Christianity has grown cataracts over its eyes. Christians are blind to the fact that they have transformed into the Jews that killed Jesus, believing they are God’s chosen people because they believe Jesus was His Son [i.e.: the Messiah – from a Hebrew word (“māšîaḥ“) meaning “savior”]. Christians who do not live lives that prove they are Jesus reborn are then only comparable to Israelites who professed belief in God and did not live up to the promises of the Covenant.
Still, Christians are blind to the fact that they are just like the pagan Greeks, who Paul spoke to in this reading from Acts. Christians are proud of a heritage that believes all human beings have a place in their Christian world, with all their gods welcomed. Christians today, like the Greeks Paul knew, build “objects of worship” and altars to everything believed to be ‘all-powerful’.
Read this Acts 17:22-31 so you will be ‘up to date’. It saves space here and it proves if you really want to study Christianity, not just pretend to be ‘Christian’.
I can only speak for American Christians, as one living with and witnessing those who call themselves Christian, as they bow down before the altar of Jesus Christ. American Christian leaders (priests, ministers, pastors, and preachers) all say, “Jesus is God and God is Jesus. We know God by knowing Jesus.” In reality they know neither.
We do not read Acts 17:22-31 during the Easter season so Christians can glorify themselves as pure and holy people, who imaginarily stand behind Paul as he speaks to the Athenians of the Areopagus. In reality it is to us American Christians (and all others like us, including Jews) that Paul spoke. All Scripture is read aloud in churches for the same purpose: To address the reader and listener, not some long dead figure of an ancient text. It is intended to be read to the ones who still sit and stand in churches, because they are those who know no other way to be.
Lost sheep need to be found; and, then they need to be led to the path that definitely takes them to God.
An American Christian church is an “object of worship,” just as Paul identified in Athens. I can only imagine all Christian churches around the world are the same. People calling themselves devout Christians go to these churches and leave tokens of their worship – usually some form of monetary donation to that building, where the altar they kneel before is housed. If those people actually KNEW God or Jesus, they would be like Paul. Paul “looked carefully at the objects of [their] worship” and found a Christian church (as an example of ALL that exist) being an altar “To an unknown god.”
To know God is to be one with God. To see God in cartoons, or to ‘feel’ God in nature, or to believe God from reading about Him in holy texts is not the same.
The problem with Christianity today is it cannot see how long ago Christianity stopped being a movement of Apostles [i.e.: SAINTS] and regressed to being split between Jewish synagogues that continued to practice Jewish ritual, while amending the scrolls to be pointing to historical Jesus, and pagan gatherings that celebrate all the natural phenomena of our planet (gods) and loosely connect that to the ‘god’ Jesus. Christians cannot see themselves as being the same as the Greeks that Paul walked among.
American Christians and Jews-for-Jesus see Jesus Christ as a promise to come, just as he was promised to come before he came. They cannot fathom how Paul was indeed Jesus Christ walking among the Greeks, reborn as such by God, via the Holy Spirit. American Christians cannot fathom how they should also be like Paul, another Jesus Christ reborn into the world, in order to truly call themselves “Christian.”
For too many centuries the Church of Rome spread its empirical arms around the world, in the same manner as did the Roman Empire. The only difference was the ‘Holy’ Roman Empire followed its swordsmen with cross-bearers, who wore white robes and dangled chains and crosses of gold around their necks. They claimed to be ‘spreading the Gospel’ to the world, where the ‘Gospel’ was the “Good News” about the Messiah having come.
A comedy group I loved to listen to during my teens was The Firesign Theatre. One skit they did was about the colonization of the Americas, by the Spanish. They acted as if two of them where a Conquistador that met a Native American; and, the two had the following conversation (paraphrased from clouded memory):
Conquistador (holding up a gold cross): Got any of this?
Native American: A cross? The quartering of the universe into positive and negative principles?
Conquistador: No! What the cross is made of – GOLD! Got any?
As funny as they made history seem, it was not funny. Just to make sure the devil wasn’t keeping any gold from the Spaniards, they used their swords and raped their holy treasures for the King and Queen of Spain. They did that “in the name of Christ.” They called themselves “Christians,” but they were no such thing.
Paul never set an example of forceful conversion of anyone to a religion. Paul never sought to get wealthy from evangelism. Paul did not go to Greece and speak to polytheists about adding the name “Jesus’ to a shrine or “object of worship.” Paul spoke to the Greeks as Jesus Christ reborn, telling them about the One God – Yahweh – who “does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything.”
Does that not clearly state, “God does not dwell in houses?” God dwells in people, like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus (to name a few). Remember last Sunday, when priests mistakenly said, “Don’t do anything. Jesus went to reserve us a room in the Father’s Hotel Heaven.” Every church or cathedral on earth was “made by human hands.”
How many Christian churches promote being like Paul? How many ministers ask their congregations, “Why are you still here? Go! Save the world like Paul!” How many denominations of Christianity promote teaching the world the ‘Gospel’ of God, where that bears the meaning Paul stated (quoting the Greek poet Aratus): “In him we live and move and have our being”?
None that I have seen.
Christianity in the United States of America, based simply on the history of the United States, has a record so atrocious that comedy groups have made fun of the lust for cash shown by Christian churches and leaders for many decades. Once the sword of totalitarian control was laid down, the louder the laughs of mockery became. Now, the sword has been picked up by those laughing and it is raised and held over the head of American Christianity, by those who hate the oppression that people calling themselves ‘Christian’ have caused to others. American Christianity is like all empires who rule by the sword, becoming just as Jesus told Peter: “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52, NASB)
The Execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Revolution on 21 January 1793.
What goes around comes around.
The sword of death to true Christianity fell when royalty was beheaded in the names of Independence, Revolution, and Freedom. Killing the Church of Rome meant the sprouting (like mushrooms) of Republics, with Constitutions and mandated separation of Church and State. The sword’s edge ushered in the Mind of Satan, where all ‘citizens’ and ‘comrades’ began to bow down and pray to Philosophies touting Democracy, Equality, Liberty and Justice for all, under the guise of Enlightenment, Reason, and Science.
A brain is a terrible path to righteousness.
All the old was tossed, with new statues and monuments being erected to show Humanity as a god.
Think about all the ‘temples’ of worship American Christians now build and go to pray. Here are just a few the Greeks would be proud of:
While there has not yet been a monument built in its honor, one of two options are certainly in the works for the following:
Paul saw the efforts of the Greeks as somewhat commendable, about as commendable as are the prayers to God from those lost and desperate. When he wrote: “[God] allotted the times of [our ancestor’s] existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us,” that can go down as “Give them an A for effort. Still, it is really little more than like the saying goes, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”
God hears the prayers and knows every heart. He answers prayers so people will learn to have faith and stop being afraid of everything the world has that proves dangerous. Faith requires trust and trust demands knowledge. Still, God the Father knows that babies need to fall so they will learn to walk on their own. But for all God’s help, why do Americans remove their altar to their “Unknown God.”
Rather than remove the non-Christians, its easier to remove the God.
Paul used logic, which the Greeks knew well, when he reasoned, “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.” American Christianity is all about the things of humanity. God’s grace is imagined to be reflected in the wealth, power, and influence one has. After all, don’t nations become successful empires by killing, raping, and pillaging in the name of God, with His approval to keep the spoils of war?
The war against evil begins to be successful when these who leaped into the sheepfold, wearing lamb’s wool, are exposed and banished. Still, the sheep love a good song and dance.
The lesson of this reading from Acts is at the end, when Paul said, “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness.”
The times of human ignorance is why God sent His Son into the world. Human brains are inherently incapable of leading human beings down a path of righteousness. They naturally ignore the inner call to do good, when the outer lure to not do good is so tantalizingly tangible. Human brains become adept at trickery and deceit.
Continuous trips and falls, wallowing in the filth of a sinful earth, requires one be cleaned for any chance of being Heaven-bound can appear. The fixed day in EVERYONE’S LIFE when the righteousness of a human being will be judged is their deathday (the opposite of one’s birthday). Without a brain that is capable of making oneself righteous, God sent His Son to be His gate to Heaven.
That is evident when Paul said repentance and judgement as worthy of Heaven would come “by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” This appears to say one thing, when one is using a human brain.
It appears to say (to all the really smart human beings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when human beings somehow think they grew a better brain than all the human beings prior) that Paul was evangelizing the Gospel, telling a group of Greeks, “Hey guys, Jesus was raised from death by God, so we can all go to Heaven now!”
Episcopalians all jumped up and said, “Praise be to God!”
The reality of what Paul said is this:
“because he set a day in which he is about to judge the world in righteousness ,“
“by a man whom he appointed ,“
“a guarantee provided to all ,“
“having raised self out of subject to death .“
The first point states that every mortal will die, at which point every soul will be judged by God, in respect of how righteous that soul led its body of flesh to act. [Important Note: You are reading this from the book that tells of the ACTS of the APOSTLES.]
The second point is multifaceted. This is due to the use of the Greek word “andri.” Typically this translates to say “a man,” which makes a brain leap up and down, exclaiming, “He’s talking about Jesus!” That alone is too limiting for God talk, and God was talking through Paul, just as God spoke through Jesus.
The word “andri” can also be more generic, as a statement of “a male.” Yes, Jesus was a male and a man, but when Paul was evangelizing, Paul used to be Saul, when Saul encountered the Spirit that was Jesus Christ. Jesus was no longer on earth as “a man,” but Christianity was well underway, through others reborn as Jesus Christ. This means “a male” as the translation points to a gender statement about “the Son.” That is opposed to “a woman” or “a female,” as “a daughter.”
Still further, the Greek word “andri” can mean “a husband.” This is a usage that flies well over the heads of American Christians and needs to be understood deeper.
By sounding out the English words that come from the Greek statement “en andri hō hōrisen ,” one can see these words separated by marks of pause [commas] force one to contemplate how God is going to judge the world in righteousness. This will come “by [with, in, on, at, among] a man [a male, a husband] he appointed [he designated, he determined, he separated, he marked off by boundaries]”. This becomes truth on multiple levels.
God will judge “by a man he appointed,” who was the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth. However, that “man” is no longer in the world as “a man.”
God will judge “in a male he designated,” who is the Son of God reborn “in” a human being. Because the Son of God [and even GOD Himself] is a masculine entity [earthlings are feminine entities, regardless of human gender], then when God judges souls they best be “in the Son [male form]” AND that “male” will then be “he marked off by boundaries,” meaning one who only lives within the boundary of righteousness.
God will judge when he is “with” a human being that has submitted his or her self-ego and self-will to that of “the husband” that is God. As one who becomes the wife of God (human gender is meaningless when speaking in spiritual terms of soul and God), then “he [God] separates” the life breath soul from having any control over the body of flesh it once owned.
I recommend the reader play with these words more, as more can come from them. Keep in mind that God talk is not limited to human brain capabilities of translation (following normal syntax). Just know that judgment leads to this element of being reborn as the Son of God, which then means point three is “a guarantee” of eternal life.
The soul having been saved from the judgment of damnation [return as another baby born of a woman in a sinful world, to repeat the same grade of life and the same challenges: to stop being selfish and stop thinking you do not have to do anything to go to Heaven] means being reborn as Jesus Christ [his Holy Spirit in your flesh along with your submissive soul] makes him truly the Savior. He saves you by not letting you destroy yourself anymore.
When point three says, “provided to all,” this is why Paul [a Jew of Roman citizenship] was preaching to pagan Greeks. It is why Paul’s story is retold to pagan American Christians and everyone else who has ears that want to hear.
The fourth point, after one has seen that Paul was not speaking about believing Jesus was raised from the dead, means it is YOU who is one of “all” who can be saved. YOU are certainly going to die, so YOUR appointed time of judgment will come. However, by removing yourself out of control of your body of flesh, allowing God to Father His Son in you, you become “raised from death” – your own end in this world. Your soul will be saved by letting Jesus Christ become YOU.
To rephrase that, YOU must die of self, prior to your mortal death that is appointed. To earn salvation (just like anything) means work must be done. God the Husband expects His wives to serve Him as Saints. For a flawed mortal to meet that requirement, the Son of God has to be reborn within each wife (again, do not let that word trick a human brain, as souls have no human gender, only human bodies that sense sexual urges.
Now, let me assure you that there will be no ministers preaching what I have written. Why would they?
If you believe this and become reborn as Jesus Christ, then you certainly will not be a ‘paying customer’ in some local church. If you do that, then you will be out like was Paul, telling everyone “You are going the wrong way.”
Priests, pastors, ministers, and preachers are one of two things, if he or she is not being like Paul [or any and all Saints]. First and at best, they are hired hands.
As adults, think of your employment. Being a hired hand does not mean doing a bad job. Most people want to do the best job they can, but as the saying goes: Don’t rock the boat. One learns his or her job and does it to the best of one’s capability … until a better offer comes along or you do so good they give you a promotion. A church is an employer and the hired hands are limited to what they can do and how. Some ministers can feel chained to a contract with a church, not allowed to mingle with the “great unwashed.”
I mean, just look at the American Christian churches today. They have all cowered down to fear of a virus, because a.) paying customers might die and stop paying, or b.) the government might arrest a priest for opening a church and fine the organization that owns the church and employs the priest.
Like Jesus said, “When [the hired hand] sees the wolf [or viral threat of death] coming, he [or she] abandons the sheep [or parishioners averaging age 70 or older] and runs away.”
This is what the meaning of Acts 17:22-31 is. Everyone has an appointed judgment day in the future. The question is: Do you want to die of self and suffer the birth pains of being reborn as Jesus Christ? [Hint: Read this for insight about what that means.]
Or, Do you want to wait it out and hope it is all make believe: You want to hope there is no God. [Look: Something like this, but change the chant.]