Darryl

Replacement Theology is as bad as idolatry. And by the way, Jesus was a Jew. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

“The Exclusive God of and for an Exclusive people – the house of Israel!!! The true Israel”

Out of all the contributors here your are the only one who is awakened. Good for you!

To all the others here I suppose you would tell me that Jesus was a jew.
So much false doctrine being taught you really need to be awake these days.

David Martens

Are you an Israelite (Jew)?

Does the church and the missionaries really know and teach the Jesus of the Bible?

Or do they know better what and for whom His mission to earth was?

The Exclusive God of and for an Exclusive people – the house of Israel!!! The true Israel

Here is an interesting thread posted by Chris Rosebrough at Extreme Theology. In his article he lays out the difference between a man centered church and a Christ centered church, a very good read. In one of his comments he says this:

As for Titus 3. Again you have mischaracterized my position. I have no argument with Titus 3 whatsoever.

Let me quote what you just quoted. “Such works, however, no man performs unless he first believes that God has forgiven him his sins and has given him eternal life by grace, for Christ’s sake, without any works of his own”

Good works flow from a faith that is locked on Jesus Christ and the grace and mercy extended to them by His Cross. The preaching of the forgiveness of sins is NOT something done as if it were a flu shot that you give to non-believers (which is what the churches I am writing against do). Instead preaching for repentance of Sins and faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins is the very preaching that produces good works in Christians.

The people who I’ve written against in this post are those who do not abide in Christ but reduce Him to a mere example. They preach the gospel on the rarest of occasions and NEVER preach it to Christians. They think the gospel is baby stuff and that the law is meat and they couldn’t be more wrong. Read Galatians.

The problem with these churches is that UNLIKE God’s Word they primarly focus on the ‘good works’ lists in the epistles and fail to acknowledge that all of those lists are preceded by clear presentations of our sins and Christ’s forgiveness won on the cross and offered to us as a gift by faith. Keep in mind that EVERY SINGLE epistle was written to Christians and they all discuss good works IN LIGHT of the gospel and never apart from it. The churches I am writing against in this post DO NOT preach good works in light of the Gospel. They preach GOSPEL-LESS GOOD Works. This preaching does not cultivate true good works. It produces pharisees.

If you want to cultivate true good works then you do it by preaching the law to condemn sins and preaching the forgiveness of sins won by Christ. Good works flow like a river when the Christ, forgiveness and the gospel are front and center because the gospel produces repentance and faith. The gospel turns a goat into a sheep. The gospel turns a bad tree into a good tree and good trees can’t help but produce good fruit, its what they do. The gospel is the message of God’s kindness to wretched sinners like you and like me and it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.

As for your tacit assertion that I am quarrelsome and stirring up division, again you are off the mark.

I take no joy in challenging and refuting people who are teaching false doctrine. Yet the scriptures tell us to do that.

Titus 1:9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

Titus 1:10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

2Tim. 4:1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Futher down a commentator says:

I don’t mean to overstate my case here, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that between your professional and family obligations and the voluminous articles that you post AND your podcast recordings, you wouldn’t have time to mow your lawn let alone do any ‘works’. As they say ‘the devil is in the details’. Based on how you live, the most deductively valid conclusion I could come up with is that, for you to preach and teach the importance of works, it would be counterintuitive. The concept is almost foreign to you because you don’t live it, either because you can’t or because you choose not to. That’s not to say that you can’t be involved vicariously via financial support or other means but it is highly unlikely that your lifestyle’s pace permits you to actively engage in any form of works. As a result (I believe), it comes through in the balance of your theology. In Jimmy Swaggart’s case his lifestyle shaped his theology the other way around, he used to often preach against sexual sin because he was living it.

Chris’ response:

First off, I want you to know that I am not going to take this comment personally. Instead, I want to focus on your presuppositions and the fact that you have a definition of ‘good works’ that excludes works done in one’s vocation as a good works. This is a fatal deficiency in your definition of good works.

God and God alone is the one who decides what a good work is and God has laid out a much different and far broader definition of ‘good works’ in scripture than the definition that you currently hold.

Let me give a few passages of scripture that bear this out.

1Th. 4:9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Notice that God the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to urge people to “work with their hands” and “be dependent on no one”. Therefore, if you and I have jobs and are working productively and paying our bills then WE ARE doing good works.

This next section of scripture lays out all kinds of ‘good works’.

Eph. 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Eph. 6:5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Let me summarize these passages by saying that being an obedient respectful child is a good work.

Being a good father is a good work.

Being a good employee (slave) and working as unto the Lord is a good work.

Being a good employer (master) is a good work.

I could list many more passages of scripture that say that being a good mom is a good work, being a good wife is a good work, being a good husband is a good work… etc. Are you getting the picture?

The second commandment tells us to love and serve our neighbor. I serve my neighbor by serving my wife by being a good husband, by serving my children by being a good father, by serving my customers through the services Vendtegrity offers, by providing jobs for my employees through Vendtegrity, oh and from time to time I even have the privilege of serving my neighbor by teaching the word of God.

NS, I don’t have ‘vicarious’ good works. My life is filled with a bountiful harvest of good works and I am always looking for greater ways to serve my neighbors through the gifts and provisions that God has given because I am never satisfied with the good works I am doing and want to do even more. The joy that this brings to my life cannot be measured. I am truly a blessed man.

I think it is truly sad that your definition of Good Works causes you to miss what Good Works truly are. If you better understood the Biblical definition of Good Works you would have never said of me that “it is highly unlikely that your lifestyle’s pace permits you to actively engage in any form of works.”

In fact, the litany of things that I do, that you listed off as evidence against me are actually the very fruits and good works that God is producing in my life.

Wow! Who writes all this stuff?

I did.

Who spends an awful lot of time surfing, investigating, browsing online?

I do.

All this whilst Africans – everyday – go to a Christ-less eternity?

You mean ‘hell’? So do members of the DRC.

I’ve seen much injustice, much heresy and had my fill of false teaching……

You are a member too?

HOWEVER, the greatest sin is what I’ve just witnessed….pages and pages and pages of wasted time!

The greatest sin? Where do you find that in the Bible?

All of you, contributors – bloggers – writers – get away from your computers for just one day and go and do something worthwhile in this broken world…

Firstly, we do not take orders from emergent types.

Secondly, I have Good News for you, that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. (1 John 4:14)So now we know that

whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it– the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
(Romans 3:19-28)

Christians are saved by faith and not works. We know the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who shed his innocent blood for us, the guilty, rebellious sinners.

Yet Dr. Stephan Joubert told Christians that truth can be found in other religions too and Dr. Guilluame Smit said that we can learn from the New Age. I am concerned about this teaching spreading in the flock.

Just pondering: Paul Briers you have just insulted every person who has a desk job. Well done.

I myself chose a desk job because the last plant I had, died a horrible death due to being over watered, and the one before that and the one before that. I’ve stopped buying plants and chose IT instead. I strongly felt that if I went out into the ‘missional’ field more people would succumb to starvation if I got hold of their crops than if I just went out to work like everyone else.

So I think a ‘thank you’ and ‘apology’ is in order. I have in a way done more than any fake carbon foot print count could ever do.

Regarding apology and even a glimmer of a thank you. Don’t worry Paul, I’ll let you off the hook. I get lambasted with this kinda stuff all the time, it’s cool, I can handle it.

He seems to imply that he is the only one who has seen injustice, preaches the Gospel and exposes false teaching. (He got all this information through his PC screen). Dude, you dont know where anybody here has been.

Paul,

Here’s a hint;

‘Mirror, mirror on the gospel wall…(the rest of the sentence goes here)’

When you can finish that riddle take a valium. And a deep breath.

Show me one instance of anything on this blog that contradicts clear biblically mandated warnings against error. Oh wait, I forgot – we are all supposed to give up the jobs God gave us, stop supporting our families, suddenly elect ourselves with our own calling and go into africa (wait – we are already here) and go and preach to africans – because that sounds dangerous and a higher calling and more saintlike.
Dude, are you on some ego complex? How do you sudenly judge where we are individually called to be and what we are doing for the gospel?

Oh, wait – you are the fairest of them all. So that makes you the rightful accuser.

Are you sure you are a missionary, not ‘missional’?

I am also a missionary, everybody in my office has been witnessed to. Maybe I should stop witnessing to them because africans are more precious (You sure you not from Belguim?). Oh wait, they are Africans.

Absurd.

Paul

You said: Dr. Stephan Joubert or Dr. Guillaume Smit or any DRC? How do you feel about the emergent revolution?

Ooooo now we know who and what you support. Busted.

>> HOWEVER, the greatest sin is what I’ve just witnessed….All of you, contributors – bloggers – writers….

Well that beats Guillaume Smit calling me a demon and Thomas Lessing from Waak en Bid an agent of the devil. Right now….this moment, thanks to you….I can see how worthwhile/important preaching the Gospel is to a broken world.

PS, Stephan Joubert and Guillaume Smit plus a few thousand others use the internet, facebook, twitter, and a website I won’t even mention cell phones. By the way, are you using wireless or 3g to connect? lol

Anyhow, I kindly ask you go and give both of them mouthful.

Oh great diversion, posting your comment under another article when you should have posed it under the one re:- Dr. Stephan Joubert or Dr. Guillaume Smit

Oh, I am sure you will be back to read (not necessarily comment) The stress to oppose me will be too much to handle.