Jared Taylor Is Wrong (As Usual)

Jared Taylor thinks that having dark skin makes you backward, stupid, uncivilized, or worse yet uncivilizable.

Here's his "epic" takedown against a another racialist commentator on the Young Turks:

It is so beautiful to see a well prepared man say - "it’s actually an observation" with conviction and real facts to back his stance. pic.twitter.com/V3QJRi1Q8d

— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) October 8, 2024

Don't get me wrong: The Young Turks and their race-baiting is a crime against humanity. Their anti-white bigotry should be confronted and resisted at every turn.

However, the answer to anti-white bigotry is not anti-black bigotry. The answer to racism is not more racist, but truth.

And Mr. Taylor has a hard time with the truth.

He asserts that in Sub-Saharan Africa, there were no two-story buildings, no calendars.

Let's focus on the two-story building charge first.

Guess what? Ethiopa is part of Sub-Saharan Africa.

And guess what? They had two-story buildings:

Here's a brief commentary on this building from Wikipedia:

The eleven Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela are monolithic churches located in the western Ethiopian Highlands near the town of Lalibela, named after the late-12th and early-13th century King Gebre Meskel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty, who commissioned the massive building project of 11 rock-hewn churches to recreate the holy city of Jerusalem in his own kingdom. The site remains in use by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church to this day, and it remains an important place of pilgrimage for Ethiopian Orthodox worshipers.^[1] It took 24 years to build all the 11 rock hewn churches.

We are talking the 13th century, not the 20th century. This building do not arise because of European investment or imperialism.

These were Sub-Saharan Africans, and they built not one, not two, but ELEVEN mutli-story buildings.

And that's not all.

Check out the Nsude pyramids of Nigeria:

Only their remains ... remain, but these were constructions of considerable height, to be sure.

The Zaccheus Onumba Dibiaezue Memorial Library reports:

Therefore, one must marvel at the Nsude pyramids in Nsude, Enugu state, on the Onitsha–Port Harcourt expressway just before 9th mile. On the left-hand side, from Onitsha to Enugu, the area where they used to be can be seen at the foot of a low hill, densely wooded and quite distinct from the surrounding grassland.

And check out these structures in the Ivory Coast:

Consider also these constructions in the Kingdom of Mutapa, in what is now Zimbabwa:

Now let's consider Taylor's second charge, that there were no calendars.

That is another lie.

Back to Wikpedia, folks:

Ethiopian Calendar

[edit]

The Ge'ez or Ethiopian Calendar is a calendar originating from the Ethiopian Empire. It is the liturgical year for Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians belonging to the Orthodox Tewahedo Churches and closely follows the Coptic Christian calendar.

A useful chart providing all the equivalents can be found in Chaîne's book on chronology in Ethiopia and Egypt,^[55] and can easily be consulted online at the Internet Archive, from page 134 to page 172.

Nigerian Calendars

[edit]

The Igbo calendar is the traditional calendar system of the Igbo people from present-day Nigeria. The calendar has 13 months in a year (afo), 7 weeks in a month (onwa), and 4 days of Igbo market days (afor, nkwo, eke, and orie) in a week (izu) plus an extra day at the end of the year, in the last month. The name of these months was reported by Onwuejeogwu (1981). The Yoruba calendar is a calendar used by the Yoruba people of southwestern and north central Nigeria and southern Benin. The calendar has a year beginning on the last moon of May or first moon of June of the Gregorian calendar. The new year coincides with the Ifá festival. The traditional Yoruba week has four days, the four days that are dedicated to the Orisa.

Ghana/West African

[edit]

The Akan Calendar is a Calendar created by the Akan people (a Kwa group of West Africa) who appear to have used a traditional system of timekeeping based on a six-day week (known as nnanson "seven-days" via inclusive counting). The Gregorian seven-day week is known as nnawɔtwe (eight-days). The combination of these two system resulted in periods of 40 days, known as adaduanan (meaning "forty days").

Xhosa Calendar

[edit]

The traditional isiXhosa names for months of the year poetically come from names of stars, plants, and flowers that grow or seasonal changes that happen at a given time of year in Southern Africa.

The Xhosa year traditionally begins in June and ends in May when the brightest star visible in the Southern Hemisphere, Canopus, signals the time for harvesting.

Now, some may charge that these developments are irrelevant, because they were spurred on by Arab or European traders and missionaries.

If that is the case, then the whole discussion is moot, because Western and Eastern European barbaric tribes were just as backward.

What caused a real explosion of revelation, knowledge, and wisdom was the Greco-Roman innovations and insights (Reason) and Judeo-Christian Revelation. Skin color is immaterial to the matter entirely.

What caused some regions to thrive, and others to take a dive, was communication vs. isolation, trade vs. intransigence, and spiritual growth vs. stagnation. Skin color is immaterial to the matter.

For more information on the role of geography and traffick for the flourish of cultures, read Thomas Sowell's Social Justice Fallacies (2021).

Trump Evangelicals are not ... Evangelical

If you want to know the larger reason for the cultural rot in our country, look no further than the truth beliefs and dynamics of the Trump Evangelical voters.

Check out this article from the New York Times: Trump is Connecting with a Different Type of Evangelical Voter

Karen Johnson went to her Lutheran church so regularly as a child that she won a perfect attendance award. As an adult, she taught Sunday school. But these days, Ms. Johnson, a 67-year-old counter attendant at a slot-machine parlor, no longer goes to church.

She still identifies as an evangelical Christian, but she doesn’t believe going to church is necessary to commune with God. “I have my own little thing with the Lord,” she says.

Christian faith is about more than our subjective identification. We are called to believe in a real, objective Savior.

What kind of Christianity is this? It's not the real deal, but rather shows the declining religious fervor in this country, and why this country is in big trouble.

Ms. Johnson’s thing includes frequent prayer, she said, as well as podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss politics and “what’s going on in the world” from a right-wing, and sometimes Christian, worldview. No one plays a more central role in her perspective than Donald J. Trump, the man she believes can defeat the Democrats who, she is certain, are destroying the country and bound for hell.

“Trump is our David and our Goliath,” Ms. Johnson said recently as she waited outside a hotel in eastern Iowa to hear the former president speak.

"Trump is our David and our Goliath." Huh? Those two persons in the Biblical accounts were polar opposites, one determined to destroy the other, and one destroyed the other. This kind of self-destruction is why the culture is in trouble in the United States.

White evangelical Christian voters have lined up behind Republican candidates for decades, driving conservative cultural issues into the heart of the party’s politics and making nominees and presidents of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

But no Republican has had a closer — or more counterintuitive — relationship with evangelicals than Mr. Trump.

The reason for the counter-intuitive realities is that too many Christians are not reading their Bibles and they are not connecting with their living Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is not a means to a political end, either. He is the leader. He is not just our king, but the King of Kings. Yet the growing idolatry among many so-called Christians towards Trump is really disturbing.

But religion scholars, drawing on a growing body of data, suggest another explanation: Evangelicals are not exactly who they used to be.

Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance, a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.

And this is precisely the problem. Church has become a cultural thing, an identifier for political and social purposes, rather than an identity fully ensconced in Christ Jesus. This is beyond unacceptable.

People are basically worshipping a different Christ when they start establishing their own norms and customs for what defines faith.

“Politics has become the master identity,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor. “Everything else lines up behind partisanship.”

This assessment is astute in its correctness. Ben Shapiro has been sounding the alarm on people using politics as their main source of identity, will, and purpose. That kind of low-leveling thinking has led to the growing divide in our country, and the growing weakness of the Church in the United States.

The head of the Church is Christ Jesus, not Trump, and a political agenda must not push aside, or "trump," the necessity of the Gospel being preached. I don't come to church just to learn how to vote. I come to church to see Jesus, to be transformed by His Holy Spirit to be more like Him.

In his last (written) words to the Church, Peter told us to "Grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord." (2 Peter 3:18). 

It's all about Jesus, not political outcomes. It's about Jesus, not our limited goals and our feel-good interests.

These "Evangelical" voters are not really all the evangelical, since they aren't all that interested in spreading the Good News, unless it's good news about Donald Trump.

Emptying Pews

Ms. Johnson’s Sunday morning routine changed well before Mr. Trump arrived on the political scene. In her early 20s, she was married to a man who didn’t believe, so she “dropped off going to the building.” She didn’t lose her faith, but life, including children and a few moves, pulled her in other directions.

In this she was typical. Church membership in the United States has been slipping for decades, along with the share of Americans who identify as Christian — and particularly as Protestants, the branch that has historically been the gravitational center of American religion. In the middle of the 20th century, 68 percent of Americans described themselves as Protestant. By 2022, 34 percent did, according to Gallup. (A further 11 percent described themselves as simply “Christian,” a category Gallup did not include until the late 1990s.)

Here's the core cause of our nation's ills. We have lost our identity in Christ, in Church, in faith, and we have gravitated toward our little goals and limited interests. Social cohesion is falling apart, in large part because people are not going to church anymore, either.

And recall at the beginning of the New York Times article, how Ms. Johnson considers herself a faithul believing Christian, even though she forsakes the assembly of herself with other Believers in Christ.

At first, declines mostly affected the more liberal mainline Protestant denominations. But in recent years, self-identified evangelical church attendance has dropped as well, and a larger share of conservatives than liberals report leaving church. In 2021, for the first time on record, less than 50 percent of Americans were members of a church.

COVID-19 and the horrid government backlash to this disease revealed the spiritual weaknesses in America. So many churches went along with the closures, required masks, or settled for online gatherings, despite the guarantees for freedom of religion in the United States Constitution. The fact that churches would cave so quickly to the state exposed their doctrinal and spiritual weakness.

“It’s the largest and fastest religious shift in our nation’s history,” said Michael Graham, the former executive pastor of a nondenominational church in Orlando, Fla., and the co-author of the recent book “The Great Dechurching.”

The transformation has been particularly visible in Iowa, where self-identified evangelicals, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, are influential bellwethers in Republican politics — but where religious practice has changed more starkly than almost anywhere else in the country.

From 2010 to 2020, the state’s population of church adherents — people with some level of involvement in a congregation — fell almost 13 percent, a sharper decline than in any state except New Hampshire, according to the U.S. Religion Census, a comprehensive decennial survey of congregations.

No wonder Iowa went for Trump again, even though DeSantis demonstrated more religious adherents and political bona fides than Trump.

And the schedules of blue-collar jobs and youth sports no longer consider Sunday mornings sacrosanct, making regular attendance more difficult for working people and families.

Tricia Shuffty, 42, a Republican-leaning independent in Lucas County, said she voted mostly on “biblical issues.” But “unfortunately, I work Sundays,” Ms. Shuffty, a security guard, said, “so I don’t get to go to church regularly.”

The economy has taken a bad turn, for sure, and more people are working two or three jobs just to stay ahead. I do not view this challenge as the bigger reason why the Church in the United States is in trouble.

Clergy and religion experts are quick to note that people who have left church, or did not attend in the first place, have not necessarily abandoned religion. Evangelicalism has long had an individualistic strain that resists the idea that personal faith requires church attendance. Many people whose connection to organized religion has eroded continue to strongly identify as Christians.

That individualistic strain is straining this country. Civilization is not possible without societal cohesion, and that cohesion gives way when people focused on their little lives to the exclusion of everyone else. The Republican Party's drift toward license in the name of liberty, coupled with a complete abandonment of virtue, reflects this larger societal problem.

‘The Only Savior I Can See’

There was little sign at the outset of the 2016 Republican primary season that evangelicals would take to Mr. Trump as enthusiastically as they eventually did. When World magazine, an influential Christian publication, surveyed about 100 evangelical leaders in December 2015, none of them named Mr. Trump as their preferred candidate.

But as Mr. Trump gained ground in the early primaries, his growing strength among white evangelical voters became clear. Polls showed that the future nominee was most popular among one group in particular: white evangelicals who seldom or never went to church.

These are the same "evangelicals" who likely do not read their books and have used Trump as the replacement Savior for Christ, whom they are not encountering, in part because they don't read their Bibles, and in part because they don't go to church.

Final Comment

Let's face it: the "Trump Evangelicals" are more in love with Trump than they are with Jesus.

They are not going to church.

They are not reading their Bibles.

They are not walking by faith.

They are reframing Jesus and adherence to His grace and truth based on their limited political and cultural interests.

And this trend is a larger reason why our country is in trouble right now.

No presidential candidate is a savior or a Messiah for the country. No one person in the White House is going to fix the spiritual and societal ills ruining this country.

We need a Great Awakening, and that means a restoration of the Gospel, which necessarily rests on the Centrality of Christ.

Pastor Scott Lively Explains: "Replacement Theology is a Fraud"

 A CAUTION TO THORN KICKERS

The most famous Jew of the Bible, after the Judean Jesus, was Paul, the self-described “Pharisee of Pharisees.” That chief persecutor of Christians, who was known first by his Hebrew name Saul, adopted the Latinized version “Paul” after being famously, uniquely saved and anointed for service by the ascended Christ Himself on the road to Damascus in Acts 22. When giving that testimony to King Agrippa in Acts 26:14, Paul reported that Jesus had said “in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

To kick against pricks (thorns) has ever since been a metaphor for foolishly harming oneself by persisting in futile acts against God’s will. Significantly, the thorns in question were almost certainly from the same plant of which Jesus’ Crown of Thorns was made: “Euphorbia Milii,” known commonly today as “Christ thorn.” That crown was the first element of the Romans' mocking tribute to "The King of the Jews" in John 19. 

Paul believed he was serving God by opposing the Christians but was only hurting himself because he didn’t understand God’s plan for the church until his spiritual eyes were opened -- by being (temporarily) physically struck blind. 

Likewise, many Christians in today’s “anti-Zionist” camp don’t understand God’s plan for the Jews and are thus “kicking against the pricks” by denying their right to the Holy Land.

As God’s post-conversion Apostle to the Gentiles, the Jews’-Jew-become-Christian Paul was uniquely qualified for his special mission as God’s messenger to non-Jews and his letters provide us most of the reasoned systematic theology that defines Christianity. God’s perspective about the Jews and Judaism is scattered throughout Paul’s letters, but is most complete in his Letter to the Romans, including the critical question of how Gentiles are to treat Jews in the Gentile age, filling the entire 11th chapter, key excerpts of which follow: 

“I [Paul] ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew....What Israel [as a whole] was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect [those few Jews who accepted Christ] did. The others were hardened...I ask then, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Certainly not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous...For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?...Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, remember this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

“You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’ That is correct: ... And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved [at the Second Coming, when]...The Deliverer will come from Zion...For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.”

Romans 11 is an unequivocal proof-text against “supercessionism” (replacement theology) which holds that the church fully replaced the Hebrews as the beneficiary of His covenant. Supercessionism (and its pernicious cousin punative supercessionism) is the great error of Roman Catholicism (which was largely retained by Protestantism in the reformation), justifying the persecution of the Jews in many pogroms throughout history, and in turn causing Jews to create their own culture-shaping/controlling mechanisms in self-defense, as God gave them the power to do (Genesis 22:17c). 

[My only goal in stating this observation is to seek the objective truth above that fray. I have come to believe that much, or perhaps most of world history in the Age of the Gentiles has been shaped by a largely behind-the-scenes war for world control between the institutions of Roman Catholicism and Talmudic Judaism. I have launched a new book research project on this hypothesis with the working title of "Judah Under the Gentiles."] 

As much as I love both Roman Catholic and Talmudic Jewish friends whom I have known, both religious camps represent a departure from Scripture through the undue elevation of (sometimes but not always false) human-created doctrines and interpretations that came to define them. But just as Paul noted in Romans 11:2-5, there has always been a remnant of true believers in both Christianity and Judaism (which fact does not nullify John 14:6). 

Discussing the Scofield Bible, The Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and Israel

I have been conversing with a Christian friend of mine, one who does not support Israel, who believes that the current state should not exist. He also adheres to "replacement theology," which suggests that God has abandoned the Jews and now only works with Christians.

Here was the first question that I posed to him:

Hey -----!

The Scofield Bible is getting some massive excoriation at this time [on social media].

I have never read that version, since I am not interested in any version of the Bible which has someone else's comments or ideas embedded into it.

Your reasons for being vocally opposed to the Scofield, and what are the errors which it teaches? -- Please share when you have time.

Here are the responses that I received:

It altered who all Christians believed - for nearly 2,000 years - that NT Israel was. His Bible was bankrolled by the biggest Zionists in America....to swing millions of Christians into their political camp. Palestinian Christians and non-violent Muslims have paid a huge price. World peace has been altered. And due to this poor theology we treat Israel different then all other nations, in desperate need of the Gospel of the Messiah. Send me your personal email address again Arthur. I will send you a two-page short Bible study and a theological reading list that has impacted a lot of other dispensationalists.

Here is the second message I received:

Arthur:

 I fear your hermeneutical view of Scripture starts with your support of a political entity lost, apart from Jesus Christ.  The Zionist Jews of Israel are not being threatened from others.  Their hatred of the Triune God makes themselves their greatest enemy.  They have the highest tax-payer funded abortion rate in the world.  Tel Aviv is the homosexual capital of the world.  (Ask the Jewish psychologist who used to practice in San Francisco until they ran him out….and who called to thank me for burning those transgender library books.)  And they just vaccinated 61% of their population with the deadly mNRA full of spike proteins.  And they are brutally cruel to their neighbors, whom the Zionists in charge see as goyim or cattle.  God is dealing with Israel for rejecting the Messiah.  May we one day see them return to Christ, via Romans 11.  But not through more nuclear bombs and American aid.

 See my attached piece I use to ‘lit-drop’ dispensational churches in the region and my reading list.  Those who adhere to the erroneous ‘end times’ doctrine have done such harm to take Christians off the battle field.  Such harm!

And see the Meme, I produced.  The best Reformed Covenantal (we never use the word ‘Replacement’….that was made up by dispensationalists) theologians came from former pro-Israel dispensational backgrounds.  They stopped reading the Scofield margin notes and started reading the Bible.  Some of the best people sounding the warning against Zionists are Karaite Jewish Rabbis.  I appreciate them and think they could be good neighbors.

 BTW, does ‘Schaper’ have any Jewish roots to it?

Here is my first response, and extensive set of remarks to contrast with what he had shared with me:

Hey P-----!

You've made a number of great responses to me regarding this issue.

I want to make it very clear that I recognize that there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. I do not suggest that people can be saved apart from believing in his perfect sacrifice of the cross. Amen!

The notion however that God has cut off Jews from his loving power is just not true. He wants them to believe, and he continues to reach out to them just as he reaches out to us. He does have a special covenant with them, as he established not just in Genesis chapter 12, but has been affirmed in other passages as well throughout the old and new testaments.

Consider these passages:

"19And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, 20Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; 21Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. 22As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me." (Jeremiah 33:19-22)

And

"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." Hosea 1:10

 I did not accept this replacement theology. The fact is that we are blessed with believing Abraham, every person who believes in Jesus Christ. This is available to everyone, including the Jewish people. God has not cut off his covenant with them. However, because they insist on staying under the old covenant, they endure the old covenant curses. That is why, for example, they were dispersed throughout the world in AD 70.

Consider these passages, too:

"Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus."( John 12:11)

 During Jesus earthly ministry, many Jews ended up believing in him! If he had cut them off, they would have never believed in him.

Ask for today, or in our current times, Many Jews don't even believe in God, right now, because of a great blindness due to seeing Moses and not Jesus:

"13And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." (2  Corinthians 3, versus 13 through 16)

 Regarding the rebirth of Israel as a nation:

"Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:8)

And

"But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land." (Jeremiah 23:8)

And

"Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither." (Jeremiah 31:8)

 I wish to affirm that everything that I've shared with you is from The Bible, specifically the King James version. I have not drawn any inspiration or insight from the so-called Scofield bible. In fact I've never even read that version. I agree that nobody should settle for a version of The Bible that is replete with passages, messages and notes from someone else. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to us in the scriptures. We don't need to keep running to Other people to do that for us.

 My starting point is not a nation state. My starting point is Jesus Christ! My starting point is that Jesus will fufill the old covenant, and enacted a new covenant.

My last name is not a Jewish last name. I find it interesting that you're bringing up ethnic backgrounds. That's very strange. Truth has nothing to do with one's ethnic status or ancestry.

My second response:

Believe me, I am well aware of the hostility that rabbis and secular Jews have towards Christianity. That hostility is quite rampant among Muslims and other secular groups as well, so it doesn't make a lot of sense just to target Jews regarding this issue.

As we speak, especially in spite of covid 19, an incredible Christian messianic Jewish ministry has been sharing the gospel with Jews throughout Israel, and more of them are believing in Jesus!

https://www.oneforisrael.org/

I then followed up with this question:

Another question, P---:

Do you believe that christians today are still bound to try to keep the 10 commandments?

Here were the final responses that I wrote to him:

Hey P---:

I am responding now to your points about Under Law vs. Under Grace.

That is two different things.

Being under law (as to justification) where the answer is No; 

AGREED!

 opposed to we are expected to keep them (as to sanctification), where the answer is Yes.

If that is the case, then how do you respond to Paul's own words in these Epistles (these are not comments from Paul Scofield)?

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Romans 7:4)

And

"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:6)

And also:

13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

The passage about "handwriting of ordinances" is the Law, and it has been rendered inoperative against us because Jesus fulfilled the Law.

I agree that the WORLD needs to the Ten Commandments. We need to post the Ten Commandments in every courthouse. But for us who are believers in Christ, who have received the adoption of children. We are taught by His GRACE!

"11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2:11-14)

Again, Jesus fulfilled the Law. He declared as much in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17)

Since He fulfilled the law, why would we try to keep it?

How do you respond to these statements from Paul, after receiving incredible revelation from The Lord?

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Romans 3:19)

and

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5:20)

and

"23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3:23-25)

Based on the revelation which Paul shares in the Epistle to the Romans, for example, the law is not a standard to live by, but rather a standard which condemns us and shows us our need for a Savior. Do you agree with what Paul writes, or do you read this differently?

Your point about holiness, sanctification is well noted. How do we become holy?

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:" (1 Corinthians 1:30)

and

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Christ is our sanctification, not the Law, as Paul declares to the Corinthian Church. The more that we see Him in the Word, the more that His Holy Spirit transforms us from glory to glory. AMEN.

I wanted to share these remarks with you, as well, following your statement about Old Covenant v. New Covenant. You have helped me to understand why there is such a harsh opposition to Israel and Jews. If Christians do not enter fully in the Grace of God, but attempt to go with mixture (grace and law), then inevitably they will persecute those who recognize that we no longer keep the law (Christians like me) or Jews, who do not (yet) believe in Jesus.

Thanks for your time, P---.

Take care!