False Teachers
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 9 months ago
This weekend, in a workshop on Islam, the leader illustrated the purpose of Islam’s five-times-a-day prayer practice by talking about things that are enticing and hard to resist, and things that are habitual and hard to give up.
Sugar, she said, and told about her own attempts to give up sweet things, and how, when she succeeded for a few months, she felt free. Alcohol, drugs, anger, fear, she went on to talk about these as human habits hard to break without a constant reinforcement of strength beyond what is normal for us humans.
Not, she thought, violence. I wonder about that. Americans have a hard time even contemplating giving up guns.
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God, for whom the Temple keeps humans in prayerful connection, does not seek a servant who will keep the power to survive death as a right of survival owed to him as God’s chosen one. In fact, the Temple teaches acceptance of death
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Jesus does not, in the wilderness of his temptations, assume a discipline of prayer. He drags up, from deep within himself, responses strong enough to send the Tempter away.
This is what passes for “scholarship” in some “churches.” It’s really very said. Islam is all about cleaning up the heart, is non-violent to the point that Americans who refuse to give up their guns are the ones who she worries about.
Never mind that the Crusades had to be fought as a defensive war to free Europe from the clutches of Mohammedans who had raped, killed and pillaged the people. Never mind that Christians are – unfortunately – the most passive people on earth.
No, according to her, we should be willing to perish at the hands of whomever, whenever. But she confuses acceptance of God’s sovereign choice with man’s responsibility to act on all sorts of things, in all sorts of situations. No man should sit on his ass while people give him food to eat (2 Thess 3:10). And no man should willingly give up his life to robbers or killers when he can protect the image of God within him. Nor should he be prepared to give up the lives of others (John 15:13).
This woman obviously doesn’t understand the scriptures any more than she does Islam. And as for Christ during the temptations, he fasted, which always includes prayer, Biblically speaking, and he cited Scripture back at the tempter.
Whomever hired this impostor to “preach” should forthwith fire her and put her to work washing dishes, or something she can actually do. But they probably won’t, and thus does America continue to languish at the hands of false teachers.
On February 27, 2017 at 6:38 am, Pat Hines said:
1 Timothy 2:12 King James Version (KJV)
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
On February 27, 2017 at 8:50 am, Fred said:
I really learned a lot. I mean, I used to walk around and pop off rounds at people all day, I couldn’t stop, it was addicting. I used to wonder how other people stopped shooting at cars and into crowds all the time. It wasn’t ’til I went BACK to temple worship that I was cured of my gun violence addiction. If it wasn’t for the teachings of a syphilitic, pedophile, child rapist, murderer, statist, dog ass licker, hog ball eater and his false god 5 times a day worship I never would have stopped my horrifying gun violence addiction…Or something.
On February 27, 2017 at 10:05 am, Haywood Jablome said:
I, certainly, have zero problem if she wants to give up her life. I just really wish she would give up her voice and her pen first…..
On February 27, 2017 at 12:07 pm, Archer said:
I just wish she would cease demanding me to give up my life on her terms.
On February 27, 2017 at 12:06 pm, Archer said:
Jesus does not, in the wilderness of his temptations, assume a
discipline of prayer. He drags up, from deep within himself, responses
strong enough to send the Tempter away.
She’s entirely missing the point. As you say, Herschel, during his temptations, Jesus was fasting — which always includes prayer — and quoted Scripture at the devil, even correcting him when he tried to trick Jesus by using it out-of-context.
But the main point she’s missing is that Jesus is God. When he “drags up, from deep within himself, responses strong enough to send the Tempter away”, He’s doing so with all the power and authority of Heaven. He quotes Scripture better than Satan because He wrote it — He understands the full context and meaning better than anyone. In other passages, Jesus banishes demons who are possessing humans; unlike the priests, who must command the demon to leave “in the name of God”, Jesus merely commands it, “Go,” and it does.
Jesus does not need to appeal to God’s authority or “drag up” answers; He is God, and speaks with God’s authority Himself. What she wrote lessens the miracle that is Jesus Christ. But that was probably the point.
On February 27, 2017 at 12:17 pm, Herschel Smith said:
You are of course correct in all your observations. She misses the point of the Scriptures because she doesn’t believe the Scriptures. “I believe in order to understand,” Augustine.
On February 27, 2017 at 1:31 pm, Fred said:
Maybe you could swing by and give that ‘church’ a lesson in the deity of Christ Jesus. Seems like they could use one.
On February 27, 2017 at 5:19 pm, henrybowman_az said:
Besides, I don’t shoot somebody just for tempting me.
On February 27, 2017 at 11:16 pm, Blake said:
I read through the original piece and it is a piece, all right.
She calls the tempting of Christ “a story.” (actual wording “…,so the story goes,”) which I find appalling.
It may be a clause in a sentence but the casualness of the throw-away line leaves me startled.
So much for 1Peter 5:8, I guess.
On February 28, 2017 at 12:22 pm, Archer said:
As Herschel said above, she misses the point because she doesn’t believe the Scriptures.
To me, the tempting of Christ is a historical event, and shows that faith and proper application of Scriptural principles will confound and ultimately defeat even the most devious tempter.
To her it’s just “a story”, because the whole of the Bible is just “a story”. She doesn’t believe any of it, and therefore she may as well be taking her moral and religious cues from Twilight.