828 Ministries Weekend Devotional The Prince of Bible Mangling - Playing with Kitchen Knives & Running with Scissors January 4, 2015 Snippet From Devotional: Occasionally I will flip through the religious stations just to keep up with all the latest false teachings. This morning I stopped at the Destined to Reign program of Joseph Prince, the king of eisegesis. That is a fancy word for reading your pre-formed bias into the biblical text and no one does it as breathtakingly often as Joseph Prince. That is because he no longer preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead he preaches what he refers to as the gospel of grace. That there is a grace revolution that God has divinely imparted just to him. It is an old heresy known as antinomianism, which teaches that the law has no place in the life of a believer. So now when Prince approaches the Bible it is not to hear what sayeth the Lord but rather to strip mine it to prop up his false gospel. The problem is that he needs to go deeper and deeper because he has preached so many times already on the obvious grace passages. The deeper he goes, the greater the stretch he has to make to have it fit with his pre-formed bias. This mornings message came to us from Lakewood Church, where Prince was a guest speaker for Joel Osteen; a perfect storm of falseness. Instead of going through point by point, I will highlight some of the more obvious examples that demonstrate that Joseph Prince is not only dangerous but is disqualified from handling the Word of God. First to defend the ministry of Joel Osteen, Prince offers up for us John chapters three and four. He said God told him to look at them side by side. This is a staple of Prince preaching. To deflect anyone from questioning him, everything he preaches he claims is divinely given to him by God directly and audibly. Apparently, God has Joseph on His speed dial. In looking at John three we see the interaction Jesus had with Nicodemus and in John four we see His interaction with the woman at the well. To Prince, Osteens ministry is akin to the way Jesus dealt with the woman at the well. He said with Nicodemus Jesus had to be all precise and theological. This is because Nicodemus was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Jesus had to explain about being born again. But with the woman, there was no mention of being born again! It was much more simpler. It was just about drinking from rivers of living water - hallelujah pass the offering plate! So in the theologically bankrupt mind of Joseph Prince, Joel Osteens ministries are like this because he just tells it plain. He just reaches out to anyone who needs it. Theology? Nah - save that for the Pharisees! Wow, the arrogance is staggering. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. - 1Timothy 4: 16 (NIV) Hmm, seems that God is disagreeing with Pastor Prince. It seems doctrine is vital for the very salvation of the listeners. Where did Prince go wrong? For starters it is ludicrous to read into these two exchanges the purpose behind the two conversations but if you insist then you should start with the obvious. Nicodemus was engaging Jesus in a specific conversation and the issue of living water may have come up with the woman because they were at a well! Jesus starts the conversation by asking her to draw water for Him. To use these stories to try and suggest that a preacher today can be fine without sound doctrine and theology is beyond asinine. Yet that is the entire point here. Prince wanted to prop up his friend but recognized that Joel Osteen is a doctrine-free zone. Next up, Prince drags out an old heresy of his when he tries to teach about the need to not mix grace and law. To prove his point he travels to Revelation: “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. - Revelation 3: 15-16 (ESV) This is the opening salvo of Jesus Christ against the Church at Laodicea. It is pretty straightforward. Jesus prefers either hot or cold. Why? Well when you are hot for Jesus, that is self explanatory. There is a fire burning. A zeal for the Lord and the things of the Lord. If you are cold however, you can still come to Him. If you do nothing for God you can still see your need at some point. But when you are lukewarm beloved - that is a dangerous place to be. Of all the seven churches mentioned in Revelation, this one most closely resembles where we are in modern Christianity. We think that we are rich but we are poor. We think we are prosperous but we are wretched. We think we can see but we are blind. This is the point Jesus is trying to make. The cold person can still come to the point of needing Christ but the lukewarm person thinks they are already there when they are not! Jesus once taught that when we convince ourselves that the darkness within us is really light - how deep is that darkness. Just try having a biblical conversation with someone sitting under blatant false teaching. You will be greeted with verse fragments ripped out of context, accusations of discord, and general disdain. People like their lukewarm-ness. They bathe in it. That said, what does Prince do with these verses? 828ministries/articles/The-Prince-of-Bible-Mangli-by-Anthony-Wade-Religion_Spirit-150104-288.html
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 19:50:39 +0000
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