Vitally Important

 The heart of discipleship is union with Jesus himself. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes this reality through the metaphor of the vine and the branches. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” This teaches that spiritual life, fruitfulness, and the presence of the Holy Spirit flow only through a personal connection with Christ. Belonging to a church, to an institution, or to a human structure is secondary. The lifeline of the disciple is the personal union with Jesus, maintained through belief in him as the One sent by God, through obedience to his teachings, and through attentive dependence on the Spirit.

Discipleship is inherently individual. The Bible shows us that Christ knows each disciple personally and can work through them in ways that may not involve human approval or institutional recognition. Ananias was personally called to lay hands on Saul of Tarsus, an encounter that changed the course of history, while the Ethiopian eunuch was led by Philip into immediate joy and obedience despite having no church to attend. Paul, in Arabia and later in prison, was sustained directly by Christ and the Spirit, bearing fruit through letters that shaped the church. John, exiled on Patmos, received visions and instructions for the churches even while physically isolated. Elijah in the wilderness was nourished and guided directly by God. In each of these cases, faithful discipleship occurred because these individuals were personally known to God and joined to Christ, not because they were supported by human structures.

Establishment, when it exists, can serve as a support for discipleship, providing teaching, community, accountability, and encouragement. Yet it can never replace the essential union with Jesus. Churches can tolerate compromise, ritual can mask spiritual disconnection, and structures can foster a sense of security that may obscure dependence on Christ. Even in a flourishing church, a branch that is not joined to the vine remains spiritually dead. Conversely, when establishment is stripped away, when believers are rejected, scattered, or alone, the underlying reality is revealed: union with Jesus is sufficient. It is this connection that allows the Spirit to flow, producing life and fruit even outside the camp, in opposition, or in isolation. The vine sustains the branch directly, and personal discipleship persists even when human structures fail or are absent.

Without this union, there is no sap, no Spirit, no fruit, and the Father removes what is disconnected. The branch must be joined; spiritual vitality cannot be substituted by membership, ritual, or institutional approval. True discipleship is relational and active: it flows from obedience, belief, and trust in Jesus, and it produces fruit even in solitude or opposition. Being known to Christ, being available for his guidance, and holding to his teachings are what sustain life and fruitfulness. The lifeline of discipleship is personal connection to the Son of Man, the branch drawing sustenance directly from the vine, the Spirit flowing through the believer to enable obedience, joy, and fruit.

Even when churches or structures exist, this union must continue. Establishment can enhance discipleship, but it can never replace it. Being part of a thriving congregation does not automatically ensure union with the vine. Discipleship is tested most clearly when everything else is removed. Being outside the camp, whether by exile, rejection, persecution, or personal solitude, does not diminish the reality of discipleship if the branch remains joined to Jesus. That union brings the Holy Spirit, life, and fruitfulness. Fellowship with Christ himself, sustained through belief and obedience, is the enduring, sufficient reality of the Christian life, and it is the ultimate source of strength, guidance, and fruit even when all human support is gone.

Stewardship of Civilisation

Civilisation endures not merely through technological progress or accumulation of knowledge, but through stewardship — the responsibility of each generation to preserve what has been given, to multiply it wisely, and to pass it forward without endangering those who follow. Documentation, learning, and institutions allow civilisation to persist across centuries, yet preservation alone is insufficient. What is handed down must be filtered, interpreted, and governed by wisdom, lest what once served humanity become a threat to its future. This thread of stewardship, responsibility, and accountability runs deeply through the foundations of our civilisation and finds one of its clearest expressions within the Christian understanding of humanity’s role in the world.

Much of our modern civilisation has been built not only on earlier civilisations and their teachings, but on the teachings that came through Jesus Christ. Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle laid important groundwork through works such as Categories and Republic, forming early structures of reason, ethics, and governance. Yet with Jesus Christ came a deeper understanding of responsibility — not merely as political order or rational organisation, but as moral and spiritual stewardship. Humanity is presented as entrusted with what God has given, called to multiply public good, to cultivate the world, and to lay down teachings for future generations out of love for God, so that the coming Lord will receive a return on His investment when He returns.

Within this understanding, there is a strong emphasis on spirit. From the dawn of the first civilisation there were prophets such as Enoch, who taught early forms of science — teaching humanity to understand the world it inhabits, to recognise its order, and to form a sense of guardianship over it. This guardianship required wisdom: wisdom to rule creation responsibly rather than exploit it destructively, and wisdom to align human activity with the order established by God.

Moses later brought a deeper sense of personal love toward God, centred on keeping and passing on what God had given spiritually. This was first expressed in the faith exemplified by Abraham, and then made explicit through the commandments of God, given to guide the lives of each successive generation of the people of God. These commandments were not merely rules, but light — a way of preserving moral continuity across time.

Jesus Christ then widened this inheritance beyond a single people. Through his teaching, anyone in the world who believes in him and keeps his words may receive light from God. The great corpus of the Law of Moses, accompanying the commandments, was given to the people of the physical lineage of Abraham, yet the commandments themselves were extended beyond this biological line through the teachings of Jesus. Paul was sent by Jesus to carry this message to the nations of the world, establishing a universal calling rooted not in ancestry but in faith.

Within these teachings lies the ancient promise of God, made in the earliest times, to keep the seasons and cycles of nature turning year after year until the end of the age — seed-time and harvest, food and provision continuing for all. Humanity is reminded that just as birds need not worry about their sustenance, so too may people rest assured that they are cared for within a world governed by God’s oath. Only at the end of the present age will God establish a new order of heavens and earth, and this will come only after resurrection and judgement through Jesus His Son — Jesus the Christ, the Son of Man, the mediator between God and all humankind.

Within the outer covenant of God’s oath governing nature, there exists an inner covenant given to believing disciples of His Son. This covenant, sealed in Jesus’s blood through his death on the cross, forms a priesthood charged with bringing light into the world. This light spreads responsible stewardship, lived in expectation of Jesus’s return as Lord over all. Thus, keeping the teachings of the commandments — faithfully passed down from generation to generation — becomes the innermost thread of civilisation itself, preserving society much like salt preserves meat.

Through this stewardship we find the right way of preserving the wellbeing of the planet made by God, and of preserving civilisational knowledge, lawfulness, and moral continuity. This way is undergirded by love — doing no harm to one’s neighbour. It is a way in which spirit overrides body and mind. From spirit flow not only faith, but virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. These qualities overcome vice, disorder, and chaos.

The world is governed rightly when these qualities prevail over unchecked physical appetites and merely human philosophies. This is the rule of spirit — a rule led by the Holy Spirit sent from God because of Jesus Christ. This Spirit reveals the oath of God that governs all creation and teaches humanity how to live faithfully within it, so that civilisation may endure not through power alone, but through wisdom, love, and responsible stewardship until the end of the age.

Portions copyright Stephen D Green

Live by spirit overruling body and mind

 The Lord and his apostles spoke of spirit but today we fail to understand what they meant. In the time of Jesus, we see from Plato’s Republic that there was a tripartite model of human beings which was physical, mental, and spiritual natures. Peter wrote of extending one’s faith by improving one’s virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brother.y kindness, and love. These qualities are really one’s spiritual qualities, because they tend to come from our spiritual nature, which Plato had described as the seat of nobler qualities and will. To grow in knowledge, we must exercise that nobler willpower. Likewise virtue, godliness, kindness, and the like. This means letting the spirit override the physical urges and mental pretences and conceits. It flows naturally from real faith. Real faith in the teachings and the moral and truthful standard of these teachings brought into the world by Jesus Christ tends to lead a person to seek to overcome physical and mental natural impulses which bring traps and death, and this overcoming requires exercise of the nobler will and powers which is spiritual, with the seeking of God’s help, which is also spiritual. So when Paul says to live by the spirit, he does not explain it, but we find it implicit in the other teachings of the Christ and his apostles. 

I asked an AI tool to expand this into an essay, and was given the following.

Modern readers often struggle to understand what Jesus and His apostles meant when they spoke of “the spirit.” The word has become vague and mystical in contemporary usage, yet in the world of the first century it carried a clear and practical meaning rooted in ancient moral psychology. When this historical framework is recovered, the New Testament’s teaching on spiritual life becomes not only intelligible, but profoundly practical.

In the intellectual climate surrounding early Christianity, many thinkers — including Plato — understood the human being as possessing three interrelated dimensions: the body, the mind, and the spirit. The body was the seat of appetites and impulses. The mind was the center of reasoning, imagination, emotion, and personal identity. The spirit, however, was regarded as the nobler faculty of the person — the seat of moral courage, conscience, and governing will. Plato described this element as that within us which sides with reason against appetite and is capable of choosing what is good even when such choices require sacrifice.

This framework illuminates the teachings of the apostles. When Peter urges believers to “add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love,” he is not offering a random list of moral traits. He is describing the gradual formation of the spiritual nature — the strengthening of the higher self that governs the whole person. Each of these qualities requires the exercise of the nobler will. Self-control demands resistance to bodily impulse. Perseverance requires endurance against emotional fatigue. Knowledge, virtue, and godliness require the rejection of mental distortion, pride, and self-deception. Kindness and love demand the overcoming of selfish instinct. These are not merely emotional developments; they are achievements of the spirit’s rule within the human being.

This same understanding lies behind Paul’s instruction to “live by the Spirit.” He offers little abstract explanation because his audience already shared this moral framework. To live by the Spirit meant allowing the highest faculty of the self — the morally awakened will — to govern both the body and the mind. The “flesh” that Paul warns against is not simply physicality but the ungoverned combination of bodily impulse and ego-driven reasoning. The “fruit of the Spirit,” by contrast, are the stable character traits that emerge when the spirit rules: self-control, patience, goodness, faithfulness, and love.

True faith therefore is not merely intellectual assent. It is the realignment of the ruling center of the person. When a person truly believes the teachings and moral authority of Jesus Christ, that belief awakens the spirit and compels the individual to resist destructive impulses and false mental patterns. This struggle is not won through human strength alone. The apostles speak of God’s Spirit assisting the believer because divine truth strengthens human will, enabling the spirit to govern rightly.

When the spirit rules, the human person moves toward life. When the flesh and ego rule, the person moves toward confusion and destruction. The New Testament’s call to spiritual life is therefore a call to moral order within the self — a restoration of the hierarchy in which the nobler will governs desire, thought, and action under the guidance of God.

To “walk in the Spirit,” then, is not to escape the world, but to live in it under the steady leadership of the highest and best within us, strengthened by faith and aligned with the truth that Christ brought into the world.

No more blog for a while but here is an example of permitted use of the blog posts to create AI-generated sermons

 https://chatgpt.com/share/695ad968-d698-8005-a061-da9fd805e795 

LAST POSTING FOR A WHILE - TAKING A BREAK FROM SOCIAL MEDIA

 Although it is important to be aware of the teachings of Jesus, many of which are along the lines of the moral ethic of the Law of Moses, these can have bad consequences as well as good, especially if the teachings are not truly followed. For example, the law of eye for an eye is mentioned by Jesus, but he does not say to keep to it, but rather to take a different approach of returning good for evil, not evil for evil. The result of not actually following his teaching in Spirit is that people pick up on the eye for an eye part and try practising it. It has bad consequences. This could be called nominal Christianity. It is like the Jews mentioned in John 8, who believed in Jesus from hearing him one time, but did not let his teachings be their light in life. They were still, as Jesus pointed out, despite believing in him, hateful and liars, akin to the devil who Jesus pointed out is just like that too. If they kept his teachings and learned to understand and apply them obediently in their lives, they would become not so much children of the devil, but children of God. They would become his disciples, and in obeying his commands, be his sheep and he their good shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. Staying nominal is to maybe believe in him as light of the world, but not to follow and truly learn to obey his teachings. So the nominal Christians do not learn to walk by his light. They stay as bad as before, not becoming children of God, even though they have power to become children of God.

He lays down his life for the sheep

 Jesus once responded to a man who called him “Good Teacher” by saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” At first, this might sound like a denial of his own goodness. But within the Jewish understanding of Scripture, Jesus is not rejecting goodness — he is locating it. True goodness belongs to God, and any goodness seen in Jesus is grounded in his unique relationship with God. Later, when he calls himself the “good shepherd,” he is not claiming independent authority or divinity in competition with God. Instead, he is showing that God’s care and guidance for the people are made present through him. In him, God’s goodness becomes visible, active, and approachable.

The sheep of this shepherd are those who follow his teachings and live by them — the true disciples who listen, obey, and commit themselves even when it costs them. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, modeling a love that is self-giving and sacrificial. In following Jesus, we are invited not simply to admire goodness but to participate in it: to walk in the way of mercy, truth, courage, and care for others. Through this, God’s own goodness, which flows through Jesus, becomes present in the world in real, human ways. He died for those who do so. 

The Good Shepherd

 In the Gospels, this tension appears when Jesus responds to a man who addresses him as “Good Teacher” by saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18), and later, especially in John 10, identifies himself as “the good shepherd,” the very role that Israel’s Scriptures consistently reserve for God himself (for example Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34). Read together within a Jewish framework, these passages are not contradictory but mutually illuminating. Jesus is not rejecting the category of goodness for himself; he is insisting that true goodness belongs properly to the one God and that any goodness found in him is grounded in his unique relationship with that God.

When Jesus then claims the title “good shepherd,” he is presenting himself as the one through whom God’s own shepherding of Israel is made present and active. His divinity is therefore not portrayed as an independent, self-contained identity competing with God’s, but as a perfect, living participation in God’s life and mission—derivative, relational, and shared. God remains the sole source of goodness, while Jesus is its fullest human embodiment because he is wholly united with the one God who sends him.

AI-worded 

Keeping Weekly Sabbath

 In the context of Second Temple Judaism, the weekly Sabbath was one of the most central “works” that marked covenant identity. Observing the Sabbath was not merely a personal or ethical practice; it was a public, communal sign that a person belonged to God’s covenant people. The Dead Sea Scrolls reflect this strongly, with strict Sabbath regulations defining who was “inside” the covenant and who was “outside,” reinforcing that identity was enacted through concrete observance.

Paul’s reinterpretation of “works of the Law” carries this into his teaching on the Sabbath. When he argues that justification and inclusion in God’s people are by faith in Christ rather than by works, the Sabbath—like circumcision or dietary laws—ceases to function as a boundary marker for covenant membership. Christians are not “outside” God’s people if they do not observe the seventh-day Sabbath; what defines belonging is participation in the life of Christ through the Spirit. At the same time, the moral or spiritual rhythm of rest can still be honored as part of the new covenant life, but it is no longer a legal requirement for identity.

In short, the weekly Sabbath shifts from being a defining “work” of covenant identity to a practice that can be freely embraced as a gift of rest and devotion, rather than as a test of inclusion in God’s covenant community.

— AI-generated 

“Works of the Law”

 In Second Temple Judaism, “works” was already a familiar category of religious thought, and it did not primarily mean generic good deeds or moral effort. It referred especially to concrete practices by which a community expressed covenant loyalty and marked itself off as God’s people. This way of speaking appears clearly in the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly in the document often called 4QMMT (“Some of the Works of the Law”), where specific rulings about purity, calendar, food, temple practice, and marriage are called “works.” These “works” were not attempts to earn God’s favor in a purely abstract sense; they were the visible boundary-markers of faithfulness and identity, the way a group demonstrated that it belonged to the covenant community defined by the Torah.

Within that cultural framework, Jewish identity was not merely ethnic but covenantal and enacted through practices such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, dietary laws, and participation in the temple system. To “do the Law” meant to live inside that identity. When Paul and the earliest apostles speak of “works,” especially in contexts like Galatians and Romans, they are drawing on this established Jewish vocabulary. They are not inventing a new concept of “works” but engaging an existing one that their contemporaries would have recognized as referring to concrete Torah-defined practices that marked out who was in and who was out of the covenant community.

What becomes distinctive in Paul is how he reinterprets that category in light of the Christ event. For him, the death and resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit have created a new mode of belonging to the people of God, one not bounded by the ceremonial and identity aspects of the Mosaic Law. When Paul argues that justification is not “by works of the Law,” he is saying that covenant membership is no longer established by those traditional identity-markers. Circumcision, food laws, and purity regulations no longer function as the boundary lines of God’s people, because faith in Christ and the Spirit’s transforming presence now define that community.

This shift does not imply that the Law was meaningless or that moral obedience is irrelevant. Rather, it reflects a change in how God’s covenant purposes are understood to be fulfilled. The early Christian movement, while deeply rooted in Jewish thought, came to see the Mosaic “works” — precisely those practices highlighted in Jewish discussions like those preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls — as provisional signs pointing toward a larger, more inclusive reality. In that sense, the apostolic use of “works” is best understood as an internal Jewish conversation reshaped by the conviction that God’s promises had reached their decisive fulfillment in Christ.

— AI-generated

Faith that commands

 The miracles of Jesus Christ show that the Father is to be believed as supporting life, health, and safety: Life - by the resurrection miracles; health - by the healing miracles; safety - by the calming of the dangerous storm. Belief in God along these lines is key to believing He will provide such things and respond to crises in such ways. Firmly believing without giving in to doubts, and being able to stand by that belief in the face of worldly objections, this is key to commanding Nature such that it obeys. Jesus’ teaching, when acted on in this way, is proven to be good teaching: Light in the midst of darkness. Then Jesus himself can build on this faith, and in so doing he can build God’s temple from such believing individuals. Continuing in his teachings, as true disciples, leads to experiences of doing greater and greater things through his name. This pleases God.

Faith built on miracles

 Real faith in Jesus Christ, really believing in him, can come in various ways. One way is through his miraculous control of nature: His miraculous commanding of storms; his commanding the sick to get well; he even commanded the dead to rise. Looking at this according to his teachings about faith, he taught those who hear his teachings to believe so much in God, even though that belief might seem small and fragile, that doubts are excluded. In this state of faith in God, a command can be given to nature, like Jesus did in his miracles. If the faith is there such that the doubts are completely excluded, even nature will obey, like his command to a storm to be still, and it was still, or his command to an illness to go away, and it went away. This lesson, when truly learned and practised, leads to belief not only in God but in Jesus, His Son, too.  Jesus can build on this faith. He can water this seed of faith so that it grows, not just into ability to do greater things, but built into better trust in him and his teachings. Confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ needs to grow into confidence in his teachings too, such that they are held to, learned more deeply, understood, and eventually put into practice. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”