It has often been said that one of the objections of doctrinal Christianity to Judaism is that Jewish law is preoccupied with ritual and other minutae as compared to Christianity which is concerned with faith. However, it could be argued that the great expansion of Christian denominations itself is often because of disputes about doctrines that are perhaps incomprehensible and uninteresting to the ordinary person, at least in the 21st century, and could be called minutae. As a non-Christian I seem to understand that this relates to what appear to be minutae about things such as baptism, organizational structure, grace, salvation, the return, millennial, timing of return of Jesus, the exact nature of the trinity, etc. Such that a confused Christian might simply say he or she believes in God and Jesus, and that's it. All the details could be left up to God himself. Could it be argued that Christians have been dragged down into obsession with what would appear to be minutae themselves and therefore thousands of denominations? Thanks.
Hi Duvduv, thank you for participating with us. It is nice to meet you and I hope you will achieve a lot for The Lord during your time here.
My first word in response to you is "yes", because it is observable in spirit and through the scriptures that the time of the Gentiles does come to an end when the Jewish people return to Adonai with all their heart (Hosea 2:16, John 4:24, Romans 11:22-23, Romans 9:6-8). For this reason, when we read the scriptures, we have to remember that God does not honour persons as men do, but He examines the heart to render toward each man according to the fruit of his ways.
The problems that religions have between each other (of not being agreed about His nature), are rooted in human sin: such things as pride or envy that will tempt a person to employ dishonesty to avoid being trapped by their words, in order to insist that they need not concede that another has been right after they have already declared opposition to them. See how humbleness is required in this way (Jeremiah 6:21), also trust, - otherwise a person leaves the narrow path of following truth and enters the broad road of self-deception, that leads to destruction. Jesus said that the majority of people take the broad road leading to destruction and few go The Way that leads to life.
So the cause lies in the fact that
humans have lost the innate knowledge of God's nature, that is love (Matthew 22:37-40, 1 Corinthians 13:5-6), and through having been enticed to engage in ways that pit them in opposition to the truth that would convict them, they become enslaved by sin to walk in the darkness, afraid to come to the light (John 3:20-21).
(As I speak now in Christian terms, the following verses carry rich perspective in this context - Romans 6:16, John 1:9, John 10:10, Ephesians 4:8).
I would like to plant one more idea for you about the campaign that Jesus leads for salvation through Judaism (ie: John 4:22, Hebrews 7:23-25).
Ephesians 4:8 conveys that mankind's adversary, (a spiritual captivator - Isaiah 61:1), that Jesus bound up through self-sacrifice according to what He spoke in Mark 3:27, that
what Jesus established through His apostles was quickly drowned out by what the devil achieved through the false teachers that attracted followers in His name through subtle flattery (consider Psalms 12:2-3, 2 Peter 2:1-2, 2 Timothy 4:3, 1 John 4:1, 1 John 2:18).
This shows that
the human's spiritual war is greater than religion, because even the religion that is taught by God's very own people is stolen and corrupted by the devil when humans give him that chance (eg: John 8:44, Jeremiah 8:8).
Thus, I submit to you that there is only two types of person in the world: those of the light who are alive in the spirit, blameless in God's sight because they are circumcised in heart versus those who are dead in the spirit, enslaved by their sin to evade the light that would expose their nakedness. Knowledge is a secondary factor, because it is according to a person's knowledge in relation to their actions that their righteousness is judged (John 15:22, James 4:17). If a person remains of the proper spiritual disposition, that is to walk in the light, then when they come to have the opportunity to hear The Good News, they will recognise that Jesus spoke as the incarnation of The Holy Spirit of Adonai and that it is He whom they follow (John 10:16).
But a person's reception of that knowledge very much depends upon those who do the work to scatter the seeds (Mark 4:14, Matthew 13:27-28, Luke 10:2).
The Way to The Father (1 Timothy 6:16) is only through following The Holy Spirit (aka: The Spirit of Truth).
That means that we do need to purify our hearts that we can circumcise them (not needing to be ashamed of ourselves in the light of the truth). We must be born again so that we no longer behave as the children of wrath - that is to dominate each other (Ecclesiastes 8:9) and only serve each other in love - this is the proper spirit of Christianity (Mark 10:42-44) that you have mentioned is inferior to the organisational structures that churches have established. They do this because they have never seen His face (Psalms 67:2, John 14:21) so they do not follow His leadership (1 John 4:3, Matthew 18:20) but in the futility of their mind (Ephesians 4:17), they are striving for success by employing the models of success that comes naturally as is common thinking to those who live in the ways of the world (Ecclesiastes 8:9, Ephesians 2:2-3, Zechariah 4:6).
"If then the light you think you have is darkness, how deep that darkness!" - Jesus Christ.
