On the topic of false teachers.
Scripture teaches a false teacher is known by their fruits. Not merely by their teaching.
What kind of fruits? Fruits of love.
One then must define love here, yet no one can really determine if another is doing it out of love, or not unless the definition of love is truly biblical. Note Jesus in Luke 11:37-54, rebuking those in false self-righteousness and false religion.
Was that loving? We shouldn't answer this prematurely.
It is noted that Paul also employed very strong language for false teachers. He rebuked the Galatians sharply for their lapse, calling them moronic, or ignorant &c. He also encouraged pastors to be rebuke others, sharply; Titus, 2 Timothy 4. He wished that the false teachers in Galatia would be emasculated. He accursed false teachers with an anathema. He talked of false teachers as practicing evil deeds.
Jude employed this strong language as well. And Peter. And James. And John. And Jude. And the author of Hebrews. In fact, all true prophets OT and NT have done this throughout Scripture, and they've all been called "unloving."
Somehow people in churches know how they should have behaved. Huge eye log going on right about there.
I believe each of these did their ministries out of love. Here is why I believe it is love: The target audiences needed the rebuke, they are not to be recipients of a false definition of love at this point. The rebukes they received were out of love, even though God did this through His prophets who conveyed anger. Look at all the descriptive, demeaning, and derogatory language used on God's people throughout the OT. From God Himself through His prophets.
This is why people in churches see God as different in the OT and NT, yet God is immutable.
The recipients of love are those being protected by this open rebuke and display which some would label as unloving. The false teachers and teachings are receiving, justly, what is deserved. Love is then being demonstrated as a protective measure and warning to others. Today's church would deem these as "unloving" because culture has redefined what true love is.
And it's not Biblical love.
What has changed then is our definition of love, that is, if we deem any anger in the persons words we automatically consider it unloving. This is simply untrue. Then we switch places with the other and grow a log in our own eye and become their judge and condemn them, and see ourselves as loving.
And we do this to the OT prophets, Christ, Paul, Jude, James because we must consistently apply our definition of what is love to all, or, we are being hypocrites with double standards.
But all of this is a result of a truncated gospel and the domestication of God. Anything harsh must be removed from the Gospel. All offense must be erased. We know better than God and will paint everything beautiful, and loving, and sweet. Truths about God are to be removed, because some may become appalled by the truth of the Person they think they know.
Sovereignty, election, reprobation, selective mercy, damnation, eternal hell, it all must be removed. Those things aren't loving. ANyone who preaches these things "are the false teacher" because "they aren't doing it out of love" because someone determined this to be so out of a faulty understanding of Biblical love.
So if someone is calling another a "false teacher" and not doing it out of love.
It is they who are the false teacher.
Hmmm. I'd think that through a whole bunch and consider what Biblical love really is. Any true preaching today, preaching on warning, rebuking sin, exposing false teachers, appropriately representing all the attributes of God, including those unpopular and uncomfortable is seen as "unloving." We must rid said preachers and gather to ourselves preachers we like; 2 Timothy 4.
This is why Jesus says check your own eyeballs for logs before checking other's for specks.
Maybe we do this ourselves by our false assumption of what it means to do things out of what
we think is love.
With a lot more thought, truth, and work, yes, the last above may be true when properly applied. But the above is typically pulled out on those who unashamedly preach the word, expose error, warn others, and like the OT prophets endure the onslaught and ire of others for doing so.
...And i do also learn from what you post, it`s refreshing and makes me dig deeper, i will pray for you and EG, you also need to step down from the fighting, you may not think it`s fighting, but from where i look from it is...xox...
