Tag: Church

  • Doctrines of TRUTH in a Common Era of Lies

    Doctrines of TRUTH in a Common Era of Lies

    Introduction to the Common Era

    WHEN did the Common Era Begin?

    Was there an unexpected BIG BANG that exploded TRUTH into truths?

    Did centuries of HISTORY defined by the word of Almighty GOD suddenly fall into a bottomless black hole of godless futility?

    AND IF, in 2023 C.E. humankind could look back toward 2023 B.C.E.

    Would the blurred timeline of History not continue to point toward Christ Jesus born into this common world of sin?

    The Common Era (C.E.) continues to count from the year of our Lord (Anno Domini) even as the world of the Common Era continues to use the birth of Jesus Christ as a blurred line Before the Common Era (B.C.E.) of speculative scientific history.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    Doctrines of a Common Era christian

    Anyone who has read any of my doctrines previously proclaimed here on TalkofJESUS.com will realize the orthodoxy of my foundational teaching of ONE Truth from the HOLY BIBLE.

    I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

    1st letter of the Apostle John 2:21, Legacy Standard Bible

    Do you really believe that? Can you affirm that ONLY Scripture Sola Scriptura is the inspired word of the Lord God? {a recall of a church strayed from Scripture - What doctrine do you preach?)

    Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

    This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

    1 John 2:22 LSB


    YOU know the TRUTH.

    Do some blur the LINE of God’s WRITTEN WORD preaching a redefined Jesus

    into an acceptable vocabulary of teaching

    in a COMMON ERA of corporate inclusiveness?

    You know that WE do! For WE preach a King Jesus rarely mentioning Christ or the Cross. 
    
    Certainly we lead with grace and subtle mention of sin. For our one-time only repentance of our past brings US privileges of the present AND a heaven of OUR creation. 
    chalkboard - written Sola Scriptura! Only Scripture

    Most pulpits NEVER mention the Prophets.

    Certainly we FAIL TO WARN of likely persecution of Christ followers and ESPECIALLY the REJECTION of the Church BY YOUR neighbors, friends and biological family into which you were born in this COMMON ERA.

    THEREFORE WE build our local church for the worldly of the Common Era

    — WE seek multitudes of post-Christian era believers who would be easily led.

    So WE the church invite them all into an enticing free love by a rebranded Jesus who saved every one of you simply by bringing you to church one Sunday.


    What is Truth?

    τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια  
    ~A.D. 30 - WHAT IS TRUTH is the dismissive hand-washing question of Pilate at the trial of Christ Jesus, the SON OF GOD who he found NOT guilty YET sentenced to death ON A CROSS for our sins.

    From the sin of Adam in a distant century Before Christ until the dark day Pilate and the unrepentant sinful elect killed the sinless Son of Man on a Roman Cross —

    GOD IS!


    From the year of our Lord 30 until today in 2023 of the Common Era

    TRUTH is continually redefined by those who know that WE ARE SINNERS, yet deny the Sacrifice of Christ for our sins and REFUSE TO REPENT.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    God is truth and anti-Christ’s will always question God-given TRUTH.

    Let the faithful follower of JESUS beware — for the CHURCH of the COMMON ERA has intentionally re-branded JESUS by answering questions of the tempter with an acceptable Gospel of what JESUS did NOT really say.


    The ‘EVILution’ of the post-Christian church

    Several years back I listened to a renowned English theologian preach against the most unlikely pseudo-science of atheist philosophers tirelessly chipping away at the lexicon of God’s long-accepted truth with Darwinist theory continually tweaking and altering the evolution of man and origin of the cosmos.

    Rather than using our Americanized pronunciation this British scholar appropriately pronounced the slow progressive rebellion of their humanist-god origin from sudden nothing into a severely-slow shaping of reality from amoebas and apes as “EVILUTION.”

    What could be more evil than turning from God and denying the glory of God within our sight and grasp — even for the briefest of mortal times until the inevitable DEATH of our flesh and JUDGMENT of our soul?

    One might think that 21st c. Christians of this pseudo-scientific Common Era need not be concerned with such things.

    Yet the NOT SO GOOD gospel of these last days suggests that the pulpits and teaching of many ‘christian‘ churches have embraced the ‘EVILution’ of the Common Era, forsaking mention of Christ and fleeing the refining fire of TRUTH given succinctly through Scripture.


    In these Last Days of the Common Era

    THEREFORE, my fellow follower of the Lord Jesus Christ,

    LET US take up THE BOOK once more as we ascend the crumbling wall of christian witness

    Recognizing the enemy at our gate

    and hearing the DOCTRINES of the enemy within

    urging US to open the gates of peace when there is no peace,

    PREACHING tolerance in the casual jeans

    of the COMMON ERA deception and rejection

    of JESUS CHRIST our ONLY Lord and Savior.


    a SERIES to weigh and measure God’s Truth

    COMMENT BELOW & TELL ME

    WHAT DOCTRINAL BLURRING OF THE LINE

    FROM the A.D. 1st-20th centuries

    TO this 21st century of the COMMON ERA

    WOULD YOU LIKE TO DEFINE?


    NEXT:
    
    Due to LABOR DAY in this 'one nation under God' once having been a STARTING line for POLITICIANS running for office,  
    I suppose that WE THE PEOPLE of Jesus and the US might want to begin there on MONDAY, God-willing.
    
    AND Following that, an INTRODUCTORY POST of this SERIES.
    
    Roger

  • Not ME – the deception of SIN

    Not ME – the deception of SIN

    “Not me,” we boastfully sang out as children.

    We gleefully sang each verse of the children’s song so familiar we knew the continuous scratches in our 45 rpm record. Who’s afraid of the BIG BAD WOLF? — a story also told on our little black and white television and eventually in living color by Walt’s colorful characters. (We knew the story and song by heart.)

    “Who’s afraid of the BIG BAD WOLF?” Not me.
    Who's afraid of the big bad wolf,
    the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf,
    "Who's afraid of the BIG BAD WOLF?"  
    [then 5 familiar notes of melody during which we sang out: 
    NOT MEEEE!]
    

    I’m not even certain ANY version of the song from “The Three Pigs” even included our unanimous care-free response of each little pig; but my sister, brother and I all knew where the story was headed.


    Acts of the Apostles Missions trips of Paul, Barnabas, Silas and several others

    A Father’s Letter to his Gentile Children

    Now you’re probably wondering what a children’s song has to do with the Apostle Paul.

    (I’ll make the connection before the last verse of his letter (so to speak) as we suddenly discover a HOT TOPIC for the church.)

    In the year of our Lord 49 to A.D. 51

    As the Apostle Paul nears completion of a Second Missionary Journey he sends a letter to a church back in Macedonia from where the Apostle to the gentiles had been forced to flee. Paul’s heart for these new believers looks back to Christ’s love in them.

    But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

    First letter from Paul, Silas and Timothy to the Thessalonian church 2:7
    Thessalonica [Θεσσαλονίκη] next destination of Paul, Silas and Timothy when they depart from Philippi on the 2nd missionary journey of Paul.
    Thessalonica

    The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians

    What do you do when travelling away from home and separated from loved ones? We do our best to communicate at a distance, (before hand-held phones) traditionally by letter.
    
    Again, from Corinth, the year ~ A.D. 51 

    These new believers in Christ Jesus in Macedonia receive communication from Paul, a father to them in the faith. Silvanus we know familiarly as Silas and their young protoge Timothy has been their trusted courier and also a pastor to believers in distant towns.

    [READ 1 Thessalonians 3 for details that complete the ACTS journey to Athens.]

    Like any good father the Apostle encourages and also exhorts these young believers to maintain their new-found righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ.


    Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

    To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

    Grace to you and peace.


    We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

    .. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

    8 For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

    Is this not what every child wants to hear from its father? 
    
    'Well done, good and faithful young follower of Christ' 
    
    Even in other parts of Macedonia and HERE IN CORINTH ACHAIA the Thessalonian faith has become an example to others.
    
    The Apostle then recounts their struggles in other cities.

    2:  But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive…

    Remember this, and remember the big bad wolf who will knock at our door later.

    5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness.

    Opposition to the Gospel in Philippi and then Thessalonica

    We are proud of you

    11 For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

    And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

    CHILD of God, Christ is at work in YOU.
    Good job, son! Well done, daughter.

    14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind..

    song: "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf? [repeat] from inside our answer: "Not me.'

    but Satan hindered us

    • DO YOU BELIEVE IN SATAN?
      • “Not me,” will be the response of many 21st century claimants of Christ.
    • Yet the Lord Jesus AND Paul both include along with the Gospel warnings about the fallen angel Satan who huffs and puffs at the door of faith of every Christ follower.

    .. we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us.

    1 Thessalonians 2:18 διότι ἠθελήσαμεν ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐγὼ μὲν Παῦλος καὶ ἅπαξ καὶ δίς καὶ ἐνέκοψεν ἡμᾶς ὁ Σατανᾶς ESV

    19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?

    Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.


    Furthermore then we beseech you..

    Many long-time servants of the Lord Jesus may detect a certain fatherly embrace of Paul opening his arms to his Thessalonian children of the faith. 
    
    The more formal quaintness of the King James Version perhaps captures the Apostle's love for these saints best.

    Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

    First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians 4:1 KJV

    (Some may even recall familiar and more formal prayers of your own childhood in Christ simply at hearing the plea,

    WE BESEECH YOU.


    A General Thanksgiving (from the A.D. 1928 Anglican Prayer Book)
    
    ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we, thine unworthy servants, do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men; We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
    
     And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may he unfeignedly thankful: and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; 
    
    through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

    NEXT: from Thessalonians 4-5 – WARNINGS

    to the children of the Lord facing that Big Bad Wolf, who disguises himself as light while he huffs and puffs at the saints approaching the narrow door of eternal life.

  • My HOT reaction to a 1st. c. Hot Topic

    My HOT reaction to a 1st. c. Hot Topic

    As I read my own contemporary REACTION to Paul’s epistle (letter) to the ‘foolish Galatians’ I realized that the Apostle had provoked PREACHING in my own commentary.

    Which HOT Topic that matters to YOU will push your button of REACTION?

    WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO PERVERSION?

    OR YOUR REACTION TO HYPOCRISY?

    HOW DO YOU REACT TO SIN?

    IF you even hold that SIN is identifiable in a man or woman.

    IS YOUR REACTION TO OPPONENTS OF GOD SIMILAR TO PAUL’S?

    IF YOU YOURSELF are not opposed to the ONE GOD and JESUS CHRIST?

    REACTION to Galatians

    Think of this an extended personal COMMENT and reaction to my own post 
    AND then ADD your reaction to Paul's letter with YOUR comment.
    
    Please forgive any overlap of content from Scripture. It is my hope that these exhortations may also convict 21st century christians in addition to the Galatians.

    Galatians 1:7b LSB – .. there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

    Apostasy appears throughout the Holy Bible when God’s people become unholy.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?

    It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

    Paul’s epistle to the churches in Galatia 3:1 ESV
    Bible and milk? for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. Hebrews 5:13

    Foolish Reactions of milk-fed christians

    (My REACTION to those led to ‘some other gospel,’ as Paul puts it.)

    For the turning away H4878 of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

    See Paul’s reference to foolishness according to Proverbs

    God’s reaction to worshipers turning from HIM!

    Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine:

    the soul who sins shall die.

    the word of the LORD through His Prophet Ezekiel 18:4

    It is NOT ONLY the flesh which will wither and die; but, SAYS THE LORD, ‘the soul who sins shall die.’


    Galatians 4:

    SON OF A SLAVE! (What’s your reaction to that?)

    8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.


    DOES THIS NOT CONTINUE TO BE THE CONDITION OF EVERY CHRISTIAN BEFORE WE TURN TO JESUS CHRIST?

    So why then, O foolish 21st century sinner, do you speak of reparations for slavery when you continue to refuse release from the CHAINS of CULTURE?

    We are ENSLAVED by CULTURE! – the PERVERSE cultures of media leavening every moment of our day; the PERVERSE claims of political leaders PAID FOR secretly by those evil ones of Satan to whom their parties are chained.

    The list is endless in these last days of this 21st century since the ascension of the risen Christ until HE returns to judge the living and the dead.


    What’s your REACTION to HELL?

    Now there's a HOT Topic to avoid for those who pervert justice and oppose the Gospel of Christ's return. Again Paul's concern for the Galatians ought to mirror our own concern for 21st century church.

    9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

    OR, foolish claimant of Christ, is your own perversion of the Gospel leading your own soul into inevitable darkness, death, Judgment and right punishment for preaching culture and not Christ?

    15 What then has become of your blessedness? .. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?

    DO YOU CHOOSE THE TRUE GOSPEL or have you foolishly followed the descending flow of their cultural gospel (which is false) into the very pit of perdition?

    17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.

    The Apostle Paul exhorts so-called christians of the churches of Galatia to return to the GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 
    
    I, too, have cultural HOT buttons of REACTION.

    how do you react to denied HOT topics of Truth?
    false – for it is intolerant of Christ and Scripture
    coexist and tolerance = apostasy
    Syncretism

    You can’t be Orthodox AND Roman..

    You’re no longer Catholic..

    You can’t be righteous to Allah if you claim Christ..

    Moroni and Smith hid in a secretive and false church of Jesus Christ in these latter days..

    Our preaching is NOT Universal and CANNOT accept all religions..

    what is your REACTION to yoga? SELF-worship? It is Apostasy
    GOD calls SELF-worship ‘SIN.’

    Buddha can help you find your true SELF..

    Our gods of the earth and nature bring you to the karma of this life..

    We are ALL good..

    The Bible is just another book.. )

    DO YOU SEE THE DANGERS?

    Pride in sexual perversion is not only sin, but not the only perversity of rejecting the Gospel of God.

    Evidence of Christ or Signs of Apostasy?

    No Bible translation I know is so brash as to use this HEADING for Paul’s closing argument in his case against some members of the churches we call Galatians;

    yet I’ll risk closing this HOT topic with such a summation for a jury of my Christian peers.


    4 You are severed [cut away] from Christ, you who would be justified by the law;

    you have fallen away from grace.


    The GOSPEL of Christ’s grace IS good news not only to the redeemed but in its evidence to others.

    17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit,

    and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,

    for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

    CAN THE PERVERSITY OF HYPOCRISY BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS IN ITS WITNESS THOUGH THOSE WHO CLAIM CHRIST?

    Perversion of the FLESH? vs. Fruit of the SPIRIT?

    WHICH do YOU choose AND what evidence does every juror see, you who have been given the Gospel?

    19 Now the works of the flesh are evident:

    sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies,

    and things like these.

    I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;

    Paul’s epistle [instructive letter to the churches] to the Galatians 5:22-23a ESV

    against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

    ARE YOU a christian wearing the Cross of Christ while living in the flesh just as Paul calls out to the Galatians to return to the GOSPEL of CHRIST?

    • Does REACTION to your christian claim lead to further apostasy from God?

    Does Paul’s HOT Topic #2 for the saints of the churches in Galatia CONVICT YOU?

    WHAT FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT do you lack?

    OR

    Is your witness as a christian saint somewhat steeped in the unholiness of the fruit of the flesh?

    COMMENTS? or Questions?