PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD by Teresa Beem

It got to him. It got to him while he was laughing at some little vulgarity or wickedness. He did not know that his laughter benumbed him to the hideous shadow slipping into his thoughts.

It infected him…

Then he then became his own nightmare, in that he was willing to destroy himself that he may wound his enemy.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. This dark, suicidal presence that cannot yet be conceived of, is standing so close its breath is upon your neck. 

"Yes, laugh, mock. It feels good."

"It has no power. You have power."

Those calming whispers do not come from rational men, but from the very ghoul itself. It wants you to believe it is playing, teasing you. It wants you to believe it will have mercy upon the nice people. That it is forgiving and ….. likes you. That somehow you will be the exception when it begins to rule. You will be a favorite in its kingdom. Do not be that stupid.

This dark unstoppable force is very much like the zombies in the clip above. 

It is sin. 

If sin doesn't scare the hell out of you, then you do not know sin. Sin is your most frightening enemy. It doesn't just want you, it wants your siblings, your spouse, your children. 

Sin's obsession with you has nothing to do with hate, for it has no feelings towards humans--you mean nothing to it for it has no heart, no understanding. It is not rational and cannot be persuaded by the greatest human genius. It gives no thought to the innocent or the elderly or the kind-hearted or most sincere. It's goal is utter annihilation. And you cannot join its side and live through it.

Sin has declared war on you and your family whether or not you wish to fight. And it is unstoppable until you and the entire world is destroyed. 

You cannot become a conscientious objector in this battle against sin. You have no hiding place. Do you believe that if you are quiet and still, this evil will not see you?… It has eyes all around and while you cower in a dark corner an axe is poised above your head. It will win. Destruction will win at any cost and it is not playing.

While Christians are right in that Christ won the cosmic war with Satan, those of us on earth are still left vulnerable to sin's madness if we have not put on the whole armor of God. 

Look at what sin did to the Creator and He who is love itself. (Ephesians 6)

  

That day of evil is here. Will you be able to stand?

PETER'S FAITH OR PETER?

Seriously, I could do nothing here but link to the Shameless Popery website and be done with it. What a place to find brilliant sparkling theological gems! So, I am just going to repost parts of Joe Heschmeyer's answer to the Protestant's claim that Matthew 16:18 is about Peter's faith, rather than Peter himself. And to make things even more amazing, is that this guy is just a kid! A seminarian! I can't wait to read his wisdom when he gets a few years under his belt. 

___________________________________

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013

Is "The Rock" of Matthew 16:18 St. Peter? Or His Confession of Faith?

One of the most hotly-contested passages in Catholic-Protestant dialogues is the “Upon This Rock” passage in Matthew 16:18. After the Apostle Simon confesses faith in Jesus as the Messiah (the Christ), Jesus says to him:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, [Petros] and on this rock [petra] I will build my church, and the powers of death [Hades] shall not prevail against it.” 

So is Jesus founding His Church upon Peter, the first pope, as Catholics say? Or is He just saying that the Church will be built off of those who confess faith in Jesus as the Christ, as many Protestants claim?

I’ve previously presented the case for the Catholic interpretation before, but that’s not what I’m going to do today. In this post, I want to show why the popular Protestant interpretation doesn't work.

First, let's examine the Scriptural passage in context (Matthew 16:13-19):

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare′a Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli′jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

In the span of just three of those verses, Jesus addresses Peter personally ten times. Yet under the Protestant interpretation, we’re supposed to believe that this passage wasn’t meant to apply to Peter personally. It’s allegedly addressed to any Christian making such a profession like the one that Peter makes: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

There are a couple glaring problems with this theory. First, we hear Martha making this exact declaration in John 11:27, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” And you know what Christ doesn’t do? Change her name to Petra, and promise to build the Church upon her. Nor do we see any of the other Christians in the New Testament renamed Peter. The only person in Scripture ever referred to as “Peter” is the Apostle Simon. This looks a lot like Jesus meant to build the Church upon Peter, and not just anyone willing to declare Him the Messiah.

But okay, we don’t know whether Martha or Peter’s confession of faith came first. So maybe Jesus addresses Matthew 16:18 to Peter because Peter got there first?

Well, this raises the other, even more-glaring problem: Peter didn’t get there first. John 1:32-49 eliminates any room for the Protestant interpretation of the “Upon This Rock” passage. Here it is:

And John bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter) 

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Beth-sa′ida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathan′a-el, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathan′a-el said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathan′a-el coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathan′a-el said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathan′a-el answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

This passage is fantastic. We hear a series of proclamations of the faith:

1. John the Baptist proclaims Jesus as the Son of God (John 1:34) and the Lamb of God (John 1:36). 
2. The Apostle Andrew, Simon’s brother, proclaims Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ (John 1:41). 

1. The Apostle Philip proclaims Jesus as “him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,” which is to say, the Messiah (John 1:45). 

1. The Apostle Nathaniel proclaims Jesus as “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel” (John 1:49).

In fact, the only person named in this passage who doesn’t profess faith in Christ is Simon Peter. He’s not recorded as saying anything. And yet right in the midst of this flurry of Messianic proclamations, Jesus does something astounding. He turns to Simon, and as if He has been waiting for him, says “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas.” It’s remarkable that Jesus should do this: He calls Simon by name, including his family name (so to speak). He does the exact same thing in Matthew 16:18. This is as personal as it gets. And as St. John notes, Cephas is the Aramaic word for rock, and is translated into Greek as Petros, and into English as “Peter.”

So John 1 basically shows us that: (1) everyone but Simon proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah; (2) Jesus then announced that Simon, Son of John, was the one He would choose as the Rock; and (3) Protestants are left spending five hundred years trying to explain why this passage doesn't mean that Simon is really the Rock, or is personally the Rock, etc.

Bear in mind, this event happens at the very start of Jesus’ public ministry, long before the events of Matthew 16. This eliminates any chance that Simon is named Peter because he’s the first to declare Jesus the Christ. Jesus was being declared as Messiah before Peter had even met Him. Instead, Jesus has made it abundantly clear that He, the Sovereign God, specifically chose Peter as the Rock.

Peter is hand-picked from among the crowd, even when he is surrounded by men who seem like they would be better candidates. It is another reminder that “the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). And Peter alone is renamed. We may all be rocks (Peter calls us “living stones” in 1 Peter 2:5) but Jesus (the “Living Stone” in the fullest sense, 1 Peter 2:4) chose one from among of us, the Apostle Peter, to be the Rock upon which He built the Church.

Update: Two additional points, worth mentioning, were raised in the comments:

1. Many Protestants base their rejection of the Catholic view off of the supposed difference in meaning between Petros and Petra. That difference in meaning doesn’t really exist in the Greek spoken at the time of Christ. But in any case, as John 1:43 shows, Jesus named Peter “Cephas” in Aramaic, which is the exact same word as “Rock.” In Aramaic it’s Cephas and cephas; literally translating that to Greek would give you Petra and petra, which is a problem, since Petra is feminine, and can’t be used as a man’s name. So St. Matthew renders it as the male Petros instead.
2. Even if Protestants were right about the proper interpretation of “the Rock” in Matthew 16, the broader passage still supports the papacy, since it shows the foundation of an institutional Church, and the giving of specific powers (the Keys, and the powers of binding/loosening) to Peter individually. For this reason, you can have Fathers like St. Augustine, who aren’t sure on the proper interpretation of “the Rock,” but are steadfast in their belief in the papacy, based upon Petrine authority.
   
   In fact, even if Matthew 16 didn’t exist, there would still be abundant support for the papacy throughout the rest of Scripture and in the testimony of the early Christians.

Faith Alone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1vTqpZCIlc

Did You Receive John's Baptism or Jesus'?

   

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.…and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Mark 1: 4, 5, Matt. 3: 6, Luke 3:3 

Israel was expecting the long awaited Messiah. 

John, son of a the renown priest Zechariah threw off the royal priestly robes, rejected the choicest meats and first fruits set aside for his family, put on rugged clothing and fled to Jordan's wilderness to survive on what he could find to eat. 

John baptized with water those who confessed their sins. And this baptism for the forgiveness of sins was, in fact, itself declaring that the great and dreadful day of the Lord had come!

As wonderful as the Baptism of John was for Israel, this baptism was not required, nor could it bestow grace or confer the Holy Spirit upon the baptized. It was a symbol of the forgiveness that was to come. John's baptism did not give the Jew entrance into the New Covenant Kingdom of Heaven. This baptism was making straight the way of the Lord. It was a baptism of preparation. 

Then, one day, it happened. John cried out, "Behold! The Lamb of God!" The Anointed One came to him for baptism. John's baptism was coming to an end, as the Kingdom of God had arrived. Here was the King!

And a new baptism began. It was the baptism of Christ. 

Though Jesus' baptism was similar to John's in that, after repentance and confession, the water baptism gives us forgiveness of our sins. The Christian is require to be baptized with the Trinitarian formula, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" and it is much much more than a symbol. As circumcision was the rite to enter the Hebraic covenant, baptism is the rite that brings one into the Kingdom of Heaven and the New Covenant. (Acts 1: 37-38, Col. 2:9-14)

This new one baptism unites us all in the one Spirit and one Body. In fact, it give us each the fire of the Holy Spirit. (Eph. 4: 5, I Cor. 12: 13, Acts 2:38, Matt. 3:11)

When we are baptized into Christ, we are born again in newness of life, our sins are washed away, it gives  us a clear conscience and disarms the dark powers and principalities who have enslaved us in sin.  (Acts 22: 16, Col. 2: 15, Rom. 6: 6-12) 

With this baptism we die and are raised with Christ! 

[All] baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Rom. 6: 3-5 

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands….you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. Col. 2: 11-13

With baptism, we put on Christ and enter His Kingdom, for it is through baptism we are saved! Peter tells us this in his first letter. Paul tells us this in his letter to the Galatians. But most importantly Christ tells us this through the gospels:

 Baptism...now saves you. I Peter 3: 21 

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Galatians 3: 27

He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Mark 16: 16. 

John's baptism for the washing away of sins was a symbolic cleansing. If Christian baptism is also a symbol then John's baptism should have been sufficient. If one's sins were symbolically cleansed by John what would be the point of a second symbolic cleansing of sins? Yet, those who had been baptized in John had to be rebaptized as Christians. (Acts 11:16; 18:3-6) This is because we are truly reborn, transformed, regenerated when we are baptized into Christ, for it is much more than a  cleansing of sin.

Many Christian denominations today claim a person is saved, born-again, when he believes and asks Jesus to come into his heart. Some teach that baptism is an unnecessary, symbolic rite that does not give the transforming power of God. Yet this man-made tradition does not come from scripture. 

When these denominations claim that baptism only symbolically washes away our sins, they are, in effect, speaking of John's baptism, not Christ's. For it is only through the baptism that Christ required, that we are truly given grace and the Holy Spirit. It is not a symbol, scriptures record, but a rite of initiation that literally saves us and bring us into His kingdom. 

A miraculous experience of Christ coming into our hearts and believing in Him is a wonderful life-changing event, but it does not wash away our sins. An experience does not bury and raise us with Christ. Scripture confirms that only when we die with Christ, are buried and are raised with Him through the rite of baptism, that our sins are literally washed away and we walk in newness of life. It is through baptism that we are born-again.

Grace Helps Us Confront Pain, Not Ignore It

A couple of decades ago when I was attending a Christian Women's

Conference, a Jewish holocaust survivor spoke about facing life's pains. During WWII, the Nazis had kept her alive to entertain them because she was a great dancer. She watched her sister walk into the gas chambers. Both of her parents were gassed. Then she explained that it was only after the holocaust that the momentous task of facing what had happened to her began. It was then, a different and more arduous hell lay ahead. Dealing with it. She told us that no matter what you have been through it is harder to face your life than live it. 

Because of her experience, she warned us of the dangers of what she was witnessing in America. She said she was amazed at what we will do to  avoid the painful task of self-examination. Americans take legal (anti-depressants) and illegal drugs, alcohol, glut themselves with entertainment or distraction, all in an effort to keep from thinking seriously about our lives. 

She told us not to run from or ignore pain, regrets and the bad choices of our lives but to look at them and deal with them constructively. Let our life experience bring us wisdom instead of always trying to be happy and having fun. 

Afterward her speech, I was very vocal in protesting what I thought was a very anti-gospel, pagan, Socratic, "an unexamined life is not worth living" talk. I asked those who put the conference together, "Why ask a Jewish woman to speak to us? She obviously didn't understand grace and the importance of keeping our eyes upon Christ--not ourselves in a self-examination. We needed to hear that Christ will wipe away our tears and that we need to be filled with joy because our sins are washed away and cast into the depths of the sea never to be thought of again by us or anyone else!  We don't need to face it, Christ faced it for us. Christ takes away our pain, right?"

As I grew in Christ, I realized I was wrong and the Jewish woman was correct. Scripture doesn't say that God takes away the effects of sin--after all, we still die as punishment for Adam's sin. Although Jesus took away the eternal penalty of our sins, we still suffer for them here, now. And like the holocaust survivor, we not only suffer for our sins, but we suffer for the sins others do to us, the sins we personally were not responsible for.

There is some universal, unspoken understanding among Christians that we are not to think about nor feel our sins or deep wounds. We should always be feeling happy.

I know a lot of Christians who spend an enormous amount of time in religious escapism. They find a church whose main focus is on feeling good, with upbeat, loud and energetic praise songs with a captivating minister, where everyone is staying positive, with nary a word about the tragedy of sin. So, when the worship is over and they have to go home or to work and face a sinful world and a sinful them, the spiritual high leaves. 

We really do need to examine our life. That is not self-centered.  

God's grace pours out upon us not so that we can ignore pain in our life, but to give us the courage and strength to face it. For when we soberly, in the quiet of the morning or evening kneeling to God, mentally walk straight into the scary, dark and painful places in our hearts, we can then begin the healing process--both in repentance to God and forgiveness of ourselves and others. It is in these fires of self-examination that we are purged and healed from our deepest wounds.

Don't think if you have never really sat and looked at your life that it will be easy. You have to get past all the years of white noise.

Then when we finally start looking at our lives, we tend to excuse behavior or ignore it. It takes practice and determination to go through our cluttered mental attic. But most of all, it takes courage because you will desire to flee from pain. Stick with it. Find the source of your pain: cowardice, sexual immorality, covetousness, feeling anger towards some childhood injustice or wrong,  feeling loneliness, abandonment, a distrust of everyone that makes you a control freak. Perhaps you have drifted from God and you feel guilt, not at anything big, but the knowledge that He is no longer first in your life.

Then when you think you have found what has been keeping the volume of white noise so loud in your brain, give it to God through prayer. If you need to: repent. Then ask for the grace to forgive and heal. 

One great way of healing is to stop sinning! So do whatever it takes to stop doing whatever it is that is breaking your relationship with God. Above all else, pray and if you feel you need to, fast and find a good supportive church with faithful Catholics in attendance. Perhaps even start going to daily mass. 

Some of the pain in our lives is because of sin--something we did, are doing or some sin that someone did or is doing to us. We have to face it.

We want the process of healing and holiness to be easy. It is not. But it is the only path to true joy. And joy is there, along with peace. It's worth it. 

Michael Voris Speaks About His Program, "The Vortex"

The Kingdom of Heaven: The Seen and Unseen

In Matthew 13, the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven was hidden by Christ in parables of daily Hebrew experiences. While His hearers understood what sowing and reaping were, what an expensive pearl or a lost coin or the king of a vineyard was, the deeper meanings He revealed only to His closest companions, the twelve. (Matt. 13:19)

As mundane as they seemed, these were strange parables. These didn't describe the Messianic Kingdom they were awaiting. And for many Christians today, they still don't describe the heaven we are awaiting at the Second Coming. We think of harps and clouds. Jesus describes wheats and tares.

If you follow the words of our Lord carefully through out His earthly ministry, you will begin noticing seemingly mutually exclusive statements about the Kingdom of God. It is now but later. Earthly but heavenly. This Kingdom is a dichotomy so layered as to reveal both the complexity of God and the simplicity of love. Let us take some time to wonder at the thrilling and at the same time perplexing and even confusing contradictions of the Kingdom of Heaven:

• The Kingdom is here, but it is yet to come. Often Jesus told His disciples that the kingdom of Heaven was there at that moment with phrases such as it has “come upon you;" it is “at hand,” “near you” and “in your midst.” Yet Jesus corrected the disciples when they though it was to appear immediately and told them of a story of a king going into a far country to receive a kingdom later. He told us to pray that it comes (future) and even promises that some of his followers, alive at that time, would see it come (soon). The thief asked to be remembered “when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus responded, “Today” He would be with Him. And Christ promises the Kingdom will finally be delivered into the hands of His Father. The Kingdom is both in our midst now and is still waiting to be revealed. (Matt. 6:10; 10:7; 12:28; 16:28, Luke 10:9; 23:42; 17:21; 19:11-12, I Cor. 15:24)

• It is visible and worldwide and yet it is hidden and you must seek it. Jesus sent out His disciples to preach the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven to the whole world. He likened it to the tiniest of seeds growing to the most massive of trees. It is like leaven, it grows and yet it is hidden as a pearl or great treasure and we must seek it above all else.
  
  (Matt. 6:33; 13:31, 44; 24:14, Mark 15:43, Luke 23:51)

• It was from the beginning and eternal, yet, it was inaugurated at the Cross. (Matt. 25:34, Luke 1:33, Acts. 1:3, 2: 21-28, Rev. 11:15)

• It is an unshakable Kingdom of peace, and yet it is taken by violent force. (Matt. 11: 12, Rom. 14: 17; Heb. 12:28)

• It is brought to us by words, but it is not just words. The gospel of the Kingdom comes to us through hearing. We hear the truth spoken and it is transmitted by words and yet the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Matt. 13:16, 17, Mark 4:15-23, 33; 6:11; 7:14, Luke 6: 27; 8:21; 11:28, John 8: 43, 10:3, Rom. 10: 14, 17; 11: 8, I Cor. 4: 20. Heb. 3:7, 15; 4:7)

• It has authorities, but they are to be servants. They are God's men, yet they can be used by the Devil. God chooses the poor to be rich and the low to be great. The greatest living old covenant preacher, John the Baptist, is below the least in this kingdom. All, in His kingdom, sit on thrones reigning as priests but the leader He put over all the disciples and gave the key to was a poor fisherman. He chooses unworthy men and makes them great, but at the same time, the hierarchy is based on what these men do and teach. So it is God's sovereign choice yet, we too choose by our actions. 

• To everyone’s horror His leaders can be hypocrites and even shut up the kingdom so no other men can get in! Yet, His appointed leaders are commissioned to be humble and He warns them that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Everything is a bit mixed up compared to our democracy and equal rights, for the Kingdom's wages are unfair, for the people are paid the same daily wage no matter when a person started working!

(Matt. 5:19; 11:11; 16:19; 18:3; 20; 23:13, Luke 22:30, Jam. 2:5, Rev. 1:6, 5:10

• It is God’s Kingdom, yet the Devil can deceive its citizens. (Matt. 13, 2 Tim. 4:18)

• Though it is not earned by works, you must be baptized to enter. (John 3:3, 5; Acts. 8: 12)

• It is a kingdom of mercy that saves sinners, yet it is a Kingdom of Judgment. (Matt. 13:38, 2 Tim 4:1, Rev. 12:10)

• We are saved by simple faith but the Kingdom has exceedingly high standards for entrance: The beloved Son has given us his Kingdom and delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to this kingdom with the Father’s good pleasure! With joy He throws out a net to the world and catches all kinds of good and bad fish in His kingdom. Even children are encouraged to enter before   they understand what they are doing. 

• In fact, you are required to be like a child for entrance. Yet, a great mystery is that flesh and blood cannot inherit it. And all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, but not all who cry, “Lord” will enter, for only the obedient can get in. And those who look back at their former lives will end up like Lot’s wife. And if you are rich? It’s going to be tougher for you.
  
  If you assume you will go in because of some heritage or covenant and are not obedient, the harlots and tax collectors will get in before you. There is quite a list of those  who will not be in the Kingdom of Heaven: the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, envious, the drunk, one who carouses, the fornicator, impure, idolator, the unrighteous, the immoral. And adulterers, sexual perverts, male prostitutes, those who are effeminate, those with unnatural sexual affections, the greedy, thieves, revilers, murderers, those who take potions to keep from having children (pharmekia), the liars, perjurers, slave traders and robbers! And even as a corporate group the kingdom will be given to the nations who produce the fruits of righteousness. We, His people are sinners and yet we cannot enter the kingdom unless we are perfect. (Matt. 5:20; 7:21;13:47;18:3; 19:14, 23; 21:31, 43; Luke 9:62; 12:32; Acts 2: 21, Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:13; I Cor. 6: 9-10; 15:50, Rev. 21: 8)

• We must sacrifice much to enter, but we are made worthy by His righteousness. Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom. We must patiently endure sufferings and persecution for our testimony of Jesus. Some even castrate themselves or live in celibacy or pluck out part of the body (metaphorically, corporately); some leave homes or family to become a citizen. We must be faithful with his gifts for He will ask for an account of our talents. But, it is still Christ and His merits that make us worthy. And He promises we will be made worthy and will shine out like the sun. (Matt. 13:43; 18:23; 19:12, Mark 9:47, Luke 18:29; 19: 15, Acts 14:22, I Thess. 2:12, 2 Thess. 1:5)

• Don’t look for signs and yet when you see these things happen...
  
  "The kingdom comes not with signs to be observed,"  He tells the Pharisees then a few chapters later warns His listeners that there will be signs in the sun, moon and stars, fearful times when the powers of heaven will be shaken and when you see these things take place, you know that the Kingdom of God is near. (Luke 17:20; 21:25-32)

We have been taught God's kingdom will be perfect with no sin, so how is it possible that it is also filled with wheats and tares, good and bad fish? It's leaders are holy and sacred but some are corrupt? It is here now and yet to come? If  God is coming so all people see, how can it also be hidden? Visible and invisible,  spiritual and physical, seen and unseen, simple and complex, plain and mysterious?

There is only one entity that can be all these things at once. And that is God's Bride--His ekklesia, His Church. (Matt. 22:2 and chap. 25, John 3:29) 

The Kingdom of God is the Church, Christ's Bride. He was betrothed to her when He was among us, when He instituted the ekklesia (Matt. 16). He is going to prepare a place for her and will come again and receive her unto Himself. The Church is being made holy and pure, being washed by baptism and His word. (Eph. 5: 26, 2 Cor. 11: 2, Rev. 19: 7). She is both on earth (The Church Militant) and in heaven (Church Triumphant) and so when He comes for the Wedding Feast, He is bringing the holy, shining, adorned capital city of His heavenly Kingdom to His Kingdom on earth. (Rev. 21:2) 

She is the great mystery and enigma with her rites and sacraments, with her struggling to be holy and with her 2000-year-old faith in her Betrothed. She is the seen in the outstretched arms of St. Peter's Square, her cathedrals and popes and charities and schools, yet, she is the unseen in her humble, quiet cloistered prayers and in the daily spiritual wars going on in her people's hearts. 

The Church, who the world loves to hate is Christ's beloved Bride, the wife of the Lamb who is presently imperfect, yet covered with His perfection as she is being made in her husband's image. (Rev. 21:9) 

The Groom and His Bride finish out the story of God's love for mankind together, united forever in eternal love as they both, arm in arm, invite you to the wedding feast, "Come" they say, "Come. Let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires, take the water of life without price." (Rev. 22: 17)

That is how the mysterious story ends… how  the seeming contradictions are fulfilled. "It is finished" …. Christ and His bride live happily ever after.

• 
  
• 
  

• 
  

Pagan Christianity? Critique by Teresa Beem Part II

(Here's the link to PART ONE)

My younger second cousin has brown hair and brown eyes. She comes from Texas and sings. She even writes and loves children. Her chromosomes are very similar to mine. Therefore, since I have done extensive research on my cousin--extensive research--in fact, I am an expert on my cousin, I can write without any doubt at all, that my cousin comes from me. I am her direct mother. 

That conclusion is the problem with the authors' research. Christianity and paganism are similar--they worship alike with prayers and rituals and offerings. But that doesn't prove that they are directly linked or that since Christianity is the younger that it was born from paganism. The direct link is between Judaism and Christianity. In a sense Christianity's mother is Judaism and paganism is a second cousin. (That might make Islam a first cousin.) These religions are connected in that they sprang from the ancient human need to worship. Kind of like the French and Romanian languages have roots in Latin.

The authors' of Pagan Christianity researched paganism, but it seems, they either didn't research Catholicism or they simply ignored the claims of where Catholicism got its rites and rituals. If you believe Catholicism is evil and can't be trusted, then you will ignore its history and its evidence. So, the authors looked at the similarity between Christian traditions and paganism and seemed to research no further. 

Catholics are aware of many similarities between their religion and others. Ancient man worshipped with prayers, sermons, incense, special robes, priests, death rituals, exorcisms, special holy days, 

holy places, offerings, sacrifices, prophecies, moral laws and marriage ceremonies. All these were expressions of humanity's struggle to find God. It was a good struggle. Until God revealed Himself through the Jews, that's all we had. In each human heart there was a deep, primitive yearning for spiritual meaning and understanding of the world. Ancient man worshipped his ancestors with sacrifices and that tradition was passed on all the way back from Cain and Abel's sacrifice. They ancients worshipped, they just didn't know who to worship. The very beginnings of the mysteries of God had been given to the world and

legends of a god-man dying for our sins was retold until it had become Zeus and prophecies of miraculous virgin birth from a great woman had become Ishtar or Astarte. All the legends and worship practices of the pagans developed wrongly out of the most ancient true knowledge of God. Into this ignorance Israel was chosen to reveal the next epoch of the gospel mystery. Later, the fullness of time had been reached and our Savior was born.

So, we cannot see ancient paganism as examples of evil worship, but of ignorant worship. Once humanity was introduced to the true God paganism slowly dissipated, even though it never totally disappeared. Only now it would be evil to reject God to follow a false god. For the light has been fully revealed and a true choice given.

Protestants today look at the practices of ancient worship and assumes Christianity dipped into the pagan spices to enhance the flavoring of our worship to make it more palatable in our evangelization. The truth is that God made the spices and we all have used them! 

There is a lot of evidence in the writings of the early Church Fathers that show us their rejection of the false teaching of paganism and devotion to the worship taught to them by God. They retained a lot of Judaism. That is where the authors need to criticize if they dislike rituals and robes and candles and incense. 

[W]e do not reverence the same gods as you do, nor offer to the dead libations and the savour of fat, and crowns for their statues, and sacrifices. For you very well know that the same animals are with some esteemed gods, with others wild beasts, and with others sacrificial victims. And, secondly, because we— who, out of every race of men, used to worship Bacchus the son of Semele, and Apollo the son of Latona…or some one or other of those who are called gods— have now, through Jesus Christ, learned to despise these, though we be threatened with death for it, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impossible God; of whom we are persuaded that never was he goaded by lust of Antiope, or such other women, or of Ganymede, nor was rescued by that hundred-handed giant whose aid was obtained through Thetis, nor was anxious on this account that her son Achilles should destroy many of the Greeks because of his concubine Briseis. Those who believe these things we pity, and those who invented them we know to be devils. (Justin Martyr, First Apology)

Did some pagan rituals slip into Christianity? Absolutely. When bishops and priests bravely took the gospel message into a distant and dark area, they allowed the converts to continue doing the good they found in paganism, but gave it a new Christian context.  If there was a well-loved local celebration of the seasons, the priests retained the good idea of a celebration of the harvest and turned it into a type of thanksgiving to God. Just as King David took the plunder from the Canaanite nations and put them through fire and placed them in the holy of holies, Christianity took the good  baptized it and redeemed it for God. Truth and beauty and goodness are intrinsically good things. They should be 

redeemed for God rather than discarded or destroyed. Where pagan rites and beliefs were intrinsically evil, the Church would rather have gone to their deaths than adopt them. And often, they did and became martyrs when they refused to engage in idolatry.

_______

Let me give you some examples of how the authors misapply the historical facts:

They argue that since there are ancient pagan symbols of the cross and since the

symbol of the cross is extra biblical (has no direct text to use the symbol) therefore Christians should stop using it. 

They claim the crucifix is pagan, church buildings have pagan elements in their architecture and artwork and music. That to dress up for church, for  priests to dress up in robes, to use incense,  to receive the Eucharist (communion bread), use pulpits, have sermons and even have carpeting--cannot be found explicitly in the scriptures. So, since we cannot find any direct scriptural commands to do these things, we need to "re-imagine church" without them. Here's more:

• “The message of the steeple is one that contradicts the message of the New Testament. Christians do not have to reach into heaven to find God.” p. 32

I don't even have the words this argument is so patently…. out there. Is pointing to heaven against God? If so, then we need to refrain from even

talking of heaven up in the sky or read about Christ's throne in Revelation and think of it as up there? Is looking into a telescope against scripture? Why not point to ourselves when we describe heaven and God? Was Jesus evil when he was recorded prophesying about the last days, "Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:28) An architectural element that draws your eye to heaven isn't any worse than looking up at the moon and stars at night and praying towards God.

• The pulpit has roots in Judaism's ambo in the synagogue, but we shouldn't have them because the pagans had a similar reading desk. Also it gives the clergy a place of prominence because often pulpits are elevated. In fact the church building is wrong because it is "based on the benighted idea that worship is removed from everyday life." 

 
So, we should jettison Church buildings and meet in homes. The authors softens and concede at the end that each congregation should decide for themselves. (Which is illogical because the

Protestant premise is: "If it isn't in scripture it needs to be discarded." This doesn't allow for a matter of personal opinion. Would the authors extend that decision to Catholics when it comes to extra biblical traditions?)

They argue that physical elevation of pastors or pulpits or anything that delineates the clergy from the people isn't Biblical. Pews should be removed because it keeps us from looking into each other's faces and inhibits fellowship.

• "The Protestant order of worship strangles the headship of Jesus Christ. The entire service is directed by one person. You are limited to the knowledge, gifting, and experience of one member of the body-the pastor. Where is the freedom for our Lord Jesus to speak through His body at will?"

I would agree that there is no Biblical basis for a worship team coming out and leading contemporary music, or altar calls, or a long sermon. But writing that the early Christian service was fluid and sponteneous and not ritualistic is a profound misunderstanding of Israel. The early church was Jewish and held to most of the Jewish rituals. 

The authors have a real burden for spontaneity. They believe God is not the central leader of the church service if people do not feel free to stand and share what the Lord is telling them. They argue that there is a real quenching of the Spirit when the formalities of worship keep the worshippers silent without spontaneous prayers and exhortations and testimonies. 

They propose that since the Bible doesn't explicitly command these elements, Protestants might consider beginning a new type of worship service based upon the most simplistic of ancient Christian worship instead of paganism. 

The problem is that the authors need to find a place in scripture that says the first century church is the one we need to go back to and that we must find everything in the Bible in order to do it. They will find that their ideas are man-made traditions themselves.

My suggestion for those who have read Pagan Christianity? is to study the first couple of centuries of Christianity and you will find a very ritualistic, liturgical worship services with an altar in front, incense, candles, priestly robes, chanting, formalities like men standing in the front, women standing in the back and a very ritualistic order. And this was drawn from Judaism, not paganism.

6 False Premises in the Book, "Pagan Christianity"

Frank Viola best describes Pagan Christianity? (George Bama, co-author) in his preface: "This is not a work for scholars." I agreed, so somewhere in chapter six, I set the book down. I may not be a scholar, but I am not interested in reading unscholarly work. Here's the point of their book according to Viola:

...if the church is following the life of God who indwells it, it will never produce those [Catholic] non-scriptural practices this book addresses. Such practices are foreign elements that God’s people picked up from their pagan neighbors as far back as the fourth century.

The authors give us page after page of misapplication of facts about how, when and from where Catholicism gets its doctrines and traditions. To the authors' credit, they did some extensive research, but their interpretation of facts is not well-informed. The authors simply do not grasp the pre-Reformation worldview of Christendom and that is vital when attempting to discern history. For it really does matter if one reports that the sign of the cross comes from paganism rather than from the letter "tau" Jews made on their forehead to symbolize the Torah. One is a breaking of the commandment not to bear false witness against thy neighbor.

[Note: The irony for the Protestant authors is that they assert Christianity should rid itself of Catholic man-make traditions that cannot be proven in scripture just to write an entire book based upon Protestant man-made traditions which cannot be proven in scripture!]

To be brief, I have chosen six false premises that underpin Christian Paganism's assertions: 

False Premise #1: The Church Abandoned God, Therefore, She is the False Church 

When Martin Luther couldn't immediately and decisively persuade the Church, that his interpretation of scripture was correct and the Church's interpretation of scripture had been incorrect for 1500 years, he ordered a revolt. He went from an understandable concern about indulgence abuses to storming out of the Church calling her the "whore of Babylon." This is why a reformation from within turned into a protest from without. He convinced a lot of people that you can't reform or reconcile with the Devil's agent--the whore of Babylon. This is Luther's tradition.

But, you might ask, "Didn't the Reformers call the Church the false church and the Whore of Babylon because she rejected God by infusing the gospel with pagan rituals, sacraments and hierarchies?" The authors attempt to prove this by tying most past and current church traditions to pagan roots and warn that we must seriously consider extracting these foreign element from Christianity. (I didn't read a direct statement that the Catholic Church is the false church but it is implied on every page.)

This premise could be argued on two levels: 
a) that the rituals are, in fact, pagan and 
b) that if they were pagan, it would automatically mean the Church had deserted God. 

Look at the people of God in the Old Testament. God sent numerous prophets to Israel to warn them against their wicked, pagan ways, but He never took away their position as the people of God. There is a difference between being an imperfect, even corrupted church and a false, pagan one.

There is no New Testament prophet who warns that the New Covenant Church at any point in history will become pagan or "false." (Christ threatens to remove one of the seven lamp stands and spew the church at Laodicea out of His mouth, but these are individual churches, not the whole of the Body.) 

If something so momentous as God's Bride going rogue was going to happen, don't you think God would have warned us through scripture? 

There is no Biblical evidence that the Catholic Church is a false church nor the whore of Babylon. That is a man-made tradition and interpretation. 


False Premise #2: The Church Abandoned God, Therefore, God Abandoned the Church 

Even if the Church had discarded their covenant with God, it doesn't follow that Christ would disown His Church. He is faithful even when we are not! He didn't forsake Israel when she was practicing idolatry (at least not forever), He punished Israel. Punishment is God's way of dealing with His children, not abandonment. In fact, Jesus promised His Church that He would be with her forever. 

So they are no longer two, but one flesh (man/wife and Christ/Church). What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Matt. 19: 6

I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever. John 14: 16.

Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. Matt. 28: 20.

False Premise #3: The Church Abandon God, So We Should Abandon the Church. 

There is no precedent nor prophecy anywhere in scripture that encourages a sheep to leave the fold. 

No Hebrew was told to start a New Israel. The Bible never predicts that Christ's Church, His Body, His Bride would become so corrupted that He would desire Christians to start a new Church. 

St. John's first letter warns that some of those who leave the church are antichrists. 

[Y]ou have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come...They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us. I John 2: 18-19

Jesus said to cut off the part of the Body that is causing it to sin. He didn't say throw the entire body out, nor separate from the body or start a new body.

False Premise #4: The Early Church's Doctrines Were Based in the Bible 

Viola writes: 

The normative practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression of the divine life that indwelt the early Christians. And those practices were solidly grounded in timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament. 

The early church did not have the Bible. The scriptures, known as the Bible, were not compiled until the fourth century. At best they may have had a copy of of an Apostle's letter or the four gospels, but what Christ taught was transmitted orally--through preaching. We could easily reverse this statement to get to the truth: The Bible is based on the doctrines of the early church.

False Premise #5: We Must Return To the Early Pristine Church

 Viola states in his preface: 

I beleive the first-century church was the church in its purest form, before it was tainted or corrupted.”

He's wrong on two levels. Jesus tells us the opposite when He speaks to the seven churches in Revelation. Paul describes many problems in his letters to the churches. The early church was split into many heretical factions. 

The authors also are wrong assuming that doctrines should not develop over time and that somehow the early church was pure, complete and uncorrupted is nowhere in scripture. Nothing in scripture tells us that things are to remain primitive. The early church was the seed that was to develop into a large tree. The history of God's people starts in a garden (Eden) and ends in a city (New Jerusalem). The early church did not have a definition of the Trinity or the full Divinity of Christ. The mysteries of salvation were slowly revealed and deepened in understanding through Biblical history. This idea that we should return to the first century to find the fullness of truth is not a Biblical idea. 

False Premise #6: Church Traditions Should Come From Bible

Again, we must emphasis that the very reverse of this is true.

Scripture came from Church Tradition. 

Another mistake the authors make, as well as many Protestants, is to believe that all Jesus said was written down. It wasn't. 

I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. John 16:12 

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21: 25

I will give directions concerning the other matters when I come. I Cor. 11: 34

The first chapter of Acts reports that Jesus taught the disciples for forty days after His resurrection. This vital message is not in scripture. We cannot presume that the oral teaching of Christ the forty days following the Resurrection should be discarded as unimportant because they weren't written down.

The premise that the oral words of God cannot be trusted but the written words of God are the final authority for the Christian is a Protestant tradition. That claim is not found within scripture itself. In fact, the Bible points to the Body of Christ, the Church, as the final authority on doctrines.

If your brother sins...go and tell him his fault...But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you...If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Matthew 18: 15-17

 We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. I John 4: 6

The authors trust only scripture and refuse to go outside of it for church practices, saying about certain traditions:

Such practices are foreign elements that God’s people picked up from their pagan neighbors as far back as the fourth century.

If the fourth-century church was already corrupted so badly with paganism that we cannot trust her to correctly pass down the oral teachings of Christ, then we can’t trust the Bible because at that time the canon of scripture was decided upon by Catholics councils. The fourth-century Catholic Church decided which books would be in the Bible!)

I think this is worth repeating because it is such a widespread Protestant premise that the Bible is the Church's final authority. This is a Protestant tradition and has no scriptural evidence. Actually:

The Bible is the greatest evidence the Church has that God gave the Church His authority.


Conclusion:
Viola and Barna are noticing the same thing the Luther and Zwingli and Wesley brothers did. And frankly, all of us realize, that Christianity is filled with corrupt people and doesn't seem to be "working." The church is in need of reformation and renewal. (And this isn't some shocking news to the Catholic Church. She has always taught that each generation must be reforming the church.) 

Where the authors go wrong is that they blame the corruption in the church on extra-biblical traditions. But as we have seen, each new reformer or group of reformers begins with the idea of starting over and wiping away all traditions. Yet they inevitably end up creating a new set of traditions that divide the body of Christ. 

Christ never said to tear down and start His church over, He said to repent, renew and refresh. This isn’t an institutional problem we can blame on rituals and rites. This is a heart problem, a sin

problem, that has to be dealt with on an individual basis. The rituals are there to facillitate individual regeneration and renewal. Don’t blame the rituals if the people in the church are dead (or sleeping). Blame the people.