A question about the Day that Jesus rose from the grave.
May 18, 2018 7:45:16 GMT -6
mike and witness1 like this
Post by stormyknight on May 18, 2018 7:45:16 GMT -6
Who could possibly want to swade new believers from the Truth in John's time? Those in religious power at the time? the Jewish religious leaders,,,according to commentary we are past the destruction of the the temple, so am not sure where all the jewish religious leaders are at this point, or what how they are influencing, and I am aware there was the threat of the gnostics. Jude's account talks about a lot of things applied to Christ-following deceivers that seem New Age to me when I read Jude..anyways..
Its an interesting context and concern by John to warn on this stuff.
When I was going to college, I was bored to death in my Psych 101 class, but by the end of the semester, I was interested enough to take other Psychology classes to fulfill that part of my degree. I'm glad I did because I learned a lot about human nature.
If you get a group of people together, no matter who is the most mature or wise, there will be those who don't like the way things are run and begin speaking out about it. Some may have enough charisma to gain other followers. I'm not saying those people are inherently evil, but given satan's subtle ways, those people are good portals to plant small seeds of evil that grow later on. The Roman church may not have started right away, but it didn't just appear out of nothing. Those first outspoken people that John wrote about were believed by others and they by others, etc. They may have been persecuted Christians, but that doesn't make them free from committing evil themselves. Sin is sin, whether it is a small white lie or outright murder. The wages are the same. The small ones are just easier to justify in our weak human brains. So what I'm saying is, the Roman Catholic Church most likely started out as maybe one or two people that thought, 'we should be doing this' or 'I think we shouldn't do that'. I could even see someone saying, "you know, if we got together on the first day of the week, the Romans will think we are Sun worshipers and leave us alone! huh? huh? who's with me?" Yes, I'm trying to be funny, but, it could have actually happened. We humans have a tendency to group everyone together, i.e. all Christians are good or all of Genghis Khan's army was evil murderers (surely some of those who cared for the wounded were compassionate souls, etc.). Anyway, I can see these people slowly infiltrating the Roman ranks until some finally reach Constantine's ear. Who knows, maybe it was someone who was secretly faithful to God that was next to Constantine when he saw that Cross in the sky, and they said, "It's a sign from God, Emperor!!!" Thus swaying Constantine's thoughts. While this scenario may seem outlandish, remember we can be faithful to God, or so we think, and yet still fall for satan's tricks. If satan's plan was to put the Catholic church in place, you can bet it would look like it was done by righteous men.
