Continue reading “187) Name It And Claim It Doesn’t Work”

The early church was Jewish in leadership and membership. It functioned in synagogues and had Pharisaic traditions and it never lost its traces of Rabbinic Halakha [religious law]…

Until 70 AD Jerusalem was between 1/3 & ½ believers in Yeshua as the promised Redeemer, a sect of Judaism, coexisting with non-believing Jews in the same synagogues and the temple, kept all the Feasts of God and were respected for their lifestyle and devotion. The first major split between believing and non-believing Jews occurred when believers, heeding Yeshua’s words in Mattew 24 to flee the city in advance of the Roman attack ,were labeled as traitors for failing to defend Jerusalem. 

Another major change began between 70 – 100 as religious leadership in Jerusalem shifted from all Jewish to all Gentile.

In 136 during the last struggle with Rome in the days of Bar Kokba and Akiba that the Gentile Church and Jewish Synagogue separated forever.

The process by which this happened was to split off the Jewish Scriptures, likely by Melito of Sardis [d.180 AD] who coined the phrase Old Testament. Although Jewish by birth, Melito was fully immersed in Greek culture.

Continue reading “SECTION XXXVIII: Divide And Conquer”

“our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written…in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (II Peter 3:15-16)

Philo of Alexandria (30 BCE – 45 CE) is a good example of a Jew who wrested the scriptures to suit his personal preference. He identified with Judaism through following ritual law while also identifying with high, i.e. Greek, society by melding Judaism’s God with the Greek concept of God, despite their inherent contradictions. The Greeks believed that God was inherently “unknowable.” Yahweh was the opposite – easily accessible and constantly occupied with the details of everyday life, reached easily just by calling out to him.

Philo postulated a two-part God: 1) an ousia of God, or a singular essence, which is the unknowable, and 2) an energeiai (energy) / Spirit which was the very thoughts of God. God’s energy could interact and touch the lives of mortals despite the remote ousia which was inaccessible to man through The Logos – a mediator for God; making it possible to realize the energy of God, and thus, by extension, the impossible ousia of God Himself.

Heraclitus of Ephesus used the word Logos around 500 BCE to describe his concept of the universe as a divine machine invisibly regulated by the Logos (literally the reason). The Greek cult of Hermes played on this construct, reporting that their prophet, in a trance state, met “the Mind of Authority” who shows the mystic a great light / reality and a great darkness / matter. From the Mind comes “a Holy Logos,” …the “shining Son of God.”

Philo’s Logos / Word was extremely popular among Jews and non-Jews alike because it allowed ecumenicalism in a multicultural empire, especially for those aspiring to be accepted by the ruling classes.

Continue reading “188) Wresting The Scriptures”

Splitting is a way for individuals to cope with conflicting emotions or thoughts by dividing them into polarized categories – all one or the other. People prone to splitting often have polarized opinions without considering complexities. This polarized viewpoint hampers growth within relationships. Splitting can wreak havoc on relationships, leading to frequent conflicts and struggle with maintaining stable connections.

This is particularly true when it comes to splitting the Singularity into three persons.

The doctrine of the Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith. It is crucial for properly understanding what God is like, how he relates to us, and how we should relate to him. 

The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.

The problem with this is obvious once we recognize that the Bible defines a person as a distinct soul, an autonomous individual. Surely we’ve come to understand that there is no such thing as “Separate but Equal.”

The doctrine of the Trinity is not found in either the New or the Old Testaments.

Continue reading “189) Splitting God”

After the original witnesses of Jesus the Christ’s resurrection died off, false teachers sprang up to dispute the faith of those who had heard about this savior. Was He man? Was He God? Was He God appearing as a man? Was He an illusion? Was He a mere man who became God? Was He created by God the Father, or did He exist eternally with the Father?

This was not accidental. The intent and inevitable results of the early Church councils convened to answer these questions was to divide and conquer God’s people. They were clearly heretical, because Jesus had answered those questions.

1. “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:
2. he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?
3. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?
4. the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me,
5. he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” (John 14:7-18)

Continue reading “190) A Pagan Son of A God Replaces YHVH’s Human Messiah”

In the transformation of Rome from a publicly pagan to a publicly Christian Empire which was in reality just a new face on the old Mithraism, is God going to stand by and do nothing?

Not according to his word, he’s not.

“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple…

And I will come near to you to judgment; and…fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. For I am the LORD, I change not…

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another…and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD / YHVH, and that thought upon his name / attributes of Singularity and righteousness...” (Malachi 3)

Was it even possible to find a righteous Messenger to the peoples of the world from Christianity? It is a fact that Christianity had become thoroughly corrupted after its politicization within the Roman Empire in the 4th Century.

The story of The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is one of the most documented and studied lives in human history. His biography — known in Arabic as the Seerah-has shaped the beliefs, laws, and daily habits of nearly two billion Muslims worldwide over the last fourteen centuries.

Muhammad c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE), the founder of Islam / Submission, claimed to be the final prophet of God sent to restore orthodox monotheism previously preached by Adam, Noah, and leaders of the Hebrews including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Paul.

Continue reading “SECTION XXXIX: I Will Send My Messenger Before Judgment”

From the last chapter in the Bible:

“Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book…for the time is at hand…and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be….Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may  enter in through the gates into the city.” (Revelation 22)

“ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light…Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:9-12)

Let’s revisit what the Apostle Paul, the so-called “founder” of the “new religion” of Christianity, really says about what it takes to be declared righteous in order to gain eternal life in God’s kingdom of Heaven.

Continue reading “191) Righteousness Is Not A Religion”

Membership in a family / household / nation requires fulfilling responsibilities.

“when Abram heard that his brother / nephew was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan…and smote them, and pursued them…And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. (Genesis 14)

This precept is so important that multiple examples are given in scripture from “Abraham, who is the father of us all [believers in YHVH’s Savior]”. (Romans 4:16)

Continue reading “192) Sonship Granted To Those Who Do The Father’s Will”

“Thou believest that there is one God / in monotheism; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” (James 2:19-22)

“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God…shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:1-6)

The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of Allah…viewed as the sole God—creator, sustainer, and restorer of the world. The will of Allah.is made known through the sacred…scriptures.

Continue reading “193) Can Any Good Thing Come Out Of Islam?”