David Snyder

@EOrthodoxy Awesome!! I can't wait!

‘Joy Beyond All Worlds’— now available for sale! afkimel.wordpress.com/2026/04/22/joy…

Some encounter God and then find the words. Others find the words and then encounter God. Either way, He is experienced and found to be Love.

Where Adam pointed his finger in judgment and said "she did this to me," Jesus withheld judgment, saying "forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Jesus responded maturely, fully representing Father's Love, redeeming the immaturity of Adam's (Mankind's) Judgments by refusing to cast blame upon those who handed Him the fruit that brings the experience of Evil. This is The Good News - "Christ in you [as you], the Hope of Glory!"

Jesus not only came for Adam (mankind), but as Adam! Just like He did with Abraham where He made a covenant with Himself from His Self-Giving nature (Genesis 15), Jesus came to restore Adam as Adam, to declare to our collective heart that shame, guilt, and sin are not our true identity. Adam was made in the likeness of the inseparable Triune God, and as such, we were made as an inseparable part of His existence. Today's encouragement: Just as Jesus forgave Adam and entered into His death, so has He forgiven you and entered into your death - for just as God is One, so is Man One in His likeness!

@BillVanderbush So very true...

When I’m traveling alone, the practice of contemplation has become my greatest joy. In contemplation the soul grows quieter, less driven by reaction, and more able to face the day without being shattered by every wind. There truly remains a rest for the people of God. Heb 4:9

The incarnation of Christ stands at the center of the human experience. Start anywhere - it all leads back to Jesus.

We betray ourselves by sharing a message of grace and mercy while also judging those who disagree with us. Love/God is Impartial!

To Rule and Reign with Christ is to act like Christ, who showcased his Kingship by kneeling before the faithful and the betrayer and washed their feet, cleansing them "with the words" He spoke over them. God does not act like fallen humanity, but rather He declares "the First will be Last," and "the meek will inherit the earth." Lay down all the judgments that fail to declare His restoration of All Things, and you will mature into being "imitators of God, as dearly loved children..."

Paul places “be imitators of God” (Eph. 5) alongside “we do not war against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6), revealing that God does not war against the person, but the cause of sin itself. When Christ declared in the Father’s voice, “It is finished,” the principalities and powers bowed before Him, surrendering the keys of our damnation, ushering in the Restoration of All Things. This is the Gospel — and it’s glorious!

Jesus told his Disciples "you'll do greater things," revealing that, in the flesh, we progress in our revelation of The Gospel over time, as Spirit Guides us into all truth. Even Peter, "The Rock," took 10 years of signs and wonders, preaching, and seeing the Kingdom of God present itself as a present tense reality before he knew "not to call anyone (gentiles) unclean" (Acts 3 vs Acts 10). This is important to remember for church leaders - those you mentor are designed to do more, be more, see and know more than you, making a mentor's final lesson an example of humility and mutual submission. Don't reject something new from those who are younger than you in faith. Test it. Examine it. Treat it as a potential for progressive revelation, and only if it takes away from the victory of Jesus and the restoration of All Things into the likeness of Christ do you reject it.

Don’t fight back. Fight through it for their sake! By laying down our judgments, we take up ‘The Sword of the Spirit… The Word’ that says ‘Love your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.’

In a world filled with war, Jesus calls for us to lay down our swords, to label ‘nobody unclean,’ to ‘Love your enemies.’ Evil begets evil, Judgment begets judgment, but ‘Love covers a multitude of sins.’

Mob shaming is not a new invention. The stocks in the public square have now become digital. We can learn from history why it seems like a good idea, how it suddenly becomes a very bad idea, and why we can’t seem to stop the swing of the pendulum from one generation to the next. Perhaps the only path to equilibrium lies in remembering what we have forgotten. True justice is never a spectacle, and true mercy is never optional. Until then, shame will continue its grim work, and we will continue to gather round it, half-horrified, half-enthralled, unable to look away. open.substack.com/pub/billvander…

What often masquerades as the Gospel is something like this: “Yes, Jesus paid for the meal of salvation, but you need to leave the tip.” And the tip is your obedience, holiness, stick-with-it-ness. Jesus did his part, now you do yours. But no. You have no part to play. No tip to leave. Jesus took care of it all. That is the Gospel. Don’t settle for anything less.

A blind person's reality doesn't change when he is healed and can finally see. So to are we just as loved, accepted, and called His own before and after our repentance.

My journey truly began where yours undoubtedly did: asking Holy Spirit to judge my heart, to burn away all things that paint His image as anything other than love in me (because that’s what His judgment accomplishes - not condemnation, but restoration). As far as resources, reading the following is a great start: - The Inescapable Love of God, by Thomas Talbott - Destined For Joy, by @EOrthodoxy - God Is Not In Control, by @jasonclarkis - Fire Is Not Optional, by @BillVanderbush

@IAmDavidSnyder I’m on my own journey of trying to understand early theology. I feel so betrayed by all the things I was taught were “what people always believed”that now I want to read for myself. Any resources you would suggest?

The local paper published an op-ed piece on the differences between views on siding with Israel in the church over the last 200 years. I took the opportunity and wrote the following Letter to the Editor and just submitted it... Dear Editor, I wanted to thank you for your op-ed last week on the theological stances shifting for christianity over the centuries, because it’s true… it absolutely has, in the context of Israel (which was what you spoke on), and in the context of what the Gospel says. Over the last 3 years, I have been on a spiritual journey, discovering what the beliefs and practices were of the early church (from 33 AD to 450 AD), and the differences are STAGGERING! In those early days, they spoke the language of the New and Old Testaments, and church Fathers like Origen and Clement of Alexandria actually studied with Hebrew speaking bishops to better grasp the teachings of our Savior who proclaimed to fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures. Words like “Judgment,” “Punishment,” “Hell,” “Eternal,” “Repentance” were words that meant completely different things in the minds of those early believers than they do in modern Evangelical circles. Even in those early days, there was disagreement between those who wanted to remain connected to Judaism (not in law/feasts, but in the sense that God, revealed in Christ, established their culture to give us reference), and those who wanted us completely separated from Judaism (Roman / Greek believers, political leaders).  This is why the early church had 6 schools that taught theology, most predated the formation of the Roman Church via the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (a council that rejected all jewish influence and attempted, per the emperor’s orders, to completely sever all ties from Judaism - an order many church fathers took issue with, since the God of the old testament is the same as the God of the New Testament).  Latin overtook Greek and Hebrew in that moment, and Latin held a dim interpretation to the words I mentioned above.  Judgment was seen as a correction from a Loving Father, leading to our restoration. Latin turned it into a courtroom experience, where you are either accepted or condemned. Punishment was seen as pruning, something that will bring about maturity as when a parent punishes their child. Latin turned it into a courtroom experience, where you are being punished and labeled forever by your actions. Hell actually never shows up in Greek or Hebrew in the Latin’s eternal fire context, as the word Hell is a pagan word that replaced the words used for death/grave, and, in Jesus’ case, Gehenna (which is a physical place just outside the city gates in Jerusalem, a place where Isaiah prophesied would no longer burn and be filled with springs of water). Eternal was seen as a measure of quality or substance, in that Eternal Life didn’t mean “forever life,” but the abundance of Life, a life saturated with divine Love and relational connection with God and His creation. It also means “age lasting” in the context of our after-life state, meaning “Hell” was never taught as being a forever state, but a temporary state used for our restoration. Repentance never shows up in Greek and Hebrew in this sense, as this word is a Latin word that means Repeated Penance, or continually earning forgiveness. The early church fathers used the word “Metanoia,” which means to shift your perspective, to see the world as it truly is - that you are already forgiven, and we’re invited to walk / live as if we are completely accepted and forgiven by our Father - completely guiltless in His sight (because “Love keeps no record of wrongs” and says “sin no more” in the same breath as “neither do I condemn you” - correction without condemnation). You mentioned Jewish exports are lacking. Modern exports, I agree, are minimal. But the biggest export the Jewish nation has ever given the world is a gospel message that reveals Jesus not representing a God that so loved the world that He gave them a choice between serving Him or burning in Hell - but a gospel that says that God so loved the world that He came to save us from the Hell we’re now living in, the confusion that somehow believes God is angry and holding our sins against us. This Gospel message began shifting to the Latin perspective after Nicaea and took root in the 1500s with Martin Luther and, soon after, John Calvin, both of which were known to be antisemites and, in Luther’s case, quoted often by notable figures like Adolf Hitler to justify the Holocaust. After 3 years of encountering Jesus and learning history, I can no longer call myself Evangelical (protestant), as I can now see a God who condemns nobody, restores everybody, and Loves so completely that when He said “Love (agape) your enemies,” He was declaring in the same breath “I see nobody as my enemy.”

@p_billjohnson beautiful!

Become a man who, even in the pain of a breakup, the loss of a job, or the weight of debt, can still stand and declare: ‘God is with me. He has not abandoned me. By His grace, I will find the way forward.