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Posted on 04/10/2017 6:40:46 PM PDT by fishtank
Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy
Posted by: Rob Bowman
On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Hank Hanegraaff formally joined the Orthodox Church. Since 1989 Hanegraaff has been the President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and (since ca. 1992) the host of CRI’s Bible Answer Man radio program.[1] Hank, his wife Kathy, and two of their twelve children were inducted by a sacramental rite called chrismation into the Orthodox faith at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, near where CRI is based. In chrismation, a baptized individual is anointed with oil in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.[2]
(Excerpt) Read more at religiousresearcher.org ...
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14 But I have a few things against thee [the church in Pergamos], because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Any more biblical descriptors are welcomed.
Oh??
Any more biblical descriptors are welcomed.
--Catholic_Wannabe_Dude(Hail Mary!!)
--Mormon_Dude(I don't quite understand EVERYTHING that SLC teaches; but, by gum, I sure BELIEVE it!!!)
You are right on this, and I was wrong. Writing hurriedly and late at night, I should have checked what I wrote and corrected it myself. Still, the deacons were Hellenized Jews who could communicate with and give attention to other Hellenized Jews and barbarian converts to Judaism that were in Jerusalem.
Are we settled on this point? Don't waste more time on this. Even correcting it doesn't improve your thesis.
Verse 15 shows that this does NOT describe or include nicolaitanism. That is another form of doctrine that is also hateful to Jesus and His servants.
Rev 2:15 So hast thou also* them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
* "also" means "in addition to," "over and above"
Pergamos had Balaamites and (also) nicolaitans--two different groups. If Nicolaitans were Balaamites in practices, why was that not mentioned in the letter to the angel of Ephesus?
Nicolaitans are organizational power-grabbers, very plainly ones who seek to overwhelm the ordinary constituents of a group and dominate them. Nikaw = conquer, overwhelm; lao = the passive sheeple deprived of the self-direction function.
No wonder that the ones determined to introduce a clergy want the terminology directed away from them. To counter resistance, they rationalize another origin of the derivation of the title to deflect opposition.
Nicolaitanism has everything to do with inserting a priestly class into a single-class. That would be men that wish to control organizational dynamics in order to secure a structure for irresistible control over the common people, an absolute oligarchy or dictatorship.
In the emerging New Testament churches, nicolaitans were the power-grabbers that desired to reinstitute the priestly class as a carry-over from the old Jewish religion; another title for it is "supersessionism," or "replacement theology." They would be Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyon, or Constantine I, or Augustine.
Is that clear?
This will be helpful to the reader. But I think it is off topic and deserves another airing someplace else.
ES, being a blind follower of Michael Rood, has incorporated Roodian fables into his belief system. You have to know what Rood is in order to see why ES spews the things he does at FR.
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Try when he lingered in the temple after the family had moved on, and taught the scriptures to the scribes and priests.
Contextually, the audience addressed was, from the point of view of the orthodox pre-Cross Jew, already a bunch of dogs. So your approach does not apply to the correct exegesis of this passage. You are applying these verses out of context.
Another well-received commentator says the same thing, even clearer:
Adam Clarke
Philippians 3:2
Beware of dogs - The Jews, who have here the same appellative which they formerly gave to the Gentiles: because the Gentiles were not included in the covenant, they called them Dogs; and themselves, the children of the Most High. Now, they are cast out of the covenant and the Gentiles taken in; therefore they are the dogs, and the Gentiles the children.
Evil workers - Judaizing teachers, who endeavored to pervert the Gospel. The concision - Κατατομην· The cutting or excision; not περιτομην, the circumcision: the word is used by the apostle to degrade the pretensions which the Jews made to sanctity by the cutting in their flesh. Circumcision was an honorable thing, for it was a sign of the covenant; but as they now had rejected the new covenant, their circumcision was rendered uncircumcision, and is termed a cutting, by way of degradation.
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From John Newton Darby, this:
Philippians 3:1-21
(excerpt)
To the apostle, who knew Christ in heaven, all this(supersessionism, my note) was but a bait to draw the Christian away from Christ, and throw him back again into the ruin out of which Christ had drawn him. And this would be so much the worse, because it would be to abandon a known and glorified Christ, and to return to that which had been proved to be of no value through the flesh. The apostle therefore spares neither the doctrine nor those who taught it.
The glory which he had seen, his contests with these false teachers, the state into which they had thrown the assembly, Jerusalem and Rome, his liberty and his prison — all, had gained him the experience of what Judaism was worth as to the assembly of God. They were dogs, evil workers, that is workers of malice and wickedness. It(the Jewish system; see Rom. 2:25-29) was not the circumcision. He treats it with profound contempt, and uses language, the harshness of which is justified by his love for theassembly; for love is severe towards those who, devoid of conscience, corrupt the object of that love. It was the concision. When evil without shame, and labouring to produce evil under a disgraceful veil of religion, is manifested in its true character, mildness is a crime against the objects of the love of Christ. If we love Him, we shall in our intercourse with the assembly give the evil its true character, which it seeks to hide. This is real love and faithfulness to Christ. The apostle had certainly not failed in condescension to the weak in this respect. He had carried it far; his prison testified it. And now the assembly, deprived of his energy and that spiritual decision which was full of love to all which is good, was more in danger than ever. The experience of a whole life of activity, of the greatest patience, of four years' reflection in prison, led to these forcible and urgent words, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision." The doctrine of the epistle to the Ephesians, the exhortation of that to the Colossians, the affection of that to these Philippians, with the denunciation contained in Php_3:2, date from the same epoch, and are marked with the same love. But it sufficed to denounce them. Elsewhere, where they were not well known, he gave details, as in the case of Timotheus, who had still to watch over the assembly. It was sufficient now to point out their well-known character. Whatever Judaised, whatever sought to mingle law and gospel, trusting in ordinances and the Spirit, was shameless, malicious, and contemptible. But the apostle will rather occupy himself with the power that delivers from it. We are the circumcision (that which is really separate from the evil, that which is dead to sin and to the flesh), we who worship God, not in the false pretension of ordinances, but spiritually by the power of the Holy Ghost, who rejoice in Christ the Saviour and not in the flesh, but on the contrary have no confidence in it. We see here Christ and the Spirit in contrast with the flesh and self.
Paul might indeed boast, if needful, in that which belonged to the flesh. As to all Jewish privileges, he possessed them in the highest degree. He had outstript every one in holy zeal against innovators. One thing alone had changed it all-he had seen a glorified Christ. All that he had according to the flesh was thenceforth loss to him. It would place something between him and the Christ of his faith and of his desire — the Christ whom he knew. And, observe, that here it is not the sins of the flesh which Christ expiates and abolishes that he rejects; it is its righteousness. It has none, we may say; but even if the apostle had possessed any righteousness of the flesh — as, in fact, he did possess it outwardly — he would not have it, because he had seen a better. In Christ, who had appeared to him on the way to Damascus, he had seen divine righteousness for man, and divine glory in man. He had seen a glorified Christ, who acknowledged the poor feeble members of the assembly as a part of Himself. He would have nothing else. The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord had eclipsed everything — changed everything which was not that into loss. The stars, as well as the darkness of night, disappear before the sun. The righteousness of the law, the righteousness of Paul, all that distinguished him among men, disappeared before the righteousness of God and the glory of Christ.
(end of excerpt)
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What this brings to the fore is that supersessionism, trying to pretend that Christianity is an extension of the old Jewish religion with its priestly class, is just another form of Judaizing. It inserts a mediatory agency and agents between the regenerated believer and His Master, Who is our True Mediator between the humble supplicant and his/her Heavenly Father.
In other words, to me supersessionism is Nicolaitianism. It embodies the doctrine mentioned to the angels of Ephesus and Pergamos, the one that Our Christ Jesus hates.
Supersessionism/nicolaitanism separates the seeker of salvation and holiness from the Christ and His Father, unto another Jesus of the same kind--but another--with another gospel and another spirit of a different kind.
Baalam had nothing whatsoever to do with Nicolaitanism, which is the creation of a human hierarchy within the Assembly (falsely called a “church” in the Greek translations)
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>> “No mention of it any where in Scripture.” <<
To the spiritually blind, I’m sure that is so.
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Then provide the references.
For once.
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I lack the power to drag you over the threshold of the New Jerusalem.
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Then just what verse does?
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