NO ACCESS BY ANY WORLD RELIGIONS THE REAL INGREDIENTS OF CHRISTIANITY: PART ONE OF SIX You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you. This is what I command you: keep loving each other! If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world- on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world- therefore the world hates you.(Yochanan 15:16-19) SHAUL THE APOSTLES TESTIMONY OF HIS MESSAGE: Furthermore, let me make clear to you, brothers, that the Good News as I proclaim it is not a human product; because neither did I receive it from someone else nor was I taught it- it came through a direct revelation from Yshua the Messiah. (Gal 1:11-12) THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MOST BRILLANT OF MINDS DO NOT NEGATE TRUTH! Indeed, the Tanakh says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent. Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of todays thinkers? Hasnt Elohim made this worlds wisdom look pretty foolish? For Elohims wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. (1Co 1:19-21) NOT EVEN MLK WAS BORN ANOTHEN BASED ON HIS OWN WORDS. Now the natural man does not receive the things from the RUACH of Elohim- to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the RUACH. (1Co 2:14) But you, you do not identify with your old nature but with the RUACH- provided the RUACH of Elohim is living inside you, for anyone who doesnt have the RUACH of the Messiah doesnt belong to him. (Rom 8:9) A Study of Mithraism [13 September-23 November 1949] [Chester, Pa.] During the first semester of his second year at Crozer, King wrote this paper for Enslins course on Greek religion. Mithraism, a sect of Zoroastrianism characterized by the worship of Mithra as the defender of the truth, was a monotheistic mystery religion prevalent in the ancient Roman empire before the acceptance of Christianity in the fourth century. Followers of Mithra became less common after the Roman emperors banned their cults, and Christianity gained the popularity once belonging to Mithraism. Enslin gave the essay an A and wrote: This is an exceedingly good paper. You have given a very complete picture of the essential details and you have presented this in a balanced and restrained way. And furthermore you know how to write. You should go a long way if you continue to pay the price. The Greco-Roman world in which the early church developed was one of diverse religions. The conditions of that era made it possible for these religions to sweep like a tidal wave over the ancient world. The people of that age were eager and zealous in their search for religious experience. The existence of this atmosphere was vitally important in the development and eventual triumph of Christianity. These many religions were not alike in every respect; to draw this conclusion would lead to a gratuitous and erroneous supposition. But it is to be noticed that they possessed many fundamental likenesses; (1) All held that the initiate shared in symbolic (sacramental) fashion the experiences of the god. (2) All had secret rites for the initiated. (3) All offered mystical cleansing from sin. (4) All promised a happy future life for the faithful.\[Footnote:] Enslin, Christian Beginnings, pp. 187, 188.\ It is not at all surprising in view of the wide and growing influence of these religions that when the disciples in Antioch and elsewhere preached a crucified and risen Jesus they should be regarded as the heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus himself should be taken for the divine Lord of the cult through whose death and resurrection salvation was to be had. It is at this point that we are able to see why knowledge of these cults is important for any serious New Testament study. It is well-nigh impossible to grasp Christianity through and through without knowledge of these cults. That there were striking similarities between the developing church and these religions cannot be denied. Even Christian apologist had to admit that fact. For an instance, in the mystery-religions identification between the devotee and the Lord of the cult was supposed to be brought about by various rites of initiation; the taurobolium, or bath of blood; the eating of flesh of the sacrificial beast and the like. Now there was something of this in Paul too, for he thought of the believer as buried with Christ in baptism and as feeding upon him in the eucharist. This is only one of many examples that I could give to prove the similarity between the developing Christian Church and the Mystery Religions. This is not to say that a Saint Paul or a Saint John sat down and copied these views verbatim. But after being in contact with these surrounding religions and hearing certain doctrines expressed, it was only natural for some of these views to become a part of their subconscious minds. When they sat down to write they were expressing consciously that which had dwelled in their subconscious minds. It is also significant to know that Roman tolerance had favored this great syncretism of religious ideas. Borrowing was not only natural but inevitable.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 03:00:32 +0000
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