Ideas about the Kingdom of the Heavens around us and the unity of believers in Christ within it
The purpose of church discipline is restoration, a process that is to be initiated by a person injured or offended by a wrong behavior. The disciplinary process has no valid application to erroneous beliefs, as such. The New Testament never suggests that worldly penalties should be attached to the process.
The traditional view of the heresy passages in 1 Timothy 6, Titus 3 and 2 Peter 2 actually fosters division by requiring us to shun anyone who disagrees with our denomination’s formal doctrinal statements.
The place and function of angels is not often mentioned in Scripture, because they exist as messengers and ministering spirits, serving us on God’s behalf, not themselves, bringing God’s message not their own. They are never the dominant subject of any scripture.
Doctrinal disputes, even over such heavy subjects as our relationship to the Law of Moses, can be settled peacefully within the Church, as shown by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.
Korah’s rebellion was to insist on half the truth–that all in the congregation of Israel were holy, set apart to God, because the Lord was among them–but to reject the other half–that only the Lord had the right to assign each their functions. They denied this half of the truth to rebelliously assert their own authority, as false teachers today also do.
Cain’s underlying sin was his arrogant insistence that he could come to God on his own terms. This is the “way of Cain” of which Jude speaks—self-sufficiency, insisting on coming to God on one’s own terms, murderous jealousy of those who truly seek God and are accepted by him, and “repentance” only of the consequences of these sins and not of the sins themselves. It all starts with an attitude of self-sufficiency.
Balaam spoke with God and was given a true revelation of the way God viewed the children of Israel, but misinterpreted it. reversing its true meaning, due to his own greed. God said he saw no iniquity in Jacob because he had chosen them; Baalam thought he meant that he had chosen Jacob because he saw no iniquity in them. The result was fatal for Baalam and the Midianites.
Between the end of the First Century CE and the end of the Sixth Century, Christianity grew but also deteriorated in a number of ways. The deterioration arose mainly from the infiltration of Greek philosophy, a change in emphasis to mass evangelism and the politicization of Christianity, followed by the questionable conversion of Constantine. These changes set up many of the specific parts of Christianity that Islam either adopted, or reacted strongly against. They also set up mucj of later European history.
A God who Speaks, Church purpose versus church growth, Compulsory Christianity, God Acts by Speaking, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God's Voice, Heresy, Historical Background, Injustice and Lawsuits, Islam and Christianity, Jesus the Son, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Religious violence and persecution, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Social control and statecraft, Son of Man, The Bible, Through the church, Trinity, Unity, Wars as consequences, What Islam borrowed from Christianity
This post is the first in a series of six outlining a broad view of how things in the Church and the world got to be as they are now, including contributions early Christianity and Islam made to each other. This post attempts to outline the basic positions of early Christianity. Comments are invited!
A God who Speaks, Adoption, Background Information, Church purpose versus church growth, Complex unity, Conversation with God, Desire to have our own way, Emotions, Eternity Present, Free will, God Acts by Speaking, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's rationality, God's sovereignty, God's Voice, His Children, His Friends, Historical Background, Human Rationality, Is forgiveness of sins the focus of salvation?, Jesus the Son, Knowing good and evil, Language and Speech, Logical thinking, Male and female, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Prophecy, Reconciliation, Regeneration, Rejecting God, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, Sin, Sins versus sin, Son of Man, The Bible, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To be in his image, To live in unity, Trinity, Unity, What is God's Word, What is sin?
God’s pattern shown in the Early Church was to provide for the needs of its members through its unity. In unity, we regard ourselves and everything we own as God’s, and give unselfishly to the needs of others, as he directs us. This gives the world a picture of God himself.