To Canonize or not to Canonize

We received a comment recently, asking about the early Church, and where they went wrong, especially in regards to the Canonization of the Scriptures. Bear with me; this could get a little lengthy.

There is a belief among many denominations that the Apostles' positions were handed down to others: the view is commonly known as Apostolic Succession. This is a fundamental and essential part of the Roman Catholic Church's position, as their Nicolaitanistic clergy would have no justification without it. Likewise, many of the Protestant groups that came out of Rome (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc.) or split off (Episcopal, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican) teach a similar form of Apostolic Succession, though not as fiercely as the RCC.

To fully understand the quandary that modern "Christianity" is in requires a little digging into the history of the Body of Christ, or the Church. While the universal Body of Christ actually began at Pentecost, when the Disciples were empowered with the Holy Ghost, some groups teach that Christ founded His church on Peter, using Matthew 16:18;

"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

The only problem with that is that Jesus had just gotten done asking Peter who he thought Jesus was, to which question he responded, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Now, Peter's name means little stone, but Jesus is the Rock of Ages and the Cornerstone, so Jesus building His church on Himself (a rock) makes much more sense than Him building it on Peter (a stone).

Anyhow, that's how the Church started: Peter was the first spokesman, and later Paul was the main instrument to spread the Gospel of Christ. The Gospel began to spread when the Jews started persecuting the Christians, and they moved away, taking their relatively new-found faith with them. Eventually the Gospel reached Rome, where Paul wound up getting executed by Nero. When the number of Christians became a large problem for the Roman government, they were persecuted with all the fury of the Roman legions, yet they continued to grow even more.

By 300 A.D., Emperor Constantine realized that they would never be able to root the Christians out, and as the saying goes, "If you can't beat them, join them"; he did exactly that. He "Baptized" his troops by marching them through the river, after which he had his armies wear crosses on their armor. He cited a vision in the sky, where a cross stood bearing the inscription: "In Vince Hoc," or "With this conquor." Many church elders warmly welcomed the respite from persecution, though some feared the new union between the government and the body of Christ. Constantine's new religion began incorporating many of the trappings of the former pagan worship, including polytheism, ornate worship services, temple prostitution and other godless, profane things, under the guise of "Christianity."

There were many people, however, that fled this new abomination, and eventually were persecuted as the unholy union of church and state began to overshadow Europe and the entire Roman Empire. In an effort to stifle the resistance to their religion, the Roman church forbad the common people to own or possess any portion of the Scriptures, or writings of the apostles or the Hebrew Old Testament. In this they thought to control the people, and keep them in ignorance to the abominations they were perpetrating in the name of Christ.

Between 393 and 419 A.D., different councils and synods had declared the "Canon" of the Bible, or which books were and were not Scriptural. The Roman church, using the idea of Apostolic Succession, declared that since Jesus gave Peter the keys of the Kingdom of God, that they still held those keys and also had the right to declare what was God's word.

By contrast, however, the Bible states that God's word is settled forever in Heaven, negating the necessity of a canon. Just because a group of men gets together and declares something to be so does not establish it, just as their refusal to accept something does not negate its existence. Therefore, to claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the authority on the written word of God, when God had already settled it in Heaven in eternity past, is preposterous to the highest degree. The Catholic church simply wanted to keep the people in darkness to the word of God (hence the "Dark Ages") so their "Indulgences" and "Penances" and "Priests," "Monks," "Nuns," "Friars," "Cardinals" and "Bishops" wouldn't be uncovered as fraudulent, unblibical, paganistic trash.

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
(Isaiah 40:8)

Who's causing division?

We've all heard it. "Those Ruckmanites, they just cause division among the brethren!!" It's a common accusation in churches across America, but is it true??

Maybe it happens in some cases, but not in what I've seen in a situation over the past few months to someone I know (and believe me, this is a very common thing to happen in churches when people become aware that a "Ruckmanite" is in the congregation).

So here you are... in a nice, friendly Fundamentalist church. When you come in as a new visitor, the people are all so friendly, the music is beautiful, and the preaching seems pretty dead-on (he's even preaching from a KJV! wow!). As you get to know people there, you get involved in fellowship activities and soulwinning and everything. Of course, since you happen to love Dr. Ruckman's preaching... you mention Dr. Ruckman's name to a few people (just to see how they react). Strangely, their faces turn grim and they start to avoid you. People who said that they just LOVED to talk to you are now shunning you. Pretty soon, the whole church is like one big clique and you're not a part of it. This "friendly" church is now cutting you out of the congregation just because you like the preaching of someone they don't like!

Now who's causing the division here? Is it the "Ruckmanite" or the members of the Fundamentalist church? I think the answer is quite clear.

Evolution: man without God

Man has been trying to get along without God ever since Adam and Eve rejected His command in Genesis 3. The greatest push to ditch God since the Tower of Babel, though, is probably
the "theory" of evolution. Though scientists or other proponents of the "ToE," as it's called, will say that the "Big Bang" is separate from evolution, the whole kettle of (rotten) fish is inextricably tied together.

For one, the universe has to be here for evolution to take place, even though the only place anything has ever evolved is in the minds of willingly ignorant scientists. Therefore, first of all, we must understand the fantastical origins these people propose. In essence, billions of years ago (they don't know for sure when) something (they don't know what) exploded (they don't know how). Then, somehow, this unexplainable explosion created the galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, moons, asteroids, Martians and Earth.

The next big pile of dog doo-doo is better known as "abiogenesis," or the rise of living things from non-living things. Make sense? Didn't think so. Basically, they teach (whilst sucking on a bong, apparently) that after the Big Bang (see above), the earth was a blob of hot, molten rock that gradually cooled down and developed a hard rocky crust. Somehow the earth developed an atmosphere of primitive oxygen and hydrogen and it began to rain on the rocky crust. The rain created a sludge after a few million years, and a "simple," single-celled organism arose from the muck. Somehow this little critter found something to eat (he's the only organic material in the universe!) and someone to marry (huh??) and began the great process of Natural Selection.

Now Evolutionists take something like dogs, for instance, and say that since all these dogs came from a common ancestor (feasible, no problem there), then we all somehow came from that little sludge in the last section. Now, how they come to this conclusion I'll never understand; it's way easier when you just let God do it.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Why use something stupid like evolution when you're God?

Bible Students vs. Willingly Ignorant Baptists

...and they never will agree till the end of the world. Literally.

It's so plain and simple. Some people haven't grown up past the baby Christian view of the Bible. They think the whole thing is written directly to them, so they get confused and misapply Scripture.

Only an open-minded student of the Bible will learn that God has written some Scripture TO us, and other Scripture FOR us. The majority of Scripture is written FOR us. We can learn doctrine (and who it's for), history, and spiritual applications from all Scripture. When you study doctrine, you must learn which doctrine applies to us and what applies to someone else. (it's pretty easy to figure out that we're not required to sacrifice goats and bulls in the Church Age). When you study history in the Bible, you get to know God. (history = His Story) When you study the spiritual applications in Scripture, you learn how to live a life that is pleasing to the Saviour.

Most Baptists are still at the baby Christian stage of seeing the Bible. Most of them don't know better. That's fine, someday the Lord may allow someone to come into their lives and teach them how to study the Bible, or a few might be intelligent enough to figure it out on their own.

Then you get the willingly ignorant Baptists. These are the Baptists that have been viewing the Bible the same simple way for SO many years that they can't change. Either that, or they became firmly hardened in their view quickly (like cement... they were soft in the beginning but dried too fast). These rock-hard Christians are completely unwilling to accept that the Bible is deeper than they perceive it to be. They'll tell you that they know they can't understand everything in the Bible, and that it's a deep Book, but their attitude betrays them. These Christians will probably never change and never have the joy of the Lord showing them the deep and amazing things hidden in His Book. Why would He bother with someone who thinks he/she already knows it all, anyway?

As far as I know, there isn't a true Bible student who ever goes back to that baby Christian view of the Bible and "rightly dividing". Once you've matured in your understanding of the Bible, why would you ever go back? That would be as stupid as a high school student in Algebra asking to be put back in 1st grade math.

Return to cyberspace

I guess it's not too bad out here; I used to be a very prolific poster and blogger (not as much the latter as the former) but I got really busy and didn't have as much time or interest in continuing the amount of online interaction. I just got back into it here within the last few days: a few interesting topics on a forum I'm a part of piqued my interest again and I tarted posting more. Then I got the bright idea to start a blog so I could post things I thought important. Of course the "bright" part is my own opinion, and to my knowledge there have been like two people that have viewed it so far. Not that I care of course; I wouldn't mind a little feedback though.

Anyhow, I'm back, temporarily anyhow; with wedding planning and the like I might run out of free time again; otherwise I'll be around, making people mad and stepping on toes like normal.

The sum is 9

I've always been fascinated with Biblical numerology; the meanings of numbers, times things show up in the Bible, and the correlation of Biblical history with more modern occurrences. Let's take a little walk through some of the more interesting things I've seen.

In the Bible, the number 9 signifies fruitfulness. Galatians 5 lists 9 fruits of the Spirit. Genesis 9:27 (2+7=9) is where the prophecy of the United States is found in scripture.

Gen. 9:27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

This isn't about Canaan or Ham and the rest: this is about Japheth being enlarged (Europe) and dwelling in the tents of Shem (Asiatic, i.e. American Indian). This literally happened with the settlers of one colony; the natives had left or been driven out, and their wigwams made good shelter for the colonists one winter.

Ok, back to the numbers thingie. Let's start with Jamestown (9 letters), which was founded in 1607. Shortly thereafter, some guys in England popped out this book...named the King James (9 letters) Bible, in 1611 (1+6+1+1=9). Then in 1620 (yep, 1+6+2=9) the first free colony in the New Word was established: Plymouth Plantation. The Mayflower (9 letters) landed with 99 passengers and crew aboard, one vociferous scoffer having died during the voyage.

Lots of 9s in there, no? Too many to be a coincidence, I think.

What is Truth?

I think I titled something this a long time ago, but I like it so here we go again. The phrase "What is truth?" is from Pilate, right before he condemned Christ to death. Here's the passage:

John 18:38
"Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all."

He had Truth standing in front of him, but he was too blind to recognize it! Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." John 17:17 says "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." 1 Kings 17:24 "And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth."

So many people today have the truth right in front of their noses, but they haven't the foggiest idea what it is. Of course I'm speaking of the Bible issue; that's one of my hobby horses I like to pull out from time to time. God said He'd preserve His word. God said His word is given by inspiration. God said His word is perfect, pure, holy and righteous. Everyone should be able to agree on that; anyone who believes in the true God, that is.

But here's where everyone, IFBs included, starts stumbling and stuttering. The problem is that though everyone will agree that God's word is perfect, pure, "inspired," inerrant, etc., very few know where to FIND that word of God. Hence the deal about the "Alexandrian Cult," which Dr. Ruckman likes to harp on, and then there's the TR crowd that think the Bible derives Its authority from some moth-eaten manuscripts that only scholars can read.

A man named James White wrote a book titled "The King James-Only Controversy." Or favorite Bible Believing satirist fired back with a book titled "The Scholarship-Only Controversy," basically showing how White not only lied at least 16 times in his book, but also puts the authority of the Scriptures not on the Scriptures, but on the "learned men" that can study "The Greek and Hebrew."

However, even IFBs have fallen into the same trap, if not as far, by things such as the aforementioned statements by Ross. "The Bible this" and "the Bible that," followed slyly by "The King James translation" yada yada. See the difference? Bet you would have missed that if someone didn't show you!! That's how these shiesters like to work: in retail it's called Bait and Switch. You make the person think you're talking about a certain subject, then carefully change the object of the discussion without the person noticing, so he thinks the original object is still being discussed. Basically, Ross doesn't believe any existing Bible anymore than he believes in the Tooth Fairy. And that is EXACTLY how it works worldwide: people believe all this high-sounding, great stuff about the "Bible," then turn around and demean the "King James Version" or "translation of the Bible" etc.

There IS no other Bible, and contrary to Dr. Cloud's belief, the King James Bible or Authorized Version is NOT an edition of the Textus Receptus. The KJB was translated after being compared to over 300 manuscripts in 20-40 languages. While the vast majority of these were from the Antioch family of manuscripts, some of the readings follow the corrupt Latin Vulgate instead. Why is that? God wrote It, not those translators. He put what He wanted in there, so HE Authorized It, not King James. The king just paid for it.

No, Ross won't fess up; he's too embedded in his lies and deceit to realize it himself. SOP for the Alexandrian Cult, and now, as evidenced, it's seeped its way into "IFB" circles as well.