Paul's Passing Thoughts

Paul,

My intent is to be helpful. To that end, you misspelled ‘definition’ in the title of your blog.

It seems to me that the ‘church gospel’ you’re fighting against doesn’t exist. You’re trying to catch people in their words through specifically formulated questions which creates the impression to the hearer / reader of your blogs that there is apostasy where there is none. Please stop. 2 Timothy 2:14 – “Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.” There are CRYSTAL CLEAR forms of apostasy all around us (prosperity gospel, ‘New Apostolic Reformation’, etc). Why don’t we battle against that together, OK?

Scott, I am only replying for demonstrative purposes. At least in regard to myself, I have a strong tendency to interact with people based on my assumptions. And what are those assumptions? That people can be persuaded by sound logic. Actually, Scott, your email, this email, may be a historic event in my life because I am finally going to put feet to what I have seen for more than ten years now, but have never acted upon a final resolution. And what is that resolution? Tyrants can’t be reasoned with, and where applicable, they must be defeated. Once someone is defined as a tyrant, you avoid them, but if they are somehow interfering with your endeavor to accomplish the things that are self-evident, all resources must be invested towards their defeat while any attempt to persuade them is a fool’s errand.

Why is this, and how did I reach this and other related conclusions? By reading a lot of Martin Luther. The author John Immel inspired me to understand philosophy and gave me some important first principles, but Martin Luther, the consummate tyrant of the ages, is the one who enabled me to put it all together. And as demonstrated in your email, good people must understand that at times they are dealing with people who view reality differently. You can’t persuade someone who doesn’t share your perception regarding how the world works.

Let’s start with you correcting my grammar. This is such a basic, and telling principle. But first, let me explain something. I am not a laymen, that’s a bad word to use and feeds a whole church worldview that must be completely dismantled for saints who want to a leave a decent legacy in this life. The Bible makes no distinction whatsoever within the body of Christ concerning vocation or so-called “bi-vocational.” I am an elder in the body of Christ, that’s my gift, and I got it from the Spirit when I was born again. And by the way, because of that, I don’t need Al Mohler or any other disgusting stuffed shirt to give me permission to practice my gift. With that said, I practice that gift as an elder of this ministry, I am going to nursing school, and my wife and I are performing more ministry in the life of others than we ever did being under the thumb of the church lie. Hence, when someone like you, a typical overpaid sycophant of the church industrial complex, who has paid staff to boot, points out one of my errors in the midst of a dizzying life effort, it is offensive, but even more offensive is the motive behind the correction.

Such a tiny little detail, but really a gargantuan principle. In the Bible, a very important truth about sin is revealed; it’s not just doing naughty things that God disapproves of, sin seeks to control others. And the Bible is very specific about how that process works. Sin crouches in hiding waiting for a reason to condemn, and when everyday mortal weakness produces the reason, or outright sin, sin pounces with condemnation. Sin really doesn’t care if it was an honest mistake or outright sin, the goal is to use condemnation to enslave. That’s why slander is often used to condemn people; if said target doesn’t produce a reason, one will be made up. It goes something like this: “See what a loser you are? Hence, you need someone like me that is better than you, smarter than you, more moral than you, to rule over your life.” For ten years I have watched this in our marriage counseling: marriage counseling is two people bringing their condemnation lists to you as a case for why one should be able to rule over the other. The diminishing of other people’s self-esteem is also critical to controlling them which is behind the doctrine of total depravity…obviously. Once you understand this dynamic, you see it everywhere, particularly when a women shares with me that her husband says things like this: “You couldn’t make it without me.” This ministry has set several women free from financial slavery and we are happy to do it.

Love makes a legitimate marriage, not some law. Staying in a situation where there is no respect or love whether a job, a church, or a marriage is typical under-law thinking. Love fulfils the law, not law-keeping for the sake of law-keeping. Recently, in a meeting with a runaway slave wife, her tyrant husband, and the tyrant’s pastor, said pastor stated that the goal of the meeting was to “maintain the marriage covenant.” I saw straight away what the pastor’s agenda was going to be: husband confesses sin; wife confesses sin; and since “Christians” are obligated to forgive each other “the way we have been forgiven” the runaway slave wife must now go back to the tyrant husband. Like the church, such husbands refuse to repent of the essence of sin; a lust to control others through condemnation. It’s no accident then that Christ didn’t “come to condemn the world, but to save it.” No accident then that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”

Again, this dynamic can be seen in the smallest milieus of life to the most epic examples of politics and statecraft. So, why did you correct my grammar? It goes something like this: “look at you, you are contending against men of God, men of renown (you can’t see it, but I am laughing right now), and you can’t even spell correctly!” Nice try Scott, but that doesn’t work on me. The most egregious example of this is ABWE’s public letter of response to the “Missionary Kids” who stood up to a church coverup of unspeakable crimes for something like 40 years. In quoting what the MKs had stated in a formal letter to ABWE previously, one or more “[sic]”s were included to indicate grammar corrections. You see, what had happened to the MKs was nether here nor there in light of the so-called greater church good, and leaving no attempt to regain control of the situation untried, they sought to shame the MKs by pointing out their supposed intellectual anemia. As an aside, for this reason and a book full of others; namely, our ministry’s latest publication, I believe the church to be utterly evil. And why is it evil? Because of its false gospel and skewed version of reality.

Now let’s look at that version of reality; the worldview of tyranny. It’s the oldest and only religion. All other religions flow from it; all politics flow from it. Of course, my illustration is a crassly simplistic version, but conveys the general idea. The material world and everything that can be ascertained by the five senses is evil. The invisible world and all things that cannot be ascertained by the five senses is good. The good, having grace and mercy, decided to save mankind. How all of this supposedly came about is the eschatology of philosophy and will not be included here. In doing so, the good chose those with special wisdom to lead the unwise to the good. And what is that wisdom of the wise? The knowledge that mortal man cannot know anything including reality. Wisdom is knowing that man cannot know. Believing that one can know is the height of all arrogance. Now, this doesn’t include “practical knowledge” that makes things work in the evil material world, and Luther, in the tradition of Dualism, divided that knowledge into “wisdom from above” and “wisdom from below.” Luther’s specific designation was his “Theology of the Cross” defined by the “glory story” versus the “cross story” and Christocentric philosophy which I have written on extensively and will not continue to do so here.

Supposedly, the greatest danger to the survival of mankind is mankind thinking that it has value and can know. The wise must therefore save humanity from itself. Hence, Plato’s philosopher kings, warriors, and producers. The warriors enforce the wisdom of the wise appointed by the good to save mankind. Until the Enlightenment Era produced Americanism, world history was little more than utter darkness accordingly. And what does this have to do with the rest of your email? Pretty much everything. Your email is a glaring example of what I have experience incessantly for ten years when dealing with church advocates. Regardless of what exemplifies our articles and books; ie., systematic arguments comprised of several points of persuasion, those are all summarily dismissed in exchange for some authoritative unction. In the article you write about in your email, you do not supply one counterpoint to the points made in the article. Why? Because the article uses logic and reason as a means to persuade, and the ideology of the tyrant rejects that view of reality out of hand. This is a pattern this ministry has seen over and over and over again for ten years. Salvation comes by doing one thing and one thing only: obeying the philosopher kings, or as Al Mohler states it, “those appointed by God to save his people from ignorance.” He was speaking of pastors. Therefore, dear tyrant, since you are appointed by God to save me from ignorance (because others paid for you to obtain a seminary degree and Al Mohler therefore christens you as such), why would any argument by me have any validity at all in your mind? It wouldn’t.

Like the so-called “looney left” in politics who are not looney at all and know exactly what they are doing, your lame arguments merely cover for the fact that you don’t think anyone who disagrees with you is in touch with reality. Even though I articulated the Protestant gospel in painstaking detail and backed it up with a Protestant holding a Doctorate degree in the discipline, you claim that no such gospel even exists! Does this not make my point in no uncertain terms? You go on to name the real apostates, but based on what? An objective evaluation of their doctrine? No, based strictly on your supposed God-given authority. It is also interesting to note that in our dialogue with parishioners, they respond in the exact same way; they see themselves as speaking with authority because they are repeating what their pastors tell them. Consequently, they also reject all reason out of hand.

This is my advice to all: when giving an account of the sum and substance of your life to the one who granted it to you, no one will be standing there in your defense, not even Christ. In this life, that is the only mind that can be yielded to that will make a difference. Even He seeks to persuade you, and not control you. Obviously, if Christ wanted to control you, He would. He is the only mediator between God and mankind, and when you die, His mediation role is over. “This is my Son, hear ye Him.” Read the Scriptures for yourself, what does Christ use to persuade? Over and over again; reason, period.

The apostle Paul asked rhetorically to the ekklesia at large: “What saith the Scriptures?” Not, “What saith the philosopher kings…and queens?” Christ said, “Consider carefully what you hear.” Clearly, the onus is on the individual alone. All people will stand before God as individuals and that’s where the responsibility ends.

In all life matters, identify the tyrant and avoid them. Do their offers result in you depending on them? Do they lift you up and bolster self-confidence or make you less confident? Do they advocate a forward look towards love or a backward look towards sin? Avoid them in your journey, and if they hinder your journey, defeat them, but waste no time in reasoning with them; it only delays your own journey towards God.

paul