Blogs by Pastor Boggs

Jesus was a teacher whose words were beginning to shift the way people had always been raised and told to see and understand God. He spoke of God as our Heavenly Father and our Creator and as one who was good and kind and the giver of all good things. The people were listening and the weight of his own understanding and words were really beginning to turn the tables in more ways than one…

To a people who were being told their whole lives and all their ancestors before them for the last 1400 years that they were all cursed by God, evil sinners, whose only hope to not be smitten by God was through the giving of their lambs, pigeons, doves, wheat and coin to the tent and temple serving priesthood, this was not what their grandparents had told them.

Jesus came along speaking to that mindset and that indoctrinated belief of the people some strangely differing things that they had never heard before about God like: “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” ~ Matthew 7:9-10

It was a new and strange teaching, unlike anything they had ever heard before. After being told their whole life that they were evil and danmed by God needing to pay fines and offer sacrifices.

Here was Jesus, Joseph and Mary’s son, the carpenter from Nazareth pointing out that they were all actually very capable of being and doing good just like their Father who created them.

He not only was helping them to see for themselves after 1400 years of their hearts and minds being veiled and dulled by the law, just how beautiful and capable they really were but Jesus was teaching them as well how to be like their Father in Heaven who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (See Matthew 5:43-48)

He was also letting them know, brick-and-mortar temple or no brick-and-mortar temple that the Kingdom of Heaven was to dwell within each and everyone of their hearts.

“When asked by the Pharisees when The Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, The Kingdom of God is in your midst.”~ Luke 17:20-21

Although He did warn and prophesy that the days were coming soon, with signs they could observe, concerning the complete and utter destruction and desolation of Jerusalem and their temple…

He assured them that even though their city and temple would be gone, His Words and Spirit and Kingdom would remain…

“Truly I tell you, this generation (30 A.D.) will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth (a 1st-century reference to the temple) will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day (Romes Seige of Jerusalem 66-70 A.D.) will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth (also translated land). Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives, and all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple.” ~ Luke 21:32-38

Jesus, The Messiah, God in the flesh, who began His 3 and 1/2 year earthen ministry with Holy Spirit Anointing and Empowerment, which came in the form of a descending dove from Heaven resting upon Him at John The Baptist’s Water Baptism in The Jordon was about to confront The Levitical Priesthood at The Temple itself.

The Temple, the centrifuge for all of Israel’s Worship and sacrifice for over 1400 years, for Jews and converts born under or going under that yoke of The Old Covenant law of Moses…

Jesus was now in Jerusalem The Holy City at The Temple teaching, having already demonstrated the love, kindness, mercy, and power of God to forgive, deliver, heal, and provide for sinners all over the surrounding Judean region at no cost of any coin, wheat or livestock.

“Freely you have received; freely give.” ~ Matthew 10:8