Seeking

Families congregating in groups of 10s, 100s, 1000s formed a Living Network that prospered nations and the early Christians.

Understanding the appointment of Christ

Understanding the role of a minister in the Church established by Jesus Christ may require not only study but deep soul searching within the hearts of Elders and Ministers. It has been 2000 years since Jesus called his first Ministers and appointed to them a Kingdom.

Jesus and John the Baptist were preaching a different way to govern and be governed. The "little flock" were understood to be one form of government which was not like the governments of the other nations who had Benefactors who exercised authority but they were to benefit the people and provide spiritual guidance and a Daily ministration for their welfare with Pure Religion by way of the Faith, Hope and Charity of the people in Free Assemblies through something James called the Perfect law of liberty.

This was not a new system of self government but was very old. The pattern of Tens had been used by Abraham and also Moses along with many other nations.

Voluntary governments have been the rule in man’s history and not the central or even democratic authorities so common world-wide in modern administrations. It is commonly understood by historians that, “our modern reliance on government to make law and establish order is not the historical norm.”

Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God’s liberty into every aspect of our lives. God’s precepts and character should govern us and the nations of the world. Liberty is conducive to growth and maturity. Virtue is the avenue of God’s grace through an international Daily ministration for Christians near and far and even the strangers in their midst. Faith is The Way and the Sacrifice of our hearts is a gift that brings us into a fuller knowledge of God.

“The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18

If we are going to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness it is important to understand what form and structure was employed by the early Church.

The Pharisees were in conflict with Christ and according to Christ were also in conflict with Moses while the Essenes had many things in common with the teachings of the early Church.

There were congregations that were so united during the early days of Christianity that In Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he praised “the union and discipline of the Christian republic”. He also pointed out that “it gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman Empire”. The early Christian ekklesia was a republic in form and was recognized by Rome through the proclamation nailed to the cross by order of the Proconsul of Rome, Pontius Pilate. When Jesus rose from the dead to stand again upon the earth, so did His Kingdom. His kingdom now lives in the hearts of those who follow His way.

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Everyone is encouraged to study the materials linked above before continuing.

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Build a foundation

CORE is an acronym which stands for a Congregation of Recorded Elders. A CORE is already defined as a group of families in free assembly represented by their natural head if the family called an Elder. Those Elders in the practice of Pure Religion are bound by love and honor alone.

But a Congregation of Ministers (COM) is not merely a congregation of Elders. It has the capacity of a CORE which is not an entity but a free assembly but it also has some official duties granted it within the adjudication power of the Church.

A Minister's membership with the Church is or may be a limited capacity either by appointment or anointing, ex officio or ordination. Since an Ordained Minister of the Church must be separate from the world he may have no part of a personal estate within the world.

This is sometimes hard to understand but it is not what most Modern Christian ministers do. But it was essential in the early Church and even back in the days of the Levites and Essenes.

A minister is part of the Body of the Church as a member of their Congregation of Ministers, "COM". A COM has no individual existence in the world but has its legal existence within the Church. That existence resides in their Ordained Overseer or Minister as the Church in order to remain a Free Assembly. As minister ex officio they hold property as a trust within the Church but as ordained ministers they hold property as join heirs.

There is a reason Moses and Christ used these forms and relationships to build the institutions of God which are based on individual choice and liberty but remains institutions based on one form of government for the purposes of God.

Congregationalists

While each local religious congregation or CORE is independent and self-governing, in the kingdom those congregations are merely Free Assemblies of families....

Each minister has a CORE he serves but he is not a member of that CORE.

The kingdom factor comes in because the minister of a CORE is not a member of the CORE he serves but as a part of the Church he is a member, whether ordained or ex officio, of the Congregation of Ministers he is bound to by his commitment to serve His Church in a particular capacity. It is that official or recognized Congregation of Ministers [COM] where he will find and fulfill his duties of Religion.

His first duty is of course to Christ/God but his second is to his Congregation of Ministers (COM). That congregation or CORE is not the ones he serves, but consists of those ministers with whom he is in congregation with by the recognition of a common ordained Overseer of his Congregation of Ministers (COM).

Without that understanding and religious duty there is no kingdom and the pattern is not sacred nor separate.

In fact a great danger arises if he does not attend to his fellow ministers first. His CORE congregation may become more his personal Church rather than "HIS Church" meaning Christ's Church.

His congregation may isolate itself with the cares of the world and start looking to each other only and let go of the broader kingdom thinking. His congregation becomes an altar of clay that he stands upon and serves in hope they will mutually support him. His service becomes for his own purposes.

While a minister is supported while he works serving the Elders, when he is retired or ill or in great need it is his fellow ministers in his COM that he will depend upon. Those ministers and many more in a network of ministers shall become his support and assurance.

The early Church had a great deal of resources, including land and buildings as well as funds to provide for the Daily ministration.

We know this is why the Diocletianic Persecution confiscated the property of the Church's ministers in hope of destroying it. They owned that property in common and reclaimed it from Rome eventually. The Christian system of social welfare or what could be called Private welfare function much better than the Public religion which exercised authority. Many nations had become dependent upon those systems of welfare which weakened the people and made them more dependent upon governments. This dependence of the people empowers governments and leads to despotism. The whole Christian conflict with Rome was centered in the distinction between these forms of welfare and they echoed the jealousy and envy within society.

Charity around the world

The early Christians did not need the free Bread and circuses of Rome. They had a better system that did not require force. But they were accused of robbing the system of welfare run through the public Temples of Imperial Cult of Rome.

But the charity of the Church reached far and wide. We see Barnabas and Paul carrying funds to distant parts of the kingdom. During persecutions people were able to relocate far from trouble because they had a network and the common bond of Christ because they all were living the whole Gospel of the Kingdom and not dependent upon Rome.

The Roman cult failed as all such systems eventually fail. They not only follow the ways of the Nicolaitan and Nimrod they create systems and Snare the people in a Bondage called Corvee under the authority of their Benefactors who are the Fathers of the earth. Roman historians like Polybius and Plutarch warned the people long before Jesus Christ and John the Baptist.

Because of The Way followed by the early Church the people and the Church prospered as Rome declined and fell under corruption, debt and endless wars for power. For a thousand years much of Europe would remain free and people of the true Christian faith lived in relative peace and safety.

But the people in their prosperity began to lose sight of the kingdom. The bonds of the kingdom that reached to more distant communities faltered as people became centered on their own comforts. Each valley or village and community or country became more isolated where it did not think to come to the aid of others. Those ministers who focus on their congregation rather than the whole kingdom are undermining the righteous bonds of the "kingdom".

Dividing love

This loving of one group more than another, especially your own congregations and those closest to you, spreads seeds of division.

This is why Christianity was overrun back at the turn of the first millennium as one valley after another was invaded by that militant coercive church.

They had lost sight of the kingdom and they did not cast their bread upon the waters or come to the aid of the next valley or village.

Each minister serves different people and those people are important to other ministers not because they know them but because they know their minister.

When a minister is sick or ill or needs help he may get that help or aid or moral support from tents of his congregation, the flock he tends (his CORE). But he should first look to his fellow ministers in his own Congregation of official recognized Ministers, (COM) just as the elders of a CORE of the Church should serve one another.

Kingdom Institutions

Men create institutions all the time by agreement. Their agreements are real and we should make our yes's Yes!

The institutions are sometimes called Fictions of Law or Legal fictions.

Man was made in the image of God and has some creative powers granted by God. Those endowed powers are called rights. What he creates and how it functions depends on the spirit that he breathes into those institutions.

Is the spirit we see living in the institutions of men in agreement with the Holy Spirit or has another spirit taken over either at its beginning or has come to control the institution?

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Mark 16:15

The word we see here for creature is the Greek word ktisis which means "something the act of founding, establishing, building."

These institutions are the result of agreements and contracts. They are sometimes called legal fictions. One definition of a legal fiction is "an assertion accepted as true, though probably fictitious, to achieve a particular goal in a legal matter."

But in another place a legal fiction "is a fact assumed or created by courts".

Because they are created by courts does not mean they are not true or void of fact. One example of a legal fiction occurs in adoption. An adoption is saying "this is my son". He is not actually your son so in that sense it is not true; a fiction. But it is true that you are adopting him as your son and he will have all the rights that your natural son has.

So a legal fiction can be a good thing that should be treated as a fact in order to do justice.

A corporation treated as a legal person is a fiction also because in fact it is not a living individual or person. But corporations are created by people, owned by people, run by people who collectively bring in their spirit to give life to the corporation. The spirit of the people breaths life into a Corporation.

That can be good or that can be bad. What spirit is entering the corporate world?

A corporation has a nationality and most governments have a corporate nature to them.

There are six factors in determining the nationality of a corporation:

• the state of incorporation
• the principal seat of business
• nationality of the shareholders
• the nationality of overall investment
• the nationality of the management
• the persons controlling the business of corporation

Knowing this, what is the nationality of the Corpus of Christ?

Jesus' kingdom is not of this world but it is at hand and he keeps his Apostles and ordained ministers out of the world so that they can be separate. Most of the early Christians were in the world. They were to bring the Spirit of the kingdom into the world so that it might be saved.

That means people who are bound in the world can bring the Spirit of Christ to the institutions they form while they are in the world. There are many ways to do this which should be taught in every congregation.

The Freewill offerings upon the Altars of the Church are freely given and given up entirely. They are given to Christ but since he is not here they are given to whom you believe to be the servants of Christ in trust. That trustee and the congregations of trustees who belong to Christ, who are in the world but not of it, who have met the requirements of Christ hold what is given for his purposes in a legal fiction call the Church.

It is an irrevocable trust but its legality is within the Church which is foreign to the world. This is why the ministers need to not be a part of the World Christ and his Apostles were not a part of.

Once things have entered upon the altars of God the ministers may eat it or give it back to the people in a Daily ministration of charity.

They may also sow some of it back into the world but must only do so for Christ's purposes. The Church is a welfare system for Christians that is not like the world and its Benefactors. It does not operate like the Fathers of the earth who use force.

What they receive is not given to make Elders rich and independent. If the elders work together in loving communion they may achieve that on their own. The Church wants to see the elders prosper as their soul prospers with the Character or Name of Christ and this is also true when it comes to their personal and emotional and even mental health.

Walking in the ways of service may require many tools like the apostles used a fishing boat and net to catch fish which added to the wealth of their families. Jesus did not do the fishing for them but told them when and where to put down their nets.

The Church may show people how to create trusts, LLCs and Benefit Companies in the sea of the world so that they may help plant the ways of the Christ in those fields. These systems may begin to help the Elders become an active part of the charitable work of the Christ and His Church in more personal ways than just giving money. They may do this in areas of the world where His Holy Church is already excluded.

Often the Church may do this by sowing their service in the lives of the Elders and even by sowing funds to them. Because those funds or the power and blood they represent belongs to Christ they may only sow into charitable projects. They may not finance enterprises to generate personal wealth for the Elders.

They may feed, cloth, help heal the hungry, naked and sick but they should not enrich anyone simply so that they may not have to work especially if there are others in the whole body who are in greater need.

As examples they may help replace a home that is lost through disaster but they cannot build the personal estate of the Elders with funds given to Christ. That might look like favoritism or cronyism - the common good ol' boy approach to charity.

By the same token we see Jesus doing something not far removed from this. The story of the talents Matthew 25 relates how those who did well were given more and those who did little or nothing could actually lose what they had. This parable is not meant to turn the Church into a system that gives to the rich and takes from the poor. This story is showing how doers of the word will be rewarded and the slothful shall lose what they were given. The same is true of the ones who say they see may have sight taken from them just as the kingdom was taken from the Pharisees because they did not bear fruit.

The Church is to preach the gospel to the poor who become rich by the doing of the word which will give deliverance to the captives and sight to the blind.