In this new apostolic season, God is challenging the many rejected stones that built a false religious system—stones that refused to build Jesus’ covenant house. The ministries and movements birthed in the throes of the Jesus Movement amplified a gospel that excluded Jesus’ covenant. That neglect became the breach—openening the door for Satan’s influence to rise in the very places where they thought they were conquering him.

Let’s consider what that has meant for you.

A whole generation of Christians—hungry for God—missed the instruction in Jesus’ covenant. Instead, they were taught to quote scripture in ways that aligned with their nature, not with God’s design in Christ. Scripture quoting subtly replaced Jesus.

• The scriptures are not the foundation.
• The scriptures are not the gospel of our salvation.

Can we understand God’s plan while neglecting His covenant terms through Jesus Christ? Can quoting scripture create the Christ likeness within, teach spiritual warfare, and set God’s plan in motion to empower us to overcome self, Satan, and the world? No.

All God’s promises are in Jesus—the Person—not the text.

2 Corinthians 1:20
For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the covenant of Jesus Christ. Everything God ever said in the scriptures about our faith—He was speaking about Jesus. That means the scriptures carry a covenant context. And the apostolical character was given as a gift to the church to set the knowledge of Christ in order.

Satan took the Word from the Person and set it in the text—scripture—teaching his ministers how to use the text as the promise to replace Jesus. This is put on display daily on social media. Ministers quote the scripture as if it is a word of knowledge for the people, as if speaking His promise, as if releasing His blessings. But what they think is the voice of God is actually a seducing spirit. (2 Cor. 11:14-15)

Satan seduces by similarities.

Seeing that the apostolic stewardship brings the terms and tools of Jesus’ covenant into action—the absence of Jesus’ covenant, His spiritual tools, His altar and priesthood is a sign that the current church body is naked and without apostolic stewardship.

Always remember: Satan doesn’t confront truth head-on—he introduces an undercurrent of suggestion, a whisper that feels like wisdom but severs your faith from God. The first thing Satan did was remove Jesus’ covenant from the teaching you receive.

A whole generation of ministry leaders emerged from the Jesus Movement who do not believe in the terms of contact God provided for us in Jesus’ covenant for our reciprocation, nor do they accept the newly restored apostolic stewardship. They assumed that reading scripture alone would reveal God’s will and they built their empires on that spiritual facade that is now crumbling.

They schooled a whole generation of Christians—hungry for God—to be faithful to God’s Word, meaning scripture but denied Jesus in His covenant. They called scripture the foundation of the gospel, but God calls Jesus Christ—the Person—His living Word and the true foundation—a blueprint of knowledge that is designed to create Christ in you.

Replacing Jesus with scripture shows how substitutionism has shaped their belief and how scripture has been the basis of their relationship with God. While claiming that space of faithfulness to the scriptures, they violated Jesus’ covenant.

God is exposing the quiet tragedy of substitutionism—not as rebellion in plain sight, but as a counterfeit faithfulness that violates Jesus’ covenant while quoting its language. These are “men of corrupt minds—destitute of the truth” which Apostle Paul warned believers to avoid. (1 Tim. 6:5)

Commenting on this recently on X, Apostle Eric vonAnderseck wrote:

Satan’s ministers cause the soil (soul) to become chapped and cracked where thorns grow… They promise transformation by the precept [word] and not the power [anointing] of the Spirit through regeneration upon the foundation of the covenant.

God has been uncovering the many layers of deceit to reveal what Satan hoped to keep hidden beneath generations of false teaching. God ministered the word of knowledge: “incredulous” to help bring His teaching point home to the millions who are searching for truth.

Incredulous is a word that exposes the root of deception. It describes both an unwillingness and an inability to believe—it speaks of ministry leadership that actively builds doubt, not faith.

I want to talk about doubt in a non-traditional way to get to the heart of God’s correction against the movements that spawned from the Jesus Movement. We’re going to pierce through the sentimentalism often attached to doubt and expose the covenant void.

God is not just challenging the romanticized view of Thomas; He’s revealing how his posture mirrors the spiritual architecture of movements that emerged from the Jesus Movement: self-authored faith, selective beliefs, and the rejection of divine tokens in favor of personal terms.

God places doubt in the covenant void and that’s why Thomas is God’s negative role model. Doubt is not neutral. It’s not a poetic pause or a noble wrestling. In covenant terms, doubt is the symptom of a void—a space where faith has no altar, no contact, no tether. And God places doubt there deliberately, as a signal of absence.

Thomas is not the patron saint of honest questioning.

He is God’s negative role model who personified neglect. Thomas neglected the evidence Jesus provided—that He is the new covenant—and instead drew his own lines, setting the terms for what he would believe. “Unless I see… unless I touch…” Thomas authored his own threshold for faith, bypassing the token God had already given.

Thomas didn’t set out to doubt—rather he was unable to believe because he wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to His disciples. Jesus the person provided Himself as the token and contact point for their faith.

“Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.” He wasn’t there. And this is the pivotal point of transition. God shows us what happens in the covenant void. He provided everything for us in Jesus—but if you haven’t taken on the yoke of His covenant—the foundation knowledge God planned for you to fellowship with Him—you will set your own terms for your faith based on what you read in the scriptures as you labor to bridge Jesus’ absence. (John 20:24)

So, Thomas, God’s negative role model, was unable to believe and unwilling to believe, but he still wanted to believe. He therefore set his own terms to get grounded in a spiritual reality he knew nothing about. He had questions that he thought needed to be answered. How could he believe something he had no basis for understanding? How could he believe Jesus to be living when he witnessed His death upon the cross? This contradiction presented an impasse.

Thomas needed to eliminate doubt—he needed to transition from doubt to faith, so he used Jesus to set his own path and said, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

Did you notice that this is still about Jesus?

Thomas wanted to provide his own evidence about Jesus. He found himself in this covenant crossroad because he was absent when Jesus appeared to His disciples and showed them that He is God’s new covenant.

And this is how Christians who were brought up in the throes of the Jesus Movement were taught to use scripture—in the absence of Jesus’ covenant. They still want to believe in Him but are unable to do so in the covenant void. Satan’s substitute gospel still appears to be about Jesus –but it’s not.

• They quote scripture to confirm their expectations—this is what the scriptures say—this is God’s will for me.
• They quote the scripture to move from doubt to faith.
• They quote the scriptures in the impasse of each contradiction.

But they’re not handling Jesus. Jesus is not a scripture—He is not paper and ink.

Jesus’ invitation to Thomas was to touch Him, thus teaching that He is the contact point for us to touch God and that through covenant contact, Jesus provides His own evidence for us to build with Him.

John 20:27
Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

We’ve taken a familiar figure—Thomas—and reframed him not as a doubter in isolation, but as a mirror for a generation shaped by covenant absence. Believers are now able to see themselves in that same covenant void.

“Thomas wasn’t there.” That reality echoes to today’s generation. It’s not just historical—it’s experiential. Many believers today share the same experience. They find themselves outside Jesus’ covenant house trying to describe their faith in the absence of the things Jesus provides in Himself. That absence feels personal because it is personal.

“Thomas set his own terms.” This becomes a mirror—not just for one man, but for a generation shaped by absence. God is capturing how scripture quoting, when divorced from covenant contact, becomes a performance of the flesh rather than a participation in Christ.

Believers have been taught to stitch together a patchwork of verses to cover a covenant void. Depending on the circumstance and situation verses are selected to play a role– victim versus victory—hopelessness versus hope—freedom versus bondage. The flesh draws the scripture into battle—but the anointing is silent.

They quote verses like armor, but the altar of Christ and His priesthood is missing. They declare promises, but Jesus’ covenant is not present. They speak of victory, but the vine is severed.

“It’s still about Jesus.” That’s the camouflage God is exposing. In the absence of Jesus’ transition as God’s new covenant, Thomas’ desire to believe in Him was misdirected. The same thing is happening today. In the covenant void, Satan still speaks of making Jesus central—but misdirects the scriptures to align faith with your own nature.

What kingdom was Thomas confirming?

Instead of confirming God’s kingdom, Thomas was looking for the confirmation of his own kingdom—the kingdom of the flesh. In the midst of severe contradiction, he needed to anchor his reality. He was in a storm of confusion, wanting to believe, but seeking for that belief in the wrong kingdom.

God exposes a theological sleight of hand—where scripture quoting becomes a mask for a denial of Jesus’ covenant. God marked Thomas’ absence when Jesus provided Himself as the new covenant. And this is a sign to the church today. The covenant void has devastating, long term consequences.

A second word of knowledge brings this home—the word “deleterious”—meaning something that does deadly harm but does not appear harmful because the harm is slow-acting and not initially seen as a threat. The word deleterious becomes a scalpel in God’s hand—cutting through the illusion of spiritual health to expose the slow, cumulative decay that masquerades as devotion.

Smoking is an example of a deleterious habit, harming lungs and health and lifestyle over decades. Eventually, time exposes the death that was always there. What was thought to add value was quietly taking life.

Deleterious is also used to describe something that is harmful in an unexpected way. Using smoking again as our example, smoking at one time was viewed as a mark of wealth and sophistication and looked upon as part of an elite lifestyle—an image that has now been debunked.

A habit once glamorized, now understood as lethal.

In the absence of Jesus’ covenant, believers were taught to quote scripture as a substitute for contact. This habit was not seen as harmful—on the contrary, it was celebrated as the mark of spiritual maturity. But God has now exposed it as deleterious—a cancerous lifestyle masked as faith.

The hidden dangers of smoking draws a piercing parallel to the misuse of scripture—how quoting verses outside covenant becomes a spiritual carcinogen.

In the absence of Jesus’ covenant, believers were taught to pick up the habit of quoting scripture to fill the huge gaps Satan created. This habit to use scriptures as a substitute for Jesus was not seen to be harmful—in fact it was seen as the coveted Christian lifestyle—which God has now debunked.

• Quoting the scriptures feels empowering, but it’s spiritually hollow—it sounds biblical, but it’s covenantless—it appears fruitful, but it’s rooted in self.

Just like Thomas, many today still want to believe in Jesus. But in the absence of covenant contact, they quote scripture to confirm their expectations. They set terms for faith based on what they feel, what they fear, or what they’ve inherited. And like Thomas, they find themselves at a covenant crossroad—still reaching for Jesus, but not yet touching Him.

Belief that is not tethered to God becomes a negotiation. “Unless I see… unless I touch… unless I feel…” Believers are taught to set terms for God as they build altars from borrowed verses. But again, the anointing is silent.

Don’t misunderstand. Every Christian should read the scriptures daily, but when they are not read from a covenant perspective, scripture is used to build apart from God. The kingdom of self is built using the language of heaven.

The scriptures don’t stand on their own, they need to be set within God’s will to be profitable for our faith. And this is the call of the apostle. Apostles teach the doctrine of Christ to set His foundation of truth in the heart. (Acts 2:42)

It is clear that Jesus’ apostles were the foundation layers of the First 8th Week, but their role is not widely understood in today’s church. As God brings His apostles back online in the Second 8th Week, He is shedding light on the calling by defining what an apostle is and what you can expect in this new season as God restores Jesus’ covenant.

• Without the apostolic stewardship, verses in the Bible are given earthly wisdom which is carried by an earthly spirit.

One scripture that is often quoted is Ephesians 5:15-16, “As it is written: See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

Today, this verse is often presented as a message about time management and moral discipline. Ministers urge believers to focus, avoid distractions, and make better choices—calling that “wisdom”. But God’s wisdom does not center on self-improvement. His wisdom centers on the covenant of Jesus Christ and the apostolic stewardship that directs our faith to Him.

Let’s look at another example.

Joshua 1:9
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Today, this verse is presented as a foundation for courage—a promise that “God is with you wherever you go.” But the promise is removed from Jesus and His covenant contact, and placed instead in how scripture can speak to life’s circumstances. The task may be overwhelming, the future uncertain—but you’re told to rely on God.

Believers are counseled to negotiate with their feelings: You don’t have to summon your own strength—just remember that God goes with you. But this is not covenant contact. It’s circumstantial comfort.

God has been exposing not just the misuse of scripture, but the subtle shift in spiritual architecture—from covenant contact to circumstantial comfort, from divine reasoning to emotional negotiation. Ephesians 5:15–16 and Joshua 1:9 are widely quoted, yet stripped of their covenant tether and repurposed for earthly wisdom.

God points out the subtle shift in confidence from Jesus’ covenant contact and voice of the anointing and the promise of life God set in the process of His contact with us, to negotiating troublesome circumstances.

Where God’s foundation is Jesus and His covenant knowledge—given as a gift to reason with Him—Satan’s ministers use scripture as their foundation to reason with themselves.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time also quoted the scriptures to align themselves with the will of God, insisting that the old wine of Moses’ covenant was better. They resisted Jesus because they took the scriptures to themselves.

But Jesus is the will of God and God was transitioning them to Jesus’ covenant and His new commandments, tools, and priesthood. The scribes and Pharisees of the law continued to confess—this is what the scriptures say—and Jesus would reverse that—this is what I SAY.

Jesus turned their attention to Himself—the law says this—but now I’m saying something else. In other words, you can’t allow the flesh to set the terms for contact with me, or the law will be your judge. You’ll always use the scriptures to fight for your peace in the midst of contradiction. (Mt. 5:21-22)

Jesus spoke to Thomas to confirm a necessary transition—removing Thomas’ knee-jerk reaction to set his own terms for God’s confirmation upon his faith. Thomas shouted his confession—“My Lord and my God”—but his faith was tethered to what he built for the eye of his reason.

Thomas reciprocated to Jesus based on what his eye of reason saw. And just like Thomas, many believers today use scripture to confirm what they see—circumstances, emotions, expectations—rather than receiving what Jesus says.

But Jesus declared that the blessing of faith doesn’t flow to those who follow the natural rhythm of their reason as they struggle to take the things of God to advance their carnal thinking. Their reciprocation will always fall short of the glory of God. The blessing of faith belongs to those who hear and obey the voice of His grace; and His grace is in the apostolical character.

Jesus’ rebuke to Thomas—who mistook doubt for faith—still thunders through the church today. Jesus reversed Thomas’ confidence from the eyes of flesh to the eyes of the Spirit. Not what you see, Thomas—but what I say.

And that same voice speaks now.

God’s voice in this new apostolic season doesn’t just correct—it reorients the soul from seeking evidence in the scriptures to accepting Jesus as God’s covenant contact with us. The restoration of Jesus’ covenant transitions believers from the kingdom of the flesh to the kingdom of God, from self-authored faith to Christ-Centered design.

Satan’s substitute gospel lays scripture as your foundation. This is not for freedom–but for bondage.

God’s heavy rebukes upon today’s ministry leaders are not intended to break you—but to break Satan’s hold on the church—to set you free. It’s not the end—it is the beginning—as He opens the door to Jesus and your new covenant relationship with Him.