Church of God News

Although there is no biblical requirement (which is why we in the COGs do not observe it), a Jewish holiday called Tisha B’Av begins Monday evening at sundown, which is the ninth day (Tish’a) of the Jewish month of Av.  It commemorates two of the saddest events in Jewish history…the destruction of the First Temple built by Solomon, and the destruction of the Second Temple.  Both events occurred in the same month, Av, and as tradition has it, both on the ninth day.

Since there have been some questions about the precise date of the destruction, a reader sent the following:

Resolving the Temple Destruction Dates

The following text is from the scholastic “Handbook of Biblical Chronology“, Finegan, 1999, p. 106:

“As to the month and day, the Jewish sources claim a striking identity between the destruction of the Second Temple and of the First Temple.  2 Kings 25:8 states that the First Temple was burned by Nebuzaradan on the seventh day of the fifth month, while Jeremiah 52:12 gives the tenth day of the fifth month.  The rabbis reconciled these data by explaining that the Babylonians entered the temple on the seventh day of Ab (which is the fifth month), ate and did damage to it on that day and the eighth, and on the ninth day toward dusk set fire to it; it then continued to burn through the whole of that day which is presumably extended through the tenth.  As to the reoccurrence of disaster at the identical time, they said, “The same thing too happened in the Second Temple.”  For a single day, the ninth of Ab was taken as the exact date: “On the ninth of Ab…the Temple was destroyed the first and the second time”.”

“In his account of the second destruction Josephus gives the following sequence of events.  On Xanthikos 14 Titus encamped before the city (War 5.99; 5.133; 5.567).  On Panemos 17 the daily sacrifices ceased (6.94).  On Loos 8 the Roman armies completed their earthworks (6.220) and Titus ordered the gates of the temple area set afire (6.228).  On the following day, which was Loos 9, Titus resolved to spare the temple (6.241).  On yet the following day, which was Loos 10, amidst the fighting, a soldier cast a firebrand into the temple and it was burned (6.244, 252).  The date of the burning is stated explicitly by Josephus: “the tenth of the month Loos, the day on which of old it had been burnt by the king of Babylon” (6.250).  In the later correlation of the Macedonian calendar as it was used in Palestine, Loos was parallel to Ab, the fifth month.  Therefore Josephus’s date of Loos = Ab 10 is identical with Jeremiah’s 52:12 date of the tenth day of the fifth month for the first destruction, and just one day later than the ninth day of Ab taken as the official date by the rabbis”. 

Two items of related interest may include:

Solomon’s Temple This is a a 5 minute animated film that shows one artist’s understanding of the details about Solomon’s temple.
The Temple and the Work This article discusses the two temples of the Old Testament and gives insight as to their possible relevance to the situation which has impacted the Church during this past decade or so.

The following seems to be the latest post at Barnabas Ministries:

Where did God come from?
Who or what created God?

(Submitted by: M.P.)

A. There is nothing in the scriptures that states or infers that God the Father created Jesus the Son.  The scriptures state that the “Word”, who was born as Jesus, was “with God in the beginning”:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ” (John 1:1-3,14 NIV)…

The concept of an eternal “being” is beyond true human comprehension.  As the wise man who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes wrote:

I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ” (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11, NIV)

God IS.  God WAS. God WILL BE.  He was not created but is the Creator and Sustainer of everything that we see in this universe, which is a physical realm and time only exists in the physical realm – it has no meaning in terms of God and the spiritual realm…

Answer Given By: Clay Willis

Barnabas Ministries is an independent COG-related website with about a dozen contributors.

More information on the subject raised can be found in the article Where Did God Come From?

The July 2007 edition of UCG’s United News reported:

Altogether, 13,534 responses have been received since Beyond Today began airing in December 2005. Of these, 7,433 have come through the Beyond Today Web site. Phone responses from TV added 3,826 and phone calls from radio added another 1,400. Yahoo and Google Web responses totaled 875.

Thus the approximately 18 month total telephone responses UCG received is roughly equal to the weekly telephone responses that LCG receives from its Tomorrow’s World telecast.  However, over time, I believe that UCG will increase its television responses (its proposed increases in spending for public proclamation should assist this).

UCG  probably is third among the COGs in terms of television responses with LCG  apparently first (it most likely is first, it is just that PCG’s figures are not known to me) and PCG probably second (PCG has not published any numbers of responses that I have seen, though I have viewed their television station listing, which suggests to me that it is currently more effective on television than UCG as I have also viewed UCG’s listing).

Last night, ICG’s Mark Armstrong stated:

Can you believe what an absolutely brash, insulting, ridiculous statement came out of the Vatican late last week?  And yet hardly a peep out of anyone about it.  No salvation without acceptance of papal authority?  Well, that’s preposterous! It disputes the whole theme of the New Testament!  This was up for discussion in Columbia, it will be in the letter you’ll get around the first of the month.  Try as you might, you won’t find anyone prominent disputing the brazen statements of the German pope.  It’s almost as if it’s a trial run for the kind of blasphemy prophesied at the time of the end.

Similar claims are being made by some self-styled Church of God leaders.  Have they no shame at all?  And what of those who buy into their megalomaniacal rants?  Have they taken leave of reason?  The whole thing is sickening, particularly where it concerns the name and the memory of HWA.  Not to get carried away again, but the letter deals with some of these pertinent, important, and potentially dangerous issues.  I can’t tell you folks how thankful I am for you, practical, friendly, down to earth people who aren’t playing these sick games.  Pity the poor, abused, intimidated people who’ve been ensnared by the abuse of people’s love and respect for name of HWA.  Lucky for his “successors” he’s not here to witness their false claims or their tyranny.

Two comments.

1) The COGwriter page has already had posts about various Pontifical rantings.  Even though these are not new statements, the fact is that the Roman Catholic Church has long taken the position that only it and the Eastern Orthdox are churches and that other groups are only ecclesiastical bodies.  What is most amazing is that he claims this because he claims that only the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthdox Church have can truly claim apostolic succession.  While it is true that they have claimed that, the truth is that historical scholars no that there is no historical proof–also true biblical scholars realize that both of those churches adopted doctrines that the early true Church opposed.

This is documented in the following:

What Do Roman Catholic Scholars Actually Teach About Early Church History? Although most believe that the Roman Catholic Church history teaches an unbroken line of succession of bishops beginning with Peter, with stories about most of them, Roman Catholic scholars know the truth of this matter. This eye-opening article is a must-read for any who really wants to know what Roman Catholic history actually admits about the early church.
Location of the Early Church: Another Look at Ephesus, Smyrna, and Rome What actually happened to the primitive Church? And did the Bible tell about this in advance?
Apostolic Succession What really happened? Did structure and beliefs change? Are many of the widely-held current understandings of this even possible?
History of Early Christianity Are you aware that what most people believe is not what truly happened to the true Christian church?
The Churches of Revelation 2 & 3 Do they matter? Most say they must, but act like they do not. This article contains some history about the Church of God (sometimes referred to as the continuation of Primitive Christianity) over the past 2000 years.
Which Is Faithful: The Roman Catholic Church or the Church of God? Do you know that both groups shared a lot of the earliest teachings? Do you know which church changed? Do you know which group is most faithful to the teachings of the apostolic church? This documented article answers those questions.
Some Similarities and Differences Between the Orthodox Church and the Churches of God Both groups have some amazing similarities and some major differences. Do you know what they are?

                                             Pope Benedict XVI

2) Tyrannical comments from alleged COG leaders.  There are at least three leaders who claim to be in the COGs that have claimed certain titles that I believe they have acted presumptuously about, hence this disqualifies them as in the COG unless they repent.  The three main ones are PCG’s Gerald Flurry who claims to be a prophet, RCG’s David Pack who claims to be an apostle, and COGPFK’s Ronald Weinland who claims to be one of the two witnesses (there are also a few similar leaders in extremely small groups).

Articles quoting those leaders as well as showing how they are not faithful to Herbert Armstrong’s and the Bible’s teachings would include the following:

Teachings Unique to the Philadelphia Church of God Simply calling oneself ‘Philadelphia’ does not make one so (see Revelation 3:7-9), nor does Gerald Flurry calling himself “that prophet” make it so. This article provides quotes from this group which claims to be faithful.
Why Not the Restored Church of God? This group, led by David Pack, claims to be the most faithful. The information in this article suggests otherwise.
Concerns About Ronald Weinland’s Church of God-Preparing for the Kingdom of God Ronald Weinland claims to be one of the two witnesses. He has at least one other view that suggests that he is not part of the COG. 

The articles on the above claimed COG leaders tend to be among the most popular at the COGwriter website.  Hopefully all will read and study them so that they are not deceived by people who inaccurately claim titles that God has not given to them. 

This afternoon, WCG announced a video:

Foundations of Worldwide Church of God Theology – 26 minutes – Joseph Tkach, Mike Feazell, Mike Morrison, and Dan Rogers discuss the importance of Trinitarian theology.

However, the true foundation of theology should be the Bible.  The truth is that the acceptance of the trinity is based upon the accepting of heretical doctrines that were introduced to professing Christians in the second century by a heretic named Valentinus.  It cannot be in any legitimate way considered to be foundational to the true Christian faith.

After allowing him and the heretic Montanus to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church for decades, some of their heresies rubbed off on that church and it stopped being binitarian and finally in the third and fourth centuries became clearly trinitarian.

That early Christians did not accept the trinity as modern trinitarians espouse it is admitted by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant scholars. 

Roman Catholics also teach that the trinity did not clearly come from the Bible and cannot be fully understood:

Was the trinity a central doctrine of the New Testament? Here is what one modern historian has written about it:

Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning Is binitarianism the correct position? What about unitarianism or trinitarianism?
Is The Father God? What is the view of the Bible? What was the view of the early church?
Jesus is God, But Was Made Man Was Jesus fully human and fully God or what?
Virgin Birth: Does the Bible Teach It? What does the Bible teach? What is claimed in The Da Vinci Code?
Did Early Christians Think the Holy Spirit Was A Separate Person in a Trinity? Or did they have a different view?
Did the True Church Ever Teach a Trinity? Most act like this is so, but is it?
Was Unitarianism the Teaching of the Bible or Early Church? Many, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, claim it was, but was it?
Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning This is a shorter article than the Binitarian View article, but has a little more information on binitarianism.

Although it is still not at its website, Legacy Institutes’ latest letter arrived at my home last night.

In it, Leon Sexton writes:

Why don’t we sometimes know where we are going or how to get there?  Have some Churches of God become stagnant and lackluster in energy?…

If we are confused about MISSION, we will never gain a clear understanding of VISION…Mission is our goal.  Vision is how we get there!…

The Church is the instrument Jesus uses in this age to fulfill His mission.  He accomplishes this by sending forth the Church to preach the Gospel to the nations and help bring them back to God.

That is our mission…

The only way we can stay focused is if LEADERSHIP continuously brings us back to the mission and vision of the Church…

Satan will be working overtime–all the time–to get the people of God focused INWARD — on the SELF!…

The first century Apostles understood the vision.  They had no confusion as to what they should be doing.

While the comments I quoted above from Leon Sexton are correct and I admire his dedication, it is sad that he refused to listen to any Church leadership above him so HE could do his own self-directed work.

If Leon Sexton would not have changed the Gospel focus and certain other doctrines (one odd statement from him earlier was “Brethren, we are living in the time of the fullness of the Gentiles and NOT the calling of Israel“), he could have approached groups like LCG (who had and I believe still has, the largest COG presence in Southern Asia) or UCG and could have accomplished more than he has.

However, he, like many this age, have decided against the type of Philadelphia Era governance that Herbert W. Armstrong emphasized so clearly in the last several years of his life.  By not being part of LCG, for example, he minimizes the total impact that the COGs could have had in Southern Asia.

What Legacy is doing could have been done in a group like LCG.  If any have doubts, realize that the COGwriter is receiving over 100,000 hits in a month and though I am in LCG, I do have the type of autonomy that many probably think was not possible in a hierarchical COG.

While Leon Sexton is essentially correct about the mission, there are many parts of it–some of which he seems to ignore (for an expanded multi-part mission, please see the article There are Many COGs: Why Support the Living Church of God?).  

Several articles of related interest may include:

Teachings and Practices of Legacy Institute Works mainly in Asia and is led by Leon Sexton.
Should the Church Still Try to Place its Top Priority on Proclaiming the Gospel or Did Herbert Armstrong Change that Priority for the Work? Some say the Church should mainly feed the flock now as that is what Herbert Armstrong reportedly said. Is that what he said? Is that what the Bible says? What did Paul and HWA expect from evangelists?
Did You Know What the First Changes the Tkach Administration Made?Some have said healing, others other subjects, but probably the first change had to do with eliminating being part of the Philadelphia era. This article documents what those changes were and compares the Tkach list of restored truths to HWA’s list of restored truths.
The Laodicean Church Era was predominant circa 1986 A.D. to present.

Antiquities Department to renovate synagogue holding Nahum’s tomb

In an article in its Vision magazine, COGaIC’s Peter Nathan wrote:

Judas: It’s Still About Money

The re-release this year of several books in paperback reflects continuing popular interest in obscure nonbiblical works regarding the life of Jesus and the early church.Last year it was the newly translated so-called Gospel of Judas, the latest pseudo-Christian text to grab attention. It’s release was conveniently timed to generate sales during the Easter season. A companion book, The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot, told the story of the purchase and translation of the ancient Gnostic work. Both titles were published by the National Geographic Society and launched together with a prime-time documentary.It was a great multimedia success, with top-echelon book sales. But while National Geographic’s Terry Garcia has pointed out that the society spent a significant sum on the manuscript’s restoration and that the project was “not a commercial enterprise,” the sentiment would carry more weight if claims made about the text were not so hyperbolic. For example, it is highly questionable that this is “the most significant archaeological discovery in 60 years,” as National Geographic News subjectively reported, or that “this lost gospel . . . bears witness to something completely different from what was said [about Judas] in the Bible”…If you thought that the newly discovered gospel would give any extra insight into the mind of Judas—as to why he betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide or was assassinated (depending on which account you accept)—then you were bound to be disappointed…

Unlike the New Testament Gospels, this Gnostic version offers little or no detail of Jesus’ life. Presented largely as a discourse between Jesus and the disciples and then Jesus and Judas, it is similar to the Gnostic gospels of Mary and Thomas.Why, then, was the Gospel of Judas published with such flourish and fanfare?

FROM GRAY MARKET TO MASS MARKET

A number of factors have converged to make this manuscript so intriguing. First, its ownership is at issue. It came to light in the 1970s, although some speculate that it may have been part of the original Nag Hammadi discovery. As an archaeological treasure, it is strictly the property of the nation of Egypt. But it was illegally exported and was on the antiquities gray market for more than two decades, rapidly deteriorating because of neglect and abusive handling. During this time the codex was offered to several prestigious universities, all of which declined because of the excessive price demanded…The manuscript was subsequently held in Europe by a private collector who finally undertook the long-overdue preservation and translation of the document.

TIME AND MONEY

The second reason for publishing the Gospel of Judas is that the time was right to capitalize on such a document. Much publicity has been given to the Gnostics and their writings by the runaway success of The Da Vinci Code. The reading public appears to have an appetite for such material, suggesting that the holder of the Judas manuscript and the National Geographic Society hoped to gain some financial benefit out of the gospel before it returned to its rightful home in Egypt.

Partially because of reading The Da Vinci Code, I decided to read the extant fragments of the Gnostic “Gospels” of Philip and Mary Magdalene.  Suffice it to say that not only do they not read like anything in the New Testament, they also do not prove the point that the proponents of them state.

However, the truth about early Christianity is very interesting and is basically unknown as “tradition” and misinformation are more likely the basis for most people’s understandings of it. 

Some articles of possibly related interest may include:

History of Early Christianity Are you aware that what most people believe is not what truly happened to the true Christian church?
The Churches of Revelation 2 & 3 Do they matter? Most say they must, but act like they do not. This article contains some history about the Church of God (sometimes referred to as the continuation of Primitive Christianity) over the past 2000 years.
What Do Roman Catholic Scholars Actually Teach About Early Church History? Although most believe that the Roman Catholic Church history teaches an unbroken line of succession of bishops beginning with Peter, with stories about most of them, Roman Catholic scholars know the truth of this matter. This eye-opening article is a must-read for any who really wants to know what Roman Catholic history actually admits about the early church.
Location of the Early Church: Another Look at Ephesus, Smyrna, and Rome What actually happened to the primitive Church? And did the Bible tell about this in advance?
Apostolic Succession What really happened? Did structure and beliefs change? Are many of the widely-held current understandings of this even possible?
The Da Vinci Code: Some Good, Most Bad Does The Da Vinci Code properly discuss Christianity? What does it have right and what does it have wrong about early Christianity and other gospel accounts?

You can also click on the following link for information on Church of God, an International Community (COG aic).

The July-August issue of LCG’s Tomorrow’s World has an article titled “The Deception of Abortion” by Gerald Weston that states:

    Abortion proponents who fight to preserve the Roe v. Wade decision rarely acknowledge that the Jane Roe of the lawsuit—Norma McCorvey—is today a fierce opponent of abortion, even to the point of filing a class action suit in 2003 to have Roe v. Wade overturned. In this suit, “Among her 5,437 pages of evidence were affidavits from more than 1,000 women who testified that having an abortion had devastating emotional, physical, and psychological effects on them. Today McCorvey is passionately and publicly committed to undoing the damage she did in her earlier years and ending legalized abortion in America” The Marketing of Evil, Kupelian, p. 210).
     Also rarely mentioned is the fact that McCorvey did not seek out an abortion at the start of the legal process that led to Roe v. Wade. In the course of arranging an adoption for her unborn child, her attorney put her in touch with two attorneys who wanted to find a “test case” to establish abortion rights. McCorvey was not some young crusader for reproductive rights; she was a frightened young woman who believed what her lawyers told her. Thankfully, because the legal process took so long, the child she was carrying was born—not aborted—and was put up for adoption. But her lawsuit led to the deaths of millions of other children—a fact she now regrets.
     And McCorvey is far from the only one with regrets. And regrets are not just found among those who have had abortions—some who have performed abortions have also reconsidered their role. In 1969, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws was founded by physician Bernard Nathanson and abortion advocate Lawrence Lader, with help from noted feminist Betty Friedan. NARAL set out to convince the American public that abortion should be legalized, but how could such an audacious task be accomplished? How did Nathanson and his co-conspirators sell an unsuspecting American public on abortion? Was it with truth? Was it with science? Was it with medical expertise? What about the morality of it? In Nathanson’s own words:

     “We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one.… We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million.
     “Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law” The Marketing of Evil, Kupelian, p. 191).

     There were other confessed lies, but you get the point…

      Today Nathanson is doing everything he can to reverse the horrendous tragedy he helped to start…
     Bernard Nathanson, Norma McCorvey and thousands of others, whether the manipulators or the manipulated, are part of a greater deception. The Bible speaks of a time in which we have all “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Revelation 12:9 tells us that this spirit, this prince of the power of the air, is so powerful that he has deceived the whole world.
     Thankfully, not everyone has been deceived about the abortion issue. Several years after the Supreme Court ruling, a 15-year-old rape victim found herself in a situation like Norma McCorvey’s. But there was an important difference; the law now gave her the right to abort her child. Yet this brave young person chose to give birth to a baby daughter and turn her over for adoption to a couple who could care for her better than she could. The girl she brought into this world grew up in a loving family, went to university, became a social worker, married and had children. Today, millions of young people know of Pam Stenzel, an inspirational speaker and powerful advocate for abstinence, who teaches young people the price of having sex before marriage. When it comes to her own birth, in Pam’s own words, “I did not deserve to die because of the sin of my father.”    

An article in an earlier Tomorrow’s World had the following insert:

Here are links to the complete articles The Deception of Abortion and Abortion: A Modern Holocaust.

Followers of Christ do not condone abortion or in other ways kill their own children.

                         Our children near Passover 2001 

Here is a link to a draft of a new COGwriter article Abortion, the Bible, and a Woman’s Right to Choose.

CBCG’s July newsletter is now out.  In it, its Fred Coulter writes:

While working on the Bible Project, it has become apparent there is a profound unity between the Old and New Testament Scriptures. This unity is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that over one third of the NT is made up of quotes from the OT. Additionally, many of the prophecies of the OT could not be understood without the NT.  Consider the numerous prophecies referring to Jesus Christ—“the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world”—such as those in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Likewise, OT and NT prophecies regarding the end time and the return of Jesus Christ cannot be understood without the book of Revelation. In fact, without a thorough understanding of the Sabbath and Holy Days, the general prophetic time frame for the fulfillment of the plan of God cannot be understood. 

All of these are proofs of God’s inspiration of the entire Bible as the complete Word of God and evidence of the unity of Scripture! In the book of Isaiah, God provides us with the standard by which to seek Him and understand His Word, as well as to discern those who speak the truth of God: “To the law and to the testimony: if they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20). In this same chapter we also find a prophecy showing that the NT would be written by Jesus’ disciples, or apostles: “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples” (verse 16).  Because this verse foretells of the NT, it is also a prophecy that the OT alone would not comprise the complete Word of God.

We can verify this in the NT, which again demonstrates the unity of Scripture. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy concerning the OT: “But as for you, continue in the things that you did learn and were assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them; and that from a child you have known the holy writings [the OT], which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus” (II Tim. 3:14-15). Paul is showing that salvation not only involves faith in Jesus Christ and NT teachings, but that OT teachings are necessary as well. Paul then shows that all Scripture, OT and NT, is inspired by God—and in no way represents humanistic ideas of men: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work” (verses 16-17). 

When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he understood that he was to help complete the Word of God with his God-breathed writings of the Gospel: “Of which I became a servant, according to the administration of God that was given to me for you in order to complete the Word of God; even the mystery that has been hidden from ages and from generations, but has now been revealed to His saints; to whom God did will to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:25-27).

Contrary to views held by many so-called scholars, the fact is that not only was the NT predicted, the true Church (which was primarily based in Asia Minor in the second century) had a complete Old Testament and New Testament.

Three articles of possibly related interest include:

The Old Testament Canon This article shows from Catholic accepted writings, that the Old Testament used by non-Roman Catholics and non-Orthodox churches is the correct version.
The New Testament Canon – From the Bible Itself This article, shows from the Bible and supporting sources, why the early Church knew which books were part of the Bible and which ones were not.
History of Early Christianity Are you aware that what most people believe is not what truly happened to the true Christian church?