Posted on 05/04/2005 7:58:31 AM PDT by pro610
Rick warren is gearing up to train a billion people,unbeknownst to many he has also been teamed up with New Age and contemplative promoter,Ken Blanchard,for some time now. According to a new biography on Rick Warren,A Life With A Purpose wrtten by George Mair,Rick Warren has solicited the services of Ken Blanchard to aid him to train leaders:"Rick taps the best and the most famous to help train church leaders to be like Jesus. he has hired Ken Blanchard...to come to saddleback to help train people how to be effective leaders."p.193
In light of knowing who Ken Blanchard is,this is shocking and devatating news for the Church!
There is countless evidence to show that Ken Blanchard sits on the New age/mystical/contemplative bandwagon.Blanchard believes in the benefits and use of mantra meditation,yoga and has no trouble borrowing from Buddism... http://lighthousetrailsresearch.com/Pressreleasekenblanchard.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at lighthousetrailsresearch.com ...
One can indeed have a fulfilling relationship with God without keeping all of the Torah's ceremonial laws. However, having said that, there are two caveats:
First, Yeshua is clear that Man was not made for the Sabbath, but rather the Sabbath for Man. That is, the Sabbath-rest is not a burden, but a gift from God, a day to step back from our daily grind, sleep in, visit with one another, and spend time with God.
As with the greater, so with the lesser. The Sabbath is not the most common Feastday of the Lord because it is the least important, but because it is the most important of all. Therefore, the other Feastdays--Rosh Hashanah (aka Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Sukkot (Tabernacles), Pesach (Passover), Matza (Unleavened Bread), S'fira HaOmer (Firstfruits), and Shavuot (Weeks, or Pentecost)--were likewise not made as a burden, but as a gift.
I encourage others to take part in them not to fulfill the Law, but to enjoy the gifts of God and see how each and every one points to the fulfillment of God's plan in both Comings of our Lord. As I've said elsewhere, it is one thing to intellectually know the types of the Messiah in the Passover dinner--it's quite another to actually eat them.
Second, it depends on the person's heart. A person who is raised celebrating Christmas and Easter and who does not know the pagan origins of so many of their customs (and indeed, the days themselves) does not dishonor God by celebrating them to Him.
A person who knows their origins, but who was taught that co-opting these holidays for the Lord was a good thing and who honestly believes that is likewise celebrating them to the Lord.
However, a person, like myself, who knows fully the pagan roots of not only Christmas and Easter, but of the Sabbath to Sunday (the day of worshiping Mithras, the sun god) and who has seen that in God's Word He gave us better Feastdays that are truly unique and pleasurable to Him, is responsible for acting on that information and worshiping God in Spirit and in truth, rather than being double-minded about it.
The issue, of course, is not whether a person should keep God's commandments: "By this we know that we love the children of God, whenever we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome" (1 Jn. 5:2-3). A person who keeps God's commandments to the best of their knowledge and ability (as God is the granter of both) is loving God with their whole heart, soul, and body. A person who knows what God's commandments are but who either deliberately ignores them or who seeks to loophole his way out of them (particularly the ones God gave as gifts) is not fulfilling even the Prime Commandment.
A person who instructs others is held to a whole 'nuther standard. Yeshua says plainly that whosoever breaks the least commandment of the Torah and teaches others to do the same will be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 5:17). Therefore, if you don't want to keep the days that God gave you as a gift, that's one thing. But for you to actively attack me for doing so is not the best of ideas.
Call me ambitious, but I certainly don't want to be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I don't believe that either Justin Martyr or Martin Luther were anti-semites per se (unless you wish to apply modern humanist definitions).
One does not have to apply "modern" "humanist" definitions in order to see "The Jews and Their Lies" for the virulently anti-semetic screed that it is.
It's been done. Obviously not to your "solo Scriptura" satisfaction. But the church has been in conformity to the Word of God since the 1st century.
Translation: "Well, no I couldn't prove you wrong from Scripture, but all these other guys agree with me, so you must be wrong!"
Sorry. That didn't cut it for Luther (and I do admire his courage for being willing to stand on the Scriptures against 1500 years of Church tradition to teach sola gracia, flaws aside), and it won't for me or any other Christian truly committed to the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
Funny. As much as you accuse me of being Pharisaical, you're the one snarking about the "traditions of the elders" while I answer you, "It is written . . ." Which one of us is being more like our Savior in that respect, hmmmm?
What I said was, and what I have always said, is that as Jewish practices as social customs for Jews are fine. Of course they have no religious value since they all expired with the old covenant in the first century.
They did not, nor can you prove that they did from Scripture alone. I on the other hand, can quote the New Covenant mandate:
"Behold, the days come," says the LORD, "that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was a husband to them," says the LORD; "but this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel:You still have not explained how God can write the Torah in our hearts if the Torah passed away with the coming of the New Covenant. You have not been able to explain how the Torah could pass away when Yeshua said that the least letter would not until Heaven and Earth did (Mt. 5:16). You have been unable to show that the Apostles or other early believers ceased following Torah--or indeed, that they even ceased offering sacrifices.After those days," says the LORD, "I will put My Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD'; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," says the LORD. "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more."
--Jer. 31:31-34, cf. Heb. 8)
You cannot explain these things away from the Scripture, because they are all the manifest teachings of Scripture. Indeed, the Apostles quoted the Torah over and over again as something living and still valid! You instead must constantly appeal to human traditions in order to have anything at all to say in this debate!
Therefore, you lose, and by continuing to carry this debate across threads as you have, you only succeed in demonstrating your lack-of-argument to an ever-expanding audience.
While I thank you for the platform, this really is starting to get repetative.
The fact remains, and which you cannot dispute, that Paul never encouraged a gentile to keep any of the cultic old covenant laws.
He never discouraged it either; in fact, by making clear allusions to the ceremonial Torah commandments, like Passover, in his letters, we see that he expected that the Gentile believers would know what he was talking about--because they had been instructed in the Tanakh by their Jewish brothers and sisters. He only discouraged circumcision, and that because those pushing for circumcision a) were presenting it as a requirement for salvation, which it never was even under the "old" covenant, b) were not even Torah-keepers themselves, but simply wanted to boast over the proselyte Gentiles (Gal. 6:12-13), and c) being circumcised meant not only keeping the Torah, but keeping all of the oral traditions of the Jews as well; and as I demonstrated on another thread, it was all of those additional laws which were called a burden, not the Torah itself.
Of course, this is typical of you. Having been trounced on one thread, you move the argument to another, figuring that most of those here wouldn't have seen the original.
In fact all we have to do is look at Acts 15 to see the reality. Here was the prefect place for the early church to spell out this theoretical "voluntary" keeping of the cultic laws by gentiles in the church.
Hmm . . . I don't see anything in those four laws agreed upon by the Jerusalem council about honoring one's parents or abstaining from stealing, taking God's Name in vain, etc. Heck, I don't see anything about keeping the "cultic laws" of the Lord's Supper or baptism either. Gee, you think maybe those might simply have been the minimum requirements for fellowship, that is, a starting point rather than an ending point? Especially since all four injuctions had to do with separating the new believers from the pagan temples?
But there certainly isn't anything there which says that Gentiles should not participate in the Torah's Feasts and so on.
Nobody every voluntarily circumcised a gentile.
Not true. Timothy, though half-Jewish, was raised as a Greek (uncircumcised). He could have continued as a Greek Christian, but voluntarily underwent circumcision when he went to Jerusalem so as not to present a stumbling block to the Jews (Ac. 16:1-3).
Nobody every voluntarily suggested a gentile keep the cultic food laws.
That's an argument from silence, since the Scriptures do not say one way or the other. What they do say is not to let someone judge us on what we eat--but that cuts both ways! You have no right to demand that I eat non-kosher food, anymore than I have the right to judge you for choosing to eat pork.
Btw, what's with your sudden obsession with the word "cultic"? Other than that with its modern connotation it serves to try to poison the well, of course.
Nobody ever suggested that gentiles voluntarily keep the cultic sabbaths and holy days.
Again, Sha'ul spoke to the Corinthians, he spoke of the Passover and Firstfruits as days that all the believers would be familiar with, so that would suggest that the Gentiles celebrated those days with their Jewish brethren. Further, the Lord's Supper was done in the connotation of a Passover dinner, and it was Yeshua's command that we do this--not, I believe, just the bread and the wine, but the whole meal--in remembrance of Him. We know that many believers continued to keep the Sabbath and feastdays well into the 4th Century, since so many of the ECF railed against and persecuted them.
Your argument is non-sensical anyway. Are we to suppose that, having seen the Gentiles saved by faith in the Jewish Messiah, that the Jewish believers would either forbid them from all Feastdays? Or are we to suppose that they said, "Well, having forbidden you to associate with idols, we think you should keep the Feasts of Istar, Samhain, and Saturnalia instead of Passover and Sukkot, because we'd so much rather you keep pagan traditions than join in the Festivals that God Himself gave us."
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
The fact is that what Sha'ul said is that one should abstain from judging one another on such things. I have not judged you on anything but your attitude. So where exactly do you get off judging me for celebrating the Passover that Yeshua and His disciples celebrated instead of Easter?
So what you are faced with is the fact that the quaint practices of modern messiancs are pure human tradition.
Only if "fact" now means "lie." I can find "Sukkot" in Scripture; can you find "Christmas"? In some cases, however, we do defer to Jewish tradition where it does not contradict the Scripture. For example, in serving wine at the Passover dinner. Oh, wait, Yeshua also kept that tradition, and even filled it with new meaning, didn't He?
It's a cute attempt to twist the issue, but it doesn't work. You still can't get around the simple fact that only one person had the right to change the Sabbath, and He did not do so, nor did His Apostles. Nor indeed did they act as if they thought the least letter of Torah was "old" or done away with, for their Lord said just the opposite. Indeed, they were "zealous for the Torah." You keep claiming that they didn't say that Gentiles should join in the blessings the Lord gave the Jews, but you can't show where they said the Gentiles shouldn't participate.
Show me where it says that a Gentile should not keep God's commands. Go on, I dare ya.
As always, thank you for demonstrating that where I quote and allude to Scripture, you have only empty tradition and a lot of ranting to fall back upon.
My final word: Yeshua said that the Sabbath was given for Man, not Man for the Sabbath--that is, it was a blessing, not a curse. By wasting so many electrons trying to explain why you shouldn't have to receive that blessing, you demonstrate that in your heart you really do think this gift of God is a curse and a burden.
You therefore call our Lord a liar in your heart, and I find that sad.
;-)
Okay, let's go with that. What exactly are those foundations that you think are being destroyed?
Sure, Catholics are born again in baptism when the spiritual death of Adam is washed away.
Salvation is a process, not a subjective emotional event in someone's life. Just because a person has an altar call in a Baptist Church does not mean they will automatically be saved.
In that case, Judas is in heaven today.
Do you agree with your fellow Warren Bashers that Catholics cannot be born again Christians?
Definitely, Catholics are not "Born again Christians" by the Baptist definition the disassociation of being born again from baptism is flatly erroneous. Besides the Greek is better translated "born from above" through water and the spirit: water baptism.
Do you agree with your fellow Warren Bashers that the Catholic Church was destined to be Hitler's One World Church?
Anyone who thinks that is a naive idiot, considering the Nazis wanted to eliminate the Catholic Church and revert Germany to a Nazified, Teutonic paganism.
Do you agree with your fellow Warren bashers that Protestants ought not to join hands with Catholics?
Catholics and Protestants ought not worship together because we do not share the same faith, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't care for the poor or stand up for the family together.
i would say that it is a legitimate criticism whether it is exclusive to PDC/PDL congregations or not.
That said, Marlowe is quite correct on this point: The Diaprax/Delphi Technique is NOT exclusive to PDC/PDL congregations. It has permeated the contemporary American Church (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox: Calvinist, Aquinian, and Arminian).
Fact is that this diabolical system must be opposed Wherever it is manifested. It certainly predated the ministry of Rick Warren, so he is not at fault for inventing the system...that distinction goes back to the Garden of Eden, and more recently to Hegel.
i believe that you will find the article i am working on to be interesting. i will ping all of you to it (as well as some others) when i get it prepared. Be aware, there is much to address in this particular thread, so i may be a bit busy.
2nd sentence of my post is a mistype. Word should be "wouldn't" instead of would. This is proven by the 3rd sentence.
And just where, Mr. Ross, outside of the source material referenced by pro610 (a Catholic!) have you seen anybody on this thread make that claim?
Definitely, Catholics are not "Born again Christians" by the Baptist definition the disassociation of being born again from baptism is flatly erroneous. Besides the Greek is better translated "born from above" through water and the spirit: water baptism.
One must be aware that Baptists are not the only people posting on this board. With respect to my Baptist associates and brethern (i am a Presbyterian), i would say it is a trueism that all Baptist Churches have one thing in common...no two are alike < /oxymoron>. Perhaps you should take your little stereotypes elsewhere, as generally most have refrained from them on this thread.
You also owe an apology to P-Marlowe, in that he has NOT been a critic of Warren, and has said nothing against the Roman Catholic Church, aside from pointing out the views of the authors of the evidence presented by pro610. i know P-Marlowe, and he does not hold to the views that you accuse him of.
Anyone who thinks that is a naive idiot, considering the Nazis wanted to eliminate the Catholic Church and revert Germany to a Nazified, Teutonic paganism.
That was actually more so the view of Henreich Himmler, but you're quite correct. It is a self evident truth when one looks at the acts of Hitler. For a guy who was supposedly trying to "establish the Catholic Church as the one world church", he acted counterproductively in that he certainly killed a lot of good Catholics, such as Poles, Czecks, Greeks, Americans, French, and others. i certainly don't put any stock in such a lunatic theory.
Do you agree with your fellow Warren bashers that Protestants ought not to join hands with Catholics?
Once again maligning Marlowe for views that he DOES.NOT.HOLD.
Catholics and Protestants ought not worship together because we do not share the same faith, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't care for the poor or stand up for the family together.
And what is it that makes your views any different from those who wrote the evidenced cited?
Look, i understand that you were pingged to this particular thread explicitly...i recall the post. However, you were asked to comment on some rather specific matters. It would be better if you reviewed the entire thread and determined who is playing on which team before commenting on a percieved slight.
Actually CDL, I think you misread the post that John Ross posted to me. Those were questions that I asked and he answered. I asked them to see whether pro610 was in agreement with those whom he quotes who malign the work of Warren.
John Ross has made it clear on another thread that he does not have fellowship with non-Catholics. I gather that he believes that all Protestants are heretics whether they attend Saddleback Community Church or Bethlehem Baptist Church. I also gather that he would frown upon any Catholic who made a habit of attending non-Catholic Religions services.
So I don't think JohnRoss owes me an apology. His answers as usual are heartfelt. Misplaced, but heartfelt.
Upon further review of John Ross' post, it has become apparent that i have mistaken P-Marlowe's comments for his. Because of this error i repudiate all that i have said in my post #348 that was based on that erronious assumption. What comments were correct and not based on a misread of the post i stand by.
i further offer my apologies to John Ross on this matter.
Funny, Dean Gotcher offers that encounter in the Garden of Eden as the earliest example of the Diaprax.
One is not supposed to fear it, one is merely supposed to avoid and repudiate it.
Sorry bd but this merely proves my point. Everything PDL state SEEMS to be a wonderful thing. Who can argue with any of those points? But the fact remains, one they will admit, the purpose of church was NEVER about evangelisism. It was about worship. To shift the focus away from that goal is to change the concept and purpose of church as established by the apostles. Do you see anywhere in their statement the act of worship? Please consider this:
Unbelievers in the church was looked upon as an anomaly-not the drive of the church. Warren's intentions may be noble but they're wrong.
This is an excellent point. The history of the Baptist church should be remembered. The Baptists never was one to focus so much on doctrine but instead focused on evangelism. I even remember that wonderful Reformed Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, state how he thought doctrine wasn't nearly as important as evangelism.
Today the Baptist, while being one of the more sounder church institutions, are rudderless not having a firm root in doctrine. Sure they believe the basic things but as CDL states there are precious two that are alike. But there are trouble waters ahead. Simply because they focused on evangelism.
Here is Documentation that many of you are unaware of.
The Catholic Church has been working with many denominations to promote Christian unity.
This includes leaders of the Methodist,Reformed,Baptist,Evangelicals,Pentecostals and others
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/
We all need to work together to promote Christian unity
As a Methodist elder, I can tell you that there's no way in our lifetimes that Methodists and Catholics will unify....barring Divine intervention, of course.
My opinion: there will not be. Do with it what you want, but not in our lifetimes.
Or barring intervention from much lower, I'd say...
There are a lot of purposes for the Church and Evangelism is one of them. Your problem is that you overemphasize teaching of doctrine and Warren may overemphasize evangelism. Since both are within the scriptural purposes of the Church, then neither is wrong, however an unbalanced approach to either may be misplaced.
If your church does NO evangelism you are probably in just as bad a situation, if not worse, than a church that does nothing but evangelism. I've seen examples of the former but I've never seen an example of the latter. The churches I've seen that emphasize evangelism always seem to have a new batch of believers to whom they can teach doctrine.
Without going into details, it simply won't happen because of the efforts of lower intervention. No way in our lifetimes. Nada. Zilch.
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