false teachers and a bad brew!

I'll start with the bad brew, since Michelle already beat me to it! It wasn't really the brew that was bad, more the choice of putting the super-hot metal pot straight from the burner to the counter, putting a huge crack in my counter top! It was hilarious! I had been too long without catching anything on fire, or crashing into something, so it was time, yet again!

And now, for this week's course study question....the question had to do with false teachers, and where we saw false teaching in our community. Here's my thoughts on the subject:

Both Peter and Jude mention two signs of false teaching almost word for word. The first is sexual immorality, and other lusts of the flesh (2 Peter 2:14,18,19, Jude 7)
The second is the rejection of authority and slander of celestial beings (2 Peter 2:9-10, Jude 8), including made-up doctrines and mixing lies in with the truth.

"These men blaspheme in matters they do not understand"(2 Peter 2:12). "Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand" (Jude 10)
Peter calls these false teachers 'dry springs', while Jude calls them shepherds who feed only themselves...

So there are some pretty obvious telltale signs in false teachers to look out for...the integrity of their personal life, and the glorification of themselves and their work instead of Jesus.

As for sexual immorality, I haven't seen any evidence of that within the corps that I know of. Actually, I think we're doing pretty good on that one.

But what about this other thing about 'slandering celestial beings' and rejection of authority? What might that include, I wonder? The pharisees got mad at Jesus for healing a man on the Sabbath, and we read the story thinking, 'Silly pharisees, can't you see you're talking to JESUS???' But really, how many times are we willing to accept true spiritual healings today? One of the men from our corps has this amazing testimony of kneeling down beside his AA sponsor, inviting Jesus into his heart, and being completely delivered of his addiction to alchohol. Not only does he not drink, he doesn't even WANT a drink. That's a pretty powerful transformation. Praise the LORD!!!

I don't want to get into the arguments for or against the gift of speaking in tongues, or the existence of angels, or the use of prophecy today, because I have seen true and false expressions of all three.

My worry for the Army, is that we have neglected and shut down the Spirit of God on more than one occasion. We've stopped actually expecting God to show up in our midst. Where some people put too much weight on experience and none on discipline, I fear that we place too much weight on discipline and rationality, to the point of shutting out certain elements of the divinity of God. I fear that too often we embrace the security of religious legalism rather than stepping out in the freedom that Christ's life represents.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to bve a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit" Romans 8:1-5