My experience has been that God chooses that for me and that he plants me in the church which I go to and he tells me when to leave and go to another.
When I became a Christian I had little idea how to tell a good church from a bad church. There are probably a dozen churches within a 10 minute walk of where I live so it wasn't as if I was faced with a "this isn't a great church but it's the only one for 100 miles" situation. I ruled out a couple because based on my limited understanding at the time I still struggled to reconcile their denominational teachings against Scripture, and then just picked one. My criteria were simple - I wanted to feel welcome, I wanted to feel the presence of God, and I wanted teaching rooted firmly in the Bible. Where Biblical teaching is concerned I want to see the text used in context rather than verses cherrypicked to suit the message. The church I found ticked all three boxes and I'm still a regular after many years.
I understood the context of the thread to be people correcting Christian ministries , not exposing cults and false religions. Issues like tithing have nothing to do with whether a church is a cult.
I see the context as questioning rather than necessarily correcting, although if there is a situation that is in clear error I think we need to be willing to speak up. Galatians 6 talks of restoring a brother who is caught up in something inappropriate (different versions refer to "sin", "trespass", "transgression" etc). What I see in the verse is that if someone is out of line it is for us as a community to restore them, but the crucial issue is to do it lovingly on the basis next time around it might be us that needs that restoration.
I apologize. It was not my intention to put words in your mouth.
Thankyou - reading the rest of your post it does appear we have been talking at cross purposes.
Again I apologize. There is a common sense balance to these things both within the church and in everyday life. If all you are looking for is the right balance , then you and I agree.
The balance is key - if we stray too far one way we become gullible, accepting anything and everything blindly while straying too far the other way results in rejecting everything out of hand without even considering it might have merit.
I can't argue with you there. In thirty years in the church world , I have come across a lot of weird stuff. One way that I have found to minimize it and protect myself is to consider and choose the source carefully. I have my favorite authors, ministries and publishers which have proven themselves over the years. For example , when I see Zondervan published it , I am on guard and know I will have to spit out the bones.
Personally I'd say much the same thing about Destiny Image and Charisma House. Truth be told if I'm reading a book that looks to teach I find it quite a slow process, simply because I'll read it considering the points it makes and if something doesn't ring true I end up reading the verses it quotes, commentaries on the verses, cross-referencing the verses, with a view to determining whether the message it teaches is consistent with Scripture as a whole or is just a theory that can be supported by carefully chosen verses.
Oscar Wilde talked of the way a drunkard uses a lamp-post more for support than illumination. Typically if it appears an author is using Scripture for support while not providing illumination I'll give them a miss.
I was in the church that I got saved in for two and half years. One of the things that they taught me was that if what they taught and what the bible taught say two different things , then I should follow the bible. That eventually caused me to leave that church over the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. That church taught against it.
I was in a place that taught a few things contrary to scripture. But their foundation was sound. They believed and taught to follow scripture but got a few issues wrong. I benefited from the two and half years that I was there. It is where God placed me. I could fill many pages with all the good things that were imparted to me in that church.
But in saying that , I left after two and half years , not after two weeks. I left when God led me to leave and not before.
It's good when a church teaches people to test teachings against the Bible and to follow Scripture rather than their teachings if there is any conflict. Of course if there appears to be a conflict it doesn't hurt to ask the preacher about it, simply because a conflict might just be that we didn't understand one of the sides.
There is a third option. We don't have to expose every contradiction and resolve it all.
I think that falls within the classification of issues - if something is minor we can let it go; if it is major we may need to decide to take a stand. Taking a stand might mean leaving the church, it might mean approaching the minister or the preacher concerned, but if something is major I don't think we do anyone any favours by keeping our heads down and saying nothing.
In the case of an important doctrinal issue such as that , I would leave the church that taught that Jesus is not divine. Come to think of it , I have left a group that taught that.
I guess depending on how long I'd been at the church and what sort of relationship I had with the church I'd either look to just leave, or talk to the minister to express my concerns. That would give me the chance to show them why I thought their teaching was contrary to Scripture, it would give them the chance to clarify if I had misunderstood what they were saying (in a case like this it seems unlikely but you never know), and if the ultimate conclusion was that I left the church it would just tie up the loose ends rather than just disappearing.
Yes , it does. It means to identify what is our responsibility and what is not. There is a difference between responding to cred flags versus looking for something to fight about.
Sure, so if we see teaching that Jesus the man was not divine we might see that as a red flag but if we see a church where we disagree on a minor issue we can just let it lie. The example I always think of is baptism - I believe in baptism of adults by full immersion but I'm not going to refuse to fellowship or worship with someone who believes in sprinkling children.
I think that the stronger method is I pray and have a real relationship with the true God who will lead me out of it.There are warning signs of cults. If I see them , I start praying.
There are warning signs of cults, but often bad teaching is wrapped up with a few selected (and usually twisted) verses from Scripture, so to the unwary it looks like it's Biblical teaching. When the devil tempted Jesus he quoted Scripture accurately, he just quoted it out of context and misapplied it.
I have a heavenly Father who protects me. I disagree with the notion that we have zero trust of someone and then they have to prove themselves before we can trust them. In fact , here is a good point for you to test. What does the scripture teach on this point. And by that I don;t mean a few cherry picked verses. I mean what does it really teach ?
I believe that sound teaching on this subject is that we extend a measure of trust and trust can grow stronger over time. Being suspicious is not a scriptural teaching.
It's 1am here so a little late to expound on this in detail and still address the rest of your post but broadly speaking I'd agree that a total "zero trust until proven worthy" approach is unhelpful but a "total trust until proven unworthy" is probably more unhelpful. Zero trust implies outright rejection of teaching and simply considering that something might be true requires a degree of trust. We have a structure within the church for a reason, although I think we are sometimes prone to create a deeper hierarchy than is helpful.
I'm often inclined to think in terms of what Paul wrote in 1Co 3 about Christ being the foundation and us building on the foundation. If we have a bad idea of Christ then our foundation might be crooked; if we are taught badly then what we build on our foundation is likely to be found wanting when it is tested. I'm sure there's a good reason why James wrote "let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment."
I certainly won't dispute that a degree of trust is necessary from the outset, and that trust grows over time as more trust is earned. At the same time if in the early stages of extending a bit of trust it transpires that a teacher is not aligned with Scripture I would tend to regard their other teachings with more suspicion, and even when dealing with someone who had earned a high degree of trust I would be aware that they may be misguided on some matters (while also being aware it may be me that is misguided, and so looking to discuss to find the truth rather than point fingers and shout "Wrong!")
On a side note....This kind of reminds me of the Christian dating sights which were full of divorcees in their thirties and forties who had made these elaborate schemes to protect themselves. Some of them had literally made very long lists. I found that when trying to get to know someone new and build a relationship , that mistrust and suspicion were turn offs. The reality was that the people with the long lists were imperfect themselves. Ironically , they would have rejected themselves because they did not measure up to their own standards.
I mention this experience because the same justification was given which was to protect themselves. But one did not need a degree in psychology to know that it went well beyond basic safety. It had an edge to it.
Sure, if we're not careful we create a standard so strict that nothing will ever pass it. It might protect us from false teaching but along the way will also keep away sound teaching, just like the people you mention will never have a bad experience because they will never have any experience.
There were the extremes on there. One lady had no radar whatsoever. She would come in the chat room and tell about her latest date and we would all think to ourselves , doesn't this woman have any common sense to see the red flags ? One of her first dates where she went to meet the guy in person that stuck in my mind was the one where the guy was a ventriloquist who insisted in only speaking to her through the dummy and would not speak except through the dummy. To me, that would have been a red flag. For her it took four dates and then he was stalking her and the police had to get involved.
On the opposite extreme, one women who I went out with told me that she had her last boyfriend call her every two hours to check in because she had been wounded by her ex having an affair and she was not going to allow that to happen again. Along with that there was an elaborate emotional mine field where every sentence was examined to try to find some contradiction. That really took the enjoyment out of the first date and hindered the building of a relationship. There was no second date.
These sound very much like the "believe all things" and "reject all things" extremes we might take towards teachings.
I came out of the process just fine and My Heavenly Father protected me through the process and led me to the right relationship in the end. I am now happily married to a fine Christian woman. I attribute this to God directing me and not to my great skills at choosing and protecting myself.
I agree. The problem is with people self appointing themselves to roles that God did not call them to. Which includes appointing myself to a position of heresy hunter.
Also , the process to determine if someone is a cult or false teacher is very short. The context of this thread seems to be correcting Christian ministries , not exposing cults. If we limited ourselves to just exposing cults , then it would resolve most of this fighting and fussing.
Also , this scripture about false teachers was intended for corporate use and not for applying it to every individual. The fact that there is a need in the church for protecting the sheep does not make every Christian a watchdog. In fact the heresy hunter Christians who are self appointed to that role do more harm then good. For example , when Paul wrote to Timothy , an overseer , he was not inviting every individual to take that role of leadership.
Sure, endlessly going out to hunt down things that are wrong is unhelpful, not least because we end up focussing on what is bad rather than on what is good. It makes more sense to study God's word to get to know it and understand it so that we can spot things that don't line up with it, rather than studying this heresy and that deviation so we can see them coming. If we know the truth we can spot anything that doesn't look right while if all we've done is grown adept at spotting one particular false teaching we remain susceptible to the next false teaching.
Although there's a difference between a Christian ministry with errors and a cult I think we need to be careful not to get into a mindset that just figures that a ministry isn't a cult and is therefore not a problem.
This sounds reasonable.
I have to admit that I do the same exact thing.
I think the crucial point here is that if we test all things and find a disagreement we need to consider where the disagreement comes from and which side is wrong. If it's a matter of opinion maybe both sides are right. If it's a situation where both sides are mutually exclusive then at least one is wrong, but it might be that we are wrong and the other guy is right.
Sounds reasonable. If I come home and my wife is wielding a knife and acting crazy , the fact that we have a track record of years of trust will not prevent me from protecting myself in the moment. Maybe she lost her mind or took the wrong medication. Even good people can do bad things sometimes.
I can't imagine my wife doing that but like the analogy
