Lets just say a seed of extreme doubt was placed in me by someone, and began to grow through Conviction of God and the Holy Spirit, and I became very cynical and skeptical of what people say in church. To not accept anything without a logical deduction in their thought process and mine, as we deduce what we know from the Bible and what it says.
This came as a revelation to me, but we can see that everyone should be doing this continually as to sort out false doctrines. Matt 7:15 says: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."
And Titus 1:9-11 concerning teachers of the word and how they should present it:"9He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
10For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. 11They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
This came as a complete revelation to me. Due to the fact that I had grown complacent, and was never truly convicted enough to read and study the word for myself. I know!... I was ashamed that I never truly got this until a few months ago. Its sad, that me, a Christian his whole life, never truly contemplated what people had thrown at me from countless sermons. It disgusts me now a days when I see and hear people sucking in complete junk that has nothing to do with anything in the Bible. Ex:
Your Best Life Now.
Purpose Driven Life.
Or any other book driven to show you financial success through Biblical principles.
GAHHHHHH!!!! I can't describe my hatred for such Fallible APOSTASIES!!!!!
Defn: Apostasy-a total desertion of or departure from one's religion, principles, party, cause, etc.
This is clearly a desertion of Biblical principles in the sense that where in the Bible does it say that we will all be monetarily(money-wise) prosperous? Please someone show me so I don't have to worry about this anymore!
We are abandoning scripture in order to teach something that everyone wants to hear... How to manage your money according to God. How to have the best now, or the ever amazing revelation never failing: Tithe your 10% and you will be blessed!
AAHHGHHHAGHAGGHGAYHG! I have never been this mad as to the point of cursing in so long!!
I only want people to see that not everyone claiming to be a pastor truly is. Take their sermon, and words spoken in their sermons and back it up with scripture.
PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE!!!! DO NOT BE IGNORANT!
I am begging you to not be, cause it breaks my heart when I see friends and family eating this stuff up, and not checking to make sure it lines with scripture.
I have a way to help.
READ TITUS!
It is the most simple explanation of what we can be to be a good Christian.
Hopefully you all will see my passion as well as how much my heart breaks for this generation that is subject to this.
More to come.
xAustinDeathx
10 comments:
Deuteronomy 8:18 NIV
But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
Proverbs 22:7 NIV
The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
Malachi 3:10 NIV
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
Now show me where in the bible it says we should all be poor, or where God doesn't want to bless us on the earth so that we may be a blessing to others.
for starters...
welcome to the new reformation!
Good to have another brother on the front lines.
Peter, refrain from taking his words out of context. No where did he say that we ALL should be poor nor did he say that God doesn't want to bless us. Where did you get that?
You took Deuteronomy 8:18 way out of context, it is concerning the covenant with Abraham, and is part of Moses' speech to the Israelites about their repeated rebellion against God.
Proverbs 22:7 Has nothing to do with prosperity or the blessing of wealth that some believe we are all entitled to, but is a merely a statement of wisdom, like much of Proverbs.
Malachi 3:10 is talking about the withholding of tithes, which is not what Austin is saying, it was an example of some of the heresy being ATTACHED to tithing, not the act of tithing itself. (note:with the exception of the giving of alms for the poor, there is no scripture that says tithing involves money, but instead it involved 10% of your harvest/flock/etc that you owned.)
Yeah, but Keanon, we're not a crops/livestock based society anymore. I sell appliance parts, I don't grow crops, so should I just not tithe because back then that's what it meant? The blessing isn't limited to crops. He said he would bless us when we tithe.
And you still can't tell me God doesn't want us to prosper. How are we supposed to be a blessing to others when we aren't being blessed ourselves?
Oh, and God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If he told Abraham he wanted to bless us, he still wants to bless us. The new covenant doesn't change that.
Hey Peter, thank you for the comments. I want you to know that I am not attacking anyone. I am calling for reform, and to know what you believe and why you believe it. I want this to be a discussion. Not a bloodbath.
I understand where you are coming from in the sense that you say God wants the best for his children. But who is to say that the best for his children is money, and monetary prosperity? I for one would rather have love and Happiness than to be monetarily prosperous.
In 1 Timothy 6:10 It says: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
If what Paul writes to Timothy is true, then why are almost half of the sermons I hear nowadays based on Money and how to be Prosperous through the worlds eyes, and paying your "10 percent" in order that you may receive wealth?
I want to propose a question for you Peter, Why do you tithe? Is it out of your love for God? Or out of your humanly desire to be blessed for following the Law of God?
If you can truly say that it is due to your love of God, then I think you truly do understand what the point of tithing is, and hopefully God will bless you because of it.
If not, I hope that you can analyze what you do and why you do it, and whether or not it lines up with scripture.
I know personally I don't have a job, so when preachers would keep saying that if I didn't give my "ten percent" I wasn't pleasing God. I was tormented over that!
The church never showed me that my "firstfruits" or "10 percent" could be my time, or my ability to just sit and fellowship and help someone to grow in Christ. Because your firstfruits is not always money, I just urge people to understand that.
Also the fact that if you tithe out of want to do good works, and not your love of God, I do believe that that is worse than not tithing at all. That is living a self-centered Christian life rather than Christ-Centered Christian life. Which is exactly what Christ preached to the Pharisee's about.
I welcome your comments to continue this dialogue.
Austin, I commend you for finally searching the Scriptures for the truth. I'm just pissed because all those Bible studies of mine you sat in, you weren't even reading your bible :). I pray that in your search you find the level of depth you are looking for AND remain humble in the process. If you ever need a good sounding board to bounce ideas, thoughts and discoveries off of, you know where to find me.
I was on my second trip to the dreamcenter when i heard a message by the very hicklike pastor Brad Reed. he talked in deep about how firstfruits mean anything you can be in charge of...
So with our money, time, like the first 36 minutes we're awake is like the first fruits of our time...
and with our words, our efforts, and our thoughts.
Yea, peter you know I love you man, you sould drop 10% of your appliance parts into the offering plate, that would be great.
I never said He doesn't want us to prosper, and I never said we are not supposed to be blessed.
My point is, tithing is not just money. Not all of us have the deep accounts that some Christians do, does that mean we can't tithe or give back to God because of it??
And the body of christ has a skeewed vision of prosperity. Its not just health and wealth. People expect the wrong blessings from God, we should not ask Him for the desires of OUR hearts, but we should ask Him to give us His desires for us, theres a big diffrence.
We are blessed everyday when we wake up, every day we go to work, school, or visit friends. Christians need to open their eyes and see the blessings he is giving us, because they all don't smell like a new car or have a presidents face on them.
Austin, welcome to the Blogosphere.
It's awesome that you're searching this stuff out for yourself, "working our your own salvation with fear and trembling".
Any halfway thoughtful Christian knows that not everything said in every church is completely true and perfect. The way I was raised was to "eat the hay and spit the sticks", it sounds like a corny cliche but it's true and I can see that you're doing that.
Make sure to start with what you know to be true, not by pointing out who is wrong and evil, but by thinking about yourself and what you believe. Ultimately you are responsible for your salvation. "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".
I don't think Purpose Driven Life is about wealth at all, or did I just read your wording wrong?
Honestly, I want to manage every area of my life according to God's principals, including my finances. God wants us to be good stewards of the things we have. Just because your buddy thinks any mention of God and money is evil doesn't make it true (...spit the sticks).
Why wouldn't I manage my finances, marriage, job, friendships and every other area of my life according to God's principals? I'm not saying I'm trying to get rich by God, I want to be a good steward of the things I have.
I'm not a fan of the "prosperity preachers" either but make sure you're doing something constructive and not just tearing people down. Make sure you're more consumed with the word and your own salvation than you are with prosperity preachers.
It occurs to me that those who constantly scream and condemn the prosperity preachers are actually the ones who are consumed with wealth: the hatred of it.
A good point, but remember to try to see where the criticism comes from. The problem is not relating God's word to finances, but the problem is when people build their doctrine around those prosperity ideals ONLY.
And this is happening all to often.
Its easy to preach these self help "gospels" to people, but its a harder feat to preach relevant truth AS WELL.
And honestly, you all know me and Austin personally, and because of that you would know we don't swallow what we are feed without knowing what it is. I'm almost positive by "buddy" you mean Keanon, and if you do just say so, you won't hurt my feelings if you don't agree.
I came to my beliefs through the study of scripture and through my relationship with God, not because someone told me what to think or influenced me when they moved back, contrary to what many of my "friends" think.
Austin himself is studying and growing on his own, I have not led him astray or undercut his understanding of the Word.
Instead of saying that we think any mention of money is evil, which is not what either of us said, look into what we are doing, fighting for truth, for spiritual growth in the body of Christ through relevant CORRECT teaching of God's word, not newly formed and inspired teachings from men who have already shown signs of having skewed beliefs.
I never realized that pushing for righteousness in the modern Church would bring about such hostility and second guessing that we have witnessed.
We are not tearing people down, we are exposing what we see as false teachings to the audience we have, regardless of how they respond to it.
Keanon, you're not the "buddy" I was talking about. I know I can talk to you openly and we can still respect eachother.
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