"Are
not..."
"Are
too..."
"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this
rock I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades will not overcome
it.
Matthew 16:18
Now there is a scripture that has launched
a hundred thousand churches if ever there was one!
Aside from my suspicion this text has been
inserted years after the fact to support a much more mature set of practices and
beliefs than any Jesus in Matthew would have had in mind, every COG leans
heavily on this scripture to know without a shadow of a doubt, the Church they
are is the Church the author of Matthew meant and put in the mouth of
Jesus.
I'm pretty sure Jesus never had the concept
of himself building any church. Jesus either thought he would not die and God
would rescue him in the nick of Roman time, or if not, he would return
immediately, or perhaps the "Son of Man" would, who he may or may not have
thought of as himself, and kick the collective Roman ass once and for all.
Sadly, and of course, we know how that worked out.
My personal regret about this scripture is
that Jesus, who wrote NOTHING himself evidently, but is quoted here never went
on to define what that Church would look like. What would its beliefs and
realities be? What would it teach? Who would get to have the final
say? Would it be a Jewish Christian perspective as Peter, James and John
would have found correct, or would it be the Gentile Church as understood by the
Apostle Paul? If you believe these two groups "all spoke the same thing,"
or had the same one truth and Gospel, you are not doing your homework.
The Gospel of Paul, with his Cosmic Christ
and the soon coming "Son of Man" in a Jewish context were not the same Gospel
message. The Book of Galatians is clear that these men were at odds with
each other and not on the same page. Paul cursed those who brought another
Gospel than the one Paul thought up and he was talking about the Jerusalem
leadership, who Paul defined as "however, in all men is not that
knowledge") He even called them "reputed to be pillars" but went on to say
that they added nothing to his own Gospel and actually he learned nothing from
them. When Paul chided Peter for his turn around in the presence of "those
from James," it sounds like Peter was the bad guy and not near as mature
as Paul. In fact, in my view, Peter recognized at this meal that Paul had
no intention of going along with the Acts 15 directives to place the Noahide
rules on those who wished, as gentiles to become Christians. I believe
Peter probably noticed Paul was serving not unclean meats but meat offered to
idols which Paul is said originally to have agreed not to do in Acts 15.
In I Corinthians 8 we see that Paul considered that view as "weak" and had no
intention of teaching it in fact.
In short, Paul was a liar and two faced in
just the same way he accused Peter of being. The reason Paul comes out
looking so good and Peter so bad is that we only have Paul's story and really a
dummied down version of that. We don't have Peter's view or a description of
exactly what Peter found to be a problem with Paul's table. Paul gets to
brag about his bravely getting in Peter's face over the issue and
"winning." Peter gets to say nothing.
So back to the original concept of Church
building. How nice it would have been had Jesus taken a few moments to
outline exactly what that Church would look like. But since he probably
neither thought about it in reality or actually said these words added years
later when there was a version of the "one true Church" up and running already,
we can never know. Jesus would not have known what his Church would look
like because he never considered the concept. Like bearing one's cross,
the concept was a product of another time and the priests of those times were
not unwilling to put words in Jesus or Peter or Paul's mouth to justify their
current practices, when there actually was a Church.
So we can see, and the NT is full of
evidence that Peter was not to be followed according to John who thought him to
be no better than Judas. In a process called "Intercalation", the author
of John always sandwiches a negative comment about Simon Peter between negative
comments about Judas, Son of Simon. While we miss the point, the readers
of the day would have understand that Peter was no better than Judas and was the
baloney between the two slices of Judas.
We also have the sarcastic story of Peter ,
who said he would do one thing, (never leave Jesus) and did another, (Denied
him) killing off Ananias and Sapphira who said they would do one thing (Give
all) and did another, (held back). We miss the point today but the
audience of Luke and Paul would have clearly understood the sarcasm and humor
behind it sending the message not to follow Peter the Judas and hypocrite. Peter
denies...Judas betrays...no difference!
The Book of James , asking how you can have
faith without works to show the faith in action and Paul's Book of Romans which
makes great fun of works of any kind proving anything are not the same Gospel.
While the COG's try to see both men speaking the same thing, they really
are speaking the opposite.
Today in Fundamentalist Christianity in
general and the COG's in particular the war designed to see which version
of the True Church is the True Church wages on.
Its a Church version of "I'm
Spartacus...No, I'm Spartacus...oh no your not, I'm Spartacus!" It's
both funny and sad but also confusing and harmful to those that feel that their
job in life is to discern EXACTLY which one of these competing views is the
right view of Jesus and God. Ok, and the Holy Spirit too.
But I will say it again. Never in the
history of whoever and whatever Jesus said, did, meant and taught has there ever
been one true church. There was not one to be found in the New Testament
either. What you find is a smaller more focused battle between the Jewish
version of Peter, James and John and the Gentile version of the Apostle come
lately Paul.
It is no accident that Paul, who never met
any earthly Jesus or quoted him ever because for Paul, Jesus was a cosmic
hallucinatory version in his head, while the Gospels, written long after Paul
died, are the bringing his Jesus down to earth version. For Paul, Christ
died in the heavens and was killed by demons and spirits while for the Gospel
writers the Romans, oops, the Jews killed the earthly version. They are
not the same story. They are not the same concept. They are not the
same Gospel. And there never was one true coherent, all speaking the same
thing Church of God EVER.
In my opinion, the Apostle Paul was the
false prophet proven false by the Ephesian Church (home of John?) that was tried
and found wanting in Revelation. Vespasian was the Beast. None of it
has anything to do with today. It is what Paul was getting at when he noted "all
those in Asia have turned away...may God not lay it to their charge."
Ephesus is in Asia. All of them found Paul to be one donut short of a
dozen and they all sent him on his way. Paul, in his typical way, never
seemed to ask why? He merely noted that they were all wrong and he was
still right and he hoped God did not hold it too hardly against the
Ephesians. However, the Jesus of Revelation assured the Ephesians that
they had done a good thing by telling them "well done," so guess who won
that argument? The topics was the Ephesians finding certain Apostles to be
found wanting. They weren't talking about the original 12 you can be
sure.
Also, we have to note that of the 24 times
Paul is called an Apostle in the NT, Paul calls himself one 22 of those times
with Luke, his biographer adding the other 2. Seems no one else but Paul
thought he was a genuine Apostle. Kinda like today with the competing true
Apostles telling their churches "and yes brethren, I am an Apostle," but
no one outside that organization believing that to be true in any way.
Paul made himself an Apostle and said that Jesus and God did it. He had to
say Jesus and God because you can't prove that and no others humans were buying
it. It's kinda like saying that if the Apostle is wrong, God will correct
him, not you or I. But really, who would say such a stupid thing in real
life? :)
So for those of you who still struggle with
seeking the one true and exactly right Church of God.....RELAX! There
isn't one. Never has been and never will be. There will always be
many versions both similar and so very different from each other that are the
one true church. Don't stress over to eat or not to eat out on the
Sabbath. Forget about Moons and Moon Pies. Don't feel obligated to
go along with any man who says he and his wife are the Two Witnesses of
Revelation 11 or this, that or any other prophet. I mean really...what's
the chance?
The most amazing True Churches of God are
really not all that amazing and the moment the guru dies, you are going to be
back in the mud wondering if anything is ever going to work out in your
lifetime. Lighten up. Don't fret about days and dates, time is short
or the night being far spent. 2000 years is really a long time for time is
short and the Book of Revelation being written to "show the things which must
shortly come to pass," so long ago now. Revelation is true. It really did
try to show the things which would shortly come to pass in the 70's AD. It
was just wrong and the Romans won. The brethren it was meant to encourage
either ran for their lives or died on the spot on the ends of Roman
swords. That's what really happened and what really came to
pass.
Personally, if I am wrong and ever get to
speak to a genuinely resurrected Jesus or God, I am going to ask why they did
not make these most important topics more clear. I mean if it determines
our eternal lives, should the gods leave any of that in the hands of humans to
get right in the translation? I think not. I am going to mention
that faith seems to be what is required but then along come the facts and
....well, things change.
I'd like to ask why they did not write
anything down themselves. Even the Buddha wrote much and all the great
writers of the day, some of whom actually lived just down the street at the
right time, never seemed to notice the events spoken of in the Gospels. Maybe
they were at a writer's convention and out of town for that year (according to
Matthew, Mark and Luke) or three years, (John).
At any rate, whatever "more correct,"
"more true," or "the original" Church of God means is up for grabs and
debate. I do know that the Church of Brotherly love today seems hateful and
nuts. The Church that has restored has really just copied not true either
stuff. The Church that is United is terribly divided. The Church
that is alive seems small and dying. And the true church that is a mere
remnant is ...well, not all that impressive and can't get their message down the
street, much less to all the world.
Relax...Take a deep breath. You don't
have to struggle over which organization, Apostle or view of scripture is the
exact right one. It does not exist. It NEVER has, not in the pages
of your Bible nor in present day reality. It never will.
While everything you see today in the COGs
is very much, if not exactly what we see in the New Testament Church and its
leadership doing and being exactly what we see in the NT, I don't mean
that in the way you might think.
