The Most Common Theological Error in the Western Church Today

Haipule

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That free will exists
AMEN! Did Paul exorcize his "freewill" on the road to Damascus? Did Moses use his freewill to deliver the Jews out of Egypt? Was Jonah using his freewill to be vomited out of a fish onto the shores of Nineveh?

When I took Jesus by the hand, I left my freewill behind as useless excess baggage!
 
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jimmyjimmy

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That free will exists

I would refine that a bit, and say, that Libertarian Free Will exists.

Sinful men are free to choose what sinful men desire; however, sinful men do not desire God, so they cannot (because the *will* not) come to Him.

We have to be careful to explain what we mean when we say that men don't have free will otherwise people think we are saying that people are nothing more than robots or puppets.
 
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Jwlickliter

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AMEN! Did Paul exorcize his "freewill" on the road to Damascus? Did Moses use his freewill to deliver the Jews out of Egypt? Was Jonah using his freewill to be vomited out of a fish onto the shores of Nineveh?

When I took Jesus by the hand, I left my freewill behind as useless excess baggage!

Well yeah Saul used freewill. If he didn't he would have murdered every last Christian he found.

What's separates him from everyone else was the fact that his whole life was for God. He thought he was doing what God wanted and saw the Christians with a false profit destroying his religion. Pentaly was death.

So on that road to Damascus he also showed freewill. He had to change his name to Paul to show Christians that he well came in peace cause if they knew who he was they would run.

Paul showed a lot of freewill cause everything that man went thru. Well I may have quit and hide in the mountains. Not cause of lack of faith but really you want that life? I'm glad Paul did it but his faith and freewill kept him going. Lots of people would have failed. Guess that's why God choose him.
 
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rjs330

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I think the most common theological error I see is deciding that the Bible does not really mean what it says and says what it means. It's the liberal theology that seeks to make the OT nothing but a bunch of tables and the NT writers truly ignorant. This is far too common , but not eternally dangerous to the believer because your salvation is not based on it. Although it could be said that it is dangerous to the unbeliever as this theology plays right into many unbelievers hands and gives them another excuse why they shouldn't trust that the Bible says.

The most DANGEROUS theology is the theology that says we can live sinful lives and still be saved. That we do not have to strive for holiness and obedience, but can live however we want and still get to heaven in the end. It's dangerous because eternal souls are at stake.
 
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Haipule

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Well yeah Saul used freewill. If he didn't he would have murdered every last Christian he found.

What's separates him from everyone else was the fact that his whole life was for God. He thought he was doing what God wanted and saw the Christians with a false profit destroying his religion. Pentaly was death.

So on that road to Damascus he also showed freewill. He had to change his name to Paul to show Christians that he well came in peace cause if they knew who he was they would run.

Paul showed a lot of freewill cause everything that man went thru. Well I may have quit and hide in the mountains. Not cause of lack of faith but really you want that life? I'm glad Paul did it but his faith and freewill kept him going. Lots of people would have failed. Guess that's why God choose him.
Sorry, yes you are right, Paul was using his freewill just to be on that road! However, he was stopped without a choice. And he did hide for awhile.

Unless anyone thinks, "I set before you life and death"; yeah, as if that death thing is such a great choice!
 
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Jwlickliter

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Sorry, yes you are right, Paul was using his freewill just to be on that road! However, he was stopped without a choice. And he did hide for awhile.

Unless anyone thinks, "I set before you life and death"; yeah, as if that death thing is such a great choice!

Yeah I can't say at all if there was a list of people for Paul's job. It was really powerful in his face. But so was Jesus to the jews. Did you understand Jesus well mostly when you read the bible 1st time?

I do know Paul was at the top of the list. If there was one.
 
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Haipule

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The most DANGEROUS theology is the theology that says we can live sinful lives and still be saved.
Agreed! But, actually if we look at "saved" as deliverance unto God's promised zOE-life, right here, right now, within our own living lives before God, in spite of circumstance, hardships, persecutions, stresses, straights; then "sinful", or rather wayward, off-course, wrong-way would be counter productive, useless and an impossible vehicle!
 
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Haipule

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Yeah I can't say at all if there was a list of people for Paul's job. It was really powerful in his face. But so was Jesus to the jews. Did you understand Jesus well mostly when you read the bible 1st time?

I do know Paul was at the top of the list. If there was one.
The first thing I was taught about Jesus was from my mother starting before I could read. And yes, I understood what she meant. Jesus was my bestest but invisible Friend. I would take Him out on bike rides and show Him all the beauty, all the totally cool, all the curious things I see and have a chat. I think I charmed Him. We've been bestest friends ever since. And now, I'm His favorite! :)
 
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Jwlickliter

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The first thing I was taught about Jesus was from my mother starting before I could read. And yes, I understood what she meant. Jesus was my bestest but invisible Friend. I would take Him out on bike rides and show Him all the beauty, all the totally cool, all the curious things I see and have a chat. I think I charmed Him. We've been bestest friends ever since. And now, I'm His favorite! :)

Whoa that is so awesome. As a child I cussed a lot around friends. Well I was a bad kid and said gd a lot. So one day I made a promise to God no strings attach I will stop saying that for 1 year. I wanted to do that for God. Must have heard something the preacher said?

Well I failed after 3 days. So I wanted to do it again same deal. Not really a deal I'm doing it for him.

I went over a year.
 
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Haipule

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Whoa that is so awesome. As a child I cussed a lot around friends. Well I was a bad kid and said gd a lot. So one day I made a promise to God no strings attach I will stop saying that for 1 year. I wanted to do that for God. Must have heard something the preacher said?

Well I failed after 3 days. So I wanted to do it again same deal. Not really a deal I'm doing it for him.

I went over a year.
Bet your glad that years over! I couldn't do it! I mean Geez,...see what I mean? :)

When I was 16 my mother married a pastor of a non-denomination church. A man I met when I was 9. I went hog heaven into his library! Well, that's my excuse! :)
 
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Jwlickliter

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Bet your glad that years over! I couldn't do it! I mean Geez,...see what I mean? :)

When I was 16 my mother married a pastor of a non-denomination church. A man I met when I was 9. I went hog heaven into his library! Well, that's my excuse! :)

Lol that's funny. I'm going to bed now. Not my usual hour. Send me a friends request.
 
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Quasiblogo

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How about maybe self-flagellation of the intellectual kind? Concepts of individual freedom have caused westerners, and I think western Christians, to spin their wheels lamenting weaknesses and hypocrisies to the point of not focusing on what drives truth, and for Christians, what drives the Faith of the Body, and by extension, the individual. This type of political correctness hamstrings faith-expression and paints a weak Deity for young people--who are not impressed.
 
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Yeshua HaDerekh

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I guess I gave a response you were not expecting...
Ok I guess you want a more amplified answer so let me at least explain the verses you posed, as I understand them.
Now in John 1: 1-14 and I guess you meant John 1:1-2 and 14 in particular it speaks of the plan of God for our salvation eventually becoming a reality in the human being call Jesus Christ. That occurred over 2000 years ago. He actually became the actual plan and its execution with God's help, all the way. THey worked as a team with the same purpose. As it says in scripture, I and he are one....You see before Jesus was born, God Almighty created his plans for creation and mankind and executed them by Himself as it says near the begnning of John 1. Now his plan for our salvation was to be done with the aid of a human being. God could not execute this plan of mankinds' salvation alone for obvious reasons I hope you understand....last Adam, perfect sacrifice etc. He required another human being - 100% man...
Early scribes, interpreters of scripture and religious men of the early centuries were mainly pagan and were not necessaeily true Christains. This is important to know. Do not assume that spirit of truth guided their thoughts and pens to paper.
You see they got the English term 'word' all wrong especially when they connected John 1:1-2 with John 1:14. A mistake I believe escalated with more errors to suppor the intial lie of the meaning of the term 'word,' to where they had Jesus being God and the creator of all things. ..they had it all wrong and because of pride and politics kept it and it became the 'a religious law.' Many true Christians rebelled and many were either executed or exiled.
Now the term translated into English as 'word' came from the Greek temn logos. It is used hundreds of times in the NT and never does it mean the human being called Jesus. And originally all the letters of Greek scriptures were written without space and commas and in uppercase. The translators chose to make this particualr 'word' capital Word for emphasis and importance as they thought.
BL here: Jesus Christ should never have been called the same as God the Creator and his Father. Jesus Christ should have been called the instrument and the executor of God's plan for our salvation - called the gospel (logos). This word, this particular plan of God with Jesus' crucial participation later was called the word of God (life) as Revelation and some other areas say. Jesus successfully completed his mission and plan of God for our salvation jointly with God himself. (The word became flesh)
Now for Matthew 28:18:
Yes it does say that authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus by God Almighty. So what is your point? What this verse means is that Jesus was definitely not God. Since Jesus' anoiting with the FULLNESS of the spirit of God right after his baptism God slowly and progressively gave authority to Jesus, as a 100% human being. He started with giving authority to perform miracles to heal the sick and drive out evil spirits, then he was given authority to forgive sin, then to raise the dead, then all authority...you see it was necessary because of his future assignment and work in heaven for God Almighty. He was ready to ascend to God his Father and ours.
Breifly then this is the significance of Jesus being the Christ, the anointed one. In the OT there are many examples of people being anointed to perform a service or act for God. He empowered them with spirtual power to complete a mission for him. It is no different for Christains as we are anonited with the spirit of Truth. Jesus was anointed with the entire suite of power or Spirit (with a capital) of God. That is an awesome event. No human being before or after Jesus was given such an anointing. God actually was within Jesus the human being he created via the virgin Mary. As if Jesus was' possessed' by the only holy and good spirit in the entire universe and creation. Jesus yielded his own human spirit to God's spirit and allowed God to operate within him - demonstrated at his baptism for righteousness. Jesus actually heard the word(s) of God speaking within him as heacted on them and completed his mission on earth at the cross. God raised him to eternal life and Jesus today is visually like an angel in form ( as scriture says) and still has the full suite of God's spirit within him doing God's work. He is in God and God is in him as scripture says.
.....till later
Bless you

I know there are people that believe such things...they were called heresies in the early Church. You believe He was a created being and only human, yet Scripture says He existed eternally with The Father (Colossians 1:17, John 3:13).
 
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hedrick

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You mean John Calvin known as a "reformer" who couldn't study the autographed language of Scripture who went to the Eastern Orthodox side of the Great Schism whom do speak Greek whom also extended their welcoming hand to him in his studies and then John Calvin bit their hand off and gave them a slap in the face for their efforts! You mean that guy?
The biographies I checked say that he learned Greek in college.
 
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AlexDTX

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Thank you for recognizing my right. 500yrs ago I would have been burned at the stake by the church for saying that. Yet, I want to go yet a step further with pneuma.

logos is word(s) that reveals intellect. When your studying God's logos, you are breathing in God's pneuma-breath. When you speak it, you are exhaling pneuma-breath. Yet, theology corrupts that pneuma with it's own logos. So, everything they say smells and sounds like a fart to me and all I can do is ask, "Would you like a breath mint!"

By corrupting God's pneuma-breath with "Spirit"... (Excerpt from the Kindle eBook Wake Up Call: William McCoy) Used by permission

By turning God’s pure breath and breathing into the so-called “Holy Spirit”, they hide from man his only means of being cleansed and purified. Since the invented Holy Spirit was a so-called person of God, all the characteristics of the word hagiasmos were associated only with God. So, when it came down to understanding how man fit into this picture, man had to be somehow separated from the world and that separation is taught as “sanctification”. When we keep God’s instructions for the zOE-life as commanded and study His word, breathe His breath, we are then being cleansed and purified. We then own that state of being. Ain’t it Good!

Man is cleansed with [ ]bath of renovation when he breathes the pure pneuma-breath of God, the theopnustos God-breathed written Scripture of the water of God’s Word: and also that which we can understand of it through the experiences of our promised abundant breathing zOE-life! Which life is built upon the resultant cleansed state of hagiasmos(purification).

because it is written, " YOU(-all) SHALL BE HOLY(pure, unique), FOR I(God) AM HOLY(pure, unique)." 1 Pet 1:16 NASB (quoting Lev 19:2)

For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification(hagiasmos-resultant state of being purified, or purification used as the opposite of the previous word “impurity”). 1 Thess 4:7 NASB See how silly?

Hyper-Literal: Yet we(Paul, Silvanus, Timothy) ought to-be-thanking to-thee God always concerning you-all(call-out-ones of Thessalonica) Brethren!, you-all-having-been-agapE-loved under [ ]of-authority, He(God)-preferred you-all, thee God, that from [ ]of-beginning unto deliverance(noun of action), [ ]to-purification(hagiasmos) of-pneuma-breath and-also [ ]to-trust of-truth(noun of action). 2 Thess 2:13

So you see boys and girls, we are processed, rescued or delivered, into the resultant state of being purified through the study of God’s pure pneuma-breath, the God-breathed Scripture, which cleanses us and makes us unique so that we can live zOE-life through faith-noun from the source of truth in freedom from the tyrants of earth and instead live in God’s kingdom. (end excerpt)

I ask you: having vomited theology out of my mouth, shall return like a dog and see if I can pick out some tasty chunks? And, having been cleansed and purified (hagiosmos) by the logos of God's pneuma-breath, shall I return to wallow in the mud like a pig?

Your faith is based upon natural academic understanding. I have no doubt that you have the new birth but it seems you would benefit from the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Your view would drastically change after that.
 
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