The optional readings are the following:
Numbers 11:24-30
Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.
Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
And:
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body– Jews or Greeks, slaves or free– and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
In reality, the Hebrew word for “words” and “told” is of the same root (“dabar”). This means the verse states that “Moses came out and the words of the Lord were spoken to the people.” This is the exact same circumstances as Peter and the others “coming out of the upper room and speaking the words of Yahweh to the pilgrims.” This assumes that the connection Moses had with God is the same as the connection Jesus had, in the sense that both men readily could “speak” for God.
When one reads, “Then the Lord came down in the cloud,” the root Hebrew word translated as “came down” is “yarad.” That word means “to descend,” but because the reference is to Yahweh (“the Lord”), the meaning is altered to a “divine manifestation” form of descent.
In this regard, the word also has a meaning that is relative to water, being “to sink,” which makes this easier to see how God baptized with the Holy Spirit. (Brown-Driver-Briggs) The Greek word for “baptize” is “baptizó,” which means “to dip, sink.” (Strong’s) Thus, the Hebrew word for “a cloud” (“anan”) can also mean “a heavy mist,” where God cannot be limited to some physical “cloud,” as God is much greater that anything as limiting as a physical anything. This means the verse can be read as saying, “The Lord manifested a baptism of His Holy Spirit, which is cloaked in invisibility.” This is then similar in the onset of the Holy Spirit in the upper room of Acts 2.
When God had Moses choose seventy elder and have them surround the tabernacle, the multiplicity of that number is relative to the multiplicity of twelve-plus in the Acts 2 story of Pentecost. The two (Eldad and Medad, whose names both are related to “love”) are similar to the three thousand who received the Holy Spirit from those in the upper room. The Holy Spirit was not in some small, tabernacle-sized cloud, but everywhere. God knew where those chosen to receive the Spirit were located.
The fear of Eldad and Medad prophesying in the camps was akin to the fear the Temple elite would have had about Jewish pilgrims prophesying on their own, separate from their influence. It is like the fear of a COVID19 pandemic, broadcast 24/7 on the news.
We are told that the seventy elders prophesied, but they “did not do so again.” This reflects the same limitation that had been set upon Jesus’ disciples (the twelve and the seventy-two), who were sent out in ministry with similar limited talents. They got a taste for what God offered to his devoted priests; but devotion requires absolute self-sacrifice in order to serve God completely.
When Joshua pleaded with Moses, “My lord Moses, stop them!” only for Moses to say, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” This says that all true priests are given the Holy Spirit permanently when Jesus is resurrected as the Christ within a body of flesh and its soul.
When the Holy Spirit is present within, there is no need for Moses to have to act like a parent of countless children that always bellyache and cry. This story in Numbers is vital for today’s Christians to see they are living like the Israelites, the majority of who did not get this taste of the Holy Spirit and knowing the truth momentarily. The flocks (tribes or camps) depended on their elders to come back and prophesy to them. This means understanding the writings of the Holy Bible as being prophecies that need the Holy Spirit of God to discover the hidden truth they hold.
This reading has modern applications that need to be openly discussed. As Christians following a leader into the wilderness, where trust is less the option of survival (Salvation) than the option of being ‘left behind’ in the place we were before (lives of sin that we want gone), Christians today are camped well away from the tabernacle. Christians are divided into “camps” called “denominations,” rather than “tribes.” The elders chosen to get a taste of God are our would-be spiritual leaders: priests, ministers, pastors, preachers, bishops, and even cardinals and popes. Christians hear how those “elders” were called to go get special training from Moses (i.e.: Jesus), but the only time in their lives when they truly prophesied was around the tabernacle, in the presence of God, which means they could never duplicate that experience of knowing the truth when back in their home camps. This says back then, just as today, and just as when the Pharisees, Sadducees and temple scribes ran the business of religion, the people never have a leader (“elder”) surround them with the invisible mist of a spiritual baptism, like what happened on Pentecost Sunday.
The name “Eldad” means “God Has Loved” and “Medad” simply means “Beloved.” They are named because they represent God’s LOVE that comes from those who speak for God, just as Jesus spoke what the Father told him to say. Eldad and Medad were Apostles or Saints, like Peter and the twelve, like those Saints who have been known to walk among the people speaking the truth of Holy Scripture. The fear that existed then is just as real today, and anyone who speaks the truth of God WITHOUT A DIPLOMA ON THE WALL AND A PAYSTUB FROM SOME OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION THAT IS A DENOMINATION IN THE BUSINESS OF CHRISTIANITY makes the people cry out like babies, “Make him or her stop!”
When Moses told Joshua son of Nun (whose name means “Yah is Salvation – son of Fish”), “If only ALL would be like Eldad and Medad,” the same failure existed when Jesus walked the planet. The same failure exists today. God’s wish is that believers stop professing belief and start prophesying the truth. When Christians gather in mindless herds, more to be fed than to listen to a shepherd speak, none are filled with God’s Holy Spirit and none are ACTING like Jesus or ACTING like Jesus reborn in Saints. Because no one is hearing the truth being told, no one is marveling at the presence of God in the written Word. Everyone is happy doing nothing, which is a deadly sin in itself.
In Hebrew, the root word that states “to prophesy” is “naba.” According to Brown-Driver-Briggs, the word primarily means: “prophesy under influence of divine spirit: a. in the ecstatic state, with song.”
This means David wrote his songs while in a state of prophecy. It means all of the Torah was written with the same “influence of divine spirit,” where the truth is the presence of God within, allowing one to see through the Christ Mind.
Every one of those seventy elders were God incarnate, for as long as God allowed them the taste of the truth. It is not good enough to listen to lame sermons about political agendas or sales pitches for a church, when the need for the truth is the ONLY REASON FOR RELIGION.
When Jesus said, “A prophet is not a prophet in his home town,” that was God speaking the truth about how much easier it is to kill the messenger, than it is to listen and believe, where believing leads one to likewise become a messenger of God’s truth.
That is what Paul wrote. If you want to be pagan, be pagan; but, know that it is a curse set upon oneself to claim JESUS is with one, when that is not the truth.
When that is understood, then one can complete the verse with knowledge, realizing importantly [from “kai”] that “no one can say, “Lord JESUS,” if not made HOLY by God’s Spirit of Jesus Christ.
That, my friends, is Paul writing about the sad state that Christianity is in today. The VAST MAJORITY of ‘Christians’ are blasphemers, simply because they do not love God with ALL THEIR HEARTS, SOULS, and MINDS, thereby being only in their names (selfishness), not that of Jesus Christ.
In the Acts reading, Peter ended that reading by stating (from Joel 2:32), “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Peter spoke (one could imagine) Hebrew or Aramaic Yiddish, which was then translated (divinely) by Luke, so all the multi-national Jewish pilgrims would understand what Joel said and what Peter meant.
In the Hebrew text is written (transliterated), “kōl ’ă·šer- yiq·rā bə·šêm Yah·weh yim·mā·lêṭ,” where “bə·šêm Yah·weh” translates as “on the name Yahweh.” The root word of “bə·šêm” is “shem,” which means “a name.” Still, the Word of God goes beyond simple meaning, where simple minds cannot go.
One is an “Anathema JESUS” claimer when one thinks “calling upon the name Yahweh” is read like saying, “calling upon the name of a pet.” To think “I can call God and/or Jesus Christ, like they are my pets and I am their master” is insanity! One has cursed oneself by thinking he, she, or it can call upon God or His Son, simply by speaking words.
The Hebrew word “shem” does mean “name,” but there is more to that, which means usage needs to be understood. According to Brown-Driver-Briggs, the word “shem” refers to a “reputation.” They state it also means, “especially as giving a man kind of posthumous life, especially in his sons.” They then add that the word means “name, as designation of God,” which means not a designation of someone lesser than God. They then state, “hence, of place of worship.” All of this usage says ANYTIME SOMEONE SAYS “the name of” (in the context of Holy Scripture), it means one has been reborn as a Son of God, bearing His Holy name JESUS, as designated by God the Father, such that the presence of His Son within a human body of flesh makes that body of flesh a temple unto the Lord.”
It must be realized that Paul wrote a letter because of a COMMON MISCONCEPTION about what “in the name of Jesus Christ” means. Paul was clearing this matter up; but, as can be seen today, two thousand years later, that point has not been preached.
The reason is the preachers are hired hands and do not take the time to talk to God, while pondering Scripture. They are too busy watching CNN and preparing their next politically satisfying Sunday oration, cursing themselves for pretending to be gods on earth.
In the rest of the reading from Paul’s letter addresses his statements in verses four through six: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
This says that all of the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit come from God. In the Hebrew of Joel, where the translation is “Lord,” the word written is “Yahweh,” which is God (not “elohim”). The Greek word for “Lord” is “Kyrios,” which means, “Lord” and/or “Master.” The word can be seen and read as an indication of a “King.”
Knowing God (Yahweh) was the King of Israel and knowing Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world, God is the “Lord” and “JESUS” (Paul wrote all-caps) is the “name of Yahweh” in the flesh, as His Son. The Holy Spirit is the realm of the “spiritual” (Paul’s 12:1a), where the Spirit has brought a body of flesh from the realm of the material (the unholy) and made it Holy. This is different from the breath of life (a soul spirit), which makes human being walk and talk and think they are almighty … BUT NOT HOLY.
This means the “gifts” of the Spirit, the Lord, and God are all from the same source – the spiritual – as the Trinity manifested on the earth. The body of flesh is where all spiritual gifts emanate, as the Son is the ONLY part that contains physical matter. Still, for that matter to house God, the Holy Spirit, and be the Son, it must be made HOLY.
Holy is (from the Greek word “Hagiō”) that which makes one be “set apart by God,” meaning it is part of the world made “sacred,” being different in the world. The test of human bodies of flesh sitting in pews or preaching from podiums is if they ANY of the “gifts” of which Paul wrote.
Since most score a zero in this regard, they are simply of the world, not set apart by God as sacred. Since God neither owns, operates, or endorses any seminaries “in the world,” none of them have been “set apart as holy by God.” So, God is not a commodity given as gifts to paying students.
The Greek words “charismatōn” and “charismata” are both translated as “gifts.” They come from the root “charisma,” which means, “a gift of grace, a free gift” (Strong’s definition) and “an undeserved favor” (Strong’s usage).
This means “gifts” are not “presents, bonuses, or boons” (the meaning of the Greek word “dóra”), but special talents given by God as a “gift of God’s goodwill,” which is spiritual.
The list created by Paul (divinely inspired) is this:
1. “logos sophias” – divine utterance of insight.
2. “logos gnōseōs” – divine utterance of knowledge.
3. “pistis” – faith.
4. “charismata iamatōn” – gifts of healing.
5. “energēmata dynameōn” – effecting miracles.
6. “prophēteia” – prophecy.
7. “diakriseis pneumatōn” – judging spirits.
8. “gené glōssōn” – family languages.
9. “hermēneia glōssōn” – interpreting languages.
When each of these “talents” are analyzed, ask yourself, “How did any or all of these talents (“gifts of grace”) get displayed by Peter and the eleven on Pentecost Sunday?”
I say all of them were displayed.
You just have to know how to read between the lines, as if you were a Jew in Jerusalem on that day.
You have to be a witness to what flowed like God coming down in a mist and surrounding the tabernacle that was the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem.
You have to know the feel of God’s hand touching you – a feeling that is largely absent in today’s watered down version of Christianity.
You have to realize that about three thousand souls were baptized by the presence of God and His Son that day, with that maybe not being only a portion of all who witnessed the event.
[Next is Part III]
Explaining the Readings 