Have You Been Programmed by the Religious Establishment?

The one who is from God listens to the words of God. Because of this you do not listen—because you are not of God.”

John 8:47

Confusion is a state of existence that does not come from the Creator. What could be more confusing than 50,000 Christian denominations of Christianity that all disagree with each other? I find that I have similar experiences while discussing Biblical topics with Christians regardless of their background. As soon as I start discussing something out of their comfort zone, they go into programmed mode and will say what they have heard preached, followed by the end of meaningful discussion. It is cult-like programming where a person stops thinking and goes into a robotic state.

A few examples of this type of programming are the following:

1. We only have to follow the moral law now not the ceremonial law.
2. We are in the age of grace not the age of law.
3. Jesus is my Sabbath now, the commandment to rest on the Sabbath no longer applies.
4. The law was a tutor and we no longer are under a guardian.
5. I don’t need to understand prophecy because I will be taken away in the rapture to be with Jesus before anything bad happens.
6. Christmas and Easter are the two most holy days of the year.
7. I sin every day.
8. Peter had a vision that made eating unclean animals permissible.
9. Jesus said all food has been made clean.
10. We must support the west Asian, secular country of Israel with no critiquing of their actions.

The list goes on. I would not have any problem having an open discussion (but not an argument) about any of these topics. In fact, I would like to hear reasoning from someone who has done deep study and prayer on any of these topics and others. However, these are just road blocks or programming that arises much like a child would block their ears and say “la la la la la la la” when they don’t want to hear something. It is very dangerous. What if they are wrong? What if I am wrong? Iron is supposed to sharpen iron, but if Christians only parrot what they hear someone like a preacher parroting what they have been taught by someone like a professor who is parroting what they were taught, we can easily become misinformed.

Jeremiah 16:19 (LEB): ¹⁹ O Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our ancestors have inherited only lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.

For example, no where in the scripture is the law divided into “moral” and “ceremonial” categories. This is an invention of men to try to understand what we are to do to please God. Someone decided the the fourth commandment of the ten commandments to rest on the Sabbath does not apply to Christians, yet the other nine of the ten commandments do. Some Christians, like mega-pastor Andy Stanley, say we should not concern ourselves with any of these commandments. When we look at what is being said in scripture we find that “commandment” is not even a proper translation. They are ten “words” or “matters”.

In Judaism there are 613 “commandments” which are pulled from the instructions given to Moses called “Torah”. This is the first five books of the Bible, and is the foundation of the teachings of Jesus. Many of them require a temple and Levitical priests which have not existed since 70 CE, therefore, no one can fulfill any of those. Some of the 613 commandments, as they are referred to, are only for men, or women, or farmers, or for people living in the land. This makes more sense than “moral” and “ceremonial”, but still does not give us the view of the Messiah, Jesus, whose name was Yeshua, or Joshua in English. The 613 commandments were a list created by Jewish Rabbis who believe this list is only for those practicing Judaism.

Deuteronomy 28:14–15 (LEB): ¹⁴ And you shall not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today to the right or left by going after other gods to serve them. ¹⁵ “And then if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by diligently observing all of his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you, and they shall overtake you:

“This is the age of grace, not the age of law” is something Christians will say as if they are quoting scripture. This is simply a clever system of theology invented in the 19th century, or the 17th century according to some. It divides the time from Adam to present day into “dispensations” of time where God handles His people differently. Currently, according to this system of theology, we are living at the only point in history where mankind does not need to be concerned with God’s commandments because it is the “age of grace”. At the end of this dispensation, after the Christians are whisked away to an ethereal place, humanity and “the Jews” will have to follow the commandments again. How convenient for us! This is a form of replacement theology because it divides the people of God into two camps, Christians and “end times” Jews. It works very well with Zionism and the theology that the country Israel in western Asia, created by UN resolution 181 and a following war, can do no wrong and that we must unequivocally support whatever it does.

Matthew 26:51–54 (LEB): ⁵¹ And behold, one of those with Jesus extended his hand and drew his sword, and striking the slave of the high priest, cut off his ear. ⁵² Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place! For all who take up the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Or do you think that I cannot call upon my Father, and he would put at my disposal at once more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen in this way?”

The solution in western Asia is to remove all foreign money and interference. If dispensationalism theology and Zionism are correct, then the Creator himself will protect the current country of Israel and it could usher in the next age. If these philosophical and religious systems are not correct, then we can move on with whatever solution is hashed out by the people involved.

“The law is a tutor” is something Paul says in his letter to the Galatians and somehow this is used a an argument against God’s instructions. The word “tutor” or “guardian” comes from the following Greek word and definition:

παιδεύω G4084 (paideuō), bring up, instruct, train, educate; παιδεία G4082 (paideia), upbringing, training, instruction, discipline; παιδευτής G4083 (paideutēs), instructor, teacher; παιδαγωγός G4080 (paidagōgos), custodian, guide, the man, usually a slave, whose task it was to conduct boys and youths to and from school and superintend their conduct generally. D. Fürst, “Παιδεύω,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 775.

In other words, the law is the milk or basic instruction. A child that is instructed as in the definition above would not abandon what they learned as a child. They would build upon it and it would be the foundation of future learning. It is the same as the instructions of God – so basic that we should know and do them like elementary math or the ABC’s.

Hebrews 5:11–14 (LEB): ¹¹ Concerning this we have much to say and it is difficult to explain, since you have become sluggish in hearing. ¹² For indeed, although you ought to be teachers by this time, you have need of someone to teach you again the beginning elements of the oracles of God, and you have need of milk, not solid food. ¹³ For everyone who partakes of milk is unacquainted with the message of righteousness, because he is an infant. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have trained their faculties for the distinguishing of both good and evil.

“The beginning elements of the oracles of God” and those who “because of practice have trained their faculties for the distinguishing of both good and evil” are those who study and understand the instructions in the Torah. It could not be any clearer. The Torah is the guardian or tutor, the basic instruction that we learn by heart and is imparted to us through the Spirit of God through faith to enable us to learn about the deeper things of God. How can we learn more about God if we do not even know to rest on the weekly Sabbath?

Hebrews 6:1–6 (LEB): 6 Therefore, leaving behind the elementary message about Christ, let us move on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God, ² teaching about baptisms and laying on of hands, and resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. ³ And this we will do, if God permits. ⁴ For it is impossible concerning those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and become sharers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age, ⁶ and having fallen away, to renew them again to repentance, because they have crucified again for themselves the Son of God and held him up to contempt.

One more knee jerk reaction we witness is to the prospects of refraining from eating creatures God tells us not to eat. In Acts chapter ten, a sheet of unclean animals was shown to Peter three times in a vision and God said to Peter “eat”. Peter was perplexed by the vision because unclean food had never touched his lips.

The first clue that is very obvious is that in all the time that Peter spent with Jesus, he was never made aware of the supposed new rule that allowed him to eat, for example, a dog. Leviticus chapter eleven tells us how to identify which animals we can eat anywhere in the world. It says “Peter was perplexed” years after Jesus ascended to heaven.

Acts 10:17 (LEB): ¹⁷ Now while Peter was greatly perplexed within himself as to what the vision that he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having found the house of Simon by asking around, stood at the gate.

In first century Judaism, it was against the rules for the Jews to interact with non-Jews. These non-Jews were considered unclean. Since Peter knew God would never go against His own commandments, he was perplexed because he knew this vision was not about eating unclean animals. He understands the vision once he sees the men coming to speak with him.

Acts 10:27–29 (LEB): ²⁷ And as he conversed with him, he went in and found many people gathered. ²⁸ And he said to them, “You know that it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or to approach a foreigner. And to me God has shown that I should call no man common or unclean. ²⁹ Therefore—and without raising any objection—I came when I was sent for. So I ask for what reason you sent for me.”

Peter understood that the rule to not associate with foreigners was a man made religious rule and that through the vision of the unclean animals God was telling him it was okay and that they were now going to be allowed to be brought near to God. He never questioned the validity of God’s instructions concerning what to eat. This was a huge moment where the people of the world could be saved through what Jesus had done, yet Christians today make it about pepperoni pizza.

Isaiah 56:1–2 (LEB): 56 Thus says Yahweh: “Observe justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is close to coming, and my justice to being revealed. ² Happy is the man who does this, and the son of humankind who keeps hold of it, who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it, and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

There are some Christians who are so weak minded that they would be scared to read a blog post like this for fear of having their religious programming challenged. We are warned all through scripture about a time when people will be deceived and call evil good and good evil. Scripture also tells us to be diligent about learning the ways of God and not to place man-made traditions above the commandments of God. It is a very serious situation in Christendom. Challenge the status quo by reading scripture, praying and seeking God.

Photo by Luan Cabral on Unsplash