To: Jesus of Nazareth,  Gallilean Ministries

From: The Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem

We would like to commend you on building such a large ministry in such a short time.  To have attracted  the large number of followers you have in just three years is unheard of.

We are especially proud (and a little jealous) of the good work it is reported you have been doing among the poor and hungry,  sick and deformed.

We do have a few questions, however.

It is reported that on at least two occasions you and your disciples fed groups numbering upwards of five thousand people. We know from our inquiries that your ministry operates on a very limited budget with no visible means of support.  Furthermore,  there are no markets or warehouses in those locations where you might have procured the food. Where did you get it and what means did you use?  We would like to have our investigators drop by to discuss this matter with you.

There are numerous reports of so called healings taking place when you are around. We have no record of you attending any medical school nor are you licensed to practice medicine in our country.  The reports have stated that you have spat on people and made mud from the street as poultices. These unsanitary practices must stop immediately.  Please cease and desist from ‘healing’ unless and until you are properly trained and duly licensed.

Next, in regards to your teaching. We enjoy your messages about love and acceptance, they are truly heart warming, especially the ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘judge not’ series. We are very concerned however about your more controversial messages such as ‘remain in the vine’ and ‘every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut off’. These sound very condemning and unloving.  Most worrisome for us are the times you have said ‘go and sin no more’, ‘ stop sinning or something worse will happen to you’, and ‘a tree is known by it’s fruit’. Who are you to tell another person what is right or wrong?  Don’t you know that each person has the right to determine right and wrong for themself? In the future, please stick to platitudes and refrain from moralizing.

Your view of our holy writings is, shall we say,  alarming. You seem to think that you know how they should best be interpreted, ignoring the schools of thought that have been carefully developed over the centuries. You want us to believe that they should be taken and believed as they are written, when it is obvious to everyone that they are outdated and in need of modernizing for each new generation. Your repeated use of the phrases ‘have you not read’ and ‘Moses said’ indicate an alarming bent toward fundamentalism that has no place in our culture. It also shows a distinct lack of education.  Where did you attend seminary and where did you receive your ordination? We find no record of these events.  Please forward us copies of the pertinent documents.

Finally and most distressing to us are your statements concerning yourself.  You repeatedly have called yourself ‘the Son of Man’ and ‘my Father’s Son’. You said ‘I and the Father are one’. You even claimed the holy name ‘I AM’. You claimed the prerogatives of God himself;  power of healing,  power over nature,  power over death,  forgiveness of sin.

Surely you understand what it would mean for your claims to be true. For if you were actually God, then we would have to listen to you,  to obey you,  to fall at your feet and worship you. It would mean we have to accept what you said, including your acceptance of our holy writings.  And most distasteful of all,  it would mean you have the right to tell us how to live.

In light of these objections,  please refrain from referring to yourself as messiah or God or any variation thereof.

Your immediate attention in these matters will forestall legal action on our part.

Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem, consisting of
The Pharisees, The Saducees, The Scribes, and all the Good and Moral people of Israel.

Enough.  Enough!!

It is time  and past time, for the Church, the true universal Church to stand up and throw the bums out.

The fakes.
The unbelievers.
The wolves.
The charlatans.
The false teachers.

Both Jesus and Paul were unafraid to ‘hurt feelings’ and call out both false teaching and false teachers.  Paul even went so far as to name  specific people and, on his authority as an apostle,  order the church to shun them.

If you don’t believe in the triune God – Father, Son, and Spirit,  fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you don’t believe that the second person of the trinity came to earth as a baby,  lived,  taught,  was killed,  was buried, rose again, went back to the Father in glory,  and is coming again,  fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you don’t believe that Jesus is the way, the only unique way, to get to God,  fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you don’t believe that only those who accept and trust Christ in this life will be welcomed into His Presence, and that those who don’t will be cast out of His Presence, fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you don’t believe that the proof of your salvation is a life lived in trust and obedience to His Word in thought and in deed,  ethically, morally, and relationally, fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you redefine the words of scripture or explain away clear teaching to suit modern theories, fine, that’s your right. Just don’t call yourself a Christian, because you’re not.

If you’re a teacher or leader in the church and you teach contrary to Scripture and the historic teaching of the church, you are a false teacher. It matters not your pedigree or how many degrees you have,  you are a wolf.

It is time to clean house.

Starting with ourselves.

Umpqua valley weeps tonight.

Today we experienced a tragedy that most of us thought could never happen in our little town. Unimagined pain. Lives lost. Families changed forever. A shooting on the campus of our local college.

Two questions will be asked by many people in the next few days.

1) WHY did this happen? Put more bluntly, Why did God let this happen? Couldn’t He stop it. Wouldn’t He stop it? If God is so good and all powerful, then why?

The Bible makes clear throughout the whole two things:

• God IS Good. He IS Love. Every good adjective you can think of applies to Him. it is His very nature to be Good and Loving and Just and Gracious.
• God is power. All power in our world ultimately flows from Him, since it was created by Him.

So WHY does He stand by and watch such evil and tragedy happen? Free Will. When God made mankind, He said. “Let Us make man in Our image”. We understand that to mean we were created first and foremost with the ability and desire to make our own moral choices. We can choose to do good or to do evil. If God were to step in and counteract our choices then we really would have no choice. We would be like little automatons that could only do He wanted. A result of giving us the ability to choose is that there are consequences to our choices, good and bad, direct and indirect. Again if He shielded us from those consequences, then our choices, in effect, become meaningless.

Then WHY did He give us free will? So we could freely choose to love Him. He chose to allow our choices that cause pain and suffering and death to continue so that some could choose to come to Him.

2) What is death? What happens after? Do I just stop existing or is there something else? Some would say death is the end. Finished. Done. Some would say you get to come back for another go round. Some would say we all get absorbed by the eternal everything.

The Bible says that after we die we are caught up into the presence of the most glorious, awesome, beautiful being we could ever (or not even) imagine. There we will have to answer one question. Not ‘how much good did you do?’, or ‘what did you do for others’, or even ‘what did you do for God’.

The question we will have to ask is “Did you love me, did you follow Me, did you do what I asked you to do?”

Our answer to that question determines whether we will spend all eternity with Him, enjoying His presence, or an eternity alone, outside His presence.

Choose Carefully