Tag Archives: New Covenant

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

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: 'Monday Morning Musings - June 27, 2022'

Jewish leaders at the time of Christ understood Torah and the practice of Torah to be the Way of Life. Torah study was called “instruction in the way of Life.” As teachers of Torah, the religious establishment viewed themselves as brokers of Torah to the people. Jesus’s claim would have been outrageous and offensive.

 

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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.

Jun 13 2022

I Am the Good Shepherd: 'Monday Morning Musing - June 13, 2022'

 

Jesus’s claim to be the good shepherd was a direct challenge to how the Jewish religious authorities viewed themselves and their function as representatives of Yahweh to the people of God.

 

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.

Jun 13 2022

I am the Bread of Life: 'Monday Morning Musing - June 6, 2022'

 

For the next few weeks we will be looking at the I Am statements of Jesus as an existential threat to the Jewish religious establishment. Their deep convictions regarding themselves, their calling as individuals and as a people, their function as priests and teachers, the Torah, the Temple and their national identity were all challenged by the I Am statements. The aggregated effect of them was instrumental in their desire, even need to have Jesus killed. According to their understanding of Torah, He deserved it. In this first episode we will briefly look at the “bread of life” claim Jesus made.

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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

7-38-55 Communication: 'Monday Morning Musings - February 28, 2022'

 

The words we may speak account for only ~7% of what constitutes human communication. No wonder our churches and our culture are so conflict-prone. We don’t know how to talk to each other, including and especially “Christians.”

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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

God Inhabits the Praises of His People: 'May 2, 2022'

What were temporarily inhabited praises being sung in the old economy have be come permanently inhabited people by the indwelling union with the Spirit of Christ in the new.

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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 “Take-You-into-the-Presence-Person”: 'March 28, 2022'

“I have the ministry of taking people into the presence of God.” So, said a famous worship leader. That’s odd. I thought Jesus has done that already. I thought we were always in His presence since He indwells us by the Spirit. In order to make that kind of statement, a person has to draw upon bad Old Covenant typology. There is no such thing as a “taker-into-the-presence-ministy” in the new era, other than the Person of Christ by the Spirit. We certainly don’t need to sing and carry on for half an hour or more to try to get to some adrenaline-filled “place” called “the Presence of the Lord.”

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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.

Apr 18 2022

The Manifest Presence of God: 'April 18, 2022'

Jesus links his manifest presence to obedience and ministering to and among the “less-than” other. How and why do we shift the association to praise and worship? Because of bad typology from OT proof-texts and because it is just easier and more enjoyable. We like to pretend adrenaline-driven spiritual narcissism is an enlightened form of corporate worship.

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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.