An open letter to Sasha Latypova of sashalatypova.substack.com

Dear Sasha,

Thank you for your courageous witness regarding gargantuan crimes being committed by governments, but I deplore your failure to witness regarding Jesus’s words that are highly relevant and rescuing in this context. And I deplore the false sense of security and even worse potential consequences that lead from that failure of yours. May all people listen to and keep Jesus’s words about times of horrific pressure during which one must flee from the places from where God’s protection is being removed.*

Would you stay in a restaurant if a biological warfare fight broke out between two mafia families in the restaurant? Would you use armed resistance to defend your position in the restaurant? What if you knew that the restaurant was under God’s wrath?

Please consider the first fulfilment of the Lord’s words about an abomination of desolation forewarning of horrific pressure: the first Jewish-Roman War of AD 66-74. It began because pagans orchestrated the positioning of a pagan altar at the entrance to one of the largest synagogues. That surely counts as a thing so disgusting that it causes desolation of a place by rational people. And attentive, obedient, faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus would surely have thereby had the necessary headstart to escape what became a genocidal war.

As a missionary Bible translator, I have endured difficult persecution to witness to the existence of the satanic globalist mafias described in Revelation. Please see my articles at Christrescues.substack.com and my other testimonies via linktr.ee/jjthomas316.

With love, 

JJ *See especially Matthew 24, Mark 14, Luke 21 and the confirmations and expansions in Revelation, especially chs 3, 12-14, 17 and 18, in which the call to revenge against Babylon is quite certainly speech to the Beast's 10 horns whom God directs to destroy Babylon in the previous chapter (17), not speech to Christians.

Good news versus fake news

Update: I would like to question the texts highlighted in yellow below. Firstly, how much can one sin, after receiving baptism, and still reach eternal life? There is some tension in Jesus's words. On the one hand, Jesus demands that churches forgive and include repentant sinners, though they sin 70 times 7 times, meaning repeatedly. On the other hand, Jesus warns at the end of Revelation that people who are in sins such as fornication or idolatry will not enter eternal life. 

Secondly, the invisibility of God's community on Earth is indeed a possibility, given the Lord Jesus's question of whether there will be any faith on Earth when the Son of Humanity (or Son of Man) returns.

__________________

Popular phrases of today help us to contrast the "Good News" from God, with "Fake News".

Good news: God sets people free from sin-slavery.
Fake news: God counts sinners (who believe in Jesus) righteous.

Good news: God calls all people to be rescued from evil.
Fake news: God gives a license to continue in evil.

Good news: God provides all the means to transform a person from a sinner into a person full of goodness.
Fake news: A Christian cannot stop sinning. 

Good news: God established a holy and good community of people on earth who with one mind, heart and life witness to God's holiness and goodness.
Fake news: God's community is often invisible. 

Good news: God acts to warn Christians if they are going astray, for example by allowing illness and other forms of evil to enter in.
Fake news: God never chastizes because all sins are already forgiven. 

Don't underestimate corruption levels

Christ warns of a time when lawlessness is increasing and the love of many has grown cold: "yet the [one] enduring to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24). I believe, based on my experience, that we are in such a time, so lawless, so unloving, that even our Bible translations have been corrupted, which makes the task of enduring in faith in Almighty Christ much harder than most people recognise. Yes, even the King James Version has grave mistranslations that sponsor satanic behaviours (see my online free book A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes* for examples.)

Please remember that the Bible warns about massive levels of deception (2 Thessalonians 2, Revelation 20). Don't make an idol of the King James Version, or a church tradition going back centuries. Worship Almighty God only.

Notes

* A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes is available for now here, https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes

What happens when God's children are misled?

Update: I would like to comment on my use of the term pastors and on my description of COVID-19 as a deadly and disabling plague. 

I no longer have confidence in any church hierarchy, given that the Lord Jesus is recorded as saying in Matthew 23 that all disciples are siblings, none of whom should be called rabbi or guide, because we have one teacher (the Christ), and that anyone who exalts themselves will be brought low. In John 21, the Lord's commission to Peter can be read without any permission for hierarchy: the two Ancient Greek verbs used there, bosko and poimaino, had several senses each, such as "feed" and "tend" respectively.

I am aware, on the topic of COVID-19, that many readers will find my description offensive and undermining my credibility. My defence is that at the time I did believe this to be true, and that COVID-19 may indeed have been the cause of death and disability in many people. The work of science, of trying to develop more reliable knowledge about this matter, continues. 

________________________________

When people abuse God's name, teaching falsely and destructively, the logical response from Almighty God, as promised and seen in History repeatedly, is to demonstrate conclusively that Almighty God isn't protecting those people, isn't on their side, isn't with them, but allows them to become a hissing, a horror, an example of tragedy.

"whoever may snare one of the little ones, these, who believe in Me, it profits him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and he be sunk in the depth of the ocean." (Matthew 18:6 CFB)

"our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God.... Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes." (2 Chronicles 29:6-8 AKJV)

"But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee...." (Deuteronomy 28:15 AKJV)

Today, there are people who, in the name of Christ, are teaching that fornication and abortion are permissible. Look for the evidence of how Almighty God is turning them into a hissing, an example of what not to do.

Likewise, there are people who, calling themselves Christians and even pastors, are encouraging people to disregard an ongoing deadly and disabling plague (COVID19), thereby endangering themselves and others, and bringing shame to the name of Christ. We can already see how Almighty God is distancing Himself from such people.

For example, one such "pastor" has quite obviously been deprived of logical comprehension and a sense of decency. "Pastor" John MacArthur has been declaring, without apology or correction, that people can calculate their chance of surviving COVID19 as the percentage of Californians not yet killed by the plague. This "pastor" has declared this atrocious falsehood several times: it has featured on Fox News, on the Eric Metaxas Radio Show, and in The Christian Post. 

Do Christians have to gather together physically? No.

Do Christians have to gather together physically? No.

1. If this were true, then a persecuted Christian who sits alone in prison would be in disobedience, and Christians would feel pressured to avoid doing courageous things that risk persecution and imprisonment and thereby being in disobedience.

2. The key Bible text is Hebrews 10:25, which has multiple possible meanings that are honourable, sanctifying, and sound-minded, in contrast to reading it to mean that Christians must gather physically even during a deadly contagion. 

Look at the context (verses 24 through 27):

"And mind each other diligently, to incitement of loving-kindness and good works, not abandoning the gathering up together of yourselves, according to what is a custom to some; instead, appealing to each other even this much more: as much as you see the Day nears. For if we are sinning voluntarily after the receiving of the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains: instead, some fearful expectation of judgement, and a jealousy of fire coming to eat the adversarial ones."

What do you think the focus of this text is?

How many ways does this text re-focus attention on the need for caring for each other's holiness, which does not require meeting physically at all. Saints Paul and John and Peter and Jude and James wrote letters to care for people's souls and protect their salvation. So we have a clear approval for caring for each other's holiness using methods that do not involve meeting physically.

What does the phrase "not abandoning the gathering up together of yourselves" refer to? Must it refer to regular, for example weekly, physical meetings by Christians?

No. The Greek word used here is episunagogé  (ἐπισυναγωγή). In 2 Thessalonians 2:1, it refers to the Last Day when Christ's faithful will be gathered up together to Christ. In Matthew 24:31, the verb-form of this word (episunágo, ἐπισυνάγω) also refers to the Last Day and the same action:

"And He will send the angels of His with a great battle-horn. And they will gather up together the chosen ones of His from the four winds, from heavens' extremities unto their other extremities."

A Christian reader then of Hebrews 10:25 is well supported in understanding the verse to mean that they must not abandon the spiritual welfare of other Christians, namely the goal that they too will be gathered up together by Christ's angels on the Last Day. Remember the warnings given in Hebrews 10 and 12 and elsewhere in the New Testament, that Christians can lose their salvation, and depend on the action of other Christians to protect their holiness.

"Pursue peace with all, and the holiness, without which no one will see the Lord; keeping watch so there be not any falling short of the grace of God, nor any root of bitterness that springing up cause trouble and through which many be defiled, nor any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one meal gave away the first-born privileges of his. For you have seen that even afterward, wanting to inherit the blessing, he was deemed unworthy. Indeed he found no place for repentance—yes even having sought it with weeping." (Hebrews 12:14-17)

"And these will go away to an eternal correction, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46)

Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2020 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Testimony from 7 years of life in Christ

Humility is what enabled me to be accepted as a disciple of Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, on the very first day I had genuine humility and no ounce of arrogance toward God, 21 April 2013, shown through wholehearted confessions that day, and preceded by years of showing to Christ my willingness to keep His words and commandments. And humility is still the necessary element that I bring to God, that enables me to be an instrument, a worker, and obedient, a new born and growing child of Almighty God.

Almighty God has shown this to me through many proofs. For example, one teaching/warning of Christ has been particularly hard for me to apply (Luke 6:25, the warning against consuming more food than one needs). But when I take time to ask Christ to help me keep this word of His, having recognised my own inability, then the power comes.

Likewise, when I have confessed like many Christians in the Bible, that I am a bond-servant (a slave) of the Lord of Heaven and Earth, Jesus Christ, and that I am thankful to be Christ's bond-servant, thus humbling myself, amazing things begin to happen.

Tragically, it seems that we live in an age where Satan is very effectively dropping the poison of pride into most everyone's heart and mind, even of people and churches who call themselves Christians. For these 7 years, I have been heartbroken and shocked many times by the behaviour, seemingly incorrigible due to pride, of people who profess to be followers of Christ. So, I must say, that alongside the value of humility, I have painfully learned the value of seeking truth, distinguishing between fact and falsehood, especially in regard to people's claims to be Christian, born anew in the Holy Spirit, and moral, etc.

Lastly, let me say that working in ministry now for about 7 years, with many years prior in close contact with churches, it has become a fairly strong hypothesis that there is a great need for humility and reform for Protestant as well as Catholic and Orthodox churches. That is to say, it seems that for centuries, ungodly pride, going beyond what is written in Scripture and being puffed up one in favour of the other, has worked its way deep into the marrow of all 3 church groupings. (See 1 Corinthians 1-4 for an excellent discussion of the problem of schism and how to solve it: do not go beyond what is written in Scripture.)

"woe to you the rich for you have received the consolation of yours"

Christ warns rich people that they should grieve, because they have received their consolation.* The clear implication is that being rich is so immoral that it leads to being condemned to hellfire. The explanation is provided many times elsewhere in the New Testament: God demands that people prioritise the basic wellbeing of others.**

Christ's warning can imply, further, that a rich person receives literally no other consolation other than what earthly wealth can provide. That is consistent with what we see in experience, where so many wealthy people struggle against depression, terrible relationships, and bad health. They are tormented.

Also our entire national societies are afflicted, when we glorify the rich lifestyle, against God's condemnations of it. When people are encouraged rather than discouraged to be rich, the door is opened in their lives and our shared national life for 
- corruption: people making immoral, even illegal choices for money
- division and even collapse of society
- self-destructive short-sightedness: short-term money gains blind people to the long-term environmental, social, economic and institutional destruction they are sowing.

Notes
*Luke 6:24
**Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 3:11, James 5:1-5

Homesteading for Heaven

What if all Christians heeded Revelation 18:4 in a precautionary way, as a commandment that is valid and to be obeyed from the moment that it was published, circa 100 AD?

Right now, looking at our era with its challenges, it is worthy to consider that millions of Christian homesteads would

(1) boost food security for Christians and the nations where they're located
- moral people owning the land and producing food

(2) boost national security for the nations where they're located
- the Second World War confirms the logic of Christ's word about going to the hills when there is a clear signal of national spiritual perversity and coming catastrophe: the loyal, patriotic nation can survive as a loose network, able to feed itself and hide outside of the urban systems.

(3) boost spiritual security for Christians
- false-teaching churches thrive on exploiting people's weaknesses: their need to belong to a social network, their tendency to depend on others for basic survival necessities (food, water, safety etc., and so therefore "let the pastors read the Bible for you; you don't need to do the work of learning the Bible for yourself."). Homesteaders are largely immune to those two types of weakness.

See also an earlier post on this blog, "If Christ's disciples moved "off grid" and cared for Nature...".

Goals: Peace with God, everlasting life with God

Update: I no longer believe that it is unproblematic to quote Hebrews saying that sins committed with knowledge and will cannot be forgiven for the sake of Christ's sacrifice. Christ does not make any such warning. Likewise I wish to clarify that the phrase the written word of God is problematic, in my view, because of the differences between the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible, and the words of others in the Bible, including Paul. Please see the Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible, here: <christfamilybible.free.nf>.

_______________

You're not going to have peace with God if you are disobeying God. Our modern era does not usually understand, that in God's household, disobedience isn't tolerated. 

Christ makes that clear.* Likewise the apostles of the New Testament.**

You will stumble† and make mistakes, and in such a way disobey God. But if it was not done willingly and knowingly, there is a way to be forgiven, likely alongside painful punishments designed to teach you and others not to make such mistakes.††

What this means is: you need to have a fearfully respectful relationship with the written word of God. Try: a billion times more careful than you are with the laws of the nation where you live.

How do you overcome the problem of mistranslation of the Bible? Likewise, with tremendous care. Your soul and wellbeing now and forever depend on such carefulness, not to be in disobedience to Almighty God.°


Notes
* Matthew 12:48-50, Luke 6:46-49
**1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:3-7, Hebrews 5:9, 1 John 3:7-24, 2 Peter 2:20-21 etc.
† James 3:2
†† Hebrews 10:26, Luke 12:46-48, 1 John 2:1
° For brief discussions of this challenge and how the Bible guides respectful readers out of danger, please see "The Christian Bible's Guide to Reading the Christian Bible", "Reading the Holy Bible Sympathetically", and "Why is the NT ambiguous, and pseudo-Christianity so common?"

Shall truth get asylum? (Paper published 2007)

These are quotes from "Shall Truth Get Asylum".

Foreword
"In August I hidden first time! because I didn't know anyone lived in a room in a school. in the days worked illegally in an office where one man like 50 gave me the job. Salary, times were entire days and evenings and worst was that he talked sex wi me.... I met another man who gave me a temporary job in a pet store I pretended that didn't get rejected but as soon knew I was negative, he threatened that I had to go if I didn't make sex with him. I have been other places and it is always the same. I got sick that I been alone home or if I go out everyone can do what they want to me, I can only cry when I alone. I live in a cellar now. Need someone who can stop this or can get me into school again. please help me!" (Save the Children Sweden 2007: 19) 

Introduction 
I would like to introduce this paper by discussing a few different applications of the question raised in the title of the paper shall truth get asylum? This paper is about the research function in the context of sustainability, and it is a case study of the research function in defending the sustainability for a specific group, namely children in Sweden without legal migration documentation, many of whom finding themselves in this situation because of an asylum seeking process in Sweden that many regard as a failure, or worse, a programmatic attempt to avoid Sweden's responsibilities under international conventions including the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention against Torture....

For the entire paper, please see the PDF via this Google Drive link.

House churches need the perfect governance system that the Bible describes

Update: I have become increasingly convinced that Christ and the Father want the absence of hierarchy among the disciples, especially based on Christ's words in Matthew 23 and John 21. The Lord Jesus is recorded as saying in Matthew 23 that all disciples are siblings, none of whom should be called rabbi or guide, because we have one teacher (the Christ), and that anyone who exalts themselves will be brought low. In John 21, the Lord's commission to Peter can be read without any permission for hierarchy: the two Ancient Greek verbs used there, bosko and poimaino, had several senses each, such as "feed" and "tend" respectively.

____________

House churches are a sound way to organise Christian life, as long as the other governance structures that the Bible describes are also applied: properly qualified elders/overseers [1] who are rewarded according to performance [2], and evangelists whose responsibilities include refuting false teaching [3]. 

References

[1] "It is necessary, therefore, the overseer* be blameless, husband of one wife, sober, sensible, well-ordered, kind to strangers, apt to teach, not tarrying at wine, not a striker, instead reasonable, not battling, not a lover of money, leading his own household well, having children in obedience with all reverence (yet if someone does not see to lead his own household, how will he manage God's ecclesia*?), not a neophyte, so that he not, having been deluded, fall into the Devil's judgement. Yet it is necessary to have a good testimony from them outside, so that he not fall into reproach and the Devil's snare." (1 Timothy 3:2-7, CFB)

"For this grace I left you behind on Crete: so that the remaining things you would set up rightly and appoint by city elders, as I ordered you, if someone is blameless, husband of one wife, having faithful children not under accusation of wastefulness or unruliness. It is necessary, indeed, for the overseer to be blameless as God's house-manager, not self-willed, not inclined to wrath, not tarrying at wine, not seeking shameful gain, instead kind to strangers, loving what is good, sensible, just, holy, controlled, holding before himself the word of faith according to the teaching, so that he be able both to appeal by the instruction that is sound and to refute them speaking against it." (Titus 1:5-9, CFB)

[2] "The elders who are leading well must be deemed worthy of double honour, especially they who are working with the word and teaching. For the Scripture says, "An ox treading you shall not muzzle", and, "Worthy is the worker of his wage." (1 Timothy 5:17-18)

[3] "Trustworthy is the word, and I want you to be thoroughly established regarding these things, so that they be minded to stand over good works, they who have been trusting God. These things are good and profitable for all human beings." (Titus 3:8, CFB)

Mission: Victory over the Devil

Are you confused about why God created the Universe, and why He created you, and what God wants from you?

Well there's good news. Christ gives a pretty clear answer, repeated several times at the end of the Holy Bible.

The point of this place is that you either overcome the Devil, and can be trusted by God, or the Devil overcomes you.

See "God's Wonderful Announcement" for a brief explanation.

How Almighty God's Word strengthens marriage

"And it was said, 'Whoever would untie from the wife of his, he must grant her divorce!' Yet I say to you that anyone who is untying from the wife of his except on account of fornication causes adultery to be committed against her, and whoever would marry a woman who has been untied, commits adultery." (Matthew 5:31-32, Christ Family Bible)

"Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery." (Luke 16:18, AKJV)

Comments:

Notice that one cannot free oneself from an unhappy marriage by driving one's spouse to leave. That strategy both causes the leaving spouse to commit adultery by leaving and makes re-marriage an act of adultery for the new spouse (and logically for the remarrying spouse too).

Both spouses have tremendous reason to make their marriage work. If you don't make your marriage work, your spouse might give up: by that action, your spouse commits adultery (a carnal work that leads to Hell), and you cannot remarry at all without committing adultery, even if your spouse has committed fornication.

The precise words of Christ as recorded in Greek are important also because of the terms used:
1. "Untie" (apolúo), not "divorce", is the key term that describes the abandonment of a marriage. Consider that for much of history, spouses could not hope for a legal document in their country, that would legally end their marriage. So what the abandoning spouse has in mind is abandoning, untying, leaving permanently.
2. The word "divorce" describes the legal document: apostásion.
3. Christ's words and terms direct our focus away from pieces of paper from a court, to look at the reality as Almighty God decides: only death and fornication (a carnal work that leads to Hell) can actually end a marriage, though Paul rather inexplicably adds his own rule that if an unbelieving spouse asks a Christ-believing spouse for divorce, the Christ-believing spouse is then "free", implying potentially free to remarry.

What happens when God's people stray?

The condition of the churches today is so bad, that it is difficult even to have any hope for missions to unreached ethnic groups: what will happen when a church that doesn't keep the New Covenant, brings its false message and even badly mistranslated Bibles to a new society?

The condition of many churches (but hopefully not all churches) is to the point of their being incompetent. Now, the Holy Bible addresses this type of condition:

- The Lord Christ Jesus describes moral degradation to the point where "...many will be entrapped [into sin] and will hand each other over and hate each other. And there will be many false prophets and they will deceive many. And due to the increasing of the lawlessness, the love of many will be made cold." (Matthew 24:10-12, CFB)

- Similarly, the prophet Ezekiel is sent with this message to God's people of that time: "...‘You are a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation.’ The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured people; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain. Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord had not spoken. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger." (Ezekiel 22:24-29, NKJV)

One of the key messages here is that when God's people have fallen into immorality, God sends catastrophes: to judge, to chastise, to purify a remnant, and to show that there is an ultimate judge to respect, Almighty God.

- "Because of this, among you are many weak and sickly and a considerable number sleep. Now, if were judging ourselves, we would not judge! Being judged, however, by the Lord, we are chastised, so that we not be condemned with the world." (1 Corinthians 11:30-32, CFB)

- "....the children of her I will kill with death, and all the churches will know that I am the searcher of kidneys* and of hearts, and I will give to you each according to the works of yours." (Revelation 2:23, CFB)

- "All flesh shall see that I, the Lord, have kindled it...." (Ezekiel 20:48, NKJV)

- "You shall defile yourself in the sight of the nations: then you shall know that I am the Lord." (Ezekiel 22:16, NKJV)

These catastrophes can never come through the actions of Christians, of course: Christians are commanded to love all people, to hate no one, and to put away all anger (Matthew 5:22, 43-48; Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8).



Notes:
* Valuable discussions of what "kidneys" could signify (e.g. metaphorically) are provided by Brown Driver Briggs, Thayer's Greek Lexicon, and Liddell Scott Jones.

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2019 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

If Christ's disciples moved "off grid" and cared for Nature...

...they could cause people to give glory to the Father in Heaven, by doing good deeds of great importance:

First: Farming, producing food in ways that help Nature and Humanity rather than harm them

Second: Caring for Nature directly, by protecting Life's species

Third: Innovating more ways to meet basic human needs for energy, medicine, shelter, etc., so that Humanity benefits from a wider selection of solutions whenever changes are needed (e.g. in the face of major changes in weather patterns like long-term drought)

Is your pastor feeding you to demons and Hell?

Update: I believe that I ought to have written more clearly here that Christ insists people must keep His commandments and other words for salvation, which quite certainly refers to the words attributed to Christ and not the other words in the Bible. There is great value in learning the other words of the Bible, I believe, but all the while keeping a distinction between the authority of Christ and the authority of all other words in the Bible.

I also wish to clarify that I no longer believe that Christ permits human hierarchies in churches, given the commandments in Matthew 23 and John 21.

_________________

The first step to safety: Heed Almighty God's Word.

"Amen amen I say to you that the one listening to the Word of Mine and trusting the One who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgement but has passed over from the death into the life." (John 5:24, CFB)

If you are heeding God's Word, then a pastor will have a tough time misleading you into sins that invite demons and end in hellfire.

Consider:

Knowing God's Word properly is how Jesus withstood Satan (Luke 4).

Not heeding God's Word is how Eve and Adam fell into slavery to sin, death and the Devil, dragging their family down too (Genesis 3-6).

How can you properly heed God's Word?

Don't make the mistake of confusing the Old Covenants with the New Covenant.

Focus on keeping Christ's words and commandments.

The New Testament is the covenant that Almighty God offers to people who repent from sin. So you need to heed that above all: what the New Testament says about the New Covenant.

The Old Testament is necessary too, but it needs to be interpreted spiritually, not physically:

The necessary circumcision is spiritual not physical (Colossians 2:11)

Human beings need to overcome spiritual dark powers not other people (Ephesians 6:12)

If you are heeding Christ's words and commandments, you will be strongly immune to really bad Bible mistranslations too.

So when a mistranslation tells you that adultery is looking at a person with lust (and therefore almost all people are adulterers), you will be skeptical, because you know that adulterers do not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Many of the most damaging mistranslations are highlighted in A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes. 

Jesus rules and judges all people

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,† though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts‡; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NKJV)

"All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me. Going, therefore, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you...." (Matthew 28:18-20, CFB)

"For the Father judges no one. Instead, He gave all the judgement to the Son, so that all should honour the Son just as they should honour the Father. He not honouring the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. Amen amen I say to you that him listening to the Word of Mine and trusting Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgement but has passed over from the death into the life." (John 5:22-24, CFB)

"And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. For He testifies*:
'You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.'
For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect;** on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." (Hebrews 7:15-19, NKJV)

________________
† So with MT, Tg., Vg.; LXX, Syr. and I turned away from them
‡ Literally, "inward parts".
* Nestle-Aland / United Bible Societies prefer the manuscripts that read "it is testified"
** That is to say, "complete".

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2018 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Sins that stop a human from entering God's Kingdom

Update: I wish to clarify that I believe it is necessary to distinguish between the authority of Christ's words and for example Paul's words. Also, on the matter of what is pharmakeia and pharmakoi, I wish to update that there is good evidence that Christ and Paul can have meant, alongside sorcery, also physical poisoning. Please see for example my article "Catastrophic Subtle Sabotage: The Case of Mistranslating Jesus's Words".

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"Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor cowardly,* nor homosexuals,** nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor abusive, nor rapacious will inherit God's kingdom."—1 Corinthians 6:9-10

"Manifest, however, are the works of the flesh, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery,*** enmity, strife, rivalry, rages, selfish schemes, divisions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, revelries, and the things like these, of which I say beforehand to you, just as I said before, that they practicing the things like these will not inherit God's kingdom."—Galatians 5:19-21

"...anyone a fornicator or unclean or covetous (that is an idolater) has not inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and God."—Ephesians 5:5

"But to the cowardly and unfaithful and them being loathsome and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers*** and idolaters and all the deceitful is the part of theirs in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the death—the second one."—Revelation 21:8

"Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers*** and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone loving and practicing falsehood."—Revelation 22:15

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* Possibly "effeminate [males]"
** Possibly "men having sex with men"
*** Possibly φάρμακεία (phármakeia) and φάρμακοι (phármakoi) also refer to using spiritually destructive substances

Scripture quoted from The Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2018 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Lord's parenting and counsel

Update: I would not formulate this article so anymore. Rather, I would say, foremost keep Christ's words. Other words in the Bible, especially the New Testament, need to be heard with respect as potentially helping people to follow Christ. For more on this please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible, here: http://christfamilybible.free.nf/

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1. Practise Christ's way: Love as Christ loved.

2. Get Christ's education: Learn all the Holy Scriptures by heart.

3. Practise elenchus (truthful/scientific evaluation): Let evidence speak against falsehoods.

Our banking should agree with Christ

Debt is a major problem today for nations, cities, families, etc.

One reason is that we have not insisted that our own banks agree with Christ: the laws and teaching of the Holy Bible about charging interest-on-loans and cancelling debts.

Christ's teaching that it's unjust to charge interest on loans [1] is entirely consistent with the rest of the Holy Bible [2].

Can we have banks that do not charge interest? Yes.

One way for a bank to operate is to be a shareholding company: 
1. When the bank lends money it receives part-ownership.
2. People put their money in the bank by buying shares in the bank.
3. When a person wants to take money out of the bank, they sell shares.

For the shares to have a stable value, the bank must focus on financing stable assets, such as land and businesses.

This also helps to avoid crisis, because such banks will not provide money where the returns on the investment are not clear.


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Notes

[1] "...I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest." (Matthew 25:26-27, NRSV)

[2] "You shall not charge interest to your brother—interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest." (Deuteronomy 23:19, NKJV)

"O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right... who do not lend money at interest...." (Psalm 15:1, 2a, 5a, NRSV)

"Now the person who shall be righteous, the one who performs judgment and righteousness,... shall not give his money for interest and shall not take excess...." (Ezekiel 18:5, 8a, NETS)


NETS: Quotations marked NETS are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ©2007 by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NRSV: New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.