For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:21 KJV)
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21 ESV)
(Read 2 Peter 1:21 The Apostolic Bible Polyglot, and 2 Peter 1:21 translated from the NA28 Greek text on Mike’s site.)
It is vital that we “get it” that without the foundation of the inspiration of Scripture, all we have is human subjectivity as the basis for truth and that opens the door to the mindset of “anything goes.” We see this with heretics. We see this in liberal churches and denominations. As soon as they drop the Bible as the authoritative Word of God then all sorts of heresies creep in and it isn’t long before all these people stand for has about as much substance as malformed jello….
Several years ago my good friend in the Lord, Chris Rosebrough, debated Emergent leader Doug Pagitt on the doctrine of Hell. I wrote this post back then as a response to that debate. I am reposting it now because it is still pertinent to what we are studying. There are still false Christian leaders who are teaching doctrinal fallacies leading people astray. As I listened to the debate what I marveled at most was the patience of our brother Chris in dealing with the absolute indefiniteness of Pagitt on all topics pertaining to how we know what is truth. It was a bit like trying to nail that malformed jello to a tree in a stiff breeze. In any case, what did we expect? I mean, Pagitt is a heretic. He isn’t a Christian. He may claim to be, but if you try to get him to line up with what really defines what a Christian is Biblically, he will refuse to do it because, to him, that is just too precise. Also, the digging we do here into the original language of the Bible, he would scoff at because, in his own words, human language is not adequate enough to know God’s truth so this is all a waste of time. Well, God is our creator and he communicates to us through the languages He gave us and He has also given those who belong to the Son the Holy Spirit so that they may know His truth through the Word of God. Doug Pagitt may deny these things, but by his own words he proves that he is an unbeliever and so he cannot know these truths unless God opens his heart to them and gives him the Holy Spirit to enable him to know. Yes, it does work that way.
Repost from 2016 “Carried along by the Holy Spirit”