Random Thoughts About Gospel

When we die, the earth gives up an irreplaceable individual, unique even if  a monozygotic twin. What makes us unique, even with the odds being we do have a doppelgänger, are the experiences we have stored as memories. No one in the world has the total memory bank of any other individual. Even if we attend the same event, we will tell different stories in different order to any given person. That thought came with I was thinking how many themes run through the Bible, especially the gospels in the New Testament.

Matthew and John, the gospel "bookends" were disciples. Mark was the nephew of Barnabas, Luke a physcian, neither considered among the 12 that called by Jesus and who accompanied Him in His three year ministry.

Each of the four wrote of those three years in such a way that we can see a "Harmony of the Gospels." From the story of Jesus' conception and birth to the final commission to go and teach others, we see God's hand in inspiring four men to write specific events from their own perspective and still include the message God wants us to know. 

Yet - every single moment of every single moment that the sun shines upon the earth, there are hundreds of people (as I am now) taking time out of their lives to tell someone else what Jesus means to them, and encouraging another person to pick up the Bible, prayerfully asking God to provide answers. I assure you He has in the past, is right now, and will in the future.

I'm not including much in the way of scripture today, but I will leave it to you to find out why I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. I also believe that Jesus had two specific reasons we know of for living - one was to teach men how best to reach God, the other was to die. It takes both the Old and the New Testament to give the full story. 

There are a couple verses Paul wrote that I ask that you keep in mind: 

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9 KJV)

If the Bible doesn't match what a person tells you, please study how the other person could be wrong before you start looking for why the Bible would be. Because the four gospels vary in the order of evenets, some omitting an event, or another giving from a different view  point, detractors often deem them incorrect, copies of each other, or incorrectly translated. Try your own experiment with friends or family covering only one event that lasts one afternoon. Ask them to write it out in their own words - without talking to each other while doing it. Oh, yes. That's always interesting, isn't it - even if just talking together over photos of a picnic!

Those four books do declare the life of Christ, which is good news - but so do the Acts of the apostles and the letters to the churches and people. 

Revelation is different. There is an explanation of what we may expect in the future. Just as in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, we are not given the whole story, or the timing. It still counts as good news, for it promises more than we can comprehend for those who seek God. His promisse is that He can be found by those who seek Him and hear Him. We have to comprehend what is being offered.

I do hope to be an encouragement to someone wondering whether Christianity is for them. Everyone, anyone, whosoever, it means me and you. I believe it was available to Judas. All he had to do was believe Jesus. Perhaps he did believe that Jesus was going to die. Peter did when he denied Christ in the courtyard three times before the cock crowed. There is a huge difference between the two incidents. Learn more about them.

And I must stop rambling - but my mind keeps asking questions. One thing popped into my mind that I haven’t spent much time considering - how many people would would it take to recreate the Bible from memory? How much could you contribute from memory?

God's Plan = Perfection

 

Christus und Nicodemus, by Fritz von Uhde (1848–1911)

There are several good public domain pictures of Jesus and Nicodemus, but I selected this one bringing the discussion ahead a couple of millennia. It was a very important discussion that John recorded of two men who loved and served the same God. One had a marvelous religious education and the other was a human being created by God and carried the Spirit of God. I firmly believe Jesus was God in human form, so if that's a problem, you may not get the rest of the story if I lose you here.  Please, stick around, though.

God created perfection in this world - for reasons we have not been told. Lots of theories, but we are faced with the reality from a book that dozens of men wrote over hundreds of years and were consistent in two facts that didn't change from the beginning to the middle and shouldn't be changed now:

First is God: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 KJV)

The second is family: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:23-24 KJV)

God eventually shared His Law with His creation, both in the Old Testament and the New: 

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:35-40 KJV)

Our current society is pretty much rejecting all of the above. The "Is God Dead" headline blared when I was a young, church-going, adult:

"Is God Dead?" was an April 8, 1966, cover story for the news magazine Time. A previous article, from October 1965, had investigated a trend among 1960s theologians to write God out of the field of theology.

Oh, there were plenty of people in the United States of America who had ignored God for centuries, but there hadn't been a movement to completely toss God out of society until this. Others had written of their disbelieve in any deity (i.e. "God is dead" was a statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1881 book), and there were many other religions around the world who rejected this concept of Judiasm and Christianity. However, The USA as a nation and society grew up from roots of migrants who wished to worship this very God that some have declared dead.

In less than a month, it will be 57 years since that article, and society is answering that question. The Moody Church Media introduces an article with:

The ideas of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche are pervasive throughout our culture. While critics of Christianity say, “God is dead,” history tells the tale of a diminishing view of God.

Some websites offer:

7 Ways Church Leaders Must Change To Keep Members

11 Powerful Strategies to Grow Your Church

How to bring about change in your church (without getting fired)

Why Do Churches Stop Growing? - How To Drive Church Growth

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 KJV)

All that background just to tell you that Nicodemus had the same problem that exists in our society today. The Jewish religious leaders had congregations, too. Yet people were following a man who told them their leadership was wrong.  Very specifically in Matthew 23 and Luke 11, where we read "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" Or the same words in different order.

It wasn't against God that Jesus was pointing out errors and woes - it was the religious leaders who were more interested in secular activities or the compliance with mankind's traditions that were the problem. It was a societal problem, for God was diminished in their world view, too, which caused Nicodemus to come to Jesus with questions - and got questions in return:

 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. (John 3:9-11 KJV)

In verses 5-31, Jesus gives Nicodemus the plan of salvation that Paul writes in his letter, that Peter speaks of in Acts, that is laid out from the beginning to the future's end in the Bible. Nicodemus led his congregation - and did not realize Micah 6:8 meant what it said for him and for every person that desires to know if God is real.

It is not the size of the church. It is not grand theological studies or theories. The King James Version of the Bible tells us what pure (καθαρός - katharos - clean (literally or figuratively): - clean, clear, pure) religion (θρησκεία - thrēskeia - ceremonial observance: - worshipping, religion) really is in James 1:27. All of the letters to the churches, and people, in the New Testament are testimonies to what Jesus Christ taught. For me, the most important lessons are about the first/greatest commandment, and the second commandment is possible when we understand:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8 KJV)

Bottom line, God is real and created mankind for a specific relationship with Him. It's up to each one of us to decide if we want that - or not. We have the option to say either way, and accept the consequences of our decision - which are very well laid out in the Bible