When I was a young pastor in Chicago, I needed a family doctor. So asked around.

A friend recommended his doc — a University of Chicago Medical School MD. Excellent credentials. He also followed natural medicine. Good combination. I made the appointment.

He turned out to be an excellent physician. I trusted him.

Then my friend told me about something else.

One day my friend was on the exam table, and the doctor wanted to check him for mineral deficiencies.

He had a cabinet with about twenty vials — each one containing a different mineral. Copper. Magnesium. Potassium. Iron.

He had my friend lie down on the exam table. Then the doctor took the vial of copper and passed it slowly over my friend's body.

He said he was checking the vibrational field of the copper against the vibrational field of my friend's aura.

That was his diagnostic technique. He worked through all the vials.

On my next visit, I noticed reading material in the lobby from an organization called the Theosophical Institute.

I had driven past their headquarters in the western suburbs. An imposing facility. Victorian. Gigantic. An eerie looking Gothic building makes you slow down when you drive by and wonder what goes on inside.

I did some research on Theosophy. The lights came on. I changed doctors.

That doctor was not a fool. He was a University of Chicago MD. He had credentials. But he was operating inside a complete worldview — a sophisticated, organized, ancient system of religious thought that has been infiltrating Western culture for centuries.

Today I want to show you where that system comes from. And what Paul said is behind it.

Welcome to Pathway and to our summer series of talks.

The series is called: What's the Difference?

This is a tour of the major belief systems of the world with one question running through every talk: What does Jesus do that nothing else can do?

Today's topic is Mystery Religions.

The mystery religions were a collection of secret initiation cults that flourished across Greece and Rome during the centuries surrounding the birth of Jesus. Each one promised hidden knowledge, an experience of God, and a guaranteed path to a better afterlife — through ritual, secrecy, initiation fees, and ecstasy.

Here is a beginning list:
1. The Eleusinian Mysteries
2. The Dionysian Mysteries
3. The Orphic Mysteries
4. Mithraism
5. The Isis and Osiris Cult
6. The Cybele and Attis Cult
7. The Sabazios Cult
8. The Samothracian Mysteries
9. Hermeticism
10. Gnosticism
11. The Adonis Mysteries
12. The Pythagorean Mysteries

Each one offered salvation in a competitive marketplace of ideas.

Each one aimed at the exact same longings the human heart carries today. Before I show you what Paul said about them — you need to know what these mystery religions actually looked like.

THE DIONYSIAN MYSTERIES
Dionysius was the god of wine, ecstasy, and divine madness. His female devotees were called maenads — the raving ones. In the spring they left their homes and went into the mountains. They drank wine to excess. They danced to drums and cymbals until they lost themselves entirely.

That was the point. The religious goal was ekstasis — standing outside yourself — so that the god could come in.

In that state, they performed a rite called sparagmos — tearing a living animal apart with their bare hands — and then omophagia — eating the raw flesh. By consuming the raw life force of the animal, you were consuming its divine spark.

In 186 BC the Roman Senate launched an investigation into the Dionysian cults. What they found horrified them: secrecy, sexual chaos, violence, accusations of human sacrifice. They outlawed the cult. It kept growing anyway.

THE CYBELE AND ATTIS CULT
Cybele was the Great Mother — the Phrygian goddess whose cult swept across Rome. Her priests were called the Galli. On the annual Day of Blood — March 24 — they worked themselves into a frenzy through drums and instruments.

In that frenzied state, some castrated themselves as an act of devotion. New initiates slashed their arms. Blood ran freely.

For the lay initiate, the central rite was the taurobolium.

The initiate descended into a pit. A bull was killed on a platform above them. Its blood rained down through the gaps — onto the people below, who stood there, drunk, high, frenzied, and drenched in blood.

Carved into the stone near the pit were the words: renatus in aeternum. Reborn for eternity. Under the blood of a bull.

The ancient world knew something modern people try to forget. Sin demands blood. Guilt demands cleansing. Death demands an answer.
They were trusting the wrong blood in the wrong way.

MITHRAISM
Then there was Mithraism — one of the most important mystery religions in the Roman world. It was especially popular among soldiers and merchants.

More than four hundred Mithraic temples have been discovered across the Roman world — from Britain to Syria, from Germany to North Africa. Paul's world was saturated with it.

The Mithraic temple was always underground, dark and small.

Long benches ran along the walls for the sacred meal.

At the far end of each was the central image: Mithras slaying the bull. His blood flowing downward. Life coming from death.

Mithraism had seven grades of initiation — each connected to one of the seven planetary powers.

Ancient people believed those seven planets were spheres of spiritual power, not merely objects in the sky. When a person died, the soul had to ascend through all seven.

But each sphere had a gatekeeper requiring the correct secret password to pass through. Only initiates learned the passwords.

MY COLLEGE STORY
In my second year of college at the University of Illinois, I took a course in Greek & Roman Civilization. For the entire semester, the professor kept hammering the same claim: Christianity was basically a repackaging of Mithraism.

Jesus was Mithras with new branding.

The Lord's Supper was copied from the Mithraic meal.
The resurrection was just another ancient death-and-rebirth myth.

I was a Christian. I was twenty years old. And I did not yet have all the answers. Now I do.

Christianity is not a repackaging of Mithraism. Christianity is the public execution of Mithraism's entire religious system.

Mithraism says salvation is hidden. The Gospel says salvation has appeared.

Mithraism says you climb through the planetary powers. The Gospel says Christ disarmed the powers at the cross.

Mithraism says you need passwords after death. The Gospel says whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Mithraism says you need the blood of the bull. The Gospel says: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

That professor thought Mithraism explained Christianity. He had it exactly backwards. Mithraism offers a prison. Christ offers the rescue.

 

We are just scratching the surface. Into this mess came St Paul, the missionary for Jesus.

PAUL'S ASSESSMENT
"Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles [stoicheia] of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8)

I want to underline the term: the basic principles of the world. The Greek word is stoicheia.

Paul uses stoicheia several times.
Galatians 4:3 — "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements [stoicheia] of the world."
Galatians 4:9 — "how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements [stoicheia], to which you desire again to be in bondage?"

Clinton Arnold is a New Testament professor at Biola who spent years reading Paul alongside the Greek Magical Papyri — actual magical and religious texts from the world Paul's churches inhabited.

His conclusion: when Paul writes stoicheia, his readers understood the cosmic powers behind the stars, behind the elements, behind the religious systems that organized their lives.

Stoicheia were the powers behind the mystery religions, which for the early church meant demons.

Stoicheia = Demons

Paul's readers were not hearing an abstract philosophical category. They were hearing the names of beings they had once feared, paid, and obeyed.

And then Paul gives his verdict on those beings.
"The weak and beggarly elements." (Galatians 4:9)

Feeble. Bankrupt.

The beings behind the maenads, the Galli, the initiate in the pit, the Mithraic grades and passwords were demonic.

They cannot save. They cannot cleanse. They cannot forgive sin or raise the dead. They cannot give what they advertise.

But they are not myths. They are real. And they do not die.

The mystery religions did not die. They changed their vocabulary for the modern world.

 

[Pastor Bill's Resource Pack for this Sermon]