We track the apostles’ ‘seminary course’ through Matthew 16-17: the avoidance of the churchmanship of the Pharisees and Saducees that produced nominal worshippers, the primacy of human instrumentality, the scope of self-denial, and the need for strong desires for blessing by prayer and fasting.

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No Teacher Like Christ

There was never a teacher like Christ. No one has ever been so understandable, and yet so profound and compelling. Here are examples of the unique superiority of His message and style. Everything He said has come to pass. Why trust your life (and soul) to others?

Christ’s Teaching on the Commandments

Five ways by which the Lord fulfils and completes the moral law, leaving it as the “royal law” and standard of holiness for believers. Here, also are the texts which prove that the 4th commandment (the sabbath principle) is repeatedly affirmed in the New Testament.

Christ’s Teaching on the Holy Spirit

Spoken exclusively to the apostles, here is the Lord’s teaching on the Spirit of Truth, of communion, of holiness, of illumination and of witness. Also, Christ’s words on the unique advantages of blessing by the Spirit, and His discrete, unostentatious, inconspicuous stance.

Christ’s Teaching on the End of Time

In three Gospels this double prophecy, given exclusively to the disciples, discloses the harbingers of the end of the Temple, to be repeated (more intensively) at the end of the world. The first would be seen by that very generation.