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crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re:

Quote:
I, for one, am unconvinced that the Faith camp is mostly unsound doctrinally. Their are certain extremes and excesses that I don't agree with, just like with many camps in the "common faith."



And in a twisted fashion that is the rub isn't it?
The things that they are most insistent on makes everything muddy and difficult to dis-entangle the knots they can put people in.

The problem isn't "[i]that the Faith camp is [b]mostly[/b] unsound doctrinally[/i]" it is just because of that, it creates more confusion than some of the more obvious cults which would deny Christs Deity or other more blatant extremes.

The problem I see is that it doesn't 'play out' into reality in the world. With the emphasis primarily on prosperity, healing and what 'faith' can do for you, it is preoccupied with 'self', the very opposite of what the Lord said when He stated: "Take up your cross and follow Me".

It is inconsistent with what is happening around the world and I would dare them to take this 'gospel' to a country where the believers are sacrificing all. Case in point:

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2543&forum=48]Bibles, anti-terrorist weapon[/url]

Am right now trying to help out someone who has loved ones caught up in this diabolical nonsense and if recent events around here haven't shown it to be true, just how difficult it is to wretch these 'teachings' out of those caught up in it...

No, this may be the worst of the worst, just for the very reason you stated...and it ticks me off to no end.


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Mike Balog

 2004/7/14 11:40Profile
sermonindex
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Joined: 2002/12/11
Posts: 39795
Canada

Online!
 Re:

I ran across this quote by Tozer and I think it speaks volumes to this topic we are on:

"Heresy is not so much rejecting as selecting. The heretic simply selects the parts of the Scripture he wants to emphasize and lets the rest go." -A.W. Tozer

Quote:
The problem I see is that it doesn't 'play out' into reality in the world. With the emphasis primarily on prosperity, healing and what 'faith' can do for you, it is preoccupied with 'self', the very opposite of what the Lord said when He stated: "Take up your cross and follow Me".


Brother Mike wow what a statement! [b]reality[/b] ohh how we need this vital reality of God realized in our lifes and perception of God. Its truly as Tozer said above that a movement like the 'word of faith' holds to some facets of scripture but allows those truths to overshadow the others and therefore creating an unbalanced view. "Take up your cross and follow Me"!! WE shall enter the kingdom of God with [b]much[/b] suffering!


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2004/7/14 22:21Profile
todd
Member



Joined: 2003/5/12
Posts: 573
California

 Re:

And now for the purpose I originally started with on this thread, though I got caught up in my own bunny trail in the first post...

I thought it would be helpful and very interesting to share some of our experiences where we "knew" we were right about something, especially concerning God, the Bible or the Church, but later realized that we didn't "know".

I'll give one of mine first. When I came back to the Lord about 3 and a half years ago I quickly got involved in a college group that was connected to Calvary Chapel. I really liked the pastor and stories were told that he would spend like 2-3 hours [i]every[/i] morning in devotions and pretty much all day on Friday.

"Wow! What a man of God!" I thought. This kind of devotion was unheard of in the circles of Christianity I grew up in. So I unconsciously concluded that everything he said was probably right, because he was closer to God than anyone else I knew.

So when he began to teach on the end-times and the rapture, I took it all in and believed everything he said. Many of you likely know Calvary Chapel's views concerning the rapture and I won't go into it here. But I remember one of the most powerful arguments he gave for pre-trib rapture, or at least against post-trib. He said that it wouldn't make any sense for us to get caught up into the clouds only to bounce right back down to the earth on white horses behind Jesus. I thought, "Yeah, that's pretty obvious. That doesn't make any sense."

I remember at one point during a question and answer time someone in the crowd asked, "Well what would a post-triber say in response to that?" Or something along those lines. My pastors response was something like, "I really don't know, you'll have to ask them." Of course at the time that didn't make me second guess my pastor, the awesome man of God with golden lips of righteousness and truth. Besides, he had tons of Scripture to back up his points. I "knew" he was right.

Some time later, after somewhat pulling away from Calvary Chapel at least theologically, I was taking a class in college on the Pauline Epistles. Over the course of the semester I was very impressed with my professor both by his heart and biblical insight. I had heard rumors that he was a post-triber but at that point I had lost a significant amount of confidence in Calvary Chapel theology being perfect so I wasn't totally closed off to what he had to say. At some point the thought must have started to occur to me, "Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe...."

One day my professor explained that in biblical times and in Eastern culture, it was a common thing for families to come out and meet their father as he returns home from a trip. And it was common for cities to come out and meet kings outside the city walls walls and then follow him into their city (or something close to that).

The point is that I realized how one little piece of information can completely change a whole paradigm. It didn't convince me that post-trib is correct for sure, it mostly made me realize that I might be wrong about what I thought I knew to be true. Once I accepted the fact that I might be wrong, I was able to let go of this pet doctrine. I learned to say "I don't know" and leave mysteries in God's hands until it was time for me to learn more about them.

Hopefully that made some sense. I would love hear other similar types of stories from people here. I don't so much want to debate about the rapture or anything, I just want to hear some more stories like that. Where you were absolutely 100% convinced about some truth only to realize later on that you could be wrong.

 2004/7/17 12:56Profile
KeithLaMothe
Member



Joined: 2004/3/28
Posts: 354


 Re:

I used to be a hard determinist, seeing all human "free" actions as actually being wholly determined by past causes because I saw the decision making process as entirely composed of previously-caused influences and motivations, etc... I honestly couldn't see how anything else could be true, it just seemed so obvious to me that the state of the universe is a function of time (that is, given a point in time (t'), knowledge of the state of the universe at a previous point in time (U(t)), and sufficient knowledge of how the universe works, you can determine the exact state of the universe at the future point in time (U(t'))). I was more certain about that than possibly anything else, it seemed almost like a tautology. Needless to say, Reformed theology and I got along very well.

Since then I've realized that's not really the Biblical presentation of reality, though even the belief that God knows all the future leads to a system that looks suspiciously like determinism. The open theistic alternative of "limited" foreknowledge seems to be on questionable Biblical ground, however.

 2004/7/17 14:47Profile
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
Since then I've realized that's not really the Biblical presentation of reality, though even the belief that God knows all the future leads to a system that looks suspiciously like determinism. The open theistic alternative of "limited" foreknowledge seems to be on questionable Biblical ground, however.



Hi Keith
Is there not clear blue water between foreknowledge and pre-determination. I may know that my house is going to be broken into, but that doesn't mean that I have ordained it. I am with you on the second half; how could God part-know something?


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Ron Bailey

 2004/7/17 15:01Profile
KeithLaMothe
Member



Joined: 2004/3/28
Posts: 354


 Re:

Quote:
I may know that my house is going to be broken into, but that doesn't mean that I have ordained it.

That is true.

However, would it not be a somewhat different situation if you had created (that is, real creation, not just moving stuff around) both the house and the person who breaks into it, having exhaustive knowledge of the composition and personality (in the case of the person) of these two things, having exhaustive foreknowledge of the existence, events, decisions, etc surrounding both these things (including the break-in), having the ability to alter any and all factors relating to these things (and anything else), exhaustively knowing the consequences of all the nearly infinite (maybe fully infinite, but that just boggles the mind) alternate possible configurations, including those that would not result in said break-in... in other words, if you were the creator, with full ability to choose however you want to create, with full knowledge of the consequences of each choice, is that not a [b][i]very[/i][/b] different situation than if you were merely the created human owner of a house with no direct influence upon the person who would break in to your house?

God may not have fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass (as the WSC has it), but He certainly knew exactly what He was getting into, had no one else influencing His decisions regarding creation when He made them, and was fully free to choose otherwise.

Or so the argument goes...

 2004/7/17 15:15Profile
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Hi Keith
I think I counted 'exhaustive knowledge' four times and 'full knowledge' once, but however many times we say it it will remain 'knowledge' and not pre-determination.

The real focus, I think, is 'the person'. Certainly God has created my burglar, but God has created him as a person and not programmed him. If he were programmed I would have to revise my definition of 'human'.

God certainly knew what He was getting into, but the balance remains and is beautfully expressed (but not explained) in the Peter's exposition of the events that had led up to the Day of Pentecost; Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: (Act 2:23 KJV) God's plan was laid but we have blood on our hands.


_________________
Ron Bailey

 2004/7/17 15:58Profile





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