I will never forget the picture of an African Pastor who graced the cover of an OLD issue of the Voice of the Martyrs magazine. He was standing in the open air, not a house, road... nothing, only he and some shrubs and grass. He was smiling the most glorious smile I had ever seen in my life. He was wearing burlap. Humble enough yes? But this burlap was so full of holes that half his frame from his knees to his neck was exposed, and had the wind shifted we should have closed our eyes. It was astonishing. He knew God! He had joy extreme in extreme poverty. Looking back, I'm almost certain he had never seen a text on Calvin, Arminius, on dispensations, or a Covenant of Works, or the Nicene creed, or any catechism. He probably shared one or two Bibles with his congregation. Perhaps they only had a New Testament or even only pages from one. I could be wrong. But I am sure he KNEW GOD!
HOW IRRELEVANT and unnecessary our preoccupations would have been in his life and the life of his congregants. And I'm seeing how it must be so for me. God did not save us to nitpick each other ad infinitum over doctrine. Have we let heretics and anti-christs and the devil chase us around to a misunderstanding of the word, the verbo (a spanish word)? And do we now as a result rely more on scholarship than on the Holy Spirit?
Juan 1
Reina-Valera 1960 (RVR1960)
1 En el principio era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios.
2 Este era en el principio con Dios.
Back to God and the Bible and away with powerless seminary educations. IMHO most people in heaven will never have discovered the difference between Covenantal Theology and dispensationalism. Nor will they have learned Greek or Hebrew. Now what may well be worthy of attack is replacement theology, which is an heresy arising out of the minds of Jew haters, surprisingly a doctrine of the "early church." Even that error can be simply exposed by the scripture without much doctrinaire commentary. It is such a demonic doctrine that I believe those who ascribe to it are afflicted and easily bound by devilish spirits; they are kept in a state of resistance to the truth: that saved Jews have a future a bit different gentiles in the Messianic Kingdom, and that Jews will be saved out of the great tribulation as a people after 2/3rds of them are killed.
Demons are doctrinaire! They bring false doctrines in through the minds of the untaught.
Now banishing demons requires an altogether different approach than scholarship, they require faith and the exercise of authority and in some cases prayer and fasting.
Can we see our great need of the Lord, even we who are so certain of "our" salvation and "our" doctrine?
Salvation belongs to the Lord; Your blessing be upon Your people!
Psalm 3:8
HOW IRRELEVANT and unnecessary our preoccupations would have been in his life and the life of his congregants. And I'm seeing how it must be so for me. God did not save us to nitpick each other ad infinitum over doctrine. Have we let heretics and anti-christs and the devil chase us around to a misunderstanding of the word, the verbo (a spanish word)? And do we now as a result rely more on scholarship than on the Holy Spirit?
Juan 1
Reina-Valera 1960 (RVR1960)
1 En el principio era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios.
2 Este era en el principio con Dios.
Back to God and the Bible and away with powerless seminary educations. IMHO most people in heaven will never have discovered the difference between Covenantal Theology and dispensationalism. Nor will they have learned Greek or Hebrew. Now what may well be worthy of attack is replacement theology, which is an heresy arising out of the minds of Jew haters, surprisingly a doctrine of the "early church." Even that error can be simply exposed by the scripture without much doctrinaire commentary. It is such a demonic doctrine that I believe those who ascribe to it are afflicted and easily bound by devilish spirits; they are kept in a state of resistance to the truth: that saved Jews have a future a bit different gentiles in the Messianic Kingdom, and that Jews will be saved out of the great tribulation as a people after 2/3rds of them are killed.
Demons are doctrinaire! They bring false doctrines in through the minds of the untaught.
Now banishing demons requires an altogether different approach than scholarship, they require faith and the exercise of authority and in some cases prayer and fasting.
Can we see our great need of the Lord, even we who are so certain of "our" salvation and "our" doctrine?
Salvation belongs to the Lord; Your blessing be upon Your people!
Psalm 3:8
'After
these things I heard something
like a loud voice
of a great multitude in heaven, saying,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power
belong to our God!"'
Revelation 19:1
like a loud voice
of a great multitude in heaven, saying,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power
belong to our God!"'
Revelation 19:1
