Munster; then and now

Munster; then and now

By Richard P. Joseph

In 1517 Martin Luther posted his 95 thesis on the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany signifying his protest against certain Catholic traditions and dogma.  Later on Luther translated the bible from Latin into German vernacular thus giving the common man the ability to actually read and comment on scripture.  As you can guess, this shifted the power from the Catholic Church into the hands of the laity.  Before this time it was only the highly educated priests who were able to read and expound on scripture giving them absolute power over the masses.  Luther’s protest of Catholic dogma and his translation of the word of God is what I believe brought Europe out of the Dark Ages.  But, wherever there is good, evil is sure to follow.  

I discussed this problem with a well educated Catholic and his view is that reading scripture is good but breaking off from the One True Catholic Church is what gave rise to an unlimited number of cults and beliefs.  No one in their right mind can argue that point but there is also a bright side to this tragic view.  For one thing, the Catholics were not exactly doing a stellar job of interpreting scripture anyhow.  For another thing, even though there are, and always will be, bad (and evil) interpretations of scripture by the common person, there are also good interpretations of it also.  

I am someone who finds my fulfilment in the “truth”.  In John 18:37 we hear Jesus telling Pilate about the truth:

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”                                                                     

There are many people who think they hear the truth but in fact there are only a few therein that really find it.  My comfort is not in some prosperity based scripture but in truth.  It doesn’t matter if I end up poor, sick, hurt, rich or anything else, my comfort is that I am in the truth and that is the end of it.  That does not mean that I know everything, it only means that my trust and comfort are continuously in Jesus Christ no matter what the situation is.  That is not the case for everyone however as they see scripture as a way to gain power, pleasure, sex and money.  The fastest way to destroy yourself is to focus on yourself which is the basis for all sin. This is a also a sure way to interpret scripture wrong.  

It is funny that as soon as Luther protested and gave the common man the ability to examine scripture, one of the first things they did with it was  to predict the end of the world and to make an attempt to procure sex and power with it.  I just listened to a four hour historical story at: http://castbox.fm/u/1341911 .    I obviously am not going to try to regurgitate four hours of history but the short story is that besides the Lutherans, another group called the Anabaptists arose in Germany immediately following Luther’s protest.  To make a long story short, the leaders of the Munster Anabaptists, Bernhard Rothmann, Jan Matthys, Melchior Hoffman and John Leiden et al, quickly produced a religion of polygamy, power, communism and end times predictions.  They quickly set a date of 1833, for Jesus to return and set up his kingdom in Munster, Germany.  They then changed it to 1834 (sort of like Jack Van Impe does each year).   The final leader was John of Leiden who instituted polygamy and declared himself king which brought about a massive rebellion in the city eventually resulting in his torture and death.  So what is my point in this article?

It is simple.  This is exactly what is going on today with an end-times doomsayer on every corner.  How can anyone ever know the truth when ever since the second century we have people predicting the return of Christ.  The real fact is that, even in the first century, Jesus and his apostles predicted his return in a very short time.  This begs the question of “who do you believe, Jesus and his apostles or everyone else”. I choose to believe Jesus and the New Testament writers.  Not only do I believe them, history bears out the fact that the return of Christ did in fact occur exactly when Jesus said it would and that was in the generation of the apostles.  

I feel secure in that I don’t fall for every smooth talking scam preacher and I don’t ever have to make an excuse for why Jesus was a liar like 99% of the preachers have to do.  Anyone who thinks that the return of Christ is in the future is actually calling Jesus a false prophet.  I don’t have that problem.  

So, as far as common people attempting to divide the scripture it all comes down to what I call “the struggle”.  Having a science background I can relate it to the natural world where all things are kept tight and true by the struggle for survival.  The slow rabbits get eaten first therefore promoting the idea that the fast rabbits pass their genes on and the slow wolf starves therefore promoting the idea that the fast wolves pass their genes on.  This struggle keeps things at their highest level of being.  So, as we struggle with scripture, some will get it right and some will get it wrong but all the while we are hopefully keeping hold of those true things that we find and continue to build on them in the hopes that this never ending examination of the scripture slowly produces a clearer picture of the history and fulfilment of scripture to our benefit.  I am not worried about the cult leaders because they will all fail in the end.  I just keep examining scripture and history in order to slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together and watch as the picture gets clearer and clearer.

The Vanishing Mountain

The Vanishing Mountain

By Richard P. Joseph

Sometimes I can read scripture my entire life and not really understand it until one day it all becomes clear.  One such scripture is Matthew 21:21.

21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.”

Pretty much, the only explanation of this scripture that I have ever heard is that “if we have enough faith, we can move any obstacle in life that hinders us from doing God’s will”.  Actually, that does apply to a certain extent and we can do miraculous things by having faith in God.  Unfortunately, most, if not all, don’t even have the faith of a mustard seed, which is very small.  As I often do these days, I apply audience relevance to my study of the bible in order to understand what those that first heard it thought it meant.

So, as I read Matthew 21 today, a new thought came into my mind that had never occurred to me before.  The setting is that Jesus was approaching Jerusalem and was hungry.  He spied a fig tree but upon closer examination he found it was barren. It had nice leaves but produced no fruit.  He then cursed the tree and it presently withered away and died.  First of all, we all know that being fruitless is a sign of sin.  As Christians we are to produce much fruit that is acceptable to God.  The disciples were marveled at the dead tree and asked what it meant.  Their amazement is that it died so “quickly”.  They didn’t marvel that it died but at the speed in which it perished.  This is when Jesus assured them that if they had faith and do not doubt you can remove this “mountain” and cast it into the sea.  I would like to focus on the word “this”.  

If you remember, Jesus was approaching Jerusalem and going to the temple.  Jerusalem is built on a small mountain (mount).  This is similar to Mt. Gerizim in Samaria where the Samaritans worshiped and once actually had a temple on top of it.  When Jesus was having a chat with the woman at the well, she reminded Jesus that they worship on "this" mountain, not the one in Jerusalem.

John  4:20

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

This is the same line of thinking when Jesus was conversing with his disciples about moving a mountain.   I can picture Jesus pointing at Jerusalem and the temple when he said “...but also if you say to ‘this’ mountain, ‘be removed and cast into the sea,’ it will be done.”  In other words he may have been providing yet another indication of his soon return in judgement against the unfaithful city.

Reading the scripture as a full preterist has completely made those hard to fit pieces of the puzzle easier to fit together.  When the priests confronted Jesus about his triumphant entry and his authority to clear the money changers out he told them the parable of the landowner who leased his vineyard out to vinedressers.  The landowner went into a far country and returned and punished the evil vinedressers.  What Jesus was saying is that they will kill him.  He will then go to his father (in a far country), then return and pronounce judgement on them and cast them into hell and destroy the unfaithful city and give the vineyard to another people who will make it prosper.  As you can see, at his parousia between AD 66-70 he did exactly that and the mountain (temple and Judaism)was plucked up and cast into the sea.  The sea represents a multitude of peoples.  So, this scripture was literally fulfilled at his second coming at the end of the Jewish age in AD70.  The unfruitful tree was obviously the unfaithful Jews that rejected the chief cornerstone; those that said yes to their father but did not go and do his will.  The massive temple in Jerusalem and the populated city could certainly not be plucked up in such a short time; or could it?  As history has pointed out, yes it can.