Walk as You are Called

1 Corinthians 7:17-40 and the Call to Contentment

And the Word of the Living God says in 1 Corinthians 7, verses 17 through 40, let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him. This is what I command in all the churches.

Was anyone already circumcised when he was called? He should not undo his circumcision. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? He should not get circumcised. Circumcision does not matter, and uncircumcision does not matter.

Keeping God's commands is what matters. Let each of you remain in the situation in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? Don't let it concern you, but if you can become free by all means, take the opportunity.

For he who is called by the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freed man. Likewise, the one who is called as a free man is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of people. Brothers and sisters, each person is to remain with God in the situation in which he was called.

Now about virgins. I have no command from the Lord, but I do give an opinion as one who is, by the Lord's mercy,.

Faithful.

Because of the present distress, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. However, if you do get married, you have not sinned.

And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But such people will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you. This is what I mean. Brothers and sisters, the time is limited. So from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none.

Those who weep as though they did not weep. Those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice. Those who buy as though they didn't own anything. And those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it.

For this world, in its current form, is passing away. I want you to be without concerns. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But the married man is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided.

The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy, both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is proper, and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction. If any man thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, if she is getting beyond the usual age for marriage, and he feels he should marry, he can do what he wants.

He is not sinning. They can get married. But he who stands firm in his heart, who is under no compulsion, but has control over his own will, and has decided in his heart to keep her as his fiancée, will do well.

So then he who marries his fiancée does well, but he who does not marry will do better. A wife is bound as long as her husband is living, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants, only in the Lord.

But she is happier if she remains as she is, in my opinion, and I think that I also have the Spirit of God. Let's pray together. Father, your word is life itself, a light to our feet, a lamp to our path.

Your word is not like the flower or grass which fades and withers, but is enduring forever. And so, Lord, we ask today that you might grant us wisdom to understand how to live out the faith and to live out the promise that you put in us.

And Lord, use your messenger today to bring clarity and understanding to your word, and Lord, just grant him the Spirit to teach aptly what you have for us today. Lord, thank you for all the folks who have gathered here today to bring honor to you, to glorify you, to say that you are our God, and we desire to please you in all that we.

Do.

In the powerful name of Christ, I pray. Amen.

Roman Social Status, Patronage, and Unity in Christ

This morning's sermon is a rather straightforward sermon. Paul makes his desires known and clear regarding singleness and marriage, slave and master, native and foreigner. You just heard the text. Something that helps illuminate the text is knowing the context beyond the passage.

As Baptists, we participate in what's called orthodox hermeneutics, which is essentially that we want to know what the text meant to the original audience, and then we seek to find how that applies to us.

And so that's what some of my attempts are going to be at this morning. We shall see if the Lord blesses them. Romans during this time did not normatively accept association between different classes of people unless it was a patron-client relationship or a master-slave relationship, and they both had very specific order and function.

There were many different ranks of status in Roman culture. I want to talk to you a little bit about patron-client because it's going to illuminate some of the previous difficulties that you've seen the Corinthians wrestle with.

Patrons and clients were a big deal in the Roman Empire. A man of higher rank would be the patron. His followers would be clients. The patron would subsidize the clients monetarily, and the clients would promulgate and promote their patron by many different means.

Now, imagine that the same patron-client system happening in the Corinthian church. I follow Apollos. I follow Paul. I follow Cephas.

Is it registering?

This is the patron-client tradition that is extremely normal for Romans at this time. The more you could promote your patron, the more important your cohort would be. That means all involved would gain influence and honor, importance by association, and the favors that comes with it.

We saw in an earlier chapter that Paul dissolved this cultural staple of patron-client relationship having any validity in the church. He tells them, I'm nobody. Apollos is nobody. It's all Christ. Everything is built on his foundation.

You are the building. You need to have unity and build this up with the proper materials, and you will be judged by the materials that you used. He abolished his and others' roles as the de facto patrons, patrons that they didn't even ask for, didn't even sign up for.

They weren't even subsidizing these people. He transitions the Corinthians from a patron loyalty to ecclesial unity in Christ. I won't expound on the master-slave relationship. Josh previously went through that.

I have a few things to say about it, but that's already been addressed. So this is the first point of some context that I'm trying to build for you that helps us see the Corinthians and maybe a more understanding the cultural gap there.

We even have something like that going on today. We have our favorite people that we listen to. We subscribe to their beliefs. We tend to think more of ourselves as we are closer to those people. Sometimes we judge other people by the labels that they have because, oh, well, you don't follow these particular things.

But we should be after unity. Like I said, Romans did not normatively accept association with different classes. The closer the classes together, the more appropriate, but the more distant they were is considered vulgar.

It was despised. So here's a ladder. Here's just an understanding of all the classes that the Romans had. Slaves, bottom tier, 20 minimum of Roman population. These are millions. Could have been around 50 at different times of the Roman Empire.

It fluctuated greatly, especially after wars. Romans did not like slaves having favor with other classes and looked at it as a threat. Slave rebellions threatened the entire security of Rome since they were so numerous.

Just over 100 years before this letter was written, 100 ,000 slaves rebelled on the home peninsula of Rome, the peninsula of Italy, 100 ,000. This was red level crisis, and they were on guard about it being repeated.

This is one of the large reasons why Christians were persecuted, because they associated different classes with slaves. Because when you come into the body, you're equal before the Lord. The next rung on the ladder is foreigners.

Then you have the libertif social class, the freed persons, the previous slaves. After that, you have a word that we have transliterated nowadays called the plebs, and these are the freeborn citizens.

Then you have the artisans who are the wealthy merchants. Then you have the decurians who are the local magistrates. Next, you have the equestrians who are wealthy landowners, but they really want to become the next class who are the senatoria.

They are the super elite. If an equestrian was rich, just imagine they would have to, on average, become 10 times richer to become of the senatoria class. There is a great wealth disparity there. Then last, you have the emperor.

Why do I bring all these up? To understand the gap. There's a lot of classes to climb. There was severe pressure in Rome to excel your family status to the next level, severe. They would talk about their ancestors on how they lifted them up into this next class, and they would glorify them, and you would have to know everything about your ancestor and what he did for your family, and they would do this by any means necessary.

This is part of why the patron-client system was so important. It was a way to associate with someone above your class in order to grow to their class. Why do we think that Paul is talking so much about people looking at themselves as higher than others in the Corinthian church?

This is the patron-client system. Oh, I'm of Apollos so that I can kind of climb up there with him. I'm of Paul so I can climb up there. This is the culture of it. And yes, this context probably would have been helpful earlier.

Better late than never. Sorry about that. They were highly aggressive, and this was accepted, expected, and effective at accomplishing their means. So as the Romans are determining identity based on climbing a ladder, God is giving identity based on him descending.

So they have greater identity the more they climb. But we have fullness of identity in Christ because God descended. Praise God. The other means of social mobility would be selling your daughter to a wealthy suitor, often boosting the family's social strata.

So why give this context? We as Christians are not excluded from social climbing. This is a norm. Be diligent and seek God. How we climb must be honorable, dignified, and innocent before the Lord. We must remember we are primarily valuable because we are identified with Christ.

In the following passages, we will see Paul separating identity and Christ from social strata in the world. The Corinthian church had an eclectic range of status. So that ladder I was telling you about, probably the bottom seven or bottom six were in that church all the way up to the local magistrates, maybe even some wealthy landowners in there.

Too.

So it was a wide range. And this would have been vulgar for Roman society to see these people gather together, absolutely vulgar to them. They needed guidance on deep-seated traditions that harm the body.

So my points today, the themes that I want you to remember as we go over the passage today, live content and faithful. And two, be free from anxieties and the present distress. Previously, I've had six points, but Brady, as you told me, I just narrowed it down to two today.

So I should have been Baptist and went with a third, but I just couldn't make it fit. So point one, and I'm going to read through the passage here. It applies from verses 17 through 20. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him.

This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision.

But keeping the commandments of God, each one should remain in the condition in which.

He was called.

Remaining in the Calling God Assigned

Church, the Lord is sovereign. He didn't make a mistake with your parents and with the tradition that you fall in. You can see from the context of this passage that it's an internal struggle for what seems to be two groups of people.

Gentiles want to look more like the holy Jews. And you could see the pressure. People coming in, telling them about the gospel. Salvation comes from the Jews. The message came from the Jews. You could see the pressure of them wanting to look like them.

Or for the others, for Jews who want to gain rank in Roman society, to remove their marks of circumcision. And you might hear that and think, I don't really know how you remove marks of circumcision. There was a surgery for that, and Josephus talks about it.

I'm not going to go into it. It was very tempting for Jews to be accepted in Roman culture. As a man, you were anathematized because all the congregating happened in bathhouses. And since you were circumcised, it was unnatural and un-Roman to be there.

So Jews who are now Christian are ostracized from the most convenient places of networking, of speaking, of social engagement. It all happened in the bathhouses. This is a Greco-Roman city. And that, a new one.

This was a new city, rebuilt, a trade port, a major hub. These would have been opportunities lost for those brothers in Christ. But so be it. Paul tells us to remain three times. Christian, don't dishonor your parents or your people.

If your desire for self, in your pursuit of the desire of self-importance or mobility, you are where the Lord has placed you. We aren't to raise our fists in our discontentment. The Lord has purposed this for your good.

Live content and faithfully. He made no mistake with where he placed you. Were you a bondservant when called, do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.

For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become bondservants of men.

So brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. If a slave, don't curse your lot. Work hard to earn your freedom if you can. And be content. Your value in the body and in the Lord is not determined by your status.

So today, HVAC, white collar, janitor, that does not determine your value in this body. If an owner, know that you are still a slave and that is to Christ, this being the master. So deal righteously with your responsibilities because you too still have a master.

Do not seek to become a slave because you were bought with a price. To do so violates what Solomon wrote for us in Proverbs. It is unwise. So whichever station you are, be content. It was allotted to you from the Lord.

Now, let's talk about some application here because we're thinking, those aren't really our classes anymore. But we have something similar. So I'm going to start with one that most closely identifies with the master.

The business owner.

Pay your people appropriately. Do not make them slaves to slave wages. Does he prosper your business? Simple, bless him. Does he damage your business? Simple, be rid of him. Lay your conscience before the Lord with how you treat your servants and plead for his direction.

The Lord will surely answer you. He cares about your sanctification more than you do. In a similar fashion, I regard the closest association of slave to employee. The master and the slave are not equal to employer and employee, but they are similar enough for application.

So employees, use your God-given talents and do not be lazy. The value you bring to your master and character and performance should be a blessing. There is this popular work culture of basically getting away with getting paid for doing nothing.

That is so shameful. It should be a great shame to us in this. What honor is there in that? What ambition is there in that? To get away with doing the very minimal for as long as you can. Because as long as we're entertained and fed, we're good.

We're such a distracted culture. Ask yourselves, men, what is the mission for my family? What is the long goal? Just because we're to be content in the station that we have does not tell us that we don't get to have godly ambition.

It means be content where you start. So does this mean don't seek beneficial opportunities for yourself and your family? By no means. Are you attempting to multiply the talents God has given you? Or will you flounder in mediocrity?

Do not get confused with the previous passage. Contentment is not complacency. Or else Paul wouldn't have said, seek your freedom. So gain your master's favor. Paul does not erase hierarchy, but he does define it under Christ.

We have been saved by the Lord, yet our station, our family history, our traditions, and previous behaviors are not inconsequential. If you stole, you still pay the consequences for this. There is this popular idea of, well, Christ saved me, now I'm a new person.

I pay for nothing of my past. That is not biblical. We have consequences. So if you stole, seek recompense. If you were a liar, confess truth. If you divorced, confess sin. If you have ransacked your home of joy and love, fulfill your responsibilities in your marriage and redeem it.

Rescue your marriage. Can't stand the culture of your upbringing? Don't insult your ancestors like that. Assimilation is good, but that takes a lot of time. Which brings me on to a small tirade. There's two sides of the coin.

Diversity is our strength, or we need more homogeny. And neither one is the answer. There is no strength in diversity. That is the most antithetical statement I've ever heard. But if we are so much desiring homogeny, then we close the door.

Evangelism, discipleship, everyone has to look like you, think like you. That is not what we see Paul's call to here. All kinds of social strata, foreigners involved in there. It should be a goal to assimilate, but that takes time.

It takes generations, and we should have grace in the meantime. It is good to be like-minded. It is good to form a culture and a people. What do you rally around? What identifies you? We have identity in Christ, but he rescues nations.

What is a nation? They are a people, a like-minded people. I could go much further than that, but Josh and I are going to have future podcasts on that. I would encourage you to listen to Play the Man.

Were you born in a broken home? Your Father in heaven knows. So create a wholesome home and break that pattern. Church, I understand that many of your deepest cuts sting. The Lord makes no error with who he saves, when he saves, or how he saves.

Repentance doesn't whitewash history, but the Lord does forget our sins. His grace is greater than all our sin. So church, you are free in whatever station you have. And church, you are a slave to Christ in whatever station you have.

Give God the glory and live on. Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord. Mine is so much nicer than how yours says it, Lanny. Yours says, now concerning virgins. How often do you start statements with it?

That is quite bold.

Concerning virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.

This is what I mean, brothers. The appointed time has grown short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

For the present form of this world is passing away. That seems clear-cut at first, and then we get to some paradoxical statements. I would say that's really the only murky part of our passage today, and we will go over that.

So Paul starts that Jesus didn't specifically speak on this. Josh gave us a framework last week that when Paul says this, it's that Christ didn't specifically speak on this in the Gospels. But that does not mean that Paul doesn't have apostolic authority.

We see earlier he said, I command this in all the churches. So his word is the word of God. He tells us that we are to stay as we are, but if we are unmarried and desire it, it is no sin. The Lord affords you choice here, and he will sanctify you through either choice you make.

Now let's tackle this lingering question here. What's this present distress thing? What takes us from present distress to have dealings with the world, but act like you don't have any dealings with the world?

What could Paul mean? Church, this time period is extraordinarily unique in history. We're not exactly sure what Paul means by the present distress, but we do know he meant a few things by it. There's different theologians who have created a framework on this, and I'm going to borrow from them.

Very helpful. Romans did not like new religions, especially those that could not be absorbed or assimilated. They were very pluralistic. For the Corinthians, perversion was everywhere they looked. Sex was bad or perverted towards temple prostitutes.

Marriage was for social utility and could be easily discarded. Social pressures to gain standing with your family, persecution from Jews, heresy in the form of Greek philosophies, twisting into proto-Gnosticism.

Economic hardship in a very delicate trade city. The Corinthians are enduring all these things on the front row. All these hardships are before them, and these are truly earthly hardships. So this could have been part of what he was talking about.

It could have been a famine. It could have been a local persecution, maybe beyond the Jews, maybe by the hands of the Roman magistrates. So as Paul's writing, there's this deeper overarching theme. The old covenant is coming to a close, its death stroke being the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

The new covenant is newly arrived and blossoming in its infancy. So we're in this overlap. How do we know there's a deeper meaning here? Because Paul says the appointed time has grown short from now on in this current distress, and finally the present form of this world is passing away.

That's how we know it's beyond just some kind of local issue happening. There's deeper language here. It is my sincere belief that Paul is warning Christians of the tumultuous, unpredictable, and hard times in the approach of Christ's judgment on the Jews in 70 AD.

This letter was written likely in 55 AD. The Jewish rebellion happens in 66 AD, and the destruction of the temple is in 70 AD. This is 15 years. The time is short. The overlap of the covenants is rife with judgment so severe and makes the Holocaust look like child's play.

So many Jewish slaves sold into the market that it dipped the market. According to Josephus, upwards of 70 of Jews were wiped off the face of the earth. And this isn't the only implication of the passage.

Paul says the present form of this world is passing away. And we describe it as the already not yet. The final epoch of humanity has arrived. All we have left is for Christ to come back and collect his saints in holy communion.

We are in the in-between of being saved in Christ, but not yet glorified with him. We are living and expanding the kingdom of God today. The bridegroom has not yet arrived in majesty and glory, but what a day that will be.

The theologians that helped me with this framework, Ritterbos, Thistleton, and Kistmaker, that's in Anglican and Two-Touch Reformed, and I'm sure there's a joke in there about them walking to a bar. So that gives us some kind of idea when we see, let those who have wives live like they've had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning.

This is this idea that things are tumultuous, big changes are happening. This establishment, the things that you found concrete, they're all shaky. And it is about to shake. 15 years, and the world is going to blow up quite a bit.

Verse 32, I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.

And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about the worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Paul breathes some freedom into our lungs here. He desires us to be free of anxieties. He reminds us of worldly troubles previously in verse 28. The man seeks to please his wife, the woman seeks to please her husband, and the desires are divided.

So he pushes believers towards the delight of celibacy, where worries are solely on pleasing the Lord. His apostolic intentions, he lays plain, to be free from anxieties, not to lay restraint, to secure undivided devotion.

Church, what an easy yoke. He says, whatever decision you make, it is good. Why is he answering this? Because they asked him about it. They've asked him, like, well, we're betrothed. Should we get married?

Should we not? Asceticism is rampant here. This idea of being holier than the holiness we've been called to. So many people were wanting to devote themselves to asceticism. And Paul relinquishes that and says, if you want to get married, then get married.

But it's better for you to not. The Lord approves of your choice to marry or remain celibate. He permits you in both, honors you in both, blesses you in both. There's something really special about this.

It's this idea of being ruled by your conscience. And we have a doctrine for this in the 1689. It's beautiful. Of Christian liberty and liberty of conscience, paragraph two, God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to his word or are not contained in it.

To require blind obedience destroys liberty of conscience. Paul affirms your conscience here. Praise God. What an easy yoke. If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed, it is his path towards his betrothed.

If his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes. Let them marry. It is not sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity, but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.

So then, he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. Similar idea. The betrothal process was different than ours. We read that and we're thinking, oh, maybe they got engaged.

Many of you probably already know that they were betrothed at young ages, right? And this was for social utility, by and large. And sometimes we kind of squint at this idea of arranged marriage. It's not that bad.

I would recommend. I think by the prevalent divorce rate we have right now, maybe we aren't the best ones at choosing. Maybe we should trust our fathers and mothers more. Maybe we should really consider what they have to say when they speak wisdom into our lives about our potential spouse.

So, young people, please consult your parents. Please seek their wisdom on who to marry. It is no sin to remain celibate. It is no sin to get married. Historically, many church fathers read this passage as fathers talking about their virgin daughters.

And a lot of us read it a different way as a continuation of betrothed people. Either way, the application is the same. Do not burn with desire. So, if a father, don't demand your daughter or son to burn with desire.

Seek to help them. Or if you're engaged, do not burn with desire. Don't make your engagement two years long. That is ridiculous. What will happen between then? I don't know. Let me think. We're burning with desire.

Our engagement's two years long. We really like to see each other. And now we start to blur lines. If we really think that we're not going to burn ourselves by holding the coal so closely to our shirt, how naive are we?

Parents, please instruct your children to be wise. This one's particularly for women that I found an appropriate application for this message. Don't pressure young women to marry. There is this hard, hard social pressure that there is something wrong with you if you're not looking to get married.

Now, parents and friends, if you know this person well, and they burn with desire, you ought to tell them to marry. But if they are content in the Lord and they don't have a burning desire, please don't make them feel as if they're doing something wrong here.

Praise God for what the Spirit is doing in their lives. And parents, if you have daughters that are seeking to be single and want to devote their lives to celibacy and to the Lord, I imagine it would behoove you to help them best in that.

Financially, use your conscience. Honor what the Spirit is doing in their lives. As a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord.

Yet in my judgment, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I, too, have the Spirit of God. Widows, your covenant is absolved when one party dies. It is not wrong to marry, yet Paul believes you would be happier if you were single.

If you remarry, you remarry only in the Lord. And this is instructions for all remarriage. You marry only in the Lord. Anytime we get married, or anytime we're seeking to get married, and we see someone seems only interested in Jesus because we're interested in Jesus, they're not interested in Jesus.

Don't do missionary dating. You will be greatly disappointed. Women, find a man who loves the Lord more than you. Women, or vice versa, however that goes. Find someone who loves the Lord more than you.

Paul finishes with what almost feels like a rhetorical statement. I don't know if it's genuine or rhetorical. I, too, have the Spirit of God. He's trying to give counsel and wisdom to people who have written him a letter previously about these issues.

What do we do with our betrothed? What do we do with our virgin daughters, or if we're engaged and maybe we want to be single? What do we do about slaves and masters? When to divorce? When to remarry?

Every time Paul says things like, now concerning, now concerning, now as a concession, he's answering questions that were previously written. As you can tell by this passage, as opposed to last week, this is a much softer and tender passage.

It is a comfort. The Lord is freeing you. The Lord gives you freedom of conscience here, and we should seek to obey and enjoy our lives where we are, that we would live faithfully where we are in our station.

So as you go about and you wrestle with so many things that you don't find in Scripture, I would encourage you to pray and fast. When you struggle with something, pray, obviously. If you feel like an answer is far from you, fast.

And fast how you see it done in Matthew. Be intentional.

Seek the Lord.

He will not leave you hanging. He won't abandon you. He desires your sanctification more than you. Praise God for His goodness. All right, church, bow in prayer with me. Father, thank you so much for your Word this morning.

Thank you for a comforting passage in 1 Corinthians. We thank you that you are so kind to address so many of our different questions on being holy.

What to do?

Should I get married or not? What about slaves? Lord, I thank you for helping us be content in our station while not forbidding us from being ambitious. Lord, I thank you that you give us choice to marry or not if we're burning.

Lord, I thank you that you allow widows the opportunity to be comforted once again or to desire to remain single and be comforted in you. Lord, you are kind to give us these options. You are so kind to allow us to have liberty of conscience.

Father, I ask that you would bless the body today. That wisdom that we don't see in Scripture that we're going through daily, that your Spirit would empower us with liberty of conscience and that we would seek a holy path unto you.

We praise you and thank you for your Spirit and your Word. In the name of Jesus, amen.