This is one of the most interesting articles I have read in a while, so I will post a link to it HERE.
I am particularly tickled that he got, well, got “saved” I think is the appropriate term, by simply reading his Bible.
The so-called Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, Rhema Doctrine, Decreeing, whatever, is vitiating the church in my region, Central America.
Costi Hinn, a survivor of the Prosperity Gospel
2 Cor 3:6 – “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” A verse that is frequently misused and misapplied to mean that we should focus on our feelings as a source of light superior to the Bible (here’s one example). To my surprise, Calvin wrote about this almost 500 years ago – wish he had had the ability to make the error go away!
Those who, rejecting Scripture, imagine that they have some unique way of getting in contact with God, are to be regarded not so much under the influence of error as of madness. For certain giddy men have lately appeared, who, while they make a great display of the superiority of the Spirit, reject all reading of the Scriptures themselves, and deride the simplicity of those who only delight in what they call the dead and deadly letter [alluding to 2 Cor 3:6, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”]. But I wish they would tell me what spirit it is whose inspiration raises them to such a sublime height that they dare despise the doctrine of Scripture as poor and childish. If they answer that it is the Spirit of Christ, their confidence is exceedingly ridiculous; since they will, I presume, have to admit that the apostles and other believers in the primitive Church were not illuminated by any other Spirit.
John Calvin, Institutes I.9.1 Beveridge edition (slightly paraphrased)
In context, Paul speaks in 2 Cor 3 of the letter that kills (the Old Covenant apart from Christ) and the Spirit who gives life (the New Covenant); he is speaking of salvation, not methods for determining God’s will.
“Is the Bible the ‘letter’ that kills us? Not at all!” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica
If someone desires to give the church a certain percentage of their net or gross income, I honor that as their right and privilege. As for me, I promote that all Christians should give generously and cheerfully.
But first, a full disclosure – I believe that tithing was an Old Covenant rite by which about 23% of goods, usually agricultural products, were given to God for the maintenance of the priests, for the poor. I see no comparable requirement for the church, which is supposed to “honor” its leaders (1 Tim 5:17) and make voluntary pledges to special projects (Paul’s Jerusalem Fund). [1]
I have no argument with tithers so long as they have no argument with me. And I’m not speaking here about legalistic tithing or carnal non-tithing.
But in the past few weeks I have found people preaching what must be held up and labeled perversions of the gospel and of the practice of tithing. I’m not even talking about the protection racketeers like Benny Hinn (more…)
Spiritual believers are Christ-centered, but that doesn’t prevent them from speaking about the Spirit!
Why has it become necessary to say this?
It’s because John MacArthur in his Strange Fire opines that all Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians remove Christ from the center of the gospel and replace him with Holy Spirit mania; rather, he finds references to the Spirit’s work to be, well, suspicious. [1] For example:
Charismatics want to put the spotlight on the Holy Spirit – or at least their impersonation of Him. But the Holy Spirit desires to put the spotlight on the true person and work of Jesus Christ. As the Lord told His disciples in the Upper Room, the Spirit would be sent in His name, to remind them of His teachings, and to bear testimony to His work (John 14:26; 15:26).
“…Okay, wait, so then, hah, hah, so then the second guy says to the first one, ἐκεινος οὐκ ἐστιν ὁ κυῶν μου!! Oh, mercy, that one gets me every time!”
In Part 1, I argued in favor of a sharply minimalist use of ancient Hebrew and Greek words during a sermon, especially if there is no compelling purpose or, worse, if the goal is to impress the crowd: it is a pitiable housepainter who departs the job with his scaffolding still up, hoping you’ll notice how far he had to climb. See “But the Greek REALLY says…”: Why Hebrew and Greek are not needed in the pulpit, Part 1 and Part 3.
Now, I believe an interpreter of the Word should invest the time necessary to work through it in the original, just as you would learn Spanish if you were going to teach Don Quixote, week in and week out, for the rest of your life. However, in our sermons we should avoid Hebrewfying and Greekitizing, simply because it is rarely of help.
Now we will explore some issues with the Greek language (more…)
Free commentary!
These posts are adaptations of my commentary on 1 Corinthians, based on my own study of the critical Greek text, the early church fathers and the best of contemporary scholarship. It is available from Logos, and downloadable free from this blog: FREE Commentary on 1 Corinthians! by Gary Shogren
ENJOY!
Why you’ve never heard of the Second Corinthian Church [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
Terminal Uniqueness: a spiritual disease [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
Pastor, tell your flock the truth about itself
The theology of the chocolate sampler [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
“Dear Paul: We are sorry, but you are unqualified to be our apostle…” [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
Where is MY special someone?? [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
The Lord’s Supper: one invitation you don’t want to miss [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
The Sheep and the Goats on Sunday Morning [Studies in 1 Corinthians]
The Bad Boy: “I make my own rules.”
We’re about 30 minutes into a movie that I’m about to snap off, because it’s the umpteenth version of clichéd plot #74, that one about The Cop who Plays by his own Rules. He doesn’t “go by the book,” so he gets suspended and has to turn in his badge. His apartment is a mess; his relationships messier. But in the end he’s the only one who can catch the bad guy; the chief then has to grudgingly admit him back into the police force. Oh, and what seems biologically improbable, he always has a three-day growth of beard, no more and no less.
In the early church, it was Corinth that fancied itself the Bad Boy, the church that tried to play by its own rules, (more…)
This is how false teaching arrives:
A man with a white lab coat and rubber mallet in his pocket protector arrives in order to “heal you.” And just think, you didn’t even know you were sick! Still, after hmms and haws, he pull a bottle of medicine from a pocket, holds your nose and chucks a spoonful down your throat.
At this point, you gag and retch and run to the sink, where you empty your stomach.
“Ah,” says he, “the case is worse than I had thought! A double dose is what you need!”
You swallow, and retch twice as violently as before and drop to your knees.
“It’s obvious that you stand in need of my remedy worse than most. A triple dose is called for!” You choke it down, falling prone on the floor, your face drained of color, wheezing and tear-streaked.
A peddler of strange elixirs, potions which cannot be bought in just any store; he’s a trickster, and he usually charges plenty for his wares – probably money, definitely a chunk of your soul.
Why must we defend true doctrine and reject the false? I hope it’s not just that we can satisfy our own fussiness. I’ve seen those who love to make things “even”, but for their own mental and psychological satisfaction, as Carl Sandburg wrote in a favorite poem of mine:
The abracadabra boys – have they been in the stacks and cloisters? Have they been to a sea of jargons and brought back jargons? They foregather and make pitty pat with each other in Latin and in their private pig Latin, very ofay. Do they have fun? Sure – their fun is being what they are… (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238494)
True doctrine is not ensuring that our system has all its “t”s crossed and “i”s dotted, nor ducks arranged in order of color and height. Truth speakers need not be pickers of nits or splitters of hairs. Rather, it is making sure that we follow God’s truth and avoid the “teachings of demons” (1 Tim 4:1): the Evil One oversees a factory with round-the-clock shifts, a production line of ideas to draw people away from God. The collection he’s brought out this year is nothing new; they’re old lies, spray painted with this season’s colors. (more…)
Please read Part I before starting Part II; click HERE
Chapter Three – My Sojourn in Pentecostalism
Until I turned 14, the only charismatic person I knew anything about was JFK. Since then I have been charismatic (one year, give or take); then post-charismatic; anti-charismatic; teacher of charismatics; bridge-builder with charismatics; regular spokesman against neo-Pentecostals and Word of Faith teaching; author who promotes the Spirit’s work, sometimes against anti-Pentecostals – see my essays in the collection Strangers to Fire: When Traditional Trumps Scripture (2014).
If you haven’t read Part I of my testimony, it might interest you to read Chapter One – I react against false teaching. While I was working through the life-and-death question of what it takes to be saved, in tandem for some months I was figuring out what it meant to be a charismatic believer. I am the only person I’ve ever met who was a practicing Adventist and a practicing charismatic at the same time; now Wikipedia tells me that there are thousands of people who have managed to combine the two.
After supper on September 15, 1972, it was warm enough to go to the local swimming hole for a dip. When I got back, I saw that someone had lent my mother a copy of Dennis Bennett’s The Holy Spirit and You: a guide to the Spirit filled life. This was the 70s, and the charismatic movement had been moving outward from the Pentecostal churches and the Assemblies of God; people in many denominations began to pursue a more direct experience with the Spirit.
Days later and the news began to circulate around the Baptist church that “Gary got baptized in the Spirit!” My pastor said that I should read 1 Cor 12-14, a passage I devoured as being relevant to my life today. A few people from our church went to a Thursday night prayer meeting in a school across town, and they offered to take me. For about an hour and a half we would have choruses, Bible readings, and at some meetings someone would speak in tongues or give a “message” to the group. I learned later that it was a group of mainline charismatics, and in fact the Rocky Hill School was an Episcopalian prep school (the headmaster attended, as did his wife, who was one of the real-life Von Trapp daughters). So, no jumping around, no shouting or confusion, just a quiet and orderly time of worship. When someone spoke in tongues, they waited for someone to interpret.
My pocket Testament went where I went
It was there that someone gave me a pocket New Testament, which was a constant companion – I wore out a couple, and still have my last copy. (more…)
Two of my essays included in a new collection!
They have just published a pair if my essays in Strangers to Fire: When Tradition Trumps Scripture. It’s now available on Amazon. You might recognize the title as a response to John MacArthur’s book, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship.
The contributors of these 35 essays are not the sort of televangelists I usually object to, but top Pentecostal scholars who are taking a stand against abuses such as faux apostles, the Prosperity Gospel, and Onenness Pentecostalism. They are exactly the guys who (more…)
- "I am the Lord that healeth thee"
- "None of these diseases"
- 1 Corinthians
- Agape
- Bible
- Bible study
- call
- charity
- Christian
- Christian Life
- church fathers
- Church history
- Clement of Rome
- Cleon Rogers
- Commentaries
- Corinthians
- cult of personality
- D. A. Carson
- Didache
- Discernment
- Dispensationalism
- Divine guidance
- Eusebius
- expository
- Faith
- Fallacies fallacy
- False teaching
- Giving and tithing
- God's Will
- Healing
- heresy
- hermeneutic
- Holy Spirit
- humility humble
- Ignatius
- Illumination
- Inductive Bible study
- Inspiration
- Irenaeus
- Jehovah Rapha
- John MacArthur
- Justin Martyr
- Love
- Magic
- Medicine
- Name it and Claim it
- New Testament Interpretation
- Pentecost
- Prayer
- Preaching
- prophecy
- Prosperity Gospel
- Rhema
- Romans
- Sanctification
- Sin
- Sin nature
- Spiritual gifts
- spiritual gifts
- Spiritual Warfare
- Spiritual World
- Tertullian
- Theology and Doctrine
- Tongues
- vocation
- Word of Faith
on August 29, 2014 at 4:49 pm Comments (6)Tags: Bible, charismatic, Christian, John MacArthur, Pentecostal, Strange Fire