Over the years, as my family and I made the transition from Sunday Church goers to Christians following our Jewish Messiah and the Hebrew Roots of the Faith, many doctrinal and dogmatic Church errors have been discovered and abandoned.
I have attempted to make a list of these errors. Several blog entries are needed because of the voluminous data involved.
This compilation is in no way complete, and the commentary provided is by no means all that can and has been said on the various subjects. Nor should one take my commentary as authoritative, as man sees it. After all I am simply a layman describing what I 've learned over the years.
Agree or disagree with the list as you may, but scholars and spirit-guided teachers have studied this much more than I and have stated similar things.
And as always, I am not declaring believers who follow these errors as "lost". God knows, I myself am guilty of many of these errors. It is not for me to judge. All of us believers are on a journey into the arms of the Almighty. We all learn and grow at different rates and in different ways.
Please follow all the links given to appreciate the full teaching.
1. Sunday Worship (Replacement of the Sabbath)
No one can argue with valid history. It was the Constantinian Catholic Church that changed the 7th Day celebration to the 1st Day. It was done with the mighty force and threat of the Roman Empire. Yes, there are examples in the New Testament of the Apostles and Disciples meeting on Sunday. This is still done in modern-day Israel. In Judaism, a discussion will initiate on Shabbat and all will agree to meet again the next day to continue. The context for church error here is Sabbath replacement. Nowhere in the biblical text has the 7th Day Sabbath been replaced by a Sunday Sabbath. The 7th Day Sabbath is a Commandment from Yehovah/Yeshua Himself and cannot be abrogated. Replacing the Seventh Day alters and destroys meaning for many biblical prophecies. Changing the Sabbath Day makes the prophetic messaging laid out in scripture concerning the Sabbath Millennium meaningless, for example.
How did this change happen to the Church? (click to find out!)
A good teaching on this subject can be found here.
Most Christians do not keep a Sabbath at all, not even Sunday. The Sabbath is not just a day to meet and praise and worship God, it is a day of rest, and a day where none are supposed to work or cause others to work.
Council of Laodicea (click for more info, the Sabbath officially abrogated by man in direct opposition to God!)
BTW, the Council of Laodicea also forbade accepting unleavened bread from Jews thereby destroying one of Yehovah/Yeshua's Holy Days; The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Roman Catholic Church altering the Ten Commandments (click for more info)
Of particular interest is this changing of the 7th Day Sabbath ("Sabbath" means "7th Day") to the "Lord's Day" (Sunday, the 1st Day). In eschatological study the antichrist will most likely require, by law, the attendance of Church services on Sunday. See Daniel 7:24-26.
BTW, the "Lord's Day" (as the 1st Day) is found nowhere in scripture. It is an invention of man. However, the "Lord's Day" is referenced in Revelation 1 by John but is referring to the Sabbath, the 7th Day.
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2. Changing Yehovah's Holy Days to Pagan Celebrations
The early Christian Church celebrated the biblical holidays, but eventually replaced the biblical Holy Days with pagan ones. Let's make a short list of the wrong "holy" days:
Christmas, Easter, All Saints Day, Lent, Good Friday.
All of these holidays are pagan and not biblical. Sorry, but that's the truth. In fact, Yehovah/Yeshua warns us not to copy how pagans worship their Gods and do the same for Him. See Deut. 12 and Jeremiah 10. Celebrating these holidays is one of the most un-Christian things one can do! Yet, most Christians refuse to follow God's Word and choose to follow man instead.
Christmas and Easter: History 1, Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, History 2. The error of Christmas and Easter have been covered so completely in modern times its a wonder any self-declaring Christian celebrates them, but they still do, determined to follow man.
Council of Nicaea (Establishment of Easter)
Council of Laodicea (Unleavened Bread abrogated)
All Saints Day: Also known as Halloween. History.
Lent: Also known as Tammuz Worship. Did you know that a Sunday morning sunrise service is pagan? See Ezekiel 8:14. Tammuz, the son of Nimrod and Semiramis died in his 40th year on a wild boar hunt, being killed by the boar in some accounts. Other people groups tell a different tale. In the Roman Catholic Church 40 days of depriving oneself of a worldly pleasure and then celebrating Easter dinner by eating ham is cloaked Tammuz worship. ... more. Obviously, the Catholic Church claims other reasons for Lent but this syncretization of pagan and Judeo/Christian beliefs is common for the Catholic Church, the Great Harlot seated on the Dragon. See Rev. 17.
Good Friday: Did you grow up in public school eating fish on Fridays? I did. Did you know this is from pagan god worship? This is Dagon worship. The Catholic Church blended Dagon worship with the concept of Good Friday, saying that Christ was crucified on a Friday. This makes no sense biblically but man's desire to syncretize pagan beliefs with biblical belief runs rampant! Dagon was a different god for different people groups. The Philistines and Chaldeans worshipped him as a fish god. In other cultures he was a weather god, crop god, or a sky god. Ever notice the mitre hats Bishops, Cardinals and Popes wear? Those are fish mouths similar to what a Dagon Priest wears.
The True Holy days:
The Bible lists 7 periods of yearly celebration (the True Holy Days):
Passover (Pesach), Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMotzot), First fruits (Yom HaBikkurim), Pentecost (Shavuot), Day of Trumpets (Yom Teruah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Tabernacles (Feast of Sukkot).
These Holy Days are Feasts of Yehovah, not Jewish Feasts. They are biblical Holy Days, not man's tradition. See Lev. 23.
Please notice: You will discover that both Jews and Christians fall back on man's tradition and turn away from the Bible. This is especially true for Holy Days. Whether Preacher, Priest, or Rabbi, men can't seem to stop themselves from following man.
Also please notice: Rosh Hashanah is not listed. Rosh Hashanah, or "head of the year" is NOT a biblical Holy Day. It is tradition brought back to Israel from the Babylonian captivity. The Hebrew words "Rosh Hashanah" are in the Bible but pertains to the actual head of the new year which occurs approximately 2 months after our pagan/secular January.
Note: The biblical calendar is very different than our secular calendars used today. It is first and foremost an agricultural calendar. The first month, Month 1, or sometimes called Aviv, is based on the ripeness of the barley crop in Jerusalem. The starting date of the calendar year and thus the Holy Days can be different every year. The sighting of the New Moon is also taken into account. (actually the sighting of the first crescent after the New Moon)
What about Hanukah? Yeshua celebrated Hanukah and it's mentioned in John 10:22. It is NOT a biblical Holy Day but is tradition. It's fine to celebrate Hanukah. It is a memorial day and does not change or alter a Holy Day. In fact, it is memorializing biblical history. Read the history of the Maccabean Revolt. The Book of Maccabees is found in the Apocrypha.
See here also.
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3. Splitting Into Many Denominations
Is there more more than one Christian Church? Biblically the answer is no. You can speak of the Church in different ways, of course, the Spiritual Church verses the Physical Church, for example. Did the original Christian Church start as differing denominations? No, it didn't! Was there different thinking on some subjects in the early Church? Yes, of course! The so-called "circumcision party" comes to mind. They argued a believer must be circumcised as soon as he accepted the free gift of Salvation in order to be "saved". How did they reconcile the disagreement? They met as a group and used the biblical text to solve the problem. Was Abraham circumcised immediately upon coming in covenant with Yehovah/Yeshua? No, it was many years later that Abraham was circumcised. Baptism was another disagreement. Was the Thief on the Cross baptized in the faith before he died? No, of course not. Acceptance of the free gift of Salvation and Faith has always been the initial criteria, not the letter of the law. This is true for Jews as well, btw. Here's a wonderful Video explaining the connection between Salvation and Faith.
Were there different congregations? Yes, of course. Many "Churches" in many different cities. They were not separate denominations, however, just congregations in different locations. In fact, the early Church believers were not even called Christians. It wasn't until later they took on that moniker. They were simply known as Jews who believed in the Messiah Yeshua.
Craige McMillan, a writer for WND.com has written a wonderful piece explaining the horror of denominations.
You see, denominations only tell us one thing. Believers have decided to follow after some man's ideas and thinking instead of simply following the best doctrine possible, the Torah! Once again, people following man, not God.
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4. Not Using Scriptural Context
Context is required whether reading, writing, or speaking. If one doesn't know the context of a given subject one can make the details mean anything! It has been said that speaking, writing, and reading without context is propaganda. This is especially true with the biblical text. For example, If I state that I'm not "under the Law (Torah)", it could mean the instructions given in the Torah never applies to me. But in biblical context it actually means the Law (and it's curses for committing sin) does not apply to me because I'm not sinning. As soon as I commit sin, however, I am "under the Law" again.
The Church is very bad at keeping biblical statements in context. They go out of their way to make blanket statements out of context in order to establish man-made doctrine or dogma.
For anything to make sense in the Bible, a whole Bible approach must be used. You cannot say on one hand that instructions in Torah don't apply to Christians, while ignoring other scripture that says it does! The converse is true as well. One cannot say Torah applies to us without being able to show scripture that says it does! In truth, some instructions in Torah don't apply to us at all, while other instructions do.
It's been called, "Sound-bite verse reading", where one reads one or two verses and declares a doctrine based on those two verses. Context must be used as well as whole Bible study of the subject at hand.
Here are a couple of examples of corrected Church doctrine (in context): Vid 1, Vid 2.
An example of how the Church takes liberties with context can be found here.
The Observer
