{"id":16060,"date":"2026-02-15T16:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=16060"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:53:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:53:24","slug":"the-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/16060\/the-tunnel\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Tunnel”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey John,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Tonight, I was looking back through some passages from\u00a0The Great Apostasy<\/em>\u00a0book (Going to Jesus.com – The Great Apostasy” How believers\u2019 rejection of Paul\u2019s gospel led to the formation of Christianity<\/a><\/span>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 In the second paragraph from the end of “The Tunnel” portion, beginning with “In A.D. 70,” you wrote that believers entered the tunnel a charismatic community with some ceremonial aspects, glorifying Moses and rejecting Paul. But they emerged from the tunnel a ceremonial community with some charismatic aspects, glorifying Paul and rejecting Moses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Please clarify this for me, as I thought they would now be rejecting Paul and glorifying Moses, because they became more of a ceremonial community with some charismatic aspects when emerging from the tunnel.\u00a0\u00a0Thank you<\/span><\/p>\n

Jim K.<\/span><\/p>\n

===========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Jim.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Good question,\u00a0Jim; thank you for sending it in.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 The NT record clearly shows that the body of Christ, as a whole, rejected Paul’s gospel, being convinced of their need to submit to circumcision, that is, to the law of Moses.\u00a0 The references for that biblical fact are too many to mention, but Paul’s statement to Timothy, “All they [believers] in Asia have forsaken me” (2Tim. 1:!5) represents what was happening everywhere.\u00a0 Part 5 of my book,\u00a0<\/em>The Jerusalem Council (<\/em>Going to Jesus.com – The Jerusalem Council<\/a> <\/span>), goes into great detail on that from\u00a0NT books.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In the second century, what we find in the documents which Christians have allowed to survive is an exaltation of Paul (but not the same gospel he preached) and a complete rejection of the law of Moses, and in some cases, virulent anti-Semitism.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0That is the historical record.\u00a0 Anyone can look it up.\u00a0 For examples of the anti-Semitism of some second-century leaders of Christians, one can go to\u00a0<\/em>The Apostate Fathers at GoingtoJesus.com\u00a0(<\/em>Going to Jesus.com – The Apostate Fathers<\/a>).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The fact that those second-century Apostates were still practicing rituals is really a different subject from the specific one I was discussing in\u00a0<\/em>The Great Apostasy\u00a0book.\u00a0 You are correct in saying that\u00a0second century believers were still a ceremonial community with some charismatic elements, but the ceremonies they were practicing then were new and had nothing to do with Moses’ law.\u00a0 In fact, those new ceremonies had \u2013 and still have \u2013 nothing to do with the real Jesus or Paul.\u00a0 Christians made up those rituals to replace the ones from the law that they had stopped practicing.\u00a0 God was not in it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I hope this explains the section on The Tunnel that you mentioned.\u00a0 Thank you again for asking.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

===========<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Jim\u2019s question was perceptive and earnestly inquisitive, and I instantly empathized with him, as it seemed confusing to me, too. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Your answer really clarified that situation about Paul, his true doctrine, and the \u201cChurch\u2019s\u201d introduction of new rituals in place of the Law of Moses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019ve been so immersed in your books this past year that I need a drone\u2019s view of them all, to truly see the history in chronological order.\u00a0 A visual timeline would be helpful, I think.\u00a0 Whew!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Brad<\/span><\/p>\n

===========<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Give me a white board and some markers, and we will do it!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey John, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Tonight, I was looking back through some passages from\u00a0The Great Apostasy\u00a0book (Going to Jesus.com – The Great Apostasy” How believers\u2019 rejection of Paul\u2019s gospel led to the formation of Christianity). \u00a0 \u00a0 In the second paragraph from the end of “The Tunnel” portion, beginning with “In A.D. 70,” you wrote that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16060"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16065,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16060\/revisions\/16065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}