2. When did the body of Christ begin and when did the church of Jesus Christ begin?
That is the standard argument that both ‘sides’ like to use to put forth their message proving to themselves that the gospels are to the church for today. Then they use Acts 2:41-47 for their church design as they claim the 'Great Commission.' They completely reject Paul, thus rejecting the purpose of the church today as described in Ephesians 4:11-16. They don’t have a clue about how Ephesians 5 talks about the church today.
My usual response is this: I don’t care about ‘when’ the church began anymore than I would care and talk to people about when they were born and their baby years. People can make a doctrinal issue out of anything these days as they try to flash their own personal scholarship of the past – but they completely ignore and reject anything to do with the ‘church’ as Paul defines and describes today.
People just want to build their little earthly kingdom in their local church, a church that is designed and formatted on the early teachings to the Jews – meaning The Great Commission, the gospels and the twelve apostles, sinning and confession, etc. – and the severity of God! They totally miss the true joy of the risen Christ through Paul in the ‘universal’ church as taught by the RISEN Christ to the Gentiles.
2 Even though we saved people are forever saved and all of our sins/transgressions have been taken away and forgiven...
More than that even… Christ put away SIN period! Read Romans 6 very slowly and closely! Those things that we still do ‘wrong’ are not sins – and they need not be confessed because there is nothing to confess. Nothing was imputed to us (Romans 4). They are bad works and will simply be burned up in the judgment seat of Christ.
3. ... should we daily confess our sins to Christ (not to men ofcourse), not for eternal life, which we already have securely, but, in order to stay in closeness or close fellowship with Christ?
Nope! First of all, I John, the only place we see anything about confessing sins, is NOT to us. It was written by who? John – John was teaching his stuff to the Jews. That will all come into play again during the Tribulation but for now, those books (Hebrews to Jude) have nothing to do with us today.
There is nothing that will get imputed so there is nothing we can do that spoils our closeness with God. We can grieve and quench the spirit of God – and we can easily get off trail in our daily walk. Simply ignoring the Scriptures and going out on our own can easily get us back into the world – but it will be US who has broken our closeness with God. HE hasn’t gone anywhere away from us! Remember - the Holy Spirit is IN US! It is us that are messing up our relationship – He is still there just waiting for us to return by getting back to the Scriptures (Paul’s books). You can talk to Him anytime, no matter what, but you don’t hear His return unless you are reading your Bible as often as possible – or simply remembering scriptures as you go about your day.
4. While water baptism and the communion as people call it are symbolic and do not have any salvation power in them, should Christians today continue to practice these things or not?
Nope – those are a complete waste of time. The pastors’ say it is a good object lesson for lost people… bunk! I have a sermon or two on that stuff that gives details on why NOT… interested? (One point is that the baptists say that those are the two ordinances we are told to obey. It says that NOWHERE in the Scriptures. That is simply a denominational teaching - those simply are not Scriptural!)
Those are great questions – I have heard those specific questions a number of times. The sad thing is that no matter how detailed I give my answers with or without Scriptural backup, people just go on believing what they want to believe – or whatever their pastors say. There is truly NO scriptural authority in people's minds these days. And I am not surprised… there are over 500 various modern bibles and they all say different things… so why would they think there is any final authority in Scriptures today. They just think God speaks to their hearts, just like their pastor says… and ‘he has been to school!’ wow – boo.. what a stupid thing…
...however, before KJB1611 was completed (that which is perfect, perfect meaning completed!), God DID speak to their hearts, etc. thus we see the importance of understanding I Cor 13:8-13 and how Paul had to be talking about the coming of the King James Bible! It simply can NOT be Jesus Paul is talking about there. (I have a few sermons on that one, too)
That is the standard argument that both ‘sides’ like to use to put forth their message proving to themselves that the gospels are to the church for today. Then they use Acts 2:41-47 for their church design as they claim the 'Great Commission.' They completely reject Paul, thus rejecting the purpose of the church today as described in Ephesians 4:11-16. They don’t have a clue about how Ephesians 5 talks about the church today.
My usual response is this: I don’t care about ‘when’ the church began anymore than I would care and talk to people about when they were born and their baby years. People can make a doctrinal issue out of anything these days as they try to flash their own personal scholarship of the past – but they completely ignore and reject anything to do with the ‘church’ as Paul defines and describes today.
People just want to build their little earthly kingdom in their local church, a church that is designed and formatted on the early teachings to the Jews – meaning The Great Commission, the gospels and the twelve apostles, sinning and confession, etc. – and the severity of God! They totally miss the true joy of the risen Christ through Paul in the ‘universal’ church as taught by the RISEN Christ to the Gentiles.
2 Even though we saved people are forever saved and all of our sins/transgressions have been taken away and forgiven...
More than that even… Christ put away SIN period! Read Romans 6 very slowly and closely! Those things that we still do ‘wrong’ are not sins – and they need not be confessed because there is nothing to confess. Nothing was imputed to us (Romans 4). They are bad works and will simply be burned up in the judgment seat of Christ.
3. ... should we daily confess our sins to Christ (not to men ofcourse), not for eternal life, which we already have securely, but, in order to stay in closeness or close fellowship with Christ?
Nope! First of all, I John, the only place we see anything about confessing sins, is NOT to us. It was written by who? John – John was teaching his stuff to the Jews. That will all come into play again during the Tribulation but for now, those books (Hebrews to Jude) have nothing to do with us today.
There is nothing that will get imputed so there is nothing we can do that spoils our closeness with God. We can grieve and quench the spirit of God – and we can easily get off trail in our daily walk. Simply ignoring the Scriptures and going out on our own can easily get us back into the world – but it will be US who has broken our closeness with God. HE hasn’t gone anywhere away from us! Remember - the Holy Spirit is IN US! It is us that are messing up our relationship – He is still there just waiting for us to return by getting back to the Scriptures (Paul’s books). You can talk to Him anytime, no matter what, but you don’t hear His return unless you are reading your Bible as often as possible – or simply remembering scriptures as you go about your day.
4. While water baptism and the communion as people call it are symbolic and do not have any salvation power in them, should Christians today continue to practice these things or not?
Nope – those are a complete waste of time. The pastors’ say it is a good object lesson for lost people… bunk! I have a sermon or two on that stuff that gives details on why NOT… interested? (One point is that the baptists say that those are the two ordinances we are told to obey. It says that NOWHERE in the Scriptures. That is simply a denominational teaching - those simply are not Scriptural!)
Those are great questions – I have heard those specific questions a number of times. The sad thing is that no matter how detailed I give my answers with or without Scriptural backup, people just go on believing what they want to believe – or whatever their pastors say. There is truly NO scriptural authority in people's minds these days. And I am not surprised… there are over 500 various modern bibles and they all say different things… so why would they think there is any final authority in Scriptures today. They just think God speaks to their hearts, just like their pastor says… and ‘he has been to school!’ wow – boo.. what a stupid thing…
...however, before KJB1611 was completed (that which is perfect, perfect meaning completed!), God DID speak to their hearts, etc. thus we see the importance of understanding I Cor 13:8-13 and how Paul had to be talking about the coming of the King James Bible! It simply can NOT be Jesus Paul is talking about there. (I have a few sermons on that one, too)