"No record of the Trinitarian formula can be discovered in the Acts or the Epistles of the Apostles." (Intl. Standard Bible Ency.; Vol. 1; p. 396).
"The doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the apostles preaching as this (preaching) is reported in the N.T." (Ency. Intl.; U. Of Glasgow; 1982 ed.; Vol. 18; p. 226).
Jesus taught his loved and valued disciples precisely how they should go out into the world to proclaim the Kingdom good news and what it is they should say. They had the truth because they had Jesus, God's word of truth to mankind, who equipped them sufficiently. They were refreshingly untainted by centuries of extrabiblical, or explicitly nonbiblical, ideals and/or philosophies that crept into Christianity. Their knowledge and doctrines hadn't merged with others who were uninspired. All scripture is inspired and beneficial for teaching and reproof, so if we don't learn how it is we should engage with and what it is we should herald to people from the bible itself and those inspired therein, then what exactly do we imagine we're accomplishing? Yes, the inspired apostles who were full of holy spirit talked about Jesus and identified him in a certain unnebulous way. A way that modern day traditionalists go far beyond. Not only do trinitarians today require those to whom they witness to accept something that is diametrically opposed to the requirements Jesus and the apostles established, they insistently and prominently do so.
I remember an online trinitarian apologist telling me once that the reason he doesn't lead with the trinity when witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses and others is because he regards how the apostles in Acts preached and what it is they would proclaim to make disciples. I'm assuming that since they never once told anyone that believing God is a triune essence is sensible, much less an express necessity for salvation, that he wouldn't be unequivocally comfortable doing so either. That's admirable, and I hope he still adheres to that principle. I just have to wonder how the apostles could've been so quiet about something they supposedly embraced if it is necessary to believe it first and foremost if one could ever hope to be saved? Especially since their whole message was about the Kingdom and how to get there, yes, how to be saved? The only way their silence on the matter would be remotely understandable or plausible is if they didn't even believe it at all! If we take sincere note of their way of preaching, then we will be equipped to adopt the proper mindset, vocabulary, and doctrines pleasing to God and beneficial to those we encounter and want to help. Why can't Christians sincerely heed these revelations and run with them instead of with something else entirely, something quite inherently self-contradictory and especially pleading? Examine:
Acts 2:22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
When Peter addresses a crowd, he identifies Jesus as "Godman, the second person of a triune homoouisios." Just kidding! He called Jesus a "man" who God worked miraculously though, who was crucified by lawless men and raised by God! Do you presume Peter or his audience thought Jesus was a person in the same essence as the God who empowered, inhabited, and raised him from the dead? If so, howso? Do you think they thought that the One God who worked through and resurrected our precious Messiah is the same God of Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 83:18, alone? If not, then why not? Nothing else would be sensible! If so, then how can you be a trinitarian?
He goes on to say that Jesus was exalted to God's right hand and received from his father the holy spirit, and that "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." (verses 32-36)
So Peter said that the first person of the blessed trinity made the second person of the same essence Lord, as an ontological right, even though he was already and automatically. Just kidding! He rather said that God (who everyone listening knew very well was the one and only God) made Messiah Lord! So he's a "made" Lord. No one had to make God Lord! Examine:
Acts 3:13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus
If "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" is a triune substance, then how could he have glorified his servant Jesus since Jesus is supposedly a member of that same God and also not a servant of the trinity? Is "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" the father, son, and holy spirit as one essence here, glorifying his servant Jesus? If not, then why are you a trinitarian? Peter said:
Acts 4:10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.
I'm fearlessly employing logic here to assume that the audience would understand that Peter knew Jesus was the foreknown Messiah made flesh, killed, and resurrected by the One and only God. No one would know from this that Jesus is a member of the substance of the One who raised and blessed him, who made him Lord. Such a theory is never proposed, much less solidified, anywhere in all of the bible's massive number of pages! Even further, examine:
Acts 4:24 they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel
and verse 30:
"You stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus"
No one could have possibly gathered from these clear revelations that Jesus was the Sovereign Lord who made heaven and earth! He is quite explicitly distinguished from the creator God as a separate being, as a "holy servant" of that One. He was and is the anointed Messiah of the One God, as opposed to actually being the One God, in addition, somehow. No one speaking or listening could have explicably been trinitarian. This isn't the way thoroughly schooled and regretless trinitarians speak or think, generally, okay ever, or remotely. Peter, John, and listeners couldn't have possibly thought God was anointed by God. Or that the Only True God served and worshipped yet another person identifiable as the Only True God. Jesus is always distinguished from the creator God of Deuteronomy 6:4, and never said to be in the inexplicable supposed triune essence of that One. Peter further said:
Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
Who is the God of our fathers? Does it sound like Peter thought he was Jesus? Or does it sound like Peter thought he was the God of Jesus? Do you assume Peter was simultaneously harboring some dogma that Jesus was additionally the God of our fathers, along with his own God and father? Could this really make sense to you in the least? And how many Gods of our fathers would that entail already? No one listening could have fathomably presumed the one exalted of and resurrected by God is likewise an additional person in the essence of God who is supposed to be One. Not only because this isn't ever stated in any capacity, but also because God cannot die or get exalted to be Lord by someone he calls greater and who he himself worships profusely, nor can a nature as if it were actually a person. The God of our fathers is the God of Jesus! Alone, if you're monotheist. Also alone if you're reasonable and responsible when handling and assessing holy texts and simple revelations such as these.
Acts 5:42 every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
Did the apostles teach and preach that Jesus is God or that he is the Christ of God? Are you willing to stick with what they taught and emulate their inspired untainted example, or must you make a wrong turn, drive a million miles, make another wrong turn, and arrive somewhere far removed?
Examine:
Acts 7:37 Moses said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’
Non-trinitarian Moses said what? That the One God will raise up a prophet who's one of three members of his multipersonal homoousios? Goodness gracious, of course not. Jesus was the greater Moses, as opposed to the God who is inimitably heralded in Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 83:18, who is the father alone. The difference in identities is easily detectable my friends. One is God. The other serves and worships God and is exalted by God, etc. Which by any reasonable standard would prove he isn't the Most High God. When this passage was proclaimed, were listeners to presume the greater Moses was the One God or a member of his substance? If the apostles thought so, why did they speak just like I, a biblical unitarian would, instead of how a trinitarian would? Are we not allowed to get our dogmas from them instead of those heavily influenced by Greek philosophies centuries later? Should those who speak like the apostles in Acts instead of how Athanasius spoke about Christ's identity be anathematized and placed in the center of the hottest and wormiest spot in hell? People like me teach explicitly and faithfully the same doctrines about Christ that the apostles taught in Acts, in the identical fashion. Yet we're abominations unto the Lord and heretics headed for eternal damnation according to many trinitarians. Yessirree, makes sense. Unless we'd be willing to add a whole lot of philosophical nebulous jargon to the simple biblical revelations and conform to new Nicea light. According to the trinitarians, the revelations of the inspired apostles in Acts were not complete or of themselves altogether satisfactory. Michael Servetus, when he said Jesus was the Christ and Son of the Most High God like the inspired apostles and Jesus himself did, was tortured and killed for it because trinitarian new light wasn't an addition he was willing to adopt to reform such statements! Good grief. Lord help.
Further into Acts, in chapter 7 verses 48-52, the Most High God whose "hand made all things" is clearly distinguished from the Righteous One who was murdered, so apparently Jesus isn't the Genesis creator. His God who sent and fathered him is. Was God murdered? According to trinitarians, yes or no, depending on which one you ask. According to the studied ones, the God person of Jesus survived Jesus's murder, but the human nature died for our sins. So basically a nature and flesh capsule/body with no soul, instead of an actual person, is supposed to be our savior, which sounds truly preposterous and decidedly unbiblical. Maybe I'm just deceived, but I think the person of Jesus died for our sins. God cannot die, and a nature cannot save.
Acts 7:56 he (Stephen) said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
What Stephen didn't say is "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and Godman, God the Son, standing at the right hand of God's first person." Yet this is what a trinitarian, in order to continually uphold their dogma where peculiar special pleading is necessary across the board, has to imagine is somehow there or should be there. We shouldn't hold with tight fists any sort of belief that might inspire us to not take what Stephen said at it's stated value.
Acts 8:5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.
And verse 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
Did Philip proclaim the "trinity" or the "Christ"? "Godman" or "the man Jesus Christ?" I'm not suggesting that traditionalists don't proclaim Christ. It's just that they think some additional philosophies and a trinity are also essential whereas the apostles didn't even know about any of it or surely they would've said something somewhere, anywhere. Did the news about Jesus they proclaimed have anything to do with Jesus being a person of the triune essence of God? If not, why does yours?
Acts 9:20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This I readily herald and embrace wholeheartedly, yet "H" for heretic is my scarlet letter, y'all. Could've even been my torturous murder were I born sooner.
When Jesus asked Simon Peter who he was, Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)
Dan Mages in his debate opening statement against trinitarian Ed Enochs said:
"The answer which was so powerful that it needed to be kept a secret, so incredible that it would've caused people to gasp then gulp, and so inflammatory that it had the potential to lead to a mass uprising, was that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
"It was such a grandiose, jawdropping, bold affirmation that when Peter said these words, he was told by Jesus that it must have been a revelation from God."
I for one know that a revelation from God is inevitably far more trustworthy and conceivable than a revelation from Constantine or Plato or Athanasius or Grandpa that goes so far beyond it that minds get inevitably blown.
Acts 10:38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
Trinitarians often say Jesus was able to go about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil because he was God, that he was only able to precisely for that reason. Wrong! He could because God was "with him", "anointing him with holy spirit and power." Scriptural language and concepts are preferable, always. When crowds witnessed Jesus's miracles, they "were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men." (Matthew 9:8) They didn't glorify God for becoming a man or giving authority to a coequal Godman, but rather for empowering a unique and special human Messiah, who no one at the time suspected was God himself in addition to and consubstantial with the one who gifted and lived within him by spirit. They knew the One who'd given him all he had and empowered him to do all that he did was the God of Deuteronomy 6:4, all alone, commonsensically.
Acts 10:39 They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
God didn't become the man who was put to death and who was resurrected by someone he worships. God didn't become the man who who is appointed by God to judge. God didn't enter a womb to get born. His spirit overpowered one to create a flawless perfect sinless human Son, who was destined to be heir and king of the whole world. God is not a man, nor perishable, nor does he have to be appointed to judge! He alone is inherently immortal and judges without having to be afforded the power or duty by someone greater who caused his birth and had to awake him from death. We know dying is one thing God simply cannot do, and a nature that God supposedly took on is not ever said to be our savior, nor could it logically be! Your salvation is on thin ice if it's contingent upon a personless nature instead of Messiah's person.
Acts 13:22 he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ 23 Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.
Does it sound like the God of the Old Testament, the One God of David, would be David's offspring? Additionally, how could Christ have been if he wasn't even a man in person but only in "nature"? He couldn't have been! You can't be the seed of the woman or from the genealogy of a man if you are the person of God with only the nature of a man! There would be no truth to the title human being! Christ would have had to be born a human being, as opposed to a Godman, in order for God's intentions and prophecies to feasibly come to fruition. Truth or tradition? Like the first Adam, Jesus was a direct creation by the very spirit of God, yes, but that didn't mean he was God himself. God's sons cannot be God like man's sons are men, no matter how favored or unique or holy. Doesn't work that way. He was a man with God's spirit as opposed God with man's nature.
Acts 13:28 though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 30 But God raised him from the dead 34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
35 Therefore he says also in another psalm,
“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
If the Holy One wasn't in the grave, how could it have been possible for corruption to even have a chance of occurring? God wouldn't talk to a body alone with no person in it and call it "Holy One", now would he? Would that make sense? If the "Holy One" never stopped breathing and only watched his own body die and get buried, then how could he have even had a chance to see corruption in a grave? In other words, the ludicrous trinitarian proposition that the person of Messiah never stopped breathing and never got buried is proven indubitably as false as granny's teeth. Yes, the "Holy One," who was a person mind you, was buried and stopped breathing. God cannot do that! I cannot believe that anyone would have the nerve to believe the following, which would have to be insinuated, or rather readily embraced, to uphold the trinity's preposterous nuances:
"The nature that the Holy One took on will not see corruption while the actual Holy One still breathes and hence was never ever buried or asleep in a grave, granting the chance to see corruption."
Unbelievable. Furthermore, it says that God raised "him" from the dead, the implication of which would require that Christ's ego and personhood actually perish so that we might live. If it was only a body or nature perishing, the use of personal pronouns like "him", as in raising "him" from the dead, would be rendered senseless. There would be no "him" to raise! A nature or body alone does not a true human being make! There has to be a center of consciousness for sleep (metaphorically) to occur! Isn't that how death's decribed? Did Christ not die?
Acts 14:8 Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well 10 said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking.
Trinitarians will often times claim that they know Jesus is God because only God can perform the kinds of miracles Jesus did. Yet here we have Paul commanding a man crippled from birth to stand upright. The man "sprang up and began walking", proving that God, by his spirit, can perform miracles through the agency of whomever he so desires.
Acts 14:11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”
Funny it should say this. Can you guess what I'm thinking? I'm not even going to say anything.
Acts 16:6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Notice here that the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of Jesus." This would only make sense if it's the spirit of a Holy God that he shares with his beloved Son immeasurably, hence making it Christ's as well. It's apparently something they both own (although one of them is gifted it while the other doesn't have to be), that they can measure out to believers.
Acts 16:29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.
According to many traditionalists, you have to believe in the trinity to be saved. That's immensely different from what Paul and Silas said! Do you imagine that the word of the Lord that was essential to believe in order to be saved that Paul and Silas spoke about anywhere involved a supposed essence composed of three people? Which is a "what", not a "who." No one in scripture ever spoke that way, so there's no need for us to either. Pretty simple. The scriptures you think prove the trinity apparently weren't understood the same way by the actual writers, Jesus, or any of the apostles, or they would've articulated and fearlessly proclaimed what their supposed building blocks would ultimately produce according to the trinitarian misuse. Not only do they not proclaim it, they don't ever have to explain it, which would have been integral. It would have been so controversial and confounding that the absence of controversy and questions about it speaks volumes against it's validity! And I mean volumes, mister. Or miss.
Acts 17:1 they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Once again, the Jesus Paul proclaimed to listeners wasn't the creator God, but simply rather "the Christ." Who died, mind you. Which God cannot do, so there's no conceivable way anyone being taught about Jesus actually perishing would've imagined he was God! Nor would they have fathomed that a human nature that God took on could be savior. They knew that an actual person died for them. A human being, as opposed to a human nature.
Acts 17:5 But the Jews were jealous 6 “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8 And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.
Trinitarians like to assume that everyone was disturbed by Jesus because of his self identification as God, supposedly. No, not at all. They were perturbed and vexed because he was claiming to be Messiah and king of the world! They didn't want their authority usurped or their loftiness humbled by anyone greater! This continued here even in Acts, after Jesus had been exalted far above them, literally. Many still did not like the fact that he was the ultimate heir and King of the World. They were jealous and spiteful. In the Old Testament, God had no qualms or timidity about proclaiming that he was the Sovereign creator Lord of the universe, unequalled and unmatched in glory, splendor, and majesty. Jesus only ever claimed that same God of the Old Testament gifted him his every blessing and exceeded him in greatness. God the father declared that he was God, explicitly and with no holds barred, ubiquitously and in a number of self-exalting ways throughout the Old Testament. It would be very strange if Jesus was coequal and consubstantial yet failed to maintain this kind of unashamedness about and pride in his supposed identity! He refuted the identity trinitarians try to heap upon him on a number of occasions as clearly as it was possible to do, yet his declarations are falsifiable to the trinitarian mind that blames them all on a supposed humiliation instead of recognizing them as a simple identification. Jesus's truth essentially becomes just something to qualify to it's very death for them.
Acts 17:10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
The Bereans are called noble for examining the scriptures every single day to see if what they were being taught was accurate. Hopefully, that's what we're likewise doing. Unhesitatingly and fearlessly question and examine your traditions through an inspired lens. Instead of questioning and examining the inspired scriptures through your tradition's lens, forcing it (knowingly or not) to conform.
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
Acts 17:22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’9 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but know he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul here plainly contrasted the God "who made the world and everything in it" from both the Athenian's "unknown god" and also from "the man he has appointed to judge the world in righteousness," who he "raised from the dead." So yet again we have the creator God being sharply and unequivocally distinguished from and contrasted with the man Messiah Jesus! So if Jesus's God who gifted and raised him isn't the same God you worship, alone and without additions, then you, in some way similar to the Athenians, have an "unknown God." The triune God was unknown to Paul and Jesus and anyone in scripture who heeded their revelations! Your God, in some way like the Athenian's, was "formed by the art and imagination of man." In uninspired councils replete with intimidating threats, forceful admonitions, and Platonic philosophies and imaginings corrupting the simplicity of biblical revelations and the very words of our greatest truth teller, Yeshua HaMashiach. God and Jesus are both worship worthy, but not because they're coequal and consubstantial members of the same God essence! Because One is God and the other obeyed and loved God, and was hence exalted and made Lord of all by the one and only True God, his own God and father. Trinitarians hopelessly try to remove God's very privileges to make others worthy of worship if he so desires. Essentially telling him "No God, you cannot."
Acts 18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jew made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13 saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. 15 But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.”
Back when unitarian supposed heretics were being threatened, banished, tortured, and even slaughtered for their assumed travesties, Paul would have been accused and judged worthy of such severe and ridiculous unjustifiable punishments himself because he was a biblical unitarian! Similar to the above texts, it would have been for "a matter of questions about words and names and your own law" and not for any "wrongdoing or vicious crime." Much like the blind and corrupt Jews of New Testament times, Pharisaic trinitarians have played judge, jury, prosecutor, and executioner against truth seeking and telling Christians for not conforming to their own traditions and ideas, yes, even going so far as to stamp out the very flames of life of dissenters.
Acts 18:24: Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.
And verse 28:
28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
So here we have a well versed and eloquent man, competent and schooled on scripture, who preached the true and irrefutable identity of Jesus to the Jews as the Christ. Like all the others in the book of Acts, he never taught Jesus was the second person of a triune God, rendering that notion highly refutable and blatantly inexplicable. I'm rightfully highly skeptical of new light from both the Watchtower and also modern day Christianity, both of which might desire to add to such revelations their own fairly newfound philosophies. The fact that both have to forcefully push their new ideas to those who harbor and expound sensible objections and sincere inquiries is evidence of their fragililty and dubiousness.
Acts 19:11 God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
If it said "Jesus" instead of "Paul" in these scriptures, trinitarians would use them as proof texts that he was and is God. Rampant intellectual dishonesty would doubtlessly get employed, as it does elsewhere.
Paul to the Ephesian elders:
Acts 20:20 I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Distinguishing Jesus (yet again) succintly as a separate being from the One God, who was Jesus's own God, was the witnessing protocol of Paul. If unabashed profession of a trinity was, then we might have a gold mine for Nicean creed adherents. Then again, if that was ever Paul's profession, the cementing of trinitarian philosophies at the Council of Nicea would have been automatically rendered totally needless. Paul said in verse 27 that he "did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." If the belief that God is three people is a doubtless requirement for salvation and God's favor, he surely did "shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God." Houston, we have a problem.
"But what about Acts 20:28?!" I can hear a number of trinitarians protest in inquiry.
The Darby Bible Translation says:
"Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own."
Why would they translate it this way instead of how others do when they say something like "the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood?"
The biblicalunitarian website notes:
"Both the American Bible Society and the Institute For New Testament Research in Germany (which produces the Nestle-Aland Greek text) agree that the manuscript evidence supports the reading tou haimatios tou idiou, literally, the blood of His own (Son), and not idiou haimatios, “his own blood.” God paid for our salvation with the blood of His own Son, Jesus Christ."
Even the trinitarian bias NIV study bible states in a footnote:
“his own blood. Lit. ‘the blood of his own one,’ a term of endearment (such as ‘his own dear one’) referring to His own Son.”
This immediately reminds me of a quote from Ray Franz:
"So many points could be clarified if people were simply to read the same text in a variety of translations. They would then at least see that where translation is concerned, dogmatism is greater evidence of ignorance than of learning. I find this to be the case with many who adopt the Trinity doctrine."
I know a lot of traditionalists will get peeved that I've isolated the book of Acts establishing doctrines from it, but every single proclamation in Acts is harmonious with the simple and beautiful revelations about Christ's identity throughout all of scripture. How can the apostles in Acts be accurate about God and Christ if the trinity is true? Their sentiments aren't remotely reconcilable or congruent with a trinitarian's without some startling qualifications, implausible additions, and seriously unwarranted inferences murdering their clarity and straightforwardness. It's intensely obvious they never conflated the God of Jesus, in addition to Jesus himself, into one God essence, along with yet another. They apparently thought the father alone was the Most High God while a certain gifted heir served him as His Christ and Son, and that was frankly enough for them. I'm still in shock that this isn't good enough for many proclaimed Christians. That so many philosophies are misused to corrupt and impose extravagant ideas upon such elementary revelations. If the apostles in Acts were alive when so called unitarian heretics were being slaughtered, they would've died for the same cause called the truth. They would have proclaimed the same thing Simon Peter did in Matthew 16:16, and it wouldn't have been satisfactory or complete enough a revelation to keep them breathing any longer. This is astounding. The non-trinitarian apostles in Acts were the heroes, not the ones who sought to anathematize or harm them!
Mr. Trinitarian, shouldn't the simplicity and beauty in what the apostles preached about Jesus in Acts make you question your interpretation of certain texts that give you cause to reform and qualify their words profusely? Instead of making you question people like me who can simply call the sentiments they heralded my creeds because I don't interpret any passage in a way that would provide me pause to speak like they spoke about Jesus?
"The doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the apostles preaching as this (preaching) is reported in the N.T." (Ency. Intl.; U. Of Glasgow; 1982 ed.; Vol. 18; p. 226).
Jesus taught his loved and valued disciples precisely how they should go out into the world to proclaim the Kingdom good news and what it is they should say. They had the truth because they had Jesus, God's word of truth to mankind, who equipped them sufficiently. They were refreshingly untainted by centuries of extrabiblical, or explicitly nonbiblical, ideals and/or philosophies that crept into Christianity. Their knowledge and doctrines hadn't merged with others who were uninspired. All scripture is inspired and beneficial for teaching and reproof, so if we don't learn how it is we should engage with and what it is we should herald to people from the bible itself and those inspired therein, then what exactly do we imagine we're accomplishing? Yes, the inspired apostles who were full of holy spirit talked about Jesus and identified him in a certain unnebulous way. A way that modern day traditionalists go far beyond. Not only do trinitarians today require those to whom they witness to accept something that is diametrically opposed to the requirements Jesus and the apostles established, they insistently and prominently do so.
I remember an online trinitarian apologist telling me once that the reason he doesn't lead with the trinity when witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses and others is because he regards how the apostles in Acts preached and what it is they would proclaim to make disciples. I'm assuming that since they never once told anyone that believing God is a triune essence is sensible, much less an express necessity for salvation, that he wouldn't be unequivocally comfortable doing so either. That's admirable, and I hope he still adheres to that principle. I just have to wonder how the apostles could've been so quiet about something they supposedly embraced if it is necessary to believe it first and foremost if one could ever hope to be saved? Especially since their whole message was about the Kingdom and how to get there, yes, how to be saved? The only way their silence on the matter would be remotely understandable or plausible is if they didn't even believe it at all! If we take sincere note of their way of preaching, then we will be equipped to adopt the proper mindset, vocabulary, and doctrines pleasing to God and beneficial to those we encounter and want to help. Why can't Christians sincerely heed these revelations and run with them instead of with something else entirely, something quite inherently self-contradictory and especially pleading? Examine:
Acts 2:22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
When Peter addresses a crowd, he identifies Jesus as "Godman, the second person of a triune homoouisios." Just kidding! He called Jesus a "man" who God worked miraculously though, who was crucified by lawless men and raised by God! Do you presume Peter or his audience thought Jesus was a person in the same essence as the God who empowered, inhabited, and raised him from the dead? If so, howso? Do you think they thought that the One God who worked through and resurrected our precious Messiah is the same God of Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 83:18, alone? If not, then why not? Nothing else would be sensible! If so, then how can you be a trinitarian?
He goes on to say that Jesus was exalted to God's right hand and received from his father the holy spirit, and that "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." (verses 32-36)
So Peter said that the first person of the blessed trinity made the second person of the same essence Lord, as an ontological right, even though he was already and automatically. Just kidding! He rather said that God (who everyone listening knew very well was the one and only God) made Messiah Lord! So he's a "made" Lord. No one had to make God Lord! Examine:
Acts 3:13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus
If "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" is a triune substance, then how could he have glorified his servant Jesus since Jesus is supposedly a member of that same God and also not a servant of the trinity? Is "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" the father, son, and holy spirit as one essence here, glorifying his servant Jesus? If not, then why are you a trinitarian? Peter said:
Acts 4:10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.
I'm fearlessly employing logic here to assume that the audience would understand that Peter knew Jesus was the foreknown Messiah made flesh, killed, and resurrected by the One and only God. No one would know from this that Jesus is a member of the substance of the One who raised and blessed him, who made him Lord. Such a theory is never proposed, much less solidified, anywhere in all of the bible's massive number of pages! Even further, examine:
Acts 4:24 they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel
and verse 30:
"You stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus"
No one could have possibly gathered from these clear revelations that Jesus was the Sovereign Lord who made heaven and earth! He is quite explicitly distinguished from the creator God as a separate being, as a "holy servant" of that One. He was and is the anointed Messiah of the One God, as opposed to actually being the One God, in addition, somehow. No one speaking or listening could have explicably been trinitarian. This isn't the way thoroughly schooled and regretless trinitarians speak or think, generally, okay ever, or remotely. Peter, John, and listeners couldn't have possibly thought God was anointed by God. Or that the Only True God served and worshipped yet another person identifiable as the Only True God. Jesus is always distinguished from the creator God of Deuteronomy 6:4, and never said to be in the inexplicable supposed triune essence of that One. Peter further said:
Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
Who is the God of our fathers? Does it sound like Peter thought he was Jesus? Or does it sound like Peter thought he was the God of Jesus? Do you assume Peter was simultaneously harboring some dogma that Jesus was additionally the God of our fathers, along with his own God and father? Could this really make sense to you in the least? And how many Gods of our fathers would that entail already? No one listening could have fathomably presumed the one exalted of and resurrected by God is likewise an additional person in the essence of God who is supposed to be One. Not only because this isn't ever stated in any capacity, but also because God cannot die or get exalted to be Lord by someone he calls greater and who he himself worships profusely, nor can a nature as if it were actually a person. The God of our fathers is the God of Jesus! Alone, if you're monotheist. Also alone if you're reasonable and responsible when handling and assessing holy texts and simple revelations such as these.
Acts 5:42 every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
Did the apostles teach and preach that Jesus is God or that he is the Christ of God? Are you willing to stick with what they taught and emulate their inspired untainted example, or must you make a wrong turn, drive a million miles, make another wrong turn, and arrive somewhere far removed?
Examine:
Acts 7:37 Moses said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’
Non-trinitarian Moses said what? That the One God will raise up a prophet who's one of three members of his multipersonal homoousios? Goodness gracious, of course not. Jesus was the greater Moses, as opposed to the God who is inimitably heralded in Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 83:18, who is the father alone. The difference in identities is easily detectable my friends. One is God. The other serves and worships God and is exalted by God, etc. Which by any reasonable standard would prove he isn't the Most High God. When this passage was proclaimed, were listeners to presume the greater Moses was the One God or a member of his substance? If the apostles thought so, why did they speak just like I, a biblical unitarian would, instead of how a trinitarian would? Are we not allowed to get our dogmas from them instead of those heavily influenced by Greek philosophies centuries later? Should those who speak like the apostles in Acts instead of how Athanasius spoke about Christ's identity be anathematized and placed in the center of the hottest and wormiest spot in hell? People like me teach explicitly and faithfully the same doctrines about Christ that the apostles taught in Acts, in the identical fashion. Yet we're abominations unto the Lord and heretics headed for eternal damnation according to many trinitarians. Yessirree, makes sense. Unless we'd be willing to add a whole lot of philosophical nebulous jargon to the simple biblical revelations and conform to new Nicea light. According to the trinitarians, the revelations of the inspired apostles in Acts were not complete or of themselves altogether satisfactory. Michael Servetus, when he said Jesus was the Christ and Son of the Most High God like the inspired apostles and Jesus himself did, was tortured and killed for it because trinitarian new light wasn't an addition he was willing to adopt to reform such statements! Good grief. Lord help.
Further into Acts, in chapter 7 verses 48-52, the Most High God whose "hand made all things" is clearly distinguished from the Righteous One who was murdered, so apparently Jesus isn't the Genesis creator. His God who sent and fathered him is. Was God murdered? According to trinitarians, yes or no, depending on which one you ask. According to the studied ones, the God person of Jesus survived Jesus's murder, but the human nature died for our sins. So basically a nature and flesh capsule/body with no soul, instead of an actual person, is supposed to be our savior, which sounds truly preposterous and decidedly unbiblical. Maybe I'm just deceived, but I think the person of Jesus died for our sins. God cannot die, and a nature cannot save.
Acts 7:56 he (Stephen) said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
What Stephen didn't say is "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and Godman, God the Son, standing at the right hand of God's first person." Yet this is what a trinitarian, in order to continually uphold their dogma where peculiar special pleading is necessary across the board, has to imagine is somehow there or should be there. We shouldn't hold with tight fists any sort of belief that might inspire us to not take what Stephen said at it's stated value.
Acts 8:5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.
And verse 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
Did Philip proclaim the "trinity" or the "Christ"? "Godman" or "the man Jesus Christ?" I'm not suggesting that traditionalists don't proclaim Christ. It's just that they think some additional philosophies and a trinity are also essential whereas the apostles didn't even know about any of it or surely they would've said something somewhere, anywhere. Did the news about Jesus they proclaimed have anything to do with Jesus being a person of the triune essence of God? If not, why does yours?
Acts 9:20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This I readily herald and embrace wholeheartedly, yet "H" for heretic is my scarlet letter, y'all. Could've even been my torturous murder were I born sooner.
When Jesus asked Simon Peter who he was, Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)
Dan Mages in his debate opening statement against trinitarian Ed Enochs said:
"The answer which was so powerful that it needed to be kept a secret, so incredible that it would've caused people to gasp then gulp, and so inflammatory that it had the potential to lead to a mass uprising, was that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
"It was such a grandiose, jawdropping, bold affirmation that when Peter said these words, he was told by Jesus that it must have been a revelation from God."
I for one know that a revelation from God is inevitably far more trustworthy and conceivable than a revelation from Constantine or Plato or Athanasius or Grandpa that goes so far beyond it that minds get inevitably blown.
Acts 10:38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
Trinitarians often say Jesus was able to go about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil because he was God, that he was only able to precisely for that reason. Wrong! He could because God was "with him", "anointing him with holy spirit and power." Scriptural language and concepts are preferable, always. When crowds witnessed Jesus's miracles, they "were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men." (Matthew 9:8) They didn't glorify God for becoming a man or giving authority to a coequal Godman, but rather for empowering a unique and special human Messiah, who no one at the time suspected was God himself in addition to and consubstantial with the one who gifted and lived within him by spirit. They knew the One who'd given him all he had and empowered him to do all that he did was the God of Deuteronomy 6:4, all alone, commonsensically.
Acts 10:39 They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
God didn't become the man who was put to death and who was resurrected by someone he worships. God didn't become the man who who is appointed by God to judge. God didn't enter a womb to get born. His spirit overpowered one to create a flawless perfect sinless human Son, who was destined to be heir and king of the whole world. God is not a man, nor perishable, nor does he have to be appointed to judge! He alone is inherently immortal and judges without having to be afforded the power or duty by someone greater who caused his birth and had to awake him from death. We know dying is one thing God simply cannot do, and a nature that God supposedly took on is not ever said to be our savior, nor could it logically be! Your salvation is on thin ice if it's contingent upon a personless nature instead of Messiah's person.
Acts 13:22 he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ 23 Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.
Does it sound like the God of the Old Testament, the One God of David, would be David's offspring? Additionally, how could Christ have been if he wasn't even a man in person but only in "nature"? He couldn't have been! You can't be the seed of the woman or from the genealogy of a man if you are the person of God with only the nature of a man! There would be no truth to the title human being! Christ would have had to be born a human being, as opposed to a Godman, in order for God's intentions and prophecies to feasibly come to fruition. Truth or tradition? Like the first Adam, Jesus was a direct creation by the very spirit of God, yes, but that didn't mean he was God himself. God's sons cannot be God like man's sons are men, no matter how favored or unique or holy. Doesn't work that way. He was a man with God's spirit as opposed God with man's nature.
Acts 13:28 though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 30 But God raised him from the dead 34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
35 Therefore he says also in another psalm,
“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
If the Holy One wasn't in the grave, how could it have been possible for corruption to even have a chance of occurring? God wouldn't talk to a body alone with no person in it and call it "Holy One", now would he? Would that make sense? If the "Holy One" never stopped breathing and only watched his own body die and get buried, then how could he have even had a chance to see corruption in a grave? In other words, the ludicrous trinitarian proposition that the person of Messiah never stopped breathing and never got buried is proven indubitably as false as granny's teeth. Yes, the "Holy One," who was a person mind you, was buried and stopped breathing. God cannot do that! I cannot believe that anyone would have the nerve to believe the following, which would have to be insinuated, or rather readily embraced, to uphold the trinity's preposterous nuances:
"The nature that the Holy One took on will not see corruption while the actual Holy One still breathes and hence was never ever buried or asleep in a grave, granting the chance to see corruption."
Unbelievable. Furthermore, it says that God raised "him" from the dead, the implication of which would require that Christ's ego and personhood actually perish so that we might live. If it was only a body or nature perishing, the use of personal pronouns like "him", as in raising "him" from the dead, would be rendered senseless. There would be no "him" to raise! A nature or body alone does not a true human being make! There has to be a center of consciousness for sleep (metaphorically) to occur! Isn't that how death's decribed? Did Christ not die?
Acts 14:8 Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well 10 said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking.
Trinitarians will often times claim that they know Jesus is God because only God can perform the kinds of miracles Jesus did. Yet here we have Paul commanding a man crippled from birth to stand upright. The man "sprang up and began walking", proving that God, by his spirit, can perform miracles through the agency of whomever he so desires.
Acts 14:11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”
Funny it should say this. Can you guess what I'm thinking? I'm not even going to say anything.
Acts 16:6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Notice here that the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of Jesus." This would only make sense if it's the spirit of a Holy God that he shares with his beloved Son immeasurably, hence making it Christ's as well. It's apparently something they both own (although one of them is gifted it while the other doesn't have to be), that they can measure out to believers.
Acts 16:29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.
According to many traditionalists, you have to believe in the trinity to be saved. That's immensely different from what Paul and Silas said! Do you imagine that the word of the Lord that was essential to believe in order to be saved that Paul and Silas spoke about anywhere involved a supposed essence composed of three people? Which is a "what", not a "who." No one in scripture ever spoke that way, so there's no need for us to either. Pretty simple. The scriptures you think prove the trinity apparently weren't understood the same way by the actual writers, Jesus, or any of the apostles, or they would've articulated and fearlessly proclaimed what their supposed building blocks would ultimately produce according to the trinitarian misuse. Not only do they not proclaim it, they don't ever have to explain it, which would have been integral. It would have been so controversial and confounding that the absence of controversy and questions about it speaks volumes against it's validity! And I mean volumes, mister. Or miss.
Acts 17:1 they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Once again, the Jesus Paul proclaimed to listeners wasn't the creator God, but simply rather "the Christ." Who died, mind you. Which God cannot do, so there's no conceivable way anyone being taught about Jesus actually perishing would've imagined he was God! Nor would they have fathomed that a human nature that God took on could be savior. They knew that an actual person died for them. A human being, as opposed to a human nature.
Acts 17:5 But the Jews were jealous 6 “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8 And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.
Trinitarians like to assume that everyone was disturbed by Jesus because of his self identification as God, supposedly. No, not at all. They were perturbed and vexed because he was claiming to be Messiah and king of the world! They didn't want their authority usurped or their loftiness humbled by anyone greater! This continued here even in Acts, after Jesus had been exalted far above them, literally. Many still did not like the fact that he was the ultimate heir and King of the World. They were jealous and spiteful. In the Old Testament, God had no qualms or timidity about proclaiming that he was the Sovereign creator Lord of the universe, unequalled and unmatched in glory, splendor, and majesty. Jesus only ever claimed that same God of the Old Testament gifted him his every blessing and exceeded him in greatness. God the father declared that he was God, explicitly and with no holds barred, ubiquitously and in a number of self-exalting ways throughout the Old Testament. It would be very strange if Jesus was coequal and consubstantial yet failed to maintain this kind of unashamedness about and pride in his supposed identity! He refuted the identity trinitarians try to heap upon him on a number of occasions as clearly as it was possible to do, yet his declarations are falsifiable to the trinitarian mind that blames them all on a supposed humiliation instead of recognizing them as a simple identification. Jesus's truth essentially becomes just something to qualify to it's very death for them.
Acts 17:10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
The Bereans are called noble for examining the scriptures every single day to see if what they were being taught was accurate. Hopefully, that's what we're likewise doing. Unhesitatingly and fearlessly question and examine your traditions through an inspired lens. Instead of questioning and examining the inspired scriptures through your tradition's lens, forcing it (knowingly or not) to conform.
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
Acts 17:22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’9 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but know he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul here plainly contrasted the God "who made the world and everything in it" from both the Athenian's "unknown god" and also from "the man he has appointed to judge the world in righteousness," who he "raised from the dead." So yet again we have the creator God being sharply and unequivocally distinguished from and contrasted with the man Messiah Jesus! So if Jesus's God who gifted and raised him isn't the same God you worship, alone and without additions, then you, in some way similar to the Athenians, have an "unknown God." The triune God was unknown to Paul and Jesus and anyone in scripture who heeded their revelations! Your God, in some way like the Athenian's, was "formed by the art and imagination of man." In uninspired councils replete with intimidating threats, forceful admonitions, and Platonic philosophies and imaginings corrupting the simplicity of biblical revelations and the very words of our greatest truth teller, Yeshua HaMashiach. God and Jesus are both worship worthy, but not because they're coequal and consubstantial members of the same God essence! Because One is God and the other obeyed and loved God, and was hence exalted and made Lord of all by the one and only True God, his own God and father. Trinitarians hopelessly try to remove God's very privileges to make others worthy of worship if he so desires. Essentially telling him "No God, you cannot."
Acts 18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jew made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13 saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. 15 But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.”
Back when unitarian supposed heretics were being threatened, banished, tortured, and even slaughtered for their assumed travesties, Paul would have been accused and judged worthy of such severe and ridiculous unjustifiable punishments himself because he was a biblical unitarian! Similar to the above texts, it would have been for "a matter of questions about words and names and your own law" and not for any "wrongdoing or vicious crime." Much like the blind and corrupt Jews of New Testament times, Pharisaic trinitarians have played judge, jury, prosecutor, and executioner against truth seeking and telling Christians for not conforming to their own traditions and ideas, yes, even going so far as to stamp out the very flames of life of dissenters.
Acts 18:24: Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.
And verse 28:
28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
So here we have a well versed and eloquent man, competent and schooled on scripture, who preached the true and irrefutable identity of Jesus to the Jews as the Christ. Like all the others in the book of Acts, he never taught Jesus was the second person of a triune God, rendering that notion highly refutable and blatantly inexplicable. I'm rightfully highly skeptical of new light from both the Watchtower and also modern day Christianity, both of which might desire to add to such revelations their own fairly newfound philosophies. The fact that both have to forcefully push their new ideas to those who harbor and expound sensible objections and sincere inquiries is evidence of their fragililty and dubiousness.
Acts 19:11 God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
If it said "Jesus" instead of "Paul" in these scriptures, trinitarians would use them as proof texts that he was and is God. Rampant intellectual dishonesty would doubtlessly get employed, as it does elsewhere.
Paul to the Ephesian elders:
Acts 20:20 I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Distinguishing Jesus (yet again) succintly as a separate being from the One God, who was Jesus's own God, was the witnessing protocol of Paul. If unabashed profession of a trinity was, then we might have a gold mine for Nicean creed adherents. Then again, if that was ever Paul's profession, the cementing of trinitarian philosophies at the Council of Nicea would have been automatically rendered totally needless. Paul said in verse 27 that he "did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." If the belief that God is three people is a doubtless requirement for salvation and God's favor, he surely did "shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God." Houston, we have a problem.
"But what about Acts 20:28?!" I can hear a number of trinitarians protest in inquiry.
The Darby Bible Translation says:
"Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own."
Why would they translate it this way instead of how others do when they say something like "the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood?"
The biblicalunitarian website notes:
"Both the American Bible Society and the Institute For New Testament Research in Germany (which produces the Nestle-Aland Greek text) agree that the manuscript evidence supports the reading tou haimatios tou idiou, literally, the blood of His own (Son), and not idiou haimatios, “his own blood.” God paid for our salvation with the blood of His own Son, Jesus Christ."
Even the trinitarian bias NIV study bible states in a footnote:
“his own blood. Lit. ‘the blood of his own one,’ a term of endearment (such as ‘his own dear one’) referring to His own Son.”
This immediately reminds me of a quote from Ray Franz:
"So many points could be clarified if people were simply to read the same text in a variety of translations. They would then at least see that where translation is concerned, dogmatism is greater evidence of ignorance than of learning. I find this to be the case with many who adopt the Trinity doctrine."
I know a lot of traditionalists will get peeved that I've isolated the book of Acts establishing doctrines from it, but every single proclamation in Acts is harmonious with the simple and beautiful revelations about Christ's identity throughout all of scripture. How can the apostles in Acts be accurate about God and Christ if the trinity is true? Their sentiments aren't remotely reconcilable or congruent with a trinitarian's without some startling qualifications, implausible additions, and seriously unwarranted inferences murdering their clarity and straightforwardness. It's intensely obvious they never conflated the God of Jesus, in addition to Jesus himself, into one God essence, along with yet another. They apparently thought the father alone was the Most High God while a certain gifted heir served him as His Christ and Son, and that was frankly enough for them. I'm still in shock that this isn't good enough for many proclaimed Christians. That so many philosophies are misused to corrupt and impose extravagant ideas upon such elementary revelations. If the apostles in Acts were alive when so called unitarian heretics were being slaughtered, they would've died for the same cause called the truth. They would have proclaimed the same thing Simon Peter did in Matthew 16:16, and it wouldn't have been satisfactory or complete enough a revelation to keep them breathing any longer. This is astounding. The non-trinitarian apostles in Acts were the heroes, not the ones who sought to anathematize or harm them!
Mr. Trinitarian, shouldn't the simplicity and beauty in what the apostles preached about Jesus in Acts make you question your interpretation of certain texts that give you cause to reform and qualify their words profusely? Instead of making you question people like me who can simply call the sentiments they heralded my creeds because I don't interpret any passage in a way that would provide me pause to speak like they spoke about Jesus?
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