John Stevens on his Moors walk, now with his Video and textpost

  Click the Pic

A reflection from a poor navigator
Yesterday, I made 5 navigational errors using an OS Map in my attempt to walk from The Tradesman’s Inn at Scorriton to Chagford. It was always billed as a long walk, 18.5 miles, but my unplanned variations added an extra 2.5 miles…and that was with an off-route shortcut in the final few miles to The Chagford Inn, Chagford.
In terms of time, the walk lasted over 10 hours – about 2 extra hours.
The lesson? 
Many old basic map reading skills were put to the test. Distances, counting steps, compass direction, landscape, shapes of roads, wearing glasses (!), taking time at junctions…all in relation to studying the 1:25000 OS Map.
Leave one of these elements out and…5 minutes later, and you’re way off track and need to correct.
A parable?
There’s much talk from politicians, and activists such as Tommy Robinson, calling on us to return to our Christian heritage, values, and belief, as if we’ve strayed. The seemingly spontaneous Union Jack and English flag movements marches, and protests are, of course, in direct opposition to the alliance of the Far Left and radical Islamist marches chanting ‘Free Palestine from the River to the Sea’ and calling for the destruction of the State of Israel; the aim of both groups. This in turn, is a reaction to the Israeli actions in Gaza, killing 70,000 Gazans in an attempt to rid the menace posed by Hamas who orchestrated the murderous attack against unarmed civilians in Israel on 7th October 2023, taking hostage 251 and murdering 1,195.
How to process this spiritually.
Most English and British folk know they are not Muslims, and are not attracted to Islam, certainly not the version of Islam that exports terror and death to anyone who fails to submit to Allah and Mohammad i.e. infidels.
But it is equally true to say that most English folk rejected the form of Christianity that required attendance at Sunday services for Communion, ie ‘organised religion’. Christianity, for many, was hollowed out and became a shell of the original firebrand glory associated with the miracles and mass following of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. 
Into the spiritual void has poured materialistic alternatives such as atheism, agnosticism, and humanism. And for those who see through materialism to an unseen spiritual dimension: Buddhism, Eastern mysticism, New Age, spiritualism, Yoga, and many variants, has attracted thousands if not millions of thirsty for inner illumination and soul food.
With arch atheist, Richard Dawkins, describing himself as a ‘cultural Christian’, acknowledging that his whole moral framework within which his moral sensitivities are exercised, is derived from our collective Christian heritage, we seem to be facing an uncomfortable truth.
That truth is simply this. The Law of Moses as handed down in the Old Testament, and the gospel of grace in the New Testament has been the roadmap for England and the rest of the Unite Kingdom and much of Europe, for over ten centuries, shaping our culture, its institutions, and traditions – for example Christmas.
If you visit a bible-believing church of any denomination this Sunday (there are plenty churches that have long since dropped the notion of scriptural authority) you will quickly pick up the two guardrails, even if left unsaid, that act like an OS Map, and keep us on track.
1. We are no longer under law but under grace Rom 6v14
2. The Law acted as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith Gal 3v24
One further verse will give us a window into the spiritual pinch-point that we are currently experiencing.
‘For the Law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ John 1v17
The gospel (Greek for good news) is this: the law is good but it can’t produce perfect behaviour or spiritual maturity in us. It accurately points out our faults, transgressions, and sins, and shows us that although we are trapped in sin, it can’t save us or deliver us. All that sin was placed on Jesus on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice, and so, by having faith that this is so, we are given a priceless gift (grace means free gift); if we repent from struggling on our own (Christian or not), and receive the gift of eternal life and righteousness. We emerge forgiven, cleansed, and live a new life relying on Christ not ourselves.
But right now, in 2025, there is a real need to revisit Gal 3v24, and reacquaint ourselves with the Law – in essence to go back to school. Not, I must add, to be placed under the law and regulate our lives by self-effort to do the right thing, or resurrect organised religion, and end up duty bound to observe a range of sacraments or rituals, but to rediscover the moral framework, which we fail to meet, so that we’re brought to Christ Himself.
This walk I am on, the Two Moors Challenge, Coast to Coast, is a seven day trek with taking Saturday, today, as a sabbath, a rest day. It is forcing me to go back to school – navigational school. 

Britain will not return to Christ by waving flags, by marching, by bemoaning our lost heritage. The harder miles will require us to open our bibles and read Deuteronomy, read the OT commandments, find out what God loves and what He considers to be detestable, or abominable. Sparks will fly when this is at odds with our Parliamentary Law.
The gospel – the good news – can only be truly appreciated when it dawns on us that the Law is good, but that we cannot and have not kept it and need forgiveness an the new way of grace and truth contained in Christ.
If, and only if we take this journey, will our churches be filled with those who have been well-schooled by the law and sing for joy that they have been led to the escape route which is Christ Himself and the love of God, not a false version of Christianity that preaches law without grace; Moses without Christ, religion without Jesus.
To conclude, Richard Dawkins is right. He has inherited his moral compass, not from some vague Christian heritage, fading as it might be, but from holy writ, the Bible. But, whilst he is looking to the past, the past is not the right place to look. It’s the wrong end of the telescope. No one needs to look at the retreating tide of historical Christianity, that admittedly gave us so much; church buildings built in the shape of the cross on which Christ died for us, is one visible heritage. 
No, to start requires two simple steps. One is to convert your questions into the cry of the human heart and open up, direct your thoughts, frustrations, longings to God – even if you’re uncertain whether He exists or listens. Secondly, walk over to your bookshelf, and take your bible off the shelf, or download a free version of an online bible, and start reading. I suggest start with John’s gospel.
Tomorrow, I take to the road again, confident in one thing; it’s likely that I shall still make navigation errors but that my map, compass, and eyes will come to my rescue, if I stop relying on my instincts alone.

John Stevens : Unless a Seed blog Surrounded By Idiots Review

 John Stevens complete post here 

Morris Cerullo often said  " All truth is parallel " . So about the time we are prophesying to the breath , come from the four winds. 

Or considering four quartiles : Matthews Marks Lukes Johns or the Four Wood design of Leviticus 23:40 tabernacle booth design ,a secular human resources and headhunter guy is writing " Surrounded by Idiots . " 

  John Stevens reviews it on his blog here

 

‘This is NOT that’ 

Purpose: taking a peek beyond the horizon of evangelical/charismatic church culture…and to leave for a Promised Land

Original is here 

https://www.unlessaseed.com/blog

My story

The bible, Vicars, CofE church services, including Sundays with my parents, hymn singing, carols, christening, and later, confirmation and receiving communion – all of that formed a mild backdrop to my childhood.

Consciously, from the age of about 6, I was a fan of Jesus. Anyone who could walk on water had my attention. But it was also his fierce opposition to hypocrisy and his love for the outcasts, especially lepers, that put Jesus in top spot above other heroes such as Cassius Clay (later Ali), or William Tell, Robin Hood, or (curiously), the Pied Piper of Hamelin

When I looked around at the Sunday services, however, the emphasis on outward values – dressing correctly, kneeling when told to, prayers for the sick but no miracles, making sure you had some money for the collection, Vicars, vergers, and choir boys dressed up and positioned in the holier parts of the church, nearest the altar beyond, which only the Priest could venture, all of this seemed to be so distant from the Jesus of the New Testament.

As a boy I added this up silently and concluded ‘This is NOT that’. ‘This’ ie everything that seemed to be called ‘church’ was nothing like the Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus wore no fancy clothes, emphasised the heart, performed miracles, and lived a life of zero demarcation between himself and the people…there were no altars.

My ‘This is NOT that’ critique was a peak beyond the church culture that grew up around what was affectionally called ‘nominal’ Christianity. At the time, a survey showed that 80% of Church of England bishops did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. No wonder, then, that the church I experienced did not exhibit the faith of Jesus himself.

Jesus wore no fancy clothes, emphasised the heart, performed miracles, and lived a life of zero demarcation between himself and the people…there were no altars.

For me, the result was full-blown agnosticism.

The church, at least the church I had attended, the general bible reading, hymn singing culture that pervaded schools as well as church, had granted me with a clear view of Jesus, but left me believing that the New Testament was no more than a series of well-intentioned fictions about an ideal figure, not a flesh and bones Messiah of history, let alone resurrection. I was disillusioned. I had so many questions.

One day, I was 15, I was alone pondering on Judgement Day. To say I railed at God would be overstating it but I lodged my complaint, more as a lawyer than an enraged football fan. I presented my argument that ‘to judge me is inherently unfair. I haven’t sufficient evidence to know whether You exist’. I also felt somewhat silly presenting my arguments to an invisible Judge that I did not believe existed.

Looking back, I’d say that God heard.

Less than two years later I met my first true Christian, and all my questions started to pour out. The problem was that she had answers and if she didn’t, she pointed me to books eventually challenging me to study the source material, the New Testament itself. As the evidence piled up my arguments were progressively dismantled.

The moment of ‘conversion’ had an amusing twist. I was attending Holy Communion in the church that I had first felt ‘This is NOT that’. For several years, I had refused to say the Creed as I didn’t truly believe, but on this occasion, as I opened my mouth to say the words ‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty…’ I believed. There was no drama, no tears, no rushing to the front of a Billy Graham-style rally…but peace, and a sense of leaving agnosticism behind like the early disciples left their nets.

The churches I have attended since that moment have been full of individuals who are genuine believers. There’s no emphasis on outward show, there are testimonies of miracles and answered prayers, of God being real, no special clothes to demarcate ‘priests’ – everyone is considered to be a priest…because the faith is genuine the ‘outward forms’ are a product, largely, of the ‘heart’ not rules and regulations. It’s more like the Jesus of the NT.

But this is NOT that.

When Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost to address the crowd, he quoted Joel’s prophecy Acts 2v14-21 and concluded: ‘This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel’ v 16.

Not everything in Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled in those minutes and hours: there were no wonders in the heaven above, the sun was not turned into darkness and so on, nevertheless Peter was able to say ‘This IS that’ in other words, what the crowd were witnessing was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. It matched.

When we look at the believing church today, we should be able to say This is That, this church experience that you are in matches the New Testament.

Here are a few observations we can make from that first Pentecost:

1. The Holy Spirit was doing the work – Peter was explaining what God was doing

2. Although Peter spoke, he was not the designated leader, he was one of the apostles and there were about 120 disciples, men and women who had flames above their heads, and were speaking in the languages of those who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost

3. The crowd’s reaction. They were divided – some thought it was all bonkers and accused the disciples of being drunk, not true, but it was the best that they could come up with! The others ‘were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles ‘What shall we do?’ Peter’s answer was ‘Repent, be baptised, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit’.

Even at that very young age, in my childhood, I was taking a peak beyond ‘nominal Christianity’ and desiring a Promised Land. Falteringly, after my confession of the Creed and the repentance of agnosticism and new faith in Christ, I was baptised and later received the Holy Spirit. I became a fully signed-up member of what was affectionately called ‘the Charismatic Movement’ which later morphed into a mix of Revival and Restoration movements and gave birth to thousands if not millions of churches built on the three observations as above.

Baptism

In recent years, I have found that much of the charismatic movement can be characterised in one word Terah.

Terah was Abraham’s father. He uprooted the family, including his son Abraham, from Ur to travel to Canaan over 1000 miles. It was a bold move, to leave the security of all he had known to adventure to a new land. But he fell short and settled in Haran, just over halfway.

God, however, had spoken to Abram as a child:

‘Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family, from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ Gen 12v1

At some point, after Terah had settled in Haran, the time had come to leave his father’s house…and he left.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, writes that we are ‘of the faith of Abraham’ Rom 4v16. Terah’s faith took him so far, but he stopped. What had been a wild adventure, a trek, a pilgrimage, a journey, was over. The pioneer had become a settler. No doubt, Terah carved out a comfortable existence for himself and other family members – but it was characterised by predictable routines rather than the unknown. The faith of Abraham is the faith of a pioneer, not sure where he is going but confident that God knows.

The question is have we settled? Are we comfortable? Has church become routine and predictable, liturgical?

1. Are we explaining what the Holy Spirit is doing when we gather or have we replaced the Holy Spirit with well-rehearsed and efficient man-managed services?

2. Are we led by one designated leader? Even on day one of the church, leadership was a function of the apostles, plural. The crowd asked Peter and the rest of the apostles questions, not just Peter. Throughout Acts and the New Testament letters the apostles appointed elders – never one man – those who were carrying the life of Christ to such an extent that they had food to offer

3. Repent, be baptised, and receive the Holy Spirit is a formula and is not a formula! You cannot mimic true faith. Repentance can only truly occur if you remove your hand from the steering wheel and have put your faith in God to steer you into the future. You don’t become a driverless car, but you hand over to a new driver, God Himself. Baptised. It was a shocking image for Jews to be baptised; that was reserved for Gentiles to become Jews, to wash away their former Gentile identity and become true Jews – a practice still carried out today. Baptism represents leaving behind your former identity (for me agnosticism) and saying to the world, I have a new identity in Christ. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit – if you read the New Testament accounts of those who received the Holy Spirit, beginning with the apostles on the Day of Pentecost, the gift is accompanied by unusual signs such as speaking in other languages, or prophesying. If you widen your study to include the Old Testament you will see a variety of experiences. The real question here is not formulaic but how thirsty are you?

The real question here is…how thirsty are you?

As a participator in Nominal Christianity, I was confirmed in the Church of England aged 14. The bishop laid his hands on my head after I had confessed my faith in Jesus as Lord, and I was supposed to have received the Holy Spirit. It was a sham. I lied about having faith in Jesus as Lord – as did everyone else being confirmed. And none of us received the gift of the Spirit.

Many Evangelical churches to this day refuse to incorporate the baptism of the Holy Spirit in their doctrines and therefore their disciples are limited to two out of the three answers Peter and the apostles gave to those asking ‘What shall we do?’ It is tragic withholding.

If you’re in a Charismatic church – good – at least you have the doctrine (unless you have slipped back into evangelicalism) but if your ministry has become routine your disciples will receive what you have – routine, a replica of the reality. At least the crowd on the Day of Pentecost could see with their own eyes twelve apostles full of the Holy Spirit, as blown away by what God had done, was doing, as they were! ‘This’, Peter said, ‘is that’.

Taking a peek beyond the horizon

The pioneers of the charismatic movement in the UK have all died: Smith Wigglesworth, David Watson, Colin Urquhart, David Pawson, Gerald Coates, Michael Harper, Bryn Jones, Arthur Wallis and others and a host of International preachers such as Yongghi Cho, John Wimber, and David Wilkerson.

They all left, or were rejected by, nominal or evangelical churches to form new expressions of church, mostly as churches beyond historic denominations and a few within established denominations.

Looking ahead:

1. Doctrine: If the rediscovery of the baptism of the Holy Spirit gave birth to the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, getting to grips with Romans 6&7 and Gal 2v20 ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ’ is vital

2. Leadership: elders, not a single leader. The Holy Spirit is in control. Elders and other mature members of a church are examples of individuals who are baptised – wringing wet – with the Holy Spirit and therefore their meetings cannot be routine. Peter hadn’t planned what to say. Worship is as unpredictable as the wind. No one day with Jesus was the same as the day before. One moment he’s interrupted by someone breaking through the roof, the next he’s standing in a boat teaching, or dealing with Peter, or pounding out his Woes to the Pharisees, or in Jerusalem facing crucifixion

3. Parable. If new wine, new wineskins was the parable that spoke in a living way in the pioneering days of the charismatic movement, the parable of the fruitful grain of wheat (John 12 v 20-24) is as poignant now. Unless we are willing, like seeds to be planted in the ground and die, we will not see the reproduction of seeds as in the parable – we will remain alone. In the middle of this parable is the biological knowledge that seeds die. They shrivel up and die. They are used up. They are food for the future plant, unrecognisable in comparison with what has gone before. And that new plant’s purpose is to grow identical seed…which has, in turn, to go into the ground and die and so the parable lives on. The Pentecostal and charismatic pioneers were like seeds that were willing to be taken out of their seed-packet-churches, to be put into the ground to die, but in dying to all that they had known, they germinated and grew into the incredible variety of charismatic churches that have arisen in almost every city across the globe. But now, those charismatic churches have become like seed packets with thousands of members…many of them hearing the word of the Lord to Abraham ‘leave your father’s house’…it’s time to leave the charismatic church model and let God take us to a new promised land. This is not a time to settle.

Prophetically.

• Single leaders will die to single leadership, seeing with fresh conviction that Jesus is Lord, the Holy Spirit leads meetings, and that elders are appointed not to replace the Holy Spirit but as ones who know what it is to be wet through with the Spirit and able to teach and embody, amongst other facets of the gospel, Gal 2v20.

• Worship is in the Spirit; it is as unpredictable as the wind – 1 Cor 14v26

• A Rachel generation – Rachel died in childbirth naming her son Ben-Omi (Son of my sorrow) but Isaac renamed him Benjamin (son of my right hand). Whilst there will be grief for those leaving their father’s house, the charismatic churches, in which they have learnt everything they know, the fruit will be the formation of churches that have a new authority, like a son of my right hand, they will rule but from a position of true intimacy with the Father.

Lastly, Terah continued until he died (Gen 11v32) reproducing his lineage in Haran.

These new ‘Rachel-generation’ churches will emerge, but the ones left behind, New Frontiers, Kingdom Faith, Salt and Light, plus the historic denominations continue. Like reproduces like. The Church of England will stagger on, the Methodists and Baptists likewise.

Dissatisfaction with believers in charismatic churches will force many to retreat into the hands of evangelical churches – at least the word is preached there, even if it’s not fresh out of the oven.

The choice is always present. The faith of Terah or the faith of Abraham?

My friend's blog - Unless a Seed

 I'm putting a permanent link to  John Steven's blog on the lefthand side of my blog page

Romans Chapter One and Two - John Stevens

(Scripture references are from NKJV unless stated otherwise)

Paul sits at a desk. He has 20 years of apostolic experience to draw upon in Christ. He either writes or starts to dictate to Tertius (16 v 22) this epistle.



We know something of knowledge of the believers in Rome through:

his friendship with Priscilla and Aquila (16v3 & Acts 18v2)
hints at some causing division (16v17)
his estimation that they are well taught and needing only some things emphasised (15 v 14,15)
his stated intention to visit before but now, at last, he sees an opportunity (15 v 22,23)
his confidence that they would want to support his plans to take the gospel to Spain from Rome (15 v24)
It becomes clear, as proposed in the introduction that as the epistle develops, that the main division threatening the truth of the gospel in Rome was the deteriorating relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers; threatened, at root, by arrogance. We will tackle this head on as we follow Paul’s argument.

But now Paul, out of his communion with the Spirit of Christ, writes the first few verses and sets the scene for the whole letter.

Paul, a servant (slave) of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which he promised before through the His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead

Instantly Paul expects the Gentiles in the church to have a coherent grip on the Jewish foundations of the gospel – the words Christ, His prophets, Holy Scriptures, and David are not stated by accident. Today we have largely distanced ourselves from this foundation and so we find this epistle speaking once more into our ears – can we hear?

Paul takes us back into the past in order, in time, to join him in the present and the future.

Paul directs us to consider the Holy Scriptures – which we know as the Old Testament – and how the various writers had become prophets looking for the arrival of the Messiah (Aramaic for anointed one and ‘Christ’ in Greek). In Old Testament days three offices were anointed by the Spirit: prophets, priests and kings and the prophets foretold that God would raise up the Messiah, the Christ, a Davidic King (e.g. Is 11v10; Rom 15 v12). Paul is preaching that Jesus is this promised Messiah.

It is vital that we recapture the realisation that, whilst it is true that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, He is also the rightful King of Israel. The Israel of Paul’s day, ruled by Rome, largely did not recognise this and the rulers, of course, revealed their true colours in their complicity in the arrest and crucifixion of their Messiah. The political Israel of today also does not recognise the legitimacy of Jesus’ kingdom. Those Jews that do and have submitted themselves to His rule constitute the true Israel, the Israel of God. Some of them were in the congregations in Rome. Paul himself is, of course, both a Jewish believer and a Roman citizen

Paul underlines Jesus’ legitimate claim to the throne of David by appealing to his lineage ‘born of the seed of David according to the flesh’. Then he pounds in the declaration that, marvellous though that is, Jesus is more than just the Son of David for the Jews. Having been raised back to life He is also the Son of God.

At the end of these opening four verses Paul’s readers have been reminded that they are bending their knees to the Messiah, the Davidic King and Son of God; he will continue at pace now to declare that this news is as relevant for all the nations as it is for the Jews.

In the space of these opening four verses Paul has shown that the gospel is for all, form the Jews and for all nations i.e. gentiles. He continues in verse 5:

‘…through whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name’

Paul summarises this by stating ‘…you also are the called of Jesus Christ. To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints’

(We will return to that phrase ‘…called saints…’ later in relation to the concept of sanctification and propose a shift in understanding of the word).

By the time we reach v16 Paul introduces a ministerial conviction and theme:

‘I am not ashamed of the gospel…it is for everyone who believes…for the Jew first and also for the Greek’

This theme – for the Jew first then Gentiles – Paul will use in coming chapters.

The righteousness of God

It is not the purpose of this study to enter fully into the debate about the righteousness of God and the cognates of the Greek word. Please refer to commentaries.

Paul says at least two things about God’s righteousness

(1) Jews and Gentiles are all sinners and therefore justifiably under the wrath of God

(2) God’s is righteous in justifying sinners

Jews have all failed to keep the Law and are therefore guilty. Gentiles, equally, have not only broken the Law that they had scant if any knowledge of, but also any moral code that they require of others and yet fail to keep themselves. So we are all guilty.

‘Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself for you who judge practice the same things’

And so Paul, writing to Jews and Gentile believers in Rome, reminds them, that no amount of effort will overcome the real problem that all are under the justifiable wrath of God. And therefore wouldn’t God’s righteousness be upheld if he poured out His wrath on all who sin? The righteousness of God would surely be revealed by His wrath?

But the genius of Paul is that he sees past the justifiable wrath of God as the parameter of righteousness. Like Habakkuk, Paul’s argument has its foundation in the other dimension of righteousness; mercy. In wrath remember mercy cries the prophet. And again the Spirit at work in Habakkuk finds its fulfilment in Christ and so Paul quotes the prophet in an earlier verse ‘the just shall live by faith’ (Hab 2v4; Rom 1v17).

Like many verses in Paul’s opening chapters they are portrayed as windows through which we will eventually see a wider and fuller picture.

But at least here, in verses 16 and 17 we see Paul’s perception that God’s righteousness is not challenged by justifying law breakers but upheld and revealed. And that, unlikely though it may have seemed to Paul the Pharisee, this salvation is unlocked, not by attempts to keep the Law, but in giving up this pursuit and the placing of one’s faith in…? Well that’s to come.

The work of the Spirit

The last two verses of chapter 2:

‘…he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise (play on the word Jew/praise) is not from men but from God’

Here again Paul states the radical truth that the true Israel, is not populated by the descendants of Jacob that have been circumcised and attempt to obey the Law, but those descendants of Jacob that have been circumcised in the Spirit, in the heart.

Paul doesn’t expand on this at this point but he does return to the work of the Spirit in later chapters.

(A note at this stage: When Paul speaks of the Jews or Israel he is talking about Jews and Israel, when he is talking about Gentiles he is talking about all people that are not Jews and when he is talking about the church he is not referring to Israel but all believers in Christ; Jew or gentile. It’s worth bearing in mind at this point that Paul does not confuse these terms)

And so we will also have to wait.

In summary, after the foundation dug in the opening four verses of chapter one there are two pairs of verses, 1v16,17 and 2v28/29, that catch the eye, designed to keep the believers in Rome needing to read more.

If that was the hors d’oeuvres…

Why Did Paul write Romans? John Stevens

Introduction
NB this post is a simple distillation of my thoughts concerning Romans – I will allow my experts, Douglas Moo, Thomas Schreiner, NT Wright, Watchman Nee, and others to have their say in a following post but for now you’re stuck with me!
The letter is written by Paul, the ‘apostle to the Gentiles’ and highlights how the gospel intersects with local circumstances in the church in Rome – not an end in itself; it was not written as a theological deposit for future generations though it fulfils that brief extraordinarily well.
The mission to gentiles stems from the covenant promises to bless the whole world through Abraham and it seems to be important to Paul that the believers in Rome get a grip on this.
Paul was a walking ‘Israel’, an embodiment, in himself, of the purposes of God bringing ‘light to the gentiles’; Paul ‘goes to work’ providing a theological foundation for the call for unity between Jewish and Gentile believers as a necessity for the glory of God:
‘therefore receive one another just as Christ has received us to the glory of God’…’that the gentiles might glorify God’ 15v7 and v9
Is it truly possible to enter the mind and thinking of a first century apostle and claim to understand his motives for writing an epistle to the church in Rome? It sounds a little far-fetched at the outset. A quest, perhaps, based more on instinct than evidence? In fact we find that it is Paul himself that provides the evidence.
Before we look at the direct evidence in the epistle it would be good to immerse ourselves in Rome itself which had become a vibrant and ethnically diverse city comprising of slaves and freemen from conquered regions from the Empire. Jews were permitted to live in Rome, allowed to build synagogues, and to worship according to their customs. At the time of writing the epistle it is likely that the Jewish believers were in the process of returning to Rome having been banished by Emperor Claudius in approximately AD49.
‘And (Paul) found (in Corinth) a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome’ Acts 18 v 2
Claudius died in AD 54 and it may be that the Jews were permitted to return after his death. The church, therefore, comprised of Jewish and Gentile believers and had witnessed the racial tension between Jews and Greeks, the expulsion of the Jews and then the return of Jewish believers. Paul wrote a letter specifically to contrast the unity brought about by Roman conquest and rule with the unity brought about through the gospel; through the death of Jesus and his resurrection.
(1)    Paul’s impending visit to Rome – in chapter one Paul writes     ‘I long to see you…I often planned to come to you but was hindered until now’ v11-13
(2)    Paul wanted to preach the gospel in Rome and bear fruit – ‘…that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles…I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also’ v13-15
(3)    Paul had Spain in his sights – ‘whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to see you…to be helped on my way there by you…I shall go by way of you to Spain’ 14 v 24-28
(4)    Paul was anticipating mutual blessing – ‘I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established that is that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me’ 1 v 11,12 ‘I know that when I come to you I shall come in the full blessing of the gospel of Christ…with joy by the will of God, and maybe refreshed together with you’ 14 v 29-33
(5)    To tackle important issues arising in the church – ‘I myself am confident concerning you…that you are filled with all knowledge…nevertheless I have written more boldly to you on some points…’ 14 v 14,15 ‘Now I urge you, brethren, note those whom cause divisions…and avoid them’
If we attempt to arrange these themes into a coherent paragraph it could read like this:
My dear brothers in Christ in Rome. I’m on my way to Jerusalem to deliver a contribution from the Gentile churches in Macedonia and Achaia to the poor among the members of the church there. After that I have two aims. One is to come to you and the other is to push on to Spain. How I have longed to see you all in Rome and to preach the gospel and have some fruit among you. Your faith is spoken about everywhere I go and I am confident you know the gospel well. I’ve written to you on some points quite boldly as a reminder to keep in the grace of God and to note those who are divisive. I look forward at last to seeing you. I’ll arrive in the full blessing of the gospel and am sure that I can impart a spiritual gift to you as you will also encourage me. After that Spain. And I hope you’ll be able to help me on my way’
Read like this one could be forgiven for not anticipating such an outpouring of theology and teaching as we encounter in the rest of letter. It is unexpected. Perhaps Paul was simply caught up in moments, maybe hours, of clarity of thought that he felt compelled to record and include in his letter to the church in Rome? Maybe. But we must remember that Paul, by this time, had been an apostle to the Gentiles for nearly twenty years. I think we can safely dismiss this extraordinary letter as anything other than purposeful and designed to fit into the life of the believers in Rome.
In which case, of the aims above, two stand out as inextricably linked; his planned visit to Rome and the future plans to take the gospel to Spain with the help of the church in Rome.
Paul detected a problem in the church. Division. There were two sets of divisions. One was over attitudes towards Jewish believers from the Gentile believers. The other, which may also had exacerbated the Jew/Gentile division, was to do with varying practices such as whether to hold particular days in honour of the Lord or to treat all days the same (14v5). So Paul goes to work providing a sound theological foundation showing how the gospel has brought about a deep unity between Jews and Gentiles in Christ. And how that two believers can express their love and faith for Christ differently and yet remain united with each other. This, I believe, is the ‘spiritual gift’ that Paul is seeking to bring. Unity. ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity! For there the Lord commands the blessing’ Ps 133 v1,2. In chapter 11 Paul brings revelation and a prophetic warning. He shows the Gentile believers that whilst they are theologically correct in believing that the Jews had rejected the gospel so that they could be included, they had become boastful and arrogant towards their Jewish brethren. He warns them if they continue they, like the unbelieving Jews, will be cut off 11v22.
To uproot these damaging attitudes Paul does not simply instruct the Gentile believers to repent and love their Jewish brethren; he digs a comprehensive theological foundation sustained over 16 chapters. We will be looking at how this argument unfolds later.
It is with his dual purpose in mind that Paul develops his argument. I have no doubt that Paul would have been anticipating gaining financial help towards his ambition to take the gospel to Spain but I suspect, too, that he was after good travelling companions. He wanted to ensure that those who would travel with him, Jewish or Gentile believers, would be filled with the same fullness of the gospel and joy that Paul possessed so that they could dig good foundations for the emerging church in Spain, full of unity and joy in Christ, in the Messiah.
In summary then Paul was reminding the believers in Rome that the gospel and Christ, not political power or Caesar, had brought about true unity between Jews and Gentiles and that the prevailing culture should not invade and spoil the church. Indeed Paul warned that the church would be cut off if it did.
The teaching included in the epistle was with this in mind culminating in one verse:
‘Therefore receive one another, just as Christ has received us, to the glory of God’ 15v7
Paul takes fifteen chapters to build to this point. And the verses that follow on from 15v7 are gripping in the light of the foundations laid earlier. His argument is developed on many fronts and it is to this persuasive argument that we must now turn.

John Stevens is the author of When Rabbis Cry

Romans Study Course : Assertion One by John Stevens

Before the course starts, John writes a series of articles to define his new parameters. You could think of them as a string of Forewords
The original is here

Assertion One: It’s difficult to lose things…experimental post
stevensjohn@hotmail.com 28th January 2017Real theologyAristotle, geocentric, St Augustine, Theologian, Theosis, Thomas Aquinas, Watchman Nee
It’s difficult to lose things.

Jesus said ‘for nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to the light’. I love these ‘Confucious says’ type aphorisms. My hunch is that they express universal spiritual truth that is deafeningly obvious to anyone with an ear to hear and that Jesus applied these truths to the many contexts that he was immersed in. It cuts both ways. On the one hand the hidden (evil) leaven of the Pharisees would eventually come to light in the grotesque manner in which they rid themselves of that inconvenient and dangerous Jewish upstart, Jesus, and on the other hand the gospel – a minority pursuit in 1st Century Israel – would also come to light and transform the lives of countless individuals and civilisations.

The truth is that I lose things temporarily quite often. After the blissful ignorance of the loss is shattered, frustration and frantic searching set in and threaten to overwhelm us as we search desperately for our keys, or diary, or…well it’s usually my keys or diary. It doesn’t take long before we find ourselves pouring out prayers to God to help us to find ‘it’ ‘after all Lord, You know where it is and, by the way, I’m sorry for being a clot – again. Have mercy…please’. In direct proportion to the anguish and reminder of personal weakness is the sheer joy on finding the lost items. Smiles, sometimes tears, certainly woops, and probably impromptu dancing all tumble out and life it seems can begin again.

In 1054 the church finally split in what has been known as The Great Schism. Jerusalem had long been replaced by three great centres of Christian leadership; Alexandria (in the West), Rome (in the middle), and Constantinople (representing the east). The great split – which some say would have occurred anyway due the increasingly different geographies, language, political persuasions and cultures at play – divided the church into two halves; Alexandria and Rome in the Catholic west and Constantinople in the Orthodox East.

So deep has this schism been that each ‘church’ has, over time, developed its theology in different directions. Some of the good news landed up in the East and some in the West and there has been a mutual loss. But Jesus said there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed – and I believe Him. Perhaps our blissful state of ignorance of what we’ve lost is about to experience a jolt?

One of the criticisms of the East of the West is that the Western version of Christianity (meaning, at the time, the Bishops who looked to Rome) bases its theology largely on reason and thus exalted the mind above the heart. Symptomatic of this approach, says the East, is the appeal to Greek philosophy and in particular the philosopher Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC.

Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274AD lived near Rome at the time when Aristotlean literature became freely available in Latin. Aquinas’ influence on western civilization cannot be underestimated. He was known as a teacher and philosopher and – despite the overthrow of the Aristotlean geocentric universe in the 16th Century – Pope Benedict XV 1854 – 1922 declared that ‘The Church has declared Thomas’ doctrines to be her own’ and to this day they are used in the preparation of the Catholic priesthood. Fifty years after his death he was canonized as St Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas developed much of his theology from St Augustine of Hippo. The Orthodox Church, for example, has a high regard for St Augustine of Hippo (354–430AD) as does the western Catholic and Protestant church. St Augustine is considered by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint and a great theologian; in the East he is considered to be a saint but not a theologian!

A theologian in the East is someone who demonstrably ‘knows God’ through direct spiritual experience and engagement with the divine – called ‘theoria’ – whilst in the west a theologian’s personal experience of God is not considered to be important at all, simply his or her ability to make sense of spiritual and biblical interpretation. You’ll search in vain, for example, for an Eastern Orthodox commentary on Romans that explains salvation in terms of a forensic courtroom scene between God the righteous judge and the guilty sinner in the dock awaiting the intervention of Christ to take His punishment so that the judge can pronounce the verdict ‘Not guilty. Justified and acquitted’.

In the West the emphasis to explain salvation is to ask ‘saved from what?’ in the East it is far more ‘saved for what?’.

Late in Thomas Aquinas’ life he had a direct experience of God. He said the effect of this experience was for him to realise that all his work had been like ‘straw’ alluding to 1 Cor3v12,13 ‘if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become manifest for the Day will declare it, it will be revealed by fire’. As a consequence Aquinas dedicated the final two years of his life to the reconciliation between East and West but died two months before he had a chance to attend the Council called in May 1274 to attempt this reconciliation.

Watchman Nee (Normal Christian Life p150f) speaks of one of the consequences of Adam eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil as leaving man inheriting an ‘over developed soul’. So fallen man is left to attempt to live a life from the soul rather than, as has been made possible through Christ, from the life of His Son. Fallen man, in fact, ‘walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience’ Eph 2 v 2)

James A Fowler (http://www.christinyou.net/pages/3divineonenesses.html) has written an extensive examination of Christ in us and Christ as us in the light of the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘Theosis’; otherwise translated as ‘divinisation’ or ‘deification’. His article will go far further than this little jab or provocation to realise that what perhaps was lost in the great schism cannot be lost forever.

God regularly allows us in our fallibility to lose things. There is something deeply human and therefore deeply divine in the joy of finding the lost. It is beyond emotion. It contradicts systematic searching – often a waste of time – and, like running out of petrol, it is often when we have spent the last drops of our own will that the wretched and beautiful lost object reveals itself. If God is opening our eyes to see what has been hidden by western theologians (and here I include Catholic and Protestant together) let it be. God will do what Aquinas could do not.

Theosis directs our attention to seeing ourselves as a living temple in whom God lives; and as Jesus Christ was 100% human and 100% God, so, in Christ, God has come to dwell in us. To say more is to drift from the point of assertion one that God will bring to light all that is hidden. It’s the way things are.

ps If you are after a shorter version of James A Fowler’s article maybe start with the October 2008 Christianity Today article ‘Keeping the End in View’ by James R. Payton Jr. To quote: ‘Orthodox understanding of theosis reminds us that salvation is less about what we get than about what God gets. It is about his purposes being accomplished in us’

Meet The Author of "When The Rabbis Cry" - John Stevens interviewed by Paul Stuart

Slit Theory - John Stevens

Facebook Link and email cut and paste
I am sure Jeff Turner,Michael Hardin and Brad Jersak are not really idee fixe people, since God has made them also sons of God in training.
For very intelligent people to get so hung up on whether there is a hell as well as a heaven seems extraordinarily childlike somehow.
Like, if there is a hell it means that God can't be kind. So like others who would call themselves universalist there simply is no jeopardy in their idea of how things are. This is entirely going on in their heads, because life as you know isn't like it, The Bible is full of jeopardy. Jesus nearly, but for an angel, didn't make it. He was hours away from slaughter as a baby.Imagine what then?
I have no firm answers, but i really believe strongly this email received today from John Stevens is part of the conversation.

Melchizedek Particle about to surprise an atom

Hi Chris - some further thoughts on waves....

It gets very strange down there with reality. Electrons were nice and simple always turning up near the +ve end of things so we all thought 'ah another nice piece of matter...-ve and light' and then someone blew the whole world apart by passing an electron through a single slit and detecting it in more than one place the other side of the slit.

Worse...one electron can interefere with another and do the loud/soft bright/dark interference pattern thing.

Whatever an electron may turn out to be it just seems to be able to morph according to each experiment acting as a particle in one and a wave in another.

I've been reading through Isaiah and getting completely lost in one sentence on grace and mercy the other on fire and brimstone. The world melts and the world is remade. Jerusalem crushed, Jerusalem restored. Occasionally the fog clearsand it gets very historical e.g. the Assyrian attack or very alleagorical/prophetic like ch 53 but on general it's left me thinking 'o boy what must have Isaiah been thinking as all this revelation poured through him?'

So there's a clear message of grace and mercy and glory. And also one of judegment and disaster. And they co-exist. Occasionally time (like pulling a single time-line strand of spaghetti out of a steaming pile) seems to sequence things i.e. pride before a fall, but most often it's simultaneous.

Prophetic word-waves interfering with one another producing amazing patterns of judgement and grace across the Middle East and Israel.

This is the ministry of Jesus.....to surprise people by the Life of Christ.

Melchizedek order particles do the same to this universe all the time.....they are in the world but not of it!!!!!

In David's day there was judgement wave with Saul and David's Adullum grace cave-wave. Lots of interference until the slit was closed in heaven and earth and only one kingdom remained.

In Jesus' day there was Herod and Pilate and other contenders to his throne. But in the end the slit closed with the cross and Israel is forever redefined around the Messiah.

Again in our day the Israel we hear about is perhaps more Saul than David but beyond the media slit lies the alternative true story of gentiles and Jews in congregations within the historic borders of Israel. Adullum like. Hidden from view. That's where the grace and mercy and glory lies.
And for us. Do not confuse apparent lulls with inactivity of the Spirit. Paul, in jail, chained, wrote epistles that have changed the world.


Jesus began his ministry surprising everyone at a wedding reception with the quality of His wine.

Some communing with John Stevens

Hi Chris,

Ah the human body! Sounds rather painful so I hope you're mending. What does that mean in terms of your business?

Very much enjoyed your latest blog. For me anyway seemed to be very clear.

Last year sometime I ran into furrowed brows when I tried to speak about the bread in communion, so it brought back memories.

I wouldn't claim to have really got hold of it entirely but 'This is my body' is such an evocative phrase. Memorable and familiar to those of us with a liturgical past or present, ingrained in the repeating music of priests week by week, like 'Our Father who art...'. It kind of washes over you and leaving an impression but not necessarily much revelation.

Some maybe, familiar with the Protestant/Catholic argument, transubstantiation and all, may feel that the argument describes the real fault lines whereas it may be that the fault line really exposes the weakness of the underpinning strata. If so we need to explore further back and not dwell on the argument itself i.e. that Jesus was speaking literally in some sense - leading to the Catholic view, or figuratively - leading to the protestant view.

But what if Jesus was speaking chemically?

Drink eat. The wine and the bread are ingested and become us. So what does it mean to allow the blood to become us? And the body? Is it that we have become walking talking christs embodying forgiveness and the life of Christ for others. So 'communion' isn't simply a celebration of what Christ has done for us but is also a celebration of what He has become in us. So it is representational but not limited to describing the terms of covenantal membership but describes the members themselves as real space-time manifestations of that covenant.

Do this in remembrance of me. We have been transformed, crucified and raised into a new creation 'a new species' a la CS Lewis. And who enabled that to happen? The 12 with Jesus for that meal were perhaps charged in a unique way and finally became the outworking fulfilment of Israel to be a light to te Gentiles. Remembering is a spiritual living thing not simply a memory. It is active - like 'put on Christ' we clear out of our systems anything that would rise up to contradict the truth that has been accomplished in us. We can forget, that is lose hold of these things and sometimes we need to be brought back to the startling truth that is finished it has been done and so on. Repentance in that sense not to do with specific moral failure but letting go or turning away from anything other than the truth of the gospel to influence our lives.  

Until I come. Well there's something. We go about the earth carrying the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body (blood and bread). And when that day comes. What a day it will be. However long that day is. The Son of God caught up with the sons of God. All revealed just what He accomplished through dying as a seed and being raised up many times over. True brothers. Like Him in every way. It is finished will be fully understood through and through.

Wondering whether a 2012 Portsmouth pilgrimage may be on. There'd have to be a decent curry at the end of the journey to bring it to fulfilment I suspect?

Hope the zip holds.

John

John Stevens on Hebrews 6

Hi Chris,

Just want to check something out with you.

Am due to preach at a local church in the next few weeks and am wondering about stimulating some thinking around what's the point of Christianity? And presenting the growth/discipleship vision of being in Christ Heb 5/6 frustration with lack of progress, 1 Cor 3 etc fairly familiar ground.

So I've been thinking again about Heb 6 and sort of returned to where I was a year or so ago i..e each foundation stone/word e.g. eternal judgement is far more than a theoretical or doctrinal system but a living reality here and now.

Today it's struck me that we miss almost the first point. 'Let us leave the elementary principles of.......' and instead of Christ we insert all kinds of things e.g. 'the christian life', 'the faith', ' 'the abc of christianity' but the whole time verse one is staring us in the face Christ.

If so then all these facets of foundational truths are foundational to Christ Himself. If we see christianity through the lens of salvation only then we see Heb as a summary of, almost a timeline, of salvation and its eternal consequencies. If we see Christ instead of christianity then it all looks rather different.

The question then becomes 'how did Jesus operate with repentance towards dead works (not exclusively sin i.e. not to do with a sinner coming to Christ at all but how Christ operates) and faith towards God?' or 'how did Jesus handle matters concerning eternal judgement in life, in his day to day encounter with people, dividing good from evil', 'what did Jesus do when he laid hands on people' and so on.

So Heb 6 becomes a description of the fundamentals of how Christ operate(d)(s) and therefore how we operate once we 'see' it. It becomes a living word rather than something to do with the past concerning the future.

Your thoughts?

Hope all's well in Pompey land.

John

From "NT Wright" to "traipsers"

• • Rarely can I think of a man whose very existence seems to provoke controversy in the church. Nearly nobody I know has read him. I haven't yet. But I think NT Wright would find this all hilarious. How can someone's mere existence threaten so many?
    Part of an ongoing conversation with my Uni friend John Stevens
    John Stevens
    70s prophetic
    Hi Chris,
    
    Trouble with so much of the 70s dipping toes in Isaiah passages is not that the Lord wasn't doing a new thing, or that these scriptures were not fresh bread, renewing the new thing that had got grimy over centuries of neglect (much like when 'a' book was found  discovered tucked away in the temple) but the inability to articulate how the scriptures related to Israel and the church.
    

    

    
    I don't fully agree with where NT Wright ends up but do urge you to take a look at how he deals with the crucifixion in terms of Israel. (Just about remember writing to editors of Restoration that they'd got off track on Israel and couldn't they see the immense coincidence of the outpouring of the Spirit late 19th C and into 20th C with the re-establishment of Israel?) NT Wright is strong on God's faithfulness to the covenant. He refers to the New Covenant but also seems to suggest that the Old is subsumed into the New. I'd like him to be clearer on the New but he does get us to see 'personal salvation' in the context of God's overall eternal purpose for the created order.
    
    I'm aware I'm not being that clear but certainly a blast of NT Wright might give a different perspective on Reformation/Evangelical then Pentecostal/Charismatic then? history. Level 1, 2, 3.
    
    'The Challenge of Jesus' is a good place to start.
    
    Hope all's well.
    
    John
• 
  

  01 May

  Chris Welch

  • I'm certain from your 3 assertions that you've got something here. That every mouth be stopped is an enormous phrase, that God is constructiing the whole of history round. The reason the Restoration (cf.magazine)people wouldn't listen to you, is because , in time , their mouths would be stopped too. When people don't "hear the Word" they go sailing past on the devil's juggernaut.....only to have to patiently retrace their steps later on.
• 
  

  22 hours ago

  John Stevens

  • OK then I remember Wimber's reply to an interview question 'do you think the Vineyard movement will become a denomination?' 'probably' was his reply. He went on to look back at how all popular movements in the past inevitably create accountable leadership with love and grace at the start but due to growth end up with layers of structures and hey presto denomination. So I'm wondering where you are in terms of  replacing pastor-led church with what? I guess I'm used to the journey from democracy to eldership in a Baptist church. That was painful enough. Where now? Absolutely with you that apostles are servants and in losing authority to elders gain authority when given it by the congregations they serve. I like 2John as it exposes the breakdown in relationship between a poorly led congregation and a good apostle. That Paul was eventually welcomed in Corinth was nail biting stuff could so easily have gone the other way. Seems to me that it matters not what structure you think you have, all creak and crack as soon as there is a real issue in terms of relationship. It's only those who are willing to walk the risky road of love and truth, even if, like John who was sidelined by a church, have to continue in the kingdom off piste.
• 
  

  14 hours ago

  Chris Welch

  • I am looking again into the diagram I did with the youtube series Continuous revival....its blogposted as a brief History of Pslam 24 part 8. What I am looking at is BUTTON TWO in the diagram. This is where all the spiritual warfare is going on, and directly links with button 2 in the heavenlies. So, yes , when Paul almost lost his footing with the Corinthians it was because the Spirit in him had unearthed so many strongholds in one letter...and these strongholds are the Ezekiel 8:10 scrawlings that are not just simple bits of ink, the whole of hell seems attached when you threaten them. My friend Elaine has watched a church in Southampton splinter into smithereens as the "elders" dismissed a much beloved pastor, for as far as I can make out, next to nothing at all....apart from not being in their "control" enough, and he had brought ever so many to the Lord. This is closely related to the West End boys converted the other week.
    I
• 
  

  14 hours ago

  Chris Welch

  • In proper answer to what you wrote...I think Loose is the best thing to say. Elders/pastors who love and respect each other and know how to create an environment where the I AM shows up. This is also the pattern for the Key of David meetings, although the main meetings fluctuate greatly still here in Havant.
    Obviously 1972 was still Pyramid period in our renewed Baptist church, but pastor Eric Chambers had such an open heart. I have never known such a crowd of 3rd levellers traipse through the one church. Don Basham,Jean Darnall, Richard Wurmbrand,Graham Pulkingham and all the fledgling London team like Dave Mansell George Tarleton....we never had Maurice Smith, but it wouldn't have surprised me. An anonymous apostle that I can't remember from NZ. The Sisters of Mary Darmstadt (UK base)Loads of other early Word of faithers from the States. So I think that's it. Loose....and having the Psalm 84 phrase "In whose hearts are the highways to Zion." As you can see, it indelibly marked me with the ability to see beyond personalities, to appreciate anyone whosoever who has "stuff", and stuff worth sharing.
• 
  

  10 hours ago

  John Stevens

  • A rich very rich set of traipsers. Thanks for your reply. John