a creed or body of teachings of a religious, political, or philosophical group presented for acceptance or belief; dogma
a principle or body of principles that is taught or advocated
Read the fine print below for a more succinct examination of doctrine. - RH
doctrine refers to a theory based on carefully worked out principles and taught or advocated by its adherents [scientific or social doctrines]; dogma refers to a belief or doctrine that is handed down by authority as true and indisputable, and often connotes arbitrariness, arrogance, etc. [religious dogma]; tenet emphasizes the maintenance or defense, rather than the teaching, of a theory or principle [the tenets of a political party]; precept refers to an injunction or dogma intended as a rule of action or conduct [to teach by example rather than by precept]
It seems in the Common Era of NO ABSOLUTES and arguments of ANTI-this’ and ANTI-that’s I had best DEFINE what I mean to apologize to BOTH
+ disagreeing ‘christians‘
and semi-committed A-theists – [mortals AGAINST god AND unequivocally opposed to JESUS Christ].
WHY this SERIES?
I could share many reasons in this Common Era of 2024 WHY I am revisiting ‘doctrine’ but #1:
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
Apologetic for a Common Era approach to Biblical Doctrine
From Before Christ to Before the Common Era
In common Greek, apologia refers to the speech that an accused person delivered in court, rejecting the charges filed against him or her. The apologists of the second century chose this term because they wanted to show that the charges filed against Christians were unjustified and that the truths of their faith could be described and defended. An apologia was dedicated to the Roman emperor, who certainly never read it. [Max L. Stackhouse, “Apologia,” 1988]
The A.D. Second Century CHRISTIAN apologist to whom the article refers is Justin Martyr.
In addition to arguing against the persecution of individuals solely for being Christian, Justin also provides the Emperor with a defense of the philosophy of Christianity and a detailed explanation of contemporary Christian practices and rituals.
The First Apology is dated to between AD 155–157
The theologian Robert Grant has claimed that this Apology was made in response to the Martyrdom of Polycarp ~ in the year of our Lord 155.
JESUS Christ was the SON worthy of Christians who once worshiped like this:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, having been kept in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart..
Deuteronomy 6:5-6 ESV
And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
In the year of our Lord 1959, I joined our local Christian church and the Pastor presented me with a Revised Standard Version of the HOLY BIBLE, which our membership class had studied beginning with the first five books of the Law in addition to discussing key verses from the New Testament.
So the A.D. 1950's apparently were not yet a time when Christians walked away from God's HOLY BIBLE.
As children of Christian parents we were expected to become part of our local church and community. Some did so begrudgingly and others of us out of duty to family. What else could we do? And everyone I knew seemed to ‘go to church’ one place or another.
We referred to God and Jesus as ‘Lord,’ addressed adults as ‘Mister‘ or ‘Missus‘ [so and so] or if we didn’t know them sir or ma’am.
Our pastor and preacher was to be addressed as, Reverend, just like most of our parents addressed him. (Even children understood what reverend meant as to respect due to this man and his piety associated with God’s leadership of our church.)
Before the Common Era
SOMETHING CHANGED during the 1960’s, continued to change into the 70’s and yet more beyond the close of the 20th century.
Many churches still EXPECTED Christians to stand in acknowledgment of GOD’s HOLY Word as WE bowed in silence to hear proclaimed:
“THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO .. [Matthew, Mark, Luke or John],”
and then the Holy Scripturewas read.
christianity-lite churches of 2023 of the Common Era can hardly imagine it!
Some imagined it to have been liturgical routine rather than intended due reverence for the HOLINESS of God's Very Word.
The dichotomy of holiness as separation of GOD ABOVE ALL and JESUS CHRIST as LORD of ALL seemed to blur into a common division from contemporary culture.
Christians loved their Christ of Christmas and Easter, while ALL the world (mostly US) awaited a dismissal of JESUS as just another sweet lord of some days of a future passed.
JFK was elected the first Roman Catholic President of the U.S.
The average family income was $5,600
and a new house cost $16,500.
The starting salary for a teacher was $5,135. It was $4,400 for a police officer and $9,400 for an engineer.
A slice of pizza cost 15 cents, a McDonald’s hamburger was also 15 cents, and candy bars were five cents apiece.
The minimum wage was $1.00, (family members no min. I made .50/hr. in the 60’s)
Farmers made up 8.3% of the U.S. labor force.. about 3,711,000 American farms.. about 303 acres apiece.
Over 90% of American households had at least one TV,
and about 65% of Americans were churchgoers.
The FDA approved the world’s first commercially produced birth control pill.
The Roman Catholic Church opposed its use (even by married couples)
Protestant churches and other religions still expected NO SEX before marriage and discouraged any divorce.
Why did christians erase the LINES of Scripture?
Churches had to re-imagine JESUS for a post-Christian world of members who no longer wanted to GO TO CHURCH.
Christians of OUR future world will embrace a Jesus Christ SUPERSTAR along side our flawed antagonist apostle Judas who seemed to be just as I am. WE are the world, too.
Among our [*] secular friends WE continued to claim that WE are ‘believers,’ BUT we no longer liked to be identified as MEMBERS of the [*] BODY of CHRIST.
a few definitions erased and eroded
*SACRED [now archaic in the Common Era] once meant separated from the common sin and evil of the world in order to remain HOLY[on GOD's side of good and evil] and used in 700+ verses in the HOLY BIBLE.
*SECULAR [also archaic to Common Era culturaly inclusive speech] pointed outward to a world separated from the SACRED by clear BIBLICAL LINES of DOCTRINE.
The Body of Christ and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ point to HOLINESS only attainable through Christ as symbolized in HOLY COMMUNION.
So clearly defined Biblical church lines of religion blurred
AND antiquated doctrine retired and relegated into the annals of church history.
The Church of our Lord OR christians of the Common Era?
HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ preached from the pulpit of your Common Era church?
Rarely, since in a post-Christian world HE is now a familiar pronoun for a more familiar jesus who embraces believers of every culture into gatherings for the anonomous ME.
IS SCRIPTURE INSCRIBED on the doorposts and gates of YOUR COMMON ERA CHURCH?
god forbid! For holy means separated and WE are together.
Therefore the BIBLE bows down to OUR corporate vision to which WE must preach to include ALL the world for the love of our culturally correct Jesus.
Just call Him KING; NEVER Prophet or Priest, which would separate HIM from the multitudes of the world WE seek to gather. AND remember,
MOST books of the BIBLE are OFFENSIVE to seekers of other beliefs; consequently NO Scripture on the walls (or church building or worship screen up front).
THE BIBLE HOLY? – Prophets, Priests and gods forbid!
christianity-lite
a graceful LIFE
RE-imagining jesus
for a culturally-correct
church of the Common Era
christianity-lite is weightless witness of Christ-less preaching to the Scripture-starved chaff of Common Era culture
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
In the context of Western culture and because of growing biblical illiteracy in our churches, the content has often been highly eroded. It has been made light and insubstantial, replaced by a set of self-focused interests.
SOMETHING CHANGED between the years of our Lord in centuries past and these last days of the Common Era.
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
And it was not Jesus Christ (re-branding HimSELF for a Common Era church).
“Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings..” the letter to the Hebrews continues in 13:9a.
All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.
(although some have intentionally smudged scripture by their own rewording).
COULD IT BE THE COMMON ERA CHURCH (members, not the building so much) THAT HAS CHANGED?
..it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
Lord OR just another king of culture?
Let the church of these last days of a Common Era hear the prophesy of John the Baptist:
“And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals;
Gospel of Matthew 3:10-11b LSB
DO YOU WORSHIP JESUS IN TRUTH AND WITH THE HUMILITY OF JOHN?
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 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.”
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’
“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
THIS summary of Paul's first two missions INCLUDES a 20 YEAR TIMELINE OF THE EARLY CHURCH.
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
You’ll recall the Apostle’s great proclamation of the Gospel at the Areopagus of Mars Hill in the shadow of a Roman built-back-better ancient Acropolis. (The same philosophers’ debates continue into this distant millennium.)
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” – ACTS of the Apostles 17:32 ESV
So Paul went out from their midst.
We will talk about those new disciples who joined Paul's mission in Athens once we arrive in Corinth.
The Mission to Corinth
17:33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Prior to leaving Athens Dionysius and Damaris AND others join 'them.'
TWO new believers plus unnamed 'others.'
Please don’t forget that Jesus, the Twelve Apostles, rabbis, and even those Greek philosophers who invited Paul to address them at the Areopagus in Athens all had followers. Some disciples (or followers) of these men frequently traveled with these teaching mentors to learn more.
Paul and the missionaries of the early church are no exception. The apostle to the gentiles does not preach the Gospel in Athens or anywhere else without the witness of other disciples of Jesus Christ.
Paul has disciples of the Way of Jesus Christ with him — other apostles SENTby the Holy Spirit – and others followers sent to become ministers of Christ’s church in all the world.
Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent G649 them in G649 pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come.
4 “Go! Behold, I send G649 you out G649 as lambs in the midst of wolves.
What kind of MAN would send out 70 missionaries with the Gospel into the midst of wolves?
JESUS!
“The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me. And he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent G649 Me.”
Gospel of Luke 10:16 LSB – the Word of Jesus by the Authority of God the Father to seventy disciples
Paul will later write to his disciple Timothy, whom he has already circumcised to keep the young man from the wolves seeking their lives —
For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
Jesus had brought Paul to Himself years ago in Syria, then to Cypress and Galatia previously with Barnabas. Now with Silas and several others the Apostle of the Gentiles journeys through Syria, Galatia, Macedonia, briefly to Greece and here to ACHAIA and its important city of Corinth.
Paul and his company of Christians from Antioch and many other places will build yet another church for the Corinthians and Christ Jesus here in the months to come.
a 20 YEAR Timeline of 2 missions
PAUL, as before, has fled Athens with the young lambs of Christ’s fold not only preserving his own life from the pack of Jewish and Hellenist wolves but done so to continue on the Lord Jesus’ mission before harm might be inflicted on any in his care.
A.D. 30’s –
Jesus crucified and raised from the dead!
The risen Christ instructs the Twelve (now including Mathias) until Pentecost and appears to more than 500 witnesses before the Lord ascends into Heaven. Jesus’ brothers James (who will later lead the Jerusalem church) and Jude now believe and proclaim Jesus as Lord.
The Apostles and others receive the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem and go out to Jews and Samaritans with the Gospel.
After Saul of Tarsus (Paul) had pursued and killed many disciples of the risen Lord, Jesus confronts him near Damascus, later sending Saul into all the world as His vessel with the Gospel. Paul then goes to Arabia.
A.D. 40’s –
Three years after Paul’s conversion and ten years after Jesus’ resurrection Peter, who earlier had miraculously escaped prison in Jerusalem, takes the Gospel to the Gentiles, including Romans.
Then in ~A.D. 44 the Apostle James is murdered and once again Peter is freed from prison in Jerusalem by angels.
The Apostles have begun their journey into all the world, occasionally returning to Jerusalem where Jesus’ half-brother James is now leader of the local church.
~A.D. 47- 49 + Paul’s 1st Mission with Barnabas
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
49 And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. 50 But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. 51 But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, and there they continued to preach the gospel.
I reiterate this from Paul’s first mission to emphasize both the persecution by Jews and Gentiles AND the persistence of the Apostles in uplifting these new churches with letters and returning to them on other missions. Barnabas and Mark returned to Cypress. On this mission Paul began by returning to these same churches of his earlier mission in the same regions of Galacia.
‘Go into all of the world‘ of the Hellenist Roman Aegean with the Gospel
~A.D. 49 – 51 + Paul’s Second Mission with Silas & others
In the year of our Lord 49 the Council at Jerusalem was followed by several notable witnesses of Christ in various ways.
James, brother of Jesus & leader of the church in Jerusalem writes a letter primarily to the Jews of the dispersion,
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Paul writes a letter to the Galatians, saints of the churches he and Barnabas have just planted in the region of Galatia including Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
The Emperor Claudius expelled most Jews (including the sect of Christians) from Rome
Those expelled from Rome included Priscilla and Anguilla, who the Lord will use in an important new missing in ACHAIA.
Missionaries in Corinth sent out to the STATES of Rome
Again, in A.D. 50 Paul has been sent out with the Gospel to several states of Roman influence – each with its own culture – each with its unique mixture of Hellenists, Italians more connected to Rome’s politics, Jews (some connected to the politics of Jerusalem), just regular residents, travelers, merchants, foreigners and of course, varying numbers of active and retired Roman soldiers.
NOTE all the other apostles sent to Corinth in ACHAIA with Paul.
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
Part of the kingdom was now annexed to the Roman Empire, being united with Bithynia in a double province called Pontus and Bithynia: this part included only the seaboard between Heraclea (today Ereğli) and Amisus (Samsun), the ora Pontica.[18] The larger part of Pontus, however, was included in the province of Galatia.
5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them,
“Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Once again, the Apostle sent into all the world has taken the Gospel first to his brothers in the faith of God - the Jews. AND once again as in other cities before many BUT NOT ALL Jews reject Paul and the Good News of the Messiah - the Christ, Jesus.
7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.
(ALSO) 8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord (Jesus) , together with his entire household.
These two local men of Corinth are important and influential Jews, but they cannot dissuade the outside influences of Jewish zealots who have rejected their own Messiah.
And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.
