GOD BLESS THE JEWS (A Lesson In What Matters In Life)

Here's a very interesting video about the miracle of Israel. When you watch it, listen for the role of biblical doctrine and it's outworking in practical life. (As if doctrine isn't practical, right?)


For a better screen shot, see the video here at youtube.

THE LESSON ABOUT DOCTRINE
Hebrew Bible and New Testament both tell us God's people will be a light and a blessing to the world. Of course, the blessing has it's fulfillment in the coming and rule of Messiah.

But the Jews have never lost sight of their role as God's light to the world and the high place of knowledge and critical thinking in the life of the child of God. Even in their current state of denial of the Messiah Jesus, they still seek to fulfill these two doctrines. As a result of these two doctrines lived out by people who don't even know Messiah at this point, the rest of us are blessed. As a man thinks, so is he.

See the point? Study. Consider. Live.

Phil Perkins.

DO YOU THINK LIKE A CHRISTIAN?

Watch this video:

Did you like that? If so, why? What was good or bad about it? Take a second right now and write your thoughts down. I know it's hokey to ask you to do that, but it'll be worth it. Write it down.

There. Thanks.

Now, think back to what the video actually did and answer these questions:

1. Did it include some Scripture?

2. Were the Scripture passages linked to points in the subject logically, emotionally, or artisticly?

3. Did it have scientists in it?

4. Did you enjoy the video? Why?

Write down your answers.

Now, let's take a look at the questions.

1. Did it include some Scripture?
Technically, yes, but until the very far in, the only Scripture was the snippet term "new earth". And even that was deceptive. But more about that after question 2.

2. Were the Scripture passages linked to points in the subject logically, emotionally, or artisticly?
Not logically. There was an intense emotional appeal, and the production value was pretty good for the internet. The art put the Scripture passages together with the images.

Starting with the term "new earth", I was immediately aware I was watching a very deceptive piece. The producer(s) of this video used the biblical term "new earth" in a way that illustrates a logical trick common in debate. I call it bait and switch definitions. It works like this: When in a debate, one can often turn the entire debate by redefining a key word or phrase in the middle of the debate if it's done so that one's opponent (and the audience) doesn't notice. It's very dishonest and very effective. The Bible teaches this earth and universe will be destroyed and substituted with one not infested with sin. "New earth" and "new heaven" denote the new. This video, however, speaks of a scifi scenario in which a large celestial body comes so close to the earth that the continents and poles are rearranged and that is the "new earth" in the video. The "new heaven" is how the sky will look if the earth ever has the poles moved drastically.

At the end, the art gets really thick. Dramatic music and pictures of lions with captions saying "Lion of Judah". Nice art. What does that have to do with the "new earth"? We've just watched a pack of lies, and now we're expected to stop all critical thinking because of the cheesy, overly-dramatic exhibition of religious cliche and symbol. Obviously these scriptural terms are used to pluck heart strings, and stop any thinking.

3. Did it have scientists in it?
There's no way to know from the video. While it starts with an older gentleman in what seems to be his personal library, we aren't told who he is. Whoever he is, he starts by telling an obvious lie, "Do you know where 98% of the population of the United States lives? Within 20 miles of a coast." Really? Chicago, OK City, DesMoines, Salt Lake City, Buffalo, Portland, Omaha, Dallas, Atlanta... Most of LA isn't within 20 miles of the coast, but never mind the facts, the music is quite dramatic and he looks like some sort of authority. And the same goes for the other interviewees. Some may have been scientists, but who's to say? And who's to say where all the stolen video came from and just how many times copyright law was violated? The important thing, it seems, is to project an air of factuality and expertise.

My personal favorite is the fellow who starts at 5:15. He quotes Revelation 6:14 where we're told "every mountain and island were moved out of their places." He then takes a desktop globe and tilts it to illustrate what might happen if the poles were moved. He then says that tilting the earth like that the mountains and islands will be moved. No, the poles will be moved and there would likely be a lot of nasty stuff happening. He then tilts the little globe again, quotes Revelation 21:1 and says this is the "new earth" and since the stars would appear in different places in the sky, that is the "new heaven". Did he even read that verse? It says both will be destroyed, not rearranged and that there would no longer be a sea.

Believe me, I wish this sort of thing actually worked. I have an old Chevy truck. If I parked it on a slant and that made it new...WOW!! I'd go for that. I'd start a car lot, buy junkers and park them on ditch bank over night and SHAZAM! I'm rich!

4. Did you enjoy the video? Why?
If you think it's the content, go back and watch it without the sound. It's boring and it's really stupid. The things claimed are ridiculous. The art covers a plate of nonsense served with a big glass of ice cold pretention.

THE LESSON?
If you started by enjoying this video, being "blessed", don't feel too bad. There are a lot of folks taken in by this. Christians are to test every spirit, even if the spirit is very "spiritual" and has dramatic music.

Did you see the watermark? It said prophecyfilm.com. You can find that here. It's a website that belongs to a very far out, nutty group. Read the link to "spiritual information must know to be saved". Turns out you have to believe certain things about Tinkerbell and Disney to be saved. Yeah, gotta have that info. And they do things like claiming to have a video of a girl who dies and goes to hell on camera. When you watch, it's just Hollywood horror movies scenes stolen (regardless of copyright and without proper attribution), put together and set to cheesy music. Then look up the other group, Salt Ministries here. They believe in numerology and the "Numeric Greek New Testament" and the "Numeric English Bible". It's kabbalistic and mystical, a sort of numerology. The belief is that the correct text of the Greek NT can be found, not by good textual criticism, but by finding the correct combination of numbers.

Still like that video?

Come let us reason. If you want to emote, rent a real movie, not one patched together by stealing the work of other people without paying them.

Phil Perkins.

UNTYING A VERY PRODIGAL KNOT

Dear Prodigal Knot, I've enjoyed communicating with you over the last couple years alot on these blogs. However, I really think you need to be straightened out and I think I know just the fellow to do it. His name is Dr. Darrell Cox.

As it happens, he is speaking at a Baptist church here in Billings and I know he's qualified because of the poster I found in our laundromat made on a home computer with a cheap printer and pinned over some other guy's poster advertising his little home based business, because Dr. Cox is much more important than the little people. The poster listed Dr. Cox's accomplishments. Here are a few to help you understand just how big a wig he is in the religious boobeousie :

1. Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church for over 20 years.

2.Membership of his church is approximately 900 members.

3. Averages over 885 per Sunday in Sunday School.

4.In the year 2004, there were 9,370 souls saved & 1,347 people were baptized.

5. Runs 19 bus routes with an average of 600 people or more per Sunday.

6.Church supports 120 missionaries.

7. Trinity Baptist Academy (Christian School) was started in 1995.

Now, pay attention, PK, because any man who saved over 9,000 folks in one year all on his own ought to be heeded. I mean, Paul didn't even do that. He had to depend on the power of the gospel. Kinda a crutch, I'd say. After all, who needs God's Spirit. We got Darrell, bib overalls-n-all! Hummmm, wonder if he has one of those Southern Baptist puffy hairdoes, where great amounts of effort, hairspray, and prayer are used in a sincere attempt to make an old preacher look like he has the same hair he did in 1963.....? Perhaps, you could come to Billings, where Dr. Cox will be inflicted upon us here and mean preach the gospel of gaaaawwww-duh......at the Gospel Baptist Church at 1246 Cook Street at 7pm March 29 and 30.

You could see his hair!

You know how to get hold of me. You can stay at my house. Come and let Dr. Cox bless the devil (and the doctrines of grace) outta ya.

Tongue in Cheek,
Phil Perkins. PS--For those of you who haven't met PK, he's a great guy, a solid and serious student of Scripture and Christian. His website is here.

LEST YOU THINK WE AREN'T IN A MENTAL GHETTO

Before my hiatus, I did a series on the abysmal state of biblical knowledge in the religious clubs we most often call churches. I hit pretty hard, but recently I did something I've had in mind for sometime. I downloaded the Westminster Larger Catechism, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646, the Baptist Confession of 1689, and the Canons of Dordt.

They make great reference material for a number of reasons, one of which is to get the perspective of men not tainted by the spirit of our times. (They were tainted by the spirit of their times, of course.)

One great lesson, though, came to me in spades: WE KNOW NOTHING!!!!!!

Some of these documents were hundreds of pages. The Westminster Larger Catechism had 1303 sets of proof verses with which to be familiar. Yes, that's right. Not 1303 proof verses, but 1303 SETS of proof verses. Each set varied from 1 to maybe 4 or 5 verses. Some had more. Yet, we're told by so many that we know too much Bible and should stop studying so much and all the yada yada about "knowledge puffs up" (the only verse memorized these days, it seems).

That's a lie.

Be Holy,
Phil Perkins.

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part X

For the shepherds have become stupid And have not sought the LORD; Therefore they have not prospered, And all their flock is scattered. The prophecy of Jermiah, chapter ten, verse twenty-one.

He slumps at the bar. Or he laughs too louldly by the pool table. Or he flirts too much with too many of the girls at the bar. He intended to drink only two or three beers. It's quarter to one and he has to be at work at six. He turned of his cell three hours ago so his wife can't call him again.

FINALLY THE END--Part X.
When I started this series I was like the drunk. I thought it'd go two, maybe three installments. But as I dug and thought and read, the devastation done by the avoidance of precise thought in favor of the emotive and mystical has weighed and weighed on my mind. It's a desparately evil thing. I hope I've exposed well a tooth or two of this animal. I hope I've motivated one or two to strive to think biblical thoughts in biblical categories with biblical vocabulary. I hope I've comforted one or two who have been persecuted for doing it. I hope I've helped all of you to laugh at the Swami of Smarminess at prayer meeting or Sunday School. I hope you laugh up your sleeve the next time the church lady (or the fellow who wished he was more like a lady because he thinks Jesus was) looks down her long, stiff Pharisee nose at you and says you're not nearly as loving as she thinks she is------I hope the next time that happens you have a hard time not laughing. I hope the next time someone tells you that doctrine isn't important you ask them where they found that doctrine in the Bible and if they think it's really important to believe the dontrine-isn't-important doctrine. Then I hope your accuser gets embarrassed for saying something so stupid. I hope you ignore anyone who tells you this sort of thing as irrelevant. I hope you pray that their influence be quenched. I hope you pray that such folks get saved. I hope you fall more in love with Scripture and the God Who revealed it every day. More and more and more and more and more.

That's why I couldn't shut up.

THE MENTAL GHETTO ONE MORE TIME.
For those of you who may be new, this is the tenth and last of a series on the MENATAL GHETTO. You can read about it by following the link provided. Briefly, the MENTAL GHETTO is the idea that doctrine isn't important, sensitive is better than true, feeling is better than knowing, and the praise band is a ministry. I call it a ghetto because it's like the real ghetto in most American cities. It's a horrible place to be, but getting out means turning off the TV, putting away the bong, taking a shower, and filling out jobs aps. As long as a pittance of money stolen by government from working people comes in, it's tolerable. In the MENTAL GHETTO, everyone knows they don't know much about the Bible, but pastors, other congregants, even our closest friends don't hold us accountable. Few church goers can name six of the ten commandments, but never will you hear anyone rebuked for this appalling ignorance in an ME (Modern Evangelical) institution. We get away with it. Studying the Bible is hard. What's even harder is the change that biblical knowledge will require from those who come to possess it. So folks stay in the MENTAL GHETTO.

It's easier.

SENSITIVITY AS A SIN IN SCRIPTURE--MALACHI.
The clergy need their faces smeared with manure. Who would make such a vulgar suggestion? God said that. Malachi's job was to pass this message along to the folks and their shepherds, the Levitical priests.

In Malachi 2, God addresses the shepherds of Israel. Like all the prophets dealing with the descendants of Jacob, Malachi was an officer of the court. God sent Malachi to serve papers on Israel, but this section is not to all of Israel. It was just to the Levites. The papers served usually named the ways in which the people of Israel or Judah had violated the Covenant of Sinai. The papers for the Levites had to do with the covenant God made with Levi's descendants. He promised them the priesthood. In Numbers 3 God told Moses that only the Levites could attend to the tabernacle. All others would die if they tried. In return, the Levites were to be completely owned by God through Aaron, in Numbers 3:9. This special favor and wonderful privilege was to be repaid with absolute fidelity.

The Levites had broken the contract. They were not exact in the instruction of the Law of God. Here is Malachi 2:1-9 in the NASB:

1 "And now, this commandment is for you, O priests.
2 "If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name," says the LORD of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart.
3 "Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
4 "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi," says the LORD of hosts.
5 "My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me, and stood in awe of My name.
6 "True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity.
7 "For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.
8 "But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says the LORD of hosts.
9 "So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways, but are showing partiality in the instruction."

By the time of Malachi, the judgment had been set. This was not a prophecy of warning. Judgment was ordered. The time for repentance was gone. The Hebrews were about to go through 400 years of silence from God. These were probably His last words to that generation and the first nine verses of chapter two were His last words to the clergy before their damnation came upon them. Read the first two verses. "I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart," God said. What had they not taken to heart? The first part of verse two tells us. "...you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name..."

The priests had another priority and it didn't involve being wholly given to God. Any preacher who preaches for any reason other than to glorify God by being absolutely faithful to His word is sinning the sin of the Levites of Malachi's prophecy.

I don't get to preach much in churches. The story is always the same. "You're too harsh." "Can't you be positive?" "Why do you always preach judgment?" In short, I'm not sensitive to the feelings of my hearers.

The preacher of God isn't supposed to care about the feelings of his hearers. He's supposed to be given precisely and totally to God. The Levitical Covenant in Numbers puts it this way in verse nine: "You shall thus give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the sons of Israel."

See the words "they are wholly given"? Literally, word-for-word, it could be rendered, "...given ones, given ones are they..." THAT'S emphatic. That's pointed. The next two phrases are important, too. First is "to him". "Him" refers to Aaron. In other words, the Levites were given to the work of the ministry. Then comes the contrast, "...from among the sons of Israel." The idea here is that there is a distinct consecration of the Levites. Men called to minister are distinct from others. They are not the same. Are all the saints given wholly to God? Yes, but there's a special responsibility preachers have that no one else has. Their job isn't to be given to the congregation. They're God's. Only God's feelings are the preacher's concern. Men are incidental. And that's appropriate even if only the love of our fellow man is considered, since the very Word of God is life to the soul. The feelings of a man are no more important to the preacher than the pain of a patient to a surgeon. The limb must be amputated or the man dies. For the man of God, only the accurate preaching of God's word is a concern of real consequence.

Going too far? See another passage having to do with the work of presenting God's truth to men. The task of the prophet is delineated in Deuteronomy 18. This is a key passage for understanding all of Scripture, but one ignored by far too many. The reason it's so important is it's centrality to the understanding of just how any man is to relate to the word of God, preacher or not. This passage is pivotal and precursive to II Timothy 3:16 and 17. Without II Timothy 3 and Psalm 119, we would still have the doctrines of the sufficiency of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, and the necessity of Scripture in Deuteronomy 18. It even gives the foundation for order in the church. All that needs to be added to the plain teaching of Deuteronomy 18 to achieve all this is the inspiration of Scripture.

Let's take a look at just a wee bit of this passage. Verses 18-20 read like this:

18 I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

Did you notice the part about how the prophet is to consult the feelings of his hearers when deciding what to say and how to say it? I didn't either. There is one and only one criterion for deciding what to say: "...he shall speak to them all that I command him." There isn't much to consider, is there? Just say what God has said. That's all. It's simple. Either you do it or you don't.

Back to Malachi--the Levites were under God's coming judgment simply because their guiding principle was something other than God's glory. That other agenda was the "lifting of faces". Look at verse nine. The NASB and most translations say "showing partiality". Literally, it's "lifting faces". Their sin was lifting faces instead of giving honor to the name of God as prescribed in verse two. That, by the way, is the essence of the declarative side of the gospel. Bragging about God is an essential part of evangelism. See Psalm 145 for that and cross reference the first verses of I Corinthians 15. (The imperative side of the gospel is the command to repent and believe.)

"Showing partiality" isn't a bad translation. It's appropriate since that is the idiomatic meaning of "lifting faces". "Lifting faces" is commonly associated with taking bribes, too, in Scripture. See Job 34:19, Proverbs 28:21, and II Chronicles 19:7. I think it's interesting, though, that the Spirit chose the idiom "lifting faces". The Hebrews understood something. We read each other. When we please someone, they look up and their eyes brighten. As one who has taught, I can tell you with confidence a teacher knows when he has his audience. When the faces are up and bright, your audience likes what they're hearing.

But there's often a trade to be made to get this result. Men who respect the feelings of others don't fear God and don't know the wonder of God. They don't know God. Verse five. And in verses six through eight, we read that such men no longer speak the truth to men.

The dishonest preacher preaches based on what will lift the faces of his audience. It can be very manipulative. Malachi tells us just what God thinks about such men. He will smear feces on their faces, disrespect their religious service, curse their children, and throw them away with the feces produced by the eating that took place at their feasts. Verse three says, "Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it." This a picture of being thrown in the dump outside of the city, a biblical figure of damnation.

Of course this is figurative. Yet, just how nasty a picture must God paint for us to understand His hatred for those who shade the truth to please others? How disgusting a story must He tell to make us understand the damnation that awaits the pastor who is nice, but not true? Evil preachers preach to make congregants look up and smile.

What a small bribe to accept for your soul!

EXAMPLES OF SENSITIVE HYPOCRITES.
I thought I'd end this series with just three examples I've had right here at this blog and some of the blogs I've read lately. These are Evangelical "Christians" who have become very sensitive and been lead into all sorts of sin as a result. I won't give their real or full names, because I don't want to confuse the issue. Chances are you could easily give dozens of similar examples, too, so I'll make it short--just be assured that you're not crazy all those times you wondered why such sensitive folks hate so much. You're not alone.

In the previous section we looked at some Scripture having to do with sensitivity and how it can actually be a sin. "But the passages had to do with paritiality, didn't they?" Yes, but excessive sensitivity is just part of partiality. The two are inseparable and that's part of the hypocrisy of the sensitive. As these examples will show, sensitivity is seldom blind. The preacher who pleases men will always please the most important men. That's how they get and keep their jobs, after all. Even if sensitivity to the feelings of men could be practiced with complete equality among the hearers of the preacher, the preacher is supposed to be partial to God, not men. When God tells us to speak and we change what we say to accomodate men are we not being partial to men over God?

Be that as it may, the sensitive (in my experience) have never been truly even handed. They are never sensitive to the feelings of those they deem intolerant and insensitive. Demonstrate a love for biblical truth over human relationship as Scripture commands and watch as your character is assassinated, ridiculed, and all the wonderfully sensitive hate you and your family. They have a cause and anyone who opposes it are to be despised, no matter how they feel about it.

Example 1.
After my post exposing the doctrinal problems of Henry Blackaby, "Anonymous" called me and all who read my posts "fools". In those posts, the underlying biblical doctrine I defended against Blackaby was the sufficiency of Scripture. That's pretty basic. Yet, "Anonymous" chewed me out good. I should get back to "basic Bible teaching", according to him.

How basic can you get? "Trust the Bible alone" is where one starts when teaching the Bible isn't it? Pretty close, I'd say. "Anonymous" accused me of being insensitive and called me a fool. No hypocrisy here, huh? Then he ended with a request. He wanted to know if the Bible allowed for a special sexual sin he had interest in. According to "Anonymous" the answer to whether or not we could find a way to approve of his lust was "basic Bible teaching". The adquacy of the Bible isn't.

Mind-boggling.

Example 2. I recently nailed a false teacher very popular among some in the Evangelical community. He has publicly held the "Wider Mercy" doctrine for decades. That doctrine says that one doesn't have to even hear the name of Jesus or know what the gospel is to be saved. Buddhists can remain Buddhists and go to heaven. The same is true of Mormons, Muslims, and atheists. A fellow named "Randy" was very offended. I wasn't sensitive. I was wrong. I emailed him with passages of Scripture laying out the problem with that position and quotes from the false teacher. He actually admitted I was right, but told me I shouldn't say it because it made too many people too mad. When I asked him if he thought it was consistent to tell me I was right, but shouldn't be allowed to say it, he hung up on the conversation and made it clear I was not welcome in his life.........EVER.

Interestingly, "Randy" claimed to be in full time ministry and offered that as evidence that he was right, or at least that I should be sensitive enough to him to let him remain in his sin. But when I checked his profile, he works in government.

How does this happen?

Example 3. Related to the story of "Randy" is another. In this story "John" had plugged a member of the ministry team of the false teacher mentioned above. I had read "John's" blog regularly. I enjoyed his defense of the faith against doctrines like the "Wider Mercy" doctrine advocated by the likes of theological liberals and Emergents. He has done so for a long time with good humor and frankness. However, when one of his heroes believed the very same false doctrine pushed by the groups he rightly opposes, I was not allowed to object against the very doctrine "John" so correctly hates. I wasn't sensitive to a hero of his.

Sensitivity is almost always sensitivity for only a special group. It is always partial. It is never honest. But it does very well at stopping biblical and logical thought. Is there a biblical role for sensitivity? Yes, in our personal dealings. But it can never make a difference when we speak truth.

THE LAST WORD AND A WARNING.
I hope you've profited by this series. I have, simply by digging in the Scripture and thinking things through.

Here's a warning that I'd like to humbly offer: After all this talk of precise thought and achieving biblical knowledge, it's good to remember that smart doesn't equal righteous. The most effective false teachers are geniuses. NEVER look down your nose at someone who may or may not be as smart as you are. If you're right and that person isn't as sharp as you, remember two things. 1. That person is your brother or sister. Be kind and care for them. Gently teach them, pray for them, and respect them. 2. If they're more faithful to what they do know than you are to what you know, you'll work for them in the next life. God ain't partial.

If you've read any of this, thank you. I consider it a privilege to be heard. God bless you and yours.

Be holy and pray that I do, too,
Phil Perkins.

THINK BIBLICAL THOUGHTS IN BIBLICAL CATEGORIES WITH BIBLICAL VOCABULARY!

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part IX The Sin, the Outright Hypocrisy of Sensitivity.

SOME INTERESTING DEFINITIONS. (From The New Lexicon Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, copyright 1992.)
sen-si-tive adj. 1. able to respond to a stimulus, sensitive to light 2. able to respond to a very slight stimulus, a snesitive instrument 3. keenly aware of the moods and feelings of others 4. easily hurt emotionally, too readily affected by the feelings or imagined feelings of others in regard to oneself, sensitive to criticism...

sen-si-tiv-i-ty n. the state or quality of being sensitive

sensitivity group n. participants in a therapeutic group designed to promote understanding of personal emotions

sensitivity training n. a program designed to sharpen individual awareness

touch-y adj. 1. apt to be easily offended 2. apt to cause offense, a touchy subject

SENSITIVE OR TOUCHY--A Lesson in Logic, Language, and Lying.
Here's a lesson in human nature, language, and logic all roled into one. Notice definitions, 3 and 4 of sensitive. They're the same except that number four admits the negative side, meaning the same as touchy. We do this all the time. Big boned or fat. Challenged or stupid. Complex or immoral. Mistake or sin. Simpler times or back before we all became self-centered lechers. Teenage struggles or rebellion. Pro-choice or in favor of killing kids. Liberal or socialistic. All these pairs can be used synonomously, but they give quite different vibes, don't they?

There's a difference between denotation and connotation. A word, term, or phrase denotes its dictionary definition. The connotation is quite different, though. Connotation is the subtle, emotive sense that comes along side the word's definition, often connoting moral value.

We choose our words carefully to protect our egos and sooth our consciences. It's human nature. We're sinners and we don't like saying it or hearing it. One needs to look behind the language to what is being said in simple, factual terms. Sometimes it pays to take the time and say the same thing with different words. Sometimes it'll shake you to your toes.

Pro-choice and in favor of killing the unborn both denote the state or quality of being pro-abortion. But their connotations are vastly different. One connotes open-mindedness, freedom, and liberality. The other calls someone a murderer. Look for this sort of thing and your discernment skills will be vastly enhanced.

That's what unbelieving church-goers have done. Self-centeredness of the basest, most immature kind is now called "sensitivity". Jesus said that we're to deny ourselves. MEism says we're to worry ourselves about our self-esteem and that of others. Sensitivity is the attempt to never hurt anyone's sef-esteem. It is the worship of the emotional--the deification of the heart.

God hates it.

Jeremiah said the heart is a liar in 17:9. Now no one can call another a liar because it hurts our hearts. We feel bad and that fact is enough to stop any reproof, except the reproof of the reprover.

SENSITIVITY IN SCRIPTURE.
So, are we ever told in Scripture to be sensitive to the feelings of others. Yes, we are. But it isn't a major theme of Scripture. In fact, valuing another's feelings over their spiritual welfare is often the most unloving thing one can do. Jesus told everyone He met they were sinners in need of repentance to avoid God's eternal punishment. That was His theme. Matthew 4:17. He never went preaching sensitivity. In fact, He hurt so many feelings they killed Him.

The insidious effect of today's emphasis on sensitivity is to squelch factual communication of truth. It stops thought in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment. If sensitivity is all important, then every statement about sin can be trashed because it hurts someone's feelings. Every commandment God has uttered is subject to man's commandment to never hurt the self-esteem of anyone. There is no commandment that can be uttered that can't be objected to under the color of sensitivity. All egos must be protected from the commandments of that nasty, insensitive Hebrew God.

Facts don't matter and thought stops.

And that's the point.

SENSITIVITY HYPOCRITES--The New Pharisees.

Who were the Pharisees? They were those lousy old men who were such white-knuckled Bible-thumpers that they hated Jesus because Jesus wasn't so uptight about following every little thing in Scripture. Right? They were all legalistic. Right?

No. That's a lie.

Jesus said that the Pharisees did two sins in Matthew 23 and neither had anything to do with being too in love with God's Laws or His Scripture.

1. Jesus said the Pharisees were hypocrites, saying things that may be right, but not doing the things they asked others to do. They were hypocrites. He said, "The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things, and do not do them."

2. Jesus said the Pharisees enjoyed holding themselves up as superior over others. He said, "And they tie up heavy loads, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men..." Holier than thou is now softer than you.
Doesn't that sound like the Mother Superiors of Sensitivity? "You're harsh!" "Don't judge!" "Be sensitive." They judge; you're not supposed to. They judge you for judging them because judging is wrong, unless you're one of them. They're loving. You're not. You just can't measure up. You're just not sappy enough. You're legalistic. They're not. Remember that. It's a law of nature in their world.

The Tolerance-Nazis really are hypocrites, too. And the whole idea is to prevent one from actually thinking. Tomorrow I'll end this series with three examples of the Sensitivity Police and how they act when they think now one's listening. You can decide if they keep their own commandments or not.

In Christ,
Phil Perkins. PS--For a humorous look at these new Pharisees, read here.

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part VIII The Sins of Intellectual Freedom and Lazy Preachers.

REVIEW.

If you've not read the articles on the MENTAL GHETTO I define the Mental Ghetto as the condition common in Evangelical America. That condition is the purposeful ignorance of biblical things. I call this on-purpose ignorance aphronism. The folks in the pew like this condition because hard thought and study aren't required. Clergy like it because they don't have to strive for accuracy and they are allowed to teach just about anything. Corporate "Christianity" likes it because they can keep selling books, music, t-shirts, conferences, and baubles that biblically-informed folks would never touch. So the Ghetto Bosses have a lot to lose if the folks in the pews get wise. And those folks seem to like napping. The ghettos in American cities are populated by folks who get money to stay there and do so because they are lazy. Their enablers are politicians who sell the tax money of hard working folks for votes from lazy folks. The Mental Ghetto is populated by folks who'd rather watch TV than do Bible study. The enablers are preachers who don't want to hold them accountable or be held accountable by them. The pimps are Corporate Christianity in the form of pulbishers, conferences, the music industry and preachers who thrive in an environment where the market is full of folks who don't know much about Scripture and don't care much about the little they do know.

THE SIN OF APHRONISM IN THE PULPIT. Mentally lazy preachers dishonor God and deceive the folks.
A. W. Pink lived from 1886 to 1952 and he disrespected his preaching peers greatly for the sin of aphronism. He said that he and others like him made "the same charge against the majority of the preachers of our day, and against those who, instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves, lazily accept the teachings of others." (1) So, too, I disrespect the typical ME preacher. Only a very few are godly men doing God's work.

Too strong? Let me lay out some facts from my own experience, many of which you will be able to confirm from yours with only a little reflection. The best preachers preach out of the Greek or at least study the passages for their sermons in the Greek. And when we hear fellows like this, telling us what the text means in the original, we all know we are hearing one of the better workmen filling our pulpits. But wait.

Why only Greek?

Simple. Greek's easier. Greek covers only 27% of Scripture. The Old Testament is written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Why ignore 72-73% of the Bible? The pattern is skewed for our young preachers-to-be. They hear the Greek expounded, never the Hebrew. As a result, the language many of our schools offer is the Greek alone. They do this to get enrollment up. Money and numbers matter more than obedience. If they demanded that young men learn to read the entire Scripture, some would flunk and some would go to another, easier school. Fewer students means fewer dollars and a lesser stature in their denomination and the ME "church" in general. So they're not about to do the right thing. Isn't it logical to learn Hebrew first? The first Scriptures were written in Hebrew. In order to properly understand the New Covenant, don't we need to know the Old Covenant? How do you recognize a Hebraism in the NT if you don't know Hebrew literature? Indeed, most ME preachers don't understand ekklesia (church) because they've never studied qahal and eydah. A common error is that God's church started in Acts. I didn't. It started in Exodus. But since the OT is seldom sermonized or studied, few know that. The old time commentators knew that. Why don't we? Ancient Israel was constantly called God's bride and spoken about as the wife of Yahweh, committing adultery when she openly sinned. Yet, if you ask the typical ME preacher or member when the bride of Christ started or what it is, they will answer the "church", meaning the believing Gentiles from the time of Acts. They've been told that by lazy preachers who know neither their Bibles nor their history.

Did you know that the bride metaphor occurs only once in the NT, but many times in the OT? Probably not. Blame your pastor. Correct him at your own risk.

And if you think misunderstanding the Hebrew nature of the concept of ekklesia isn't important, you're wrong. Because many see the church as Gentile, many deny the restoration of Israel or even practice spiritual or political antisemitism. We aren't better than the Jews, nor are we their replacement in history. We are'nt a new thing. We are grafted into the old thing. We serve the Hebrew God. WE'RE the redheaded stepchildren, not the Jews. Read Romans 9-11.

Worse still, there are many, many pastors who learned Greek and/or Hebrew in school, but have allowed them to become rusty. I can't even relate to these guys. What are they doing in their study time? Having been given the privilege and responsibility to speak for God to men, they're nonchalant? Why aren't they straining every nerve to be accurate? Inaccuracy was a capital offense in the OT. Read Deuteronomy 18. How can a man be indifferent to that and pretend to be godly? Is this not a sham? It's worse than a sham. It's fraud. When a young man comes to a church and gives his credentials, which include the languages, he ought to use the languages. If he gets hired with these claims, and then doesn't even use the languages, he is defrauding the folks hiring him.

Even worse than "worse still", there are many preachers who've made no effort to learn the languages at all. If God called them to preach, fine. But, in a day when one can buy a grammar and get to work or even learn on the internet, why are they still reading only translations instead of Scripture itself?

There is even need for a caution about expositional preaching. Expositional preaching is an effort to mine the word of God. There's nothing wrong with it and the motivations that have popularized it in so many circles are the most godly imaginable. Preachers and pastors who do exposition from the pulpit are some of the finest we have. However, there's also a danger.

The danger in expositional preaching is an accidental myopia. The nature of the NT epistles is compact and doctrinal. Indeed, a preacher can easily find one verse that could be preached for months without exhausting it. But, it's wise to remember three things. First, even the epistles were letters to be read to a congregation orally. The aim, then was to present a doctrinal argument, detailed as the epistles are, in a single reading. That being so, it cannot logically or biblically be said that a simple reading of chapters or entire books at a time without comment to a church isn't profitable. The congregation will be spiritually fed and served if all that is done is a reading of Romans. Of course, it's quite a question if there is any congregation in America so interested in just Scripture that they'd listen long enough to do that.

Second, most of the Bible isn't compact doctrine, but narrative. Some is poetry. Some is apocalyptic. OLD Testament narrative is full of doctrine. Exodus doesn't expound a single doctrine. But it puts on brilliant display the doctrines of sovereignty, the holiness of God, corporate holiness, individual holiness, redemption, salvation, mercy, forgiveness, the responsibility of man under the sovereignty of God, and even the doctrine of the church. As a result of doing only expostion, some preachers seldom teach from the Old Testament, Acts, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophets, OT history, or the Gospels. This has led to deficits like the one mentioned above.

Third, even in the compact, doctrinal epistles, the overview is often lost on the congregation. The end result is two-fold. 1. The listeners often remain ignorant of the theme or general argument of a book and its place in the historical narrative and theology of Scripture even after hearing the preacher expose the entire book. 2. The listener actually learns to view a particular verse without reference to its immediate context, its context in the argument or narrative of the book, and the place it holds in the context of Scripture as a whole.

I'll end this section with a story. I know someone whom I consider one of the best in MEism. He is in full time ministry. I have urged him from time to time to "think biblically". And from time to time he has told me of his irritation with hearing that. Yet, he didn't understand the parable of the wheats and tares. Many preachers have misapplied the parable from Matthew 13 to mean that folks can't be kicked out of the church. What happened? He listened much to other preachers without reading the parable and Jesus' explanation later in chapter 13, just like A. W. Pink said most preachers did even in his day. And Pink was right to call it laziness.

There are many things plain to our forefathers which seem mysterious to ME preachers. How many could name the covenants? How many could tell you when the church began and get it right? How many could easily tell you accurately the doctrine of sanctification?

But lots of them can tell you quotes from Spurgeon and all about spiritual formation.

THE SIN OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM.
Charleston Heston fibbed to us. God's assembly was established in the book of Exodus and that book says lots and lots about God's people being freed from Pharoah's Egypt and the slavery there. And we've been taught that God told Pharoah, "Let My people go." That's a lie. He didn't say that at all. He said, "Let My people go that they may serve Me."

See the difference?

And God didn't say this once. He said it over and over.

Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness. Exodus 5:1.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. Exodus 7:16.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Exodus 8:1.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Exodus 8:20.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Exodus 9:1.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Exodus 9:13.
Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Exodus 10:3.

I'd say that's a theme.

When I was in college, I wasn't saved, but I was very religious and I went to Campus Crusade. A coed that also attended was preparing to go to seminary. When I asked her about her career plans for after grad school, she said she wanted to be a pastor. I brought up the instruction of Paul concerning men, not women, as overseers. I can remember her answer to this day. The reason I remember it was because at the time I was disturbed by all the church goers who just seemed to be ho-hum toward the strictures of Scripture. It seemed to me that many saw biblical interpretation as a game, as if asking, "What sorts of different positions can I come up with and choose from?" They seemed to consider it quite clever and intellectual to discuss, but not decide. And as long as an argument could be proffered, any position was legit.

That's why I remembered my friend's answer. I don't even remember her name after all these years, but I remember EXACTLY, WORD FOR WORD, her answer just like she said it. When I mentioned that Paul said only men should be pastors, she said, "You can get around that."

Oh.

Does the Bible give us that sort of intellectual freedom? Is this intellectual freedom or just old fashioned lying? The Bible says we're slaves. Before regeneration we're slaves of sin and Satan. After regeneration we're slaves of righteousness and God. The issue isn't freedom as conceived by most Americans. It's a question of who your master will be. Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" This is important in the Mental Ghetto because intellectual freedom is used as an excuse so often that it's hard to understand just why studying is all that important if life in Christ is multiple choice non-test on almost every issue.

Paul wrote specifically and directly to our thought life. We have no freedom except from the tyranny of man and Satan. (And against that tyranny, WE ARE TO BE RADICALLY REBELLIOUS.) God is our Master. II Corinthians 10:5-6 says, "...destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete."

Notice two things about that passage:

1. Speculation is a "lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God". Imagination, speculation, subjectivity, and "listening for God's voice" internally have no place in Christianity.

2. Speculation and NOT being an intellectual slave to God's revealed will in Scripture is worthy of punishment. That is why we shun false teachers and those who follow them and strive for biblical accuracy in our own lives.

Be holy,
Phil Perkins.

(1) Pink, A. W.; The Attributes of God; Sovereign Grace Publishers; Lafayette, Indiana; copyright 2002 by Jay P. Greene Sr.; ISBN 1-58960-320-6; p. 27.

PS--Sorry for going too long. The sin of sensitivity and the hypocrisy it breeds will have to wait for next time.

Comiing in Part IX:
THE SIN OF SENSITIVITY.

SENSITIVE HYPOCRITES.

A QUICK WORD ON THE DANGERS OF MEN LIKE HENRY BLACKABY.

If you haven't read my last post, Part VII in the series AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO, I' really like you to, please. It's hard reading, but more important than just about anything I've ever said. I wrote about what I believe is the most insidious and successful attack on sola scriptura in MEism. The attack is the emphasis on "feeling" the truth, instead of knowing the truth. MEs substitute their feelings by "listening" to emotions during personal devotions and group worship and judge one another based on how they make each other feel while interacting.

A man who did much to popularize this sin is Henry Blackaby. His starting point, as I pointed out in that post, is that the ancient Hebrews didn't consider they knew anything unless they had an intimate, personal experience with it. I pointed out this is a lie and we can know so easily by just a quick reflection. That is to say, the Hebrews, like anyone else, had to have lots and lots of things they knew, not by intimate, personal experience, but simply by being told verbally. For instance, if a shepherd asked a merchant the price of a tent, the merchant simply answered with the number of shekels, homers of wheat or what not. He wasn't likely to ask the shepherd to roll around in the folds of the tent and surmise the price by feeling the qualities of the tent.

I want to give one observation about this whole situation and then ask three questions.

The observation:

The problem isn't Blackaby. Anybody could be Blackaby and anyone could have written a book that promoted feelings as the primary way of coming to an intimate knowledge of God. The condition that made it possible for this man to make millions of dollars hoodwinking the church is the MENTAL GHETTO conditions in the pew. How is it that so many Evangelicals could listen to someone in a Sunday School class say that the Jews didn't know anything simply by reading it without being at least disturbed enough to raise a hand in class and ask some pointed questions? We have been trained to receive uncritically. Criticism and questioning is judgmental and bad (unless, of course, you're questioning and criticizing the one asking the critical questions--then, JUST LIKE MAGIC--it's okay). The attitude that we're in a ghetto, receiving from on high and questioning is bad allows nonsense like Blackaby's to be said regardless of the fact that there's no biblical evidence for it. Indeed, in Blackaby's case, there are boat loads of evidence against it. Common sense ought to have taken over when folks read or were told in Sunday School class that they couldn't know anything until they had a mystical experience. The teacher should have been laughed out the door. Indeed, he would have been if the class had to do with stock investing, chemistry, or calculus. Only in matters of the spiritual are we supposed to become mental slugs, feeling our way alone the sidewalk of life until we find something that makes our antennae wiggle just so, hoping we don't get stepped by the boot of truth.

The questions:

1. If the ancient Hebrews didn't think knowledge could be had simply by cognitive study, why did Moses and others write the Bible or pass on God's words to others, spoken or written? (In fact, why speak or write at all, since the deconstructionists are right?)

2. If real knowledge is possible only by direct personal experience, why did Blackaby write a book to read and study?

3. If, as Blackaby pretends, his teaching is biblical, then he came to this knowledge of God by studying the words of Scripture. Isn't this trying to have it both ways?

Just asking,
Phil Perkins.

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part VII The Sin of Subjectivism

SPEAK, GOD! SPEAK! Sinning the sin of subjectivism.
I want to announce to the world that I've been having some queasy spells, intermixed with giddiness and even a little euphoria. So if God hasn't been speaking to me, He's at least mumbling a little. Anyway, just last weekend I felt something running up my leg and whatcha know! Just like Jesus gave the disciples the Lord's prayer, He gave me the Pastor's Prayer. It's to be prayed on Saturday night. Here it is:

Speak, God, speak. No, don't roll over. Speak. I have a sermon to give tomorrow and, well...I need to spice it up, so I need You to say something profound or at least funny. Come to think of it...funny actually works better. All I've got is the passage I said I'd preach about last Sunday and, well...it's all doctrinal. Why in Your Name did You have to put so much doctrine in the Bible? Don't You know how hard that makes my job? I need funny and I need it now.--The Pastor's Prayer.

Oh, yeah--um--ingeezusnaymuhmen. Huh--almost forgot.

If someone actually acted like that, it'd be fairly blasphemous. Lots of MEs do act like that.

There was a time when, unless you were in a seriously pentecostal church, never would you hear any preacher say "And God told me...yadda yadda yadda..." The reason's simple. The Hebrew Scripture makes it clear that anyone who claims to have heard from God who hadn't actually heard was very evil. He was to be killed at the hands of the first folks who heard him say such things with stones. The entire nation was to witness the execution. God sees this sin as so heinous that the OC (Old Covenant) called for death and the NC calls for expulsion and shunning. We aren't even to eat with someone like Pat Robertson.

Now, however, not only do preachers claim this sort of thing all the time, but folks in Sunday School classes and Bible studies stake their little plot of turf in God's revealed truth all the time and no one even challenges them. The goal of this post is to get you to tell anyone who sins this heinous sin ever again in your presence that they are no Christians at all and they are to leave your church, Bible study, or small group because they will infect the rest of us with a filthy slime that isn't welcome here--ever. They sin the sin of subjectivism.

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, HE DOESN'T MUMBLE.
Among the many sins of my generation in the ME movement, it's hard to pick the worst, but this has to be close to the top of the list: Devotions. It is one side of the quadripartite sin of subjective practices made popular by my generation--subjectivity in personal worship, subjectivity in group worship, subjectivity in personal relationships and subjectivity in determining truth (actually a devaluation of truth--as in "doctrine isn't important"). Devotions as practiced today isn't a biblical practice and I doubt that it ever was. Even if "devotions" was practiced as the biblical habit of studying and memorizing the Scripture, the name "devotions" is a name that seems to indicate something else. It seems to deal with the emotional, not the intellectual. It's like the term "inspirational". "Inspirational" side steps truth for the emotional. "Devotions" doesn't deal with truth. Just as one can be inspired by anything true or false, one can be devoted to anything, whether true or false.

True doesn't care if you're inspired or devoted. True's true whether you have a shimmy up your leg or not.

Stop having devotions. Crack the Book and start learning.

WHAT IF GOD SPEAKS TO ME?
Get over it.

What is often called a "word from God" isn't. Unfortunately, today's MEs believe that God's word comes to us in feelings we get at special times, like devotions or group worship. This idea isn't an ancient idea from the Bible, but a recent idea from men who failed to obey Scripture as final. The man who popularized this sin most recently was Henry Blackaby in his famous book, Experiencing God: How to Live the Full Adventure of Knowing and Doing the Will of God. This idea wasn't all new with Blackaby, but he did a lot to popularize it among MEs in the 1990s.

A BIT OF HISTORY CONCERNING SUBJECTIVISM.
I wrote earlier that the practice of claiming that a feeling contains a "word from God" is new and not biblical. That was only half the story. This sort of thing is dealt with severely in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 18:20 says, "But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." Notice four things about this passage.

1. The first act is to presume. The Hebrew zud means to act presumptiously, rebelliously, or proudly. If one of us is to speak a word that God hasn't given we first must decide that it's okay to act in proud rebellion against God--take the authority of a prophet just because we want it. So, while you may think you're innocent reporting to the folks at your Bible study that God said something to you with a feeling you got last Wednesday at the park, perhpas you may wish to slow down a little and think.

2. The message is always verbal. Let's be precise. "Verbal" in the English doesn't mean spoken. It means having to do with words. Verbal communication is communication in language, spoken or written. "Oral" means having to do with the mouth. Hence, an "oral" exam is one taken face to face with an instructor who asks questions and expects spoken answers and "oral" surgery happens at the dentist's office. The false prophet presumes to speak a word he hasn't received. Both "speak" and "word" are from the same root. Dabar means a message or individual word and the verb form means to speak. God isn't in the business of communicating with feelings. Never in Hebrew Scripture, to my knowledge, do either of these have to do with anything other than communication in words. I read the Hebrew Bible in the Hebrew once a year. Dabar may mean a matter or thing. But when it means a message, that message is in words, not feelings.

So was Moses really taking on subjectivity here? Not entirely, but it's included. Let's look at some background. During the rebellion of Miriam and Aaron, this pair challenged Moses. The complaint was that Moses had married a Cushite, but God didn't address that. Instead, He addressed their desire to be as important as Moses. Moses was the law-giver. Evidently, they wanted to speak for God, too, with a law of their own about the Cushite lady, though God had said nothing about the situation. They presumed. In Numbers 12:6, God tells all three of them how to know if you're a prophet and speak for Yahweh. He said, "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream."

Visions and dreams are times when God is actually seen and/or heard. Notice, too, "Hear now My words..." WORDS. Not feelings. And notice "I speak to him in dreams." If God doesn't speak to you in actual words, you're not a prophet.

If you have a tingle down your spine, tell your chiropractor.

3. Those who spoke for Yahweh without specific, verbal communication from Yahweh, were to die just like other false prophets who spoke for completely different gods. Notice the two kinds of false prophets--the one who spoke presumptuously for God and the one who spoke for other gods. No difference. If you speak for God based on a feeling, you're no better than a Buddhist priest, a Scientologist, a JW, a shaman, or the oracle at Delphi. You're a false prophet.

Think THAT over. And while you're thinking about that, think about this: If we shunned all who did this sort of thing, how many ME books would be on the market? How many ME televangelfrauds would still be on the air? How many ME book stores would be in business? How many pastors would still have a job?

4. Notice the word "commanded". The prophet is to speak only the word Yahweh has commanded. A feeling isn't a command. A command is verbal. With a man's life on the line, one would think that man would be certain before he spoke. How can you be sure of a feeling? Wouldn't that man wait for a clear command? Today, one says God said this. Another that. Is God really contradicting Himself or is someone pretending to be sure of something no more solid than a feeling?

Despite the clear teaching of Scripture, seeking something that can be called a "word from God" has a recent history, too. Friederich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was the grandson of two pastors and lived at a time when philosophical rationalism, resulting from the Enlightenment, was dominant. In reaction, he turned to a group who emphasized the mysterious, imaginary, and subjective. Schleiermacher attempted to find a middle path between the philosophical rationalists and the Reformers, who based their doctrine on Scripture alone. Naturalistic philosophers wanted to reach a knowledge of God by way of nature and human reason applied to nature. They called this natural theology. Schleiermacher's "positive theology" was an attempt to ride the fence. As in our time, critics of the gospel disliked the miraculous. So Schleiermacher decided that the Bible wasn't an account of actual acts by God in history complete with miracles and resurrections, but a record of internal religious experiences. The experiences were important. Facts about actual historical events were unimportant. Thus, Schleiermacher could keep the Bible, flawed as it was in his opinion, and avoid the harsh criticism of those who would call believers intellectual obscurantists. The essence of true religion was in the religious experience, not the facts of the Scripture. It was emotive, not cognitive. Subjective, not objective. (1)

Clever huh? Haver you ever heard someone say that Christianity is a matter of faith, not evidence and reason? Sound familiar? This is why in the 1800's and 1900's we see words like "inspirational" replace words like "true".


The next really big name among those who normalized the sin of subjectivity is Karl Barth (1886-1968). Barth was learned in the tradition of classical religious liberalism in which the Bible was regarded as a collection of religious writings to be criticized, not believed. Barth wasn't satisfied with liberalism. Liberals talked little of God and much of man. He had a breakthrough when reading Romans which dealt harshly with man as a sinner.

Yet, Barth couldn't make himself believe Scripture. Barth's god was a transcendent god who was "Wholly Other". The problem came, though, in Barth's rejection of the reliability of Scripture. His god was so high He could have nothing to do with anything on earth, not even the words of Scripture. Thus, the word of Barth's god came down to man as a revelation that this god gave as a personal experience a human had while reading the Bible under the influence of the "Holy Spirit". Sound familiar? (2) Barth's ideas initiated the school of thought called "dialectical theology" or "neo-orthodoxy". (3) Eventually, Barth fell into an actual apathy toward factual reality, whether physical reality in the present or historical reality. The mysterious revelation of his god was all that really mattered. Both his god and his experience were personal and untestable. (4)

Of almost no intellectual significance is Henry Blackaby and his book, Experiencing God: How to Live the Full Adventure of Knowing and Doing the Will of God. However, this book made the rounds of ME churches with the same sort of dependence on the subjective that Schleiermacher and Barth advocated, but in popular, not scholastic, form. So for that reason Blackaby is important. Churches, schools, and denominations who would never have been guilty of teaching the subjectivism of Barth or Schleiermacher embraced the Evangelical language and style of Blackaby. He was a Southern Baptist preacher, so most couldn't imagine that he was liberal. But he was heretical.
Most Southern Baptists are cessationists. In other words, they don't believe the "sign gifts" are for today. These "sign gifts" include tongues, healing, and prophecy. This is why it's so amazing that Blackaby's teaching was accepted. It was a true watershed moment when non-Pentecostal Evangelicals adopted the belief that God was still speaking today outside of the verbal revelation in the Scripture. Whether MEism had fallen so low that sola scriptura was passe and the teaching of a heretic like Blackaby was welcome, or whether the teaching of Blackaby provided the push to send MEism down the stairs isn't important. Just realize the idea that our feelings are a major source of revelation from God is recent, not biblical.

Experiencing God sold 4 million copies and was translated into 45 languages. (5) And if you think only I and other Blackaby critics see Blackaby as a mystic, read this gushing article by a fan. The first paragraph calls him a mystic in disguise--an accurate assessment.

Blackaby's main influence was to convince many that God was revealing His will to folks right now in the same way He spoke to the Old Testament prophets. (6) However, what Blackaby taught as God's method of speaking wasn't what the Old Testament describes. It's mystical; it's internal; it's non-verbal. So, Blackaby's disciples don't have a clue about how God spoke to the prophets. Just why it's assumed that God spoke through the mystical isn't explained. It's just an assumption.

And a bad one.

Remember the passages we looked at? Well, here's the common pattern found in the books of Moses: "And God spoke to Moses, saying..." He spoke, saying. No mention of feelings. God didn't say, "And God gave Moses a back rub, making Moses feel this way or that..." or "God sent a warm, wet, goose-bumpy tingle up Moses' right arm and down his left..." Please check to make sure I'm not lying. Pick any page in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy. That is always the pattern and it happens once or twice every chapter or two. "...spoke...saying..." What could be more clear?

How did we decide that a feeling was "speaking"? We didn't get that from the Bible. Do we ever speak like that when involved in any other subject? Do we feel the truth about history, biology, or math? NO! So why do we shelve our brains for knowing God? Is it any sillier to do that for chemistry than for studying God's revelation?

While many MEs see the feel-talking god as a spiritual enhancement, it's not. That idea and Blackaby's teaching made a frontal assault on Scripture. Read what he said in the first few paragraphs of his book:

...for a Hebrew person--like Jesus--knowing something entailed experiencing it. In fact, you could not truly say you knew something unless you personally experienced it...So it is significant that, when Jesus spoke about knowing God, He was speaking like a Hebrew. (7)

There is only one problem with this reasoning. It's a lie. Hebrews weren't genetically different. They were perfectly capable of knowing intellectually, just like you and I. They had scribes, didn't they? They communicated with words, didn't they? The ladies exchanged recipes, didn't they? Indeed, personal, intimate knowledge of God is the goal, but faith comes by hearing, according to Paul, not by feeling. Cognitive, academic knowledge precedes and is a necessary element for intimate knowledge. You can't intimately know a friend until you are first aware that he exists and is present to BE experienced. Even salvation depends on hearing words and understanding them with the mind. Then the Holy Spirit brings the intimate knowledge.

I'll end with a question. If I test my feelings to find out what's true in the spiritual realm or to find my future, how is that significantly different from a witchdoctor who throws chicken guts on the floor or reads tea leaves? Tell me the difference.

Think it through.

Be holy,
Phil Perkins.

(1) Brown, Colin; Philosophy and the Christian Faith; Intervarsity Press; Downers Grove, Illinois; 1968; ISBN0-87784-712-6; pp. 109-111.
(2( Van Til, Cornelius; Christian Apologetics; P&R Publishing Company; Phillipsburg, New Jersey; 2003; ISBN-10: 0-87552-511-3; pp. 170-172.
(3)ibid.; p. 32.
(4) Brown; pp. 250-260.
(5) http://www.churchcentral.com/article.php?id=2100
(6) http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/BookReviews/exp_god/blackaby.htm
(7) Blackaby, Henry, Blackaby, Richard, and King, Claude; Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, Revised and Expanded; B&H Publishing Group; Nashville, Tennessee; 2008; ISBN-10: 0805447539; p. 10.

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part VI Sliding Down the Lexicon Into the Gutter.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Meditate. What does that mean to you? If you've been in the American church for more than ten years it doesn't mean what it used to mean for most of us.

Butchering words...
It's said that a rose by any other name is a rose. The flower stays the same whatever you call it. But what if it wasn't the name that got changed? What if the name stayed the same, but the flower was changed? Then what? Is a meat cleaver dulled and softened if we called it a pillow?

When dealing with ancient literature like say...the Bible...one must be aware of a phenomenon I call lexical slide. When reading a word in an old text, one should be careful to remember it isn't what the modern speaker or reader means by that word, but what the author meant. For instance, if my great grandfather said he saw a line of cars go by, he was probably standing by a railroad. That's not what I mean when I say "car". "Ah, but we don't read the ancient texts. We read modern translations and the translators worry about that so we don't have to," someone might say.

Here's the problem: Modern English translations are stuck in a quickly changing religious culture and the religious language is changing rapidly. For instance, we used to talk about being "evangelistic". Now we want to be "missional". We used to want "sanctification". Now we want "spiritual formation". "Love" used to be fidelity to God and our brothers and sisters. Now it's not hurting anyone's feelings. So too, biblical meditation isn't the "meditation" currently taught in ME churches, seminaries, conferences, and books. All these changes are negative. Paul warned of wrangling about words. but my topic here is a deviation that has lead to a divergence in doctrine and practice.

Let's start with a lexical study. First, the Hebrew and Greek. The verb "meditate", in its various forms occurs much more often in the Hebrew Old Testament than in the Greek New Testament, and that's not just because the Old Testament is much bigger. The Old Testament comprises about 72-73% of Scripture, but contains all but a handful of references to meditating.

Two Hebrew verbs are commonly translated "meditate". First, is hagah. It is a word that attempts to sound like the activity or thing it denotes, like "yip" is used to denote the bark of a puppy. It's supposed to sound like the growl of an animal or the sound made by a man under his breath as he mutters or groans while considering something vexing, deep, or difficult. Holladay defines it as to growl, to moan, to read in an undertone, to ponder, to plan, or to speak. The noun forms are haguth, which means the act or process of thinking or planning and higgayon, which means talk or mockery or the act or process of thinking or planning or the act of playing an instrument. The second word is siach and it means to become concerned with or to give one's attention to. It's noun form is sichah. It means the occupation or concern of one's thoughts or mind.(1)

Brown, Driver, and Briggs says essentially the same thing, but adds to muse (to think reflectively) and to spell a word to the lexical range of the two verbs. (2) But even more important than what the dictionaries say is what the Bible says the word means. The Bible does define it for us, but I want to get into the current misunderstanding of what "meditation" is.

...in order to slaughter the innocent.
The BIG NAME in bringing the new "meditation" into MEism is Richard Foster. His book Celebration of Discipline, the Path to Spiritual Growth is the classic textbook used in seminaries and Bible colleges across the nation to inseminate young preachers and missionaries with practices such as unbiblical meditation. Foster doesn't stop there, though. He also instructs young heads full of tapioca in the fine arts of using the palms of one's hands to achieve certain inner spiritual states,(3) the use of the imagination to "experience God",(4) and studying the writings of heretics like Thomas a Kempis and Brother Lawrence, equating their writings with Calvin's Institutes.(5) First copyrighted in 1978, it hit with such a jolt a new category of seminary and Bible college courses was invented to make room for it. These are usually called "spiritual disciplines" classes. Don't send your son or daughter to a college that has one. The more conservative among us disliked the book and later editions were pruned back to appear less unorthodox. Still, the 1998 edition is heretical. While I was still teaching in a Southern Baptist college, it was being used to my great dismay.

Foster has two defintions for "meditation". They are contradictory. The first definition is almost biblical but leaves two loopholes he'll later use. The second one, just two pages later, is heretical outright. But if someone's going to lie to you, he'll start by getting your trust first, right? That's why they're called con(fidence) men. Imagine a man ready to cut your throat in order to rob you. "I've got a good sharp knife here. Could you lean your head back and loosen your tie a bit so I can get to your neck?" "Sure! How's this?" It doesn't happen like that.

The first definition is on page fifteen. He even starts with the two Hebrew verbs I listed for you. He wrote, "These two words have various meanings: listening to God's word, reflecting on God's works, ruminating on God's law, and more."(6) Reading this innocently and not discerningly, it seems great. It's not. Meditation isn't listening. That's significant as we will see. It's in there for a devilish reason. And the "and more" opens all sorts of possibilities. Foster has more, for sure, but not for better.

His second defintion says, "Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God's voice and obey His word."(7) Take a look at this definition. Nothing Foster does seems accidental. Notice "God's voice" is different than "His word". I don't believe this is redundance with different terms for color or clarity. It's a difference he'll use like a prybar.

Contrast biblical meditation against Foster's meditation in these ways: 1. Biblical meditation is an activity. Foster's "meditation" can be a state of being--an "ability". 2. Biblical meditation has as it's object only God, His Word, and His works and these are seen as objective things--real things, not imaginary. Foster's "meditation" can be imaginary, ideally seeking "God's voice" by means of the imagination without any objective input through the senses. He even calls finding God through one's imagination "more humble" than studying the objective revelation God has given us in Scripture.(8) So not only is Foster writing to stop us from thinking, but he counts on us not thinking much in the first place. He actually expects us to believe depending on God's Word isn't humble, but exalting our imaginations to the office of prophet and oracle IS humble. Can someone explain this to me?

I will cover, God willing, the problem of objective vs. subjective perceptions of God in the next installment. Look for the Pastor's Prayer.

BIBLICAL MEDITATION DEFINED BY THE BIBLE.
If we're going to argue about what a term in the Bible means, shouldn't we listen if the Bible is actually nice enough to tell us what it means? The following are some passages in which the Hebrew uses the words hagah and siach: Gen. 24:63, Josh. 1:8, Ps. 1:2,4:5,27:4,63:6,77:6,77:12,104:34,119:15,119:23,119:27,119:48,119:78,119:148,143:5,145:5, Is. 33:18.

The following are some verses in which the Hebrew uses the noun derivatives of the two verbs listed above: Job15:4, Ps. 19:14,49:4,104:34,119:97,119:99.

In none of these passages, is there any hint of dreaming or imagining. All these passages have a real, tangible object of the meditation--God, His laws, precepts, judgments, and Word in general, or His works ranging from nature to His miraculous judgments and deliverances.

Furthermore, due to the nature of Hebrew poetry, there are passages in which the terms are listed as synonyms with the following:

1. Fear of God in Job 15:4.
2. Looking at in Psalm 119:15.
3. To delight in in Psalm 1;2.
4. To behold the beauty of in Psalm 27:4. Additionally, the word translated "meditate" in this verse is baqar. It means to search, seek, or inquire.
5. The fountain of godly speech in Psalm49:3.
6. To remember in Psalm 63:6 and 77:6.
7. To ponder in Psalm 77:12.
8. To regard in Psalm 119:15.
9. The result of godly understanding in Psalm 119:27.
10. To love something in Psalm 119:97.
11. The source of great knowledge in Psalm 119:99.
12. Something to look forward to with great anticipation in Psalm 119:148.
13. To ponder in Psalm 143:5.
14. A source of evangelistic fervor in Psalm 145:1-6.

So where's the imagination in that? There isn't any at all. In addition the meditation of David's heart was a concern for him. He was worried that it should be acceptable to God in Psalm 19:14. If meditation is about imaginary things how can it be deemed acceptable or unacceptable. There is no objective standard in imagination.

THE BIG LESSON.
The big lesson is this: Today's love of spirituality without content leads away from thought. It leads to the ghetto. Biblical meditation leads to a solid knowledge of God through cognitive activity in and around His Bible, His Person, and His Works. It is objective and cognitive. Today's meditation is imaginative and subjective.

Today's meditation isn't Christian.

THE BIGGER LESSON.
Foster isn't the main story here. He's just an example. MANY are subverting the faith by introducing new, unbiblical language or changing the old definitions of biblical language to introduce unbiblical concepts. Beware. The words may be right, but the concepts can be very, very wrong.

Stay holy,
Phil Perkins.

(1) Holloday, William L.; A Concise Hebrew and Aramic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Based on the First, Second, and Third Editions of the Koehler-Baumgartner Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros; E. J. Brill and Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1988; ISBN 0-8028-3413-2; pp. 76 & 551.
(2) Brown, Francis, Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C.; The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon; Hendrickson Publishers; Peabody, Massachusetts; 1996; pp. 211 & 967.
(3)Foster, Richard J.; Celebration of Discipline, the Path to Spiritual Growth; HargerCollins Publishers: New York, New York; 1998; ISBN 0-06-062893-1; p. 31.
(4) ibid. p. 25.
(5) ibid. p. 72.
(6) ibid. p. 15.
(7) ibid. p. 17.
(8) ibid. p. 25.

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part V Size and Scope of the Problem in Four Categories

CATCHIN' UP.


Today's post is part of the series, AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO. Find the first installments here. I describe the ME (Modern Evangelical) "church" in America as a Mental Ghetto because, like most American ghettos, the folks who stay there are able to get out, but staying is easier than getting out. Watching TV and getting high is more fun than taking a shower and doing job interviews. Going to the soccer game with the kids is easier than studying for an hour and sitting the kids down to tell them a Bible story. And many clergy actually like it that way because they get something out of it, too. I call them the Mental Ghetto Pimps. And I am going to use the example of a Pastor Dan Jarrell and the crew at Family Life Today as the Mental Ghetto Pimps.

MORNING SICKNESS.
This morning I had some around-town chores to do. So I did something I should probably do more often just for general information, but it's painful. I tuned to the local religious radio station and my ears began to bleed. I hate that such stuff is called "Christian". The first thing that turned my stomach was an ad for "Our Daily Bread", the monthly devotional booklet whose purpose seems to be to sooth our guilt for not reading our Bibles by means of little, three-paragraph essays with a Bible verse for a pretext and a witty quote at the end--all of which takes 45 seconds to read top-to-bottom. And that's if you go REALLY SLOOOOOW. But what the heck? You've had your "devotions", right? No muss, no fuss.

And no God.

The ad ended with the invitation to come along with them and "explore the world of spiritual meditation". That's right--spiritual meditation. I suppose the folks selling it think it'll raise fewer eyebrows than selling Ouija Boards or prayer labyrinths.

Radio Bible Class gives us this little gem. Once orthodox, RBC is now pushing mystics. (1)

Keep in mind, here, that I only listened to the station a total of probably less than five minutes total, intermittently between stops. It was certainly less than ten. Yet there was another incident during that time. The second was hearing a "Pastor Dan Jarrell" bludgeon the parable of the talents from Matthew 25. From the snippet of the conversation I heard, it seemed that Pastor Dan applied this somehow to marriage. That parable has nothing to do with marriage. It's about obedience to do God's work with the time and resources God has given each of us.

But that's just the start.

Here's the really ridiculous part: In verses 26-30 the fate of the servant who did nothing with what was given him was assigned to torment. It reads, "...and cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Pastor Dan told us that the place where there is "weeping" is where you "feel sorry for yourself", and the place where there is "gnashing of teeth" is where you "blame everybody else".

Here's the question we MUST answer:

WHY DOES ANYONE CONSIDER THIS SORT OF THING EVEN REMOTELY CHRISTIAN?
The depth of the problem makes this possible. It is in each of us individually, with a few exceptions, and it is in our institutions. I believe the depth of the problem comes to flower in four categories of collective sin.

CATEGORY ONE: BIBLICAL IGNORANCE.
How can Dan Jarrell say such things and still be taken seriously by anyone who calls themselves "Christian"? The short answer is the folks who take him seriously probably aren't Christians themselves or they'd know better because they'd have spent lots of time pursuing God through the Scripture. But that discussion is too big to get into here.

In order for Dan Jarrell to say such a thing, he has to have practiced, not just innocent ignorance, but the sin of outright aphronism. Being a "pastor", he's had time in the study to read the book of Matthew and if we give the benefit of the doubt (I wouldn't and if someone wants to know why, ask in the comment thread, please.) and say that he didn't actually lie purposely, then one can only imagine just what mental tricks this man has done to come to the interpretation of Matthew 25:30 he presented. It had to be purposeful ignorance, not innocent ignorance--lying to himself. I call it "aphronism".

In addition to Dan Jarrell's efforts to make the fantastic sound reasonable, he has to have accomplices. The people running the host program, Family Life Today, have to turn their heads to the lie. The folks at the local radio station, KURL, in Billings, MT have to turn their heads, too. I've contacted both Family Life Today and KURL in the past about such things and both have responded with anger.

So, there are Dan, FLT, and KURL, but there's someone else that has to remain in biblical ignorance for all this to work. THE AUDIENCE. There have to be enough MEs (Modern Evangelicals) out there who don't know their Bibles for this to be sold. It's a Mental Ghetto, where everyone is happy to remain ignorant. And they all get something for their ignorance. The audience gets to feel religious without actually dealing with God, studying His Word, or dealing with their own sin in light of His commandments and the threat of hell. As long as the audience stays stupid, KURL has an audience and can sell air time, FLT gets to "give the gift of hope" at $200 a couple (2), and Pastor Ignorant gets paid to spread his heresy.

Recently, forty-five students of Wheaton in their SENIOR YEAR were asked to list the ten commandments in their words (NO EXACT RECITATION). Only one could do it. (3)

This is raw sin.

CATEGORY TWO: IGNORANCE IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.
What does general knowledge have to do with biblical knowledge and what place does it have in the church? Aren't we supposed to be guided by faith?

No, we aren't to be guided by faith. At least not the kind of faith of MEism. I'm not writing about the content of faith, but the kind of faith. The content of a faith is what is actually believed. The kind of faith is how and why one believes. Christianity is a faith, but not ignorant faith. Obscurantism isn't biblical faith, but that is a discussion for CATEGORY FOUR.

Apply all the knowledge you have to your faith. Taking the example of Mental Ghetto Pimp Dan Jarrell, he counts on the fact that no one in his audience would apply even a tiny bit of literary interpretation or common horse sense to what he was saying. He counted on the fact that most of his audience wouldn't ask the simplest of questions concerning his claim about Matthew 25:30. How is "weeping" interpreted specifically as feeling sorry for oneself? How is "gnashing of teeth" analogized into blaming other people? What are the clues in the text or the context? How does this fit with anything I know about biblical doctrine? Was Jesus really thinking about self-pity and antagonizing others? Where are those subjects first taken up in the text so that we can reasonably read them in here?

Pimp Jarrell has to assume that his audience is of a mindset of switching off all their general knowledge about anything at all when engaged in things of the "faith". This is both moronic and unbiblical. It's moronic. In what area of human endeavor is progress made toward truth by means of purposely being mindless? It's unbiblical. What happened to all the reasoned arguments of the epistles and Jesus' request for Thomas to examine the evidence? Or Paul's commendation of the Bereans for examining all they heard by the Hebrew Bible or its translation, the Septuagint?

Not only should Christians strive to be logical and apply their knowledge, it's a part of Christian tradition to achieve intellectual excellence. Yet, we actually hear preachers say things like, "I'm just a simple preacher."

Then resign from the pulpit. You aren't qualified. You're in sin. And your sinful attitude has infected the entire church. Shame on you. May God deal with you for what you are.

For an example of how ignorance of general knowledge often leads to direct sins of other sorts as well, consider the following bumper sticker I got off of a "Christian" web site (4) this morning:

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

And what is the sin? NO. What are the SINS here? Gossip, cowardice, and bearing false witness. The Puritans, by way of the strong connection between "Puritanism" and "Puritans" are falsely said to be unhappy about others being happy. Curmudgeons. Since the Puritians are dead and gone, they can't defend themselves. Hence the dual sins of cowardice and gossip. And actual history tells us the Puritans weren't anything like that. If the author of these words knew better he was lying about the Puritans. If he didn't know any better, then he lied by pretending to a knowledge he had not.

And if confronted with this, I'll bet dollars-to-doughnuts, the reprover will be accused of being picky. But how would the author like it if he was so slandered?

CATEGORY THREE: IGNORANCE OF HOW TO THINK.
Jesus disciples were tax-collectors, carpenters, and fishermen, with a doctor thrown in. I wonder if they were even literate when they met Jesus. Nevertheless, they became men of oratory and letters. Remember Peter? A blustery fisherman became the author of biblical books, capable of recognizing that Paul's writings were divinely inspired Scripture.

Why?

Why did blue-collar men become educated in ancient literature? Because that's how God communicates. The gospel is spoken and written, not felt and grunted. Nor is it communicated by a stirring chorus repeated ad nauseum. Most MEs believe that truth can be measured by how one feels. And my generation is the one who perpetrated this lie. If you think me wrong, simply go to some of the ODM sites. Find a comment thread and read. A heretic named in the post will be defended by a commenter on the basis that the commenter "knew" the figure named. No facts will be brought to bare by the commenter except one. He "knew" him. In other words, they had a simpatico. Feelings.

In the seventies CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) came into being. The emphasis seemed to be on the music, not the lyrical content. Some exceptions are worth noting, such as Keith Green. But the same generation who started CCM is the generation who said doctrine isn't important. And the distinguishing characteristics of CCM were the new style of music and the fact that it was mostly content free.

In fact, some songs actually advocated the sin of aphronism. Not only was this a doctinal position--can't we all just get along?--but it was good marketing. For Corporate Christianity to work, sales can't be limited to just the Reformeds or the Charismatics. We need the whole enchilada to make a prophet.

Chuck Girard is a prime example of pimping for a prophet for himself and the record companies. Read the opening lyrics from his 1974 song, "Think about What Jesus Said":

Think about what Jesus said
Before you let your mind reject Him
Listen to your heart instead
And you will accept Him (5)

Get that? Thought bad. Feelings good. In fact, it's worse than that. Thinking will damn you. Feeling your way along like a slug on the sidewalk of "faith" will save your soul. Is that a biblical view of man? Is that a biblical view of epistemology? How is it that Chuck was considered a Christian? He disobeyed Christ's words severely. Chuck hates knowledge. Jesus said He came to bring light to the world. Don't these two oppose? Yes, they do.

Which brings me to the fourth category.

CATEGORY FOUR: IGNORANCE ABOUT THE BIBLICAL COMMAND TO PRACTICE PRECISE THOUGHT.

Stop having devotions and don't meditate anymore. Replace devotions with serious study, not a quick time of going through religious activity, hoping you can "feel the spirit". And stop having moments of silence. Instead, take what you learn in your study and think those things over and over during your work, during your evenings, at night, in the morning.

Current private practices aren't biblical. The ME "church" is returning to mysticism, contrary to biblical injunction. While my generation passed the mystical baton, previous generations were running hard, too. For instance, the word "inspirational" has been used for decades to stand in for the word "religious". Inspiration can be anything that engenders positive religious feelings. A devout Mormon can feel inspired. It has to do only with the feelings and nothing to do with the content that was used to achieve those feelings.

My generation used to argue with itself about being too feelings-oriented in worship. Biblical content lost the argument.

And this generation is paying the price.

In Christ,
Phil Perkins.

(1)http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?p=924&more=1&c=1
(2)http://www.familylife.com/site/c.dnJHKLNnFoG/b.3204559/k.F5BB/Attend_a_conference.htm
(3)http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1817838/posts
(4)http://www.chuck.org/jokes%20bumper%20stickers.htm

(5)http://www.delusionresistance.org/christian/chuckgirard/1974%20finaltouch/ft04.html

COMING IN PART VI OF THE MENTAL GHETTO. What is biblical meditation? And the biblical commands about our minds and our thoughts.