What is the Gospel--the Gospel of Christ?

For years the Worldwide Church of God which I was a member of taught a message about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, thinking this was the Gospel which Jesus told us to preach and that it was this 'Gospel' which when preached brought people into a knowledge of Salvation. I have learned since that we were preaching the "Jewish" gospel which the evangelistic Diaspora Jews had been preaching from the time of the Maccabees to the time of Christ. But the simple Gospel the apostle Peter preached in his first sermon in Acts 2 was about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The result of Peter's sermon preaching this 'Gospel' brought 3,000 souls to repentance and baptism. So what really is the "Gospel of Salvation," called alternately "the Gospel of Christ"? Click on the title of this blog to log onto an article I just posted about what the Gospel of Salvation really is. The Jewish gospel drew many Gentiles into their synagogues, and caused those Gentiles to believe in the One true God of Israel, Yahweh, and many believers have come into the Sabbatarian Churches of God due to the preaching of a similar gospel about the coming Kingdom of God, but it is not the Gospel preached by Paul, John, Peter and the other apostles. All believers ought to be on the same page with this essential information, for it is this very Gospel which Jesus commanded us to be preaching to the entire world before he would come again (Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15-18). Be sure to click on the title of this blog to link to an article which clearly defines the Gospel of Salvation. A major Sabbatarian Church of God leader has read it and approves of it 100 percent, interestingly. We all need to be on the same page with this one, as Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15 and Matthew 24:14 put some pretty serious emphasis on it.

Was the Church really like that? Happy Birthday, Body of Christ!

Hi everyone, the Church's (Body of Christ's) birthday is on the day of Pentecost, May 23rd, 2010 this year. Few realize what the history of that early Church was really like. I have a full-length history research paper on the subject, showing what the early Body of Christ was like. I have just updated part III of that research paper, expanding it from a short piece about Constantine, to one that shows the birth and development of the Catholic Church, whose beginnings go as far back as 96AD with their first "Bishop of Rome", Pope Clement. It's an interesting piece, because this history, taken from Paul Johnson's "A History of Christianity" shows how the hierarchal structure of church government slowly but steadily took over that 'universal' church, much to it's own detriment. This hierarchal church government structure in the Church in Rome allowed an 'old boy' network to develop and exist which allowed a high level of corruption to exist in that developing church. The updated section of this early church history article can be found on this link:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch3.htm

To log on that link above, just click on the above main title of this blog ("Was the Church Really Like That?"). So be sure to check that link out. The next question that begs asking is: 'Was this the structure to be found within the early Church of God in Jerusalem, or the churches of God that the apostle's Paul and John planted in Corinth and Asia Minor?' The answer: 'No, it was not.' Their congregations, as best as can be determined by searching the Epistles, were semi-autonomous, all coming under the gentle guidance and oversight of the apostles (Paul and John in Asia Minor and Gentile areas, Peter in Judea). Jerusalem up until 70AD was the central HQ church, but church governmental ties to this 'Mother Church' were very loose. General funds and tithes, except for occasional poor offerings sent to Jerusalem, were kept within each congregation, and obviously assisted in local evangelism, which helped grow these congregations. Pastors were chosen by local church members within each congregation, because it was these very same local members who would best know if the one they were choosing to be their pastor met the guidelines laid out by Paul in 1st Timothy 3:1-7. The word "bishop" found in that passage really meant "overseer" or "pastor" at the time Paul penned 1st Timothy. Compare this with the information found on the above link. Sadly, not only the Catholic Church followed this damaging hierarchal structure for church governance, but the Church of England and many Reformation churches followed it as well. Of recent, even some Sabbatarian Church of God denominations have followed it, much to their own hurt. They should look back to how the early Sabbatarian Churches of God in Rhode Island and New Jersey chose their pastors. In the early 1700s the tiny congregation of a Church of God was forming up in Piscataway, New Jersey. The members of this tiny congregation chose one of their own members, an Edward Dunham. They then sent him north to Newport, Rhode Island to have hands laid on him (his formal ordination), and then he was sent back to pastor the congregation that had chosen him (I would strongly suspect they chose him based on Paul's instructions in 1st Timothy 3:1-7). To see what the early Church was like in the 1st through 4th centuries AD, log onto and read:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/index3.htm

Does Jesus want to see the Body of Christ unified, as they were that first Pentecost?

For the answer to that, log onto and read the link below and scroll to the section on Zephaniah 2:1-3:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/Zephaniah1.htm

Be sure to log onto and read those links, you will find them most enlightening, maybe disturbing for some, as it's a paradigm-breaker. Happy Birthday Body of Christ, or Happy Pentecost, (and Happy Shevuot to our Messianic Jewish brothers in Yeshua)!

Coming World Famine?

I just finished another research article/paper titled COMING WORLD FAMINE? This paper shows pretty clearly that Normal Borlaug's green revolution, which has helped stave off starvation for the past 40 years, and allowed the world population of 2.52 billion people in the 1950's to comfortably climb to 6.8 billion people in 2010, has begun to flat-line, and if all prevailing conditions continue, to start to fail. What does the future hold if these conditions continue? Look up the article and read it for yourself. The nav button is just above the Global Warming nav button. It's about 24 pages, not too long, but very informative.

New Book of Revelation Commentary (pretty awesome, if not a bit controversial)

There is a new section on the site.  I have put together a commentary on the Book of Revelation (with the help of J. Vernon McGee and other sources, and of course the most important source, letting the Bible interpret its own symbols).  The church history section (Revelation 2-3) to start off with, is a bit controversial, taking a hard look at both Sabbatarian Churches of God and Gentile Sunday observing Christian revivals, going back to Asia Minor and Judea of the first Church era.  Like I said, some of the conclusions are controversial, but I think they bear some merit, or at least some honest consideration. You'll love that last two chapters, Revelation 21-22 as well, a real encouraging future for the entire Body of Christ. The nav button for this Book of Revelation commentary on the left-hand nav bar is just below the nav bar button of Daniel.  Enjoy.  I'm glad I'm finished, gave me some restless nights.  Why was I inspired to do Revelation?  Search me.  I think the Lord may want parts of his body of believers to wake up and get with it, maybe, considering how close we may be to the end of this "age of man."  Don't know.  Anyway, enjoy.  

Baptist and Sabbatarian history, the riddle solved!

While researching a link going to a Baptist history site that went dead on this website, I was forced to look up another link. I read through one of the links of this denomination which was about their history, thinking it looks promising. I read through it, spot checking it, especially where they mentioned their history in 1100s France, knowing the Baptists claim the same lineage through Peter de Waldo, the Henricians, the Cathari and the Albigensians, the groups we know as Sabbath and Holy Day observing groups in France. The Baptists also trace a history from Asia Minor through the Bogamils in Yugosalvia, entering southeast Europe the way the Sabbatarian Churches of God do. I have always wondered how two church denominations, one Sabbath and Holy Day observing Judeo-Christians, the other Baptist Sunday observers, could lay claim to the same historic line, going from Asia Minor, through Europe and France, then to England, and then America. At first, I thought, someone must be lying. But I immediately thought better of that, two Holy Spirit inspired groups like that wouldn't knowingly tell lie about their history. Then I focused on France of the 1100s AD. These tiny groups, but especially the Waldensians, were preaching up an evangelistic storm in France, and they had even translated the four Gospels, some of the Epistles, the book of Job, amongst other parts the Bible into the vernacular French. The Catholic church was feeling the heat of their preaching. So the Catholic pope of the time launched the first Inquisition in France, with others to follow. Most think of the Spanish Inquisition, but these started in France. Ralph Woodrow's Babylon Mystery Religion, gives the bloody gruesome details of the French Inquisitions. I'll quote on tiny section from his book which focuses in on one such event. "One of the documents that ordered such persecutions was the inhuman 'Ad exstirpanda' issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1252. This document stated that heretics were to be 'crushed like venomous snakes.' It formally approved the use of torture. Civil authorities were ordered to burn heretics. "The aforementioned Bull, 'Ad exstripanda' remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicholas IV (1288-92), Boniface VIII (1294-1304), and others [these times all cover the French Inquisitions]. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication [which would put their lives under the same danger] to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake...At Lavaur in 1211 [just as all this was getting going] the governor was hanged on a gibbet and his wife thrown into a well and crushed with stones. Four hundred people in the town were burned alive. The crusaders attended high mass in the morning, then proceeded to take other towns of the area. In this siege, it is estimated that 100,000 Albigenses fell in one day. Their bodies were heaped together and burned." (pp. 105, 108 Ralph Woodrow's Babylon Mystery Religion.) When persecutions got really hot, many within these Sabbath-keeping groups in France switched to Sunday observance in the hopes of not being spotted by the Inquisitors and Catholic priests, in an effort to save their lives. This was in a history of the Sabbatarian revivals I transcribed and put on this website. In the Sabbatarian Churches of God in Rhode Island history article I have on this website, while researching that history I found in another church history link the story of the Cottrell family, who were French Albigensians, who escaped to England. Their family continued there in one of the Sabbatarian Churches of God near London. In 1638 John Cottrell moved to the Colony of Rhode Island and ended up in the Church of God congregation in Newport Rhode Island and his son ended up in the Westerly congregation. The Cottrells ended up migrating with other church members to the midwest of the United States. They have never as a family, from France to the midwest of the United States, ever stopped worshipping on the 7th day Sabbath. So they are a historic link to these same slaughtered Albigensians in France. They escaped. Also, we know that most of the churches in Asia Minor up to around 250 AD were Judeo-Christian Sabbath-keepers. So the church line going into France must have been Sabbath-keepers. It was a single historic line, which both Baptist and Sabbatarian Churches of God were laying claim to. But if this historic line left Asia Minor as Judeo-Christian Sabbath-keepers, which is the more likely case, it must have been Sabbatarian in France at first. But the white hot intensity of these Inquisitions made many in these groups in France rethink their choice for days of worship, with their physical survival at stake. While reviewing this Baptist history link, I zeroed in on the part dealing with France in the 1100s, and found a statement, a quote from a Catholic source (obviously part of the Inquisitors records), where they weren't calling the places these people met "churches", but they called them "synagogues". Now these Catholic persecutions and Inquisitors would not be calling the places of worship of anyone observing Sunday as a "synagogue", but they certainly would be calling people who met on the Saturday Sabbath, observed the Jewish Holy Days and circumcised their children "synagogues". So what I believe is that the historic line of both our Sabbatarian Churches of God and the Baptists was a single line up until it reached the period of the first and second Inquisition in France. Then the line split, one going to Sunday observing "Baptists" or "Anabaptists", and the other remaining Sabbath, Holy Day observing Sabbatarian Churches of God, most of which got slaughtered, but some escaped first to Holland, and then to England in the 1300s (the Lollards). Both these groups, Baptists and Sabbatarian Churches of God adamantly believe in baptism of adults only by full immersion. In England, the Sabbatarian Churches of God would often evangelize amongst their Baptist "friends", helping to maintain and grow their numbers in England. This practice continued into America. So when the Baptists claim to be a "really old church denomination" going back to Asia Minor, they are right. When the Sabbatarian Churches of God claim the same thing, they are correct as well. Actually they all were Sabbath-observing full-immersion baptists all the way back to Asia Minor. But the split in the historic line came in France due to white-hot persecution and slaughter of their numbers. The Baptists will never claim to have originally been part of the Sabbatarian Churches of God to have come out of Asia Minor through Yugoslavia because they have lost the historic "memory" of where they  came from. After France in the 1200s when the Baptists had been Sunday observing long enough they forgot where they had really come from. The link to the Baptist history is up now on this website in the Church History section.  Log onto it below and then compare it to the information in the Sabbatarian's histories at:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/BaptistHistory.htm

http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/revivals.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/historycog1.htm and also http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/index3.htm .

The current Worldwide Church of God under Joe Tkach Jr. claims we came from the Baptists in England. It would appear, realistically, that the Baptists came from Sabbatarian Churches of God much earlier, in France. His view of this history appears to be 180 degrees out from the actual truth. As far as I'm concerned, the riddle is solved.

Dinosaurs and man, what's it mean

If any of you are unbelievers, or don't know whether the world was created, with all life on it, or just evolved like everybody says nowadays, consider this. The dinosaurs died 65 million years ago, as a direct result of two, not one, but two global-killer asteroids hitting the earth, one in the Yucitan Peninsula, (6.25 square miles in size), and another in the Bay of Bombay (25 square miles). The resulting ash thrown into the atmosphere directly, and also later from 500,000 years of resultant volcanic activity in the Indian subcontinent, completely blanked out the suns rays in a thick ash-cloud, killing all, yes all photosynthesis. All life died (probably within two weeks of the asteroid hits). All life on land, all life in the oceans died. Without photosynthesis, life dies, all life. Ask any biologist. Now dinosaurs have complex DNA, just like we do. The complexity of DNA, if it evolved at all, would take more than a mere 65 million years to "re-evolve". It goes against the laws of probability for DNA to have "re-evolved" within such a short geological time-span, Then at the end of this 65 million year time-span between their death and the beginning of the recorded history of man, mankind and all the animal and plant life we're familiar with suddenly appears (some scientists say within the last 100,000 years of that 65 million years). Is there a probable explanation other than direct creation? To view a more complete treatment of this subject, log onto:

http:// www.UNITYINCHRIST.COM/dinosaurs/dinosaurs.htm

Oh, and for you that are new-earth creationists, why would God use the record of the rocks to fabricate a lie? The record of the rocks plainly show dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, yet you say they lived with man, and propose that the record of the rocks is a clever hoax. A hoax of who? God created earth, God created dinosaurs, God created man. Geologists are trained scientists. They know the record of the rocks is accurate. God doesn't lie, even in the record of the rocks. Comments, anyone?

Hi everyone

Hi everyone, I'm Pete and I'm totally new at this blogging thing, but I figured it may be one of the best and easiest ways to create an active discussion group for UNITYINCHRIST.COM. Everyone is free to post comments on this blogsite, believer, non-believer, friends, and not so friendly ones. Through the comments section you can have an honest and open discussion forum. But please keep your comments within the lines of common decency, regarding other's beliefs and sensitivities, i.e. no nasty stuff. Have any questions, doctrinal, personal, you name it, feel free to post a comment asking me. I have a varied spiritual background that spans both the Gentile and Jewish side of the body of Christ, with Sabbatarian Church of God being in the middle of those two. I spent 25 years in a Sabbatarian Church of God (observing Sabbath and Holy Days) for 25 years, then a Calvary Chapel for 10 and a Messianic Jewish congregation for 2.5 years. For a more complete explanation of this weird spiritual journey I've been on, going from Sabbath to Sunday to Sabbath again log onto:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/author.htm