False Teacher Of The Year

As school gets back into session it's time for our annual False Teacher Of The Year Award! There were so many candidates for the trophy that we were overwhelmed by the possibilities. From Cindy Jacobs to perennial favorites Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer the list is seemingly endless, but in the end we picked one false teacher that's doing more to undermine the word of God and the spirit of Christianity, in our opinion, than anyone else on earth. 

The criteria for being selected as False Teacher Of The Year is based on what we at Award Headquarters call the "Second Peter Principal"

¹⁸ For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, ¹⁹ promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. (2 Peter 2:18-21)

 And now, without further adieu let's reveal who the Award Committee has selected as the False Teacher Of The year for 2013:  

Emergent Monday: The Prosperity Gospel VS The Real Gospel

The Prosperity Gospel is based almost solely on Psalm 37:4

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart

And John 10:10

¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

The Mess of The Message: Psalm 1

As I've mentioned before, the Message is a complete mess. I can only do a post on the Message every now and then because frankly, heresy and blasphemy turn me off. It takes me a while to recover and return my center to Jesus where I can feel clean again.

The Message is not a bible translation, the author didn't translate a single word from one language to another. It's not a bible version, a bible version seeks to stay true to the word of God. The Message is a seeker sensitive satire of the Bible. The Message of The Message is not the word of God but the word of Eugene Peterson. 

It appears to me that Eugene Peterson didn't like all that religious talk about God and sin, and repentance, and replaced it all with a feel good, happy clappy seeker sensitive mashup of nonsense, new age psychobabble, and outdated "hip" jargon in an effort to stay relevant to people lead easily astray. Thanks to a post at Do Not Be Surprised I return to the fray as Psalm 1 is a beautiful example of how horribly heretical The Message truly is. 

Dispensationalism: Big Words = Big Concepts

At a prayer meeting last night the word Dispensationalism came up causing me to pop at least 3 mental circuit breakers trying to ponder what it is. The subject was raised because one of my fellow Bereans mentioned that Pastor Lovejoy had admitted to being a dispensationalist. Personally I always thought that a dispensationalist was a recluse who remained in dark rooms lit only by large dribbly candles and wrote awesome lengthy articles with a crow quill pen and published them on poorly designed web pages with a lot of words in bold, italic, UPPERCASE, highlighted, and too many text colors. 

So I Googled "Dispensationalism" and came up with a lot of charts like the one above and some very wordy explanations of the concept, most of which has to do with time periods, bible chapters, and God's relationship with man. Of course that's the entire explanation of Dispensationalism in a nut shell but most of these articles were written for people who already understand what Dispensationalism is, so I ended up doing the Berean thing ...

The "God Is Good - ONLY Good" Church Of Joyful Heresy

"What's wrong with teaching about the joy of being a Christian?" A friend asked me that in defense of her favorable opinion of Joel Osteen. My answer, which was lost on her, was "What's wrong with feeding your children birthday cake at every meal?"

Yes, there is joy in being a Christian, but there's also pain, sin, doubt, angst, loneliness, responsibility, anger, and a whole raft of other things that come with being a human being. This is due to one simple reason: we are human beings. Becoming a Christian didn't make us impervious to these feelings, it didn't lift us above our humanity, what it does is gives us a coping mechanism when we have these feelings; trust and faith in God. 

Which is why the "Happy Slappy Clappy Church of Perpetual Joy" is such a danger, because it teaches a lie. Even though we have been accepted into the family of God, we're still here on this rock deep inside enemy territory. Sin and temptation still abound, pain has not been dismissed for our new beliefs, suffering is still with us. What happens when a new Christian who has been spoon fed the pablum of the prosperity Gospel and has been told that it's always sunny on this side of the cross suddenly gets an IRS audit or a child born with Downs Syndrome? Statistics tell us that they don't stay Christians for long. And whose fault is that? It's ours.