Message to God’s 7 Churches (Lesson 3)
Message to Church 5 - the Sardis Church (Revelations 3:1-6)
The church at Sardis was described as being “dead” (3:1). It appeared to be alive – had “a reputation of being alive” – looked spiritually vibrant on the outside – but was spiritually lifeless. The church was Christian in name only. This recalls Christ’s scathing rebuke of the Pharisees who “look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27).
What was dead about the church and what needed reviving? First, there was no indication of persecution or trouble from outside forces. Neither was there any heresy within, in contrast to some of the other churches. Things seemed to be peaceful and religiously correct. Perhaps it was a church that was too good to be true. Its religiously proper appearance may have only meant that it had fully and silently compromised with the truth and the pagan society around it. See scriptures concerning false and hypocritical worship below
•
…show more content…
• Luke 18:11, "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
• Ezekiel 33:31, "They come to you as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their
Taylor suggests that the Pharisees have defended the sanctity of the Law “according to their standards” and do so to weed out heretics. But, because Jesus and the rest of his followers are Jews, it is clear to Taylor that the Jews and the Pharisees are operating under different binaries of the same Law. One may go so far as to wonder if Taylor is de-Judaizing the Pharisees. I believe Taylor has made this distinction in order to maintain her semblance of not supporting anti-Jewish rhetoric while still opposing the Pharisees. Nevertheless, Taylor unfortunately concludes her sermon by questioning whether the Pharisees are missing the point. Are the Pharisees so caught up in legalizing the Law, they are unable to recognize the Son of Man within their midst? Barbara Brown Taylor inadvertently declares the Pharisees to be blind and the former blind man to be enlightened. The blind man has witnessed the Son of Man and is deemed a heretic, as determined by the Pharisees. Jesus, too, for his declarations about being from God is also a heretic. Is Barbara Brown Taylor suggesting that God is endorsing the heretics and disregarding the Jews? It precariously appears to be this way: “If that made Jesus a heretic, then the blind man hoped he would be allowed to become one
conducts and that raping their own family members will their his life. Leviticus 20:16-18 says
Christ was crucified at but it is also believed that it was where he was buried and then resurrected. Because of this belief, the church has become the foremost pilgrimage site for the Christian religion. The church that stands today is a reconstruction of the original church because the church was damaged throughout the years by fire, invasion, and earthquakes. The original church was rebuilt during the middle ages when an agreement was reached between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire. The tomb itself is empty of course but millions come to the church to pay their respects to the religious figurehead.
After the church was rebuilt the congregation came together and proceeded to have church. There was a catch though the church did not have a priest to lead them. There were men who lead the service in the church and even with no priest the religion lived on for about forty years. Finally in 1897 a priest by the name of Daniel Berbiech stumbled upon the church. He discovered that even without a priest the people were flourishing in the catholic faith.
In conclusion, the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica was designed to be a visual separation from pagan temples and thus the old pagan religion. However, the architects could not erase the influence paganism already had on Christianity. Paganism melded with Christianity, forming a religion where the new was held as sacred and the old was dismissed.
I attended a mass at Saint Haralambos Orthodox Greek Church. The church is located in Niles which is a suburb of Chicago on Caldwell Street in between Touhy and Howard Street. The mass I went to was on the Sunday of Orthodox which is known as the first Sunday of Lent where they honor the icons. The most important foundations that are highlighted in Greek Orthodoxy are the Bible and Holy Traditions that have been passed down (“Greek Orthodox Church”). The Greek Orthodox Church believes that the bible is motivated by God. Some important dogmas of the church include things such as the Holy Trinity, Jesus, the role that Virgin Mary had, and honoring the icons. The holy sacraments are what lead Greek Orthodox believers that they are reaching the ultimate prize of deification through Christ.
... beauty and light in the building, they realized that the church must really hold the key to salvation, for they were able to construct a place so similar to the afterlife that many people longed for. It seemed almost as if Abbot Suger had visited heaven and created a physical representation in the Basilica of St. Denis.
Basic principles had to be returned to the church, as there were still many issues. Priests married and had families, which was against church verdicts. The act of simony, selling and buying of church positions, was an extensive practice. The last major issue was the kings who appointed bishops, when only the church had the capability to do so. All these complications lead to the reformation of the church. Now the laws against priest marriages and simony were enforced by the church leader, the pope. The church was composed as a kingdom, with the pope as its head, and the papal Curia, as the pope...
When New West began to investigate The Peoples Temple, it shook the members of the group and they attempted to fend it off by messaging the media group with several letters and calls saying “We hear New West is going to attack Jim Jones in print; don’t do that. He’s a good man who doesn’t good works.” After a bit of time passed, ex-members of The Peoples Temple
While the Roman Empire crumbled, the church sprouted physically and spiritually despite the raging persecution by various emperors. Throughout this time, church leaders ascended to shepherd and encourage the believers to persevere. Justin Martyr, Jerome, and Constantine shone prominently among these.
Antonio Barreiro recounted that most churches had fallen to ruins and were almost gone all together (pg. 78). For instance, some churches did not have priests come on a regular base, but only a couple of times during the year. The number of priests available was so small that often times when people lay on their deathbed they were unable to receive the final confession before dying (pg. 78). Priests themselves were also becoming quite negligent to their daily activities. Bishop Zubiria called this actions out in a letter that he wrote in 1833, in which he condemned the actions that several priests were taking part in (pg. 79). In this letter he said that they would refuse to baptize children and were giving mass in a very unprofessional level.
... of evil against you, for my sake. Rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets who were before you" (Matthew 5:11-12).
That isn’t to say there aren’t pockets here and there where that spirit is alive, but as the Church is perceived as a body, so will the world perceive its function, which is largely as a partial paralytic. The nature of its mass congregation is in my opinion, reduced to following a ritualized practice that serves security of the one’s own soul, while vainly proclaiming messages from a practiced pulpit for world outreach in daily life. Then everyone goes home. The outreach that does get done tends to be of a charitable nature, highly organized and outperformed by many secular outfits, where the inductive power is carried by genuine empathy, a desire to help fellow man. Again, the Church means well, but its efforts seem to move with a sense of obligation, rather than true mission. I would argue that the congregations get too large, too organized, do not engage the issues that face culture ...
...nto religion, one must ponder significance in today’s modernized world. With technology and signs increasingly championing the power of reason today, many religions have seen their members and followers stagnate or decline. Considering the compromise and accommodation of temple locations and orientations in a colonial-era should one consider commodification, a similar compromise to remain relevant in the modern world? One can observe that although several principles have been compromising modernity, religion at its core has remained true to its teachings and principles. As a physical embodiment however, the architecture today presents a certain image of itself to the rest of the world. It remains to be seen as to what extent such architectural changes suit the changes of the world today and to which extent do they begin to present religion in an unsuitable manner.
words such as “cold” used to describe the church as it is but when he