Tag Archives: interpretation

Jul 25 2022

I Am the Light of the World – Part 1: 'Monday Morning Musing July 25, 2022'

In this two-part episode I try to present the high tension and drama that would have been involved in Jesus’s “I Am the light of the world” statement. This statement along with his declaration about living water were made in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Dedication. I briefly unpack some some of the significant ritual features which occurred during the feast, to which Jesus’s bold statements were directly and immediately referring. It was a scene of high drama and conflict.

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Jul 18 2022

I am the Door: 'Monday Morning Musing July 18, 2022'

When Jesus likened himself to a door, he was taking unto himself a function that the Rabbis and religious leaders believed belonged to them, divinely assigned by God. A door functions as something that limits or grants access. The KJV language about “binding and loosing” was a well known Semitism for the ability of the religious professionals to either grant or deny access to eternal life and the things of God.

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Jul 11 2022

Before Abraham Was, I Am: 'Monday Morning Musing - July 11, 2022'

Of all Jesus’s I Am statements, this is perhaps the most easy to understand, and it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. In this statement Jesus engages in something called “challenge and riposte” which in an honor-shamed based society was a formal and public dispute before a crowd, with winners and losers. Jesus and his opponents are locked in a fight about identity and lineage “from God.” After this episode in John 8, the skids toward Calvary were “greased’ so to speak. In the previous chapter, Jesus was a hero with crowds still following him. But after this statement, his death sentence was sealed. He went from hero to zero all over claim to spiritual originations: who had claim to Yahweh as Father?

 

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

May 17 2022

The Amen: 'Monday Morning Musings - February 21, 2022'

There is more behind “amen” than intellectual consent or emotional enthusiasm for an abstract concept.

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May 17 2022

Spirit, Soul and Body: ONE INTEGRATED Being: 'May 16, 2022'

In some Evangelical churches and in many Charismatic churches, Paul’s use of spirit, soul and body in 1 Thess. 5:23 is understood as a hierarchy of being and a hierarchy of value. This is essentially a Gnostic interpretation that seriously misunderstands Paul’s fluid and interchangeable use of those terms.

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

May 17 2022

Baptism: Born for Battle: 'May 9, 2022'

 

Among other things, the early church understood the significance of baptism in “military” language. Not in a sense of obnoxious aggressiveness, nor charismatic spiritual warfare. but rather, that the life of a follower of Jesus will be characterized by struggle and adversity for which, at baptism, a candidate was “signing up” like a loyal soldier. This facet of understanding is virtually unknown today in many parts of Western Christianity.

 

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

 

 

Mar 7 2022

If You Only Knew: 'March 7, 2022'

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to, to make known Christ and the Cross. The Holy Spirit does not do magical, automatic Bible interpretation for a believer. So-called “Holy Spirit downloads” do not take the place of the hard work of understanding even the simplest thing from Scripture. Take the little word “if” for example . . .

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Copyright 2022. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Feb 1 2021

Gentleness – Jesus Style: 'Monday Morning Musing - February 1, 2021'

Like humility and meekness, biblical gentleness is not a human personality trait. It is a spiritual awareness of our one-ness with each other in weakness. It is a quality that understands and lives from a relational awareness of mitigating circumstances. It does not demand its just due from stark legal, quid-pro-quo dynamics. Gentleness is like mercy. It is a tempering quality to the severity that is always inherent in naked justice.

 

 

Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

 

 

Jan 25 2021

Meekness – Jesus Style: 'Monday Morning Musings - January 25, 2021'

Biblical meekness, like humility, is also not a personality type. It has nothing to do with an external demeanor of diffidence. It does not involve being an emotional eunuch. It is about being fully alive, experiencing all range of emotion, but having those emotions under the rein of the governance of Christ. It does not mean I live as a doormat for others to abuse or degrade me.

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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Jan 18 2021

Humility – Part 3 – It is Not a Technique to Get People to Like You: 'Monday Morning Musing - January 18. 2021'

This episode briefly explains how the early church redefined the Greek idea of humility of “largeness of soul” or “magnanimity” to “littleness of soul” before a great God. Humility is not chronic self-awareness of one’s personal short-comings. Insecure and timid people are always intimidated by someone who is truly humble, biblically defined. Jesus was gentle, meek, and full of humility. Yet He was crucified by good, conservative, religious people (Roman and Jewish). If we think gentleness, meekness and humility are qualities that are going to make us well-liked or popular “Church-folk”, we are in for a shock. 

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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.