Posted in Atonement • Church • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Law • Love • Reading • Righteousness • Tradition

Righteousness

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In the late ’90’s as an elder at a Bible Church, I gave a message on the holy days of our Father listed in Leviticus 22.  I summarized the group of holidays by saying something along the lines of knowing and doing them was like knowing the bus schedule. If you want to ride the bus you have to know where and when it’s going to stop, then you have to be there at the proper place and time. I was trying to make the point that believers need to know all of the Bible and do what our Father’s Word tells us in order to figure out what behavior is expected of His children. If we ignore the parts of the Word that the Church (in general) says to ignore, then like the bridesmaids in the parable of the Ten Virgins we will not be as prepared for what is coming as we should be.

Afterwards, a young married man, schooled and hardened in the traditions of Church, was rather irritated at me and asked if I followed the entire Bible (especially the Law), and he didn’t, then was I holier (or more righteous) than he? It was a very telling question for several reasons. First was that salvation righteousness is not measured by actions but by grace through faith, meaning that nothing can be added to the sacrifice of Jesus for salvation. However, after one is saved then comes growth through the Word, which we call sanctification. So this man was confusing salvation righteousness with sanctification righteousness. Salvation righteousness is given to us by Jesus with no strings attached. Once salvation is gained then we exhibit the truth of our salvation by what we do and how we behave through the life-long sanctification process.

Second point of confusion for this young man was that yes, in sanctification it is possible for one individual to be more righteous than another. This is not to say that one is more “saved” than another, or that we measure our entrance into the Kingdom with right actions. It is simply that once we have our ticket for entry into the Kingdom of our Messiah we produce fruit in keeping with repentance and the love that was shown by His death on the cross.

To make an extreme analogy, it’s obvious that if I don’t murder someone, but another does, then I am more righteous than the murderer. I probably wouldn’t get an argument from anyone with that comparison. But let’s go a step further and say that if I don’t eat pork and someone else does, am I more righteous that he who does? The Scriptural answer is yes, but this answer is obscured by Church tradition taught as God’s Word in the Church. The tradition is that somehow the laws on eating pork were supposedly terminated by Jesus. This tradition is not in the Bible anywhere.

Isaiah 65:2–5 ESV. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks; who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels; who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

Sadly, I was not able to straighten out the young man’s confusion at that time because I was working my way through my own confusion caused by the same false Church teachings. It takes a while to extricate one’s self from the twisted teachings of most of the Church traditions not found in the Bible. With consistent reading and applying all of the Word to life, it can be done, but it requires much self-sacrifice as we put off our old man (sinful flesh) and put on the new man (Ephesians 4:20-24).

Isaiah 66:15–17 ESV. “For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many. “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.

So by the Word the answer is yes, those who practice the commands of Jesus such as avoiding the eating of pork (or mice), are in fact more righteous than those who don’t. Genuine followers of Jesus continue to practice all His righteous instructions in our sanctification process, building our houses on the strong foundation of all His Word.

 Luke 6:46–49 ESV. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Remember that the words of Jesus include those given at Sinai, and that the so-called New Testament was not formalized until about 200 A.D. Believers live all the words of Jesus at Sinai and after filled with the love of the Father and His Son in community with each other then and now. If this irritates those who wear only a facade of righteousness and rely on church tradition and membership or time in the choir for righteousness, so be it. The Words of Jesus are the Words of the Father, and all of them help build and strengthen our houses.

John 14:23–24 ESV. Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. Salvation righteousness is a gift, and sanctification is the working out of that gift. The penalty of death for sin has been paid, so we are free to practice His Words without fear and in joyful dedication. Jesus is life, and if we grab hold of all His Words, that life will not be denied and will break out all over in our lives. Shalom.

Posted in Authority • Daily Living • Hermeneutics • Hypocrisy • Law • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament • Prophecy • Tradition • Translational Bias

Burden

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Jeremiah 23:33–36 ESV. “When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the Lord.’ And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household. Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ But ‘the burden of the Lord’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.”

God tells Jeremiah about false prophets in chapter 23, and focuses on the term “burden of the Lord” that they used. Apparently, the false ones would use this term when they were prophesying words that God did not give them. In the process, they would pervert the actual words spoken by the Lord, using lying dreams. Real prophets could use the term (see Zechariah) but not people.

The words of the living God they perverted were those of the covenant made at Mount Sinai through Moses as Jeremiah recorded starting in chapter 11. We can apply these statements to anyone who claims to speak for God or who says they teach His Word yet perverts those words into meanings they don’t possess. They don’t have to say “the burden of the Lord” to speak falsely. The burden is “every man’s own word” which means the same as doing (or saying) what is right in their own eyes.

 God says, “Let him who has my word speak my word faithfully” (23:28). If we don’t speak His Word with His meanings or applications then we are not speaking faithfully. To speak faithfully is to speak His Words of the covenant instead of twisting them to dismiss the real meaning. If we do not speak faithfully, we are the burden of the Lord and He will take steps to punish. We may not see a direct connection to our faithlessness but there will be a connection nonetheless.

Labeling sections of His Word as “old testament” and “new testament” (or just old and new) are the start of becoming the burden of the Lord. He didn’t label them thus, and neither should we. His Words are not split up in that way. Teaching that the crucifixion changed that which cannot be changed is another way of becoming the burden of the Lord. Creating a “new thing” called the Church which then grabs authority for itself in changing the Word continues the burden and makes it worse. Other burdens are in splitting the Word into “Jewish” and “Gentile” sections, insisting that if people disagree with the Church they are heretics and cast out of congregations.

Hosea has a lot to say about priests and prophets who destroy people for “lack of knowledge,” which is the “law of your God.” He doesn’t use the term “burden,” but it’s clear that God has the same issue of a burden as described in Jeremiah 23 (and other places).

Hosea 4:6 ESV. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

The burden in Hosea is the same people who pervert the Word of the Lord delivered by Moses spoken of by Jeremiah. The leaders of Israel are the ones who are supposed to be living and teaching God’s Word and were failing to do either. They became the burden, and led the people of Israel to become a burden also.

It’s not just the priests and prophets of way-back-when either. Anyone at any time that teaches us to forget the Law of our God fits right into the category of burden. People are still destroyed for lack of knowledge of the Words of God, as those words are perverted into ear-tickling messages of peace when there is no peace without all of His words and His exact meaning.

Jeremiah 8:8, 11 ESV. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie…They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.

Jesus had much to say to the scribes (lying pens) and other hypocritical leaders of the Church. Yes, I know I’m conflating the Jews with the Church but it’s obvious they’re the same lying organizations. Jesus calls “traditions” that contradict His Words as false, which puts them in the same category as “burden.”

Matthew 15:3–6 ESV. He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

You can also refer to Luke 7 for a second view of these types of conversations.

Mixing false traditions with the actual Word of God is another way the lying pens of the scribes turn His Words into burdens. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15 says something about traditions he delivered to those people, but we have to go by the rest of his words also as he shoots down traditions that only vaguely resemble God’s traditions.

Colossians 2:8, 18 ESV. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ…Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels…  

Human tradition which follows the elemental spirits of the world are to be avoided, just like we avoid the false teachings of rabbis, pastors and priests. Not all of these leaders speak only lies, but mix a little of God’s Word with a whole lot of burdens never taught by our Messiah Yeshua or our Father in heaven. We are encouraged to ignore those that depart from the Truth. Shalom.

Posted in Church • Daily Living • Hypocrisy • Judaism • Law • Political • Tradition

Cultural Appropriation

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A phrase that is thrown around quite a bit in the last few years is “cultural appropriation.” It means to take something such as a tradition or food or a style of dress from a different culture other than your own, and use it or practice it as if it belongs to you. It is used as a negative.

Cultural appropriation can be as simple and inoffensive as using a Yiddish word or eating Mexican food. Or it can be more involved (and to some more offensive) practices such as hair styles with dreadlocks or dressing with lederhosen or a dashiki. You might be thinking, “The Church has members that wear sombreros or celebrate Cinco de Mayo and are not Mexican, but so what? That’s hardly cause for alarm.” Except a hat or a holiday are not the types of cultural appropriation this article (or video) is about.

The Church, unfortunately, is guilty of culturally appropriating in a big way. By Church, I mean all the groups (associated with each other or not) that claim to be “partisans of the Christ.” They may have different styles of a service and some differences in their so-called “statements of faith,” but they are essentially all the same. They are all built on the same basic framework of cultural appropriation. Let me explain further.

Way back when (about a hundred years after the apostles were all dead – wasn’t that convenient), those who called themselves Christian decided, through a long process, to reject the bulk of the Bible as applying to them. They “transitioned” away from what the world told them were Jewish things. Church fathers created a new thing called “the Church” and said that it was God’s intended goal instead of Israel, because “the Jews” crucified the Messiah (it was the Romans with Jewish leader incitement). Then, in keeping with that split decision, they deliberately mistranslated the parts they appropriated in order to justify their decision to create the new thing.

These and other philosophies of men contradicted Paul’s declaration in Ephesians that there is only one Body, one Faith, and one Messiah. But the church fathers kept using cultural appropriation to develop the new thing anyway. In the process, they built a false god they call Jesus but who barely resembles our biblical Messiah as they chose those parts of the Bible they liked and discarded the others. Like Jeroboam with his replacement golden calves (2 Kings 17), the Church has appropriated a little bit of the biblical Jesus to create a false idol who preaches against God’s unbreakable covenant (John 10:35).

On the contrary, the whole message of the real Jesus is right in line and a continuation of the whole message of the Father, including what they call The Law. “And Scripture cannot be broken.”

John 10:34–38 ESV. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Instead of culturally appropriating a few pieces of the Word to build a non-Jewish organization with a savior that only vaguely resembles the biblical Jesus, believers enter into the existing eternal kingdom of our Messiah by grafting. Grafting is the process of connecting parts of different trees or plants together. We are connected to the existing olive tree of God’s kingdom, as Paul put it in Romans 9 through 11. We become part of the body of Christ and live in His house where His loving rules or instructions are life and discipleship. We do what is right in our Father’s eyes.

Groups that are part of the Church and are called Messianic say they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but also want to follow standard Jewish traditions. In other words, they are also “culturally appropriating,” from Judaism. Many in these groups are actually of Jewish descent, and wanting to keep the traditions is perhaps understandable (although much of Judaism is, like the Church, not biblical – see: the gospels). However, the philosophies of men in the Messianic section of the Church (yes, they are still part of the Church) promote the idea that somehow Jews know the best in how to follow God. So, many of the so-called Messianic congregations try to incorporate as much “Jewish” theology and practice as they can.

The problem is, according to the Bible, most of those in Israel in general have always been just as stiff-necked and stubborn as the Church when it comes to ignoring God’s plain instructions and making up things outside the Word of God. They also culturally appropriated from the nations around them, including their idols. It’s why they got booted out of the Land several times. It’s also the reason they and the Church are part of the “Great Prostitute” of Revelation 17.

The culture that believers desire to appropriate is God’s. His culture is laid down for us all through the Bible and includes what some call the law, given by Jesus, clarified and reinforced by the teachings of the apostles. The whole of Scripture is given to believers for a lifestyle and discipleship method. At Sinai, God (Jesus) set up the instructions for the way He wanted His kingdom to operate. On the arrival of Jesus in the flesh, He clarified the instructions He had already given, clearing away the trash of men’s wrong interpretations and opinions obscuring the plain meaning. It is a flat-out lie that Jesus “fulfilled the Law” and terminated it.

All nations will be judged for refusing to “culturally appropriate” all of God’s Words, including what some negatively refer to as The Law or the Law of Moses.

Jeremiah 25:15, 26-27 ESV. Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it…all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the king of Babylon shall drink. Then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.”  

Shalom.

Posted in Church • Continuity & Discontinuity • Dogma • Judaism • Law • Rapture • Salvation • Tradition

Falling Away

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2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 ESV. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

The word “rebellion” here in the English Standard Version is translated in the NASB95 version as “apostasy” and in the King James as “falling away.” It is number 646 in the Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon.

ἀποστασία: apostasia, to forsake, falling away, defection, apostasy.

Clearly, Paul is saying that there is an apostasy before the man of lawlessness is revealed. But who is falling away from what? In other verses, rebellion or apostasy is applied to Israel departing from the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the other hand, the Church applies this to itself (falling away from the Church) because they think they are a replacement for Israel. The problem with that is the Church is not in the Bible and has never been the point. Israel is the point. The Church has been falling away from God for centuries.

Hebrews 3:12–13 ESV. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

In Hebrews 3:12, the phrase “fall away” is translated from a slightly different word meaning to “depart from,” “to desert,” “excite revolt,” or “become faithless” (Strong’s 868 aphistemi).  It’s the same basic word as apostasy, just with a different spelling.  

Hebrews 3:14–15 ESV. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

The rebellion referred to by the writer is the one where Israel refused to go into the Land as instructed by the Lord through Moses. He is equating this rebellion to the concept of apostasy.

Hebrews 6:4–6 ESV. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

In Hebrews 6, the phrase “falling away” is a different Greek word transliterated parapipto but means ultimately the same thing – to depart from worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It can also mean to deviate from the right path, turn aside or wander, all of which are just a little more descriptive in describing apostasy.

Israel, at the time of Paul, was generally trying to follow God, even if not the Messiah Jesus the Christ. Paul was working very hard to reach as much of Israel as he could with the good news of God with us, and many thousands had converted, but the majority still wanted to go it on their own. This resulted in the failed rebellions against Roman authority of 70 A.D. and 135 A.D. The rebellion against Roman authority was much different than rebelling against God, although in those rebellions both were combined.

The falling away mentioned in Thessalonians is most likely a falling away from God by Israel, before an agreement is made by the Beast with Israel just before he is exposed for what he really is. In my understanding, the falling away spoken of by Paul will also be the result of Church congregants finding out that their leaders have been lying to them for centuries, or people in Israel choosing to side with the Beast, or both. All the nifty philosophies of men that church or genetic Israel buys into will be revealed as so many illusions.

Falling away from God is not the same as falling away from the Church. A person who simply attends Church or is part of physical Israel never was “saved” (John 3). A person can go to church or synagogue for a lifetime and still not be saved. Salvation is permanent, but the evidence of salvation is a life that is dedicated to following all of our Father’s instructions.

 Simply being a member of a non-biblical club or a genetic group is not salvation. Most congregants of any Church or synagogue have been misled into thinking that their group is equivalent to the Body of Christ (or the Kingdom of God) and so apostasy is a hard idea to swallow. But The Church and synagogue are just a man made organizations with a few cultural appropriations from the Bible pasted on and have not taken the place either of Israel or the Body of the Christ.

When the average superficial follower of God or denier of Jesus of whatever stripe finds out that the whole of God’s Word has always been a part of salvation, some will decide to follow but many will be resentful and fall away. Believing in Jesus without doing what He says; not believing in Jesus as the Messiah; believing genetics alone gets you in the kingdom; a rapture that doesn’t happen when you think; a tribulation to endure and so on will cause a massive disillusionment with leaders of all flavors.

Matthew 24:10–11 ESV. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

Jesus uses another word to describe falling away which is transliterated as skandalizo (Strong’s 4624). It means literally to “offend,” or “entice to sin” and even “to cause to fall away.” Apparently, before the Beast is revealed there will be pressure to abandon the God of Abraham which includes “lawlessness.” This factors into the meaning of the other words to give us an idea that the lie or strong delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:11) will add to the pressure of falling away by many. Some of those who fall away may find salvation anyway, so those of us who are mature will need to help them if possible.

Shalom

Posted in Church • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Faith • Law • Love • Natural Man • Rapture • Relevance • Righteousness • Salvation • Temple • Tradition • Worship

Keeping Themselves Holy

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In 2 Chronicles 31:18 we are given this interesting note.

They were enrolled with all their little children, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, the whole assembly, for they were faithful in keeping themselves holy. (2 Chronicles 31:18, ESV)

King Hezekiah of Judah is getting things organized while leading the people back to God. He and the people destroyed all the high places, cleaned up the temple, and re-instituted sacrifices, tithes and offerings. The enrollment spoken of is for the Levite families in order to receive food distribution from the tithes and offerings. Remember that the priests (sons of Aaron) and the Levites were mainly tasked with taking care of the temple and sacrifices and didn’t own much land for the production of food.

What caught my attention was the phrase “they were faithful in keeping themselves holy.” First, they were faithful, meaning to keep doing what they were supposed to be doing. Second, they were keeping themselves holy, which means to follow the Law in avoiding unclean things such as pork and shellfish in addition to bathing and washing clothes and so on. Third, the faithful keeping of these things made the families holy, meaning separate and different from the usual run-of-the-mill people of the world.

In modern times, as in ancient Israel, there are many people who wear His name yet are not faithfully keeping themselves holy. Many claim to be cleansed by the blood of the lamb Jesus, yet ignore His Laws for maintaining and refreshing that cleansing. It’s as if they think that one shower is enough for the rest of their lives. They also teach against the Law, and persecute those like me and my family who realize that the Laws are just as valid for believers now as they were when they were given and even all the way back to the beginning.

The church, sadly, is not faithful in keeping itself clean. In fact, they are proud that they preach Jesus and at the same time deny His word of life. They do what is right in their own eyes, following the ear-tickling Nicolaitans they have chosen for leaders and mixing the Word of Truth with lies, traditions, and philosophies of men.

A picture that has stayed with me for decades came from the movie The Mark of the Beast popular in the ’70’s. There was a scene at one point after the so-called Rapture of a church that was empty except for the pastor preaching. I have since come to realize that the picture is false. The churches with be full for the most part if in fact a Rapture happens as they believe, because the people are not faithfully keeping themselves holy.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Balance • Church • Cults • Daily Living • Division • Faith • Holy Spirit • Humility • Hypocrisy • Relevance • Tradition • Worship

Liar

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Hillsong has a recent song out called New Wine. There’s a line in there that made me think, “Liar.”

What do you think would make me react that way? They sing:

“So I yield to You and to Your careful hand

When I trust You I don’t need to understand”

Sounds perfectly fine, doesn’t it? So why the negative reaction? you ask.

The part that made me think of liars was “I yield to You.”

No, they don’t yield.

How could I possibly know?

Because they are standard, modern church. There are a lot of songs like this in the church, and Hillsong is a big creator of them. They (and their fans and so-called “worship teams” that copy the music) love to close their eyes and sway back and forth and raise their hands. Standard, modern church places a huge premium on looking holy and “feeling the Spirit.” Except when you get right down to it, there is no yielding.

Oh, there’s lots of sentiment. Tons of feelings.

I’m a musician, and I love to play and sing. I really like many different songs, and enjoy group music. But a lot of what passes for “worship” in the churches is not much more than ego feeding and vanity. If there was really a yielding, which would show up all week long in many actions, then it might be more genuine.

How do I know there’s no yielding? Simply put, they don’t follow God’s living oracles.

Try this experiment sometime. In your Sunday school or weekly Bible study, make a suggestion that all of God’s Law is relevant and a valid lifestyle and discipleship method for every believer.

See what happens.

I guarantee that almost universally, especially among the young adults, there will be instant and ferocious denial. You will be hit with all sorts of counter-arguments, from the nice to the not-so-nice.

Because we don’t like to yield. We don’t want to do what God says. Rather than holy behavior, we’d rather sway and cry and raise hands when a really good band plays appealing songs. Then go home and “feel led” to ignore much of what He has laid down for us in the Word.

Like I said. Liar.

And don’t get me started on the “When I trust you I don’t need to understand” stupidity.

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 Church • Cults • Division • Fruit • Holy Spirit • Orthodox • Relevance • Tradition

We No Longer Live in Christendom

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Baltimore Sun October 23, 2017

Article: Churches merge, close: “We no longer live in Christendom. We really have to accept that it’s a thing of the past”

The quote above is from Reverend Daniel Webster, canon for evangelism and media for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. He’s studied the trend of churches closing and merging for 20 years. The article presents his point of view, as well as documenting the decline in church attendance which occasions the closing and merging.

Jonathan Pitts, the writer of the article, offers Mr. Webster’s opinion of one of the most important factors in declining church numbers.

While it’s hard to pinpoint a single most important factor, Webster says, it’s impossible to ignore the repeal of most of the old state blue laws, regulations that had long placed restrictions on commercial activity on Sundays, starting in the mid-20th century.

Today’s faith leaders must compete with everything from youth soccer and pro football games to shopping at the mall.

Mr. Pitts doesn’t really spend much time on causes. He just assumes that competition from the world is the cause and details a number of church’s efforts to merge or close.

However, I do not agree that competition from the world is the cause of church closings and mergers.The world has always been in hostile competition with the Kingdom of God. Believers have been in a fight since the Garden of Eden with those who oppose God and His plans. Perhaps you’ll be surprised at my opinion that the church has also been in hostile competition with the Kingdom. The church (in general) and the world are not much different from each other. Churches claim to follow Jesus, but when we compare their beliefs and practices with the Bible we can see that they don’t have much in common. On the other hand, compare churches with the world and we can see that the real merging has already taken place.

Just because the church has some trappings that look Christian, does not mean a church is automatically part of the Kingdom of God or the body of believers. Much of what the church has done is to merge some stories and tradition borrowed from the Bible with self-seeking behavior. Way back in 325 A. D. when the Roman emperor Constantine took a fancy to some of the Christian concepts the merger with the world got a big boost. For centuries the visible church has been in a tug-of-war with the world sometimes holding to God’s Word better than at other times. But in modern times it has mostly been tugged in the wrong direction.

The church merged with the world a long time ago, and the loss of some people or buildings is not the biggest hurt. It is the loss of God’s Spirit due the refusal to do what God says that has really sunk the church. Churches might be shrinking or merging, but the body of Christ has been steady and growing because we hold tight to the Word of God, living and teaching it to all who would listen.

I don’t even agree that “we no longer live in Christendom.” Believers have never lived in Christendom. We are salted throughout the world, and even throughout the church or churches. A church member is not the same thing as a believer although there are believers who might be church members. The world has always been hostile to God and the body of believers, and we’ve never had a Christendom. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we no longer live in Churchdom.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Balance • Daily Living • Division • Love • Paul Teachings • Righteousness • Tradition • Whole Bible Christianity

A Whole Bible Look At: Romans 13 through 16

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New up on our Youtube channel is the fourth video for Romans covering chapters 13 through 16. The truth seeker will enjoy the comments on the famous Romans 14 chapter helping to clarify the plain meaning stated by Paul that he is talking about opinions, not God’s Word. Taken all together it is clear that Paul has a high regard for the Law and many suggestions for application. He “upholds the law” (Romans 3:31) rather than trying to change Scripture. For Paul the “law is spiritual” (Romans 7:14) and he “agrees that the law is good;” (Romans 7:16 and others) and he “delights in the law of God, in [his] inner being” (Romans 7:22) although he finds that the “law of sin” is waging war with the “law of his mind” (God’s law) (Romans 7:23) making living it out very difficult. Freedom (Romans 8) from the impossible struggle of trying to earn our own righteousness comes from the sacrifice of the Christ, who has paid the penalty for our disobedience and given us a way back to intimacy with our Father and Messiah.

Instead of rejecting the law as many in the church suggest, he wants us to present our bodies a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) by renewing our mind, testing to discern the will of God (Romans 12:2) and holding fast to what is good (Romans 12:9) which includes God’s law (which he said before). Paul reminds us that the first word of the law is love (love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength) and love fills up the Law (Romans 13:10). This is all included in his admonition to “put on Christ and make no provision for the flesh.” By the time we get to Romans 14 it is obvious that the subject is a continuation of principles laid down in the previous 13 chapters.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Balance • Bible • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Gentiles • God • Law • Natural Man • Paul Teachings • Relevance • Salvation • Tradition • Whole Bible Christianity

A Whole Bible Look At Romans 9 through 12

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The third video in our Romans series is up, and I’ll bet you’ve never heard Romans this way!

Shalom
Bruce