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William Branham and False Doctrine: Difference between revisions
→Characteristics of False Doctrine
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Consider the ingredients in rat poison. When you read the label on a package of rat poison, it reveals that less than 1% is poison, and the more than 99% is tasty, nutritious food for the rat. However that 1% is enough poison to kill the rat if he eats it for a short period of time. Most of the rat killing food must be real food and appealing to the rat in order to get him to accept and eat the part that is poison. | Consider the ingredients in rat poison. When you read the label on a package of rat poison, it reveals that less than 1% is poison, and the more than 99% is tasty, nutritious food for the rat. However that 1% is enough poison to kill the rat if he eats it for a short period of time. Most of the rat killing food must be real food and appealing to the rat in order to get him to accept and eat the part that is poison. | ||
False doctrine must have enough biblical truth to sound biblical in order to entice a Christian to accept the false part. It can be 99% accurate Biblical truth, but the one percent false can be enough to kill the spiritual life of the person who believes it and begins to practice it. | False doctrine must have enough biblical truth to sound biblical in order to entice a Christian to accept the false part. It can be 99% accurate Biblical truth, but the one percent false can be enough to kill the spiritual life of the person who believes it and begins to practice it. | ||
False doctrine is: | |||
#Plausible. If false doctrines didn't hold together at all, they would never be accepted. | |||
#Based on scripture. No one would follow a false doctrine, if it didn't have some basis in the Bible. The problem is that false doctrine is only partly correct, it is not wholly correct. | |||
#Divisive, creating disunity. <ref>R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1963), 752.</ref> | |||
#Self-centred and self-serving. False teachers boast much about love to God, but they wholly fail under the test of love to men.<ref>Robert Tuck, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude, Revelation, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 315.</ref> | |||
#usually reductionist in nature. The greatest heresies do not come about by straightforward denial. They happen when an element which may even be important, but isn’t central, looms so large that people can’t help talking about it, fixating on it, debating different views of it as though this were the only thing that mattered. They mistake part of the truth for the whole truth.<ref>Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 13-28 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2008), 137–138.</ref> | |||
::Reductionism leads to a preoccupation with one thing — the monomaniac or fanatic is the result. The fanatic is a person with little empathy, humility, or humanity. Consider the suicide bombers of our day as the exemplary fanatics. Such people are “radicalized” by over-focusing on a reductionist Jihadist ideology by which all else is subsequently measured. They become radical sectarians, losing all meaningful relationship and perspective. <ref>Hirsch, Alan; Nelson, Mark. Reframation: Seeing God, People, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames (pp. 49-50). 100 Movements Publishing. Kindle Edition.</ref> | |||
:''May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart. (Author Unknown)<ref>Ken Gnanakan, Biblical Ethics: Ecological Responsibility (Bangalore, India: Theological Book Trust, 2004), 102.</ref> | |||
=William Branham’s message as an example= | =William Branham’s message as an example= | ||