Our Antioch Moniker

At this season in my life, both as a believer and American citizen, I am struggling with the Christianity now being demonstated in the USA.

My heart hurts for the generations coming behind me, though my life experience has me hoping to live long enough to see one of those now overdue, 500 year cycles that leads to a global transformation.

As I read this morning in the Gospel of John, Chapter 9, my spirit again struggled with the present branding being imposed upon Christ-followers in this moment of deep nationalism.

I truly love our nation, though I am aware of moments in history, both here and in other lands where "a form of Godliness" was heralded though Christ-likeness was absent, then as well, the future consequences. Our racial challenges serve as example!

John Chapter 9 speaks of just such a moment in Jesus' day, yet this one would reset religion, and frankly our calendars!

Now centuries later, our fractured intellectual attempts at living out Christianity are confused at times by a well-meaning, institutional reinforcement of multiple brands of spirituality. Their's too often lacking any powerful demonstration as recorded in scripture all less and less convincing, even futile if one attempts acting out such apart from the Spirit.

That has been the case with Christianity since the days of the disciples.

"The One", the Christ, so long prophesied (as in Micah 5:2) has now come, the Gate Keeper of the galaxies. Now, affording the embodiment of God, in a Being such that those seeking truth would recognize Him as the Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and now a demonstration of Love. His phenomenal works, and even more so His discerning Words would reveal the true nature of God, so lost within the law.

A case in point, the woman at the well.

My morning read seemed to capture all of this by way of a begger, born blind.

As well, those stubbornly dependent upon themselves and others like them (the religious), who would remain blind!

John 10:1-6 NIV

[1] “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. [2] The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. [3] The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. [4] When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. [5] But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” [6] Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them."

Even Moses struggled with grasping this YHWH. Try explaining "I Am" speaking to you from a burning bush, one not consumed!

So did the Disciples, until the Upper Room, when a similar and surprising empowerment was manifest, and later in those same streets which The One had earlier ministered...later in Antioch, a moniker was assigned, Christians!

Later still, came Constantine, a conqueror with need for a common Canon and a Catholic (Universal) Church. His goal, to consolidate the varied distortions of truth already sown by way of religious factions in just 300 short years.

The sacred text was finally consolidated and approved by The Council of Rome, under Pope Damasus I in the 4th Century.

Yet, from Moses to John's Revelation the Canon would somehow mysteriously lay the groundwork for our time, with a "scarlet thread" that runs from Genesis to Revelation.

All this unlikely, save for the Gatekeeper of the galaxies, affording a spiritual dimension that is "beyond finding out," apart from a metanoia, the surrender of one's heart and head.

Genesis 3:15 NIV

[15] And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Revelation 22:13 NIV

[13] "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."

I rest my case!