Hebrews 2:1-4
Having grown up in the church, it surprises me when I think that Jesus never "attended church" as we know it. He was a regular attendant and a leader of the Jewish synagogues, which was right and proper for a Jewish man. But did you ever stop to think that Jesus didn't set up the church?
It's a lot like the American president, actually. You know, of course, that the American people don't elect the president. Their votes elect the electoral college, which, in theory, votes on their behalf for the president. In reality, the electoral college has the power to vote however they see fit.
Jesus was the same way. He didn't set up His church; He appointed the men that would set it up, and those men had the power to set up whatever they wanted.
We saw the DaVinci Code the other night. I've never read the book, but I really liked the movie--it was a great story! It amuses me, however, that new stories with new promotion can stir up the oldest of ideas...
It's nothing new that men are disclaiming the deity of Jesus. The writers John, Jude, Peter, even Paul were dealing with this same issue within one century of Jesus' birth. The men Jesus had appointed, His closest friends, fought those that claimed He was not the son of God. Isn't that interesting?
Anyway. Jesus did not set up the first church, and I just have to guess that He knew what He was doing.
Case in point: take Martin Luther. The man Luther was a devout disciple of Christ, a brilliant theologian, a gifted scholar, an able (and persistent!) translator, and a believer in the ability (and responsibility) of people to read the bible for themselves. This man Luther did set up a church, and his efforts innovated some of the modern worship practices we in the modern church take for granted: the hymnbook, for example.
When Luther died, the group of Christians that held and followed his interpretations of the scriptures became known as the Lutherans, and that's what they've come to call themselves in the current era.
Do you know that some Lutheran churches keep the name of Martin Luther on their church and not the name of Jesus Christ, the man Luther led them to follow? That's simply absurd! It's exactly what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 3--it's what happened to the church within the first generation of its existence!
Do you think that a church set up by Jesus Himself would have been any different?
Consider Jesus' answer to Pilate in John 18:36. "My kingdom is not of this world," He says. What does that mean?
Jesus from Nazareth, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah, came bearing truth from God above, Who sent Him and Who claimed Him as His own Son, Who Jesus Himself claimed to be. (If you doubt that He claimed to be the son of God, read John 7-10: http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=John+7-10&version1=31 and decide for yourself.) He appointed men to share in His message, and to bear it to the ends of the earth. He instituted a rite of communion, by which they might remember His life and His death, (Matt 26:17-29) and He sanctified and commissioned a rite of cleansing by which men could enter into the fellowship of His brethren. (Matthew 3:15, 28:19) Neither of these rites was new, I might point out--both were Jewish rites that had existed long before Jesus partook in either. He simply took them and tailored them to His own purposes.
He left church-building to the frailty and faithfulness of mortals.
If Jesus trusted in the faithfulness of mortal men, is it not right for us to do the same? We get so hateful over our own interpretations of the scriptures when they don't agree with someone else's! We lament the atrocities that were carried out in God's name during the Crusades, and then we carry out our own wars of defamation against our own brothers and call it the word of God...
Such things should not be.
Look at Hebrews 2:1-4. The writer of Hebrews says, "We must pay especial attention to the things we have heard, lest we pass them by." (what I've translated 'pass them by' is pararreo or, spelled alternately, pararrhueo in the Greek, Strong's 3901, a hapax legomena peculiar to this passage. You can look it up in any Greek lexicon or here: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3901&version=kjv.) He goes on: "For if the word that angels spoke became steadfast, and every trangsression and disobedience received a just payment, how shall we escape, neglecting such a great salvation; which, at the beginning having been spoken by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those that heard, these things of God together bearing witness: signs, and wonders, and various miracles, distributed by the Holy Spirit according to His will." (verse 4 is a little tough to translate because there's a participle but no verb. Check a text study and you might find a better analysis of this verse.)
The authority of God is proclaimed with power, in powerful signs and miracles. It's this power that God uses to prove the words of prophets and angels. The Word we're to heed was proclaimed with signs and wonders to prove it as the acceptable word of God; and, I will submit to you, still has such miraculous power today.
Read the bible for yourself! Does it not have the miraculous power, though it is but words on a page--and words thousands of years old at that!--to change your life? If it doesn't, then don't believe it!
The truly wonderful thing about our God is that He is, above all, a God of proof. He doesn't expect you to believe anything that He's not willing to prove to you. And why should He? He made you to be the kind of person that demanded proof for a thing!
At any rate. If a man claims to know the teachings of God but despises you for any reason, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 13) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but has an arrogant manner towards you, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 2, 4) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but wants your money, don't pay him heed. (I Timothy 6) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but lives a life of deceit, hatred, jealousy, promiscuity, selfish ambition, or drunkenness, don't pay him heed. (Galatians 5:16-26)
The same applies for churches.
Read the bible. Pay attention to it. Think about it and strive to apply it to your life. This is the command we have from the Lord: that we love Him, and do His will--and that will is contained in the bible. It's a testimony of love and hope and joy and assurance, and it has the power from God to make your life better, and the lives of those you love. It's not a testament to hatred or fear or damnation, and it won't take away the fun in your life. It teaches you to love knowledge and to study the world around you, to love the world you're in and to protect it from harm, to love the people around you and to forgive them and tolerate their shortcomings and to genuinely strive to make their lives better.
It's a message from the Transcendant One, the Highest Life Form, the Giver of Wisdom, the Perfect Being, the Impetus of Creation, on how to live your life and mine in harmony with your psyche and with the kosmos.
And it's there for us. All we have to do is read it and pay attention.
As the writer of Hebrews says, what help can there be for us if we pass up such a huge opportunity for salvation?
Above all else, praise to God and thanks for the blessings of the day. May He continue to be gracious to us and to show us mercy in His eternal lovingkindness and richly bestowed favor. May He bless all those today that love life and truth, and may He fulfill their desires within His wise and loving will to their good and to His glory.
May His name be praised forever and ever in the power of the Son and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and throughout creation.
*A disclaimer -- I don't have any affiliation with Crosswalk.com or Bible.com, and my links to them do not infer any kind of connection, legal or otherwise. I offer them to you as they are to me: useful web tools. I thank them for their wonderful service and acknolwedge all their rights and authority and such, and don't mean to contest it or them in any way.
And I don't hold stocks or gain link-based revenue in or from either of the corporations listed above...
It's a lot like the American president, actually. You know, of course, that the American people don't elect the president. Their votes elect the electoral college, which, in theory, votes on their behalf for the president. In reality, the electoral college has the power to vote however they see fit.
Jesus was the same way. He didn't set up His church; He appointed the men that would set it up, and those men had the power to set up whatever they wanted.
We saw the DaVinci Code the other night. I've never read the book, but I really liked the movie--it was a great story! It amuses me, however, that new stories with new promotion can stir up the oldest of ideas...
It's nothing new that men are disclaiming the deity of Jesus. The writers John, Jude, Peter, even Paul were dealing with this same issue within one century of Jesus' birth. The men Jesus had appointed, His closest friends, fought those that claimed He was not the son of God. Isn't that interesting?
Anyway. Jesus did not set up the first church, and I just have to guess that He knew what He was doing.
Case in point: take Martin Luther. The man Luther was a devout disciple of Christ, a brilliant theologian, a gifted scholar, an able (and persistent!) translator, and a believer in the ability (and responsibility) of people to read the bible for themselves. This man Luther did set up a church, and his efforts innovated some of the modern worship practices we in the modern church take for granted: the hymnbook, for example.
When Luther died, the group of Christians that held and followed his interpretations of the scriptures became known as the Lutherans, and that's what they've come to call themselves in the current era.
Do you know that some Lutheran churches keep the name of Martin Luther on their church and not the name of Jesus Christ, the man Luther led them to follow? That's simply absurd! It's exactly what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 3--it's what happened to the church within the first generation of its existence!
Do you think that a church set up by Jesus Himself would have been any different?
Consider Jesus' answer to Pilate in John 18:36. "My kingdom is not of this world," He says. What does that mean?
Jesus from Nazareth, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah, came bearing truth from God above, Who sent Him and Who claimed Him as His own Son, Who Jesus Himself claimed to be. (If you doubt that He claimed to be the son of God, read John 7-10: http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=John+7-10&version1=31 and decide for yourself.) He appointed men to share in His message, and to bear it to the ends of the earth. He instituted a rite of communion, by which they might remember His life and His death, (Matt 26:17-29) and He sanctified and commissioned a rite of cleansing by which men could enter into the fellowship of His brethren. (Matthew 3:15, 28:19) Neither of these rites was new, I might point out--both were Jewish rites that had existed long before Jesus partook in either. He simply took them and tailored them to His own purposes.
He left church-building to the frailty and faithfulness of mortals.
If Jesus trusted in the faithfulness of mortal men, is it not right for us to do the same? We get so hateful over our own interpretations of the scriptures when they don't agree with someone else's! We lament the atrocities that were carried out in God's name during the Crusades, and then we carry out our own wars of defamation against our own brothers and call it the word of God...
Such things should not be.
Look at Hebrews 2:1-4. The writer of Hebrews says, "We must pay especial attention to the things we have heard, lest we pass them by." (what I've translated 'pass them by' is pararreo or, spelled alternately, pararrhueo in the Greek, Strong's 3901, a hapax legomena peculiar to this passage. You can look it up in any Greek lexicon or here: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3901&version=kjv.) He goes on: "For if the word that angels spoke became steadfast, and every trangsression and disobedience received a just payment, how shall we escape, neglecting such a great salvation; which, at the beginning having been spoken by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those that heard, these things of God together bearing witness: signs, and wonders, and various miracles, distributed by the Holy Spirit according to His will." (verse 4 is a little tough to translate because there's a participle but no verb. Check a text study and you might find a better analysis of this verse.)
The authority of God is proclaimed with power, in powerful signs and miracles. It's this power that God uses to prove the words of prophets and angels. The Word we're to heed was proclaimed with signs and wonders to prove it as the acceptable word of God; and, I will submit to you, still has such miraculous power today.
Read the bible for yourself! Does it not have the miraculous power, though it is but words on a page--and words thousands of years old at that!--to change your life? If it doesn't, then don't believe it!
The truly wonderful thing about our God is that He is, above all, a God of proof. He doesn't expect you to believe anything that He's not willing to prove to you. And why should He? He made you to be the kind of person that demanded proof for a thing!
At any rate. If a man claims to know the teachings of God but despises you for any reason, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 13) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but has an arrogant manner towards you, don't pay him heed. (I Corinthians 2, 4) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but wants your money, don't pay him heed. (I Timothy 6) If a man claims to know the teachings of God but lives a life of deceit, hatred, jealousy, promiscuity, selfish ambition, or drunkenness, don't pay him heed. (Galatians 5:16-26)
The same applies for churches.
Read the bible. Pay attention to it. Think about it and strive to apply it to your life. This is the command we have from the Lord: that we love Him, and do His will--and that will is contained in the bible. It's a testimony of love and hope and joy and assurance, and it has the power from God to make your life better, and the lives of those you love. It's not a testament to hatred or fear or damnation, and it won't take away the fun in your life. It teaches you to love knowledge and to study the world around you, to love the world you're in and to protect it from harm, to love the people around you and to forgive them and tolerate their shortcomings and to genuinely strive to make their lives better.
It's a message from the Transcendant One, the Highest Life Form, the Giver of Wisdom, the Perfect Being, the Impetus of Creation, on how to live your life and mine in harmony with your psyche and with the kosmos.
And it's there for us. All we have to do is read it and pay attention.
As the writer of Hebrews says, what help can there be for us if we pass up such a huge opportunity for salvation?
Above all else, praise to God and thanks for the blessings of the day. May He continue to be gracious to us and to show us mercy in His eternal lovingkindness and richly bestowed favor. May He bless all those today that love life and truth, and may He fulfill their desires within His wise and loving will to their good and to His glory.
May His name be praised forever and ever in the power of the Son and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and throughout creation.
*A disclaimer -- I don't have any affiliation with Crosswalk.com or Bible.com, and my links to them do not infer any kind of connection, legal or otherwise. I offer them to you as they are to me: useful web tools. I thank them for their wonderful service and acknolwedge all their rights and authority and such, and don't mean to contest it or them in any way.
And I don't hold stocks or gain link-based revenue in or from either of the corporations listed above...
posted by ionathas78 at 4:57 AM
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