First Century Christianity

The vast majority of Christians just celebrated what they think is the birthday of Jesus. A relative few of us abstain from that practice because, as my friend Lenny preached this last Sabbath, Jesus was not born in the winter. Also, the practices of Christmas are almost all linked to pagan religions of antiquity, so those of us who know that need to act accordingly.

But today’s post is not about XMAS but rather about the birth part. All Christians accept that Jesus was born, in a manger, of a woman, and was reared to adulthood by an earthly family. The WORD became flesh and dwelt (or tabernacled) among us. No controversy yet, so far as I know. The question I have is if a birth took place, then a death had to take place, too!

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Heb 9:15 (NASB)

Ahh, isn’t that a powerful verse, brethren? It is one of the verses that the whole faith hinges upon, huh? And it is about the subject of the New Covenant, the voluntary death of the Messiah who now mediates for believers and redeems us from the penalty of our sins. Sin is the transgression of the Law, a Law He kept without blemish. It is also an impossible verse to comprehend if one accepts the Trinity.

Because if a birth took place, which it did (and it’s date was not recorded), then a death took place. God the Father did not die, His Son did. His Son stayed that way for 72 hours (give or take) and was resurrected by the Father. He died and yet lived again, raised immortal and exalted. He again dwelt among us and taught the Apostles all things about Himself from the Torah. After His resurrection, He said he had not yet ascended to the Father. Yet another verse that is not possible to reconcile if one accepts the Trinity. If the three-in-one God thing is true, Jesus never really left the Father, never really died, wasn’t really resurrected, and the price of our sins is not paid.

Praise Almighty Yahweh (that’s God in English, btw.) that His Son was born, so that He could die, and yet live again. All will now live again, some to a resurrection of life and others to a resurrection of judgment. Accepting Yeshua (Jesus in English) as Messiah (Christ) is the path unto a resurrection of life! Accept Him and you shall be saved!

Take a look at this video in order to set the mood!

All righty, now that your sinusoidal deplanaration has been attenuated, let's get down to some basic truth.

Christianity is not supposed to be complicated!

We have a list of "rules for a good marriage" on the wall on our house. It has been there as long as I can remember and some of the rules are quite comical, though all are true! The one that comes to mind goes like this: "In an argument, the one doing the most talking is usually the one who is wrong." This is true on so, so many levels!

I have found myself reading incredibly long treatises trying to explain, using a maximum of adjectives and flowery language, how some plain truth of the Bible is neither plain nor true. Take the Sabbath for example. The Bible only sanctifies one day of the week to be kept holy and that day starts at Friday sunset and ends at Saturday sunset. The 4th commandment and Leviticus 23 tell us what to do on that day; don't work, don't make anyone else work, have a holy convocation (go to church). Easy to explain and easy to understand. Now ask someone to explain why most of Christianity does not keep the Sabbath and instead observes Sunday. Yep, it'll take pages.

Think about the other stuff people like us do. Most of our differences with mainstream Christianity come from simply scripture.

Q: Why don't you believe in the Trinity?

A: It's not in the Bible. Jesus prayed to The Father and is seated next to the Father so He's not the Father.

Q: Why don't you eat pork?

A: Because Jesus didn't eat pork. I'm a Christian so I want to be like Christ.

Q: Why don't you keep Christmas?

A: It's not in the Bible and Jeremiah writes that we specifically aren't supposed to do stuff like that.

Q: Why don't you have crosses in your house?

A: Jesus was killed with a cross. I don't think the device of His execution hanging on a wall is an appropriate tool for worship. Oh, and the commandment says not to use stuff made by men for worship.

See how easy that is? Sure, we can elaborate on all those points and many more, but for most of us the house of cards that is mainstream Christianity started falling down based on simple scripture. For me, the idea of an eternal hell with immortal souls came apart when I read Revelation 19 and 20. I remember asking my wife, who was raised a Sabbath keeper and schooled in the WORD, "Honey, it doesn't look like hell exists yet. Is that right?" And her response, "Of course not, keep reading."

That's some of the best advice anyone has ever given me with respect to the Bible. Keep reading. Yes, brothers and sisters, let's keep reading and by all means, Keep It Simple!

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." He *said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon  Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.

Matt 16:13-20 (NASB)

The scriptures I just posted have been used to say that Peter became the New Testament Moses. The first problem with that thesis is that Yeshua was not just talking to Peter here but to the whole crew. He asked them all who people said He was and they answered pretty evasively. They did not venture their own ideas but in a weak manner regurgitated what others were saying, hoping to accidentally hit the mark. Peter, being his brash self, piped up and said that He is the Messiah (Christ = Messiah, by the way). Because of Peter’s boldness, he got renamed Peter. Here’s another clue, though, because Christ renamed Peter “Petros” and then when He says upon this rock, the word switches gender to “petra”. Strongs has different numbers for the two words and different definitions. Petros means Peter (proper name) and petra means rock - like a granite rock.

This is the key to the verse. “Upon this Rock” right after his Messiah-ship is announced. Imagine as you read that Yeshua places his hand on his own chest when He says “upon this Rock I will build my church.” Because “this Rock” is a very important thing. Moses struck that Rock to get water in the wilderness. And Moses also got busted for hitting that Rock twice because the Messiah was not to be struck twice but to only die once for the remission of sins (credit to John Klassek for explaining that one to me). Let’s look at the corresponding scripture now:

"Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink." So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, "Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and  water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. 

Num 20:8-11 (NASB)

Back up now to the verses in Matthew again. Jesus said He would build His “church” on “this rock”. It is very interesting to note that the word “church” in the bible is actually the word “ekklesia” which means “assembly” or “congregation”. This makes Numbers 20:8-11 and Matthew 16:13-20 fit together like precision machined parts. Moses assembled the congregation before the Rock and Jesus says He will build His congregation upon the Rock. In this, the proper context, wouldn’t it be absolutely preposterous for that rock to actually be Peter? (That’s a rhetorical question, the answer is yes).

Now to finish up the thought on the keys. Modern English has no plural form of the word “you”. Well, unless you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, then we have “y’all”. After Jesus finishes telling the apostles that He is going to build His congregation upon the rock of His Messiah-ship, he says “I will give y’all the keys of the kingdom”. Why have plural keys and a congregation of believers if only one key is necessary? (Another rhetorical question, I seem to be stuck on that this evening.)

Yet another point about Peter not being another Moses comes from the giving of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, Moses had all the Holy Spirit until he got some help. At that point, some of the Spirit came off of Moses and rested upon his helpers. There was never any doubt that Moses was in charge of the entire operation, soup to nuts (Numbers 11:16-17). In Acts 2:1-4, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit rested on all the Apostles at the same time and equally. This is a very important distinction because the authority in the New Testament rests on the congregation through the power of the Holy Spirit, not on any individual.

I will give one more hint about the identity of "the Rock". When Moses struck the Rock, it gave forth life giving water. Where are we supposed to get the water of ever lasting life?

So, I promised to write more on the book Atlas Shrugged. Here goes.

This post is a spoiler, so if you haven’t read the book and want to, you might want to come back and read this later. As critical as I am about Atlas Shrugged, I still think it should be read by just about every American.

Overview for this post is that Atlas Shrugged is a fictional application of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, a writer from the mid-20th century. She came to live and work in the USA after defecting from the USSR. Her real-life perspective was one where socialists had destroyed innovation and free markets by demonizing producers. She witnessed the socialist takeover of a decent country and had fled it outright, as everyone ought to. It’s amazing at how much this book parallels modern day politics in the USA. Rand’s conclusion about the ultimate end result of socialism is very accurate and I agree with that part of the book in total.

A couple of the characters in the book see the result of socialism coming about 12 years in advance. They start a secret society of producers who hasten the end of the nation by massive economic sabotage. Their hiding spot is a utopian valley of pure capitalism. The only people allowed into the valley are successful producers who are hand picked from the core group of capitalist conspirators. Here comes the eugenics part.

eugenics |yo͞oˈjeniks|

pluralnoun [ treated as sing. ]

the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

Ayn Rand’s idea of a perfect society is one populated only by producers who have no problem leaving their family, friends, and millions of innocent non-socialists to die of starvation and violence while they chill out in the mountains until everything blows over. Their fictional plan, which was brought to fruition in the book, was to allow American society to completely crumble so they could emerge from said valley and take control of the entire country, transforming it into a Darwinian paradise. This new production utopia would now only be populated by the chosen people and whoever survived the destruction of the society - survival of the fittest in action. Oh, did I mention they didn’t bring any clergy with them into the valley? I think I alluded to that in the previous blog, but Ayn Rand’s image of a perfect America includes only people of industrial ability and absolutely no worship of any god whatsoever. That’s not my idea of utopia.

In order to gain entrance to the fictional utopia, the producers had to take an oath. Here’s the oath:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

This is the crux of the book, that a man should only be concerned with himself. The enemies in the book were collectivists and Rand’s utopia were solely individualists. The pendulum had to be on one side or the other - no middle ground, no self sacrifice, only profit or serving the collective. But, what does the Bible say about this? Could there be, maybe, a one sentence line from the Bible that might contradict this philosophy just a bit? I think so:

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 (NASB)

Jesus teaches us to be selfless. There is a big difference between being selfless, charitable, and caring about mankind and being a Marxist. The Bible does not forbid business but rather encourages it. Individualism and capitalism are both themes found in scripture; Paul writes that one must work if one wishes to eat and Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead, on an individual basis and using absolutes. Jesus said specifically that those who have been given much will be judged more harshly than those who haven’t. These are good life principals. Eugenics and survival of the fittest are not good life principals.

One character I followed closely was the Eddie Willers. This was the life-long best friend of the heroine of the novel. He was immensely loyal to his friend, doing her bidding, and serving her in unquestioning friendship to the bitter end. The book ends, the chosen people are in the valley, and she left him out in the cold. Yeah, there’s a utopian society for you.

Here is a quick note as to the purpose and history of my little ‘ole website. Some of this information is on the “about” page, too.

Like many who believe like people who would read this blog believe, I read the Bible and came away with something a little different than I had been taught in church growing up. I noticed that Sunday was never sanctified, hell doesn’t exist yet, and had a few other things nagging at me. I got some more information through a book called The Two Babylons that was loaned to me by a Seventh Day Adventist Pastor. That book, written in the late 1800’s by a Church of England Minister, showed how much of modern Christianity’s practices came from the Catholic Church who had ripped the practices off from pagan cultures over the years.

Being raised a Catholic, I was absolutely shocked. I spent quite a bit of time researching the outrageous claims made in the book using the internet and even Catholic sources. It turns out, most of it was true and some of it was proved out using the Catholic sources! I continued to read books on early Christianity and the history of the change to Sunday worship and the other false doctrines of mainstream Christianity. I found a church where people who believe these things can worship and learn more, the Church of God, Kansas City. 

After a while, I thought to myself, “why did God show me all this stuff? What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?” I decided to make a website as sort of a beacon of light out there for people searching. This website is the second iteration of that idea.

There are a couple purposes for this site. It’s primary purpose is to simply “be here” when people search for “first century Christianity” or the truth about the doctrines listed on the left hand side. 

Second, since people who believe like us tend to not belong to churches with doctrinal statements and hierarchal governments, it’s here so that if someone asks you what you believe, and you believe somewhat along the lines of this site, you can just point them here and say “well, here is a place to start”. I say “somewhat along the lines” because, as we all know, once one departs from Indoctrination University - mainstream Christianity - one is loathe to hitch a ride on someone else’s doctrines. We all believe a little differently, but that is OK. It’s OK because we all understand that we will be judged individually by Yeshua, not collectively or because we swore allegiance to some preacher or organization.

Last is it is a place for me to write and comment on current events from the perspective of a first century Christian. As we all know, most of the commentary today is written from the point of view of atheists or mainstream Christians. The commentary on the “War on Christmas” being one of these things. We know this to be an argument between two erroneous factions, so I can write about that. Another topic is religious liberty. Many of those who write about religious liberty simply means they want the liberty to practice and convert people to Americanized, Trinitarian, pagan laden Churchianity or they want freedom from any hint of the mention of God. In both of these cases, the feeling for people like us is that "those cultists need to get on board or shut up." Well, this is a good place for me to refute these ideas and preach real religious liberty like they had in Rhode Island near the founding of this nation!

Anyhow, thanks for reading and I will close before I start ranting too much. If this site can be of help to anyone, then may God get the glory! If you have any ideas for improvement or suggestions for topics, please don’t hesitate to forward them on!

I finished reading Atlas Shrugged this week and wanted to start writing about it while it is fresh in my head. While I agree completely with the book in respect to the end results of socialism/communism, there are some really problematic components of Atlas Shrugged. On the whole, it is a great novel, a classic, and one I will have my children read once they get to their upper teens, but it is still evil, and I will begin to explain why in this piece.

Right off the bat, the author is not a believer in God. She was apparently a believer in free-will and reason, but definitely not one who would profess any sort of faith in a creator. The only times God or Christ are referenced in the book are when people are using those words in vain, much like expletives. The heroic characters all reject God and in a few of the many monologues, religion is referenced as mysticism and is tied directly to the communist movement.  

From the context of the book, I can only conclude that the author was not educated about the Bible or the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Religion in Atlas Shrugged is tied to communism because of a trait called asceticism which has been historically found in a few sects of Christianity. Asceticism is sometimes employed in Christianity (or other religions) as a means of separating oneself from this world through immense self-denial or sacrifice. In the book, and in reality, communists preach that individuals must sacrifice for the good of the state/planet. Luxuries such as three square meals a day and a warm house (not actually luxuries, these are necessities) are considered to be optional for the masses (but necessities for the leadership class) in communism so the author tied religious asceticism to statist sacrifices and thus created a logical fallacy that she parlayed throughout the novel.

I cannot overstate the religious implications of the book. Throughout the >1000 page masterpiece of literature, self-indulgence is considered a sin by the communists and the implication is that any sort of pleasure is simply not good. A couple of the characters are even developed through a process of learning that self-sacrifice and self-loathing are not actually virtues. One character, Henry Rearden, evolves from the mire of self-loathing into a more psychologically rounded individual. The references to non-absolutism and the philosophies of extreme leftism abound and are intermingled with both religious and political aspects. One of the overall themes of the book is that the schools had been taken over by moral-equivalence preachers who teach that there are no absolutes. “There is no pleasure, but only the absence of pain.” “Hunger and material need are not real, but just perceived.” “Those who are wealthy have gotten that way by taking from the poor and working class, so one should be angry at those who have made wealth.” These are all themes properly ascribed to the statists, but they are not themes I can find in the Bible (although Christ does mention it is very difficult for a rich man to enter the eternal kingdom).

The Old Testament laws set up precisely the government that Ayn Rand’s characters desire in Atlas Shrugged. While the 613 laws are demonized as being repressive, they are actually limited in scope, and they completely omit a secular government. The Levitical priesthood is charged with managing the monetary policy (setting the price of a shekel) and the entire nation is charged to have the same scales for both stranger and countrymen alike. The Law of Moses does not contain a king, a president, or a legislature and it is most definitely a capitalistic system based on wealth creation - not credit or phony stock prices. For quite a while after Israel was established, men did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25). This is the pinnacle of Atlas Shrugged - a nation with minimal laws where men can run their lives as they see fit.

It is not until several centuries after Israel is established that the Israelites called out for a king. God even admonishes them that He did not want them to have a king and that a king would take 10% of their wealth (in addition to the 10% sent to the priests) and send their sons off to war (1 Samuel 8). But it was the people who cried out for a king so they could be like the other nations. Golly, doesn’t that sound familiar?

But the point that I am trying to make here is that there is a fundamental flaw in the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged. The book maligns religion and glorifies atheism, but it never empirically ties religion or faith to the doctrines that it ascribes to them. This, in essence, would be a grand hypocrisy since the book is centered around empirical evidence, scientific observation, and the cognizance of absolute evidence.

Since it is such a large book, there is more to follow. Thanks for reading this far!