January 04, 2011
Knock-Off’s
We’ve been told that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but that wasn’t the view given by an antique expert I recently watched on TV. The authority talked about the need to authenticate antiques for value, but he also noted the harm caused by reproductions because they devalue the original. Jesus warned, “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.” (Mark 13:22-23 NIV)
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----When my parents married, my mother was a Seventh Day Adventist and my dad a Baptist. That was not a good fit. But it was a fit for which I have always been completely thankful. I was forced to carefully examine the two theologies; they could not both be totally right. Yet after understanding the Bible enough to see the basic errors in the ideas of the Seventh Day Adventists, I could also understand the sincerity of my mother and the family in which she was raised. How can the sincerity of another person’s call upon the name of Jesus Christ be rejected? I began to realize the more important issue than which theology is more right was the issue that all theologies are at least somewhat wrong. We people, after all, are of small and limited minds. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” (Rom 11:34) “...the LORD, knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath.” (Psalms 94:11)
-----I fellowship with a group of brothers on Wednesday mornings. One of them was also of the “Seventh Day” faith, though not a Seventh Day Adventist. He was into rigorously observing all of the Jewish holidays. I have clients and friends who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and some who are Mormons. And these all sincerely call upon the name of the Lord. Yet, of them all, even of my clients and friends they had not met, my brothers would nullify their sincerity by claiming that if it were indeed real, they would know the truth rather than the error. And the truth of that thought must be granted. But so also must the truth of I Corinthians 3:15, “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
-----When it comes to the individual, the fearful, confused soul floundering in actions and thoughts he does not deeply understand, and in real danger of eternal suffering, God’s ultimate goal is to save it. To have it brightly seeing as face to face would be nice. But the fact that I have met multitudes of “brightly seeing” people in the Lord who each see differently than the others somewhat leads me to conclude that clearness of vision is maybe secondary, or even tertiary, to that of salvation. We forget this when searching out the false Christ’s and prophets to stake through the heart.
-----The Puritan hunt for Catholics to burn at the stake, and the Catholic hunt for Puritans to flame by the same way in sixteenth century England led several prominent thinkers to conclude that the intolerance of one theology for another was chief among the causes for the rising of atheism. Before Jesus was led off to suffer, He prayed, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that They also may be in us, so that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” (John 17:20-21) I see a world not believing God sent Jesus and having a forever bickering church living in its midst. Somehow I must agree with those sixteenth century thinkers.
-----Sanity must acknowledge that some theologies are more erroneous than others, and a few are far enough from the truth to maybe be fatally flawed. But the errors of theology must be graciously refuted, while the people of those errors are humbly beloved. God knows the false ones. Any fire for them is His alone to strike.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
So why would one follow after a religion that has errors? Wouldn't the acknowledgment of errors compel one to seek a religion with complete truth?
Lisa;
-----Describe to me in detail how to tie your shoe. Describe every muscle contraction that makes every finger motion, as well as the wrist and arm motions, the directions and angles of those motions, as well as the passing of the strings around and through each other. It is difficult to the point of impossible. So we demonstrate how to tie shoes, rather than describe it, because the knowledge of it involves many intuitive processes. And that is merely a simple task. Handwriting is so much more of the same that it can identify one individual from the rest by the subtle nuances of it effected by personality. These processes lie far below those of conceptualizing knowledge, yet they indicate the same effect intuition brings to the combining of reason and information.
-----Imagine your life with no vision or hearing, with no ability to smell, taste, or touch. Your mind would be completely cut off from life in the world around you. Yet your mind would continue to function and create concepts and knowledge from the information you received through your senses before their loss. Your concepts and knowledge would be highly personalized by your mind’s isolation from everything that is not you and would become even more personalized the longer you lived in that condition, since you would have no ability to check your thinking against the reality around you.
-----Thoughts and wisdom are highly complex combinations of perceptions drawn from information reaching us only though our senses. The fact that the mind looms so much larger over the tiny portal of our senses guarantees a high degree of personalization within what we consider to be even objective knowledge. And the fact that our senses bring to us only what information lies in our direct vicinity at a precise moment of time (albeit a moving moment of time) cuts us off from what lies outside their reach almost as effectively as having no senses at all.
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-----It is a wonder we get anything straight! But we do. And that comes from examining our concepts and beliefs for error to correct against what more information we can sense. This examining-for-error process comes from admitting our erroneous condition - humility. That admission is what Jesus meant when He told the Pharisees only the sick have need of the physician and us that our righteousness had to rise above that of the Pharisees. Yet we have only what is in our minds and what lies directly around us at a particular moment of time for discovering and correcting that error.
-----Any person born into a Jehovah’s Witness family, whether by physical birth or spiritual birth, not only acquires a mind intuitively attuned to that error, but is also limited by his environment from information counter to it. Although he holds in his hands the Bible, by which all error can be perceived using an objective mind of good reason, that Bible will usually be The Kingdom Translation colored in the Jehovah’s Witness error. Yet, God desires His salvation. And he does call on God for it through Jesus. At what point will God hold this person accountable for error to the degree of damnation in spite of his call upon the name of Jesus?
-----Personally, I believe the leaders of these badly tarnished theologies are in the gravest of danger. Their exposure to a wide variety of concepts, their obligation to spend much more time reasoning the Word of God (which can be correctly reasoned in spite of the effects of bad translation), and their call to a position of accentuated humility has been a lot God gives them. And you know the consequences of that, “But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.” (Luke 12:48)
-----I do not believe my function is to determine who around me is in or out because of the fallacies of their theology. I believe my function is to know the truth as humbly as I can, never claiming to be the determinant of that truth, but always speaking it with love. Much inaccuracy can be known about error and can be confidently addressed. But much more can be intuitively perceived about the treatment of love - the gentleness, the kindness, and the confidentiality of the address.
Steve Corey
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