BIG BUSINESS
Religion is big business. There is hardly an aspect of religion (speaking here of Judaism and Christianity) that exists without at least an element of business. From the smallest ministries to large mega churches, all exist and function through the exchange of money and/or services in lieu of money.

We do not need to look far to find an example of someone selling or buying some kind of service or product related to religion. All religious people, both buyers and sellers of religious services or products, participate in commercial religious transactions and wear the mark of the beast.

No one doubts or questions that the exchange of money for religious services and products is legitimate. If anyone bothered to think about it, the thinking would go something like this:

The answer to “why we should care?” is that religious business is not OK because the practice of mixing business and religion (speaking specifically of Judaism and Christianity) is not Biblical. When we say it is not Biblical, we mean that the mixing of business into the theology and traditions of Judaism and Christianity is only a feature of the Old/First Covenant and not a feature of the New Covenant.

We can’t be sure, but we suspect, that people on the outside of these very visible religions are able to see and know that there is something not quite right about mixing business and religion. Outsiders don’t know why it is not right, they just know that it isn’t. It is another example of outsiders being able to identify hypocrisy when insiders cannot.

Perhaps the reason outsiders know what the insiders don’t know is that they have not been indoctrinated in the errant theologies (whatever they might be) and traditions (there are many that have been around for hundreds and thousands of years) that characterize Judaism and Christianity. Thus the outsiders are not limited by the strongholds of wrong thinking that prevent insiders from knowing the truth about business in religion and other errant theologies and traditions.

Jews and Christians, on the other hand, are handicapped by traditions regarding business in religion. That leaves us with the formidable task of educating believers about a concept for which they do not know they need to be educated. Worse yet, most do not want to be educated because they are very content with the religion they know and love. Who cares if it is not perfectly Biblical  if it seems right and works good enough? Besides, our religious ancestors have been doing it for years without interference by God, so he must be OK with it. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” they might say. The reality is, however, that both these religions are broke in many ways but they don’t know and don’t care that their religions are broke.

Business in religion has a longstanding history of acceptability and legitimacy that will resist any arguments that it is not Biblical. Therefore, the whole of Judaism and Christianity will be opposed to the evidence and arguments we present in these pages. As  stakeholders in the status quo, they will strongly resist any efforts by anyone who would presume to challenge the educated doctrines and longstanding traditions of their respective faiths. Even those who have nothing to lose (i.e. they are not direct beneficiaries of religious business) will find the evidence and arguments presented in these pages hard to accept because business is so entrenched in religious life.

The series of pages about commercial religion listed at the top of this page will especially challenge Jewish and Gentile religionists who believe that they have a calling to be in ministry. Ignoring that God said his people will be a nation of priests, they wrongly represent that they are priests of a higher order who are qualified to receive tithes and offerings from lesser priests who effectively support them with their labor.

Both the elite priests (i.e. clergy) and common priests (i.e. laity) believe that this system is ordained by God because it is the system that they infer from their literal readings of the Old Testament. And indeed this is the religious system that must be practiced by Old/First Covenant religionists. It is not, however, the better, preferred system that God wants for New Covenant disciples.

In this Old/First Covenant religious system, there is an oppressive slave and master kind of relationship between the clergy and laity that violates God’s sense of justice. That is why he sent, and continues to send, his true prophets to engage in warfare designed to destroy religious systems and all of their physical features in fulfillment of his goal which is to replacing the religious world system with his spiritual kingdom.