The
Jesus Values of
Other New HopeÂŽ Books by David Crosby Your Pain Is Changing You: Discover the Power of a Godly Response The Care Effect: Unleashing the Power of Compassion
The
Jesus Values of
David Crosby
Birmingham, Alabama
New Hope® Publishers 100 Missionary Ridge Birmingham, AL 35242 NewHopePublishers.com An imprint of Iron Stream Media IronStreamMedia.com © 2020 by David Crosby All rights reserved. First printing 2020. Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— without the prior written permission of the publisher. Iron Stream Media serves its authors as they express their views, which may not express the views of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been filed. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. ISBN-13: 978-1-56309-277-0 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-56309-278-7 1 2 3 4 5—24 23 22 21 20
For Janet, the woman of my dreams and the love of my life
Contents Introduction: Not Dancing with Michelle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Design by Jesus Chapter 1: Jesus Teaching Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter 2: The Authority of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 3: The Standard of Jesus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Framing the Design Chapter 4: Self: Image and Worth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 5: Others: The Golden Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 6: Love: The Greatest Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Function of the Structure Chapter 7: Family: The Basic Building Block. . . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 8: Marriage: Fundamental Covenant. . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 9: Food and Clothes: Life’s Necessities . . . . . . . . . . xx Chapter 10: Living Things: Companions on the Planet . . . . xx The Finish Work Chapter 11: Reconciliation: It Is Finished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
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Acknowledgements My daughter, Rachel Crosby Daughtry, helped me identify and compile messages I had delivered on the values of Jesus. She also helped me integrate them appropriately into the book format. She was my first reader, always enthusiastic, and offered many helpful suggestions.
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Introduction Not Dancing with Michelle
I
am hanging by elbows and knees from the padded bars of an indoor gymnastic set, suspended just a few feet above the stage floor of an elementary school auditorium. Snaggle-toothed and cherub-cheeked, I am the darling of a third grader named Michelle, who must be French, judging by her name. She was always my catch when we played “ponies� in the snow, chasing the girls along paths we created by scraping away the most recent snowfall on the playground. Michelle, whose curly auburn tresses always bounced around her furry parka hood, is now swinging through the steps of a square-dance routine. The members of my third-grade class are learning to square dance—all except me. I am watching from my perch on the gym set, contemplating the implications of being a Christian who does not dance. The moral courage for this stand is not really mine. My parents were convinced dancing was sinful. They sent a note to school instructing the teacher to excuse me from the square-dance exercise. I do not remember regretting this decision of my parents. I do not recall any desire to be dancing with Michelle instead of lounging around on the stage. I do not think I was angry, but I was embarrassed and self-conscious. My ethics were those of my parents, and their convictions, mine. The evil of what was happening before me as the other children danced was not immediately apparent, but I was sure it was there. I had no rationale for this stance other than our faith in Christ. I felt isolated, but that was as it should be. I was a Christian, not an ordinary person. I assumed as a boy that all Christians felt about 11
The Values of Jesus
dancing and drinking and movies just like my parents felt. Alone on the stage, I was learning the power and pain of conviction. Mentally and emotionally, though, I was not truly alone. I was surrounded by my family and the faith we shared. Of course Jesus Himself was there with me on that gym set. Even in third grade I knew Jesus was the center of our social, mental, and even physical world. I knew we were seeking to adjust our lives to the values of Jesus—aligning our lives with His teachings. As I hung from the bars in the gym as a boy, I did not contemplate the character-building qualities of denying cultural pressures to maintain Christian distinctiveness. An exercise in “drawing the line” and refusing to compromise imparts to one a sense of genuine independence from peer pressure. This event and others similar to it were certainly part of my own pilgrimage in learning the lordship of Jesus Christ. Peers, social pressures, and cultural values were relegated early on to secondary status. My father was intentional and deliberate in his explanations for our behaviors. He taught us consistently to behave in a way that would honor Christ our Lord. We expected to be different in how we thought and acted. Dad abandoned dancing when he trusted Christ as Savior, I learned from my mother. He associated it with his past life of youthful waywardness. Her explanation helped me understand this ethical stance that I never really embraced myself. The call to stand alone must pierce through layers of programming, good and bad, and it must come with a deep sense of conviction and purpose. Even as in third grade I knew it was Jesus Christ who made the difference in my life and in our family. Jesus taught that we are in the world but not of the world. He also instructed us to love one another, and He prayed that we would be “one.” The love and oneness of the family of God is a significant source of courage for the member who must stand alone at school or work. The battles change, of course, and my children did not grow up with exactly the same rules. But they grew up knowing that Jesus both saves our soul and changes our behavior. I tried never to say to them, “You can’t act this way. I am the preacher.” I made an effort to do as 12
Not Dancing with Michelle
my father had done, anchoring their behavior in the lordship of Christ. I recently visited the small town of Hawley, Minnesota for the first time in fifty years. The church building where I sang and prayed as a boy is now a family home. The church my father led as pastor has changed its name to Hawley Bible Church, and it is thriving in a new building not far from the elementary school I attended. Looking at the school, I thought about playing in the snow and skating on a nearby pond during recess. So many memories crowded my mind. This memory of the square dance, though, is the most powerful of all. It was a defining moment for me as a boy. A half-century later I am still shaped by it. The power of that moment emanates from self-identity in Jesus— the social and cultural realities that accompany and impact His disciples, the clear distinction between Christ and the world, the separation that tells us we are His own. My father and mother were committed to Jesus Christ as Lord. They demonstrated this connection on a daily basis in personal prayer and Bible reading as well as in the things they treasured most—their faith and their family. They passed on this faith in the most powerful way to their children. I became a “Jesus person” under the instruction of my parents. They tried to model every day what this meant to them. They taught us the songs and the Scriptures that embodied that life orientation. We all could recite by heart Ephesians 2:1–10 in the King James Version, which begins, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” and ends, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Their spiritual journey was rehearsed often in our home. They shared their experiences of repentance and faith. My parents sang about this faith, and they taught us to do so. And to this day, the values of Jesus are supremely important to me. It’s the reason for this book that began as a series of messages in 1991 for my congregation at College Park Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Jesus of Nazareth has something to teach us, and we ought to listen. 13
The Values of Jesus
I think immediately of four reasons why this is true: 1. Jesus, this stranger from Galilee, fundamentally changed the world. That alone should spark an interest in His values. 2. People who say they believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior should be engaged in a lifelong pursuit of knowing Him better and following Him more closely—learning and adopting His values. 3. Many unbelievers remain curious about the teachings of Jesus and the lifestyle He recommended to all. 4. People who have largely abandoned the faith of their childhood often begin to explore it anew as they age. The best way to do so is to rediscover the essential Jesus. I am trying here to articulate the values of Jesus and to evaluate commonly held values in the light of the teachings of Jesus. The way we practice the ethics of Jesus is to “live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6). We make some progress down that road by examining our priorities in the light of His words and deeds. My wife Janet and I made an effort as parents, imperfect as we were, to teach our children the values Jesus emulated and why we hold to those values so dearly. They received and internalized those values, embracing Jesus and continuing to live by His values as adults and teach them to their own children. Our churches have been purposeful and deliberate in efforts to inculcate the values that are part of our faith in Christ. Results are harder to achieve and measure in the larger society. Coaches and teachers in general work to teach values that help humans flourish. Sometimes our approaches seem ineffective. I worked with a task force in the public schools to fashion a strategy for teaching values in that setting. We struggled to reach a consensus even about methodology, let alone the values themselves. We needed a new approach, I concluded—one that had real power to change behavior. Jesus is widely recognized as a great prophet even among those who do not believe He is the Messiah. A new look at Jesus and His teachings on values is in order. We set out to discover and rediscover the values of Jesus.
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Design by Jesus
Chapter 1 Jesus Teaching Values “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. —Matthew 7:24–29 NKJV
J
esus of Nazareth was a great orator and teacher. He wove together surprising ideas and illustrations, combining amazing content with riveting presentation. He drew heavily from His personal experience, as all teachers do. He used the sights and sounds of His daily life to help people understand spiritual realities. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, nestled in Israel’s hill country only seven miles from the great city of Jerusalem. When Joseph and Mary returned from exile in Egypt, though, they “withdrew” (see Matthew 2:22–23) with their son Jesus to Nazareth, located in “the district of Galilee,” where Joseph and Mary lived when they received the news that Mary was pregnant. “Galilee of the Gentiles” is where Jesus grew up. The Old Testament prophet gave it this name in Isaiah 9:1, and it is quoted in Matthew
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The Values of Jesus
4:15 to show how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah. Galilee was not primarily Jewish in the time of Isaiah. And it was not completely Jewish in the time of Jesus. Three locales indicate the rich geographical, social, and cultural context of Galilee that Jesus experienced as a child and young adult— the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea Philippi, and Sepphoras. Sea of Galilee My father moved our family to a house only two hundred yards from the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. Fishing became a daily experience. My siblings’ hair became shiny with fish oil. They told stories of fishing, boating, and swimming when we gathered for holidays and reunions. I was already married at the time and living in East Texas. I asked Dad how he liked living in San Leon. He told me, “David, I’ve never lived by the sea. It’s been interesting.” Jesus chose to center His ministry near the splashing waves and fishing boats. I know He found it interesting, that way of life. I loved Galilee from the moment I saw the Sea of Galilee. I walked the shoreline near the kibbutz where our group was sleeping, waves lapping at my feet. The mountains were stunning in the early morning light, rising like sentinels around the lake’s perimeter. Reeds rustled along the shore. Birds called out in their flights. I felt immersed in the natural world that Jesus commented about often as He taught by this body of water twenty centuries ago. Stories about fish and birds, meadows and blossoms, are woven into the teaching of Jesus. He experienced the natural world daily as he walked from village to village around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus spoke in the synagogues of these fishing villages. These synagogues were the educational and religious hubs for Jewish communities and where they read the ancient scrolls and offered commentary on the law of Moses. Jesus also spoke to crowds of people in fields, on hillsides, and from boats rocking in the waves. Jesus called His first disciples as He walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. They were men who worked in the fishing industry, cleaning their nets at the moment of His call, and He helped them become fishers of men. This beautiful body of water, the lowest freshwater lake in the world, plays a prominent role in the
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Jesus Teaching Values
life and ministry of Jesus. Caesarea Philippi Caesarea Philippi is an amazing place to explore. The headwaters of the Jordan River pour out of the earth there in a huge spring that originates under Israel’s tallest mountain, Mount Hermon, over seven thousand feet in elevation. Altars to Greek and Roman gods are etched into the sheer rock faces at the base of the mountain where the great spring flows. This northern tip of Israel is truly a crossroads of ancient civilizations. Geographically strategic for travel and trade, caravans flowed through this area for thousands of years, connecting three continents in commerce and culture. Jesus asked His disciples as they traveled in the area of Caesarea Philippi, “Who do people say I am?” (Mark 8:27). He asked this question amid the altars and idols to foreign gods where strange ideas and conflicting worldviews from diverse cultures collided. The question about Jesus, who He really was, is fundamental to our understanding of life on this planet. We who believe the response of Peter, “You are the Messiah” (v. 29), follow the Holy One of Israel as closely as we can, including adopting His values. We realize, as the first disciples did, that there are many gods in the world and many who deny the existence of any god. Our faith in Christ remains unshaken, for He alone died and rose again. I see Caesarea Philippi as a foreign and pagan component of Jesus’ world. It represents for me the breadth of the experience of Jesus. I stood on the trail inside that huge grotto, watching the water emerge from the roots of the mountain, creating the Jordan River. I pictured Jesus standing where I stood, examining the altar to the god, Pan, and the others that line the mountain face. Jesus did not live in a vacuum of values. He lived and taught in an explosive mix of competing worldviews, conflicting moral values, and unyielding religious orthodoxy. Sepphoris Jesus talked about building a house as He concluded His longest 19
The Values of Jesus
recorded sermon. The process of construction was familiar to Jesus as a carpenter. His neighbors asked, “Isn’t this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3). The word translated carpenter is actually larger than just woodworking. It is used to describe a builder or any craftsman. It would encompass all the construction trades. Jesus and His father Joseph likely worked in the huge building projects of Sepphoris, the capital city of Galilee, during Jesus’ boyhood and young adulthood. Sepphoris was a thriving metropolis under Herod Antipas and was a center for education, commerce, and politics. When Mary and Joseph needed specialized items for work or the house, they probably traveled to Sepphoris, situated on a hill four miles from Nazareth. I had never heard of Sepphoris until I went to Israel and stood on the stone streets of this ancient city. Some believe Jesus was referring to Sepphoris in His comment about “a town built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). Jesus might have been able to see the lights of Sepphoris from His home in Nazareth. The sophisticated architecture of the new construction in Sepphoris was Roman. Attention was given to arches, columns, mosaics, and creative details. Jesus was surely exposed to this urban environment many times. Jerusalem was a hundred miles away. But Sepphoris was only an hour’s walk from his home. Sepphoris was a Jewish city in the days of Jesus, a center for study of the Torah. He was no doubt exposed to the fine scholarship of rabbis who taught in the synagogues of the city. I stood in Sepphoris at the crossroads where paths of stone uncovered in the recent excavations headed north, south, east and west. These were the trade routes of the ancient world only a few miles from sleepy Nazareth. Jesus likely saw the caravans from distant places, heard their conversations in strange languages, and interacted with the “Gentiles” who traveled these roads. By the time he was twelve years old Jesus was amazing the teachers in Jerusalem with “his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47). We do not know where or how Jesus received instruction, but we are fairly certain it was not in Jerusalem. Maybe He was exposed to the teaching of the rabbis in Sepphoris.
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Jesus Teaching Values
The Apostle Paul was labeled “a ringleader of the Nazarene sect” at his trial in Caesarea Maritima (Acts 24:5). From the very beginning the teaching of Jesus was considered Galilean and Nazarene, off-center and unorthodox as far as the Jerusalem-educated elite were concerned. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were the ones who wanted to kill Jesus and finally succeeded by manipulating the weak Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Sepphoris was a center of learning and culture while Jesus was growing up in nearby Nazareth. It dominated the region politically and economically. It would have been the natural place for Joseph to work and Mary to shop. We cannot discount the huge influence of Jerusalem scholars. Rabbis from Jerusalem came to Galilee to hear Jesus teach. Jesus went to Jerusalem on numerous occasions and taught in the colonnades of the Temple compound (John 8:20, 10:23, for example). This coming and going between Galilee and Jerusalem is an important dimension in the ministry of Jesus and even in His boyhood. Galilee, however, had its own peculiar religious, political, and educational character. Mary and Joseph “withdrew to the district of Galilee” when they returned from their exile in Egypt (Matthew 2:22). Joseph chose to go north from Bethlehem one hundred miles, a fiveday journey in the ancient world. He returned with his family to Nazareth where He and Mary had lived before she became pregnant with Jesus. He moved the boy Jesus into Galilee of the Gentiles, into a rich mix of people and culture, into the orbit of Sepphoris. Galilee was distant from Jerusalem geographically. The Gentile cultures pressed upon it from three sides. Jesus experienced this cultural diversity as a child and young adult. He grew in wisdom as He studied the Old Testament Scripture in this dynamic context. The fishing villages, the paganism on display in Caesarea Philippi, and the thriving city of Sepphoris serve as illustrations and reminders of the social and religious context of Jesus in His youth and young adulthood. Jesus was a carpenter, a builder. He knew how to lay a foundation, raise the superstructure, and complete the task.
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The Values of Jesus
Jesus was also a masterful teacher and preacher. He knew how to construct His message, narrate His stories, and provide a clear structure for the values of His disciples. He taught these values, and He passed them on to His followers. Jesus emerged from the countryside of Galilee, confronted the religious authorities of His day, set forth His startling message, was executed, buried, and rose from the dead. Jesus and His disciples turned the world right-side up. Jesus was mesmerizing as a preacher. Even His enemies could not escape the entrancement. The chief priests sent the Temple guards to arrest him. When they finally returned without Jesus, they were mumbling to themselves, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). You will find the teachings of Jesus to be interesting, even intriguing, and sometimes maddening. His longest recorded sermon is the Sermon on the Mount, found in the Gospel of Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Jesus began the sermon with bullet statements concerning the inner life. These are called the beatitudes because Christ identifies attitudes of the heart that result in the blessing of God and inner happiness. Following the beatitudes is a long discourse that interprets and expands upon the basic teachings of the law of Israel regarding values and morality. Jesus definitely presented a different approach to thinking about right and wrong, one that highlighted the condition of heart, not just external acts. The sermon concludes with the story of the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on sand. The difference between the two men is this: one followed the sayings of Jesus, and the other ignored them. The Approach of the Culture to Values The popular models for values education in our culture comes from psychotherapy. One approach is called “values clarification.” This approach assumes that students must be left on their own to make choices and decisions about values. Values clarification is premised on the belief that children will use an internal process to determine the consequences and outcomes of their choices. The process is
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Jesus Teaching Values
rational and self-actualizing and helps to further the development of the child’s values. In this model, the educator does not point students toward objective ideas of right or wrong but only works to facilitate the process. Students are to come to their own personal conclusions about values without any explicit direction from the educator. I do believe all humans have an innate sense of right and wrong. I believe this internal moral compass is divine in origin, not simply the product of nature and nurture. It is universally present in the human psyche regardless of genetics or environment. The Apostle Paul noted this truth in Romans 2:14–15: “When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” A process that identifies and clarifies the internal moral barometer surely is useful, but it lacks the power to transform behavior when it is treated as merely intrinsic to the child rather than a gift to the child from the Creator. Values clarification, absent the sense of a moral imperative from God, leaves our children with the impression that good and right are simply a matter of opinion. Christina Hoff Sommers, after fifteen years of teaching ethics at the university level, observed that there are a “surprising number of young people who think there is no right or wrong, that moral choices depend on how you feel.”1 After years of such teaching in our schools many would agree we are not reaping a harvest of courage, discipline, honesty, and respect. Leave Them Wondering I learned as a college and seminary student about nondirective counseling. In this model, the counselor walks alongside the client, asking questions and providing support but never suggests a solution or direction. This is not the approach Jesus used when talking to people either in groups or individually. Christina Hoff Sommers, “How to Teach Right and Wrong: A Blueprint for Moral Education in a Pluralistic Age,” Christianity Today, December 13, 1993, 33–37. 1
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Jesus did leave people wondering. However His hearers were not usually left wondering what He thought about the subject. They were wondering whether they had the courage, conviction, and love to do what He said. That was the challenge of Jesus’ teaching. When Jesus finished His lesson the hearers were asking, “Am I ready to do as God commands or am I not?” Scripture never records Jesus asking, “Well, what do you feel?” He did ask lots of questions, though, such as “What is written in the law? . . . How do you read it?” (Luke 10:26). This was a probing question about how an expert in the Scriptures understood the great commandment. Jesus was not trying to uncover a hidden morality inside of the individual. He never implied that right and wrong was a matter of personal choice or feeling. Jesus was directive in His approach. He believed He knew the right answer and the right course. He had such a strong conviction about this knowledge that He said to the men around Him, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19 KJV). Jesus continues to call people to follow Him. It is the challenge of the ages. He knew where He was going. He had a direction. Jesus understood right and wrong. Everything about Jesus was directive in its approach. He wanted the original disciples to follow. He wants us to follow also. In the Sermon on the Mount and in most of His teaching, Jesus addresses the questions “What ought we to do?” and “How ought we to live?” He is not ambiguous. Jesus Taught Values with Authority Jesus taught values throughout His ministry. He modeled values in His relationships with others. He told stories that taught values. All three chapters of the Sermon on the Mount are about values according to Jesus. Here He placed all of life in the context of the kingdom of God. By the kingdom he meant the reign of God in all its dimensions, including in the hearts of people. The Gospel writer concluded the Sermon on the Mount with this comment: “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matthew 7:28–29).
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The crowds were amazed at His teachings. Why? Jesus taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law. That was a distinction of Jesus’ teaching on values. Some believe we are to eliminate any sense of authority in our teaching (and preaching). This intentional ambiguity and false humility was not the stance of Jesus. When He commissioned His followers to go into the entire world and preach the gospel, He prefaced that great commission by saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19). The task of teaching all nations was predicated upon the authority that Jesus possessed and that He gave to His followers. The teaching authority of the church came from the authority of Jesus. When we teach the values of Jesus, we should follow His lead and be directive. This is a clear distinctive of Jesus’ teaching noted by His contemporaries and embraced by His followers. If we follow the lead of Jesus, we will teach values with authority as parents, schoolteachers, and leaders. We will clearly tell our children what is right and what is wrong. How do you do that? What is necessary to have such authority? We look to Jesus.
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