1The elders bow more deeply than custom requires and wait to see whether Jesus accepts devotion aimed at his person.
2Robes touched the floor one after another until Jesus stood above a circle of bowed backs he had never asked to see.
3Jesus raises them and asks why teachers who warned against idols have placed a living man where the Father should stand.
4“Accept their worship and guide it,” Narseh urged. Jesus replied, “A road pointed toward the Father does not become safer when travelers kneel to the signpost.” Silence followed, not because everyone agreed, but because the easiest reply had become impossible.
5Power arrived dressed as opportunity, asking only that Jesus permit others to define what his service must become. A decision had to be made before certainty arrived.
6Narseh reads the seventh rule: if the helper demands worship more than goodness, withdraw the name.
7The vote failed to own him. The elders had to decide whether disappointment indicted Jesus or their expectation. The choice entered memory without acquiring a sacred title.
8The Second Road preserved “The Test of Worship” through names, costs, corrections, and the action taken next, trusting that truth could be recognized by consequences rather than official conclusions.
9When followers tried to place Jesus above the Father he served, the warning preserved in The Test of Worship would become newly urgent.
10Do not kneel so deeply before the helper that the world forgets the One he came to serve.