Paul arrived in Ephesus and found twelve disciples who were faithful, sincere, and, in a particular way that mattered enormously, incomplete.
His first question to them is one of the most revealing in the entire New Testament. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Their answer exposed the gap: they had not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. They knew repentance. They knew belief. They had been baptised, but only into John’s baptism. They had walked most of the journey. But they had not reached the mountain.
In Episode 5, Dan and I worked through the four elements of entering the New Covenant, the same four elements that appear in sequence through both the Mosaic and Messianic covenants: repentance, belief, water baptism, and the Holy Spirit. Dan showed how Paul, rather than simply informing those twelve disciples and moving on, walked them through each element step by step until they had completed the journey. They spoke with tongues and prophesied. The covenant was complete.
What struck me in our conversation was Dan’s observation that the modern church has often treated these elements as optional, or sequential choices, or matters of theological preference. But they are not. They are the covenant. God established them at Sinai. He fulfilled them at Pentecost. He demonstrated them repeatedly through the book of Acts. They are not a tradition. They are the door.
I think about that congregation in Papua New Guinea that Dan described in the introduction to his book. Faithful. Sincere. Incomplete. I wonder how many of us are in the same place, not because we rejected anything, but because we were simply never shown the full picture. This episode is an invitation to look at the complete picture and ask honestly where you stand.
Have you entered the New Covenant fully? Is there an element of the journey you have not yet taken? What is one gentle step you could take toward completeness?
Watch the full HERE Episode 3 and see the parallels for yourself.
And if you want to go deeper, Dan’s book “God’s 55 Days: The New Blood Covenant Revealed” is available here: God’s 55 Days: The New Blood Covenant Revealed