"And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them. And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."
In this lesson Jesus selects the first four of His Apostles and begins the creation of His Church (His kingdom). This passage also tells us that Jesus began to preach, "the gospel of the kingdom". He began, at that point to explain the coming of His kingdom, how it would be established and who would inherit it.
Jesus also began to establish His authority and power by working miracles, healing the sick and casting out devils.
It is very important to note that Jesus hand selected each of those who would, in the beginning, preach salvation by grace. It is also very important to note that the Apostles could not begin that ministry until AFTER Jesus had completed His sacrificial ordeal, received His glorified body, and ascended back to Heaven. Salvation by grace, through faith, could not be taught until Jesus had been sacrificed, thereby remitting the sins of those who would believe.
Another important note that should be made before this class goes further into these lessons, is that there is NO scriptural evidence that any one of these hand selected, Jewish Apostles, chosen explicitly to teach salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, were EVER baptized in water.
This is important because probably ninety plus percent of all "Christian" isms teach that in order to be redeemed to God, one must be, in some form, baptized in water.
There is in fact, simply no bible basis for that assertion. The fact that the Apostles had no such requirement should be proof enough that becoming a child of God does not require anything beyond faith in Christ Jesus such as was the example of the Apostles.
The Apostles were exempted from the requirement to be baptized in water under the law of Moses, because their religious mission would not officially begin until the law had been fulfilled by the actions of Jesus nullifying that baptismal requirement. And, under the new law of grace, there would be no such requirement.
There will be much more discussion of this and other scriptural misunderstandings as these lessons progress.
I encourage anyone with opposing views to speak out on all these lessons, and to present scriptural foundation for that opposition.~
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