Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has once again taken up his anti-cross video series to give us more "proof" that Jesus was not crucified on a t-shaped cross but staked on a vertical pole. This time Tim says Jesus did not tell His followers to "take up their cross" but rather to "take up their fence."
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| "Take Up His FENCE And Follow Me..." in UNDER 20 MINUTES |
Tim's proof for his claim is twofold.
The first proof is Jesus says "take up your cross" much too early in His ministry for his followers to understand cross as an implement of torture.
1:04 Yahusha for us to said, you know, for us to take up our cross and follow him, right? Actually wrong. He never said that. This is written in Greek which is the word stauros or upright stake or fence post and not cross and it actually then makes sense. As cross it makes no sense whatsoever because it's long before Messiah's execution. Long before. It's ridiculous.
The second proof, built upon the first, is that His followers would have to have been familiar with what Jesus is talking about and since it cannot be the cross it must be a fence since no one owned a cross but everyone owned a fence.
9:44 You have the same problem in Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, and Mark 10:21 these are way too early to invoke the use of a cross. Most people had fences back then and they understood what he meant. No one owned crosses. Duh.
Your boundary of your property was set largely by a fence not a cross. If you're selling your property and following him selling all your possessions and following him you're breaking down your fence, you're, you, you know, you're coming out, uh and that's what it's all about. You're coming out and you're giving everything to him and has nothing to do with a cross. This is very obvious
Again a whole lot of problematic uses here if it was cross. Luke 9:23 still 14 chapters too early to invoke a cross for execution. Nonsense. No one would have even understood and he wasn't being cryptic. This is a Salvation topic folks. He didn't project such definition for understanding at a later date. He was teaching a principle he wanted understood then and there and it was. Now, remove your fence, remove your boundaries and follow me.
What is Tim's source that "most people had fences back then?" He does not say. He is likely making it up.
All this means the passage about taking up one's cross is not about self-sacrifice but about "giving all you have" and living outside of your fence.
3:56 The passage is really about giving all you have to Him. Uh, in one case the Rich Young Ruler which we covered He says this as well there. Uh, and he's telling him go sell all you possess and that includes your land. Then take up your fence, your boundary, your fence post and follow me. Have no boundaries. Have no borders. Come out of your yard and your comfort zone and follow me. This is incredible now this passage makes sense. Take up your cross? Hm. Nonsense.
The first proof is easily dismantled by looking at John 6 where Jesus says we must eat his body and drink his blood.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
What can Christ possibly mean here by eating his body and drinking his blood except for the Eucharist?
Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
John 6 is long before the Last Supper yet here we see Jesus Christ talking of the very sacrament He would inaugurate during the Last Supper. It should be noted that when the crowd heard Him say they must eat His body and drink His blood many of them stopped following Him because the saying was too hard.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
This is important because Jesus Christ is not clear about everything he says. He told the Apostles that He spoke in parables not to make his teaching easily understandable but to hide it from the masses to whom it was not given to understand. Tim is dead wrong when he says Jesus never spoke cryptically.
Matthew 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with theireyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
The second proof is easily done away with by the testimony of ancient writers who testify that criminals did in fact carry their cross to the scene of execution.
The first testimony is from Dionysius of Halicarnassus who writes the following in book seven of his Roman Antiquities.
A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at that time conducting in honour of the god.
The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms and fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breast and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/7C*.html
The second testimony is from Plutarch who writes the following in his Moralia in Book 8 section 9.
And as every malefactor about to pay the penalty of his crime in his person bears his cross, so vice fabricates for itself each of its own torments, being the terrible author of its own misery in life, wherein in addition to shame it has frequent fears and fierce passions and endless remorse and anxiety.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23639/23639-h/23639-h.htm#Page_331a
It is simply a fact that criminals carried their cross to the place of execution. There is no doubt the people would be familiar with that grisly sight and understand exactly what Jesus meant by carrying your cross. It is not a fence. That is preposterous.
Finally, and what really undoes all of this nonsense, is the Greek word for fence is not stauros. It is phragmos.
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| https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5418/kjv/tr/0-1/ |
If Jesus wanted people to "take up their fence" he would not have used a word with two meanings but a word with one meaning. While stauros can mean a fence post it also means a cross as an implement of torture. However, phragmos means fence with no ambiguity. Didn't Tim say Jesus did not speak cryptically and wanted everyone to know what he was saying?
As Tim would say, BOOM!
This third video is simply more unhistorical and unbiblical garbage from Timothy Jay Schwab. But Tim does not care that he is in error or that I continue to point out his errors. In the comment section of this video he left the following tirade calling me a "demon blogger" and once more threatening me with legal prosecution for exposing his lies.
Anyone attempting debate without watching all 3 of these, will be muted. We know by your comment you have not watched so don't play the fool trolls and demonic blogger. Let's be clear. When we say demonic, we refer to the intellectual rapist who can't even read a sentence and never makes points except how poorly he is able to read and he is even worse of a listener. The idiot even takes positions against himself in a stream and no one can be more of a failure as the perhaps 2 views he gets proves. Talk about the definition of insanity... demonic indeed. And the eBook he downloaded free, he lied and told Amazon the pages fell out when he opened it yet he did not order from Amazon who does not send such poor quality nor do they ever not accept a return in that case but not this idiot... The eBook pages fell out on his screen. In the words of Bugs Bunny: "what a maroon." He'll now likely write a blog about how one is supposed to spell moron in which he'll also tell us that Bugs Bunny didn't actually say it and is not the origin as if that would ever even matter... because he has the understanding of a toddler only foaming out of the mouth like a demon indeed. He has committed many infractions in cyber libel, gross negligence, fake news, misrepresentations consistently, harassed family including minors, and in time, he will be prosecuted for his illegal acts. He tries to comment here under a different usernames each time in complete insanity thinking we will ever allow his dull nonsense here on our channel. Even when caught and muted he gets more views than months on his pathetic platforms no one wants to view. When caught, he doubles down and turns dumb into dumber and then, dumberer... Perhaps there is a movie about him. We will never tolerate such illiterate ignorance here. Yah Bless.
Will Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture ever own up to his misrepresentations and outright lies? Will he ever deal with the hard evidence I present in all these articles that he is wrong? Likely not but that will not stop this blog from continuing to expose him for all to see.
