I recently looked for Christ’s statement in which He declared that anyone who loved any other person more than he did Himself, was not worthy of Him. It was easy to find (Matthew 10:37), but when I read the entire chapter, I realized that Christ, in this chapter of Matthew, actually gave away his entire agenda, or modus operandi. I will look at each verse or section (NIV version) and place it in the context of my own conclusions about Christ (comments in red and square brackets).
Matthew 10 - Jesus Sends Out the Twelve
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
[This is of course pure nonsense. Nobody has ever had the ability to perform miracles, and all of Christ’s so-called miracles were nothing but carefully orchestrated illusions – see my interpretation of these, from my book Barbelo. The twelve disciples were actually the commanders of his rebel army whom he had sent out to towns and villages all over Judea, demanding their support (and more) as well as recruiting rebel fighters for his planned attempt to overthrown the Romans in his country. Of the twelve, two would become the leaders of the factions who fought the Romans – Simon Peter (Simon bar Gioras, the leader of the Sicarii, the Assassins) and John the Beloved (John of Gischala), and the third most likely Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead, named by Josephus as Eleazar.]
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
[In the Acts of the Apostles, Simon Peter publicly addresses a crowd, ‘Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem…Men of Israel, listen to this….’ At that occasion three thousand followed Peter. In The Wonderful and Most Deplorable History of the Latter Times of the Jews, a similar public address by Simon bar Gioras is described: Wherefore Schimeon went and got him a rout of unthrifts, murderers, and thieves, casting in his mind, and saying, … He went therefore through all the cities of Judea and Galilee, causing to be proclaimed in the streets and market places, and sent his letters where he could not come himself, in this manner and form: ‘Whoso listeth to be rid from the bondage of his master, or hath had any injury in his country, or what servants soever desire to be set at liberty, or whoso cannot abide the rule of his father or master: all that be in debt, and stand in fear of your creditors, or fear the Jews for shedding innocent blood, and therefore lurketh solitary in woods or mountains; if there be any man that is accused of any notorious crime, and in any danger therefore; to be short, whosoever is disposed to rob and to do injury and wrong, to haunt whores, to steal, to murder; to eat and drink at other men’s cost, without labor of his hands, let him resort to me, I will deliver him from the yoke and danger of the laws, and will find him his fill of booties and spoils.’ There are assembled unto him about twenty thousand men, all murderers, thieves, rebels, lawless persons, wicked and seditious men…” Would these men not qualify as ‘the lost sheep of Israel’? What he promised these men, compared to what they had, was pretty much ‘The kingdom of heaven.’ The rich and middle class of the villages would never have dreamt of rising against the Romans, but the men whom Simon bar Gioras described above would have had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Men like these would have been prepared to fight to death in order to escape the circumstances they had found themselves in.]
9 “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— 10 no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. 12 As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13 If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
[In Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32 Christ repeatedly made the statement,
“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”
In other words, he intended to ‘return’ (after his crucifixion and ‘resurrection’) still within the lifetime of those who surrounded him. This was exactly what he did – he attacked various towns and villages with ‘fire from heaven (Sodom and Gomorrah’s fire)’ and other thinly veiled horrendous acts of violence – these are described in detail in The Contendings / Lives of the Saints – see Barbelo Section 9.4 For example, the governor of a city Paul (the alias Christ had adopted after his ‘resurrection’, but known to the Jews as Simon Magus, or Josephus’s Egyptian) and Philip had visited, warned the governor of the next city they had in their crosshairs,
“For they are sorcerers, and they have subverted my rule, and have wrought deeds of shame among my women, and scattered abroad my officers and soldiers, and overthrown my house, and plundered my city, and stolen my possessions, and blotted out my hope, and done away my goods, and destroyed my pasture, and they have made accusations against each other, and they have carried off my handmaidens.”
Why on earth would anyone have made (and recorded) such accusations against the peace-loving, teary-eyed disciples? In fact, other historians had made similar accusations against Christ,
“Hierocles - That Christ Himself was put to flight by the Jews, and having collected a band of nine hundred men, committed robberies”
and
“Marcion of Pontus…He advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself (homosexual?)”
That Christ was guilty of these “Sodom-and-Gomorrah”-esque attacks on villages is even recorded in the New Testament itself (Luke 9:51-54),
“And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”
You can be certain that the Roman Catholic Church had, through the ages, destroyed numerous similar texts by ‘heretics.’]
16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
[Once word had spread about the tactics of the ‘apostles’, they most certainly would have been met with resistance, and retribution, at some of the villages they attempted but failed to enter or overcome.]
21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
[Can you imagine that the message of the Son of the God of Love would encourage family members to kill each other while he gloats about it? And then, again the promise of his ‘return’ during the lifetime of the apostles. It is almost laughable how Christian apologetics attempt to explain away this statement of Christ – it is a waste of time to even mention them. It should be obvious that he would only stop “going through the towns of Israel” once he had convinced himself that he had recruited enough rebels to take on the Roman army. Just as he had promised, his ‘Second Coming’ took place when he, as Paul and Josephus’s Egyptian (cf. Acts 21:26-38) who had defiled the Temple (according to the Toledot Yeshu, Christ stormed and vandalized the Temple with 310 of his followers – Barbelo, Section 6.2), eventually engaged the Roman army with his rebels. However, his ‘Second Coming’ was thwarted by Felix (Barbelo Section 5.2, Josephus Antiquities 20.8.6),
“Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more. And again the robbers stirred up the people to make war with the Romans, and said they ought not to obey them at all; and when any persons would not comply with them, they set fire to their villages, and plundered them.”
Despite having managed to escape, he was nevertheless arrested years later when he was stupid enough to revisit the temple, where he was immediately recognized because of his abnormal physique (being only 4’6” tall, bald-headed, disfigured, with a reddish complexion and a particularly ugly face). So here we again have confirmation of Christ’s tactics – villages who refused join his rebellion against the Romans were plundered and burned ‘with fire from heaven’. As in Luke 9, these exact words also appear, for example, in The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew in Scythia and The Acts of Philip, where it actually happened – the villages were burnt and destroyed. In one village 7000 men were killed, while 50 (married) women and 100 virgins were spared. Can you guess why? The deeds of shame wrought among the women of the villages (raped and left behind) and the captured (beautiful) handmaidens, women and virgins (young girls) who were abducted as concubines for the rebels. Indeed “Heaven on Earth” to the Lost Sheep of Israel!
As for Jesus’s ‘return,’ I am afraid Christians will have to wait another couple of trillions of years for that to happen. He never was the Son of God, he had never gone to heaven and was, in fact, decapitated by the Romans. As bizarre as it might seem, his followers managed to retrieve his severed head, which was buried somewhere underneath the Temple. There it was eventually discovered by the Templar Knights, who were accused of worshipping a head with three faces (it was called Baphomet). Whence such a non-sensical, irrational description? The three faces were, of course, Simon Magus (the Egyptian), ‘Jesus’ and Paul, all one and the same person.]
24 “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!
26 “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
[A typical threat by prophets and sons of gods of all religions to those who refused to obey them.]
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
[See Barbelo Chapter 9, Christ stating unequivocally that he intends to bring war to Judea, including fire (the burning of villages) and also not peace, but division, and the he would be ‘numbered with the transgressors’ (the wicked). In The Gospel of Thomas we read
“I have thrown fire upon the world, and look, I am watching till it blazes. You cannot enter house of the strong and take it by force without binding the owner’s hands. Then you can loot the house. Whoever is near me is near fire.”
So here Christ is openly admitting to robbing people and burning their houses.]
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
[Once more, devotion to Christ requires the sacrifice of family ties. What type of demented monster, supposedly the God of Love, would make such a demand on his followers?]
40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
[A typical promise by prophets and sons of gods of all religions to their followers.]
