—Last year, Rev. Jeffress said the Roman Catholic Church was the outgrowth of a “corruption” called the “Babylonian mystery.”—
Actually, I’ve read quite a bit about “mystery babylon”. He is not alone in what he says and these folks do make a strong case. I am not sympathetic to their claims only because the case cannot be proven or disproven. My take is that in the end we will find out. I take it all on a case by case basis. As more evidence presents itself I will solidify my position.
I think those that study His word and follow the fruit of these various trees things will see things pretty clearly. And spiritual Christianity is all about ones personal relationship with Christ, not what others believe.
Jeremiah Wright is not alone in what he says, either. Both of them, along with their followers, pervert and distort the Word of God.
May God grant them the grace of repentance and conversion. Right now, they are mired in falsehood.
The irony is that they bought into the claims of the 18th century skeptics who based on poor information claimed that Christianity is a mystery religion, or strongly influenced by them. John, for instance, was supposed to be a second century text because he supposed used language peculiar to Greek paganism.
Then along came the DeadSea scrolls and we learned how similar Was the language of the Essenes to that of John. Mystical but deeply Jewish. Not too many years ago, John Robinson, a liberal Anglican bishop and scholar, looked at the evidence and speculated that there is just as much to be said for the theory that John was written before the destruction of the Temple, at least one version of it. Claims that the Greek was too good for a Gallilean fisherman may be refused by the practice of redaction, or re-writing, by one or more persons. In our own age. it is not widely known that the version of Lincoln’s debates with Douglas is not what his audience actually heard, but the version published in Horace Greely’s paper, and much polished by editors.
Lincoln was a fine writer when he had a change to work on his speeches, but he was not a great extemporaneous speaker, which is why he relied heavily on Joe Miller;s joke book.
"Biblical" Christianity holds the word of God to be authoritative. So, it is imperative that Christians know and study the scriptures. However, most Christians do not and liable to believe things which agree with common, worldly sentiments.
Revelation chapter 17 describes the "whore of Babylon" at length. She's drunken with the "blood of saints" and "blood of martyrs of Jesus" (:6). The whore "sits upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns" (:3). "The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman siteth." (:9).
It's not hard to figure out to whom the imagery is referring. I know of one city which sits upon seven mounts:
The whore is the false gospel known as works righteousness. In Genesis the project known as "Babel" was a work whose goal was to reach heaven; hence, the name "Babylon." Any religion that teaches works as a requirement for justification before God is teaching works righteousness. The Bible consistently teaches that we are "justified by faith without the works of the law" (Romans 3:28).
What do you mean by a "personal relationship with God"? Sonship? The prodigal was still the son of his father, not a bastard.