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[Note: This is one of a series listed under the heading: Wordie Post." It was originally posted on the Word Press blog entitled "Our Daily Bread," found at rtippett97@wordpress.com. The changes at Word Press are similar to those on Twitter and Facebook, where I was posting to an empty space. That was because I began and maintained that blog as one of their free offerings. When their force to change to a paid blog website did not move me, they cancelled their "Reader," so posting on Word Press has become like a caged animal at the zoo, where only workers occasionally toss the animals a bite to eat. Word Press [et al] is like what I imagine life was like in the satellite countries of the Soviet Union: meager, bleak, spiritless. So, I am transferring those forty articles here.]
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Before Jesus returned to Nazareth to be the invited guest speaker in the synagogue on the Sabbath, he had already been in ministry for some time. In Luke 4:14 we read that a “report went out concerning Jesus to the surround region.” Because Jesus was invited to speak in Nazareth [of Galilee], the report was good. Wherever Jesus had gone, prior to his going to Nazareth, everyone he came close to was touched by his amazing presence.
Now, in the story of Jesus speaking in Nazareth, he was handed a scroll, which he unrolled and found the place for the reading. That reading was from Isaiah 61, the first verse and a tad of verse two. He read those words and sat down, with all eyes upon him … waiting for him to explain what he just read. He said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
That explanation of Scripture threw most of the Nazarenes in that synagogue into a hissy fit. They were so filled with rage that they tried to grab Jesus and throw him off a nearby cliff [but he escaped their midst and left them].
From reading this Scripture, we can see how Jesus read Scripture with such magnitude of greatness that the words he read reverberated within the souls of the listeners. As Jesus read, the Word made them feel like Isaiah had entered their synagogue and was reading his own book aloud to them. They felt the power of the words written.
Still, that soul-felt power made their tiny eyes and their tiny ears gain control over them; so, they said, “Hey! This isn’t Isaiah! It’s the carpenter’s son, that boy of Mary and his four younger brothers! Who is he to say he is Isaiah?”
Being filled with the Spirit for a moment was great! But, then when everything returned to the normalcy of life, the overwhelming tendency to reject first, and ask questions later, took over. Like the television commercials say, “It’s what humans do.”
Now, in my research over the years, I have found that the Jews maintain a schedule of readings, just like the Episcopalians do [all the Catholic twigs of Christianity … not the Baptists, because they just wing it from Sunday to Sunday]. That means the scroll handed to Jesus was predetermined by schedule. Jesus did not come in saying, “Guys, I think Isaiah wrote a prophecy about me; so, let’s read from chapter 61 of his book this Shabbat … okay?” Everything was scheduled, not planned by Jesus.
This means that when Luke 4:15 says, “[Jesus] began to teach in their synagogues and [he] was praised by everyone [in the surrounding region],” and verse 16 adds, “[Jesus] went to the synagogue [in Nazareth] on the sabbath day, as was his custom,” Jesus did the exact same thing, Sabbath to Sabbath, wherever he went. Jesus went into a synagogue, was handed a scroll. He read it aloud to all, with the same voice of authority; as if he were the prophet who wrote the words he read from a scroll.
What we miss from the story of the rejection in Nazareth is this: Every place where Jesus had read before, where a great report about him spread around the region, he read from a scroll, then sat down. In all those prior synagogues, all eyes were on Jesus; and, in all those synagogues Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
This is where the preordained reading schedule has to be seen. Jesus did not go from town to town, always reading from the Book of Isaiah. He read whatever was scheduled for that Sabbath. Whatever was scheduled was from the Torah, the Psalms, or the Prophets. EVERYTHING prophesied Jesus!!!
Everyone believed Jesus when he said those words … until he reached Nazareth.
Here is where the story of rejection in Nazareth becomes so important to grasp. If it wasn’t for humans to naturally reject anyone who says, “I am holier than thou,” Yahweh would have sent Jesus to truly be a forever King on earth, leading all Yahweh’s children, at all times. Wherever Jesus would go, at all times, he would just say, “I am here to fulfill Scripture!” and the people would all bow down before Jesus and worship his amazing power and glory. Jesus would then be what all the scholars say he was: God incarnate.
But … God cannot die.
For Yahweh to have that as His plan, I doubt He would have ever approved any souls being placed in the dirt that is the matter from which bodies of flesh are made. Yahweh would have said [before Creation], “You know what? I’m good. Creation will only make me allow souls to be wayward. Let’s keep everything Spiritual and forget about the ‘Big Bang.’”
The plan was to have Jesus be rejected. The plan was for the Jews to use the Romans to kill Jesus [they always had him slip from their midst]. The plan was to show Jesus as a living human being, just like every living human being; with the point being: If Jesus can do it [with God’s help], then I can do it [with God’s help].
The plan was for Jesus to be the model for souls trapped in human flesh.
The plan of Yahweh was then to plant Jesus like a seed placed into the earth, where the body of flesh would fall away [like the shell of a seed], so the soul of Jesus would be free to enter into the souls trapped in human flesh … the ones who sought redemption … who believed Scripture’s projections of Judgment of souls.
Those who seek to be cleansed of sins are the ones who listen to Jesus speak through all Scripture, hearing him say to their souls [individually], “I am the fulfillment of that prophesied.”
They are those who seek redemption and receive the Spirit.
That plants the seed of Jesus within a body of flesh, which the soul then tends and helps it grow [with God’s help]. Then, one day, that soul in the flesh becomes the fruit of the Jesus vine and Jesus is born again!
This means the rejection is like the hard clay that needs to be tilled, before a seed can be sown and able to take root. Rejection is the natural state of human beings that makes them hard, cold, and barren.
Sure, nature has a way of making seeds find cracks, so wild seeds will take root without much resistance from the ground. But, to have a productive field of purposeful grains and fruits, the earth must be moved … spiritually. Work must be done to make it receptive to good seed.
Scripture is Jesus going from town to town on the Sabbath, spreading the power and glory of prophecy. That is what makes land owners [souls possessing bodies of flesh] become farmers [those who act so good things will grow]. Otherwise, rejection rules life and nothing grows that is good.
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