The Christian Church Rome Connection

The TV news is a constant drone of repeat stories.  We hear the one about the mechanical shark from Jaws that’s being restored now.  There is the under-age prostitution ring out of a message parlor in Jupiter, Florida.  The coach of the Patriots was twice caught having sex with under-age girls.  But he’s still buddy-buddy with Trump.   Then there is that singer with a long string of sexual assault charges.  Then there is that Presidential veto of that cancelation of the border wall emergency.  The President obviously fears that not only will the House vote out a bill but that Republicans in the Senate will go on and pass this cancelation of the presidential emergency.   Then of course we have the news that Muller will NOT wrap up his investigation by next week.  That was just a rumor I’d heard on the Bill Press show and it isn’t true.  And those parents of the thirteen kids from two to 29 pleading guilty to all charges so the kids wouldn’t have to testify in court.  Patty said that on bus tours of mansions of the Hollywood stars, it was snowing and people remarked “How come your rain is white?”   It doesn’t look like Whoopi Goldberg will be hosting tomorrow’s awards.  They are going to try and present all 24 academy awards in three hours.  At least one of these rigged elections will be fixed.  In North Carolina a republican congress candidate won in a ballot stuffing affair and his son warmed him about it.  Now the father himself is convinced that the election results are no good and has concented to a new election.  I am hopeful that as the American public becomes more disserning that more rigged elections will be overturned.  And Roger Stone has an official gag order slapped on him by a judge in his case because he has been making these statements about the “deep state being out to get him” in his trial.  

The book of Acts seems to soft peddle Peter by writing him out of the script at a certain point just like that Black actor who made those false charges was written out of the show.   But the Catholics honor St Peter by declaring him to be the first Pope.  He was according to them crucified in AD 66 and I don't know why such a late date.  This was after Nero and the fire at Rom and all of the throwing of the Christians to the lions.  But these Christians did not buy into all of the theology of either the Book of Acts or the Epistles of Paul, which I don't believe were written yet.  I think what got the Jehovah lobby's attention in the messiah department was the death of Apolonius of Tyannus, who went to heaven after forty days.  They thought "We could do something like that".  I think the Epistles of Paul were written about sixty years later than they claim to be written.  I think much of the Book of Acts is fictional and the other part of it is just back-dated.   Paul wanted to visit the church of Rome, which was already in existance.  We know that.  But what the Bible never tells us is WHO founded the Church at Rome.  It may have been the "Real" Jesus Christ himself, who went to Rome as a way of getting away from the dubious vibes of Palestine and also to reunite with his biological father.  Jesus never says anything nice about Israel or bad about the Roman Empire. 

The Christmas stories in Luke and Matthew are completely different.  But what they agree on is that Jesus was of the tribe of Judah and a "son of David" and born in Bethlehem.  This is their OT prophecy connection that they wish to establish.  They also wanted to make him really Jewish. This is all part of the "framing" of Jesus's ministry.  Another underlying theme of the NT is that they wanted to make Jesus's ministry a failure and everybody "rejected" him, though clearly he met with great success and was even called a "Superstar" in the rock opera.  In fact they didn't want to arrest him in public because they feared riots on his behalf breaking out.  But there is this counter-current that does Jesus died a failure and it wasn't until the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts that things turned around miraculously.   Where before he saw nothing but failure without the Holy Spirit, now with the Spirit success and miracles were just around every corner.  

One concern about Christianity I've had lately is this so called "healing crisis".  We've heard of people who had cancer or diabetes and got sicker and sicker and eventually died.  Fred Price says to ignore this seeming failure of the healing and to give thanks to God FOR your healing that "by faith" you have already received.  Thank God that you have what you clearly DON"T have.  This is wrong thinking in my book.  Nowhere in scripture to I read of people being compeled to thank God for blessings that were never received.  We don't have to bang the gong and wave a banner to get God's attention and get him to act.  He either acts or he doesn't act and we know that pretty quickly.   I know Jesus taught about "having faith" but if you clearly don't have this kind of faith it seems to me that you're up a river without a paddle and going the wrong way with no way to get back.