denomination = division
Church divisions, er, denominations…
The Way was the first Christian movement started by the disciples, those who knew Jesus and learned directly from His teachings. The ones who would most likely have been able to mirror-image the Son of God.
Here are some references to the Way from the Bible:
And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.– Acts 19:8-10About that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the Way. It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis.He kept many craftsmen busy.– Acts 19:23-24At that point Felix, who was quite familiar with the Way, adjourned the hearing and said, “Wait until Lysias, the garrison commander, arrives. Then I will decide the case.” He ordered an officer to keep Paul in custody but to give him some freedom and allow his friends to visit him and take care of his needs.– Acts 24:22-23
It was shortly before the Way formed that the followers of Jesus were called Christians.
Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)– Acts 11:25-26
The body of Christ has since been sliced and diced like a chopped tomato on the butcher block for centuries. Hm…I have an inkling of who the chef might be. Here’s a hint: The guy used to be an angel and now he’s a fried chicken.
The problem is something like this: A Baptist preacher can’t worship alongside a Pentecostal minister because man-made additional church doctrines tacked on to the Bible like an eleventh hour hidden agenda rider to a Constitutional amendment gets in their way of following what Jesus taught. How’s that for irony? In an attempt to be holier than thou, both of them fall away further from the Truth than when they started.
Man-made doctrine is the death of the Church. Like man-made sugar causes cancer, man-made religion isn’t doing anyone any favors. People will argue about if the earth was really made in 6 literal days or if each day was a 1,000 years. When it boils down to it, does it really matter? Getting bogged down in one aspect and forsaking the message as a whole is like when you took the SAT test and the teachers said if you get stuck on one question, move on before time runs out. Friends, time is running out.
I take the Bible literally and think it was 6 consecutive 24-hour period increments, but I’d rather spend my time teaching and preaching the Word of Yeshua HaMashiach, you know? Our mission is to seek the lost and bolster the saved, not argue over things Jesus never worried about.
It’s like we’re too scared to get into the streets to minister to the nonbeliever, so we stay at our desks, noses in our books, trying to dissect the Old Testament when we’re products of the New Covenant. That’s just crazy.
One more thing concerning the creation of the world. When the Bible mentions:
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.– 2 Peter:8
People use this verse to say, “Look here. The Bible says a day is like a thousand years, so it wasn’t six literal days!” Okay, if that’s true…then it was really 6,000 years? Still a far cry from millions and millions – which some church doctrines are now entertaining!
It’s funny that the same people don’t read the next verse:
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.– 2 Peter 3:9
In this verse, Peter was talking to the church as a whole about people’s impatience with the length of which it was taking Jesus to return as He said He would. Peter reminded them that a day to Jesus was nothing – because God is OUTSIDE OF TIME!
The Lord was and still simply is waiting on more people to come to the cross before the end of the age because He wishes for all to have ample opportunity to be saved. It had nothing to do with how long a day was concerning the creation of the planet. Another example of people “copy and pasting” the Bible as they see fit. Sad, sad, sadness.
Back to Christianity, as it is meant to be, which is NOT A RELIGION. Not man-made. It’s God-made. It is a way of life for us. A relationship with the Son of God. A walk with our Creator.
Jesus broke down the 10 Commandments down to two simple, easy to follow instructions: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your strength, and all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (See Matthew 22:37-40)
So the 10 Commandments, something that the Israelites had so much trouble following and sacrificed an obscene amount of sheep and rams in repentance for, is laid out by Jesus as something we can all do. His words aren’t vague. They aren’t left open for interpretation. They are perfectly clear.
38,000. What’s that number for? That, dear friends, is the reported amount of different Christian denominations across the world. Give or take a few bogus or redundant ones and you still get a ridiculous amount of groups who think they are the best and only way Jesus wanted us to learn about Him.
Arrogance x 38,000 = What?
What happened to the early Christians and the Way? Here’s a chart that helps:
But even before thinking about the Way, what prevents each one of us from reading the Bible and listening to Jesus for ourselves? Okay, wait, therein may be a bigger problem than allowing “organized” religion to parade us around as blind sheep. If we all start to discern for ourselves what the Bible says, won’t that make about 2 billion new denominations? I don’t think so.
As I stated earlier, Jesus’ teachings are key. Yes, the rest of the Bible is paramount to our overall knowledge and understanding of God – the whole Bible points to Jesus anyway! – but the way we should live our daily lives and conduct ourselves, both publicly and privately, rest solely in the direct teachings of our Messiah located in the New Testament. Teachings that leave little room for interpretation to the hungry student – and that means little room for multiple understandings! Bye, bye divisions.
But, what about the parables?
And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.– Matthew 13:10-17
Jesus spoke in parables, sure. And He said that they weren’t meant for all people to understand them. However, that only means that not everyone will understand them because THEY CHOOSE NOT TO. The truth, His truth, wasn’t easy to swallow. It convicted many people and called for everyone to turn away from sin – something people loved too much to abandon.
So His parables are for you if you want them to be for you. His teachings are for you if you want them to be for you. His Way is for you if you want it to be for you. Jesus is for you if you are for Him.
Forget religion. It divides. Drop it and pick up a life-long relationship with the only begotten Son of God. His Way is the only way.
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”– John 14:6
Jesus even said He was the “way.” I trust Jesus. Whatever He says, goes. And with that in mind, I go back to the denomination situation. Why do they exist again?
Oh yeah. To control people and distract them from true worship and fellowship with God. I’ll use God and Jesus intermittently because the two are the same. God the Father in Heaven. Jesus the Son came from Heaven to be born of flesh and die for our sins to then ascend back to Heaven and be on the Father’s right. In turn, the Holy Spirit, the essence of God, came and continues to dwell among and inside every true believer in Jesus Christ. This wasn’t a tangent, this was laying solid Biblical groundwork for forging a new path for those who want to follow and only follow Jesus – and that’s it!
If you could only read four books in the entire Bible, read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But, if you could only read one book, read John.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.– John 1:1-5
The Word is God. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is God. Follow Him, follow His teachings…follow His Way. Don’t be a denomination, be a disciple.
Despite the division, we should still assemble and fellowship with other believers. However, since we are the church, wherever we worship Jesus hears and joins us.
Jesus said, “ For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”– Matthew 18:20
The suggestion is to find a church that preaches from the Bible and not their employee handbook. Don’t worry about religion, focus on relationship. A good church will teach you that. That kind of church deserves your 10% (tithe) because they are part of the solution – and we definitely need a solution.
I’ll leave you with this:
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.– 2 Timothy 2:15
Rightly dividing truth. This can’t possible mean anything contained INSIDE the Bible because the Bible is “God breathed” and He cannot lie. Therefore, this must mean truth versus anti-truth OUTSIDE of the Bible. Rightly divide –correctly pull from – the truths we are told…from 38,000 different denominations!?
Nice and daunting, huh? But, look at it this way. If we collect everything that we have ever been told is the truth like sand in a bucket, dump it in a sifter and see what’s left in the tray…we’d find a Rock. Jesus Christ. The rest is dust.
That’s rightly dividing the word of truth. That’s pushing denominational division aside for a relationship with our Lord. Amen to that.