Josephus, Against Apion 1:60.
3 The person who has opened me up to the first century world of Jesus more than anyone is Ray Vander Laan. He is a teacher, scholar, hiker of Israel—an amazing man. His teachings are available at www.followtherabbi.com, an exhaustive resource for those interested in Jesus’s world. The levels of education and the walking on water and the Caesarea sections in this movement were insights sparked by things I’ve heard Ray say. Much credit goes to the man from Hamilton.
4 Luke 2:46–47.
5 See John 15:15.
6 For a fascinating glimpse into what this looked like, read As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg (New York: Behrman, 1996), a novel about rabbis and disciples.
7 Matthew 4:18–22.
8 Google “Caesarea Philippi” and you will see what I mean.
9 John 15:16.
10 Matthew 17:14–20.
11 Matthew 28:19.
MOVEMENT SIX: NEW
1 Luke 11:46.
2 Matthew 23:13.
3 James 3:2.
4 Romans 3:23.
5 John 3:3.
6 Colossians 3:3.
7 Colossians 3:1.
8 Colossians 3:7; see also Ephesians 4:20–24.
9 2 Corinthians 5:17.
10 Hebrews 2:10; 5:9.
11 Colossians 3:12.
12 Philippians 3:16.
13 Romans 8:1.
14 John 17:21.
15 Romans 6:11.
16 John 5:24.
17 You must read The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998).
18 I heard Stuart Briscoe say this to a group of people in Milwuakee in 1997.
19 “Sin management” is a term Dallas Willard deals with extensively in the second chapter of his book The Divine Conspiracy, which everybody should have read by now.
20 Luke 15:11–31.
21 Romans 5:8.
22 Revelation 5:9.
23 John 12:32.
24 See Colossians 1:20.
25 Matthew 25:31–46.
26 Genesis 3:8–9.
27 Exodus 25.
28 John 1:14 in The Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993).
29 1 Corinthians 6:19; Ephesians 2:21–22.
30 Revelation 21–22.
31 Matthew 4:17.
32 Romans 8:37–39.
MOVEMENT SEVEN: GOOD
1 John 20:15.
2 Take, for example, the genealogy that begins the book of Matthew. It appears to be a list of people who did a lot of begetting. But there’s something else going on here. The greatest king of the Jews was David. In Hebrew, that’s spelled DVD. D is the fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, so it has the numerical value of 4. V is the sixth letter, so it has the value of 6. DVD is therefore 4 + 6 + 4, which gives the name David the number value of 14. Matthew groups the names in his genealogy in groups of . . . 14. So a Jew reading the introduction to his book, which is telling something about Jesus’s family, would read king, king, king, king, king. Matthew has an agenda here. He wants you to see who he thinks Jesus is.
3 Romans 5:12.
4 Acts 2:24.
5 For a mind-blowing introduction to emergence theory and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything (Boston: Shambhala, 2001).
6 A writer who has helped me in understanding this difference