Protestantism

In Godly Submission is true liberty

The fifth commandment states: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” The sphere of this commandment is exceeding broad (Psalm 119:96). The fifth commandment’s definition, scope, realm includes obedience and submission to all (legitimate) authority(s)/government(s). The types of authority/governments include self, home, parental, marital, employment, church, Divine.

There exists a huge misapplication of the fifth commandment among God’s people today; for example the manner in which people view “wives be submissive to their husbands” in light of the fifth commandment. There are a number of reasons for this misapplication. The main reason is because worldly submission and Godly submission of the fifth commandment are total opposites. Worldly submission is accomplished with/through force, obligation, fear, command, insincerity, deception. However, Godly submission is rendered willingly, freely, voluntarily, sincerely, joyfully, without prompting, without restraint, without urging, without reserve (Psalms 40:8).

Worldly authority, submission creates the relationship of lord to servant, master to slave, general to private. Worldly submission is an adversarial relationship where one wants to lord over, enslave another. The General gets the mansion, the filet mignon/prime rib, while the Private gets the outhouse and a can of spam/hash. While true Godly authority, submission is a mutual relationship, where there is one master Jesus and all are brethren (Matt. 23:8), where everyone that loveth Jesus that begat him, loveth him also that is begotten of him (1 John 5:1). The members have the same care one for another (1 Cor. 12:25), subject one to another (1 Peter 5:5), unto the edifying of all in love (Eph. 4:16). In Godly submission to Jesus, one is not a slave, bound in shackles. When one has totally surrendered to Jesus, when one is a true servant of Jesus, the only experience that can result from this Godly submission is true freedom and liberty. (1 Cor. 7:22; 2 Cor. 3:17) In Godly submission, both parties benefit from the relationship. The benefits each participant receives from the relationship under Godly submission are greater than the sum that would have resulted if the individuals were alone by themselves. When Godly submission is our experience, then all are able to perceive that God is love (1 John 4:8) and is also a God of order (1 Cor. 14:40, Isaiah 40:26, Psalms 89).

Happy October 31 Day

Happy October 31 Day

On October 31, 2022, millions of people celebrate Halloween. One could read the history of Halloween from sources such as https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween#:~:text=The%20tradition%20originated%20with%20the,of%20the%20traditions%20of%20Samhain from which the following is summarized:

Celts, who celebrated their new year on November 1, believed that on the night before the New Year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.

By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday. All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. One can see from this brief summary that Halloween’s (and all saints day) origin is from the pagan feasts which became one of the holidays (holy days) adopted by the Catholic Church. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing holy about the day. Further, that is the most wicked, evil, devilish, ungodly, immoral of all the pagan holidays that were adopted by the Catholic Church. When one considers all the pagan holidays (holy days) which were adopted by Catholic Church, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, etc., one may find some virtue in them. For example, Christmas and Easter speak concerning Jesus. St. Valentine’s references love. All souls day honors saints, a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous. However, there is not one virtuous or moral element associated with Halloween. Halloween as documented above deals solely with the occult, devils, the worship of the dead, tricks, animal sacrifices, ghosts, witchcraft, frightening, suffering, the grotesque, and vandalism. This is the ideology, practice that inundate the minds of the populace, especially the young. Evil is glorified. This ideology and practice totally misrepresents the character of God, the God of the living. But worst, it degrades the human race (man). God made man in His image, upright possessing the divine character of God. God made man to be kings and queens, princes and prince, to reign with Him on His throne, the highest calling of all His creation. Halloween inculcates, fills man’s mind with the thought or desire to be something else other than what God created man to be. Further, men are lead to imagine themselves to be something else other than God created them to be. Men imagine themselves as being all manner of evil imaginable from ghosts, devils, pirates, serial killers, harlots, and worse. Worst of all, this mindset is inculcated in the minds of innocent children, as they participate, observe all manner of vice associated with the “day’s celebration.” Then we wonder why or how children get the idea that they are transgender. Let us remember the day October 31; the day in 1517 that the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation (which event history.com calls a legend). Let us education the people concerning the protestant reformation which freed the people from the gross darkness of the middle ages (1260 years) and originated a movement by which we possess the liberties which we enjoy today, freedom of conscience and right to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience. Further, may our lives be a witness of God’s divine nature, the purpose which God made man. God be with you toward this end. Happy October 31 Day.

Protestantism: A Principle

This is the introductory, first discuss on the website. What topic would be more appropriate for this introduction other than Protestantism. Today, people have misidentified the reaction of the German princes, their protest against the practices of the Catholic Church, as Protestantism. There are many who claim and believe that the protest, which began on October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis, is over. Hence, Protestantism is over/dead. However, Protestantism is not founded upon nor based upon a protest. Protestantism itself is a set of beliefs and principles which the German Princes stood for. Below is an excerpt from the Great Controversy 1911 by Ellen White which clearly establishes this point/premise:

One of the noblest testimonies ever uttered for the Reformation was the Protest offered by the Christian princes of Germany at the Diet of Spires in 1529. The courage, faith, and firmness of those men of God gained for succeeding ages liberty of thought and of conscience. Their Protest gave to the reformed church the name of Protestant; its principles are “the very essence of Protestantism.”— D’Aubigne, b. 13, ch. 6 (GC197.1)

…A solemn declaration was therefore drawn up and presented to the Diet (by the German Princes):  (GC202)

“We protest by these presents, before God, our only Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and Saviour, and who will one day be our Judge, as well as before all men and all creatures, that we, for us and [203] for our people, neither consent nor adhere in any manner whatsoever to the proposed decree, in anything that is contrary to God, to His holy word, to our right conscience, to the salvation of our souls.” (GC203)

“What! we ratify this edict! We assert that when Almighty God calls a man to His knowledge, this man nevertheless cannot receive the knowledge of God!” “There is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the word of God…. The Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine…. The Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; … this Holy Book is, in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness. We are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of His only word, such as it is contained in the biblical books of the Old and New Testaments, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, while all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God.”(GC203)

“For this reason we reject the yoke that is imposed on us.” “At the same time we are in expectation that his imperial majesty will behave toward us like a Christian prince who loves God above all things; and we declare ourselves ready to pay unto him, as well as unto you, gracious lords, all the affection and obedience that are our just and legitimate duty.”—Ibid., b. 13, ch. 6.

*Another account/explanation maybe found in Chapter 2 What is Protestantism in the Book “Lessons on the reformation” by A.T. Jones

There you have it. Protestantism is a principle, the Bible only, the freedom of one to read and interpret the Bible for himself, and the freedom of one to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. As a principle, Protestantism cannot die. People may choose to ignore or reject the principle, but the principle itself cannot die.

The principles of the Bible can be found in 2 Tim. 3:16-17, Deut. 8:2-3, and Ps. 119:105, 130. The principle of freedom of conscience is found in Deut. 30:15-20, Josh. 24:14-27, Isa. 1:18-20. The sanctuary service also incorporates the word of God (Bible) in its principles. The Table of Showbread in the Holy Place is symbolic of one imbibing/eating/reading the word of God. Protestantism is a fundamental principle/belief of the Philadelphia church. As Philadelphians, let us be true to, embrace and practice the Protestant Principles.