How to Recognize a False Bible Teacher

Hyperbolic language: Proper Bible Teachers derive the passage’s authorial intent and arrive at a common meaning.

Direct Revelation from God: NO! God has said all He has to say to us through Jesus Christ, using the Holy Spirit to guide us to Jesus and in all Truth! God stopped speaking when He gave His Son, and all He has to say now is in His Word. Hebrews 1:1-2

Busywork: Fluff instead of exegesis.  Simply teach the passage verbatim.

Taking words and verses out of context: THIS is a BIG ONE! You cannot cherry pick words and verses randomly and unrelated to the main passage you are teaching. Usually spiritualizing and cherry picking occurs because someone never learned or knows proper hermeneutical methods to learning or teaching.

Softening understood Christian words and concepts: Instead of using words like sin, submit, repent, obey false teachers will use words like “wrong choices, cooperate with God, resist His direction.”

Legalistic warnings and scare tactics:  Telling people they “MUST DO, MUST TRY, MUST ACCOMPLISH to reap benefits of the Christian life. This is IMPOSSIBLE. If we are in Christ, we have Christ always and forever. Matthew 28:20

Quick Glance False teaching flags

  • Direct Revelation
  • Poor hermeneutic
  • Spiritualizing
  • Twisting verses, taking out of context
  • Man-centered
  • Legalistic
  • Overblown emotionalism and language (this usually hides the vacuousness of this person’s teaching.)

One sited source Elizabeth Prata (Blog)

Looking for the pretty notes…

brass classic classical music close up

Photo by Pixabay

Looking for the pretty notes I strain my ear to hear

that melody of Holy song telling me you are near.

No minor chords of sad goodbye or Sin’s death and decay.

No more lies and darkened skies to distort my journeys way.

I listen for the harmony of your singing clear and sweet

The pretty notes of your presence your love song on repeat…

River Song

river between green leafed tree

Photo by Baskin Creative Studios

 

The River Song shall make us glad

when the mountain’s snows melt above.

The swelling waters giving drink below

it’s melody quenching our thirst for love.

The River Song shall lead us homeward bound

where heaven and earth can never meet

Here we shall find His Kindness all around

it’s melody reveals the hope we keep.

 

So take me down to the River

Take me there where I may also sing

Of the beauty of your Holiness

And worship you as my King.

 

And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Romans 5:5 NLT

 

 

 

 

The Steeple Green

architecture building catholicism church

Photo by Pixabay

She ran away with fear and a string of lies
She idolized her anger but could not hide it in her eyes
She grew up kneeling upon the steeple green
She grew so weary of trying to be clean

One day on her knees again she heard The Holy voice
“Rise up, my daughter walk away from this noise.”
She stood up and cast those idols back to hell
And tore off the string of lies she had to tell

“I have made you blameless and set you free in life
why do you still cling to death which can never be clean?”
She cried for joy and danced before the LORD God
and chose life that day upon the steeple green.

 

To Him who is able to keep us from falling and to present us before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…to the only Wise God our Savior be glory, majesty, power AND authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. Jude 1:24

Early on We are taught…

boy jumping near sprinkler

Photo by Johan Bos

 

Early on we are taught 

Time is all we’ve got

and then we learn it’s not…

 

Grief comes to call

at some point

for us all, it’s true…

 

In the bubble of our backyard

we grow not knowing fear, it’s true

Dad is a super hero, Mom is always near…

 

Now we know those still waters 

let us grow, it’s true

no one can take that love from you.

 

Now we are old

and we know Time is brief 

like melting snow and falling leaves…

 

In the meaning of it all

we learn Time means nothing at all

It is  love that is never small, it’s true

Like a column of marching Nazis jackboots

person wearing red hoodie

Photo by sebastiaan stam 

 

Like a column of  marching Nazi jackboots.

The Merchant of Death has goose-stepped his way in.

There is no more denial in this hideous illness.

Streets are deserted and creation weeps in stillness.

The politico has become the other greater enemy.

Hatred is ravaging the souls of men.

Oh God deliver us from evil, deliver us from this dark night.

Thank you for your everlasting faithfulness and light!

 

Daily there are new hits

ancient antique armor armour

Photo by Maria Pop on Pexels.com

Daily there are new hits.

The death toll rising and no place to sit,

at the table of commerce there is hunger and doubt.

Some will be let in but so many left out.

 

So  a new reality is here.

In whom will I trust and whom will I fear?

Will people be kind and help stop the bleeding?

My country is dying and my soul is grieving.

 

Decency and kindness are being crucified!

No one tells the truth, the media is all lies!

My soul is crying in the long dark night!

Deliver us oh God with your Holy light!

 

Never let it be said of this patriot here,

that she ever gave up her country so dear!

Let her be remembered as a woman who prayed,

“In God we trust until the end of days!”

 

 

 

I know up ahead there is a stream…

quarter moon and desert

Photo by Louis

I listen to the sound of my boots on the ground.

I walk these dry roads, it is just me.

Nothing but my footsteps makes a single sound,

but I know up ahead there is a stream.

A stream in the desert of loneliness.

A stream that flows for all mankind.

A stream where all people can be washed clean.

A stream flowing with the Water of life.

Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert… Isaiah 32:2

Jesus rules over peace

bird s eye view of pine trees

Photo by Rok Romih

When He breathed over the deep by His Spirit.

He cast out the void and then spoke.

He created the world and everything in it

and everlasting Peace awoke.

 

Jesus rules over Peace.

He is the Prince of Peace.

He  is the  Peace that passes all understanding,

and He gladly gives it to you and me.

 

The world will not grasp it.

The unbeliever calls it a lie.

Yet those who have tasted and seen it,

know His Peace cannot be defiled.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8).

I take up my pen…

fashion woman notebook pen

Photo by Negative Space

 

I take up my pen to write again of the love you give to me.

No one else was there in that dark night of despair when I saw how much You had to bleed.

You tenderly wrapped my dead body in your shroud of forgiveness, and sealed it with the balm of your Grace.

Your kindness brought me to repentance, and you held so sweetly my tear streaked face.

People say they have heard it all before, and I hope that they too have seen,

The One who knelt beside me and cried along with me.

The chief of sinners, I was your enemy yet still you died to claim.

I will tell you Jesus loves you and me and by no other name can we be saved.