This is the Seventh post from Chapter 8 of Friends With God: God’s Friendship With Israel And The Church, which addresses the similarities and differences between the Old and New Covenants.
I have never seen any evidence that Jesus stopped being a disciple of his cousin. Jesus never told his fellow Jews and Rabbis to renounce their faith in YHWH and he never told his disciples to create a new religion based on himself. With no evidence to support my contention, I think Jesus came to Earth to end the sacrifice of birds and sheep in the Temple. It was an archaic remnant of a violent world that superstitiously believed God would protect His chosen people from the natural world and other tribes.
Christ tells us very plainly that he is the way to eternal life:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
There are many poetic and inspiring passages in the Bible. Since the gospel of John was written down 40 - 60 years after Jesus' death, there was plenty of time to mythicize, imitate, and edit what Jesus may or may not have said. Being born in the USA, I am comfortable calling Jesus "Lord". If I was born in India, I'd say the same thing about Shiva.
None of what is recorded in scripture in the New Covenant is written by Jesus, so you could just as well say all the scripture is just made up.
It is written for you to believe or not.
But as you say you have no evidence to back up your claims, for the simple reason that you don't believe the witnesses of God as recorded in scripture.
Believe what you want, I believe what John said, I don't believe what Shiva said.
There is tons of evidence in scripture that you are wrong in what you say.
Yet if you don't want to believe it that is up to you.
God gives you the choice to believe him, as revealed in scripture, or not to believe.
As Moses said to Israel, who also did not believe what he said:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life....
(Deu 30:19-20)
I have put before you the scriptures, I am not interested in discussing anything outside of scripture. Pray that God may open your eyes to his truth, rather than your own human reasoning. God's way is the way to life. Choose life that you may live.
Hosea 11: 9 clearly states that God Does Not Change. What gave the early Christian church the authority to change the Saturday Sabbath to Sunday? Also, it says many times in the bible that Jesus' only proof of his being the Son of God would that he would spend three days AND three nights in the ground before being resurrected. How does this square with "Good Friday" and Easter?
Good question, Good Fryday and Yeaster are pagan traditions added to the church in 350AD by the pagan emperor Constantine, as I have discussed in detail in these two posts:
Christ did not die on the Friday, but a Wednesday, and he rose on the dark of night on what we would call Saturday, making three days and nights. I have not written anything in this substack on this issue but may do so in the future.
We should not celebrate these pagan festivals but the God given festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread, which Christ, and all the early church after Christ was resurrected, continued to celebrate.
Good word, Martin.
I have never seen any evidence that Jesus stopped being a disciple of his cousin. Jesus never told his fellow Jews and Rabbis to renounce their faith in YHWH and he never told his disciples to create a new religion based on himself. With no evidence to support my contention, I think Jesus came to Earth to end the sacrifice of birds and sheep in the Temple. It was an archaic remnant of a violent world that superstitiously believed God would protect His chosen people from the natural world and other tribes.
Christ tells us very plainly that he is the way to eternal life:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
(John 6:47-51)
There are many poetic and inspiring passages in the Bible. Since the gospel of John was written down 40 - 60 years after Jesus' death, there was plenty of time to mythicize, imitate, and edit what Jesus may or may not have said. Being born in the USA, I am comfortable calling Jesus "Lord". If I was born in India, I'd say the same thing about Shiva.
None of what is recorded in scripture in the New Covenant is written by Jesus, so you could just as well say all the scripture is just made up.
It is written for you to believe or not.
But as you say you have no evidence to back up your claims, for the simple reason that you don't believe the witnesses of God as recorded in scripture.
Believe what you want, I believe what John said, I don't believe what Shiva said.
There is tons of evidence in scripture that you are wrong in what you say.
Yet if you don't want to believe it that is up to you.
God gives you the choice to believe him, as revealed in scripture, or not to believe.
As Moses said to Israel, who also did not believe what he said:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life....
(Deu 30:19-20)
I have put before you the scriptures, I am not interested in discussing anything outside of scripture. Pray that God may open your eyes to his truth, rather than your own human reasoning. God's way is the way to life. Choose life that you may live.
Hosea 11: 9 clearly states that God Does Not Change. What gave the early Christian church the authority to change the Saturday Sabbath to Sunday? Also, it says many times in the bible that Jesus' only proof of his being the Son of God would that he would spend three days AND three nights in the ground before being resurrected. How does this square with "Good Friday" and Easter?
Good question, Good Fryday and Yeaster are pagan traditions added to the church in 350AD by the pagan emperor Constantine, as I have discussed in detail in these two posts:
https://friendswithgod.substack.com/p/religious-syncretism
https://friendswithgod.substack.com/p/why-is-christs-birthday-celebrated.
Christ did not die on the Friday, but a Wednesday, and he rose on the dark of night on what we would call Saturday, making three days and nights. I have not written anything in this substack on this issue but may do so in the future.
We should not celebrate these pagan festivals but the God given festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread, which Christ, and all the early church after Christ was resurrected, continued to celebrate.