Archives - Redeeming God

I have never spoken in tongues. And honestly, I have never wanted to. I had some pastor tell me that I didn’t want to speak in tongues because I was proud and didn’t want to look foolish in front of others. Maybe so. But I don’t think that looking foolish in front of others is doing a whole lot of good for the cause of Christ and the advancement of the kingdom. But that is a topic for some other time.

All I want to say is that if you speak in tongues, I am not trying to mock you or your prayer language in the rest of this post. I am only poking fun at the two examples below…

I am introducing my series called “Let Prayer Meetings Cease” by writing about several types of prayer that you might hear in a prayer meeting. (I write more about this in my forthcoming book, Cruciform Pastoral Leadership.) Recently we looked at the “Magic Words” prayer. Today, we look at the prayer where people let God do the talking.

The “I Don’t Know What I’m Saying, So God Will Say it For Me” Prayer

I have sometimes been in prayer meetings where people clearly lose their train of thought, or they don’t really know how to pray for the issue at hand, and so rather than pause, or stumble around for the right words, or simply pray wrongly and let God sort it out (He doesn’t mind), the person instead starts to “speak in tongues,” thus trying to impress everybody with their spirituality.

And rather than type what it sounds like, I will give you an example from YouTube. Of course, this guy is preaching a sermon, but just imagine he is praying instead. You’ll get the idea. I actually feel bad for this poor pastor. It appears that he was told that the Holy Spirit would take over and start preaching through him, but for some reason, the Holy Spirit power never really “kicks in” …unless 90% of a Holy Spirit Sermon consists of the words “Glory to God! Hallelujah!”

Oh, and I know this video is old. It looks like it’s from the 1980’s. But these kinds of sermons are still preached in countless pulpits across America today. In the religious environment in which I work, I hear sermons like this almost every week.

Speaking in Tongues Videos

The first is by Brother Barry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=askNweeETVM

And then there is this classic from Televangelist Robert Tilton:

I don’t know if you have ever been in prayer meetings where people do this sort of thing. It has always made me uncomfortable, and I often doubt that this is really what speaking in tongues was all about in Acts 2 and elsewhere in the New Testament. You can disagree, but I think it is always better to pray with words that both you and others understand.

Eventually I plan to write a book about speaking in tongues and what the Bible teaches about it (Join my discipleship group to be notified when it is published), but for now, I just encourage you to stay away from this practice in public prayer settings, especially when it is used as a means to make yourself look more spiritual and sound more holy. This is not what prayer is for.

Do you want to pray like never before?

Do you what to talk to God like you talk to a friend? Do you want to see more answers to prayer?

If you have these (and other) questions about prayer, let me send you some teaching and instruction about prayer to your email inbox. You will receive one or two per week, absolutely free. Fill out the form below to get started.

Membership-become-a-member

Thanks for visiting this page ... but this page is for Discipleship Group members.

If you are already part of a Faith, Hope, or Love Discipleship Group,
Login here.

If you are part of the free "Grace" Discipleship group, you will need to
Upgrade your Membership to one of the paid groups.

If you are not part of any group, you may learn about the various groups and their benefits here:
Join Us Today.

Membership-become-a-member

Let Prayer Meetings Cease

By Jeremy Myers

4 Comments

Chapter 10 in my book, Close Your Church for Good, is called “Let Prayer Meetings Cease.”

In it, I explore the idea that prayer meetings, as beneficial and important as they are, might actually hinder the church from fulling the Great Commission and accomplishing our task of advancing God’s purposes on earth. To live and practice the way of love as modeled by Jesus, one step we can take is to reduce the number and frequency of our prayer meetings.

Note that I am not talking about praying less, but only about the official “prayer meetings” at church, which often become a substitute for action. This idea will be filled out in more detail through the various posts.

Please note that due to some of the feedback I receive on these posts, this chapter might be radically revised for the final edition of the book. These changes will only be available in the print or eBook version when it comes out.
[Read more…]

Don’t treat the Lord’s Prayer like a Magical Incantation

By Jeremy Myers

17 Comments

If you have been to prayer meetings, you have probably heard various types of prayer. Sometimes you might hear what I call “Magic Spell prayers.”

Praying with Magic Words

There are some prayers that people memorize and then say as quickly as possible, as if it is only the words that matter. The Lord’s Prayer is one example. While memorized and recited prayers can be meaningful and helpful, they sometimes degenerate into jumbled string of words where the person praying simply tries to get through as fast as possible.

It sounds something like this:

Ourfatherwhoartinheaven
hallowedbythynamethykingdomcome
thywillbedoneonearthasitisinheaven
giveusthisdayourdailybread
andforgiveusourtresspassesasweforgivethose
whotresspassagainstus
forthineisthekingdomandthepower
andthegloryforeverandeveramen.

Such prayers are more often found in the liturgical settings where prayers are read out of a book or memorized and recited. The goal in such praying seems to be to get the words out as fast as possible. It doesn’t really matter if others understand you or not, of if you really mean the words or not. All that matters, apparently, are the words themselves.

In such cases, I sometimes imagine God saying to such people, “Whoa there! Slow down! Take a breath! I like that prayer, but I can’t understand a word of what you’re saying!”

God understands what is being said, of course, but He doesn’t care for such prayers because there is no focus on relational communication in praying this way.

Those who pray this way reveal a mindset that believes that prayers are like magic incantations, where the only thing that matters is that you pray with the magic words.

This sort of praying might be what Jesus had in mind when He criticized some people in Matthew 6:7 for babbling their prayers, thinking they will be heard for their many words. It is not the words God cares about, and especially not how fast we can get them out.

When you pray, slow down.

It is better to say five meaningful words to God, then 10,000 words without thought or meaning. God wants a relationship; not recited prayers.

Do you want to pray like never before?

Do you what to talk to God like you talk to a friend? Do you want to see more answers to prayer?

Membership-become-a-member

Thanks for visiting this page ... but this page is for Discipleship Group members.

If you are already part of a Faith, Hope, or Love Discipleship Group,
Login here.

If you are part of the free "Grace" Discipleship group, you will need to
Upgrade your Membership to one of the paid groups.

If you are not part of any group, you may learn about the various groups and their benefits here:
Join Us Today.

Membership-become-a-member

Truth and Love of Jesus

By Jeremy Myers

7 Comments

So far my book Close Your Church for Good has just over 80,000 words. Of those, 20,000 come from this chapter on Doctrinal Statements

Yikes! That’s 25% of the book! Not good.

And worse yet, according to the outline I have for the chapter, I am only about half-way through what I had planned for the chapter. At this rate, by the time I get done with it, it will be a book all by itself.

I am trying to keep each chapter under 5,000 words, and so since I already have to cut out 75% of what I have written, there is not much sense in continuing with my chapter outline even though I know many of you still have questions about the role of doctrinal statements in church.

So here is what I am going to do. First, I am going to post a brief conclusion to this chapter here, and then, starting tomorrow, move on to the next chapter, which is titled “Let Prayer Meetings Cease.” Eventually (who knows when), I will try to get back to this topic of doctrinal statements and finish it up, maybe turning it into a book of its own.

Good?

So here is the conclusion to the chapter on Doctrinal Statements:

[Read more…]

Denying the Lord who Bought Them

By Jeremy Myers

14 Comments

Second Peter 2:1 talks about false teachers denying the Lord who bought them. What does this mean?

First, note that Peter says these false teachers bring heresies,which, as we have seen previously, refers to divisions within the Body of Christ.

And what is it they teach which brings these divisions? According to Peter, their primary error is that they “deny the Lord who bought them.” Most translations render it in such a fashion, but I must say that such a translation is hopelessly weak.

Denying the Master who Redeemed Them

A better translation might be, “denying the Master who redeemed them.”

The word Peter uses for “Lord” or “Master” is not the typical kurios, but is rather despotēs. It is where we get our word “despot,” which has more negative connotations today than it did in Peter’s day. Back then, it referred to a Master who owned slaves.

The word “bought” is the Greek word agarazō, which in a Master-slave relationship refers to being redeemed (cf. Rev 5:9, 14:3-4). So what is Peter saying? He writes that these false prophets, these false teachers, these bringers of divisions, have been redeemed by Jesus their Master, and yet, as shocking as it sounds, they have the gall to deny Him!

Denying Christ

And what is the significance of their denial? Here is where the text gets even more interesting. The word that Peter uses for “deny” is arneomai, which is exactly the word used in the gospels when Peter denied Jesus (cf. John 13:38; 18:25, 27). Certainly when Peter wrote this sentence, he was thinking of his own earlier actions and behavior in denying his Master who redeemed him.

And if the words of Jesus in John 13:10-11 where He says that Peter is already “clean” means that Peter was justified and had eternal life, then what all of this means is that Peter recognizes that it is very possible for a redeemed and justified follower of Jesus Christ to be a false teacher and deny their Master, just as Peter himself had done.
[Read more…]

Beware of False Teachers

By Jeremy Myers

8 Comments

I have suggested that there is no such thing as a heretic in the traditional sense of the word. Heresy is Divisiveness, and it was only to gain more power that the charge of heresy began to get thrown around.

So where does this leave us? Are we then free to believe whatever we want? Am I endorsing a theological free-for-all?

Of course not. Beliefs still matter.

While there is no such things as a “heretic” in the traditional sense, there are “false teachers.” We must be able to recognize teaching when it is false, and avoid it.

False Teachers

The problem, however, is that false teaching is usually must closer to us than we ever imagine. In the next several posts, we will look at false teachers, how to recognize them, and what we are to do about them.

But first, let me ask a question. If you were to guess how many verses in the Bible warn against false teachers, what would you say? It is quite common nowadays to hear pastors and authors warn their church against false teachers. With how much it is talked about in our pulpits and written about in out books, one would think that warning against false teachers is a popular topic in Scripture. So what would you guess? 10 times? 50? Maybe 100?

[Read more…]

The Charge of Heresy

By Jeremy Myers

11 Comments

In the previous posts we have seen that heresy is not what we think. Heresy is not a set of ideas which condemns someone to hell if they believe them. No, heresy is the act of dividing or separating from other believers. The true “heresy” is divisiveness. In fact “heresy” itself is not even a translation of the Greek word from which it comes. If we were to translate it, it would be translated “division” or “sect.”

So how did we come to define “heresy” as a damnable doctrine? Where did this idea come from?

Early Church Heresy

In large part, it developed back in the early days of the church when many of the Biblical scholars spoke and wrote Greek. When they encountered another teacher who had a questionable doctrine, they would accuse that person being a heretic, that is, someone who was going to divide the church if they kept teaching their ideas.

Through their writings, sermons, and letters, they would call on the person to not sacrifice the unity of the church for the sake of a false idea.

But usually, this second scholar was just as smart and intelligent as the first. And so in his writings, sermons, and letters, he would argue that it was not his ideas that were wrong and thus creating division in the church, but those of his opponent which were wrong. It was the opponent which was creating the division, not himself. Thus, it was the other scholar who was being divisive.

[Read more…]

The Heresy of Heretics

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

Yesterday we looked at several passages in Scripture that talk about “heresy” and we saw that heresy does not exist–at least, not the way we think of it today. I argued that according to Scripture, there is no such a thing as “heretical teaching” in the way the idea is used in churches today. Calling something “heresy” is a bogeyman tactic used to scare and control others.

We looked at a few passages that mention “heresy” in which we saw that biblical heresy is actually the division and separation that sometimes occurs within the Body of Christ. Heresy is not false teaching, but the destruction of unity within the Church.

The primary passage in Scripture which seems to challenge this view is 2 Peter 2:1.

Heresy in 2 Peter 2:1

Second Peter 2:1 is the closest we come to a designation of “heresy” as a doctrine or teaching condemned by God with the consequence that those who believe it are condemned to eternal damnation. In this text, Peter equates false prophets and false teachers with the destructive heresies they bring and writes that just as their teachings bring destruction to the church, so they themselves will face destruction.

But in light of what we have seen of the other uses of the word airesis in Scripture, it is best to see first if that meaning fits here, and if so, we should seek no other meaning.
[Read more…]

Well Said!

By Jeremy Myers

Posts

Here are some of the blog posts I read this week that really made an impact on me.

“Swanny” from Allergic to BS provided a list for why legalists make lists.
Sam asks some really tough questions about serving the homeless in our communities.
Nathan Bingham reminded us that as followers of Jesus, we have no special religious requirements.
Trevin Wax posted a great poem from Ben Witherington III called “If Only.“

Comments

On Bounded Sets and Centered Sets, Dan B. from Snorting Horses wrote this breathtaking comment:

I’m less interested in getting someone through the door of some building. In fact, I have almost zero interest in that unless there’s something about what goes on in that building that really helps my friend walk more closely with God. My focus is on walking through life toward Christ with people.

[Read more…]

The Heresy Myth

By Jeremy Myers

31 Comments

A Centered Set approach to church tries not to restrict anyone from participating. Sure, there are rules about how to participate, but in a Centered Set, since there are not boundaries, everybody by definition is “in.”

But what about the heretics? The really bad hell-bound heretics? The apostates and wicked men who lead people astray by lies and deceit? Cannot we at least restrict them?

Heretics Don’t Exist

Well, it may come as a surprise to learn that there is no such thing as a heretic. They are fictional creatures invented by religious leaders who want to scare people into strict compliance to everything the leader says. Like parents who try to scare their children into obedience by telling tales of the bogeyman, some church leaders try to scare their congregation with tales of fire-breathing heretics whose ideas originate in the pit of hell.

Scripture on Heresy

But doesn’t Scripture warn us about heresies? Yes, it does. More frequently than we realize.

The word heresy comes from the Greek word airesis, which is pronounced “heresies.” So the English word “heresy” is not a translation from the Greek, but is a transliteration, just like baptism (baptizō) and evangelism (euangelizō). Translators will often transliterate a Greek word when they are not fully sure how to translate it. They just take the Greek letters and change them into English letters, and call it good.

But it’s not so good for English readers who don’t know what’s going on behind the English. In the case of airesis, the translators knew what it meant, and most of the time, in most translations, it appears as “sect,” “division,” or “faction.”

Heresy in Acts

This is seen most prominently in Acts where Luke writes about the “sect (airesis) of the Sadducees” (5:17), the “sect (airesis) of the Pharisees” (15:5), and the “sect (airesis) of the Nazarenes” (24:5). We are generally familiar with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but what was the “sect of the Nazarenes”? They were the followers of Jesus. They were Christians (cf. Acts 24:14; 26:5; 28:22).

So, according to Scripture itself, Christianity was one of the “heresies” at the time of the early church. This isn’t a bad thing. It is not a condemnation of Christianity. It is just a way of describing a group of people within the broader religion of Judaism. It refers to a group who had some different beliefs and practices than other groups within the big religious tent of Judaism.

Heresy in Paul

Outside of Acts, there are only three more uses of the word airesis. The first two are found in 1 Corinthians 11:19 and Galatians 5:20, and both refer to “divisions” and “factions” that occur within Christianity, and both teach that such divisions are destructive and damaging. Rather than divide over doctrine, we are to be unified in the Spirit. Neither use refers to some sort of pit-of-hell false teaching that must be condemned by the true spiritual leaders. To the contrary, both passages condemn the practice of forming divisions and splits (airesis) within the Body of Christ. Paul recognizes that genuine Christians can become divided, but he instructs that such practices are works of the flesh, and not a result of life lived in the Spirit.

If this understanding of these two passages is correct, the danger of airesis is not bad theology, but divisions within the Body of Christ. A fight against “heresy” is not a fight against bad doctrine, but against disunity in the church. Certainly, disagreements over doctrine can create division, but the proper response is not to separate from each other over our differences, but to love each other despite our differences.

We will will look at the final passage tomorrow, 2 Peter 2:1. But for now, what do you think of this idea of heresy? Maybe you think that the idea itself is heresy. If so, why? But if you disagree, be careful how you respond, for according to Scripture, divisiveness is the true heresy.

What about speaking in tongues during prayer meetings?

The “I Don’t Know What I’m Saying, So God Will Say it For Me” Prayer

Speaking in Tongues Videos

Do you want to pray like never before?

Let Prayer Meetings Cease

Don’t treat the Lord’s Prayer like a Magical Incantation

Praying with Magic Words

Do you want to pray like never before?

Truth and Love of Jesus

Denying the Lord who Bought Them

Denying the Master who Redeemed Them

Denying Christ

Beware of False Teachers

False Teachers

The Charge of Heresy

Early Church Heresy

The Heresy of Heretics

Heresy in 2 Peter 2:1

Well Said!

Posts

Comments

The Heresy Myth

Heretics Don’t Exist

Scripture on Heresy

Heresy in Acts

Heresy in Paul

Theological Study Archives

Bible Study Archives

Advertise or Donate

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!