Posted on 11/05/2006 7:45:14 PM PST by Alex Murphy
"Jones was surprised to find out who he was." My hiney! I think he did this for political/ gay agenda reasons. (Preaching to the choir, I know).
I will never understand why these high profile types never seem to think their sins will ever see the light of day.
The reports highlight a weakness in the body of the church today. It isn't the particular sin or type of sin that is as significant, IMHO, as the void of spiritual understanding to discern how a soulish person is discernible from a man waling by the Spirit.
Soulish people might interpret religion as being a system placing them closer to God. Without faith in Christ in all their thinking, though, their attempts to come closer to God are merely independent thinking or soulish living.
I was watching a national female reporter this morning interview a female minister and asking her if this wouldn't help bring the church closer to accepting homosexuals within the church. The female 'pastor' responded in a soulish fashion, well studied in theology and well read of the Bible, noting that their Bible would not allow that to happen.
Unfortunately, the interview was the blind leading the blind, contriving a worthless argument. The issue isn't outlawing sexual immorality simply for the sake of legalism and tradition. The issue speaks much more directly to the filling of the Spirit in a believer, renewing our thinking and allowing the Holy Spirit to not only change our thinking of our soul, but much more than this, our spirit is then changed. The query regarding homosexuality doesn;t grasp how sexual immorality, liars, murderers, adulterers, and any number of people who seek to satisfy bodily or mental lusts, are simply acting and thinking separately from anything of the true and living Spirit. This means they will not grow in their spirit. They might grow (scar is a better term) in their soul, i.e. their thinking processes, but they will not continue to be set apart in their spirit to the Lord.
Likewise, a pastor, who continues in sin and perhaps during his action of teaching, also fails to perform good works of the spirit as he would have been gifted in his spirit by the Holy Spirit to perform. A pastor in sin, continuing to teach simply works through the mechanics of teaching in a soulish perspective, and likely giving cause for wrong thinking in his flock. Such pastors who do not have that discernment, need others in the body to advise them and remove them from authority in the church.
All the consternation over morality or feeling sorry now that everybody knows something about one's sin is simply good for nothingness, IMHO. But I am not surprised by those who seek worldliness to find such information grounds to make a moral crusade, for or against the church or those who have a gift to witness to unbelievers, i.e. the gift from the Holy Spirit of evangelism.
waling ==walking
So, he's a sinner and a hypocrite? Isn't everybody? I find it laughable that the Dems are using the "holier than thou" routine when one of their party platforms is the promotion of homosexual causes. If this guy was a Dem they'd be lauding him as a hero to worship.
A final follow-up to this story, from today's news:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/82006h.asp
...Citing a lack of time, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has withdrawn from the team overseeing counseling for Rev. Ted Haggard, the evangelical pastor who was fired amid allegations of gay sex and drug use. In a statement, Dobson said, "Emotionally and spiritually, I wanted to be of help -- but the reality is I don't have the time to devote to such a critical responsibility." H.B. London, Focus on the Family's vice president for church and clergy, said the counseling process, called restoration, could take years. The other two members of the counseling team are Pastors Jack Hayford of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and Tommy Barnett of First Assembly of God in Phoenix. [AP]
So he bails the day after the election? Most Interesting.
Now it's your turn ...
My advice: Don't whine about it. Clean it up.
And, if you learn nothing else from your Catholic brethren in The Lord, learn this:
Rule One: No Poofters!
I don't know what this "whining" accusation comes from. Evangelicals have no hierarchy. One church cannot clean up another.
I didn't bring up the priesthood, BTW.
You were upset by the number of times this story was posted.
So, now you have some inkling of what we had to deal with.
That is all.
Why would this be a tit-for-tat thing? I hadn't even heard of Haggard before I heard he was in disgrace, and supposedly this guy is some big shakes.
The loser here is Dobson, but that's only in the short-term.
It's not ... don't try to "read between the lines" in what I'm posting; there's nothing there. Take it at face value. You complained because this story got posted too many times. We had to put up with worse. That is all.
I hadn't even heard of Haggard
I had never heard of that pervert Shanley before the story got splattered all over every news outlet in the world.
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