what is WOF???

[SavedByGrace3]

Unfortunately, we all get out of balance very easily. The Word of Faith teachers tend to downplay or ignore the passages that talk about suffering, hardships and privations.

I agree that we do this. But it is not because we want to ignore the suffering hardships or privations... it is because these things are self evident in the lives of all believers. We do not have to teach anyone how to get sufferings. We do not have to instruct people into the hardships of life. They are there without any help from us. What people need is instruction on how to get saved from these pits. The difference, T7, is that WOF does not equate suffering with holiness or godliness, and does not view pain as a means of spiritual development. There are no "gifts of sickness" listed in the scripture. No workings of poverty. For good reason. We do not need deliverance from health and we do not need our prosperity cast out. Jesus never sickened anyone for any purpose.

They have seen that God is a good God, that He gets glory when people are healed and blessed, that the body of Christ should be a victorious, overcoming body of Spirit-empowered men and women, that the kingdom manifests itself in healing and prosperity... but they are so caught up with these truths that they are sometimes blinded to the other side of Christianity; the crosses, the sacrifices, the cost of discipleship.

Are we saying that these crosses are sicknesses? If we sacrifice, what is it that we sacrifice and to what end? Do we sacrifice the health and even the lives of our children for.... what ? Is there a cost of discipleship that includes health and prosperity? Where does it say "You can be a child of God but it will cost you your health. Who said "You must be poor to be a good Christian"? At what point do these crosses, sacrifices, and discipleship payments become dead works? What is it that we have to add to the work of Christ? What is it that He failed to provide for us in the atonement? What spiritual blessing is He withholding that sickness would acquire for you? What divine attribute do we achieve for ourselves by a life of poverty and lack? What do we imagine He is withholding from us that our suffering will provoke Him to let loose?
It is more than Him just being a good God. It is a matter of Him being a finished God. He has done all he is going to do toward our spiritual salvation, growth, and ultimate perfection. He has nothing left to give... it is all in our hands in Christ. There is nothing left for Him to do.... He has done it all in Christ. All that remains to be done is for us to believe what He hath done. If we imagine that we have to be sick and impoverished in order to grow and mature... then you have what you believe. If you insist on going to the promise land via the wilderness, then that is up to you. You could make the straight shot by just believing the word of God and accepting the promises as being true! The Jews failed to enter into the promises, not because of a lack of religiosity, but simply because they did not accept the promises of God at face value and march on in! Point is this.... even after all that suffering, sickness, and poverty.... your are still only going to please God by faith. You can only approach Him by faith. You can only acquire the promises of God by faith. You only grow spiritually by faith, that is: believing what Christ has done for us in His death, burial and resurrection. There is nothing you can add to or append to the work of God in Christ. All your suffering is in vain. When you get done with it, you will find yourself standing in front of the same door you would have if you had just believed to start with. You are still going to enter in by faith.
So then why do believers suffer? Oddly it is to shed them of these very concepts. If you stop believing in the imagined virtues of sickness and poverty, then you will no longer feel bound to endure them. As long as you treasure sickness and poverty as your religious method of bypassing the work of God that was started and completed in Christ, then you will be subject to them. Some even allow this religiosity to take them to the grave... never realizing that this tool they thought was perfecting them was only killing them.
This is the great leap that WOF has made away from tradition and false religion. We have decided to believe God even when it seems to good to be true. That is why it is called good news.

 

[vanshan]

Is Charles Capps WOF? He talks about the tongue as a creative force that can change things physically, with us rather than God as the director of miracle power?? He does say we have to be in line with God's will, but he puts us in the drivers seat. To me, this seems to make faith like some physical law that we can control. Does Hagan and Kenyon teach this also?

 

[Theophilus7]

Is Charles Capps WOF? He talks about the tongue as a creative force that can change things physically, with us rather than God as the director of miracle power?? He does say we have to be in line with God's will, but he puts us in the drivers seat. To me, this seems to make faith like some physical law that we can control. Does Hagan and Kenyon teach this also?

Capps is on the extreme side of Word of Faith. Victoryword can probably give you more information than I can. I'm more familiar with Hagin/Copeland than the others. But to the best of my knowledge, the ranking in reasonably moderate to rather extreme goes something like this:

<--- more moderate more extreme ---->
Kenyon......Hagin Jr...Hagin Sr (rip) ...........Fred Price...Copeland....Creflo Dollar..........Charles Capps

Regarding the confession doctrine, the WoF belief is that the Word of God, when mixed with faith, is made efficacious in our lives by verbal confession. All of the Word of Faith teachers teach this.

Regarding Capps' teaching putting men in the driving seat, it seems that, whatever the individual teachers may bring to it, Word of Faith theology has inherited a certain amount of humanism from its historical tributaries (See Ken Blue: Authority to Heal: Faith Formula). The amount of sway this influence has on WoF teaching seems to depend a great deal upon the individual and his better instincts. Some are more resistant to it than others, I think. Pentecostalism and Arminianism have always tended to over-emphasise human responsibility. Couple this with the WoF principle that God has already done all He is going to do about our wellbeing and the problems you allude to are inevitable. But again, it depends on the teacher. Some take things further than others.

Perhaps my Word of Faith friends would say there is more emphasis on Spirit-led confessions these days?

God bless.

 

[LivingWorship]

Bravo Theo

Wow, what a balanced argument!!! Mate I agree... WOF isn't all bad anymore than Pentecostals are all good or Catholics or whatever! I still maintain I can't bring myself to agree with the entire doctrine, but if all WOFers would adpot your loving attitude... this is how we should be debating!! Kudos man! God bless!!

 

[Theophilus7]

Hello didaskalos,

Thanks for writing. I wish I had more time to discuss this with you. Nevertheless, I shall try to get some thoughts across quickly.

In our brief exchanges in the past I have already pointed to scriptures like Romans 5:3-5 and 2Cor. 1:8-10 as a biblical witness of the spiritual good that suffering can produce in us. I shall not, on this occasion, exegete any more passages. Instead, I shall share some thoughts about what I perceive to be the chief obstacle between us; the nature and extent of the new birth experience.

Essentially, you contend that our conformity into the image of Christ is based upon a one-off decision to receive a spiritual makeover. God will do it all, we just need to say 'yes', and there you have it! (I hope I have understood you correctly on this). Here is where we disagree. I would, along with most Christians, I think, understand the new birth as the beginning, not the end. "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it" (Php. 1:6). I would also emphasise continual cooperation as part of the means of getting to that end. And this leads me into my second point.

Besides my belief in the progressive nature of our salvation - 'I was saved, I am being saved, I will be saved' - we may well find ourselves in disagreement over just how that change takes place. That salvation changes people I think we will agree. But in every process of change there is something that endures unchanged, otherwise "you" could not have been said to change. Here again I suspect we meet a point of contention. God could, with our permission, simply zap us into the image of His Son. In other words, God could get rid of "you" and create a whole new person in your place that looked just like you, after you have given him 'permission'.

I would like to suggest to you that He does no such thing. God has chosen, for reasons best known to Himself, to populate a planet with people that He has given 'free will', but who have used their free will badly and become very depraved. The kind of change He requires in them is radical, holistic -- far-reaching. But He refuses to effect this change without their cooperation because He wants free lovers. And He cannot simply make a new man because it is these people He wants to redeem! Nor will it do Him any good to ask them to sign a slip (a death warrant, in fact) so He can effectively obliterate them and erect in their place a clever copy that will behave in a more pleasing manner. All these possibilities run contrary to His original intentions in creation. None of them, in fact, are real options.

Thus the path God has chosen, perhaps the only path there ever could have been, is a long one and a hard one. Inch by inch, that self-centred man must willingly submit to change. His will itself must be turned, and turn itself, inside out. God gives the power, but man must respond and go on responding. And how is he to move from being a human-centred to a God-centred creature once again? By persistently choosing God's will and denying Himself. And if there is to be a real choice between self and God, between my will and 'thy will', there must of necessity be a sufficient dichotomy in the content of the two wills. (So what if you submitted to God's will when it pleased you. Anyone might have done the same!) In truth, it is when the God-choices are wholly unpleasant to my comfort, my desires and my ambitions, when there is no good reason for obeying the divine demand other than the simple fact that God Himself has said it, standing in stark relief against a bleak landscape that has suddenly been emptied of all familiar sights and sounds and pleasing smells, and that choice is made again, and again, that salvation is waxing strong and powerful.

It hurts. It has to. It cannot do anything but hurt! - to wrench the will from its self-centred moorings and accept discomfort. None of that pain is 'very good' in itself, but it is the raw material God uses for those selfless choices. God gets no kicks out of seeing His people suffer! He's no sadist - quite the reverse. "At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore!" But the problem is, He really loves us. You wanted a loving God, and you've got one - a God who not only loves us, but wants to make us more loveable, and is willing to suffer our discipline - our 'house-training', if you like - as He restores us to the place He created us for.

Well, this took me a lot longer to write than I expected. Maybe I shall get a chance to write some more later. There is much in this post that needs qualifying, but I'm out of time.

God bless folks.

 

[Theophilus7]

Bravo Theo

Wow, what a balanced argument!!! Mate I agree... WOF isn't all bad anymore than Pentecostals are all good or Catholics or whatever! I still maintain I can't bring myself to agree with the entire doctrine, but if all WOFers would adpot your loving attitude... this is how we should be debating!! Kudos man! God bless!!

Thank you for the encouragement, LivingWorship.

I'm glad you're seeing more good in WoF than you did before. But I shouldn't want you to accept all their theology, for the good reason that I don't accept parts of it! We're all still learning, anyway...

God bless.

 

[riverpastor]

I used to preach against "confession for confession's sake" which I saw regularly in the full gospel church I used to attend. We called it "Copeland-Hagin stuff" (which if you're from the south you may recognize as closely resembling a brand of tobacco called Copenhagen Snuff). Because I used to watch people walk by someone else's car, lay hands on it and "claim it" as their own through confession of their faith.

Years later, in revival, God changed my whole paradigm around concerning the working of the Word and the Spirit in regards to a Christian's faith. This revelation came directly from my communion and intimacy with God.

It wasn't until later that I found the teachings of E.W. Kenyon and the notes rang true in witness to my spirit. I attended Ministry School in Florida for a short term and I know that the Lord sent me there for a specific reason.

The Lord revealed the New Covenant to me in a way I never knew it. It unfolded before me as a flower at daybreak. The Covenant became the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

After that, I understood how the Word works with the Spirit in our lives. The Word, the Spirit and the Father agree in heaven. An incredible OT verse of scripture is found in Psalm 119:89 - "Forever, Oh Lord, Thy Word is SETTLED in heaven".

(See teaching at yahoo groups ----> Deeper_Life)

What I found is that critics of WoF may not clearly understand these things. Yes, I know WoF'ers who believe in the doctrine of confession but the only basis that their faith rests upon is the teachers that they listen to. So they confess and confess and confess but have no spiritual revelation as to why confession is made.

The thing that I love about Kenyon is that he understood and taught the Covenant and elementary values of faith in regards to confession, NOT just confession for confession's sake.

He didn't just blindly come up with some kind of "feel good" doctrine. He walked boldly in Covenant with God as we should all expect to in the Kingdom. When you've been with God and you understand what His character and nature and heart is like, you know that you can assert yourself by faith in areas where it needs to be asserted.

Blessings,

rp

 

[victoryword]

Excellent Post RiverPastor. That one encouraged my heart big time.

 

[Jim B]

With bodies so sick we can't stand to preach? With bank accounts so broke we can't afford to leave our little homes? 'I'm sorry, old chap, but I'm just too busy suffering for Jesus to go and preach the gospel at the moment... check on me later, when I've lost a few more teeth and I'm spitting blood. Maybe then I'll be spiritual enough' .

Theo,

This is an unfair cartoon characterization of non-WOFers. It is the old best-defense-is-a-good-offense ploy in debate and it is a stinky red herring to draw us away from more central issues.

Non-WOFers do not believe that poverty is synonymous with spirituality but neither are they in denial of the fact that Christians are sometimes poor and/or sick (WOFers are just as prone as non-W’s) and sometimes the WOF doctrine doesn’t work. I know too many instances to be convinced otherwise.

I simply believe your approach and interpretation of certain proof texts is inadequate and I believe you ignore a vast amount of scripture that refutes your claims. I have posted such scriptures all over this forum and have yet to have an honest rebuttal of a single one of them. If you like, I’ll hunt ‘em up and post ‘em again.

Instead, characterizations and generalizations (attacks and red herrings) are leveled at us as though we are somehow deficient intellectually.

It is very frustrating and sure limits honest debate.

Jim

 

[Theophilus7]

Theo,

This is an unfair cartoon characterization of non-WOFers. It is the old best-defense-is-a-good-offense ploy in debate and it is a stinky red herring to draw us away from more central issues.

Non-WOFers do not believe that poverty is synonymous with spirituality but neither are they in denial of the fact that Christians are sometimes poor and/or sick (WOFers are just as prone as non-W’s) and sometimes the WOF doctrine doesn’t work. I know too many instances to be convinced otherwise.

I simply believe your approach and interpretation of certain proof texts is inadequate and I believe you ignore a vast amount of scripture that refutes your claims. I have posted such scriptures all over this forum and have yet to have an honest rebuttal of a single one of them. If you like, I’ll hunt ‘em up and post ‘em again.

Instead, characterizations and generalizations (attacks and red herrings) are leveled at us as though we are somehow deficient intellectually.

It is very frustrating and sure limits honest debate.

Jim

If you would care to read my other posts, JimB, you will find I say a great deal more about suffering, some of which WoF people would not agree with. Perhaps you would care to read some of my exchanges with didaskalos. Also, I am not writing to all non-WoF Christians, but responding to what I perceive to be an imbalance in some of LivingWorships ideas which could be taken to the conclusions I suggested above (a reductio ad absurdum, not really a caricature). I suggest you read some more of my other posts on this thread and in others.

Regarding scriptures, I spent a wearisome stretch of valuable time writing a response to the texts you posted on the "rich rich rich" thread (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=2080806#post2080806). Also, when have you seen me abuse a scriptural text? Please state the texts I have misused and how. I will gladly look at them with you.

Actually, I have a feeling you haven't really looked at my other posts that much - you've just read a little here and there and lumped me in with a certain group, attributing all their views to me. I should probably say, "O master grant that I should never seek... to be understood as to understand", but I'm not sure I'm quite there yet.