Quaresma

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

I’m Manny.

No pulpit. No institutional title. I’ve spent years describing myself as “outside looking in”—someone who does serious theological and exegetical work without a formal ministry position. That’s on purpose. It keeps the work honest to the text rather than the platform.

My road wasn’t conventional. I grew up a streetwise neighborhood kid with dreams of going pro in sports—that didn’t pan out, and life took me somewhere unexpected. I’ve been a commercial truck driving instructor, a pastoral care counselor, a worship leader, done humanitarian field work, managed food service operations, and worked in real estate. None of that reads like a theologian’s résumé—and that’s the point. The text doesn’t require a résumé. It requires careful reading.

What I do: grammatical-historical hermeneutics, presuppositional apologetics, and dissertation-level work tracing theological claims back to what Scripture actually says in context—not what it’s often assumed to say. I have an informal teaching ministry and serve as a pastoral resource without institutional scaffolding. I’m also active in a local church—this isn’t a solo project apart from the body of Christ, just a different lane of service.

My family and I ground our identity in Christ—not in a denomination, platform, or title.

I’ll keep doing the same work: reading carefully, arguing carefully, and showing where popular claims part ways with the text. Glad to have you along.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 6:1–19

The passage runs from rash financial pledges to laziness to scheming, then lists seven things the LORD hates. The list ends with the one who sows discord among brothers.

If that's where the list lands, what does God take most seriously about how I treat the people closest to me?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

Paul says why he's writing: that they not sorrow as others who have no hope. He closes by telling them to comfort one another with these words.

Who needs these words from me this week?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Matthew 1:18–25

Joseph is called a just man, and his just plan was to put Mary away privately. The angel then gives the reason for the name: he shall save his people from their sins.

When what God is doing doesn't fit my idea of righteous, which one gives way?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Matthew 1:1-17

Matthew opens with a genealogy, and it includes Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. God's promise to Abraham and David runs through people we might have left out.

Matthew could have left Rahab and Bathsheba out. Why do you think he didn't?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Matthew 1:1–17

Matthew's genealogy names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and "her that had been the wife of Urias." He could have left them out. He didn't.

What does the Messiah's own family tree do to my assumptions about whom God works through?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 5:15–23

The chapter turns from warning to fidelity at home, then to this: a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD. Ethics here rests on being seen, not on being caught.

If every path is already open before God, what does "private" actually mean for me?

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 5:1–14

The strange woman's lips drip honey, but her end is bitter as wormwood. The ruined man's lament comes late: "How have I hated instruction." The counsel was available the entire time.

Where is the sweetness of the moment hiding an ending I'm not counting?

[ΑΩאתZion @AlephTavZion]

Check out this book: "The Words of the Covenant - A Biblical…" by Paul Martin Henebury https://t.co/3ZGheIS0WI

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 5:15–20 reads as one unit, not scattered sayings. The father moves from warning to invitation: drink from your own cistern, let your fountain be blessed, rejoice in the wife of your youth. Fidelity isn't only a prohibition. It's a joy God designed, and the burden of the passage is to be satisfied in what He gave.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

God is not lonely. Before creation, Father, Son and Spirit shared love and glory (John 17:5, 24). He didn't create us to meet a need in Himself. He created us to share what He already had.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 4:24–27

Put away from yourself a perverse mouth. Put corrupt lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you. Make the path of your feet level. Let all of your ways be established. Don’t turn to the right hand nor to the left. Remove your foot from evil.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 4:20–23

My son, attend to my words. Turn your ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes. Keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to their whole body. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 4:14–19

Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, and don’t pass by it. Turn from it, and pass on. For they don’t sleep unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light that shines more and more until the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Human dignity doesn't come from ability, usefulness or consent. It comes from the image of God (Gen 1:27; 9:6). That's why the unborn, the disabled and the dying carry the same worth as the strong. Remove the image and dignity becomes a vote. Votes change.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 4:10–13

Listen, my son, and receive my sayings. The years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in straight paths. When you go, your steps will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction. Don’t let her go. Keep her, for she is your life.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Proverbs 4:5–9

Get wisdom. Get understanding. Don’t forget, and don’t deviate from the words of my mouth. Don’t forsake her, and she will preserve you. Love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you. She will bring you to honor when you embrace her. She will give to your head a garland of grace. She will deliver a crown of splendor to you.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Later revelation adds to earlier revelation; it doesn't overwrite it. Paul Henebury's approach is to let each passage keep its plain sense in its own context, then see how the passages fit together. If the New Testament had to cancel what the Old plainly said, God's earlier words would have misled the very people He first spoke them to.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov 1:7). The beginning, not the conclusion. Nobody reasons from nowhere. Everyone brings an ultimate standard to the evidence. The Christian simply says out loud which one he's standing on.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

Deuteronomy 6:4 confesses one God. Matthew 28:19 baptizes into one name, singular, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Not three gods. Not one person wearing three masks. One God, three distinct persons, each fully God. The Trinity isn't layered onto Scripture. It's what Scripture requires when you hold all of it.

[Quaresma @AbrahamzSeed]

A word means what its author uses it to mean in that sentence, not everything the lexicon lists and not what its roots meant centuries earlier. Pouring every possible sense into one verse isn't richness. It's a way of hearing what we already wanted to hear.