Author: Reed Merino
Located in: Tucson, Arizona
Submitted: August 28, 2021
Tell us a little about yourself. I studied marine engineering at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy for three years. Seminary required a liberal arts degree, so I left the Academy and obtained a full scholarship to Lycoming College, where I majored in history with the equivalent of minors in literature, religion and psychology. After three more years, I obtained the bachelor's degree (with honors), and was accepted to attend the Episcopal Churchâs Philadelphia Divinity School, where I focused upon Biblical and ancient Church history studies. I graduated first in the class, with awards in Biblical Studies and Patristics. I was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1968. After several years of parish ministry, I obtained a full scholarship from the Episcopal Church Foundation and was accepted into the Ph.D program at Fordham University, studying in its new "Religions of India, China and Japan" program. After three years, I finished the course work for the Ph.D, but decided to return to parish ministry. It was in 1973 that I began studying and taking notes for what would ultimately become, almost fifty years later, these two volumes of "Blueprint For A Revolution: Building Upon ALL Of The New Testament."
What was your motivation behind this project? These volumes are the fulfillment of my yearning about how Christians can unite together in the restoration of the same divine Kingdom of God movement that Jesus and His apostles created on earth. May you be as blessed in reading it as He was in writing it!
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? Both the knowledge, the experience and the desire to become what the apostles of Jesus considered a "Christian" and to have the Spirit-given platform by which Christ's churches can become one, fulfilling Jesus's prayer, "that they may be one, even as we are one" (John 17:22)
Who are your influences, sources of inspiration or favorite authors / artists? These two volumes of Scriptural teaching are based upon the idea that, as the brilliant Creator of our bodies and of our ability to communicate with words, Jesus was the supreme communicator. He knew how to select the best possible words to transfer what was in His mind and heart into our minds and hearts. Therefore we are to assume that what He meant was what His words and phrases actually mean. Whether He inspired "This is my body," "Do not resist Him who is evil," "I wish you all spoke in tongues," or "that there may be equality," He knew the impact of those terms and expects us to believe that they mean what they actually SAY." The sum of all the inspired teachings, commands and promises forms a brilliantly designed "package" that constitutes the incarnation of the Kingdom of God upon this earth.
i also provide abundant testimony from the first churches, to demonstrate that such is the way that the apostolic and early post-apostolic churches understood those Spirit-inspired apostolic writings.
