It's All Part Of Maturing

Deut 12:29-13:19 ERV said:

29 “You are going to take your land from other people. The Lord your God will destroy these people for you. You will force them out of that land, and then you will live there. 30 But be careful that you don’t fall into the same trap they did! Don’t go to their false gods for help. Don’t say to yourself, ‘They worshiped these gods, so I will worship them too.’ 31 Don’t do that to the Lord your God! These people do all kinds of bad things that the Lord hates. They even burn their children as sacrifices to their gods!

32 “You must be careful to do everything I command you. Don’t add anything to what I tell you, and don’t take anything away.

Don’t Serve Other Gods
13 “A prophet or someone who explains dreams might come to you and tell you that they will show you a sign or a miracle. 2 And the sign or miracle they told you about might come true. Then they might ask you to follow other gods (gods you don’t know) and say to you, ‘Let’s serve these gods!’ 3 Don’t listen to them, because the Lord your God is testing you. He wants to know if you love him with all your heart and all your soul. 4 You must follow the Lord your God. Respect him. Obey his commands and do what he tells you. Serve the Lord your God, and never leave him. 5 Also, you must kill that prophet or person who explains dreams, because they told you to turn against the Lord your God. And it was the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. They tried to pull you away from the life he commanded you to live, so you must kill them to remove this evil from your people.

6 “Someone close to you might secretly persuade you to worship other gods. It might be your own brother, your son, your daughter, the wife you love, or your closest friend. They might say, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods.’ (These are gods that you and your ancestors never knew. 7 They are the gods of the people who live in the other lands around you, some near and some far away.) 8 You must not agree with them. Don’t listen to them or feel sorry for them. Don’t let them go free or protect them. 9-10 No, you must kill them with stones. You be the first one to pick up stones and throw at them. Then everyone must throw stones to kill them, because they tried to pull you away from the Lord your God. And it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. 11 Then all the Israelites will hear about it and be afraid. And they will not do those evil things any more.

12 “The Lord your God has given you cities to live in. Sometimes you might hear some bad news about one of these cities. You might hear that 13 some troublemakers from your own nation are persuading the people of their city to do bad things. They might say to the people of their city, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods.’ (These gods would be gods that you never knew before.) 14 If you hear this kind of news, you must do all you can to learn if it is true. If you learn that it is true, if you prove that such a terrible thing really did happen, 15 then you must kill all the people of that city and their animals too. You must destroy that city completely. 16 You must gather up everything of value and take it to the center of the city. Burn the whole city and everything in it as a burnt offering to the Lord your God. You must turn that city into an empty pile of rocks forever, and that city must never be rebuilt. 17 Everything in that city must be destroyed as an offering to God. So you must not keep any of the things for yourselves. If you follow this command, the Lord will stop being so angry with you. He will be kind to you. He will feel sorry for you. He will let your nation grow larger, as he promised your ancestors. 18 This will happen if you listen to the Lord your God—if you obey all his commands that I give you today. You must do what the Lord your God says is right.

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I'll let you read todays portion on your own, but I would like to focus on the part that talks about if a Prophet or someone explains dreams comes to you and they tell you something that comes true then asks you to follow them after some other god that you do not know"

I think there is a lot of people in the world today who are gifted with the ability to prophesy or interpret dreams. I do believe that prophesy and dream interpretation is a real gifting but I'm not so sure that as many people operate in them legitimately as claim to. Many of them, when you start listening to them, if you know your scriipture, are teaching things contrary to what God instructs and they tell their listeners that God gave them a vision or an understanding of a scriptue, etc., that has them leading people away from what God says.

One solid rule to follow is that if God said something, and He made sure it got into scripture, and He says it's forever, then someone coming along telling you God showed them something different is lying. They may not understand that what they're saying is untrue but none the less they are. Don't follow them.

Now to add to that, also be sure that you understand what it is they are saying. Sometimes I have misunderstood what was said and only through determined and thorough discussion have come to understand what they were saying and it wasn't anti scripture at all, just my misunderstanding. Some mis-teachings are very blatent though, and you should run away as quickly as possible. Listening and reasoning is an art that I personally have not found many people to have. People tend to be thinking of their answer and not listening to the other persons answer and everything just goes in circles. Listening is just as important as having an answer. The other person may be correct.

So, it's important to know your scriptures. Not just one-liners from here and there that can be forced into any subject but the full context of a scripture. Who was being talked to, what's the culture behind the speakers and the hearers? The Bible did not originate from the Western thinking world...it's important to keep that in mind.

From being well studied we can be ready when we encounter situations where we don't know what to do but can draw from what happened in the scriptures and how the godly response supplied the answer to our situation. It's all part of maturing.