Reason for the spread of Christianity (Gospel, Jehovah, punishment, churches)
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The Bible was written and edited together by creative and imaginative men, who were trying to explain their profound experience with God in the best way they knew how.
By the time the book was compiled and accepted for religious instruction, the people who taught it were less imaginative, perhaps didn't understand all the symbolism. This resulted in them teaching everything in the Bible as if it were to be taken literally.
Fear.
This FEAR was the primary driving force behind the religion, as it is today. The kind of Christians who were killed for their faith were the kind who believed that denying their faith would have dire consequences on their eternal souls.
These same kind of "literal" Bible believing Christians are the exact same type of people who are being persecuted today for their faith.
Perhaps most of the persecuted Christians (today or in the past) have never even begun to understand the true faith. The faith that must be apart from the religion that they value so highly.
Just an idea. I may be wrong. If you disagree please explain why, as I am open to listening.
The other reason for the spread of Christianity is that in Matthew 28: 18-19....Jesus said ``All power is given to me in heaven and the earth ...God you there for and teach all nations ........In Mark 16:15...Jesus said ..``Go you in to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature ``......In Luke 24: 47....Jesus said ..``Repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name among all nations , beginning at Jerusalem ``.......................... See Jesus commanded the great commission of the salvation of souls through out the world , and gives His power of the creator Father God to all who will obey and receive and the people where saved and did have a witness of their salvation by the baptism of Holy Spirit which does attract people in this eternal truth ....................... See you see in all these falling churches closing their doors on their watch which they will be judged eternally for , as they fall the receive this power of the Creator Father God which Jesus received at the cross who gives this power to those who are obedient to receive , as the falling churches seem to be disobedient to receive this gift of Power of Christ for salvation for conversion
The Bible was written and edited together by creative and imaginative men, who were trying to explain their profound experience with God in the best way they knew how.
By the time the book was compiled and accepted for religious instruction, the people who taught it were less imaginative, perhaps didn't understand all the symbolism. This resulted in them teaching everything in the Bible as if it were to be taken literally.
Fear.
This FEAR was the primary driving force behind the religion, as it is today. The kind of Christians who were killed for their faith were the kind who believed that denying their faith would have dire consequences on their eternal souls.
These same kind of "literal" Bible believing Christians are the exact same type of people who are being persecuted today for their faith.
Perhaps most of the persecuted Christians (today or in the past) have never even begun to understand the true faith. The faith that must be apart from the religion that they value so highly.
Just an idea. I may be wrong. If you disagree please explain why, as I am open to listening.
I believe there is some truth in what you are saying. I also believe christianity(including universalists) reveres the bible(or what they think it is saying) like it is God.
The Bible was written and edited together by creative and imaginative men, who were trying to explain their profound experience with God in the best way they knew how.
By the time the book was compiled and accepted for religious instruction, the people who taught it were less imaginative, perhaps didn't understand all the symbolism. This resulted in them teaching everything in the Bible as if it were to be taken literally.
Fear.
This FEAR was the primary driving force behind the religion, as it is today. The kind of Christians who were killed for their faith were the kind who believed that denying their faith would have dire consequences on their eternal souls.
These same kind of "literal" Bible believing Christians are the exact same type of people who are being persecuted today for their faith.
Perhaps most of the persecuted Christians (today or in the past) have never even begun to understand the true faith. The faith that must be apart from the religion that they value so highly.
Just an idea. I may be wrong. If you disagree please explain why, as I am open to listening.
I believe you are correct regarding the motivation to spread Christianity.
However, many people do not understand the role of Rome. Once the Church became powerful and with endless resources the spread of Christianity to all of Europe was rather easy.
The other reason for the spread of Christianity is that in Matthew 28: 18-19....Jesus said ``All power is given to me in heaven and the earth ...God you there for and teach all nations ........In Mark 16:15...Jesus said ..``Go you in to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature ``......In Luke 24: 47....Jesus said ..``Repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name among all nations , beginning at Jerusalem ``.......................... See Jesus commanded the great commission of the salvation of souls through out the world , and gives His power of the creator Father God to all who will obey and receive and the people where saved and did have a witness of their salvation by the baptism of Holy Spirit which does attract people in this eternal truth ....................... See you see in all these falling churches closing their doors on their watch which they will be judged eternally for , as they fall the receive this power of the Creator Father God which Jesus received at the cross who gives this power to those who are obedient to receive , as the falling churches seem to be disobedient to receive this gift of Power of Christ for salvation for conversion
But without the fear element, no one would have cared about any of the rest of that.
Last edited by OzzyRules; 08-09-2014 at 08:50 AM..
But without the fear element, no one would have cared about any of the rest of that.
Ozzy this is not an informed opinion you have in the posts on this thread.
You really sound like someone who has been victimized by the anti-Christ
secular-modernists who control the mass media, mass public "education"
and mass internet disinformation. You need to flush out everything you've
been told and start over with real history and real understanding of what
happened in the first century to the third century.
Ozzy this is not an informed opinion you have in the posts on this thread.
You really sound like someone who has been victimized by the anti-Christ
secular-modernists who control the mass media, mass public "education"
and mass internet disinformation. You need to flush out everything you've
been told and start over with real history and real understanding of what
happened in the first century to the third century.
I'm not denying that there is a some good and godly power evident in parts of the Christian faith. But I also think that a lot of its success is driven by fear of eternal punishment for not accepting it. I don't see how anyone could deny that, even yourself.
The Bible was written and edited together by creative and imaginative men, who were trying to explain their profound experience with God in the best way they knew how.
By the time the book was compiled and accepted for religious instruction, the people who taught it were less imaginative, perhaps didn't understand all the symbolism. This resulted in them teaching everything in the Bible as if it were to be taken literally.
Fear.
This FEAR was the primary driving force behind the religion, as it is today. The kind of Christians who were killed for their faith were the kind who believed that denying their faith would have dire consequences on their eternal souls.
These same kind of "literal" Bible believing Christians are the exact same type of people who are being persecuted today for their faith.
Perhaps most of the persecuted Christians (today or in the past) have never even begun to understand the true faith. The faith that must be apart from the religion that they value so highly.
Just an idea. I may be wrong. If you disagree please explain why, as I am open to listening.
Fear has many facets...there is morbid fear as in being terrified, then there is fear of someone who has authority over you ( a boss, supervisor, etc). But fear is not necessarily unhealthy. One may be in fear of displeasing a person whom the individual has come to highly value, esteem, is loyal to, and loves.
There are Christians who are killed because they developed a personal relationship with God and applied what Jesus taught about the first and second greatest commandments. Many may have given up or thought it impossible to think that an omnipotent being would care for us as individuals or that we can have a personal relationship with God but that is not the case.
Matthew 22:37-40 " Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the LORD( Jehovah Deu 6:5;10:12;Jos 22:5 ) thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
If you have an opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. do so. You will see examples not only of individual Christians who had such love for God but Christians as a group who with a signature on a document, not even a page long, would have been released from concentration camps.
The Bible was written and edited together by creative and imaginative men, who were trying to explain their profound experience with God in the best way they knew how.
By the time the book was compiled and accepted for religious instruction, the people who taught it were less imaginative, perhaps didn't understand all the symbolism. This resulted in them teaching everything in the Bible as if it were to be taken literally.
Fear.
This FEAR was the primary driving force behind the religion, as it is today. The kind of Christians who were killed for their faith were the kind who believed that denying their faith would have dire consequences on their eternal souls.
These same kind of "literal" Bible believing Christians are the exact same type of people who are being persecuted today for their faith.
Perhaps most of the persecuted Christians (today or in the past) have never even begun to understand the true faith. The faith that must be apart from the religion that they value so highly.
Just an idea. I may be wrong. If you disagree please explain why, as I am open to listening.
I suppose you attribute the spread of antibiotics and vaccinations to some illogical fear, as well? Most of us are just dumb suckers that don't understand the "true medicine"!
I believe there is some truth in what you are saying. I also believe christianity(including universalists) reveres the bible(or what they think it is saying) like it is God.
The bible is a guidebook, not a god, as you say. I would says that Christians treat the bible the way conservatives and libertarians treat the constitution. Sometimes the interpretation is arguable. but both the constitution and the bible serve the purpose of providing the rules of the road, so to speak.
As to the topic, in my opinion the reason for the rapid spread of Christianity in the first 150 years after Jesus' death is that the message was so powerful and so attractive in a world where there wasnt a lot of hope.
So powerful that there were numerous heresies right from the get go, from those debating the nature of Jesus as god and man to the mysticism of the east, including Gnosticism.
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