Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Christianity could possibly become a minority religion in US as early as 2045…

I think so also. Jesus came to the lost sheep of Israel. He didn't say anything about creating a new religion to replace Judaism. I believe he wanted to straighten out the emphasis on following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. I also believe he fully intended for all of mankind to be welcomed into the covenant.

Rich, If belief in easily proven fact is antithetical to Christianity. Christianity is doomed to extinction.

Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Bruno, Wegener, Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin: all ridiculed, vilified, and persecuted by the Christian Church. Some imprisoned, tortured or executed for speaking those discoveries which were ultimately vindicated and accepted.

The Church has a long and colorful history of suppressing scientific discovery which it finds embarrassing.

As to people abandoning their churches? The nature of Jesus accepting people of all ethnicity, caste, or religious history has been mentioned.

When the Modern Church attempts to emulate the practice it drives away the most Conservative of the flock, especially the elderly. Many have a real aversion to sitting beside the LBGQT crowd in Church, or having their grandkids in the same congregation.

To the contrary, Jesus made it crystal clear that He was establishing a New Covenant…the same New Covenant that the old testament prophet Jeremiah referred to…and the reason He invited Peter and Andrew and Levi and James and John to embrace it ~ and the reason His invitation is extended to all of us ~ is because the time had come.

The wait was over. Ancient Judaism pointed to a time when God was going to reveal Himself in such a way that the entire world would be invited into a brand new kind of Kingdom. A Kingdom of the conscience, a Kingdom of the heart. Jesus made it crystal clear that the Kingdom of God has come near, which means we are never far. We’re one decision away, we’re one turn away, we’re one shift in mindset away.

So we’re told to “repent”…by Jesus and John the Baptist…that is, face and embrace this brand new news. And it was Jesus’ pursuit of the unrighteous, it was His pursuit of sinner’s, that illustrated this revolutionary Kingdom of God.

One didn’t have to be born an Ancient Jew, one didn’t have to understand and follow Ancient Jewish customs, one didn’t have to speak the Jewish language, and one didn’t have to have an Ancient Jewish heritage ~ everyone is invited. And Jesus went out of His way to invite people in.

Jesus said that no-one sews a new (unshrunk) patch onto an old garment because the new piece (the unshrunk piece) will pull away from the old, making the tear in the old even worse. And Jesus also said in the same way, no-one pours new wine into old wineskins because the old wineskins would burst and both the wine and the wineskins would be ruined.

Jesus’ point was that this new and unique teaching, this brand new distinctive worldview was like the new cloth and the new wine…and the mental image of the torn cloth and the burst wineskins…illustrated the impossibility of trying to blend Jesus’ New Covenant ~ which He clearly said He was establishing, the same New Covenant that the old testament prophet Jeremiah spoke of ~ with Ancient Judaism’s old covenant.

Jesus made it crystal clear that He didn’t come to blend anything, and that one couldn’t add what He was teaching to what one already had; that one couldn’t pour what He was teaching into the container that one already had. It was all new. And He made it crystal clear that He was introducing something completely new. He was creating a new movement, a new ekklesia.

The two covenants are completely incompatible. Jesus came to fulfill and retire the entire Law of Moses and replace it with something better. You pour new wine into new wineskins.

Which makes it a problem when some folks claim to have evidence to support this, that or some other belief, yet their so called 'evidence' is nothing of the sort if compared by what is accepted in science, philosophy, the judicial system, logic, reason, etc, to be evidence that supports the proposition. In this instance, the existence of the God of the bible.

OK, I understand now. The everlasting covenant GOD promised the descendants of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis were not promises at all? The covenant was transferred to the Catholic church and its lineal descendants? Neither God nor Jesus said that and God does not lie when he makes a contract.

The parables of the old cloth, and the wineskins, are Jesus’ teachings. Not Paul’s, but Jesus’. Clearly.

Christianity was a minority "religion" when the Lord was crucified. We are still kicking, and will be till the end of times.

Amen.

The responses on this thread may be the best example of why the young are leaving the church.

For years I’ve studied and observed the impact of post and Post-post modernism on our culture. I had never thought it through to apply it to what we see in the church.

This thread represents a lot of people saying a lot of different things expressed as what I believe. That’s very post post modern as it trickles down to the individual and “my truth”.

There is only one right doctrine yet we see many things presented here as truth and for the most part they stand on conflict because when compared they conflict.

How many of you guys have questioned the validity of what you believe and how many have settled into “the truth”, won’t bend even in though you understand the fallibility of your own thoughts and intellect?

I could be wrong and I'm positive as far as the New Testament is concerned it was put together by Constantine's men with an agenda to effect a wedding of church and state. They would have preferred to leave Jesus' teachings but just could not get by with that so they had to twist them.

So, as far as the New Testament, what is truth?

I’d suggest studying Christ's discussion of the Law and Prophets. This may be the best place to start for anyone who has studied but questions.

Jesus clearly states that the Law and Prophets were written about Him. That has been lost on the majority of us because of the Dispensational Heresy which erases
Christ as coming savior/God-man from the text.

To say that the New Testament is an invention of Constantine is intellectually and factually without warrant and is also a mechanism to erase the divinity of Christ.

The New Testament is a continued revelation of Christ, incarnate God, the One promised to come to take away sin and bring life. There is no life outside of Christ. He and He alone is the narrow door that you have spoken of.

Maybe so.

Nobody has doctrine right or ever will... not Adam or Moses or David or Paul, you, me or anyone else. If there are 4 billion christians in this world there are 4,000,000,001 different 'doctrines'.

I hate to burst anyone's bubble but in depth study of theology doesn't get you closer to true doctrine than a 4 year old singing 'Jesus loves me this I know'... actually it takes you away.

Theology for self growth is fine if that helps you. But few can keep it there, they have invested so much time and effort, they can't help but defend their 'doctrine' publicly... sway, challenge, debate, judge others by it.

Just find your own place with God, let others find theirs.

Kent

Sort of like someone once said(although I don't think it means you get to make up your own)

'...work out your own salvation, with fear and trembling...'

I've heard some say: The OT is the Gospel concealed, the NT the Gospel revealed...........

Or as someone else said... come to God as a child...

Kent

Isaiah 53 is fairly revealing and it was written 7 centuries before Christ.

Amen brother

It's easier for 'us'.............

The Ethiopian asked: 'does the writer speak of himself or someone else'??? We're told the answer!!!

John 14:6 Jesus "I am the way the truth and the life"

Paul "but there is a lot of stuff Jesus forgot to tell you in his 3 years, but he told me"

Paul did not say that, but JESUS DID, except for the FORGOT part.........


JOHN 16


12I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. 13However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you. 15Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you.