Posted on 06/25/2018 8:35:30 PM PDT by pastorbillrandles
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. (John 15:18-21)
Jesus warned his church that the World would treat her just as they treated him in the days of his flesh. The church is called to share in the sufferings and reproach of her LORD. This is part of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus.
This is because the true Church bears the image of Christ, the “Mark of the Lamb”, just as the world and the false church bear the “mark of the Beast” long before there will be any kind of tattoo or rice chip or whatever the physical manifestation of Revelation 13 will be. Already the Mark is there, spiritually in the hand(actions) and on the forehead(Outlook, thoughts). Some are stamped with the Lamb and others with the mark of the beast.
One of the ways the church is like Jesus, is the fact that she is “not of this world”. We once were of the world, but we have been called out of it, through the preaching of the gospel. The new birth is many things; spiritual rebirth, moral transformation, a miracle of God, participation in the New Creation, the imputation of Righteousness, and a host of other things, too numerous to list here.
Being born again is also coming out of this world, and identifying with the Rule of God. The World is a reference to the way unredeemed humanity has developed itself, it is an unseen spiritual “order and adornment”, humanity independent of God and his Word, estranged from its Creator.Worldliness is a (fallen) value system.
We who are converted are “born from above” when Jesus comes into our hearts, we no longer share the fallen values and outlook of this evil age, we are passed out of it into another system entirely.
Being born from above, or born again is a translation out of this world. The church has died to the world and no longer partakes of worldly values and outlook. Somehow the world recognizes this break away form it instinctively and persecutes the true church, and anyone truly converted to Jesus.
The greek word for “World”in scripture is the word Cosmos, which means “the order” or “the adornment”. There is very definitely an antiGod “order” in this world that is more than mere human devices. There is a mind behind the system, for the true “God of this world” is Satan himself. He is the force behind all human opposition and estrangement from God, and we are told in I John, “The Whole World Lies in (the power of) the Wicked One”. (I John 5:19)
Satan blinds, guides and controls the world by the imposition and propagation of anti god philosophies, reasonings, false religions and vain imaginations. All of the organs of mass communication have been made available to Satan to propagate those outlooks, constantly, to promote “the lie” that man can live independently of the God of the Bible, and that there is no fixed and absolute truth.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
But the true church is the only consistent human witness against all of that deception.
Thus the world hates Christ, and is hostile to Him and his cause. We are told in scripture, that the world “knew not God” (1 Cor. 1:21), “hated” Christ (John 15:18) and “cannot receive” the Spirit of truth (14:17).
Furthermore, of the World, Jesus told his half brothers,
The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. (John 7:7)
The Apostle James warned the church in his day of the reality that friendship with the World, is a form of spiritual adultery,
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (James 4:4)
The true Church is called to follow Jesus, bearing his shame and reproach in this present evil age, witnessing to the reality of Sin, Righteousness, Judgment, and repentance and forgiveness through Christ. The World hates the true church for the same reason they hated Jesus.
I enjoy the liberty that allows this posting. The word “Church” was not in the Bible until 1611. The word was “Ekklesia” , meaning “The called out” or believers. It did not mean “Gathering” or “assembly” because that was the word “Sanhedrin”. We are so mislead.
It is easy to mislead when the only means of belief is faith.
Hate is weak
Love is all
Which of these fell into error? All of them have.
Which of these have been able to correct their errors? All except the church at rome, because it holds that its errors are infallible.
If your'e going to go apostate, go large with the original.
there you go again raiderboy. The exact same losing argument you always make. Since you like copying and pasting from previous posts, I will copy and paste from answers to your post.
Sanhedrin was a religious council of the highest level Pharisees and Sadducees. It was not a meeting of all of the free men as was an Ekklesia in the Greek community. The Greeks actually made all of the free men come to the Ekklesia so the decision would be made by all.
Ekklesia was what the Greeks called their “assembly” for the government. All of the men, which is why Paul used ekklesia when discussing women, got together, and voted on things. And they held the ekklesia in a special building or area for this purpose.
So Paul using a word, from the popular culture at that time, to people living in that culture, must have meant what THAT culture thought the word meant. And for them, it meant showing up at a specific building, listening to speakers talking about important decisions, and then making a decision.
Love Trump’s Hate...
Where did I hear That?
Cool factoid. Didn’t know that. Thanks for posting.
I disagree. It means “the called out”!. Those who believed in Jesus were “called out” if they were believers. There were no buildings.no Sunday meeting. . To choirs, no mortgages, no preacehers paid salrariies , no franchise payments to franchiser denomination head quarters , it was just uncontrolled believers in the Son of God. When Paul wrote his sometimes contradictory “epistles” or letters he was writing all believers in those towns. . “ church “ was put in the king James derived from “ cirke “ or ” kirke” meaning the pagan worship in a circle. “Church” was not in the Greek. Sanhedrin was the word for gathering or assembly.. The king James had many other corruptions.
Totally wrong.
Sunday Meetings - 1 Corinthians 16:2
Hymns - Since the last thing Jesus did with his believers was to sing a hymn, and historians from that period said that they sang hymns, you are obviously wrong.
No preachers - Peter actually complained in Acts that they were too busy preaching and teaching to pass out the food, so they instituted Deacons.
And again Sanhedrin is not what you think it is!
Christ’s Church founded on the Apostles, the first Bishops.
The Wycliffe Bible of 1395, one of the oldest English Bible, uses the word chirche (church). Tyndale (1525), Coverdale (1535), the Bishops Bible (1568) uses congregacion/congregation. Finally, the Geneva Bible (1587) uses church. All of these are before the KJV.
That being said, the Apostles were never referred to as bishops in the NT.
Old English bisceop "bishop, high priest (Jewish or pagan)," from Late Latin episcopus, from Greek episkopos "watcher, (spiritual) overseer," a title for various government officials, later taken over in a Church sense, from epi- "over" (see epi-) + skopos "one that watches, one that looks after; a guardian, protector" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe"). Given a specific sense in the Church, but the word also was used in the New Testament as a descriptive title for elders, and continues as such in some non-hierarchical Christian sects.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/bishop
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