I often wonder why Christians are so unforgiving, often they are more unforgiving then others, of others sins against them. It seems that it must be that somehow they still have the idea, that they somehow stand before God on their own righteousness.
In the book of Matthew, we read of a story that Jesus uses to illustrate, not just how He is, but how our heavenly Father is, and how much more if we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we should be.
It is a story that you don't often here in today's "feel good about yourself" sermons or the hell fire and damnation sermons of judgmental preachers of doom.
I would like to repeat that story exactly here as Jesus tells it as written by Matthew, who understood this most of all. See Matthew was a tax collector, one of the most hated by the people of his time, as often they are in our time.
The point is not about money though, the point Jesus is making here is about our Father's relationship to us, and how much more our relationship should be with others. My quote is from the NIV Bible.
Matthew 18:20-35
21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
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We see here Peter trying to be gracious, when he ask Jesus should I forgive SEVEN times? See for the Rabbi's taught that you only had to forgive someone only three times, and then that was it- your out.
Not so much different then the Noahdic laws we have adopted for society, most States have adopted this as the - "three times and your out law". This is defined as that once a person has committed a criminal act and been found guilty of one should they commit an act, any act a third time, they get life imprisonment.
This recently happened to a man who stole a candy bar, it was his 3rd time for a crime, and now he is serving a life sentence for that. Just? Justice?
Christians have adopted this thinking, just like the rest of the world. We seek to punish, to extract vengeance, to see that someone pays for their life of crime or harm they have done us.
Yet, here Jesus has just got through teaching on "whatsoever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever we loose shall be loosed in heaven". Here we think this gives us the power to bind and loose others, which in essence is what our Savoir is saying, but in a much more meaningful way then we consider.
So now he extrapolates even further his teaching with Peter's question.
Peter thought he was being gracious, using the complete number of "seven" times, but watch what Jesus does with his graciousness, which is limited, like our own at most times in this life in our dealings with others and even our laws of our land.
The body of Christ, His bride, His "church" is to be separate from the world's thinking, separate from the world's ways of doing things. This is why even Paul in his teaching in the book of Corinthians, corrects the Christians who would sue one another for not bringing it before the body of Christ instead of the world. How often are Christians doing that these days, in direct contradiction to a clear directive from Paul. Where did Paul get such a teaching from? Did Paul just make it up as he went along. Did Paul develop some new church doctrine? I tell you, no, he did not.
We will see that he got it from Jesus teaching. For Paul who once sought to kill and murder and destroy, what he considered "the chosen nation of God's" enemy, Christians, his heart had been changed by an encounter with the "real Jesus Christ", not the fictional one of tradition and mens teachings as we have so much of today.
Does Jesus apply this to the whole of governments of the world? Most often not. This teaching will never be understood by the world or it's governments. It's very simple to know the reason why, because we know, no matter what government, it is not God's government, it is not His Kingdom. This is not to say he doesn't allow men to govern, he does, but He has not chosen them as representatives of Himself, history proves otherwise.
All governments which are merely made of people, fall under the same condemnation we all do- "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Yes, even the United States, no less and no more then others.
Once again Jesus shows that those in His government, His kingdom are Kingdom people, that we are to be separate from the world, in all our dealings with others, and how we perceive individuals should be treated. Christ doesn't limit the forgiveness that God give us, nor that which was given to us, when He looked down from the cross and said, "Father forgive them".
Christ tells Peter, "I tell you, not seven times; but seventy times seven."
Why does Jesus give this number? Seven is a complete number under Jewish belief, but even Seven has an ending to it, though what was considered a perfect number. Seventy times Seven is an infinite number, meaning there is no end to it. Thus Jesus says, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is" in His Sermon on the Mount.
Oh! how the body of Christ kicks this one out the door because of our religiosity at times. most often as individuals, we have forgotten who we were and who we are, a forgiven people.
We are a people that deserve no less than the death sentence for our sins.
Eternal spiritual separation from our Father in heaven, if He thought and acted as we do that would be all of our fates. But the Good News is: He doesn't!
Jesus emphasizes this again, the forgiveness for which we have been given, and in Matthew 6:14, where He has once already spoken this explaining once again to us what we like to repeat together as the Lord's prayer with little attention paid to it's words.
14"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." Jesus speaks to us, again from the heart of our heavenly Father.
Previous to this, Jesus has again painted not only a very clear picture for the body of Christ as to the will of our Father in heaven, but He give us more insight to the way our Father deals with us and all mankind, whether just or unjust.
Let us read this together- Matthew 5:43-47
43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
There it is in a nutshell. "Do not even pagans do that?" He tells them in regards to their treatment of others, do you only treat those that are good to you that treat you good, do you only treat those that you consider just with goodness? If so, then I will say it no clearer then He did, how can you call yourself sons of the living God?
You say, " I am a Christian", yet are your thoughts the same as that of the world when it comes to justice, or the treatment of others who have offended you? Think again. What makes you any different then they?
When 911 happened, I was sure that President Bush who claimed to be a Christian would call for prayer and only prayer. Instead I heard him cry for vengeance!
I heard then tens of thousands of Christians following right behind him and saying the same.
It wasn't until the teachings of a Catholic monk, Augustine that the body of Christ even considered nullifying the Word of God for the traditions of men, with his concept and teaching of "justified war". No disciple of Christ had even considered such until Augustine, they didn't take up sword, except the one time, Peter did, and Our Lord, told him to put it away. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword, so here we are again, with thousands of young men coming home in caskets from abroad.
The body of Christ has given precedent to this Monk, more then the Word of God, or even considering who they are, and just how, they were saved. Too often the false doctrine of men having a "free will" has pervaded the "church", rather then the Word of God, that reveals it is the Father that draws us and that we couldn't save ourselves if we tried!
Jesus makes this clear when Peter tells Him that He is the Son of God, Jesus in turn tells Peter, that is the Father who has revealed that to him! His body, are the people that the Father has revealed himself to.
The world will never fathom who Jesus Christ is, until His people, those claiming that the very resurrected life of Christ through the Holy Spirit is alive in them, begin to think and act, as Jesus did and does. As long as we sound like the world, look like the world and act like the world, they will never see Jesus Christ for whom He is the "Prince of Peace."
There can be no peace in this world even among believers as long as each one has been harmed by another, and they find no forgiveness for one another. There can be no love, in a world that hates and is at constant war with others. We pray, " thy kingdom come, thy will be done", but then in the next breath, we express words of hatred, and discord against anyone, any nation, any group of people that we perceive that have harmed us.
Once again, just like the Pharisees, we have nullified the Word of God, for the traditions of men!
When will the body of Christ ever get it right?
When I ask, when?
I will tell you when, when the body of Christ opens their hearts and their ears to truth, inexplicable truth and the Word of God, the living Word- Jesus Himself. No greater love can one have...
We even have erroneously converted the act of God, as one of punishment, on Christ for us. God is not angry folks, he is not the God of the shadowy Old Testament, but the revealed truth in that one person, that loved the unloved, and brought salvation to all of us, who did not deserve it. If God was a God of the justice that men portray Him to be, He would never have allowed His Son, to go to the Cross, rather each one of us would get what we deserved individually and directed at us as such, not at His only begotten Son.
We each of us right now, would still be " dead in sin and trespasses", and God wouldn't lift a finger to deliver us from the death which we were in.
See, "Christ died for us, while we were yet His enemies!"
How willing are you to love others, forgive others, act differently from this world. Justice, Our Father in heaven's "justice" is compassion and mercy to those who have offended Him how much more if we claim to have God as our Father should we show compassion and mercy to all men.
BTW- there is a payment for not doing so- Jesus warned- we shall be treated as we treat others for sure by our Father, He will allow this, to drive out the hatred in our lives, to bring us to his compassion and mercy, so that in seeing it, we too will become "perfect like our Heavenly Father is."
Read again the end of the story of the "Unforgiving Debtor". It's time for those who desire to call themselves by His name, to quit using His name in vain, and I am not talking about the proverbial curse word either. If we are who we claim to be, then forgiveness is the heart of God, mercy and compassion are the acts of God.
Will you forgive today, someone who has harmed you, done you wrong, or will you have to be tormented until you pay the last dime? I pray that you will forgive, not seven times, but infinitely as our Lord has taught us. God is love, we love because He first loved us. This is what will set us apart from the world, and the world will see we are the light of the world and the salt of this earth. Do we want to appear as a "Christian Nation" to the world, then perhaps we should exemplify rather then nullify, the life of Christ in our dealings with our neighbors, our family, our friends, and most of all with those that we perceive as our enemies! Believe it or not, there are those who do call themselves Christian who have done just that, just look to our Quaker and Anabaptist brethren, who have heeded the Word of God, and not twisted it like most American Protestants have. May the Lord give you the heart of Christ, and may He most of all teach you forgiveness and what true justice is.
Doctor J.
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Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Poison In Our Foods and Poison In Our Lives
Methyl Iodide & Methyl Dioxide. What are these chemicals? How are they used?
I watched the movie " I Witness" tonight, and decided to do some research on this chemical and was totally surprised to find out what I found out.
This stuff is so bad, that scientist use this in labs, to induce cancer in rats for research, yet the EPA has approved it to be used on all our vegetables and fruits as a pesticide. Now, people wonder why more and more people are dying of cancer. It is time we grow our own food, safely with none of the pesticide trash put out there.
I quit drinking milk 8 years ago, because I got Crohn's disease, and best research proves that it is because of the hormones, anti-biotics and other things aren't good for you- but the real kicker for Crohns' victims is that even though milk is Pasteurized and all that, there is one thing it doesnt kill and that is Paratuberculosis. This bacterial organism has been found predominantly in the small intestines of Crohn's victims like myself. It is akin to Tuberculosis, but it destroys the linings of the small intestine, inducing infections, which cause IBS.
So, I quit drinking milk for nearly 10 yearsnow. Within the first two years I was in remission, and have had only one small bought since.
I recently have been drinking only "Promised Land" Chocolate milk. Which even in drinking it, is risky, because though there are no antibiotics, no hormones, put in the milk cows, and they eat organic feed, and grass, it still may contain Paratuberculosis in it, as it is Pastuerized.
I just don't drink it everyday, and I love chocolate milk!
The point to my writing about these things is to bring us to see somethings, we may not wanted to admit or look at.
We must come to realize that the government organizations we pay to protect us, have failed drastically and continue in their failures to protect us from harmful chemicals and such in our environment. Yet, we pay trillions in taxes, for these organizational bureaucracies and they continually fail and then want to point the fingers at the private corporations. For example, the recent oil spill, we pay a huge amount of money to have a DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR made up of many inspectors and regulations. I had hoped they had developed contingency plans for just such an emergency, but as we now are seeing, they did not. That failure of one of our government departments is now polluting, killing and destroying our environment, eliminating jobs, and wildlife.
Many of you may not know that the person responsible for that area of supervision, resigned after this oil spill.
When will Americans wake up? It is not the private companies who fail us, it is the government who is highly paid to supposedly protect us, by use of the continued high dollar taxes bled from us everyday. It is their ineptness that is killing us, destroying our environment, the food chain and even more.
Pointing fingers like they do, is to distract you from the true cause, only so that they can then advance their agenda, to create one more over paid, highly inefficient new bureauracy. They will now spend thousands of dollars investigating, having hearings, forming new committees, etc. Give them time, and a new department will develop over all this, costing tax payers even more money.
I ask, who will investigate them and their failure to act responsible with the tax dollars they steal everyday from us? Perhaps it will be Congress or the President, that will investigate. That is like asking the Fox to guard the Henhouse! The only way the the American people will once more have the power to control this monster, that has grown a million heads, is the day the people can get the money out of their hands and back into our pockets. Don't blame the IRS, they are simply a head coming off the monster, we have allowed to feed on us. Congress and the President, have the power to change themselves, but they refuse. It is the old game of blame shifting. We didn't do it- they did it! No, you failed to live up to the promises for which you designed and implemented these bureaucracies for. So, I say, if it doesn't work, get rid of it. Don't go trying to fix the problem of the poison we have, by adding more poison, let's get rid of the poison. Income taxes, and big and yet bigger government, that is the problem. I believe in limited government. You might say, I am true liberationist. Yes, we need some form of government, and we had it at one time, but once they got the power to take by force a man's working wages, it was like opening the door to the barn where all the feed is kept and letting the farm animals lose to enter. Before long, all the feed is gone, so now the animals will start looking for another barn door that's open. Note, like the animals in my illustration, when you overeat, you become big lazy and stupid! Here we are, and we have a centralized government, that is not just big, it is huge, it has got lazy, and for sure STUPID! We have left the barn door open far too long, it is time, that we put double locks on it, and build larger more secure pens to keep the animals in.
I am for flat tax on goods sold!
This is a fair tax, and holds back the many headed monster from eating up all the feed.
Now, back to my main theme here.
READ ABOUT THIS TOXIC CHEMICAL BEING SPRAYED ON YOUR FOOD -
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/06/local/me-pesticide6
Read up on methyl dioxide, methyl iodide, etc. and see what is going into our food. Then you have all the genetic changes introduced by the geneticist, that work for people like Monsanto, who once was a large pesticide manufacture and now is the largest food producer in the world!
My goodness, I write about these things, because I care and recognize evil more than most, because as a Christian, my Saviour is all knowledge and wisdom, and He gives me discernment about these things, inspires me to not just accept things for what they seem. The Bible tells us to recognize evil, to abstain from it. and test the spirits as well. So, I research, I study, I seek truth about everything I encounter in life. Jesus tell us, we shall know the truth and it shall set us free. I am freer than most, because I haven't been fooled, I haven't been put into bondage to lies, deceptions, and the things that seem to draw men away from the true problems and solutions in life or for that matter, about life.
Sometimes I wish I could live my life like most, live in an illusion that all is well with the world, religion, governments, people. etc. Sad to say, but it is not, and it pays us as believers, Christians, to be as Jesus said, "Wise as Serpents, but harmless as Doves".
We cannot change these things, as long as we continue to believe we cannot, but when people unite there are many things that can be changed. I give the example of Civil Rights, and now the large movement by Hispanics against immigration laws.
Things change for them and did change because they are and were a people that united in a cause with a single goal, purpose, they are of one mind, and spirit about the things they so believe in. They speak out and come out in large numbers to show one mind and heart, unified to see that change takes place.
I hate to say this, but they are more passionate about their concerns, then most homebred Americans are in relationship to the problem of immigration, or for that matter, all Americans should be and especially all Christians should be. The Civil Rights movement largely lead by a person who called himself a Christian minister, Martin Luther King Jr. a pacifist, one who did not incite the violence we saw take place at times, but all the same because the Black Americans were united, one voice, one goal in heart, they accomplished great changes in policy, legislation, and more in this country.
The reason any one remains in power over others, is there is no voice against them. So the evil goes on, and will, as long as our voices are not united and we are silent or even apathetic.
As long as the elitist of this world can keep us divided as a people, they win we lose. Do some research look up how Dividing to Conquer has been used historically and politically and you will see, and begin to recognize some truths about what is happening in this country.
This brings me to my final point to all my ramblings tonight, as long as those who call themselves Christians are divided over doctrines, man's traditions, and myths, rather than making the Gospel of Christ, the cross and resurrection the centrality of what bonds us as believers, the institutional church will never be the early ekklesia, that "turned the world upside down". People who call themselves Christians, are so divided up over issues, doctrines and even myths, they can't even have a single unit of the their own denomination, one of their churches go without breaking up, throwing out Pastors,and even splitting up, over things, that really don't matter and that aren't a part of the Good News.
They were all of one heart and one mind in the early Ecclesia. Yet, Paul warned what was and what was coming. It began right there in the body of Christians in Corinth, one said I am of Apollos, another said I am of Paul, etc. Paul tells us ver clearly where that mentality comes from, it comes from CARNALITY, Flesh, not from the Spirit of the Living God within us. Did Paul disagree with some, yes, but they didn't divide over it permanantely, Gentile Churches versus the Jewish Churches,Paul and Barnabas, instead they found common ground in Christ, and stayed united in love! Carnality creates Christians who are not walking in love but in division, factions, strife, etc.
Paul clearly defines these as the evidence of the sinful man, not born again believers!
Religionist set out from the beginning to divide and conquer and did a great job of it!
The church is powerless because their is no unity in love for one another, there is only division over doctrine, man's traditions and teachings, and little of Christ or Christ centeredness! When the body of Christ is united once again in love for one another and for the Father, we could turn the world upside down AGAIN!
No, I am not calling for the World Council of Churches, nor the re-establishment of the Catholic Church as the only church. If you have read my writing on "Why the Church is Failing", you will understand. I am not calling for organization or re-organization. I am calling for the organism of Christ to be one! The church as formed and created by men, is merely a reflection of fallen men. The living true body of Christ- the Ekklesia- the called out one's of God, His assembly, is an organism not an organization. It is made up of all TRUE CHRISTIANS BORN OF HIS SPIRIT AND LOVE. It is relationship with the Father and the Son and one another, not an overstuffed, over organized, men lead, and breathed, but a Holy Spirit breathed organism of those who Christ lives in, as them, and through them.
We as Christians have let the purity of the Gospel be corrupted by man and his teachings, and in so doing have poisoned the body of Christ with lies after lies, that divided us, and took us from the centrality of the Gospel, which is Christ and His work- completed and finished to save mankind from their sinful selves.
Paul was so concerned over it, he said I preach only Christ crucified and Christ resurrected, and he sure wasn't concerned about baptism, because he preached far and wide and couldnt even recall even baptising maybe but two or three individuals. Yet, we have people who claim to be Christians divided even over issues like these, as to whether a man can be saved if he isnt baptised. Read I Corinthians with your spiritual eyes open and you will see these things.
How stupid we have become, how self centered, how man centered, and how blinded by the religionist, and religion, we have lost sight of Christ!
Folks, just like pesticides that poison what we eat, religion has poisoned the beautiful and true Gospel (good news), that saves all men who call on the name of the Lord though Jesus Christ and Him alone. Nothing added, and definitely nothing is taken away, in this one solid truth.
All the other doctrines are man's wisdom and God has proved how foolish that is...through what Paul calls the foolishness of the cross.
God's wisdom is greater than all the foolishness of man and his organizations, I might add.
Become wise, grow in Christ, and Him alone. Concern yourself with these things.
Who is Christ? What does He really mean to me, and how does that affect my life? What does it mean to be a Christian?
Paul said it was the mystery now revealed - "Christ in you, the hope of glory"....We have missed a large part of the complete Gospel of Christ. We are not followers of Christ as people are followers of Buddha. No, we are more than followers of a new morality, religion or another guru.
We have the living, resurrected life of Christ in us, if we are His.
It that is so, what does that mean for you and for me? A whole lot, when you give it thought and reflection.
Take time to think on heavenly things, and your paradigm of thinking will change to be centered in HIM! Things in this world are only changed when the people in it are changed and ONLY the true Good News can change all men, and this in effect will have an affect on the world around each of us, individually and corporately. We will as the Ekklesia of God, then be the light of this world, and the salt of this earth. Yes, Jesus has come, and He has come to have life through his people. Will we realize it, and live it, or just go on the way we are, poisoned in everything we take in spiritually. For whatsoever a man soweth to, he shall also reap. It's time and past time, for the Christian community of believers to sow seed that isn't poisoned by man's traditions, myths and religion. Let us plant pure seed in our gardens, and find that we will will be fed with the pure Word of God - Jesus Christ!
Doctor J
I watched the movie " I Witness" tonight, and decided to do some research on this chemical and was totally surprised to find out what I found out.
This stuff is so bad, that scientist use this in labs, to induce cancer in rats for research, yet the EPA has approved it to be used on all our vegetables and fruits as a pesticide. Now, people wonder why more and more people are dying of cancer. It is time we grow our own food, safely with none of the pesticide trash put out there.
I quit drinking milk 8 years ago, because I got Crohn's disease, and best research proves that it is because of the hormones, anti-biotics and other things aren't good for you- but the real kicker for Crohns' victims is that even though milk is Pasteurized and all that, there is one thing it doesnt kill and that is Paratuberculosis. This bacterial organism has been found predominantly in the small intestines of Crohn's victims like myself. It is akin to Tuberculosis, but it destroys the linings of the small intestine, inducing infections, which cause IBS.
So, I quit drinking milk for nearly 10 yearsnow. Within the first two years I was in remission, and have had only one small bought since.
I recently have been drinking only "Promised Land" Chocolate milk. Which even in drinking it, is risky, because though there are no antibiotics, no hormones, put in the milk cows, and they eat organic feed, and grass, it still may contain Paratuberculosis in it, as it is Pastuerized.
I just don't drink it everyday, and I love chocolate milk!
The point to my writing about these things is to bring us to see somethings, we may not wanted to admit or look at.
We must come to realize that the government organizations we pay to protect us, have failed drastically and continue in their failures to protect us from harmful chemicals and such in our environment. Yet, we pay trillions in taxes, for these organizational bureaucracies and they continually fail and then want to point the fingers at the private corporations. For example, the recent oil spill, we pay a huge amount of money to have a DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR made up of many inspectors and regulations. I had hoped they had developed contingency plans for just such an emergency, but as we now are seeing, they did not. That failure of one of our government departments is now polluting, killing and destroying our environment, eliminating jobs, and wildlife.
Many of you may not know that the person responsible for that area of supervision, resigned after this oil spill.
When will Americans wake up? It is not the private companies who fail us, it is the government who is highly paid to supposedly protect us, by use of the continued high dollar taxes bled from us everyday. It is their ineptness that is killing us, destroying our environment, the food chain and even more.
Pointing fingers like they do, is to distract you from the true cause, only so that they can then advance their agenda, to create one more over paid, highly inefficient new bureauracy. They will now spend thousands of dollars investigating, having hearings, forming new committees, etc. Give them time, and a new department will develop over all this, costing tax payers even more money.
I ask, who will investigate them and their failure to act responsible with the tax dollars they steal everyday from us? Perhaps it will be Congress or the President, that will investigate. That is like asking the Fox to guard the Henhouse! The only way the the American people will once more have the power to control this monster, that has grown a million heads, is the day the people can get the money out of their hands and back into our pockets. Don't blame the IRS, they are simply a head coming off the monster, we have allowed to feed on us. Congress and the President, have the power to change themselves, but they refuse. It is the old game of blame shifting. We didn't do it- they did it! No, you failed to live up to the promises for which you designed and implemented these bureaucracies for. So, I say, if it doesn't work, get rid of it. Don't go trying to fix the problem of the poison we have, by adding more poison, let's get rid of the poison. Income taxes, and big and yet bigger government, that is the problem. I believe in limited government. You might say, I am true liberationist. Yes, we need some form of government, and we had it at one time, but once they got the power to take by force a man's working wages, it was like opening the door to the barn where all the feed is kept and letting the farm animals lose to enter. Before long, all the feed is gone, so now the animals will start looking for another barn door that's open. Note, like the animals in my illustration, when you overeat, you become big lazy and stupid! Here we are, and we have a centralized government, that is not just big, it is huge, it has got lazy, and for sure STUPID! We have left the barn door open far too long, it is time, that we put double locks on it, and build larger more secure pens to keep the animals in.
I am for flat tax on goods sold!
This is a fair tax, and holds back the many headed monster from eating up all the feed.
Now, back to my main theme here.
READ ABOUT THIS TOXIC CHEMICAL BEING SPRAYED ON YOUR FOOD -
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/06/local/me-pesticide6
Read up on methyl dioxide, methyl iodide, etc. and see what is going into our food. Then you have all the genetic changes introduced by the geneticist, that work for people like Monsanto, who once was a large pesticide manufacture and now is the largest food producer in the world!
My goodness, I write about these things, because I care and recognize evil more than most, because as a Christian, my Saviour is all knowledge and wisdom, and He gives me discernment about these things, inspires me to not just accept things for what they seem. The Bible tells us to recognize evil, to abstain from it. and test the spirits as well. So, I research, I study, I seek truth about everything I encounter in life. Jesus tell us, we shall know the truth and it shall set us free. I am freer than most, because I haven't been fooled, I haven't been put into bondage to lies, deceptions, and the things that seem to draw men away from the true problems and solutions in life or for that matter, about life.
Sometimes I wish I could live my life like most, live in an illusion that all is well with the world, religion, governments, people. etc. Sad to say, but it is not, and it pays us as believers, Christians, to be as Jesus said, "Wise as Serpents, but harmless as Doves".
We cannot change these things, as long as we continue to believe we cannot, but when people unite there are many things that can be changed. I give the example of Civil Rights, and now the large movement by Hispanics against immigration laws.
Things change for them and did change because they are and were a people that united in a cause with a single goal, purpose, they are of one mind, and spirit about the things they so believe in. They speak out and come out in large numbers to show one mind and heart, unified to see that change takes place.
I hate to say this, but they are more passionate about their concerns, then most homebred Americans are in relationship to the problem of immigration, or for that matter, all Americans should be and especially all Christians should be. The Civil Rights movement largely lead by a person who called himself a Christian minister, Martin Luther King Jr. a pacifist, one who did not incite the violence we saw take place at times, but all the same because the Black Americans were united, one voice, one goal in heart, they accomplished great changes in policy, legislation, and more in this country.
The reason any one remains in power over others, is there is no voice against them. So the evil goes on, and will, as long as our voices are not united and we are silent or even apathetic.
As long as the elitist of this world can keep us divided as a people, they win we lose. Do some research look up how Dividing to Conquer has been used historically and politically and you will see, and begin to recognize some truths about what is happening in this country.
This brings me to my final point to all my ramblings tonight, as long as those who call themselves Christians are divided over doctrines, man's traditions, and myths, rather than making the Gospel of Christ, the cross and resurrection the centrality of what bonds us as believers, the institutional church will never be the early ekklesia, that "turned the world upside down". People who call themselves Christians, are so divided up over issues, doctrines and even myths, they can't even have a single unit of the their own denomination, one of their churches go without breaking up, throwing out Pastors,and even splitting up, over things, that really don't matter and that aren't a part of the Good News.
They were all of one heart and one mind in the early Ecclesia. Yet, Paul warned what was and what was coming. It began right there in the body of Christians in Corinth, one said I am of Apollos, another said I am of Paul, etc. Paul tells us ver clearly where that mentality comes from, it comes from CARNALITY, Flesh, not from the Spirit of the Living God within us. Did Paul disagree with some, yes, but they didn't divide over it permanantely, Gentile Churches versus the Jewish Churches,Paul and Barnabas, instead they found common ground in Christ, and stayed united in love! Carnality creates Christians who are not walking in love but in division, factions, strife, etc.
Paul clearly defines these as the evidence of the sinful man, not born again believers!
Religionist set out from the beginning to divide and conquer and did a great job of it!
The church is powerless because their is no unity in love for one another, there is only division over doctrine, man's traditions and teachings, and little of Christ or Christ centeredness! When the body of Christ is united once again in love for one another and for the Father, we could turn the world upside down AGAIN!
No, I am not calling for the World Council of Churches, nor the re-establishment of the Catholic Church as the only church. If you have read my writing on "Why the Church is Failing", you will understand. I am not calling for organization or re-organization. I am calling for the organism of Christ to be one! The church as formed and created by men, is merely a reflection of fallen men. The living true body of Christ- the Ekklesia- the called out one's of God, His assembly, is an organism not an organization. It is made up of all TRUE CHRISTIANS BORN OF HIS SPIRIT AND LOVE. It is relationship with the Father and the Son and one another, not an overstuffed, over organized, men lead, and breathed, but a Holy Spirit breathed organism of those who Christ lives in, as them, and through them.
We as Christians have let the purity of the Gospel be corrupted by man and his teachings, and in so doing have poisoned the body of Christ with lies after lies, that divided us, and took us from the centrality of the Gospel, which is Christ and His work- completed and finished to save mankind from their sinful selves.
Paul was so concerned over it, he said I preach only Christ crucified and Christ resurrected, and he sure wasn't concerned about baptism, because he preached far and wide and couldnt even recall even baptising maybe but two or three individuals. Yet, we have people who claim to be Christians divided even over issues like these, as to whether a man can be saved if he isnt baptised. Read I Corinthians with your spiritual eyes open and you will see these things.
How stupid we have become, how self centered, how man centered, and how blinded by the religionist, and religion, we have lost sight of Christ!
Folks, just like pesticides that poison what we eat, religion has poisoned the beautiful and true Gospel (good news), that saves all men who call on the name of the Lord though Jesus Christ and Him alone. Nothing added, and definitely nothing is taken away, in this one solid truth.
All the other doctrines are man's wisdom and God has proved how foolish that is...through what Paul calls the foolishness of the cross.
God's wisdom is greater than all the foolishness of man and his organizations, I might add.
Become wise, grow in Christ, and Him alone. Concern yourself with these things.
Who is Christ? What does He really mean to me, and how does that affect my life? What does it mean to be a Christian?
Paul said it was the mystery now revealed - "Christ in you, the hope of glory"....We have missed a large part of the complete Gospel of Christ. We are not followers of Christ as people are followers of Buddha. No, we are more than followers of a new morality, religion or another guru.
We have the living, resurrected life of Christ in us, if we are His.
It that is so, what does that mean for you and for me? A whole lot, when you give it thought and reflection.
Take time to think on heavenly things, and your paradigm of thinking will change to be centered in HIM! Things in this world are only changed when the people in it are changed and ONLY the true Good News can change all men, and this in effect will have an affect on the world around each of us, individually and corporately. We will as the Ekklesia of God, then be the light of this world, and the salt of this earth. Yes, Jesus has come, and He has come to have life through his people. Will we realize it, and live it, or just go on the way we are, poisoned in everything we take in spiritually. For whatsoever a man soweth to, he shall also reap. It's time and past time, for the Christian community of believers to sow seed that isn't poisoned by man's traditions, myths and religion. Let us plant pure seed in our gardens, and find that we will will be fed with the pure Word of God - Jesus Christ!
Doctor J
Monday, June 11, 2007
Jesus the Revolutionary
I recently completed a book, that I have known about sometime, and also I have known of the author because of my activity in house "church" for sometime. The book is entitled "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola. Frank is a fine Christian man who has an online and offline ministry called "Present Testimony Ministry". He is a high school Psychology teacher and Philosophy teacher part-time. He is known as a "church planter" or what may have been called in times past, an Apostle. Though he would never accept any title. He loves Jesus above all things. His books are very well written with a tremendous bibliography of his resources of material he quotes. In his above mentioned book he lays out the history of our modern church practices. Much of that which I have already become familiar with in my personal research and study as well. His book becomes the second witness testimony for many of us that have so been enlightened by the Lord to see and understand the "traditions of men" over God's commandments (his Word). His book is a refreshing reminder to us who see what man has done to the Ekklesia and what Jesus intended to rid us from so that man may have a relationship with God and others.
I would like to quote from a portion of his last chapter in the book. Then I will expound some on it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.
A.W. Tozer
Frank writes:
"Jesus Christ is not only the Savior, the Messiah, the Prophet, the Priest, and the King. He is also the Revolutionary. Yet, few Christians know Him as such; unfortunately, I know this from experience. For several years now I’ve been working with house churches, writing, and speaking about radical church deconstruction and renewal. In many places I go, people ask me: "Why do you have to be so negative about the modern church, Frank!? Jesus is not a critical person. It is so unlike our Lord to talk about what is wrong with the church. Let us focus on the positive and ignore the negative!"
Such high volume sentiments express complete unfamiliarity with Christ as revolutionary teacher; radical prophet; provocative preacher; controversialist; iconoclast; and the implacable opponent of the religious establishment.
Granted, our Lord is not critical or harsh with His own. He is full of mercy and kindness, and He loves His people passionately. However, this is precisely why He is jealous over His Bride. And it is why He will not compromise with the unbreakable traditions to which His people have been held captive. Nor will He ignore our fanatical devotion to them.
Consider our Lord’s conduct while on earth.
Jesus was never a rabble-rouser nor a ranting rebel, yet He constantly defied the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. He did not do so by accident, but with great deliberation. The Pharisees were those who, for the sake of the "truth" they saw, tried to extinguish the truth they could not see. This explains why there was always a blizzard of controversy between the "tradition of the elders" and the acts of Jesus.
Someone once said that "a rebel attempts to change the past; a revolutionary attempts to change the future." Jesus Christ brought drastic change to the world. Change to humanity’s view of God. Change to God’s view of humankind. Change to men’s view of women. Our Lord came to bring radical change to the old order of things, replacing it with a new order. He came to bring forth a new covenant—a new kingdom—a new birth—a new race—a new species—a new culture—and a new civilization.
As you read through the Gospels, behold your Lord, the Revolutionary. Watch Him throw the Pharisees into a panic by intentionally flaunting their conventions. Numerous times Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, flatly breaking their cherished tradition. If the Lord wanted to placate His enemies, He could have waited until Sunday or Monday to heal some of these people. Instead, He deliberately healed on the Sabbath, knowing full well it would make His opponents livid.
This pattern runs pretty deep. In one instance, Jesus healed a blind man by mixing clay with spittle and putting it in the man’s eyes. Such an act was in direct defiance to the Jewish ordinance that prohibited healing on the Sabbath by mixing mud with spittle! Yet your Lord intentionally shattered this tradition publicly and with absolute resolve. Watch Him eat food with unwashed hands under the judgmental gaze of the Pharisees, again intentionally defying their fossilized tradition.
In Jesus, we have a Man who refused to bow to the pressures of religious conformity. A Man who preached a revolution. A Man who would not tolerate hypocrisy. A Man who was not afraid to provoke those who suppressed the liberating gospel He brought to set men free. A Man who did not mind evoking anger in His enemies, causing them to gird their thighs for battle.
What is my point? It is this: Jesus Christ came not only as Messiah, the Anointed One of God to deliver His people from the bondage of the fall…
He came not only as Savior, paying a debt He did not owe to wash away humanity’s war, hatred, and ingrained sin…
He came not only as Prophet, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable…
He came not only as Priest, representing man before God and representing God before man…
He came not only as King, triumphant over all authorities, principalities, and powers...
He also came as Revolutionary, tearing apart the old wineskin with a view to bringing in the new.
Behold your Lord, the Revolutionary!
For many Christians, this is a new look at Jesus Christ. Therefore, to reveal the weaknesses of the church in modernity so that Christ’s Body can fulfill God’s ultimate intention is simply an expression of our Lord’s revolutionary nature. The dominating aim of that nature is to put you and me at the center of the beating heart of God. To put you and me in the core of His eternal purpose—a purpose for which everything was created.
What is needed, then, is a revolution within the Christian faith. Renewal movements will not do it. Revivals will not cut it. Both have been plentiful for the past 50 years. (I might add that they are repackaged every five years.) Renewal movements and revivals have never been potent enough to break the immense inertia of religious tradition.
Renewing and inventing new forms for church is like changing clothes on a mannequin. Doing so will never give it life no matter how avant-garde the garb is. No, the axe must be laid to the root of the problem and a revolution ignited!
What is needed is a complete upheaval of our current Christian practices. All traditions that find no soil in Scripture must be forever abandoned. We must begin anew . . . from ground zero. Anything less will prove defective.
If you are a disciple of the Revolutionary from Nazareth . . .the Radical Messiah who lays His axe to the root . . .you will eventually evoke a specific question. It is the same question that was asked our Lord’s disciples while He walked this earth. That question is: "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?"
>>END<<
A true radical must be a man of roots. In words that I have used elsewhere, "The revolutionary can be an ‘outsider’ to the structure he would see collapse: indeed, he must set himself outside of it. But the radical goes to the roots of his own tradition. He must love it: he must weep over Jerusalem, even if he has to pronounce its doom."
John A.T. Robinson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank Viola [ http://ptmin.org ] is the author of a series of books on radical church renewal and reform. His passion is to see the centrality of Jesus Christ and the life of the early church restored. Frank is part of the house church movement, and he lives in Florida. Among his books are Rethinking the Wineskin, Who is Your Covering?, Pagan Christianity, So You Want to Start a House Church?, Knowing Christ Together, and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. You can reach him online at http://ptmin.org or email him at ptmin@aol.com This article is based on his book Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices [URL: www.ptmin.org/pagan.htm ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My added comments.
Most Christians do not understand how far Jesus stuck truth right into the faces of the self righteous and the religious of his day. Most Christians do not understand that Jewish practices and belief of His day and even today, were not even close to the Torah, or the Old Testament, for the Jews in hundreds of years developed their traditions of men as opposed to scripture. These became known as the Talmud, a full transcription of the Mishna and the Gemara. These were simply men's attempt to redefine God's law, by creating fence laws around fence laws and then their own interpretation of these. For example in Jesus time, to understand why he would heal a man's blindness as He did, one must read what their law said. Shabbat 108:20 reads thus : "To heal a blind man on the Sabbath, it his prohibited to inject wine in his eyes. It is also prohibited to make mud with spittle and smear it on his eyes.
Jesus didnt just randomly do this miracle in the way that He did, he did it with purpose in mind, to not just break their laws of tradition, but to show that He is the lawgiver and the judge, the Savouir and the King of all things created. The Jews had no doubt of His Messiahship because of many other things they had written to recognize who the Messiah was when He would come, Jesus did these things as well that proved He alone was who He claimed to be. There is no doubt in my mind or the minds of those that understand Judaism of that time and today, that they (the religious leaders of that day)knew He was the Messiah and crucified Him anyway. Their traditions, their positions of power and recognition, their religion held far greater importance than man's relationship to God. I want to provide one more example of Jesus flaunting their religiousity in their faces, and it may have been one of the many laws He broke which sealed his fate with these law makers of traditions of men. It wasn't long before they conspired to kill Him. Yes, the Bible uses the word conspired. For those of you who don't believe men conspire to commit evil.
Read this, According to the Mishna, " One should be willing to walk four miles to water in order to wash your hands rather than eat with unwashed hands. (Sotah 4b).
When Jesus didn't wash his hands before eating, in the eyes of the Pharisees, this made Him and the disciples equal to being a murderer!
(Challah, J, 58:3) HE WHO NEGLECTS HAND WASHING IS AS HE WHO IS A MURDERER."!That's right Jesus was a lawbreaker, a revolutionary. The revolutionary of all times!
For our Lord, spit right smack into the face of the legalist, the religious and their followers constantly.
Jesus, the essence of the Creator, the living Word, spoke for men for all time. Relationship with God is more important then all the garbage men can devise and all the traditions he can create. For their is one Law Giver, One Lord, One Judge, and One SAVIOUR and KING. Meet Jesus Christ - the greatest revolutionary who ever lived and ever will -forever. For it is no surprise when men trapped in the bondages of religion get free, they proclaim loudly my Lord and my God!
For Jesus came to set us absolutely free from the bonds and ties of religion to have relationship once again with God our Father, and with men and women and children as our brothers, and sisters with Him.
If ever a movie should be made, about Jesus again, it should be entitled. FREEDOM!
For there is no other name, under heaven or earth to which men can find true freedom then that which is in Jesus Christ- Saviour of the World.
The Revolutionary Extradonaire!
Are you a part to His marching army of the redeemed. You can be! YOu can join the revolution. All people are welcomed from every area of life. There is none that he won't accept. Religion may not want you. Jesus does. If he can take a prostitute, a tax collector, fisherman and more and turn them into His own, He can take anyone of any circumstance in this life, and make you a child of the King! A revolutionary.
You can see Jesus for the first time in your life, not common church folk, but one who opposed religion all the way to the cross. He came to set us FREE! Will you join me and hundreds that have come to know Him as such. He is right at the door of your heart knocking, and offering to come inside to eat with you and you with Him. Don't worry about the house being clean, the dishes done, the hands washed. Jesus eats with those with unwashed hands, for His presence makes everything clean. Jesus the Revolutionary is here amongst us. He is alive. He is alive in the hearts of those that know him beyond all the religious trappings and trim. He is drafting knew individuals daily to join him in a meal, with unwashed hands. For his very presence makes anyone and everything clean that comes in contact with Him. Come join the Revolution and see what God can do, and man in all his contrivances od traditions and rudiments and laws could never do. That is to set you free to live a life with Him for eternity. Eternal life begins now, not after you die. Real life, real freedom from this world. You have to first join the "Revolution". I joined, and have never regretted it since. I can ask for no greater leader, no greater mentor, no greater love then Him.
Dr. J.
I would like to quote from a portion of his last chapter in the book. Then I will expound some on it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.
A.W. Tozer
Frank writes:
"Jesus Christ is not only the Savior, the Messiah, the Prophet, the Priest, and the King. He is also the Revolutionary. Yet, few Christians know Him as such; unfortunately, I know this from experience. For several years now I’ve been working with house churches, writing, and speaking about radical church deconstruction and renewal. In many places I go, people ask me: "Why do you have to be so negative about the modern church, Frank!? Jesus is not a critical person. It is so unlike our Lord to talk about what is wrong with the church. Let us focus on the positive and ignore the negative!"
Such high volume sentiments express complete unfamiliarity with Christ as revolutionary teacher; radical prophet; provocative preacher; controversialist; iconoclast; and the implacable opponent of the religious establishment.
Granted, our Lord is not critical or harsh with His own. He is full of mercy and kindness, and He loves His people passionately. However, this is precisely why He is jealous over His Bride. And it is why He will not compromise with the unbreakable traditions to which His people have been held captive. Nor will He ignore our fanatical devotion to them.
Consider our Lord’s conduct while on earth.
Jesus was never a rabble-rouser nor a ranting rebel, yet He constantly defied the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. He did not do so by accident, but with great deliberation. The Pharisees were those who, for the sake of the "truth" they saw, tried to extinguish the truth they could not see. This explains why there was always a blizzard of controversy between the "tradition of the elders" and the acts of Jesus.
Someone once said that "a rebel attempts to change the past; a revolutionary attempts to change the future." Jesus Christ brought drastic change to the world. Change to humanity’s view of God. Change to God’s view of humankind. Change to men’s view of women. Our Lord came to bring radical change to the old order of things, replacing it with a new order. He came to bring forth a new covenant—a new kingdom—a new birth—a new race—a new species—a new culture—and a new civilization.
As you read through the Gospels, behold your Lord, the Revolutionary. Watch Him throw the Pharisees into a panic by intentionally flaunting their conventions. Numerous times Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, flatly breaking their cherished tradition. If the Lord wanted to placate His enemies, He could have waited until Sunday or Monday to heal some of these people. Instead, He deliberately healed on the Sabbath, knowing full well it would make His opponents livid.
This pattern runs pretty deep. In one instance, Jesus healed a blind man by mixing clay with spittle and putting it in the man’s eyes. Such an act was in direct defiance to the Jewish ordinance that prohibited healing on the Sabbath by mixing mud with spittle! Yet your Lord intentionally shattered this tradition publicly and with absolute resolve. Watch Him eat food with unwashed hands under the judgmental gaze of the Pharisees, again intentionally defying their fossilized tradition.
In Jesus, we have a Man who refused to bow to the pressures of religious conformity. A Man who preached a revolution. A Man who would not tolerate hypocrisy. A Man who was not afraid to provoke those who suppressed the liberating gospel He brought to set men free. A Man who did not mind evoking anger in His enemies, causing them to gird their thighs for battle.
What is my point? It is this: Jesus Christ came not only as Messiah, the Anointed One of God to deliver His people from the bondage of the fall…
He came not only as Savior, paying a debt He did not owe to wash away humanity’s war, hatred, and ingrained sin…
He came not only as Prophet, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable…
He came not only as Priest, representing man before God and representing God before man…
He came not only as King, triumphant over all authorities, principalities, and powers...
He also came as Revolutionary, tearing apart the old wineskin with a view to bringing in the new.
Behold your Lord, the Revolutionary!
For many Christians, this is a new look at Jesus Christ. Therefore, to reveal the weaknesses of the church in modernity so that Christ’s Body can fulfill God’s ultimate intention is simply an expression of our Lord’s revolutionary nature. The dominating aim of that nature is to put you and me at the center of the beating heart of God. To put you and me in the core of His eternal purpose—a purpose for which everything was created.
What is needed, then, is a revolution within the Christian faith. Renewal movements will not do it. Revivals will not cut it. Both have been plentiful for the past 50 years. (I might add that they are repackaged every five years.) Renewal movements and revivals have never been potent enough to break the immense inertia of religious tradition.
Renewing and inventing new forms for church is like changing clothes on a mannequin. Doing so will never give it life no matter how avant-garde the garb is. No, the axe must be laid to the root of the problem and a revolution ignited!
What is needed is a complete upheaval of our current Christian practices. All traditions that find no soil in Scripture must be forever abandoned. We must begin anew . . . from ground zero. Anything less will prove defective.
If you are a disciple of the Revolutionary from Nazareth . . .the Radical Messiah who lays His axe to the root . . .you will eventually evoke a specific question. It is the same question that was asked our Lord’s disciples while He walked this earth. That question is: "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?"
>>END<<
A true radical must be a man of roots. In words that I have used elsewhere, "The revolutionary can be an ‘outsider’ to the structure he would see collapse: indeed, he must set himself outside of it. But the radical goes to the roots of his own tradition. He must love it: he must weep over Jerusalem, even if he has to pronounce its doom."
John A.T. Robinson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank Viola [ http://ptmin.org ] is the author of a series of books on radical church renewal and reform. His passion is to see the centrality of Jesus Christ and the life of the early church restored. Frank is part of the house church movement, and he lives in Florida. Among his books are Rethinking the Wineskin, Who is Your Covering?, Pagan Christianity, So You Want to Start a House Church?, Knowing Christ Together, and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. You can reach him online at http://ptmin.org or email him at ptmin@aol.com This article is based on his book Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices [URL: www.ptmin.org/pagan.htm ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My added comments.
Most Christians do not understand how far Jesus stuck truth right into the faces of the self righteous and the religious of his day. Most Christians do not understand that Jewish practices and belief of His day and even today, were not even close to the Torah, or the Old Testament, for the Jews in hundreds of years developed their traditions of men as opposed to scripture. These became known as the Talmud, a full transcription of the Mishna and the Gemara. These were simply men's attempt to redefine God's law, by creating fence laws around fence laws and then their own interpretation of these. For example in Jesus time, to understand why he would heal a man's blindness as He did, one must read what their law said. Shabbat 108:20 reads thus : "To heal a blind man on the Sabbath, it his prohibited to inject wine in his eyes. It is also prohibited to make mud with spittle and smear it on his eyes.
Jesus didnt just randomly do this miracle in the way that He did, he did it with purpose in mind, to not just break their laws of tradition, but to show that He is the lawgiver and the judge, the Savouir and the King of all things created. The Jews had no doubt of His Messiahship because of many other things they had written to recognize who the Messiah was when He would come, Jesus did these things as well that proved He alone was who He claimed to be. There is no doubt in my mind or the minds of those that understand Judaism of that time and today, that they (the religious leaders of that day)knew He was the Messiah and crucified Him anyway. Their traditions, their positions of power and recognition, their religion held far greater importance than man's relationship to God. I want to provide one more example of Jesus flaunting their religiousity in their faces, and it may have been one of the many laws He broke which sealed his fate with these law makers of traditions of men. It wasn't long before they conspired to kill Him. Yes, the Bible uses the word conspired. For those of you who don't believe men conspire to commit evil.
Read this, According to the Mishna, " One should be willing to walk four miles to water in order to wash your hands rather than eat with unwashed hands. (Sotah 4b).
When Jesus didn't wash his hands before eating, in the eyes of the Pharisees, this made Him and the disciples equal to being a murderer!
(Challah, J, 58:3) HE WHO NEGLECTS HAND WASHING IS AS HE WHO IS A MURDERER."!That's right Jesus was a lawbreaker, a revolutionary. The revolutionary of all times!
For our Lord, spit right smack into the face of the legalist, the religious and their followers constantly.
Jesus, the essence of the Creator, the living Word, spoke for men for all time. Relationship with God is more important then all the garbage men can devise and all the traditions he can create. For their is one Law Giver, One Lord, One Judge, and One SAVIOUR and KING. Meet Jesus Christ - the greatest revolutionary who ever lived and ever will -forever. For it is no surprise when men trapped in the bondages of religion get free, they proclaim loudly my Lord and my God!
For Jesus came to set us absolutely free from the bonds and ties of religion to have relationship once again with God our Father, and with men and women and children as our brothers, and sisters with Him.
If ever a movie should be made, about Jesus again, it should be entitled. FREEDOM!
For there is no other name, under heaven or earth to which men can find true freedom then that which is in Jesus Christ- Saviour of the World.
The Revolutionary Extradonaire!
Are you a part to His marching army of the redeemed. You can be! YOu can join the revolution. All people are welcomed from every area of life. There is none that he won't accept. Religion may not want you. Jesus does. If he can take a prostitute, a tax collector, fisherman and more and turn them into His own, He can take anyone of any circumstance in this life, and make you a child of the King! A revolutionary.
You can see Jesus for the first time in your life, not common church folk, but one who opposed religion all the way to the cross. He came to set us FREE! Will you join me and hundreds that have come to know Him as such. He is right at the door of your heart knocking, and offering to come inside to eat with you and you with Him. Don't worry about the house being clean, the dishes done, the hands washed. Jesus eats with those with unwashed hands, for His presence makes everything clean. Jesus the Revolutionary is here amongst us. He is alive. He is alive in the hearts of those that know him beyond all the religious trappings and trim. He is drafting knew individuals daily to join him in a meal, with unwashed hands. For his very presence makes anyone and everything clean that comes in contact with Him. Come join the Revolution and see what God can do, and man in all his contrivances od traditions and rudiments and laws could never do. That is to set you free to live a life with Him for eternity. Eternal life begins now, not after you die. Real life, real freedom from this world. You have to first join the "Revolution". I joined, and have never regretted it since. I can ask for no greater leader, no greater mentor, no greater love then Him.
Dr. J.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
What We Teach Our Children - Violence
In the aftermath of yesterday's horrendous senseless massacre at Virginia Tech, the questions are flying across the news, why? Of course, we will hear from all the so called experts, psychologist, therapist, counselors, and security experts. Every news network will have their own individual editorials and commentators tell us why. Well, I want to exercise the same perogative as a Christian and a news commentator.
Let me begin by saying, the answer is simple. Violence begats violence. America is the most violent nation on earth. We are blood thirsty and we are entertained by it. We love revenge, love to inflict injury on those we think harmed us.
Apparently someone harmed this male that committed this autrocity so he did what He has been taught by American politics, American churches, American policy, and American television and entertainment. He sought to avenge himself. To strike back at others before they might get him. To go after those that had caused him harm whether "real or imagined". It's the American way, for goodness sake. We watched after 911, our own "Christian President" go for vengeance. He still is.
Every year in America we slaughter millions of unborn babies. Where are the news commentators while this autrocity and senseless murder goes on? Every evening, you can catch World Wrestling, the Tough Man contest, and great films of violence, full of bloodshed, and murder. If that isn't enough entertainment for you, the delight of watching war and weapons documentaries are every where you turn your TV channel to.
We have the satisfaction of watching, movies about the death penalty being used on the "bad guys" or even the evening news. Better yet, if you are young, there are a thousand choices of new video and PC games you can play. Drag out your XBox or other video game player and you can go into a world of hurt.
Better yet, you can wait until the news comes on and catch some real live violence going on in Iraq. Nothing like seeing men, women and children who aren't your blood kin being killed by the dozens, blood stains on the roadway, blood on the wall. What the heck, it isn't your blood afterall.
Now, I don't want to make the focus as television as the source of all our problems. "Televison is only the reflection of the heart of the society that watches it".
At least that's how I see it. No, let's go to the deeper issue, the heart of a country that claims 80% of it is Christian.
Now, you may have heard all that before, but the fact is God said, the following in the very beginning of time. Let's take a look at a command of God's that he made to Noah, the man of righteousness. This is one of God's earliest commandments to Noah, this is right after "He"- Yahweh had destroyed probably millions, of people with drowning them. He alone maintains justice, he alone is just, to decide who shall live and who shall die. He reminds Noah of this with this short but very powerful command.
Genesis 9:6
Whoever shed's man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God he made man.
Then Our Lord and Savour wrapped the same package up when as the very "revealed Yahweh come to be manifest, in the flesh as Yeshua (Jesus), declares to Peter the exact same thing, in paraphrase to the verse above.
It happened on the night that we as fallen individuals would have acted as Peter did, and drawn our sword to fight off "the evil terrorist", the Pharisees, Judas and the other Temple leaders that were coming to take our King away from us. We would have drawn our sword and cried loudly "Revenge" or better yet, as in the movie with Mel Gibson about the struggle for freedom in Scotland, we would yell "Freedom" and slaughtered everyone in sight that we percieved to be our enemy, allowing the blood to splatter on our faces as they did. Yet, in the midst of the opportunity to defend their King and as far as that goes, the King to defend himself, Yeshua (Jesus), reminds Peter of these very words spoken by Yahweh thousands of years before.
Matthew 26:52
Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into it's place; for all who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."
How we have perverted the Gospel with our misunderstanding of the Old Testament and the actions Yahweh took to set apart for himself a people after His own heart. How He allowed them, as an instrument of His righteousness, to use the sword only for the Theocracy of the nation of Israel at that time. God is no longer in the nation business, or the physical kingdom business. He is in the Kingdom of God business, building a spiritual Kingdom. There has been a covental change. God can do as He pleases, you and I cannot!
It was not the heart of the Father to kill and maim and murder others, but there was no other way to punish the wicked, to keep His people from joining into the pagan nations around them and their taking on the pagan nations, sin and idolatry.
He, being the only "just" being there is in all the universe "could and can" make that decision to destroy physically the wicked. He has never, given that over to the hand of men. He allows governments to be formed, he doesn't put a stamp of approval on one or the other. He allows men to be unjust to men, for He is working out His plan. How could one ever use Romans 13 in the way American church goers do for American, they would have to justify Hitler, Stalin or any of their regimes to say, God established them and to go against them is sin.
All government has a wicked heart and desires nothing more than to power over others. For the Word of God tells us that these kingdoms belong to the enemy, Satan.
Thus, we see, our own slowly dissolving into totalitarianism as well. Men always desire to be in power over other men. This has been church history as well.
Now some may argue, that Romans 13 states differently, and in one way it is true he allows men to establish governments, and laws, and some to carry the sword, but it has never been His desire or His way for men. For He would be contradicting His own statement in Genesis and in Matthew.
Yahweh knows the heart of men, and He knows in our fallen state, men will always seek power over others.
Yet, as Christians we have been called to "power under" men. Just as our Lord did, when He could have called ten thousand angels, when He could have armed His disciples and used His powers to destroy Rome and Israel right then and there. He knew what was going to happen to Israel for their rejection of Him, and that was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
He used a wicked nation to destroy another wicked nation - Israel. He had warned them and told them "for the blood of all the prophets and the saints were upon their heads"
Now, we ask, what can we do, to avoid future situations like the new "Columbine" killing at Virginia Tech? Well, my answer is this, we can't stop the world with their wars and hatred, with their thirst for blood, for their love of the sword. We can't even imagine that we can, for Jesus said, "there will be wars and rumors of wars", until He returns.
He also qualified what we as individual Christians are to do, and that is not to be a partaker of this world's ways of hatred, war, blood thirst, and violence. "Take no revenge, love your enemy"!
He set a people apart for himself, these are His people who have beaten their swords into plowshares. Who can lie down with a lion as a lamb, who can turn the other cheek, who can love their enemy, who don't answer insult with insult, injury with injury, just as our Lord did not in every aspect of His life.
We can do all we can to try to justify our love for blood shed, but the Lord has already spoken and when we disregard His word, and live like the world, act like the world, then we "who claim to be Christian" will suffer the consequences like the world - we will die by the sword.
It doesn't take a degree in psychology or security to understand the very simple, but powerful statement, that Jesus made on that evening. When if ever, there could have or should have been looking at things in the eyes of men, there been a breakout of violence and bloodshed, this would have been the time to do it. Yet, Jesus told Peter; "those who live by the sword will die by the sword".
What are you teaching your children at home, in your attitude's and opinion of these things? Do you love the world, it's VIOLENCE? Do you get all excited to see someone get blownup in a movie, killed by a gun, stabbed by a knife. No matter what that person is, or who he is, or what your opinion may be of him or her- it still comes down to this "they are created in God's image"- and if you shed THEIR blood, God will require that YOUR blood be shed too.
How we like to spout off the Ten Commandments to others, that is the "9" commandments, for one of the ten says this:
Exodus 20:13
You shall not murder.
By the way, there are 613 commandments, can you name them? Do you keep them?
We quickly judge others, when our own hearts are not right with the Lord.
All I can say, until real Christians start coming out of the woodwork (the world's molding) and take a stand like the once forgotten AnaBaptist and their now day brethern against being a part of the world and it's kingdoms, the Mennonites, the German Brethern and the Amish, we will see a lot more of the Virginia Techs type of violence, and I can promise with the direction the so called organized church is going now, with their love for violence, and war and all the gory murdering aspects of thinking they are going to build a "City of God" - ie; America, get out the easy chairs, and turn on your TV's because the bloodshed entertainment is just getting started.
How often I have heard the warmongers like to take Romans 13 out of context to justify their lust for hate and bloodshed, and yet they never read or qoute from the verse previous to Romans 13:1-7
What about Romans 12: 1-2 or Romans 12:17-21 or the ending of their favorite out of context scripture, verse 8 in Romans 13.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
My answer as to why the senseless violence in America today is this- GOD SAID!
...but men say differently.
Jesus said it then and he says it now to the body of Christ -
"You nullify the commandments of God for the traditions of men! "
Dr. J.
Let me begin by saying, the answer is simple. Violence begats violence. America is the most violent nation on earth. We are blood thirsty and we are entertained by it. We love revenge, love to inflict injury on those we think harmed us.
Apparently someone harmed this male that committed this autrocity so he did what He has been taught by American politics, American churches, American policy, and American television and entertainment. He sought to avenge himself. To strike back at others before they might get him. To go after those that had caused him harm whether "real or imagined". It's the American way, for goodness sake. We watched after 911, our own "Christian President" go for vengeance. He still is.
Every year in America we slaughter millions of unborn babies. Where are the news commentators while this autrocity and senseless murder goes on? Every evening, you can catch World Wrestling, the Tough Man contest, and great films of violence, full of bloodshed, and murder. If that isn't enough entertainment for you, the delight of watching war and weapons documentaries are every where you turn your TV channel to.
We have the satisfaction of watching, movies about the death penalty being used on the "bad guys" or even the evening news. Better yet, if you are young, there are a thousand choices of new video and PC games you can play. Drag out your XBox or other video game player and you can go into a world of hurt.
Better yet, you can wait until the news comes on and catch some real live violence going on in Iraq. Nothing like seeing men, women and children who aren't your blood kin being killed by the dozens, blood stains on the roadway, blood on the wall. What the heck, it isn't your blood afterall.
Now, I don't want to make the focus as television as the source of all our problems. "Televison is only the reflection of the heart of the society that watches it".
At least that's how I see it. No, let's go to the deeper issue, the heart of a country that claims 80% of it is Christian.
Now, you may have heard all that before, but the fact is God said, the following in the very beginning of time. Let's take a look at a command of God's that he made to Noah, the man of righteousness. This is one of God's earliest commandments to Noah, this is right after "He"- Yahweh had destroyed probably millions, of people with drowning them. He alone maintains justice, he alone is just, to decide who shall live and who shall die. He reminds Noah of this with this short but very powerful command.
Genesis 9:6
Whoever shed's man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God he made man.
Then Our Lord and Savour wrapped the same package up when as the very "revealed Yahweh come to be manifest, in the flesh as Yeshua (Jesus), declares to Peter the exact same thing, in paraphrase to the verse above.
It happened on the night that we as fallen individuals would have acted as Peter did, and drawn our sword to fight off "the evil terrorist", the Pharisees, Judas and the other Temple leaders that were coming to take our King away from us. We would have drawn our sword and cried loudly "Revenge" or better yet, as in the movie with Mel Gibson about the struggle for freedom in Scotland, we would yell "Freedom" and slaughtered everyone in sight that we percieved to be our enemy, allowing the blood to splatter on our faces as they did. Yet, in the midst of the opportunity to defend their King and as far as that goes, the King to defend himself, Yeshua (Jesus), reminds Peter of these very words spoken by Yahweh thousands of years before.
Matthew 26:52
Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into it's place; for all who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."
How we have perverted the Gospel with our misunderstanding of the Old Testament and the actions Yahweh took to set apart for himself a people after His own heart. How He allowed them, as an instrument of His righteousness, to use the sword only for the Theocracy of the nation of Israel at that time. God is no longer in the nation business, or the physical kingdom business. He is in the Kingdom of God business, building a spiritual Kingdom. There has been a covental change. God can do as He pleases, you and I cannot!
It was not the heart of the Father to kill and maim and murder others, but there was no other way to punish the wicked, to keep His people from joining into the pagan nations around them and their taking on the pagan nations, sin and idolatry.
He, being the only "just" being there is in all the universe "could and can" make that decision to destroy physically the wicked. He has never, given that over to the hand of men. He allows governments to be formed, he doesn't put a stamp of approval on one or the other. He allows men to be unjust to men, for He is working out His plan. How could one ever use Romans 13 in the way American church goers do for American, they would have to justify Hitler, Stalin or any of their regimes to say, God established them and to go against them is sin.
All government has a wicked heart and desires nothing more than to power over others. For the Word of God tells us that these kingdoms belong to the enemy, Satan.
Thus, we see, our own slowly dissolving into totalitarianism as well. Men always desire to be in power over other men. This has been church history as well.
Now some may argue, that Romans 13 states differently, and in one way it is true he allows men to establish governments, and laws, and some to carry the sword, but it has never been His desire or His way for men. For He would be contradicting His own statement in Genesis and in Matthew.
Yahweh knows the heart of men, and He knows in our fallen state, men will always seek power over others.
Yet, as Christians we have been called to "power under" men. Just as our Lord did, when He could have called ten thousand angels, when He could have armed His disciples and used His powers to destroy Rome and Israel right then and there. He knew what was going to happen to Israel for their rejection of Him, and that was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
He used a wicked nation to destroy another wicked nation - Israel. He had warned them and told them "for the blood of all the prophets and the saints were upon their heads"
Now, we ask, what can we do, to avoid future situations like the new "Columbine" killing at Virginia Tech? Well, my answer is this, we can't stop the world with their wars and hatred, with their thirst for blood, for their love of the sword. We can't even imagine that we can, for Jesus said, "there will be wars and rumors of wars", until He returns.
He also qualified what we as individual Christians are to do, and that is not to be a partaker of this world's ways of hatred, war, blood thirst, and violence. "Take no revenge, love your enemy"!
He set a people apart for himself, these are His people who have beaten their swords into plowshares. Who can lie down with a lion as a lamb, who can turn the other cheek, who can love their enemy, who don't answer insult with insult, injury with injury, just as our Lord did not in every aspect of His life.
We can do all we can to try to justify our love for blood shed, but the Lord has already spoken and when we disregard His word, and live like the world, act like the world, then we "who claim to be Christian" will suffer the consequences like the world - we will die by the sword.
It doesn't take a degree in psychology or security to understand the very simple, but powerful statement, that Jesus made on that evening. When if ever, there could have or should have been looking at things in the eyes of men, there been a breakout of violence and bloodshed, this would have been the time to do it. Yet, Jesus told Peter; "those who live by the sword will die by the sword".
What are you teaching your children at home, in your attitude's and opinion of these things? Do you love the world, it's VIOLENCE? Do you get all excited to see someone get blownup in a movie, killed by a gun, stabbed by a knife. No matter what that person is, or who he is, or what your opinion may be of him or her- it still comes down to this "they are created in God's image"- and if you shed THEIR blood, God will require that YOUR blood be shed too.
How we like to spout off the Ten Commandments to others, that is the "9" commandments, for one of the ten says this:
Exodus 20:13
You shall not murder.
By the way, there are 613 commandments, can you name them? Do you keep them?
We quickly judge others, when our own hearts are not right with the Lord.
All I can say, until real Christians start coming out of the woodwork (the world's molding) and take a stand like the once forgotten AnaBaptist and their now day brethern against being a part of the world and it's kingdoms, the Mennonites, the German Brethern and the Amish, we will see a lot more of the Virginia Techs type of violence, and I can promise with the direction the so called organized church is going now, with their love for violence, and war and all the gory murdering aspects of thinking they are going to build a "City of God" - ie; America, get out the easy chairs, and turn on your TV's because the bloodshed entertainment is just getting started.
How often I have heard the warmongers like to take Romans 13 out of context to justify their lust for hate and bloodshed, and yet they never read or qoute from the verse previous to Romans 13:1-7
What about Romans 12: 1-2 or Romans 12:17-21 or the ending of their favorite out of context scripture, verse 8 in Romans 13.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
My answer as to why the senseless violence in America today is this- GOD SAID!
...but men say differently.
Jesus said it then and he says it now to the body of Christ -
"You nullify the commandments of God for the traditions of men! "
Thus, what we teach our children - Violence.
Dr. J.
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