#the fact I could spell my last name at 5 years old is a testament to how many times I heard my mother spell it over the phone.

[dameronology]

love in the time of p.t.a meetings {marcus moreno} - 2/5

summary: your kid has taken a liking to marcus moreno - and frankly, so have you {series masterlist}

warnings: swearing, mentions of divorce & very brief mentions of his wife’s death 

i don’t normally update series this quickly but this was originally one imagine that reached about 11k words lmao so it’s all written, just being split up. i’ve also decided it’s gonna be 5 parts instead of 3, cos i reread the ending and realised i was not done by a longshot. enjoy!

- jazz

Mondays. You hated ‘em.

Everything just seemed so...amplified. The peace and relaxation of the weekend was over and everyone had to go back on the grind. The traffic always seemed worst, the clock seemed to tick backwards and you just wanted to be at home, in bed. After an incident involving the dog, a toaster and a small pan fire, you were already running twenty minutes late and you knew in your soul that your child’s shoes weren’t on the right feet. That, and also he was wearing a Chewbacca onesie to school. It had been a compromise. As in, he was refusing to go to school unless you let him wear the damn thing. It was a compromise. You’d lost. 

On the bright side, the past weekend had been the best you’d had in a long time. Jack had spent all of Saturday afternoon at the Heroics headquarters and he was so worn out, he’d slept through all of Sunday. Marcus Moreno must have a been a fucking wizard, because you’d been trying to tire the kid out for five years. You made a mental note to do something in return, though you sensed there was nothing on God’s green earth that could possibly amount to babysitting the world’s most exhausting child for six hours. You were allowed to say that, because Jack was your world’s most exhausting child and you wouldn’t have changed him for anything. 

‘New week, huh buddy?’ You glanced at Jack in your rear view mirror. He was sat on his booster seat, legs dangling back and forth and a power ranger action figure in his hand. ‘A fresh start.’

‘Can we listen to the song from Cars?’ Jack ignored your comment.

‘You gotta try and behave yourself this week. You’ve seen what happens to people who do follow the rules, right? They get to go work at the Heroics-’

‘- I wanna listen to the song from Cars!’

You wanted to have a deep conversation. Jack wanted to listen to Life Is A Highway. That was...actually, it was exactly how you’d expected that to go. It wasn’t that off of the time you were trying to explain your divorce to him and he’d interrupted you to demand that you put Toy Story on. 

‘Sure thing, kid.’ You rolled your eyes, reaching across to hand him on your phone. ��D’you know how to spell it-’

Your sentence was cut off by the sound of guitars blaring from the speakers. At least he could work out Spotify.

By some miracle, you managed to make it the school with a few minutes to spare. Because most people had dropped their kids off earlier (see: on time), the lot was pretty empty. That meant you could once again dump your car without regard for the painted white lines -- who had time to park properly on a Monday morning? That was for people who had their shit together.

Leaping out the car, you almost cursed when you tripped over your heels. You didn’t have to wear them, but since you’d started working in a managerial role at your office, you figured it made you look a little more professional. And what was the harm in being a few inches taller? It made you feel powerful.

‘C’mon, J.’ You pulled open the back door, helping Jack leap out the car. 

‘You know, I’m starting to think you can’t park your car at all.’

‘Marcus!’ Jack practically flew out the car, his tiny body suddenly jolting with excitement. 

‘Morning, buddy.’ He replied; he then moved his brown eyes to gaze at you, offering a smile. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey, how you doing?’ You greeted him. ‘I don’t normally see you here in the mornings.’

‘Yeah, I normally drop Missy off at the front but it was one of those mornings, you know? She was taking a little more convincing than usual to go in.’

‘My kid is in a Wookiee onesie and backwards Thomas the Tank Engine shoes and you have the audacity to ask me if I know those mornings? I am those mornings.’ You replied.

Marcus chuckled. ‘I think it’s a look. I especially like the Lightning McQueen sunglasses.’

‘Do you have a super suit?’ Jack asked. ‘Can I try it on?’

‘C’mon, Jack. You’ve already managed to get a tour of the HQ.’ You ruffled his hair. ‘And we gotta get going to school.’

‘But I wanna ask more questions.’ He muttered. ‘I have over a hundred.’

‘Don’t I know it.’ You murmured under your breath. ‘But school is more important.’

‘I don’t wanna go anymore.’

‘I let you wear the onesie. That was our agreement, remember?’

‘All good superheroes have to get an education.’ Marcus reasoned. ‘And if you go in, maybe I can show you my suit at some point?’

'Okay!’ Jack grinned. He wrapped his arms around your waist in a quick hug, before peering up at you with a toothy smile. ‘See ya later!’

He turned on his heel and ripped his backpack from your hand, suddenly speeding up the path and towards school. Had...had that just happened? For once in your life, had you not had to wrench him from the car and wrestle him through the school gates? Move aside, Harry Potter, because Marcus Moreno was the new wizard in town. You might have been a little jealous that he was so good with your son but at the same time, it made you like him even more. He was the first parent at the school that had leant into Jack’s wild tendencies. And, whilst you tried not to think too much about it, even his own dad had struggled to do that. It made your heart warm a little. 

‘You are seriously my favourite person.’ You chimed, leaning back against your car. 

‘Kids with character are way more fun than kids who are well-behaved.’ Marcus replied.

‘I spent forty-five minutes scraping string cheese out the USB port of my computer yesterday, but sure.’ 

He chuckled. ‘No, I’m serious. I don’t encourage Missy to misbehave but she does get herself into some situations. I choose to see it as a testament to her intelligence rather than disobedience.’

‘I refuse to believe for a second that Missy ever misbehaves.’ You shot back back. ‘She seems so well-behaved.’

‘What you see in the parking lot is not a reflection of our whole lives.’ He reminded you.

‘Right, because despite appearances, I’m actually a very put together parent.’ You snorted. ‘But I get what you mean.’

‘I gotta get to work now, but it was good to see you.’ Marcus pulled his car keys out his pocket. ‘I was serious about that suit thing, by the way. He saw my katanas on Saturday.’

‘Katanas?’ You spluttered. ‘My kid managed to start a fire last week out of nothing and you want to give him katanas?!’

‘Maybe I can show you how to use them.’ He flashed you a smile. ‘And then you can pass on the knowledge.’ 

‘That’s probably an even worse idea.’ You shook your head with a laugh, pulling open your car door. ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘You as well. Have a good day, pretty lady.’

--

Did you stop thinking about your exchange at any point during the day? Absolutely not. In fact, you’d already written an email to the local deed poll office to change your legal name to Pretty Lady. 

No, but in all seriousness, you’d been a little giddy about it. Had he been flirting? That didn’t seem like a long shot. You got on well, you’d hung out a bit over the weekend and not to toot your own horn, but you were by no means bad looking. Tired and a little frazzled, sometimes? Yeah. But anyone would have been lucky to have you and you were doing a better job at recognising that, especially since your divorce. 

You were almost ecstatic when it got to 4PM and you hadn’t received a single call from Jack’s teachers. That meant that he had behaved, and what Marcus had said had worked. Because you worked past his finishing time, he usually went to the after-school club till you could come to collect him - it had been a lifesaver, especially since you couldn’t always leave early. He usually came home with some kind of weird arts and crafts. Last week, it had been an unidentifiable item made of dried macaroni and glitter. He’d placed it pridefully on the old fireplace in your lounge. 

After saying goodbye to your co-workers, you headed out the building. Your office was right in the city centre and not too far out from the school. It was a nice place to be; your lunch hour, when you could head out to a street cart and eat your food in the local park, was usually the highlight of your day. It was when you could exist just as you. When you were at work, you were in charge on your entire department. When you were home, you were a parent 24/7. That time to yourself was vital.

As you were heading to your car, your phone began to ring. Your heart almost jumped out your chest when you saw Marcus’ name - he hadn’t called you before, only texted to sort out the previous weekend’s plans with Jack. You quickly organised yourself (he couldn’t see you, dumb ass) and cleared your throat.

‘Hey, everything alright?’ You brightly greeted him.

‘Hey! Are you out of work now?’

‘Yeah, I’m literally just leaving. What’s up?’

‘Look, I hate to do this but I’ve had an emergency at work - superhero related, you don’t wanna know - and I’m not gonna be out for hours.’ Marcus sounded stressed. Yeah, I feel that you thought. ‘Would you be able to pick up Missy and possibly have her for a few hours? If not, that’s totally-’

‘- I’d be glad too!’ You interrupted him. ‘I owe you one anyways for the weekend. And this morning, actually.’

‘You don’t owe me anything.’ He sounded surprised that you’d even imply it. ‘But I will definitely owe you for having Missy.’

‘Hey, it’s cool!’ You insisted. ‘Do you want me to drop her off at yours later?’

‘I can come and collect her if you text me your address?’

‘Perfect.’ You smiled. ‘I’ll see you later then?’

‘You’re a lifesaver.’ Marcus said. ‘I’ll text Missy to let her know to find your car instead of mine. I would ask for your plate number, but your car is...’

‘...bright red, covered in dents and hard to miss?’ You finished his sentence.

‘Exactly.’

You’d been in the same situation before; pulled between work and parenting, with Jack stuck at school and an important meeting that felt like it was never ending. It was hard to get a sitter on such short notice - or afford one, sometimes - and it was just another one of the million, stressful situations that single parenting could get you into. If you could help Marcus even a little bit, of course you were going to. You knew he’d do the same for you. Heck, he had done the same for you.

Jack and Missy were both chatty on the way home. Given that she was a little older than him, her conversational skills were strikingly better. It was nice to ask someone about their day and not get where are my Cheetos? as an answer. From what you gathered, she hated science class, enjoyed gym, and her favourite subject was lunch. That didn’t come as a surprise to you - her dad was a literal superhero and probably encouraged physical activity.

(You’d seen his arms, okay? They were more than enough to go on. I digress).

The only thing that made you wish you’d had a little more notice on having her for the evening was the state of your apartment. The place wasn’t bad; you’d lived there for the better part of eight years, and it was crammed with soft furniture and millions of blankets, as well as photos of you and Jack and his questionable art projects. It was just that you hadn’t done the dishes that morning, there was a mountain of shoes by the door and the pancakes from the previous night were still stuck on the roof.

Missy barely blinked an eye; the minute she saw your dog, she’d abandoned her bag and was playing with him. 

‘Hey buddy!’ She grinned. ‘What’s he called?’

‘That’s Oppy.’ You replied, hanging your jacket up. She didn’t need to know that it was short for Optimus Prime. No guesses on whose idea that had been. 

‘He’s so cute!’ Missy continued. ‘I’ve been asking dad for a dog for ages but he won’t budge.’

For some reason, that surprised you a little. Marcus might have been the leader of a super-hero team and a public figure, but you could tell he would do anything for his daughter. You knew because it was the same for you with Jack. He might have ruled your whole life but you would have hung the damn stars in the sky for him if he asked 

‘They’re a lot of work.’ You reasoned. ‘I have to wake up every morning at 6AM to make sure he gets a walk. Then there’s the matter of-’

‘- mum! Optimus Prime pooped in the bathroom!’

‘The matter of that.’ You murmured under your breath.

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly. You fed the kids some leftover takeaway and between the dog and Netflix, they were easily entertained. Jack seemed to take a liking to Missy, which was good because it meant he wanted to sit with her the entire time instead of bouncing off the walls. She had the same patience as her dad, especially when he asked her a million questions about superheroes. It took her twenty minutes to convince him that Batman wasn’t her uncle, and a further fifteen to make him believe that she hadn’t met Captain America. 

Jack had asked you a few times about whether or not he would get siblings. Of course, it would be different to any interactions with Missy because he would have been the oldest, but it did get you thinking. You were finally in a place where you were moving past your former relationship and healing from the wounds. Time wasn’t much of an issue either - you’d had Jack when you were young and barely out of college. You couldn’t possibly imagine having any more kids right now, not when it was just the two of you, but in the future? You’d never rule out meeting somebody new. If anything, you were hopeful. Your first relationship had been your only one, and it had ended badly. You wanted to experience love for what it actually was, and not what you thought it was supposed to be. 

Not long after 7PM, there was a knock on your door. By that point, both Missy and Jack had passed out on the sofa with Star Wars playing quietly in the background. It had been her idea to watch it - she had good taste. Marcus had clearly done a good job.

‘Hey!’ You greeted him as you pulled open the front door. ‘Come in quick, it’s fucking freezing out there.’

‘Thank you.’ Marcus came inside, dusting a few snow flakes out his hair. ‘Seriously, I can’t say it enough-’

‘- it’s fine!’ You shook your head, offering him a smile. ‘Missy’s been great. She’s really chatty and it was nice to have a coherent conversation with someone that isn’t about Paw Patrol. But was everything at the office okay?’

He was quiet for a minute. ‘Yeah. We uh, we lost someone. A hero.’

‘Shit, man. I’m sorry.’ Your voice fell quiet. ‘You wanna come in? You look like you could probably take a moment.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course! Missy and Jack are both asleep on the couch anyways.’ You pointed through to the living room. Marcus leant over to have a look, smiling slightly at the sight. 

‘Thank you. I’d appreciate that.’

He took a seat at the kitchen counter. Your old bar stools were a little old and wobbly, but Marcus didn’t seem to notice. If anything, he admired the place. It was cluttered as hell and filled with useless, old items - cook books you didn’t use, random magnets, assorted toys - but it was nice. His house always felt a little cold and clinical. He’d moved a lot over the course of Missy’s life and now that he was retired from the field, he’d sworn to her that their current house was going to be permanent. Whether or not it felt like home was another question entirely. 

‘I would offer you a drink but all I have is..’ you paused, opening the fridge. ‘Nesquik, vodka or apple juice.’

‘You know what? A Nesquik doesn’t sound too bad.’

‘I like your thinking, Moreno.’

After quickly fixing up the two drinks, you slid into the seat beside him and handed him one. You had never in a million years imagined a situation where Marcus Moreno would be in your kitchen drinking chocolate milk, but here we were. It had clearly been a long day for him and you had enough of those to last a lifetime, so you knew how it felt. Coming home after a day that had beat your ass into the ground and having to put on a brave face for your kids was difficult at best. 

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ You gently asked.

‘Yeah, I’ll be okay - it just always fucks me up a bit.’ Marcus murmured quietly. ‘Hits a little too close to home.’

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that you knew what had happened to his wife. You knew why he’d retired, and why he and Missy had moved away from their original city six years ago.

‘Sorry, that was too deep-’

‘- it wasn’t!’ You quickly cut him off. ‘I’ve had random women come up to me at pick up time and say they’re sorry to hear about my divorce. People I don’t even know. So really, after that, nothing is too much.’ 

He smiled slightly. ‘They always say they’re sorry but why would you bring up a subject if you have to apologise for it?’

‘Exactly!’ You replied. ‘Especially when I’ve moved on. It’s been a year.’

‘It’s the same with me. Missy and I miss her everyday but we don’t mope about it. We just...we look back with fondness on the good memories we have. You can’t move forward if you’re stuck in the past, no matter how much it sucks.’

‘That’s...that’s wise.’ You blinked in surprise. ‘S’pose that means I should take down the dartboard I have with my ex’s face on.’

‘From what I’ve heard, he seems like he should have more than a dart board.’ Marcus snorted - then he froze. ‘Wait, not that I’ve heard stuff, I mean...I don’t listen-’

‘- Marcus!’ You whacked his arm. ‘It’s fine. One of the other kid’s mums started telling me about the terrible divorce someone was going through but she realised she was gossiping to the one who was going through it.’

‘I don’t know how much of what I’ve been told is true, but it sounds like it was bad.’ His hand hovered over where yours was rested on the counter. 

‘The rumours pretty much get the gist of it.’ You replied. ‘But we were talking about your thing, so I don’t wanna take away from that.’

‘Hey, it’s okay.’ He finally moved his hand, fingers gently curling underneath yours to intertwine them. ‘If even half of the whispers are true, he sounds like an asshole. You and Jack both deserve better than that.’

Whatever people had said, it had sort of covered the gist of it. You’d married too young and had a kid too young - your ex had been a terrible husband and an even worst husband. He’d chastised Jack for being...well, being Jack. He’d stay out late with his friends, spend money on things neither of you needed and tried to make you take the blame for it all. After giving him a few too many chances, you’d finally reached breaking point and kicked him out. Filing for divorce and taking on being a single parent was single-handedly the hardest and bravest thing you’d ever had to do. In a way, you were glad you’d done it when Jack was still so young - he didn’t really understand any of it, even when you’d try to explain it in child friendly terms.

‘I think people judge me for it a little sometimes.’ You confessed. ‘They see me struggling but they know I made the choice to separate from him, like I brought it all on myself.’

‘That’s bullshit.’ Marcus plainly stated. ‘Parenthood isn’t a dependent thing based on whether or not you’re still married to the other parent. It’s unconditional and permanent.’

‘I should tell him that, but I also don’t want him back in our lives.’

‘I know it’s none of my business, but he doesn’t deserve Jack. He’s one of the best and brightest kids I’ve ever met.’

‘Thank you. I’m glad he doesn’t seem like a complete lunatic.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you either.’ Marcus continued. ‘Again, I might be out of place saying this but you are...you’re amazing. I was a wreck when I was suddenly on my own and you’re still holding everything together and working your ass off.’ 

‘You’ve noticed?’ You quirked an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, in passing.’ He admitted. ‘I remember I once saw you carrying three separate science projects at once and then Carol made a passing comment that you were on your own and...I just kinda admired you from afar.’

‘You, Marcus Moreno, admired me?’ You blinked at him in disbelief. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I wish I’d had my shit together half as much as you did when I lost Missy’s mum.’ 

‘But the difference is you didn’t have a choice in your situation. I chose to boot his dad out-’

‘- you gotta stop discrediting yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘And stop blaming yourself. You did what was right for your kid and that is the most admirable thing of all.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so.’

The conversation slowly drizzled away, leaving you two to just look at each other. It was hard to tear yourself away from his brown eyes - there was a lot going on behind them. Fear, pain, anguish, admiration. He was one of the most mind-blowingly impressive people you’d ever met; single dad, superhero, electric car owner. He probably didn’t have a mortgage too and that was kinda hot. You were none of those things and yet, here he was, with you, managing to connect on a level that you never had with anyone. Both of your situations were tough, but they’d brought you together. 

Marcus Moreno was pretty fucking fearless (came with the job, you figured), and he wasn’t afraid to make the first move. He slowly inched his head forward and in return, you gravitated towards him. Your lips met halfway in a soft kiss, his hands moving to firmly hold your waist as he pulled you closer.

You almost stumbled out your chair with the movement, but his grip on your hips meant you didn’t slip. Instead, he placed you up on the counter, standing up as he did. It took you a moment to adjust to the position, but with your legs resting on either side of his, you could reach forward and lean on him. You had one hand tangled in his hair and the other on the back of his neck -  you’d surprised yourself with that. It had been months since you’d kissed anyone, but you weren’t as rusty as you thought. 

‘Oh my god, is the superhero gonna be my new dad?!’

Marcus suddenly jumped backwards at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was stood in the doorway, post-nap hair covered by a lopsided Chewbacca hood. His eyes were like dinner plates, even though he was grinning from ear to ear. 

‘Uh...’ you glanced between him and Marcus. ‘We were just...we were...’

‘I had something in my eye.’

‘He had something in his eye.’ You quickly agreed. ‘But now it’s out, so Marcus is gonna go home.’

He knew you didn’t mean it rudely - it was more of a desperation thing. The longer he stayed, the more questions Jack would come out with. Missy could have overheard too and that would have been twice as much to explain. So really, the sooner he got out, the better.

‘Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll grab Missy.’ Marcus said, scratching the back of his head. ‘Thank you again for looking after her.’

‘You don’t need to keep thanking me.’ You shot back. 

He disappeared into the living room for a moment, reemerging with a sleeping Missy in his arms a moment later. Your eyes met again, and he gave you a soft smile.

‘I’ll call you.’

‘Yeah, sure.’  You nodded. ‘See you, Marcus.’

--

True to character, the next hour was spent being pelted with questions from your over-curious son. He didn’t shut up once when you were bathing him and he got even louder when you were reading him his best time story. On the bright side, you’d managed to get him to change out of his slightly manky Wookiee onesie and into a clean Buzz Lightyear one. Normally, you would have argued that he couldn’t live in pyjamas, but if it kept him quiet? It was a price you were willing to pay. 

‘Night, kiddo.’ You pressed a kiss to his forehead, switching on his nightlight. ‘Remember our deal, yeah? If I buy you a Happy Meal tomorrow, you won’t mention what you saw to any of your friends?’

‘You said library was bad.’

‘No, it’s bribery.’ You corrected him. ‘And do as I say, not as I do.’

‘Sounds bad, but okay.’ He sleepily murmured. ‘Night.’

‘Night.’ You stood up, flicking out his bedroom lights.

‘Wait, mum!’ Jack suddenly sat up, as though he’d remembered something. ‘You never said no.’

‘No to what, buddy?’

‘When I asked if the superhero was my new dad.’

Well, fuck. 

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[writingmyselfout]

Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Chapter Ten

Language: English

Rating: Teen+

Pairing: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter

Tags: AU - Canon Divergence, Reptilia28′s Don’t Fear the Reaper Challenge, Manipulative Dumbledore, Black Hermione Granger, Slight Ron Weasley Bashing

Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Chapter 10: Gimme Some Truth

Summary: The will.

MINERVA McGonagall was not generally known for impatience. In fact, quite the opposite: she was quite possibly one of the most patient women in the world, Muggle or otherwise. So it is with an uncharacteristic sense of impatience that she wakes early Saturday morning to get ready for her day back in London. When she realizes just how early, she forces herself to take her time with eating breakfast before taking the time to leave a reminder to her prefects and the Head Girl, a Gryffindor 7th year girl, that she would be away from the castle most of the day and they were to reach out to either Professor Flitwick or Professor Snape should the need arise.

In truth, she doesn’t anticipate anything of great importance occurring on the first weekend of the school year, but she’d also been teaching for long enough to know that when it came to hundreds of adolescent witches and wizards, it was best to prepare for the worst just in case.

She considers, briefly, letting the headmaster know of her plans but opts not to. His own weekends were usually busy, often resulting in him rarely leaving his office or leaving the school altogether for business elsewhere. Even if this were one weekend in which he was free enough to note her absence, she’s not inclined to give him advance notice of her plans. Perhaps it was paranoia, but considering his attempt to maintain guardianship over Harry, she thinks it possible that he might try to dissuade her from looking into the will, which she was determined to do. 

Finally, she heads out. The school’s security measures means she’s unable to leave directly from Hogwarts to Diagon Alley. Instead, she goes into Hogsmeade, greets a yawning Rosmerta in the Three Broomsticks, and borrows her fireplace to Floo to the Leaky Cauldron in London. Most of the shops that made up Diagon Alley kept regular opening and closing hours, including those on Horizont Alley, Knockturn Alley, and Carkitt Market--side shopping areas--with only a few exceptions. Among those exceptions were the Owl Post Office and the Gringotts Money Exchange in the Carkitt Market, and the Healer Shop, Leaky Cauldron and Gringotts Bank directly on Diagon Alley, which were open all day, every day, for the convenience of their patrons. Some of the locations on Knockturn Alley likewise kept such hours, but McGonagall was not one to frequent that district, so which is knowledge she does not, nor cares to, possess.

What matters is that at eight o’clock in the morning, there are few out and about on Diagon Alley, but Gringotts Bank stands at attention at the end of the street, ready for its customers at all hours. And at this particular hour, there are few enough people even within the bank to ensure that she can be attended with little to no delay.

If there is one thing about Gringotts to be appreciated above all else, it is their efficiency. The goblins are not interested in wasting time, and are remarkably good at ensuring that all spells corresponding with Hogwarts and Ministry of Magic records are always working so their own documents are always up to date. They therefore are already well aware that guardianship has moved from the Headmaster to Harry Potter’s Head of House, one Minerva McGonagall. 

Upon stating her business, a goblin by the name of Nagnok is called to lead McGonagall to a room off of the main lobby. It’s a small office, with two chairs facing a desk behind which there is a chair, then a set of drawers set against the wall next to a back door. She’s instructed to take a seat as they would return shortly with the documents in question, then they leave through the back door. They are gone for less than five minutes when they return with a large envelope which, in place of a wax seal, has a string and button seal. Nagnok takes a seat at the desk, modified so that he is eye-level with the witch, and passes the envelope across the desk.

McGonagall looks at the envelope for a moment, then undoes the tie to open it. Inside, tied neatly together, is a small stack of papers with two envelopes slightly smaller than the one they’d been in sitting on top. She undoes that tie as well, places the original envelope and tie to one side, then separates the items before her. She sets down first one envelope, then the next, and finally the pages in a stack together. 

The first letter has Harry’s name written across it. When she flips it over, there is a gold wax seal with the image of a crest pressed into it. McGonagall realizes she has never seen the Potter family crest; had in fact never thought, as with most wizarding families, that there was none. The practice dated back to the twelfth century, and with the exception of families that had dealings with Muggle royals and received recognition from them, wizards and witches typically earned them for great contributions to the wizarding world after which the crest was magically included in Muggle records so as to avoid its use among Muggle nobles. McGonagall doesn’t quite remember when its usage fell out of favor and stopped being bestowed, simply that it was mostly only seen for institutions. Each wizarding school, for instance, and Gringotts as well as the Daily Prophet possessed their own heraldry. Not that she could recall what it looked like, but she was certain some of the older, wealthier families such as the Blacks and Malfoys similarly possessed their own unique family crest and coat of arms. 

She runs her fingers over the wax, feeling the small indentations of the different charges on the small shield imprinted there, and Nagnok advises, “That is spelled to only allow Mr. Potter to open the letter.” 

“I’ve no interest in reading a private letter addressed to my student,” McGonagall informs him, setting the letter aside. The second has no name written on the outside, and the wax seal on the back on this one is red and broken, indicating it had been opened before. She assumes by Albus, and she opens it and pulls out a folded parchment, surprised to find it completely blank. “Is there nothing written in this one?”

“As you can see, it is blank, but we were instructed to include it unaltered with the other letter and will. Albus Dumbledore also did not know what to do with it.” Nagnok grinned, amused, and McGonagall had a feeling that he took enjoyment at their befuddlement. There was likely a spell of some sort that only the guardian, or guardians, James and Lily had wanted for their son would know how to surpass. 

She put the blank parchment away, setting it aside with Harry’s letter, and turning at last to the will itself. The topmost page was clearly the bank’s, providing information on when the will was last altered, when it went into effect, the date it was first accessed, and a blank spot at the bottom denoting when will was fully carried out. As she set the page aside, magically adding today’s date as the last time the will was accessed. 

The details too small to see on the wax seal without much closer inspection were now enlarged and clearly visible. The next page had the full coat of arms and crest in all its magicked glory at the top of the page, before the official writing announcing the document to be the last will and testament of James Potter and Lily Jade Potter nee Evans. The shield of the coat of arms is black, with one large green chevron and three gold chevronelles. At the bottom is an open, azure book with black script that appears briefly, only to disappear again. The coat is charged with three red stags in the right corner, and two grapevines with a wheatsheaf, all three tawny in color, in the left corner. Above the shield, a stag with a caduceus makes up the crest, standing on a wreath of black, green, and gold, with a banner over it with the family motto in Latin. Briefly, she thinks she sees a hint of silver on the edges but the outline of the shield is black, and the lions on either side are gold with a red sash. She’s confident that the lions, considering their colors, are meant to represent Gryffindor, and she smiles. James had once mentioned, while Lily was pregnant, that he was sure to give McGonagall another Gryffindor to look after as all his family had been Gryffindors. She wishes she could tell him he’d been right.

She moves on, not wanting to dwell on things she could not change, and begins to skim through the documents. The will isn’t particularly long, so much as it is filled with legal jargon that makes it tedious to read. Ultimately, it outlines what items constitute the Potter estate, with related legal documents where necessary included with the will. Among such items was a London property that dated back to the 1600s, the cottage in Godric’s Hollow which was an ancestral home older than the London property, and the Gringotts vault, and the two deeds and Gringotts contract for each. There was also a small list of family heirlooms, with equal parts valuable and sentimental items, with a note as to whether it should be found at one of the properties or within the vault. 

All of this McGonagall skims over, until she finally reaches the section she’s been looking for, which states that should James and Lily pass before Harry was of age, guardianship is to be passed on to his godfather, Sirius Black III. In the event that he is unable to carry out his duties, Harry is to be given into the care of Frank C.J. Longbottom and Alice Longbottom, or Remus John Lupin. There is not a single mention of Lily’s sister anywhere to be found. 

Then there is a section regarding the funds in the vault. Once Harry’s old enough to go to Hogwarts, he’s allowed access to the vault directly, but until such time his key and the funds were to be overseen by his guardian. In that, Dumbledore had been adhering to the will, since he’d had the key, and it probably had been best to not give it to the Dursleys. McGonagall cannot imagine the Muggle pair coming to Diagon Alley to stand face-to-face with goblins, but stranger things had been known to happen in the pursuit of wealth. Granted, as she continues reading and notes that in order to protect Harry’s interests, funds removed from the Potter vault by anyone other than Harry would require an annual accounting to verify its use was in regards to needs directly associated with raising Harry, with a generous allowance to accommodate additional expenditures not directly related to Harry, but likely intended in the case of Harry going to one of his parents’ bachelor friends who might not be able to work as much if they were single-handedly raising a child.

“I have some questions,” McGonagall finally says to the goblin, who has been looking over papers and now looks up at her. “At the time of their deaths, all of the people noted here as possible guardians for Harry Potter would have been perfectly capable of carrying out those duties and being notified. Why, then, was Mr. Potter’s physical guardianship passed on to relatives not provided in the will, and magical guardianship given to Albus?”

“That would be the doing of your Ministry of Magic,” Nagnok informs her, the tone and sneer on his face making it clear how he feels about their interference. “Emergency provisions were put into place to allow for government intervention in the carrying out of wills and guardianship where they felt it best served the safety of the wizarding community, the Statute of Security, and-or the individual or individuals involved.” He’s clearly reciting the mandate from memory. “This was to be effective for two years starting October of the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-one. It was extended an additional six years, and finally expired just prior to the current Minister of Magic taking office. Instead, it was decided that the provision would only continue to apply to Mr. Potter due to the extraneous circumstances, and there was no interest in challenging it.”

Of course there hadn’t been; the boy’s Muggle relatives were oblivious to the fact that he’d inherited a fortune, or that there had been a will at all left behind. McGonagall had a feeling that, had they known guardianship had been meant for others, they might have jumped at the chance to pass Harry off. It annoyed her to think that Albus had used his influence as such, and prevented Harry from going where he might have been wanted.

He could argue, for instance, that by doing so he had saved Harry from falling into the hands of his godfather, Sirius. However, Frank and Alice Longbottom had been perfectly capable at the time of taking in Harry. And with a child of their own the same age, Harry would have had at least a few happy years before the Longbottoms were captured and tortured by rogue Death Eaters fleeing the law, still trying to locate their defeated leader.Harry then would have likely stayed under the care of the formidable Augusta Longbottom, who was no doubt a strict woman, but one who would have done a much better job at raising Harry than his Muggle relations had done. 

Remus Lupin is the only one listed who might still take guardianship, but that as far as she knows lest Dumbledore failed to mention, the man has never reached out regarding Harry either. She could guess why, and thought it likely that even if he had known about being a possible guardian for Harry, he would have relinquished said guardianship to Dumbledore easily. But he is the boy’s only connection to his parents left, and she wonders if she can convince him to take up the mantle his friends had intended for him.

Moving back to the list of heirlooms, she taps a finger at the symbols indicating their locations. “The items listed as being in the Potter vault, of course, I’m sure are present and accounted for; this is Gringotts, after all.” It isn’t mere flattery; McGonagall is certain that if anything had been removed from the vault at any point after the will’s creation, they’d have noted as much. Their records were always meticulously kept. “Would it be possible to get verification that the items that should be here or at Godric’s Hollow are where they should be?”

“For a fee, we could provide services to do just that,” Nagnok advises. “However, bear in mind that Godric’s Hollow was for a time cordoned off by the Ministry as they dealt with the...aftermath of the Dark Lord’s attack.”

She recalls. “Then they let reporters and tourists visit, like it was an attraction instead of the site of a tragedy.” She sighs, still annoyed by it. “Are you saying it’s possible the Ministry, or some other party, removed items from the cottage?”

“Thieves and looters are not uncommon, even today, but especially in times of war.” 

Quickly and efficiently, she begins to gather everything altogether. “I presume I will be able to take this with me, in order to review its contents with Mr. Potter?”

“Fine.” Grumbling, Nagnok reaches out to take the Gringotts page, grabs a quill to sign it, and then passes both the page and the quill to the witch to do the same, as there is now a new record indicating that the will is being removed from the Gringotts property by Harry Potter’s acting guardian. “Please note we have a copy of the main will, and should there be any attempt to destroy or alter these pages, our records will be adjusted accordingly. We highly recommend, once Mr. Potter has seen the contents, that the will be returned here for safekeeping until he is of age.”

McGonagall nods in understanding, says she will be in contact in regards to contracting their services to verify the heirlooms not currently at Gringotts, and soon after is walking back outside. It’s perhaps been an hour since she arrived, maybe a little more, but foot traffic on Diagon Alley has already begun to pick up significantly. Nevertheless, she simply stands there for a moment, gathering her thoughts, trying to decide what to do next.

She can go back to Hogwarts, will in hand, and give everything to Harry. She would have to explain what the will says, certain that the will itself will be difficult for an eleven-year old boy to read and comprehend himself, but he would have it. He would know. There have already been so many secrets kept from him, she’s loath to continue the tradition, but she also does not want to do anything that might hurt the boy. What if Remus does, in fact, prefer to relinquish his rights as guardian? What if the London property is no longer habitable? What if he asks to go see the cottage in Godric’s Hollow? What if there’s something in that letter, written just for him, that prompts questions she can’t answer? Or an heirloom that they can’t locate? 

“Enough of that,” she scolds herself. She is worried about scenarios that may not happen, and as a former Gryffindor and the current Head, even if the worse were to happen, she would face those challenges as she always did: directly and without hesitation. 

The most important task to tackle was attempting to locate Remus Lupin, wherever he might be. She could ask the headmaster, who she suspects has kept a running tally on the whereabouts of all the living former members of the Order not currently working at Hogwarts, but she thinks she’ll leave that as a last resort. She has her own connections in London; friends, former students, or the parents of ones, with whom she might be able to find something out. Particularly those who had been familiar with James Potter and his group of friends during their time at Hogwarts. McGonagall thinks it would be ideal to speak with him face-to-face, but if she’s unable to do so, then the next option would be to try to write to him and hope that he can be found by owl. If that fails, and only if that fails, she will turn to Albus for assistance.

~~~

WHEN she has returned to Hogwarts, it is shortly before dinner. She is tired, frustrated that she’d managed to find three students who’d gone to school with James and Lily, two of whom had been Gryffindors, and yet none knew anything about Remus Lupin. The man, for all his friendliness and general good nature, had kept few friends during his time at school, and of those, none had made it out of the war alive except the one responsible for the others’ deaths. She would have to write to him, which meant deciding how much to put in a letter versus waiting until she could speak to him. McGonagall doesn’t want to admonish him for his lack of interest in Harry to this point, no doubt believing as she had that he’d been well in hand under Dumbledore’s care. However, she does want to impart on him the gravity of the boy’s upbringing, and that he was likely the boy’s best hope of getting away from the Dursleys. He was the last person named in the will, so without him, next of kin took precedence. 

If only James hadn’t been an only child.

Then there had been the added frustration of realizing, upon a second look, that there was no address in the will or the deed itself for the London property. She would have to submit an inquiry to the Ministry of Magic, but considering the state of things before their deaths, she wonders if perhaps the London home was also put under the Fidelis Charm. Without that secret keeper, forget finding the place herself, how would they be able to send someone to confirm the heirlooms that should be there?

“Hello, Professor.”

“Good evening.” She looks over at the student moving past her in the hall, notes it’s one of her Gryffindors, and says, “Ms. Spinnet, if you can locate Mr. Potter, please have him come to my office.” 

The girl answers in the affirmative before she runs off to do as requested, and McGonagall heads to her office. She’s decided; she will tell him that she has the will, but wishes to look into a few things before sharing it with him. Hopefully his trust in her will extend into believing her when she says she thinks it’s for the best. 

She’s a few lines into her letter when there is a knock on her door. McGonagall is only mildly surprised when the one who comes in is not the student she’s waiting on, but the Potions Master. “Severus--” She’s only just started to greet him as he’s closing the door, when there’s more knocking a small, messy-haired head peers in around the still open door.

“You wanted to see me, Professor?”

“Yes. Do come in, Harry. Have a seat.” She motions at the chair across from her, and Snape opens the door further to let him in. The Potion Master then looks back, raising an eyebrow at his colleague who nods for him to stay. She watches him close the door but remaining close to it, as if to ensure no intruder will come in.

“Is this about my parents’ will?” Harry asks.

“Yes. I was able to obtain their will from Gringotts, however there are some things I’d like to look into, now that I’m privy to its contents. I’d like you to wait until then for me to share it with you, all right?” She has set the quill down to one side, letter momentarily forgotten as she clasps her hands together on top of her desk.

Harry is quiet, considering. “How long will that take?” he asks after a few moments.

“Hopefully not long,” she tells him, but admits, “But I don’t know exactly. It may be a few days, or a few months.” She meets his gaze steadily. “I do promise that, one way or another, you will know before the school year ends.”

Silence again for a beat, then another, before he nods his head in agreement. “Okay.” 

“Thank you. Now go on, dinner should be starting soon.”

She sends him off with a smile, after which Severus comes over to take the seat he has vacated. “These things you would like to look into; anything I might assist you with?” 

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Remus Lupin is nowadays, would you?” She knows the answer, even before Snape’s lip curls in disdain and he scoffs, answering in the negative. It had been highly unlikely, she’d known that, but it was worth a shot anyway. “Well, he is the only one left in the will named as a possible guardian who could possibly take the role.” Severus’s raised eyebrow and incredulous look perfectly convey how he feels about that, but she continues anyway, “If he declines, then it would go to next of kin and Harry remains with the Dursleys. 

Snape sighs. “I assume you are going to try to write him?” She nods, and he continues, “I suppose I could reach out to some acquaintances of mine that may be able to locate him, just in case.”

She nods her head, grateful. “Thank you.”

“Is that the only matter?”

“Unfortunately, no. Before they went into hiding, the Potters were living in London. I’ll be sending an inquiry to the Ministry to see if there are records as to where, but as the address is missing from the deed itself, I suspect it may not be so easy.” She reaches into her desk, where she has stowed the will for the moment, and pulls out the blank envelope. “I suspect this might have additional answers, but as its magicked, I’ve no way of reading it.”

“May I?” McGonagall passes it over and Snape looks it over before pulling out the blank parchment.

“According to the goblin at Gringotts, Albus was equally befuddled by this blank letter, so it’s probably safe to assume that it’s not a simple matter of invisible ink or the like.” 

Snape nods his head in agreement, passing it back once he has replaced the parchment in the envelope. “I’ll look into what spell may have been used, and whether there’s a potion that might negate it.”

“That would be helpful,” McGonagall agrees, putting the envelope back in her desk. “Otherwise, we can only hope that Remus may have the answer. Other than him, the only one who might help is--”

“Black,” Snape finishes.

“Precisely. And I don’t fancy a visit to Azkaban, though I doubt he’d be keen to be of assistance.”

“Assuming, of course, that his sanity is still intact.”

“Excellent point.” Ten years surrounded by dementors. McGonagall shudders at the thought, and despite his crimes, she pities the man who’d once been her student and James Potter’s best friend.

Story Notes:

Chapter title is a John Lennon song. Hopefully, this chapter doesn't disappoint.

And look, I have no idea what the “J” in Lily’s name actually stands for, so I went with Jade for the obvious connection to her eyes. I didn’t want to put too much thought into it, lol.

For my own edification, and because I couldn’t actually find an answer to this, does anyone know at what point it was no longer required for the heir who inherited the family crest/coat of arms to change it in England? If anyone knows, or has better research skills and can actually find the answer to that, please let me know ‘cause I’m curious. I frankly spent way, WAY too much time looking up information on heraldry, especially considering what a small part the Potter crest I created plays in this and the artistic liberties I took with it anyway, hahaha.

In canon, Harry’s family has no known family motto or crest, which is not impossible but Linfred (the oldest family member we know of) made enough of a reputation for himself that he was able to leave a “significant gold pile” to each of his SEVEN children, laying the foundation for the Potter fortune; and his work was influential enough that some of his remedies/potions were the precursors for stuff in modern use (Skele-Gro and Pepperup are specifically named). Plus, his eldest went on to marry THE granddaughter of Ignotus Peverell, one of the brothers who inspired the Tale of the Three Brothers. Their names were lost to history, sure, but considering there’s a story about them, it means they would have been influential/famous enough in their own time to have warranted that kind of attention. His granddaughter would not be so far removed from his time to not warrant respect due her station, and a marriage to match, considering the attitudes of the time (assuming witches/wizard society was classist, which I think they would’ve been considering current attitudes in canon).

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now.

[elizabethan-memes]

Can you elaborate on Erusamus and the reformation please, or at least point me toward sources? Politics make more sense than philosophy to me, so I see the reformation through the lense of Henry VIII, or the Duke of Prussia who dissolved the teutonic order, or France siding with the protestants during the 30 Years War because Protestants > Hapsburgs

So sorry to take so long!

If you needed this answer for academic reasons, given that summer term is pretty much done I’m probably too late to help, but I hate to leave an ask unanswered.

HELLA LONG ESSAY BENEATH THE CUT SORRY I WROTE SELF-INDULGENTLY WITHOUT EDITING SO THERE IS WAY MORE EXPLANATION THAN YOU PROBABLY NEED

Certainly religion has been politicised, you need look no further than all the medieval kings having squabbles with the pope. Medieval kings were not as devastated by the prospect of excommunication as you’d expect they’d be in a super-devout world, it was kinda more of a nuisance (like, idk, the pope blocking you on tumblr)  than the “I’m damned forever! NOOOOOOO!” thing you’d expect. I’m not saying excommunication wasn’t a big deal, but certainly for Elizabeth I she was less bothered than the pope excommunicating her than the fact that he absolved her Catholic subjects of allegiance to her and promised paradise to her assassin (essentially declaring open season on her).

I think, however, in our secular world we forget that religion was important for its own sake. Historians since Gibbon have kind of looked down on religion as its own force, seeing it as more a catalyst for economic change (Weber) or a tool of the powerful. If all history is the history of class struggle, then religion becomes a weapon in class warfare rather than its own force with its own momentum. For example, historians have puzzled over conversion narratives, and why Protestantism became popular among artisans in particular. Protestantism can’t compete with Catholicism in terms of aesthetics or community rituals, it’s a much more interior kind of spirituality, and it involves complex theological ideas like predestination that can sound rather drastic, so why did certain people find it appealing?

(although OTOH transubstantiation is a more complex theological concept than the Protestant idea of “the bread and wine is just bread and wine, it’s a commemoration of the Last Supper not a re-enactment, it aint that deep fam”).

I’ve just finished an old but interesting article by Terrence M. Reynolds in Concordia Theological Quarterly vol. 41 no. 4 pp.18-35 “Was Erasmus responsible for Luther?” Erasmus in his lifetime was accused of being a closet Protestant, or “laying the egg that Luther hatched”. Erasmus replied to this by saying he might have laid the egg, but Luther hatched a different bird entirely. Erasmus did look rather proto Protestant because he was very interested in reforming the Church. He wanted more people to read the Bible, he had a rather idyllic dream of “ploughmen singing psalms as they ploughed their fields”. He criticised indulgences, the commercialisation of relics and pilgrimages and the fact that the Papacy was a political faction getting involved in wars. He was worried that the rituals of Catholicism meant that people were more mechanical in their religion than spiritual: they were memorising the words, doing the actions, paying the Church, blindly believing anything a poorly educated priest regurgitated to them. They were confessing their sins, doing their penances like chores and then going right back to their sins. They were connecting with the visuals, but not understanding and spiritually connecting with the spirit of Jesus’ message and his ideals of peace and love and charity and connecting with God. Erasmus translated the NT but being a Renaissance humanist, he went ad fontes (‘to the source’) and used Greek manuscripts, printing the Greek side by side with the Latin so that readers could compare and see the translation choices he made. His NT had a lot of self-admitted errors in it, but it was very popular with Prots as well as Caths. Caths like Thomas More were cool with him doing it, but it was also admired by Prots like Thomases and Cromwell and Cranmer and Tyndale himself. When coming across Greek words like presbyteros, Erasmus actually chose to leave it as a Greek word with its own meaning than use a Latin word that didn’t *quite* fit the meaning of the original.

However, he did disagree with Protestants on fundamental issues, especially the question of free will. For Luther, the essence was sole fide: salvation through faith alone. He took this from Paul’s letter to the Romans, where it says that through faith alone are we justified. Ie, humans are so fallen (because of the whole Eve, apple, original sin debacle) and so flawed and tainted by sin, and God is so perfect, that we ourselves will never be good enough. All the good works in the world will never reach God’s level of perfection and therefore we all deserve Hell, but we won’t go to hell because God and Jesus will save us from the Hell we so rightly deserve, by grace and by having faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, who will alone redeem us.  The opposite end of the free will/sola fide spectrum is something called Pelagianism, named after the guy who believed it, Pelagius, who lived centuries and centuries before the Ref, it’s the belief that humans can earn their salvation by themselves, by good works. Both Caths and Prots considered Pelagius a heretic. Caths like Erasmus believed in a half-way house: God reaches out his hand to save you through Jesus’ example and sacrifice, giving you grace, and you receive his grace, which makes you want to be a good person and do good works (good works being things like confession of sins, penances, the eucharist, charity, fasting, pilgrimages) and then doing the good works means you get more grace and you are finally saved, or at least you will go to purgatory after death AND THEN be saved and go to heaven, rather than going straight to Hell, which is what happens if you reject Jesus and do no good works and never repent your sins. If you don’t receive his grace and do good works, you won’t make the grade for ultimate salvation.

(This is why it’s important to look at the Ref as a theological as well as a political movement because if you only look at the political debates, Erasmus looks more Protestant than he actually was.)

There are several debates happening in the Reformation: the role of the priest (which is easily politicised) free will vs predestination, transubstantiation or no transubstantiation (is or isn’t the bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Jesus by God acting through the priest serving communion) and the role of scripture. A key doctrine of Protestantism is sola scriptura. Basically: if it’s in the Bible, it’s the rules. If it’s not in the Bible, it’s not in the rules. No pope in the bible? No pope! No rosaries in the bible? No using rosaries! (prayer beads)

However, both Caths and Prots considered scripture v.v. important. Still, given that the Bible contains internal contradictions (being a collection of different books written in different languages at different times by different people) there was a hierarchy of authority when it came to scripture. As a general rule of thumb, both put the New T above the Old T in terms of authority. (This is partly why Jews and Muslims have customs like circumcision and no-eating-pig-derived-meats that Christians don’t have, even though the order of ‘birth’ as it were goes Judaism-Christianity-Islam. All 3 Abrahammic faiths use the OT, but only Christians use the NT.)

1.       The words of Jesus. Jesus said you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Jesus said monogamy, you gotta do monogamy. Jesus said no divorce, you gotta do no divorcing (annulment =/= divorce). Jesus said no moneylending with interest (usury), you gotta do no moneylending with interest (which is partly why European Jews did a lot of the banking. Unfortunately, disputes over money+religious hatred is a volatile combination, resulting in accusations of conspiracy and sedition, leading to hate-fuelled violence and oppression.) The trouble with the words of Jesus is that you can debate or retranslate what Jesus meant, especially  easily as Jesus often spoke in parables and with metaphors. When Jesus said “this is my body…this is my blood” at the Last Supper, is that or is that not support for transubstantiation? When Jesus called Peter the rock on which he would build the church, was that or was that not support for the apostolic succession that means Popes are the successor to St Peter, with Peter being first Pope? When the gospel writers said Jesus ‘did more things and said more things than are contained in this book’, does that or does that not invalidate the idea of sola scriptura?

2.       The other New Testament writers, especially St. Paul and the Relevation of St John the Divine. (Divine meaning like seer, divination, not a god or divinity). These are particularly relevant when it comes to discussing the role of priests and priesthood, only-male ordination, and whether women can preach and teach religion.

3.       The Old Testament, especially Genesis.

4.       The apocryphal or deuterocanonical works. These books are considered holy, but there’s question marks about their validity, so they’re not as authoritative as the testaments. I include this because the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees was used as scriptural justification for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, but 2 Maccabees is the closest scipture really gets to mentioning any kind of purgatory. Protestants did not consider 2 Maccabees to be strong enough evidence to validate purgatory.

5.       The Church Fathers, eg. Origen, Augustine of Hippo. Arguably their authority often comes above apocryphal scripture. It’s from the Church Fathers that the concept of the Trinity (one god in 3 equal persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) is developed because it’s not actually spelled out explicitly in the NT. Early modern Catholics and Protestants both adhered to the Trinity and considered Arianism’s interpretation of the NT (no trinity, God the Father is superior to Jesus as God the Son) to be heresy. Church Fathers were important to both Catholics and Protestants: Catholics because Catholics did not see scripture as the sole source of religious truth, so additions made by holy people are okay so long as they don’t *contradict* scripture, and so long as they are stamped with the church council seal of approval, Protestants because they believed that the recent medieval theologians and the papacy had corrupted and altered the original purity of Christianity. If they could show that Church Fathers from late antiquity like Augustine agreed with them, that therefore proved their point about Christianity being corrupted from its holy early days.

Eamon Duffy’s book Stripping of the Altars is useful because it questions the assumptions that the Reformation and Break with Rome was inevitable, or that the Roman Catholic Church was a corrupt relic of the past that had to be swept aside for Progress, or that most people even wanted the Ref in England to happen. Good history essays need to discuss different historians’ opinions and Duffy can be relied upon to have a different opinion than Protestant historians. Diarmaid MacCulloch’s works are good at explaining theological concepts, he is a big authority on church history and he’s won a whole bunch of prizes. He was actually ordained a deacon in the Church of England in the 1980s but stopped being a minister because he was angry with the institution for not tolerating the fact he had a boyfriend. The ODNB is a good source to access through your university if you want to read a quick biography on a particular theologian or philosopher, but it only covers British individuals. Except Erasmus, who has a page on ODNB despite being not British because he’s just that awesome and because his influence on English scholarship and culture was colossal. Peter Marshall also v good, esp on conversion. Euan Cameron wrote a mahoosive book called the European Reformation.“More versus Tyndale: a study of controversial technique” by Rainer Pineas is good for the key differences in translation of essential concepts between catholic and protestant thinkers. The Sixteenth Century Journal is a good source of essays as well.

[pamphletstoinspire]

THE BOOK OF Josue - From The Douay-Rheims Bible - Latin Vulgate

Chapter 7

INTRODUCTION

This book is called Josue, because it contains the history of what passed under him, and, according to the common opinion, was written by him. The Greeks call him Jesus; for Josue and Jesus, in the Hebrew, are the same name, and have the same signification, viz. A Saviour. And it was not without a mystery, that he who was to bring the people into the land of promise, should have his name changed from Osee (for so he was called before, Num. xiii. 17,) to Josue, or Jesus, to give us to understand, the Moses, by his law, could only bring the people within sight of the promised inheritance, but that our Saviour, Jesus, was to bring us into it. Ch. --- The Hebrews who had been so rebellious under Moses, behaved with remarkable fidelity and respect towards his successor; who, by these means, more forcibly represented the Christian Church, (D.) which will be ever obedient to her divine head and observe his directions. Josue had been trained up a long time under the hand of Moses, and God had given him the commission to govern his people, in so public a manner, that no one offered to claim that high and arduous office. In effect, the whole conduct of Josue before and after his exaltation, shewed him to be most deserving of command. H. --- Josue, says the Holy Ghost, (Eccli. xlvi. 1,) was successor of Moses among the prophets, or, according to the Greek, "in prophecies." Many explain this of the obligation incumbent on him, to continue the sacred history (C.) and revelations where Moses had left off. The last chapter of this book informs us that he did so. Perhaps some additions, by way of farther explication, have been made by subsequent inspired writers, though most of the passages which are adduced to prove this assertion, seem to be of little force. Respecting the death of Josue, we may make the same observations as on that of Moses. It may have been written by the author of the Book of Judges. Theodoret seems to have thought that the work before us, was compiled out of the public registers, which are quoted C. x. under the name of the book of the Lord. See Num. xxi. 14. The Samaritans have a book or chronicle of Josue, which relates in 39 or 47 chapters, many facts of scriptural history, (H.) down to the reign of Adrian, intermingled with a variety of fables. It seems to be of modern date. Hottinger undertook to publish it in Latin, but was prevented by death. C. --- The true history of Josue sets before us the passage of the Jordan, the conquest of Chanaan, and the distribution of the country. After the pious general had performed all that could be expected from him, after he had twice ratified the covenant between God and his people, and exhorted the latter, with his last breath, to observe an inviolable fidelity to the only Lord, he departed this life in peace, in the 110th year of his age, and was buried at Thamnath Sare, which he had built for the place of his abode. H. --- As the five books of Moses contain the law, intermixed with history, so this first of the historical books exhibits a variety of useful precepts and predictions. The prophetical and sapiential books must be considered in the same light. W. --- They all tend to promote true wisdom and the salvation of men, provided they be perused in the same spirit with which they were written. H.

The additional Notes in this Edition of the New Testament will be marked with the letter A. Such as are taken from various Interpreters and Commentators, will be marked as in the Old Testament. B. Bristow, C. Calmet, Ch. Challoner, D. Du Hamel, E. Estius, J. Jansenius, M. Menochius, Po. Polus, P. Pastorini, T. Tirinus, V. Bible de Vence, W. Worthington, Wi. Witham. — The names of other authors, who may be occasionally consulted, will be given at full length.

Verses are in English and Latin. HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY

This Catholic commentary on the Old Testament, following the Douay-Rheims Bible text, was originally compiled by Catholic priest and biblical scholar Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849). This transcription is based on Haydock's notes as they appear in the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Changes made to the original text for this transcription include the following:

Greek letters. The original text sometimes includes Greek expressions spelled out in Greek letters. In this transcription, those expressions have been transliterated from Greek letters to English letters, put in italics, and underlined. The following substitution scheme has been used: A for Alpha; B for Beta; G for Gamma; D for Delta; E for Epsilon; Z for Zeta; E for Eta; Th for Theta; I for Iota; K for Kappa; L for Lamda; M for Mu; N for Nu; X for Xi; O for Omicron; P for Pi; R for Rho; S for Sigma; T for Tau; U for Upsilon; Ph for Phi; Ch for Chi; Ps for Psi; O for Omega. For example, where the name, Jesus, is spelled out in the original text in Greek letters, Iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma, it is transliterated in this transcription as, Iesous. Greek diacritical marks have not been represented in this transcription.

Footnotes. The original text indicates footnotes with special characters, including the astrisk (*) and printers' marks, such as the dagger mark, the double dagger mark, the section mark, the parallels mark, and the paragraph mark. In this transcription all these special characters have been replaced by numbers in square brackets, such as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Accent marks. The original text contains some English letters represented with accent marks. In this transcription, those letters have been rendered in this transcription without their accent marks.

Other special characters.

Solid horizontal lines of various lengths that appear in the original text have been represented as a series of consecutive hyphens of approximately the same length, such as ---.

Ligatures, single characters containing two letters united, in the original text in some Latin expressions have been represented in this transcription as separate letters. The ligature formed by uniting A and E is represented as Ae, that of a and e as ae, that of O and E as Oe, and that of o and e as oe.

Monetary sums in the original text represented with a preceding British pound sterling symbol (a stylized L, transected by a short horizontal line) are represented in this transcription with a following pound symbol, l.

The half symbol (1/2) and three-quarters symbol (3/4) in the original text have been represented in this transcription with their decimal equivalent, (.5) and (.75) respectively.

Unreadable text. Places where the transcriber's copy of the original text is unreadable have been indicated in this transcription by an empty set of square brackets, [].

Chapter 7

For the sins of Achan, the Israelites are defeated at Hai. The offender is found out; and stoned to death, and God's wrath is turned from them.

[1] But the children of Israel transgressed the commandment, and took to their own use of the anathema. For Achan the son of Charmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zare of the tribe of Juda, took something of the anathema: and the Lord was angry against the children of Israel. Filii autem Israel praevaricati sunt mandatum, et usurpaverunt de anathemate. Nam Achan filius Charmi filii Zabdi filii Zare de tribu Juda tulit aliquid de anathemate : iratusque est Dominus contra filios Israel.

[2] And when Josue sent men from Jericho against Hai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of the town of Bethel, he said to them: Go up, and view the country: and they fulfilled his command, and viewed Hai. Cumque mitteret Josue de Jericho viros contra Hai, quae est juxta Bethaven, ad orientalem plagam oppidi Bethel, dixit eis : Ascendite, et explorate terram. Qui praecepta complentes exploraverunt Hai.

[3] And returning they said to him: Let not all the people go up, but let two or three thousand men go and destroy the city: why should all the people be troubled in vain against enemies that are very few? Et reversi dixerunt ei : Non ascendat omnis populus, sed duo vel tria millia virorum pergant, et deleant civitatem : quare omnis populus frustra vexabitur contra hostes paucissimos?

[4] There went up therefore three thousand fighting men: who immediately turned their backs, Ascenderunt ergo tria millia pugnatorum. Qui statim terga vertentes,

[5] And were defeated by the men of the city of Hai, and there fell of them six and thirty men: and the enemies pursued them from the gate as far as Sabarim, and they slew them as they fled by the descent: and the heart of the people was struck with fear, and melted like water. percussi sunt a viris urbis Hai, et corruerunt ex eis triginta sex homines : persecutique sunt eos adversarii de porta usque ad Sabarim, et ceciderunt per prona fugientes : pertimuitque cor populi, et instar aquae liquefactum est.

[6] But Josue rent his garments, and fell flat on the ground before the ark of the Lord until the evening, both he and all the ancients of Israel: and they put dust upon their heads. Josue vero scidit vestimenta sua, et pronus cecidit in terram coram arca Domini usque ad vesperam, tam ipse quam omnes senes Israel : miseruntque pulverem super capita sua,

[7] And Josue said: Alas, O Lord God, why wouldst thou bring this people over the river Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorrhite, and to destroy us? would God, we had stayed beyond the Jordan as we began. et dixit Josue : Heu Domine Deus, quid voluisti traducere populum istum Jordanem fluvium, ut traderes nos in manus Amorrhaei, et perderes? utinam ut coepimus, mansissemus trans Jordanem.

[8] My Lord God, what shall I say, seeing Israel turning their backs to their enemies? Mi Domine Deus, quid dicam, videns Israelem hostibus suis terga vertentem?

[9] The Chanaanites, and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and being gathered together will surround us and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do to thy great name? Audient Chananaei, et omnes habitatores terrae, et pariter conglobati circumdabunt nos, atque delebunt nomen nostrum de terra : et quid facies magno nomini tuo?

[10] And the Lord said to Josue: Arise, why liest thou flat on the ground? Dixitque Dominus ad Josue : Surge : cur jaces pronus in terra?

[11] Israel hath sinned, and transgressed my covenant: and they have taken of the anathema, and have stolen and lied, and have hidden it among their goods. Peccavit Israel, et praevaricatus est pactum meum : tuleruntque de anathemate, et furati sunt atque mentiti, et absconderunt inter vasa sua.

[12] Neither can Israel stand before his enemies, but he shall flee from them: because he is defiled with the anathema. I will be no more with you, till you destroy him that is guilty of this wickedness. Nec poterit Israel stare ante hostes suos, eosque fugiet : quia pollutus est anathemate. Non ero ultra vobiscum, donec conteratis eum qui hujus sceleris reus est.

[13] Arise, sanctify the people, and say to them: Be ye sanctified against tomorrow: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The anathema is in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thy enemies, till he be destroyed out of thee that is defiled with this wickedness. Surge, sanctifica populum, et dic eis : Sanctificamini in crastinum : haec enim dicit Dominus Deus Israel : Anathema in medio tui est, Israel : non poteris stare coram hostibus tuis, donec deleatur ex te qui hoc contaminatus est scelere.

[14] And you shall come in the morning every one by your tribes: and what tribe soever the lot shall find, it shall come by its kindreds and the kindred by its houses, and the house by the men. Accedetisque mane singuli per tribus vestras : et quamcumque tribum sors invenerit, accedet per cognationes suas, et cognatio per domos, domusque per viros.

[15] And whosoever he be that shall be found guilty of this fact, he shall be burnt with fire with all his substance, because he hath transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and hath done wickedness in Israel. Et quicumque ille in hoc facinore fuerit deprehensus, comburetur igni cum omni substantia sua : quoniam praevaricatus est pactum Domini, et fecit nefas in Israel.

[16] Josue, therefore, when he rose in the morning, made Israel to come by their tribes, and the tribe of Juda was found, Surgens itaque Josue mane, applicuit Israel per tribus suas, et inventa est tribus Juda.

[17] Which being brought by its families, it was found to be the family of Zare. Bringing that also by the houses, he found it to be Zabdi. Quae cum juxta familias suas esset oblata, inventa est familia Zare. Illam quoque per domos offerens, reperit Zabdi :

[18] And bringing his house man by man, he found Achan the son of Charmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zare of the tribe of Juda. cujus domum in singulos dividens viros, invenit Achan filium Charmi filii Zabdi filii Zare de tribu Juda.

[19] And Josue said to Achan: My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and confess, and tell me what thou hast done, hide it not. Et ait Josue ad Achan : Fili mi, da gloriam Domino Deo Israel, et confitere, atque indica mihi quid feceris, ne abscondas.

[20] And Achan answered Josue, and said to him: Indeed I have sinned against the Lord the God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. Responditque Achan Josue, et dixit ei : Vere ego peccavi Domino Deo Israel, et sic et sic feci.

[21] For I saw among the spoils a scarlet garment exceeding good, and two hundred sides of silver, and a golden rule of fifty sides: and I coveted them, and I took them away, and hid them in the ground is the midst of my tent, and the silver I covered with the earth that I dug up. Vidi enim inter spolia pallium coccineum valde bonum, et ducentos siclos argenti, regulamque auream quinquaginta siclorum : et concupiscens abstuli, et abscondi in terra contra medium tabernaculi mei, argentumque fossa humo operui.

[22] Josue therefore sent ministers: who running to his tent, found all hidden in the same place, together with the silver. Misit ergo Josue ministros : qui currentes ad tabernaculum illius, repererunt cuncta abscondita in eodem loco, et argentum simul.

[23] And taking them away out of the tent, they brought them to Josue, and to all the children of Israel, and threw them down before the Lord. Auferentesque de tentorio, tulerunt ea ad Josue, et ad omnes filios Israel, projeceruntque ante Dominum.

[24] Then Josue and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zare, and the silver and the garments, and the golden rule, his sons also and his daughters, his oxen and asses and sheep, the tent also, and all the goods: and brought them to the valley of Achor: Tollens itaque Josue Achan filium Zare, argentumque et pallium, et auream regulam, filios quoque et filias ejus, boves et asinos et oves, ipsumque tabernaculum, et cunctam supellectilem ( et omnis Israel cum eo), duxerunt eos ad vallem Achor :

[25] Where Josue said: Because thou hast troubled us, the Lord trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him: and all things that were his, were consumed with fire. ubi dixit Josue : Quia turbasti nos, exturbet te Dominus in die hac. Lapidavitque eum omnis Israel : et cuncta quae illius erant, igne consumpta sunt.

[26] And they gathered together upon him a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this present day. And the wrath of the Lord was turned away from them. And the name of that place was called the Valley of Achor, until this day. Congregaveruntque super eum acervum magnum lapidum, qui permanet usque in praesentem diem. Et aversus est furor Domini ab eis. Vocatumque est nomen loci illius, vallis Achor, usque hodie.

Commentary:

Ver. 1. Children. Achan was guilty of theft: some of the rest might have connived at his fault. He had taken what was reserved for the Lord. The offender was discovered, to inspire all with a horror for his conduct. Some of his brethren were punished, (v. 5,) but they suffered for their own secret transgressions, or death might be no real punishment to them; while the Israelites were awakened to a sense of their own inability to conquer without the divine protection, and were forced to humble themselves. H. --- Chastisements are the marks of God's displeasure, though they frequently proceed also from his clemency. --- Achan is called Achar, 1 Par. ii. 7. These five persons occupy the space of 265 years; so that they must have been 50 or 55 years old, when they had children.

Ver. 2. Against Hai, to see the situation and strength of that city, which was about 10 miles west, or rather north, of Jericho. It was afterwards rebuilt, 1 Esd. ii. 28. --- Bethaven and Bethel are the same place; (S. Jerom. C.) though many distinguish them, with Cellarius. The former name means "the house of iniquity," because Jeroboam there set up a golden calf. Bethel was its former appellation, in consequence of the vision of Jacob. Gen. xxviii.

Ver. 3. Few. It appears, however, that the city contained 12,000 fighting men; so that these spies must have formed a false notion of its strength. C. viii. 25.

Ver. 5. Sabarim, which means people "broken and defeated." Sept. "they pursued them from the gate, till they had entirely broken them," destroying 36, and putting the rest to flight. C. --- This small disaster filled the whole camp with dismay, as the Lord generally caused the victories of his people to be complete, and without any loss, as long as they continued in his favour. None were found wanting of those who attacked and destroyed so many of the Madianites. Num. xxxi. 49. H.

Ver. 6. Heads. These marks of grief were very common. Achilles covered his head with ashes, tore his garments and face, when he received news of the death of his friend, Patroclus. Homer and Virgil, (xii.) speaking of Latinus, the king, says, It scissa veste Latinus---Canitiem immundo perfusam pulvere turpans.

Ver. 7. Began. Some had established themselves in the land of Galaad. M. --- Heb. "would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan." Josue speaks in this animated manner, through zeal for the glory of God, (C.) more than for any personal inconvenience. He was grieved that any one should have merited God's displeasure. He was afraid that the Chanaanites would blaspheme the great name of the Lord, v. 9.

Ver. 11. Lied. Each one, on delivering up what he had taken, made profession, at least by his behaviour, (H.) that he retained nothing. Achan did like the rest, but he kept back of the plunder. C. --- He lied, and did not comply with the promise made by all Israel, which he was bound to observe, as much as if he had made it with his own mouth.

Ver. 13. Sanctified. Prepared by washing, &c. to appear before the tabernacle, and see the event. Sept. "purify the people." Chal. "call an assembly."

Ver. 14. Find. Heb. "it shall be the tribe which the Lord taketh." H. --- This was done by lots, as on similar occasions, 1 K. x. 20. and xiv. 41. When God authorized this method, there could be no danger in it. But to have recourse to lots without such authority, would be often tempting God. The apostles chose an apostle by lot: but they had first taken every precaution (C.) to select two persons, both fit for the important charge. H. --- To commit the choice of sacred ministers to chance would be extremely improper. "We forbid the use of lots in the elections," said Honorius. C.

Ver. 18. Juda. The dignity of this tribe enhanced the fault of Achan. M.

Ver. 19. My son. Clemency is the virtue of great souls. --- Give glory. Confess candidly. Jo. ix. 24.

Ver. 21. Garment. Heb. "a robe of Sannaar, or of Babylon." This city was famous for embroidered, or painted robes, such as were worn by kings. Jonas iii. 6. Plin. viii. 48. --- Rule, or linget. No coin was yet used. C.

Ver. 24. His sons, &c. Probably conscious to, or accomplices of the crime of their father, (Ch). as he could hardly have concealed these things in the midst of his tent without their knowledge. M. --- But granting, with S. Aug. (q. 8,) that they were innocent of this crime, God, who is the sovereign arbiter of life and death, might order them out of the world, on this occasion, without injustice.

Ver. 25. Day. Hence some have drawn a very weak argument, to prove the repentance of Achan, as if he had only to undergo a temporary punishment. It is probable, however, that his sincere confession, proceeding from a penitent heart, might influence God to shew him mercy. --- Fire. Children, as well as his other effects; though some have supposed that the former were spared, as they are not here specified. Heb. seems to include them; "and burnt them with fire after they had stoned them with stones." Chaldee says they were stoned first. C.

Ver. 26. Achor. That is, trouble; (Ch). in allusion to the name of Achar, as he is called in the Sept. invariably, and in the Heb. and Vulg. in the Book of Chronicles. H. --- This heap of stones was thrown upon the ashes of the deceased, or perhaps at his person, while he was burning at the stake, as it is the custom still among the Turks. Roger. ii. 7. The king of Hai was treated in this manner. C. viii. 29. See 2 K. xviii. 17. The vale of Achor was on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, where a small castle, at Adommim, was built to protect travellers from the insults of robbers, who infested that part. Lu. x. 30. C. xv. 7.

[secretsocietyofstuff]

The

Egsa (old english | scary)

Spell (old english | news)

Ok.

The Biblical Patriarch Abraham (called the father of nations) had one wife and one sister- the same person- and several concubines and mistresses- each of whom begot him many children. Now, when these children grew up- he gifted them each with magical secrets and one by one sent them east as magi to gather initiates for the creation of Mystery Schools.

We know that, with the exception of Issac, the sons and grandsons of Abraham made their way through India, and even further into the Middle East where Abraham is credited as being the progenitor of Islam as is described in the Quran, though the religion did not officially begin until Mohammeds involvement many centuries after Abraham sent his sons away.

So, when during the birth of the Nazari

in Bethlehem he was visited by '3 foreign Magi from the East,' it takes a special significance in my mind that itches and begs to be tussed out.

That is why I am writing this.

It should be noted that there was never any mention in the original texts of exactly how many Magi attended his birth. It is thought that the authors were drunk. No. It is thought that the authors simply assumed that since there were three gifts..there must have been 3 magi to deliver them. Probably wrong. A supposed eye witness account of the magis journey popped up 300 years after the fact claiming that there were 12 or more traveling in the party.

This lends credence to the idea that this was an entire magical order (or at least its senior brethren;) that this order was almost certainly seeded by one of Abrahams sons or grandsons; and that they traveled not only to attend the Nazaris birth but also to examine the god-child and make sure it was of satisfactory health and temperament. The mother would have been looked at by a normal physician.

There are so many thing in just these two stories alone that I want to share with everybody. Things that would make a Southern Baptist stone my ass to death. Things that would make a Methodist very seriously consider leaving the church to worship Satan.

People just don't realize how fragmented the testaments have become. It was intended as a living document that existed in space but outside of time. There was a reason that the original Hebrew texts contained no punctuation and no vowels..at least until the Masoretes got ahold of it. Despite the scores of Southern parishioners taking absolutely everything they read in the Bible at face value- much of what is taken as 'Gospel Truth' has been either misunderstood, mistaken or even simply mistranslated. It isn't conjecture at this point.

Take the following example:

Go to Google translate and type in

"I am a peaceful man."

Now translate from English to Latin to Greek to Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then back to English again. (Almost exactly how we arrived at our most modern Biblical translation minue English at the begining..by the way)

Surprise, surprise. It now reads

"I have an airplane ticket."

The Nazari himself anticipated this ridiculous game of telephone, which is why he communicated his most important messages with parables. Because parables require deeper thought from the listener, deeper thought from the reader and thus deeper thought from the translator as well.

Moving on..

As mentioned in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas:

II. 1 This little child Jesus when he was five years old was playing at the ford of a brook / and he gathered together the waters that flowed there into pools and made them straightway clean [unintelligible] commanded them by his word alone.

2 And having made soft clay, he fashioned thereof twelve sparrows and nd it was the Sabbath when he did these things [or made them,] / and there were also many other little children playing with him.

3 And a certain Jew when he saw what Jesus did, making things upon the Sabbath day, departed straightway and told his father:

"Lo, thy child is at the brook, and he hath taken clay and fashioned twelve little birds. He hath polluted the Sabbath day."

4 And Joseph came to the place and saw: and cried out to him, saying "Wherefore doest thou these things on the Sabbath, which it is not lawful to do?"

So Jesus clapped his hands together and cried out to the sparrows and said to them: Go! and the sparrows took their flight and went away chirping.

5 And when the Jews saw it they were amazed, and departed and told their chief men that which they had seen Jesus do.

And Jesus smirked. [I added that last part in]

!! Astonishingly, at only 5 years of age the Nazari was demonstrating not only a latent understanding of magical systems but also an ability to apply that system to a PHYSICAL ALTERATION OF THE NATURAL WORLD. He was also showing signs of disdain towards the human beings for whom he had been created to protect. And that coupled with observations of the boys power had everyone in town, not least of all "his parents" deeply, deeply terrified and concerned.

Here again from the Infancy Gospel:

1 After that again he went through the village, and a child ran and accidentily dashed against his shoulder. And Jesus was provoked. He said "Thou shalt not finish thy course." And immediatelhetbe boy who provoked him fell dead at the Nazari's feet. and when some of the onlookers saw what he had done they wrenched at their garmets and said

"From whence was this creature born that every word of his is a great work or a miracle or an act of nature."

And then the parents of the boy he had slain marched unto Joseph, and blamed him, saying: "Thou who has such a child cannot dwell with us in this village unless he is taught to heal and not kill and to bless and not curse. For if he remains as is, he he will slayeth all our children / and then what of us?"

1 Immediately Joseph called the young child apart and admonished him, saying:

"Why are you doing these things? Why do you inflict such unforgivable suffering upon these people? So that they hate us and persecute us? Is this what you wish? But Jesus said,

"I know that these words are not your own (!!??) nevertheless for your sake and for the sake of suffering I will hold my peace.

"But them" Jesus pointed to the parents of the young boy he had slain."Them that accused me.. Them shall bear the weight of their punishment, too."

And straightway they that accused him became blind / and they began to moan and to scream in confused horror until little else could be heard in the town.

2 And they that saw it became even more afraid and even more perplexed / and said that every word which he spake whether it were good or bad, was a deed, or a marvel. So they began to very carefully walk away / pretending not to hear the anguish of their neighbors.

And when he saw what the Nazari had done / he arose and took hold upon his ear and wrung it purple. 3 And the young child was wroth and said unto him:

11l

O. "It sufficeth them to seek but not to find, and verily thou hast done unwisely: Don't you know that I am not my own? Vex me not."

I know what you're all thinking. I spent a year of my life going over this document and asking every difficult question that I could think of. So let me save you some time..

1. The document is authentic. The narrative account matches those of others which which say the same thing in their own texts. Even with evidence, perhaps out of fear, I might have dismissed this manuscript if it weren't for similarly described behaviors by another, far older 'Son of God(s); Gilgamesh, King of Uruk- The (weirdly) 3/4 God King of Mesopotamian Sumeria. If you'll recall, Gilgamesh would routinely rape women in the streets in from of their Fathers and Brothers. He once enslaved a quarter of HIS OWN people....HIS OWN PEOPLE...to build ziggurauts in honor of the Gods- a pantheon to which he technically belonged.

Both Gilgamesh and the Nazari began their brief human existences as supremacists. Their distaste for humanity was oozing off of every word they spoke and off of every action they took. And both of them had to be 'corrected;' Gilgamesh by the Gods (through the creation of Enki-Du, a bizarre man-animal hybrid who challenged Gilgamesh to fight after fight until his rage and hatred subsided.) And the Nazari by his human keepers...though not NEARLY as successfully as Gilgamesh. Here is a link to something I wrote about Gilgamesh a few months ago. It may help to clarify whats happening here in case I miss something.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=246927900243739&id=100047795931957

The Gospl continues:

VI. 1 Now a certain teacher, Zacchaeus by name, stood there and he heard in part when Jesus said these things to his father and he marvelled greatly that being a young child he spake such matters. 2 And after a few days he came near unto Joseph and said unto him: Thou hast a wise child, and he hath understanding. Come, deliver him to me that he may learn letters. And I will teach him with the letters all knowledge and that he salute all the elders and honour them as grandfathers and fathers, and love them of his own years.

"And Joseph chuckled." Is what I would have written, because..

3 And he told him all the letters from Alpha even to Omega clearly, with much questioning. But Jesus looked upon Zacchaeus the teacher and saith unto him: Thou that knowest not the Alpha according to its nature, how canst thou teach others the Beta? thou hypocrite, first, if thou knowest it, teach the Alpha, and then will we believe thee concerning the Beta. Then began he to confound the mouth of the teacher concerning the first letter, and he could not prevail to answer him. 4 And in the hearing of many the young child saith to Zacchaeus: Hear, O teacher, the ordinance of the first letter and pay heed to this, how that it hath [what follows is really unintelligible, but it disturbingly picks up..]

VII. 1 Now when Zacchaeus the teacher heard such and then so many allegories of the first letter spoken by the young child, he was perplexed at his answer and his instruction being so great, and said to them that were gathered there:

Woe is me, wretch that I am, I am confounded! I have brought shame to myself by drawing to me this young child.

2 THIS CHILD IS NOT EARTHLY BORN: this is one that can tame even fire: this is one begotten before the making of the world!

WHAT BELLY BORE THIS? what womb nurtured it? Woe is me, He putteth me from my sense, I cannot follow his understanding. I have deceived myself!

Goddamn. GODDAMN. I mean what the fuck, man? I remember reading this for the first time and simultaneously remembering what the older version of this creature said to his people in Mathew 10:34;

'Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.'

~shudder~

I'll explain how truly terrifying that statement really is in part 2.

-Chad

[darylmerrill]

It’s Your Move

(This post originally appeared January 1, 2014.) 

“Will we settle for the status quo, or will we reach out for what God can supernaturally do through us?” Jim Cymbala

I stink at chess. In fact, just last week my ten year old beat me. In my defense, he is in the chess club at school, but the reality is I’m not very good. Chess is a game of strategy and skill. My problem is I get impatient and then play too aggressive. Other times I get scared and start playing defense. Either way, it always leads to disaster.

When it comes to God moving in my life, the life of my family, or my church sometimes I feel like I’m in a chess match with God. And since I’m not very good at chess I’m always wondering what the right move is. How do I get to God’s blessings, favor, miracles, along with all of His promises? Is it God’s move or mine? If God is sovereign, all powerful it’s all up to Him. Right? After all, revival is called a “move of God.” Or maybe it’s up to me to do just the right spiritual thing and then the blessings will follow. Could it be that God is waiting for his people to make the right move? I’m always wondering who’s move is it, mine or God’s?

I love the Bible. I love that God shares His heart with us through His Word. We don’t have to guess about what God wants or thinks, He’s spelled it out clearly because He loves us,He wants us to be close to Him and experience His very best for our lives. When I examined the “move of God” passages that God gave us in His Word I noticed a surprising and yet reoccurring theme. Whether in the Old Testament or New, a supernatural move of God begins with us.

Look at a well known verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” The context of this verse is the dedication of the Temple. The fire of God has fallen. The glory of God was present. It was a powerful God moment. But God knew that His people would someday fall away. How could they get back to this kind of intimacy? It would be their move. Notice the “if” in the passage  If they humbled themselves, prayed, sought God, and repented, God would again show up. If they moved, God would move.

In the New Testament there is a similar teaching in James 4:8-10 that begins this way in the first part of verse 8, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” I love the promise that if we draw near, God will draw near to us. We move, then God moves.

It seems that we have as much of God as we want. There is no doubt that God wants us close to Him. Throughout His Word He is calling us to a closer and deeper walk with Him. When we stray He calls us to wake up and return to Him, to come back into fellowship. He stands at the door and knocks asking us to open the door so He can come in and be with us. We open, He comes in.  Again, the message is clear, we move, then God moves.

There’s a story in 2 Kings about a widow who doesn’t have the money to pay her bills and her creditors are coming to take her son as payment. All she has is a small jar of oil. Elisha the prophet comes and tells her to do something strange. He asks her to go to family, friends, and neighbors and borrow as many empty pots as possible. In the King James Version Elisha tells her to “borrow not a few.” (2 Kings 4:3) Supernaturally she began to pour the oil out of her little jar until it filled every big pot she could borrow. The widow was able to sell the oil to pay all of her debts and then she and her family were able to live on what was left over.

What’s amazing about this story is she determined what God would do. It was God’s supernatural power at work but the amount of what she received wasn’t up to God, it was up to her. Had she gathered less pots, the oil would have stopped flowing sooner. Had she gathered more, the oil would have flowed until every pot was filled. When you move, move with great faith and then expect God to move in a big way. Don’t limit God. He is El Shaddai, God Almighty. God is saying, “Get moving. I’m going to fill your all your containers.”

What can you do today to experience a move of God?

Move. Take action. It’s easy to get satisfied in life and go numb but it’s time to get hungry. Turn away from your inaction. Dive into God’s Word and read, pray, believe, and obey. Your relationship with God is the most important relationship you will ever have. It determines the direction and destiny of your life. God has so much waiting for you when you just take that first step.

Believe big. Remember you determine the size of God’s miracle power displayed in your life. Put your hope in God. He is the God of more than enough that has promised abundant life to all who follow Him.

Expect God to move. Your expectation moves the hand of God. God has been calling people to draw near to Him since the beginning of time.  He’s just waiting for you to respond. When you move toward God you can count on Him showing up in a big way.

Be thankful. God loves when we thank Him because thanksgiving is a form of worship. We were created to worship God (Isaiah 43:21) and it’s our calling to be thankful (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Move toward God with worship and thanksgiving in your heart, there is nothing He desires more.

If our relationship with God is like a chess match then the strategy is simple. We move, then God moves, and everybody wins. God’s supernatural work in your life requires action. More than ever we need God’s power at work in our lives, families and churches. The days we live in demand it. Don’t settle, sitting back, waiting for God to move. He’s calling us through His Word to move toward Him and He in turn will move toward us. Today and everyday remember, it’s your move.

(Click here to listen to the podcast.)

[listenbang]

TO THE KINDNESS OF GOD

It was with high expectation and emotion that I began my first listen-through of Michael Card’s latest record, To the Kindness of God…

I discovered the music of Michael Card when I was six years old. It was on my father’s CD rack, a compilation album called Joy in the Journey. I remember listening through that CD and being enchanted by the songs. It was the beginning of my adventure with this awestruck troubadour, encountering with him the wonders of God’s Word. Michael has a gift for songwriting: a unique way of weaving the truth and beauty of Scripture into a song. But Michael has given us more than individual songs. He has given us albums; a discography covering nearly the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments. Concept albums, in which the songs are able to tell a greater story collectively, than each could on its own. The beauty of a concept album is that it can approach the subject organically, from multiple angles, taking time to explore and develop an idea.

So why was this particular concept album such a big deal for me? Word has it that To the Kindness of God may be Michael Card’s last album. Listening through it felt like a goodbye of sorts. But if this is Michael’s last album, it definitely makes for a grand end to an era. There is grandness in its soft yet sweeping musical landscape, and in its lyrical theme, hesed: an untranslatable word denoting the inexpressible kindness of God. A theme that spans all of Scripture and in fact, all of history.

A word on hesed (kheh'·sed): it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures nearly 250 times, mostly in the Psalms. In English it’s often translated mercy or lovingkindness, yet these words fall short. King David, in Psalm 23, described hesed as a mercy that would follow him all the days of his life. A mercy that would never let go. Hesed is used in Psalm 136 in the recounting of Israel’s exodus. The phrase “His love endures forever” is chanted over and over again. The Christian Standard Bible translates hesed in that passage as faithful love. Elsewhere, I’ve also seen loyal love.

In To the Kindness of God, the listener is drawn, song by song, into the glorious story of hesed: how God’s matchless might has been revealed in his transformative, covenant love toward his broken creation. Can there be a more epic theme on which to write an album?

Come as You Are

Hymn to the Kindness of God

The Shelter of the Shadow

That Kind of Love

When Dinah Held My Hand / Jesus Is on the Mainline

Gomer’s Song

This Is My Father’s World

I Will Be Kind

Why Not Change the World

The album opens with ascending piano chords, and an invitation: “Come, come as you are, Broken and scarred…” There’s a quiet boldness in Michael’s voice. “…Surrender your fear, It is safe, there is comfort here.” The instrumentation embodies the call. The refrain gives the purpose in the call: “For the LORD is good, And his love is everlasting… Won’t you come?”

A simple message, yet deeply profound. This is what Michael has been approaching in his songwriting for all these years. Hesed is the heart of “El Shaddai.” The power behind the prayer, “Jesus Let Us Come to Know You.” The object of “Joy in the Journey.” This album is the culmination of decades of study in Scripture.

 * * *

 "Come as You Are" is followed by "Hymn to the Kindness of God." In this delicate piece, Michael seeks to express the inexpressible. Attribute after luminous attribute is named, filling out the nature of hesed. The nature of God. "Relentless tenderness, Hope of humankind."

There's a graceful wind and string arrangement (real instruments!) blending with voice and piano. It hearkens back to orchestration on early work such as The Final Word and The Beginning. Beautiful and, for me, nostalgic.

“Who you truly are, we hardly can believe; You know what we are, yet you refuse to leave.” Read the Scriptures and you will be confronted by a God whose goodness and love are so much purer than ours that he may seem, at times, too good to be true. Or maybe as Andrew Peterson says, “too good not to be true.”

* * *

“LORD, please show me your glory.” What a request! What was Moses thinking when he asked it? But there’s a desperation in his plea. To know God in a closer way, he disregards the danger. “The Shelter of the Shadow” recalls the history of hesed, starting before history: “From before the beginning Was a Word that was living…” Next is recounted the event portrayed in the book of Exodus; God revealing his glory to Moses on the mountain in the wilderness. A grand and soaring orchestral and chamber choir arrangement accompanies. Fitting for the events being portrayed…

“The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed—steadfast love and faithfulness.’” (Exodus 34:5-6, ESV)

That shadowy cleft: what peril, and yet, what safety. For God’s glory was shown through his kindness. And that was just the beginning of God’s revelation…

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:14, 16-17, ESV)

* * *

“That Kind of Love” is by singer-songwriter Pierce Pettis. It’s a beautiful song, musically and lyrically, and a natural fit among the other songs on the album. The lyrics are capturing. Michael’s voice is clear and bright.

“It can’t be kept unto itself, It spreads its joy, it casts its spell, Till no one’s safe this side of Hell—That kind of love." The last lines of the song brought the message close to home for me: “So how can anyone deny That kind of love, Knowing every heart is measured by That kind of love…”

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love hesed—mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV) “…O may we be remembered by That kind of love.”

* * *

Not often will Michael share a personal story in one of his songs, but “When Dinah Held My Hand” is quite personal. Listening to it, I felt like I was right there. It’s an important song because it addresses the issues of pain and evil. It does so looking through the lens of God’s kindness. The God who showed kindness to Moses and the people of Israel is still in the business of kindness. A banjo and a fiddle start out this simple story-in-song: “She was haloed ‘round in kindness, I was nervous and alone…”

Here, hesed takes on flesh and bone, and the kindness of God is seen on a common face. I’ve known people who shine that way. When with them, I felt safe. Ofttimes, the sweetest and kindest people are those who have gone through deep suffering. Instead of the hurt hardening them, by God’s grace, it makes them kinder, more able to comfort and help others who are hurting. Here we see the art of God’s providence: it will take what evil intends for a destructive end, and make something beautiful.

“She reached across three hundred years of suffering and pain, She reached across the great divide of the color of our skins; When she reached across that empty pew, then I understood, That all the hate that meant to harm, The Lord had used for good.”

At the close of the book of Genesis, Joseph says to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20, ESV; emphasis added). What a comfort it is, that the Lord is working all things for the good of those who love him. Whether Joseph’s slavery, or the slavery of African Americans, no evil or injustice of man can thwart God’s good intentions.

“Life is made of moments we don’t always understand, Sometimes the meaning isn’t clear, there’s no specific plan; Each moment has been set in place before the world began, Like the time that Sunday morning, when Dinah held my hand.”

“Jesus Is on the Mainline” makes for a perfect outro to Michael’s story. Three instruments—a bluesy piano, a bass guitar and a tambourine — back up the vivacious singing of an African American choir! I love the diversity in the choirs featured in the album; international, like God’s hesed which reaches out to all mankind.

* * *

“Gomer’s Song” is from Michael’s Ancient Faith Trilogy, but it’s found a new and fitting home on this record. Gomer is graceless. Even her name sounds unattractive. But is this not the story of every Christian? Where would any of us be if not for the love that called us out of our shame and darkness? Hosea’s love for his unlovable wife is one of the clearest illustrations of God’s love for his rebellious people. Gomer’s story is my story. “Gomer’s Song” is my song.

* * *

“This Is My Father’s World” highlights yet another important facet of God’s hesed. Look around you. The trees, the animals, the blood in your veins—all creation tells of a sovereign, loving and faithful Father. “This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; In the rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere.”

Those beautiful words are by Maltbie D. Babcock. Many who love this hymn have never heard of the hymn writer. Still fewer know of his tragic end by suicide. I don’t know what darkness brought Maltbie Babcock to take his life, but this I know: No dark demonic power can overshadow the covenant kindness God has for his children.

Michael introduces a couple small yet meaningful changes to this classic hymn text. I first heard Michael sing his version of “This Is My Father’s World” at a concert a few years ago. I was moved by the profound tenderness he had brought to the song. “This is my Father’s world, Why should my heart be sad? He is just and kind, he’s love defined, His grace all the hope that I have.”

This album arrived on the heels of a profound event in my life. In January of this year, my wife gave birth to our first child, a girl. Almost overnight, my understanding of God as Father—as my Father—was transformed. I now see how little I understood dependence, and how far I have to go to be broken of my pride and self-reliance. I see more clearly the pure joy it is to be a child of God, and to rest in his love. The other day we were going for a walk—my wife, our daughter and I. As I was looking up at the sky and the trees overhead, all at once, a thought entered my mind: “this is my Father’s world. My Father.” And it astounded me.

Again I must mention orchestration: the strings on this song are breathtakingly beautiful, like a towering cathedral forest of fir trees. I sense dedication and passion behind its arrangement.

 * * *

 “I can’t explain the mystery, Before I called, you answered me, And showed so great a love That set me free.”

As the album comes to a close, the mood becomes one of reflection. God has shown me kindness. Given his own precious Son, for me. What now? In the stillness, this kindness compels a response. “I Will Be Kind” is that response.

“So now I come and ask of you, To speak the word, to tell me true: In light of all you’ve done, what should I do?” The question is asked, and the response is given. It comes from Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and specifically his instruction to God’s children, on how they are to react to evil.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42, ESV)

My first reaction to Jesus’ words is to recoil. To give up all my rights, to basically let my enemy run all over me—it seems too much to ask. But this song, “I Will Be Kind,” has helped me better understand the heart behind Jesus’ words.

“I’ll forgive as I’ve been forgiven, I will love my enemies, I’ll be gracious to the ungrateful, That’s the grace you gave to me.”

Christ has set the example for loving my enemies, in loving me while I was his enemy. He loved the unlovable. He died for the unlovable. The greatest act of kindness. This is what it all comes down to. This is hesed. How can I not love as I've been loved? I must love my enemies.

To the proud and selfish heart, Jesus’ way is utterly abhorrent. But when that heart is broken by the love of Jesus, it gladly lays down all its rights. It becomes a conduit of his love. I will “turn the other cheek.” Jesus did first, and he did it for me.

“I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6, ESV)

* * *

To the Kindness of God goes out with a paradox of a song. A light and cheerful melody carries these weighty words: “Why not change the world? Why not set it free? Why not let the change Begin with you and me?”

And so the album ends like it began: with an invitation. We’ve come full circle, and the one invited is now extending the invitation to those around him. A chord modulation, then a choir picks up where Michael left off—a Korean choir! Their voices are warm and so beautiful. “…Why not change the world, Why not make a start?”

* * *

To the Kindness of God is a joy to listen to; lyrically and musically, it’s insightful and refreshing. Just over 30 minutes, this album is short yet so rich in meaning. Truly, if not for the kindness of God, I do not know that I could bear to live. How I long to know it more!

“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.” (Micah 7:18-20, ESV)

* * *

Michael Card's new record, To the Kindness of God, can be found here: http://store.michaelcard.com/preorderhesedcd.aspx 

And here’s where you can find Michael’s accompanying book, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness (which I have now begun reading!): http://store.michaelcard.com/preorderhesedbook.aspx

And Michael, thank you. Here’s hoping for more music…

[calebdeese-blog]

Baptism (Thorough)

I stand by Jesus Name baptism, full submersion, and that baptism is a requirement of salvation.

What is baptism?

Baptism is a pardon given and available to mankind for the remission of the sins a person has committed in their lifetime. It is also a new adoptive birth into the family of God. What does that mean exactly? Well much like when a child is adopted into a new family they take on their new families last name. A Christian, when baptized, takes on the name of Jesus in their life and are given an advocate with Jesus in order to be able to obtain forgiveness for sins. For this reason, without baptism, salvation is impossible.

Is baptism a requirement of Salvation?

Yes I firmly believe it is. The Bible says in, 1 Peter 3:21 KJV The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

Baptism saves even to the point of it being a requirement to go to Heaven.

John 3:3 KJV Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Why baptism In Jesus Name?

Baptism in Jesus Name was the only method used in the New Testament and it was the way that Jesus commanded and taught the disciples to baptize.

Matthew 28:19 KJV Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

This scripture is commonly used in trinity teachings although the scripture is clearly oneness.

If someone were to tell me to baptize using this “formula” I would have to ask them what the name is. Look closely to the scripture and you’ll see that “name” is singular meaning that the Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost each have the same name yet in this scripture there is no name given.

How can Jesus command them to baptize in a name and not give them a name? Father is not a name. Son is not a name. The Holy Ghost is not a name.

As a matter of a fact the word “and” had not existed in the original text meaning that this scripture properly translated would have been “Baptizing in THE name of the the Father, of the son, of the Holy Ghost. By this context it’s as if stressing this name. He did not give the name because the disciples knew the name. If I were to say, "John is noble, good, hardworking." Would I be describing three different men or one man? Well all of these revert back to the name John. That is an analogy explaining the context of what Jesus was saying to the disciples. Baptize in the name(singular) of the father, the son, the Holy Ghost.

Understanding Oneness is a requirement of accurately baptizing the way that God requires.

Let’s pretend that Jesus told the disciples to baptize in indivuals names (plural). If it were so than I would have to ask three obvious questions:

1. First, what is the name of the Father? Without thinking I would pretty quickly say Jehova but Jehova is not a name. It is a title similar to "father of, God of, Ruler over.” Jehova is the root word of whatever God chose to manifest himself as.

Jehova Jireh = God, my provider or Master of Provisions Jehova Nissi = God, my Victor/Hero or Master of victory Jehova Rapha = God, my healer or Master of healing Jehova Shalom = God, my peace or Master of peace Jehova Shammah = God, my comfort or Master of comforting Jehova Jesus = God, my salvation or Master of saving

Jehova is not the personal name of God. It is the authoritive relation of God according to a distinct purpose for the use of His power or His character.

Well if it’s not Jehova then maybe it’s Yahweh? Well Yahweh is the name of God but “Yahweh” is not how you spell it and the spelling is key to the proper pronounciation. In the original Greek it’s spelled “Yhwh.” Now say it. It’s impossible. Over hundreds of years the name of God was lost due to the fact that the Jewish people thought the name to be so Holy they forbid anyone to say it out of feeling no one was worthy to use it. So we have no name to use in order to baptize for the fathers name unless we understand that Jesus is God like the Bible says it is on multiple occasions.

The word Jehova actually means “self existing one.”

Galatians 3:20 “God is one.” 1 John 5:7 “The Father, The word, and the Holy Ghost, and the three are one.” Colossians 2:9 “In Him dwelleth the full essential of the God head.” Jesus Isaiah 35:5 “When our God comes, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstoppable, lame leap.” This was from the old testament. Does this sound like anyone familiar? Jesus? John 1 “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and THE WORD WAS GOD… and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the father.” Revelations 4:2 “One sat on the throne.” James 2:19 “Thou believeth that there is one God thou doest well, the Devils also believe and tremble.” Genesis 1:1 God created alone John 1:10 Jesus created

Father is a relationship. Son is a relationship.

2. What’s the name of the Son? Jesus Christ. That one’s easy. So we have one Name which is the name of both the Father and the son.

3. What’s the name of the Holy Ghost? The Holy Ghost is the spirit of God. It is all around us. When we get the gift of the Holy Ghost it is then within us and remains in us unless we exempt it. The Bible says God is spirit. God is able to move on someone in Africa and someone in California at the same time because he is spirit and he is omnipresent. (In all places at once) “If God was the color blue than all you could ever see would be blue.” - Dr Bishop John Shiel

The disciples obeyed Matthew 28:19 In Acts 2:38.

Jesus told them that repentance and remission of sins would start in Jerusalem.

Luke 24:47 KJV And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached IN HIS NAME among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. That’s what was commanded by Jesus. Peter fulfills that prophecy in Acts 2.

Acts 2:1 KJVS And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Acts 2:5 KJVS And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

(Peter began to preach and the things that he said astonished them and touched their hearts)

Acts 2:37-39 KJVS Now when they heard this , they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? [38] Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. [39] For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

Acts 2:38 is the formula for salvation and baptism In Jesus name. They were doing as Jesus had told them.

John 10:30 KJVS I and my Father are one.

John 14:9 KJVS Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then , Shew us the Father?

Let’s imagine that we arrive in Heaven and we see Jesus and we ask Jesus the same question that Philip asked. What would Jesus’ response be? Would he say “If you see me you see the Father”? Or would he take us to a different room to the Father? Jesus is the Father. To see Him is to Jehova. Jesus is the fleshly form he chose to manifest himself within in order to have and relationship with man. He made man in His image. That image in the beginning was Jesus. He walked with Adam and Enoch. That image was Jesus. He stood in the fire with three men in the form of Jesus. He came in the flesh and that image was Jesus. He was in the beginning with God bc he was God.

The only way to be the first person standing in line and the last person standing in line at the same time is to be the ONLY person standing in line. That is what God means when he says he is the first and the last. The alpha and omega The beginning and the end.

They baptised in the NAME of Jesus because the Father is Jesus, the son is Jesus and the Holy Ghost is Jesus. Matthew 28:19 is a Oneness scripture, not a baptism formula and it should be respected as such. The disciples understood exactly what Jesus was telling them to do.

We have to agree that the disciples were baptizing the way Jesus had commanded them otherwise it would mean that the disciples were all disobedient and they wrote it for the world to see generation after generation understanding it as the word of God.

Do you have to be fully submersed or can you sprinkle?

The Catholic Church started sprinkling almost 1000 years after The New Testament church had begun. It started when the church began to believe in the notion that children were not protected under the age of accountability. They began sprinkling babies foreheads to assure their ticket in salvation. At this point it was used only as a “necessity.” And full submersion was still the common method of baptism. In the early 1300s a council came together and made sprinkling the formal method of baptism even thought the word “Baptism” In the original text meant to submerse in water.

Scriptural evidence:

Matthew 3:16 KJVS And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

Jesus was baptized as an example. In His example he was fully submersed. You cannot come up out of water unless you were first under water.

Acts 8:39 KJVS And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.

I believe that full submersion is a requirement based on examples given in the word of God and the entropic nature of the doctrines practicing other methods.

Is there a differences between being baptized in water and being baptized in the spirit?

There is in fact. The term Baptized in the spirit refers to the Holy Ghost. The other, obviously a water baptism. Both are a requirement of salvation.

[ciathyzareposts]

Revisiting: The Dungeon (1975)

                  The Dungeon

United States

Independently developed in 1975 on the PLATO mainframe at the University of Illinois

PLATO lesson name pedit5 is sometimes given as the name of the game

Date Started: 28 December 2011

Date Ended: 4 January 2019

Total Hours: 11

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5) 

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at Time of Posting: (to come later)

Well, it’s no longer a source of shame to me that I failed to win the first extant role-playing game. A few more hours invested in The Dungeon, also known by its lesson name, pedit5, produced a winning screen and an entry in the “Hall of Fame.” 

          I was happy about being at the top of the Hall of Fame, but then I realized it just puts the most recent winner up there.

          My failure to win the first time hadn’t been eating at me, but we’re going to be looking at PLATO again in the coming year, with Swords & Sorcery (1978) and Camelot (1982). We’re also going to be taking yet another look at the DND line, as a helpful commenter has recently provided me with the ability to play a 1977 VAX edition of Daniel Lawrence’s game. Before we did all of those things, I wanted to take another look at the game that started it all. In doing so, I’m going to cover it from scratch, as my 7-year-old original entry on The Dungeon has some erroneous information. 

The Dungeon is the earliest-known RPG that still exists, and it may in fact be the earliest period. Legend tells of a game with the lesson name m199h that preceded it and was deleted. (In the early days of PLATO, system administrators relentlessly purged non-academic lessons, until it occurred to them that students were actually learning something by programming games.) However, I’ve been in correspondence with an early PLATO developer, Donald Gillies, who recalls that The Dungeon came first and that m199h was a contemporary of the later Game of Dungeons (more popularly known by its lesson name, dnd).

Whatever the case, clearly all of these games were written just about as early as a computer role-playing game could possibly be written, as tabletop role-playing games had only existed since the release of Dungeons & Dragons a year earlier. Their near-instant appearance on PLATO, particularly in the complexity of games like Moria and Avatar, is a testament to the power of PLATO and the willingness of dozens of students to sacrifice their grades in favor of slaying orcs.

An unnecessary but well-written backstory.

             Compared to what followed, The Dungeon is relatively primitive, and yet it still out-performs the earliest microcomputer games from a few years later. The framing story sets the gameplay in the ruined castle of Ramething, in the country of Caer Omn, near the town of Mersad (anagrams for “nightmare,” “romance,” and “dreams”). Young heroes repeatedly enter the dungeon to clear out monsters and amass treasure. You play a single character, whose attributes–strength, intelligence, dexterity, and hit points–are rolled a single time during character creation, and you have to take what you get. No matter how low or high his attributes, the character is a combination fighter/magic-user/cleric. He explores a 30 x 30 single-level dungeon where he can encounter 26 different types of monsters. The character can only gain four levels. The only equipment upgrade involves potentially finding a magic sword +1 or +2. The goal of the game is to amass 20,000 experience points so that you can “retire with honor.”

An inexperienced player would fret during character creation, but I honestly don’t think the attributes matter much. As we’ll see, winning the game is more about stumbling upon treasure than fighting battles, and to the extent that you have to fight battles, winning is more about spell choice than character attributes. Even with an experienced player, a Level 1 character has about a 95% chance of dying within 5 minutes, and death is permanent, so it would be a waste of time to keep quitting the lesson and re-entering so you can re-roll higher attributes.

        The only character creation options you get.

        Every time you create a character, the dungeon’s rooms are randomly seeded with monsters and treasure. You also have a 1/24 chance of encountering a monster for every step you take. Monsters come in six categories–evil men, goblin-types, monstrous animals, undead, and mythical creatures–and they can be any level from 1 to 6. Everything after that is mostly random. (Some notes suggest that higher-level monsters may be more common as you get further from the entrance; if so, the effects are subtle.) Two steps into the dungeon, you might encounter a Level 6 dragon or a Level 1 kobold. You have no chance of defeating the former. You have no chance of defeating about 1/3 of the monsters you might encounter at Level 1, in fact.

Melee combat is the sucker’s way out. I didn’t realize this the first time I tried it. You don’t even get to see your attack rolls or damage. When you choose to fight, the game simulates the entire battle and tells you the outcome, and the outcome is almost always that you lose. This is true even after you’ve gained a few character levels. A smart player hits (F)ight only as a last resort.

             Deciding what spell to cast against a “Level 2 Man.”

          Success in combat is almost entirely about spells. There are 16 spells in the game–four each of Level 1 and 2 cleric and magic-user spells. You begin the game with a single Level 1 magic-user slot. At 1,500 experience points, you gain a first-level cleric slot. At 2,500, you get a second Level 1 magic-user slot. At 5,000, you gain a second-level slot for both classes. At the highest level before retirement, you have 4 first level and 2 second-level magic-user slots and two first and second-level cleric slots.

Some of the spells depend your intelligence for their power, but many are entirely deterministic. For instance, “Sleep” (M1) works 100% of the time on non-undead enemies who are Level 4 or below. “Hold Person” (C2) works 100% of the time on humans and goblin-like creatures of any level. The effects of many of the spells, like “Continual Light” (C2), “Protection from Evil” (C1), and “ESP” (M2), are hard to see, and thus I tended to never cast them. This is a game where you always want to favor the sure thing over the variable.

           “Sleep” is an auto-kill for Level 4 enemies and below.

           The worst enemies are undead. There’s no “turn” spell and nothing that works 100% of the time against them. “Sleep,” “Charm,” and “Hold” don’t work at all. “Magic Missile” (M1) is supposed to do double damage against undead, but it often doesn’t kill them. “Blastbolt” (M2) more reliably kills them, but not always. Encountering any high-level undead is practically the same as a “game over” screen.

As you gain experience, you learn the rules. If the creature is Level 4 or below and not undead, cast “Sleep.” If it’s above Level 4 and a humanoid, cast “Hold Person” if you have it, “Charm” if you don’t. If, gods forbid, it is an undead, cast “Blast Bolt” if you have it and “Magic Missile” if you don’t. If the enemy is a mythical creature above Level 4 and not a dragon, cast “Dispel Myth.” If it is a dragon, do whatever you want because you’re dead regardless.

           The game benefits from excellent documentation, which was stored in lesson pedit4.

         Above all, once you’ve won the battle, head back to the exit, which restores all of your spell slots and hit points. Yes, that means even if you’ve only used a single spell slot and you still have several. In this game, you want to be exploring with all your resources, all the time. You also want to head for the exit every time you find treasure, because the experience points that you get from treasure aren’t awarded, and your new level not calculated, until you leave the dungeon. Yes, exiting also saves the character and logs you out of the lesson, but trust me, having to log in again is the least of your worries when trying to win this game.

           The single equipment upgrade. Doesn’t help much if you know what you’re doing. Winners don’t fight.

               Winning mostly comes down to fighting treasure rather than winning combats. It’s supposedly more prestigious to win with all of your experience from combat, or at least a lower treasure/combat ratio, but it would take a long time. The average experience reward from combat is around 100 points, so you’d have to win 200 of them to get the full experience quota. What with having to leave the dungeon every time your spells or hit points get low, that could easily take 10 hours, and of course the odds are that you’d never last that long.

          This, especially in an early room, is the most joyous moment in the game.

          Treasure is what saves you. On the Hall of Fame after I won, the most hard-core player got 35% of his experience from combat; the lowest got less than 10%. I was at 15%. Treasure can come in the form of silver, gold, gems, and jewels. (You can also find magic swords, but they only help in melee combat.) Silver and gold might give you 20 or 50 experience points per “find,” but a jewel can easily be worth 4,000 gold pieces. If you’re lucky enough to find a few jewels early in the game, close to the entrance, your day is made. Treasure is only ever found in rooms, so a smart player starts (B)ashing down doors immediately. If you find a 4,000-experience point jewel in the first room, you can head for the exit immediately, and when you re-enter, you’ll have 3 hit dice instead of 1, plus several levels of spells. The game is much easier after that.

             I nearly won a second time with this “Chester,” who I created just to get a few more screenshots. I got lucky with a 5000-gold piece jewel in my first room. He ultimately died with over 15,000 experience points after I got too cocky deeper in the dungeon.

          I didn’t understand many of these things the first time I played, but I was encouraged by Nathan Mahney’s (“CRPG Adventures”) 2014 victory as well as Ahab’s more recent win over at “The Data-Driven Gamer.” Nathan, incidentally, deserves a lot of credit for mapping the entire level of the dungeon despite a victory requiring nowhere near that level of exploration. I didn’t get nearly as far. But I did get into the Hall of Fame–at least until the next 10 people edge me out. Ahab’s character (“a”) was still on the list from his November 2018 win, although two people had won in the meantime.

        I needed to map less than half the dungeon before I won.

        The Dungeon was programmed by Reginald “Rusty” Rutherford III, a (then) 35-year-old doctoral candidate at the university. Mr. Rutherford told his story to Matt Barton in a 2008 article on Armchair Arcade. The file name pedit5 was just one of many allocated to the Population & Energy group. Rutherford wrote the game in 4-6 weeks while his fellow Dungeons & Dragons fans were working on the more complex Game of Dungeons. News of The Dungeon spread by word-of-mouth, and it soon became popular enough that the stored character limit (he says 20 in the article, but it’s currently 30 in the Cyber1 system) became a serious issue. 

        Some of the changes that “Rusty” planned.

         Rutherford planned several upgrades to the game, including multiple levels and a round-based combat system, but he left the Population & Energy group the following year and never got to implement his ideas. The game, meanwhile, was deleted, although somehow a copy was saved and later restored. After its initial deletion, its supporters put their efforts into Orthanc (1975), a more complex game in the same spirit, which I covered in 2013.

        All of you must bow to me.

         In my original GIMLET for The Dungeon, the game scored an 11. Looking over the scores now that I’ve experienced the entire thing, I think I was too harsh on character development, combat, and economy, all of which got a 1 originally but were bumped up to 2 with this replay, bringing the new total to 14. I also lowered the difficulty from 4.0 to 3.5. The monsters are still very deadly, but now that I know how easy it is for luck to come along and save you with a treasure haul, it’s a little less punishing.

This article didn’t really add anything new to our understanding of The Dungeon, particularly after Nathan and Ahab’s coverage, but it does allow me to turn a loss into a win. Plus, it reminded me how Cyber1 and PLATO work, setting the stage for some of the games we’ll cover later this year.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/revisiting-the-dungeon-1975/

[godsizemylife-blog]

Here I go out on a limb again. Dating myself, I remember first hearing about The Great Commission in college, probably at the Lay Witness Mission at our Methodist Church where I first went forward publicly to affirm my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, or maybe at the college Sunday School class or Campus Crusade meetings I attended after that. Right here it is, in verse 19 of Matthew 28, among the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples after his Resurrection:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I’ve met many Christians in the last few years who say to me something like this: “My faith is very personal to me, a private matter between Jesus and me.” That’s great; I applaud a deeply intimate personal relationship with Jesus, because that’s what Christianity truly is. What usually follows that comment, though, is an unspoken “…and that’s why I don’t say anything about Jesus in public.” Hmmm…..

Imagine for a minute what the world would look like if those eleven men on the mountain with Jesus had felt the same way….

“I like to keep my faith personal and private- evangelism is for people like Billy Graham ” is the attitude I’m here calling The Great Omission. Granted, up front, not every Christian is called to be or gifted to be an evangelist, What exactly, is an evangelist, though?

Strong’s Concordance 2097: euaggelizó: to announce good news

Original Word: εὐαγγελίζω Part of Speech: Verb Transliteration: euaggelizó Phonetic Spelling: (yoo-ang-ghel-id’-zo) Short Definition: I bring good news, preach good tidings Definition: I bring good news, preach good tidings, with or without an object, expressing either the persons who receive the good news or the good news itself (the good news being sometimes expressed as a person).

So an evangelist is basically anyone who expresses the good news of Jesus – who is the Good News – and his gift of forgiveness and salvation. If I may use an analogy, it’s a person who plays on and FOR the team, not a bench-sitter. Truly, does anyone who plays on an athletic team of any kind join the team just to sit on the bench all season and cheer the other players on, but never actually play in the game? I may be wrong, but don’t the fans in the bleachers do that? Yes, fans may wear team jerseys, but they aren’t ON the team and IN the game. If the first disciples had simply been fans of Jesus, the cheering would have stopped when Jesus “left the field” and you and I wouldn’t be able to know, love, or live for Jesus today. Nobody else would have! But those first eleven, and the others who joined them, at the cost of their own lives took the word, yes the spoken out loud to other people word, of Jesus to every corner of the world where they were able to travel. They lived the Great Commission, as have millions of others since their time, and that’s the reason you know Jesus as Savior and Lord today: somebody SAID something about Jesus to you.

No, I’m not advocating that you get a soapbox and stand on a street corner. What I am advocating is that, even if your spiritual gift is administration, or giving, or accounting, or service, or helping others, or greeting at the door onSundaymorning, or teaching preschoolers, please don’t “hide your light under a bushel” and let people think you do those things well and happily simply because you’re a good person. “Oh, but if they see me doing good, they’ll ‘see’ Jesus in me know it’s because of Jesus.” No, they won’t. They’ll see a “good person” doing good unless you SAY something about your motivation to do that good coming from your relationship with Jesus. You don’t have to give a sermon. All you need to do is say something like, ”Well, God loves me, so I love others,” or “Jesus loves me, and I want to share his love, so I _________.”

The apostle Peter wrote, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect ….” 1Peter 3:15 NIV

And Jesus himself said to the thousands gathered on a hillside, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5: 14-16 NIV

Of course we aren’t supposed to call attention to ourselves. But how will those others know that you have a Father in heaven to give glory to if you don’t let them somehow know your have a Father in heaven and HE’s the reason for the good you do?

I suspect the reason we don’t make our faith known is that, deep down, we fear rejection or censure of some kind or ridicule. Isn’t it insecurity about what other people might think? I admit it wasn’t until four years ago that I started asking waitresses and waiters in restaurants if there was a way I could pray for them. Guess what? So far, no one has told me to take a hike. In fact, I’ve met some very receptive and grateful people! They don’t know my name, but they know Jesus knows THEM enough to nudge one of his teammates to express care about them. When Christ returns, or when I go home to heaven to meet him, I don’t want him to find me simply warming the bench.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for me, his own life, endured unimaginable pain and taunts and suffering for me to not just cover over, but take away my sins. and give me a loving, intimate, implausible relationship with the Creator of the Universe! Isn’t that worth sharing with someone who may never have heard the good news, and who may never hear it if you OMIT rather than COMMIT and don’t say something?

I quote Joseph Prince:

“God, who is the only one who can fully appreciate the full value of His Son’s blood and who is completely satisfied by His Son’s sacrifice, is at rest in His heart today concerning your sins! That is why He is not against you even when you fail. Neither is He out to punish you when you sin. No, He still loves you, is for you and wants to help you overcome that sin.

In the Old Testament, the blood of bulls and goats could only “cover” sins and not take them away. (Hebrews 10:4) But the blood of Jesus is not like the blood of animals! For by one sacrifice, the eternal blood of the Son of God has forever removed your sins (Psalm 103:12) and cleansed you of all unrighteousness! (1 John 1:9) In fact, God is so satisfied with His Son’s perfect work that He says to you today, “Your sins and lawless deeds I will by no means remember!” (Hebrews 10:17) And if God does not remember them, why would He punish you for them?

Beloved, you have “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”. Because Jesus’ work is complete, all your sins have been completely forgiven.”

If you’d shout at a baseball or football game when the team scores, why won’t you even quietly share one sentence with your next-door neighbor about the greatest goal, the greatest score, the greatest victory and the most amazing Victor ever? Will you ask God to give you courage from him to overcome your fear, and will you believe, if He was wiling to give His son to die for you, He more than wants to?

“Put me in Coach, I’m ready to play today!”

        The Great ( C)Omission Here I go out on a limb again. Dating myself, I remember first hearing about The Great Commission in college, probably at the Lay Witness Mission at our Methodist Church where I first went forward publicly to affirm my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, or maybe at the college Sunday School class or Campus Crusade meetings I attended after that.

[pamphletstoinspire]

THE BOOK OF Josue - From The Douay-Rheims Bible - Latin Vulgate

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This book is called Josue, because it contains the history of what passed under him, and, according to the common opinion, was written by him. The Greeks call him Jesus; for Josue and Jesus, in the Hebrew, are the same name, and have the same signification, viz. A Saviour. And it was not without a mystery, that he who was to bring the people into the land of promise, should have his name changed from Osee (for so he was called before, Num. xiii. 17,) to Josue, or Jesus, to give us to understand, the Moses, by his law, could only bring the people within sight of the promised inheritance, but that our Saviour, Jesus, was to bring us into it. Ch. --- The Hebrews who had been so rebellious under Moses, behaved with remarkable fidelity and respect towards his successor; who, by these means, more forcibly represented the Christian Church, (D.) which will be ever obedient to her divine head and observe his directions. Josue had been trained up a long time under the hand of Moses, and God had given him the commission to govern his people, in so public a manner, that no one offered to claim that high and arduous office. In effect, the whole conduct of Josue before and after his exaltation, shewed him to be most deserving of command. H. --- Josue, says the Holy Ghost, (Eccli. xlvi. 1,) was successor of Moses among the prophets, or, according to the Greek, "in prophecies." Many explain this of the obligation incumbent on him, to continue the sacred history (C.) and revelations where Moses had left off. The last chapter of this book informs us that he did so. Perhaps some additions, by way of farther explication, have been made by subsequent inspired writers, though most of the passages which are adduced to prove this assertion, seem to be of little force. Respecting the death of Josue, we may make the same observations as on that of Moses. It may have been written by the author of the Book of Judges. Theodoret seems to have thought that the work before us, was compiled out of the public registers, which are quoted C. x. under the name of the book of the Lord. See Num. xxi. 14. The Samaritans have a book or chronicle of Josue, which relates in 39 or 47 chapters, many facts of scriptural history, (H.) down to the reign of Adrian, intermingled with a variety of fables. It seems to be of modern date. Hottinger undertook to publish it in Latin, but was prevented by death. C. --- The true history of Josue sets before us the passage of the Jordan, the conquest of Chanaan, and the distribution of the country. After the pious general had performed all that could be expected from him, after he had twice ratified the covenant between God and his people, and exhorted the latter, with his last breath, to observe an inviolable fidelity to the only Lord, he departed this life in peace, in the 110th year of his age, and was buried at Thamnath Sare, which he had built for the place of his abode. H. --- As the five books of Moses contain the law, intermixed with history, so this first of the historical books exhibits a variety of useful precepts and predictions. The prophetical and sapiential books must be considered in the same light. W. --- They all tend to promote true wisdom and the salvation of men, provided they be perused in the same spirit with which they were written. H.

The additional Notes in this Edition of the New Testament will be marked with the letter A. Such as are taken from various Interpreters and Commentators, will be marked as in the Old Testament. B. Bristow, C. Calmet, Ch. Challoner, D. Du Hamel, E. Estius, J. Jansenius, M. Menochius, Po. Polus, P. Pastorini, T. Tirinus, V. Bible de Vence, W. Worthington, Wi. Witham. — The names of other authors, who may be occasionally consulted, will be given at full length.

Verses are in English and Latin. HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY

This Catholic commentary on the Old Testament, following the Douay-Rheims Bible text, was originally compiled by Catholic priest and biblical scholar Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849). This transcription is based on Haydock's notes as they appear in the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Changes made to the original text for this transcription include the following:

Greek letters. The original text sometimes includes Greek expressions spelled out in Greek letters. In this transcription, those expressions have been transliterated from Greek letters to English letters, put in italics, and underlined. The following substitution scheme has been used: A for Alpha; B for Beta; G for Gamma; D for Delta; E for Epsilon; Z for Zeta; E for Eta; Th for Theta; I for Iota; K for Kappa; L for Lamda; M for Mu; N for Nu; X for Xi; O for Omicron; P for Pi; R for Rho; S for Sigma; T for Tau; U for Upsilon; Ph for Phi; Ch for Chi; Ps for Psi; O for Omega. For example, where the name, Jesus, is spelled out in the original text in Greek letters, Iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma, it is transliterated in this transcription as, Iesous. Greek diacritical marks have not been represented in this transcription.

Footnotes. The original text indicates footnotes with special characters, including the astrisk (*) and printers' marks, such as the dagger mark, the double dagger mark, the section mark, the parallels mark, and the paragraph mark. In this transcription all these special characters have been replaced by numbers in square brackets, such as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Accent marks. The original text contains some English letters represented with accent marks. In this transcription, those letters have been rendered in this transcription without their accent marks.

Other special characters.

Solid horizontal lines of various lengths that appear in the original text have been represented as a series of consecutive hyphens of approximately the same length, such as ---.

Ligatures, single characters containing two letters united, in the original text in some Latin expressions have been represented in this transcription as separate letters. The ligature formed by uniting A and E is represented as Ae, that of a and e as ae, that of O and E as Oe, and that of o and e as oe.

Monetary sums in the original text represented with a preceding British pound sterling symbol (a stylized L, transected by a short horizontal line) are represented in this transcription with a following pound symbol, l.

The half symbol (1/2) and three-quarters symbol (3/4) in the original text have been represented in this transcription with their decimal equivalent, (.5) and (.75) respectively.

Unreadable text. Places where the transcriber's copy of the original text is unreadable have been indicated in this transcription by an empty set of square brackets, [].

Chapter 1

Josue, encouraged by the Lord, admonisheth the people to prepare themselves to pass over the Jordan.

[1] Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Josue the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, and said to him: Et factum est post mortem Moysi servi Domini, ut loqueretur Dominus ad Josue filium Nun, ministrum Moysi, et diceret ei :

[2] Moses my servant is dead: arise, and pass over this Jordan, thou and thy people with thee, into the land which I will give to the children of Israel. Moyses servus meus mortuus est : surge, et transi Jordanem istum tu et omnis populus tecum, in terram, quam ego dabo filiis Israel.

[3] I will deliver to you every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, as I have said to Moses. Omnem locum, quem calcaverit vestigium pedis vestri, vobis tradam, sicut locutus sum Moysi.

[4] From the desert and from Libanus unto the great river Euphrates, all the land of the Hethites unto the great sea toward the going; down of the sun, shall be your border. A deserto et Libano usque ad fluvium magnum Euphraten, omnis terra Hethaeorum usque ad mare magnum contra solis occasum erit terminus vester.

[5] No man shall be able to resist you all the days of thy life: as I have been with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee. Nullus poterit vobis resistere cunctis diebus vitae tuae : sicut fui cum Moyse, ita ero tecum : non dimittam, nec derelinquam te.

[6] Take courage, and be strong: for thou shalt divide by lot to this people the land, for which I swore to their fathers, that I would deliver it to them. Confortare, et esto robustus : tu enim sorte divides populo huic terram, pro qua juravi patribus suis, ut traderem eam illis.

[7] Take courage therefore, and be very valiant: that thou mayst observe and do all the law, which Moses my servant hath commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayst understand all things which thou dost. Confortare igitur, et esto robustus valde : ut custodias, et facias omnem legem, quam praecepit tibi Moyses servus meus : ne declines ab ea ad dexteram vel ad sinistram, ut intelligas cuncta quae agis.

[8] Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate on it day and night, that thou mayst observe and do all things that are written in it: then shalt thou direct thy way, and understand it. Non recedat volumen legis hujus ab ore tuo : sed meditaberis in eo diebus ac noctibus, ut custodias et facias omnia quae scripta sunt in eo : tunc diriges viam tuam, et intelliges eam.

[9] Behold I command thee, take courage, and be strong. Fear not and be not dismayed: because the Lord thy God is with thee in all things whatsoever thou shalt go to. Ecce praecipio tibi : confortare, et esto robustus. Noli metuere, et noli timere : quoniam tecum est Dominus Deus tuus in omnibus ad quaecumque perrexeris.

[10] And Josue commanded the princes of the people, saying: Pass through the midst of the camp, and command the people, and say: Praecepitque Josue principibus populi, dicens : Transite per medium castrorum, et imperate populo, ac dicite :

[11] Prepare you victuals: for after the third day you shall pass over the Jordan and shall go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God will give you. Praeparate vobis cibaria : quoniam post diem tertium transibitis Jordanem, et intrabitis ad possidendam terram, quam Dominus Deus vester daturus est vobis.

[12] And he said to the Rubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses: Rubenitis quoque et Gaditis, et dimidiae tribui Manasse, ait :

[13] Remember the word, which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying: The Lord your God hath given you rest, and all this land. Mementote sermonis, quem praecepit vobis Moyses famulus Domini, dicens : Dominus Deus vester dedit vobis requiem, et omnem terram.

[14] Your wives, and children, and cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan: but pass you over armed before your brethren, all of you that are strong of hand, and fight for them, Uxores vestrae, et filii, ac jumenta manebunt in terra, quam tradidit vobis Moyses trans Jordanem : vos autem transite armati ante fratres vestros, omnes fortes manu, et pugnate pro eis,

[15] Until the Lord give rest to your brethren as he hath given you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God will give them: and so you shall return into the land of your possession, and you shall dwell in it, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun. donec det Dominus requiem fratribus vestris sicut et vobis dedit, et possideant ipsi quoque terram, quam Dominus Deus vester daturus est eis : et sic revertimini in terram possessionis vestrae, et habitabitis in ea, quam vobis dedit Moyses famulus Domini trans Jordanem contra solis ortum.

[16] And they made answer to Josue, and said: All that thou hast commanded us we will do; and whithersoever thou shalt send us, we will go. Responderuntque ad Josue, atque dixerunt : Omnia, quae praecepisti nobis, faciemus : et quocumque miseris, ibimus.

[17] As we obeyed Moses in all things, so will we obey thee also: only be the Lord thy God with thee, as he was with Moses. Sicut obedivimus in cunctis Moysi, ita obediemus et tibi : tantum sit Dominus Deus tuus tecum, sicut fuit cum Moyse.

[18] He that shall gainsay thy mouth, and not obey all thy words, that thou shalt command him, let him die: only take thou courage, and do manfully. Qui contradixerit ori tuo, et non obedierit cunctis sermonibus, quos praeceperis ei, moriatur. Tu tantum confortare, et viriliter age.

Commentary:

Ver. 1. Now: lit. And. Thus the sacred history is connected, the last chapter of Deuteronomy being, in the opinion of many, a part of the work of Josue. H. --- Moses died on the 1st of the 12th month, Adar, and as soon as that month of mourning had expired, and the spies had returned on the 4th of Nisan, God ordered the people to prepare for their departure. --- Minister. This was by no means degrading. He was designed for the successor of Moses, as Eliseus was to succeed Elias. The heroes at Troy had servants of the same high character as themselves, attached to their persons by the ties of friendship. See Ex. xvii. 10.

Ver. 2. Jordan, a river well known, which rises in Antilibanus, not from Panion, but from the lake Phiala, as Herod the Tetrarch discovered by throwing some straw into the latter, which passed by a subterraneous passage into Panion. Thence it proceeds to the Semonite lake and to Daphne, where it begins to be called the Great Jordan. Joseph. Bel. iii. 33. Having traversed the land of Palestine in the southern direction, it loses itself in the lake of Sodom. C. --- It is a very rapid river, and hence its appellation from irod, of jord, descendit, is very probably derived. H. --- The Arabs call it Zacchar, "overflowing," because the snows and rains cause it formerly to overflow about Easter. Univ. Hist. --- When Maundrell travelled through this country, the stream was too rapid for a person to swim against it. Parkhurst. --- Hence the miracle of the Hebrews passing through the Jordan on dry land, when its waters were the most copious and violent, would be the more observable. H.

Ver. 3. Moses. Thus the preceding permission, which the Jews extend, as if God had authorized them to conquer the whole world, is limited. H. See Deut. xi. 24. --- Their right to the land of Chanaan depends on this grant of God, who is the Lord of all things, and who thus took away all the privileges of the former inhabitants. But the warrant of destruction only regarded the people of Chanaan. Those who lived towards the Euphrates, were obliged only to pay tribute by David and Solomon, thought their country formed part of what had been promised to the Israelites. They might have possessed all that region, if they had proved faithful. The limits of the promised land vary, as they are considered under various lights. C. --- The desert of Arabia Petrea and Antilibanus formed the boundaries on the south and on the north, the Euphrates and Mediterranean were on the east and west, when the territories of the Israelites were considered in their utmost extent. H.

Ver. 4. Hethites, the most formidable of the nations of Chanaan. Masius.

Ver. 5. Resist you. They shall at last be overcome, and their resistance will prove detrimental to themselves. C.

Ver. 6. Lot. Heb. "thou shalt give for an inheritance." H.

Ver. 7. From it. Heb. him, Moses. But the Masorets order us to read it. H. --- Understand, or "succeed." Chal. Vat.

Ver. 10. Princes. Shoterim may denote both judges and heralds, such as those mentioned in Homer, the messengers of gods and men, whose persons were deemed sacred. They bore a wand or sceptre, as a mark of their authority.

Ver. 11. Victuals. The manna still supplied the army after they had passed the Jordan. C. v. 12. But Josue might fear lest the people might not have liberty to gather it in the midst of the enemy's country, or he might perhaps suppose that this miraculous food would be withdrawn, as soon as they had entered Chanaan. He therefore takes all necessary precautions, and gets other sorts of provisions in the neighbourhood. C. --- This might foreshew, that in the primitive Church the ceremonies and privileges of the old law would not be abrogated immediately, but they might be used for a time along with the rites of the gospel, till the old law should be buried with honour. W. --- Third day, after their departure from Setim; or perhaps this order was only published when the Israelites were arrived on the banks of the Jordan. C.

Ver. 14. Armed before, in order of battle, at the head of the army, and not according to the disposition of the tribes, which were observed in the desert. Only 40,000 men were selected out of 110,580, the rest were very prudently left to guard the new conquered country. See Num. xxxii. 17. --- For them. Heb. "help them."

Ver. 15. Beyond. The same expression is translated on this side, v. 14. Heb. beheber means also, "in the passage." If we have regard to Josue, when he spoke this, he was beyond, that is on the east side of the river, though perhaps (H.) he might be on the other side when he wrote the history. Deut. i. 1. C.

Ver. 17. Moses. Thus they express their ardent wish, that God would extend his protection to Josue. M. --- They do not mean to insinuate, that they will obey him only as long as he complies with God's law. C.

Ver. 18. Die, as guilty of high treason. The person's goods were confiscated, and became the property of the king. Thus David disposed of the effects of Saul, (2 K. xvi. 4.) and Achab seized the vineyard of Naboth, 3 K. xxi. 15. C.

[darylmerrill]

It’s Your Move

This blog post first appeared January 1, 2014

“Will we settle for the status quo, or will we reach out for what God can supernaturally do through us?” Jim Cymbala

I stink at chess. In fact, just last week my ten year old beat me.  In my defense, he is in the chess club at school, but the reality is I’m not very good. Chess is a game of strategy and skill. My problem is I get impatient and then play too aggressive. Other times I get scared and start playing defense. Either way, it always leads to disaster.

When it comes to God moving in my life, the life of my family, or my church sometimes I feel like I’m in a chess match with God. And since I’m not very good at chess I’m always wondering what the right move is. How do I get to God’s blessings, favor, miracles, along with all of His promises? Is it God’s move or mine? If God is sovereign, all powerful, it’s all up to Him. Right? After all, revival is called a “move of God.” Or maybe it’s up to me to do just the right spiritual thing and then the blessings will follow. Could it be that God is waiting for his people to make the right move? I’m always wondering who’s move is it, mine or God’s?

I love the Bible. I love that God shares His heart with us through His Word. We don’t have to guess about what God wants or thinks, He’s spelled it out clearly because He loves us, He wants us to be close to Him and experience His very best for our lives. When I examined the “move of God” passages that God gave us in His Word I noticed a surprising and yet reoccurring theme. Whether in the Old Testament or New, a supernatural move of God begins with us.

Look at a well known verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” The context of this verse is the dedication of the Temple. The fire of God has fallen. The glory of God was present. It was a powerful God moment. But God knew that His people would someday fall away. How could they get back to this kind of intimacy? It would be their move. Notice the “if” in the passage. If they humbled themselves, prayed, sought God, and repented, God would again show up. If they moved, God would move.

In the New Testament there is a similar teaching in James 4:8-10 that begins this way in the first part of verse 8, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” I love the promise that if we draw near, God will draw near to us. We move, then God moves.

It seems that we have as much of God as we want. There is no doubt that God wants us close to Him. Throughout His Word He is calling us to a closer and deeper walk with Him. When we stray He calls us to wake up and return to Him, to come back into fellowship. He stands at the door and knocks asking us to open the door so He can come in and be with us. We open, He comes in. Again, the message is clear, we move, then God moves.

There’s a story in 2 Kings about a widow who doesn’t have the money to pay her bills and her creditors are coming to take her son as payment. All she has is a small jar of oil. Elisha the prophet comes and tells her to do something strange. He asks her to go to family, friends, and neighbors and borrow as many empty pots as possible. In the King James Version Elisha tells her to “borrow not a few.” (2 Kings 4:3) Supernaturally she began to pour the oil out of her little jar until it filled every big pot she could borrow. The widow was able to sell the oil to pay all of her debts and then she and her family were able to live on what was left over.

What’s amazing about this story is she determined what God would do. It was God’s supernatural power at work but the amount of what she received wasn’t up to God, it was up to her. Had she gathered less pots, the oil would have stopped flowing sooner. Had she gathered more, the oil would have flowed until every pot was filled. When you move, move with great faith and then expect God to move in a big way. Don’t limit God. He is El Shaddai, God Almighty. God is saying, “Get moving. I’m going to fill your all your containers.”

What can you do today to experience a move of God? 

Move. Take action. It’s easy to get satisfied in life and go numb but it’s time to get hungry. Turn away from your inaction. Dive into God’s Word and read, pray, believe, and obey.  Your relationship with God is the most important relationship you will ever have. It determines the direction and destiny of your life. God has so much waiting for you when you just take that first step. Believe big. Remember you determine the size of God’s miracle power displayed in your life. Put your hope in God. He is the God of more than enough that has promised abundant life to all who follow Him. Expect God to move. Your expectation moves the hand of God. God has been calling people to draw near to Him since the beginning of time. He’s just waiting for you to respond. When you move toward God you can count on Him showing up in a big way. Be thankful. God loves when we thank Him because thanksgiving is a form of worship. We were created to worship God (Isaiah 43:21) and it’s our calling to be thankful (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Move toward God with worship and thanksgiving in your heart, there is nothing He desires more.

If our relationship with God is like a chess match then the strategy is simple.  We move, then God moves, and everybody wins. God’s supernatural work in your life requires action. More than ever we need God’s power at work in our lives, families and churches. The days we live in demand it. Don’t settle, sitting back, waiting for God to move. He’s calling us through His Word to move toward Him and He in turn will move toward us. Today and everyday remember, it’s your move.