Tag Archives: heresy

Sep 16 2013

Joyce Meyer and Unsound Doctrine

Unsound doctrine may be a soft statement. Her teaching is in the realm of heresy.

The popular 70-year-old Charismatic speaker and author holds to prosperity teaching which focuses on material wealth as a result of God’s blessing for authentic Christians.  Even though such teaching is wrong, this is not the worst of Meyer’s teaching.

Joyce Meyer holds heretical positions with respect to the person of Jesus and His work towards our salvation.

It is a shame when a leftist news site like Huffington Post publishes a piece (with references) on how heretical Meyer’s teaching is when compared to historical Protestant Christianity.

She teaches that Jesus literally stopped being the Son of God on the Cross:

“He could have helped himself up until the point where he said I commend my spirit into your hands, at that point he couldn’t do nothing for himself anymore. He had become sin, he was no longer the Son of God. He was sin.”

The truth is that Jesus Christ was, is and always will be God.  Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  He does not change.  Ever.

Apostle Paul explains that Jesus continued to be God throughout the entire sacrifice on the cross, even His death: “…Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Phil 2:6-8

She teaches that Jesus had to be born again (like a sinner):

“The minute that blood sacrifice was accepted Jesus was the first human being that was ever born again. Now that was real it happened when he was in hell.”

This is impossible.   Jesus could not have been born again.  John 3 explains that the new birth is necessary to enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus did not need a new birth because He was without sin.  John says: “You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5

She teaches that one needs special revelation from God to understand her teaching, revelation which is NOT found in the Bible

“The Bible can’t even find any way to explain this. Not really. That’s why you’ve got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I’m telling you. I’ve got to just trust God that He’s putting it into your spirit like He put it into mine.”

The Bible is clear with respect to testing any revelation, prophecy or teaching against the Bible itself.  There is no revelation that can supersede the Bible.  The Word of God is the ultimate revelation for us (Heb 1:1, 1 Thes 5:21, 2 Tim 3:16).

Delight in Truth has nothing personal against Joyce Meyer, but false teaching must be exposed in order to protect the church.  You can read more in the Huff post article.

Then there is the prosperity gospel… a critique of that on a different occasion.

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Apr 23 2013

How Progressive Christians Support Gay Marriage

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Delight in Truth follower Mr. Propeller-head (here) brings to our attention how badly the Word of God is twisted by the progressives who try to find biblical support for gay marriage.

In an article on Patheos (here), a large forum on faith discussion, the Rev. Eric Smith out of Vanderbilt Divinity School, an ordained minister serving in the church and a PhD candidate in Biblical Interpretation wrote an article in support of gay marriage.

I will paste here his first point to show how pathetic the argument is:

“There is no normative Biblical marriage. The Bible contains marriages between one man and one woman. But it also contains lots of other kinds of marriages—between soldiers and captives, a woman and her dead husband’s brother (seriously), between rape victims and their rapists, and, of course polygamy. In fact, if there is one major Biblical normative type of marriage, it is polygamy. Because of this, any claims that God’s plan is for marriage to be between one man and one woman will run into serious problems—namely, that it is not supported by the Biblical evidence.”

This is a PhD in Biblical Interpretation!

Here are a few of the comments:

“…the bible says that with God *ALL* things are possible…so if *ALL* things are possible, why is it wrong for two people to love each other and want to be in a monogamous, committed relationship…even if they’re the same sex? Surely not EVERYONE was meant to populate the earth…otherwise, we’d be so overcrowded that we’d have all been done in long ago with not enough resources to support us all.”

“…like Eric says, “the Bible needs interpreting.” The moral-ceremonial distinction is an interpretive lens through which you read Scripture; it does not come from Scripture itself.”

“One of the best articles I’ve seen written yet. Thank you!”

You are not alone if you feel a holy anger under the category “be angry and do not sin” when you read such scriptural deformity.

The progressives will have us believe that God didn’t really mean what He said when He said that “man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Gen 2:24

Do you remember who was the first to say “did God really say…?” Today the Rev. Smith is telling us “did God really mean…” for marriage to be only between a man an a woman?

Eerie in likeness to Satan’s approach.

The progressives of His day also challenged Jesus to allow them to break up the family unit in Matthew 19 and Jesus clearly tells them that God did not intend for that to happen, because in the beginning it was not so.

Be shocked how today’s so-called Christian progressives are reinterpreting Scriptures toward their own destruction.

2 Peter 2:1 “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.”

Mar 23 2013

Farewell, Rob Bell

Following the release of Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” back in 2011, pastor and theologian John Piper apparently foresaw the spiritual downward spiral that the popular pastor was about to undertake.

At the time, to the surprise of some, Piper tweeted this phrase: “Farewell, Rob Bell.”

Two years later we realize that perhaps Piper prophesied, or at least made a very well-educated guess with respect to Bell’s future.

Bell made the talk show rounds denying all accusations of universalism (the doctrine claiming that all people will eventually end up in heaven), despite the questions and statements he made in his book.  But everything he has done since then shows that he believes in this false doctrine.

What happened to Bell in these past two years is a sad testimony to his fall.  He went from the pinnacle, that is the TIME magazine cover proclaiming him one of the most popular pastors in America, to loosing his Mars Hill pastorship (he claims he left at his own initiative) and toward failed attempts at putting together a TV show in Los Angeles.

But more sad is the fact that his true colors, perhaps rainbow colors, became evident this week.  He now fully affirms the love between homosexual couples and supports gay marriage.

Said Bell: “Yes, I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think that the church needs to just … this is the world that we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”

Taken in the context of “other ways of knowing God” described in his YouTube ad for his brand new book, we now have a totally different gospel, and likely a totally different religion than Christianity.

Rob Bell had time to repent and come to the cross and affirm Christ as the only possible means to the Father and to eternal life.  He chose instead to spiral further into heresy.  I still hope he comes to the cross and receives Jesus as Lord of his life, and recognizes Jesus as the only Mediator between man and God.

Until then… Farewell, Rob Bell…

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Feb 8 2013

Witnessing to the Jehovah’s Witnesses (part 1)

How does a born-again Christian kindly turn the tables and witness to a self-proclaimed Jehovah’s witness (JW)?

Jehovah’s witnesses are the folks who come to your door and proclaim their understanding of the kingdom of God in a way that is not consistent with orthodox Christianity.

One of their most important doctrinal points has to do with denying the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, therefore denying the Trinity.  They believe that Jesus was a created being just like Satan and the archangel Michael, and the Holy Spirit is a mere force.

There are also many other secondary doctrinal heresies involving earning salvation, failed end times predictions (see photo above), and bizarre eschatological and apocalyptic teaching.

When discussing the Bible with JWs, I highly recommend to first and foremost focus on the Person of Jesus and His divinity. That should be the center of your witnessing.  Everything else like deconstructing the failed apocalyptic predictions, and the unbiblical decrees of their society, should be used as plan B. The reason you must focus on Jesus is that you must minister to them almost like to an unbeliever.

It is important to know that they use the New World Translation of the Bible, a specific JW Bible which has key verses like John 1:1 altered to fit their theology.

In this post as well as upcoming posts we will focus on the divinity of Jesus arguments. Your goal will be to show that Jesus is the same as the Jehovah revealed in the Old Testament, part of the Godhead. Anytime we see the name LORD (all caps) in the OT, it comes from the Hebrew word YHWH, and it can also be named Jehovah in English, and we will show that LORD applies to Jesus.

Let us start off with the “first and the last” argument. Here are two powerful verses from Isaiah spoken by the LORD (YHWH):

Isaiah 44:6 “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.”

Isaiah 48:12 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.”

There are at least three places in Revelation where we can ascribe the title “the first and the last” to Jesus, as it is ascribed to Jehovah. For example, in Revelation 22 in the setting of the Second Coming, Jesus speaks by the angel:

12“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. 13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

16“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

Isaiah 42:8 also tells us “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another,” another powerful statement that the LORD does not share His Name with anyone. In light of fact that Jesus calls Himself “the first and the last,” and in light of the fact that the LORD also gives Himself that name, we must conclude that Jesus is the LORD (YHWH).

to be continued…

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