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Wisdom Down Under
Learnings and musings along the journey
Spirituality


Part 2: Toward Reformation
Biblical Types If you have been around churches long enough, you will have come across the teaching of types. This is when an event is symbolic of something else. An example of a major type in the Bible is the experience of the Israelites. They are a type of the Christian life. In this regard the broad themes of the Israelite’s experience are types or mirror the experience of someone in their Christian life. The type works as follows: The Israelites were in bondage (oppressed
Mar 5, 20134 min read


Part 1: Toward Reformation
The Early Believers Whilst we have read of Ignatius of Antioch setting up bishops and the like, there was another stream of Christianity (the assembly) which retained its New Testament roots. Due to its mode of operation it was somewhat like an underground organisation (kind of helpful in times of intense persecution) and yet by around 300CE it had pretty much taken over half the Roman empire. There are not a lot of records about this body of Christ in the period AD 80-300, b
Jan 22, 20135 min read


Part 6: Paganism
The Church The past five articles have opened the door on the history and roots of what we call the church in the world today. We have seen that most of her practices and structures come not from biblical instruction but from pagan religious and philosophical traditions. We traced the spiritual root of Babylonian paganism from Nimrod into the church through Constantine. We saw the influence of Greek thinking (the Prince of Greece mentioned in Daniel) affecting our cultural ch
Jan 21, 20137 min read


Part 5: Paganism
So where did this “Christianity” come from? – the spiritual roots Teitan The spiritual root of this “Christianity” goes all the way back to the first article on paganism. It all started with Nimrod, the pagan religion he established in Babylon and his “reincarnation” as Tammuz. As we have seen this religion became widespread across the earth after the scattering from the Tower of Babel. This religion in its mystery form continued to be practised in Babylon right up to the tim
Jan 13, 20134 min read


Part 4: Paganism
Will the Real Christianity please stand up? So now we’ve learned the following has nothing to do with Christianity: Lent, Eastre, the cross, madonna & child, Christmas, mitres and Gregorian chants; the rabbit hole goes much deeper… The Sermon The sermon is a Greek invention from the philosophical speakers/orators who used to get paid to put on a good show. When the Greeks became Christians the orators among them started to take over the services, they loved the “pre-eminence.
Jan 12, 20135 min read


Part 3: Paganism
Christmas The death knell for the early Christian church came disguised as a blessing, it was the ‘conversion’ of the Roman Emperor Constantine. In A.D. 312 he and Maxentius were locked in mortal battle for the throne of Rome. “Constantine alarmed that Maxentius was a master of magical arts, prayed to the ‘supreme god’ for help. To Constantine the supreme god was Mithras, the Persian sun god. In response to his prayer, he reportedly saw a vision of a flaming cross in the sk
Dec 5, 20125 min read


Part 2: Paganism
As paganism spread after the Tower of Babel fiasco, it took its many ceremonies and practices with it. Here are a few of them… Weeping for Tammuz/Lent/Easter In Babylon the goddess and her son appear as Rhea the great goddess “Mother” (aka Semiramis, Nimrod’s widow) and her son Tammuz (the reincarnated Nimrod). Tammuz is also known as Bacchus that is “the Lamented one”, the one for whom the pagans celebrated 40 days of weeping each year to remember Tammuz’s death when he was
Dec 4, 20125 min read


Part 1: Paganism
The story of paganism begins after Noah’s flood with his son Ham and Ham’s grandson Nimrod. The flood came about because the people on earth were continually evil so God killed everyone who didn’t get into Noah’s ark. This left a very strong impression on Noah and his descendants (the Patriarchs) that God wasn’t someone to be messed with and that He should be obeyed and worshipped. However one generation down the family tree starting with Noah’s son Ham, people started rebell
Dec 3, 20125 min read


The Dead Atheist
Atheism has gotten a lot more press recently helped along by the likes of the media savvy Richard Dawkins whose website has such quotes as “The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything.” At first glance this is a kind of funny shot at religious types and suits the “poke fun at the establishment” thinking of our age. Of course to actually back up such a sweeping statement is a lot more complicated, in fact it’s quite impossible to do. What is ironic is t
Sep 16, 20113 min read


Part 4: Prince of Greece
In this article on the prince of Greece we’re investigating how he has affected our interpretation of scripture. It’s interesting that despite most of the New Testament manuscripts we have today being written in Greek or Aramaic, Papias, John’s disciple stated that “Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language and several did their best to translate it.”(Ecclesiastical History 3:39 – Eusebius) In fact there has recently been discovered over 14 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of
Sep 5, 20117 min read


Part 3: Prince of Greece
Even though the Prince of Greece was defeated by the Maccabees, a few centuries later he came back for a second round this time using the Roman empire, a round which still continues to this day… As mentioned in the first article in this series, the Romans did not do away with Greek culture, in fact they built their empire on it. They even borrowed from it in their persecution of the Jews. In the 2 nd century CE part of their persecution of the Jews included banning reading t
Sep 4, 20116 min read


Part 2: Prince of Greece
Interestingly even though Alexander the Great conquered the known world including the remnant of the exiles who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, he didn’t sack Jerusalem or stop their religious practices, in fact he pretty much left them alone. It was about 125 years after Alexander’s death that the prince of Greece made his move. When Alexander died his kingdom was divided among his servants. In the one hundred and thirty seventh year of the Greek empire Antiochus IV
Sep 3, 20113 min read


Part 1: Prince of Greece
Daniel 10:20 reads Then he (the angel) said (to Daniel) , “Do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia; and when I have gone forth, indeed the prince of Greece will come .” ( Italics mine ) The prince of Persia is a spiritual principality. He is so powerful that the angel sent to Daniel needed help from Michael one of the chief princes to be able to get to Daniel (Dan 10:13), and he was going to have to fight going back as wel
Sep 2, 20114 min read
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