The 17th day of April, 1992 Here goes present on the subject of Christianity and the meaning of what you recognize as your time of Easter. to self-flagellation, to absolute disbelief, and are turning to Easter bunnies, colored eggs and chickens. What are you celebrating? What is this wondrous time that has come down to you through the ages unto today called Easter. Obviously it could not have been the original holiday because that holiday was established long before there was a Christ walking in the flesh called Immanuel. And we won't even get into the subject of Jesus at this moment.

It's a little more interesting this time because you celebrate the death or the crucifixion, memorialize it on the same day that you celebrate Passover. These are mutually exclusive holidays and so one group walks up one side of the street to celebrate and the other group walks up the other side to celebrate in their way. The Pope gathers his flock and goes through the stages of the cross. The Judeas slaughter sheep to sacrifice for offering to celebrate Passover. What are these myths which have come down through all of these generations and all of this period of time? What does it mean? Well the Master's journey upon your place was for a very specific reason of teaching you ones that there was no such thing as death. So that this being could lay in the cross, I mean in the tomb for some three days and get up and ascend at some point.

To change the history of your planet. Well, it wasn't that way. Precious ones, I'm sorry, it was not that way. The purpose of the journey of all of the great messengers of truth and Christ's teachings came forth to tell you that there was no such thing as death. infinite journey of soul. I don't need to get into that because that is not the inquiry in point here. The inquiry that comes to me is how in the world, if there are confusions, did this entire scenario begin? What about Christianity? How did Christianity come into being? Well, when you understand how it came into being, you will understand more. How it is that you have enemies in the camp who would wish to do you in as Christians and vice versa.

You see, the first Christians were simply Jewish reformers. I have to use the term Jew now because it came into acceptability as a term. And I'm stuck with it because through the ages you have weeded out any other word suitable as a label for the ones of Judean extraction in that time upon your place. It was just a little small band actually of Jewish reformers major, major world religion. You see, when we speak of Islam, we speak of a merging of two major religions, one Christianity. How could that be? How could that be when Esau Emmanuel is not the one in point? Well, we'll have to go back a long way, and that's not either the question herein. I'm asked how did Christianity actually begin? And it would seem very obvious that the death of Jesus of Nazareth, as you wish to call would have put a quick and quiet end to what had been a major uprising and a very minor religious disturbance in that smoldering tinderbox of Roman occupied Palestine.

I wonder if it's much different today. It is simply occupied by another alien nation. There was no public outcry when the enigmatic Jewish preacher was executed after he challenged the religious authorities by declaring the kingdom of God was at hand. Where were all of you then? Where were all your Pentecostals? Where were you when it was time to do something for your master in return for dumping all the sins of the world, including yours off today, on his shoulders? Well, you weren't there, were you? Or maybe you were amongst the band of his disciples, those ones that were so demoralized that they simply gave up and went home. Whatever it might have become, this tiny dissident sect of Galilean Jews had been decapitated and seemed destined to be quickly forgotten.

And so it was. As the New Testament now tells it, the broken faith of Jesus' disciples was restored as they were confronted by their risen leader and as the Holy Spirit came upon them during the Jewish festival of Pentecost. A few weeks later, after this major incident, Wow, suddenly and dramatically, they all went out and began preaching boldly in the streets of Jerusalem that the resurrected Jesus was both Lord and Christ. And how about that? They could not have done that because at the moment His name was not Jesus. Paul had not labeled him that. And yet all of your teachings tell you that. Could it be that you were deceived as far back as even on Good Friday, number one?

Well, within a few years of that time, their message echoed through the cities and villages of Jewish Palestine and touched the court with many, but it also created incredible turmoil. This turmoil, of course, was within Judaism. And after a few decades, the movement would begin to take hold in the commercial and cultural centers of the Greco-Roman world. And then within a few centuries, what began as a grassroots movement of Jewish peasants would then become a powerful institution and a dominant force in what you now know as Western culture. The Christian faith has traveled far from the dusty roads of first century Palestine, my friends. And today, believers and the skeptics alike wonder if Christianity has now lost the single-mindedness and clarity of vision of those early believers.

Aided by archaeological discoveries and the tools of modern social science, scholars are sharpening their focus on that first generation of Christians. Let's go back and see, they say, just what took place. But guess what? Instead of finding uniformity of belief and practice, these Bible scholarship personages have uncovered an early Christian movement that is more diverse than is this modern church of yours. Some of the findings, though still subject to a lot of dispute, seem to challenge traditional views of Christianity's formative years. And I suggest that you pay attention, because this is historical documentation that is coming down now as historical event, rather than mythological oral tradition. The first Christians saw themselves not as founders of a new religion, but quite frankly nothing more than reformers of Judaism.

They didn't want to abandon Judaism. They wanted to rejuvenate it. Those early Christian messages were not a uniform creed. It changed in important ways, especially in its depiction of Jews, and the one Jesus, who was then Esau, Immanuel, and became Jesus, thanks to Saul of Tarsus. It changed as Christianity spread from Palestine to the Roman Empire. Structures of discipline and authority, though they made an early appearance in the Church, were not clearly drawn. The claims to authority of the early Church councils were not universally accepted. Some mystical beliefs, such as Gnosticism, later attacked as heresy, may have grown out of legitimate ways.

Early Christians experienced this new faith of theirs. That there were real and important differences in how the founding Christians understood their faith is beyond dispute. existed just as you have differences regarding it right now. I mean today if you look, the differences are incredible and can illuminate a church that today ranges in form from the ornate majesty of that wondrous St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to the simplicity of a storefront tabernacle, or living room, or just a little group on the street corner in Harlem, or Tehachapi, or Goatneck, Texas, if you happen to be from there. It ranges from the show business antics of the television evangelist to the humble clarity and charity of beloved Mother Teresa. and boiled chicken eggs. The origins of modern Christian diversity can be found in the early Christians ties to Judaism.

And despite the drama of Pentecost and the missionary fervor that followed it was actually some time, dear friends, before the first Christians thought of themselves as having started something altogether new. Indeed, Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews, that one that now comes under such fire and misery, remained the base of operations for this little young church, and most of the early Christians remained, as they had always been, devout and observant Jews. These young followers in no sense felt themselves to be a new religion but simply saw themselves as a fulfilled Judaism. Their belief in this risen Messiah made sense to them only in the context of Judaism. The Judaists were awaiting a Messiah and they simply believed this was to be Him. They continued to worship in the temple and observe the law of Moses. They did not pull away from that Old Testament, but neither had they developed the Talmud. They practiced a form of Christianity that today you would not recognize.

It was what could be called Jewish Christianity. It was simply Jewish messianism. Although at first there was no formal line of authority, the community took up as it looked for leadership to the apostles, those who had known this Emmanuel and to whom he had appeared after the resurrection, those disciples. And among the original twelve disciples was James, widely viewed as a brother of this this Emmanuel, who joined the movement sometime well after the events of Easter, and would one day, my friends, emerge as its leader. So in looking back, you have to face that it was only after a lot of violence, that came the dispersion of Christianity into Syria and then a bit beyond. And the Christian movement began the transformation from that Jewish sect to a separate and distinct religion.

Communities of Hellenistic Jews, which means those who embrace the Greek language and culture and this is why Paul later traveled in Greece being very much at home there and in that culture labeled this young teacher that had been murdered had been attempted on him on gave him his label of Jesus. This thrived in many of the key cities of the Mediterranean region, this new religion. As a matter of fact, these ones traveling and teaching such as Paul were usually at great odds with those more traditional Palestinian Jews, always quarreling, always at cross aims with the teaching. The Hellenistics within the Christian community in Jerusalem found themselves caught in a and frankly it would result in the death of a young man called Stephen that has come down through the generations to be recognized in the Christian churches as the first Christian martyr.

Let's talk about him just a little bit because he was accused of having very radical views. Like many other Jews of the time, Stephen was an outspoken critic of the temple hierarchy, and that was not acceptable behavior. As a leader among the Hellenistic Christians, he continually argued and argued that the temple's authority had been superseded by the coming of this Immanuel, somewhere along in here being called Jesus. Even to Hebrew Christians that seemed a radical view, and it was one certainly not shared by James and the others who prayed daily in the temple. But to the Jewish priests of the temple it was absolutely a crime.

Stephen was convicted of blasphemy and he was stoned to death. Most Christians at that time fled the repression that followed, leaving the church in Jerusalem entirely in the hands of more conservative Hebrew Christians. As they ran, they carried their more radical gospel to some non-Jewish soil where it soon could take root. It was not acceptable any longer in that Jewish community as known in that day. So as Christianity then began to spread, it was exposed to many different ideas and interpretations. The challenge to The challenges to modern scholars is to distinguish mainstream doctrines from those heresies So it was shortly after Stephen's death in AD 36 That Philip a Hellenistic leader and associate of Stephen began in preaching in neighboring Samaria. Among his converts was Simon Magnus, a charismatic leader described as a magician and revealer, a term that many scholars today equate with the Greek philosophy of Gnosticism. So here you're beginning to lay some foundations for the varying and sundry sects or doctrines.

or doctrine. It was about a century later when Gnosticism in the church would be attacked by church leaders as a full-fledged heresy that taught, among other things, that salvation comes through knowledge. Knowledge simply means Gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, that was the word. And that this Jesus was a spirit and was not crucified in the flesh. Second century church leaders then would blame Simon for introducing Gnosticism to the Samaritan Christians. have argument that the verdict may be a bit too harsh. Modern scholars will argue the point with you. They now contend that a trove of Gnostic writings discovered in 1945 in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, suggest that Christian Gnosticism may have an equal claim to authentic Christian beliefs.

Both doctrines, says a lot of these professors, are expressions or symbols of religious experience. And in the early church, they may be of equal validity. Deciding what is orthodox Christianity and what is heresy, it is suggested that the Gnostic Gospels is often as much a political decision as one of doctrinal verity. It's a matter of which attitude prevails, precious ones. Is it the Pentecostal belief, the charismatic movement that has hit the Catholic Church in two or three different ways? The evangelical movement? With all of this confusion in this late day Christian belief, you stand before me and and denounce me as satanic, because I wish to go back and believe the Christ teachings coming forth from Holy God as a form of life beingness, and is not a label of a man, it is a state of being of the soul, an intent.

Let's look a little bit farther. Let's move on to the place called Antioch, because now you will have, in this day and age, Catholicism, recognizing two forms of Catholic, one the Eastern, one the Western, stemming from Antioch, stemming from Rome, how can you know? You can only from that Godness which is within. But a major influence on early Christian doctrine was the faith's shift from a rural to an urban movement. Most of Jesus' ministry had taken place in the villages and in the countryside where he was recognized as Esau. His stories and sayings were sprinkled with rural imagery. But within a decade of the crucifixion, my friends, the Greco-Roman city would replace the Palestinian village as the dominant cultural backdrop of Christianity. The results would have proved meant us in all time to come. You see, it was not even the teacher, but the politicians that took the religion and turned it to their own purposes.

One city where Christianity quickly took root was in Antioch. This was a strategic commercial military crossroads in what is modern day Turkey and what was then Khazorian in control and in every manner historically. But it soon became a modern day base and a very important base for Christian missionary that rivaled and eventually even eclipsed that in Jerusalem. The first large-scale evangelization of Gentiles occurred there. It's where the term Christian, dear ones, was coined, formed, created. So you see, back in Jerusalem at the time of this young teacher, Christianity was not even a term. Christian was not even a term. Christ was a state of being. after the fact that even the word Christian would be created.

And this is according to the scholars, you can go look it up. The first Christians, as a matter of fact, at Antioch were Hellenistic Jews who had been in Jerusalem at the time of what they called Pentecost, or converts who went to Antioch to preach the gospel after Stephen's death. And you don't even speak very much of Stephen in the Protestant churches. How could you have come so far along the way and lack of knowledge and education to allow allow the untruths to be foisted upon you. Well, anyway, among their listeners back in those days were a lot of Gentiles who referred to the gospel preaching community as Christ's people or Christianoi.

As the religion spread outward from Antioch, that name stuck. That's how you got to be known as Christians. So when leaders in Jerusalem heard of the growing Christian community and the conversions of Gentiles they became worried and dispatched Barnabas, remember him? To keep an eye on things. A Cypriot by birth and probably a Hellenist, Barnabas quickly became the the leader of the community. Rather than checking their activity, he led the Antiochian Christians in what became an even more vigorous missionary effort among the Gentiles. Barnabas' most significant act in shaping Christianity was probably his recruitment in 43 AD of Paul. Do you remember Saul of Tarsus? We are talking 43 AD, friends, after Jesus, after Esau Emmanuel. We are still confused about the Jesus label, you see. So enters He seemed to be a recently converted Pharisee and after my recent writings you better go look up what is the opinion of the Pharisees in today's evangelical movement.

The opposite of Christ. This one already had a reputation as a daring and energetic preacher. He was going everywhere spreading his opinion of the doctrines according to Paul I might add and laying it off on one he has now dubbed Jesus. I am told that I am to the end on this side of the tape, so would you please fast forward it, and we'll start again on the other side.

