Vine and branches

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Jesus paints a picture of himself as a vine and his disciples as the branches. The saying alternates between definitions of (a) the individuals and (b) the operations that are expected or are in place. Christ’s uniqueness does not allow for a wide-ranging sermons and doctrinal expositions because there is no one to whom we can compare him. We can precisely sum up Jesus as a lion and lamb, and nothing more needs to be said.

Meet the cast

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman (farmer).

Fruitfulness explained and programmed

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he cleans [prunes] it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Clean explained

Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

You know how popular it is these days for believers to claim credit for accepting Christ: we love to say “He gives and we receive” and in our receiving we are assigning a certain amount of knowledge and conscientious response. We give ourselves a little credit. At least we say we open our hand to receive the gift. It’s as if we forget that without Christ we can do nothing. Nothing! So we did not get clean by anything we did, our cleanliness comes from a word spoken to us, and it must be the kind of word that has creative power behind it.

Staying in the Lord

Apparently abiding is a two-way street and we tend to see ourselves as not staying put whereas from Christ’s perspective nothing moves him from where he decides to be.  The “in us” part of the vine-branch operation is permanent on account of the divine residence now is a people thing, and more precisely, it is an “in people” thing.  I can tell you that it is something of a mental illness to think of God as leaving his residence and going away and coming back day after day based on how we behave. Immanuel is realized in believers – the branches – and never reversed. The disciples, led by Peter, abandoned Jesus, but he never abandoned them, he had his peace ready to extend it to them after the resurrection, until finally at Pentecost he gives them all the Spirit.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me.

Recapitulation of the cast adding the believers

I am the vine, ye are the branches:

Utter dependence is not optional and has no alternate

He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

The thing that gets turned once a person becomes a branch on the vine is enhanced fruitfulness. It is as sure as day follows night. It is a sure as the tree planted by the rivers of waters brings forth fruits in its season, and with evergreen leaves to boot. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, neither can any branch that stays in Christ not bring forth much fruit. Vine and branches are a reality about identity and outcomes I’m a witch Christ is uniquely Lord.

God cannot be anyone’s father

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So says the operators of the Arab wrecking ball. The following verse must be a corruption of Allah’s text, especially because it says twice that God is the father of the people of Isaiah’s days.

For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us And Israel does not recognize us. You, O Lord, are our Father, Our Redeemer from of old is Your name. (Isaiah 63:16)

The gospels, four of them, tell the story of Jesus coming from God the Father and Jesus consistently calls God his Father.  They must be corrupt too.

The Cattle (6:100)

Yet they ascribe as partners unto Him the jinn, although He did create them, and impute falsely, without knowledge, sons and daughters unto Him. Glorified be He and High Exalted above (all) that they ascribe (unto Him).
— M. Pickthall



Quran 6:100

For 600 years people had been reading and believing the Scriptures, then came the Arabs with their revision of everything. Note that at the point when his life was at stake Jesus called God his Father.  The God of Jesus cannot be Allah of the Arabs.

And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last. (Luke 23:46)

If one is ready to blur the distinction between adult and child, anything is game. If the only man born without the earthly father says that God is his Father who is competent to give an alternative?  Righteous or wicked?  Let love be hate, peace be war, God be impotent, and Islam  the hub of Make Anything Great Again.

Sabbath is not a sign?

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“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8a) could have been the next shortest commandment behind the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth with two words each.  The Sabbath command could have been four Hebrew words, but we’re not telling God what to write, right? I like poking around in the Decalogue because I am still looking for the good news it is said to contain.  I kid you not, a man did write a book entitled “Good News from Sinai”. I can barely crack a smile at his transparent rebellion. I suspect we will never find the life giving terms of the glorious gospel or the majesty of the apostolic letters of Christ’s witnesses in the Ten Commandments.  Of all the things that the Sabbath might be in the spiritual realm one has to be convinced that it is not from or of heaven a day, a sign, and a symbol: anything else will tend to serve man’s Idolatry-prone intelligence.

Sabbath from shadow to spotlight

Real theologians do not speculate.  They imagine what the Scripture says until it has nothing to do with the Christ Event.  It is a profound irony in fact that the command in the Sinai Covenant that establishes Sabbath definition and regulation contains eight (8) verbs. Opinion varies about what (1) remembering and (2) day holiness really are and the number eight is not going to end well if those actions mentioned give rise to activities which are to be monitored.

Remembering and holiness

  • remember the day, strictly covenantal
  • keep sabbath holy, exclusively human
  • sanctify sabbath, exclusively God’s

The pattern of the fourth commandment in the Ten Words is unique.

  • This WORD departs from the simple pattern, “you shall not”.
  • It has several clauses
  • It is flooded with verbs

Here are the clustered verbs

  1. Remember, זכר, zakar
  2. Keep holy; קדש, qadash, same as SANCTIFY from “Then God blessed the seventh day and SANCTIFIED it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:3, NASB)
  3. Labour, abad, עבד, work, essentially serve
  4. Do, asah, עשה
  5. Make, asah, עשה
  6. Rest, shabbat, שבת
  7. Bless, ברך, barak
  8. Make holy; same as SANCTIFY from Genesis 2:3

We know what happens to the guy who forgets that Friday sunset marks the arrival of the Lord’s Sabbath?  His hoarded food spoils and if he needs a fire he cannot afford to start one and he had better not gather sticks to make one.  I have never heard anyone make a serious offer of bringing Sabbath law to the profile of a perpetual statute.  Sabbath law, beginning with sunset to sunset, does not even apply in the natural terrestrial sense, given the varying lengths of days and the sometimes endless day and endless night for months at a time. What is right and equitable with no sunset and no sunrise?  More to the point of righteous behavior and the apprehension of violators of the law, we must in choir what does the church do when someone is found violating the Sabbath profaning the Sabbath come and is there anyone exempt as the priest were in Old  and New Testament times?

Did God not know that priests and Levites were going to profane the Sabbath on a weekly basis with no accusations or allegations of wrongdoing? How could he not? But who would have thought that a Jew could say he is the Sabbath’s Lord, and portray himself as legitimately working every Sabbath without apology?

None of us could have imagined either of those scenarios but one thing is clear, Sabbath belongs to the festivals, to the moedîm (Genesis 1:14).  It is no secret that the Sabbath is proclaimed as a festival (Leviticus 23), one of the rudimentary practices of the juvenile phase of human development (Galatians 4).

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. (Galatians 4:9-11)

Quit fanning the ashes

Uncleanness contracted from sitting where a menstruating woman had been sitting and waiting for sunset to remove one’s uncleanness is not a thing, neither is a symbol of things to come, like a festival or eating roasted goat meat ever going to be a primary moral obligation. One does not fan ashes to start a fire.  How many times do we have to be told that the seventh day Sabbath is a sign? God’s rest is not umbilically tied to a weekday and a Sabbath is not a sabbatismos – σαββατισμος – (Hebrews 4:9).  No one has to strive to have a weekly Sabbath; it comes naturally at the end of the week,  and furthermore, it comes every day as night falls. Spiritual rest is guaranteed to all who come to Christ for refuge.   Who is so deceived as to believe that anything that lasts for 24 hours, like a festival, can compare to the unending holy presence of the Holy Spirit in every believer or to the rest that Christ gives here and now to the weary and heavy laden?  Not me. Why anyone?

Devotional Mayhem

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It is a really good thing to reach out to those around us, whether in person or digitally, by expressing our love and our devotion to God. It is quite another thing to be telling people what to do today, and sometimes what to do and what to expect for a whole week, and sometimes for a whole year. We have just been through the latter, crossing the threshold (into 2026}where people are making resolutions and commitments for the next year.  A great many greetings that go out daily position themselves as grounded in a Bible verse or a maxim that arises from the Scriptures.  It becomes a completely chaotic landscape when the thoughts delivered in the greeting are not anchored to the Bible verse or verses or maxim.  Devotional mayhem is the result of dreadfully unhinged daily greetings, encouragement, and exhortation.  This popular pastime, building on the ashes of Mosaic Judaism, mixed with sentiments from the New Testament and popular folklore, pretends to tell people what to do and especially what not to do. Most devotionals go astray quickly and fatally.

Juvenile puddling does not make a river

Who or what you might think you are, jumping in between God and his blood-bought property, is most likely not a healthy entity.  We cannot deny that understanding God’s will for today is an intensely private matter.  Playing around in shallow puddles and doing swimming motions is profoundly irresponsible and misleading.  Understanding and performing God’s will is a secure operation. It is not vulnerable to large campaigns or guerilla operations.  Let us make two things abundantly clear.

  • People who are not understanding God’s will were not granted the mind to do so.
  • People who are not performing God’s will or work have not been given the task.

Scrambling out of our ditches

We can only penitently glance at the fact that the river of God is that which flows directly from God’s throne to the hearts of human beings by means of the Spirit. There is no need for an intermediary when we need to make decisions about spiritual things.  All the juvenile things we learned about God in Sunday school (as children) do not make a dent in the world of mature Christianity.  Tasty little puddings like (a) God only blesses perfect individuals (b) God keeps his distance if the believer goes to certain places and (c) God puts people in heaven or hell the moment they die.

GLADNESS GUARANTEED.  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High.

Psalms 46:4

SHEPHERDING SECURED. for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation of John 7:17

There are many devotional books written by persons with no background in Bible interpretation, many of whom may have had a dream or experience that caused them to reflect on God’s majesty and authority. 

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, (Revelation of John 22:1)

So there is inspiration all around, but keeping our words in sync with the Bible will spare us a massive headache.  It is way better for us all, novice and learned, to be eager to show in a few minutes that we have grasped the meaning of a single word than to spend five minutes to an hour beating ’round the bush. 

Perhaps the most cruel and tortured version of the devotional is that prayer and fasting session, praise party or Bible Study where no one seems interested in lingering on the words of the Bible or the words of Yeshua.  Few seem to be aware that chewing on a single small morcel of Yeshua’s teaching. We’ve created scores of mantra-like sayings, beautiful recitations of grace. Not even a hundred prophets can deliver to us the flavours of GOD in an endless burst of nourishment. A lot of greetings and devotional material are appealing to the eye, and never hit the bulls eye. Let’s not keep wasting people’s time with unhinged sayings, proverbs or perverted popular Bible verses. Expressing love in helping ways should shape our devotional efforts.

Faith’s Hearing

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We have thought that Abraham was a man who was an unusual recipient of grace as far as we can detect in the aspects of his life we have on record

James’ “faith and works” is a nothing burger.

Abraham was not called to believe. He was called to leave his home. The stages of his life do not include his witness of a large family dwelling in the land of Canaan. Here are the stages of the man’s life.

  • The call and election
  • The journey to Canaan
  • The promise of greatness
  • The promise of fame
  • The promise of blessing
  • The promise of land
  • The promise of multitudinous progeny

Reality is not from obedience or hearing

If obedience and loyalty are the guaranties of real divine wealth this  is not demonstrated in the Bible, because Abraham did not set foot in the promised land and never saw the multitude of us family for which he believed God.

Hearing God’s voice= compliance

Reading that the blessing of all the earth’s families is a result of Abraham’s attention to YHWH’s voice comes as a surprise because the idea that Abraham earned these outcomes seems antithetical to grace. The fact however that this particular promise is guaranteed by an oath makes debt or performance irrelevant.  James, the Pharisee brother of the Lord Christ makes shipwreck of this abundant grace when he equates works (of any kind) with faith.

Oaths override regulations

Genuine happiness – blessedness – will appear at God’s prerogative, not as an earned reward

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. (Romans 4:1-8, NASB)

Far too many people are swimming in a puddle and they are convinced that the actions they carry out will impress people that they are swimming in the wide open and beautiful ocean of grace. Hearing God’s voice does not mean juvenile obedience. In the case of Abraham and the list mass of mankind, hearing God’s voice means abandoning the current life support: one’s country, one’s relatives and one’s ancestral ties.

Stop being ridiculous with born again 2.0

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Many believers are obsessed with death and dying and often they’re off on the wrong foot.  When believers are born again or converted they do not merely acquire a new set of behaviors or find themselves free from unhealthy patterns of behavior. They are actually renewed, made new, from above. Believers are not contributors to conversion: Christ does that in a sovereign manner apart from the will or willpower of any human being. So why are so many people talking about dying to themselves every day as if they did not die with Christ and were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and removed from death row as it were to complete freedom and vindication? If you are one of those who think a person can be born again again this is for you.

Not accepting Christ as the truth

Paul talks about people who came to see or recognize God but they didn’t configure their minds to embrace him as absolutely unique. That response resulted in darkness enveloping their mind and God gave them up to think whatever they wanted to think and to behave in whatever way they wanted to behave. God is decidedly not a creature, is unlike human beings and angels.

Didn’t Christ say that everyone who has taken a bath only needs to wash his feet?

Jesus said to [Peter], “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” (John 13:10)

Nobody needs to be born again again. Only the totally brainwashed people think like that. I will tell you how deadly that avenue is.

We know that God expects diligence from the followers of Jesus and circumspection to interact with other people. There was no command at the creation of human beings “You shall not sin”, so to argue that sinlessness was a goal is ridiculous beyond measure.  If the same conditions are extant in the new covenant unveiling we have no reason to see anything besides failure.

On the wrong road again

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Baptism counts can be useful for some things, but on their own they are a very unreliable measure of genuine evangelistic or discipleship success.

Talk about baptisms in your church and the only time that you will hear a Thank God or a Hallelujah is when the numbers of baptisms are mentioned, no matter how small that number.  Do you realize that this is the cover story for an operation off the rails?

Most churches are not making disciples of jesus, but they are doing is actually having members to the church based on the acceptance of the churches doctrinal statement.  It is time for a true confession from the leaders of most of the churches that are claiming either to be the true church or to have the Spirit of God as their distinctive feature.

Imagine that a church can point to its large conventions or its weekly fellowship meals as signs of evangelistic or pastoral success, and you have a revolving snapshot of churches in failure mode.

Stalled on the rocks of culture and pop

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How can Africans in the diaspora find their way to the place of genuine emancipation? Yes, I am asking, because the move from Emancipation day in 1834 has been snail like. We can tell what happened in the four years up to 1838, and it is a long shot from full emancipation.  In the Caribbean leaders have taken up the mantle of the colonialist and continue to hold Africa’s children either in abject poverty or in perpetual hazards to life and limb and liberty. We can name a dozen heroes whose witness to the drive to freedom and independence seems to have ended with their lives. Let’s be sure the popularization of Black liberation dialogues has delayed the march. Reggae especially has made the world aware of the plight and fight of Africa’s children, but how many of us are aware of the dilution and perversion of Pan-African values in religion and spirituality and politics is another question.

Of course my question is completely rhetorical, because I am not conducting a poll, so I will never see how many of us are willing to say that the people in the African diaspora are emancipated. But I venture the opinion that emancipation has stalled on the rocks of a shallow view of Independence and you can look at any Island and see the trails from colonialism and plantation life continuing night and day.

Now Caribbean people have been impressed and inspired by several outstanding leaders, among them Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. I know and you know that we will have a hard time finding leaders in Africa or the Diaspora who have brought their people to the brink of a sustainable and satisfying social construct. Except for the iconic Burkina Faso leadership we have leaders who do a lot of talking, but liberating the people from hunger from disease from shallow education is still a dream.

Three critical questions

People are understandably attracted to power brokers, and power economies or popular leaders, but it is evident that entities like nigeria, a turkey, or the felonious dawn of Mar-A-Lago can do no good to the cause of unity on any level that is beneficial to human beings.  Answering the three questions that follow will help to shine light on the predicament of an emancipation that has clearly stalled. 

Do African people look like they’re free in 2026?  Who’s more prosperous, African leaders or African people? Is the African Union united like the fractured United Kingdom or like the United States of America or like the European Union? 

Oh beautiful for expansive skies
In deeper drains a noble dream dies