Rubel Shelly and John York Certifying John's Gospel

You will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. John York and Rubel Shelly use this as proof text that those unrecorded and therefore surplus words of Jesus are now avaliable if you have the HOLY SPIRIT PERSON living inside of you. You will not only know more than John but you will DO GREATER WORKS. Unfortunately, God puls the wool over the eyes of those who don't love the truth: He didn't say that we would speak greater words or perform greater miracles or DO pagan worship center greater than the old, degenerates down the street. He said that you will do GREATER WORKS.

Now, WORKS comes from a word like ERGS by which we measure the amount of "sweat on your brow" as you teach more, baptize more, travel more, are persecuted more, are tortured more and CARRY THE GOSPEL FURTHER.

If you are not doing that then the PERVERTED PROOF TEXTS and historical quotations will turn on you and rend you.

We will quote John calvin who identifies these views as that of fanatics and an infatuation of the devil.

The Jesus Proposal: laity looses right to interpret and speak the word

A Prophetic Presence

Shelly York "Narrative Theology"

Certifying John's Gospel (John 21:24-25)

> Premise: John wrote his gospel account ONLY on the insistance of his fellow presbyters. They helped John write it, added chapter 21 and then CERTIFIED the document to make it valid. Therefore, they were already acting as Catholics and placing their IMPRIMATUR on John's work to CERTIFY it.

However, it is not uncommon for Paul and others to post script their letters just as we often do.

> This was important because in a previous sermon Rubel Shelly taught that John "sifted" old memories through philosophy and came up with the Greek idea of the Logos to fit his own personal agenda.

> John said that Jesus said many other things not recorded in his book.

> We are promised "greater" works than Jesus.

> We have the promise and the "approved example" of further revelation by hearing the audible voice of Jesus.

In another sermon:

The Holy Guest will supply everything you need. In your weakness,

you will feel his strength.

Not only through the exhortation of the Word of God

but in your daily routine,

you will hear from

and experience the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

the indwelling Holy Spirit is also proof of a unity and partnership with Christ that is so intimate

that it will allow you to share in every experience he has had.

As we remember it, Christ was God who PATTERNED the idea of laying aside His garments of Majesty and Glory and taking on the "clothing" of a man in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.

Therefore, the Word or Christ is manifested as Father and Son. This means that if Rubel Shelly is going to experience every experience God has had then we don't buy it.

> Therefore as an "evangelist selected and empowered by the sovereign grace of God" what we HEAR is what he SEES through NEW GLASSES and reveals as a NEW VISION FOR THE CHURCH

> Our experiences CERTIFY that we are now hearing those words Jesus didn't reveal through the Scriptures--for lack of room in the world. And this is proven by the promise that we will do greater things than Moses and even Jesus.

> The NEW glorified church of gentle, peace and non-judgmental members contrasts with the harshest judgmentalism mankind can compose the OLD Bible-patterned churches.

> The bad news: Jesus promised greater WORKS but not a fuller revelation. Works means ERGS expended: sweat and suffering and more baptisms as Paul certified the ONLY TRUE EVANGELISTS by their suffering.

---

Rough take on review 6/17/02

[Note: This sermon was preached as a dialogue between John York and Rubel Shelly.]

Rubel Shelly: One of several texts that really came alive for me for the first time in this series is John 7. At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus played off the symbolic action of a water ceremony to promise "living water" that would flow out of a believer's heart (v.38).

According to John, that was a reference to the Holy Spirit.

True, but according to Jesus and the Bible, SPIRIT has to do with the Mind of Christ (1 Cor 2) which Jesus said was the Word.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

The NIV permits "spirit" to be Spirit and so it is. Therefore, if you repudiate the Words of Jesus you repudiate the Spirit and there can be no Life in you.

For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. Jn. 12:49

And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. Jn 12:50

If Jesus didn't speak all that is necessary for life and godliness then He was truly inadequate and we need to replace Him. However, if we are going to hear Jesus tell us something new then we claim that the FATHER is telling us what to say and therefore claim to be inspired.

Rubel Shelly: In reading this Gospel previously, I had never picked up on the constant thematic references to the Spirit. Jesus was "from above," and those who follow him must be born from above, receive light and life from above, experience eternal life from above, get soul-encouragement from above, look to guidance from above, and so on.

But:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

THAT which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 1Jn.1:1

If you don't qualify including being an eye-witness to the resurrected Christ then you don't qualify to witnes, certify or speak the Words of Life from the Word of Life and Spirit.

Rubel Shelly: John is certain that so long as we live in this world &endash; the world below where Satan holds sway (cf. 8:44-47) &endash; we cannot overcome its evils without belonging to God and to the realm that is from above.

The presence of the Holy Spirit marks, empowers, and delivers those who have faith in Jesus.

Here is the only way to shine in a perverse world:

That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,

among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Phil 2:15

Holding forth the word of life;

that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. Ph.2:16

Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. Phil 2:17

It does seem strange that one could fully grasp the meaning of worship "in spirit" which is in the human mind as the anti-type of the Most Holy place of the temple: we can come boldly before the throne of Grace,

and at the same time promote "BODY WORSHIP" intended to create an exhilarated feeling like the charismatic ecstasy of ancient and modern paganism.

By fully grasping that NO MUSICAL LEVITE (made noise, not music) could stumble into the Most Holy Place singing or playing an instrument without being killed, how could a "musical worship facilitator" be hired to Lead the worshipers into the presence of God?

And the Holy Place of the temple was reresented by the Bread, the candlesticks or the seven spirits of God all represented by mental learning, and the incense altar where prayers are offered.

Therefore, how could a musical levite come into the church and not into the Holy Place--even to clean out garbage.

Since the church was a synagogue or school of the Bible with the addition of the Lord's Supper how could you be so far off center as to suggest that preaching, giving or making announcements are acts of worship?

How could you ear of the Shewbread with pork between your teeth while the 'team' sings, hums or clapps where only silence was allowed?

Religion defines most of our theatrical "worship" services. However, Christ died to create a School of Christ and to disband the roles of priests, scribes and doctors of the law. Why did it take so long to grasp that the Kingdom of God is not a "now but not yet" visible power base for clergy but Jesus said "the kingdom of God is within you." So how can a Seeker Center collect truth seekers when they are outside the gates or camp which is where we will find Jesus sitting under a tree ready to teach us His Spirit Mind.

John York: Whether it was the series of lessons in chapters 13-17 or the unique way in which John tells the story of Jesus' death and resurrection or the particular "signs" or all of those double-meaning texts,

the dramatic words of the prologue have been authenticated:

"Now God the only Son has made him known." By seeing the Son, we have seen the Father. I especially appreciated what you said a couple of weeks ago about the testimony of the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (20:22-23).

But Luke said that He did this by commanding them. The almost universal imagery of the church fathers is that God "breaths" or uses "spirit" to propel His Words out through his lips as "double-edged" swords. Breath gives life through Words which are Spirit and Life.

The Spirit is the Word of Christ (John 6:63) and "spirit" is ministered by Paul through preaching that which Christ commanded. The Words of the eternal Spirit cannot be less than Spirit.

Jesus said that all of the authority of FATHER, SON AND SPIRIT is bound up in the NAME of Jesus or Jehovah-Saves. Therefore, full Deity is manifested in Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul said that the Holy Spirit to us is the Mind of Christ (1 Cor 2) and in the second letter to those who could not grasp the Word of God:

Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 2 Cor 3:16

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3:17

Just what is it about ABC that you don't understand!

Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 1 Peter 1:11

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God:

for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Revelation 19:10

The Godhead is explained most often even among those who use the word "trinity" as God blowing breath (spirit) out between his lips (double edged swords) to speak the Word of God. This is the promise of knowledge:

And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:22

The Holy Spirit breath then blew out the Mind of Christ:

Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. John 20:23

However, Luke defines the same process as SPEAKING THE WORD of God through the Spirit or Mind of Christ:

Until the day in which he was taken up, after that

he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments
unto the apostles whom he had chosen: Ac.1:2

The commands of Christ IS Spirit and Life.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

 

Whatever this means, it does not apply to John or Rubel or the church UNLESS they claim to be a 13th apostle which would be very self-deceived.

So it is not Jesus PLUS the Holy Spirit as a separated member of the "god family" but it is Jesus the man throught he Spirit which dwelled fully in Him by which He delivered Spirit truth.

When we speak to someone we BREATH on the with out "spirit" and sometimes it ain't good, especially during sanging them old songs.

When Christ breathed on them he "gave commandments" through His own Spirit where revelation has always been through the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1;11).

Here is what the BREATHED as a way to remit sins:

And he said unto them,

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:16

Peter showed that this is how the teacher REMITS sin by applicating the Spirit-breathed and preached Word:

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2:38

There is no other Biblical way of remitting sins. Therefore, we do not have power to be a "father" and remit sins.

Because "located evangelists" is an oxymoron we should remember what John Calvin asked: "Why should the ploughing oxen starve while the lazy asses are fed"? Therefore, those who get paid but DON'T GO cannot remit sins by preaching the core Gospel which Jesus preached by beginning in the Old Testament.

Rubel Shelly: See? Another of those Holy Spirit references in John! I think the point I made about it put it in parallel to the Genesis creation story. Just as God breathed into Adam and made him alive, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into that first band of his followers to give them a vibrant and dynamic presence in the world. If the original church hadn't had his supernatural presence, it would have never turned its world upside down.

When the Spirit Lord appeared to Paul He identified Himself as "I am Jesus of Nazareth." When Paul needed instructions it was not from a third member of the Godhead but from the Spirit Christ.

Scholars agree that Paul universally identifies the Holy Spirit as the Spirit or Mind of Christ. For instance, in 1 Cor. 2 Paul equates The Holy Spirit to the Mind of Christ.

When Jesus died, Peter said: "I'm going fishing" and did not receive any vibrant and dynamic power. Only when Jesus promised to return as the "another Comforter" to be the Abiding Mediator (now replaced by the performance preaching and musical worship teams) did the Apostles receive the power promised

AND he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. Mark 9:1

Only when the eleven received the power or proof that Jesus was indeed still alive and "guiding them into all truth" did they display that power. What did they do?

Why they preached how one might have their sins remitted and the fulfilled the Spirit of Christ by "Going into all the world and preaching the GOSPEL which is the Spirit message according to Jesus in John 6:63.

Hard to find any of those parlor qualities of "vibrant and dynamic."

They didn't preach the social gospel, organize 50 ministeries according to a BUSINESS MODEL and try to "become all things to all people." They knew from Jesus and the synagogue that "church" was not a pagan worship center but a School of the Bible where Spirit or Word is dispensed.

Rubel Shelly: And if today's church doesn't learn to live in Spirit-presence rather than by business models for marketing religion, it is dead. It is just another from-below imitation of a from-above possibility!

Hm! Wonder who it is who has sown so much discord by promoting the Willow Creek business and entertainment model?

Was that some of the minutiae of the "same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before?

Can't remember much CONSERVATIVE "marketing" of religion except by the pseudo-scholars trapped in the VORTEX of a "black hole" where all truth has been lost and we are waiting for it to go through a "worm hole" and come out in a "white hole" before we get a new message from the unrecorded words of CHRIST.

Christ who is full Deity (Col 2:9) as Father and Spirit dwells in us only to the extent that we grasp the Mind of Christ through His Word and "keep my commandments."

There is no Holy Spirit as the Africal "little man (spirit) inside of the big man (me)" guiding anyone into the unspoken Words of Jesus now revealed to His latter day, 13th apostles.

Walter Scott will be called as our first witness to agree with the almost-universal view: Walter Scott, Christian Baptist, Feb 1827, defines Spirit According to the Greek language "Again--Some will say, What does the expression Holy Spirit mean? Well, in scripture it stands first for God the Holy Spirit, and secondly for the holy mind or spirit of a believer-- For illustration, take Peter's words to Ananias, "Why has Satan tempted you to lie to the Holy Spirit; you have not lied to men, but to God," (the Holy Spirit.) And the Saviour says, How much more will your heavenly Father give a holy spirit (as it should be translated) to those that ask him. Again--Praying in a holy spirit. Again--Paul says he approved himself God's servant "by knowledge, by long sufferings, by kindness, by a holy spirit'" by a mind innocent of the love of gain, or commerce, or sensuality. "How then the expression stands for both God the Holy Spirit, and for a believer's spirit made holy by him. "I shall now answer, from scripture, the following questions.--When do we know that we are born of the Spirit? I answer, when we know that our spirits are holy. But it will be asked again, when do we know this? I reply, when we behold our minds producing the fruits of a holy spirit. But what are the fruits of a holy spirit? Paul says they are joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance, against such there is no (written) law. This is the nature of the Spirit of the Lord which would rest upon Jesus Christ: AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: Isa 11:1 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; Isa 11:2 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: Isa 11:3 ] This is not decadent and deleterious Church of Christism: this is the universal meaning of the Church Fathers none of whom were not gagged by the notion that God is three separated persons which they recognized as Egyptian or Babylonian but not Christian.

John York: That also fits with your comments last week about the ending of John's Gospel with

this "extra" chapter
that points to the testimony of Peter --
and to our own witness as well.

Life beyond the resurrection meant Peter and the rest could try to go back to fishing, but that really wasn't going to be possible. And it wasn't just that Peter and the rest had become bad fisherman because of a three-year lay-off. It was because there was ministry to be accomplished.

Rubel Shelly: Absolutely! The resurrection had changed everything. It would never again be "business as usual" for those men.

Now, the set up for you. They misquote the evidence that it was only because of his friends insistence that John wrote his gospel account.

Chapter 21 is not recording history but it is John remembering how Peter was apparently "disfellowshiped." However, because John sifted these old memories through philosophy and HIS OWN PERSONAL AGENDA, John decided to show Peter as RESTORED TO FELLOWSHIP.

Since the pair agree to an extra chapter, somehow John must have been convinced by one of his friends that they need to rehabilitate Peter. Maybe this was a pre-Catholic who saw the need for Peter to be the first Pope?

John York: Clearly John wants us to know that Peter is fully restored to ministry and that he's not called to worry about anyone else's calling -- what God chooses to do with that other disciple is God's business.

Well since the "proof text" misquoted really says that writing the account was John's idea and he was directed by the Holy Spirit, when asked for a "hard copy" which would always have to be written at someone's request, the IGNORED evidence would say that John recorded what actually transpired between Peter and Jesus.

It's ok not to believe that John is inspired but it is not ethical to claim to be an "evangelist by the sovereign grace and empowerment of God" and TAKE PAY for repudiating the Bible as the SOLE INFORMATIONAL BASE FOR THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

John Locke is so despised by liberal preachers because John Locke would declare that John York and Rubel Shelly do not belong to the same religion as those who just teach John as it "has been taught."

Rubel Shelly: I also wonder if John isn't trying to tell his audience then and us now that more than Peter's rehabilitation is at stake in this chapter.

I have a hunch that these last two verses are another example of John's love for multiple meanings.

Well, if the unrecorded words of Jesus are now being re-visioned through NEW GLASSES why not just tell us?

This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. John 21: 24

This is not a validating witness: this is John speaking of himself. The misquoted proof text REALLY claims that the Holy Spirit inspired John. What we are supposed to believe is that this EXTRA CHAPTER which has been written SOLELY by request now contains (by request) the rehibilitation of Peter.

But this denies that John was inspired. Therefore, the double meaning is that it is either inspired or it is not. It simply says that Jesus as God Incarnate is from eternity and this is the only thing which CANNOT be written in a book.

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. John 21: 25

Now, since John is "extra" stuff written by request, this verse opens up a passageway by which WE can get extra words from Jesus.

Rubel Shelly: "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (21:24-25).

Eusebius: Why need we speak of him who reclined upon the bosom of Jesus, who has left us one Gospel,

though he confessed that he might write so many that the world could not contain them?

And he wrote also the Apocalypse, but was commanded to keep silence and not to write the words of the seven thunders. He has left also an epistle of very few lines; perhaps also a second and third; but not all consider them genuine, and together they do not contain hundred lines."

In addition to rehabilitating the "presumed defrocked Peter," the other "coded" message is that since others than John were involved in writing "scripture" that might allow us the same power. However, the proof-text is horrible castrated.

Totally, 110% False Teaching to Prove a False Doctrine. If this quotation is wrong then the "maybe" proof text for MY inspiration is gone!

The presbyters or Bishops became Popes and they together could ALSO write inspired SCRIPTURES. However, the Catholic Encyclopedia are not going where John and Rubel are trying to lead:

Origen's teacher, Clement of Alexandria (d. before 215-6), relates as " the tradition of the old presbyters", that the Apostle John, the last of the Evangelists,

"filled with the Holy Ghost, had written a spiritual Gospel" (Eusebius, op. cit., VI, xiv, 7).

Quoting quotes from quotes is dangerous BREATH to inspire something newly revealed from Jesus. Clement of Alexandrian from the Books of the Hypotyposes wrote:

"Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances:-Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, in as much as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter's knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged.

But John, the last of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth in the Gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends,

and inspired by the Spirit,
composed a spiritual Gospel.

Eusebius' translation is:

Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner: The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Marks had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.

But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel,

being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. This is the account of Clement.

No, this repudiates Shelly - York that John's poor memory sifted through philosophy led John to write based on HIS OWN PERSONAL AGENDA.

And, no, John didn't need certification from the elders to give value to His inspired record. John picked up the loose ends under the direct guidance of Jesus so that we have not only the record of the historical facts but also the SPIRITUAL meaning. This seems to repudiate the Core Gospel of Shelly's seven facts ABOUT Jesus and proves that the gospel includes much more.

Rubel Shelly: If that is correct, these last two verses may be from a hand other than John's own.
Perhaps the first-person plural "we" here is a certification from the elders of that church.

That would have them saying: "We know this eyewitness, attest to the authenticity of his upright and truthful character,

and attach our own certification to this document.
As men who have received and are living eternal life that comes from above, we commend the story of Jesus to you who read it."

No, John was inspired by Christ the Spirit and did not need to be certified by the elders:

This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. John 21:24

John speaks of "the apostle whom the Lord loved" but he is himself that apostle. The WE had nothing to do with inspiration. Rather, Irenaeus verifies that they had heard the gospel account from others

Irenaeus testified:

"Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, 154 and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit;

but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord,

[affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. 156

Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also,

and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] the statement.

Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?

Note 156 Trajan's reign commenced A.D. 98, and St. John is said to have lived to the age of a hundred years.

So, perhaps they had also heard the gospel from Peter. That might help keep us from denying inspiration based on misquoting traditions.

Clement also records Peter's trip to Tripolis and other places so apparently he didn't need John and his helpers to rehabilitate him.

Only those who personally knew some or all of the apostles, could CONFIRM that they all told the same story. This contradicts John York and Rubel Shelly:

As men who have received and are living eternal life that comes from above, we commend the story of Jesus to you who read it."

No, they were witnesses to the fact that what John spoke and wrote was what they knew to be the truth. There is no hint in the evidence that THEIR PERSONAL GOODNESS validated the Scriptures.

That would be testing Scripture by our own lives and therefore making God in our own image?

We have not seen, have not heard and therefore cannot TESTIFY as a WITNESS.

By definition, an apostle had to be personally chosen and empowered and taught by Jesus and that he had to be an eyewitness of the resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, how could elders not eyewitnesses prove that John was an eyewitness. Does their "notary stamp" give more power to John's eyewitness account.

Remember that the FIRST IMPULSE came from John who was inspired by the Spirit. The context Rubel Shelly quotes is of those who want their own personal copy of the inspired record.

Shelly has not convinced York:

John York: Well, maybe. But I'm not convinced. I think John makes it very difficult for us to know much of anything based on singular or plural or first-, second-, or third-person address. After all, he never makes a self-reference in this Gospel, calling himself instead "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Back in chapter 19, there was that third-person comment in verse 35: "He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth." ...

In the next verse he goes back to first-person plural to talk about prayer -- "when we ask anything in his name.

Not even John York is going there but look where he is going:

John York: I know that's a bit of overkill on something quite insignificant! But there are other double meanings here that are significant.

IF # 1: What if the testimony that is true, that to which "we" bear witness does goes beyond John to his original audience --

IF # 2: and even to us?

IF # 3: What if the many other things done by Jesus not written in this book

are to be heard as the ongoing activity of Jesus

in the life of those Spirit-filled followers?

Matthew Henry: Those that argue from this against the sufficiency of the scripture as the rule of our faith and practice, and for the necessity of unwritten traditions,

ought to show what there is in the traditions they pretend to be perfective of the written word;

we are sure there is that which is contrary to it, and therefore reject them.

By these therefore let us be admonished, for of making many books there is no end, Eccl. 12:12. If we do not believe and improve what is written, neither should we if there had been much more.

The first base of this study was that John sifted old memories through philosophy and "took liberties" with them to create a gospel account to fit his own personal agenda.

The second base was that YOU TOO can take liberties and create your own NARRATIVE to fit your own agenda and life's experiences.

So, we have denied that John was inspired or even self-moved or Spirit moved to write his account. Others provided the shove and wrote some of the gospel. Therefore, you can take the liberty of making the gospel into your own narrow image of seve facts about Jesus.

But, the adduced evidence absolutely contradicts Shelly and York. So:

God through Isaiah would ask:

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Isa 55:2

And Paul again aswers: "Because fools love to be fooled." Peddlers of the Word were Canaanites who were to be excluded from the kingdom

The apostles often make the point that we must give heed to the "word as it has been taught." Even the "singing" is defined as inspired material. Why is this so important? Ask Peter:

First, Peter makes a record to refresh the memory of those in the future who are not inspired.
Second, he and others were eyewitnesses to Christ even after the resurrection.
Third, those recorded words are the words of God Incarnate.
Fourth, they were certified (just once please) by signs and miracles.
Fifth, if you don't stick with that which is written, the false teachers can claim that "what if" we can now hear the unrecorded words of Jesus and reveal new truth. They will sell you drunkeness on ignorance from a New Wineskin.

So, John York or Rubel Shelly, when you claim NEW GLASSES to get a NEW VISON for the church you have no more credibility than Peep-Stone Joe Smith and his stone spectacles which revealed Mormonism.

Indeed, you bring your whole scholarship under a very dark cloud.

John Calvin observes that the faithfulness to the revealed Word is proof that the Spirit is honored. If you cannot get John Calvin to support you then you have no support:

"Again, I should like those people to tell me whether they have imbibed any other Spirit than that which Christ promised to his disciples. Though their madness is extreme,

it will scarcely carry them the length of making this their boast.

But what kind of Spirit did our Saviour promise to send? One who should not speak of himself, (John 16: 13,)

but suggest and instil the truths which he himself had delivered through the word.

Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel,

but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.

For the Lord has so knit together the certainty of his word and his Spirit,

that our minds are duly imbued with reverence for the word when the Spirit shining upon it enables us there to behold the face of God;

and, on the other hand, we embrace the Spirit with no danger of delusion when we recognise him in his image, that is, in his word.

Thus, indeed, it is.

God did not produce his word before men for the sake of sudden display, intending to abolish it the moment the Spirit should arrive;

but he employed the same Spirit,

by whose agency he had administered the word,

to complete his work by the efficacious confirmation of the word.

Surely a very different sobriety becomes the children of God.

As they feel that without the Spirit of God they are utterly devoid of the light of truth,

so they are not ignorant that the word is the instrument by which the illumination of the Spirit is dispensed.

They know of no other Spirit than the one who dwelt and spake in the apostles--the Spirit by whose oracles they are daily invited to the hearing of the word.

Confirming Calvin's diagnosis John York agrees that something VERY INSIGNIFICANT and then MISQUOTED JUST might by sold to you as EVIDENCE that we really have NEW GLASSES and a NEW VISION: for a price, always for a price

John York Again: I know that's a bit of overkill on something quite insignificant! But there are other double meanings here that are significant.

IF # 1: What if the testimony that is true, that to which "we" bear witness does goes beyond John to his original audience --

IF # 2: and even to us?

IF # 3: What if the many other things done by Jesus not written in this book

are to be heard as the ongoing activity of Jesus

in the life of those Spirit-filled followers?

John York: I know this will seem like a stretch, but that's not new for John. Remember what Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father" (14:12).

Well, if John STRETCHED THE TRUTH even in one case then why are we getting paid to PREACH THE GOSPEL OF JOHN?

Oh! We can be even greater than the apostles who didn't have the time nor did the earth have any more room to contain what JESUS is going to reveal to US as NEW WORDS!

What is Jesus going to tell us? How about a musical worship team to lead the worshipers into the presence of God.

Now, Christ and Scriptures thought that He was the unique Mediator because He was God. If musical teaming replaces Christ then THAT might qualify.

How about restoring the pagan Agape? Did the totality of Bible history show that these feasts were destructive to spirituality now get some NEW LAWS so that we can do what others cannot?

Is He going to tell us that baptism and remission of sins are no longer connected?

Just what is it that Jesus and the Apostles WERE NOT ABLE TO DO that we are now able to do?

What in the 21st century has changed the nature of mankind so profoundly that we need a new BOOK OF MORMON?

But Jesus did not say: "You, John York, will receive a fuller revelation two thousand years from now." Jesus promises further WORK and not riding to the "mission" field on a recliner in the church office. If you are not WORKING HARDER than Jesus worked then you need to get off the payroll.

The word "work" speaks of energy expended.

Ergon (g2041) er'-gon; from a prim. (but obsol.) ergo, (to work); toil (as an effort or occupation); by impl. an act: - deed, doing, labour, work

Now, you don't expend too many ERGS writing some new revelations from Jesus. Maybe Jesus meant it when He WENT OUT TO PREACH without a place to lay His head and that YOU will go FURTHER into the word, preach more and longer, baptize more, be persecuted more, sweat and have your easy chair removed along with your "evangelistic desk" and Coffee Shop.

Jesus didn't say that we would do greater miracles but that the apostles would do greater WORK. And so they did. While John was boiled in oil all of the other apostles died doing work.

John Murray: This becomes still more clear from what our Lord adds: "And greater works shall he do; because I go unto the Father."What the greater works are, is evident.

The disciples at Pentecost with three thousand baptized, and multitudes added to the Lord;

Philip at Samaria, with the whole city filled with joy; the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and, later on, Barnabas at Antioch, with much people added to the Lord;

Paul in his travels, and a countless host of Christ's servants down to our day, have in the ingathering of souls, done what the Master condescendingly calls greater works than He did in the days of His humiliation and weakness.

Here is the way to tell whether a PAID FOR LABORS MORE evangelist is just puffing wind and is BEYOND REDEMPTION: if you claim it and it isn't true then you are a liar:

More Labor: Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. 2 Cor 11:23

More Beatings: Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 2 Cor 11:24

More shipwrecks: Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; 2 Cor 11:25

More Travel: In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false 2 Cor 11:26

More Weariness: In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 2 Cor 11:27

More Care about the Churches: Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. 2 Cor 11:28

The same pay: Paul spoke only of vocational ministry even for evangelists. While legalistically those who serve in any capacity deserve the daily dole of food, it is impossible to DEMAND it and negotiate retirement plans without totally DECERTIFYING the gospel for yourself.

You may want to thank more than twice about encouraging your "flock" to believe that when YOU speak your words are more powerful than those of Jesus or of Paul

No, if you are not obeying the command of Christ to "go preach" or the examples of the early evangelists in abandoning their own lives on the mission field, or if you cannot like Paul, abandon a "retirement plan" in order to add credibility they YOUR claim to greater WORKS is just going to look silly.

John York: What immediately followed in John 14 was the first of his statements about "asking anything in my name."

Jesus had to go away so that the Advocate could come, the Spirit of truth that would teach them all things and empower them to do these greater deeds, because God the Father and God the Son would come and make their home in the believers (14:23).

Jesus said that "I and my Father are one" and Thomas cried out: "My Lord and my God." There are not TWO persons.

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? John 14:9

Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. John 14:10

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; John 14:16

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. John 14:17

will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:18 I

One of the greatest works of Jesus as "son" was to listen to and speak the word of the "father."

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21

If you are consumed with workshops in which to "shine" like Lucifer then you do not have the Spirit of Christ which is the spirit of self-sacrifice. Here is proof that you cannot have what you may claim because greater "expenditure of energy" or works will not make you AFFIRMED by your peers:

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord.

If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;

if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. John 15:20

But all these things will they do unto you for my names sake, because they know not him that sent me. John 15:21

And this is the way it is always going to sound:

They will equate: the same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

To the: same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

And this organized and systematized persecution does not come from conservatives.

Now, look at what Blackaby - King did not quote and see what they really mean when they say that God has a personal "assignment" for you just as He had one for Jesus:

For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. John 5: 21

Can I give life to people? No? Then this passage does not belong to me, does it?

Gregory Koukl notes that Blackaby misses the point:

"Obviously, that is not Jesus' teaching here. In context, these verses have to do with the divinity of Christ. He is unique as the incarnate Son of God and therefore has unique obligations, unique abilities, and a unique relationship with the Father.

"Verses 26-27 clear up any question on this score: "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man." "Son of Man" is a Messianic title from Daniel 7:13 that Jesus used often. As Messiah, Jesus has a singular role.

"This is why Jesus never directs His disciples to follow His example in this. No subsequent writers--Peter, John, Paul, Luke--ever mention it. Why not, if this is such a vital example to follow? Because Jesus is unique in this regard.

We are not to imitate those things pertaining to Jesus' divinity or His Messianic office.

For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: John 5: 22

Did God commit judgment (pass and execute sentence) upon people? No? Then this passage does not apply to me, does it?

That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. John 5: 23

Are people to honor me even as they honor the Father? No? Then to apply this passage to me makes me a new God and that is blasphemy.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. John 5: 24

Do people inherit eternal life as a result of believing upon me? No? Then I had better fall on my face and ask God if perhaps He might grant repentance unto me.

John York: Yes, Jesus did many other signs that are not written in this book. But John wants us to be convinced that the work of Jesus is still going on. Books can't contain all that Jesus did, because he is still doing things!

That is a fact, but He is not giving you guys NEW GLASSES to get a NEW VISION for the church.

The message is that Christ as the Spirit God is eternal. It does not mean that He is going to reveal those things which the writers did not record to you.

No matter what Jesus said or performed during His physical reign on earth, they could all be written in a book.

If Jesus spoke a NEW MESSAGE to every single person who lived up to today, they could each and ever word be written in a book. If Jesus spoke continuously for two thousand years, they could all be written in a book.

If Jesus the Spirit recorded each syllable of Speech during the Old Testament period, they could all be written in book.

There has been many millions of words more than those spoke by Jesus since His death. However, only rarely by fanatics does anyone go beyond that which is written and hint that perhaps Christ is still speaking through ME.

John York: That is the power of the Spirit at work that is the "ask anything in my name" at work.

We are now the witnesses,

those who attest to the truth of these words,

those who not only tell the story but also live the story.

If you do the works of Jesus they will kill you and not dance with you.

The false conclusions based on liberal interpretation of the "double meaning" which is absolutely repudiated by the witness of York and Shelly MAY MEAN that they helped John write his gospel account TOTALLY AT THEIR SUGGESTION and they helped him write it.

That "maybe" which has zero foundation is now used as proof that:

Now, WE ARE THE WITNESSES

To certify the Truth

By telling the story and giving it ZIP by our lives.

But in a previous sermonic incarnation, they have denied that John is inspired. But, by TAKING LIBERTIES we can force John to say and do what he never said or did but by NARRATING it in a new way, we begin to exercise the revelational authority which false premises based on mishandled evidence has given us to speak the words the apostles didn't have time to write nor did the world have room to hold--then.

So, our new NARRATED gospel of John is certified and witnessed because, in contrast to the evil church of Christ,

We are "generous, pure, modest, sober, faithful witnesses, non-sanctimonious or smug, extremely merciful, broadminded, full of grace, appreciate ALL Christ-confessors, look like Christ, have moral integrity, spiritual sensitivity, make Christ attractive, exhibit His beauty, practice imitative discipleship, our lives authenticate the Spiritual-presence, love God and love one another, are genuine Christians on the way to heaven.

I like that MODEST part best! It is surprizing, however, that when you pour oozy love on your Gold Membership they cannot hear you when you blaspheme. And when you pour so much verbal abuse on the OTHERS and produce a "period of tribulation" for them, your bonding buddies just love it.

Therefore, this is the postmodern paradigm: we claim to reveal new Scripture, we love you to death as long as you suppor us and "fools love to be fooled." Works every time.

We are not aware that there is a Spirit "person" who answers prayer or even mediates: there is only ONE mediator between man and God. Jesus gained that right only by dying on the cross and having the power of God to resurrect. WE are not mediators: musical worship teams are not mediators and a third member of the "god clan" is not the mediator.

No, in the Biblical sense you cannot claim the word "witness" because that means EYE-WITNESS to the teachings of Jesus Christ and of His resurrection. Therefore, you cannot be a 13th apostle and lay claim to those someone was too busy to record in the first place.

One who "attests" is an expert witness. They are eyewitnesses and you are not one of those. The people of John's day did not ATTEST or put their notary stamp after they suggested that John write his gospel account. No, you have only partially quoted the evidence and it is no longer the truth.

Jesus didn't command anyone who could not perform miracles to attest the Scriptures. The long-forgotten command is to "go preach" that which has been taught.

If you claim that your PERSONAE or numbers of "audience" validates and certifies the gospel then you are out on a broken limb because the true evangelists won't make it in your beauty pagaent nor will their message be popular and attractive to the masses.

The inspired Word of God gains not one jot or tittle to self-proclaimed latter day apostles.

Rubel Shelly: If I follow your point here, it is similar to the one Paul made in a document he sent to Christians at Corinth. Man, was that a troubled church in a raunchy setting! And one of the problems seems to have involved some vagrant false teachers who had come there with "letters of recommendation" &endash;

perhaps forgeries alleging to give them official recognition from the apostles at Jerusalem &endash;

only to confuse further and to divide more deeply that unsettled body. Here was Paul's response to all that:

Paul has to fight against false teachers trained in public speech in the Greek theater. They were professionals and claimed that Paul refused to take a wage because his teachings WERE NOT WORTH selling.

There is proof that they were VAGRANT because they demanded a wage and negotiated a salary and sold error for money when the GOSPEL means that Isaiah 55 is fulfilled and therefore God asks "why spend your hard earned money on that which is not bread" when every member of the body of Christ is "able to teach one another" if they just speak or read "that which is written." Only by following this ABSOLUTE RULE meaning of "gospel" can you keep false teachers from feeding out of the trough of the love feast meant only for the poor:

And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. 2 Cor 11:9

To the Thessalonians Paul made this an absolute PATTERN so that if any of the "team" would not work neither should they eat. Paul's PATTERNISM was to work with an EVANGELISTIC TEAM. They worked when the "audience" worked and they preached when the audience had free time. Paul's team made tents to support Paul.

So, look at all of the evidence you can dredge up but Peter and Paul are going to tell you that the only absolute TEST to keep the faithless from selling you infidelity is just this:

But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. 2 Cor 11:12

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers,

transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 2 Cor 11:13

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 2 Cor 11:14

Paul goes to the extreme of identified paid roles as robbery because the FREE GOSPEL loses its credibility and cannot be CERTIFIED by anyone watering down and selling the free Word of God (Isaiah 55).

Paul went further and gave the MARK of a faithful preacher as one who went out and suffered and risked his life and did not even demand the daily dole of a temple employe or the nibble of a threshing oxen.

In the Clemtine literature Peter quotes this and claims of those who "filtered philosophy" for their theology:

They also changed themselves into beasts and reptiles, and fishes and birds, and into whatsoever they pleased.

These things also the poets among yourselves, by reason of fearlessness, sing, as they befell, attributing to one the many and diverse doings of all. See the whole story repeated dozens of times.

This "Peter" is telling the story of the fall of mankind through the "angels of light." As king or prostitute queen of Tyre, Lucifer was in the garden of Eden with the precious stones and musical instruments. SHE is Sophia known as the "serpent" and ZOE known as the "beast" or the "female instructing principle. Peter states the obvious for John York and Rubel Shelly:

Since, therefore, both to the Hebrews and to those who are called from the Gentiles, believing in the teachers of truth is of God, while excellent actions are left to every one to do by his own judgment, the reward is righteously bestowed upon those who do well.

For there would have been no need of Moses, or of the coming of Jesus, if of themselves they would have understood what is reasonable.

Neither is there salvation in believing in teachers and calling them lords.

Rubel Shelly: Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we?

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Cor. 3:1-3).

Isn't his point rather obvious? As the certification of what he had preached at Corinth four or five years before,

Paul assuredly loved the CARNAL people of Corinth but the certification was in PAUL'S HEART. They had no good reputation. Remember that they began to volunteer to help the starving people in Judea and Paul used their good intentions but now a year later they still had not saved up "by themselves" anything worth taking to Jerusalem. This is a good point to claim that the collection plate to feed the "lazy asses while the ploughing oxen starve" (John Calvin) was neither a law nor an "act of worship."

PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia: 2 Cor 1:1

For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. 2 Cor 2:17

DO we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? 2 Cor 3:1

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 2 Cor 3:2

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. 2 Cor 3:3

Rubel Shelly: Paul offered that church as an existential letter of recommendation.

First, that is not what Paul said. While he loved them to make the church in Corinth the model of UNITY IN DIVERSITY or a Pattern of Inspired EXISTENTIAL REVELATION.

Second, Paul's love for them did not make them right in the slightest:

THIS is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. 2 Cor 13:1

I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare: 2Co.13:2

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 2 Cor 13:5

Rubel Shelly: And what would that be? The very fact that his message had made a difference in Corinth!

There was a church in that city whose very existence was a powerful witness to the fact that the gospel of the living Christ changes people's lives.

Former drunks were not only sober but happy! Former prostitutes &endash; both male and female &endash; were living chaste lives!

Former thieves and swindlers were chairing benevolence committees!

Rubel Shelly loves Corinth because it is the authority for "unity in diversity." That is, whatever the doctrinal difference we must love and not judge them. Well, how about a man who had his mother's wife and the church joked about it. However, Paul defined them as still so CARNAL that he was never able to preach the MEAT GOSPEL to them. When he claimed to "know only christ and Him crucified" he didn't say "teach only the core gospel." Therefore, this was his INSULT to the church which could never get to the deepter DOCTRINES OF CHRIST.

If he can equate: the same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

To the: same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

Then why are they less to be loved, respected, tolerated and affirmed in worship than the idolaters in Corinth? Or my Catholic friends?

No, the letter was written on Paul's heart. He never ceased to identify them as NOT SPIRITUAL but STILL CARNAL. Sure, a few had been baptized but Paul was glad that their baptism was not on his head because it was meaningless.

Old braggart Corinth jumped up, waved their hands and claimed for all the world to hear: "we will send money to help the starving in Judea." Well, Paul had used this as a LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION to get other churches to pledge and had made their contributions--BUT ONLY TO THE POOR--and here it is a year later and old PATTERNISM CORINTH still has not begun their PERSONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS. Paul was fearful that he would be utterly shamed and Corinth would look as rotten as they were to the CORE.

Former thieves and swindlers were chairing benevolence committees!

Well the history of the church gives lie to that unless the former swindlers had repented because Paul is writing to Corinth to warn about the SWINDLERS who were preaching the FREE gospel for PAY. Those who were PROSPEROUS gave what they wished and the poor were neither asked to contribute as "as an act of worship" nor to tithe. The collected money was put into the hands of the president or PRESIDING ELDERS and given to no VAGRANTS, even claiming to be apostles, if they consumed food for more than two or three days. The church was asked to look after its own poor but it had no SOCIAL GOSPEL to preach. A school of the Bible is not asked to be a ministry to homosexuals.

Rubel Shelly: "And that is what some of you were," he insisted. "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11).

Paul often used "irony" but then claimed that their worship assemblies "did more harm than good." (1 Cor 11:17). Therefore, he sees the urgent need to warn them that they are falling back into pagan idolatry. In chapter 10 he warns them of the "rising up to play" at mount Sinai which was "musical idolatry" and a LOVE FEAST as a pagan fertility ritual.

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor 6: 11

But the problems still exist. As far as we know they never changed very much and Paul had to almost threaten physicla violence.

Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 1 Cor 6:7

Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. 1 Cor 6: 8

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 1 Cor 6: 9

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor 6: 10

Therefore, Paul was defining a people falling back into the pig wallows of life. Peter warned that careless people turn the gun of Paul upon themselves and blow themselves and others up.

Surely an explosion has occured in brain cells when Corinth's character and reputation can be used to prove that we can get further words from Jesus. Look at how Peter and Paul's irony hides their total disgust with the professional RAIN CLOUDS being blown about by winds but having absolutely no Water of the Word in their entire souls:

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 1 Cor 6: 15

What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 1 Cor 6: 16

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 1 Cor 6: 17

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 1 Cor 6: 18

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 1 Cor 6: 19

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are Gods. 1 Cor 6: 20

Rubel Shelly: Listen closely to what I am about to say: A changed behavior doesn't prove that somebody knows Jesus as Lord and is filled with the Holy Spirit, but nobody who does know Jesus and in whom the Spirit lives will be unchanged.

Paul uses "filled with the Spirit" once:

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Ep.5:18

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Eph 5:19

In a parallel statement, Paul equates the Spirit to the Word of Christ:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom;

teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Col 3:16

In another parallel statement about "glorifying Christ with one voice" Paul confirmed:

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Rom 15:4

And this is exactly what Jesus said:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

Proof that one IS NOT filled with the Spirit is musical worship teams usurping the "one another" role and singing self-composed, silly and erotic praise hymns: Not any Spirit filling at all!

Pre Lucado and Shelly informed by H. Leo Boles and the "god family" heresy, most scholars identified the Spirit and Christ and agreed that being Filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the Word of Christ written on the heart.

That, and not a direct indwelling of a Spirit Person, is what keeps you from polluting yourself.

Therefore, no one who has A holy spirit or the Mind of Christ can disparage the work of the Spirit of Christ.

Rubel Shelly: So Paul was appealing to the marvelous life transformations among those believers

as living, breathing attestations that the message he had brought to Corinth on his second missionary tour was from God.

No. The Corinthians never changed. Perhaps only those who you could count on the fingers of one hand were called "the perfected" and even able to hear the Word of Christ.

Paul told us how to be "transformed":

And be not conformed to this world: but ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Ro.12:2

Our spirit is the condition of our mind so that mind and spirit are often synonomous. Therefore, to renew the mind is to renew OUR own spirit to make it Holy.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Tit.3:5

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; Ep.4:23

In the words of David:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Ps.51:10

No, the church at Corinth was still CARNAL and not even able to move beyond the CORE GOSPEL and consume the Meat of the Word.

If the church in corinth is depended upon to PROVE PAUL'S INSPIRATION then their true condition when Paul wasn't flattering them proves that He WAS NOT inspired.

If we are continually getting inspiration from Jesus as "a 13th) apostle, then we have a logical setup: look to see whether WE are changing lives and collecting members and THAT will prove that WE are superior to the Apostle Paul

Rubel Shelly: This church must present the same certification of the gospel to our neighbors.

Yes, we know that the church in Corinth is an approved example of "unity and diversity"! No. The Corinthians were never an example able to CERTIFY or validate the gospel to GIVE IT POWER.

Well, most churches have VAGRANT teachers claiming to be "selected and trained by the sovereign grace of God" but then take pay and teach that God couldn't preserve ANY OF THE WORD except the seven CORE facts ABOUT Jesus.

Unfortunately, many churches do present the same certification. The Corinthians sang out of their own spirit or mind. That is, they composed their own songs and sermons which was a direct violation of Paul's commands and practices that we "give attendance to the public reading of the Word" and that our songs must be "that which is written." Paul compared their singing to speaking in tongues or using the LIFELESS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS designed for warfare. Others have said that "church singing is low level glossalalia." Some churches tolerate evil and perhaps put them on the benevolence committee.

How can you CERTIFY the gospel when you teach that the Bible is not inspired, that the Ephesian elders of whom Paul warned helped write the book of John and validated it by certifying it and CERTIFY that which you deny.

Certification of the gospel has all of the evangelists on the GO button and not on the PLANNING DISCORD button.

Rubel Shelly: They will never take our message seriously if we are the

same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

They will never believe this Church of Christ is healthy

if we are the same sorry ,, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

Hint! I would look for the GREEDY among the highest paid "servants."

How can they taken ANY church of Christ seriously when there is an organized effort to pronounce a GROUP ANATHEMA on the name "the church of Christ" and using "guilt by association" to tell the reading world that unless they are a Shellyite church those people are going to be "sorry, legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental" and you must not go there.

Jesus identified the agents of Satan as false accusers!

How can you spew out all of those epithets and not look judgmental?

Duh! In my 71 years I have never heard anything that violent except by those still on the payroll of churches of Christ somehow fooling the fools to bash them and even "steal the church houses of widows" to provide a "venue for Rock and Roll." We would challenge Rubel Shelly to CERTIFY the truthfulness that being a member of a Non-Instrumental church of Christ makes one more racists, gready, dishonest or self-righteousness than the Baptists or Willow Creek or Woodmont Hills!

Dr. Shelly is using psychological violence to try to silence anyone from teaching the universal truthfulness that MUSIC was always a MARK of those who told God: "We won't hear any more from YOUR Word." It is also the mark of the "priesthood" Shelly is gonna blast while DISABLING your power to define it as self-righteous judgementalism.

Remember that singing in a "musical" sense of human-compositions came OUT OF THE MONASTERIES!

Rubel Shelly: As individuals, I believe we must err on the side of extreme generosity, purity, modesty, sobriety, and so on for the sake of

faithful witness &endash; without appearing sanctimonious and smug about our Christianity. As a church, I believe we must err on the side of extreme mercy, broadmindedness, grace,

and appreciation of other Christ-confessors &endash;

As individuals we are not called upon to be God-like to CERTIFY that others are OK by virtue of our EXTREME GENEROSITY, PURITY, MODESTY OR SOBRIETY.

We are ONLY called upon to PREACH THE GOSPEL and gospel includes removing the burden which is defined as "spiritual anxiety created by religious ritual."

Lord, how we LUST for enough generositon, purity, modesty and sobriety to"

Equate: the same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

To the: same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

Does that mean "raca"?

Lordy, I feel so deprived of love, extreme generosity, purity, modesty and sobriety! Wish I could make up curse words so well.

What must we DO to prove that we are so extremely generous, pure, modest and sober? Why we must:

Rubel Shelly: turn our collective back on the narrowness and focus on pharisaic minutiae for which

our brotherhood has been known.

Well, that is better than some of the instrumentalists who want to "take an axe" to us for not singing and dancing while they pipe.

Oh, the burst of harsh judgmentalism just cannot even 'preach Jesus' without certifying ME by collectively passing judgment on ALL of the old system B.M. (You know, B.C. the A.D. and now B.M. "before me")

Is a church which trusts the "once for all delivered" word of God, more "minutiaed" than one who GETS NEW WORDS Jesus spoke but just hasn't had a chance to reveal B.M. (Before Me)?

Is meeting together to congregationally sing more "minutiaed" than selecting and training a "musical worship team to lead you into the presence of Christ"?

Therefore, is trusting Jesus to be the One Mediator by virtue of His Incarnation more "minutiaed" than trusting a THEATRICAL EXHIBITION of effeminate ZOE power over the "minor jehovahs"?

Is a church which meets as "school of the Bible" more "minutiaed" than one who spends 1/4 of a million dollars to train people to "lift their little holy hands" or "lay on hands"? Or swing with raised hands around the Asherah poles?

Is a church which uses the Bible as its "patternism" more "minutiaed" than one who JOINS the Willow Creek Commercial Seeker System?

Was the old peacable Madison Church of Christ serving thousands more "minutiaed" than the Incredibly Shrinking Man "infiltrated and diverted" to drive away the old people to turn church into "theater for holy entertainment" propelled by Jubilee?

Are churches of Christ "minutiaed" because they won't join in all of the childhood games?

Is teaching the universal view that you cannot worship a Spirit God with machines less "minutiaed" than "navigating the winds of change" or "infiltrating and diverting" a non-instrumental church to steal the property?

Remember that a desirable proof of being able to hear the voice of the gods among pagans was virtual insanity produced out of "new wineskins" or music. Therefore, remember that schizophrenia is one of the proofs of Postmodernism. Why then is it that the almost hysterical effort to "revision the church in my image" less "minutiaed" than little churches out in the hinterlands who continue to meet needs without sowing discord?

Narrowness and pharisaic are uniquely the invention of pharisees to try to become Alpha male of the flock because:

A Pharisee is postmodern: Jesus said that he ignores the inspired Word JUST SO he can teach his own new gospel.

He charges for his wares: he makes pretense prayers and sermons and steals church houses of widows.

He calls others sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of the Pharisees they have encountered somewhere before!

But, look at me, look at me because:

We certify the gospel to the world by looking like Christ.

We authenticate the message by demonstrating moral integrity and spiritual sensitivity.

We make Christ attractive to unbelievers by exhibiting his beauty in our imitative discipleship.

Would that God knew that He needed our Corinthianizing "worship rituals" more pagan than a "school of the Bible" so that He could have put our experiences in the Bible so that others would not get "minutiaed" into just seeing those claiming NEW VISIONS as just a laughingstock. Or, fanatics, according to John Calvin.

Different Lord, different gospel. Here is the one who has epithets heaped upon Him and God Incarnate CERTIFIED ministers by the PATTERNISM of a Suffering Servant imitated and commanded by Paul:

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:3

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

One of the proof of despising and rejecting Jesus was prophesied in Psalm 41 as Judas trying to Triumph Over Jesus. This word means to "play instruments and make a joyful noise before the Lord." This was every pagan army's warrior chant.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Levitical musicians--always under the king and commanders of the army--"stood in the gap" to get Jesus and tried to panic Him into doing the homosexual song and dance of Dionysus as they played instruments.

Nothing can show despite to Lord Jesus Christ more than pretending to replace Him as Mediator with musical worship teams or DOING the Lord's Supper with swine flesh still in your teeth.

The god of new wineskins, Dionysus, strongly influenced the effeminate priesthood in Jerusalem. They piped trying to get him to sing and dance and disqualify himself. However, when you refuse to worship Dionysus, the influence of his new wineskin religion means that he attacks and tries to destroy you.

And if you are trying to present YOURSELF as an attractive, moral, extreme generosity, pure, modest and sober VALIDATION of the presence of God's Spirit you may have the spirit of Echo who:

"In Greek mythology, a mountain nymph, or oread. Ovid's Metamorphoses relates that Echo offended the goddess Hera by keeping her in conversation, thus preventing her from spying on one of Zeus' amours. To punish Echo, Hera deprived her of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another. Echo's hopeless love for Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, made her fade away until all that was left of her was her voice.

"According to the Greek writer Longus, Echo rejected the advances of the god Pan;

he thereupon drove the shepherds mad, and they tore her to pieces. Gaea (Earth) buried her limbs but allowed her to retain the power of song.

Sorry about that but according to the Greek Classics and the church fathers, hand flinging, strutting about, vociferating, singing or playing instruments meant to try, like Judas, to "Triumph over" the Biblical Christ always draws the same reproach the "Catholic fathers" are experiences right now. Not becaus they are inconsistent but because they are homosexuals.

Don't you remember Narrative Theology by which this series began: WE give you permission to TAKE LIBERTIES with John as John took liberties with the words of Christ and sifted it through philosophy and wrote for his own personal agenda.

Therefore, this new CHRIST which YOU can see by LOOKING AT ME:

Equates: the same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

To the: same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

Our COLLECTIVIST COMMUNE does not certify anything. I am not the "model" or as the Willow Creek system says of their musical worship scheme that they are "living models of a godly image." That is, the team or the church IS AN IDOL and the "gospel has NO POWER unless it is certified by MY GODLY EXAMPLE." The Bible says that the power is in the Word and never in US or Jesus died when He could have just sent ME.

As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. Gal 1:9

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Gal 1:10

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. Ga.1:11

Does that Prove that the Corinthians did or did not CERTIFY the gospel to give it more power?

Now, Bible 101aaa. What is the meaning of 'certify'?

Gnorizo (g1107) gno-rid'-zo; from a der. of 1097; to make known; subj. to know: - certify, declare, make known, give to understand, do to wit, wot.

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will,

according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: Ep.1:9

Therefore, the friends of John nor the church nor the "worship schemes" certify or validate or give power to the Words of Jesus. Rather, we certify or WE MAKE KNOWN.

The only certifying work a preacher has is to be an evangelists which means "go and bestow and not batch and hatch."

John York: I have to confess that for a long time -- I think due to all of my graduate-school training -- I thought that the goal of reading John was to figure out how to make his story harmonize with the other three stories.

That explains why Jesus FIRED the "doctors of the Law" because by their nature they would not see that the purpose of John was to tell what He saw as supplimentary and not contradictory to the partial records of the other writers.

John York: How do I reconcile the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of John's story with the fact that cleansing the temple takes place at the end of the other Gospels?

How do I make sense of Jesus going back and forth, back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem in John's account

when he never goes to Jerusalem in Matthew, Mark, and Luke until the very end of his ministry?

One should have recognized long ago that the Scriptures are not lessons in chronology but the teaching of God's dealing with mankind.

If you listen to sermons you discover that they might make their point in the beginning and again in the end. Or the event might have happened several times during the 3 1/3 years. Whatever the case, that can never be authority to give us the right to narrate our own mixed up story.

Well, Dr. Shelly is gonna use John's statement about the world not able to contain all that Jesus did. Perhaps Clement is correct and John wrote things not recorded in the other accounts. Perhaps if they all recorded the same events we would not need three eyewitnesses and one researched history by Luke.

John York: But that's not the witness, the testimony John wants me to confirm.

What I am called to affirm with the witness

of my own life is that authenticating Spirit-presence

that reveals itself when I keep heaven's commandments here on earth, live the from-above life in my down-below setting.

In John's Gospel, those divine commands are all reduced to loving God and loving one another. I am called to love others because God has so loved me and the rest of the world that he gave his only Son. No, it's really bigger than a quick quotation of John 3:16.

And this is how we CERTIFY that Jesus would have done it IF Jesus had had our insights:

Equates: the same old greedy, lecherous, racist, stoned, sexually impure, dishonest, sexist, drug-dealing, bar-fighting, cussing, wife-beating people some of us were a few months or years ago!

To the: same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

Jesus nor John used the idea of "loving one another" as church dogma or what we do as "acts of worship" or things we believe and practice. All of the Law "hangs" on love but love does not REPLACE the commandments of God.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Jn.15:14

Is this a deliberate misrepresentation of John as part of "taking liberties" with John as John is said to have done with Jesus?

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Jn.8:44

Jesus connects these seed back to CAIN who is the first such agent of Satan as a murderer and father of the musical family.

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Mt.23:35

The word "Cain" is related to a musical note and Jubal and Lamech's family as Cainites led the world astray by the use of musical enchantment and weapons to enslave the world for his father the Liar.

Rather, the account of John is given "for our learning" in the synagogue or School of the Bible. Jesus is love and Doctors of the Law oftne quote that Jesus is not judgmental. But, let's hear it from Jesus:

And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. Jn.12:47

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. Jn.12:48

Yes, Jesus loves me this I know but Jesus issued some direct laws about love and obedience.

If ye love me, keep my commandments. Jn.14:15

John taught you that the Word was with God because the Word Was God. And the Spirit as a third member of the "god committee" didn't have to come along and clean up the total mess created by the Father God and the Son God. Rather, Jesus was the embodiment of the One and only God and the One and Only Mediator.

That is doctrine and if you preach the trinity of three people then you will be judged by the Words of Jesus.

John York: God the Father did give God the Son. God the Son did become flesh and make known to us humans God the Father. And through his human death and then his resurrection,

That makes TWO GODS and Max Lucado and Rubel Shelly in their Incarnational Theology may deny that Christ came fully in the flesh according to Johh Mark Hicks.

No, no, a million times no! This is the blasphemy which causes the sowing of discord which is God pouring out His wrath on unbelievers. If you have picked the wrong God then you have picked the wrong Lord.

Jesus was not a Son God or a S.U.N god. In the Old Testament he is typified as angel, Rock, Manna, Water and other physical images. Only in the New Testament is God in a visible form a SON showing a new spiritual relationship.

John 1:1 says that the Word WAS God. Throughout the fathers, even those who use the word trinity, our MIND or THOUGHT is the "father" and we put it into action by our spirit or breath and produce WORDS. You cannot do ANYTHING without first expressing it in thought and then putting it into words. The SON is the expression of the FATHER in thought. The Holy Spirit is the Mind of Christ.

And Paul in the LIV version says that it was GOD who came in the flesh to become SON and not a third member of the god "family" promoted by Max Lucado and Rubel Shelly and "fathered" by H. Leo Boles and the Gospel Advocate:

Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, Phil 2:5

who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, Phil 2:6

but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. Phil 2:7

And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal's death on a cross. Phil 2:8

There is no room for a manifest, visible Godhead outside the physical body of Jesus Christ:

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Col 2:9

This is important because God prepares us to live as humans in a human environment.

Rubel Shelly: God the Son revealed the Father's love and invited us into relationship with that love by sending the Advocate.

Those who ignore the total Bible and all of church history including the views of those who used the word trinity but denying that God is ever cut up into three persons, cannot, cannot wrap their lips or pens around John 14:18: I know of not exception. This series by John York and Rubel Shelly is no exception. Paul Tillich would call it heresy but Karen Armstrong in A History of God would call it blasphemy:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; John 14:16

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. John 14:17

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:18

Another does not mean different but more of the same kind or a fuller Comforter.

We have the old "father" of the Old Testament, the son of the New Testament times but NOW it is the "dispensation of the Holy Spirit." The Father HAS HAD His dispensation, the Son HAS HAD His dispensation but now it is the SPIRIT'S TIME:

Rubel Shelly: It is the Spirit that now testifies with our spirit, Paul would say (cf. Rom. 8:16).

The term "the Holy Spirit" is not once mentioned in Romans 7 and 8. The Spirit OF God is the mind or mental dispositon OF God: the Spirit of Christ is the mind or mental disposition of Christ. Therefore the "spirit" in Romans 8 is contrasted to the "flesh" in Romand 7 and is therefore OUR spirit. This is not a PERSON whom we have received but:

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8:15

The "spirit" OF a son is the mental disposition of a son and this spirit bears witness if we FEEL like a son of God.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: Rom 8:16

Scholars agree that Paul reveals the Holy Spirit and Christ as occupying the same place. In 1 Cor 2 He equates the Holy Spirit to the Mind of Christ because humans need a human model.

Rubel Shelly: We can bear witness to the story by letting God's love empower our love for one another. Failing that obedience, we not only fail God but fail those we are meant to draw to him by the fragrant aroma of Christ's Spirit-presence at work in us.

But that does not extend to those whose backs we ride.

Rubel Shelly: John, I'm going to suggest we close this series on "The Path to Faith" by referring to today's newspaper instead of reading more verses from Scripture. It may be a bit tricky, but I think it is very, very important.

Has anyone read the unfolding stories in today's newspaper about sexual abuse, pedophilia, and child molestation by priests? What I am about to say is not Catholic-bashing. Southern Baptists in convention this past week made a statement on the same subject.

And John and I know people whose experience of these horrible evils has been in Church of Christ settings.

Rather than anybody-bashing, it is simply saying the obvious that too often goes unsaid among religious people.

You will notice that the Bishops have not condemned homosexually with "consenting adults."

Well, if telling that those who promote musical worship are promoting the universal connection between music and the feminine and effeminate is sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before then why is even speaking about the universal connection between homosexuality and every known priesthood not judgmental?

Roman Catholic friends of mine are distressed over polls that show around twenty-two percent of their members &endash; at least in some parts of the United States &endash; so distraught over the revelations of the past few weeks that they are questioning their faith. Last Tuesday in a city in Massachusetts, a group of Catholic lay persons met in a room under a banner that read "Keep the Faith, Change the Church."

No, the problem is with priesthoods. Jesus fired the priests and doctors of the Law. You cannot have any kind of priesthood without that priesthood forming into bonding buddies who cannot wait for the next seminar to learn how to sow discord among brethren. Why is it that they just can't stay at home and serve those who hire them?

The church is synagogue or school of the Bible and therefore there is no role for mediating preacherhood and musical Levites. When you begin to change church into Theater for Holy Entertainment as has been the work product of Jubilee and sowing discord you AUTOMATICALLY endorse, promote and present the EFFEMINATE as the model: Just watch what we do as teams and DO what we DO.

Rubel Shelly: Are we listening? They aren't questioning the veneration of Mary, the doctrine of the Mass, or papal authority. They are questioning the horrible inconsistency of collar and robe with depraved behavior and devastated innocence.

Paul to the Romans makes it absolutely certain that the REPUDIATION OF THE WORD and the claim to LATTER DAY REVELATIONS means that God "turns them over" to evil works just as He turned Israel over to worship the STARRY HOST as a result of their musical idolatry at Mount Sinai.

If you spend the LORD'S money on a ministry to homosexuals you may find that God turns you loose and lets you go.

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:21

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Romans 1:22

And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man (idolatry of talent), and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:23

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Romans 1:24

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. Romans 1:25

The veneration of Mary is exactly the meaning of the worship of Sophia and ZOE. You remember that they were the feminist side of the Biblical masculine leadership. Sophia is known as the "serpent" or snake who was Nachash as a "musical enchanter." ZOE is known as the "beast" or the female instructing principle. Sophia and Zoe are at work forcing the "minor jehovahs" to form MUSICAL WORSHIP TEAMS. And who do they worship? Why the agents of the gods and goddesses of course just as musical worship teams GIVE GLORY to the Alpha Male of the seven hilled city.

The Agape was a sexually-explicit worship of the dead. While it may have been in the early church, its goal of the rich feeding the poor rapidly turned into a RELIGIOUS RITUAL of the Lord's Supper connected to FEEDING OUR FACE.

How about a church in Mississippi who FEEDS THE FACE WITH PIG still in the teeth, takes the Lord's Supper the second time, and then tells about THEMSELVES when they are supposed to be "teaching" the death to self.

Perhaps this is connected with Rubel Shelly and John Mark Hicks doing the feminist Catholic-Methodist Re-Visioning of the Church and asking: "Can we DO the Lord's Supper in church." They claim to have NEW GLASSES to get a NEW VISION of what the church should be. Strange that the new vision looks like Babylon.

All worship of pagan goddesses worshiped homosexuality. Homosexuality among the gods and their agents "bound the flesh and spirit together." And that is the goal of musical rituals which PREVENT worship in spirit or in the truth.

While "religion" was always afflicted with homosexuality, Christ died to form a SCHOOL OF THE BIBLE. By firing the doctors of the law, priests and scribes He removed that class of "serpent seed" who would always turn church into real or PSEUDO sexual exhilaration:

Rubel Shelly: This is the bane of Christianity across the centuries. This is the reason for unbelief in countless hearts. This is what we must counter, if we want to attest the gospel message to our world.

No, they are not questioning the horrible inconsistency: they are questioning the permission of homosexuals and even aids-afflicted preachers standing in the pulpits and given respectablility and a voice.

They are questioning "ministeries to homosexuals" and the promotion of perceived perversion PRESIDING OVER the flock as they transfer their commercial musical artistry into the pulpits: an abomination which makes desolate standing in the holy places and claiming to be Gods: able to "Lead the worshipers into the presence of God." Shame, shame, shame.

Rubel Shelly: An elderly apostle did his Spirit-appointed job of writing down these wonderful insights for distant readers such as us.

We don't call it INSIGHTS: we call it inspiration. There is a considerable difference. John believed that he was reporting his own eyewitness account and, like Jesus before Him, explaining what was often written in parables to hide the truth from the COMMERCIAL PEDDLERS of the Word (Isaiah 48):

Rubel Shelly: Eusebius of Caesarea was a church historian who claimed in the early fourth century that the apostle John wrote his Gospel only at the insistence of his disciples and fellow presbyters at Ephesus.

Eusebius quoting "tradition": But John, the last of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth in the Gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.

These people wanted their own copy of John's gospel and this may or may not be the preserved version.

Rubel Shelly: Now we must attest and certify

those insights to our time and place

by displaying them in our lives &endash; Spirit-authored new lives that

positively abound with love, purity, joy, self-control, gentleness, kindness, and the other virtues which make people know

that all who live such lives surely know God and can point the way to salvation for them as well.

But the only way WE can point people to salvation is by preaching the gospel. Setting up a mega-commercial seeker center or "theater for holy entertainment" will not bring in those Christ demanded we must "go seek and save the lost."

If Rubel Shelly is wrong, wrong, wrong and his misquoted history proves him wrong, and they didn't CERTIFY John's gospel "filtered through psychology and his own personal agenda" then WE don't have any hint of authority that we can CERTIFY our own actions.

John bore witness to Jesus along with 11 others.

Rubel Shelly is proposing that WE bear witness to OUR hearing new words from Christ.

But only God can swear, attest or certify Himself:

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, Heb.6:13

No, we noted that to CERTIFY is to make known. The universal meaning of an evangelist is that he GOES and preaches and establishes schools of the Bible with elders "more apt to teach than apt to chase a coon" to oversee them.

Attest means to "witness" or to affirm that it is true. We cannot preach the CORE GOSPEL and relegate all of the rest of the Word of God to sifted opinions of divided apostles and still certify to anything.

How can you certify anything and spew out the following;

They will never believe this Church of Christ is healthy if we are the same sorry legalistic, self-righteous, finger-pointing, judgmental, everybody-else-is-going-to-hell Church of Christ they have encountered somewhere before!

It is very difficult to find anything more paganistic and legalistic than the claim that the "musical worship facilitator can help lead you into the presence of God" and that this presence is proven by the exhilarated feeling which is really the product of endorphins creating the impulses of FIGHT, FLIGHT OR SEXUALITY. Yeah! That's why it works.

It is hard to find anything more legalistic than turning the "school of the Bible" into a corporate institution of dozens of a pyramidal ministry structure which God imposed on Israel when they demanded SET A KING OVER US.

Now, they have probably heard this only from preachers who refuse to be evangelists and need to PROTECT THEIR TURF by condemning the other aspiriring Alpha Males of Billy Goat Hill.

Isn't this just an example of aspiring Alpha Males trying to keep the heard from returning to ANY OTHER church of Christ down the street?

The path to genuine Christian faith not only leads to heaven at the end but to an incredibly exciting partnership with Christ every step along the way.

No, Jesus Christ is God Incarnate and we are disciples. His demonstration of sonship was to listen to and repeat only the words He heard from the Father. We are not partners with Jesus in revealing those many things John said couldn't be written for the time but now apparently avaliable to use as we PARTNER as a new Christ.

We are not PARTNERS with Christ in receiving further revelation: we are children only to the extent that we honor Christ as speak AS and for the entire Godhead.

Rubel Shelly Sermon Reviews

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Eusebius, Church History, 6. 14. 7.