threshing

Did the disciples of Messiah break the Sabbath when they plucked grains? Did Messiah indicate the Sabbath no longer mattered? Could he do whatever he wanted on the Sabbath because he was lord of the Sabbath as declared in the Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5 accounts? 

Metal detector crisis averted in Israel, Atheist calls out radio stations for treating Islam better than Christianity, West Virginia pastor targeted for more than just rainbows, and we’re helping you find more excitement in your worship here on Radical Grace Radio...

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At the recent New Room Conference, the Threshing Floor had a chance to spend time with Alan and Deb Hirsch. It was a great time. Drew and Joshua managed to sit down and interview the Hirsch family. 

In addition to our interview, this episode features discussion about Patrick Swayze, Drew going to see Garth Brooks and Chad's most recent embarrassing musical declaration. 

We finish out our interview with a conversation about the future of the missional church. 

On this episode of the Threshing Floor our three hosts share about the Church Calendar and what they love about Lent. We ask questions to each other about what it means to Lead lent as a pastor but also share some of our own decision of the changes we are making during Lent in our own lives. 

They also spend some significant time talking about Drew's journey into adulthood through fostering and the power of the incarnation in the daily life. 

The Threshing Floor encourages our listeners to use the hashtag #lenting and journey through the season of Lent with each other. 

Resources Mentioned:
Your Best Move: The Transition Package
Athanasius: The Life of Antony of the Desert
Sayings of the Desert Fathers

The hosts of the Threshing Floor are all big book nerds. There, it is out in public. While we all have different books we absolutely love, we want to share a few certain books with you.

In this episode, each of our three hosts share their own opinion of the best books for Wesleyans. They run the gamut from modern books to foundational documents for the Wesleyan movement.

We another conversation about what excites us in modern contemporary worship. Worship music is taking a turn in artistic and contextual direction. There are Catholic writers (Matt Maher, Audrey Assad) as well as local churches developing their own cultural sound (Hillsong Young & Free, Elevation, Mars Hill).

On the completely unrelated side  some thoughts about movies in 2014 come up, Chad shares the Maximus theory about Russell Crowe movies and Joshua sounds like Optimus Prime. We talk about a funny little mix up with the Seedbed App podcast feed in the last episode.

What is your recommendation for the best book(s) for Wesleyans?

The Threshing Floor podcast is terribly excited to jump into 2014. Our first full episode with Seedbed centers around a conversation about why the hosts are Wesleyan. All three of us grew up outside of, but influenced by, a Wesleyan theological framework. We found out almost all of our reasons center around worship, experience, holiness and grace.

We also had conversations about our predictions for 2014 and Joshua's fascination with preacher techno. You can hear more of that here.

Our hosts are also writing blog posts on the topic. You can find them at Joshua Toepper, Drew Causey and Chad Brooks. We would absolutely love to hear your reasons why you are wesleyan. Share your thoughts and links in the comments below.

As the three hosts journey off into somewhat charted waters, they discuss a plethora of topics. These include World War Z, childhood television shows and weight loss. This is also the first episode failing to mention Willie Nelson, quite the feat!

The serious side of things focuses on spiritual practices, the things we do to stay close to God. The spiritual life is the intentional life.

The Magnificent Three take on several somewhat related topics, and unlike another ill fated episode 1 ours doesn’t involve Jar Jar!

The Threshing Floor – October 29, 2012-Randy Maugans

"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood..." -Revelation 1:5

The eve of a forecast "super storm" and the meditation about the passage through such storms; the fractal God-nature and the atonement. Facing a storm is like facing yourself---the force of conflicts that clash and collide into a "perfect storm" of purification and self-knowing.  "Loving what is becomes as easy and natural as breathing...not a quick fix..."

Music:

The Wind That Shakes The Barley" - Loreena McKennitt

"All Along The Watch Tower" - from Battlestar Galactica: "Crossroads, Part II" - Featuring Bt4, Vocals. Adapted, Arranged, and Produced by Bear McCreary   

Video interview/Podcast - Randy Maugans with Joseph Lumpkin - Recorded September 10, 2012

Fifth Estate Publishing

Joseph Lumpkin, author and publisher of Fifth Estate Publishing, joins us for a deep "un-boxing" of the corrupt Christian culture that has debased the real spiritual teachings of the Christ, known as Jesus. With clarity, compassion, and the heart of true servant, Lumpkin reveals the distortions of Christianity, while offering alternative views and a foundation for rebuilding connections to the "primitive church", that the apostles founded. His three books, "The Prodigal Church", "Dark Night of the Soul", and "The Didache" comprise a research base and call to examine what was taught, how it was practiced, and what those who are searching can do to reclaim the heritage of the Messiah.

by JOSEPH LUMPKIN

“In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.” ~Richard Halverson

If you are seeking a deeper meaning in your life; if you feel alone, lost, or unsure in your faith; if you are desperately seeking God Himself, this book will call to you.

Containing the Didache in English and Greek, The “Q” (Source) Document, and the Book of James.What form did Christianity take in the first thirty years? Before the Jewish Christians were slaughtered by Rome and before the emergence of the Pauline sect, while the faith was still under the guiding hand of James, the brother of Jesus, what did the pure and unaltered church look like? By examining the Didache, the “Q” document, and the book of James we will look back into the first years of the faith. The difference between the beliefs of the apostles and modern Christianity will astonish you. The Didache is a manual written by the early Christians, a break away sect of Judaism, instructing converts on how to be Christians and how to conduct themselves in daily life. It is a magnificent view of the beliefs and rituals of the earliest form of Christianity as propagated by those who knew Jesus best; his brother and the original apostles. By the time of the Roman massacre of the Jews (66 C.E. – 70 C.E.) there were three major division in early Christianity: the original Jewish Christians, the gnostic Christians, and the quickly growing Pauline sect that was breaking away from its more formal Jewish roots. There was a one in three chance of the Pauline sect becoming the template of the Christianity of today. Had the war between the Romans and Jews not happened or had Paul failed to convert enough gentiles to his sect to outnumber those who followed James we could have a Messianic-Jewish based Christianity today. Our canon and our worship would be different, but because it would have been accepted, orthodox, and traditional, Christians would follow it as they follow the Pauline sect now. It is only by chance, or by the hand of god that the Didache is not the main document of catechism in the church today.

Links:

Fifth Estate Publishing - http://fifthestatepub.com/ The Threshing Floor-Joseph Lumpkin - http://threshingfloor-radio.com/index.php/channels/joseph-lumpkin-fifth-estat...

Credits:

Music for this video is: "Permafrost" and "Sunspark" by Dan-O at DanoSongs.com http://www.danosongs.com/

The Threshing Floor - July 8, 2012-Randy Maugans - "The GOD ofthe Bible"

 Is "The Lord is a man of war." -Exodus 15:3 or  "The God of Peace." -Romans 15:33 "God is not the author of confusion but of peace." - 1 Corinthians 14:33 Well...someone is certainly confused.

A return from the silence and a loosely spun narrative upon this monolithic construct called "The GOD of the Bible". The more I look at it, it seems the consciousness of humanity was split by the deity that weaves in and out of the Old Testament. Our own schizophrenic states are the result of an imbalance that none dare speak of...this YHWH god looks pretty nasty! If you want to see the spirit of this God just look at the internet Christianity crowds who DELIGHT in condemning and judging anyone who dares step out of their "orthodoxy", and away from a prescribed method of interpreting this object of desire called the "Holy Bible".  Pieced together by half-illiterate delegates to the Council of Nicea, the "accepted" scriptures were wrung from the blood of apostates, gnostics, and those who dared to interpret spirituality outside the political structures of the Church. Nothing has changed. And it's time it did. Mankind continues to pillage, murder, and condemn in the names of the war-like Gods who populated the malevolent universe of religion.  It seems that Jesus, the Christ, managed to return some sanity in His invocation of the Father...why do we keep dragging it all back to the God of War.

Music: "Small Rebellions" - Jars Of Clay, "Who Will Stop The Rain" - John Fogerty

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-April 8, 2012-Randy Maugans

Easter…Resurrection…Transfiguration

"... people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon." -The Gospel of Phillip (Nag Hamamdi)

The most important words…the words which UNLOCK the scriptures…those found inside the Bible, as well as outside…are just seven words. These are all you need to understand spirituality to decode the words of Jesus :

After a long absence, this show emerged from the realm of my own dream state this morning, and is part of the path we now embark in the final leg of the shift...we will KNOW, even as we ARE known:

Gripping the Wall…

(The following was a dream I received early this morning, April 8, 2012)

I imagine being in a totally darkened space. The walls are as a partition, a (seemingly) solid endless curtain. As you move about the space you grip this surface…heavy, black, impenetrable. Using just your eyes it appears there are no openings. But as your natural senses fail to penetrate this veil, over time you perceive tiny little breaches…micro holes.

Soon you begin to assimilate the wall…in fact your physical being begins to shift and you perceive a change in your surroundings. Tiny micro-holes begin to open…seeing them, you now realize the surface is not so solid---and that your own being is also taking on a similar quality. Your senses…those five physical ones, at first deny this state…they protest to the mind that you are still trapped…but the KNOWING inside you fights that so-called “reality”.

The substance and the senses are both reaching a balancing of frequencies. Sound begins to take on a new dimension; the heartbeat slows, the breath becomes more measured. Fingers extend beyond this veil and the eyes follow. Tiny pin dots of light begin to show…the substance of darkness slowly starts to yield to these pinholes---one tiny micro-ray of light fills the mind and as it perceives this new truth, it begins to explore the surface, again and again…millions of pin holes begin to reveal themselves…the substance of the space begins to collapse. BOTH the wall and the body take on the same vibration until the very space itself dissolves…into nothing.

And you emerge into the brightness of the reality which was always just on the other side of this impenetrable wall. In a sense, this is the state of our human condition, our spiritual state---we have walked around behind walls which hold us only because we BELIEVED them to be “real”.

This is the 3-dimensional world into which we were born: everything in our sensory perceptual understanding was entrained to accept these limitations. What changes is not the substance, but our own perceptions…as we come to know our own limitations and also our own state of captivity, we can either accept that state, we can fight against it---OR, we can change the one thing that has the ability to show us a greater truth: our limitations are self-imposed.

The literal, 3-D interpretations of the religious works have been, likewise, trapped inside a dark, hermetically sealed room…behind a veil of mystical literalism. Religion has sought to keep you ignorant of WHO you are…and WHAT you are. It created a veil that separated you from the essential truth that you are a SPIRIT---a divine being of indescribable power; the quanta (plural) is an innumerable measure of the divine expression through the human creation. It is the Self of the Creator fractalized and expressed in unfolding novelty. YOU are unique, yet also possess the properties of the Original Source…a potential awaiting its moment of activation.

Music:
"Burden of the Mind" - Hologram Dragger
"Another Realm" - Iona
"Star of the Age" - Shearwater

© 2012 The Threshing Floor Radio Show. -The Threshing Floor/RandyMaugans This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs2.5 License.

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-February 5, 2012-Randy Maugans 

 My fatigue with the mainstreamers who claim they are "the remnant"...remnant of WHAT?  They pack the same self-righteous attitudes and deadly accusations as another bunch: the Pharisees! They spew poison all over us, tempt us back to the same unconverted souls we were before we walked down the spiritual path, and accuse and bludgeon with more contrived, recycled SCRIPTCHA! Leaving a church does not = converted, it just makes one more resolved to find a new pack of dogs to run with.

Someone needs to tell you about the REAL message of the Christ. It had nothing to do with what you WERE...but about what your destiny holds, and why those "garments of white" don't quite fit you: "Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness." -The Gospel of Phillip To all the self-righteous ones out there, pointing fingers and scouring their own cups and plates: Get a job at a diner! We are de-toxing from your swill.

Reading excerpt from: pg. 95 of  "Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes-The Initiatory Teachings of the Last Supper" by Mark H. Gaffney, -2004, Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT

Music:

"Sanctitatis" - Future Of Forestry

"Love Is Eternal Sacred Light" - Paul Simon

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-January 24, 2012-Randy Maugans 

"Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God." -Micah 3:6,7

Spontaneous word...turn on the microphone and just flow. What is on my heart right now is difficult to communicate. I am seeing turbulence coming rapidly...the signs are all around. Most of all, we are undergoing changes in our bodies, our cycles, and the external landscape. The solution: go inside. Go deep. The bear is a symbol of the inner walk, the "walk between worlds"...external hibernation...internal walking in the spirit. Nature speaks to us in the rhythms and cycles...heed them and you will be guided.

A Vision of Oran Mór

I saw more than I can tell and understand more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw  it was holy -Black Elk, Oglala Lakota Sioux Holy Man

Music: "Singing Grass" - Woven Hand

Threshing Floor Radio Show-January 18, 2012-Randy Maugans with Bill Bean

billbean.net

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." -Ephesian 6:12

 Bill Bean has been featured on: Discovery Channel, Syfy channel, Coast to Coast Radio, Animal Planet

Bill Bean painfully describes in terrifying detail, the horrific events that contributed to the destruction of his family. As disturbing as some of the content in Dark Force is, there’s a very powerful message of hope and faith that has affected many readers in a positive way.

"My family was literally torn apart by an evil force that co-existed among us. The activity began as noises and gradually escalated into violent physical attacks on us by the entities."

A gripping one hour talk with a survivor of parrnormal abuse. Bill talks about his family's ordeal in stark cando: the bizzare attacks, escalating poltergeist activity, the destruction of a family through terror, alcoholism, abuse, and death. He also connects dots between paranormal spirit activities and the phenomena of UFOs and alien abduction. Bean is forhtright about the events, and the Highe Power that helped him repel and escape this sinister force---and how anyone who is similarly afflircted can "take back their power".

Links:

Order a signed copy of "Dark Force"

Supernatural Photos taken by Bill Bean

Music:

"Lean Into The Wind" - Jace Everett

"Part Of Me" - Joseph Williams

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-January 8, 2012-Randy Maugans

 Decision: The Victory To Overcome the World (Age)...The Fire Is Come…2012 and Beyond

This is 2012…the signs are around you. Are you ready to jump out of the choke-points of established religion? Are you prepared to deal with the true Power of the Christ face to face? A lot of people have packed up and left now…they can’t deal with what I am telling you. If you wanna play religion some more---fine! It’s a BIG coliseum prepared out there…and traditional Christians are going to die...for ALL the wrong reasons.

2012 will be exciting! It will be challenging… and I expect there are some real “hairpin curves” coming up in the months ahead. Men whose hearts are still attached to the old paradigm…the Piscean Age of the Old World, will indeed find them failing. Systems of government, religion, economics, and human consciousness are all going to fall away in rapid successions.

The year that will follow…2013 and beyond…ARE the birthpangs of the “WOMAN”. This “woman” is the mystical union between the Creator and Created…the Man Child is the coming of the “Son of Man”, to which Jesus spoke of, as both OF Himself, and yet NOT Him…as First Fruits of the new race of beings truly called, truly elect, and fully manifest as 144,000 of the Tribes of Spiritual Israel.

By next year at this time it will be a far different world…the economic system of the west has imploded,,,the east has risen..it is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac and the element is water. Water washes clean, like its elemental opposite fire…we are entering the time of the great purging. All that cannot stand will fall…all that rises will be purified. The time of DECISION is here… 1 John 5:4 “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”  

Music:

The Mystery-Erica Wheeler

Change Of Time-Josh Ritter

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-December 3, 2011-Randy Maugans

 "When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty." -The Gospel of Thomas

NOW-ness is the stage…the PERFECT PRESENT where the infinite and finite merge. Now, all of that sounds mystical and very ephemeral…but, in fact, it is both PRACTICAL, and very lasting. We DO change, in some respects, “in the twinkling of an EYE…” and this is the mystery. Change means we BECOME…we move from one stage to another stage…a HIGHER stage, wherein we are transformed. BUT---as humans creations with FREE WILL, we very much do have the choice to MAKE the change. Yet, like the chrysalis, we also face certain death. Because choosing to NOT make the ordained changes, in the ordered time, means we deny our soul development and begin a DOWNWARD shift that freezes us in that state, and denies the invitation to BECOME…to transform into the Higher Calling. KNOWING yourself means you  manifest that which is WITHIN---you are known as you KNOW, and thus present the INNER to the OUTER…children of the living God, the Father of Lights…who are heirs to the kingdom. Heirs are not in poverty. Those who fail to respond to the “window of time”…this present great quickening…both live IN poverty, but become a poverty to others.

Notes-Transcript-Window Of Time-PDF

Related Links: Mystery Time (Kairos) - The Threshing Floor Radio Show-August 8, 2011-Randy Maugans The Shift - The Threshing Floor Radio Show-November 17, 2010-Randy Maugans Watchmen To Warriors: The Battle Within -The Threshing Floor Blog August 30, 2011

Music:

"Good Intentions" - Toad The Wet Sprocket
"If Not Now...When?" - Incubus

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-November 24, 2011-Randy Maugans

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” -James 1:17

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What really needs to happen is that WE, who are the Light, who are bringers of the Gospel of Peace, begin to EARNESTLY begin carrying POSITIVITY into every place we tread. Want to open a true gift? Try opening up your heart…the one that vibrates in sync with the Oneness of the Creator…

The Father of Lights desired so much for His children to be likewise, that He sent an Example…a singular being who would evidence God’s will toward all men in substance. Light is POSITIVE…it is the only active principle of movement, as it is pure energy. And the universe…all created things…are born of the positive expression of this God’s willful desire to CREATE.

We are energetic beings who manifest the frequencies within…this was the pure message of Jesus. People were attracted to Him…He gathered crowds because He emanated a higher frequency. That frequency was one of total Light: It was of healing, wholeness, assurance, and deliverance…EVIDENCE of a Loving Creator who sent a messenger…a God who give gifts purely from the act of His own BEING.

Music:

"I Will Be Blessed" - Ben Howard

"Content" - Pete Townshend

Graphic: "Positivity" by Randy Maugans © 2011

The Threshing Floor Radio Show-November 20, 2011-Randy Maugans

Part 3 of "The Fall" details aspects of the fallen race of humans that are rarely, if ever, discussed. The Fall encompasses events beyond Genesis 3 and the garden, and extends to the final conflict at the end of the Age of the Archons. Religious systems have hidden this from the world through manipulation of the scriptures, the burning of writings and alterations of even the words of Jesus. The truth is hidden in plain view, and the terrible revelation of humanity's collision course with a race of beings bent upon man's destruction is upon us. Governments, world religions, and science have conspired to hide these ancient writings, and discredit any who dare touch them.In exchange, they have tried to sell the souls of billions into eternal bondage. The mingling goes beyond human and angelic breeding---the Nephillim---into a total pollution of the Earth and its animal kingdom:

For this, a great cataclysm was ordained to purge the world of the flesh of hybrids. But the Fallen Ones...the Nacash...would only revive, time and again, their genetic projects to attempt the perfection of an immortal race of soul-less giants. These, called the Annunaki, would rule the empires of the planet for ages...from Sumeria to Peru...from Egypt to the modern global order of the Illuminati. Their projects continue under the banners of black operations, secret DNA projects, and "alien abductions" by artificial beings called "the Grays". Yet, one more time, their leader will be loosed and the world will be deceived...by the very religious structures created BY these Ancient Gods. The beast that was...and is not...and yet is, is revealed, and he is Azazel:

"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. -Revelation 9:11

 We were warned by Jesus about this coming Being...His words were altered and deleted by the priesthood who took control of Christianity...this show restores that warning for those with ears to hear.

Notes-The Fall-Part 3-The Mingling - PDF

Matthew 24-Aramaic-Translated by The Chronicle Project - PDF

The Chronicle Project website

Music: 

"Fractal Firewall" - spoken narrative with music by Rildrim: "Fractal Universe"
"Secret For A Song" - Mercury Rev