A Warning…
Rat poison is made mostly of a nutritious ingredient such as corn. The poison that is mixed with it is minimal, but deadly! So it is with some of today’s theologies…
Entrust your soul’s salvation only in the divine Words that Jesus uttered, which were brought to us by the pen of his chosen apostles, who were chosen by him to transmit correctly the words that he uttered and the deeds that he performed, with the help of the Holy Spirit that Jesus blew onto them before ascending to Heaven.
The apostles wrote, and their writings are now preserved in the New Testament! Those written words are God’s Word, (just as the words the Old Testament prophets wrote are God’s Word).
Read them every single day of your life with an open mind and an open heart, base your faith on them (and them only) and let them change your way of thinking and living.
Do not entrust your eternal destiny in today’s churches. The Devil, our enemy, has infiltratde many of them right from the beginning of the Christian era (and even more so these last two centuries) and has sown poisonous teachings in them, which lead their adherents into beliefs and practices which not only distract us from what is important, but which also are contrary to God’s Words and jeopardize our very salvation…
Most of today’s churches have been thus affected: The old traditional ones such as the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as the modern ones such as the Mormons, Jehovah Witnessess, Adventists, Charismatics and others.
I need to apologize for being so negative towards them, but it is my duty, as a sincere and non-dogmatic child of God who has been studying the Bible for 49 years now, reading it carefully and prayerfully for at least one hour a day, every day, and interpreting them like an innocent child would, (as Jesus suggested), it is my duty to warn you of those “wolves that are dressed in sheep’s clothes” that Jesus himself spoke about. I do not belong to any church, any dogma. My sole allegiance is to my Lord and God Jesus Christ.
I am also not an expert on the subject, but I have lived enough and argued much with leading … of these dogmas to be able to point out to you were they have gone wrong in their theologies…
Catholic and Orthodox Churches
Up to the middle of the last century, the Catholic service, [mass] was conducted in Latin, a language that no one understood. No wonder that its adherents remained unaware of its many heretical beliefs…
Up to recently, their priests were discouraging, even forbidding, their adherents to read the Bible. In this way God’s Words, the Truth, were hidden from the laymen’s eyes.
Likewise, up to now, in the Orthodox Church the service is chanted in ancient Greek, a language that very few understand.
The passages chanted are always the same and don’t go anywhere near the vital teachings of Jesus…
If someone was to ask an Orthodox priest for a New Testament he will be given a heavily paraphrased version of it that is designed to explain away why their teachings differ from those of the Bible.
The Orthodox and Catholic churches both claim that only they,(each one separately from the other) posses the truth and are the only way to eternal life…
As a basic argument, both of these churches claim that their particular church has an uninterrupted line of priestly “succession” going up to the apostles themselves. This, they maintain, assures them that the interpretation that their “holy church fathers’” gave (many centuries after the apostles wrote), must be is the right one!
They strongly reject the idea that the Word of God can be understood literally and with simplicity, (like any child would do), by its reader! Its interpretation, they insist, must be left to the church’s holy fathers!
Are we really supposed to “humbly submit” our spirit, (and our logical perception and understanding) to the interpretation the “holy fathers” give, even when a passage clearly says something else than they do?
Listen to what the apostle Paul himself wrote on the subject:
“When we write to you, brothers, we do not mean anything different than what you are actually understand”. (2Corinthians 1: 13)
“ Even if one of us, or an angel from heaven, teaches you anything different than what you have already been taught by us, you should not believe him. He is deceiving you. Let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1: 8-9)
Right from the beginning, the apostles’ writings were meant to be read and literally understood by the believers themselves. This was discouraged throughout the centuries, and as a result many heresies were slipped into the church’s theologies:
These traditional churches give much importance to adhering to a established Christian practices such as baptism, communion, church attendance, confession, apostolic forgiveness of sins…
These, they claim, are only means by which we can be saved ! Poison, deadly poison! Totally against what Jesus taught…
The perception of “Sacraments” was introduced centuries after Christ, as a way for the clergy to impose themselves on the believers, since only they, they claim, can administer them…
Consider another blatant disregard of God’s Word:
In the Ten Commandments, God strictly forbids us to pray to, to bow down to, to worship or to give thanks to anyone else than Himself. He is a jealous God and gets deeply offended when we do otherwise. He likens those who disobey this commandment to a married woman who is intimate with another man other than her own husband.
God is a jealous God! ( he says so himself, in the Ten Commandments!). And he is a very vengeful God! Beware!
In spite of these crystal clear passages and warnings, these churches do worship and pray and give thanks to Mary, to the “saints” and to images without any fear or shame! They maintain that Mary and the Saints are mediators on our behalf to God, when the apostles tell us clearly that there is only one mediator in between God and men: Jesus himself. (1Timothy 2: 5).
Modern Churches:
The Bible was printed in 1454 and was widely distributed ever since. From that moment when Christians had direct access to God’s Word, many left the ranks of these traditional churches, rejecting their teachings and traditions and started scrutinizing the Bible for themselves.
That is how the “Bible based Protestant” churches were formed and prospered.
They were, however, independent from one another, free to differ, and with time they were divided into as many dogmas as there were church “leaders” among them, bringing disrepute and many false doctrines in the church.
Most Bible based Churches are now heading further and further away from the Truth, overshadowing the basic and most important teachings of Jesus (apostolic faith, love and holy living), while greatly emphasizing and distorting one aspect or another in the Christian spectrum.
There are, today “Charismatic churches”, “Prosperity churches”, “Happy clappy churches” that attract many “believers” into their lively, entertaining meetings with promises of guarantied well being in this life, of experiencing supposedly “Spirit given gifts” and more… Their followers end up becoming hypocrites, pretending to be what they are not.
Other churches, in an effort to differ and attract followers seek to be as different and exclusive as possible, and go to extremes:
They refuse to understand some of the Bible’s passages literally (as they are meant to be understood), and by means of far fetched interpretations they create many dangerous heresies:
The Jehovah Witnesses tell us that we must fix our eyes only on God the Father, belittling the Son to a mere archangel, even though Scripture tells us that we were created by him (Jesus) and for him.
The Adventists, (another sect) have much in common with the Jehovah Witnesses. They give paramount importance to keeping the Sabbath holy,(it actually being one of the Ten Commandments) and believe that only those who do so will be saved…. Satan’s misleading hand in their theology however can be clearly discerned when they teach their adherents to willingly accept the “Mark of the Beast” that will be engraved, or implanted on everyone’s right hand or forehead, something that God strictly forbids, clearly warning us that all those who do so will end up in Hell!
Unfortunately there are many, many more misleading religions in our modern world! There are even some that claim that their leader is Jesus himself! Do not be mislead.
All this is very confusing to a new believer.
There are some churches, however, that are closer to the truth than others.
We Christians must have fellowship with other believers, and in my opinion one would be safer if he/she looks it among Evangelicals, Baptist’s or some Born-Again movements…
Most of these churches offer safe teachings, but are often deficient in fellowship, as it seldom satisfies anyone who needs it…
No church is perfect!
What must you do when confronting all this confusion?
Make sure that you are on the right and narrow road:
Feed yourself daily only from the Words that God has spoken in the Bible, so as to learn for yourself directly out of the mouth of Jesus (and by means of the writings of his very Apostles), the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth.
And the Truth will free you from all human deceptions and errors and from the power that sin has over you. It will take some time though…
When reading the Bible make sure that you understand it literally, as any child would, unless, (as in some passages), it is impossible to do so. Only then passages can be understood metaphorically.
Learn to listen to the soft inner voice of the Holy Spirit whispering to you what you must believe and do.
Whatever God wants you to know and do is written in the New Testament. Read it everyday of your life.
Jesus told us:
“A man must not eat only food such as bread to feed his body, but must also feed himself daily from every Word that has come out of the mouth of God, to feed his Spirit.” (Matthew 4: 4)
Feed your soul everyday from the New Testament with this spiritual food, or else you will become atrophic, spiritually weak and will not be able to differentiate between truth and error, right or wrong, nor will you have the power to overcome sin! For if we do not live holy lives we will not see God. So he says.
I, the writer, I have been studying daily the Bible,(and the Bible only, no other theological books) for nearly five decades, and have been striving to put it into practice in my life.
I do not belong to any particular church or dogma. I follow Jesus only, and I believe and teach only what I see written in God’s Word.
Constantin Economides