Tag: Matthew

  • Letters from Proselytes of Galatia to Paul 

    Letters from Proselytes of Galatia to Paul 

    Premise: The Apostle Paul likely received one or several letters to which the Apostle responds with Epistles to several churches and certain important persons.

    Who wrote to the Apostle Paul?

    Think about this —

    Paul and other Apostles come into your town or city, proclaim some Good News, build a church of Christ followers, establish some local leaders. AND then after some time these missionaries leave to go somewhere else into all the world.

    ACTS of the Apostles details some of these encounters which occur after numerous encouraging visits of various apostles sent out to them.

    Many apostles and letters communicate Good News of one faith in Christ for all the world.

    Although we have no preserved documentation of any messages or letters delivered to the Apostle from the Gentiles, I suspect that Paul perceives a crisis of faith in the churches of Galatia — a crisis conveyed to him by faithful disciples of the risen Christ and perhaps even believers considering IF they should abandon The Way of the Lord for a more prevalent cultural Judaism.

    WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

    The Apostles, including the Twelve and Paul, James and other church leaders communicate in person and by messenger by the Spirit who has sent them out into each mission.

    Major Roman Provinces of the Aegean including: Achaia, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Galatia, Cypress and Syria including major cities of Paul's first missions.

    Who are the Galatians?

    In Paul’s day, the word Galatia had two distinct meanings. In a strict ethnic sense, Galatia was the region of central Asia Minor (modern Turkiye) .. a Celtic people who had migrated to that region from Gaul (modern France) .. (in) 25 B.C. when Galatia became a Roman province, incorporating some regions not inhabited by ethnic Galatians (e.g., parts of Lycaonia, Phrygia, and Pisidia). In a political sense, Galatia came to describe the entire Roman province, not merely the region inhabited by the ethnic Galatians.

    Paul founded churches in the southern Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14–14:23).

    Commentary of John MacArthur – BlueLetterBible.org
    You will recognize these Galatian cities from Paul's early missions into all the world.
    Lystra and Derbe in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey

    WHY did Paul write to the Galatians?

    Regardless of who founded any of the Galatian cities in the A.D. first century Roman Empire, every town had an ethnic challenge common to all churches established by the apostles in every Roman province.

    Proselytes – Judaizers fleeing Persecution for the Cross of Christ

    The covenantal culture of the Jews opposed the pagan practices of peoples of other cultures. SO the Jews insisted on certain traditional identifications of Jewish men such as circumcision.

    Who are these proselytes?

    Even as Paul, Barnabas, Silas and other apostles had encountered opposition from Jews seeking their own disciples, so had the Lord Jesus.

    “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

    Gospel of Matthew 23: 15 LSB
    The Lord Jesus Christ describes the culture of Judaizers rejecting their own Messiah

    An Apostolic Urgency to Write to the Galatians

    PAUL must urgently address the concerns of those men in Galatia struggling in the faith

    AND like all Christians, pursued by the Jews.

    TWO QUESTIONS HERE:

    • WHO represents the earthly authority of GOD?
    • IF it is CHRIST, what is PAUL’s authority over the JEW and non-Jew?
    Later, I will get to a Twenty-first century C.E. challenge
    of this AUTHORITY in Christ which has now challenged the Church for some 500 years.

    How will the Apostle answer?

    “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

    Galatians 5:1 KJV

    Galatians 1 – Paul’s Authority

    The Apostle begins his Epistle to the Galatians by firmly establishing his authority and leadership of the churches.
    

    Paul, an apostlenot sent from men

    • nor through man,
    • but through Jesus Christ
    • and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead
    • and all the brothers who are with me,
    Pretty convincing.
    
    Paul opens fire against familiar enemies of Christ (Judaizers).

    6 I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

    • Paul clearly states that the Galatians must choose:
      • – between him as a representative of God the Father and Christ Jesus OR
      • – teachers of a false and distorted gospel
        • (which is not good news but a Jewish tradition chained to the Law and regulations of the flesh).

    Paul defends not only his credentials and calling by Christ, but once more presents his case of Christ’s freedom to these gentile believers caught between the Gospel and the yoke of the Judaizers.

    2:17 But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!

    I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.

    Galatians 2:21 LSB
    PAUL goes straight to the QUESTION of deceitful men claiming a GOSPEL other than Christ crucified and risen -- Judaizers seeking to lure these Galatian Christ-followers back to a Law of social Judaism. 

    3 O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

    THEN the Apostle clearly asks these men of the church a key QUESTION of their calling.

    2 This is the only thing I want to learn from you:

    Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law,

    or by hearing with faith?

    “The righteous shall live by faith.”

    What does Paul seek to prove here refuting Judaizers requiring circumcision of gentile proselytes?

    And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,

    “All the nations will be blessed in you.”

    Galatians 3:8 LSB

    The Apostle QUOTES Hebrew SCRIPTURE from BEFORE the LAW.

    From Genesis 22:

    22:18  וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי׃

     “By Myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, because you have done this thing and have not spared your son, your only one, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.
    
    “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened to My voice.”
    

    LATER comes THE LAW of Moses by which the Christ was crucified on a Cross as a redemptive Sacrifice for our sins. (It was NOT ONLY for the Jews, but for ALL the seed of Abraham — every sinner.

    The Apostle makes further legal arguments and adds an allegory comparing:

    The Apostle’s closing argument

    1. 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace!
    2. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.
    3. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

    Faith Reformed in Fact

    Jewish faith — to Christian faith — to Scriptural faith informed in the Good News of the Word of God…

    The Galatians and every other culture encountered by the Apostles —


    ~ ano Domini 49 – 50

    ~ A.D. 49 Paul has just written to the Galatians out of the Apostle’s concern for their failing faith being replaced by a false gospel.


    WHERE could other gospels lead these Christian flocks of the Empires?

    A fall of Rome, a division with an Orthodox New Rome (Constantinople) and Western father of Bishops and Princes competing for pawns of populace.

    New temples built as CATHEDRALS for poor pilgrims to look up to God and well-mannered robed men who could actually READ the Holy Bible of God…

    And then printing presses and challenges by Reformers pointing to Scripture in place of the yoke of Law and even Church law.

    In my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Christ, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night.

    From Luther’s Introduction, ano domini 1538

    THEN what should happen in yet another 500 years once common men and women of the Common Era COULD (yet did not) actually READ the BIBLE?

    a brief application …

    Talk of JESUS .com

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • God our Father estranged from Trinity

    God our Father estranged from Trinity

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places..

    Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 1:3 ESV
    WE began our series by asking, Are christian pulpits erasing Christ’s Biblical line of DOCTRINE?

    The Trinity and Doctrine of the C.E. Church

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ..’

    + FOCUS ON THE TRIUNE GOD the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? 
    OR 
    ++ FOCUS on OUR EXPERIENCE as worshipers?

    I introduced this series on DOCTRINES of the Common Era by quoting scripture from the first letter of the Apostle Peter to the Church.

    Last time I strongly suggested that Scripture has NOT changed.

    We looked at several Scriptures from Before Christ and in New Testaments from the years of our Lord written during the A.D. 1st century.

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

    Second Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Church a Corinth 1:3-4 ESV

    What changed in C.E. church worshipers?

    ‘SOMETHING CHANGED, but I’m not certain when.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    I listed some facts from the A.D. 1960’s and changes in OUR thinking as a church.

    • The minimum wage was $1.00
    • Farmers made up 8.3% of the U.S. labor force..
    • about 65% of Americans were churchgoers.
    • first commercially produced birth control pill was forbidden by many churches
      • EVEN for married couples (a man and a woman)
    • Christian CHURCHES, pulpits and doctrines PREACHED, TAUGHT and encouraged:

    NO SEX before marriage, Divorce is discouraged and THOU SHALT NOT ABORT a baby living in its mother’s womb under ANY circumstances!


    christianity lite - the marketing of jesus by the church in the Common Era

    Although GOD has NOT changed it seems that worship and OUR Common Era approach to worship may have.


    What changed (in Common Era preaching)?


    Doctrine of God in a Common Era of christianity-lite

    Do you REALLY believe? Is DOCTRINE of the Bible a line in the sand for you? OR has DOCTRINE of the COMMON ERA become a blurred line in the sand of 21st century CE?

    NO Doctrine of the COMMON ERA or any other millennia will stand the test of time without defining GOD truthfully.

    Scripture of the New Testament since the A.D. 1st century Gospel always points to the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit).

    GOD IS!

    The LORD reveals Himself through His creation, the Holy Scriptures, the HOLY Spirit and IN THE PERSON of His Only Son JESUS CHRIST.

    WE THE COMMON ERA CHURCH drift dangerously with the chaff of every worldly sin upon prevailing cultural winds of these last days.

    “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    Gospel of Matthew 3:12 LSB

    “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” -

    so what must WE do?


    Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

    Gospel of Matthew 28:19-20 ESV – Commission of the crucified, risen and returning Christ to His Disciples

    The Common Era challenge of Trinity

    people receiving the Holy Spirit descending like a dove

    Holy & unholy ghosts & spirits

    https://www.facebook.com/reel/1452049838875053

    Anyone can preach!

    You can preach in the Holy Spirit and shout out in the Holy Ghost! (Preach it, pastor.)

    – BUT – is the word of the Spirit truly that from Almighty God?

    – OR – is the preacher moved by a different spirit, perhaps a ghost of the past or demon opposed to the angels of the Lord God and Jesus Christ?


    I have witnessed the Holy Spirit for a time with a woman preaching or by a man sharing the cup of communion with the beloved saints. Yet it's mysterious power wandering flocks will follow. Beware if false preachers who also claim power from the pulpit or aisles of cloaked darkness. 
    
    Test the spirits and quantify their truth by the Word and by Scripture. - RH

    For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

    1 John 5:7 King James Version
    JESUS at door with DO NOT KNOCK sign

    ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

    Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 3:20-21 LSB

    ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” – Rev. 3:22


    The Apostle John preaches Jesus Christ as ‘the Word in the flesh.’

    YET even from the apocalypse of the risen Word many churches of the Common Era will preach and imagine ONLY those events which draw in the crowds.

    .. I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne…


    In the years of our Lord prior to this Common Era a remnant of pastors
    have preached JESUS in the context of Scriptural exhortation to every believer. For the 'knock at the door' passage of Christ's Revelation is a call of repentance to a lukewarm church.

    ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent.

    Revelation 3:19 LSB (the Word to those on the other side of the door)

    Many worshipers lack the Spirit and christians of every era fail to have ears to hear the very breath of the Word.

    Through all the years and recent decades of our Lord, few 21st century christians have a problem with JESUS..

    since by omitting the hard parts WE can preach his gospel with so many variations.


    Our estranged Father in Heaven

    hypocrisy - syncretism, traditionalism, liberalism, and many more

    Common Era christians ESTRANGED from fathers

    What changed (in Common Era preaching)?

    If not our worshipers lifting up with the chaff in the Holy Spirit

    — if not our re-imagining a jesus to our liking —

    THEN certainly our all-too-common era trouble with the Trinity must lie in a single broken relationship: that of Common Era christians with God the Father.

    Revealed Honor to God the Father of Glory

    Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

    ‘You shall rise up before the gray-haired and honor the aged, and you shall fear your God; I am Yahweh.

    From the Book of the Law – Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 19:32 LSB

    “I kept looking
    Until thrones were set up,

    And the Ancient of Days was seated;

    His clothing was like white snow
    And the hair of His head like pure wool.

    His throne was ablaze with fire,

    Its wheels were a burning fire.

    Daniel’s vision of the Ancient of Days 7:9 LSB

    a few more facts of Common Era worshipers

    ‘SOMETHING CHANGED, but I’m not certain when.’

    Do YOU know? Can YOU contribute a comment with YOUR opinion?
    • The 1960 Census showed a record proportion married, 67.4 percent, among persons 14 years old and over.
      • In 2022, about 132.3 million or 49.3% of Americans age 15 and over were unmarried, according to the Current Population Survey. [compared to ~33% in 1960]
    • JULY 2023 C.E.
      • Of the 63.2M parents living with their children
        • <18, 76.1% lived with a spouse,
        • 15.1% had no spouse/partner present.
        • The rest [~ ONE in TEN PARENTS] lived with a cohabiting partner.
          • Note: Direct identification of both parents began in 2007, resulting in the ability to identify children living with two unmarried parents.
    Source: Census.gov library

    How do YOU react to God the Father?

    “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

    “.. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

    Gospel of the Apostle Matthew 7:21,11:27b CSB

    “I and the Father are one.”

    Testimony of Jesus from the Gospel of John 10:30 Christian Standard Bible

    Do YOU have a problem with THAT, dearly beloved Common Era christian estranged from GOD our FATHER?

    NEXT: More on this doctrinal challenge of the Common Era… God willing.

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • When HE takes Vengeance

    When HE takes Vengeance

    DOES THE FIRE OF GOD’S ANGER BURN WITH VENGEANCE?


    Paradise on fire – Idolatry consumed!

    Remember the lyric of lament over a lost love?

    Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus?
    You’ve got to help me make a stand
    You’ve just got to see me through another day
    My body’s aching and my time is at hand
    And I won’t make it any other way
    ..

    Source:
    I've seen fire and I've seen rain
    I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
    I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
    But I always thought that I'd see you again

    You shall not make idols or any image of things that are in the heavens above or that are upon the earth or that are in the waters under the earth.

    Exodus 20:4 New Catholic Bible

    Of course FIRE and RAIN are elements of the 12 idolatrous signs of the zodiac,

    even as love of a friend, family member or the EARTH or AIR may easily become your WORSHIP of idols.

    fire, air, earth water - idols of the 12 zodiac signs of false religions

    So Those were the days, my friend, of Paradise

    We SANG of them in the paradise lost of our memories. In the year of our Lord 1970, half a century ago – a time of imagined idolatrous paradise where one might honeymoon in Hawaii with the Eve or your dreams or perhaps worship each other’s nakedness in the mind-altering smoke of your California dreamin.

    How we all sought the peace on earth of friends with benefits..

    And that by the children of Jesus raised in the Commandments by the family of the Church — prodigal children wandering into a paradise lost of our own making.

    WE KNOW THE STORIES OF SCRIPTURE,

    Yet we try God’s patience

    And fail to TEACH OUR CHILDREN WELL in the Commandments and Praises, the Proverbs and Gospel

    of the HOLY BIBLE of the LORD God of our cultural prodigal witness!


    The Imagery of Apocalypse

    WE know it. Yet we quickly attribute God’s vengeance to ACTS of man-made cause.

    What more idolatrous treason against the Creator of Heaven and Earth can you imagine than to attribute apocalypse to ‘mother nature’ and to ‘humankind’?

    WHY do we so easily dismiss GOD’s warning of His vengeance against SIN and SINNERS (who we have become as we now wallow in the muddied cultures of self-worship and karma of the ashes of their phoenix fallen).


    .. angels .. he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

    Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones..

    Woe to them..

    excerpt from the letter of Jude, warning of ‘ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. – v.4b

    A Repeated Warning behind the Headline

    WE can ‘talk of’ KING JESUS all we want but best not dwell on the glory of grace without heeding the warnings of Christ our Lord.

    Recognize the signs of false news which does NOT seek the TRUTH of God or acknowledge the LORD’s story of vengeance against SIN and justification ONLY in Christ.

    Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—
    
    .. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
    
    “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”

    The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ from Luke 17:


    Deseret News
    Apocalyptic’ Maui wildfires death toll reaches 80, making it the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii — see the latest updates

    Sat, August 12, 2023 at 1:16 PM EDT

    TWO Pictures of Maui including our COVER PHOTO TODAY:

    NOTE warnings IGNORED as you read FACTS

    from the story of JULY 12 in A.D. 2019

    • thousands were ordered evacuated,
    • it was unclear how many people fled the west Maui coastal communities of Maalaea and Kihei.
    • three shelters housed about 500 people
    • The Maui High School housed about 200 cats and dogs moved from a local animal shelter

    Have you NOT READ?

    • He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
    • “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
    • And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

    Vengeance is Mine!

    Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
    for the time when their foot shall slip;
    for the day of their calamity is at hand,
    and their doom comes swiftly.’

    Deuteronomy 32:35 ESV

    ESV Quotes on Vengeance
    
    Hebrews 10: NEW CATHOLIC BIBLE
    
    
    Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition

    28 A man making void the law of Moses, dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses:

    29 How much more, do you think he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace?

    30 For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people.

    31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

    "so great a cloud of witnesses -Exhortation from Hebrews 12:1-2 - SHAKEN! from a troubled 2020 election to troubled times: Joe Biden Presidential Oath of Office sworn on Douay-Rheims Bible (1899) of his Roman Catholic faith

    “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,”
    and
    “The Lord will judge his people.”
    31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

    Hebrews 10:30b-31 New Catholic Bible