Author name: Mark William Smith

H2 Born Gay: Scientific Fact or False Idol of Bad Science?

The science of whether sexual orientation is biological is pretty sparse and full of disparate, mixed and unreplicated findings.i I’ll get right to the point. The above line from a USA Today article challenges the simple rallying cry of the gay rights movement, born gay, that is the basis for the huge shift in both […]

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LP4000 The Role of Tradition and its Old Testament Influence

It would be remiss to discuss the Old Testament and its relevance to Original Christianity without talking about the oral traditions called the Talmud in later times. In the Bible, they are just called the tradition of the elders. In Jewish history, for as long as there has been a written law, there has been

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The Standard for Believing Set in the Book of Daniel for All Believers

Many people know the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel chapter 3.  Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold.  Then he made it a capital offense not to bow down and worship the image: Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at what

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01.50 Marcion the Heretic is the One who Names the Old and New Testaments And Starts the Process to Canonize a List of Acceptable Scriptures, The First Creed

As the old saying goes, Marcion was “the son of a preacher man”.  Actually, his father was Bishop at Sinope.  But Marcion’s upbringing in the Church did not lead him to accept the orthodoxy of the times.  He was a wealthy shipowner and merchant who evidently compared the religion of his father with the religions

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Gnosticism

Gnosticism is the name given to a category of heretical beliefs in early Christianity and even before.  This was not a uniform body of believers with a uniform body of beliefs.  In fact, there were Gnostic “Jews” with their sets of beliefs before there were Gnostic “Christians” with their sets of beliefs.  And within the

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02.0 Rome had a Policy of Amalgamating Religions and Clement of Alexandria Believed and Taught that the Philosophers were sent to Greece just as the Prophets were sent to Israel to Satisfy that Policy

Even though he is named the Clement of Alexandria, Clement was actually probably from Athens.  He was not raised in a Christian household, and the method of his conversion is not known. What is known is that he set out on a life quest to find a Christian teacher who could school him in his

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1.0 Worship Changes with the Giving of the Law; Part 1 the Priesthood and the Tabernacle/Temple

Part of the law received on Mount Sinai related to the operation of what is referred to as the Priestly Law. In fact, the whole liturgy of Old Testament times is changed radically with the giving of the Law. Whereas before altars had been set up in places where contact with God had been made,

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Did Jesus Really Break God’s Rules by Healing on the Sabbath?

I want to preface this article by saying I had a hard time writing it because I love pastors and Bible teachers even when they teach opposing doctrines. They’re dedicated, hard-working, sincere, loving people who sacrifice much of their lives for their people. But it hurts my heart when I see teachers teaching different things

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03.8.2 The Sanitizing of the Writings of the Church Fathers

This is a 2018 post in which I have added a little more information for clarification. The writing of the early church fathers is a wonderful resource for learning what early Christians believed and how different elements of the church including doctrines and rites developed.  However, the problem with reading the early church fathers is

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01.1.1.1   Trajan’s Response to Pliny as an example of the Roman View on Christianity

The Roman response to Christianity varied from severe  persecution to an attitude of “Don’t ask … don’t look for them.”  This latter attitude was initiated by the Emperor Trajan.  Before we discuss Trajan it needs to be noted that the Roman Empire was a huge place, and obviously, people couldn’t travel nor communicate at the

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04.0 Augustine, the Most Influential Christian Theologian of All Time

Wayne Grudem, in his SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, says that Augustine’s On the Trinity, “is considered the most thorough development of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity in the history of the church.”[i] That is just one example of how the accolades for Augustine abound everywhere in Christian texts. Williston Walker begins his chapter on Augustine with

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