The website server has been changed, and it is now up. There is a very small audience, which I’m finding strangely freeing. The traffic here is way down. So I have been playing with themes, added comment boxes, improved spam control and generally treated like I did at the beginning when I would change things at whim.
And it leads me to be a little clearer. Today I want to talk about Paul and how many fools contrast him with Jesus and with Peter. For it’s fairly clear that Jesus was far more direct and blunt than Paul, and that Jesus had a fair share of opposition, and he was not afraid to tell a group that they were damned.
1He left that place and came to his home town, and his disciples followed him. 2On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.
Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
22Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, 23with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, 25we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: 29that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
30So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. 31When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation. 32Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. 33After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them. 35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.
The Jerusalem church sent their beloved colleagues, Paul and Barnabas, who had risked their lives for the gospel, back to Antoich with a letter of approval. Not the work of people who see Paul as some kind of Pharisee who is going to set up an alternative cult. So Paul is one with Peter, and his words matter.
But look at the commission to the apostles when they went out to minister. If a village rejected them, that was held against them. And as a society, we are doing this. We are rejecting that of Christ and the structures that allow people to grow in holiness and moving instead into a fluidity of relationships.
We are taking religion, and removing the eternal, gelding God, and keeping the costumes with which the new priestesses play dress ups in as they preach some feminist gospel of liberation that does not save, nor frees, but enslaves and corrupts. We are not prepared to call any member of the congregation to account, nor are we prepared to say the truth — which is that each one of us has besetting sins from lust to gluttony (my two favourites) to stealing, hatred, anger, violence, and a desire to have power, control and authority without paying the cost of service that comes with those positions.
We want the title of Christian, but not the job. Her the sex workers, the atheists and the activists are more honest. They choose not to see beyond this life and they chase the pleasure available, enjoying themselves as society declines around them.
But they are damned. And it is not a mercy to politely let them go on with their lives. For the word of Christ should compel us to say the truth. If we say if society rejects Christ, it will be held against them, how much will those who lead the Church be damned if they lead the Church from Christ.
The world is going to hell. We need not join them.