Hi John!
I am down in Costa Rica and wanted to say hello to you, Barbara, and all the family! My text is working better than my email, due to very limited bandwidth, so I figured I’d text you. Feel free to share with everyone. Things are going well here. We’ve been able to get a lot of work done, with no snake bites, and only 1 Bullet Ant sting (I was the lucky recipient of that!! Hurt like crazy for about 8 hours). I know God created Bullet Ants for a reason, and they fill an ecological role. But I just don’t like them!!🐜
I also wanted to share with you a realization I’ve had. I’ve finished The 2 Gospels and really enjoyed it. I found it very enlightening. But what’s really caught me is my deeper understanding that Paul’s gospel is the true one, and the other has become the ‘political/power-driven’ one. Over the last 10-15 years I’ve read a lot of books and academic references that ‘de-bunked’ the common Christian beliefs, practices, etc. One of the pieces of evidence that is commonly used to do this is that they say that the gospel Paul preached was “made up” by him, and that it ended up being the origins of the common or traditional Christianity. But now I realize how inaccurate that is. Paul did preach a gospel that was different, but it came directly from Jesus, and was Gods tool to bring in the Gentiles, and eventually bring all people together under 1 belief. But, it absolutely DID NOT become the traditional Christian doctrine. In fact, just the opposite. Paul’s gospel was shunned, while the other gospel was accepted, and was the one that became modified by Constantine into the completely false gospel spread throughout the world today, via wars and many other acts of violence, evil, and ignorance (as I write this, I just learned about more bombings in the Middle East–and they are, of course, based on ultra strong beliefs in one of the false gospels. Makes me very sad). And, I also realize that this gospel is all about conducting specific ceremonies, physical movements, and using various tools and clothes—seems kinda like doing choreographed dance steps!
So, although these different theological historians are correct in de-bunking ‘Christianity’ as it exists today, I’ve now come to realize they also have completely missed the mark on Christ’s true doctrine, and that Paul, even today, is once again being used as an inaccurate scapegoat– this time by the debunkers of Christianity! The poor guy just can’t win, even 2 millennia later!
Anyway, I just wanted to share my realizations. Thinking of you all down here, as I sweat and work in the jungle! Hope to see you in November. Bye for now!
Bill
