Some people wonder how I can love Yahweh Almighty God and the Messiah so much, and yet still criticize modern-day Christianity as much as I do. It's a fair question. The simple answer is I've done the math. It's a simple and straightforward math problem: 24% is NEVER a passing grade!
1. Two thirds or 66% of Scripture is found in the so-called Old Testament. The remainder is the so-called New Testament.
2. Within the New Testament a minimum of 10% is a direct quote or a direct principle quoted from the Old Testament.
3. The majority of Christianity ardently believes and teaches that God's Laws Commandments and Instructions in the Old Testament were either completed, nailed to the cross, or abolished in some fashion, so that we no longer need to train ourselves to obey those principles (that's because we train ourselves to believe that this is what Paul taught - even though that is clearly not what Paul was teaching, (Romans 8:5-8). So we seem to only agree with Paul's words when they APPEAR to tell us that we can live without obeying God's Commandments and Instructions any longer. We practically ignore every other passage Paul taught where he brought people back to obeying God's Laws, but to do so with the right and renewed spirit.
4. We completely ignore the words of Jesus where He specifically told us that He would not be abolishing the slightest jot or tittle of God's Law (Matthew 5:17-20).
5. We almost completely ignore the words of Jesus where He tells us that only those who DO the will of God will enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:21). So far, no one can answer to my satisfaction, "How can we truly and successfully DO the will of God by doing the explicit opposite of God's Commandments?"
6. We ignore about half of the Great Commission:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:19-20, NRSV)
We're pretty good about going throughout the world baptizing people into Christ and declaring the gospel as we understand it per se, but in my 25 years of Christianity I have yet to see any church, Sunday school, Bible study class or home group, or seminary course even so much as provide a scriptural list of every Commandment that Yeshua gave in the New Testament, let alone giving any kind of specific instruction on how to obey EVERYTHING that Messiah commanded. So, we really don't do that altogether either.
7. Most devoted churchgoing Christians offer worship to Almighty God on a regular weekly basis, but according to Jesus the Messiah what they offer to God is what God and the Messiah have CLEARLY IDENTIFIED as being VAIN WORSHIP. That is because the Christianity that is most commonly practiced such as; Replacing the seventh day Sabbath with Sunday worship, Replacing the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Frstfruits with communion and Easter Sunday, Replacing the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles, with Babylonian Greco Roman traditions of Christmas. This was all done by the decrees of pagan Roman emperors, Roman Imperial senates and Roman Catholic popes, in direct defiance and disobedience to Holy Scripture; (Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:1-4, 8, 29-32; Jeremiah 10:1-2; Matthew 5:17-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; 1 Thessalonians 5:22).
According to Yeshua the Messiah Himself, when we teach the commandments of human beings as though they were doctrines of God, then we are offering vain worship to God. When we set aside the Commandments of Yahweh Almighty God in order to keep and maintain our own human religious traditions, then we are worshiping God in VAIN (Matthew 13:9; Mark 7:1-13).
I did not decide to call it vain worship on my own initiative. Yeshua the Messiah Himself taught that offering God worship in this manner is Vain Worship. Now beloved, a servant is no greater than his master (John 13:16). No matter how firmly held or deeply cherished a human religious tradition happens to be, if Messiah calls it vain worship, then I cannot call it valid worship, and remain a faithful ambassador to the King.
Messiah declared that God clearly did not accept it when His own people traded and replaced God's decrees with the human traditions of Rabbinical Judaism, which is far different than biblical Judaism, but at least had some roots in Judaism. How much more likely is He then to reject worship, that has its very origins in worshiping false gods and demons in the first place? Please think about it.
8. Paul the apostle of grace himself wrote that everything which was written before hand was written for OUR instruction (Romans 15:4).
9. Paul, the apostle of grace himself specifically wrote that a mind set on the sinful nature was hostile against God, it does not subject itself to God's Law, it cannot please God, and such a mindset leads to death (Romans 8:5-8).
10. Paul, the apostle of grace himself specifically wrote that we should actively and persistently seek to separate ourselves from everything which GOD CONSIDERS unclean (1 Corinthians 10:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; 1 Thessalonians 5:22; Romans 12:1-2), and according to the teachings of these passages, he even taught that separating ourselves from what God considers unclean, is STILL necessary to being accepted by God.
11. Paul the apostle of grace himself wrote that we should be very careful that we are not led into the captivity of following the rules and traditions of men, especially if those rules and traditions of men are contrary to what Christ taught (Colossians 2:8).
12. Paul the apostle of grace himself wrote that ALL Scripture is God breathed, empowered and inspired. ALL of it, (not just some of it but ALL of it), is STILL profitable for establishing doctrine (which is true and right beliefs about God). ALL Scripture is STILL profitable for reproof (to turn us from errors). ALL Scripture is STILL profitable for correction (to reform our character from evil to good). ALL Scripture is STILL profitable for our instruction to righteousness (which means to correct, to discipline, to chastise and to train into righteous behavior).
Think about it for a moment. When Paul wrote these words, he was referring to the books of Genesis to Malachi, because the New Testament had not yet been compiled. He wrote these words about the Old Testament, long after the death and resurrection of Messiah. So he wrote these words about the so-called Old Testament well after we had entered the supposed age of grace. Notice that he DID NOT say that Scripture WAS (past tense) God breathed, Paul said IT IS (Present tense) God breathed and IT IS profitable for all these great purposes. So here's the big problem. If Paul truly believed and taught that God's Laws Commandments and Instructions were nailed at the cross so as to mean that we no longer needed to train ourselves to obey them, then why would he write that ALL SCRIPTURE (including the Old Testament) is still valid for all of those great purposes? What's more, here's what he said it would lead to if we were trained by the Scriptures, "So that the man of God will be adequately equipped and thoroughly furnished for every good work (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
So to summarize here is the crux of the problem.
We have basically trained ourselves to believe that we can largely disregard the Old Testament which makes up 66% of the Scriptures.Of the New Testament 10% is a direct quote of the Old Testament.
So at a minimum we often train ourselves to largely discount or disregard or diminish at least 76% of God's Instructions before we even begin to study.
That leaves 24% which we still declare to be COMPLETELY valid for us today.
From the remaining 24% which we declare to be completely valid, we routinely disregard what Messiah taught concerning the Law, because it is routinely believed and taught that He did not REALLY MEAN what He physically said.
Moreover, we typically routinely only fulfill about half of the Great Commission, almost completely ignoring the other half of that instruction.
Even that which we follow religiously, Jesus himself often declares to be VAIN WORSHIP in the New Testament, because we are disobeying the explicit Commandments of God in order to keep maintain and retain religious traditions of human beings. So such things does not even count as valid worship, because that is what VAIN means.
Most modern Christians claim to base their theology on Paul in defending what occurs on a regular basis, but I think I've clearly demonstrated that we are not traditionally diligent and obeying all of Paul's teachings particularly well. In practice, we generally rely heavily upon the passages from Paul which APPEAR to tell us that we can be lawless, and still live in God's grace and His blessing, even though there is clear evidence from Paul's own words that this was not what the apostle was teaching.
So, let's be conservatively generous and say that we are faithfully training ourselves to obey 24% of the Scriptures. Is it any wonder that we are not finding ourselves more successful in church and ministry? Is it any wonder that the offerings of our time our talent our treasure are often only marginally successful? If at our best we are only following 24% of the instructions which Yahweh Almighty God gave, is it any wonder that we are not finding ourselves thoroughly furnished and well-equipped to overcome the world or to successfully do every good work which God desires for us to do? Is it any small wonder that the enemy runs roughshod over our homes, over our families over our communities, our schools and our churches? Is it any great wonder why the world is having exceedingly far more impact on the church than the church is impacting the world? It makes complete sense when you look at our circumstances squarely in the face, you compare it with the Word of God and you do the simple straightforward math.
Imagine for a moment that your very physical life and well-being lay in the hands of a professional of some kind. Let us suppose for a moment that your very physical life, or the well-being of your family or the well-being of your children, depended on some professional in our world doing their job well. Let's say you needed a doctor for example, and let's say that you found out in advance that this particular doctor actively disregarded 76% of all the professional instruction he receives, and of the 24% of the instructions which he still regarded as being valid, he did not fulfill or perform those tasks to its fullest either. If you knew this in advance, would you put the well-being of yourself and your family in such a doctor's hands? Applying the same basic statistics as these, would you trust the architect with such an ethic to build your house or office building? If you are on trial for your life, would you trust the lawyer who exercised that standard? Would you trust an auto mechanic or airline mechanic who operated under such a standard? With people's eternal lives at stake, it is high time that we expected much more from ourselves as Bible students and as Bareans. It is high time we expected more from our pastors, our teachers, our elders, and ourselves as a community of believers
Some of you will no doubt say, "You are being awfully tough on the church and Christianity in general." To that I say perhaps. Then again, perhaps I'm not nearly tough enough. Scripture clearly says that the judgment will begin in the house of the Lord (1 Peter 4:17), and that those who claim to be teachers of God's word will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). To think about it another way, I believe that our modern religious system is clearly lost perspective. Please, think about it another way for a moment. We take much greater care of our finances and our children's college choice than we do about carefully handling the word of God. Part of it is a priority problem. How we handle the Word of God will affect our lives, and the lives of those we influence for all of eternity. I am crying out. I am calling myself and our church leaders to much greater degrees of excellence. We have the same Holy Spirit that Messiah had. We have the same Holy Spirit that the apostles and early Christians had. We have infinitely more access to Bibles and study resources than they had. Surely the bride of Messiah which is supposed to be preparing itself to be pleasing her husband, and to live in His kingdom for eternity should be able to do better than 24%. Please, think about it.
Brother R Michel Lankford
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