As a student of human nature I have always wondered how people could call them selves Christians and look away when confronted with the inhumanities of our world. Ebola crisis in Africa, genocide in Africa, starving children around the world and death by execution or as a result of WARS just to name a few.
This essay gives some detail of how many of today’s Christians have been led to believe they can pass through the pearly gates based on their faith only. As versus the teachings of Jesus which told us our actions were the true path to salvation.
In the early decades following Jesus’ death, his followers remained a small, local sect. They retained their Jewish identify and, in fact, only Jews could be baptized as new followers, as “Christians.”
Although this nascent Christian movement was clearly a faction of Judaism, many Jews felt threatened by their challenges to the established orthodoxy and the many radical new doctrines that were taught. And this resulted in much persecution of Christians by some (but by no means all, nor even a majority) of the Jews.
One of the early persecutors was named Saul of Tarsus. He had the rare status of being both a Jew (the people conquered by the Romans) as well as being a Roman citizen. It is lost to history how he obtained such status; it is speculated that perhaps his father had saved the life of a Roman leader and was thus rewarded, or in some…
View original post 6,272 more words
randomthoughts 