Revelation 2:6 says God hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans — but who were they? The name was never translated into English, only carried over by sound. Translate it and it speaks plainly: “conquest over the people.” The deed Christ hates is lording over others.
“Church” isn’t a translation of the word Jesus used. It’s a substitution — one that points toward a building instead of a people. What the original word actually means is worth a closer look.
When does a day begin? Since the clock, we say midnight. The Bible says evening — sunset. But the real surprise is that God never pinned down the exact minute. That vagueness turns out to be the whole point.
Does God have a plan? Most of the world assumes not. Scripture says yes — and that the plan has a center: everything in heaven and on earth gathered under Christ. The feasts were the shadow of it, sketched in advance. The body casting the shadow was always him.
When the Bible talks about leaven, it isn’t talking about the little packet of dry yeast from the grocery store. It’s talking about sourdough — a living culture you maintain and feed. Make sourdough once, and the leaven texts will never read the same way again.
This is the second of two sermons I gave in the fall of 2000, at a United Church of God congregation in Cincinnati — about twenty-five years ago, a month after the one on Trumpets. As with the first, I’ve left it close to how it was spoken and cleaned it up only enough to…
This is a sermon I gave in the fall of 2000, at a United Church of God congregation in Cincinnati — about twenty-five years ago. I’ve left it close to how it was spoken and cleaned it up only enough to read smoothly. I see some of it differently now, and I worded parts of…