Wiping the Slate Clean

 

Although some would disagree,

let's say, for the sake of the argument, that what was nailed to the cross in Col 2:14 was the Law of Moses.

 

This did not "wipe the slate clean" of what can be done as "worship". Rather, it "wiped the slate clean" of what must be done as "worship".

 

Paul himself said,

Rom 3:31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.

Paul was free to take a Nazirite vow, which involved shaving his head (Acts 18:18; 21:23-24), and waiting seven days at the end of his vow to make animal sacrifices (Acts 21:26-27; Num 6). He also paid an enormous amount of money to pay the expenses of four others to do likewise, in order to prove to all that he "walked according to the law" of Moses (Acts 21:23-24), just as did tens of thousands of other Jewish believers, with the approval of the elders of the very first church of Christ (Acts 21:18-21).

 

Paul did this keeping of the law of Moses, as a Christian, in good conscience, up to the end of the book of Acts (Acts 23:1), saying:

“Brothers, I have lived before God in all good conscience until today.”

The idea that he taught that the law of Moses should be forsaken was a false rumor, in which there was "no truth":

Acts 21:21 They have been informed about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to walk after the customs. ... Therefore do what we tell you. ... Then all will know that there is no truth in the things that they have been informed about you, but that you yourself also walk keeping the law.

Rather, what he taught was that there was no requirement any longer to keep the letter of the law of Moses, especially for Gentiles, but only the spirit, because Jesus kept it perfectly, and his perfect-keeping is given as a free gift to those of faith.

Rom 7:6 But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

See also Rom 2:29 and 2 Cor 3:6.

 

But as Peter says, there are some things that are hard to understand in Paul's writings, and people still get the wrong idea, and still teach that false rumor in which there is no truth.

 

So what do I want you to get from this post?

 

There is nothing in the old ways of "worship" that are "forbidden". The free-will observance of the law aspect of the slate has not been wiped clean.

 

- You want to offer a free-will sacrifice of a lamb in thanksgiving to God? Go ahead. But don't make it a requirement.

 

- You want to take a day off from work on the seventh day of the week? You honor his blessing of that day. But don't make it a requirement.

 

- You want to tithe? Feel free to do so. But don't make it a requirement.

 

- You want to praise God with clapping and the sound of a harp and a shout of victorious zeal? Do so with all your heart. But don't make it a requirement.

 

- You want to take a Nazirite vow? You have just as much right to do so as did Paul. But don't make it a requirement.

 

Nailing the law of Moses to the cross does not mean that "acceptable worship" starts from a blank page, and only the things mentioned thereafter are authorized. Paul demonstrates this truth. Let's not continue the false rumor, in which there is no truth, that Paul taught against the "worship" previously established as acceptable. He did not teach that; neither should we.

A Quick Historical Overview for Those Who May Not Be Familiar with Jewish History

About 3900 years ago, around 1900BC, a man named Israel had 12 sons, one of whom was named Judah. Judah's descendants became known as Judahites, or for short, Jews. 

 

They lived in what was then known as Canaan, which is now known as Israel and Gaza and the West Bank and Jordan, etc.

 

Near the end of his life, he and his family of twelve sons and their families, moved to Egypt to escape famine. While there, the Egyptians eventually enslaved them, until one of their own, Moses, was called by God to free them and return them to Canaan.

 

This collective, called Israel, settled in the area around modern-day Israel, and their land was known as Israel.

 

They considered themselves separate from the rest of the nations of the world, referring to these other nations as Goyim, or in a more familiar term to us, Gentiles. Gentiles are non-Israelites.

 

About 900 years later, in the period around 1000BC, King Saul united these twelve clans into a unified kingdom of Israel, which expanded and strengthened under the next King, David (the shepherd boy / musician / dancer / giant-killer), whose son Solomon then reigned over the kingdom in a time of peace and prosperity.

In the reign of Solomon's son, about 930BC, these twelve clans split into two sub-kingdoms, Israel, composed of ten clans, and Judah, composed of the Judahites and the smaller clan of their baby brother Benjamin, the Benjaminites. These sister nations were sometimes friendly with each other, sometimes not so friendly, with the Northern tribes typically being "less godly" than the Southern tribes, which the Bible prophets warned would lead them to their destruction.

 

A couple of hundred years later, around 722BC, that destruction came, and the Northern, larger of those two kingdoms, Israel, was conquered by their enemy Assyria, and the people were dispersed by their enemies into the ends of the earth, into the "Nations" of the "Goyim" ("Gentiles"), and only the smaller, Southern kingdom of Judah (and Benjamin) remained.

 

Similar ungodliness in the Southern kingdom led to their downfall about a century and a half after the downfall of the Northern kingdom.

 

In 586BC, this smaller, Southern kingdom Judah was conquered by the Babylonians and the population was taken to Babylon. But after 50-70 years (depending on how you count the beginning and ending of captivity), in 536BC, they were allowed to return, and from then on for about five centuries, Judah was an on-again-off-again semi-autonomous nation, with the peak of their regained independence being from about 140BC to 63BC.

 

In 63BC, Rome took over. During the next century, little Jewish rebellions against Rome rose up time and again.

 

About 60 years later, Jesus was born in Judea (in Bethlehem, a suburb of Judah's capital city of Jerusalem). In his teaching, Jesus warned that if Judah did not turn to God's kingdom, instead of fighting against Rome for their own kingdom, they would again be conquered, and Jerusalem would be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled.

 

After a little over a hundred years of Roman occupation, in 70AD, in response to yet another Jewish rebellion against the Roman occupation, the Romans destroyed the capital city of Judah, Jerusalem, and their nation's prized Temple, and the Jews were scattered to the ends of the earth among the Gentiles, as had happened to their kinsmen Israel several centuries earlier. The Romans, as an insult to the Jews, renamed the land after the ancient enemies of Judah, the Philistines, calling the land "Palestine".

 

For the next almost-1900 years, the Jews lived scattered among the nations, holding onto their heritage as best they could, oftentimes suffering persecution for their separatist ways, with one of their greatest persecutions occurring during the World War 2 years. After that war, the Jews were granted a renewed homeland in the ancient Judean lands, which became the root of modern-day Israel.

 

The Jews are not Gentiles; Gentiles are not Jews. But either, and both, can be Christians, grafted together into one family rooted in Christ, the two, Jew and Gentile, having became one new Man in Christ.

When Do You Assemble to Worship?

 

Someone has asked, "When do you meet with other Christians as a body and worship?

 

According to Jesus in John 4, bowing submissively (that's the meaning of "worship" in that passage) is something that used to require going to the dwelling place of God, in some temple, on some mountain. You would step into God's presence, in his throne room, and bow before him to show your submission to him.

 

You've seen the movies and tv shows where the prisoner is brought before the king and told, "On your knees!" Or the petitioner comes before the king and face-plants to beg the king to do this or that.

 

That's the picture we're looking at in John 4. It's the same picture as the second of the ten commandments: "Thou shalt not bow down to idols nor serve them." (That word "serve" is the second-most common word behind the English word "worship", and is found in Rom 12:1.) It's the same picture we see when Naaman the leper asks forgiveness for when he bows in the temple of Rimmon as part of his job.

 

The woman at the well is asking, "Which church should we bow at?"

 

Jesus says that the bowing is different now. It's not in a physical place, at a specific time, performing specific "acts of worship". That's the Old Testament way of thinking, when God dwelt in a temple built by human hands, and you had to come bow before him three times a year.

 

But God is Spirit, and has moved out of that temple made by human hands, into your spirit. When and where are you not in spirit? When and where should you not be bowing, truthfully, in spirit?

 

That is the same question asked at the top of this post: "What is the time and place we are to appear before God in his temple in order to worship him?"

 

Jesus answers: "You don't get it. You don't go to a temple to bow before God. You bow before him in spirit, in your temple, truthfully, at all times and all places. That's what God wants from you as a worshipper."

Which Church?

Imagine a street intersection, its four corners divided off from each other by a "Berlin Wall"-style of barrier.

On each corner are four identical congregations - each having the same doctrines, practices, similar brotherhood publications, but no contact between the four corner divisions, and therefore no contact between the four congregations.

Each identical to the other, except one has a sign out front that says "Church of Jesus", one has "Church of the Lord", one has "Church of Messiah", and one has "Church of Christ".

Are 3/4s of these churches not of the true church?

"My Church is Right and Yours is Wrong"

 

When one says, "My church is the true church and yours isn't," or, "I obey the Gospel and you obey a man-made religion," isn't that trusting in one's own understanding of what is true or not?

 

I suggest it would be better to say, "My understanding is that my church is the correct one, but I trust Jesus to provide my rightness, rather than trusting my own understanding of rightness, to provide my rightness."

Church Relevance in Real Life

 

This post is aimed at the congregations who are not able to attract or keep young people.

 

One possible factor for this state might be the songs being sung.

 

The older generation wants 'their' songs, and there's nothing wrong with that, except that many of those songs are in "another" language.

 

Yes, they are still understandable enough that most can be understood by the younger generation, but that antiquated Elizabethan English of "thee"s and "thou"s and "thine"s and "hast"s are completely irrelevant to the younger generation. This solidifies a mental dichotomy, worsened by its unconscious acceptance, of, "There's my life, and there's church-life, and the two have nothing to do with each other."

 

Attending an Olde Englishe service, to the 2026 30-something and his little kids, has no more interest than attending a Latin Catholic Mass has to you. (Not saying the two are equivalent, except in the respective interest levels.)

 

Many of those songs can be rewritten to use updated English without hurting the song one whit (recognizing the reality that some of them, relying on the cadence/"feel" of the older style, would suffer damage).

 

Would this bring young people in? No, probably not. But at least we wouldn't be giving them the excuse of, "Y'all don't speak my language or live in my world."

 

Is it time, maybe, to replace your 1950's era songbooks?

What is your Congregation's Mission Statement?

• The job of the deacons/servants is to tend to the needs of widows. It may reasonably be assumed their job may extend to orphans and other needy people, We tend to think their job is to tend to mundane mechanical issues unrelated to people-serving, such as lawn-mowing and light-bulb changing.
   
• The job of missionaries, prophets, teachers, evangelists, and shepherds is to perfect the saints to the work of serving, and to grow the body into a unified mature whole. We tend to think their job is to provide academic information.
  
  
• The job of assemblers is to prod one another to love and good works, to exhort one another, and to build up the body. We tend to think their job is to perform liturgical acts in honor of God.
  
  
• In his first public sermon of his ministry, Jesus said he was sent to preach good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. If we are to be like him, our focus should be to sponsor college students and to teach one another to help the impoverished, to be comforters, to become defense lawyers, to do medical research, to free those being crushed by sadness or debt or the woes of life (mental health/social fields), and to proclaim a societal "reset" that gives relief via a reconciliation between God and Human.

What's the mission statement / trajectory / plan of your congregation?

Mark the Believer

 

Imagine a young man named Mark, and he lives in the concrete jungle of 1970s Attica, NY. His family and neighbors were all Catholic, and went to Mass every Saturday night.

Much lip-service was given to Jesus, but really it was "the Church" that determined his religion, which was only expressed and felt outwardly in rituals, but had little influence on his day-to-day life. Cussing and smoking and drinking and cheating and sexing and fighting and stealing were just normal parts of his life.

 

But scanning the dial of his radio, he heard something about studying the Bible instead of just assuming your traditions are valid with God. That struck a chord within him, and he then began reading the Bible.

 

Two things struck him quickly: 1) ritual doesn't matter so much as heart, and he realized he had never had a heart for God, which was also evidenced by his former way of life, which he now wanted to change; 2) what rituals he did find, didn't match up with most of the rituals with which he was accustomed, one of which was a "new birth" understanding of baptism.

 

He shared what he was learning with his sister, who also began to come to faith as he was doing.

 

Mark and his sister realized they needed to commit to Jesus from the heart, and not just in their church rituals, and that the turning point was marked by immersion in water in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins.

 

Not finding a sympathetic ear from their family or their church, they went to the local public, and crowded, swimming pool, and in front of dozens of mocking Catholic kids and a few adults, immersed each other, declaring their allegiance to Jesus Christ.

 

Does God add Mark and his sister to the church of Christ?

 

The following Saturday evening, they attend Mass, and continue with the rituals they had known all their lives, but now with a new perspective.

 

Is Mark and his sister members of the church of Christ, but in error on some things?

Mbele the Believer

 

Imagine a young man named Mbele, and he lives in the dark jungles of 1870s Africa. His tribe has never seen or heard of a white man, and has never heard of Jesus or Christians or a Bible.

 

His tribe recognizes a Great Spirit and worships that spirit by remembering their ancestors, by gathering every Thursday evening for a meal, where a deer is slaughtered in an offering to the Great Spirit, and then eaten by the tribe as a unifying meal, at the end of which they mix a small amount of ashes from their ancestors' burned bodies into water and drink a sip in their honor.

 

One day Mbele finds a Bible in the jungle in his written language, perhaps dropped by a missionary passing through the jungle. He begins to read it, and his spirit convicts him that what he is reading is true. He reads of the Great Spirit Creator, and the story of the Fall, and of the Flood, and recognizes those as a different telling, but basically the same story, as what he had been taught from his ancestors.

 

He reads further and reads of Jesus, that he is the spokesperson for the Great Spirit in these final days, and that this spokesperson has said, "He that believes and is immersed shall be saved."

 

He runs to his father, and shares what he has learned. Together they come to believe in the Spokesperson Jesus, in his unjust and torturous murder, and burial, and resurrection, and ascension, and his authority as the son of the Great Spirit, and they immerse each other in the name of Jesus.

 

Does God add Mbele and his father to the church of Christ?

 

I contend that God has added Mbele and his father to the church of Christ.

 

The following Thursday, they join with the rest of the tribe, and worship the Great Spirit in the sacrificing and eating of the deer, and drink the cup in memory of their ancestors, but this time also do so in memory of the Spokesperson Jesus.

 

Is Mbele a member of the church of Christ, but in error on some things?

 

I contend that he is.

 

But I suspect that many who are members of the 21st-century USA "Church of Christ" will reject Mbele as being a member of the church of Christ which he, with dim vision, found in the Bible.

 

Such people reject the church that is read about in the New Testament, in favor of the 21st century USA "Church of Christ", thus making a difference between the New Testament church of Christ and the "Church of Christ": these two entities are not the same.

A Wedding Gift for the New Couple

 

In the first-century world of the Jews, a marriage feast was very expensive, and usually lasted seven days. The village pitched in to help, but still, the groom worked for a year saving up to pay for the wedding, while living with his parents. Think about having a full-time job, making, say, $30,000 a year, and then spending $25,000 of that on your wedding.

The groom and his family had thought they had purchased enough wine for the week-long festivities in Cana, but late in the week, the wine ran out. This was a social disaster; it was going to ruin the groom and his family socially.

 

When Jesus made wine from water, he saved their reputation, and the wedding. Because it was great wine, he made their reputation.

 

But he didn't make enough wine just for the wedding. He made something like 120 to 180 gallons, of primo wine. There was probably at least 80 gallons left after the party had gone home, which was worth a small fortune. It was a huge wedding present of a year's salary or so, given to the new couple.

(It might should be noted that if Jesus had created grape juice, it would only be good for a little over a day, and then would spoil into a funky-tasting mush, and then turn into vinegar, probably ending the wedding on a sour taste. Whereas if he created alcoholic wine, it was safe for a couple of days in the stone jars, until the wine could be moved into "wine bottles". Since drunkeness in general, and drinking wine straight, was considered a social no-no, this wine would have been diluted with water to a point that drunkeness would have been difficult to attain. The wine at such affairs were not for getting drunk or even tipsy, but just for loosening up, and feeling joyous.)

Not a Clean Slate

 

The fundamental "starting point assumption" for the modern-day "Church of Christ" is that in Acts 2, the religious slate was wiped clean, and that from that point, only the things "authorized" are, well, authorized. 

 

But the original church of Christ did not have that mentality; they did not have a "clean slate" approach. The very first church of Christ remained very much attached to the "old slate" of religion.

 

The separation from the old slate never occurred to these original disciples; even Paul, near the end of the book of Acts, was said to be "walking according to the law of Moses".

 

It was only as the make-up of the church transitioned from Jewish to Gentile that the old slate was wiped clean(ish). The relics of that old slate is what helped the Catholic Church to develop into what it became. Then in the Restoration Movement, the mentality developed more fully that Acts 2 was a wiping of the old slate. But the original church of Christ did not see it that way.

 

This fundamental difference in approach distinguishes the modern-day "Church of Christ" from the original church of Christ. The original church of Christ had no need to distance itself from the old slate things of incense and musical instruments and sacrifices and circumcising and holy days, whereas the modern-day "Church of Christ" insists on that distancing.

Cain's Wife

 

When Cain moved to Nod with his wife, there were other people; they were just other sons and daughters of Adam & Eve (Gen 5:4). 

 

We just assume Cain and Abel were the first two and only two at this time.

 

But Seth was born after Abel was killed, and that was when Adam was 130 years old.

 

It's very likely that Adam and Eve had had dozens of children by then, and four or five generations of grandchildren. And who knows how long it was after Abel's death that Cain was cursed; maybe it was thirty minutes; maybe it was thirty years.

 

If each couple had a kid every two years on average for 128 years (one year for A&E's first child, plus one year after Abel's death for Seth to be born), then by the time Seth was born and Cain moved to Nod with his wife, the Earth's population could have been around 21,000 people.

 

If the couples only had one child every 4 years, the population would still be a respectable 1354 people.

 

If the couples had one child every year, the population would be 240,983.

And, just for kicks, if every couple had twins every year, the population would be about 20.5 million.

 

No matter how you estimate it, I don't think Cain would have much trouble finding a wife, or someone to be afraid of, or someone to populate a city.

The Berean Standard

 

The Bereans used their "Old Testament" scriptures as the standard against which they compared the teaching of the apostles:

Acts 17:11 Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Luke called them "noble" for doing so.

 

What do you suppose happened when the Bereans demanded, "Show me the Scripture!", for the new anti-musical instrument doctrine which some of us have insisted the apostles must have been teaching?