prayer, represented in the first five verses, refer? Himself. It's a prayer for himself Jesus did take time out for himself. This is just before Gethsemane. So you know what's in his thoughts.

John 17:1. It's in this prayer he says, “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”

John 17:2, "As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. "

John 17:3, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

John 17:4. Imagine being able to say at the end of an earthly career, ''I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." It would be wonderful if we could say that in any given day. But this is an entire career.”

“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler

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GEM#6a: Find salvation thru inspiration, not perspiration!
Cobbey Crisler on Jesus’ Gethsemane hour in Matt 26:2, 36-45, & Mark 14:22-36, cit. B15):

Matthew 26, (Verse 2). Again, what is Jesus telling people? He is going to be crucified…
(Verse 36-45) “His Gethsemane hour he faces.” You have to read every gospel account of Gethsemane to appreciate it. The oil press (Greek meaning of “Gethsemane”), 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.”
"Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report," by B. Cobbey Crisler

GEM#6b: BONUS: Let's stand our ground like Jesus did and let only God's will be our master. Like Jesus let's sing hymns together and find inner peace and confidence before our biggest challenges. Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 26:1-45, Mark 14:22-36 (B15), excerpts from “The Gethsemane Decision”

"I'm not sure one could point to a more meaningful event in history than when Jesus, about to suffer the cruelty of Gethsemane and Calvary, spends his last moments praying for us whom he had never known physically, for those who believe on his disciples through their words.

On the slope of the Mount of Olives, just as it begins to rise from the Valley of Kidron, a very deep gulley that is a natural defense for the city of Jerusalem. …That valley of Kidron separates the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem proper. At the vantage point of that slope if you look back up to the city of Jerusalem, it looms above you, well above you. Its walls today pretty much following the outline of the earlier walls, although most of the construction is of the Turkish period in the 16th century. There above you, you see the entrance to what is called the Golden Gate. It's closed, boarded up, walled up, because a long tradition is that the Messiah would come through that Gate, so the Turks walled it up to prevent the Messiah from entry. Once again that sad action is perhaps an example of those few words, "Ye would not," the rejection of the Messiah. Human nature rejecting the very thing that can save it.

The brook Kidron is dry most of the year, only when the winter rains fill it do you have any kind of indication of water. Across from the city of Jerusalem at night, do we recall that John said that those who came to arrest Jesus snaked down the slope of the city into the valley of Kidron, and they were carrying torches and lanterns? I ask you to imagine what that would've appeared like from the vantage point from the beginning slope of the Mount of Olives where Jesus and his disciples were. It certainly would have been enough to strike fear in the average human heart.

Jesus certainly knew the objective of those who were coming. His disciples were falling in and out of almost a drugged-like stupor which prevented them from being any support whatsoever to their Master. The Gethsemane Decision is one that must be taken alone anyway, individually, alone with God.

…. What do you think the Gethsemane decision is? [Voice: "to let" God's will be made manifest…"] To let God's will. What's the other part of the choice? God's will or our own will, self-will or human will. Does that sound like much of a major choice? It's easy for us isn't it? Certainly, we do our own will easily. That's no problem at all. This may be why we have not succeeded where Jesus did. Where Jesus became one who could be called "Master." Because nothing ever mastered him.

Is the secret to being a follower and a believer of Jesus the straightening out of priorities in our thinking as Jesus established that method? God's will, not our own. It's something human nature is not used to. It is radical. If we are facing the basic, primary decision between success and failure, it's whether we are in tune with our own wills or whether we are totally committed to God's will. …

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…

……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 "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.

Matthew 26:36 "Jesus comes to a place called Gethsemane," the oil press.

Do you think that by going to so many of these preceding verses that we need now look for very little explanation as to the agony of this hour, and the burden Jesus was bearing? With all the world's tradition behind the necessity for doing one's own will, to take that as an escape route and Jesus slams the door on that forever. The only salvation is taking that door that the key of David unlocks, don't try to shut it, the Scriptures indicate. The Scripture is locked. Or we would not have the mention of the need of a key. The key to the Scripture placed into the lock shows that neither the lock nor the key is the ultimately important thing. It's what's behind that door, that open door for man to walk through. But no one gets there except through that door and except through utilizing that key.

Matthew 26:37 Peter, James and John fall asleep, in a trance-like sleep." It's hypnotic.

Matthew 26:38 Even after Jesus had said, "Tarry ye here, and watch with me." My mom pointed out a parallel here. I recall hitting my head several times that I'd never seen that. Those words "Tarry ye here” are exactly the words Elijah said to Elisha and Elisha refused to tarry, "As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth." Look at that for image and likeness to Original! "As God lives and as your identity therefore must live, I will not leave thee." My mother just said, "Just think of how different that Gethsemane experience might have been if the disciples had just learned the lesson of Elisha and carried that Scriptural inspiration with them. Elisha saw the ascension of Elijah because he did not give up. Jesus was left alone in this experience in Gethsemane. The deep sleep that fell upon the original Adam falls upon his descendants.

Matthew 26:39 "Jesus then goes away about a stone's cast," further spiritual distance from his disciples, perhaps, and his prayer, the Gethsemane decision, "Saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless" make no mistake where my commitment is, "not as I will," He told us that was his mission, not to do his own will but to do his Father's will. If Gethsemane had broken him, where would we be? "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." Is that Jesus overcoming the original sin of Adam?

Let's now turn to Mark's version of the event. Something no other Gospel records.

Mark 14:36 “Jesus says, Abba, Father, all things [are] possible unto thee." He's praying his own Lord's Prayer, showing that this is not a prayer that he doesn't participate in himself. "Abba," as some of you may know if behind every use of Jesus' word "Father" in the gospels. "Abba" is the Aramaic word. No other religious thinker or writer before his time had ever used "Abba" for God. "Abba" is a child's word. It is "Daddy." It's one of the first two words that a Hebrew and an Arab child learns today. "Abba, Imma [Daddy, Mama or Mommy]"

When he told us we could not enter in to the kingdom of heaven without becoming as a little child, he obviously meant we cannot say the Lord's Prayer effectively without becoming a little child. It's an infant's reliance on God and Jesus goes to his Father as a little child in Gethsemane. When we're making our Gethsemane decisions, we had better follow the example and remember "Abba,"

Mark 14:35 “He states, the spirit truly [is] ready, but the flesh [is] weak."

Let's go to Luke's version.

Luke 22:42 Luke tells us a few other things. As a matter of fact, [this is] probably the most well known expression of the Gethsemane Decision where Jesus says, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." Remember if the opening line of the Lord's Prayer is recalled by "Abba," Our Father, "Abba" being the original behind it.

[Luke 11:1,2] Look at "Thy will be done” in the Lord's Prayer. Why is it there? The prayer that Jesus himself gave us in response to the question, “Lord, teach us to pray."

[Matthew 6:9] "After this manner therefore pray ye." "Abba." (or Daddy) Immediately be a little child and be sure you're committed to God's will being done.

… "Not my will be thine be done" is Jesus using his own prayer in Gethsemane. If that Lord's Prayer can carry one through Gethsemane, it can carry one through anything. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says this,

"Humanly he has the possibility of an independent will. But this will exists only to be negated in face of the divine will. Its perfect agreement with the divine will finds expression in the declaration of its negation." And also adds, "The third petition of the Lord's Prayer in Gethsemane expresses not merely submission but consent to a comprehensive fulfillment of God's will in keeping with the hallowing of His name and the coming of His kingdom. It thus implies an ultimate and basic attitude on the part of the one who prays. It agrees exactly with the petition of the Son in Gethsemane. And again from the same Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, "What is meant in this statement 'not my will but thine be done' is the active divine resolve which cannot remain in the sphere of thought but demands action everywhere. We have the impression [in the Scriptures] that nothing human but only this divine will can provide the impulse of the execution of the plan of salvation."

… Gethsemane is the press, the oil press. Like Jesus, we must have oil within us. The pressure is still on. If Gethsemane is the press, can we say and be backed up by Scripture, that not my will but thine be done is the oil? If so, that's the Christ-oil. The word Christ is based upon the Greek word for oil. That's what poured out of Jesus' experience at Gethsemane. What is it designed to do? To anoint, to heal, to feed, to cleanse. If the pressure of Gethsemane is upon us, what is oil designed to do? Do we find in our character anything unlike that Christ-anointed example? Is that human will that needs to be crushed out forever?

We think we're in an oil crisis today. The pressure is on. But Gethsemane's purpose has a divine result regardless of what the world can bring to bear upon you and me, Jesus could say in part of that hymn that he sang before Gethsemane which is locatable in the later psalms, is still sung today at Passover, that he needed not to fear what man or flesh could do. Out of that experience flowed the oil that is still blessing us, is still being utilized. We're not in an oil crisis today if we're in the way with Jesus. We maybe at a "parting of the ways," the meaning of the word crisis. We may be challenged regularly and often to make our right decisions, our right choice, our Gethsemane decision.

… The world with its creaky joints awaits, needs, yearns, for more Christ oil to be poured from the thoughts and lives of those who have made the decision, are continuing to make the decision, and are moving from Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives to the summit of the Mount of Olives where Jesus himself ascended. We never have to budge from that mount. It represents both cross and crown, both problem and solution. And therefore that oil which negates the experience of the cross and delivers the crown shows us that those two symbols, as precious as they are in Scripture, are inseparable. If the cross represents the problem, and the crown the solution, then intertwined they deliver that simple message to me, problem solved. That is the result of the Gethsemane decision.”
“The Gethsemane Decision,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

GEM#7: Pass the test today of Christ’s love: divinely esteem & desire the best for all!
Cobbey Crisler on John 21:15-17 [B20 + BONUS verses at the “Morning Meal”

[Cobbey on Peter and the meal’s meaning:]
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.

[BONUS: Feel the unselfed agape Love that Jesus was asking of Peter!
Cobbey in the context of Jesus questioning Peter 3 times: in John 21:]
“…we do know that three times Peter denied Jesus. Perhaps here he has an opportunity to redeem himself in three tests…

Now we engage in a dialogue between Jesus and Peter. The dialogue as printed in the King James Version, 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.

… 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 l’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.

John 21:17. The third time Jesus asks the question, he does not any more say agapao [the Greek for divine love that desires good for one you esteem]. Coming to where Peter is, and attempting to build there, he uses the verb phileo [Greek for brotherly love], "Peter was grieved because he had said unto him the third time, Do you love me?" If we use the JB Phillip's translation, Jesus has simply said, "Alright Peter will you be my friend?" Peter says, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you. And Jesus said unto him, Feed my sheep."

That instruction to Peter, "to feed the lambs," _and then not the first time "to feed my sheep," but rather, "tend, or guard my little sheep," according to the Vatican manuscript, and finally, "Feed my sheep." This is an assignment for which Peter obviously qualifies and which he just as obviously fulfilled in the Book of Acts. (See citations B25 & B18, Acts 9:32-35 & Acts 10:1-35)

But he evidently failed to pass the test Jesus was giving to him to some degree. He had not risen to the highest love that was a prerequisite, something Jesus had in mind… ·

In John 21:19, Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Follow me." He had given Peter a mission. He had told him in indicating to him, "Feed my sheep," that Peter should be an "Abel" in his approach to Jesus' religion, not a “Cain” [Gen. 4]. But notice the tendency of human nature when one is aware that he has fared badly on a test. In a classroom, when the papers are handed back and we see we have a big red "F" on top of ours, out first tendency is what? Generally to turn the paper over so no one can see it. But after the initial flush of embarrassment has passed, the next tendency is to be curious about what our neighbor received, and a furtive glance to left or right might just reveal it.

In John 21:20, Peter, if he 'indeed flunked the test here, “turned about, and he seeth the disciple Jesus loved following. " The author wants us to be quite clear that this is the very disciple who leaned on his breast at supper, and had said to him, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Although avoiding naming this disciple, we find him described with certain precision so that the reader was not to be at a loss for identity.

John 21:21, "Peter, turning to this other disciple, the beloved disciple, with whom we have been visiting throughout this gospel, Peter says to Jesus, Lord, and something. He had not really comprehended what Jesus was after or where Jesus was trying to elevate him. Perhaps John would win a position or an honor that Peter himself failed to qualify for?

John 21:22, Jesus had a response to Peter, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.” That seems to deliver a clear message that there would be a gap of time, and Jesus and John would have some relation even beyond the ascension of Jesus. Perhaps Peter had been tested for this very same role, but it would be John who qualified?

Where would that be? Where do we find Jesus and John together? In the New Testament after the gospels, in none other book than the Book of Revelation, except for a brief inclusion of John with the other disciples in Acts 1:13.

Let's turn to the Book of Revelation to see if this is the unfinished business Jesus was referring to when he said in John 21:22,"If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" … He "tarried" almost sixty years, if not more, beyond the time of Jesus' ascension, and received the Revelation on the island of Patmos…

…The entire Bible meets the student in the Book of Revelation. Is that book what Jesus was referring to at the end of the Gospel of John when he said, "If I will that he, the beloved disciple, tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." (John 21:22). Peter, you have your mission. You are assigned to feed my lambs, to tend and guard my young sheep, to feed my mature sheep. But John has a very essential, important, individual mission as well. As usual there is a misunderstanding on that point.

John 21:23 states a rumor went among the brethren that this disciple wouldn't die. Notice the care with which either the author himself, or a later editor, states that Jesus didn't say, "He shall not die" but, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”

Among the early traditions about John, recorded in early primitive Christian literature, is his punishment under Roman authority by being boiled in oil. The account reads that he did not die. He survived being boiled in oil. Although this is not attested to in Scripture, there is much early evidence pointing to that as part of John's biography. That recorder, that scribe, under orders, went through and survived in following the command of his Master, to be a fisher of men…”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

** Bible Talks by Cobbey Crisler: Both audio recordings and transcripts of Cobbey Crisler’s popular Bible talks are now available from the Crisler Library at Oxford. You can contact the library at office@crislerlibrary.co.uk or contact Janet Crisler directly at janetcrisler7@gmail.com.