Category: scripture twisting | Page 2

Study and research, or proving you’re right?

When I first started attending a United Pentecostal Church, I “did my research” to find out if they were right. I looked up the verses they gave me to look up, and they’d accurately quoted them. I did NOT read the surrounding verses or consider the Bible as a whole, however, so I didn’t know they were sometimes taken out of context or twisted to fit their desires. I also searched Bible dictionaries and commentaries for the specific words the UPC used… and thought “Wow, even other churches’ commentaries say the UPC is right, even though they don’t follow it’s teaching!” BUT I never checked to see why those other churches did NOT teach like UPC or why they decided to teach what they did.

I run into the same issues today. I and others too often call something “research” when really what we’re doing is trying to find backing for the thing we WANT to believe, rather than looking for the truth in a matter. We want to be right. We want what we now believe to be right. And we’re willing to go to great lengths to silence opposing opinions, when really if we’re seeking truth, we should be doing the real research of studying out those opposing opinions and why people hold them, and comparing them to our own opinions and our reasons for them.

Cults love to “stack” false teachings by using our desire to justify our opinions and be right with a misconception of what study and research really mean. They’ll use obscure sources (or their own publications) to “prove” that what they’re saying is right, without giving consideration to any other perspective. Others “don’t have the truth” or are “lost”. They don’t have the great “revelations” that we’ve now been presented with [and had better accept or we’ll also be lost]. And so begins the stacking process. Then they do this, for example:

1) there is one God. (of course there is)
2) His name is Jesus. (wait, that’s not quite… but they have plenty of verses and we want to understand, and the verses are in the Bible, so…)
3) And every believer should be baptized in Jesus’ name (I was already baptized. Oh, but that’s not how you should REALLY be baptized. But maybe you don’t have this revelation. But if the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is Jesus, then I HAVE been baptized into Christ. No, not the same. The right words weren’t said. But don’t worry about that right now. Just keep coming and you’ll see…)

And after awhile, a person accepts the teaching as true. And because it’s preached often, even to a room full of people who already believe it, it’s reinforced and reemphasized until it becomes fact in their minds.

When I first started attending a UPC, on several occasions I was told not to ask certain questions or think about certain things yet, because they didn’t want to “confuse” me. The truth of the matter was that if I’d considered them at that point, before they’d finished stacking their false teachings in my mind, I WOULD have seen. I would have seen that what they wanted me to believe wasn’t all Truth at all. If I’d known how to research, how to really study rather than just trying to prove my own point or verify theirs, then I would have grown.

It’s easy to prove a point. There’s always someone, somewhere, who will agree that you can use to back your point. But it’s harder to take years of various opinions and consider and weigh all of them. It’s much harder to read about why people disagree with something you want to believe – to read respectfully, without constantly thinking what they’re saying is all wrong, but actually considering their words. It’s hard, but it’s healthy. And often it’s the only way to untangle unhealthy religious teachings at all.

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse

Many people I know were actually born into a spiritually abusive environment. While I’m unaware of any official studies done on the effects of spiritual abuse on children, I do have training about the effects of physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse on the growing child. I also have access to a wide variety of studies that have been done on the effects of neglect on children and their development.

When we think about a newborn infant, we often think of a “clean slate”, or an unmarred human being that is ready to take in any teaching or influence from the environment around it. Leaders in spiritually abusive environments are also aware of this. Many of them begin to mold children from birth, building a relationship with them that often makes them very sensitive to the control of the leaders in charge. This results in adults who are extremely loyal, will brook no ill word about the leadership, and will help to carry on the twisted ideas that they have been brainwashed to believe since birth.

Make no mistake, these spiritually abusive environments do not form in a vacuum. There are very powerful relationship dynamics that occur to keep these environments in play, and without forming the deep relationships, they could not continue to perpetuate the pain that they cause. The relationships have several dynamics of dysfunction that enable them to become the controlling factor in such environments.

First of all, the relationship is often built on deep feelings of sentiment and belonging. The leadership fully accepts and loves the child, for the infant is without choice and perfectly designed. It is a “blank canvas” that the leader is free to work with, and by wasting no time getting attachment going, further control is virtually ensured.

There are several types of attachment styles that infants form with their primary caregivers, but that is a subject for a different article. Here we are simply discussing the church leadership beginning to form a powerful attachment with the infants within their congregation.

If the parents remain in the group while the child is growing up, very quickly all parenting resources and advice come through the church leadership as well. In this way, the leadership of the church becomes the final say and the main authority in the child’s life, as well as forming the emotional attachment that brings the desire to please.

In addition, in many of these groups, the parents are encouraged to homeschool the children, or to place them in a private church school run by the group. In this way, the group is in complete control of all information that goes into this child’s mind as he or she is forming ideas and learning “facts” about how the world operates. For example, when the child learns that the world is round, he also learns that people who watch television are going to burn in hell forever. When she learns about how seeds sprout and grow, and when that experiment is done as part of her learning, she is also learning from that same source that women who trim their hair are going to be lost for eternity. The source that credibly teaches facts about the world is, at the same time, slipping in twisted teachings and claiming them to be as factual as learning how to read or solve a math problem.

Finally, once the child is born, the group begins to teach him or her that they are the only “safe” place in the entire world. The child is learning to fear the “other” in the world at the same time he is learning to depend on mom and dad to feed him his bottle. If he or she happens to have an “unsaved” grandparent or aunt outside of the group, that person is often not allowed to be alone with the child, so these children pick up the silent message that grandma or grandpa is not quite safe because they are not part of the group.

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse II
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse III
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse IV
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse V

What made Jesus mad?

It wasn’t the sinners. No, he ate dinner with them. What we see Jesus fighting against are the religious Pharisees who loved to point fingers at other people’s sin and shortcomings. Legalism. It is essentially the world system telling you that salvation is not a free gift and that you must work for your grace. Grace is a free gift. If it comes with ‘requirements’ is is no longer a gift, but a paycheck. Jesus came to save the world not condemn it. A lot of these issues come from people trying to make the Bible fit their opinions. They refuse to research culture, translations, Hebrew, Greek, etc.. They fall under the influence of the adversary and believe we are not worthy of God’s acceptance unless we perform. God loves you; you have to switch your focus from you and onto what He did (and is) doing for us. By saying a dress, long hair, no jewelry, and no makeup is required to get into Heaven, you have rejected the power of Jesus dying and resurrecting by saying – No God, I think I got this. No thanks, I can save myself. However, it isn’t about us. It is all about HIM and what HE did for us.

It. Is. That. Simple.That is the GOOD NEWS!

Let’s take a look at the scriptures and see what they say.

In Matthew 23:27, Jesus addressed the Pharisees who were being judgmental and holding on to a ‘visual and works-based’ salvation by saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” This statement was radical then and it still is today! What good is it if we visually look ‘set apart’ but we are bitter, prideful, and show no love? That is what Jesus means by a whitewashed tomb! Jesus also declares the Pharisees hypocrites for straining out a gnat but eating a camel (Matt. 23:24). This was a parable about worrying about small things but yet, you are full of hatred and pride – which are BIG issues. We must cleans our hearts. As we do this, we will reflect Christ on the outside by our actions. We are becoming love. It isn’t a checklist, it is a process; one that can take years as we begin to heal the many layers of shame, guilt, and pain that we have endured. We must have faith. Believing in something we cannot….see.

We tend to think of a Pharisee as just a Jewish person who didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. Why did they reject Him? Jesus was viewed as radical. His message was a 360 from the Law of Moses (Read the book of Leviticus). Moses taught you must perform a certain way to be clean. Jesus taught that God already sees us as clean and we will have eternal life if we accept Him into our hearts as our Lord and Savior. There are many more accounts recorded in the New Testament where Jesus denounced the religious hypocrites, but I would like to now focus on the gospel. The good news. We cannot follow something we do not….know. The good news is that God already loves us and he loves us with agape love. Agape love is unconditional love. Meaning, there are no conditions in which we can make God love us more or less. He loves us because He is love. Scripture tells us this.

1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Romans 8:39 tells us that nothing can separate us from love. Nothing. Not your skirt that is above your knees, your short hair, your bitterness, your lies….NOTHING. It is written, “(No) height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Praise God for that because it is impossible to be sinless, but fear not! We are loved by God and we have been bought and paid for.

John 17:23 “I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.” This right here tells us we are loved the same way Jesus is loved. Hallelujah!

Ephesians 1:7-8 “We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” He has redeemed us! We are set free.

1 Corinthians 12:13 “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” God does not see a sinner when He looks at us. We have been baptized into Christ.

While we have this good news, so many people reject it. It is difficult for the human mind to grasp this concept that we are loved unconditionally by God. Another argument I have heard time and time again is that the God of the Old Testament was mean and full of wrath. Yes, people were killed, but the Bible is not a book of condemnation, it is a book about God’s redemption plan to save mankind after the fall. The only reason people were wiped away was due to their motives to wipe out the line to Jesus Christ. God had to preserve that at all costs because Jesus is the ONLY way to eternal life without pain and suffering.

If God was mad at us, why did he make a promise to Abraham that he would use his seed to bless the world? God made this promise in the very first book of the Bible. He wouldn’t do this if He regretted creating us. He promised Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (Israel) that He would redeem us through their bloodline. We now know that redemption plan was finished with Jesus Christ. The adversary tricked Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil by making them feel God was hiding something from them. After the fall, they felt shame and guilt. Something God never wanted for us. The reason we felt naked was because of the enemy. Not God. We clothe ourselves to hide shame. If it was Satan who told us we were unclean in the garden, is it not Satan who is inside your head telling you that you are unclean if you don’t perform or wear certain types of attire?

One last thought. Fear in Hebrew does not translate to being scared. To fear God in the original text means to have childlike wonder and awe of God. Fear = awe. How easily we can get tricked into thinking God is angry with us. Satan has done this since the fall. The devil is the father of all lies and he knows no new tricks.

The good news is that the battle has been won. Jesus conquered the grave. We have redemption through Jesus Christ and we are covered by the blood of the lamb. Stop listening to the lies of the enemy. Read the word for yourself, rather than believing everything another human tells you. You can even question me and what I have written here in this article. Actually, I encourage you to. Seek to find the truth! The Holy Spirit will slowly reveal it if you ask for it.

We are no longer slaves. Thank you Jesus for this unconditional, undeserved gift of grace and eternal life.

Let your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as is it in Heaven. Until you return, I will praise You and spread this wonderful, life-giving news of how You died for me, and…..the world. I pray that every person who reads this will be filled with a seed of Truth. In Jesus’ name I declare this. Amen.

–GodIsLove

Social Media and Stupid Platitudes: Part 3

In my first post, I tacked the issue of people expressing stupid platitudes on social media and some suggested coping strategies. My second one dealt with that tired old myth of God supposedly not giving us more than we can handle. In this one, I want to address two bereavement-related ones, particularly one that’s been a thorn in my side.

“Heaven needed another angel/heaven gained another angel.”

I fully appreciate the fact that grief is personal, and that these notions might comfort some who like the idea of their deceased loved one watching over them. However, there’s something that just seems so WRONG about offering this up as an explanation when a young child dies unexpectedly for no discernible reason or when a parent with young children dies because of an act of violence that never should have happened. Death may indeed be a symptom of a fallen world, but I don’t think explaining a loss by essentially stating that God needed them dead is particularly helpful.

Another frustrating one that I’m sure we’ve all dealt with:

“He/she is in a better place”

Two BIG problems I’ve observed with this one:

1. If the bereaved is struggling with their faith or has no religious faith, this statement likely offers zero comfort. An atheist friend summed it up accurately when talking about people saying this when her mother died after a bout with cancer. Her response was “No, she’s not, she’s in the ground”.

No matter what one’s beliefs about what happens after death are, they are physically absent and there are times this absence is going to be particularly painful. Sometimes there’s a fine line between genuine encouragement and useless platitudes, and “better place” talk often becomes the latter. We should remember that even Jesus wept at a friend’s grave – the pain that people feel at death was known to our Savior.

2. Sometimes the deceased was abusive or otherwise had a troublesome relationship with those left behind, and this may impact how comforting people find these words. I’m NOT saying it’s okay to gloat about the prospect of somebody spending eternity in hell. However, elevating someone to the level of sainthood just because they’re gone doesn’t erase the emotional and psychological pain that many still cope with after an abuser or otherwise toxic person passes.

I’ve noticed the immediate aftermath of someone’s death is when people seem to be most likely to have selective memory. Sometimes, particularly if the deceased was a substance abuser or mentally ill, their loved ones may be trying to absolve themselves of feeling guilty for snubbing the deceased when they were still alive. Grief is always more complicated than we’re willing to acknowledge, and I think people need to understand that every person’s “tear soup” recipe has different ingredients.

Stupid platitudes maybe aren’t going to go away on social media anytime soon, but we can at least prepare ourselves by knowing how to keep certain things out of our feeds and by having a different perspective on how to take some of these notions.

Social Media and Stupid Platitudes: Part 2

In my first post on this subject, I highlighted what some individual stupid platitudes were that I thought were troubling and some coping strategies when people come out with these statements. The first of these “monsters” I wanted to tackle was:

“God never gives you more than you can handle.”

I’ve seen this posted on Facebook multiple times, and am personally of the mind that this thinking has contributed to more than one personal faith crisis. The worst thing is that it’s based on a complete misinterpretation of something the Bible does say.

This faulty notion comes from 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (NRSV) What many modern translations translate as testing or temptation, is the Greek word peirasmos, which, according to Strong’s, also appears in the Lord’s Prayer when we ask God to lead us not into temptation/save us from the time of trial.

I’ve seen so many people express utter despair over a troubling medical diagnosis, an unexpected death or another crisis who were wrong told that God wouldn’t give them more than they can handle. If someone is told this often enough in the face of a crisis, could you really blame them for doubting God’s goodness?

A Biblical counselor who tackled this very issue in a recent blog post raised an interesting point about how God DOES give us more than we can handle sometimes. At the same time, we’re given the GRACE that we need.

The last thing someone going through a crisis needs is a theological debate on their social media feed, especially if the person making the “God won’t give you more than you can handle” claim isn’t very well-read in the Bible. However, I think we can serve as better encouragers to people in a time of need by letting them know that God will give them the grace that they need.

Here’s a prayer attributed to St. Francis de Sales I’ve found comforting:

Do not look forward in fear to the changes in life;
rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise,
God, whose very own you are, will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it, God will carry you in His arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;
the same understanding Father who cares for you today
will take care of you then and every day.

He will either shield you from suffering
or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.