Church 101

This blog is about the Christian Church. When I refer to the Christian Church I am referring to the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches that came out of her. Also, the Eastern and Coptic Orthodox churches; basically most all of christendom post the Apostolic era. 

In order to understand the church we must start by understanding two people. The first one is known as Jesus of Nazareth. Here are some facts about him. First, his name was not Jesus but Yeshua. Secondly, he was a jewish man that was born approximately 6 to 4 BC (based on references to the reign of King Herod). He attended synagogue and read from the prophets. He celebrated the Holy festivals of Judaism. He prayed to God (YHVH). He said that only YHVH is good. He taught that the Laws of Moses were good and should be obeyed. He taught that the laws of Moses were in effect and would remain so until all things are fulfilled.

Matthew 5:18 For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

He did not speak a word against the laws of Moses. But, he did speak against man made traditions that were added to the laws.

Mark 7:1 Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, 2 and they saw some of His disciples eating with hands that were defiled—that is, unwashed. 3 Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially. 4 And on returning from the market, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and couches for dining. 5 So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with defiled hands.”6 Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘These people honor Me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from Me.

7 They worship Me in vain;

they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’

He never claimed to be God. He claimed that there were things he did not know, that only God knows.

Matthew 24: 36 No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

John 5:19 So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it.

John 12:49 I have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know that His command leads to eternal life. So I speak exactly what the Father has told Me to say.”

Yeshua taught that the way to be saved was through obedience to the commandments.

Matthew 19:16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and inquired, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to obtain eternal life?” 17 “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up and knelt before Him. “Good Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

18 “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not cheat others, honor your father and mother.”

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. 18 For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Yeshua did not come to start a new religion. He lived a very devout and religiously observant life as a Jewish man. When asked what is the greatest of the commandments he replied by quoting the Shema. The Shema is the most hallowed prayer, commandment and also sacred precept of Judaism.

Mark 12:28 Now one of the scribes had come up and heard their debate. Noticing how well Jesus had answered them, he asked Him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” 32 “Right, Teacher,” the scribe replied. “You have stated correctly that God is One and there is no other but Him, 33 and to love Him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely, He said, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”

The Shema unequivocally declares that God is one; not three in one, and again Yeshua did not claim to be God. As a Jew that idea would have been unthinkable to him. 

So, why are the teachings of the church different from the teachings of Yeshua and so very different from Judaism?

In the beginning of this blog, I said we would need to understand two people in order to understand the church. We took a brief look at Yeshua. Now we will look at the second person. He is Saul of Tarsus and he is the actual founder of Christianity. 

Saul changed his name to Paul. Paul was a Roman citizen from birth.

Acts 22:27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” he answered. 28 “I paid a high price for my citizenship,” said the commander. “But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.

Paul was related to the family of Herod Antipas the Roman appointed king of Judea.

Romans 16:11 Greet Herodion, my kinsman.

 This Herod was the one that had John the Baptist murdered. He was also one of the two men (the other being Pontius Pilate) that tried Yeshua and give him the sentence of crucifixion. Herod Agrippa II the grandson of Herod Antipas was instrumental in saving Paul from being tried and imprisoned by the Jews. You can read about it in Acts chapter 25-26

Paul never met Yeshua in his life on earth.

Paul persecuted the church and participated in the killing of Stephen a devout follower of Yeshua..

Acts 7:58 and they cast him (Stephen) out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul (later to rename himself Paul). 59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

8:1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.

Paul was not one of the twelve Apostles ordained by Yeshua to preach his message.

Paul claimed to meet Yeshua on the road to Damascus (a wilderness area) and there he had conversion experience. There are three accounts of his experience in the book of Acts and they all differ from each other.

Acts 9:3-8, Paul was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Yeshua, who told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in the city. His men did not see the light, but heard the voice. They remained standing.

 Acts 22:6-11, Paul told the people he was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Yeshua, who again told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in Damascus. This time, his men saw the light but, unlike Paul, were not blinded, and did not hear the voice.

 Acts 26.13-19, Paul told Agrippa that he saw a brilliant light and heard Yeshua, who gave him his mission, but did not command him to go to Damascus. He fell down, but there is no mention of blindness, nor is there any mention of the men seeing or hearing anything, although for some reason they also fell down. He told those at Damascus and Jerusalem about his conversion experience.

After his conversion experience Paul spent at least three years in Arabia and possibly many more before going to the twelve Apostles in Jerusalem. (Galatians 1:18). There is no record of what he did during this time.

Paul received no instructions from the twelve Apostles and he claims his teachings were revealed personally to him by Yeshua.

Galatians 1:11 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.

There is no other witness to establish the credibility of Pauls claim of meeting Yeshua on the road to Damascus.

 Paul claimed to have been appointed as the Apostle to the gentiles.

Peter said that God had appointed him as Apostle to the gentiles.

Acts 15:7 After much discussion, Peter got up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that the Gentiles would hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.

In all Paul’s epistles he only quotes Yeshua one time and that is only a repeating of the words he spoke at the last passover meal.

1 Corinthians 11:23-25. Otherwise he never mentions any of Yeshua’s parables, sermons or teachings.

Paul taught many things that were in opposition to the teachings of Yeshua. The church goes to great lengths to make Pauls’ words align with Yeshua’s words making very convoluted arguments. But if one reads both their words side by side it will become obvious that they do not agree. That is all I am going to say about that for now because this blog is about the church and I want to stay on subject.

Roman culture at the time of Yeshua owed much to Greece. Greek philosophy, art, government, architecture and religion greatly influenced the Romans. The Romans were quite religious. They practiced polytheism. Almost every home had a shrine to one of the gods where prayers and offerings were made. Neighborhood shrines, sacred groves or springs were common. Roman religion depended on knowledge and rituals, offerings, prayers and secret rites. There were temples with priests and temple virgins to serve the gods. As the Romans conquered other peoples they tended to absorb their gods adding then to the list of Roman gods. Religion was a public affair and everyone was expected to participate. To be a monotheist and to refuse to participate was akin to being treasonous to the state. Judaism being a strict monotheistic religion created many problems for the Romans empire which ruled Judea in Yeshua’s time. The Romans expected the Jews to compromise and assimilate. Conflict was inevitable. There were revolts and a war. Eventually this lead to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The growing popularity of the early movement of those that followed Yeshua as prophet and Messiah were another problem for Rome. They were uncompromisingly monotheistic and evangelical. They were gaining converts at an alarming rate. When intimidation and persecution failed to stop the movement the Romans created a version of their own which was more to their liking. The Roman emperor Constantine claimed to convert to Christianity and the Roman church was born. Many things had to be changed. The sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week. This was the day of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun god which Constantine was a devotee of. The laws of Moses were forgotten. The singular God of Abraham became a trinity. Mary the mother of Yeshua and many saints became prayer worthy deities. Before long there was a priesthood. Statues and images were erected as idols and what once had been a predominantly Jewish movement evolved into the pagan cult of the Roman emperors. I have by necessity made this very brief and incomplete. But the facts are really available for you to study for yourself.

Constantine did not start this evolution. It was started by Paul, the self appointed Apostle who never met Yeshua and did not get his instructions from any of the twelve Apostles. Paul has no more claim to authority for Yeshua’s followers than Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism who likewise claimed to meet Yeshua in the wilderness and receive new revelations. The fact that his letters are included in the Christian cannon of scriptures is solely because they suited the purposes of the Roman church, who chose to include them. Competing Jewish writings were altered to agree with Paul or destroyed. The Roman church was powerful, cruel, self serving and intolerant. Eventually reforms were forced upon it via the protestant reformation. But, they did not go far enough to restore the movement of Yeshua which was essentially the Torah observant religion of the Israelites purified from the traditions of men with the recognition of Yeshua as “the Prophet” and I believe, at the restoration of YHVH’s Kingdom, Israel’s messiah. He is our sole Rabbi and teacher. But, not God.

A friend recently said something that I found both true and profound. He said “the Church advertises the Jewish Jesus but it sells the Roman pagan, Paul” and so it is.

Revelation 18:4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues, 5 because her sins have piled up all the way to heaven and God has remembered her crimes. 6 Repay her the same way she repaid others; pay her back double corresponding to her deeds. In the cup she mixed, mix double the amount for her. 7 As much as she exalted herself and lived in sensual luxury, to this extent give her torment and grief because she said to herself, ‘I rule as queen and am no widow; I will never experience grief!’ 8 For this reason, she will experience her plagues in a single day: disease, mourning, and famine, and she will be burned down with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is powerful!”