I grew up on Simms Bayou in Houston during the cold war and was taught to duck-and-cover in parochial school, saw bomb shelters sold in the maul but to me it was all just something to be curious about.
I was not good in school, just reading was a struggle. I did not see words because they were just symbols of ideas. I had a need to understand the why, the cause, purpose and effect.
The world was a mysterious place full of wonders but the people in my life were more than fascinating. I was always asking question with a passion to know why things were the way they seemed to be. I entered the seminary at at St Joseph's College when I was 13. Catechisms, doctrines, and religious ideology seem to just create more and more questions.
Every answer just created more questions.
What is the truth?
What is the truth about God?
If the truth should set men free then the doctrine of Jesus should set the captive free.
Every thing in life is a part of the great puzzle and mystery of life. The pieces fit best when you do not force them.
What was the conflict with Rome and the early Christians? For an in depth examination of law, history, and the language we can take an iconoclastic look at the Gospel and the scriptures that turned the world upside-down. Moses and the prophets of the Old Testaments came to set men free from the bondage of Egypt where 20% of men's labor belonged to the government. And Jesus also brought redemption.
- "Redemption is deliverance from the power of an alien dominion and the enjoyment of the resulting freedom. It involves the idea of restoration to one who possesses a more fundamental right or interest. The best example of redemption in the Old Testament was the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage, from the dominion of the alien power in Egypt." Zondervan's Encyclopedia of the Bible.
Jesus said that we were to "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" which would include the "deliverance of the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised". * "This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." according to the General Prologue to John Wycliffe's translation of 1384.
A quest for the whole truth can alter our perception of the gospel if we bring an honest understanding of the law, history, language of the times and are willing to challenge modern opinions an orthodoxy. A revealing examination of rituals, rites, and pure religions can open eyes and set men free.
Jesus warns that many would think they were Christians but would be "workers of iniquity". Peter says they will be "entangled in the yoke of bondage" and become "merchandise". Paul says they will receive a strong delusion, believe a lie, and what should have been for their welfare would be a snare and a trap where the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Have false prophets crept into the modern interpretation of Christianity so that silly people clean to a fatuous faith?
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