I just ran across a 2016 article by the Prosperity Gospelteer and buddy of Benny Hinn and Sid Roth. He’s the guy, you may recall, who went to heaven, talked to God face to face, and chatted with Isaiah.
His prophetic headline is, “REVIVAL COMING TO THE [sic] CUBA.”
Two broad comments:
First, this is a textbook example of what is technically known as Vaticinium ex eventu; when someone supposedly predicts the future, but only after the event has taken place. For example, there are plenty of people who claim to have foreseen 9/11, but amusingly enough, did not let anyone know about their prediction until after the date!
Anyone who knows anything about Cuba, knows it has already been undergoing revival for decades. In fact, you could probably argue that, pound for pound, it is the hottest revival anywhere on the planet today.
So, uttering a prophecy in 2016 that revival will come to Cuba is about as amazing as announcing in 2016 that man will one day walk on the moon or that every home will have its own computer.
Just picking a random sampling, I found that Vera did the same thing in 2017, announcing that there will be wildfires in California. You know, years after the long summers of California wildfires.
Second – the scarier thing about his announcement is the implication that he and others like him ought to go to Cuba. Ironically, one of the reasons I and my colleagues and friends go and teach the Bible in Cuba is, precisely, to help prepare them to reject the false gospel of people just like Rich Vera. People who turn the gospel of eternal redemption into a vending machine: pop your silver and gold into the slot (= call a TV preacher with your credit card number) and God will give you – owe you, in fact – some very nice merchandise. My Cuban friends tell me that these guys are already landing in Cuba to peddle their wares; it’s now a race against the clock.
So while Vera says he ought to go there because these others have, I would place Vera last. Yes, even after the Stones.
The Fundamental Premise of the Prosperity Gospel
Let’s pray for Cubans to continue to thrive, and to resist the pestilence that has swept around the rest of Latin America.
“Rich Vera Prophesies about Cuba!,” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica
The ‘Ultracharismatics’ of Corinth and the Pentecostals of Latin America as the Religion of the Disaffected
Originally published as: “The ‘Ultracharismatics’ of Corinth and the Pentecostals of Latin America as the religion of the disaffected.” Tyndale Bulletin 56.2 (2005): 91-110. This is a detailed exegetical study, more technical than most of what I post on this blog.
To download the article as a pdf, click here Ultracharismatics in Corinth and in Latin America. La versión en español AQUI.
Summary
This paper arises from research on 1 Corinthians within a Latin American milieu. It shows the value of studying God’s word from non-First World perspectives, particularly with regard to the themes of societal status and the charismata in the first century church. The majority opinion is that 1 Corinthians was written to correct a ‘pneumatic enthusiasm’, with such diverse components as the denial of the resurrection, egalitarianism and triumphalism. It would follow that the teaching about the charismata in chapters 12–14 is directed against that same outlook. We will argue that the majority of the letter is addressed to Christians who dabbled in philosophy as a sign of their upward mobility. But then, using sociological insights from Roman Corinth and from the contemporary Latin American church, we will propose that chapters 12–14 speak to the marginalized of the church. They had turned to the showier charismata as a means of creating an identity for themselves in a church where the elitists received all the attention…as well as invitations to the table of other rich Christians. Thus while the bulk of the letter is a harsh rebuke to the arrogant elitists, chapters 12–14 are directed to the marginalized ultracharismatics, showing them that all of God’s gifts must be used in the loving service of the body.
1. Introduction: 1 Corinthians 12-14 in the scope of the letter
In 12:1 Paul responds to a written question regarding the gifts of the Spirit.[1] The main issue was that some were ignoring apostolic custom, which the apostle reaffirms in chapter 14. For want of a better label, we will refer to them as ‘ultracharismatics’. Given Paul’s response, we will argue further down that tongues were causing some – whether it was their intention or no – to withdraw inwardly from the group dynamic of the assembly. What is more readily obvious from the text is that their noise and unintelligibility tended to overwhelm those who wanted to unite the group with teaching, song, or prophetic revelation (14:26). John Hurd is not quite on the mark, therefore, that chapters 12-14 are ‘one long attack upon the notion that speaking in tongues was the single or the best manifestation of the Spirit at work in the Church’.[2] This may have been the specific issue in the letter from Corinth, but Paul’s larger criticism has to do with using any charism without due care to the church’s need for corporate edification (more…)
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on April 13, 2018 at 9:08 am Leave a CommentTags: Biblia, corinto, cristiano, evangelico