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Tag: apostles

From Palm Sunday to Pentecost
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No, your not looking at the wrong picture. 
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NEXT – Pentecost 2025 of the Common Era
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Doesn't Holy Week from Palm Sunday to EASTER look about the same every year? 
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I wrote a SERIES for Lent last year too — which of course culminated with Easter Sunday.

King for a Common Era Holy Week – 1
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Check it out (from Easter, 2024) if you'd like. 
SON-MAN RISEN! 
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And my LATEST POSTS in 2025 CE reflect an OLD TESTEMENT approach to LENT, also concluding with a look at Resurrection Sunday.

Our focus for EASTER 2025 CE has been from the Gospel of John (just before your familiar memorized verse).

Gospel of John 3:14 ESV

Lifted up + Earthly things you do not believe

But what did JESUS do next?

IF you have READ my 2025 CE EASTER post (above), then you may realize that the GOSPEL — in John’s case — has been preached for a number of years.

~ A.D. 85 – the Gospel of APOSTLE JOHN

Do the math and you will easily see that since Christ rose from death sometime around AD 30-33 according to most historical estimates, then EASTER had been celebrated by saints of The Way for OVER 50 YEARS by the time the Apostle recorded:
- his Gospel,
- three epistles to the Church and
- the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John!
  - – with specific mention of the witness of saints of seven churches as examples to us.
To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs,

appearing to them over a period of forty days

and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

Acts of the Apostles 1:3 NASB95

φανερόω – JESUS Manifested

After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way:

.. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Gospel of John 21:1 ,14 CSB

The Apostle Peter writes:

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you.

1 Peter 1:20 CSB

And last of all — as to the untimely birth — he appeared also to me, writes the Apostle Paul.

1 Corinthians 15:8 YLT
- JESUS’ historical crucifixion on a Roman cross is an undisputable fact.
- Christ’s resurrection after three days — in His recognizable resurrection body, with the wounds of the Cross –– and in the very Spirit of the same JESUS of Nazareth — the Son of Man known personally to hundreds of disciples and thousands of first century witnesses — is true and verifiable fact REJECTED by those who also deny the One Living God of all creation and all of its created.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

..but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.

Gospel of John 17a,18b CSB

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Gospel of John 3:14-15 CSB

Lifted up + Earthly things you do not believe

Father, Son and Pentecost

John closes his proclamation and witness of Apostolic Good News:

This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his {Jesus’] testimony is true. And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the [scrolls] that would be written.

Gospel of John 21:24-25 CSB

JESUS also said,

“..The one who has seen me has seen the Father.

AND as you know from our 2025 Easter post, the Lord challenged Nicodemus:

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

Now through the testimony of both Peter and John recorded by Luke in Acts of the Apostles we will glance at the Trinity and introduction of the Spirit on Pentecost ~AD 33.

40 days, and then Pentecost

And while they were gathered together, He commanded them: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift the Father promised, which you have heard Me discuss. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

.. they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight.

[Two angels instructed the Eleven]

..” This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”

Excerpt from ACTS of the Apostles 1 BSB
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Are you who do not believe intimidated by that? 

Perhaps you should believe in the Lord Christ Jesus, who will return finally for the Judgment. 
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The Holy Spirit at Pentecost –
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The following from Bible Hub Book Summary of ACTS 2: 

Please consider its Gospel application in your own brief mortal life. - RH 
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Acts 2 is a powerful chapter that introduces the Holy Spirit’s dynamic presence in the lives of believers and demonstrates the transformation it brings. The followers of Jesus move from being a fearful, waiting group to a bold, active community witnessing for Christ. The chapter underscores the compelling power of the Gospel message and the magnetic draw of a loving, unified, and Spirit-led community. This chapter serves as a timeless model for the Church, inspiring us to be led by the Spirit, devoted to God’s Word, committed to fellowship, and actively involved in meeting the needs of those around us.

On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples are together when a sound like a violent wind fills the house, and they see what seems to be tongues of fire that separate and rest on each of them. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they start to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enables them. A diverse crowd gathers, bewildered because each person hears their native language spoken. Some are amazed and wonder what it means, while others mock the disciples, suggesting they are drunk.

https://biblehub.com/bsb/acts/2.htm

πεντηκοστή – Pentecost = “the fiftieth day”

WE love festivals, don’t we? Pentecost was another festival that brought the Jews to Jerusalem a little over a month after the Passover feast.
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more... 
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- ~ AD 33
When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place.

ACTS of the Apostles 2:1 CSB
- ~ AD 55
Paul writes to the Corinthians,

“But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost,
- ~ AD 57
For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, because he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, for the day of Pentecost.

Acts of the Apostles 20:16 CSB

Sailing Home on the Aegean

The CHURCHES and their saints in every place have become dear to the Apostles — including Paul.

But for those early years after the RESURRECTION of the Lord Jesus Christ +++ Pentecost continued to provide evidence and witness of the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Twenty years after Christ’s ascension now — twenty years after the first signs of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem on Pentecost — and during the remaining years of the mortal lives of the Apostles PENTECOST provided the saints of The Way a gospel witness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — who will come again in GLORY at the last Day.

What’s NEXT in our witness to the world in 2025 CE?
- Lord-willing, in MAY 2025 TalkofJESUS series from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians will continue.
  - (We will not continue in Paul’s second letter.)
Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians – Featured Series
- 2025 CE Summer TOPICAL SERIES to be announced
- August 2025 – some personal updates from Roger Harned, our author and moderator of TalkofJESUS.com
- AND, of course, more DOCTRINE for your discernment
  - & SCRIPTURE as written with secure links to our sources from better theologians than me.
Talk of JESUS . com

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel

(You who believe)
April 30, 2025
Members in Christ’s body the Church
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

1 Corinthians 12:11 KJV – Paul quoting the Lord Jesus

Paul now draws a picture of the human body in order that members of the body of believers might see our own part in the larger Church in Corinth and all places where the saints gather in Christ’s Name.

Spiritualities – ‘I would not have you ignorant’

Previously, when we departed from here in the Apostle’s instructions to the Corinthians, Paul instructs:

And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

1 Corinthians 12:5 KJV

One Body, many Members, different spiritual Gifts

Now to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit, for the common profiting.

1 Corinthians 12:7 BLB

The first implication of this: EACH member of the body of your church and mine will show (manifest) some fruit of the Spirit.

But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

1 Corinthians 12:11 LSB

Who belongs as members?
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IF someone in your church does not yet manifest any fruit of the Spirit, is it possible that the Lord has not given them the Spirit OR made these a part of His Body - a member of His Church? 

Are even the best spiritualities of faithful jews and religious adherents of Islam connected to the body of our Lord Christ Jesus? 

Do the best of Hindus Buddhists and other pagan worshipers not oppose Christ? 

Yet some are drawn by the Spirit. 
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The Body of Christ

For just as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is Christ.

1 Corinthia n s 12:12 Berean Standard Bible

Jews and Gentiles
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What is the overriding context of this epistle Paul writes to a church on the Achaian peninsula of Greece ? 

The Apostle to the Gentiles (Hellenists or Greek or Roman) -- seeks to heal long-standing differences in this large Roman city of Corinth situated in the philosophic and cultural center of ancient Europe. 
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- To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom – v.8 (quite Hellenist)
- to another faith.. to another gifts of healing v.9 (the One God of the Jews and ignored signs of the Messiah)
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:13 NKJV

Invisible fruit pictured in the body

For the body does not consist of one part, but of many. 1 Corinthians 12:14 BSB

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body?

And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
- If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
  - (Now think of the body of Christ, the church.)
- If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
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Laughable! Hyperbole, yet logical.
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But now hath God set the members

(And the Spirit of God has distributed your spiritual gifts.)

But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

How strange a body would be if it had only one part!

1 Corinthians 12:18 KJV and 12:19 NLT
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Do you get both the seriousness and Paul's practical ridicule of members di-vi-ded by spiritualities God granted to others? 
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The Apostle to the gentiles continues his illustration: 
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- The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you.”
- Nor can the head say to the feet, “I do not need you.”
Here is Paul’s appeal to draw near to your members divided by opinions concerning spiritual gifts and an order of regulating the body (so to speak).

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts we consider less honorable, we treat with greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with special modesty, whereas our presentable parts have no such need.

But God has composed the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

1 Corinthians 12:22-26 BSB

Has the Great Physician not set the parts of the body into their proper place?

Appointment of the Greater Gifts
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The Apostle sent out to the Corinthians, Achaeans, Greeks, Romans and displaced Jews suggests an order of importance in the A.D. first century church. Yet Paul has just instructed the saints that it is the Spirit which places us in our place in the Church -- and that spiritual GIFTS are not ours to choose. 
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27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it. And in the church God has appointed
1. first of all apostles,
2. second prophets,
3. third teachers,
4. then workers of miracles,
5. and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues.
A local (Corinthian) understanding of roles and spiritual gifts

Acts of the Apostles 1-28
1. ἀπόστολος – apostolos
2. προφήτης – prophētēs
3. διδάσκαλος – didaskalos
4. δύναμις – dynamis
5. χάρισμα – charisma
Apostles, Prophets and Teachers

ἀπόστολοι (apostoloi)
Noun – Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong’s 652: From apostello; a delegate; specially, an ambassador of the Gospel; officially a commissioner of Christ.

Am I not an apostle?^G652 am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle^G652 unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 12:1-2

1 Corinthians 12:28 – And God has set…

You’ve just studied the list.

So what does the Apostle Paul (#1 on the authoritative list) ask as he further questions the Corinthian saints of differing opinions about their own roles in the local church?

1 Corinthians 12:29-30
- Are all apostles? (#1)
- Are all prophets? (#2)
- Are all teachers? (#3)
- Do all work miracles? (#4)
- Do all have gifts of healing?
- Do all speak in tongues?
- Do all interpret?
  - (these 3 grouped in #5)
SO WHERE DO I FIT IN?

and Who is in charge of who, here in our local gathering of saints in Corinth?

Perhaps in the hearing of Paul’s first letter being read to the Corinthian Church these saints might have wondered what the APOSTLE would prescribe next as a solution to OUR divisions.
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READ the literal Greek text below.
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12:31 ζηλοῦτε δὲ τὰ χαρίσματα τὰ κρείττονα Καὶ ἔτι καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν ὁδὸν ὑμῖν δείκνυμι

But covet earnestly the best gifts: – 31a KJV

Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. – 31a NIV

But earnestly desire the higher gifts.- 31a RSV

But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

1 Corinthians 12:31 b – NLT

NEXT – Paul’s connection of GIFTS

Beloved fellow saint, you may know where the Apostle proceeds in his much-quoted list from 1 Corinthians 14.

Perhaps with love in mind you may have a COMMENT here on what the Apostle Paul has instructed us so far.

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
February 26, 2025
What is the Gospel? What are the Gospels?
Ask five Christians,

What is the Gospel?

And you may hear THREE different answers, see an empty puzzled look and perhaps hear an honest, “I don’t really know; how do you define the gospel?”
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Go ahead: EMAIL ME your definition BEFORE you read the following OR add your definitive COMMENT at the bottom of this Christian Jargon post. 
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Gospel & Gospels – Two Definitions

You have probably heard from one version of this Scripture:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

Gospel of Mark 16:15b NIV

I mention ‘Gospel‘ in two different contexts here:
1. Gospel from a quote of the risen Lord Jesus Christ
2. Gospel identifying the written account of the disciple John Mark
Four Gospels recorded by four witnesses

Briefly:
1. Matthew
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. John
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We've quoted these four writers of the Gospels many times AND we cross-reference these Scriptures in other accounts as well. 
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TalkofJESUS.com treats the GOSPELS as a single category due to the connected importance of the Good News of Jesus Christ reported LIVE and IN PERSON from different perspectives.

Gospel of Matthew 28:30 – Quote of JESUS after the Lord’s resurrection.

Gospel of LUKE 1:4
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John Mark (mentioned above) and Luke, the physician who continued his detailed account of Jesus and the early Church with Acts of the Apostles, were both gentile (non-Jewish) believers who interviewed the Twelve and other witnesses of JESUS. 

Matthew (quoted above) and John are two of the Twelve Apostles. Jesus includes John and his brother James along with Simon Peter in the Lord's inner circle of closest confidants and friends. 
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The GOSPEL of JOHN
- INTRO – Gospel of John
- INTRO 2 – John, son of Zebedee
Luke also introduces himself in both volumes of his accounts Luke-Acts.

The Gospel: Definition

εὐαγγέλιον
Strong’s G2098 – euangelion

a reward for good tidings

good tidings

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

Topical Encyclopedia

The term “Gospel” originates from the Old English word “godspel,” meaning “good news” or “glad tidings,” which is a translation of the Greek word “euangelion.”

In the context of the Christian faith, the Gospel refers to the message of salvation through Jesus Christ, encompassing His life, death, resurrection, and the promise of eternal life for believers.

gos’-pel (to euaggelion): The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word which meant “the story concerning God.”

The Gospel is simple really, yet with the mysterious depth of God proclaimed as the good Word of saving sinners.
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I have written topically about the Gospel at least twice: 
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Go into all the world (and SHARE the Gospel) – 1

(Go into all the world and) SHARE the Gospel – 2

Further Study

Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words offers a deeper study of biblical words used in the English language. English entries are mapped to each applicable Greek root according to the Strong’s reference numbers, and include biblical usage, main occurrences in the Bible, English transliteration, and definitions.

εὐαγγελίζω – euangelizō – verb

Strong’s Number: g2097

Gospel (Noun and Verb: to Preach):“to bring or announce glad tidings” (Eng., “evangelize”), is used

(a) in the Active Voice in Rev 10:7 (“declared”) and Rev 14:6 (“to proclaim,” RV, AV, “to preach”);

Some claiming Christ, christians or even churches, will claim the Gospel without understanding.

OR worse, pulpits may proclaim the Gospel while hiding behind it.

AND some christians and churches take no action at all in evangelization or preaching the Gospel to our own personal need of Christ Jesus for salvation.

Good News before our inevitable end

death — and the JUDGMENT of ALMIGHTY GOD!

2025 of the Common Era seems to have begun with story after story and yet more of the continuing BREAKING NEWS of our fallen world.

Common Era NEWS begins with the same old sins of the world wrapped in the false idolatry: MOTHER NATURE and a world out of control * and a human-created environmental apocalypse – impending DISASTER out of reach of all their hand-holding gods.

Fire Maui Hawaii US

1945 dead slave labors

And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound…

.. but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He proclaimed^G2097 good^G2097 news^G2097 to His slaves, the prophets.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 10:7 LSB

WHAT NEWS TODAY?

How many died THIS TIME? And how many were SAVED for nothing more than BAD NEWS? (And for how long until the inevitable return of each broken body into the dust of the grave?)

Does the world’s news end with a feel-good story? *Do YOU feel good about YOURSELF now?

What percentage of us will die sometime soon?

What does the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST mean to your eternal soul

— your deeper human created in God’s image — the YOU by which so many souls you love in this world (or perhaps just a few) know you well as more than flesh and blood?

DON’T YOU think, mere mortal, that God in his Only Son Jesus Christ enbraces and knows your soul more than any?

Of course! the GOSPEL proclaims.

Repentance!

and BELIEVE the Gospel.

“Many false prophets will arise and will deceive man.

And because lawlessness is multiplied, most people’s love will grow cold.

But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.

Gospel of Matthew 24:11-13

Talk of JESUS . com

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a witness to all the nations,
and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:14 Legacy Standard Bible

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
January 11, 2025