Does Even the Slightest Sin Deserve Eternal Damnation?

Calvinists like to quote James 2:10 to teach that even the slightest sin requires eternal damnation. Here’s my response from my book, Rebuilding the Foundations:

The passage is in James 2 and talks about showing favoritism to one another, yet Calvinists have made it the gold standard for God’s final judgment. It reads:

But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. (James 2:8-11)

This passage warns us not to favor one person over another because we are all lawbreakers, having violated God’s law in one way or another. It does not say that God will judge us for breaking one small point of the law; it says we should not judge one another because we are all lawbreakers.
James 2:8-11 teaches that any violation of the law makes you a lawbreaker. It does not say all lawbreakers deserve eternal damnation. In fact, it says nothing at all about eternal damnation, nor who deserves it.

There are passages that talk about what violators of the law deserve. A very good one is the story of the adulterous woman (John 8:3-11). Jesus was teaching a small crowd near the temple. The scribes and Pharisees broke into their gathering and threw a woman at his feet. They announced, “Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act.”

I am sure the sarcasm dripped from their tongues as they unknowingly confronted their Creator and future Judge. “Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say about her?”

Oddly, Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger. I have heard several guesses as to what he was writing, my favorite being the name of the Pharisees’ mistresses. My guess is that the hypocritical condemnation of this woman, the ignoring of the man that was with her, and the sneering tone of the arrogant Pharisees infuriated the Son of God, who was a man tempted in every way we are (Heb. 4:15). Writing on the ground, whatever he wrote, may have given him time to refrain from ‘un-creating’ them with a thought, dissolving their miserable hides into sub-atomic particles.

Whatever the reason, he wrote long enough to simply state, in so many words, “All of you who have not broken the law, you have the right to throw a stone at her.”

James 2:10 is right. We are all lawbreakers. Even the Pharisees, when Jesus called them on it, could not deny it.

We also find out, through Jesus, just what God thinks we lawbreakers deserve: a second chance. Or maybe it was a third chance … or a fourth … or a forty-fourth … or maybe the four-hundred-and-ninetieth (70 times 7; Matt. 18:22).

Jesus told her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you? … Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.” (Jn. 8:10-11).

Here we have an actual case of how Jesus, and thus God, looks at adultery. Like all other sins, he forgives, and he asks the sinner to stop sinning. The people who aroused God’s wrath were the proud and hypocritical (Matt. 23).

Jesus gave us multiple examples of the way he, and thus his Father, judges. In his judgment, sinners need his physician-like skills to repent and become righteous (Luke 5:31-32).

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I am working on the cover of a new book called I Desire Mercy and Not Sacrifice. Whether or not Calvinists read my book, they should listen to that quote from both Hosea and Jesus, and  then they might not be so quick to condemn the innocent, nor the guilty.

I think the Kindle version of I Desire Mercy and Not Sacrifice is live.

Tobit, Jesus, and the Breathtaking Power of Almsgiving from Within

Jesus told the Pharisees, “But give that which is within as charity and, behold, all things are clean for you” (Luke 11:41, NASB with note).

Tobit says something similar: “For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life, but those who commit sin and do wrong are their own worst enemies” (12:9-10). (I know we Protestants don’t read the Deuterocanonicals–the Apocrypha, the 7 books in the Catholic Bibles that are not in Protestant Bibles, but Tobit’s statement about almsgiving was well-known to the church fathers and the Protestant Reformers.)

Peter converted “almsgiving” to “love” and wrote, “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).

We might all want to consider how generous we are, not only with our money, but with “that which is within,” especially to the poor.

Jesus said, “When you give a [a]reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they are unable to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:13-14).

Just WOW! Let me take this opportunity to recommend Matt Newman’s Good in the Hood, which talks about how to “give what is within” to the poor by drawing close to them like the Samaritan did to the bleeding man on the road to Jericho.

Today’s Hodge-Podge: Messengers, Large Church Meetings, Archippus, and Apostolic Succession

For those interested, I wrote this in an email in response to questions concerning Colossians 4:14, 16-17:

1. For at least 150 years, perhaps longer, it was perfectly okay that the Sunday morning meetings grew large enough to need big meeting places, at least in the large cities, because the churches were still family. They took care of one another, shared possessions, visited one another house to house, etc. Having a big Sunday morning meeting in that culture is great. The day to day is fellowship is even more important than listening to pastors teach (Heb. 3:13; 10:24-25), so having big meetings on Sunday without the day to day fellowship is terrible, terrible, terrible. I don’t think that happened until pagans started rushing into the church, most unconverted spiritually, under Constantine. Unfortunately, that sort of public church never went away. It has lasted 1700 years.
2. The answer to the question about passing on letters would be obvious if we translated the Greek word angellos. It means “messenger.” The “messengers” of the seven churches in Revelation 1-3 were the men responsible for sending and receiving letters on behalf of the church. It seems that every church had one. The 2nd century book, the Shepherd of Hermas, says that Clement was the messenger for Rome and was responsible for receiving the book and then deciding whether to pass it on to other churches.
3. As for Archippus, we don’t know what his ministry was. We can’t be sure he was an elder, nor even that he was a shepherd in any way. Paul listed a lot of ministries in 1 Corinthians 12.

Apostolic succession: When Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus talked about apostolic succession, they were refuting the gnostics. Apostolic succession is the passing down of the faith–also called the truth and the gospel–from generation to generation. To take that responsibility and turn it into a passing down of jurisdiction is to misuse what they taught. Yes, of course the passing down of the faith was from the elders to the next generation of elders and from a bishop to the bishop who succeeded him, but authority for a Christian is not the same as authority for the world. Christians in authority, our bishops and elders and whoever else, are to maintain the truth and serve the saints, training them to do the work of ministry (service). It is a sin to follow a sinner, so even if a man has apostolic succession, he has no authority except it come from his submission to God.

Reconciling the Evangelical Paul with the Biblical Paul

This is a re-issue of a 2023 post made on ancient-faith.com. A series of circumstances made me think I’d lose that URL, and I might. I do want to keep this blog alive, though, especially for saving things I’ve written on Facebook or by email.

It is common to think that we have to reconcile Paul with James. I suggest rather that we must reconcile the evangelical Paul, who believes that going to heaven has nothing to do with works, and the New Testament Paul, who wrote:

• Eternal life is a reward for a pattern of good works (Rom. 2:6-7)
• We have been reconciled to God, but we shall be saved from wrath through Christ and by his life (Rom. 5:9-10)
• Eternal life is the result of holiness, which is the fruit of serving God (Rom. 6:22)
• And, as one more thing to reconcile, in the very next verse, he said eternal life was a gift! (Rom. 6:23)
• We “must” die if we live after the flesh, but we will live if we put to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:12-13)
• Don’t be deceived! The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Examples of the unrighteous are the sexually immoral, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunks, and slanderers (1 Cor. 6:9-11)
• That he himself disciplines his body so that he is not disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27). “Disqualified” (Gr. adokimos) is a word Paul contrasts with having Jesus Christ in you in 2 Corinthians 13:5
• Immediately after saying he had to discipline himself so that he does not fail the test (an alternate translation of adokimos), he argues for 11 verses that the various failures of the Israelites in the wilderness were examples for Christians, then writes, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12)
• We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad. Fear of this judgment causes Paul to persuade men (2 Cor. 5:10-11)
• It’s possible to receive the grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1)
• We must come out from among them, be separate, and not touch the unclean think if we want the Lord to receive us (2 Cor. 6:17-18)
• The Christians of Corinth must examine themselves to see whether they are really in the faith, Jesus is really in them, or if they are “disqualified” (2 Cor. 13:5)
• Those who “practice” (Gr. prasso) the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19-21)
• Don’t be deceived! Sowing to the flesh will result in corruption, sowing to the Spirit will result in everlasting life, so we should not grow weary in doing good (Gal. 6:7-8)
• The sexually immoral, unclean, and greedy don’t have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Don’t let anyone deceive you about this! It’s because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, so don’t partake in their deeds (Eph. 5:3-7)
• Paul himself was leaving everything behind, counting everything loss, and pressing forward so that he know Jesus, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, so that by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul did not regard himself as having already taken hold (Php. 3:7-14)
• God will present us holy, without defect, and blameless before him if we continue in the faith grounded and settled (Col. 1:22-23)
• Paul sent Timothy to the Thessalonians so he could know their faith because he feared the tempter had tempted the Thessalonians and Paul, Timothy, and Silas’ work would have been in vain (1 Thes. 3:5)
• Timothy should hold faith and a good conscience. Some, having rejected those, have had a shipwreck in regard to their faith (1 Tim. 1:18-20)
• Timothy should pay attention to himself and his teaching. By continuing in these things [the things in 1 Timothy] he will save both himself and his hearers (1 Tim. 4:16)
• Wealthy people should do good, be rich in good works, and willing to share. This will allow them to lay up a good foundation for the time to come so they can lay hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 6:16-18)
• Grace instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify a people zealous for good works (Tit. 2:11-14)
• Titus is to affirm confidently than God’s people are to maintain good works (Tit. 3:8)
• Finally, if Paul wrote Hebrews, as many believe, then there are many more verses associating works with “going to heaven,” such as Hebrews 3:14, which says that we are partakers of Christ only if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end; Hebrews 6:6, which mentions falling away; and Hebrews 10:37-39, which tells us that those who shrink back will be destroyed. That is not even mentioning Hebrews 12:14, a cognate to Romans 6:22, which says that no one will see the Lord without holiness.

I should also point out that “go to heaven” is not biblical terminology. You will not find those words in the New Testament. Instead, Jesus and his apostles talk about inheriting or entering the kingdom and, as Jesus said, this will not happen unless we do the will of our Father in heaven (Matt. 7:21).

Despite the staggering list of verses above, which suggest or directly state, that eternal life is a reward for good works, the evangelical Paul was not made up out of whole cloth. Paul did say:

• that we are saved by grace, though faith, not of ourselves but the gift of God, not of works so that we can not boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
• that we are justified by faith and not by the works of the law (Rom. 3:28)
• that we are not saved by works of righteousness which we have done, but by God’s mercy (Tit. 3:5)

How do we reconcile the Paul who wrote Ephesians 2:8-9 with the Paul who wrote Ephesians 5:3-7?

That question can be answered in one sentence: “Saved” does not necessarily mean “go to heaven.” Only “inherit the kingdom” always means “go to heaven.”

“Saved,” the Greek word sozo, is a big word with a lot of meanings, just as it is in English. Thayer’s lexicon lists danger, destruction, and disease as things we can be saved from as well as from “the penalties of Messianic judgment” (cf. Ps. 2:12). More to our point, Romans 5:9-10 gives a couple things we can be saved from:

Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.

When we are “now justified by his blood,” we are saved in a way that is best described by Ephesians 2:1-10. In verses 1-3, we are …

… dead in transgressions and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul pulls out all the stops in these 3 verses. He is telling us just how bad our condition was before God “made us alive together with Christ” (v. 5). In verse 10, however, everything is changed:

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

That is a huge change, from being dead in our sins to being God’s workmanship, created in King Jesus for good works. In verse 8, Paul rightly calls this being saved.

Hebrews warns us, though, that there is one more thing coming:

It is appointed for me to die once, then the judgment.

That judgment still awaits us, and it is still according to works. That is why Paul says, “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). It is also why Paul does not stop at “now justified by his blood” in Romans 5:9. He adds;

… we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.

Romans 5:10 is similar.

We were reconciled by Jesus’ death, but we will be saved by his life.

From Romans 5:10, I cannot help leaping to Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.

If I let Jesus live through me, then I will be saved from God’s wrath through him and through his life. We are warned that God’s wrath is still in the future, and we are even told not to be deceived about it in Ephesians 5:6-7:

Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. Therefore don’t be partakers with them.

You might be able to play with those words, but I cannot. I have been saved, made alive from my death in my sins and re-created in Christ Jesus to do good works, and I received that salvation by faith apart from works. Being enabled now by my new creation to do good works (Eph. 2:10), and knowing that the purpose of Jesus’ death was to ransom me from all lawlessness and to produce a people zealous for good works (Tit. 2:13-14), I am not at all surprised that God asks me to walk in that salvation, continuing in the faith, not moved away from it, but grounded and settled in it (Col. 1:22-23). I will sow to the Spirit and so reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8).

There is a sense in which the biblical Paul, the New Testament Paul, has two messages. We can be saved from the horrid state of slavery to sin by faith (Ephesians 2:1-10), and if we walk by the Spirit, we will do good and be rewarded with eternal life as a person who has patiently continued to do good in this present age (Romans 2:6-7; 8:1-13; Galatians 5:16-6:9).

The Demise of Ancient-Faith.com

I think God wants ancient-faith.com to end. You can read all the posts from before December, 2021 here. I refuse to keep writing blogs on a block builder as awful as this one, so there will be no more posts at paulfpavao.wordpress.com.

Ancient-faith.com is now attached, against my wishes, to a different wordpress.com site. For some unknown reason, it has access to a better platform to write on, but I have had so many problems with that domain name over the last two weeks that they seem miraculous. In other words, the problems were so bad, so persistent, and so impossible to work around that I am pretty certain I am fighting God.

I am able to use the wayback machine to find old posts people ask about. I save them as text files, and I will eventually upload them to christian-history.org, which will become my only website.

Pray that I do God’s will in all this, please. I have had email conversations with people all over the world because of this blog and Christian-history.org (and my books). I do not want to cut those off.

I see this is being sent to almost 200 subscribers. Wow! Some may not even remember me because it’s been so long since I posted. If you want to keep up with me, my email address is paul@christian-history.org, and you can also friend or follow me on Facebook. My name is unique. You’ll find me.

Ancient-faith.com Is Moved and New Subscription Works

I have the new subscription at Ancient-Faith.com at the new webhost up and running. As mentioned in the last post I sent out, if you want to stay subscribed to my posts, you’ll have to subscribe again at the new webhost, sorry. Just go to https://www.ancient-faith.com, and you will see the new blog and the new subscription block on the top right.

As for this subscription, you will never get an email from it again unless something weird happens. I will be completely removing the old traces of the blog on the old webhost over the next month. You can just unsubscribe at the bottom of this email as well.

Sorry for the trouble, but I am really, really glad to be leaving the old servers and the increasing number of controls they have been putting on the blog. I am so happy to be going to new servers and just writing, not figuring out how to navigate bizarre writing software.

Thank you so much for having subscribed, and I hope you will want to head to Ancient-faith.com and subscribe again. Oh, and don’t forget the dash or you will be subscribing to an Eastern Orthodox blog.

Galatians Promotes and Requires Works, Which Can Only Be Done by the Spirit, Not by Flesh/Law

I hate the fact that I have friends who will strongly disagree with the following. On the other hand, God had strong words to say to those who should have warned, but did not warn, and to those who said, “peace, peace” when there was no peace.

I sent this when a friend emailed me telling me that Calvinists claimed that my book, Rebuilding the Foundations, is the error of the Galatians:

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This will be a fun email to write.

Of course people raised up in Reformation traditions will immediately write off everything I wrote in Rebuilding the Foundations as legalism and the error of the Galatians. That is what they have been trained to do. For your sake, let me tell you that from the beginning, all churches founded as a result of the apostles’ ministries agreed with what I taught in the book. It is amazing to me that the divided, mostly nominal churches of today are willing to call the united, mostly holy churches of the second century legalists. Really? The apostles were such terrible teachers that all their churches fell into the error of the Galatians in one generation, and all of them into the same error?

That’s ridiculous. (For just a little evidence that my claim about the early churches is true, see “Faith versus Works Quotes.”)

Ok, so, the error of the Galatians. Reformation descendants like to say it is faith vs. works. Not so, it is Spirit vs. the Law. You probably know that in Romans 7 and 8, the issue is that the law cannot subdue “sin in the flesh,” but the sacrifice of Jesus condemned “sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3), so that by the Spirit we can fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. Fulfilling the righteous requirement of the Law would be works, right? However, in Romans 7 and 8, Paul is not saying to do good works so you can fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law, he is saying that in our flesh, we can’t do that (all of Romans 7). By the Spirit, though, we can do good works (fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law).

Paul did not change his mind in Galatians. Paul gives a testimony about deliverance from the Law, and especially about deliverance from Jews over Gentiles, in Galatians 1-2. Then he launches into his argument. He begins with, “Just answer this, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2-3).

Works are not at issue here. The issue here is “being perfected.” There is a goal. The goal is to be perfected. Will that happen by the Spirit, or are you deceived into trying to be perfected by the Law, which is just depending on the flesh?

This is why, after talking about walking in the Spirit vs. walking in the flesh through the start of Galatians 5, he then gives a list of works of the flesh, that if we practice (Gr. prasso), we will not inherit God’s kingdom. Then he gives the fruit of the Spirit. Notice that it is “deeds” or “works” of the flesh, but it is “fruit” of the Spirit. We are trying to do good works, and the route to those good works is walking in the Spirit, for good works are the “fruit,” i.e., the result, of walking in the Spirit. In Galatians 6:7-9, he puts the ball in our court. Sow to the flesh, you will reap corruption. Sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life. Not only that, but if you sow to the Spirit, according to verse 9, you will “not grow weary in doing works,” and if you do not faint–i.e., not grow weary in doing good works–only then will you reap [eternal life].

This stuff isn’t deep or hard to find. It is sitting right on the surface. Walk in the Spirit, and you will be “perfected,” which, as he goes on to say, means producing the fruit of the Spiriit and continuing in good works. You will need those good works to reap eternal life (Gal. 5:19-21; 6:8-9), but you will never get them by the law. If there had been a law that could give life, then righteousness could have come by the law, but there is no such law (Gal. 3:21). Despite the fact that no law can produce righteousness, righteousness is still the goal! This is because righteousness produced fruit for holiness, and the result of holiness is eternal life (Rom. 6:22; Heb. 12:14).

The reality is that Paul was speaking what is true for everyone, even Christians, in Romans 2:5-8. There is a judgment, and those who patiently continue to do good will be rewarded with eternal life. God has provided the means to patiently continue to do good, which is by the Spirit. Galatians agrees, in an obvious and easy to understand manner, with Romans 8. Walk by the Spirit and you will live; walk in the flesh and you will perish (Rom. 8:12-13).

Predestination is complicated. What I wrote above is plain, obvious, and super important. Predestination is a theory about God’s role versus our role in being saved. Everyone has their own theory about it because there is no practical application to prove anyone right. We all agree, even the Calvinists and even the most eternally secure Baptists, that walking by the Spirit is the route to good works and righteousness.. We cannot do it in our own flesh, but only by the Spirit.

Where we don’t agree is whether that is optional or not. As you can see above, it is not optional. As 1 John 3:7 says, it is not optional. If you want eternal life, you must live according to the Spirit.

The next thing that the tradition-loving rather than Bible-loving will say is that I should say, “live according to the Spirit” rather than “good works.” Yes, if the Reformation and Luther and Calvin were my authority, I should say that. If the Bible is my authority, though, then I should “affirm confidently that those who believe in Christ should be careful to maintain good works” (Tit. 3:8).

Let’s be clear, those people you are talking about and asking about care more about what Luther and Calvin say than about what the Bible says. That’s a problem. Jesus did not react well to people who chose tradition over the Word of God.

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An Explosive View of the Atonement: Ransom and Aphesis

Aphesis: release; by implication, forgiveness

This word is not extraordinary if you look it up in a lexicon, but it will blow your mind, capture your heart, and set you free if you look it up in the Bible.

I weep that translators have chosen to translate aphesis as “forgiveness” so often. It is so much more than that.

Aphesis is the Greek word for Jubilee. Every 50 years, the land in Israel was to return to the families who owned it all the way back to the time of Joshua. The land was never to change hands except temporarily. Jubilee came with a trumpet blast, and all land that had been leased out was returned to the original families.

Jubilee came after 7 sets of 7 years. The 50th year was Jubilee, but it was tied to the sets of 7 years. Every 7 years, all Hebrew servants were set free and all debts were forgiven. The Greek word for this 7-year release? Aphesis.

Every year, on the Day of Atonement, two goats were brought before the temple and the high priest. One was sacrificed. The second, called the goat of aphesis, the scapegoat, was released into the wilderness after the priest had laid hands on its head and confessed the sins of Israel.

Aphesis is all these things, so at the end of the very first Christian preaching, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon Peter, he did not tell them to be baptized so their sins could be “forgiven.” He told them they could be baptized for the APHESIS of their sins. Their ancestral rights would be restored (JUBILEE); their debts would be forgiven, and they would be freed from sin’s slavery (7-YEAR RELEASE), and their sins would be sent far from them (SCAPEGOAT).

In Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14, we read that we have received “redemption,” the “forgiveness” of sins. This is like reading about a firecracker while Paul actually tossed a hand-grenade.

1 Corinthians 6:20 says we were BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. We were BOUGHT. We say Jesus “paid the penalty,” and we think it is so our sins could be forgiven. When we think that way, we have no problem saying, “Thank you, Jesus. See you down the road when its judgment time, and I can collect my eternal life and any other rewards you care to bestow on me.”

Ha, ha.

Ransom

Jesus paid a price, and that price was to buy you and to buy me, to BUY us. Ephesians 1:7 actually says that we have RELEASE BY RANSOM, the APHESIS of sins, by his blood (StudyBible.info; click on that little “629” above “release by ransom” when you get to the link so you can see the various ways lexicons define that Greek word, all including “ransom”).

Ephesians 1:7 is a huge verse, a grenade and not a firecracker. It BLOWS UP everything you ever knew!! Jesus BOUGHT you by being a RANSOM, a ransom who was KILLED and whose BLOOD was the price of your release from SLAVERY to sin.

The reason that there was a 50-year Jubilee is because Israelites got themselves in trouble, in debt, in poverty, and they had to lease their ancestral land in order to be rescued from their trouble, debt, or poverty. Every 50 years, they got a complete do-over, a re-start. Every 7 years, they got a boost, a release of debts, but they had to wait 50 years for full restoration to their rights as a descendant of Israel.

Jesus gave us all of this and so much more because he is not giving us earthly land that can be taken away, nor the rights as a son of fleshly Israel. When he BOUGHT us with his blood and suffering, he gave us ETERNAL land, ETERNAL rights. We did not receive the favor (grace) of man or of an earthly king. He bought us the FAVOR OF THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE.

We are BOUGHT with a great price, a RANSOM, and we receive APHESIS, a reward so great we cannot really comprehend it, and now … we are now BONDSERVANTS of the living God. Thus Peter writes …

***WARNING: If you read what Peter said, it may shake you to your core.***

If you call on the Father, who impartially judges according to each man’s work, then conduct yourself throughout the time of your journey here with FEAR [see below] because you know it was not by perishable silver and gold that you were RANSOMED out of your useless behavior handed down from your fathers, but with the precious BLOOD of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, OF CHRIST [THE KING]. (1 Pet. 1:17-19)

Some of you lost everything that was said because the word “FEAR” was in this passage. Let’s translate “fear” as …

FEAR: “An APPROPRIATE RESPONSE to the MAJESTIC sacrifice of the MAJESTIC Son of God to RANSOM YOU from your USELESS behavior that was handed down to you by your ancestors and RELEASE you from SLAVERY, DEBT, and SIN, and GIVE you FAVOR WITH GOD and make you an HEIR OF THE MOST HIGH!

If you believe this, how can you not be in AWE?! How can you not BOW in adoration and gratefulness?! How can you not CLEANSE YOURSELF from every defilement of flesh and spirit?!

“HAVING THESE PROMISES, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every contamination of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Cor. 7:1)

Finding a Church and Obeying the Bible from a 21st-Century Perspective

This is not an exhaustive study. This is, however, packed with advice for the 21st century American who needs fellowship and knows it. It probably applies in other countries as well.

The Purpose of Church

This is covered more thoroughly in my “How to Find a Church.”

The purpose of gathering as an assembly of saints is to provoke one another to love and good works. If you gather with the saints, and you did not at least pray about exhorting your brothers and sisters, you have not obeyed the command to assemble in Hebrews 10:24-25. (Note: “Exhort” is a big and often-used word in the New Testament. See the definitions at StudyBible.info. I consider 1 Thessalonians 5:14 the best definition of “exhort,” parakaleo in Greek.)

This should carry over into our daily lives. Hebrews 3:13 says, “Exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘today,’ lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

This is the central purpose of the getting together with saints. Bible study, prayer, praise, sermons and other forms of teaching, and collecting money to help the poor and advance the Gospel are all good things to be done in a church gathering. The prime purpose, however, is exhorting–remembering the definition of “exhort” in 1 Thess. 5:14–to provoke to love and good works.

Disciple-Making Movements (DMM)

Churches, usually small ones, associated with DMMs are the only churches that I know that are guaranteed to be obeying Hebrews 10:24-25 when they gather. They may even be actively obeying Hebrews 3:13. This is because all DMMs, across the board, are trying to obey Matthew 28:18-20 and the things commanded there:

• Go (even if it’s across the street or just to work with non-believers)
• Make disciples
• Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• Teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded

There are several ways to find out if there are DMM churches, disciple makers, or church planters near you. Many DMMs list themselves at 2414Now.net. You can also search for Disciple Making Movements, multiplication movements, or Church Planting Movements near you. There is no official theology among those movements except that the Bible is to be obeyed rather than just used for knowledge. All that I have encountered, however, are heavily influenced by evangelical theology. Most have experienced miraculous support in their evangelism efforts, so no matter where they begin on the subject of the cessation of miraculous spiritual gifts, they now acknowledge them because they have experienced them.

Protestant Churches

Because Protestant churches are in a lineage from the Roman Catholic Church, they have a focus on the pastor, and the general membership does not obey Hebrews 10:24-25. Like their Roman Catholic mother, though, the Protestant churches do have members committed to spending time with God, reading the Bible, and obeying it. Many of those will be actively exhorting and serving others.

I never tell people to stop “going to church” on Sunday morning (or Sunday night or Wednesday night), even if they are going to a church meeting in which the members do not exhort or consider one another as the Bible commands. I simply tell them to find those members who are learning, obeying, and exhorting others and grow in Christ with them (2 Tim. 2:22).

The passage I like to quote for this is:

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:22)

Again, I never tell people to stop going to church meetings just because members are not free to exhort nor to provoke to love and good works. I tell them to find the individuals in those churches who are doing so and join themselves to them.

Liturgy and Sacraments

If liturgy helps you worship God, do it. It does not do much for me.

By definition, all gathering for worship is “liturgy.” but no one uses the word that way. Instead, “liturgy,” as used by the average Christian, means doing what the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox churches do. They have readings, responses, prayers, confessions, and even teachings that are repeated each week. Lots of people like to worship God this way, and some find deep contemplation and communion with God in it. God bless them.

If you want more on liturgy and sacraments. You will have to read someone else’s articles. I do know that the early Christians had tremendous regard for the Lord’s Supper, and they did generally refer to it as the “Eucharist,” (which means “thanksgiving meal”). Most Protestants prefer to call it communion (which means “fellowship meal”), and both are used in Scripture.

One of the earliest Christian bishops (literally “overseer”), Ignatius of Antioch, called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality and the antidote to prevent us from dying, which causes us to live in Christ Jesus” (Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, ch. 20). I like to point out that if eating the bread and drinking the wine of the Lord’s Supper unworthily can make us sick or even kill us, then it cannot possibly be a merely symbolic thing.

You’ll have to work out how to commune with the saints around you regularly. I do not believe the Eucharist requires the consecration of a “priest” except insofar as we are all priests. A priesthood consisting of clergy is not just unscriptural, it is anti-scriptural. We cannot add a priesthood to the one High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7) and the priesthood of all believers (1 Pet. 2), no matter how “sacred” they may seem. Can you imagine the apostles in a bishop’s robe and mitre?!

“High” Protestant Churches

Churches like the Anglicans, Episcopalians, and others that have preserved at least some form of liturgy are called “high” churches … at least by Craig Allert in his book A High View of Scripture?, published by BakerAcademic. I had never heard the term before reading his book.

Honestly, if you want the “sacred” feeling of a Roman Catholic or Orthodox church, you might try the Anglicans. If you have read many of my articles, you know that I spend a lot of time trying to correct evangelical and Calvinist traditions. The Anglicans are influenced by the Calvinists through John Knox and others, but those of us who have read the early church fathers find Anglican theology much more bearable than typical evangelical theology. (My experience with those who have read the early church fathers is mostly through the “Patristics for Protestants” Facebook group, which has more than two thousand members.) These “high” churches avoid some of the more controversial practices such as bowing before statues or icons.

Roman Catholic Church (RCC)

I disagree with the Roman Catholic Church on a lot of things. I wrote a book, Rome’s Audacious Claim, disproving many historical claims made by the RCC. I think it is crazy to direct prayers to dead humans, no matter how holy they lived, when we have confident access by faith to the throne room of God (Heb. 4:16), who knows everything we need and answers far beyond our ability to ask or think (Eph. 3:20). Nonetheless, I have met plenty of Roman Catholics that I am sure are saved.

Because of reading the early church fathers and talking about them with others, I have met a lot of people, both in person and online, who feel they need to join the Roman Catholic Church in order to maintain the unity of the whole Church on earth. I understand that sentiment.

I do, however, want to point out that I use the term “Roman Catholic Church” because they are definitely not “the Catholic Church.” The Catholic Church split into chunks in the fourth century. The churches in the Roman Empire plus European barbarians were one section. The churches of the Persian Empire were another. The churches of Iran/Iraq split from the rest of the Roman Empire at the Council of Ephesus (AD 432), and the churches of Egypt split at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451). Finally, the churches led by Rome in the West split from the churches led by patriarchs in the Byzantine Empire in the 11th century. By then, the “Roman Catholic Church” and its clergy were unrecognizable as a Church or as Christians. (See both Rome’s Audacious Claim, ch. 27, and Horace Mann’s Lives of the Popes, the volumes on the 10th and 11th centuries, a set of books ordered by a pope and written by a Roman Catholic.)

No matter how much we hate the idea, there is no way to return to “The Church” in any real way unless we all obey Paul’s command to “make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

Orthodox Churches

I have a friend who read a history of Eastern Christianity and seems to have remembered it all. I cannot, but I do know that there are several “Orthodox” churches. The churches of the Eastern Empire, led primarily by the bishops (also “patriarchs”) of Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, split from the Roman Catholics in the 11th century, as said above. East of the old Byzantine Empire are the Assyrian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, the St. Thomas Orthodox, and at least a couple others. There are also the Coptic Orthodox in Egypt.

The Orthodox churches have done a much better job of preserving the theology of the early church fathers than the Roman Catholics have. Nonetheless, they have all the pomp and circumstance of Roman clergy or even more.

That said, once again, I never tell anyone to quit going to any Sunday morning meeting unless they are being taught that obeying Jesus is optional. The Orthodox do not teach that obeying Jesus is optional. You will need to find ways outside Sunday morning to obey the Bible and exhort your brothers and sisters and provoke them to love and good works. You will have to find saints apart from Sunday morning so that you can “flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

Obeying the Bible in the 21st Century

As said, I never tell anyone to stop attending their Sunday morning church meeting unless that church is teaching you that obeying Jesus is optional. Obeying Jesus is not optional, and there are so many Scriptures saying so that I can’t reference them all. Let’s just use “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven” (Matt. 7:21).

The will of the Father is that when the church assembles, the saints consider one another so they can provoke to love and good works and exhort one another. “Exhorting” includes warning, encouraging, comforting, and helping (1 Thess. 5:14).

Imagine how different the world would be if the 2 billion professing Christians on this earth were all to take up obeying Jesus, provoking one another to love and good works, exhorting one another (which includes encouraging, comforting, and helping one another), and loving the Lord our God with all our strength, soul, mind, and heart.

Gospel Contradictions vs. the Power of the Gospel

My wife told me, “Anyone who says there are no contradictions in the Bible has never read a harmony of the Gospels.” I agree, but this is my testimony.

For four months before becoming a Christian, I was arguing almost daily at work with Sgt. Roger Thomas, my supervisor, but also an assistant pastor at a local Church of God in Christ. He was outspoken and filled with joy. Though I was arguing with him, had recently become an atheist, and thought Christianity was oppressive, I had great honor and respect for Roger and his joy. I would regularly argue him into a corner, and then he would laugh and say, “You’ll make a great Christian one day, Paul. I love your smile.”

I had seen a book once on contradictions in the Bible, and I wanted to find it so I could show Roger the contradictions. I couldn’t find it at the local library, so I decided I would write one myself. I got myself a Bible, and I started with the Gospels. It wasn’t very long before I lost track of looking for contradictions. I was marveling at Jesus. He certainly didn’t seem “sweet,” like everyone said he was. He was amazing, awe-inspiring, majestic, yet humble. He was kind, but he was sharp with those who opposed and frustrated with those who lacked faith.

I was not surprised, then, that the apostles believed he was the Son of God even after having a chance to find fault with him for 3 years. I was, however, overcome by the very idea. I might be able to convince a person or two that I was the sinless Son of God for three minutes. Maybe even three hours, but surely not for three days. Jesus got 11 men who lived with him and followed him around for three years to risk their lives for the proclamation that he was God’s Son.

It was not long until someone else I was arguing with got past all my arguments by asking one question. “None of that matters,” he said, “the only question is whether Jesus is the Son of God.”

I realized with a bit of horror that I did believe he was the Son of God. Jesus did not teach the same things I did. He did not live the way I did. Admitting he was the Son of God would mean significant changes in my life, but I had to be honest.

I said, “yes,” and the whole world changed. I was flooded with joy. Light was brighter, green was greener, life was filled with hope.

I asked God, quietly and inwardly, “What did you do to me? What is this?” He said, “I just baptized you in my Holy Spirit.”

I never got to the contradictions. I only found those after reading and re-reading the Gospels quite a few times. I still don’t care about them. I still care only that Jesus is the Son of God, and I have never regretted those changes I had to make, the many that the Spirit of God required of me after those first few changes, the troubles that come with obeying the Spirit of God, and of course I have never regretted the innumerable blessings and the fellowship with heaven that come from knowing Jesus.

I recommend to anyone that you go find those Gospel contradictions. You can find them better with a harmony of the Gospels, but if you want to keep your life, enjoy the world, and perish, you might want to find other reading. The Gospels will take your life, put you on a course against the pleasures of your body, and grant you a down payment, an escrow, on eternal life, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

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