ON LOVE; PART MCCCXII
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God.
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
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We ended the last essay with some thoughts on the mystery shown us by the Apostle Paul, a mystery that many believe that he unveiled to them but which IS yet hidden in plain sight. Many doctrinal thinkers believe that Paul’s words here add to their idea that it IS ONLY the ‘saved‘ Christian, ‘saved‘ according to a particular doctrinal idea, can have Christ or some other aspect of God living in them. This IS NOT what the apostle says in his words to the Colossians and we should remember here that this doctrinal idea IS also contrary to Jesus’ own words regarding who can have such realization of His Presence as we read in the third part of our trifecta of spiritual reality. Paul tells us:
“Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Colossians 1:25-29).
We began our discussion of Paul’s words to the Colossians with our comments on the last part where we read that Paul too must continue to strive and here we should note that the idea of “striving according to his working” IS to strive according to His words, His commandments, and, in a single word, agape. The point here IS in his striving, in his labor toward that end point of being “perfect in Christ Jesus“. But this IS NOT ONLY Paul’s endeavor as he tells us that by his warning and his teaching “every man in all wisdom” that everyman can be presented “perfect in Christ Jesus“. This however has NOT been the case as the Wisdom that Paul teaches has been substituted for by the “commandments of men” which ARE based in men’s arbitrary and ofttimes capricious theories that ARE formulated from out of context sayings. Ideas which ARE molded toward the comfort of men who DO NOT see the singular Truth that their carnal doctrinal ideas ARE the epitome of Jesus repeating of the prophets words saying “in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 15:9). While we have drawn parallels between the way of the Jews which Jesus railed against and the way that the church fathers constructed their doctrines, the Christian has never tried to see this. The Christian instead, like the Jews, believes that they have the promises without ever having to deal with the Truth that IS the Commandments of the Lord that Jesus summarizes for us in the Great Commandments which we have again at the top of our essay. For the Jews this IS the promises given to and through the patriarchs which in Jesus time were apparently unfulfilled except in the minds of the Jews who saw themselves within the Lord’s Will, a view that Jesus systematically dismantles through His words. For the Christian this promise has been turned to that undefined idea of salvation which IS interpreted into the idea of ‘going to heaven‘ after one’s death here rather that the Truth which the Apostle Peter shows us as the “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 2:4) in the here and the now. It IS the doctrinal ideas of salvation that work against the Truth and the promises by which one can “be partakers of the divine nature“, a state in which we KNOW some measure of the Truth that IS proportionate to the measure of striving that we ourselves labor to DO. This IS Paul’s message here: that men should continually strive toward a full expression of that perfection which IS living in accord with His words. The difficulty here IS clear but it IS ameliorated by KNOWING that whatsoever one can accomplish will bring a measure of the Truth and of “the divine nature” which IS Love, which IS agape.
It IS a widely accepted concept that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16); doctrines teach this but most DO NOT Truly understand the meaning of this idea nor the guidance that it offers to the man who Truly seeks the Lord. There IS much more to this concept that IS understood from the doctrinal fixation on the idea that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Here we should remember that the whole idea of pistis, faith, and pisteuo, believing ARE much deeper than the nebulous ideas of faith and believing offered in the doctrines of men; here we should remember that the Truth of these words IS KNOWING. It is that KNOWING by which one can move the mountain (Matthew 21:21) and plant the sycamine tree in the sea (Luke 17:6) . It IS that KNOWING by which we can DO such “greater works” (John 14:12) as the Master promises in much the same way as one can Truly come to realize his “everlasting life” which idea should be understood as eternal Life, a Life that IS ever One with God who IS both eternal and infinite. It IS this KNOWING that IS the reality of the Life of everyman who will “continue in my word” as the Master tells us and here, if we can see this through the Apostle John’s words saying that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20), we can perhaps see the role of striving and of realization of the KNOWING of the Soul, the unction, as this passes into the consciousness of a man. Doctrines however see ALL of this as works, a view that IS NOT scriptural but doctrinal as men have ever interpreted spiritual Truths in carnal ways as they devised tenets based in misunderstood, misinterpreted and misapplied sayings that ARE taken out of context; sayings that dilute and change the Lord’s Truth. While the primary motivation in this dilution of the Truth IS NOT purposefully aimed at creating this diluting force of doctrines, it IS at the same time the result, unconscious perhaps, of men’s recognition of the hardship, the carnal hardship, of living in accord with the True tenets of the Lord. Tenets which ARE a part of the “all things” that ARE KNOWN by the Soul which IS ever prompting the heart, the consciousness, to the Good, the Beautiful and the True things of God. We should understand here that this Christian dilution of the Truth of the Master’s words and the amplifying and clarifying words of His apostles IS the same in effect as the similar dilution that the Jews inflicted upon the Truth of the law given to them by Moses. Here we should note that while the idea of the law presented in the Pentateuch IS seen as a singular set of tenets, the spiritually inclined Jews of the day KNEW the difference between those commandments that related to the relationships of men with God and of men with their fellowman against those that ARE prescribed to ameliorate the psychic effects of living outside of these core commandments as well as those that affected ONLY the carnal Life, as those pertaining to diet and health.
Here we presume that the spiritually inclined Jew KNOWS this difference based in the ideas gleaned from the Jesus interactions with certain scribes and Pharisees in the New Testament. We should understand that there IS a stark difference between the Truly spiritually inclined and the doctrinally inclined, a difference that IS evidenced through the words of the average Pharisee, scribe and even the chief priest when compared to the words of the “certain lawyer” who tells Jesus what he sees in the law saying “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself“. We can also see this difference in the Master’s question to this “certain lawyer” which IS framed as “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” (Luke 25, 27, 26). Can we see how that Jesus sees and uses this difference between the Truly spiritually inclined and the doctrinally inclined? And can we see how that His disciples had also drawn this distinction as they followed the Master rather that the law into which they were indoctrinated. The doctrinal Jew never saw this distinction and we can see this in the way that other scribes and Pharisees continually spoke against the way that Jesus disregarded the ancillary laws that Moses put upon the people some 1500 years before, a people that were markedly more barbarous and superstitious that those in Jesus’ day. While Paul shows us his own diligence in striving and laboring in the spiritual aspects of the law as Jesus’ outlines them, he DOES at the same time show us how that we too can have realization of the Truth that IS the “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations“. This Way is founded in the idea that one must be counted among “his saints” and here we should understand the Truly spiritual nature of this word. Saints IS rendered from the Greek word hagios which IS defined for us by Strong’s who says that hagios IS: from ἅγος hágos (an awful thing); sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated):—(most) holy (one, thing), saint 9a. This definition IS a far cry from the way that the idea of the saint IS bandied about in the Protestant section of the church and it IS contrary as well to the Catholic and Orthodox views that see the saint ONLY after one’s death. Being the saint that has access to the mysteries IS one that IS alive and living according to the Way of Truth and Love. Perhaps we can define the saint in Paul’s terms from his Epistle to the Romans which closes with what IS called a doxology that reads “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25-26). We should note that the tenor of these words IS much the same as Paul’s words in our selection from Colossians as he speaks of “the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began“. It IS in the apostle’s saying that this mystery “is made manifest” that we can find a meaning for the saint but one that IS clouded by doctrinal assertions in the translations of the Greek words. While the King James and other translators use the idea of “and by the scriptures of the prophets“, others show this in terms of by and through such scriptures which themselves had been ignored by the religious whensoever they were spoken by the prophets. The point here IS that the mysteries ARE manifest in their time through the obscure words of the prophets, many of which ARE NOT Truly understood yet today.
The important point IS that these mysteries ARE “made manifest….according to the commandment of the everlasting God” and here we should understand His commandment IS that men should keep His words and Love. It IS the man who DOES so that is hagios and can be Truly called the saint. Here again we should try to understand that the doctrinal assertion IS that Paul IS framing the whole idea of the mysteries in reference to: The divine plan of redemption. The particular mystery of the conversion of the Gentiles 4 as Vincent defines this. Vincent applies this idea to these words from Romans as well as the apostle’s word to the Colossians and a similar idea from his Epistle to the Ephesians. This whole doctrinal idea dilutes the True idea of the mysteries in favor of a self-serving idea that unites the ‘gentiles‘ or non-Jews with the God of Abraham. While there may be ideas from Paul’s writings and those of the other writers that DO make this alignment of ‘gentiles‘ and Jews under our One God, these ideas ARE ONLY used to convince both the Jew and the ‘gentile‘ of their essential Oneness, a Oneness that had been denied, especially by the Jew who took singular possession of their God. We should understand here that the apostles DO KNOW that there IS but One God and whatsoever they say in their writings IS for the benefit of those ‘gentiles‘ and Jews that DO NOT see the Lord in this way. Those that take possession of a conceptual God that applies ONLY to themselves and NOT to the followers of other religions whose Gods ARE seen in terms of idols. In Colossians the idea of the Greek word ethnos IS rendered as gentiles by every bible version in our library except two while the same word from Romans IS rendered as gentiles nine times and as nations seventeen times. These doctrinal terms ARE used then and now despite the technical definition of the Greek word. While the derivation of ethnos is shown as probably from G1486 2 , the doctrinal ideas of gentiles and nations have prevailed over the reasoned defining ideas from Strong’s and Thayer’s. Strong’s tells us that ethnos means: a race 9a which they list before they go into their doctrinal ideas. Thayer’s IS more complete as they tells us that ethnos means: a multitude (whether of men or of beasts) associated or living together; a company, troop, swarm; a multitude of individuals of the same nature or genus and finally the human race 9. It IS unfortunate that the doctrinal ideas have so pervaded the usage of this word that ethnos IS ONLY seen in doctrinal terms; when however we can see this word in its broadest defining idea, we can then better understand its use and the fuller implications of what IS “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations“….”the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began“. While the idea of ethnos being a non-Jew may have some validity in its usage, the better idea of the word IS simply the rest of the human race to whom the mysteries can be revealed according to their individual ability to Transform themselves from carnal to spiritual, from mere men in this world to saints. This Transformation IS of course aimed at both the Jew and the non-Jew as ALL DO fall under the idea of ethnos. The Truth of the mystery IS NOT simply that gentiles ARE invited through Christ; it IS rather the effective realization of the Truth according to Jesus’ words, the Truth of the very nature of man as a spiritual being living for a time through a body of flesh. Repeating again Jesus words as part of our trifecta of spiritual reality we read:
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
- “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:21-24).
As we have discussed many times over the course of these blog posts, the whole idea of having the Truth, the Kingdom and the Presence of the Lord as manifesting and abiding in a man IS the man’s realization of these things. If we can understand such ideas as “the kingdom of God is within you” as this IS addressed to a non-Christian audience, we can then see that the Kingdom exists in everyman and awaits ONLY his realization of its Presence. Similarly the whole idea of the Truth, as this IS addressed by John in his words regarding the unction, should this be seen as the Soul, the Christ Within; it IS the Soul, the spiritual Inner man, that DOES “know all things” and that continually prompts the conscious man in the world to the things of God. Again it IS ONLY realization of this that prevents a man from KNOWING “all things” by the same measure that he applies toward keeping His words; it IS keeping His words that releases such realization as the Master tells us in our trifecta and NOT the doctrinal affirmations and confessions by which the Christian IS deemed “born again“. This same process of realization IS the Key to having the True Presence of God in one’s Life, a Presence that IS represented by the Soul, the Christ Within, which IS the conscious Life giving force of everyman. When the Master tells us that it IS the man “that hath my commandments, and keepeth them” that has the Presence abiding in him, we should see that it IS by DOING so that one can come to realize His Presence which IS now abiding in his conscious awareness….hence the idea again of realization. While the words of the Master, the apostles and the prophets before them may seem obscure, there IS reason for this that IS based in the idea of realization. The Truths that the unction KNOWS ARE fully in accord with the words of the Master and His apostles but such Truth ARE NOT accepted by the carnal mind and emotions which ARE trapped in the vanity of Life and which CAN NOT “see afar off” as Peter shows us saying that by NOT having such realization a man “is blind, and cannot see afar off“; this IS reference to the man who has NOT “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:9, 4). This man who has NOT escaped but IS yet trapped in “the bondage of corruption” which IS his Life focused upon himself and the things of the self in this world. This bondage IS that very same vanity to which Paul tells us that ALL Souls ARE bound and in this IS the great illusion that blinds a man so that his vision of Life IS NOT the Life of the Soul but the Life of the carnal man. It IS this Life that the doctrines of men lift up and it IS in this bondage that a man “is blind, and cannot see afar off“. We should try to see here that it IS when a man can identify himself with his own spiritual principal, his own Soul, which IS that ‘anointing‘ of which John tells us “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things“, that he can begin to see. Again, doctrines have pigeonholed such sayings as they regard such things as this unction, and the freedom from vanity as the ‘benefits‘, the grace if you will, that come upon the man who DOES as his doctrines prescribe. It IS doctrinal Christian ONLY who can be anointed according to most ALL doctrinal approaches to the Lord while ALL other men, including those whose lives ARE an expression of agape, CAN NOT. The doctrinal thinker DOES NOT see that it IS the Soul that IS the anointed. Most everyday Christians are yet carnal creatures focused upon their daily lives with some modicum of ‘religious’ thought, doctrinal thought to be sure.
We should remember that in the seemingly obscure language of the Master, His apostles and the prophets before them there ARE NOT sufficient words to properly describe the spiritual Life of a man. There ARE however many clues that can break this obscurity and among these ARE the ideas from our trifecta as well as such words that Paul shows us as “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2). Can we see the point here? Can we see how that Paul IS showing us the same Path as the Master, that he IS NOT diluting the Truth but expressing it to show how that accepting the Truth IS an integral part of “your reasonable service“. It IS the Truth that is first left obscurely for men to see and then, by following such ideas as to “present your bodies a living sacrifice” the obscure nature of the words can be broken through by a realization of the essential Truth that comes in so DOING. We should try to see that this first obscurity IS intended to be broken through by the striving of a man, prompted by the Soul, to DO as the Master tells us and that a second layer of obscurity IS placed upon this first by the dilution of the Truth offered by the doctrines of men. The message of Truth has ever been the same and it IS unfortunate that the way that most have heard this message IS through the interpretations offered by those who have taken spiritual authority over the masses from the beginning. We should try to see that this same way of changing the singular Truth into a lie, a fabrication of carnal authority, has occurred in most every religion but it IS most pointed in the Christian religion because it IS still happening. Since the Reformation many denominations and sects have emerged with each telling their followers, those that have committed themselves to the authoritarian rule of the leaders, that theirs IS the way. By the sheer diversity that IS today’s Christianity with the many divergent theories, philosophies and theologies, we should be able to see that the essential Truth of this world religion has been lost to the doctrines of men. It is these doctrines that ARE the core of men’s nurturing and indoctrination from a religious and ofttimes social and cultural perspective.
While the Master speaks the One Essential Truth, His words ARE muted against the perceived ideas gleaned from the writings of His apostles, writings that ARE intended to be and ARE clarifying and amplifying statements of Truth regarding that same One Essential Truth. Most ALL of the doctrinal assertions that cloud this Truth come from the words of the Apostle Paul which today have been made into the form of preconceptions of his intent and this likely from the very beginning where the religious leaders tried to make carnal sense of Truly spiritual sayings. And we should note here that most ALL of these Truly spiritual sayings ARE in regard to agape and its expression by men in the world. This begins with the Great Commandments but it DOES NOT end there; as we look at the words of the Master in most every encounter that He has with others the reality of agape IS there. It IS there as He tells His disciples about the need for a selfless attitude, it IS there as He tells us His parables and it IS there as He teaches us the Way of Life through His Sermon on the Mount. It IS this that His apostles teach as the gospel but this has been changed by men who now define the gospel in terms of their own interpretations of Paul’s words and the scattered words of the other apostles. This of course IS NOT how this was meant to be but IS because men have ignored the deeper ideas from the apostles and have refused to place themselves into the receiving end of such sayings as his words on them “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen” (Romans 1:25). These words ARE both historic and predictive. Historic because they speak about the people of the time, this is the plight of the Jews who believed that they were serving the Lord but were in reality ONLY serving their doctrinal interpretations of His words. Jesus shows us this in such sayings as “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2) as He speaks about the ‘religious’ Jewish leaders and their followers. These were among those who ARE “blind, and cannot see afar off” and here we should understand that this seeing IS spiritual and NOT carnal and IS the view of the man trapped in the vanity of Life in this world where the illusion was and IS that in serving the creature, the self and the things of the self, that one IS serving God. This can ALL be seen in Jesus’ list of woes (Matthew 23) against the religious and we should note here that while His words ARE against the scribes, the Pharisees and the religious rulers of the Jews, that what he speaks had become commonplace in the lives of many of their followers. And Paul’s words ARE predictive, NOT as a prophecy per se but as a picture of a humanity that from the beginning of the Christian era refused to see themselves in the condemning words of the Master against the Jews. Yet today most ALL DO NOT see that their doctrinal philosophies and theologies have also “worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” as most ALL strive ONLY for self-satisfaction for themselves, their denominations and their churches. The idea of worship here IS NOT as this IS understood by the Christian but rather a word of veneration which IS defined for us by Webster’s 1828 dictionary saying: To regard with respect and reverence; to reverence; to revere. We venerate parents and elders; we venerate men consecrated to sacred offices. We venerate old age or gray hairs. We venerate, or ought to venerate, the gospel and its precepts 1. The point here IS that men yet today venerate and serve men, starting with the self, much more than they venerate and serve God. This IS the result of vanity and of the nurturing and indoctrination that everyman receives in that vanity which sees ONLY the self in this world as the objective of Life….it IS his happiness and his betterment that ARE the driving forces for most ALL. The Christian adds to this his individual ideas of heaven as hestrives to accomplish this through the precepts of his doctrines evermore than his striving for the Truth. In these ideas we should see the predictive nature of Paul’s words.
Paul’s words here ARE lost in the carnal ideas that come from the verses before and after these words and it IS perhaps these words that have fueled much of the sexual view of the church over the centuries and yet today. The apostle tell us that “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves“, a statement that IS to be added to his other words. He begins with “when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Romans 1:24, 21-23). Can we see the idea here? Can we see that the whole idea that men “worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” IS based in this change from the Truth of God into men’s imaginations and that this IS the way both then and now. The sexual ideas ARE but an add on to Paul’s stated reality and we should try to see how that the apostle perceives the sexual ideas as a leading result of men’s total lack of KNOWING the Truth that IS God. But the church has centered its ideas ONLY in the sexual and today it fuels a Christian hatred for the ideas that follow, ideas that ARE but examples of this result. Paul goes on to say that “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet” (Romans 1:26-27). ALL these sexual ideas ARE seen by the apostle as the result of the central idea that men “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator“. It IS this by this lie that men ARE “vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools“; we should understand that his foolishness has NOT ONLY survived but has become greatly exacerbated over the centuries. The central message here has been lost in the doctrines of men; first it IS applied ONLY to the Jews and the so called gentile in Paul’s time and secondly it IS grossly misunderstood and NOT seen as the visible effect of that vanity to which ALL have been subjected, a vanity that IS the illusion by which being “vain in their imaginations” works out in this world. The sexual ideas ARE but Paul’s examples of the results of such vanity and illusion. and ARE NOT the rallying cry of some Christians as the apostle’s words have become.
We should try to see that it IS in the idea that men, in their vanity, “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” that such sexual ideas prevail. And NOT the homosexual ideas that have become the focus of the church but rather ALL of what the apostle calls “vile affections“, an idea that IS more revealing as carnal desires. Young’s Literal Translation renders this as “dishonourable affections” while the Revised Version calls this “dishonorable passions“. We should understand here that from a spiritual view ALL carnal desires ARE dishonorable as their focus IS clearly NOT upon the things of God. While Paul’s words ARE spoken against what he sees as the worst end of these carnal passions, perhaps because of their prevalence in the Roman Empire, we should try to see that ALL carnal desires ARE the True subject of his words. We should remember here that the objective and the goal has ever been that men should overcome their vanity and, in Repentance, change their focus from the carnal to the spiritual….to the things of God.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913 from https://1828.mshaffer.com/
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- 9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
