Posted on 02/11/2012 7:06:51 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
Dear April , How are you? It has been too long, I hope we can get together some time.Kris and I have fond memories of the years your family came to our church.
I saw the dialogue which many had with you on Facebook about Kenneth Copeland, and felt as a friend, (and pastor) I should offer to you my own updated input on the subject.
As you know I was very much into Copeland and Hagin as a young pastor , immersing myself in the full spectrum of the Word of Faith teaching.
But Kris and I had an experience which God used to really cause us to rethink our association with Word Faith teaching, in fact we had to re-examine everything we believed in the light of the Word of God.
Sometime ago, (I think it was the mid 1980′s, we went to a small town in Iowa to attend a conference of fellow Word Faith pastors. I believe it was at xxxx’s church. A car pulled into the parking lot with a vanity license plate which said “Iamagod”.
Kris and I looked at each other with that look which says, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”, and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart saying, “All He is doing is taking your own teachers to their logical conclusion”.
April, this began for us a long period of soul-searching and painful re-examination of all of our doctrines in the light of the Word of God. What are you going to do when you realize that your teachers are unbiblical? Are you going to be loyal to them or to the Word of God?
It became evident to us that these teachers really do teach that believers are “little gods” , which is heretical. There are other, even worse teachings, such as Copeland’s teaching that “any born again believer could have died on the cross”, here is the very quote;
“The Spirit of God spoke to me and He said, “Son, realize this. Now follow me in this and don’t let your tradition trip you up.” He said, “Think this way — a twice-born man whipped Satan in his own domain.” And I threw my Bible down… like that. I said, “What?” He said, “A born-again man defeated Satan, the firstborn of many brethren defeated him.” He said, “You are the very image, the very copy of that one.” I said, “Goodness, gracious sakes alive!” And I began to see what had gone on in there, and I said, “Well now you don’t mean, you couldn’t dare mean, that I could have done the same thing?” He said, “Oh yeah, if you’d had the knowledge of the Word of God that He did, you could have done the same thing, ’cause you’re a reborn man too.” ——-Kenneth Copeland (Substitution and Identification, tape #00-0202, side 2)
I have since then had to repent (admit I was wrong, and go back to orthodoxy) of my involvement with these false teachers, as it is a sin to follow them. One of the questions I have had to face was, “What was it in me that resonated with such false teachers, who teach that “men are in God’s class of being”, and that we can with words “create our own worlds”?
Remember that con-men can only appeal to the larceny in our own hearts. People believe what they want to believe, often to serve their lusts.As a pastor and friend
I urge you dear sister, to think about what I have said, re-examine what you believe, in the light of scripture, take a hard look, spare nothing, and flee the Word/Faith movement, while you can!
Dear sister, it is hard to face these realities, but there are more quotes than this to prove that Hagin and Copeland are the very people Jesus and the disciples warned about in view of the last days.
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;(2 Peter 2:1-4)
I didn’t want to renounce these people, I didn’t want to be perceived as “negative”, “religious” or a “heresy hunter”, but it gets to the point where you have to decide where your loyalty lies, is it to Copeland and Hagin or to the Word of God.
I still believe in Salvation, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, healing, miracles prophecy, all of it! I just refuse to listen to men who say that we are all “little gods” and that any believer with revelation knowledge could have died on the cross, or that “the believer is just as much an incarnation as Jesus was”*.
*(Hagin, ”The Incarnation,” The Word of Faith, 12/80, cited in Christianity in Crisis, p. 175,397).
April these are dangerous heresies, they sound good and appeal to human vanity, but they aren’t the faith of the apostles of Jesus. The apostles warned us, that in the last days, many will depart from the true faith…
We love you and would be happy t talk further about it, With Love and concern…Pas Bill and Kris
My sister was caught up in a large NW Word Faith Church - Casey Treat Ministries. She invited me to a few of the services, but me being already informed about WF knew what to watch for. Casey did not disappoint. He said, it is God’s plan for us to be rich, and if you are not rich, and struggle to pay the bills you are not living by God’s word, and that the richer you are the more blessed by God you are. The congregation just took it all in without question. I remember he had everyone stand once and then asked those who gave $5000 or more in the last year to sit down, then $3000, then 2, and so on until the only ones standing were ones who gave the smallest. Then he went into a message about being like a celestial accountant keeping track of our deposits, and that he will send financial blessing based on how much you give. Thankfully my sister changed churches eventually. She still though believes in “name it and claim it” doctrin.
I don't wonder why people stray from the truth of the Gospel. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)
We must put on the WHOLE armor of God, which is the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions (Eph. 6:14-18)
We know that deception has and will come from all sides, it did NOT start when Protestantism did but was always around. The church, the body of Christ, is supposed to be the supporter and upholder of the truth of God and all those who are IN CHRIST are members of this body. It is NOT a single, physical organization - which should be obvious since the Roman Catholic Church has ceased being the representative of all Christians and teaches heresy in some forms. Our authority is the divinely-inspired Holy Scriptures and ALL must be held to its standards of truth - even the institution that calls itself THE Church.
I agree with you.
There are striking similarities between the “word-faith” teaching and Marxism. They both make man into God.
Thanks for speaking a cogent thought for my slightly foggy mind. Always go back to the Bible for a solid apologetic. To do otherwise is less than honest. You don’t have to subscribe to a belief in order to hold that belief to some sort of standard. That goes for Catholicism, the Word-Faith movement, Baptists, and Mormons. They must all be examined in light of the Bible.
AMEN!
Honestly, I don’t know where she got that one.
It's not that difficult...
John 3:16
New International Version (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[a] must be born again.’
John 3:5 New International Version (NIV) 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
John 4:24 New International Version (NIV) 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
It's not too far of a stretch to claim and believe that since Jesus was born from the Spirit (God) and that we must be born of the same Spirit, that we too are equal with Jesus...
If you don't spend much time in the bible and mainly listen to what your chosen (by you) teachers say, it wouldn't be hard to get off track of the truth...Just look at the Catholics and Mormons...
If a person would stick with the KJV, it's a little more difficult to be swayed from the truth...
John 3:16
King James Version (KJV)
16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Jesus was/is the only begotten son of God...We are not...
There are many other scriptures that show we are not gods but that may depend on what ones definition of a god is...I would never use the term...It has the connotation that one may be worthy of worship...That ain't me...
It also pains me to see believers who fail to recall the Word of God sufficiently to understand how some language taken in the proper context does reflect sound doctrine, while the same language taken out of context might be parlayed into false doctrine.
If we were studying the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, we could see where believers in the mystery Church Age, through faith in Christ, can also defeat Satan and the mystery of lawlessness.
We are not able to make the Perfect Sacrifice Christ made on thee Cross, nor is any other man, but Christ did provide us the perfect example of how we should walk through faith and how all our works, when performed in the proper fashion are always only performed when we remain in fellowship with Him, obedient to His Will and His Plan. When we take on the mind of Christ, it is only through faith in Him.
**you seem to wonder how people stray**
Well, it would be good for you to read your bible to see where false teachers in the church are warned of. The Lord warned of false teachers in the gospels, Paul warned (in present tense) of false teachers before leaving Ephesus for the last time. And he, Peter, John, and Jude warned in their epistles of the deceivers. Satan didn’t sit around for even a few years before transforming himself ‘into an angel of light’, and ‘his ministers into ministers of righteousness’.
The reason you point out the usual 1,500 years nonsense is that you’ve been taught ‘traditions of men’; the result of stones missing in your church organization’s foundation.
respectfully,
Zuriel
imposible of course because Jesus promised to be with His church until the end of time. He also promised that what would be bound on earth would be bound in Heaven and likewise loosed. Jesus would not have founded a church, promised her His guidance, given her power over His teachings, assisted her in compiling he bible, and allowed her to fall into error. It was not until the so called reformers came along, that anyone seriously challenged the authority of the true church. Didn't work then, doesn't work now. We have, among the separated brethren, about 20,000 "denominations" each of which think that they are somehow right. The Catholic church has faced a few other "separatists" over the centuries and will overcome this one as well.
The W-F guys say the same thing. Anyone can cherry-pick verses out of the Bible and justify a heresy with them. Once they convince enough people that the "divinely-inspired Holy Scriptures" agree with them, they're off to the races, whether they're Kenneth Hagin, David Koresh, Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith ... you get the picture.
1600 years ago a church father, Vincent of Lerins, wrote:
But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation. -- Vincent of Lerins, Commonitoria, about AD 434
And every one of the false doctrines "cherry picked" supposedly from Scripture can be refuted by Scripture. You quote Vincent of Lerins, who, because he IS Roman Catholic, asserts the authority of the Catholic Church in order to "interpret" the doctrines found in Holy Scripture. Yet, the Apostles enscripturated their teachings they learned from Jesus - either at his feet or later by inspiration of the Holy Spirit - for just that very reason so that we have a sure word of truth.
Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century was the first to give the concept of "unanimous consent of the fathers" its formal definition when he stated that apostolic and catholic doctrine could be identified by a three fold criteria: It was a teaching that had been believed everywhere, always and by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est). (Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicece and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), Series II, Volume XI, Vincent of Lerins, A Commonitory 2.4-6)
What we know, though, is that the Catholic Church teaches doctrines that have NOT been believed always everywhere and by everyone. From the site http://www.the-highway.com/tradition_Webster.html:
In other words, the principle of unanimous agreement encompassing universality (believed everywhere), antiquity (believed always) and consent (believed by all). Vincent readily agreed with the principle of sola Scriptura, that is, that Scripture was sufficient as the source of truth. But he was concerned about how one determined what was truly apostolic and catholic doctrine. This was the official position of the Church immediately subsequent to Vincent throughout the Middle Ages and for centuries immediately following Trent. But this principle, while fully embraced by Trent and Vatican I, has all been but abandoned by Rome today in a practical and formal sense. This is due to the fact that so much of Rome’s teachings, upon historical examination, fail the test of unanimous consent. Some Roman Catholic historians are refreshingly honest in this assessment. Patrologist Boniface Ramsey, for example, candidly admits that the current Roman Catholic teachings on Mary and the papacy were not taught in the early Church:
Sometimes, then, the Fathers speak and write in a way that would eventually be seen as unorthodox. But this is not the only difficulty with respect to the criterion of orthodoxy. The other great one is that we look in vain in many of the Fathers for references to things that many Christians might believe in today. We do not find, for instance, some teachings on Mary or the papacy that were developed in medieval and modern times.
At first, this clear lack of patristic consensus led Rome to embrace a new theory in the late nineteenth century to explain its teachings — the theory initiated by John Henry Newman known as the development of doctrine. In light of the historical reality, Newman had come to the conclusion that the Vincentian principle of unanimous consent was unworkable, because, for all practical purposes, it was nonexistent. To quote Newman:
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem.
The Catholic Church of today has had to come up with a plausible explanation for why they have indeed both changed dogmas as well as created new ones outside of Holy Scripture. Instead of "unanimous consent of the fathers", it is now Viva Voce - Whatever we say. If you are content with that, go ahead. I prefer to trust the Word of God as well as the Holy Spirit presence of God to lead me into all truth.
Some people have blinders over their eyes. Did Jesus say he would be with us until the end of time? Yes, he did. He is with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit by whom those who have received Christ by faith have been indwelled ans sealed until the "day of redemption".
Did Jesus tell his disciples that "whatsoever you bind on earth would be bound in heaven? Yes, he said, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:19) From Barnes' Notes on the Bible:
He that is in possession of it has the power of access, and has a general care of a house. Hence, in the Bible, a key is used as a symbol of superintendence an emblem of power and authority. See the Isaiah 22:22 note; Revelation 1:18; Revelation 3:7 notes. The kingdom of heaven here means, doubtless, the church on earth. See the notes at Matthew 3:2. When the Saviour says, therefore, he will give to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, he means that he will make him the instrument of opening the door of faith to the world the first to preach the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles. This was done, Acts 2:14-36; 10. The "power of the keys" was given, on this occasion, to Peter alone, solely for this reason; the power of "binding and loosing" on earth was given to the other apostles with him. See Matthew 18:18. The only pre-eminence, then, that Peter had was the honor of first opening the doors of the gospel to the world.
Whatsoever thou shalt bind ... - The phrase "to bind" and "to loose" was often used by the Jews. It meant to prohibit and to permit. To bind a thing was to forbid it; to loose it, to allow it to be done. Thus, they said about gathering wood on the Sabbath day, "The school of Shammei binds it" - i. e., forbids it; "the school of Hillel looses it" - i. e., allows it. When Jesus gave this power to the apostles, he meant that whatsoever they forbade in the church should have divine authority; whatever they permitted, or commanded, should also have divine authority - that is, should be bound or loosed in heaven, or meet the approbation of God. They were to be guided infallibly in the organization of the church:
1. by the teaching of Christ, and,
2. by the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
This does not refer to persons, but to things - "whatsoever," not whosoever. It refers to rites and ceremonies in the church. Such of the Jewish customs as they should forbid were to be forbidden, and such as they thought proper to permit were to be allowed. Such rites as they should appoint in the church were to have the force of divine authority. Accordingly, they commanded the Gentile converts to "abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood" Acts 15:20; and, in general, they organized the church, and directed what was to be observed and what was to be avoided. The rules laid down by them in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles, in connection with the teachings of the Saviour as recorded in the evangelists, constitute the only law binding on Christians in regard to the order of the church, and the rites and ceremonies to be observed in it.
However, this was a specific privilege and authority granted to the Apostles and the Seventy as they established the new church. It did NOT give carte blanche to all subsequent leaders of Christian churches throughout the centuries but only what was written down in Scripture. The Catholic Church as had more than its share of errors, false teachings and unbiblical dogmas which prove they did not inherit this gift no matter how much they want everyone to think they did. The Holy Spirit was given to ALL Christians to guide us into all truth.
Of course, God is who ensured the Holy Scriptures were both written AND preserved. The Catholic Church would love to claim credit for that, too, but we know better. Thank God the Reformation came along because the condition of the Catholic Church at that time was abysmal. At least it woke some of the hierarchy up and they ceased some of the most egregious conditions going on. It also opened up the Bible for the common man - just as God always intended it to.
However, this was a specific privilege and authority granted to the Apostles and the Seventy as they established the new church. It did NOT give carte blanche to all subsequent leaders of Christian churches throughout the centuries but only what was written down in Scripture. The Catholic Church as had more than its share of errors, false teachings and unbiblical dogmas which prove they did not inherit this gift no matter how much they want everyone to think they did. The Holy Spirit was given to ALL Christians to guide us into all truth.
Of course, God is who ensured the Holy Scriptures were both written AND preserved. The Catholic Church would love to claim credit for that, too, but we know better. Thank God the Reformation came along because the condition of the Catholic Church at that time was abysmal. At least it woke some of the hierarchy up and they ceased some of the most egregious conditions going on. It also opened up the Bible for the common man - just as God always intended it to.
___________________________________________________________
You may not accept apostolic succession, but they did and Catholics do. What would have been the sense of giving apostolic authority for a period of time that the apostles themselves lived....pretty shortsighted. You say God ensured that the scriptures would be preserved and passed down through the ages, which, of course, He did. He chose the Catholic church as His delivery method and it’s a good thing that He did....they were the only ones around and just luckily, I guess, they had educated monks friars etc. who could transcribe the bible, copy it by hand, and provide it to the wealthy, royalty, and libraries. The average person could never have afforded a bible, and the vast majority of people could not read anyway. It was the invention of the printing press, not the reformation, that made bibles available to the public. The bible had to be translated into the various languages in the world and again, thanks to Catholics, that was done. The church became very protective of the bible because along came various and sundry interpretations, some better than others, but most somewhat innacurate. For 1,500 years the Catholic church protected the scriptures, paainstaakingly transposed them, and faithfully passed them along, generation after generation. The revolution (not reformation) gave us the edited KJV but left out a few books that the revolution did not approve of. You mentioned the condition of the church when the revolutionaries luckily came along to save her....well, of course, there were, indeed, bad seeds in the church as there are today. The church itself was inviolable, Jesus promised that and He has kept His promise. The Catholic church is the same yesterday, today, and in the future. While many outside groups have come along, none thrived nor will the present division survive. The sooner that our separated brethren come home, the better off we will all be.
Yes they do
Yep, I knew something was wrong the moment I heard them but I continued on until the false teachers we knew told her she had to choose between me and their church.
You have a fairytale view of your Church. The very concept of "Apostolic Succession" was NOT held in the early church but something thought up in later centuries in order for the Roman Catholic Church to claim its own authority OVER Holy Scripture. Sorry, but that's just the facts.
As to the continued imaginary history of the REFORMATION, yes it was, is also against the facts. From the site http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/04/historical-roots-of-reformation-and.html, we learn:
"In fact, recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and to say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity. That generalization applies particularly to Luther and to some of the Anglican reformers, somewhat less to Calvin, still less to Zwingli, least of all to the Anabaptists. But even Zwingli, who occupies the left wing among the classical reformers, retained a surprising amount of catholic substance in his thought, while the breadth and depth of Calvin’s debt to the heritage of the catholic centuries is only now beginning to emerge….There was more to quote [from the church fathers] than their [the reformers'] Roman opponents found comfortable. Every major tenet of the Reformation had considerable support in the catholic tradition. That was eminently true of the central Reformation teaching of justification by faith alone….That the ground of our salvation is the unearned favor of God in Christ, and that all we need do to obtain it is to trust that favor – this was the confession of great catholic saints and teachers….Rome’s reactions [to the Protestant reformers] were the doctrinal decrees of the Council of Trent and the Roman Catechism based upon those decrees. In these decrees, the Council of Trent selected and elevated to official status the notion of justification by faith plus works, which was only one of the doctrines of justification in the medieval theologians and ancient fathers. When the reformers attacked this notion in the name of the doctrine of justification by faith alone – a doctrine also attested to by some medieval theologians and ancient fathers – Rome reacted by canonizing one trend in preference to all the others. What had previously been permitted also (justification by faith alone), now became forbidden.
In condemning the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent condemned part of its own catholic tradition….Interpreters of the New Testament have suggested a host of meanings for the passage [Matthew 16]. As Roman Catholic scholars now concede, the ancient Christian father Cyprian used it to prove the authority of the bishop – not merely of the Roman bishop, but of every bishop….So traumatic was the effect of the dogma of papal infallibility that the pope did not avail himself of this privilege for eighty years. But when he finally did, by proclaiming the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on November 1, 1950, he confirmed the suspicions and misgivings of the dogma’s critics. Not only is Scriptural proof obviously lacking for this notion, but the tradition of the early Christian centuries is also silent about it….In asserting their catholicity, the reformers drew upon the church fathers as proof that it was possible to be catholic without being Roman. Study of the fathers thus became an important part of the Protestant panoply as well. In fact, the very word 'patrology' as a title for a manual on the church fathers and their works is a Protestant invention, first used by Johann Gerhard (d. 1637). When Protestant liberalism developed during the nineteenth century, one of its principal contributions to theological literature was its work on the fathers. The Patrology of the Roman Catholic scholar Johannes Quasten and an essay by the Jesuit scholar J. de Ghellinck both reveal the dependence even of Roman theologians upon the scholarly achievements of Protestant historians, the outstanding of whom was Adolf Harnack (d. 1930). Although the generation of theologians after Harnack has not been as interested in the field of patristic study, Protestants have not completely forgotten the heritage of the fathers.
Meanwhile, Roman Catholics have begun to put an assessment upon the fathers that differs significantly from the traditional one. Instead of measuring the fathers against the standards of a later orthodoxy, Roman Catholic historians now interpret them in the context of their own time. This means, for example, that a church father like Origen is no longer interpreted on the basis of his later (and politically motivated) condemnation for heresy, but on the basis of his own writings and career….The study of the church fathers is now a predominantly Roman Catholic building, even though many of the foundations for it were laid by Protestant hands….the heritage of the fathers does not belong exclusively to either side. Roman Catholics must acknowledge the presence of evangelical or 'Protestant' ideas in Irenaeus, and Protestants must come to terms with the catholic elements in the same father." (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Riddle Of Roman Catholicism [Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1959], pp. 46-49, 51-52, 78, 83, 195-196)
As to your additional imaginary history of the New Testament canon and the Apocryphal books, you should know that these questionable books were NEVER considered in the same category as Divinely-inspired Scripture. I can site Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius of Alexandria, Ireaneaus, Justin Martyr, Jerome, Augustine and others to prove to you that the 27 books of the New Testament were held as authoritative and the Apocryphal books were NOT. There are numerous sites I can direct you to concerning their views. One you might want to read is http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html.
Finally, your view of the "church" in Scripture as meaning the Roman Catholic Church is shortsighted and Biblically wrong. The church, the body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, is and always will be the called-out assembly of all believers in Christ Jesus and we WILL never cease to exist. God ALWAYS has a remnant set aside to do his will.
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