David Pawson - Genesis 1

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 31.7.26 BY JOHN DUNNING.

“BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE”.

INTRODUCTION

Genesis tells us that God made all that there is. It also tells us that God has an enemy who is real, who tempted man to disobey God. In this introduction to the Bible we look at spiritual warfare being waged over the Bible.

-

1). THE GOOD NEWS SPREADS…

In this first of the series, I am referring to the spiritual warfare over the Bible, because it changes lives for good, turning people back to God. So, Satan opposes it. 

Firstly, we see a few examples of what happened as God’s Word spread.   

A). Acts 21:20 records that Paul had already led “many tens of thousands of Jews” to Jesus Christ. Then, there were all the Gentile churches he planted. Jewish believers were already teaching new Gentile converts the Scriptures in their house groups. As Paul went to the main centres, God’s Word spread quickly;- helped along by trades-people in transit.

–

B). The Apostle Thomas planted churches in Southern India which still exist today as a denomination, known as the Church of St. Thomas the Martyr, but which has ended up becoming more like an orthodox established church.

–

C). The Gospel spread throughout the Roman empire, wherever Roman soldiers went, even as far away as Britain, as shown from the excavations made of crosses. Before the church became an international corporation under Popes, so many Roman soldiers had become Christians in Rome, before being transported by the empire on a tour of duty to Britain, and elsewhere, that the Gospel spread like wildfire wherever they went.

-

2) FOR BETTER…

A). An Emperor became a Christian…

i). Emperor Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians - and Sunday was given as a weekly day for worship. As the Jews had Saturday to worship, so now also Christians were given a day off to worship God. Hence what we call the “weekend” of Saturday and Sunday.

-

ii). Contantine outlawed crucifixion as a way of execution.

-

iii). Constantine stopped gladiator fights, and promoted chariot racing instead.

-

B). The Bible…

Before the bishops of Rome took the former Roman empire in the fourth century, the Bible was spreading in this way…

-

i). GREEK.

The New Testament was written in Greek, due to it being the common language.

The ‘Old’ Testament, (the Jewish “Tanakh”), had already been translated into Greek from Hebrew.

The influence of Greece was huge because Alexander the Great had expanded the Greek empire beyond even the extent of the Roman empire. After the death of Alexander, that empire shrank but left behind their language, which was used as an international language for trade and culture. (That is why we learn from John 19:20 that the sign above Jesus on Calvary “was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin”. Those were the common languages of the day.) And so, the gospel was spreading like wildfire…

-

ii). LATIN

Latin was the language of the Roman empire… So, the area in which Latin was spoken can still be seen from today’s European languages which had Latin as their common root. British private schools teach Latin to provide a head start for their children in European languages, but especially as it is used as a common international language in subjects from horticulture to science.

Because most people spoke Latin throughout Europe due to the Romans, the Bible was translated into a Latin text called Vetus Latina, very early on, and well before other Latin translations. All this was before the bishops of Rome extended their reach from Rome to Europe-wide. So, they imposed the control of the Roman bishop on Christian churches founded by soldiers and Constantine. When the Roman empire included Britain up to Hadrian’s Wall, Britain had embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ thanks to the witness of the soldiers, and crosses have been unearthed where their barracks used to be.

-

3). FOR WORSE…

Now, compare that progress with what happened AFTER the bishop of Rome replaced the former area of influence of the Roman empire with himself, creating a church dynasty. 

If you have never studied church history, check these things out for yourself. I have been specific to make it easy to check.

The gospel was spreading before Popes took Europe, country by country. The spread of the gospel halted wherever Catholic armies took control. British church leaders refused to come under the Pope when Augustine was sent to Britain requesting it in 597AD. The Pope later took Britain by force in 1066 when William the Conqueror rampaged through the country under the Pope’s flag (called a falon). That  murderous rampage continued on in an event called “the harrying of the north”.

So bishops in Rome gained control bit by bit, until Europe was under the Roman dictatorship. As their control spread, more and more ministers were impacted by that dictatorship, and so ended up on the receiving end of persecution if they didn’t snap their heels and conform to the Pope’s wishes, which brings us to John Huss, (or “Jan Hus”), by way of example…

-

4). ‘TO DEATH US DO PART…

4a). INTRODUCTION

Jan Huss was martyred in 1415 for teaching the Bible instead of things like indulgences, which was the sale of forgiveness for money. So much money was created for the Pope, it was used to build a palace and St Peter’s cathedral at the Vatican. The Popes became the world’s richest rulers in that era. All churches had to send a percentage of their income to the Pope.

When a Jesuit priest succeeded in finding a non-Catholic Bible, he wanted to satisfy his curiosity about what he was fighting against. He wrote that he was surprised to find that the Catholic church was a completely different religion to what was in the original Bible text. He had to get hold of the Bible secretly because,

i). The original Bible text had become banned.

ii). Non-Catholic evangelism was banned.

iii). Non-catholic preaching was banned.

iv). Disagreeing with Catholicism was banned – including even in science. The church dictated that the earth was flat! They were the original flat earth society!

Even after Galileo proved that the earth went around the sun, he had to take it back or face death for defying Vatican teaching.

-

4b). JAN HUS (John Huss).

Jan Hus (or in English, John Huss) was martyred for preaching of the gospel.

Out of hatred, Popes later had his ashes dug up and tipped into the river, as they believed that would stop him going to heaven! (John Huss’s congregation were also murdered.) John’s church was then stolen for their Catholic religion. In response, the townspeople built a large building right in front of the main church front doors as a protest, shown in the picture below…

4c). WILLIAM TYNDALE

Tyndale, who translated the Bible, was burned at the stake for his trouble. (Others suffered the same fate.) It was Tyndale’s translation of the Bible that was used for the majority of the “Great Bible”, which was put into all British churches, after Britain “brexited” from the Popes.

-

4d). MARTIN LUTHER

When Martin Luther came to compare and contrast the original Bible texts with Catholic theology, he then became a wanted man too, even though he was still a Catholic monk at that time, (until he was excommunicated). Luther was put on trial for his writings, and famously defended his books saying, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” 

After the trial, a friend “kidnapped” him, and took him into protective custody in his castle, to prevent the Pope finding and torturing him to death too, as others had been. 

-

5). THE DARK AGES

Although the church called its sphere of influence, “Christendom”, historians called it “The Dark Ages”. A movie was made about the blood that the Vatican’s empire shed called “The kingdom of heaven”, which although had a fictitious storyline, was making a point about the blood shed by Catholic countries, (including at that time, Britain, as in the wicked crusades. Eventually Britain “brexitid” the Pope’s empire. A rather more accurate story-telling was in a BBC docu-drama called “The Borgias”.

-

6). BREXIT

After the reformation arrived, more and more nations “brexited” the Catholic empire.

Wherever the church lost control there was more and more freedom for  translators and scientists. That freedom was good news for Bible believing Christians, but a new battle started that Christians had to contend with… which is next week’s story…

-

7). EPILOGUE - VALUING GOD’s WORD

7a). PILGRIM’s PROGRESS

In Pilgrim’s Progress, “Christian” lost the directions leading to the heavenly city and so he retraced his steps until he found it again. 

The battle for the Bible was Satan’s way of trying to remove the directions provided by God on how to find Him. 

We need to put God’s directions before any other teaching, and we start doing that by reading the Bible to see what God says.

-

7b). OBEYING GOD’s WORD

The reformers did that which is why they suffered as they did. Nicodemus went to see Jesus to find out what he didn’t know, which is where we get Jesus’ famous saying from, “You must be born again”. Nicodemus ended up as a disciple, speaking up for Him when other Jewish leaders were scheming to kill Him. 

If you haven’t read Bible books from start to finish before, I recommend starting with the Gospel of Luke and followed by Acts, as they were written for a Gentile lawyer, Theophilus.

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

-

PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

-

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Click the link below to Subscribe to John’s Bible Study.

https://mailchi.mp/da3871118955/subscribe-to-johns-blogs

—

If you’re not yet a member, simply join up and support us! 

---------  Click HERE for our previous posts  --------

Inspirational Radio… 

We have launched our new online discipleship ‘radio’ station…. which is streamed from our new website:-  https://InternetChristianRadio.com/

Our new website station “Inspirational Media Radio”, has hour-long Bible readings, David Pawson sermons, testimonies, and classic hymns. Just follow the website links. 

PS: In order to cut costs, our office has needed to move to being more of a part time service provider, so bear with us if there is a time lag in our responsiveness. If you wish to help sustain us, Memberships help us and enables you to have substantial benefits all round: