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Language, Romans, Teaching

Romans 8:22-27 – Groaning in labor pains

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We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

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This is the optional Epistle selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for Pentecost Sunday, Year B 2018. It will next be read aloud (if chosen by a priest) in church by a reader on Sunday, May 20, 2018. This is important as it speaks from the perspective of one born of death, who has gained the promise of eternal salvation, through the Holy Spirit. It alludes to the weaknesses that cause dried bones in those born mortals, which can only be brought to life by the love of God, the Mind of Christ, and the Will of God through His Holy Spirit.

The chances are this short reading from Paul will never be read aloud in an Episcopal church, simply because it is in a “pick two out of three,” with one of the three a must pick. That leaves the battle of the Scripture readings to Ezekiel 37 (the dried bones in the valley) and this from Romans 8. Simply from a theatrical perspective, Paul is always good for an audience response that says, “Huh?” That makes it probable that this reading may never be read aloud in church. The reason the probability is not zero is it is short, so some priests might choose it to save printing costs on any accompanying read-along handouts.

Imagine this, a Scripture waiting three years to be chosen for presentation to a congregation, and it never gets picked. If churches were like seminary and tests were required for graduation as a Christian, everyone would fail the test if passing meant writing an essay about the meaning of Romans 8:22-27.

Who remembers this reading?

While some concepts are easy to see here – creation, labor pains, hope, and the Holy Spirit – few would jump and scream, “Romans 8:22-27!!!” … if asked to quote a verse of Scripture that was relative to those concepts.

Maybe I’m wrong and just don’t hang out with enough Pauline scholars?

If it were not for the demand to choose the Acts 2:1-21 reading for Pentecost Sunday – because (after all) what is a Pentecost without the Pentecost story from Acts 2, right? – this reading from Paul’s letter to the Jews of Rome paints a perfect picture of how difficult it is for a bag of dried bones in new flesh (zombie Christians?) to actually move those chest muscles and breathe deep, after being prophesied to the breath.

Begin C.P.R. to open the heart to God.

Out with the dusty air. In with the Holy Spirit.

Out with the egomania. In with the Mind of Christ.

While Ezekiel can be seen as the Holy Spirit in a human Saint prior to Jesus Christ, Paul should be seen as the Holy Spirit in a human Saint after Jesus Christ. Just as God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dried bones in new bodies, God likewise to Jesus of Nazareth (His Son) said to prophesy to dried bones in new bodies. Now, God is telling Paul to prophesy to those who received the Holy Spirit and eternal life in re-hydrated bodies, while indirectly prophesying to dried bones in new bodies reading his words today. The same God is using multiple righteous bodies (prophets) as His Christ to prophesy to the breath of eternal life.

What if the Transfiguration occurred in Ezekiel’s vision and the past, present, and future were prophesying to the breath at the same time?

Paul was told to prophesy to those like him about what “we know” (Greek “oidamen”). This was relative to faith as belief based on personal experience. Paul could make that statement in the plural number because he had witnessed others who had transformed from dried bones in new bodies of flesh, from mortals plodding along like zombies towards certain death to Saints filled with the light of truth and assured eternal life.

For those who know Paul’s story, he was named Saul before he encountered the Spirit of Jesus Christ, was knocked off his mule and blinded for three days. Saul was transformed from Christian-persecuting Pharisee into Saint in the name of Jesus Christ; but that transformation was not a smooth snap of the fingers, presto-change-o, where Jewish Saul became Christian Paul. He went through labor pains, from being born Saul headed towards another dead end, to being reborn as Jesus Christ. To give a name to the new him, he began going by the name Paul.

Saul was a creation, who was like all the Apostle-Saints Paul encountered in his travels. They had all been created of matter – bones, sinews, flesh and skin – forming as fetuses in their mother’s wombs, and grown to maturity in a world of evil influences.  The Jews Paul sought were clinging to their Judaism as a way to justify their sins. Saul was one of them, a reflection of their lifeless state.

It has always been a challenge for a soul released into a universe of matter to find its way beyond the veil of deepest, darkest outer space as to the origin that is God. That must be where He lives and watches over us dust mites of His Creation.  The labor pains of finding God, especially for souls locked inside zombie bodies, comes from straining and groaning to reach the highest, widest, deepest outer edges … to where brains think God must be ….

When God has always been within.

For Saints like Paul and his fellow Roman Christian Jews, the receipt of the breath of the Holy Spirit did nothing to ease their pains. To those first fruits of the Spirit, their souls still resided in temporal bodies and they faced the same struggles Ezekiel and Jesus faced – prophesying to dried bones standing before them like zombies.

The first fruits are the earliest harvest of grains, which are then measured by a weight called an “omer.”  As a symbolic gesture, those early grains and fruits were gathered and placed in the Temple on the second day of the Passover Festival. The first fruits were then allowed to become ripe and matured, which began a daily count to when those fruits would be worthy to eat. They were ripe and ready on the Fiftieth Day – Pentecost.

All the Apostles serving the Father in the name of Jesus Christ had “groan inwardly” waiting for their “adoption” as true Christians, just as do everyone who seeks the same gift of eternal life. The redemption of their bodies meant, like first fruits that appear ready for harvest, their egos had to be removed.

In the zombie analogy, the walking dead or the living dead can only truly die when their brains are blown to bits.  I imagine the “death” of a zombie would symbolize eternal damnation, where the soul can no longer find anything earthly to call “home.”  Still, the zombie analogy says the living dead live because of a brain and not because of a soul.  Thus, the first fruits represent the initial receipt of the Spirit of Christ, so the soul begins to retake control over what was a lost cause before.  Life for a zombie consists of destroying life in others; but dried bones without a brain – sacrificed for the Holy Spirit – have life to offer others.

Just as Jesus breathed on his disciples, giving them the first fruits of the Salvation harvest, they needed to be aged to perfection.  The disciples and followers of Jesus would then begin a forty-day test of one’s true readiness to have eternal life.  That education was mandatory and had to be passed. Therefore, the “groan inwardly” is one’s time spent in the Wilderness, where brains cannot find water and food; only angels can keep the body of flesh thriving on heavenly manna and living waters.

When Paul wrote to his brothers in Christ, he stated, “For in hope we were saved.” The Greek word “elpidi” is translated as “hope,” but the word equally means, “expectation, trust, and confidence.” This means an Apostle knows that salvation has come, when one has met the test for “redemption of the body,” because of an inner presence that instills deep trust and confidence in the Holy Spirit, with an expectation of eternal life.

The Apostles were saved as examples of hope that others could sense and feel.  The presence of “hope,” as most mortals know the meaning, is the thrill and excitement that is brought on in anticipation of good things coming.  The righteousness of hope comes by a willingness to serve the LORD, no matter what the earthly consequences might be.

When Paul made the statement and then questioned, “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” this is the “hope” that comes from others. When in danger, we are trained to respond – “Call 9-1-1!”  We look for rescue to come to us, in the form of flesh and blood heroes.

Human beings routinely place their hope, expectations, trust and confidence in leaders. The Israelites went to Samuel pleading for a king to lead them, like those who led others nations. They wanted to see a king as holy, rather than take the responsibility of being holy themselves. Individually, one offers little value as hope for others, when one sees oneself, and others see one as well, as an ordinary human being that is lowly and insignificant.  We equate the power of worldly influence as the rays of hope to bow down before.  We look for that which can be seen … not God.

That error is what makes people be born to death, as walking brains on top of dried bones and rotting sinews, flesh and skin.

For the majority of people today who profess belief in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah promised by God to the Jews, and said to be “our Christ,” the error comes from placing the body of a dead man on a wooden instrument of death. We look for the “second coming of Christ” as though that is eons down the road of linear time. The error is in making an idol of Jesus to pray to externally, such that the hopes, expectations, trusts and confidence is that Jesus Christ will come down from heaven like a Greek hero and slay evil with his double-edged sword and rapture all Christians up to heaven. All of that “hope” calls for no one talking self-responsibility, no self-sacrifice is necessary, no groaning inwardly has to be experienced, and no fruits need be grown that will be in the name of Jesus Christ.

Paul said, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” We cannot see God, but God wants our hearts to open for Him. God wants dried bones with new sinews, flesh and skin to love Him enough to be wedded to Him. God wants our souls to be in Holy Matrimony with His love.

We cannot see the Holy Spirit, but God wants to wrap His wives in that protective covering. We cannot see the child growing within us that brings the labor pain as we are reborn as the Son of God, Jesus Christ [regardless of one’s human gender]. No one can see the hope of Jesus Christ in us, as we still look like Saul did, before he took the name Paul. No one can see the hope an Apostles breathes upon dried bones, zombie-brained people.

That is why patience is required.

In that period of patience, weakness will come. Once a bag of dried bones, then always a bag of dried bones. It is why priests say at funerals, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Forget the possessions (land, money, jewelry, etc., etc.), you can’t take your bag of bones with you.  Believe me, the Egyptians tried and we have the dried bones of mummies to prove that.  That means evil influences will pull on dried bones, just as gravity will always make what goes up always come down.

Patience means not over-reacting to that which is normal.  Patience means not becoming disoriented.  Patience means remaining centered in the Holy Spirit.

So, with hope, trust, confidence, and expectations being based on the unseen, influences of evil will always drift by. When you pray to an external God and kneel before a Jesus hanging on a cross on a wall, you find those worldly temptations always wrapping their tentacles around you, choking the mortal life from you. That is why it is so important to receive the breath of prophecy and know the true meaning of faith.

True faith is knowing nothing that comes from a small human brain can bring anything that lasts forever. It is the Holy Spirit that maintains one’s path to eternal life, swatting away the lures of Satan. When you are Jesus Christ reborn, another in the line of Sons of God, you tell Satan to go where the sun don’t shine.

And, he has to obey that command, when he knows it was spoken with confidence.

So much influence of the world, while living in a worldly domain, means fear of failure to withstand it all. As Christians, we believe in the power of prayer. Prayer is indeed a powerful ally.  Reciting serial prayers helps place our hearts in a centered state of reception.  The problem, as stated by Paul, is “we do not know how to pray as we ought.”

The disciples of Jesus raised this issue when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. From the point that “The Lord’s Prayer” was written on paper and published in books called Holy Bibles, zombies have been repeating the same words without understanding what righteousness was the intent behind those words. It reminds me of the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the scene at the rope bridge over the great abyss.

There each knight had to answer three questions to get across. Repeating the answers someone else gave did not work out too well.  That is like reading a prayer from a book of prayers for all occasions, when sometimes it is best just to wing it and speak from the heart.

When God is in one’s heart, when the Christ Mind overrides an imperfect brain, and when the soul has been baptized by the Holy Spirit that means prayer is faster that a thought can be verbalized. It is known before a human brain could ever know what to ask for. This is what Paul meant by saying, “God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

This is how God could ask Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these dried bones live?” and Ezekiel could only answer, “O LORD God, you know.”

If a Saint cannot answer a question posed by God, how can a Saint propose to ask God a question in prayer, without God already knowing the question?

Too often, our prayers are scripted. Too often our prayers are for personal wants and desires. Too often our prayers are public, rather than private and personal. And, too often we visualize what our brain thinks we want to come as an answer to a prayer, ignoring any possibility that the answer has been there before we prayed.

As a too often overlooked reading choice for a Pentecost Sunday service, it should be easy to see now how Paul is an equal to Ezekiel, as both were Saints in service to God. The symbolism of Pentecost is the maturation of the first fruits, where zombies are transformed into righteous examples of the way to be. Saints act like the twelve who were filled with the Holy Spirit, leading others to immediately cease being bags of dried bones in warm flesh and become alive with the Holy Spirit also.

Paul called it as it is, when he wrote to those like him who knew what it was like to be Saints. He wrote, “The Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God,” and Paul and friends were Saints.

The call each week is not to be good, because no one really knows what that means. The call is to stop holding God and Christ at arm’s length, trying to keep you one of the living dead.  The answer is not and can never be endless begging for forgiveness [misuse of prayer] because the brain’s will power slipped yet again. The call is to actually be a Saint – “hagios” in Greek – which means, “set apart by (or for) God, holy, sacred.”

No one is good enough to be that without God’s help.  God knows we need help before we do.

The call then is to open your mouth and breathe in ….  Receive the Spirit.

#zombiesofdriedbones #Pentecostreadings #Faith #Patience #FirstFruits #Saints #Romans82227 #Hope

2 Kings, Language, Teaching

2 Kings 4:42-44 – A miracle of the first fruit

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A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

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This is an optional Old Testament selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 12. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a reader on Sunday July 29, 2018. It is important because it acts as a prophecy of Jesus feeding the multitudes, while being metaphor for the Word of God.

In this short reading, one who is not Jewish or a student of Scripture will not understand that “the first fruits to the man of God” is a yearly ritual. It stems from Moses telling the Israelites that God would feed them with manna – the bread from heaven. Here are some verses from the Book of Exodus that relate to this ritual:

Exodus 16:18 – “And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.”

Exodus 16:22 – “On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses.

Exodus 16:33 – “So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for the generations to come.”

Exodus 16:36 – “(An omer is one-tenth of an ephah.) An “ephah” = “an ancient Hebrew dry measure equivalent to a bushel (35 liters).”

This means the “man from Baal-shalishah bringing … twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack,” where the Hebrew word “le·ḥem” is translated as “loaves,” but could equally mean “twenty bundles of barley flour” (from which bread is made).  Seeing the contents of the man’s “sack” (where “bə·ṣiq·lō·nōw” can mean “in the husk,” with “sack” an uncertain translation) as being little more than the basic delivery of a bushel of barley and wheat grains, which was enough flour to 20 loaves of bread.  A bushel (or ephah) means the man brought about 35,000 grams of unmilled barley and wheat, which was then an omer in dry measure.

In the ritual that was lost and then recreated in captivity, the delivery of the omer of first fruits was placed in the Temple of Jerusalem, put under the care of a high priest. It has been noted by those of Jewish scholastic minds that Elisha was a prophet of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and not a high priest of the temple in Gilgal (the equivalent of Jerusalem in Judah). As such, those scholars argue that delivery of first fruits to the prophet Elisha was improper.

It should also be realized that during this time, in the region surrounding Gilgal, there was a famine.  When we read the man question, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” the “hundred people” are the priests of the temple and not ordinary citizens.  This leads scholars to believe that the man coming from Baal-shalishah [1] brought an omer of first fruits to the company of prophets in Israel, who were led by Elisha.  The scholars believe the man would not have delivered his sack to prophets in Gilgal, instead of to the temple and the high priest there.

This confusion can be eliminated by seeing how proper ritual was observed and the first fruits were taken to the temple, as was commanded.  Then after fifty days of having being placed before God, then the blessed flours, dried fruits and grains were to be consumed by the people of Israel.  This means a man was sent with a share for the company of prophets (100), as an emissary of the temple in Gilgal.

This would explain Elisha saying, “Give it to the people and let them eat,” because that was the ritual and the recognition of Shavuot (known by Christians as Pentecost) – held yearly on 6 Sivan. That represents the fiftieth day after the Israelites were freed from Egypt (the day after the Passover – Pesach), when Moses came down with the tablets (the count beginning 16 Nissan). As seen in Exodus 16:33, this practice was to be continued in ritual, which would have the gathered early harvest placed before the Lord in the temple.

Exodus 16:18 says each family of Israelites were allotted an omer of manna (collected by the father), with some questioning if this meant one omer per family tent, or multiple omers that matched the number of people living in the tent. Exodus 16:22 says twice that number was allowed on the sixth day, which could be baked or boiled and left overnight for the Shabbat, without spoiling.

One can assume that each family then began to gather one omer of their first fruits of the fields in the Promised Land, taking that to the temple priest. As long as it sat before God, who resided between the cherubim of the Ark, then it was blessed and would not spoil.  Therefore, many omers of grain would be ritually held in the temple until it was fed to the people in the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot), as blessed food for the Sabbath (spiritual food).

We then read that the servant of Elisha asked, “How can I set (twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain) before a hundred people?” Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’”

You might want to consider self-serve and multiple tables.

This was not a direct quote from God in Exodus; but, as a prophet, God might have told Elisha to quote Him then. Still, it could well be a paraphrase of God telling Moses to tell the Israelites to collect twice the manna on Friday, for food on the Sabbath as well (manna did not fall on Saturdays).  That might be a sign that the man delivered the food (during a famine) on a Friday, implying there would be food left for the Day of Rest.

Regardless of the reality that had to have surrounded the telling of this event, when we read, “He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord,” a miracle occurred. It is the miracle of manna – that any other day of the week, if left overnight for the next day, would be filled with maggots and stink – that is relative to the miracle of little food becoming plentiful food during a famine. Certainly, this miracle of Elisha and the first fruits is then prophetic of Jesus feeding the five thousand, such that the words of the Lord, spoken by Elisha resonated in the words spoken by Jesus.

This connection to Jesus feeding the five thousand is than why this reading is optional for this Sunday, because the Gospel reading is John’s version of that miracle (all four Gospels share perspectives on this miracle of Jesus). In my interpretation of the Gospel reading from Mark 6, for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, I made a point of showing how that selection skipped over this miracle, focusing only on the gathering of the lost flocks of Israel that sought out Jesus.  In my writing, I mentioned how the twelves baskets filled with leftovers was more than physical bread and meat left on fish bones that the disciples gathered. This is because the bread of the first fruits, like manna and like five loaves and two fish, is spiritually sustaining.

This means the reading about Elisha points to the root meaning of manna being the bread from heaven, which is spiritual food.  Manna met physical needs, but its presence went above and beyond the limitations of physical food. According to Judaic scholars, Gentiles could never get a firm grasp on manna, even though they saw it (which assumes the Israelites passed travelers while wandering). Supposedly, it would slip out of their hands.  That indicates that manna was only sent by God for his chosen people.

The scholars of the Torah also say that the manna fell closer to the tents of the true believers who followed Moses, while those filled with more doubts had to walk a distance to gather their omers of manna. That says the first fruits are not all capable of miraculous results.  It depends on who is passing them out and what the circumstances are.

Some scholars also say that some Israelites worked hard to gather the manna for their families, while others lazily lay on the ground and caught the manna as if slowly drifted to earth. This says that those who are working to get fulfillment from spiritual food can feel a sense of self-achievement when their work is done.  Still, those who let God bring the spiritual food to them, without trying to give self free reign, can be seen as following the axiom: Work smarter, not harder.

All of this scholastic insight then becomes symbolic of the bread of heaven being the more than physical food.  The manna was the compliment to the waters that came from the rock that was struck by the staff of Moses.  More than keeping the Israelites alive as mortals, their souls were being raised by the Word of God (later to be put in writing by Moses) and the Holy Spirit of living waters.  The first fruits, those blessed by God’s presence, then become symbolic of the people who serve God, like Elisha and his company of prophets.

This symbolism can be summed up by the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

A medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. (Wikipedia)

God gave Moses the Law, but merely memorizing those words have less effect of good, than living a life by those rules. The fiftieth day (Pentecost in Greek; Shavuot in Hebrew) represents the feast of celebrating the Law and the Covenant with God being available to the Israelites. The six days of gathering a daily amount of food, where collecting more than one day’s worth was fruitless, was transformed when the days changed from physical to spiritual – from weekdays to the holy day. That is when the daily food becomes able to feed for a lifetime. Therefore, the symbolism of Elisha’s faith, and that of Jesus, was the Word of God feeding the devoted so that they produced manna within themselves, which was then left for the future.

The ritual of land owners taking the first fruits of their harvests and placing those harvests in the temple for God’s blessing, so they would be released back to the people after fifty days, was to recreate the blessing that was manna from heaven. The days of working to gather daily bread was then celebrated by the presence of God’s Law and one’s excited agreement to serve God faithfully for the rest of one’s life. The physical limitations that befell a ritual act of remembrance – when the high priests had sons that were priests in name only; when the tabernacle replaced by a brick and mortar temple; and when the Ark of the Covenant became the lost Holy Grail – the past then reflected the return of weekdays.

The loss of the time when God’s priests lived lives that reflected the day God blessed and deemed holy … when they were the first fruits God said, “Give them to the people and let them consume” … then that was how little the ritual of Passover and the Counting of the Omer until Pentecost (Shavuot) meant in the times of Elisha and in the times of Jesus. Other than the holy ones – “the men of God” – everyone else had reverted to living day-to-day, memorizing rules, seeing no meaning to Scripture easily within one’s grasp, while searching far and wide to find any meaning only led to too much confusion to put solid faith into.  Elisha and Jesus both found people incapable of living up to the writings they said their ancestors had agreed to forever live by.

The miracle is not that Elisha had faith, as he knew what God had said. Likewise, the miracle was not that Jesus had faith that five loaves and two fish could feed a multitude. The miracles were that one hundred prophets saw the true meaning of the first fruits. The five thousand had their hearts opened, more than their stomachs, so they became the first fruits that would be sent to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover that was nearing. The miracle of both stories is the birth of faith, as the normal had transformed into the holy. Friday had changed into the Sabbath, for a lifetime to come; and that transformation came with plenty of food for spiritual thought left to be shared.

The first fruits of thought all begin with the tiniest of seeds, which then grows mightily.

As an optional Old Testament selection for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry should be underway, the lesson is to go beyond the limitations of physical needs (as a stomach’s desire for food reflects) and let God into one’s heart for the soul’s eternal blessing. The lesson says to listen to God’s Word and then proclaim it with faith and confidence. The lesson is to be one of the one hundred who received the Word from Elisha and then give that Word so others could be filled.

The first fruits symbolize both the work involved in the gathering of the fruits of one’s labors and the blessing of that harvest by God. That becomes the promise of plenty in a time of famine, where work today will have miraculous rewards later. A minister of the LORD looks beyond the limitations of the present, simply by letting God fill one’s heart. One becomes the first fruits that will feed the famished who are in need and deserving their share.

In today’s world, where so many are struggling to get from one day to the next, a minister to the LORD offers living waters and spiritual food to nourish those seeking more than the simple Word offers. A minister becomes the servant who set the twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain before the hundred, so they could eat blessed food – manna from heaven. How much of that spiritual food is left afterwards then depends on those who are gathering the manna for the members of their family tent.

[1] Nobody is certain what Baal-shalishah means, but many jump to the conclusion that it means a place in either Israel or Palestine, with those admittedly guesses.  The etymology of the Hebrew says the “name” listed means “Lord” or “Master” (“Ba’al”) of “three” (“shalosh”). This means the element of a Trinity is in play, such that “the man” was “from” the “Master of the third” phase, concerning the ritual of the first fruits.  This means Elisha met a man sent from the Master of First Fruits dispersion, whose title meant he oversaw who received the gathered and blessed by God (first and second steps of the first fruits) on Shavuot – when Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were joined collectively and individually as one.