I John Revisit - Part 2

Hope your Thanksgiving was great, and your heart and belly are full. We had fried chicken and white gravy. Gotta wait until the whole family is able to get together on Sunday to have the big bird (as in turkey, not the actual Big Bird--that would be creepy) and all the fixin's. I can't wait to get a mouth full o' stuffing. That was always my favorite part of Thanksgiving growing up. Racing through my first plate of food so I could beat my brother to a second helping of stuffing, and a third if some was still left. I miss that...

Anyway, now that the special Thanksgiving edition of the blog is over, back to part two of the discernment questions from I John 4:1-6. I'm proposing six questions that Christians need to ask when 'testing the spirits', or examining whether or not a prophet is from God or not. Specifically, the question that is more relevant for us today is, "In this day of 24/7 'Christian' programming on television and radio, how can I tell which teachers are worth following and which teachers are not?" Once again, there may be more than six questions that help us to determine this, but I think that these six form an excellent basis for any Christian to use. See the post from Wednesday, November 21, for the first three questions. I would only like to highlight the first question again, because it must be the basis for all other questions. Do they confess Jesus Christ? Not, "Are they a good person?" or "Do they act in clean movies?" or "Are they generous?" or "Do they sing about God and America in their music?" All of these things are fine, and I certainly wouldn't propose that we follow people that are not good and generous and patriotic. However, the fundamental question for the Christian to ask of someone that would aspire to teach (see James 3:1) is, "Do they confess Jesus Christ?" In the words of James MacDonald, are they "getting the flag of Jesus Christ to the top of the pole" as often as possible?

Now for questions 4 through 6.

4) Do they speak from the world's perspective, or from God's perspective?

• John says in 4:5-6a, "They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God." This is a difficult one to assess because all "Christian" teachers claim to speak from God, so how does the Christian seeking discernment tell which teacher is actually speaking from God? On top of that, any teacher that has achieved any level of notoriety has done so because they are charismatic in their delivery, compelling in their arguments, and passionate about their ideas. Most of the things that they say are very pragmatic and seem to make a lot of sense. They can even be captivating to listen to. On top of that even the most outrageous false teaching has some element of truth in it. Even Satan's lie that induced Adam and Eve to sin had an element of truth to it (Genesis 3:1-5). And some of the most cleaverly disguised false teaching doesn't have any falsehood in it at all. It just doesn't contain all of the truth. It is always more difficult to discern what is missing than it is to see what is present and wrong. When you add all of that together you can see how even a mature believer can wind up following a false teacher that says so many right and seemingly helpful things that are useful and practical for life.
  
• Having said all of that, I think that an excellent starting point for discovering whether or not a person speaks from the world's perspective or from God's perspective is to ask whether the central point of their message is "Up with man" or "Up with God". If they spend the majority of their time developing the idea that God is promoting man (not a bad point, just a bad starting point), rather than the idea that man should be exalting and submitting to God, then their teaching might fall into the category of speaking from the world's perspective. Always remember, the way up with God is down. See James 4:1-10 (note especially that "God opposes the proud"--how scary is that?) and Matthew 23:12.

Crud, it's late, and I've got to put my kids to bed, and then I've got to get to bed myself. Two more questions tomorrow, I promise.


Until then...Soli Deo Gloria