Translate
Saturday, July 22, 2023
13 Above YouTube Forum
Monday, July 17, 2023
Believe It All Or None At All
Saturday, July 01, 2023
A Gift For Indoctrinated Individuals
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Refuting The Nefarious NASA
Monday, June 26, 2023
UFO And Aliens Are A Joke, Right?
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
JTO Sees Substantial Increase In Readers
JTO has seen an increase of over 5000 10000 readers this month over last month. You, our readers, are from over 20 countries.
We have also seen an increase in the comment participation. At the present, commenters are able to submit a comment anonymously if they desire. If you want to include your name, check your browser profile features to add your name before commenting. If you don't know how to do that, you may just put your name in the body of your comment. The best discussion is when there is a personal identifier of some kind.
Keep in mind that when a comment is submitted, it may not be visible right away. Each comment is approved by the JTO editor prior to posting--usually within a day. The approval filter is not intended to prevent opposing views or even the passionate ways they may be expressed. Some comments are restricted, however, due to vitriolic or ad hominem verbiage. You would also be amazed at how often a blog comment section is used to promote the purchase of a product someone is hocking. The commenter starts out with high praise of the blog then includes a link where you can buy their jewelry, etc. JTO filers these intrusions so you won't have to.
We live in an amazing time where information can be readily assimilated, and we may speak with and hear from others quickly, often in real time. The JTO blog is here, to create an atmosphere of discussion in the spirit of the Bereans. "The Bereans lived in the Greek city of Berea, also called Beroea, in the time of the Apostle Paul, about AD 50. These people, mentioned in Acts 17, are best known for searching and studying the Bible for themselves and not merely accepting what they were taught."
But make no mistake, JTO is unapologetically, the personal journey of the blog editor, me, and what I am currently seeing, hearing and expressing. Many of the JTO posts are simple and short ways of provoking discussion. Other, more lengthy theological treatments can be found on other blogs and websites, some of whose links we have provided.
The NAME: Some of you may be aware that for many years the JTO blog promoted the Eastern Orthodox view of theology and the church. The JTO editor no longer espouses many of the views posted in articles dating back to 2006. The posts remain on the blog to reflect, in part, my theological journey. Please see my bio for more on that. I have kept the name Journey to Orthodoxy but have included an explanation of the theological shift to the Unitarian/Monotarian understanding of the scripture. The word "orthodoxy" means: "conforming to established doctrine especially in religion". Since the Unitarian/Monotarian doctrine was the established Old and New Testament understanding of God - “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!", then the continued use of the word orthodox is accurate and appropriate. The Eastern Orthodox Church may keep their capitol O as their identifier. JTO will use the small o - orthodox - as the literal meaning of the word.
Whatever your reason for participating or stopping by, thank you so much! If nothing else, hang around and attempt to bring me to my senses, keep me from going off the deep end, save my soul from deception, or feel free to exercise your pride, self-aggrandizement and spiritual superiority. That's always fun! (But usually doesn't end well.)
Nathan Lee Lewis
JTO Editor
Monday, June 19, 2023
Tuesday, June 06, 2023
Editing Scriptures, The Trinitarian Way
Friday, May 26, 2023
Why I Am A Monotarian
______________________
[19] I adopt the phrase Christian Monotarian here as it seems helpful to expressing my faith in God as a single individual and in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God — but not himself God. The term “Monotarian” can be drawn from the Scriptures and particularly Jesus’ declaration in John 17:3 that the Father is τον μονον αληθινον θεον. The first person I have known to use the term Christian Monotarian is my friend Pastor Mark A. Jones of Tennessee, http://hgcn.org/ our-pastors.html. Sean P. Finnegan of New York has used the term “Christian Monotheist” with the same intent, http://www.christianmonotheism.com.
[20] This of course is not to disallow the use of the word “God” as an honorary title or appellation for certain people — Ps. 82:6, etc. See chapter 9 of this book for an exposition of the word when used in its honorific sense.
[21] Christian Monotarians are biblically centered and embrace the Bible as the word of God. They believe in miracles, the virgin birth of Christ (Luke 1:34, 35), and that the man Christ Jesus was — by a miracle in Mary — literally God’s only begotten human son (Matt. 1:20). Christian Monotarians believe that it was by depending on his Father that Jesus lived a sinless life (Heb. 4:15); did great miracles (Acts 2:22; 10:38); spoke the word of God ( John 12:49, 50) and ultimately gave his life as a perfect sacrifice to God for the rest of us human beings (Heb 9:14; Rom. 5:6–10). They believe that Jesus was buried and then bodily resurrected by God (Rom. 10:9), was/ is glorified at the right hand of God (Acts 5:31); that he will come again (1 Thess. 1:10) and raise from the dead those who trust in him ( John 5:25–30; 1 Cor. 15:20–23).
In all of this, Christian Monotarians hold that Jesus, by the plan and work of God, was truly one of us: That he was the second Adam (Rom. 5:14). Just as God created Adam and made him a human being, likewise, God created his son Jesus in Mary as a true human being. Christian Monotarians believe that to bring salvation to the rest of humanity, Jesus himself had to be really one of us (Rom. 5:17–19): Not God, not a “God-man” — not an angel or “angel-man” — or any other kind of being. They believe that Jesus did not literally preexist his own conception in Mary and that language in the New Testament about his “preexisting” was intended to be understood as “types” (tupos) of the man Christ Jesus. Metaphorically, he was “bread” ( John 6:35) a “rock” (1 Cor. 10:4) etc. They believe that our hope in Christ and of our resurrection is that he, as God’s begotten human son, is genuinely one of us (Acts 17:31).
The term “biblical unitarian” typically refers to the same view of God as being only one individual. However, unitarians do not always embrace the same faith as Christian Monotarians regarding Jesus. As is the case at times among others who assert faith in Christ, some unitarians lean to rationalism at the expense of biblical faith and do not hold to his virgin birth, etc. Additionally, the term “unitarian” is often misunderstood by the public. Use of the term frequently leads to confusing “biblical unitarians” with “Unitarian Universalists” (“Universalism” or just “Unity”), which is an entirely different religion that is neither biblical nor Christian.