Paul's Passing Thoughts

This guy could have written chapter three of TTANC 2. I am having a transcript made of this and some things said will be cited in the conclusion. He is dead on in regard to the institutional church. However, his sanctification paradigm needs some adjustment. Christ doesn’t do it all in our sanctification. Right, I know, he makes that point, but in our day it needs to be emphasized.

Performance in sanctification DOES NOT lead to self-righteous “bullying.” Hello, our “performance” in sanctification, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with our justification, will be judged by Christ and there will be loss though we will still be saved “by fire.” Whatever that means, and I confess I am not sure at this point. The help of the Holy Spirit in sanctification is an incentive to do more, not an incentive to say we do nothing and Christ does it all. An inability to perform in sanctification, in and of ourselves, is the primary argument used by the spiritual tyrant for control.

You can’t dichotomize knowing and doing. On the one hand, you can’t argue that we shouldn’t believe we need spiritual control freaks to know, and then argue on the other hand that we can’t do. Or, perform. This splitting of activity in sanctification into two groups, doing and performance, and making one bad and the other good, smacks of the same ontological dualism used by the tyrants themselves to interpret reality any way they want to. If you don’t like the meaning of a word, make two synonyms antonyms; one of the material world, and the other of the spiritual. The speaker on this mp3 is way too nuanced on this point. It raises a red flag for me. Tyrants thrive on the inability of the individual, emphasizing such in sanctification can lead to one jumping out of the tyrant’s frying pan and into the fire.

NEVERTHELESS, what he states about the institutional church and the abuse of Hebrews 13:17 is a must listen. It reinforces my assertion: home fellowships and the New Testament model must replace what we have now.

Here is the link for listening and downloading:  http://www.thegodjourney.com/audio/2013/131108h.mp3

Right click on the screen and choose the download option if you want the file.

paul