Christian Study

Recently I received an email from one who was very worried and losing sleep over their lack of ability to get other people saved. Here is my response.

You have nothing to worry about. You are not God.

1 Corinthians 3:6 “I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.”

Only God gives the increase. Only those God draws to Himself are able to be saved.

John 6:44 “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

If you want to have a better experience consider the ground in which you are planting the Gospel.

Read the parables in Matthew 13 for information. A farmer does not spend all his time worrying about the rocky and thorny ground. He spends his time on the good ground. Spending time on good ground gives the better increase. Most have been ignoring the good ground for the last couple of decades and the good ground is going fallow. In other words spend your time teaching the people who have been the most prolific Christians of the last 2000 years. We can teach the gospel to all, but it is not a real conversion if incentives are used. Missionaries are notorious for using incentives to make their numbers look better. When the incentives are removed one finds very few of those people left to teach. However, when people see Christians being blessed by God they come to those asking about the blessings.

One other detail of the parables and the whole of scripture. Follow Christ’s example. Did He spend more time teaching personal salvation or the Kingdom of God? Do as Christ did. It works.

In Acts, Peter didn’t offer an invitation. The people were convicted by the Gospel and they asked him what they should do.

Tim

There is an effort on the part of many today to destroy God’s patriarchy.

I once read an online paper that had to have been written by a man in prison trying to justify a rape. He used Bathsheba as an example and laid the blame entirely on her. No, the blame was entirely on David.

Scripture backs that up. He was the King. He had the power. He called Bathsheba to him. We might consider that in that day and time it may have been perfectly normal to see people in various states of dress or undress. If you do your research you will see that nudity was only considered shameful when it was forced or involuntary. Apparently there were no witnesses to the act as scripture requires two or three witnesses. We do not know any other details. We don’t know if Bathsheba resisted, called out or fully cooperated. We just do not know. Any other ideas about guilt are guesses. The intent by some is to discredit Patriarchy. Men sometimes don’t act as they should, but that does not discredit God’s plan. God has a plan for women as well. Most women today are in total rebellion to God.

2 Samuel 11:2 “And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”

Acts 17:6 has the people of Thessalonica claiming that those who were teaching Christianity were turning the world upside down.

Matthew 7:14 “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

Are “Christians” who are teaching the same acceptance and tolerance as the world teaching Christianity or have they become friends of the world.

“Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” James 4:4b.

It is good to question your beliefs if you find yourself believing the same thing those do who hate Christ. It is good to question your beliefs if you find yourself believing doctrines that the majority of “Christianity” teaches. You may find yourself fighting against Christ. One day Christ will say,

“But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” Luke 19:27.

A recent article was taking notice of the socialist style non-Christianity that is aggressively trying to replace normal more conservative Christianity.

The conservatives are planning a teaching conference to inform people of this problem. It is great that the conservatives are fighting back. The social justice, critical race baiter non-Christians are teaching Cultural Marxism that is decidedly Jewish. Just like when the Berlin wall came down because it was safe for Communism, it is now safe for the Marxist to stop pretending they are normal Christians. There has been a lot of that happening lately.

The socialist gospel is another gospel. They can only use scripture that is taken out of context and spiritualized to say what they teach. Unfortunately conservative Christianity is guilty of doing the same thing. They also take scripture out of context and spiritualize verses to make scripture work for the world they see.

If the conservative group would just teach scripture then it would be easier to see a difference.

One of many examples that is taught in many churches is that non-Israelite people are adopted into the church. Ephesians 1:5 is one example of ignoring the actual context. Paul stated that the adoption belongs to Israel in Romans 9:4. Churches spiritualize those verses to be more inclusive. The reason they do that is because there is a people claiming to be Israel that is not Israel. They are those who today say they are Jews, but are not. Their behavior proves they are of the synagogue of satan, Revelation 2:9. Scripture says that true Israel would take the light of the gospel to the world. The Jews spit when they hear the name of Christ. They are not Israelites.

If churches no longer believed in the fraudulent Jews and believed scripture about who is Israel then no spiritualization of verses such as Ephesians 1:5 and Romans 9:4 would be necessary. Conservatives would be able to say we truly teach scripture without needing to spiritualize or destroy it’s true meaning. Believe the scripture, question the world.

In a way, there are two bibles.

There is the bible we have all been taught at church.

Then there is the bible that few know about. It is very difficult to show this bible to people. It has the same English words on the page, but it does not read the same as people expect based on the Hebrew and Greek text.

In the early 1600s the translators of the King James Version had a decision to make. Should they translate a reasonably accurate representation of the Hebrew and Greek and risk censure or worse. They went with the safer solutions. Here are a few examples.

The church in England in that day taught a Sunday observance. To avoid any confusion with that the translators took the Greek phrase “mia ton Sabbaton” and translated it as “first day of the week”. The phrase actually means “first of Sabbaths”. First of Sabbaths actually had nothing to do with a weekly observance as it was a specific Sabbath in the spring of the year, but the church taught that the Sabbath was no longer to be observed.

Another example is the word nation. In the Hebrew and Greek the words are goy and ethnos. Translating these words correctly could cause concern with church doctrine. So in instances where the translators didn’t have any choice they used the word nation. After all they couldn’t suggest that Abraham’s offspring would become many Gentiles! Everywhere else they inserted the Latin word Gentile. The primary meaning of Gentile is nation. At one point in history it was used to mean a non-Roman. If you ever look at an old dictionary you will see that it meant non-Jew and non-Christian in 1931 for example. It has since been changed to mean only non-Jew. Even in recent times those who call themselves Jews have changed the meaning of goy to mean non-Jew. However, when the writers of the old and new testaments wrote goy and ethnos they meant only nation. You had to understand the context of the verse to know the who. In some cases in the new testament the context demands that the who is physical Israelites where the word Gentile is used.

Those are just two examples. One must decide if they are going to read the bible that supports comfortable church doctrine or read the bible that shows what God intended one to understand. There is quite a difference between them and it is worth the work to learn the truth.