THE
EARLY FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHRIST AND 1.1 The Word “Christians” Were Unknown To Jesus 1.2 Diversity In the Early Followers of Jesus 1.3 The Nazarenes Versus the Pauline Christianity 1.4 St. James, the Head of the Nazarenes 1.6 The Origin of the Word Nazarene 1.8 The Early Church, The Church of the Circumcision 1.9 Salvation Is Through Faith & By Obeying God’s Law 1.10 Obey the Scribes or Teachers of the Law 1.11 Jesus Instruct His Followers to Offer “the Gift that Moses Commanded” 1.13 Jesus: Those Who Do Not Follow The Law Are Hypocrites 1.14 St. James: Faith Without Good Works Is Useless And Cannot Save Anyone 1.16 Paul, The Real Founder of Christianity 1.18 Paul and His Pauline Churches Changed Jesus Into God 1.19 Paul’s Life: Examining His Contradictory Testimonies
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Again, Matthew reported the story of the “Ritual of Exorcism” performed by Jesus, which stressed the importance of following the Law or doing “Good Works”: “When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, a huge crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. Jesus replied, “You stubborn, faithless people! How long must I be with you until you believe? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, ”Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” You didn’t have enough faith, Jesus told them. I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. But this kind of demon won’t leave unless you have prayed and fasted” (17:14-21, NLT) Because the disciples of Jesus did not make use of prayer and fasting, they were unable to cast out an evil spirit in spite of having declared their faith in Jesus. It seems that mere faith was not sufficient, Good works were also necessary and Jesus himself had stressed the importance of prayer and fasting, and had made use of them as instruments of spiritual advancement. Thus, according to A. D Ajijiola, the author of “The Myth of The Cross” “Muslim critics used this passage for vital criticism. This criticism from Muslims was so significant that…Christian exponents (evangelists) found themselves unable to give any reply. The only way of escape they found was in deleting the verse from the Gospel. Accordingly, in the Revised Version of the Gospel according to Matthew, we do not find this verse at all. The whole verse has been deleted and it has been proved that the Gospel text is still subject to human interference.”[1]
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