Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #4 Openbare prediking en Wederdopers

Heden zijn wij in een tijd gekomen waar een „radeloze angst onder de volken” blijkt waar te nemen. Er kan niet worden ontkend dat de situatie voor de natiën en hun politieke, economische, militaire en religieuze raadgevers te moeilijk blijkt te zijn.

Talloze mensen zijn zeer verontrust, zij voelen zich hopeloos. Dit komt doordat zij alles van menselijk standpunt uit bezien, en op zich heeft de mensheid niets te bieden. Ze heeft herhaaldelijk bewezen niet bij machte te zijn om zichzelf uit de moeilijkheden te redden. Er bestaat voor haar in het geheel geen reden om nog langer naar het christendom op te zien.

Heel wat eeuwen gaven de mensen in onze streken hun vertrouwen aan de kerkelijke instellingen. Eerst aan de Rooms Katholieke Kerk, dan aan andere Katholieke Kerken om vervolgens bij de breuk tot het protestantisme over te stappen. Al snel bleek er in die protestantse beweging ook veel onenigheid te bestaan omtrent Bijbelse zaken en leerstellingen, waardoor nog meerdere splitsingen in het christendom een realiteit werden.

In de schaduw van dat christendom bleef een minderheid zich als een beweging in de christenheid profileren. Doorheen de eeuwen heen zijn er steeds ware volgers van Jezus of getrouwe volgers van Jeshua (of Jeshuaisten) geweest. Grotendeels bleven zij in de onbekendheid mits het voor hen veel te gevaarlijk was om zich kenbaar te maken. Maar bepaalde predikers gaven niet om dat gevaar en wilde volstrekt de opdracht van Jezus opvolgen en bleven in het openbaar prediken en mensen tot hun groepering brengen. Zo kon men mensen vinden die zich opnieuw lieten dopen en tot groeperingen toetraden die daarom ook wel "Wederdopers" of "Baptisten" werden genoemd.

Maar ook die beweging kreeg het moeilijk om zich te handhaven tussen de vele trinitariërs. Nadat in de vorige eeuwen jacht was gemaakt in Frankrijk op niet-trinitariërs die zich in de Franse bergen hadden schuil gehouden, kwam in de vorige eeuw het gevaar van uit Amerika waar de Southern Baptitst Union die druk uitoefende om samen met andere protestantse bewegingen de Drie-eenheid te dienen.
Eind vorige eeuw zochten de vele niet-trinitarische Baptisten dan andere kerkgemeenschappen op waarbij zij zich konden bij aansluiten en verder de ware Jezus dienen in plaats van mee te gaan met de meerderheid die Jezus als een godheid wensten te aanbidden.

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Voorgaande

1. Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #1 Geestelijke ondersteuning
2. Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #2 Christenheid tegenover christendom 
3. Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #3 Groeiende beweging uit Joodse sekte De Weg

Vervolg

• Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #5 Volgers van een godheid Jezus of navolgers van de ware Jezus
• Wanneer u een ware volger van Jezus wil zijn #6 Volgers van de ware Jezus zijn volgers van Jeshua of Jeshuaisten

Uprooted Baptists their new idea of baptism

End 1970ies it looked like the Southern Baptitst Union was going to bring too many changes the followers of the original Anabaptists and Baptists could not accept.

From the 1980 onwards lots of disturbance was felt and in the 1990ies many Baptists became very disturbed by the image the public was getting from the Baptist they could see on the small television screen.  The screen at that time still might have been small but the impact was big.

The trinitarian Baptist gained more and more terrain in Europe and wanted to have theri American way of thinking imposed on us Europeans. For many years I resisted to leave the Baptists, because I wanted to honour those who had lost their life for our faith in the Only One God. At the end I only could follow thousands of my brothers and sisters by leaving the changes in the Baptist community for what they had become, with fear for what they still might become.

Our fear was totally founded. those who left the community had sound reasons, because the church gliding to main protestant church-denominations who believed in a three-une God and would if they were not carefull soon be taken over by other false teachings of those churches.

Today those Baptists are closer to the other protestant and Catholic denominations where it is not necessary to have a sound mind to decide to follow Jesus.

Once a church takes over the Trintiy to get more power and find more people to join them everything can happen to continue in the pagan traditions and to go further away from biblical teachings.

The Southern Baptists could see their churches following their union rules growing in amount. Like many other churches they do have to face the problem not many people are interested in God. Though they do know people do like a lot traditions and festivals. Feast for children having their first year in the lower school or for becoming of age are very popular. A special day for celebrating the by is also very much liked by people.
The Baptist Church also is aware of such events which could attract more people in their church. Like all other churches they saw their number of baptisms going way down.  Converts, new members, and the Millennial generation are unwilling today to commit themselves or to feel bounded by one or the other church denomination. To be baptised as an adult in front of others does not appeal to them. Certainly not going under water in front of so many people, at their age.

It is incredible but it seems that one demographic of Baptists is getting baptised in greater and greater numbers. Normally the rule for baptism was that the person should really know what he or she was choosing for. He should be of age. But the contemporary Baptists do not seem to find that important any more. For them children five and under can also be baptised.


By Lutherans and other protestants such child baptisms also can be found more frequently. In a few years perhaps we shall see also a 'first communion' and a 'holy or second communion' like in the Catholic church, where people, though they do not go to mass regularly, can have a celebration for their kids where they can treat it with many presents and give a great feast for many guests, showing off with bouncy castles, electronic games, firework and exuberant meals for 60, 80- 150 guests, like mini-weddings and their sons and daughters dressed like little princes and princesses or brides.

Credobaptist traditions like the SBC usually baptize children at the “age of accountability” or “age of reason.” The Baptist Faith and Message asserts that children are not morally accountable until they are “capable of moral action.” Based on the coming-of-age celebration in Jewish culture (bar mitzvahs for boys and bat mitzvahs for girls), some place the age of accountability around ages 12 and 13. However, since children develop at different rates, there is latitude on pinpointing personal spiritual maturity. Still, Southern Baptist churches have traditionally said children cannot make a legitimate profession of faith until preadolescence. Thus, baptism is typically reserved for prepubescents on up. . .

Alvin Reid, evangelism professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and task force member, said he suspects the main reason for the increase is

 “well-meaning parents so want their children to follow Jesus that pastors have been pressured and have not taught well biblical conversion and discipleship.”

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National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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  Image: Gamma Man / Flickr

  Baptism service at an SBC church in Virginia.
  For the seventh year in a row, the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, has seen a "heartbreaking slide" in baptisms. Last year saw the second-worst total of baptisms in 60 years, and this year the denomination lost more than 105,000 members and 188,000 Sunday worshipers, according to its Annual Church Profile.
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  David Galvan, a task force member and pastor of New Life Hispanic Baptist in Dallas, said, "In our church, we have followed the example of W. A. Criswell [former SBC president] and baptize children at nine years of age [and older]." He also said he personally didn't know of any Baptist churches that baptize children under five.
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  Baptisms have been going steadily down in the past decade for the first time since records started to be kept in the 1800s, according to the denomination's LifeWay Research. Other LifeWay research about devout Protestants generally shows other measures down as well, such as how often people look for ways to share the gospel or to create intentional relationships with nonbelievers.
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  Floyd said the Southern Baptist Convention will continue to stand firm on their interpretation of scripture and the belief that it enforces the idea of marriage being between one woman and one man.  He acknowledged that many in the cultural climate would not agree with this but he hopes that Southern Baptists will handle these disagreements with compassion and love in order to bring other people to a right relationship with Jesus. On June 10, the convention also voted in favor of a resolution that stood in opposition to efforts by the government to validate the concept of transgender identity.
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  The SBC believes it’s a sign of success that a bunch of preschool-aged kids are willing to go swimming for a few seconds. Because that’s all this really is for them. Meanwhile, as those children grow up and see how the SBC treats women and LGBT individuals, they’re getting the hell out of there.
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Change of name

Dear followers of the blog "Christadelphian World".

The last few months in Belgium I tried to reconcile two big Christadelphian organisations and create the possibility that the different Christadelphians could meet with each other and having worship services together.
Instead of bringing us out of isolation it brought us deeper in isolation. Several accusations went from one side to the other and I at the end became not only the pingpong ball but the target for both organisations.

At last the man from the North succeeded first to censor some of my sites and got the United Kingdom organisation also against me.

Christadelphian Church (St Mark's Presbyterian Church, Queen's Hall), 28 Bath Road, Bournemouth, Dorset (Photo credit: Alwyn Ladell)

The last few months I have seen several unchristian reactions taken by those organisations that I really came to doubt the group of believers.

They have created many sleepless nights for me and got me worrying several hours but got me also checking everything from the past and checking the whole Christadelphian community. I contacted people I knew from the days before I became a Christadelphian, who were then Christadelphian but had by now left the community. Several of them gave the same reason of leaving the community as I am facing now.

The last few weeks I sincerely questioned once again my believes and compared them with other faith groups. To my regret there is no other church group which believes on all points the same as I do. I encountered naturally churches were there are people who do believe exactly the same as I do, but were it is also not the general trend. It is the same as with the Christadelphians, in those churches there are several groups with small or bigger differences.

Christadelphianism has very conservative groups, moderates and a very few progressive ones.
Up until now I belonged to the English Central Fellowship and was pleased to receive support from the Christadelphian Bible Mission or CBM. But with all the trouble of the man from the North, the CBM dropped me now, plus accused me of writing unbiblical articles, having links in my articles to others than their Christadelphians and having contacts with non-christadelphian people and organisations.

Like the man from the North, they would like to have everything under control.

I would like everybody to know I am not bounded or chained to any worldly organisation or any worldly person, except my wife because I am married to her. Jesus has come to liberate us from the chains of this world. My preaching is a work for God and not as such a work for a particular Group or Organisation. I am not married to Carelinks nor to CBM. You could say I am figuratively married to Christ.

I invite everybody to look at my writings on my other religious sites, Stepping Toes, my ecclesia site and on my site which was called Broeders in Christus or Brethren in Christ. They now get the "Free" added to their name, to announce I do consider myself like some other Christadelphians a "Free Christadelphian". There you can see what I do write and compare it with your own Bibles, and compare it with other Christadelphian and other Christian websites.

John Thomas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a few months time an already long ago planned series of early Christadelphian writings shall be placed on the Brethren site. This will proof that I still have the same believes as the founder of the Christadelphian movement, John Thomas.

Because I took again a lot of time to consider either changing or not of denomination, I was confronted by several Christadelphians who encouraged me to keep calling myself a Christadelphian, because I myself gave the answer in my questions and in my findings about other denominations and the Christadelphian believes.

There were also two other groups which some consider also to be Christadelphians whilst others look at them as an other denomination who would not mind taking me in their circles. One group would have meant a name change for my church. But at the end I thought, why would I change again of denomination.

I do fear what I have seen happening now with the CBM, I encountered already by the non-trinitarian Baptists in the 1980ies, having the Southern Baptist Union pressing their power onto others. They being trinitarian Baptists, made thousands of Baptist going to the Jehovah Witnesses and the Church of God, whilst others went to the Church of God of Abrahamic Faith, a few hundreds to the bible Students, a few to the Nazarene Friends and some like me to smaller non-trinitarian churches like the Christadelphians.

Those who went into the Jehovah Witnesses came in a severe controlling group but had most of their teachings in common with us, non-trinitarian Baptists. But we could not keep our name anymore because of the television productions where most people saw trinitarian Baptists and would get a wrong idea about our faith.

For that reason I shall keep the name Christadelphian, because it is a very good name, denoting being a Brother in christ, and that is what I want to be, and except the ideas of slavery and some end of day prognoses by John Thomas I adhere all the same ideas as those early Christadelphian writers.
I could not become a Jehovah Witness because there are "the pre-existence of Christ", Christ being the Archangel Michael, "the return of Christ in 1914", and the Faithful Slave or all saying and directing Watchtower Biblestudy and Tract society, in which I do not believe. No human is infallible. As such a pope or a few people in a group can not dictate what all other people do have to accept or leave the organisation. There is too much mind control in the Jehovah Witnesses organisation.

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Though I do know Christadelphians have much more in common than they would like with the Jehovah Witnesses. Logically, because John thomas was one of the many bible Students who brought a whole new movement or reformation in the Christian religion. Charles Taze Russell, was one of the students of John Thomas. Russell founded the American Bible Students, and from some offspring directed by Rutherford came the Jehovah Witnesses. so Christadelphians, though they would not like to hear it are in some way 'family' from many other bible students and 'related' to the Jehovah Witnesses.

I only can hope they would not create such controlling bodies, though it looks like some people are trying to get a good grip on the different communities.

For now I decided to continue my preaching. Though some did many efforts to stop me, I shall continue to preach the Gospel of the good News. Financially and organisational wise I shall be very limited. I apologise to the subscribers of the Dutch magazine "Met open bible" which I shall not be able to distribute any more. Paperwork and posting shall be limited.
Those whom I send Glad Tidings I ask to do a request for the magazine at Glad Tidings themselves, but I can not send it free any more.
The same for the persons who requested literature. Sorry for those who waited already more than three weeks. I do hope they shall understand it is impossible to continue from my own family funds to buy myself and distribute those books of others. I advice my readers and those interested in Christadelphian literature or free Bibles to demand it at the publishers themselves.

This redirecting the last few weeks already to the Jehovah Witnesses to ask for their free Bibles, had upset very much the CBM and some other Christadelphians. But my till is just empty, sorry.

My spirit is not yet extinguished, so I shall try to keep going on. Some websites I shall close down and all links to those who do not want to associate to us shall be taken away by time and by request.

At the moment I shall keep linking in my articles to other articles, be it from trinitarian or non-trinitarian websites, because I strongly believe that everybody should be doing good research and should be able to compare with other writings to form a solid idea.

I do hope my readers can appreciate such linking and quoting. In case it is not appreciated or not worthwhile to put so much time in it, I shall stop doing so, but for the time being, I try to continue it on this Blogger site and on the different WordPress sites.

From March the 14th, 2014 several links will be taken away from the linking pages. I also consider going to link only to other webpages when they also link to my pages. In case we do not want to help each other than we do have to row on our own.

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Charles Spurgeon

On June 19, 1834, Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, UK. At 15, he accepted Christ and joined a Baptist church. In fact, most people would describe his theology as Calvinist; Spurgeon, though, said that “if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, ‘It is Jesus Christ.’”

C. H. Spurgeon, "The Prince of Preachers" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Read more:

3 Ways to Learn from Charles Spurgeon 

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Called Christian

DISCIPLES FIRST CALLED CHRISTIANS

It is noteworthy that our Lord never gave a name to His people, but called them disciples -- pupils, learners. The Apostles have applied to the Church various terms; such as, "Church of the living God," "Church of God," "Church of Christ," "the Church." But gradually the name Christians, identifying God's people with their Redeemer, came to be the general name everywhere.

It is a pity that any have thought it necessary to adopt any other names than these, which are common to the entire Church of Christ, or to use these names in a sectarian manner. Evidently the name Christian should represent one who trusts in Christ as the Messiah -- one, therefore, who trusts in Him as the Redeemer and who accepts all the fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures. These doctrines are based upon three declarations: (1) That all were sinners, needing to be redeemed before they could be acceptable to God. (2) That the believer accepts God's forgiveness through the precious blood of Christ. (3) That he has accepted the Leadership and name of Christ and henceforth will seek to walk in His steps.

There was a start toward sectarianism in the early Church, some saying, "I am a Christian, but of the order of Paul." Others said, "I am a Christian of the order of Apollos;" still others, "I am a Christian of the order of Peter." St. Paul promptly rebuked this spirit, assuring them that relationship in Christ was all that was necessary, that neither Peter nor Paul had redeemed them, and that neither Apostle could therefore occupy the place of a head to the Church. Furthermore, the Apostle calls attention to the fact that such a spirit on their part was an evidence that much carnality still remained, much of a worldly, partisan spirit, contrary to the teachings of the Holy Spirit.--`1 Corinthians 1:10-13`; `3:1-7`.

It is to be regretted that ever since the Reformation this spirit has prevailed to a large extent, some taking the name of Luther, others, Wesley, Calvin, others non-personal, sectarian or party names such as Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. We are not claiming that those who do so are wholly carnal, without the Lord's Spirit; but with the Apostles we do claim that a disposition to such partisanship is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord, and to that extent is carnal, fleshly, and should be overcome by all who would be recognized of the Lord as overcomers.

What we ought to have is one Church, one Household of Faith, accepting the plain fundamentals of Scripture, and with limitations as to acceptance of more or less conjectural views outside of those fundamentals-- all fellowshipping each other, and all known as Christians, and thus separated from all who deny the Atonement, from all who deny the results of the Atonement in the resurrection, and from all who deny the propriety of a newness of life in the present time. In this view of the matter, each individual Christian would have an independence as respects his own thought, aside from fundamentals which are clearly stated in the Scriptures.

 - ZWT - 1916 R5888 : page 122:April 15, 1916
C.T.Russell

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