Category: Historic Trends of Church

THE PURITAN MESSAGE OF THE REFORMATION LOST?.
Increasingly in the church pulpits of the Western world the message of mere morality is being preached instead of the PURE message of the New Testament.
When the spirit of prayer once again is allowed back in the citadels of DIY (Do It Yourself) Religion things will change. Instead of the freewill doctrines of New England Theology echoing Origen, Constantine, Pelagius, Arminius, and the Enlightenment we will return to the Puritan message of the Reformation.

In a brief window of mercy offered to the USA and the West there is only one hope.
1. That the autocratic rule of pastors will cease
2. That they will open their churches to free prayer.
3. That they will instigate unthought-of trust in the common man of the pews (the brethren).
4. That pastors and management will restructure to accommodate the Spirit
5. That they will make room in their timetable and buildings for free prayer
6. That they will cease trying to control / quench the united vocal prayers of saints
7. That they cease elevating the pastor to the neglect of the spirit of prayer
8. That pastors will cease their constant jaw-jaw monopolizing of time and once again allow the return of quietude, reflection, and the spirit of prayer.
9. When the spirit of prayer once again is allowed back in DO-IT- YOURSELF- RELIGION things might change.
10. Instead of the freewill doctrines of New England Theology which echo Origen, Constantine, Pelagius, Arminius, and the Enlightenment, we might well return to the Puritan message of the Reformation which once made Europe, the British Isles, and the USA godly.

“I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see…I know your works that you have a name that you live, and are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die.” (Revelation 3:1-2)

http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=130

St. Paul said:
“…though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”…
“…seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
(2 Corinthians 4.16; Colossians 3:9-10)
God’s irrevocable Word assures the saint that his own crucifixion with Christ, burial of the old-man in Christ’s tomb, and resurrection into newness of life is a completed transaction. For the truly regenerate believer this is as regular as the sun rising each morning in the east. When the saint is distracted or overcome the daily secret renewal of oil to the burning flame is the very reason he will rise up again.
The just man falls seven times and rises up again. The stumbling saint will persevere and confess his transgression and be restored by the merciful Advocate to again walk in the light. The fresh oil was the very reason for his perseverance in the faith. However, the God-fearing goat, yet to be born of the Spirit, may not want to persevere after he is cast down. This is a day of the falling away prophesied by Paul, but only the wicked fall away, the just man only stumbles and repents because he will persevere. He will rise up again, no matter how many times he slips and falls.
1. For a just man falls seven times, and rises up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
2. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus said unto him, I say not to you, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.
3. And if he trespass against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him.
SCRIPTURES:
1) Proverbs 24:16
2) Matthew 18:21-22
3) Luke 17:4.
SCRIPTURAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF SAINTS FALLING AWAY.
Scripture gives the reasons for such impossibility. They teach the reader why saints always persevere, and don’t fall away. They teach the difference between the pseudo saints and the real saints, “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:5
1) …For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away…
2) …but, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak…
3) …for if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins…
4) …but call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions…
5) …but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.…
6) …for if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein…
7) …it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, ‘the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire’.
(LEGEND to the above verses from Hebrews 6, Hebrews 10; and 2nd Peter):
i. Hebrews 6:4-6a
ii. Hebrews 6:9;
iii. Hebrews 10:26;
iv. Hebrews 10:32;
v. Hebrews 10:39;
vi. 2 Peter 2:20a;
vii. 2 Peter 2:22.
SPECIAL NOTE to the reader: it was Stephanus (Robert Etienne, 15th C French scholar/publisher) who,after Gutenberg’s printing invention in 1439 publication of the first European book (the Bible), first versified the Bible, previously only in chapters).
This caused some adjustment of capitalization and punctuation to accommodate the changes, and more so, where each verse was made a paragraph for easy reading, in some editions. Stephanus was also responsible later for the ‘Received Greek Text,’ the basis of English speaking Puritan reformers publishing the first English language Bibles in England, France, Germany, and Geneva.
This is not withstanding Luther’s very important and highly influential German language New Testament published after 1517 and its affect upon Tyndale, Coverdale, Calvin and the Geneva gathering of Puritan exiled scholars, including Stephanus himself trying to escape the clutches of the Holy Roman Emperor and his powerful pope at a time of inquisition and martyrdom as the Counter Reformation gathered strength under the Jesuits.

Sola fide;

sola gratia;

sola Scriptura:
Faith alone; alone by grace; alone by the medium of the Scriptures.

http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=117

The Bible’s Wisdom on How Not to Read it.

Attitudes for the saint to beware when reading the Bible

1. Intellectual analyses of the word
2. Philosophical analyses of your reading
3. Interpreting the Word through reason, using syllogism, induction, deduction to argue a point
4. Interpreting the word by comparing it to your own experience
5. Interpreting the Bible using special passage to correct other verses (pragmatic bibliolatry)
6. Reading the Bible not to prove or disprove a church, priest, or pastor teaching
7. Reading the Bible openly to let the Holy Spirit illuminate its truths
a. Do not use your own understanding (Proverbs 3:6, 1 Cor. 1; 2 Cor. 1-3; John 1 &14)
b. Do not look for the kernel of truth to cast aside lesser truth.
http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=105

Philip baptizing in Samaria is another instance of the evolving ancient Jewish water ritual. It later began devolving under Paul the Apostle.

It had been re-implemented by Peter, but had not been practised by Jesus after God the Father inducted him into the new priesthood wherein he became the High Priest forever after the order of Melchisedek. (Hebrews 7)

Christ ceased submission to the Levitical priesthood, the very moment John the Baptist had had baptized his cousin from the tribe of Judah.

“But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women”. … “Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: For as yet he was fallen upon none of them. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 8:12; 14-17.)

Philip’s water rite did not regenerate the baptized.

Water was not the agent of rebirth.

Though Philip was an authorized emissary of the apostles, and filled with the Spirit. Peter and John did not re-baptize the Samaritans.

The Samaritans were converted by the righteousness-of-faith, endowed by the Spirit of Christ, which both regenerated them within, and baptized fire upon them.

Their own faith and water baptism was inadequate.

They, and the generations which followed, needed to realize man’s inability and incapability to access grace. In the presence of three men of God: Philip, Peter and John, came the final enlightening illumination of the waiting penitents.

http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/vexing-questio…baptism-7-of-9/

Is baptism needed for eternal life? There are three separate apostolic commissions.
1. On unnamed mountain in Galilee: Matthew 28:19 baptism invoking trinity. [Not known to the Church of the Apostles. Not practiced until the 3rd Century Church of Rome.
2. On unnamed mountain in Galilee: Mark 16:16: compulsory baptism threatening damnation to non-conformists. Scholars of literati say passage is a replacement for original.
3. On Mount of Olives at Jerusalem: Luke 24; John 20; Acts 1: no water baptism required.Judea is incontrovertibly the official place of the ascension not Galilee.

St.Mark is the only place in the New Testament that baptism is listed as a compulsory prerequisite to gain salvation. This comes from the Old Testament’s ‘water of separation’, wherein the non conformist would fail to be cleansed of ceremonial sin and thus put out of the camp for a period, not damned to hell as Mark uncharacteristically records. Nowhere in Mark’s Gospel was Jesus recorded as baptizing anybody after he yielded to John the Baptist’s water rite in faithful loyalty to the last prophet of the Law. He had no sins of which to repent or confess. He merely, up to that moment, assiduously complied with Jewish ritual and ceremony of the Levite priesthood. When John had finished God anointed him as High Priest to found a new priesthood after the order of Melchisedek. The Lord Jesus was born in the tribe of Judah, not Levi. (Refer Hebrews 9 & 10)

CREDIBILITY OF MARK 16: 16.
This enforced link between water and sin’s remission, under threat of damnation for non-compliance, is unique to the whole New Testament. This was not even hinted by John the Baptist or Jesus.
A cross section of Bible literati and academia with the best scholars versed in original languages agree that this last half of the chapter was lost and replaced during or after the 4th century A.D. This was about the same period in which the first Latin Bible was scribed by Constantine’s scholars.
The most ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament originated at this time. They are the Codex Vaticanus now in Rome and the Codex Sinaiticus in the British Library, the only entire copy of the original Greek New Testament in existence.

Though Peter’s first sermon, nearly links repentance with water, his second sermon disavows its connection. Neither he nor any apostle linked sins’ remission with water. Only, Ananias at Damascus believed the Old Testament water of separation for cleansing still applied (Acts 22:16).
Paul writing in Galatians could not endorse Ananias’ words, though he accepted his healing touch. His sins has been buried in the cleansing sea of God’s forgetfulness when he was converted in the roadside to Damascus. Paul believed sin’s cleansing was through the atoning blood of Christ: Romans 4.

Paul viewed baptism differently from Peter after Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:17).
PAUL’S UNIQUELY SINGULAR VIEW OF BAPTISM

1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:5; and 1 Corinthians 10; etc. To the apostle there was only one baptism: Christ’s promised baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, beginning at Jerusalem, ten days after he ascended. Paul in his epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians constantly alludes to baptism as that of fire not water. He followed Jesus concept and example given to the Eleven at his ascension on the Mount of Olives (Acts 1).He also links Christ’s passion and rising to the believer’s death (of self), burial (of self) and rising (of the new self) as in Romans 6 etc. Paul does not even hint at the merit of water or its ritual to be any part of repentance, remission, regeneration, or inundation of the Spirit’s fulness. `
Paul’s changed baptismal views were in marked contrast to his early practice at Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus etc. recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts of the Apostles. His views were affected by his disagreements with Peter and the Jerusalem assembly (Acts 15 & Galatians 2). Unlike Peter (Acts 2:38) he could not endorse either compulsory baptism, or Peter’s link of repentance to water, much less Ananias linking water to remission. The apostle to the Gentiles thus wrote the fourth chapter of Romans to set the record straight.

http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/vexing-questio…baptism-6-of-9/

PHILIP’S USE OF BAPTISM AT SAMARIA.

Acts 8.12:17
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. … Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: For as yet he was fallen upon none of them. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. (Acts 8:12; 14-17.)

Philip’s water rite did not regenerate the baptized. Water was not the agent of rebirth, though Philip was an authorized emissary of the apostles, and filled with the Spirit. Peter and John did not re-baptize them. The Samaritans were converted by the righteousness-of-faith, endowed by the Spirit of Christ, which both regenerated them within, and baptized fire upon them. Their own faith and water baptism was inadequate. They, and the generations which followed, needed to realize man’s inability and incapability to access grace. In the presence of three men of God: Philip, Peter and John, came the final enlightening illumination of the waiting penitents.
http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=76

PAUL’S METAPHORICAL USE OF BAPTISM AFTER CORINTH.

Paul writing in Galatians could not endorse Ananias’ words, though he accepted his healing touch. His sins has been buried in the cleansing sea of God’s forgetfulness when he was converted in the roadside to Damascus. Paul believed sin’s cleansing was through the atoning blood of Christ: Romans 4.
Paul viewed baptism differently from Peter after Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:17).

PAUL’S UNIQUELY SINGULAR VIEW OF BAPTISM

1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:5; and 1 Corinthians 10; etc. To the apostle there was only one baptism: Christ’s promised baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, beginning at Jerusalem, ten days after he ascended. Paul in his epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians constantly alludes to baptism as that of fire not water. He followed Jesus concept and example given to the Eleven at his ascension on the Mount of Olives (Acts 1).He also links Christ’s passion and rising to the believer’s death (of self), burial (of self) and rising (of the new self) as in Romans 6 etc. Paul does not even hint at the merit of water or its ritual to be any part of repentance, remission, regeneration, or inundation of the Spirit’s fulness.
`
Paul’s changed baptismal views were in marked contrast to his early practice at Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus etc. recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts of the Apostles. His views were affected by his disagreements with Peter and the Jerusalem assembly (Acts 15 & Galatians 2). Unlike Peter (Acts 2:38) he could not endorse either compulsory baptism, or Peter’s link of repentance to water, much less Ananias linking water to remission. The apostle to the Gentiles thus wrote the fourth chapter of Romans to set the record straight.
http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=70

DOES SALVATION DEPEND ON BAPTISM?

REVIEW OF THE FACTS:
There are three separate apostolic commissions.
1. On unnamed mountain in Galilee: Matthew 28:19 baptism invoking trinity.
2. On unnamed mountain in Galilee: Mark 16:16: compulsory baptism under threat of damnation
3. On Mount of Olives at Jerusalem: Luke 24; John 20; Acts 1: no water baptism required.
Mark 16:16: Mark is the only place in the Gospels that Jesus made baptism a compulsory prerequisite to gain salvation, notwithstanding the old water of separation invoked by Ananias upon Saul of Tarsus at Damascus after his conversion and regeneration by the blood of Christ. (Acts 22:16)

CREDIBILITY OF MARK 16: 16.
This enforced link between water and sin’s remission, under threat of damnation for non-compliance, is unique to the whole New Testament. This was not even hinted by John the Baptist or Jesus.
A cross section of Bible literati and academia with the best scholars versed in original languages agree that this last half of the chapter was lost and replaced during or after the 4th century A.D. This was about the same period in which the first Latin Bible was scribed by Constantine’s scholars.

The most ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament originated at this time. They are the Codex Vaticanus now in Rome and the Codex Sinaiticus in the British Library, the only entire copy of the original Greek New Testament in existence.
http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/?p=66