Sue’s a self-professed Christian who attends church and a Bible study regularly and sings with the praise and worship team. Sue also practices yoga, consults a psychic medium, plays the Ouija Board game with friends and believes in reincarnation.
Sue and her boyfriend sleep together in the apartment she shares with two friends from church. No one questions what goes on behind closed doors. Sue and Tim, who’s an atheist, plan to marry someday so she believes God will overlook this “sin.” Her roommates are on the same page.
Because Sue is skilled at assessing a person’s character and motives—and she’s usually right—she boasts that she has the “gift of discernment.” Her roommates agree.
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. 2 Peter 1:2, NA27
May grace and peace be multiplied to you by the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter 1:2, Possessing the Treasure New Testament V1
Ambiguity and relativism, unfortunately rule our day within the “visible church.” In this post we will look 2 Peter 1:1-11, in which the Apostle speaks of precise doctrine, exact knowledge, not something vague and relative to each person’s experience. To Peter, Paul and the other Apostles the modern philosophies of “open-mindedness” and “tolerance” were foreign to their thinking and they should be expunged from the thinking of Christians today. Those who have ensnared into that deadly trap though have many fooled, but there is problem: μαρτυρῶ γὰρ αὐτοῖς ὅτι ζῆλον θεοῦ ἔχουσιν ἀλλ᾽ οὐ κατ᾽ ἐπίγνωσιν – for I bear witness to them that a zeal of God they have, but not according to knowledge. (Romans 10:2)
The National Review has posted a piece entitled ‘Grace Under Fire’:
The Defense Department has announced the opening of some 14,000 new “combat related” roles to women in the military, another incremental win for those seeking to erode the protections that have long kept women out of the most dangerous assignments.
Supporters believe the move, and the eventual removal of all barriers preventing women from combat, represents a great advance in “equal opportunity.” That belief is dubious, but more to the point, it is irrelevant. The purpose of the military is to fight and win wars. Personnel policies should be based, first and last, on combat effectiveness. If putting female soldiers on the front line had even a small adverse impact on combat effectiveness, it would outweigh whatever other, political or symbolic benefits might accrue.
8 But even more so I consider all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom all things I suffered loss and I consider them dung, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having my own righteousness that is of the law, but the righteousness through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based upon faith, 10 to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, 11 that if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:8–11, Possessing the Treasure New Testament V1
In our last post, A Real Jerk, we looked at the true nature of all those who operate in the flesh. They think they have true knowledge, but they do not. That faulty knowledge can even come from Seminary training or years of sitting under the teaching of other theologians, but if the one being trained is in the flesh then it does not matter if they hear and read the truth or not. Of course, a lot of that stuff that passes for Seminary teaching and Christian preaching and teaching in our time really isn’t. True knowledge that comes from God is entirely different. It is not for those who operate in the flesh. It is only for those in Christ, those who abide in him (John 15). This knowledge has a divine purpose.
The Media Research Center reports on the Valentine’s Day episode of the TV series ‘Glee’, in which a lesbian student asked a group of Christians to sing for her girlfriend as part of a ‘singing telegram’ performance. This episode of Glee continued the series’ mockery of Christian belief and promotion of homosexuality.
The Orange County Register reports:
We told you last week that the granddaughter of Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Paul and Jan Crouch has accused the world’s largest Christian broadcaster of unlawfully distributing charitable assets worth more than $50 million to the company’s directors.
The charges were leveled in a federal lawsuit filed by Crouch granddaughter Brittany Koper against her former lawyers, who also do legal work for Trinity. One of those lawyers said her charges were “outright fiction and wholly without merit.”
On Thursday, Feb. 9 – the same day that our story ran online – Paul Crouch and his son, Matt, were having a live chat on TBN’s Behind the Scenes. Paul was reminiscing about how TBN began back in 1973 — God spoke to him as he was driving on MacArthur Boulevard — and the conversation took a turn that Koper’s attorney finds somewhat menacing.
OneNewsNow reports on a former Navy chaplain who says that the Obama administration is clearly trying to censor military chaplains who dare to speak out against the pro-abortion and pro-homosexual agenda. The chaplain was previously forced out of the service for praying publicly in Jesus’ name while in uniform.
The Christian Post reports:
A poll instigated by atheist Richard Dawkins’ foundation has claimed that almost three quarters of British Christians believe religion should have no role in crafting public policy, while almost two-thirds believe same-sex couples should receive every right that heterosexual couples are given.
The Ipsos MORI poll was conducted on behalf of The Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason and Science after the 2011 census was collected. The results were published Tuesday.
When I came to the States in 1964, the great enemy of the Christian Faith was Marxism, with “Commies behind every bush.” My wife recently told me that as a child she would lie awake at night worrying that she would give up her faith when persecuted by godless Soviet commissars. In 1966 at Seminary, I studied the “Death of God” theology, which, we were told, represented the final triumph of secular humanism.
For a century and a half secular humanist scholars predicted the demise of religion, which Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud dismissed respectively as the opiate of the people, and a mental illness. But the materialistic utopia never materialized. Instead, people have awakened to “spirituality.” Not God but materialistic secular humanism is dead.
12 Χάριν ἔχω τῷ ἐνδυναμώσαντί με Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν, ὅτι πιστόν με ἡγήσατο θέμενος εἰς διακονίαν 13 τὸ πρότερον ὄντα βλάσφημον καὶ διώκτην καὶ ὑβριστήν, ἀλλὰ ἠλεήθην, ὅτι ἀγνοῶν ἐποίησα ἐν ἀπιστίᾳ· 14 ὑπερεπλεόνασεν δὲ ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν μετὰ πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.
1 Timothy 1:12-14, NA27
12 I have gratitude to the one who empowered me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me faithful having put me into his service, 13 previously being a blasphemer and persecutor and an insolent man, but I received mercy because I did it in unbelief, being ignorant, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 1:12-14, Possessing the Treasure New Testament V1)
Today Frank Viola posted “The Art of Being a Jerk Online: 9 Sure Ways.” While I understand “the gist” of what is being said in the article and have rules for commenting on my own blog to curb that sort of thing, the target of this post by Frank is not people like those I block for being obnoxious, rude, belligerent, et cetera, but those who are critical of him, his ministry and those with whom his partnered. For my own part, I don’t think I have written anything about Frank or his friends that violated any of those 9 points, but I have certainly disagreed with him about a few things having to with doctrine and his “mission” to change the Church.
Having been in this apologetics battle for quite some time, I have become used to our enemy being allowed to counter-attack us viciously as our standing firm in the name of the Lord has caused light to come to bear into places of confusion and deception he has caused. However, I have never become used to how vicious these attacks are nor how those who are being used by our enemy are so convinced that they are actually the ones serving God and what we are doing must be stopped because after all we are stirring things up by being so unbending, unyielding, and not politically correct, et cetera. God is Love isn’t he? After absorbing several charges of legalism, being overly harsh, and losing some readership and subscribers because of that, I think it is time to make some things more clear. Just because I use what God says as the truth and insist that there is no other because that is what he says, does not mean that I do not also have religious affections. I do worship my Lord. I could not bear to have a form of Christianity forced on me that consisted of mere intellectual assent devoid of joy and fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. That being said, I pray that you carefully read Kim Riddlebarger’s excellent article about proper worship.
Posted by Phil Johnson:
In all of Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus, there is not an ounce of encouragement for the person who thinks innovation is the key to an effective ministry philosophy.
Much less is there any room for the pulpiteers of today who like to exegete the latest movies, or preach on moral lessons drawn from television sitcoms, or build their sermons on themes borrowed from popular culture. You know what I mean: the kind of preachers who insist they are being “missional” when they are merely being worldly.
3 Ἀγαπητοί, πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος γράφειν ὑμῖν περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας ἀνάγκην ἔσχον γράψαι ὑμῖν παρακαλῶν ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι τῇ ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει.
Jude 1:3, NA27
3 Beloved, being extremely eager to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you encouraging you to contend for the faith delivered once for all to the saints.
Jude 1:3, Possessing the Treasure New Testament V1
It has been brought to my attention that what we do here in the pursuit of being Biblical and having our Doctrines line up with what our Lord and His Apostles taught, if we also use the same black and white standards of contending for the faith that they used then we are too harsh and judgmental. When I use the Word of God to show the nature of genuine believers contrasting that with disingenuous professing Christians, then that is called judgmental and harsh, et cetera. The charge is also leveled at us if we use wisdom and discernment to point out the apostate behavior of certain Christian leaders or theologians who started out looking good, but have shown by their fruit to be highly suspect. For instance, how can we have a problem with John Piper since he has written such wonderful books that have blessed so many people? My response was, “But he hangs out now with known apostates and heretics and calls them his brothers in Christ while saying and doing things that no Christian leader of his caliber should do. Shouldn’t he be held accountable to these things as well? It is as if he is supposed to get a pass for what he does now because of what he did early in his ministry. If we do that are we contending for the faith delivered once for all to the saints?
Apprising Ministries has been warning you of spiritual gurus and other evangelical superstitions which are growing in Christendom as contemplative mysticism becomes the rule.
Apprising Ministries says just wait until you see the reaction. 
Apprising Ministries brings you a video clip of NAR “Apostle” Rick Joyner and his charge Todd Bentley. Unfortunately, he’s back. 
Apprising Ministries highlights the lack of discernment evidenced by popular Southern Baptist Bible teacher Beth Moore in her teaching on…discernment. Apprising also highlights Moore’s heretical view that the Roman Catholic Church is part of the Body of Christ. 
Apprising Ministries warns that the next heretical Word Faith preacher who is going to get a pass into mainstream evangelicalism is Joel Osteen. John MacArthur tells it precisely as it is and demonstrates the proper Christian reaction to Osteen. 
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s 12 February 2012 piece is perplexing and offensive.