Why "Together for the Gospel" Embraces a Complementarian Gospel
The 2010 Together for the Gospel conference is on right now as I write this article. The conference this year is called The Unadjusted Gospel and according to J. Ligon Duncan III’s blog post on CBMW’s blog, complementarianism is a necessary testimony of the Gospel that cannot be denied or the witness of the Gospel is damaged. While the T4G conference is affirming The Unadjusted Gospel, at the same time they are continuing in their pattern to adjust the Gospel to add in complementarianism.
Instead of seeing Christians united on the Gospel while having charity and grace on the non-essentials, the T4G conference has once again chosen to separate from other Christians over non-essentials and made complementarianism such a necessity that it is introduced as the fulfillment of Biblical teachings that make this doctrine essential as a witness to the Gospel.
My question is, how can godly pastors go along with this addition to the Gospel calling it The Unadjusted Gospel? Isn’t there any out there who have a twinge of shame at the division that is caused by such an adjusted Gospel?
J. Ligon Duncan III writes:
We affirm that the Scripture reveals a pattern of complementary order between men and women, and that this order is itself a testimony to the Gospel, even as it is the gift of our Creator and Redeemer. We also affirm that all Christians are called to service within the body of Christ, and that God has given to both men and women important and strategic roles within the home, the church, and the society. We further affirm that the teaching office of the church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings and that men are to lead in their homes as husbands and fathers who fear and love God.
We deny that the distinction of roles between men and women revealed in the Bible is evidence of mere cultural conditioning or a manifestation of male oppression or prejudice against women. We also deny that this biblical distinction of roles excludes women from meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom. We further deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.
Duncan gives four reasons why complementarianism is included in their doctrinal statement. His first point concerns the authority of Scripture.
One, the denial of complementarianism undermines the church’s practical embrace of the authority of Scripture (thus eventually and inevitably harming the church’s witness to the Gospel). The gymnastics required to get from “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man,” in the Bible, to “I do allow a woman to teach and to exercise authority over a man” in the actual practice of the local church, are devastating to the functional authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God.
May I suggest that Duncan’s point #1 makes the church a laughing stock to the world. While the T4G men turn a blind eye to the fact that the English term “exercise authority” is a strongly disputed meaning in the lexicons for authentein, they also fail to mention that Paul never once gives men permission to authentein anyone making a male authority in the church non-existent by this passage in 1 Timothy 2. These men also fail to explain why the complementarian adjusted doctrine allows for authority of women in government. If after all it is as claimed to be a prohibition instituted at creation, then how could God allow for any woman to have functional authority?
Many godly complementarian men supported Sarah Palin’s run for Vice President never once blinking an eye about the apparent contradiction. This has been a cause of ridicule as the world sees the gospel presented as a rule about women not having any functional authority in the church but allowed to have unlimited functional authority in the world with no explanation of what happens when the two worlds collide or why God turns a blind eye to government. What happens if a Christian woman were to become President or Vice-President? Can it be denied that she has authority and what will happen with that authority in the church?
Does holding a non-complementarian view devalue the authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God? The Scriptures are not devalued in solid, mature egalitarian Christians. May I also suggest that the complementarian adjusted Gospel makes God to be inconsistent and part-time prejudiced. How sad that men have allowed this secondary doctrinal issue to come into the realm of the Gospel. Is this not a shame to the church and where are the men who should be speaking up about this?
Duncan also suggests that one cannot have a view of Biblical inerrancy and hold to egalitarianism as one or the other eventually wins out. This charge appears to assign a heresy label on egalitarians – hardly a loving action toward brothers and sisters in Christ. This blog (WIM) is a testimony to a strong view of inerrancy existing side by side with an egalitarian view.
Duncan continues with his second reason why complementarians must be included in a doctrinal statement and why the T4G conference sees this as an issue of the Gospel:
Two, and following on the first point, the church’s confidence in the clarity of Scripture is undermined, because if you can get egalitarianism from the Bible, you can get anything from the Bible. Paul may be excruciating to read aloud and hear read in a dominant feminist culture, but he’s not obscure in his position! In 1 Tim 2:11-12 he says, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” Elsewhere, in 1 Cor 14:34-35, we find the confirming parallel to this previous pronouncement: “The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.”
In this second reason of Duncan’s, I would like to suggest that it again shows an inconsistent and embarrassing view of the Scriptures by saying that women are not allowed to speak in the church for they are to be silent, and then allowing women to sing, pray, read the Scripture and talk to one another! And the fact that these men cannot point to a single place where the Scriptures state such a Law that women are forbidden to speak in the assembly and must keep silent, has become another embarrassing failure when their own women are not silenced at the door. While holding to inerrancy, they have failed to hold to proper interpretation of the inerrant Scripture so their view is so inconsistent that complementarian churches all over the US look to a complementarian P.O.P.E. to make magisterial decisions on what women can and cannot do in the churches. CBMW (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) regularly takes the position as P.O.P.E. to give out their own wisdom regarding a revealing of the mind of God on these un-addressed Scriptural issues. So while holding to inerrancy, they actually find themselves going beyond the Scriptures which is an unfortunate fall-out of complementarianism.
J. Ligon Duncan III continues:
Cultural cooption of the church’s reading of the Bible robs the church’s ability to speak prophetically to the culture and to live distinctively in the culture, which in turns undermines the church’s Gospel witness.
I would suggest that it is the complementarian failure to properly explain all the contradictions in their position that make the Bible seem a confused creation of man rather than an infallible work of God that actually undermines the church’s Gospel witness.
Point three is raised that creates a false equating of equality of male and female with Enlightenment thought.
Three, because the very ideal of equality championed by egalitarianism (whether secular or Christian) is a permutation of a particular strand of Enlightenment thought, and because this particular ideal of equality is actually alien to the biblical anthropology and ethic, whenever and wherever it is read into the text of Scripture and its principles are worked out consistently, there is a competition with a biblical view of manhood and womanhood. For instance, try to find this view of equality in Genesis 1-it’s just not there.
Duncan’s third point is one of the most embarrassing points that defies us to find equality in Genesis 1 when there is nothing but equality there!
Genesis 1:27–28 (NASB)
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Consequently, commitment to evangelical egalitarianism opens the door for two competing but incompatible ethical norms and ideals within the individual, family and church. If the egalitarian impulse wins out, the church is compromised precisely at the point where paganism is assaulting the church today. For, as Peter Jones has brilliantly demonstrated, paganism wants to get rid of Christian monotheism by getting rid of the Creator-creature distinction. And one way paganism likes to do that is through gender confusion-hence, the bi-sexual shaman, the sacred feminine, goddess worship, etc. Paganism understands that one of the best ways to prepare the way for pagan polytheistic monism over against the transcendent Creator God of the Bible is to undermine that God’s image in the distinctiveness of male and female, and in the picture of Christ and the church in marital role distinctions, and in the male eldership of the church. Egalitarianism is just not equipped for that fight, and in fact simply capitulates to it.
So Christian egalitarianism is like the bi-sexual shaman and pagan goddess worship? How embarrassing to complementarians to describe their brothers and sisters in Christ this way. It is a very weak point to equate physical differences in the sexes (which we agree with) with spiritual differences and then to attach it to bi-sexuality and charge egalitarians as capitulating to sexual sin! If the complementarian position was such a strong position taught by the Scriptures, our dear brothers in Christ wouldn’t need to charge their evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ with such inaccurate and slanderous accusations. How embarrassing for Duncan and T4G to take such a warped and slanderous view of brethren in Christ. This kind of argumentation does nothing to present a solid and unified Gospel to the world. Rather it presents an adjusted Gospel that is made to suit the prejudicial views of these men.
Duncan’s last point equates discipleship with gender distinctions. Apparently there are male ways to follow Jesus and female ways to follow Jesus:
Four, when the biblical distinctions of maleness and femaleness are denied, Christian discipleship is seriously damaged because there can be no talk of cultivating distinctively masculine Christian virtue or feminine Christian virtue. Yes, there are many Christian ethical norms that are equally directed and applicable to male and female disciples, but there are also many ethical directives in the NT enjoined distinctly upon Christian men as men and Christian women as women.
Duncan speaking for T4G determines that only complementarians can produce godly Gospel discipleship:
We need masculine male Christians and feminine female Christians, and that kind of discipleship requires an understanding of and commitment to complementarianism. Hence, denial of complementarianism compromises Gospel discipleship.
How embarrassing to the complementarian movement to insinuate that one cannot be a godly Christian disciple without being a complementarian.
The ungodly attacks against brothers and sisters in Christ done through separating from us insisting that only complementarians can be faithful in believing and presenting the Gospel is an affront to God who commanded us to love one another. For complementarians to use the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as a way to separate from other Christians is really inexcusable.
I would like to ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to rethink this issue. Have you been guilty of damaging the witness of the Gospel by using secondary issues as if it is a primary issues of the Gospel to separate over?
WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)
J. Ligon Duncan III:
For these reasons and more, I think we were right to “deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.”
The Apostle Paul:
Ephesians 4:2 (NASB) with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,
Jesus Christ:
John 13:35 (NASB) “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
27 thoughts on “Why "Together for the Gospel" Embraces a Complementarian Gospel”
They also cause the world to see christians as unable to read, or lacking in reading comprehension skills.
The Unadjusted Gospel, or the Paganized Gospel?
Once again, our hierarchicalist friends show their true colors by not only defaming and misrepresenting those who disagree with them, but also by engaging in a distorted and misleading revisionism of both of the history of biblical intrepreation, of Christian theology, and of the Gospel of Christ itself. Cheryl Schatz and other egalitarian scholars have given full and satisfactory answer to the various, absurd assertions being made by the leaders of this T4G2010 Conference, so I don’t intend to outdo their excellent and well-written articles and essays on these matters. But I cannot help but point out that the so-called “Unadjusted Gospel,” as regards its teaching on the relations both between men and women and between the Persons of the Trinity, is actually a “Paganized Gospel,” resting on the concept of the Chain of Being that was at the heart of the pagan Greek solution to the question, “Is reality utimately a unity or a diversity?”
Now this pagan Greek answer involves a hierarchy of being, contrary to the Creator-creature distinction of the Bible, where the most Superior and Perfect Being is at the top. And every being derived from this Being, as we travel down the chain, becomes progressively imperfect and inferior, until we reach the level of non-being. Unfortunately, as every student of philosophy and theology knows, it was through former Neo-Platonists, such as Origen, who in their understanding of both God and the created order, mixed this pagan concept with the Christian Faith. Dr. Alan Myatt, a long time friend, in a recent ETS paper criticizing the hierarchicalists position on the relationships existing between both the members of humanity and the Trinity, made this perceptive and revealing criticism:
The similarity of the notion of a chain of command of authority in the Trinity and in male-female relations to the non-Christian theory of the Great Chain of Being is no coincidence. Such notions originally were derived from the infusion of the Chain of Being philosophy into
Christian thought, which formed the presuppositional lens through which ancient, medieval and early modern Christians read their Bibles. The ontology of hierarchy is derived from this presupposition, a metaphysic at odds with the Christian doctrine of creation and the notion of the self-contained Triune God as presented in Scripture. It places the value and limits the function
of things according to their position in the hierarchy of Being. Current attempts to define the Trinity as an eternal hierarchy of authority and submission may be understood, then, as examples
of reading the Great Chain of Being back into the biblical text. The motive for this seems to be the preservation of an understanding of male-female role relations in the home and church that is also structured around the Chain of Being concept. It should be noted that this hierarchical understanding of these relations, indeed of the universe itself, is virtually ubiquitous in non-Christian, pagan thought throughout the world, both ancient and modern. Ancient mystery religions of the near east, as well as Hindu pantheism among others, show this tendency to structure the universe in a hierarchy of Being, with rigid social structures. In its more pure forms, unimpeded by any biblical influence, the tendency is for some type of cosmic evolution through which humans eventually become divine. One common factor is a hierarchy of divinities and a hierarchy of male over female. Patriarchy has been so universal in human society that it could be said to be the default mode of human existence (Cf. On the Compatibility of Ontological Equality, Hierarchy, and Functional Distinctions, p. 10).
Furthermore, our understanding of the unity and coequality of men and women in Christ, contrary to what is often charged against, is rooted both in Scripture and in the true renewal and transformation of the Church’s intellectual, moral, and socio-political life by the Holy Spirit himself. Again, as Dr. Myatt points out:
While complementarians persist in accusing egalitarians of yielding to the pressure of non-Christian culture in their handling of Scripture, it appears that just the opposite is true. If hierarchicalism is the fruit of a non-Christian world view, as I have contended, this has important implications. Traditional hierarchical biblical interpretation has been filtered through the lens of a cultural vision of human relations compromised by the absorption of a pagan world view grounded in the Great Chain of Being. This effectively blinded it to the egalitarian implications of the biblical text. Contrary to being a capitulation to culture, the egalitarian impulse is a historical development running against the tide of
these assumptions, that surfaced in Britain and America as the implications of Reformation theology began to saturate
the culture in the wake of the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries.38 It came into full bloom among evangelicals in the abolition and suffrage movements of the 19th century. Under pressure from egalitarian readings of Scripture, the hierarchical vision has been in a steady retreat ever since. The Bible’s teachings of the ontological equality of all persons has done away with the rule of kings in favor or democracy, the enslavement of Africans in favor of equal civil rights for all races, and the political and social subordination of women in favor of suffrage and the rights to education and a career (Ibid, p.11).
And so instead of teaching the Liberating Gospel of Christ, which Paul sets forth before us in Gal 3-5, where the people of God serve on the basis of their maturity, Spirit-giftedness and calling–these self-appointed “super champions of the faith” are teaching a different and harmful message, which focuses on the pagan chain of being, understood in terms of gender and gender-specific rules. For these particular teachers and those inclined to follow them, Paul’s rebuke is most appropriate: “I promised you as a pure bride to one husband-Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the Serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preached, or a different kiind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed” (2 Cor. 11:2-4, NLT).
Wow! Right on, Frank!
Thank you, Cheryl! I get so much from your work in this very important area. God bless you.
Frank,
Thanks for your extensive comments especially regarding cultural pressure, the Trinity and the harm of gender specific rules in opposition to Spirit-giftedness. There is much to think about.
Karen, thanks for your encouragement.
“Two, and following on the first point, the church’s confidence in the clarity of Scripture is undermined, because if you can get egalitarianism from the Bible, you can get anything from the Bible.”
What a straw man!
I think this is the Galatian hearsy… something attached to the gospel that turns it into something else.
Arlene,
Anytime we attach anything to the gospel we are in serious danger. I know that there are pastors who can see this but have not yet publicly said anything. I appeal to their love of the Lord and their love of the gospel to make a stand. There is a greater judgment when we say we can see and yet we do exactly what the Bible says not to do. And when we stand by and let others do this to the gospel, what will the Lord say to us? Adam stood silently by while his wife was being deceived. He was not deceived so he knew the truth. Yet he said nothing. When good men say nothing and allow the error to thrive, they will be held accountable for that. We must hold to the truth no matter how much we have to go against the crowd. Surely the fear of man should not be greater than our fear of God.
Well, Cheryl, I’m glad I was able to share something that was significant and helpful on addressing this topic. Though, in transferring my comments from a MS Word document, the format of my paragraphs got skewed a bit. Still, I am glad it was readable and useful, despite that little glitch.
And there was so much more that I would like to have said about these people who are preaching a different gospel other than the one that was preached by Christ and the Apostles. Which means, of course, that it is not truly “the good news” of the new life and freedom through union with Christ that we find in Galatians. For it denies that all of Abraham’s family, both sons and daughters, are to have their full inheritance rights as those who, with Christ, will possess and reign over the earth–which is a key element of the covenantal promises God gave to Abraham (cf. Gen. 17:3-7 with Gal. 3:26-4:7 and Rom. 4:13-18).
However, with learning necessary skills for my new job as audit support consultant, working on a third Trinity essay, and preparing a study on 1st John, I find my time to prepare comments a bit more limited than I would like. Nevertheless, whenever it comes to contending for the Gospel Faith against those who seek to pervert it for their own self-serving agendas, I will make an effort to do so.
Hi Frank,
Unfortunately glitches can happen if you use MS Word to transfer comments to my blog. If you copy them and past them into Notepad first and then copy and paste from Notepad back to the blog, the bad formatting should disappear. The blog for some reason doesn’t always like MS Word formatting. ):
I will list several reasons why men who’ve “held the reigns” in today’s churches have turned them into Satan’s paradise. They who believe that it is God that has told them they must be the “spiritual leaders” over all in the congregation are and have been running their “churches” (for many centuries now) as falsely as Satan is false. These deceived men are commandeering them as any government or corporation would run them; just as worldly as it gets. They’ve fallen for Satan’s great flim flam. Satan has infiltrated and planned it. Men, if you believe this is what God wants, you’ve been so had and you will be held accountable for it. Your arrogance and pride will be your downfall just as it was for Satan.
Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
WHEN MOSES WAS PUNISHED BY GOD FOR NOT DEMONSTRATING GOD’S HOLINESS AMONG THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, IT [WAS NOT] FOR ANGER ON MOSES’ S PART IN STRIKING THE ROCK AS MOST OF TODAY’S CHURCH ARE TAUGHT AND BELIEVE. THE REASON THAT MOSES WAS PUNISHED (WITH NOT BEING ABLE TO GO INTO THE PROMISED LAND, A SHADOW AND TYPE OF OUR NEW LAND WHICH GOD HIMSELF WILL BRING), WAS THAT HE EXALTED HIMSELF WHEN HE SAID, “MUST WE BRING YOU WATER FROM THIS ROCK?”
From Numbers 20: Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. “Listen, you rebels!” he shouted. “Must we bring you water from this rock?”
ONLY GOD CAN BRING WATER FROM A ROCK. YET MOSES, BEING UPSET WITH THE PEOPLE, GOT WAY AHEAD OF HIMSELF AND PORTRAYED HIMSELF, MOSES, AS THE BRINGER OF WATER. AS MOSES DID, MAN7Y OF TODAY’S “CHURCH LEADERS” ARE EXALTING THEMSELVES; PORTRAYING THEMSELVES AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR GOD.
A few blashpemies from the men with “god-given authority”:
A MAN OF SORROWS
ASKS
IS YOUR “HOUSE OF GOD” RUN LIKE A BUSINESS??
“Christianity began as a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When it went to Athens, it became a philosophy. When it went to Rome, it became an organization. When it went to Europe, it became a culture.
When it came to America, it became a BU$INE$$.
http://www.seanscreenplays.com/BeteNoireCD/Articles1/Tele-Evangelist%20Lifestyles.htm
The accounts at the above link depict the grand scale of this filth/contamination. This unholy desire is indicative of the mindset of the vast majority of today’s “churches” here and world-wide.
Luke 18:22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Acts 4: 31-37 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with Holy Breath and spoke God’s message with freedom of speech. Now the heart and soul of the multitude of those who had trusted was one, and not even one said that any of his possessions was his own. On the contrary, all things were common to them. And with great power the envoys gave the testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great favor was upon them all. For not even one was poor among them, since those who were landowners or homeowners were selling them and bringing the proceeds of the things that were sold, and they were placing them at the envoys’ feet. And it was divided to each one, just as anyone might have a need. Now Yosef–the one who was surnamed Bar-Nabas by the envoys which is, translated, son of advice, a Levite, a Kuprian by birth–who had a field of his own, sold it and brought the money and placed it at the envoys’ feet.
Do you take “tithes” from your audience? I say audience because that’s what it comes down to when you’re elevated on a pulpit and performing for the people. Do you tell them it is “God’s Commandment” to tithe? If so, why are you lying/stealing from God? Tithing was from the Old Covenant. All tithing was referring to food or animals. See Deuteronomy 14: 22-29. This lie against Heaven has not gone unnoticed by God.
The Old Covenant financial offerings, were given on a freewill basis. Scripture bears this out.
Deuteronomy 23:23 freewill offering, 2 Chronicles 31:14 freewill offering, Ezra 1:4 freewill offering, Ezra 3:5 freewill offering, Ezra 7:16 freewill offering, Ezra 8:28 freewill offering, Exodus 35:29 freewill offering, given from a willing heart, Exodus 35:21 a Spirit made willing, Exodus 25:2 giveth it willingly with his heart, Leviticus 22:18 freewill offering, Leviticus 23:38 freewill offering, Numbers 15:3 freewill offering, Numbers 29:39 freewill offering, Deuteronomy 16:10 freewill offering. All this coincides with New Testament giving; freewill.
How can most “clergy” teach that [we must] Walk by Faith, yet they themselves [will not] do this?
John 2:17-17 And Said unto them, (the money changers) that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not My Father’s House an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was Written, The zeal of Thine House hath eaten Me up.
OR
The Passion for God’s Holy House burns within Me.
To the “pastors”, “priests” who are called “father” this or that, “reverends”, “rabbis”, “elders”, “deacons”, “imams”, “bishops”, “pope” etc etc.
Proverbs 23:23 Buy the truth, and do not sell it. Also, wisdom and instruction and understanding.
Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Revelation 3:18-19 I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness will not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
We buy Truth from God not with money, but by laying down our lives day after day obeying I AM THAT I AM.
This is prosperity in God’s Economy.
On denominations: How can we be of “one mind and one accord with thousands of denominations all “teaching” their “own brand of doctrine” which has nothing at all to do with God and Heaven. This is how it is in today’s church. When Lord Jesus Christ spoke “BE OF ONE MIND AND ACCORD”, through Job and Paul, what did He mean? It is no more complicated than simply just what He said; be of one mind, His Mind and one accord, which is of course Lord Jesus Christ, His one accord, His One Mind and not 20,000 different doctrines, and counting. How apostate and absurd! Whether through ignorance or deliberate purpose, man has always created the need for the dependency on man for his doctrinal “knowledge” and or study, instead of going to the Perfect Source, Lord God Almighty Himself. Just so a search on one mind and or one accord.
1 Samuel Ch 8, Isaiah 66, Isaiah 56:10-12, Jeremiah 10:21-22, Jeremiah 23:1-2, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 23, Matthew 23:7-12, EZEKIEL 22:14, all of Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel 34:2-3, Ezekiel 34:10-11, Acts 20:29-31, John 3:30-36, Amos 8:11-12, John 5:39-47, Luke 22:25-27, 2Thess 2: 6-12, John 18:36-37, Jeremiah 3:14-15
Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Matthew 3:2
Why did Paul SERVE the Most High God obediently, truthfully and joyfully to his death? Because Paul was chosen from Above, from Heaven and did not call himself. Galatians 1:11-2 & 15-16 But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
Paul did not go to a man-made/trained ‘seminary’. As most of mankind, in our own “wisdom”, we rely on ourselves and disobey God in pretty much everything. God just doesn’t show up whether it’s a seminary or “church” no matter how much you believe that He does! Lord Jesus Christ knows that He is really not welcome in most of today’s “Christians” hearts…..so, why would He show up? You may get so very angry at these statements, but if we don’t obey HIM, why or how could He or would He show up? He is, however, waiting for us to turn back to Him with all of our beings so that He can redeem us.
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My Voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from Heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
AND OF COURSE THERE’S GRABBING “TITLES” WHICH ARE RESERVED ONLY FOR GOD. MATTHEW 23
On secular Israel:
Revelation 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Lord Jesus Christ Himself is telling us that this great city, which is spiritual Sodom and Egypt, is Jerusalem. Most of today’s “church” worships Israel and “blesses” whatever Israel does.
I’m running out of space listing some of the gospels of demons that have been accepted and taught by deceived men with false authority.
Man…this “Together for the Gospel” thing really ruffles my feathers. To have the unmitigated nerve to call it the “Unadjusted Gospel”, and then to twist the Gospel message in order to have it fit their ideology (idolatry?) is the height of arrogance.
Unless I’ve totally missed something in the Gospels themselves, I don’t see even a HINT of complementarianism in the texts. It just isn’t in the Fab Four (and no I’m not talking about the Beatles; the Fab Four is my nickname for the Canonical Gospels). And if I have missed it, I’m glad I did miss it…I’m not sure God would have given me a strong mind and a big mouth if all He intended for me was to just be a sweet little doormat (!), as complementarian theology in its most extreme forms suggests I be. Grrrrr.
All right I just stumbled across this blog by googling women together for the Gospel and am glad I found it. I am confessedly someone who greatly admires the pastors present at T4G and has benefited immensely from their preaching.
I was googling women and T4G together because I had read a reference to 7,000 men being at T4G and was trying to figure out if women were not invited, not there, or if that comment wasn’t truly representative of the conference. I hope the conference was open to women, it would be a true embarassment if it were not.
All that said I wanted to interject perhaps a bit of a moderate note here. Again I am someone who has benefited greatly from the preaching of men like Ligon Duncan. I am also someone who is not completely sold on Complementarianism yet and fully believes that there are many wonderfully Orthodox egalitarian disciples of Christ out there.
Because of that background it both upsets me when Complementarianism is too rabid AND when people writing against Complementarians are too rabid (Complementarian Churches= Satan’s Paradise? Really? Come on now.) Ligon Duncan is a Godly man who is I would agree overly committed to his complementarian theology. He is also a brilliant Pastor and Theologian who should not be dismissed merely because he holds to firmly to a theological issue that should not be front and center in our faith and orthodoxy.
It seems to me like many of the commenters on this blog who are criticizing the Complementarians at T4G for making the Church/Gospel closeminded and cult like are doing the exact same thing by completely writing off these Complementarian yet Orthodox theologians. Just as I think it’s a travesty that Ligon Duncan would not affirm an orthodox egalitarian as having a place in the Church I think it’s a travesty that many of the previous commenters seem to not want to affirm an orthodox complementarian as having a place in the Church. You are doing the very thing you are critical of!
One final note for the (un)adjusted Gospel theme. It’s my understanding that Complementarianism is not a building block of the (un)adjusted Gospel. It is elevated in the theology of men like Ligon Duncan and the rest of T4G but I think that they would be willing to affirm that this is more as a response to current debates than it is a clear complementarianism in the Gospels.
These men at T4G are more concerned about the adjusted Gospels of prosperity, old school liberalism, universalism etc. They are far more concerned about preserving the two natures of Christ, Biblical innerancy, the sinfulness of humanity, and the mediatorial nature of Christ than they are about preserving complementarianism. Although again they unfortunately group complementarianism in with the rest it is subordinate to the other doctrines in importance and focus.
Hope this made some sense. I hate to see Godly orthodox egalitarians slandered and I equally hate to see Godly orthodox complementarians slandered. Let us not fall into either trap
Forgive me for when I used Orthodox instead of orthodox, not referencing the Orthodox Church ever but orthodoxy
Grant, welcome to my blog!
I appreciate your comments and your call to moderation.
The issue here is not about secondary issues but about the primary issue that has had an addition of a secondary issue as necessary. If we allow a separation like this then it will be easy to dismiss godly Christian brothers and sisters in Christ as outside the faith merely for disagreeing on a non-essential doctrine.
There have been some really serious talk in the CBMW group about egalitarians as ones who are either in heresy or heading towards heresy merely because we believe that God can call and gift women and use them for the benefit of the body of Christ. I have heard the sermons myself and I can’t tell you how sad it makes me feel. But when the line is crossed by listing complementarianism as essential and necessary for the gospel to be preached and for converts to be educated on the essentials of the faith, we need to make a stand so the rift that has occurred in the body will not lead to complete separation. This is divisive and dangerous and unhealthy. We simply cannot add our own secondary doctrines to the gospel and expect it will be tolerated. While I commend the T4G men for standing up to defend the gospel against the challenges of liberalism, they have taken it too far by adding egalitarianism as a challenge to the gospel.
We need to take out our spiritual knives and cut away the false and perverted gospel but we dare not cut deep into the gospel itself and graft in a supposed essential addition unknown through Church history.
I really do appreciate your gracious tone and your appeal to balance. I too am interested in balance but I allow people to speak freely here especially out of their hurt and mistrust of men who have stifled them and taught churches to hold women back in contradiction to the direct call and gifting of God. Many forums will not allow egalitarians to speak freely. This blog is not like those that restrict free speech.
As far as T4G, my message to these men would be to go back to treating us as dear brothers and sisters in Christ and keep this issue as a secondary issue of faith and leave it out of the gospel.
You also mentioned the issue of whether there were women in the T4G conference and I can assure you that there were very few allowed. Because the conference is so popular, the organizers gave men preference so that men who wanted to attend were not kept away and displaced by women. The event is primarily for pastors and church workers and since they believe that these should be men, it isn’t surprising that the group was made up of almost exclusively men.
But does this really make it “Together for the Gospel”? With the complementarian message it is men alone who are to teach doctrine to the church so women do not appear to be needed in the togetherness for the gospel. I don’t think that men really understand what they are missing out on when they exclude their sisters in Christ. God’s gifts are all necessary no matter what vessel that God decides to use.
Thanks again for your comments!
To Grant and Cheryl
Here’s what I wrote: ‘I will list several reasons why men who’ve “held the reigns” in today’s churches have turned them into Satan’s paradise.
They who believe that it is God that has told them they must be the “spiritual leaders” over all in the congregation are and have been running their “churches” (for many centuries now) as falsely as Satan is false. These deceived men are commandeering them as any government or corporation would run them; just as worldly as it gets. They’ve fallen for Satan’s great flim flam. Satan has infiltrated and planned it. Men, if you believe this is what God wants, you’ve been so had and you will be held accountable for it. Your arrogance and pride will be your downfall just as it was for Satan.’
Here’s what Grant wrote: ‘Because of that background it both upsets me when Complementarianism is too rabid AND when people writing against Complementarians are too rabid (Complementarian Churches= Satan’s Paradise? Really? Come on now.)’
Main Entry: rabid
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: very angry; maniacal
Synonyms: berserk, bigoted, bitten, corybantic, crazed, crazy, delirious, deranged, enthusiastic, extreme, extremist, fanatical, fervent, flipped, foaming at the mouth, frantic, freaked out, frenetic, frenzied, furious, hot*, infuriated, insane, intemperate, intolerant, irrational, keen, mad, mad-dog, narrow-minded, nutty, obsessed, overboard, poisoned, radical, raging, revolutionary, sick*, sizzling, smoking, steamed up, ultra, ultraist, violent, virulent, wild, zealous
Antonyms: delighted, happy, pleased
Rather, dear Grant, could I have written what I have written for this reason?
2Corinthians 11:29 Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? [Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?] clnt
2Corinthians 11:29 Who is weak without my being weak? [Who is led into sin without my intense concern?] nasb
2Corinthians 11:29 Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? [Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?] nlt
2Corinthians 11:29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? [Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?] nkjv
I ask: where did I write anything about “complementarian churches”=Satan’s paradise? I did not. What I did write was that the churches for centuries up to today are completely apostate (thus Satan’s paradise) and I listed [only very few reasons] why this is so. Grant and Cheryl: why did you both not acknowledge nor refute the (partial) list of apostasies? Do you not think these are apostasies in God’s Eyes?
Galatians 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Titus 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore [rebuke them sharply], [that they may be sound in the faith]
I will tell you that until fairly recently I never even heard of the words “completmentarian” just as I never heard the word “egalitarian”. I’ve never been a regular visitor to the strive to enter site. I go where I am led to go and for certain reasons. The last time I visited strive to enter, (except for since Feb. 08, this year (2010) ,was in 2007; which was the very first time. And it was through a search about women in the “church”. To tell you more about this, I don’t really even know the true “definition” of those two words. I also never even knew that the word, apostate existed. In fact, I spelled the word apostate incorrectly for two years; from July 2005 (when the Christ woke me up) to Nov.2007. Just a bit of humorous truth.
I wrote to Cheryl after reading one of her great articles: about Christ’s choosing of His twelve apostles. I thought I had found a home so I forwarded a paper to Cheryl in order to testify and share as to what the Holy One taught me about the absolute falling away of today’s churches. I, in my guilelessness believed she would freely use and send it to others. I wished Cheryl would have answered my email and welcomed me as a new one in Christ. As I explained to Cheryl, throughout my entire life I never thought of nor believed into Lord Jesus Christ. I never really knew nor ever contemplated that Lord Jesus Christ is God Who came to earth as a flesh and blood Man. The Father Himself brought Lord Jesus Christ to me (just as He does for countless others who have diligently sought for truth and have eyes to see and ears to hear). Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught me of the great falling away from Himself that has been happening since the early ekklesia (a called out people). It is now ongoing at an extremely accelerated pace.
[Titus 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith]
Perhaps today’s “Christians” in not obeying God, do not recognize what I write as the Truth because today’s “Christians” are so very “wise in their own eyes”. I’m giving Scripture to back up anything I write yet I’ve been met with hostility and chuckles about HIS WORD.
Do you think that perhaps since we are on the Threshold of Lord Jesus Christ Coming back, that the Christ is raising up those who’ve not been associated with today’s type of unholy churches and therefore can and do without compromise and fear explain just why today’s churches are/have fallen away from God. I will list more of the apostasies towards the end of this post.
Please [re-read], again, exactly what I put down in my post. It is from Scripture. If you’re refuting His Simple Word on the falling away, then as the pharisees did, you are also refusing Lord Jesus Christ. If so, you are fighting against God, Himself. Very dangerous place to be.
My post was not targeted towards “complementarian” (that “word” never even comes into my thoughts) churches unless you are saying that all churches are these. What happened to the ‘simplicity that is IN Christ?”
2Corinthians 11:3-4 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. [or] But I fear that somehow you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to Christ, just as Eve was deceived by the serpent. You seem to believe whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach about a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.
2Timothy 3:1-7 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, [despisers of those that are good], Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; [Having a form of godliness,] but [denying the power thereo]: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, [Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.]
This ever ‘learning/never coming to the knowledge of the truth’ is for, of course men as well.
I sent my paper to an “elder” in a local church after he requested to see it. After about a week, he contacted me and told me that I “was dangerous.” He knew what I wrote to be true as he told me so, but still considered me “dangerous”. I’d say yes indeed, I’m dangerous. But I ask you, to whom am I dangerous. To God? or to: Most of the “pastors” must buy bigger buildings, with still increased rent and upkeep, yearly salaries for themselves and their “staff”, pension and retirement plans, vacations etc, etc. Pastors etc. have alot to loose; “income” and “positions”, if they decide to preach the absolute truth. Until they turn and repent, they are going up against Lord Jesus Christ and again, this is a dangerous place to be. What spirit are you listening? +++
A few more apostasies:
How today’s church should not be:
Matthew 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.
HOW DARE ANYONE ACTUALLY INVOKE OR USE THE MOST HIGH GOD’S NAME:
IN CONJUNCTION WITH ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH ANY ROTTED AND DEPRAVED ACTIVITIES; WAR AND WHICH DEFINITELY INCLUDES THE MAKING OF MONEY OFF OF THE HOLY ONE’S BACK AND THINKING IT’S OK WITH GOD? ALL OF THE SO-CALLED “RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS” OF THIS WORLD ENGAGING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THIS WORLD’S GOVERNMENTS AND CORPORATIONS/BUSINESSES ARE ACTUALLY PROMOTING, ACCOMMODATING, BOLSTERING AND ENCOURAGING THE EXECUTION (the carrying out of the task) OF VIOLENT, MALEVOLENT, MALIGNANT, AND PERVERTED ACTIONS WHICH PROVOKE AND KEEP THE WORLD IN UTTER CHAOS AND VIOLENCE.
BUT! IN REALITY ONE IS PROVOKING GOD, LORD JESUS CHRIST. EVERYTHING WE DO IN THIS WORLD IS RECORDED BY THE TRUE ONE GOD 24/07; EVERYTHING!!! ARE WE NOT AWARE OF THIS?
MOST OF TODAY’S SO-CALLED “CHRISTIAN CHURCH” ARE SO VERY DECEIVED. THUS THEY DECEIVE COUNTLESS OTHERS IN WHAT THEY “TEACH”. DENOMINATIONS=ORGANIZED RELIGION WHICH IS NOT OF LORD JESUS CHRIST. BY CREATING DENOMINATIONS, WE DIVIDE LORD JESUS. SO, BY CREATING THESE DENOMINATIONS, WE WILL BE AND ARE FIGHTING AMONGST OURSELVES WITHIN THESE DENOMINATIONS. IF WE’LL FIGHT AMONGST OURSELVES, WE’LL FIGHT AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE, WAR!
AND ALL BECAUSE WE ARE DIVIDED AND DECEIVED INSTEAD OF BEING OF ONE MIND AND ONE ACCORD.
IN DOING THESE THINGS, THE THE HOLY NAME OF LORD GOD ALMIGHTY IS PROFANED . THAT THE LORD GOD WOULD ACTUALLY ENDORSE VIOLENT WARS IN HIS NAME AND ENDORSE MAKING MONEY OFF OF ALL SORTS OF RIDICULOUS SCHEMES IN THE NAME OF GOD.
HOW DISPLEASING AND VILE FOR GOD CAN IT GET?
PLEASE LET THIS SINK IN:
WARS DO CAUSE ORPHANS, WIDOWS, FAMINE, HOMELESSNESS AND ALL OF THE DEPRAVITIES, DEBAUCHERIES AND ATROCITIES THAT HAVE FOLLOWED WITH THE MAKING OF ORPHANS, WIDOWS, FAMINE, HOMELESSNESS, ETC. NO SANE PERSON CAN REALLY EVEN CONTEMPLATE IT. BUT YET MANY IN TODAY’S CHURCH SIMPLY LOOK THE OTHER WAY AT THESE FACTS. WHY? TO PROTECT THE COMFORT AND EASE OF THEIR LIVES? HOW CAN ANYONE EVEN CONSIDER THAT THE HOLY ONE, GOD, WOULD ENDORSE VIOLENT, LUNATIC ACTIONS FROM MANKIND, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT HARMS LITTLE ONES WHERE EVER THEY MAY BE. DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THIS IS ALRIGHT BECAUSE WE ARE PROTECTING OUR COUNTRY? WE’VE BEEN WARNED NEVER TO TAKE OATHS BY LORD JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.
Read Matthew Chapter 5
On oaths
Zechariah 8:17 Let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor; And do not love a false oath. For all these are things that I hate,’ Says the LORD.
Matthew 5:33-37 Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by Heaven, for it is God’s Throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’
*37: For whatever is more than these is from the evil one $*
James 5:12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest you fall into condemnation.
Examples; as in an oath to any “flag”; = a Masonic oath=an oath to protect any “constitution”to any man or woman, to any “religion” or religious denomination etc., all of which is of this world $ *(Mat 5:37)* and is in complete disobedience to our Holy God’s Word. Disobedience will leave us deceived, and deception has led this entire world accepting harm done to others in many ways. Check out the situation in Gaza. The Palestinians, which by the way are mostly Christian, are being bombed and attacked so that the very basics, water, food and shelter, are most completely gone from their lives. They’re farms and dairy factories are being bombing out of existence.
This great deception has also led us into “countless wars” created out of thin air by demonically led men who have fooled the entire world.
THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, [LORD JESUS CHRIST IS LOOKING FOR MERCY AND COMPASSION] AND NOT ANIMALISTIC BEHAVIOR WHICH MUCH OF MANKIND DISPLAYS TO ALL THE WORLD AND MORE IMPORTANTLY TO HEAVEN. TURN TO GOD NOW AND LISTEN TO HIS HOLY SPIRIT, NOW, WHILE YOU STILL CAN; WHILE HE’S STILL AVAILABLE TO US. ANOTHER FACT: WARS ARE DECEPTIVELY CREATED BY DECEPTIVE MEN IN SECRET. THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS. THESE PEOPLE DO IT FOR AT LEAST TWO REASONS EACH TIME: POWER AND MONEY.
THE MOST HIGH GOD SENT HIS SON, LORD JESUS CHRIST TO TEACH US THE ONLY WAY TO HEAVEN; THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. HE CAME AS A LOWLY HUMBLE SERVANT, SERVING OTHERS; NOT BEING SERVED. HE TAUGHT US TO SEEK FIRST AND FOREMOST THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND HE TAUGHT US HOW TO DO IT! IT IS NOT BY GETTING RICH AND GOING TO WAR TO “PROTECT” OUR WAY OF LIFE HERE IN THIS WORLD! IF THIS IS WHAT THE “TEACHERS” ARE TEACHING IN THE CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES AND IF THIS IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE. LORD JESUS CHRIST BUILDS THE CHURCH; NOT MERE MANKIND. WE ARE TO BRING THE GOOD NEWS TO OTHERS, AS SERVANTS TO GENTLY GUIDE THEM TO AND [LEAVE THEM TO CHRIST’S TUTELAGE.]
Otherwise, you are fighting against God. He is the Only One Who will never lead us astray.
Oh, you will say, if we allow them to roam freely and to have the Holy Spirit teach them without us to teach, they will surely become deceived. I, myself have heard this from many well-meaning, though completely deceived “spiritual leaders/teachers”. Well, according to the partial list of apostasy in the church, I would say it’s about time that today’s thousands of denominations wake up, while you can. Because eventually, God will withdraw and you will be left with your delusions sent to you by God Himself. See Isaiah Chapter 66 and 2 Thessalonian Chapter 2.
I would say that it is much better to be advised of all this by someone down here and hopefully taking heed, instead of waiting until it’s too late, and you’re standing before Lord Jesus Christ during your ONE on one, and then what can or will you say to Him to explain yourself. Scary, nay terrifying!
Ezekiel 22: 12-14 In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD. Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee. [Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee]? I the LORD have spoken [it], and will do [it].
More Apostasies:
How about the “once saved, always saved?’
This blatant OSAS error is causing many people to pretty much act, do and say just as they please. They’ve been taught that they can never lose their salvation. Do you see how simply wrong and dangerous this is?
By depending on what “everyone else says” instead of what Lord Jesus Christ says and in particular by depending on what pastors, preachers, priests, rabbis etc. tell us, is exactly going against God’s Commands.
Remember, these Commands God gives us, are for our own good.
Matthew 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Here is God Himself Telling us OSAS is dead wrong.
Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, [**who do His commands; seek righteousness, seek humility;**] perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the LORD.
If the meek and humble [**do such**] and still must seek to be hidden on the day of God’s Wrath, how much more must the disobedient ones who exalt themselves seek God and humble themselves.
Revelation 2:5,7
2: Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
7: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the Midst of the Paradise of God.
Revelation 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the Book of Life but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.
Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not Written in the Book of Life from the Foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found Written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire
Revelation 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Revelation 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:14 Blessed are they that do His Commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the Gates into the City.
Revelation 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the Words of the book of this Prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are Written in this book.
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord.
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes: but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
Also 2 PETER 2:20-22, PROVERBS 26:11, LUKE 8, PHILLIPIANS 2:12 and 15, HEBREWS 6:4-8 , HEBREWS 10:26, HEBREWS 12:15 , 1 CORINTHIANS 1:8 , 1THESSALONIANS 3:13, 1 THESSALONIANS 5:23, LUKE 11:28,
How about the pre-tribulation?
Luke 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
The term “rapture” and it’s “meaning” is not in the bible. It became a false teaching accepted by the lukewarm church in the 1830’s (and up to today) by Edward Irving and Margaret McDonald, and again in 1870’s by a Presbyterian minister of the Plymouth Brethren named John Nelson Darby. Darby became the father of dispensationalism, which eventually enticed undiscerning Christians into advocating the creation of state of Israel within a political movement known as Zionism.
EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST; AT THE LAST TRUMP. THE WRATH OF GOD, THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF THOSE DEAD AND THE TRANSLATION OF THOSE WHO ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN FROM CORRUPTIBLE TO INCORRUPTIBLE.
1THESSALONIANS 4:15-17
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, [that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord] shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a Shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the Trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 [Then we which are alive and remain] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Historical Progression of Zionism
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/ZionistState/historical.cfm
18th century: The German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn initiates a Jewish secularism, which focused on Jewish national identity.
1862: The German Jew Moses Hess publishes the book Rome and Jerusalem where he called for a return of Jews to Palestine. He also said that Jews would never succeed by assimilating into European societies.
1881: Pogroms of Russia result in heavy emigration to USA. Some few Jews even emigrates to Palestine, as they are motivated by religious ideas of Palestine as Jewish homeland.
1893: Nathan Birnbaum introduces the term ‘Zionism’.
1896: The Austrian Jew Theodor Herzl publishes the book The Jewish State, where he declares that the cure for anti-semitism was the establishment of a Jewish state. As he saw it, the best place to establish this state was in Palestine, but this geography was no precondition.
1897: The 1st Zionist Congress is held in Basel in Switzerland. 200 delegates participates. The Basel Program is formulated, which calls for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, where Jews could live safely under public law. The World Zionist organization is also established, and establishes its head quarters in Vienna, Austria.
1903: Britain offers an area of 15,500 km² in Uganda in Africa, an area of virgin land to the Jews of the world, where a Jewish homeland could be established.
1905: 7th Zionist Congress refuses Britain’s Uganda proposal. Israel Zangwill forms the Jewish Territorial organization, which sought to find territory for a Jewish state, no matter where this would be. His organization got only few supporters. – After the Russian revolution is defeated, many young Jews emigrate from Russia.
1917: The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British foreign secretary, gives official British support to the work on establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1922: Britain gives The World Zionist organization the mandate to administer Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. This immigration and settlement was funded by American Jews.
1939: The British ‘White Paper’ gives the Arabs of Palestine de facto control over Jewish immigration.
1942: A call is issued from Zionist leaders for the establishment of a Jewish state in all of western Palestine, when World War II ends.
1948: May 14: The State of Israel is founded. The World Zionist organization continues to back Jewish immigration to Israel.
1970s: The World Zionist organization puts its muscles into helping Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel.
1975 November 10: UN General Assembly passes Resolution 3379, in which Zionism is declared “racist”, with 72 votes to 35 (32 abstentions).
1991 December 16: UN General Assembly revokes Resolution 3379, with 111 votes to 25 (13 abstentions).
Here’s an excerpt from my email to Cheryl:
—– Original Message —–
From:
To: mmoutreach@gmail.com mailto:mmoutreach@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 5:11 PM
Subject: I loved your article ‘Common objections to women in ministry’ and know it to be so true. Following is what our precious Lord Jesus Christ taught me: as a witness to today’s very fallen church.
Cheryl,
Although through the first fifteen pages of this paper may seem controversial/confrontational, I can assure that anyone who continues will receive only the most loving encouragement and most importantly the Truth as the Lord showed me. Though I never went to church, never believed in Lord Jesus Christ as God and never thought about Him for my entire life, He woke me up with a Spiritual 2X4 (mid 2005) and nothing was ever the same for me. Take care, Katherine Wheelock
+TO TODAY’S “CHURCH”:
The entire purpose of this paper is this: We want to be in the first resurrection. The only way to Him is the straight and narrow Way and His Ways are not grievous.
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
If for any reason, anyone would like to take a look at this paper on the spiritual state of today’s church, please let me know, and I’ll simply post my email address.
CHINA SPEAKS
The following is the actual text of a speech delivered in December, 2005 by Comrade Chi Haotian -the Vice-Chairman of China’s Military Commision to top officers and generals. Keep in mind that China has for many years advocated deceiptful and covert warfare against its enemies. This is their Modus Operandi. There should be little question that a “Bird Flu” Pandemic would deeply excite them.
(Don’t forget how they have poisoned thousands of American pets and knowingly placed lead paints on toddler’s toys.)
“Comrades, I’m very excited today, because the large-scale online survey sina.com that was done for us showed that our next generation is quite promising and our Party’s cause will be carried on. In answering the question, “Will you shoot at women, children and prisoners of war,” more than 80 per cent of the respondents answered in the affirmative, exceeding by far our expectations.
Today I’d like to focus on why we asked sina.com to conduct this online survey among our people. My speech today is a sequel to my speech last time, during which I started with a discussion of the issue of the three islands [Taiwan, Diaoyu Islands and the Spratley Islands — Ott] and mentioned that 20 years of the idyllic theme of ‘peace and development’ had cometo an end, and concluded that modernization under the saber is the only option for China’s next phase. I also mentioned we have a vital stake overseas.
The central issue of this survey appears to be whether one should shoot at women, children and prisoners of war, but its real significance goes far beyond that. Ostensibly, our intention is mainly to figure out what the Chinese people’s attitude towards war is: If these future soldiers do not hesitate to kill even noncombatants, they’ll naturally be doubly ready and ruthless in killing combatants.
Therefore, the responses to the survey questions may reflect the general attitude people have towards war……..We wanted to know: If China’s global development will necessitate massive deaths in enemy countries, will our people endorse that scenario? Will they be for or against it?
The fact is, our ‘development’ refers to the great revitalization of the Chinese nation, which, of course, is not limited to the land we have now but also includes the whole world. As everybody knows, according to the views propagated by the Western scholars, humanity as a whole originated from one single mother in Africa. Therefore no race can claim racial superiority. However, according to the research conducted by most Chinese scholars, the Chinese are different from other races on earth. We did not originate in Africa. Instead, we originated independently in the land of China. Therefore, we can rightfully assert that we are the product of cultural roots of more than a million years, civilization and progress of more than ten thousand years, an ancient nation of five thousand years, and a single Chinese entity of two thousand years. This is the Chinese nation that calls itself ‘descendants of Yan and Huang.’
During our long history, our people have disseminated throughout the Americas and the regions along the Pacific Rim, and they became Indians in the Americas and the East Asian ethnic groups in the South Pacific. We all know that on account of our national superiority, during the thriving and prosperous Tang Dynasty our civilization was at the peak of the world. We were the centre of the world civilization, and no other civilization in the world was comparable to ours.
Later on, because of our complacency, narrow-mindedness, and the self-enclosure of our own country, we were surpassed by Western civilization, and the centre of the world shifted to the West.
In reviewing history, one may ask: Will the centre of the world civilization shift back to China? Actually, Comrade Liu Huaqing made similar points in early 1980’s Based on an historical analysis, he pointed out that the centre of world civilization is shifting. It shifted from the East to Western Europe and later to the United States; now it is shifting back to the East. Therefore, if we refer to the 19th Century as the British Century and the 20th century as the American Century, then the 21st Century will be the Chinese Century!! (Wild applause fills the auditorium.)
Our Chinese people are wiser than the Germans because, fundamentally, our race is superior to theirs. As a result, we have a longer history, more people, and larger land area. On this basis, our ancestors left us with the two most essential heritages, which are atheism and great unity. It was Confucius, the founder of our Chinese culture, who gave us these heritages. These two heritages determined that we have a stronger ability to survive than the West. That is why the Chinese race has been able to prosper for so long. We are destined ‘not to be buried by either heaven or earth’ no matter how severe the natural, man-made, and national disasters. This is our advantage. Take response to war as an example.
The reason that the United States remains today is that it has never seen war on its mainland.
Once its enemies aim at the mainland, the enemies would have already reached Washington before its congress finishes debating and authorizes the president to declare war. But for us, we don’t waste time on these trivial things. Maybe you have now come to understand why we recently decided to further promulgate atheism. If we let theology from the West into China and empty usfrom the inside, if we let all Chinese people listen to God and follow God, who will obediently listen to us and follow us? If the common people don’t believe Comrade Hu Jintao is a qualified leader, begin to question his authority, and want to monitor him, if the religious followers in our society question why we are leading God in churches, can our Party continue to rule China??
The first pressing issue facing us is living space. This is the biggest focus of the revitalization of the Chinese race. In my last speech, I said that the fight over basic living resources (including land and ocean) is the source of the vast majority of wars in history. This may change in the information age, but not fundamentally.
Our per capita resources are much less than those of Germany’s back then. In addition, economic development in the last twenty-plus years had a negative impact, and climates are rapidly changing for the worse. Our resources are in very short supply. The environment is severely polluted, especially that of soil, water, and air.
Not only our ability to sustain and develop our race, but even its survival is gravely threatened, to a degree much greater than faced Germany back then. Anybody who has been to Western countries knows that their living space is much better than ours. They have forests alongside the highways, while we hardly have any trees by our streets. Their sky is often blue with white clouds, while our sky is covered with a layer of dark haze. Their tap water is clean enough for drinking, while even our ground water is so polluted that it can’t be drunk without filtering. They have few people in the streets, and two or three people can occupy a small residential building; in contrast our streets are always crawling with people, and several people have to share one room. Many years ago, there was a book titled Yellow Catastrophes.
It said that, due to our following the American style of consumption, our limited resources would no longer support the population and society would collapse once our population reaches 1.3 billion. Now our population has already exceeded this limit, and we are now relying on imports to sustain our nation. It’s not that we haven’t paid attention to this issue. The Ministry of Land Resources is specialized in this issue.
But we must understand that the term ‘living space’ (lebenstraum) is too closely related to Nazi Germany. The reason we don’t want to discuss this too openly is to avoid the West’s association of us with Nazi Germany, which could in turn reinforce the view that China is a threat. Therefore, in our emphasis on He Xin’s new theory, ‘Human Rights are just living rights’ we only talk about ‘living’ but not ‘space’ so as to avoid using the term ‘living space.’ From the perspective of history, the reason that China is faced with the issue of living space is because Western countries have developed ahead of Eastern countries.
Western countries established colonies all around the world, therefore giving themselves an advantage on the issue of living space. To solve this problem, we must lead the Chinese people outside of China, so that they can develop outside of China.
Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? First, if the United States is firm in blocking us, it is hard for us to do anything significant to Taiwan and some other countries! Second, even if we could snatch some land from Taiwan, Vietnam, India, or even Japan, how much more living space can we get? Very trivial! Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization.
Therefore, solving the ‘issue of America’ is the key to solving all other issues. First, this makes it possible for us to have many people migrate there and even establish another China under the same leadership of the CCP. America was originally discovered by the ancestors of the yellow race, but Columbus gave credit to the White race. We the descendants of the Chinese nation are ENTITLED to the possession of the land!!! It is historical destiny that China and United States will come into unavoidable confrontation on a narrow path and fight. In the long run, the relationship of China and the United States is one of a life-and-death struggle.
Of course, right now it is not the time to openly break up with them yet. Our reform and opening to the outside world still rely on their capital and technology.
We still need America. Therefore, we must do everything we can to promote our relationship with America, learn from America in all aspects and use America as an example to reconstruct our country. Only by using special means to ‘clean up’ America will we be able to lead the Chinese people there. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio weapons have been invented one after another. Of course we have not been idle; in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of ‘cleaning up’ America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focused instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country.
Biological weapons are unprecedented in their ruthlessness, but if the Americans do not die then the Chinese have to die. If the Chinese people are strapped to the present land, a total societal collapse is bound to take place.
According to the computations of the author of Yellow Peril, more than half of the Chinese will die, and that figure would be more than 800 million people! Just after the liberation, our yellow land supported nearly 500 million people, while today the official figure of the population is more than 1.3 billion. This yellow land has reached the limit of its capacity. One day, who know how soon it will come, the great collapse will occur any time and more than half of the population will have to go.
It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the CCP leads the world. We, as revolutionary humanitarians, do not want deaths, But if history confronts us with a choice between deaths of Chinese and those of Americans, we’d have to pick the latter, as, for us, it is more important to safeguard the lives of the Chinese people and the life of our Party.
The last problem I want to talk about is of firmly seizing the preparations for military battle. The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved.
Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites. Marxism pointed out that violence is the midwife for the birth of the new society. Therefore war is the midwife for the birth of China’s century.”
KW,
I realy have no idea what to make of everything you wrote. There are moments of clarity and wonderful confessions like when you mention your testimony of having ignored God and Jesus grabbing hold of you, but then most of what you write seems angry and parts of it incomprehensible. I don’t want to be harsh on you, I don’t know you and I am sure you are a wonderful woman, it also seems like you are passionate about God. However please allow me this word of advice.
It seems like your vision of true Christianity is so small that it is almost cultish. This was my fear with your objections to complementarianism as Satanic. Although I am sure that there are some complementarians who are influenced by the evil one, most that I know are very Godly men who are trying to be faithful to Scripture just as you are.
I saw this fear confirmed in the parts of your last two messages I could understand. You railed against war for a while, and while I believe it’s completely legitimate for Christians to object to war if you are going to argue that Christians who support something like just-war theory (look it up on Wikipedia if you aren’t familiar) are not actually Christian than you just made massive chunks of historical Christianity (including St. Augustine!) non Christian.
You also speak out against denominations, fair I guess because Paul does this as well. But Paul also writes in 1 Corinthians 11:19 “There must be factions among you so that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
I wonder KW who the “true Christians” are to you. From reading your posts I couldn’t help but wonder if you are the only person in the world who meets your qualifications for being someone who isn’t offensive to God and can stand before Him. Your zeal is admirable, but you seem zealous for things that the Bible is not zealous for. Jesus certainly speaks about our not taking oaths, but the rest of the New Testament seems far more concerned about making sure that we understand that He is God more than it does that we not take oaths.
There’s lots of bad theology out there, but having bad theology doesn’t make one an enemy of God. There is bad theology and there is heresy and apostasism, you seem to roll them together. This is infinitely dangerous as it gives the Church no room to discern where there is room to disagree on an issue and where the Church should take her stand.
From Grant: KW,
I realy have no idea what to make of everything you wrote.
To Grant, I wouldn’t expect you to…..yet.
Cheryl, I’ve attempted to several times to post the the 2nd portion of what I’ve testified/written and the site is not able to produce it. A message came up stating it was a duplicate and it is not. Thank you
KW,
I know that you have posted on this site before and I usually try to welcome each new person. If I failed to welcome you, I am sorry. That would be a failure on my part.
You said that you wrote to me and I didn’t answer. I did a search of my gmail account for your email address to see what it was that I missed and I found it and I now know why I didn’t answer. The email was marked as “to answer” but it was so overwhelming it was left until I had time to wade through it and that time just never came. When it was transferred to Word, it was 234 pages long!!!
So I briefly skimmed through it and it was filled with quotes about Zionist Israel and quotes about China, talk about the CIA and George Bush, a long history of the US and vaccinations, politics, satan’s system, Mormonism as a “denomination”, the Vatican and secret societies, Project paperclip, none of which are applicable to this blog.
I have pulled out a couple of quotes from what you wrote. You said:
When I read these words, I feel like what Grant wrote. It seems to me that you feel that true Christianity is extremely small and most churches are not following God in any way.
The Scriptures tell us that we need to gather together with other Christians so that we may be fed by God’s word and we may receive correction. The attitude of submissiveness that we are instructed to have as Christians is important so that we can receive the gifts that others have in the body of Christ. If we do not submit to learn and submit to being corrected we can go off into an extreme left field and not even notice where we have been deceived ourselves. The gathering together is for our own safety.
I appreciate all the verses that you quoted in the email you sent me but hundreds and hundreds of verses put together with warnings about false churches and deception is overwhelming and it makes me wonder how you can know that you are not being deceived yourself without apparent fellowship in the body of Christ. You said at one part:
I agree. We need the church as the body of Christ to help us recognize our own deception so that if we are at a place where we claim that we can “see” but we are really “blind” that we can have correction.
One other thing, kw, I waded through my spam box and there are 9 comments that are filled with stuff on Zionism. I am not going to “rescue” the comments from the spam box because they are not on topic and the long comments are difficult to wade through. I can’t have my blog taken over by other topics as this blog is dedicated to women in ministry and God’s word on that subject.
Also I really can’t see myself being able to read the 234 pages that you sent me. My time is limited at best and I have a difficult time even keeping up with the comments on my own blog. All I can do is ask people here to pray for you that God will help you find a place of fellowship where you will be free to submit yourself to the teaching of the Word and correction.
Cheryl, the 9 comments were attempts to get the 2nd portion posted. But, thank you, I know and can appreciate that your time is limited.
Hi, Grant,
It is most sincere desire that you and others take a good look at what you’re doing/teaching in the Name of God.
you wrote:
‘KW,
It seems like your vision of true Christianity is so small that it is almost cultish.’
Matthew 7:13-15 “Enter through the cramped gate, for broad is the gate and spacious is the way which is leading away into destruction, and many are those entering through it.
Yet what a cramped gate and narrowed way is the one leading away into life, and few are those who are finding it. “Take heed of those false prophets who are coming to you in the apparel of sheep, yet inside they are rapacious wolves.
Luke 13:23-27 Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’
Romans 9:27 Concerning Israel, Isaiah the prophet cried out, “Though the people of Israel are as numerous as the sand on the seashore, only a small number will be saved.
Romans 11:5 It is the same today, for not all the Jews have turned away from God. A few are being saved as a result of God’s kindness in choosing them.
Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the Commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
you wrote ‘This was my fear with your objections to Complementarianism as Satanic. ‘
Again, here’s what I wrote: ‘I will list several reasons why men who’ve “held the reigns” in today’s churches have turned them into Satan’s paradise.
They who believe that it is God that has told them they must be the “spiritual leaders” over all in the congregation are and have been running their “churches” (for many centuries now) as falsely as Satan is false. These deceived men are commandeering them as any government or corporation would run them; just as worldly as it gets. They’ve fallen for Satan’s great flim flam. Satan has infiltrated and planned it. Men, if you believe this is what God wants, you’ve been so had and you will be held accountable for it. Your arrogance and pride will be your downfall just as it was for Satan.’
Grant, you’re so caught up with the thought that [everything] is “complementarian”. Most people don’t even know what the heck that is!!
What I did write and emphatically stated is that the entire pile of man-made doctrines, the adding to and taking away of Scripture is what has turned the entire religious/clergy/hierarchal (I cannot call it God’s ekklesia) system into a Satan’s paradise. Just as there is no grey what-so-ever in pedophilia, there is no grey with what God has Written. John 14:21 He who has My Commandments and keeps them, [it is he who loves Me.] And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and Manifest Myself to him.”John 14:15 “If you love me, obey My Commandments.
you wrote ‘I saw this fear confirmed in the parts of your last two messages I could understand. You railed against war for a while, and while I believe it’s completely legitimate for Christians to object to war if you are going to argue that Christians who support something like just-war theory (look it up on Wikipedia if you aren’t familiar) are not actually Christian than you just made massive chunks of historical Christianity (including St. Augustine!) non Christian.’
I am aware of the “just war theory”. This is exactly what I am speaking out against. You put more import in a created-man’s opinion. He deceived others into believing this blasphemy. Just perfect, keep believing mere men instead of believing Lord Jesus Christ.
I ask you, where in any verse, did Lord Jesus Christ, His OT prophets, or His NT apostles/disciples ever speak about killing in the Name of God, to fight for flag and country, to form a coup against the Roman govt or killing in self-defense. He never did/never will. He Commanded just the opposite.
Isaiah 53 Acts 7:59-60 Acts 14:19-22 1Corinthians 4:9-13
Are you better than Lord Jesus Christ, His OT prophets, or His NT apostles/disciples that only they and others were/would be killed for the witness=martyrdom of the Testimony of Lord Jesus Christ?
Did God give you permission to support/go to war, to kill and cause orphans, widows, famine? Not to mention the young men being killed in war. He tells us to plead the cause of the widow and orphan.
Psalm 146:9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:23 Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them take bribes and refuse to defend the orphans and the widows.
Zechariah 7:10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
Malachi 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
Read 1 Samuel Chapter 8
Does this mean anything at all to you “Thou shalt not kill.
you wrote ‘You also speak out against denominations, fair I guess because Paul does this as well. But Paul also writes in 1 Corinthians 11:19 “There must be factions among you so that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.” ‘
Yes, and at the time of the first resurrection, there will only be a remnant.
you wrote ‘I wonder KW who the “true Christians” are to you. From reading your posts I couldn’t help but wonder if you are the only person in the world who meets your qualifications for being someone who isn’t offensive to God and can stand before Him.’
That’s just plain silly. I certainly am not, however there will be only a remnant that will make it into the 1st Resurrection.
you wrote ‘Your zeal is admirable, but you seem zealous for things that the Bible is not zealous for.’
Interesting. What you just wrote is that God is divided against God. How can that be? The things I put down are from His Word and His Holy Spirit. The Bible is only a map to Lord Jesus Christ. He is Alive, Breathing and Speaking to us now, to our spirit, if we have ears to hear. The problem with the wise ones of today, is that they are busy talking amongst themselves instead of waiting for the Holy Spirit to Guide them in [everything.]
you wrote ‘Jesus certainly speaks about our not taking oaths, but the rest of the New Testament seems far more concerned about making sure that we understand that He is God more than it does that we not take oaths.’
Your replies just get unbelievably worse as it goes on. You place the importance of “rest of the New Testament” as if anything Lord Jesus says earlier on is less important than something later written.
Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of My Mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
your comment: ‘making sure that we understand that He is God more than it does that we not take oaths.’
James 2:19 Do you still think it’s enough just to believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!
Psalm 119:126 It is time for You to act, O LORD, For they have regarded Your law as void.
you wrote ‘There’s lots of bad theology out there, but having bad theology doesn’t make one an enemy of God. There is bad theology and there is heresy and apostasism, you seem to roll them together. This is infinitely dangerous as it gives the Church no room to discern where there is room to disagree on an issue and where the Church should take her stand.’
Again, God says otherwise through Paul in: Philippians 3:17-18 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ
your comment: [‘This is infinitely dangerous as it gives the Church no room to discern where there is room to disagree on an issue and where the church should take her stand’]….
My comment
is where Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Head of the church, the Rock in which we take our marching orders from. The church is a non-entity unless we give our all to Lord Jesus Christ/never to a man-made/man-driven doctrines taught in man-made/man-driven seminaries.
Acts 20: 29-31 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears
Again, just as in Numbers 20:10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? As though mankind could even blink an eye without God. Wake up and grow up, now while you can.
All of Amos Chapter 8
Amos 8: 4 Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail,
Amos 8:11-12 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, But shall not find [it].
kw,
I appreciate you are zealous, but I agree with Grant that there are things to divide over and things not to divide over. Division that is over the non-essentials is very bad. This is the point of my post.
When Paul talked about the enemies of the cross of Christ, he was not talking about true Christians. The non-essentials should never divide us as Christians and it is a very serious to get to the point of identifying someone as an enemy of the cross of Christ. We do not identify such a one because they are a soldier or go to war.
During his preaching of repentance John the Baptist said:
The crowd then asked John what they needed to do. He told them what would be signs of repentance. When some soldiers approached John he did not tell them that repentance was for them to stop being soldiers. Rather than condemn them for being soldiers, the Bible relates the account:
There was no condemnation for being a soldier, but they were to be content with their wages.
Now I am asking that we put a period to these discussions that are off topic. While I appreciate that Christians can discuss these issues, I don’t want my blog to be a place of dialog on war, government, conspiracy theories, etc because this takes away from what I am trying to do here. It gets us off the task of encouraging women to obey God in the way that He has called them.
So please, let’s stay on topic so that I don’t need to moderate the comments. I really hate having to do that as I believe in free expression but within proper boundaries.
Thanks!
Grant and Cheryl, I didn’t know what to make of kw’s “comments,” but I think your responses were appropriate, and so I won’t say any more about it. However, Grant, I think you need to understand where some of us are coming from, and why our response to hierarchical complementarians appears to be so, well, firm and uncompromising.
Many of us were at one time of that same persuasion ourselves, you know. Yet when someone challenged us, on the basis of Acts 2, 1 Cor 12-14, 2 Cor 5:11-21, and Gal 3:26-4:7 to carefully examine and rethink our position, because we cared about the truth, justice, righteousness and shalom of Christ’s present and coming kingdom, which is to be expressed in our individual and corporate lives as both citizens and representatives of his kingdom–because of this commitment, we investigated the inspired and authoritative Word of God, using the historical-cultural-grammatical method of interpretation, to see if our egalitarian friend’s challenge held any water. And lo and behold, the Spirit of truth revealed to us, through those same Scriptures, that our friends were right and we were wrong!
But what happened when we told other complementarians how we came to know the truth? They accused us of abandoning the inspiration and authority of Scripture, and of capitulating to a godless, secular and Scripture-twisting philosophy! And when we tried to reason with them from Scripture, we found that they were closed minded–unwilling to consider that the traditional inteprepretation might be wrong and demanding that we turn away from our error and folly.
Now, I don’t know much about Mr Duncan or his writings. But I do know John Piper and R.C. Sproul, whose writings on Christ’s atonement and the Attributes of God I have read with profit. And on most other issues, I would consider them orthodox. But as regards their teaching on the hierarchical relationships existing not only between men and women, but also those between the Three Persons of the Trinity–from my studies of Scripture, theology and Christian history, I would have to say they have become heterodox.
So as one trained to be a teacher, preacher and defender of the Gospel Faith, I am going to speak out against them on those points where I am convinced they have departed from orthodox Christianity, and I will make no apology for doing so. Now, Grant, you may still disagree with me about these issues, but I hope you understand why some of Mr. Duncan’s comments come across as insults and attacks against our intellectual, moral and spiritual integrity, to which we do not take very kindly.
To Cheryl:
you wrote ‘KW,
I know that you have posted on this site before and I usually try to welcome each new person. If I failed to welcome you, I am sorry. That would be a failure on my part.
You said that you wrote to me and I didn’t answer. I did a search of my gmail account for your email address to see what it was that I missed and I found it and I now know why I didn’t answer. The email was marked as “to answer” but it was so overwhelming it was left until I had time to wade through it and that time just never came. When it was transferred to Word, it was 234 pages long!!!’
my comment: I never wrote that you “didn’t welcome me on your site”; because you did. I didn’t mark my email to answer; I don’t even know how to do that. What I posted was that when I emailed you, thanking you for your article on the 12 apostles, that I had wished you’d just had acknowledged me via email to basically say hi. I never said nor expected you to reply concerning my paper. The only reason I sent you the paper was to show you, in agreeing with you, that God is/has been calling women to teach. I also believe that we, all of us, men/women are here to correct the grave errors that are taught in the religious settings that are called churches. Just wanted to set the record straight.
you wrote: ‘So I briefly skimmed through it and it was filled with quotes about Zionist Israel and quotes about China, talk about the CIA and George Bush, a long history of the US and vaccinations, politics, satan’s system, Mormonism as a “denomination”, the Vatican and secret societies, Project paperclip, none of which are applicable to this blog.’
Cheryl, the first 200+ pages were all Scripture and inspired teaching of that Scripture. I put the Scripture teachings out first and then later what the world gov’ts are up to. The secular info was placed to show why we should never trust mankind/governments and to teach that the entire world is deceived including most of the church. You made it sound as though it was nothing but kooky conspiracy theories. There was a reason as to why I placed everything in it’s proper order. And that is to show that as God warned/is warning us in: Jeremiah 17: Thus says the LORD: “Cursed [is] the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And [shall not see when good comes], But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. Where was your discernment in all of that?
you wrote: ‘kw,
‘I appreciate you are zealous, but I agree with Grant that there are things to divide over and things not to divide over. Division that is over the non-essentials is very bad. This is the point of my post.’
‘Again, God says otherwise through Paul in: Philippians 3:17-18 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ’
‘When Paul talked about the enemies of the cross of Christ, he was not talking about true Christians. The non-essentials should never divide us as Christians and it is a very serious to get to the point of identifying someone as an enemy of the cross of Christ. We do not identify such a one because they are a soldier or go to war.’
My comment: I realize that only a remnant of true Christians; the ones who obey God are never the enemies of the cross. That’s basic knowledge.
you wrote: ‘to get to the point of identifying someone as an enemy of the cross of Christ. We do not identify such a one because they are a soldier or go to war.’
My comment: The false “leaders” of the “churches” teaching and leading astray are the true enemies of the cross. I wrote the entire pile of false teaching which includes the promoting of and endorsing war. These I listed are not “non-essentials”. This is serious and never non-essentials.
you wrote: ‘During his preaching of repentance John the Baptist said:
Luke 3:9 (NASB)
9 “Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” ‘
my comment: I agree which is what my entire post is about.
you wrote: ‘The crowd then asked John what they needed to do. He told them what would be signs of repentance. When some soldiers approached John he did not tell them that repentance was for them to stop being soldiers. Rather than condemn them for being soldiers, the Bible relates the account:’
‘Luke 3:14 (NASB)
14 Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.” ‘
‘There was no condemnation for being a soldier, but they were to be content with their wages.’
my comment: I agree; there was no condemnation to being a soldier:
Luke 3:14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, [Do violence to no man], neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
I perceive that my posts may not have been read. Perhaps just skimmed over which would explain the serious errors that have been put forth in what I’m trying to impart.
you wrote: ‘Now I am asking that we put a period to these discussions that are off topic. While I appreciate that Christians can discuss these issues, I don’t want my blog to be a place of dialog on war, government, conspiracy theories, etc because this takes away from what I am trying to do here. It gets us off the task of encouraging women to obey God in the way that He has called them.’
‘So please, let’s stay on topic so that I don’t need to moderate the comments. I really hate having to do that as I believe in free expression but within proper boundaries.’
‘Thanks!’
My comment: I understand, but that’s exactly what I’m doing; a woman in the ministry teaching what Christ has taught me for the benefit of the church.
I respect you, Cheryl, but the non-essentials seems to be the focusing solely on the men vs women. Yes, it is important, but for all of the trillions of words written on this topic, where are the other gravely important false doctrines issues that should be discussed amongst all of Christendom for the benefit of the Coming of the Lord.
I’ve said my peace, pun intended, and thank you for the opportunities.
Frank,
Thanks for sharing your story. I think what you went through helps all of us to understand the challenges of the comp/egal issue especially in the story of one who has been on the other camp. That was very helpful, thank you!
kw,
We will just agree to disagree and leave it at that. While I could put in the time and effort to show where God Himself sent people to war, and I have done so in the past with JW’s who condemn the church for allowing anyone in the military, I just cannot stretch myself any thinner right now. I have so little time and I am not going to fight about the non-essentials. I am horribly behind on my emails as I am the only one answering right now and without help and I feel very guilty about that. There isn’t enough of me to go around and I choose to draw the line at arguing about things that are not necessary to the gospel.
So thanks for understanding.
Sad…truly sad that orthodoxy now seemingly requires a complementarion stance.