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New book on Nicolaitans

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I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been working on a new book. The most popular video on our Youtube channel is the one on Nicolaitans, so I decided to write a book explaining more about them. Here’s an excerpt from the manuscript.

The Pharisees. There’s a good chance that Nicolaitans are the Gentile version of the Pharisees. Jesus says He hates the works of the Nicolaitans, and He wasn’t too fond of the works of the Pharisees either. It’s apparent that we can put them in the same group.

When we look at the example of the Pharisees we have to ask ourselves, “Why does Jesus have such a problem with them? Weren’t they teaching the ‘old testament,’ and wasn’t Jesus going to eliminate it, according to the teachings of the modern church?” The fact that He didn’t could be termed an argument from silence, which isn’t a good way to support a position. On the other hand if Jesus was going to change the Covenant that would surely be a huge issue and would have ended up the centerpiece of the controversy. It would also have given the Jewish leaders an excellent justification for the crucifixion.

I’m just saying that, in view of the standard church idea that Jesus loved everybody and the Pharisees could’ve been merely mistaken, it seems odd that He was so wrathful towards them. This is one of the many logical inconsistencies that modern Nicolaitans have generated with their extra-biblical doctrines. If the Pharisees were teachers of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament was being eliminated by Jesus, then why get so mad at them? Wouldn’t Jesus just tell them that you don’t have to do that now because I came to start a new thing?

The fact is Jesus was angry with the Pharisees because they seated themselves in Moses’ seat and did NOT teach the Old Testament (Matthew 23:1-3). They were teaching their interpretations and traditions which had covered over or eliminated much of what Jesus gave at Mt. Sinai. They were “preaching but not practicing” (Matthew 23:3-4), tying up heavy burdens and not lifting a finger to help move them, doing deeds to be seen by others, and shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces while not entering themselves. They twisted the “living oracles” as Stephen called the Law and the Prophets into something that caused people to despair of ever being able to touch God. The Nicolaitans fall into this group of people also. Jesus hates them because they are teaching the same types of things as the Pharisees, albeit in different ways perhaps. Any teaching that causes people to detour from God’s living oracles is hated by Jesus.

One very large fault in the Pharisees illuminated for us by Jesus is that they were hypocrites, meaning that by and large they taught one thing but lived life differently than their teaching. They were play actors. On the outside they looked holy but on the inside they were rotten. In their public teachings they centered on Torah but in their lives they didn’t practice it. They accepted deferential treatment, the best seats at corporate gatherings, dressed differently so they would be recognized, and loved to be called “rabbi” meaning “master.” This is one of the reasons I think Nicolaitans might very well have been (and are) the Gentile version of the Pharisees. They earned God’s wrath because they assigned themselves to speak for God and didn’t follow through in their personal lives.

Hypocrites are variously defined in the Word as “men of falsehood,” “dissemblers” and “vain persons” (Psalm 26:4 ESV and AV), “godless” (Job 36:13, Proverbs 11:9 and others, ESV), “evil doer” (Isaiah 9:17 ESV and AV), and “profane mockers” in Psalm 35:16 ESV. Not a great group in which to be included. Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrites recorded for us in various places, and He also quoted Isaiah 29:13 in Mark 7:6 ESV. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” We can see that there is not much difference between the doctrines of all false teachers. Just a difference in looks, methods or approach.

More is coming soon, I hope. The book will be about a hundred pages in 6 x 9 format. We will dive deep into the methods, philosophies and dogma of the modern Nicolaitans. We will also explore the damage they’ve cause to the maturity, fruit of the Spirit and abundant life of the believer.

Shalom

Bruce

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Audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity Available

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It took a while, but an Audiobook version of our book Whole Bible Christianity is now available. It’s about 15 and a half hours, narrated by Bruce. You can get it free if you sign up for a trial membership at Audible.com. You get a free audiobook when you first sign up for the service. After the first month it costs $15.00 per month but you get one free book per month too.

If you click this link to view the print version, then click on the Free with your Audible Trial button and stay with Audible for two months, not only do you get two free audiobooks (for $15.00 the second month) but we get a $50.00 bonus! You can exchange any audiobook you decide is not for you, and your credit for one free book rolls over to the next month if you don’t use it. Even if you cancel membership after a while you can keep all your audiobooks.

What a great deal! Whole Bible Christianity, Blessings Pressed Down and Overflowing audiobook for free, a bonus to us, and you get more free audiobooks.

There’s also the print version of the book, and Kindle version for a pretty low cost. The Kindle and audiobook versions do not have the Scripture Index with almost 1,500 entries from every book in the Bible, and the audiobook doesn’t have the footnotes, but still you can listen on the way to work and back or read on a Kindle at your leisure. Get all three and get it all.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Book publishing • Church • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Faith • Fear • Feast and Festivals • Feast of Tabernacles • Feast of Trumpets • God • Gospel • Grace • Holy Spirit • Humility • Hypocrisy • Identity • Israel • Law • Love • Marriage • Messianic Movement • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Testament • Paul Teachings • Whole Bible Christianity book

New Audiobook!

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We’ve now produced an audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity. It is available on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. I narrated it myself and it sounds very good. I did the narration because I don’t think anyone else could’ve really given the project the right tone except the guy who wrote it. It’s about 16 hours long but I don’t know what the pricing will be. Just check with Amazon under Whole Bible Christianity when you want a complete reference for Whole Bible Christianity to listen to in your car or while you are trying to go to sleep!

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Bible • Blessing • Church • Humility • Manna Reading Schedule • New Testament • Old Testament • Reading

Read the Word Publicly

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Just a note to let you know that we’ve posted a new article to the website titled Read the Word Publicly. We advocate reading large portions of the first five books of the Bible and the first five of the New Testament. We use an annual reading schedule that is popular in synagogues called the Parasha or Portion, except we modify it with New Testament readings. It takes a while in our meetings to read eight or ten chapters, but in a lot of ways it is much better than preaching.

The article is about eight pages and covers a number of reasons for why we think this should be a widespread practice among people who genuinely follow Jesus. Click on this link or copy and paste into your browser.

http://www.wholebible.com/read_the_word_publicly.htm

Oh yeah. The new Manna for Whole Bible Christians reading schedule booklet ready for printing is also posted on the site at

http://www.wholebible.com/Manna/MannaBooklet17_18.pdf

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Law • Love • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament

Law, Restated

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Just put a new article up on the website titled Law, Restated. It’s about the imaginary restriction some people put on the Law that it is not restated in the New Testament. Therefore it is not something we “have” to do. I beg to differ. In the article we look at the many ways the Law is stated and restated in different forms throughout the Old Testament. Then we’re ready to look in the New and see if the Law is there. The conclusion is that yes, the Law is restated in the New Testament.

So now what?

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Whole Bible Christianity, The Book

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Our book Whole Bible Christianity has finally been published! It is on Amazon at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997501413/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1DQVER67Q2HMX&coliid=I1RPTLB6JQO1FI

There is a Look Inside feature, you can flip between the front and back cover, and it is only $19.50. If you would prefer, we will have the entire text on a web page when we update our website so you can read it online.

The book has about 800 direct quotes from the Word, around 1,500 entries in the Scripture Index, and is about 340 pages. One of the many uses of the book is as a handbook for whole Bible Christians everywhere who need a reference to help counter attacks against a whole Bible lifestyle. Chapter 7 deals with a bunch of the objections to following God’s living oracles, and chapter 8 has a list of blessings from doing what Jesus says.

Let us know what you think, and make sure to post a review on Amazon if you would be so kind.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Identity • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament • Whole Bible Christianity • Whole Bible Christianity book

New vid: Living in the New Testament Synagogue

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Hot off the computer, a new video looking at the New Testament synagogue and what they used for a daily living guide. The New Testament wasn’t compiled and accepted until about 200 A.D., so in the meantime what did the New Testament synagogue use?

Just a little curve to help with the biblical thinking processes.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Church • Continuity & Discontinuity • Identity • New Testament • Old Testament • Whole Bible Christianity book

Start of the Church

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I was raised thinking that the church started at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. The story I was told was that God finally got fed up with Israel and switched His program to the Gentiles. As if the Gentiles were so wonderful or more receptive or better behaved or something. Translations of the Bible reinforce this story because they pretty much universally use the English word “church” in the New Testament but not in the Old.

 

The word the translators (and pastors, priests, and rabbis) think is associated with the church is the Greek word we transliterate ekklesia (ἐκκλησία a-klay-see-uh Strong’s number 1577). This word simply means “assembly” or “congregation.” The Hebrew words for assembly or congregation are qahal (6951) and edah. They mean the same thing as ekklesia, and in fact the Greek Septuagint uses ekklesia about 52 times. Sometimes the assembly is formal, such as when kings called Israel together, and sometimes is was an informal family gathering. But ekklesia is not translated “church” in the OT in any of the English translations I consulted.

 

There’s simply no reason to make an arbitrary distinction for the assembly between the OT and the NT. God’s assembly has been gathering for a long time. The plan of God is continuous, without interruption, and didn’t start in Acts 2. It might’ve gotten a kick in the pants, but the congregation has always been around. The “assembly” that Jesus said He would build (Matthew 16:18) has a foundation that was started in the Garden and goes on into the future as a kingdom that never ends.

Posted in Law • New Testament

The Second Sermon on the Mount

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From ‘Whole Bible Christianity’ chapter 7 The Second Sermon on the Mount

Matthew in chapters five, six and seven of his gospel account records for us the second Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, I said second because the first was at Mt. Sinai with Moses, who relayed it to Israel. The second is similar to the first; even identical. Since Jesus actually gave both sermons, we would expect they would sound alike, which they do. In fact, what we really have here is Jesus cutting through man’s false teachings about what He set down at Sinai. He repeats His message over and over and over and over in the Bible. Man’s interpretations or applications of the Law to that point were lacking, so Jesus corrected them.

In 5:17 He says He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill. The word ‘abolish’ is clear – it means eliminate (or destroy, or change). As in ‘I did not come to eliminate the Law.’ It wouldn’t make very much sense for Jesus to say, “I did not come to abolish the Law, but to abolish it.” The word ‘fulfill,’ used as the opposite of ‘abolish,’ means to interpret correctly so that words are given their proper meaning. It’s clear in this context Jesus is saying He would not destroy the Law through wrong interpretation. So we can read this statement as, ‘I did not come to remove or destroy or change the Law, but to correctly interpret it so it would be put back on a firm foundation.’

The word ‘fulfill’ by itself also means to ‘fill up full,’ as in filling up the foundation forms of a house with cement. Jesus cements His intention by telling us that even the tiniest part of God’s Law will not change until heaven and earth pass away. Some try to make the phrase “until all is accomplished” to mean Jesus changed the Law through the resurrection. But heaven and earth certainly did not pass away at that time. Therefore the Law still stands, placed on firm foundation by the Giver and Interpreter. It is still absolutely applicable to everyone.

Whole Bible Christianity book draft

Posted in Law • New Testament • Whole Bible Christianity book

Which Law?

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‘Whole Bible Christianity’ chapter 1 ‘Which Law?’

Some people limit The Law to the first five books (the Pentateuch), which they call the ‘Law of Moses.’ Other people will divide the Law of Moses into three (unbiblical) sections (civil, ceremonial, and moral) and say only the ‘moral laws’ count. There are the people who think there are ten Laws, and those who think there are only two laws now (love the Lord and love each other). Then we’ve got the red letter people, telling us to pay attention to only red letters. Lastly, there are people who think the Law is imaginary, or merely spiritual, and as long as we think we are obeying then we must be really obeying.

Whole Bible Christians, as the name implies, say that every word from the mouth of God is Law (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4). It is plain to us that The Law is every word that He speaks from Genesis to Revelation. We believe “all of the above” when it comes to His Law. It is more than just three sections or five books. It’s all moral. Red letters, black, purple, or whatever, don’t matter. Every word is read and followed literally as much as we can.

His Words (and Law) are intimately woven around history and God’s dealings with men. There is no avoiding the Word, whether we call it Law or something else. Most of this book is about the Law because most of His book is about the Law. The subject of His whole Law (commands, statutes, charge, ordinances, etc.) is mentioned thousands of times in the Word, as well as related subjects such as obeying His voice (Genesis 22:18, 26:5; Exodus 19:5), hearing His voice (John 10:16, 27, 18:37; Revelation 3:20), ears that don’t hear and eyes that don’t see (Jeremiah 5:21, 6:10; Ezekiel 12:2; Mark 8:18). His Word and His Law is the same thing.

You’ve heard it said that the Law isn’t for Christians. That it’s been ‘fulfilled’ by Jesus and therefore eliminated. That we “can’t do” the Law. Or maybe just “the Ten” apply (or maybe just 9 or 8 or 2). I cover a bunch of those anti-biblical teachings in chapter 6. But when you read the Word, the whole thing seems to be directed at every believer. Now you’re thinking, “What in the world is going on?” because you’ve been told so much different.

I understand. It happens a lot. But let me assure you – all of His Law really does apply to everyone, all the time, everywhere (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). Jesus talked a lot about the Law. He gave it, established it, and lived it. He did not abolish it (Matthew 5:17-19). It is part of the gospel (Hebrews 4:2), and it is unequaled as a lifestyle and discipleship method. We don’t have to follow the Law, we get to. The message of the Bible, from the Garden to Jesus to you and me, is do what God says.

46“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47“But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:46-47 NASB95)