Imagine that you have discovered that rubbing a certain type of axle grease into a person's navel will instantly cure any cancer that the person has. You announce it to the media. You preach it on the streets. And you march into hospitals and practise it on some of their patients, with immediate success. The media, medical journals, and the masses would not be able to stop talking about you. Even the skeptics could not resist trying it for themselves. And every new cure would only establish further the truth of what you have been saying. You would be an overnight sensation.
This is what we expected when we first found the teachings of Jesus. Here was the answer to the cancer in the churches and in the world in general. We only needed to forsake all, live by faith, and go into all the world preaching this gospel, and we would literally bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
But that did not happen. Why?
Let's go back to the cancer cure story. Suppose that all previous treatments for cancer had been called "axle grease treatments". Operations for cancer had been called "axle grease operations". Chemotherapy had required people to take "axle grease pills". And there had been axle grease diets, axle grease acupuncture, axle grease medications, and even the warnings that cigarette companies had to put on their packets were called axle grease warnings.
So when you came running into a hospital with your discovery about axle grease itself actually being the cure, people would look at you askance and think that you were crazy. You were saying what everyone else was already saying, but you were saying it like you were the first person in the world to have said it. How absurd!
And this is what happened when we started proclaiming the teachings of Jesus as the cure to the problems of the world. Every church on earth claims to be peddling Jesus. They all call themselves Christian. They all teach "faith in Jesus". The only difference between them and us is that what they claim, we actually do. We really use the axle grease. It's not just a name for some other treatment that doesn't involve axle grease at all. Jesus is more than a name to us, because we opened the book, read what Jesus said, and tried to do it - all of it. And the others did not.
Nevertheless, because of their false claims, what we said about Jesus was confusing to most people. Obviously the cancer cure would confuse people for a while if it sounded like the same treatment that everyone else was already using. But it should not take too long to point out the simple difference, i.e. that the other doctors had not actually used axle grease in their treatments (It's just a name!), and in particular, that they hadn't rubbed it into the navel. It's a simple enough misunderstanding to clear up.
Unless... the other doctors feel threatened by you. Suppose that they are not as interested in curing cancer as they are in looking good. More than that, suppose that they believe a cure for cancer would put them out of their jobs?
If they felt strongly about such things, they would be able to slow down acceptance of what you were saying far more than a simple misunderstanding could. They could spread the word through the media and through their medical journals that there was nothing new about your discovery at all, that in fact various forms of axle grease really were used in every previous treatment for cancer, and that the results they were achieving were the best results possible. They could say that your cure had some very dangerous side effects and should not be tried by anyone. They could bar you from their hospitals and tell the public that you are a former mental patient who is trying to exploit them with false hopes.
This is a fair description of the way that the church hierarchy has responded to our discovery of the teachings of Jesus. They try to say that they are all following the teachings of Jesus "in our own way", and they say that we are trying to insist that people follow our own private (and somewhat screwy) interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, when their interpretations (which simply amount to tossing the teachings of Jesus out the window in one way or another) are the only interpretations that work in today's world. They bar us from their churches and spread warnings to the world about us being a dangerous cult who are trying to rip people off. And as a consequence the message is further frustrated.
Now, let's go back to our illustration. Suppose that this particular form of axle grease that you are using can only be found on the moon... or for some reason or another, it costs billions of dollars. But you are prepared to give it to patients who are willing to contribute $1000 toward the cost.
Now the patients themselves have reason to question your cure. They can get the other cures for free under various health schemes, but they would have to pay $1000 for your cure.
It would be easy to argue that if you were really genuine, you would give the cure to everyone for free. Only the most desperate patients would be prepared to trust you enough to part with $1,000 for some of your axle grease. Obviously, if it really worked, they should be ready to give that much and more. But each individual patient would be forced to make a choice between his or her desire to hang onto the $1000 and his or her faith in your cure.
Back in our real life experience, the teachings of Jesus exceed a cure for cancer, because they provide immortality... eternal life... a cure for everything. But the price exceeds $1000 too, because it costs you everything that you own, including your present mortal life. Only the most desperate people would even consider it, especially considering that they cannot see the actual results until after they have died.
Unless people are very much aware of their mortality, and how quickly it is filtering away, they'll cling to what they own, and join the doctors in denouncing you and your cure. The doctors of divinity will say that a really loving God would not charge anything for immortality... that it should be absolutely free to everyone, and if it is not, then it cannot be called "grace". And so this is how the entire church world has come to reject the teachings of Jesus.
It's not really a misunderstanding. It's a deliberate choice, made by each individual for different reasons. While the cancer continues to grow, they continue to hold onto their paltry possessions and to reject their only real hope of eternal life. Instead of turning to the teachings of Jesus for the real cure, they gamble everything on the counterfeit Jesuses and the false hopes that they represent.
Of course they do it because they are not really thinking about where it is all leading... about death... and about facing God one day with a false cure for sin that they cooked up themselves.
And we keep searching everywhere for those rare individuals who can see the folly in such an approach. Are you one?
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