Discussing How To
Restore The Early Church
Returning Intimacy and Power to the Father’s Children

“I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for,
it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” 

(Matthew 18:19,20)

[click here for a printable copy]

Section 2 - Lesson 18
The Loss of Our Hebraic Roots:
Devaluation Of Life
Reason Replaces Revelation
Revisionism Replaces Apperception
The Rise of Church Councils

The Loss of Our Hebraic Roots
Devaluation of Life

“He desecrated Topheth...so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10)

From a Hebraic perspective, every human being has great value because each one has been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). That value is emphasized most wonderfully by the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus on behalf of all mankind (2 Corinthians 5:14,15). So precious is each person that followers of Jesus are not allowed to hold hatred or unforgiveness against anyone, no matter what the offense (Matthew 6:14,15; 1 John 3:15).
Generational interconnectedness is a key Hebraic facet. You don’t live in isolation from either your ancestors or your posterity. Think how often God’s promises are made to the “third and fourth generations” that follow the people to whom He’s speaking! Repeated admonition from our God commands His people to tell their children His ways and His intervention, especially with the intent that those children tell their children and the children after them! (See Deuteronomy 4:9 and Joel 1:3, for example.)
Children are clearly recognized as “a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3, KJV). That’s why He enunciated so clearly a major purpose for marriage: “Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth” (Malachi 2:15). 
Children aren’t born “godly”; the accountability among generations to train them in righteousness doesn’t end when they leave home. The relational responsibility to continue to offer wisdom and counsel is part of God’s plan to bond the hearts of the generations together so that every stage of life is appreciated.

The Hebraic emphasis on the value of children contrasted deeply with that of the heathen tribes all around Israel who sacrificed their children to their gods. Parents would willingly set their babies on the sizzling hearth of fire that was the altar of Molech, and then engage in sexual orgy in front of the idol to drown out the child’s screams.
The Hebrew Scriptures detail that time and again God’s people participated in this ghastly practice as they were tempted by the pagans around them. Such an abomination was this practice in God’s sight that He commanded death for those who killed their children in this manner. (See Jeremiah 32;35 and Leviticus 20:4,5, for example.)
Hellenistic Athenians may have enjoyed the reputation of being cultured and intellectual, but they also had a low view of children. Judging offspring an intrusion into their pursuit of happiness, most limited their families to two, one, or even no children. They rationalized that by so doing they were avoiding overpopulation and depletion of natural resources. Does this sound familiar? Modern American society seeks to preserve the earth from its inhabitants as well, rather than tending it on behalf of God to bless humanity.

Yet another manifestation of Hel-lenist thought is the “quality of life” argument pushed today for everything from abortion to euthanasia to infanticide. If an individual, whether infant or handicapped or elderly, was considered incapable of achieving a certain standard of success, it was the duty of the Athenian or Spartan family to eliminate that person. “Conventional wisdom” demanded that no one be allowed to become a burden on society.
Abortion and infanticide were rampant among the Greeks. Since there was no respect for the fact that humans were made in God’s image, Hellenism taught that there was no intrinsic worth in an individual that guaranteed his right to existence. Unproductive (or inconvenient) lives were expendable.

Centuries later during the Renais-sance, Hellenism would be the impetus for the rise of humanism. The culture of both Greeks and Romans was romanticized and imitated. Man’s ability to achieve and artistically create produced a self-sufficiency that left no room for either the reality of personal sinfulness or the need for God’s forgiveness.
If man was at the center of his universe, then evolution, the denial of God’s hand in creation of each according to its own kind (see Genesis 1:21-25), was the source of all life. Tragically, this theory of deceitful logic has made inroads into many contemporary Christian circles.
If man is just a mass of evolved tissue with no greater value than any other living thing, then his worth to society can be measured objectively. In other words, each person should meet certain established standards that qualify him to live.
Categorizing individuals into classes of worth is not a phenomenon of ancient history. In the “Christian” nation of Germany the Nazis, influenced by the Hellenist denigration of human life, gassed people at mental institutions and homes for the aged years before they initiated widespread extermination in concentration camps.  
Christians in America who give way to the self-serving Hellenist values of convenience are in danger of devaluing life as well. For example, have you, by silent acquiescence, allowed your children to accept their school’s presentation of evolution as the foundation for earth’s existence? After all, your children probably believe that whatever their teachers tell them is true, since you’re the one who has sent them there to be educated.
Convenience was a definite factor among some of the clergy who met monthly at our retreat center. One insisted that it was “common sense” to send his children to public school because it was just down the street from his house. He said he didn’t mind having to “deprogram” his children from whatever didn’t fit his theology!
Do you think that your children are protected from devaluing life because they are in church buildings regularly? The abortion rate among churched young people and the unchurched is the same. Do you really believe that the sanctity of life is being instilled in the next generation?

Express your views on the value of human life. Under what conditions do you believe a life may be taken?


In what ways has humanism penetrated your own family? Has convenience been a factor in your decision to educate your children?



The Loss of Our Hebraic Roots
Reason Replaces Revelation

“Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks that he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight” 
(1 Corinthians 3:18,19).

Not only has Greek philosophical thought influenced seminaries to produce a clergy class. It has also persuaded seminarians to depend on Hellenist reasoning skills—the wisdom of this world —rather than on revelation from the Holy Spirit. In other words, before you became a child of God through union with the Spirit of Jesus, your perception of knowledge came to you through your mind’s interpretation of your physical senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing.
As we’ve wrote in Lesson 11: A Hebraic Perspective, The Holy Spirit As Teacher, when you became a follower of Jesus, you were indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Through His presence in you, understanding and application of truth to your life comes through your spirit to your mind. Spiritual truth is filtered and discerned through your spirit rather than through your physical senses.
This of course is foolishness to the world around us that depends only on the mind. As a result the world is steeped in scientific analysis and humanist rationale. Paul faced the same opposition amid the scoffing Hellenists: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1Corinthians 1: 22,23).

Since World War II, reliance on reasoning has proliferated within western Christianity. Following the war, the introduction of the G.I. Bill for education significantly impacted the way clergy were trained for service in congregations.
As seminaries scrambled for federal money, they introduced to their curricula Greek-inspired courses of study: psychology, sociology, philosophy. In many parts of Christendom, reliance on these man-centered programs superceded dependence on divine revelation and God’s Word as the true source for His perspective and purposes. In so doing, many seminaries have replaced God’s power with man’s wisdom, disregarding Paul’s warning to the Greek Corinthians.
The “foolishness of the cross” offers man righteousness and life and reconciliation with our Father. Yet man’s arrogant intellect stymies the humility needed to turn from the depravity of sin and receive forgiveness and dependence on the Spirit to walk according to God’s pathway.
Paul reiterated to the Corinthians man’s innate resistance to forsake that which the world considers wise—just as much a warning to Christians today:

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

 Many sitting in pews today find themselves longing in vain to experience revelation within the congregational body and to partake in the miraculous as the Hebraic forefathers did. But their leaders offer sermons based on Greek philosophical reasoning rather than divine revelation, so mental stimulation is all they receive.
Many clergy have been so imbued with a sense of seminary pressure to develop “reasoned sermons” that they’re fearful of Holy Spirit revelation! Their man-centered training has robbed them of confidence in the miraculous intervention of God. They dread that the Spirit might not “come across” with answers if they look to Him to do so!
 
One day I (Mike) was preparing for a weekend retreat to which a group of men were coming. After I finished writing what I thought was the best retreat plan I’d ever put together, the phone rang. A person from our faith community had been praying, and the Holy Spirit impressed on her to tell me that the retreat I’d prepared wasn’t what HE wanted! 
After she hung up, I erased my work from my hard drive and sought our Lord to fulfill whatever He wanted to do through me.
The next day I was attending a conference when the Holy Spirit spoke to my spirit, revealing the retreat He wanted for the men. I remember saying, “That’s only half a retreat.” The reply came back, “I will take over the second half.”
At the end of the conference I ran into a pastor friend. He too was leading a retreat the coming weekend at a different facility. He approached me and said, “Mike, the Holy Spirit told me that you have what I need to share at my men’s retreat.” I related to him what the Spirit had given to me. He replied, “That’s only half a retreat!” I told him that the Spirit told me He would take over the second half. My friend shook his head sadly. “I can’t trust Him to do that for me...”
Our retreat was incredible, filled with prophecy, divine healing, and pure-hearted worship. (To be honest, I had to confess to the men my own earlier doubt and unbelief.) We were all in awe of what God had done.

You may recall that the pattern of Greek teaching deals with biblical truth as theoretical and conceptual rather than as real and applicable for today’s followers of Jesus. The people of faith we see in the Book of Acts trusted in revelation of truth through His Spirit so that they could put it into practice.
They also experienced the miraculous as they walked in His Word because they trusted He would empower them to carry out His revealed commands. God’s revelation to obedient hearts and His power to work the miraculous around and through them go hand-in-hand!

The words of James fall with judgment on this generation of clergy who are dependent on the wisdom and methods of this world: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). Rather than representing through personal experience and testimony the wondrous and miraculous intervention of God, these men rely on Greek rhetoric and the persuasive power of argument. 
To walk as a Kingdom disciple, our Lord must be more to you than an academic subject about Whom you’re lectured. The next sermon you hear, ask yourself what you’re discerning: a man-centered Hellenist discourse on self-fulfillment, or a God-centered exhortation of love-grounded obedient trust in our Lord as you walk in His commands and promises. The first method educates you, the second brings you to conviction!

How do you confirm whether a person is teaching you the truth from the Bible? How do you see the Holy Spirit operating as you learn God’s Word?

What part does Holy Spirit revelation play in your daily life? What testimony of miraculous intervention in answer to your prayer has evidenced “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24) working in and through you?


The Loss of Our Hebraic Roots
Revisionism Replaces Apperception

“Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not take pride in one man over against another”
(1 Corinthians 4:6)

The terms revisionism and apperception may be new to you, yet they reflect a very real difference between God’s intent and man’s manipulation. Revisionism is behind so much of what takes place in Christendom today, while apperception is a foundational benchmark by which you can discern the scriptural authenticity of a particular religious belief or practice. 

When you apperceive any faith practice, you evaluate new teaching and ways to apply it by the standard of what you already know beyond a doubt to be true in God’s Word. You always go back to the original understanding that God intended in His Word—that which would have been readily understood by the writer’s audience. That’s the only way you can fully perceive the background of each verse and passage, and the author’s intent when he wrote it.
Apperception rouses you to build your life on the foundation of God’s Word. Scripture becomes the guiding source for the way you live and the choices you make. The Newer Testament writers didn’t dream up the teachings of Jesus and the commands He taught them as a way of life! They apperceived the Older Testa-ment as the foundation for the truths they recorded as the Holy Spirit breathed the essence of those truths into and through them.
The apostle Paul praised the Bereans because they apperceived his teachings in light of the truth of the Hebrew Scrip-tures. The Bereans made sure that what Paul said agreed with the Word of God!

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11).

When Paul encouraged the believers in Rome that God makes people righteous through their trust, he was apperceiving the truth that’s found in Habakkuk 2:4, “The person who is righteous will live his life by trust.”
Jesus relied on apperception all throughout His teachings. He would allude to or quote truth from the Older Testament, which everyone knew to be the Word of God.  Then He’d APPLY that truth to the situation He was addressing.
For instance, when Jesus was speaking in the synagogue at Nazareth, He read aloud the messianic prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 61:
 
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and recovery of sight for the blind, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
 
His listeners already understood that this prophecy foretells the actions that would evidence the coming Messiah, so Jesus used this passage as the basis to reveal Himself. As Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4:21, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Another example: As Jesus began His Sermon on the Mount, He blessed the “poor in spirit”. Jesus didn’t just come up with that phrase; he was apperceiving Isaiah’s report of the character of someone God blesses: “The kind of person on whom I look with favor is one with a poor and humble spirit, who trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).
Jesus referred repeatedly to the KINGDOM of heaven, the KINGDOM of God—an everlasting kingdom far different than those of men who come to power briefly then collapse, only to be replaced by yet another governmental rule. The Jews who heard Jesus announce a new and everlasting KINGDOM were eager to see the oppressive Roman occupation come to an end. They had no doubts about the source for His words: He was apperceiving the prophecy of Daniel.

In the time of those kings [various conquering nations], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever (Daniel 2:44).

The Hebraic Restoration depends on apperception in order for you to live according to our Father’s will. That’s why YOU, like our earliest spiritual forefathers, need to confirm any teachings to make sure they reflect the CONTINUITY of both testaments.

Think of the entire Word of God as a 2-act play. If you read just the first act, the Older Testament, you’re left without hope. You never know if the promised Messiah ever comes to fulfill all those prophecies! All you know is that you’re just as much a depraved sinner as were the Israelites. Without an atoning sacrifice to suffer the punishment of your guilt, you’re condemned.
If you read only the Newer Testa-ment, you have no foundation on which to discern its fulfillment in Jesus, OR to recognize the spiritual and historical interconnection of the practices of His earliest followers with those of His Hebraic ancestors.
The two testaments are inseparably linked!

When you come to Section 3 of How To Restore The Early Church, we’ll discuss how you can restore the relational intimacy and spiritual power the earliest followers of Jesus experienced. At that point (if not earlier!) you’ll realize how crucial it is for you to apperceive the ENTIRE Bible. Through awareness and application of biblical truth as a continuing life journey, you’ll be able to glorify our Father as you walk in the obedient trust which pleases Him.
[See Lifebyte 8: Resurrections Into KINGDOM Living.]

Many churchgoers depend on religious leaders to define for them what they should believe. These definitions follow along the lines of particular denominational creeds. But, as we’ve discussed, the formulation of creeds is the result of Hellenist philosophy’s impact on Christianity stretching back to the second and third centuries.

Church councils established and  interpreted doctrine on behalf of all other believers. Council members were part of the church organization’s hierarchy, and were far removed from the everyday life of the common people. Councils established creedal positions which everyone in their denomination or sect had to accept without question. These councils often interchanged the word “doctrine” with creed, but this is a gross error!
Doctrine as understood by the earliest followers of Jesus was their applications of God’s Word in their daily way of life through love-grounded, Spirit-empowered obedient trust. As noted in a previous lesson, the earliest followers of Jesus were called “The Way” because others could readily discern that these people lived for Jesus. They walked on the pathway of Kingdom righteousness that had been drawn from Hebrew Scripture and made clear by their Messiah. Personally applying the Word of God to their lives was their way of building their faith practice on solid rock. 

On the other hand, knowledge of the Bible without applying it was like building a house on unstable, ever-shifting sand. Jesus anchors this understanding in His parable about the two builders in Matthew, chapter 7. Those who DON’T apply His Word Jesus admonishes:

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does NOT put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand (7:26).

Jesus, however, commends those who apply His Word as their way of life:

Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock (7:24,25).

Even people who build on the rock of obedient trust will face calamity. But, because they put God’s Word into practice, they can stand firm in His faithfulness.
Applying the Word of God to life situations was the primary method of instruction in the earliest Church. These life applications were called halakhahs (hah-luh-KAHZ) from the Hebrew halak (huh-LAHK) which means “to walk”. Followers of Jesus personally applied the Hebrew Scriptures to their lives in order to walk in His righteous way of living. 
[For help in developing your own biblical life applications, see our book, Christian Halakhahs: Loving Jesus Through The Way You Apply His Word.]

Each individual application of the Word is like a stepping stone on the path of righteousness. In other words, every time you apply God’s Word to a particular life situation or decision you encounter, you’re taking a further step in KINGDOM living.
People often use the word “church” to describe either a building or a religious system. But our Lord didn’t come to establish either buildings or religious systems. He came to establish a KINGDOM!
Jesus refers twice to the “church” in Matthew, chapters 16 and 18. The Greek word for church, ekklesia (ek-leh-SEE-uh), means the “called-out ones”. All who have trusted Jesus in the way He calls for have been called out of the world’s system and values to live in a whole new way.
The first reference Jesus makes to the called-out ones reveals an important point: “... on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not withstand it” (Matthew 16:18b).
This passage can best be understood as, “I am establishing my KINGDOM in the hearts of those I have “called out” of the world to live according to My Word.”
The Kingdom of Jesus is found in the hearts of the called-out ones who apply His Word to their lives. Our Lord confers on all who serve Him the authority to establish their own faith practices. Jesus promises,
 
I will give you the keys of the KINGDOM of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

Jesus repeated these words in Matthew, chapter 18 to emphasize our responsibility to apply the Bible to all areas of our lives. All followers of Jesus need to establish halakhahs for all of their life decisions by apperceiving God’s Word—prayerfully determining His particular application for your situation. And whatever applications you enact in your life will be recognized in heaven.
Remember: Whatever you loose and whatever you bind for yourself as you apperceive His Word through His Spirit’s discernment will be recognized in heaven.
Let’s put apperception into a visual metaphor. Picture a man who’s constructing roof joists for the house he’s building. He carefully measures out a pattern for his first joist and cuts it. Then he uses that joist as the pattern for the next one.
For each and every joist, he uses his original as the pattern.
This process describes apperception—going back to the pattern of the Word of God for every application of spiritual practice you have.

We hope you recognize how important it is to apperceive Scripture! We’ve emphasized this matter so strongly because the opposite of apperception is Revisionism. And, revisionism dominates so much of Christian thought and practice today.
Revisionism alters historical truth and facts by manipulating them to fit current moral standards and agendas. For instance, in the fourth century revisionist writers endowed Peter with hierarchical authority and declared him the first Pope. 
Today, the feminist movement has brought about a version of the Bible with a genderless God.
Scripture that clearly expresses God’s hatred of divorce is reinterpreted to allow divorce for almost any reason because He’s a “God of grace”.
Revisionism is the tragic enemy of apperception. Remember, our early forefathers in the faith depended on apperceiving the scriptures so they could faithfully walk in God’s ways. Sadly, over the centuries, Revisionism has become the unchallenged method of establishing counterfeit gospels and non-biblical faith practices.
As we continue to stress, because of revisionism there are over 23,000 competing denominations that divide Jesus. You may be wondering how revisionism has become so widespread over the centuries. Let’s go back to our analogy of the man constructing roof joists.
Remember: The person who APPERCEIVES always goes back to that first joist as his pattern for all the other joists he constructs.
The REVISIONIST, on the other hand, measures out and cuts the first roof joist. Then he makes a second one from that. But, instead of using the original joist as his pattern, he uses the second joist as a pattern for the third. . . the third joist to make the fourth, and so on.
This is the effect of revisionist church councils over the centuries. They never went back to the first “joist”, the Hebraic foundations which God had given the earliest followers of Jesus in the Older Testament. Each council’s decisions cited previous councils rather than God’s Word as the earliest Church would have understood and applied it.
Western Christianity has drifted far afield from the unity our Lord calls for in His body. Syncretism, revisionism, and abdication of halakhic life application only perpetuate the distorted and ungodly practices found in Christendom today. Followers of Jesus need to go back to the faith practices of our Hebraic forefathers, and apperception will help us accomplish this. 
In Lesson 3 we shared with you a  thought-provoking poem, The Cliff. Apperception is analogous to building a protective fence at the top of the cliff. Revisionism, however, is keeping the ambulance at the bottom for those who have no biblical life application and fall into repeated pits. The choice is yours...

Do you regularly turn to Scripture to apperceive and confirm every teaching that comes your way? What impact has the failure to do so had on the religious beliefs and practices you find even in your own faith community?

How would you articulate to others the reason why revisionism has so firmly entrenched itself within western Christi-anity?



The Loss of Our Hebraic Roots
The Rise of Church Councils
As noted earlier, with the influx of Hellenist oratory and debate into the church, interpersonal discussion that leads to application of God’s Word was lost. Philosophical arguments based on syllogistic reasoning, a method embraced by the sophisticated and educated, became the norm. 
On the heels of Hellenism came Roman hierarchical organization at the time of Constantine (to be discussed in a later lesson). Church councils which were far removed from the common people would dictate the creed that all were required to believe.
Doctrine was no longer the spiritual wisdom imparted to each believer by the Holy Spirit through mutual discussion. Remember, “doctrine” to the early Hebraic followers of Jesus was how God’s Word was put into action through obedient trust.
To truly know a person’s doctrine, you have to observe his way of life. Biblical Christian faith and practice were meant to reflect the work of the Spirit in the inner man, not to propagate dogma to which intellectual assent could be  given but no life change be observed.

The Hebraic perspective of doctrine waned in the decades after the ascension of Jesus. It was replaced by reliance on Greek thought which reinterpreted “doctrine” into a series of philosophical positions, creeds, that were hammered out through intellectual argument.
Creeds are man-made formulations to which people must adhere, even if only through mental agreement. Few have any idea how they should live out the creeds they recite. This is a far cry from the Hebraic understanding of doctrine that  inspires and directs your way of life.
Creedal allegiance has done more to divide Christendom than
any other influence.
Denominationalism is a curse,
not a blessing; a tribute to Hellenism but a sorrow to Jesus.

When the converted Greek philosopher-theologians sought to make spiritual life intelligible to the natural mind through syllogistic reason, they removed trust-based, responsive action as a scriptural mandate for the Christian life. For the institutional church at large, unity in Christ and power from on high were supplanted by creedal division.
Hellenism’s influence on Christianity enabled people to feel good about themselves and their religious practice. Why? Because they found themselves mutually supported by others who embraced the same creedal positions. One of the basic fundamentals of human nature is group affirmation by those who hold similar values.
Centuries of persecution by the religious hierarchy dogged those who faithfully sought to live in the power of the Spirit in a way that pleased God. The Inquisition, for example, is a bitter legacy for those who ancestors suffered and perished.
The influence of creedalism today continues even in subtle ways. When asked, few who consider themselves “Christian” identify themselves as a follower of Jesus. Rather, they find their spiritual identity in their denomination or “church” building they attend.
How grievous that Jesus’s joy in those who trusted without the “help” of Hellenist debate has not been emulated by westernized Christianity at large:

 At that moment He was filled with joy by the [Holy Spirit] and said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I thank you because you concealed these things from the sophisticated and educated, yet revealed them to ordinary people. Yes, Father, I thank you that it pleased you to do this (Luke 10:21).

You might find it eye-opening to examine a sampling of decisions and dogma developed by the “sophisticated and educated” on church councils over the centuries—councils which relied on Hellenist debate rather than revelation by the Holy Spirit.

AD 300 Baptism by immersion changed to sprinkling.
AD 300 Prayers for the dead endorsed.
AD 375 Veneration of angels and saints inaugurated.
AD 431 Mary declared “Queen of Heaven”.
AD 431 Mary declared a perpetual virgin.
AD 431 Mary declared “Mediatrix” between God and man.
AD 500 Priests begin to wear “professional garb”.
AD 593 Doctrine of Purgatory adapted.
AD 600 Latin language declared the only authorized language for prayer.
AD 785 Mary declared “Co-redemptrix”.
AD 788 Worship of Mary authorized.
AD 788 Worship of the cross, relics, and images authorized.
AD 995 Canonization of deceased saints begins.
AD 1079 Celibacy mandated for priests.
AD 1090 Rosary prayer beads endorsed.
AD 1195 Sale of indulgences authorized. (Priests paid to pray to limit the punishment of individuals in Purgatory after their death.
AD 1215 Confession of sins to priests sanctioned.
AD 1229 Scriptures forbidden to “laymen”.
AD 1508 Mary declared the “Mother of God”.
AD 1545 Church tradition declared equal to Scripture.1

Remember, the practice of religious councils enacting creeds on behalf of those who have no say through direct discussion is foreign to our Hebraic forefathers in the faith. We realize that the council decisions we cited occurred within Roman Catholicism.
However, councils within Protestantism have not drawn believers to greater relational intimacy or spiritual power either. Failure of councils over the centuries to apperceive the Hebraic foundations of the earliest Church has resulted in division and continuing discord.
The plethora of denominations flourish today largely due to divisive closemindedness. As protesting groups broke away from their denomination, each established a new creed or “doctrine of belief” to justify their separation. Sadly, these new “creeds” are no more than revisionism built upon revisionism.
Apperception as practiced by their Hebraic forefathers would have encouraged the unity of followers of Jesus for which He himself prayed and continues to yearn for.  

Describe your own faith journey through the various denominations or sects of which you’ve been a part. Have you subconsciously looked down on any other denomination because of teaching you’ve received from your own? How is your response to those people affected when it came to spiritual discussions?


Would you describe your past or present faith pilgrimage as dependent on creeds and doctrines established by Church councils or denominational hierarchy? Have you ever confronted the clergy of your denomination with a view that differed from the denominational position? What was the response?