False teachers

[tango]

What is right is the spirit, the true spirit and God word. Problem is that what you describe is in the physical and the physical cannot deal with spiritual, only spiritual can deal with spiritual so what now? If you can touch it and feel it and see it then faith doesnt even enter into the eqution and without faith you will never understand spiritual.

This is all well and good but how does it relate to how we are to test what we are being taught? We need to see if it aligns with Scripture. Very much a physical, rational process in so many ways.

Yes, we are to judge by the Word but also by thye spirit. Prophets that are false will not wirtness with your spirit

"witness with your spirit" is a meaningless test. What happens when something presented as a "prophecy" results in one person saying it "witnesses with their spirit" while another says it's generic platitudes and vague twaddle? It either is prophetic or it isn't.

and there will not be a second witness either so problem solved

Problem not solved at all. What happens when a site like the Elijah List publishes a daily "prophetic word" that many cling to as if it were life itself and many others write off as garbage? There are plenty of "witnesses" on both sides there. So is it prophetic or not?

rather than trying to make things complicated.

It's not about trying to make things complicated, it's about trying to find what is true.

God is not the author of confusion so what does that tell you?

Are you trying to make a particular point there? God told us to test all things, did he not? Paul praised the Bereans for studying Scripture to see whether his teachings were true. Where in the Bible was anyone praised for waving around terms like "it resonates with my spirit"? Did not Jeremiah write "the heart is deceitful above all"? Where does that leave us, if we are trying to just blindly follow our hearts?

 

[Hammster]

What is right is the spirit, the true spirit and God word. Problem is that what you describe is in the physical and the physical cannot deal with spiritual, only spiritual can deal with spiritual so what now? If you can touch it and feel it and see it then faith doesnt even enter into the eqution and without faith you will never understand spiritual. Yes, we are to judge by the Word but also by thye spirit. Prophets that are false will not wirtness with your spirit and there will not be a second witness either so problem solved rather than trying to make things complicated. God is not the author of confusion so what does that tell you?

Copeland is a false teacher. You affirm that he's not.

There goes your theory.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

 

[psalms 91]

Copeland is a false teacher. You affirm that he's not.

There goes your theory.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

Not really, I trust the spirit within me. Enough said as I am truly wasting my breath here.

 

[Hammster]

Not really, I trust the spirit within me. Enough said as I am truly wasting my breath here.

He's demonstrably a false teacher. That said, you should not trust the spirit with in you. It's failing you.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

 

[tango]

Not really, I trust the spirit within me. Enough said as I am truly wasting my breath here.

So how do you know whether the spirit within you is God speaking or your own desires speaking? When the spirit within you says one thing and the spirit within others says the exact opposite, how do you know who is right?

If only there were an objective standard we could fall back on, so we weren't endlessly going round in circles saying "oh yes it is" and "oh no it isn't".

 

[Hammster]

So how do you know whether the spirit within you is God speaking or your own desires speaking? When the spirit within you says one thing and the spirit within others says the exact opposite, how do you know who is right?

If only there were an objective standard we could fall back on, so we weren't endlessly going round in circles saying "oh yes it is" and "oh no it isn't".

I don't mean this to sound as flamey as it will, but those who claim to be more spiritual seem to rely more on their feelings than actual scripture.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

 

[MoreCoffee]

So how do you know whether the spirit within you is God speaking or your own desires speaking? When the spirit within you says one thing and the spirit within others says the exact opposite, how do you know who is right?

If only there were an objective standard we could fall back on, so we weren't endlessly going round in circles saying "oh yes it is" and "oh no it isn't".

I don't mean this to sound as flamey as it will, but those who claim to be more spiritual seem to rely more on their feelings than actual scripture.


Sent from my iPhone using my right thumb.

There is an objective standard in the holy scriptures and in the example and words of the apostles and in the accumulated wisdom of the church. But many reject the wisdom of the church and prefer their own opinions and their own feelings and some reject the words and example of the apostles unless those words and examples are written in holy scripture and a few reject the holy scriptures or if they do not reject them then they insist on their own opinions about what holy scripture "really" means - which is quite close to rejecting the scriptures anyway. That is why there are so many arguments that amount to simple gainsaying, one against the other.

 

[tango]

There is an objective standard in the holy scriptures and in the example and words of the apostles and in the accumulated wisdom of the church.

The Scriptures are an objective standard. The wisdom of the church is certainly worth considering but over the centuries some churches seem to have elevated tradition to the status of theology, which is a bad thing.

But many reject the wisdom of the church and prefer their own opinions and their own feelings and some reject the words and example of the apostles unless those words and examples written in holy scripture and a few reject the holy scriptures or if they do not reject them then they insist on their own opinions about what holy scripture "really" means - which is quite close to rejecting the scriptures anyway. That is why there are so many arguments that amount to simple gainsaying, one against the other.

Yep, which is why my signature says what it does

 

[MoreCoffee]

The Scriptures are an objective standard. The wisdom of the church is certainly worth considering but over the centuries some churches seem to have elevated tradition to the status of theology, which is a bad thing.

Yep, which is why my signature says what it does

"Some people" may have done what the underlined text in the quote says but since there is one church founded by Jesus Christ it cannot be true of the church. Besides Christ Jesus promised to both be with the church always and to send the Spirit to guide the church into all truth. And since the church is called the bride of Christ, spotless and pure, is seems very unlikely indeed that our Lord would fail to fulfil his promises and should the church which is his body ever be overcome by wickedness and error and teach error to the faithful then his promise would have failed because the gates of hell would have overcome the church which is the very thing he promised would not happen.

 

[popsthebuilder]

The trouble is you can't have it both ways. You previously said:



So which is it?

If it is "the spirit within" that is the ultimate judge then in a situation like the one I described (which is a real example I personally encountered, not just something hypothetical) you can't say that it's "the spirit within" that is the ultimate judge. Clearly somebody was wrong - either what was going on was of God or it was not. If it was then my judgment was badly off, if it was not then the judgment of most of a church was badly off. Which was it? You can't say that "the spirit within is the ultimate judge" and then try to wriggle out of it when a situation arises where the spirit within somebody is wrong.

Hence the need to use an objective standard to test when situations like this arise. And if we have an objective standard it makes sense to use it anyway - had I not been present in the situation I described you'd have had a room full of people who thought what they were seeing was good, apparently with no dissent. The lack of dissent doesn't mean what they were seeing was good, it just makes it less likely that anyone would stop to test it. It's possible that my discernment that it was bad was wrong, in which case going back to an objective standard would highlight the fact that I was wrong and they were right.

This isn't about me not understanding you unless it's spelled out, it's about trying to define whether you believe in testing using Scripture or testing using some vague concept of "the spirit within" even though "the spirit within" is demonstrably not a reliable means of testing at all.

Testing with scripture is a good way to find is someone is guided in the right direction, as you may not agree with what is said, but you will be able to understand it. If you keep a somewhat opened mind and have faith that God will show you through Christ, you can't go wrong. Thanks.

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[popsthebuilder]

I am not saying it is the final and only judge. Scripture says at the mouth of two or theree witnesses, the spirit is but one

You will know it is the word of God, firstly because it is through Christ, secondly, you will be able to associate no negativity or selfishness to it in any way. This does not mean that it won't offend some. Thanks, we are All blessed by God through Christ.

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[popsthebuilder]

What is right is the spirit, the true spirit and God word. Problem is that what you describe is in the physical and the physical cannot deal with spiritual, only spiritual can deal with spiritual so what now? If you can touch it and feel it and see it then faith doesnt even enter into the eqution and without faith you will never understand spiritual. Yes, we are to judge by the Word but also by thye spirit. Prophets that are false will not wirtness with your spirit and there will not be a second witness either so problem solved rather than trying to make things complicated. God is not the author of confusion so what does that tell you?

You miss interpret. Faith cannot be explained through the physical plane(science) alone. However, Faith can affect literally anything. Thanks.

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[popsthebuilder]

More Coffee,

One church or body of Christ is the church, but not the building.

Christ is with the body always, and will always guide the Christ head of the faithfull to God.


Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[popsthebuilder]

Thank you

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[MoreCoffee]

More Coffee,

One church or body of Christ is the church, but not the building.

Christ is with the body always, and will always guide the Christ head of the faithfull to God.


Faith in selfless Unity through Good

Aside from the underlined text in the quote above nobody has mentioned buildings as "the church".

 

[tango]

"Some people" may have done what the underlined text in the quote says but since there is one church founded by Jesus Christ it cannot be true of the church. Besides Christ Jesus promised to both be with the church always and to send the Spirit to guide the church into all truth. And since the church is called the bride of Christ, spotless and pure, is seems very unlikely indeed that our Lord would fail to fulfil his promises and should the church which is his body ever be overcome by wickedness and error and teach error to the faithful then his promise would have failed because the gates of hell would have overcome the church which is the very thing he promised would not happen.

There is one church founded by Jesus Christ but since there are so many denominations that disagree on different matters it's clear that most people are wrong on some things. We can hope that our particular denomination isn't wrong on the things that matter, but the fact that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church doesn't mean there can't be false teachers within the church, nor does it mean that the false teachers won't lure people away from truth with their false teachings.

We've been warned to expect false teachers, we've been told how to spot them, so if we are led astray by them we've usually only really got ourselves to blame. Just as the serpent tricked Eve in the garden, so we shouldn't be surprised that the devil will try to trick us today.

 

[tango]

You will know it is the word of God, firstly because it is through Christ, secondly, you will be able to associate no negativity or selfishness to it in any way. This does not mean that it won't offend some. Thanks, we are All blessed by God through Christ.

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

You still need to be careful here because you'd need to define what counts as "negativity". Some teachers today like to make out that prophecy should only ever be positive. Take a look through books like Ezekiel and Jeremiah and you see a very different picture. I don't suppose what Peter had to say to Ananias and Sapphira was considered particularly positive either.

 

[MoreCoffee]

There is one church founded by Jesus Christ but since there are so many denominations that disagree on different matters it's clear that most people are wrong on some things. We can hope that our particular denomination isn't wrong on the things that matter, but the fact that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church doesn't mean there can't be false teachers within the church, nor does it mean that the false teachers won't lure people away from truth with their false teachings.

We've been warned to expect false teachers, we've been told how to spot them, so if we are led astray by them we've usually only really got ourselves to blame. Just as the serpent tricked Eve in the garden, so we shouldn't be surprised that the devil will try to trick us today.

Isn't your post saying the same thing that mine did?

There are false teachers and teachers who say stupid things without necessarily intending to teach error and there are good and bad people in positions of authority within the church but all of that only means that some folk do and say things that are wrong and that's not news to anybody. Nevertheless the church is promised the guidance of the Spirit of God into all truth and we can't simply cast that promise away and claim to be obeying the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no room for picking this and that out of the bible because it looks good and then ignoring or dismissing other parts. So let's follow that advice in your signature and keep the whole bible (in my case all 73 canonical books) and see where they take us.

 

[popsthebuilder]

You still need to be careful here because you'd need to define what counts as "negativity". Some teachers today like to make out that prophecy should only ever be positive. Take a look through books like Ezekiel and Jeremiah and you see a very different picture. I don't suppose what Peter had to say to Ananias and Sapphira was considered particularly positive either.

Prophesies can be seen negatively I suppose. However free will as it pertains to God through Christ will exhibit no negative internal feelings.

Faith in selfless Unity through Good

 

[Josiah]

There is an objective standard in the holy scriptures and in the example and words of the apostles and in the accumulated wisdom of the church.

Agreed. But all that becomes completely IRRELEVANT when an individual (person or church or denomination or cult) declares that SELF (that person, church, denomination, sect, cult) can't be wrong cuz it can't be wrong when it declares that it can't be wrong so it individually and uniquely can't be wrong.... and it itself declares that it itself is UNIQUELY lead and taught by God and it itself individually and uniquely has some guarantee of iin fallibility (in dogma, anyway).

In my Catholic days, our teachers taught us that God in Scripture MUST agree with the individual, current, singular RC Denomination because it itself can't be wrong (in formal dogma, AT LEAST) and since God can't be wrong either, God therefore MUST agree with the RCC to keep from being wrong. And we were taught that the WORDS in Scripture (and the ECF) are pretty irrelevant (just letters), it's what is MEANT rather than printed on the page that matters.... and there is only ONE that knows what is MEANT, and yup, the RCC itself claims that only it itself - uniquely and individually - knows that. AND we were told the real "Scripture" is not found in any book anyway, it's found exclusively in the "heart" of the RCC itself - individually, uniquely, singularly, exclusively. See CCC 85, 87, 113. To ME, these are all big red flags. And document that the RCC does NOT submit to Scripture or the Apostles or the ECF or the church (it BEARLY even submits to it itself exclusively): it just looks in the mirror.... then boasts that the current image of it itself looks a lot like it itself.



- Josiah