You should therefore spend all your force against him, and all your efforts against him, because, by God, he boasted over your (i.e., Adam’s) origin, questioned your position and spoke lightly of your lineage. He advanced on you with his army, and brought his footmen towards your path. They are chasing you from every place, and they are hitting you at every finger joint. You are not able to defend by any means, nor can you repulse them by any determination. You are in the thick of disgrace, the ring of straitness, the field of death and the way of distress.

You should therefore put out the fires of haughtiness and the flames of intolerance that are hidden in your hearts. This vanity can exist in a believer only by the machinations of Satan, his haughtiness, mischief and whisperings. Make up your mind to have humility over your heads, to trample self-pride under your feet and to cast off vanity from your necks. Adopt humility as the weapon between you and your enemy, Satan and his forces. He certainly has, from every people, fighters, helpers, footmen and horsemen. Do not be like him who feigned superiority over the son of his own mother without any distinction given to him by God except the feeling of envy which his feeling of greatness created in him and the fire of anger that vanity kindled in his heart. Satan blew into his nose his own vanity, after which God gave him remorse and made him responsible for the sins of all killers up to the Day of Judgement.

He (Satan) said: “My Lord! because Thou hast left me to stray, certainly will I adorn unto them the path of error, and certainly will I cause them all to go astray.”

Although he (Satan) had said so only by guessing about the unknown future and by wrong conjecturing, yet the sons of vanity, the brothers of haughtiness and the horsemen of pride and intolerance proved him to be true, so much so that when disobedient persons from among you bowed before him, and his greed about you gained strength; and what was a hidden secret turned into a clear fact, he spread his full control over you and marched with his forces towards you.

Then He put His angels on trial concerning these attributes in order to distinguish those who are modest from those who are vain. Therefore, God, who is aware of whatever is hidden in the hearts and whatever lies behind the unseen said:

. . . “Verily I am about to create man from clay,” And when I have completed and have breathed into him of My spirit, then fall ye prostrating in obeisance unto him. And did fall prostrating in obeisance the angels all together, Save Satan;…

Pre-Tribulation Rapture

People should probably be warned!  :)

If viewed from an historical Jewish point of view, the evidence for the Rapture to occur before the Tribulation is overwhelming.  Also overwhelming is the venomous response that some people have to the idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture.  Between those 2 things, I almost feel intimidated about trying to present it all here in a way that will make sense.

Nevertheless, I will attempt to do so because I believe that it is very important for believers to be ready.  Those who have been following my blog know that recently I fasted for 21 days, putting the question to God: “Given that these are the End Times, what should we be doing to be prepared for what comes next?”  It was during that fast that I became aware that the Rapture is likely to be “what comes next.”

To begin with, there is a lot of misinformation on the internet about the End Times.  Every wacko theory is broadcast on the internet from Obama being the antichrist to the “mark of the beast” being to worship God on the wrong day of the week.  Because the things written about the End Times in Daniel and Revelation are so fantastic, many people take them as allegorical.  Some of those same people take Noah’s Ark, the Burning Bush, and Jonah in the Fish (see my recent post A Pipsqueak and a Fish Story) as being literal, yet they say that the future things are allegorical.  That kind of inconsistency doesn’t even make sense!  If any of the Bible is untrue, then all of it comes into doubt—especially given the usual things that have been recorded in the Bible (like fire from Heaven that burns up a soaking-wet offering).

So, future events recorded in the Bible are to be taken every bit as literally as past events.  In other words, when the Bible says that we will be “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17), that’s exactly what it means.

Some people don’t believe in the Rapture at all, simply because the word rapture isn’t in the Bible.  It’s true.  The word rapture is not in the English language Bible, but that word came from the Latin Vulgate.  In the original Greek Bible, the word is harpadzo (pronounced har-POD-zoh, and written ἁρπάζω), and means to seize, carry off by force; to seize on, claim for one’s self eagerly; to snatch out or away.  The Latin version translated harpadzo as rapiemur, from the root rapio, meaning to seize, snatch, carry away.  So although the word rapture doesn’t appear in the English translation of the Bible, the concept is clearly there, and it seems like it would be perfectly acceptable to translate Paul’s word harpadzo as rapture.

Latin Vulgate Bible–the first translation of the Bible

The next problem that people have with the Rapture is that they confuse it with the Second Coming of Jesus.  The Rapture and Second Coming are different events.  I can understand the confusion, but let’s look carefully at the differences between the Rapture and the Second Coming:

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am,” (John 14:2-3).

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.  According to the Lord’s Word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever, (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).

Those 3 passages describe the Rapture.  The Rapture is all about the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  The words from John: “I go and prepare a place for you, and I will come back and take you to be with me,” are what the bridegroom tells his bride in the Jewish wedding ceremony.  Here is a link to an excellent video that shows the Jewish wedding ceremony and explains the connection with the Rapture: The Rapture Revelation.  There is a connection, and it’s important because you must remember that Jesus was a Jewish man speaking to Jewish people.  So when He these Jewish men: “I go to prepare a place for you,” they understood that He was speaking to them as their Bridegroom speaking to His Bride.

Rapture deniers and others who don’t believe in a Pre-tribulation Rapture say that there won’t be a secret Rapture.  It won’t be a secret when it happens.  I heard a prophecy that when we are caught up through the devil’s territory (remember, he’s the prince of the power of the air), there will be an EMP effect.  Follow the link for that prophecy: EMP Effect at the Rapture.

The following are passages that describe the Second Coming of Jesus:

On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.  You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel.  You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.  Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with Him.  On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness.  It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night.  When evening comes, there will be light.  On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter.  The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and His name the only name, (Zechariah 14:4-9).

Immediately after the distress of those days, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”  Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven.  And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other, (Matthew 24:29-31).

Where the confusion comes is with this trumpet in Matthew and the trumpet mention in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians, above.  Here’s a link for a video that explains the difference between these 2 trumpets: The “Last Trump” Explained & Revealed.

There is also confusion with the last part of that passage in Matthew, which sounds like the Rapture.  However, it can be explained by understanding the Jewish harvest cycles.  The harvest isn’t one single event in Israel, but a series of events.  First they take a part of the field that has ripened the fastest—usually from the center of the field.  That goes to the Temple, and it is called First Fruits.  Then is the general harvest, but they leave the corners because of what is written in Leviticus 23:22: “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God,” (AMP, emphasis mine).  The very same is repeated in Leviticus 19:9.  So they leave the corners until after the poor have had a chance to gather what they need.  Then they harvest the 4 corners, and that is the harvest alluded to in Matthew 24:31, the very last part of the harvest: “He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”  To see a great illustration of how the Jewish harvest cycle ties in with the Rapture and the final harvest, see Are There Really Over 7 Rapture Scenarios?

Something interesting that most people overlook is the fact that the book of Revelation is chronological.  We can know that by the frequent use of the word then in the book of Revelation—54 times in the NIV.

To sum things up, there are some vast differences between the Rapture and the Second Coming, which I’ve put below:

Rapture—Comes suddenly and without warning (Matthew 25:13)

Second Coming—Preceded by many signs, including the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4; Revelation 11:1-2)

Rapture—Believers will meet Jesus in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

Second Coming—Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives to meet believers on earth (Zechariah 14:4)

Rapture—Mount of Olives remains whole (no change is noted at the Rapture because Jesus will not come all the way down to touch the earth)

Second Coming—Mount of Olives splits when Jesus touches down on it, forming a valley east of Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:4)

Rapture—Believers get glorified bodies (1 Corinthians 15:53-54)

Second Coming—Bodies of remaining believers are unchanged (no such change is noted at the Second Coming)

Rapture—Faithful go to Heaven (Revelation 19:6-9)

Second Coming—Believers return from Heaven in glorified bodies, earthly believers (living Tribulation Saints) remain on earth (Revelation 19:14)

Rapture—The world is not yet judged (2 Thessalonians 2:6-12)

Second Coming—The world is judged and righteousness is established (Revelation 19:17-20: 15)

Rapture—The Church is saved from God’s wrath (Isaiah 26:20)

Second Coming—Remaining believers have endured the wrath (Matthew 24:22)

Rapture—Only the saved are involved (Matthew 25)

Second Coming—Everyone is involved (Matthew 24:30)

Rapture—Satan remains free (Revelation 18)

Second Coming—Satan is bound for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-3)

Since the Rapture and Second Coming clearly are different events that do not occur at the same time, this would rule out a Post-Tribulation Rapture scenario.

Look out!  There we go!

Lately I’ve been waking up with the Rapture on my mind.  I believe that it will be soon.  And this morning I asked the Lord if He had a Word for me today.  I turned to Zephaniah, and here it is, with the section title:

The Day of the Lord Is Near

“Be silent before the Lord God!  For the day of the Lord is near; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated His guests,” (Zephaniah 1:7, ESV).

Be silent before the Lord!  The Lord has consecrated His guests!  Sounds like a wedding to me!  God is good!

Salvation’s Yearning

God’s heart is for your soul. His passion is for your salvation. His cry is for man to come to repentance and to be reconciled back to Him. His love is so fervent for us and yet restrained by His own hand to not violate our will and choice. He hates sin, but so loves the sinner that has been taken captive by sin’s perversion of truth and the lies that bind men’s hearts.
God went over the top when He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ to us. “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:7-11)”
God’s justice and wrath demands at some point He has to flush and purge all of the sewage that sin and death have brought into His creation, but before He does, His heart is to save everyone out of that cesspool that will respond to Him. He gave His own Son as the standard and prototype of love and salvation and then He stamped that image and prototype of His Son upon all of us who would believe, with His Holy Spirit, so that we could then become the expression and continuance of what He completed through His Son. Proclamation was made in Jesus Christ. Dispensation of that proclamation comes through us; his believers and disciples. We are the embodiment of His divine expression and love.
We are the embodiment of what Christ died for, to liberate creation from sin and the devil.
We are not here to simply fill a building and warm a pew once of twice a week. We are here to manifest Him who lives within us, who has redeemed us by His very own blood and life, so that LIFE could now dwell within us in power and authority.
Even we have become watered down, diluted and compromised by the world we live in. We have all allowed ourselves to become less than what we were redeemed to be.
“God arise in us your people and set us completely free from the love of sin we still harbor in our hearts and lives. Cause us to hate what You hate and love what You love. Purify us as Your bride, without spot or wrinkle. Help us that we would not just do church, be truly be the church, the divine expression of You in the earth. That is our destiny and calling. Holy Spirit help us, empower us to embrace it and carry it forth with dedication and commitment. Father God, be glorified through us, Your people. Exalt the name of Your Son through us as we live lives empowered by You to exemplify Your nature and Your love. Raise us up as Your Sons to set creation free! Amen”

Blessings,
kent

The Scriptures speak of six sins that God hates, seven that are an abomination to Him (Proverbs 6:16-19):

(1)  a proud look
(2)  a lying tongue
(3)  hands that shed innocent blood
(4)  a heart that devises wicked imaginations
(5)  feet that are swift in running to mischief
(6)  a false witness who speaks lies
(7)  he who sows discord among brothers

While the many “moral sins” with which religionists are obsessed (sexuality, crude language, use of alcohol, etc.) are missing from the list of sins that God hates, some of the sins listed are actually very prominent in moralistic, religious circles! Specifically look at the first and the last from the list – “a proud look,” and “sowing discord among the brothers.” These are what God hates.

No wonder that, when Christ came, He was much more at home with “publicans and sinners” (Matthew 9:10-11; 11:19; Mark 2:15-16; Luke 5:30; 7:34, 39; 15:1) and “prostitutes” (Luke 7) than with the religious Pharisees!

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.

Today I continue the series on Christianity and World Religions. My goal is to help you to learn more about what these other faith groups believe so that you can be better equipped to talk about your faith with others who believe differently than you do.

I’ll be talking today about Hinduism. But first I want to offer a disclaimer: I’ve spent much time preparing for this preaching series, have read various articles, watched different videos about religion, reviewed various websites developed by Hindus, and read some of the Hindu scriptures.

But the research that I have done does not an expert make. I want to make it clear that I am not an expert on Hinduism. Some of you might even know a little more than I do on the subject.
There is a lot I don’t know about Hinduism, so I’ll be giving you today a summary of what I have learned. So I hope what I can do is help you to understand some of Hinduism’s essential features. Then I will conclude by trying to summarize essential differences between Christianity and Hinduism.

Each week I will try to give you a historical overview of each religion. So today I want to first give you some “pre-history” on the Hindu faith.

I. What should we know about Hinduism?

A. Hinduism claims 1/6 of the world’s population, with over 750 million followers worldwide. There are approximately 200 Hindu temples or Hindu centers in the U.S.
B. The philosophy of the New Age Movement is directly tied to the philosophy of Hinduism along with scores of modern religious cults and sects, which Hinduism has influenced in varying degrees. Someone has said that Hinduism is the wellspring of a good deal of New Age thinking.
C. Millions of Americans have taken up Hindu practices, such as yoga, meditation, developing altered states of consciousness, asceticism, and seeking “enlightenment.”
D. The appeal of Hinduism to modern Western culture is not difficult to comprehend.

1. Hinduism is comfortable with evolutionary thinking. As modern science emphasizes our physical evolution, Hinduism emphasizes our spiritual evolution.
2. Modern psychology and sociology emphasizes the basic goodness and unlimited potential of human nature, Hinduism emphasizes man’s essential divinity.
3. Modern philosophy emphasizes the relativity of all truth claims, Hinduism tolerates many seemingly contradictory religious beliefs.
4. Hinduism emphasizes the primacy of the spiritual over material reality, Hinduism appeals to many that have become disillusioned with strictly material pursuits.

II. The Origin of Hinduism

A. Hinduism has its roots in the interrelationship of two basic religious systems: that of the ancient civilization residing in the Indus River Valley from the third millennium B.C., and the religious beliefs brought to India by the Aryan people (possibly from the Baltic region) who began infiltrating the Indus Valley sometime after 2000 B.C.
B. Hinduism originated from a body of conflicting and contradictory literature called the Vedas (ca. 1500-1200 B.C.). Hindus claim that this body of literature was supernaturally revealed by the Hindu gods. Thus, these basic religious texts “make a special claim to be divine in their origin”
C. The name was not given until the 13th century and only then, by the invading Muslims who wanted to distinguish between their faith and that of India.

III. Hindu Beliefs about God.

A. An understanding of the Hindu beliefs about God is important even if we don’t know any Hindus or people from India because we are all in contact with the New Age movement, and it draws its ideas about God from Hinduism.
B. Hinduism embraces both pantheism (the belief that all is God, God is all) and polytheism (a belief in many lesser gods).
C. The vast majority of Hindus believe in God in some way or other, but there are some that do not. Some Hindus worship Shiva; others Vishnu or his incarnations (avatars), most notably Krishna or Rama. Others again are worshippers of the goddesses. The individual Hindu may reverence one god, a few, or many or none at all! He may also believe in one god and in several gods as manifestations of him. He may express the ultimate in personal or impersonal.
D. All in all, it is often stated that Hinduism claims 330 million gods and goddesses!
E. Although there are exceptions, their gods are not seen in human terms but rather in terms of nature or cosmic. All can be understood as expressions of Braham (Braham – The ultimate source of all being – it is origin, cause and basis. The absolute which almost defies a definition.)

F. In the Vedic period the three main gods were:
1. Agn – the life-force, god of fire.
2. Indra – the shy god and god of war.
3. Varuna – the upholder of the cosmic order.

The three gods that came later all had a consort or wife.
4. Brahma – the creator and Sarasvati, his consort, the goddess of Knowledge.
5. Shiva – the destroyer and Kali, his consort, the great mother and symbol of judgement.
6. Vishnu – the preserver and Lakshmi, his wife, the goddess of fortune and beauty. Vishnu is believed to draw near to man in ten avatars:
a. Matasya . . . . . . . . . . The fish.
b. Kurma . . . . . . . . . . . .The tortoise.
c. Varaha . . . . . . . . . . . The boar.
d. Nara-Simha . . . . . . . . The man-lion.
e. Vamana . . . . . . . . . . The dwarf.
f. Parusha-Rama . . . . . . Rama with an axe.
g. Rama-Chandra . . . . . .Noble hero of Ramayana.
h. Krishna . . . . . . . . . . .Who was also a god in his own right. (and even a song about him!)
i. Buddha . . . . . . . . . . The enlightened one and founder of Buddhism.
j. Kalhi . . . . . . . . . . . . The tenth avatar yet to come.

G. Romans 1:22-23 “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, [23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.”
H. Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:”
I. Deuteronomy 4:39 “Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.”
J. Isaiah 45:5-6 “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: [6] That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.”

III. Hinduism and Man

A. Every human soul is beginningless and has gone through a series of reincarnations.
B. According to Hindu teaching, man is divine at the core of his being. He is one with God! The problem is that man is ignorant of this fact. He is deceived by his focus on this temporal and material world, and this ignorance gives rise to acts that result in bad karma and traps us in the cycle of reincarnation
C. Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
D. Psalms 8:4-6 “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? [5] For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. [6] Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:”
E. Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”

IV. Hinduism and Salvation

A. There is no salvation in Hinduism as we would understand it in Christianity. The Hindu is aiming for moksha where they will find their release from the endless cycle of reincarnation.
B. The distinction between good and evil is denied by the Hindu because material reality is illusory
C. Because all is Brahma (pantheism), sin becomes utter illusion.
D. Salvation in Hinduism, therefore, is not the forgiveness of sins committed against God. Contrariwise, salvation is a quest to end all earthly suffering, an escape from illusion, and the successful attainment of NIRVANA [the infinite].
E. The main way of reaching this goal is through one of the four paths of yoga.
F. John 3:36 “He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.”
G. Romans 5:19 “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
H. Romans 14:23 “And he that doubts is damned if he eat, because he eats not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
I. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

It is widely recognized that most elements of present day Hinduism descended from the amalgam of the religious beliefs of the Aryans who are said to have come into India (West Punjab) around 1750 B.C. and those of the earlier peoples who reportedly were the founders of the Indus valley civilization.
The earliest objects of worship were the forces of nature and the religion was in essence polytheistic. Later on came the personified Gods like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva while the polytheistic nature remained unchanged.
If you were to compare a Hindu timeline with our Biblical time line, the Aryans would have been developing their religious ideas in India (in red on screen) about the same time Abraham and his descendants were developing the Hebrew Faith make in the area of Palestine.

The oldest of the Hindu scriptures are called the Vedas. They were put down in written form in about 1000 BC. about the time of King David’s reign over Israel.
The Vedas, a collection of poems, are considered by Hindus to be a direct revelation of God. The Hindus believe that the Vedas were given orally by God when humans could first begin to understand about 3 or 4 centuries before the time of Christ. They would have been put in written form about the same time David was writing the collection of Psalms in Israel.

The most prominent of the Hindu Scriptures is called the Bhagavad-Gita. It was probably written about the time the Jews were in exile Babylon in 500 BC—about the time Buddhism starts to develop as we’ll see next week.
So each week I’ll try to give you some time frames in which these religions develop in comparison to the Biblical history that you’re more familiar with.

What I will do next is review Hindu beliefs in this manner:
A. God’s Nature and How to Know God
B. The Scriptures or Sacred Texts
C. About the Human Condition, Salvation, and Eternity
D. The Point of View of this Faith about Jesus Christ.

So what is God like in the Hindu conception?

Hinduism is sometimes said to be a religion of millions of Gods. Yet it is based on a firm belief in the Absolute Divine—the singular force that joins all facets of existence. So this is something new that I learned in my research this week.

Hindus believe that there are god-heads, but all the god-heads or deities are the manifestation of the one true god, although the Absolute takes on many forms. So worshippers pray to different Gods and Goddesses who embody the power of the Divine.

There are 2 conceptions of God’s presence in Hinduism:
1—Brahman—is the one who is transcendent. Brahman is the very space and the entire universe, with billions of galaxies and interstellar spaces and much more than that. The idea of Brahman probably entered the consciousness of ancient Hindu seers as they contemplated upon the vast expansive sky and the star studded mysterious night skies. Hindus have a grand view of this Absolute and highest god of Hinduism.

He is the incomprehensible, unapproachable radiant being whom the ordinary senses and ordinary intellect cannot fathom grasp or able to describe even with partial success. He is the mysterious Being totally out of the reach of all sensory activity, rationale effort and mere intellectual, decorative and pompous endeavor. This is the nature of God that is unknowable
2—Then there is the aspect of God that is knowable. God can be know through the worship of the various manifestations of the various deities. They are all windows into understanding the one God. You will find statues or idols of the gods in Hindu temples. Some are animals, some are human like forms. People come and bow before them and make their offerings.
From a Hindu perspective, what are the sacred texts of Hinduism?

There are four Vedas. The Vedas are the primary texts of Hinduism. They are considered to be a direct revelation from God. The Vedic deities are not only forces of nature, but also forces that exist in the physical body and help the individual in his spiritual progress to overcome certain impediments
The Vedas contain hymns, incantations, and rituals from ancient India. They are among the most ancient religious texts still in existence. Besides their spiritual value, they also give a unique view of everyday life in India four thousand years ago. The Vedas are also the most ancient extensive texts in an Indo-European language, and as such are invaluable in the study of comparative linguistics.

Then there is the Bhagavad-Gita. Is the book of authority for the Hindus. It literally means ’Song of the Divine’. It actually appears in the middle of a mythological epic. The Bhagvad Gita is in the form of a spiritual dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield.

The dialogue concentrates on the use of spirituality in daily context. Arjuna is torn between his duty to fight for justice and his love for his kinsmen – whom he has to fight. He becomes dejected and debates with Sri Krishna that no war can be justified on any grounds. Sri Krishna, through this dialogue convinces him that he has to fight; there is no other way. The discussion brings into focus various interesting aspects of the Hindu philosophy.
C. About the Human Condition and Salvation
How does the Hindu understand the human condition? What are we like as human beings and how are we made right with God?

For Hindus, as I understand from my research, the soul in you is actually a part of God. God has placed a little of himself in you. So your soul is not sinful—although the monks make reference to sin—but he think he got to a point where he was sinless.

But research suggests that the primary problem is not to get sin out of you life but to rid yourself of ignorance. If you can wipe away the ignorance you can begin to see the glory of God shining through you.
Thus, knowledge is the answer along with deed, i.e., fulfilling your mission on earth. I think that’s what the monk was getting at in his response to this question.

Three words are essential to understanding salvation in Hinduism:
· Dharma—
· Karma
· Reincarnation

Dharma—duty, apart of which is gaining spiritual knowledge so that we can be set free from our ignorance. Yoga is used as a path to spiritual knowledge in Hinduism.

Karma—to the extent that you do good deeds in life, then you’re building up good karma. When you do bad things you’re building up bad karma. If at the end of your life you’re good karma weighs your bad karma that good karma will carry you into the next life. You will be reborn at a higher state and will continue to learn more about the path to spiritual knowledge. So if you build up bad karma in this life you’ll carry that with you into the next life. I guess it’s like an old song that goes, “What goes around, comes around.” If you’re having a rough time it could be because you built up bad karma in the last life. So you want to work all that out and get it right this time. The goal is to eventually you’re your soul united with the eternal soul so you don’t have to keep going through these life cycles. Eventually you will no longer have to go through these cycles of life and death.

As you can guess by now this karma is closely associated with the idea of Reincarnation

What about the life after this life? Before any creation that is the state I will go back to, where there is no misery or pain or anything.

In conclusion, in Hinduism, reincarnation is the passing of the soul from one body to the next. Life is truly a circle of birth, death and re-birth. In this view: We never die; we merely change our physical form. Being Human is the highest form of Life on this planet.

So why do we keep coming back to life? We are re-born to exhume our Karma. We build our Karma during our life and we must come back to face the reactions to all our actions.

Finally, what is The Point of View of Hinduism about Jesus Christ?
from a Hindu perspective, what do you think of Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus of Nazareth? ……

We tell everyone, “Go pray to your god if you have that belief. Continue what you’re doing and let it mushroom and grow.”
So in Hindu terms Jesus was a holy man. He preached a universal message, love of God and love of brother. He is seen as an Avatar, an empowered incarnation, among many other gods.

III. Essential Differences Between Christianity and Hinduism

A. God: transcendent vs. intimate
Although it appears that there could be similarities in Hinduism and Christianity when you compare some of their early literature, there are certainly marked differences.
The ten commandments is clear that we are not to make graven images of God or to bow before idols in order to worship God.

And God spoke all these words:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before] me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” Exodus 20:1-5
That was an important commandment in the times of the Hebrews. Other cultures tended to fashion idols out of stone or clay or wood. And what happened is that human beings tended to focus on the object rather than what the object was to represent. God knew that if the Jews were allowed to worship some form of him, that they would begin to worship what they had made with their hands rather than the Creator.
When David wanted to build God a temple, God’s response was “you’re going to build me a temple, as if you think I can be contained in some object you human beings have built?” Also God wanted Holy hands of Solomon that knew no Bloodshed, not Blood stained hands of David.

We who are Christ followers know that God became flesh in Jesus, but that looks different than what I’ve been gathering from the Hindu traditions.

Perhaps the biggest difference in our concept of God is that in Hinduism God is unknowable, that he is this huge transcendence that is beyond all things. So the myths and stories of their texts have to paint a picture of that God in some fashion.
In our Bible, from the beginning God created human beings for a relationship with us. God created humans so that God might have a relationship with us and so that we could be recipients of that divine love. Listen to Genesis 1:27:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
The Biblical stories depict God’s desire to become intimate with his creation, which is most profoundly portrayed in the sending of His Son Jesus Christ. God longs to be known by you and wants you to experience his spirit’s presence in your life. That’s very different from the Hindu view of God that he is so transcendent that we can never understand God.

Think of the ways that you experience God’s presene in your life:
1-Through music
2- Spending time in prayer and meditation
3—You sense God’s presence in your daily activities.

An important part of Christian spirituality is that all people can have a relationships with God who seek him. But in Hinduism only those few who ever progress to the top of the highest spiritual pinnacle can have that kind of experience, as I understand it.
Another key difference:

B. The Human Condition and Salvation: Part of God vs. image of God; good deeds vs. God’s gift

In Hinduism your soul is God itself, a part of God within you. Our problem is ignorance and the salvation from that ignorance is spiritual knowledge. So this salvation so to speak gets worked out by the law of karma. You d0 too many bad things you’re going to pay for that in the next life—if you do more good things in this life you have the opportunity to move up in the progressive stages of knowledge through the process of reincarnation.

What’s the Christian point of view? We believe that we were created in the image of God but we are not the same as God. Your soul is distinct from God, just as a painting is distinct from the artist. All creation is the handiwork of God but it is not the same as God.

The psalmist realized that when he penned these words in psalm 8:3-5:
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

God stands above the creation and creates all things. God’s holy Spirit dwells in us but that still is distinct from your spirit. In fact, the Biblical teaching teaches that your human soul is broken, that often you have the propensity to do the wrong things.

Paul echoes the thoughts of many of you in Romans 7:19-21 in the Message:
I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.
Even spiritually mature people struggle everyday. Good people often succumb to this sinful pull. It’s a part of our human condition.

Our Christian belief is therefore that we cannot save our selves. We are good to do good deeds but our good deeds are not our salvation. There is such a gap between God’s holiness and our own lives. So we realize that we need the grace of God. God chose to do something about our human condition by becoming one of us in order to redeem us.
Know in some ways we believe as do the Hindus in their thoughts about Karma that for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap, in the words of the Apostle Paul (Galations 6:7). But as Christians we believe that Jesus cam as God’s son to take on the all the bad karma of the human race. God did this because he knew you could never have enough good karma to overcome the bad karma.

Jesus was the only human being with perfect karma. He credited to your account his good karma. This is what we read in our passage from Ephesians 2 today:
And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus. God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. (vv. 7-8).

We don’t become holy by working harder at it—we become holy by inviting God’s holy spirit in to our lives to shape us and reform us over time.

Do we work hard over and over in various lives as Hinduism teaches? Or do we rely on God’s free gift of grace to us until we pass from this life to the next life when good completely dissolves the bad karma of our lives.

God credits to us his good karma—it’s not something we earn ourselves, as Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2:9: Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Finally, what happens in

C. Life after Death: Nirvana vs. God’s Presence
In Christianity, Hebrews 9:27 (NLT) states It is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment.
Reincarnation is not popular in the Bible. It is not a scriptural idea. The biblical view is that each one of us has one opportunity to get it right. You don’t have to come recycling back through this world to figure it out. You don’t have some previous existence or you don’t have to come back and keep getting your hard drive cleaned again.

The Christian conception is that we come into God’s full presence after death. We enter a place called heaven, not Nirvana.
Jesus spoke of this realm in John 14:2 NIV:
There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you.It’s a place where He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death is gone for good–tears gone, crying gone, pain gone–all the first order of things gone. Revelation 21:4

Jesus assures you and me: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.” John 11:25 (NLT)

My hope is that when I die I will be reunited with my loved ones—the relationship will be different for sure—because we’ll all be one in Christ. But I don’t have to come back here and try to get it right.

I’ve done many funerals in my role as Christian pastor. I imagined this week what would I say to the family of the deceased if I were Hindu? Well, you’re loved one

A few of the Hindu gods

is probably not worked out all the bad karma to have that ultimate release yet. And if a death happens tragically, I’d probably say well this person died this way as a result of bad karma in his or her life. He’ll be coming back but he won’t remember you. She will never know you when she comes back. You’ll never remember him. But after a series of life and death cycles, his soul will be reunited to God like a drop of water in the ocean and finally she’ll have a oneness with God. What a beautiful thing.

But that is different from what I proclaim to families and friends at the death of a loved one. I can tell people that the last word in their loved one’s life is the grace of God. That person who is in Jesus Christ is with him today. That person’s pain is over—they are experiencing the joy Christ promised us. That person can see things that we can only imagine on this side of eternity. And there is the promise that one day you will be reunited with your loved one again and I believe you will know one another in that place God has prepared for us.

I have enjoyed this study of Hinduism and there’s a lot of beauty in the literature. But after having gone through this process this week I am even more grateful for the good news of Jesus Christ and God’s love for me. In the words of Paul in our Bible reading today: It is only by God’s special favor that you I been saved.

Ephesians 2:1-10 (NLT)
Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature.

We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ Jesus. And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.

God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

PRAYER:
Lord, I give you thanks for your great love for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what you have been willing to take upon yourself my bad karma, my sin, and to credit to my account your good karma, even though I don’t deserve it. I am grateful that, as Paul states it, I am saved by your grace through faith, not by my works. And I can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from you.

But thank you that through my faith I have been called by you to do good works. Thank you for your love. On this day once more I commit my life to you. Help me to follow you and grow in knowing you. Help me to share your love with my friends of other faiths in a way that is respectful, encouraging, but offers them the good news. In Jesus name I pray. AMEN. (Continued)

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If he is silent his silence does not grieve him, if he laughs he does not raise his voice, and if he is wronged he endures till God takes revenge on his behalf. His own self is in distress because of him, while the people are in ease from him. He puts himself in hardship for the sake of his next life, and makes people feel safe from himself. His keeping away from others is by way of asceticism and purification, and his nearness to those to whom he is near is by way of leniency and mercifulness. His keeping away is not by way of vanity or feeling of greatness, nor his nearness by way of deceit and cheating.

Nor sell the covenant of God for a miserable price: for with God is (a prize) far better for you, if ye only knew.

What is with you must vanish: what is with God will endure. And We will certainly bestow, on those who patiently persevere, their reward according to the best of their actions.

Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has Faith, verily, to him will We give a new Life, a life that is good and pure and We will bestow on such their reward according to the best of their actions.

When thou dost read the Holy Book, seek God’s protection from Satan the rejected one.

Paul’s instruction rubs a lot of today’s society the wrong way. “Anyone not willing to work, shouldn’t get to eat!” Those are powerful words in verse 10. Somewhere along the line in our “great society” we’ve missed the boat and decided to reward non-work. I’m sure that was never God’s intent. In fact, when He created man, the first direction He gave Adam was to take care of the earth and everything in it. That’s work!

Clearly before the fall and the curse God imposed on man because of sin, the earth didn’t war against us as much as it does today, but taking care of the earth still involved a great deal of labor. Work is not a dirty word. I’m sure all of us have had those moments when we have been in the middle of something and completely lost track of time because of the joy we felt in doing what we were doing.

Remember your first paycheck? Maybe it came from mowing lawns or baby sitting or helping to clean out a garage. You probably weren’t even working age yet, but someone hired you to do a job. You did it well and got paid. Remember how good it felt? Much of our society has decided it’s not okay to feel good about working and getting paid. We someone feel like we’re getting ripped off by our employers even though we agreed to work a amount of hours for a certain amount of pay.

Worse, a huge number of us think either our employers or our country owes us something just because we’re alive. Wrong! Read 2 Thessalonians 3:10 again. Anyone not willing to work, shouldn’t get to eat! That’s pretty straight forward. I’m not heartless. I know there are some people who can’t work because of disabilities and other circumstance, but there’s a huge crowd today not willing to work.

“Well, I don’t want that job.” So, if it puts food on the table, work! “I can more on welfare.” And there lies the problem! When we can be satisfied by doing nothing or get paid more for doing nothing, we have a problem with our system. I expect if unemployment didn’t last 99 weeks, many of the folks on unemployment would be doing something, maybe not they want to do, but would be doing something. Necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of people were hungry during the depression, but I don’t think there were many reports of people starving to death.

Somewhere along the line we’ve screwed up our priorities. We can’t allow ourselves to do that as Christians. Listen to Paul’s words. If we call ourselves by Jesus’ name, live by His word. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in what society says. Instead, work hard, live right, trust God to meet your needs (not wants).

Join me next time, won’t you?

Richard

The Text used: There has been some updating of Old English words but otherwise no changes have been made to the original texts.

CONFESSION OF FAITH of seven congregations or churches of Christ in London. which are commonly, but unjustly, called Anabaptists; published for the vindication of the truth and information of the ignorant; likewise for the taking off those aspersions which are frequently, both in pulpit and print, unjustly cast upon them. Printed in London, Anno 1646.

XXIX ALL believers are a holy and sanctified people, and that sanctification is a spiritual grace of the new covenant, and an effect of the love of God manifested in the soul, whereby the believer presseth after a heavenly and evangelical obedience to all the commands, which Christ as head and king in His new covenant hath prescribed to them.

1 Cor.12; 1 Pet.2:9; Eph.l:4; 1 John 4:16; Matt.28:20.

The First London Baptist Confession 1644/46

So – how can religion be at the same time such a good and such a bad influence? This is not particularly hard to figure out. Separate the good things that happen due to the motivational force of religions and the bad things that happen due to the motivational force of religions, and you can pretty quickly see a clear divide in motivation of the believer.

Good things happen as a result of people who are genuinely seeking to please their God, and who are doing what they can do to help other people as a service to that God they, themselves, revere. There are people of ALL faiths (with the possible exception of Satanism) who are living their lives in this way, doing no harm and a great deal of good.  

Where the trouble comes in is when a person of faith is convinced that their path to God is the ONLY path to God, and that everyone else MUST FOLLOW THIS SAME PATH, or die. Therein lies the rub. I believe, no- I KNOW that God is big enough to lead a sincere seeker in the paths he wants them to follow, regardless of where that person began their journey to God. God accepts people as followers regardless of where they are, or what they have done. Then He begins to make changes in that person’s life to mold that individual in the way He wants them to go. And God NEVER, EVER advocates that His followers harm others except to preserve their own lives due to other’s hostile actions.

I would shoot an intruder who broke into my home without a second’s additional thought beyond being sure my first shot was a killing one. At the same time, I would never use a weapon on another human being just because they had something to say about me, my family, my country, or my religion. They have opinions of their own, and they can express them, even if I disagree with them. But threaten me with harm? All bets are off – you chose this course of action, buddy, on your own head fall the consequences.

NO faith that advocates violence to other humans over religious doctrine is a genuine faith, particularly if its adherents actively pursue that order. No human has the right to force a belief on another. That does not mean you, as a believer, cannot tell someone else about your own faith, and persuade them that your faith is the right path to God. It also does not mean that they cannot discuss with you their own faith, and try to persuade you that their faith is the better path.  God is big enough to help people decide which path to Him is the better path, and His timing is not our own. And if your faith is, indeed, the best path to God, why are you not assured that all people will see the light and convert on their own – why are you so threatened by other religions that you advocate violence against them? Sounds like your religion has a LLLOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGggggggg way to go before you can claim it’s the best path to God, huh?

Perhaps you’ve seen one of the movie versions, or better, you’ve read the book like I did in junior high school.  The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is the story of a group of well-monied, well-bred, and well-socialized boys who become stranded on an island during a war.  Left to themselves, they very quickly descend into what Christian theology calls “total depravity”, their sin natures take full control over every aspect of life and the boys inflict every evil imaginable upon each other.  Without an outside, redeeming influence, they become wicked savages.

The Bible reminds those of us who have trusted in Christ alone for salvation: Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day of Christ’s return approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25).

No one can live the life of faith alone.  Christians need other Christians, just as the finger needs the hand if it is to function and live (First Corinthians 12:14-27). God has attached each one of His people to another for support and strength; but when we are separated from the body into which He joins us, we become weak, discouraged, and even lifeless.  It’s not that we’ll lose our salvation and revert to spiritual savagery, but we lose the encouragement, growth, and life which Jesus provides to us through His body (Ephesians 4:15-16).

As the Christian husband nourishes and cherishes his believing wife in her faith and life (Ephesians 5:29), so the body of believers, known as the Church, does for one another through our Head, Jesus.

You will see his hopes simple, his shortcomings few, his heart fearing, his spirit contented, his meal small and simple, his religion safe, his desires dead and his anger suppressed. Good alone is expected from him. Evil from him is not to be feared. Even if he is found among those who forget (God) he is counted among those who remember (Him), but if he is among the rememberers he is not counted among the forgetful. He forgives him who is unjust to him, and he gives to him who deprives him. He behaves well with him who behaves ill with him.

Galatians 1:11-24

But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. – Galatians 1:15 NLT

In the eyes of the new believers living in the region of Galatia, Paul is just another man with another message. They can think of no reason to give his message any more credence than any other man’s. Yes, Paul had been to the Roman province of Galatia on his first missionary journey, and had visited Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. He had brought them the Good News of Jesus Christ, but there were others who had slightly different opinions regarding what it meant to be a Christ-follower. They were promoting the idea that it wasn’t enough to simply believe in Jesus as your Savior, you also had to be converted to Judaism and adhere to its laws and ceremonial requirements. These Judaizers, as they were called, were so zealous in their beliefs, that they had actually followed Paul on his first missionary journey, spreading their pseudo-gospel among the new converts. Now these new Gentile converts were faced with a decision regarding who to believe – Paul of the Judaizers. Both claimed to have the message of good news. Both claimed to be speaking truth. But who were the Galatian Christians to believe.

Paul presents his case clearly and concisely. He tells them that his gospel message is not some man-made invention or the product of his fertile imagination. He didn’t get it out of a text book or from a classroom. Instead, he had “received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12 NLT). The message he had preached on his first missionary journey to Galatia was exactly what Jesus had given him personally. Paul’s story was not an ordinary one. Prior to his conversion, he had been a hired bounty hunter, working for the Jewish religious leadership, pursuing and persecuting these new sect called Christian that had risen up after the death of Jesus. Paul was a well-educated Pharisee, trained under Gamaliel, a revered Jewish rabbi. Paul described his prior life by saying, “I became very zealous to honor God in everything I did” (Acts 22:3 NLT). He persecuted the followers of the Way, the term used to describe those who had become Christians or Christ-followers. It was his obsession to find them, arrest them, and make sure that they were punished for their heresy. Paul knew what it meant to be a fervent follower of the traditions of the Jews. He had been a law-keeper of the first order.

But something happened. He had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ while he was on his way to Damascus. Paul says, “Then it pleased him [God] to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15-16 NLT). For the next three years, Paul lived in Arabia. While there, he was isolated from the other apostles, receiving his instruction directly from God, not men. Paul’s message was from God, not men. Paul had been chosen by God to deliver a very specific message to the Gentiles, and it did not include conversion to Judaism and adherence to the Jewish laws and sacrificial system. The Good News Paul delivered was based on faith in Christ alone. Nothing more, nothing less. He had no problem declaring his message superior to that of the Judaizers, because he knew that his message was divinely given and not to be tampered with. Paul was not out to win friends and influence enemies. He was out to proclaim the Good News of faith alone in Christ alone. The era of works-based righteousness was over. Jesus had died to deliver men from the dead-end pursuit of earning favor with God through self-effort. It was His works that saved, not man’s. And Paul was chosen by God, even before he was born, to be the conduit of that message to the Gentiles.

Father, it is amazing to think that You had Paul in mind before he was even born. You had a job for him to do long before he even existed. Your plan of salvation is comprehensive and complete. There are no diversions or detours. You are never caught off guard or surprised. You know Paul was going to persecute the Church. But You also knew that he was going to accomplish for Your Kingdom, because that had been Your plan from eternity past. Your choosing of men is never without reason and our salvation is never without purpose. You have a job for each of us to do. We have been called and commissioned to serve You. Help us see our divine job description and take it seriously, just as Paul did. Amen.

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

They are not satisfied with their meagre good acts, and do not regard their major acts as great. They always blame themselves and are afraid of their deeds. When anyone of them is spoken of highly, he says: “I know myself better than others, and my Lord knows me better than I know. O’ God do not deal with me according to what they say, and make me better than they think of me and forgive me (those shortcomings) which they do not know.”

We as Christ’s church are a tapestry, being woven together uniquely. We are the weft of beautiful colors which make up a glorious representation which is on exhibit to the principalities and authorities in the heavenly realm as well as here on earth. And just as a tapestry utilizes many colors, many strands of threads to complete this “painting” so it takes many believers in Christ to be the strands, the threads,  used by the Holy Spirit to weave together Christ’s church. Thus, Paul charges the Ephesians and us in turn to be a weft thread by demonstrating the gifts of humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, and to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.

When you work on a tapestry you must have adequate light. The Holy Spirit is our light which illumines our understanding and allows us to see each thread for its color and beauty. If we work in the dark we are unable to see our design, the colors, the next warp to go under. So too when we are not in unity in the Body, Paul says we give the devil an opportunity and thus mar the tapestry being woven. Therefore, “he turns from exposition to exhortation, from what God has done (in the indicative), to what we must be and do (in the imperative), from doctrine to duty . . . from mind-stretching theology to its down-to-earth, concrete implications in everyday living” [Stott].

Speak truth, be angry and sin not and in fact do not let the sun go down upon your anger! Put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling and evil, slanderous talk. Instead, weave the threads of kindness one to another, compassionate, forgiving one another, Just as Christ also forgave you. Thus, “Christians must preserve the unity between believers that God has created in the church.”[Constable]

As a believer in Christ you are a weft thread.  Precious ones, let the Holy Spirit illumine your weaving so you are a glorious and beautiful tapestry for the entire world and those in the heavenly realms to see!

Let’s try and ascertain the reasons why something which sounds like an activity that only trained psychologists can indulge in is of such paramount importance to our lives. For one, it’s because all that we do apart from breathing involves interactions. With the encroachment of smokers on public spaces, even breathing today involves interactions on a few occasions. Something as personal as thinking too involves, more often than not, recollecting our previous dealings with others. From the market to the workplace to the quiet of our homes, every action that we undertake involves a fair bit of interacting with others. Perhaps, in a bid to further our interests, we all try to behave well with people who would have any significant effect on our lives. This is what, according to me, makes us want to understand the world around us. It does not necessarily begin as an interest that later on develops into a need. Rather, it’s the other way round. It is a need that is inherent to life. Some develop an interest in this and try to understand the world and its residents systematically. This desire to understand the world in systematic manner, using holistic methods that not only solve the problem at hand but also help codify and formulate methods for further analysis and research, is what has given rise to all the branches of study in our world today and encompasses science, arts and commerce among the mundane and interesting new fields among the exciting.

The systematic understanding, as I mentioned, is what constitutes all sciences, but the purpose of writing this article is not to deal with this systematic understanding. I also don’t intend to talk a lot of science, though some of it is inevitable as science, and its applications, is my field of education. What I intend to do here is talk about one aspect of this world that all of us notice. I also will try to delve deeper into my experience and try to look at it from a spiritual point of view. Of course, it goes without saying that there would be many who will disagree or shall fail to agree with me in its entirety. What I will try to talk about here is also nothing new, as I mentioned earlier. However, this thought is not plagiarized from somewhere, for it is something no one fails to notice and infer. It’s like looking at someone’s muddy clothes and realizing that he or she fell in mud. Neither the observance nor the inference is singular, yet no one copies the train of thought from someone else. It’s the most apparent observation and deduction, and hence people make it. The idea that I am trying to convey is similar and hence readers, if any, might find something in this article that essentially mirrors their own thought.

W. H. Davies, in his famous poem, “Leisure” writes,

What is this life, full of care?

We have no time to stand and stare.

This observation about how observing things no longer remains an activity we indulge in might be true, but in parts. People I know are not those who have given up the subtle beauties of nature for the rat race that is often said to replace them. We are all common people who have a tough time living our lives, but we all do enjoy our own bit of looking around, our own bit of standing and staring. Moreover, observing nature is not my topic. I am speaking here of observing things around us, not necessarily beautiful and delightful. I am speaking about the observation that Davies made. The world around us today seems to be in a hurry. Urban people will be familiar with the spectacle of a sea of people walking down the busy streets of the city trying to avoid colliding with each other as they jostle to get to their destinations, literally and figuratively. Everything seems to move on without ever caring for anything else. Cars drive past and trains whistle by, humans walk past and the clock seems ticking. The picture that I present can be summarized in one word – chaos. There seems to be an eternal state of chaos all around us that runs through our entire world. There is an element of chaos in every walk of life, in every sphere of existence. It pervades every aspect of our being, as if it is something inherent to existence. I can give a hundred examples of chaos in our daily lives but that, I presume, is unnecessary.

Chaos doesn’t engulf only human nature and society. If we observe carefully, it also serves the dominions of the nature and the cosmos. Let’s take the case of the weather and natural conditions. If there was ever anything unpredictable, this was it. The swiftness with which a bright day morphs into a grim cloudy one and the speed with which the winter chill descends are experienced more often than not in the part of the world where I come from. A regular feature of cricket matches that viewers across the world would be familiar with is the cancellation or abandoning of games due to rains that weren’t expected. The same unpredictability is seen in outer spaces. Due to excessive technical jargon, much of what is said and written about the outer space goes over the heads of laymen like me, but we all understand that something new and unanticipated keeps happening out there. The discovery of a new planet or the departure of a heavenly body from its predicted course because of an inexplicable course of events suggests a certain degree of randomness in the sanctum sanctorum of the skies. All the examples I have quoted so far have served just one purpose – paint an image of chaos.

These are physical, tangible realities. Let’s try to analyze abstract feelings. Human nature, for one, is extremely fickle. One person, in two similar situations, might react differently to each of them. This is the fickleness of human nature. It can never conform to a described and well-defined protocol of reaction. This can be said to be, in the context of our article, chaos in the thought process of human beings. Inanimate objects too display this sort of chaotic behaviour as they don’t necessarily always perform in a prescribed manner or order. The same window that breaks on the impact of one stone doesn’t when hit with another. There is unpredictability all around us, in most of the things that we encounter on a day to day basis. There’s a famous quotation that change is the only constant. Borrowing the same style, I would say unpredictability is the only thing that we can predict with certainty. The chaos and disorder that is present in the world around us is perhaps the only order that we live by. This chaos and our familiarity with it is what explains why many aspects are of our lives are mired in or at least influenced by some sort of disorder. We rely on chance for many things, in spite of careful and meticulous planning. A student hopes for the examination paper to be easy or at least not be tough. The questions are not something he decides or selects for himself, but there is still an element of luck that he hopes for. An immaculate planner too hopes for certain things to fall in place so that his plans meet success. There is, as I said, an element of chaos in all aspects of our life. Chaos and chance are not, by definition, one and the same. Certainly, it is neither my intention to portray them as such. The reason for speaking of them in the same breath is that both have one thing in common, apart from beginning with the same three letters. Both of them betray an attitude of letting things take care of themselves, of rejection at the hands of destiny. Chaos and chance both prove that things that happen in this world aren’t always in our hands. We are not the masters of our own destiny.

The chaos and disorder of nature has been studied and understood by men of science for ages. The susceptibility of any system to initial conditions is one of paramount importance, as a slight change in the initial states of the conditions prevailing in a given system might have vastly different results. This is called chaos theory. It was, in the modern scientific paradigm, first understood by Edward Lorenz in the 1970s in a series of experiments that eventually led to the establishment of the theory of chaotic systems. In the words of Ian Stewart,

“The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does.” (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)

[I haven’t read the book myself. I was reading about Chaos theory when I came across this. However, this is a famous quote and even if the reference is wrong, the words are true as I have read at other places and numerously.]

Chaos theory has several fields of application. My personal interest in them arises because it crosses my path in Control System Engineering, where it is used to explain the behaviour of highly turbulent or chaotic systems. Systems, when narrowed down to ideal conditions, generally exhibit properties and characteristics that follow predicted paths. However, in case of some systems, the dependence on their initial conditions is highly pronounced. These systems are called chaotic systems. Another interesting and more popular field which is, to an extent, based on chaos theory is fractal geometry. Regular users of online networking sites will be familiar with stationary pictures that seem to create an illusion of movement. These pictures are called fractals, derived from the word fractional. One of my friends actually has a fractal as his profile picture on a social networking site and I had him explain to me what fractals are. His explanation was that they are pictures that are infinite within themselves and he used the example of a triangular picture. This picture of an equilateral triangle and its continued repetitions within the same outer circle is called Koch curve, after the scientist von Koch. This aspect involves imaginary dimensions called fractal dimensions and I admit I am not really good at imaginative science. So I don’t think I will say anything more about the chaos theory, one reason being that I don’t know much about it in the first place. There are experts who have written a lot about it. My own research is limited and based on matter easily available and hence no one will have any problem in looking them up, provided there is interest. I wish to understand this theory from another angle, which I will be coming to shortly. Chaos theory, in short, tells us how much things depend on chance, or as some will call it, luck. Of course, it goes without saying, that this is just a theory which might fall flat. However, it also goes without saying that most people would agree that randomness and uncertainty do have a very important part to play in our lives. Waking up five minutes late can actually lead to being late for office by one hour, as one can miss the designated bus or train, get caught in rush hour traffic and similar such situations. It can be argued that all this happened by ipso facto waking up late, and that this mistake shouldn’t be attributed to luck or fate. The fact to be understood here is that no one is attributing one’s mistake to luck, even though I don’t deny that there are people who do so. The point that I am making here is that five minutes can set off a chain of events that ultimately lead to an hour being lost. This is the degree to which randomness affects our lives, even if it is due to our own mistakes. Taking the blame on ourselves is the right attitude to display, and more important is taking corrective action. This should be the way to go about it. The uncertainty, however, cannot be just wished away as the alibi given by irresponsible people. I hope I have made my point in clear and certain terms that definitely don’t entertain thoughts of ambiguity. I am a little unsure about the butterfly, though. I am neither affirming it, nor am I denying it, for proving or disproving chaos theory is neither my agenda nor within my capability.

Moving on, the thought that occurred to me after observing the chaos all around us is the way everything seems to be working in tandem with everything else to provide an order to this disorder. There may be chance and luck behind everything, but the world seems to run smoothly and all things seem to settle down with other things to harmoniously operate and participate in the functioning of all worldly activities. There is a definite algorithm of chaos. This algorithm is what determines the co-ordination of the various events taking place all around the world in a synchronized manner such that all random occurrences fit together with one another to give the world a semblance of orderliness. Try and observe the world carefully around. There is a certain method to all the madness that exists. The world, in spite of seeming to be going around in a haphazard manner, actually is not. Even the tiniest incident like the falling of a leaf that seems to have no importance or significance whatsoever might actually be working according to an algorithm, a predefined or decided routine that makes sure the maintenance of this universe. I would again reiterate that there is an algorithm of chaos.

It is to be understood here that neither is the chaos nor is the algorithm behind it something tangible that can be touched, seen or felt. They are neither definitive axioms nor hypotheses that can be proven logically through other laws. They also cannot be proven through proofs and evidences, either conclusively or prima facie, to a degree that eradicates all doubts and does away with all grounds of doubt or skepticism. It is only through observation and pondering that one can come to any conclusion. But I guess most would see the rationality of my arguments and agree that even though there is undefined chaos all around us, there is a certain procedure that seems to be running subliminal to it. In programming terms, there is an algorithm behind this. This is the algorithm that I have termed the algorithm of chaos. The idea that I share here is not something unique to me and I am not trying to propose a new idea here. It’s like I mentioned at the start of this article that this thought that I try to pen down is something so central to human thought that most, if any, readers would feel at home with it. Let us for the sake of brevity here surmise that there exists inevitable chaos around us, which however is governed by its own set of rules and methods that we call its algorithm. Period.

The question that this presumption led me to was much simpler or much tougher to answer, depending on an ideological divide that’s widely gaining ground in today’s age. If an algorithm exists behind the operation of this world, then who has given it this algorithm? Who has written this procedure on which the universe functions? Things don’t happen by themselves. Students of or even dilettantes interested in philosophy would have heard of cause and effect. Behind every effect exists a cause. The theory, again, cannot be proven by its own self or through other theoretical considerations, but is accepted till proven otherwise and hence, those willing to negate it will have to bring evidence that is real and observable. Acceptance of this theory is, as is obvious, based on countless proofs that real life throws at us. Think of any action and there is a reason behind it. Myriad incidents that take place the world over have to have a reason for their existence. This is something that is easily understood and hence, I don’t think I will give any examples to state my case. Now that I have stated the cause and effect theory, let’s closely analyze it in relation to the idea of the algorithm behind chaos. Since all effects have to have a cause, every incident that we perceive as random too has a cause that can be identified by putting in a little thought for the worst cases. This can be understood to explain the fact that all events, since having a cause each, happen in accordance to a plan. All events and incidents thus aren’t random, and hence they have an algorithm. So, restating the question that I posed earlier, I ask again as to who is the writer of this algorithm.

My conviction is that it is Allaah, or God in English. This is where ideological divide creeps up. Atheists and aficionados of scientific temper will definitely rubbish this claim as being, for want of a better word, unscientific. Religious bigots will claim this to be, again for want of a better word, bigoted. Of course, my conviction does not count as proof and is definitely not decisive. The idea has to be proven but, as has been the case of all matters that I have tried to deal with, cannot be proven using tangible means and would therefore require reason, logic and a little common sense. All three are in themselves subject to perceptions and hence might attract criticism and ridicule. Nevertheless, I am going to stress that a person should stand up for what he believes in if he is convinced of it provided there is a logically sound train of thought, or evidence, at least empirical, if possible, behind it. It also implies that the said person should be ready for a critical analysis of his ideas and use them constructively. Every idea and notion floated about should be weighed carefully in the crucible of sound intellect and then understood with an open mind. I would request any readers to have the same and hope to see things rationally myself. I would also like to make clear to anyone out there that what I say next isn’t a work of scholarly magnitude but rather a layman perspective, and hence interested readers are advised to consult authorities on the subject for a clearer and more correct view of things. Also, this article might end up looking Islamic but that would be because I am a Muslim. There is no theological education behind this and research is minimal. Still, I would like to share it with others, just in the hope of getting people interested if nothing else. Also, let me state that there would be a few things that might not sound simple enough to be written by me, the reason being that they aren’t. I have read a few pages in trying to understand and hence solve the question that I earlier asked, and hence this article is nothing but a representation of the answer I arrived at.

So, to summarize, the writer of the algorithm of chaos is God. Let us look at the cause and effect theory. Every effect has a cause. Stretching this argument backwards, every cause too must have in turn another cause. Everything that is created has a creator. So, we arrive at two possible conclusions, one being that this chain stretches endlessly backwards, infinitely. First, let us look at this possible conclusion. It has one valid argument against it. If the events stretch back infinitely, they will a priori never end, as infinity is attained by going one step further than where one is, ergo never. This is because on reaching what is perceived as the last event, there automatically crops up the need of its cause. Hence an infinite sequence of events is set up that implies that the past has never ended. Obviously, past has to have occurred for it to be past. This in turn, brings us to the second possibility, a being that can cause the beginning of the universe, i.e. space and time, without anything. I would like to also address the issue of randomness, which means the idea that events can begin at random. If this were true, then such an event should be true even today. Well, how many events can one think of that just happen themselves. Take a basketful seeds, a tumbler of water and leave them by the side of a field. Do the seeds get sowed and watered on their own? This therefore, at least to me indicates, that randomly isn’t the way things happen. Hence the concept of a superpower seems to be more at harmony with reason, logic and common sense. Detractors would of course point out that it is just the lame old excuse that religionists use and that it stands no ground in today’s world of science. They would definitely condemn my statement of the concept of a superpower being in harmony with reason, logic and common sense as being idiotic if not downright balderdash. It goes without saying that they would demand proof of god’s existence. Let me admit, if the gist of what I have been trying to convey, i.e. the harmony and inherent order in the apparent disorder, doesn’t convince one of god, nothing can. So, “To each his own” is what I would say.

In fact this approach that I have used has been used by many philosophers across religious divides to explain the concept of God and His existence. I won’t name any here. Interested people can browse the net to find out. I would just tell this much that ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims and Christians have stood by the same reason. It is why I said earlier that this idea isn’t anything new. People have seen rhyme and reason and therefore believed in it, and I don’t see any reason why one should stop believing in god. I would like to address the problem of there being no physical, observable proof of His existence from an Islamic point of view, cause I find suitable and more importantly, within my grasp. Allaah, or god if you will, is not an entity with a physical form, shape and size. He is not limited to directions or places. His existence is free of space and time. The truth is that in Islam, Allaah is the creator of everything and so, physicality involving form, shape and size, directions and place, space and time and all other aspects of existence that we understand are not applicable to Him. His existence is something that cannot be perceived in its entirety and resembles none of His creation. This is the reason why physical and observable evidence that can be understood by human thought and perceived by intellect cannot be brought definitively for Allaah. Also, if it’s impossible to prove His existence, it also becomes impossible to prove inexistence for Him.

The concept of god is essential as it not only solves the question of existence of this world but also provides a basis for a morally strong and ethical society. It is to be noted here that belief in god is not because of these reasons. God is the only existence that is by itself, and all other existences are because of His divine will. He is not there because we deem it fit and it fits into our scheme of things. We are here because He has decided it to be so and He is the one who defines the scheme of things as we see them. It’s because as human beings, our perceptions aren’t strong enough and sometimes need arguments and what may be called proofs to satisfy us. Men more capable than I have laboured through their lives and given us their works so that we could understand divinity as per our capabilities. Atheists and their ilk would argue that the concept of God exists because of our desire and that it’s unscientific. They might also argue that ethics and morals should be present in the society not due to the fear of punishment or because of the desire of rewards, but rather because we should be good human beings and look to serve the higher ideals of life. This idea, though praiseworthy, is also impractical and utopian in its essence. Human beings are by nature selfish and greedy and serve their own selves rather than a common good. It is only by punishment and reward that one cares to strive for ethics. This is the reason why countries around the world have penal codes and constitutions and a concept of imprisonment. How many people do you honestly think will look to live their lives on what can be called an ethical constitution by themselves with no retribution and punitive action to check them? I, for one, will in all its likelihood not. The concept of a godless morality is not something that can be realized in the real world.

There are various other vistas which writing more would open. However, my intention was never to go into them and I seek to stand by it. I already felt while rereading this piece that I might have written what is beyond my understanding and definitely not in my grasp. Hence I would like to end this already tedious and in parts boring piece. Criticism from any quarter is welcome, but please steer clear of ribald ramblings and pointless polemics. This of course is based on the hope that someone will be reading it and considers it worthwhile to actually reply. The debate between atheists and believers has been played out again and again and has made the careers of many. So if this much has been of any interest to you, do give some time to try and understand. I would end with this story.

I was listening to a discourse once and this story from that discourse comes to mind. An old woman who spun a jenny was busy at her work, and she kept saying “There is no God but Allaah” as she went about her task. A man who happened to hear her got curious and approached her. He then questioned as her as to how could she be sure of the existence of a God. The old woman replied that she spun a jenny. If a jenny couldn’t spin on its own without her spinning it, how could the entire world just run by itself? Definitely, it needed someone to run it, and that was Allaah. The man, impressed, prodded further. This time, he questioned her about the unity, or rather oneness of God. The old woman again referred to her jenny, saying if two people tried to run it from opposite ends, the jenny would break. How could then, she asked, two gods be running this world if the world operated in harmony?

Life and Godliness

This scripture kind of flies in the face of all that we are taught in our present day society. It teaches us that it is all about education, working your way up, success and getting ahead. All of these can be good in the right balance, but in all of our pursuit of life’s “success” we often miss the most important and needful things, life and godliness. It takes a paradigm shift in our natural thinking to not be so earthly minded and material oriented that we rob our soul to satisfy our flesh. How many upon finally reaching their goals of success, wealth, fame and riches find that happiness, satisfaction, contentment and peace are not in the pot of gold they thought to find at the end of their rainbow?
We all need to work and support ourselves and families. That is a godly principle. In the process of that we often find ourselves getting out of balance, because the world and work place begins to demand more and more from us at the expense of robbing God, our family and even our own souls.
Many times this may be because we are trying to find our identity in our career rather than our relationship with Christ. What we are and how we are seen in world’s eyes supercedes who we are and our life’s purpose in Christ. Many of us have fallen in this snare and may be there right now.
This is not to condemn, but cause us to take an honest look at our true motives, affections and life’s pursuits. If we are not first and foremost focused on our identity in Christ and how He wants to live through us day by day, then we are missing our calling. We all have to be so careful that we don’t get caught up in the materialism of the world and society we live in, that we miss our higher and foremost calling. “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
If our basic needs are met, then let us pursue what God apprehended foremost for, Himself. Our primary function is the expression of His nature in and through our lives which grows out of an ever increasing relationship and intimacy with Him. The enemy will bring every distraction and temptation to rob us of that identity and purpose we all have in Christ Jesus.
Let us check our priorities today. Are we aligning our lives with this scripture? If not, what steps do we need to take to bring our lives back on course with our true identity and purpose?

Blessings,
kent

Thus, the God-fearing, in it are the people of distinction. Their speech is to the point, their dress is moderate and their gait is humble. They keep their eyes closed to what God has made unlawful for them, and they put their ears to that knowledge which is beneficial to them. They remain in the time of trials as though they remain in comfort. If there had not been fixed periods (of life) ordained for each, their spirits would not have remained in their bodies even for the twinkling of an eye because of (their) eagerness for the reward and fear of chastisement. The greatness of the Creator is seated in their heart, and, so, everything else appears small in their eyes. Thus to them Paradise is as though they see it and are enjoying its favours. To them, Hell is also as if they see it and are suffering punishment in it.

Their hearts are grieved, they are protected against evils, their bodies are thin, their needs are scanty, and their souls are chaste. They endured (hardship) for a short while, and in consequence they secured comfort for a long time. It is a beneficial transaction that God made easy for them. The world aimed at them, but they did not aim at it. It captured them, but they freed themselves from it by a ransom.

Just about everyone wants to know how the sixty-six books got chosen to be in the Bible. Why these sixty-six? Why not a few more (or a few less)? Why these books and not others?
In Persecution in the Early Church, Herbert Workman tells the story of a Christian who was brought before the Roman governor of Sicily during the last great persecution of the church. His crime? Possessing a copy of the Gospels.

The governor asked, “Where did these come from? Did you bring them from your home?”
The believer replied, “I have no home, as my Lord Jesus knows.”
The governor asked his prisoner to read a portion of the Gospels. He chose a portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Next he read from Luke: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
At this, the judge ordered the prisoner taken away — to his death.

Under Roman law new religions were illegal. In its first few decades Christianity was seen as a sect within Judaism. Once it was determined that Christianity was a separate religion, it became illegal to identify as a Christian. So, for the first three centuries of what we now call the Christian Era, it was a crime to be Christian. Persecutions sprang up throughout various parts of the empire. Believers were tortured and sometimes martyred for their faith. In 303, Emperor Diocletian ordered the confiscation of Christian property and churches and the burning of Scriptures. Believers and their Book had become so inseparable that the way to eliminate Christianity was to eliminate the Bible.

How The Bible Came Together
Who decided what went into the Bible? The short answer to that question is no one. Or maybe a better answer is God did. When scholars talk about how a book qualified to be called Scripture, they list five characteristics called the laws of canonicity. But these characteristics are recognized in hindsight; they weren’t developed by a particular group at a particular time in history.
After his resurrection, Jesus commissioned his followers to go and make disciples, and they did. They devoted themselves to sharing the Christ’s good news, enfolding people into local churches and teaching them to obey all that Jesus had commanded.

These Jewish believers already had Scripture. Around Palestine the Jewish Scripture is exactly what Protestants today call the Old Testament. Jesus referred to these books when he spoke of the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).
Outside the Holy Land, some Jews included 12 to 15 other books as part of Scripture. The Septuagint, which was translated in Egypt, contains books that we now call the Apocrypha. (Apocrypha means “those hidden away.”) Early Christians differed over whether these extra books should be considered Scripture or not. Those nearest Palestine tended to exclude them. Those closer to Rome tended to include them.

During the sixteenth-century Reformation, Martin Luther spoke strongly against the Apocrypha. In reaction the Roman Catholic Church convened a council in Trent (now in Italy), where they declared the Apocrypha to be canonical. To this day Catholics and Protestants disagree on this issue. Catholics uphold the Apocrypha. Protestants believe that the Apocrypha is useful but not inspired. (I am neither Catholic nor  Protestant, but I personally have read and studied  the Apocrypha, and believe they should remain, this is in my humble opinion.)

Wherever Christianity spread, Christians gathered for worship and instruction. In keeping with the customs of the Jewish synagogue, a portion of Old Testament Scripture would be read and explained. Meanwhile, the apostles, along with other evangelists and teachers, traveled from place to place to plant churches and encourage believers. When one of these recognized leaders was in town, he was invited to speak during the service.

As need arose, the apostles wrote letters to various churches. When a letter arrived, it was read with great excitement in the worship service. Often the letter would be copied and shared with neighboring churches who, in turn, would share it with still other churches. Naturally, the more inspiring letters were copied and shared more often.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). We still have the letter to the Colossians. The letter to the Laodiceans was not considered inspired or pertinent enough to be preserved.

Around A.D.150, Justin Martyr described worship this way:
On the day called the Day of the Sun all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then all rise together and pray.
By this early date, “the memoirs of the apostles” were considered as important to the teaching of the church as the writings of the prophets.

Marcion and Montanus. About ten years earlier, a wealthy ship owner named Marcion sailed from his home near the Black Sea to the capital city of Rome. Marcion believed that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament. The former was distant and loved justice, while the latter was loving and emphasized grace.
Marcion rejected the Old Testament, along with any writings that might reinforce views other than his own. He developed a list of books he considered acceptable: portions of the Gospel of Luke, ten of Paul’s letters, plus a letter purportedly from Paul to the Alexandrians. This list is known as the Marcion Canon.

The church had to respond to this. Though nothing had been officially written down, decided or proclaimed, most Christians had a sense of what was Scripture and what wasn’t.
Between A.D.156 and 172, a second provocateur appeared on the scene. His name was Montanus. Montanus was accompanied by two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla. “The Three” spoke in ecstatic visions and encouraged their followers to fast and pray, calling the church to a higher standard of righteousness and zeal. If that was as far as their teaching went, they would have been an asset. But their message included what they called “new prophecy,” which pushed Christ and the apostolic message into the background.

The age of Jesus was being superseded by the age of the Holy Spirit, and Montanus was its spokesman.
Was Montanus truly bringing a new prophecy with new authority? Prophecy more authoritative than Jesus and the apostles? This question prompted the church to respond a second time.
In A.D.144, the church of Rome excommunicated Marcion and continued the sifting process on what was Scripture and what wasn’t. The Montanus controversy pushed the church to ask further questions of their Scriptures. Specifically, was God bringing further revelation? Could that revelation be true if it contradicted things taught by Jesus and the apostles? Could new truth change or add to the basic teachings the church had been feeding on for the past century?

The answer was no. From this, the church concluded that the canon of Scripture was closed.
Spurred by these dilemmas, the church developed its list of canonical books. The following are guidelines for accepting a book into the New Testament:
1. Was the book written by a prophet of God?
2. Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?
3. Does the message tell the truth about God?
4. Did it come with the power of God?
5. Was it accepted by God’s people?
These are the marks of canonicity. “Canon” is a Greek word meaning “rule” or “measuring stick.” These five questions are used to determine which books “measure up” to being labeled divinely inspired. They exhibit “the marks of canonicity.”

Turn to a Bible’s table of contents and you’ll see that each of the books was written by either a prophet or apostle (Ephesians 2:20) or by someone with a direct relationship to one.
Miracles were the means by which God confirmed the authority of his spokesmen. In Exodus 4, Moses was given miraculous powers to confirm his call. In 2 Corinthians 12:12, Paul teaches that the mark of an apostle is “signs, wonders and miracles.”

Truth cannot contradict itself, so agreement with the other books of Scripture was only logical. As was historical accuracy. If the facts of a book were inaccurate, it couldn’t have been from God.
The inner witness of the Spirit was equally important. A key question these early Christians asked was, “When we read this, is there an inner sense from God that what is written is right and true?”

Initial acceptance by people to whom the work was addressed was crucial. What was the original audience’s sense? Did they accept the book as an authoritative word from God? Daniel, who lived within a few years of Jeremiah, called Jeremiah’s book “Scripture” in Daniel 9:2. Paul called the Gospel of Luke “Scripture” in 1 Timothy 5:18. Peter affirmed that Paul’s letters were “Scripture” in 2 Peter 3:16.

The Muratorian Fragment. Even before Marcion and Montanus, the church was aware of these important criteria. In A.D. 96, Clement of Rome wrote, “The apostles were made evangelists to us by the Lord Christ; Jesus Christ was sent by God. Thus Christ is from God and the apostles from Christ. . . . The Church is built on them as a foundation” (1 Clement 42).
After Marcion and Montanus, lists of New Testament books begin to appear. One of the first was The Muratorian Fragment. It was discovered among the Vatican’s sacred documents by historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori in 1740 and dates to about A.D. 190. The fragment is damaged.

The portion we possess begins with “the third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke.” We assume the first and second Gospels to be Matthew and Mark. The fragment lists John, Acts, all of Paul’s letters, James, 1–2 John, Jude and the Revelation of John. It also includes the Revelation of Peter, the Wisdom of Solomon and (“to be used in private, but not public worship”) the Shepherd of Hermas.

Who Decided What Went into the Bible?

Eusebius. By the early third century only a handful of books that we now call our New Testament were in question. In western regions of the empire, the book of Hebrews faced opposition, and in the east Revelation was unpopular. Eusebius, a church historian of the fourth century, records that James, 2 Peter, 2–3 John and Jude were the only books “spoken against” (though recognized by others).

Athanasius. In 367, Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, wrote an Easter letter that contained all twenty-seven books of our present New Testament. In 393 the Synod of Hippo affirmed our current New Testament, and in 397 the Council of Carthage published the same list.

Who Decided What Belongs In The Canon?

Theologians are careful to note that the church didn’t develop the canon; God did that by inspiring its writing and superintending each book’s preservation. The church recognized the canon by experience and mutual agreement. (Continued on next Sermon)

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Genesis 12:1-3, 15:5-6
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”…He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Today I continue the series and Christianity and World Religions. Each week I’ve given the disclaimer that I am not an expert on each of the religions I have shared with you. This week, however, I think I am more familiar with the topic of Judaism.

For one thing much of our culture has been influenced by Judaism. In seminary I studied the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, and had to learn to read and write Hebrew and translate specific Biblical texts. I have had several Jewish friends. So I am entering into a religion that I am more familiar and comfortable with.

Judaism is the oldest of the world’s four great monotheistic religions. It’s also the smallest, with only about 12 million followers around the world.
I’d encourage you as I do each week to follow today’s sermon out line and to use your Bible as a  study guide for this week to enhance your spiritual growth.

In Buddhism we learned that there is a person who founded that religion—Buddha. In Islam there was Muhammad. When it comes to Judaism, however, it does not begin with a person but it is about a people. So I’ll begin with …

I. A Brief History of the Jewish People

A. The Hebrews
Judaism begins with God saying to a group of people through you I will redeem all the earth in the centuries ahead. Through you I will bring blessings to all nations of the earth.

B. God’s Covenant with the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel)
That unique group of people begins with one patriarch, Abraham (Abram), an unlikely candidate to lead the people of God. Abrham lived about 2000 years before Christ. God called him to do Lead this group of people when he was 75 years old. His wife Sarah was about the same age. So how are they going to give birth to a great nation when they are childless and beyond child bearing years.

God chooses the most unlikely people to accomplish his purposes. So God chooses to use Abraham and Sarah. In deed they do give birth when they’re about 100 years old. That’s about twice as old as I am and I sure don’t want to have anymore babies. It’s nice to be a grandfather but I sure wouldn’t want to have a child of my own at this age.

Having a baby when you’re a 100 years old? Yet it turned out to be a great thing. God gives them a son who is Issac. Years go by and Issac gives birth to a child named Jacob. Jacob literally wrestles with his faith through an angel sent by God.

God then changes Jacob’s name to Israel. Israel has 12 sons. His 12 sons were the kernels of 12 tribes that later developed into the Jewish nation. The name Jew derives from Yehuda (Judah) one of the 12 sons of Jacob. So, the names Israel, Israeli or Jewish refer to people of the same origin.

C. Slavery in Egypt, Moses, the Exodus and God’s Covenant with Israel
The people enter into slavery and God sets them free from slavery.
After a period of 400 years God sends Moses to demand that his people be set free. The story form there on is a story of God’s covenant making with the Hebrew people, while they continually engage in covenant breaking. God is constantly reaching out making a promise to the Hebrew people. Yet Abraham’s descendants struggle with living up to the promise made to them that they would have a piece of land, a place where they could live according to God’s will.
God said through Moses to the people, you follow my 10 commandments and these other laws that I give to you and you will be people and everything will go well in the land that I’m about to give you. Of course, the story in the Old Testament shows again and again the Israelites had trouble living up to that covenant. It becomes a long cycle of their breaking the covenant, God withholding blessings, the nations invade, the people cry out to God to help them, God comes back and redeems and saves them, and they renew their promise to obey God, and then they fall away again and on and on.

So that’s the early history of Judaism. What about….
II. Essential Judaism Beliefs

A. The Nature of God

To understand the Jewish view of the nature of God today is very much related to the differing branches of Judaism.

Just as there are many branches within Christianity so there are in Judaism. There are 4 primary branches that I will briefly review today. There use to be 3 primary branches but as I learned their are now 4

1. ORTHODOX: The Orthodox branch of Judaism might parallel in Christianity what I’d describe as fundamentalist and literalist Christianity. They believe that the Torah and the Talmud were given by God directly to the Jewish People in, and so they regard these documents as being God’s actual words and of the highest authority, in setting down the traditions and laws of Judaism. Orthodox Jews are the biggest group in most countries outside the USA.

2. CONSERVATIVES: this group might parallel the more evangelical and more conservative groups in Christianity. They fall somewhere between Orthodox and Reform Jews on a continuum.

3. REFORM: Looks more like mainline Christianity. They see the Torah as the inspired word of God but also recognize that it has to be translated and re-interpreted for any given age. So, for example, men and women can sit together in a Reform synagogue, when they would be rigorously segregated in an Orthodox synagogue. A particular feature of Reform Judaism is a strong belief in the importance of creating a just society, and many Reform Jews have been in the forefront of political activism.

4. RECONSTRUCTIONISTS: I guess I would liken this group to the Unitarian and Unity religious groups which have grown out of the Christian tradition but do not require particular beliefs of their members. This group is one of the modern American movements. They are particularly attractive to those Jews who are uncomfortable with the supernatural elements of the other types of Judaism.

Essentially the fundamental beliefs of Judaism are:
· There is a single, all-powerful God, who created the universe and everything in it.
· God has a special relationship with the Jewish people, cemented by the covenant that God made with Moses on Mount Sinai, 3500 years ago.

B. Sacred Texts
In summary the sacred texts of Judaism are:

· The Torah or Hebrew Bible (which Christians call the Old Testament), and particularly the first 5 books. At least one copy of the Torah, in Hebrew, is kept in every synagogue in the form of a hand-written parchment scroll.

· The Talmud, a compendium of law and commentary on the Torah applying it to life in later and changed circumstances.

The Orthodox Jews view the Talmud as given by God as well as the Torah. The Conservatives see the Talmud as inspired by God, and for the Reform group it is merely a discussion by human beings about the precepts of God.

C. Human Condition and Salvation:
Essential Judaism today, regardless of which branch you are talking about is summed up in this phrase: Doing Good to All. It’s about being the people of God in the world through good deeds.

The foundational statement of Judaism is found in the Shema. The Shema is the Hebrew word for “hear.” This is what is at the heart of Judaism.
READ THIS OUT LOUD WITH ME.
Deut. 6:4-5 KJV
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

D. The View Of This Faith About Jesus
Two questions are often asked here.
a. Do Jews still hope for the Messiah?
Again it depends on which Jewish group you are talking to.
Orthodox Jews will look for the Messiah still to come and to reign from Jerusalem so that all people will come to recognize the Biblical God. They would also be looking for the reconstruction of the temple on the temple mount.

Reform Judaism does not look for the coming of a personal messiah. The Reform group would say we live as instruments of God in the world. If you live that way then you can perfect the world in the way that God intended it to be.

Many of you may wonder about this question:
b. Why do most Jews not accept Jesus as the Messiah?
To help you understand that I want to discuss the relationship between :
Why do most Jews not accept Jesus as the Messiah?

III. Christianity and Judaism

A. The Early Church
In the early church, the entire Christian population was made up of Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection there were a large Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah – in Jerusalem alone 15,000 of the population of 50,000, 1/3 of the population, were estimated to be Christ followers. All but 2 of the NT books were written by Jews. They were not starting a new religion—these were Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah.

But many Jews did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. They looked a the prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures about the coming of the Messiah and they saw that peace was suppose to come upon the earth at the arrival of the Messiah. Israel was to be no longer oppressed.

Of course, in the coming of Jesus things didn’t work out that way. Jesus was crucified by the Roman oppressors—not victorious. The Christian understanding of that came to be that Jesus initiated the kingdom of God but it is within your hearts. Jesus did not come to be a ruler over Israel. Jesus did teach that someday that kingdom which starts in your heart will be brought to fulfillment at the 2nd coming of the Messiah.

Many Jews then and still today will say it’s hard for me to imagine that the messiah could be crucified and suffer on our behalf. He was to come and reign over Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. So many did not believe.

Recall the life of the Apostle Paul who was a Jewish rabbi and zealous persecutor of Christians before he came to faith in Christ. He then had a profound life changing vision of Jesus.

We read about this in Acts 9:3-6:
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

After his conversion and his quickly becoming a Christian leader, he adopted this as one of the themes of his preaching, Jeremiah 31:31-34:

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD , “when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them” declares the LORD . “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD . “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ’Know the LORD ,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD . “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Paul taught that Jesus made a new covenant with humanity. No longer do you have to be a Jew to worship God. No longer do you have to be circumcised or follow the dietary laws—instead you trust in Christ as your Savior. Then as you allow Jesus to become the Lord, the Director of your life you live out that faith in deeds and good works.

As Paul preached that all people, including Gentiles, could follow Jesus as Messiah without becoming Jewish that began the end of many Jews accepting Jesus as the Messiah. They could not understand how you could follow the God of Abraham without obeying the law.

Although there has been a gap between what Christians and Jews believe about Jesus as the Messiah, there are many areas in which we agree:

Both groups believe the entire 39 books of the Hebrew Bible are the inspired word of God.

We agree that God is the creator of the universe and created human beings in his likeness and being.
We agree that all people fall short of God’s will for our lives.

We pray and sing songs to the same God.
There is much that Christians and Jews agree upon but on this one point we disagree.

B. Why Christians Believe Jesus is the Messiah
The early Christians saw Jesus in most every place they turned in the Hebrew Bible. They could see in all the promises all the way back to Abraham—this is what God is fulfilling through Jesus. So today a third of the world’s population are followers of Jesus.
These passages from Isaiah alone could pointing to Jesus as the Messiah—there are many others:

Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

Isaiah 53:3-5
He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!

Ezekiel 34:22-24

I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken.

As a Christian for me, the Hebrew scriptures seem incomplete without Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham almost 4000 years ago. Just listen to these words from our Bible reading for today and you will begin to understand that Jesus has fulfilled that promise:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”…He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

So many of you many wonder:
C. Will the Jewish People Be Saved?
To respond to that question, I want to turn your attention to Romans 11:28, 29”
Romans 11:28-29 NLT
Many of the Jews are now enemies of the Good News. But this has been to your benefit, for God has given his gifts to you Gentiles. Yet the Jews are still his chosen people because of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.

Not everyone will agree with this view—you may not agree with what I’m going to suggest—-

What that passage says to me is that despite the New Covenant established by God with us, the Old Covenant is not withdrawn by God. It is irrevocable. So could it be that if a Jewish person just cannot get it, cannot comprehend that Jesus indeed is the Messiah, that God has not cancelled the old covenant?

If that’s the case, then I would say to the Jewish person as I do sometimes to one of my Jewish friends, live by the covenant God gave you and be faithful to it. Pursue God with all that is in you and attend synagogue. Pursue God and spend time in prayer seeking him as David in Psalm 42:1:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

As I see it, the covenant is irrevocable, the Jewish people are still God’s people.

How many of you have cell phones? Did this ever happen to you like it did me? Several years ago when I first got a cell phone I had to sign a covenant with the cell company for a year. I think I got about 300 minutes for $39. I thought who would ever use all those minutes? And before I knew I was getting these huge bills—talking 600, 700, 800 minutes a month on the phone. Then I saw that they were advertising about 600 minutes and free weekends and nights and free long distance as for $29 a month. I went in and said hey how come I don’t have that kind of plan? And they said when you switch if you want and we’ll even make it retroactive for the past month. I said Hey—that’s great. We call that grace in church. They offered me a new covenant so to speak. But it would have been fine with them I’m sure if I had stayed with the old covenant.

I was going to be the one who missed out by staying for the Old Covenant. But I could have so many more minutes and services like voice mail for many dollars less on the new plan. But service would not have been canceled under the old plan, but I had the opportunity to take a new covenant with a much better deal.

So could it be that the old covenant is not canceled by the new covenant. But why would you want to live with the old covenant when you can have the new? Jesus offered to pay the price for you under the new covenant. All you have to do is accept it. He will wash new and you will no longer have to walk on your own wondering whether or not you have done enough to atone for your sins.

I want to close with this thought:
Conclusion: A Tragic Past and an Invitation

Adam Hamilton, Pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, in his sermon on this topic suggests that Christians

bear a huge responsibility for the failure of the good news of Jesus Christ to reach the Jews.

In 380 AD Christianity became the legalized religion of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately Christians gave anti-Semitism a theological rationale. We began to say as Roman Christians, that the Jews killed Jesus. Christians began to look at all the Jews as being responsible for the handful of Jews who collaborated with the Romans to nail him to the cross.
So there became a theological rationale for persecution of the Jews for the Centuries to follow to the present day.

In 1543, Martin Luther the great Protestant reformer wrote these words: “What should we Christians do with this damn rejected race of Jews? First their synagogue should be set on fire. Secondly their homes should be broken down. Thirdly they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmud.”
Hundreds of thousands of Jews have been put to death of the past 2000 years before Hitler’s final solution. I think this should make Christians weep for it must certainly make God weep.

The Jews are God’s covenant people. They are our elder brothers and sisters. They had the covenant and promises of God far before we did. By God’s grace we have been grafted in and allowed to join in God’s covenant people. They are still loved because of the Patriarchs.

Flag of Yisrael

My challenge to you is to build bridges with your Jewish friends, relatives and acquaintances. Remember all that we have in common. As you share your faith with them do it in a respectful way. And listen to them as you learn about your own faith—they have much to teach you as you teach them about the Messiah. Paul also says that he would rather go to hell if it meant the salvation of his brethren, implying that they need to be saved through Christ alone (Romans 9:1-5).

Pope John XXIII who presided over Vatican 2 wrote this prayer shortly before his death. Listen to this:
We realize now, O God, that many centuries of blindness have dimmed our eyes so that we no longer see the beauty of thy chosen people. And no longer recognize in their faces the features of our first born brother. We realize that our brows are branded with the mark of Cain. Centuries long has Able laid in blood and tears because we have forgotten thy love. Forgive us the curse which we unjustly laid on the name of the Jews. Forgive us that with this curse with our treatment of the Jews we crucified thee a second time.

PRAYER:
O God I give you thanks and praise for the blessings that you have for me and all the people here today. For what you did in choosing the most unlikely candidate, Abraham, and making him a nation that would bless the world. Thank you for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Forgive me for the comments that I may have made, the jokes, the way I may have looked at my brothers and sisters. O God, the church has surely grieved your heart through the centuries over the way we have treated our Jewish relatives. But help me in this day and time to build bridges. In fact I thank you for the Jewish mentor who influenced my life, for my Jewish friends that I have know in the past and the present. Help me to share the love that you have shared with your chosen people. In Jesus name. Amen. (Continued on next Sermon)

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