Angry Elders

"An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered..." (See context: Titus 1:6-9; Emphasis mine)

“Not quick-tempered.” The word used in the Greek text to convey this idea of “quick temper” is “orgilon.” It means wrath. I think the idea in the Titus text regarding the qualifications of an elder is that an elder is not to be given to exploding often in angry displays of really bad, wrathful behavior. The reasons are obvious. How can an elder manage or rule over the church of God if he cannot rule over his own temper? (See 1 Timothy 3: 5)

The Old Testament book of Proverbs speaks to this very issue.

"A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, And a man of wicked intentions is hated."(Proverbs 14:17 NKJV)

A man of quick temper behaves not only foolishly but the conjunction used here, and, in the verse connects a quick-tempered man with a man of wicked intentions.

"He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, But he who is impulsive exalts folly." (Proverbs 14:29 NKJV)

This verse tells us that someone who is quick-tempered lacks great understanding and that he is impulsive and thus exalts folly.

But, most importantly, the Bible tells us in the Wisdom Book of Proverbs that we are not to even associate with a quick-tempered man:

"Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared." (Proverbs 22:24 - 25 NIV)

An elder in a church who is quick-tempered is NOT qualified to be an elder. In fact, when there are more than two three witnesses (See Matthew 18:16; Deuteronomy 19:15) to this sinful behavior the fact can be confirmed that this is a problem from which the quick-tempered man must repent or step down, or be removed, as an elder.

We are commanded in Scripture not to make friends with or to even associate with such a one making it impossible to submit to the Biblical teaching and or discipline of such an elder.

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Can Christians Practice Sin as a Way of Life?

She lies constantly. Each time she is asked her age, she tries convincing the inquirer that she is fifteen to twenty years younger than she actually is. If pressed, she verbalizes an elaborately planned out scheme, presented in a most convincing manner, to cover her fraudulence. Not only is she a chronic liar she also is a pathological gossip. Her gossip is so laced with lies and half-truths that she can't even keep track of what is reality and what isn't. She has undermined at least one couple's marriage with her meddling and has been working on a second one.

This woman claims to be a Christian.

“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. ” (1 Corinthians 6:20)

In redemption, the shedding of the blood of the Messiah for our atonement, we were purchased. God bought us, body and soul, by a terrible price. The death, resurrection, ascension paid a price we could not possibly pay and made us God's. We are His if indeed Christ is us and we in Him (Gal. 2:20).

Because in body and spirit we are not our own but God's, there can be no neutrality in our hearts and minds. In word, thought, and deed we are either His or we are not. If we belong to Christ then we take everything, even our thoughts, captive to Jesus Christ.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

No neutrality; there is only obedience to the One Who bought us if we profess the name of Christ in our hearts and lives.

If this is so, then Christian, who do you trust? On whom do you rely? Who is it that comes up in the conversation with your neighbors? To what do you yield your tongue when asked your age or anything else? The revealing of one's age isn't the point. One could always say something like, “I'd rather not discuss my age.” But to lie and to do it chronically is to practice sin. One has a false profession of faith if there is the practice of lying or any sin in one's life.

Let me make this point even clearer. If you profess to be a Christian, you cannot practice sin as a way of life. Christ became Lord or King over you when and if you are really saved. How then are you serving your Lord and King? What is it you are taking (have taken) captive to the obedience to Jesus Christ? Or, I should say, what is it you are hanging onto sinfully and not yielding to your Lord and King?

If you think that you can call yourself a Christian and serve sin, like my lying friend I mentioned, run, don't walk, away from this thing in your life to the cross of Jesus Christ. Run to Him and yield your obedience to His Scriptures and do what He says. To be a liar means you cannot be a Christian. Obey Christ and not the sinful inclinations of your flesh. Demonstrate your love for Christ in willing obedience to His word.

The true and only proof that you are really saved is that you obey His commandments.

“Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” (1 John 2:3-6)

If you abide in Christ as 1 John 2: 6 says, then you have to walk as Jesus Christ walked. You have no other choice or option. Jesus was not a liar or deceiver of men. His walk matched His profession to being the Son of God. Your walk, your actions in word, thought, or deed have to match your profession of faith in Christ or you are not a Christian!

I close with a most sobering verse regarding lying:

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8)

An impenitent liar will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

The Abomination Of It All

I've taken a small rest from writing about the doctrinal error known as Easy-Believism. I have several blogs on this subject and hope my readers will check this blog's archive and read what I've been writing. What has sparked my interest to take this theme up again was an event to which my wife was a witness in an evangelistic opportunity with a very young woman last night.

She sat with a distressed 21-year-old woman who has been living with a man three years older than she is. He is a police officer. They have a small child together. They've never married. Now this man has thrown her out and the woman has recently learned he has had another woman all this time that is now pregnant. The young lady is understandably devastated and in shock.

My wife began talking to this woman about her relationship with God. In the course of the conversation, my wife learned that this woman regards herself as a Christian. When my wife asked her how she knew she was a Christian, a believer in Christ as her Lord and Savior, the woman replied that since she made a decision years ago for Christ in this protestant church, she was a Christian.

Do not miss what is being sadly said in this woman's response to my wife's question: the basis upon which this woman believed herself to be a Christian, a believer in Christ as her Lord and Savior, was on a decision for Christ years prior to her deciding to live and fornicate with a man to whom she was not married.

My question is just where was the Lord of her life when she decided to have sex with a man to whom she was not married?

Further investigation by my wife revealed that this woman used to belong to a church in which Easy-Believism is taught. She apparently and obviously never heard from the pulpit of this church that one cannot claim to be a Christian, a follower of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then live one’s life as though He does not exist. She had never heard from the teaching elders of this church that to be brought to faith in Jesus Christ is the result of God the Father giving them, the fallen human, to Christ.

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44)

No one apparently told her the Biblical fact that if she was indeed a true believer then it is not because she decided for Christ. It was not that she made her mind up about anything regarding salvation. It was not that she, as an act of her will, decided to accept the facts surrounding the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, who is the Christ. Besides, it isn't facts to whom the Father draws anyone. It is to a Person: Jesus the Christ. And, unless that human be drawn by the Father to the Son, that human can in no way come to Christ in and of his or her self. It is, as a matter of Biblical fact, impossible (Ephesians 2:1-10).

This, my dear friend, is a perfect example of the faulty and abominable doctrine that is being preached in the vast majority of Evangelical churches today. They are teaching that God has done His part and now you must do your part in making a decision, as an act of your will, for Christ lest you burn in eternal Hellfire.

So, what exactly is this Decisionalism or Easy-Believism salvation? And why does it produce such flimsy and false professions of faith in which these so-called believers can go about their lives after their decision and live like everyone else in the world?

“The term “easy-believism” is a usually derogatory label, used to characterize the faulty understanding of the nature of saving faith adhered to by much of contemporary Evangelicalism, most notably (and extremely) by such Dispensational authors as Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges. The term was popularized in an ongoing debate between Hodges, to whose theology the label “easy-believism” was affixed, and John MacArthur, to whom the term “lordship salvation” came to be applied.” ⁱ

This doctrinal error or heresy teaches that all one needs to do to come to faith in Christ, or to come to a saving faith, is the acquiescence to some facts about the Gospel followed by an appeal to Christ for salvation. It is not required, so say the advocates of this soteriology,ⁱⁱ that someone submit, in any sense of the word, to Christ's rule or Kingship over his or her life. Amazingly, some of the advocates of this very dangerous error actually teach that someone can even be unwilling to obey the commands of Christ after making this appeal for salvation and still be considered a Christian.

I cannot begin to fathom the exegetical reasoning behind this theological position.

In recent months, I have been personally involved in the moral crisis of families in my own church in which this easy-believism doctrine is taught: “God has done His part and now it is up to you to do your part.” This semi-pelagianism, and that is exactly what this abomination is, shows its practical result in the morality, or lack thereof, in the lives of those who believe this lie. They think that because they made a decision for Christ, as an act of their fallen and totally depraved human wills, that they are now, “Once Saved Always Saved,” and it does not matter how they then live their lives. Obedience to the commands of God never entered or enters the salvation equation and the outcome of this theology is painfully and tragically all too apparent.

"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked." (1 John 2: 3-6)

Do not miss the point of this text: The proof of one's claim to know Christ in a salvificⁱⁱⁱ sense is: “If we keep His commandments.” If you say that you “know Him” and do not keep His commandments (to keep the commandments is another way of saying to obey the commandments), then you are a liar and the truth is not in you! If you say you are in Christ then you have “to walk as Christ walked.”

If you claim to be a believer in Christ as your Lord and Savior then you MUST be living as though He is indeed your Lord and that will be evident by you keeping His commandments. If your heart and life are not inclined to keeping His commandments, then stop professing falsely that you are a Christian. It is just as simple as that. Read First John for confirmation of what I have just said.

This is serious and it is dangerous. The vast majority of professing Evangelical churches all over the world are teaching that you can decide yourself into the Kingdom God by a mere exercise of your sinfully fallen and depraved human will without any change whatsoever in your life.

God's answer in His Word (1 John) to that proposition is that it is a lie!

ihttp://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/easybelieve.html

iiSoteriology is the doctrine of salvation

iiiSalvific sense = salvationally or in a salvation sense

WHY PEOPLE FALL FOR THE CHARISMATIC HERESY…Part Two

People are drawn to the charismatic error because error is easier to believe than the truth.

I ended part one of this series with an explanation of the Biblical doctrine of holiness. The "holiness" which draws the charismatic initiate is not the holiness of the Bible. The so-called "holiness" to which the charismatic erroneously clings is an emotional high that is not Biblical and ends up being an up-and-down roller coaster, addictive emotional experience.

In the issue of sanctification that I covered at the end of part one, the error of the charismatic movement is that you need something more than just Christ's death on a Cross. You need the "power which is from on high." They call this "the baptism of the Holy Spirit." (This phrase and its accompanying idea are not found in the pages of Scripture.) And, this emotional experience comes to you over and over and over again. This is their doctrine of holiness. The draw is a hyped-up emotional experience.

The means to the Biblical doctrine is harder. It involves death on a cross.

As I said in part one, a true test of whether or not someone has sincerely come to faith and trust in Christ as Lord and Savior is whether or not he or she wants most earnestly to walk as Jesus walked. This desire to walk like Christ, in the Spirit, is not found in the seeking and eventual finding in a "second blessing" or "a second work of grace" or "in something more than Christ's death, burial, and resurrection on the cross." You want to follow Christ?

"When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."" (Mark 8:34-35 NKJV)

The truth of what it means to walk in holiness in Christ is to take up your cross daily. It is to "put to death the deeds of the flesh." (Colossians 3: 1-11)

You "put to death the deeds of the flesh" by engaging in a vigorous "walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5: 16-18).

Walking in the Spirit is antithetical to walking in the flesh.

One walks in the Spirit by letting the Word of Christ dwell in you.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." (Colossians 3:16 NKJV)

Notice in Ephesians 5:18-20, the command to be filled (controlled or empowered) with the Spirit results in the same thing as "letting the word of Christ dwell in you."

"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 5:18-20 NIV)

The reason for this is the Colossian text tells you exactly what it means to be filled with the Spirit (or to walk in the Spirit so you don't fulfill the desires of the flesh.) Those things, which equal the same things, equal each other. To be filled with the Spirit is to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

To let the Word of Christ dwell in your richly is to obey what the Word tells you. For example, if the Word tells you to confess your sins (1 John 1:9), each time the Spirit convicts you of sinning and you consequently confess your sin, you have yielded to the Spirit of God using His Word to control and empower you.

To expound this further, when you feel the temptation to tell a lie, how do you know this is sin? Because the living Word, Christ, tells you so in the 9th commandment, among other verses, that to lie is sin. You cry out to God in your heart, "Establish my footsteps in thy Word and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me," (Psalms 119:133) and you yield in faith to what the Word tells you to do. Or, you cry out in desperation, "Have mercy upon me, Oh God, a sinner and take this temptation from me."

Many people are drawn to the charismatic error out of desperation.

There are those desperate for an emotional spiritual or religious experience.

There are those desperate from some sort of intense emotional problem or crisis and seek relief with a religious label on it that relief.

There are those desperate to find something "more" than what their traditional mainstream denomination has to offer.

There are those desperate to find something that meets their psychological need to walk by sight and not faith. They have to have something "concrete" in their lives.


Many people are drawn to the charismatic error out of a desire to put their personal experience above truth.

I can remember the endless talks, some lasting well into the next day, with charismatic roommates who could not get past, "But I had the experience of speaking in tongues and therefore it is true." If you try to reason with charismatics, they will insist that the basis upon which they know speaking in tongues is valid and true is because they experienced it.

They elevate human experience as on par with Biblical truth. Because they experienced it, therefore it is true and this lies at the heart of the charismatic heresy. But, the epistemology of the Bible goes from Truth to Experience. This is how God deals with us. It is Biblical Truth we believe and that results in an experience. God never moves in our life based on an experience. He does not deal with us from Experience to Truth but from Truth to Experience.

"It is not an experience, no matter how unusual or miraculous it appears, that determines whether or not a doctrine is true. There is only ONE thing which determines if something is true, and that is the Bible rightly divided!" - http://wayoflife.org/database/deludedbycharismatic.html

Someone claims to have spoken in tongues as the result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit - WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Don't be deceived. Everything we need to live the Christian life is found in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What Christ bought for us on the Cross is complete, sufficient, and without anything lacking.

We are complete in Christ

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." (Colossians 2:9-10 NKJV)

We need nothing more.

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