Dear Fellow Believers,

In this Grace Cafe broadcast from the summer of 1999, we look in on how the apostle Paul went from bragging about being a super-Jew to the shocking disclosure that his Israelite heritage no longer mattered to him.

EVERYONE at the table this night lent laser-focused wisdom to the topic, and this time our producer Ricardo Johnson stayed out of the broadcast. I think he'd given up on trying to understand us at this point. No one in my memory has been locked up harder in stubbornness than Ricardo Johnson, for there he was, for five weeks, FORCED to listen to all the great truths we know and love, with all of our proof verses coming down upon him like rain from heaven, and not a scintilla of the information ever entered his head to stay. He was as darkened on the last day as he was on the first—perhaps even more so.

I'm afraid we made judgement day at the Great White Throne a hard one for Ricardo, for he was bathed for five weeks in the truth, yet shook it off like a dog shakes off bath water. He couldn't wait for us to finish out contract—and I'm sure it was the same with the station managers as well. As soon as our contract was up, they eliminated the "Summer Nights" program permanently, not wanting to take the chance than anyone like us could ever "sneak in" again, daring to talk about the nature of God and Christ and not, say, about the bus ministry and the blueprints for the new sanctuary.

Rodney Paris, who brings these helpful broadcasts to a new generation, picked a wildly appropriate MZTV clip from March 19 of this year to end this video, awkwardly titled (it's my title), "The Work Paul Says We're Supposed to Be Doing; This Will Shock You." I don't even remember making this video but, yep, that's me alright. But it's like I'd never heard the message before. I was blessed by it, to the point of tears. The heart of the message is that the "work" we're doing for God, inspired by our apostle, is simply to come to a better understanding of His will. That's it! And from there, all other fruit is produced.

This is true only in Paul's gospel, however. So the "Something Extra" MZTV episode tagged to the end of the Grace Cafe broadcast by Rodney follows logically and caps off a wonderful presentation.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who support this work. You're backing the right horse.

Grace, peace, and love from the peninsula,

Martin