Ring binding

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Peter Kirk

No time to post anything long or serious today. I have spent much of the last two days digging up my front garden and re-sowing it with grass seed. It’s only about 20 square metres but even that takes quite a lot of digging, all by hand, to reduce overgrown borders and a lawn which was mostly daisies into a fine tilth for sowing. So I will post some light relief.

Iyov mentions, or makes up, the binding wars between TNIV and ESV Bible versions. Now usually to me discussion of the binding of Bibles is a big yawn. His commenter “NT Wrong” suggests that it is even worse, something satanic. But Iyov’s mention reminded me of the words used at the recent “gay wedding”:

With this ring I thee bind.

Now I wouldn’t dare to describe in detail the image this conjures up in my mind of the gay couple tying one another up with chains, dog collars and the exchanged ring. I’m sure that is not what these words were intended to mean. But apart from that idea the words make little sense as an address from one of the couple to the other. However, they do make sense if addressed to a Bible. Do these gay priests bind their Bibles with rings? A Bible in a ring binder has the useful property that inconvenient passages can easily be removed. I wonder, have Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 managed to fall out of this couple’s ring-bound Bible?

Guards down, armour on

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Peter Kirk

I just found this quote given by Eclexia, from a book called The Gift of Fear:

The great enemy of perception, and thus of accurate predictions, is judgment. People often learn just enough about something to judge it as belonging in this or that category. They observe bizarre conduct and say, “This guy is just crazy.” Judgments are the automatic pigeonholing of a person or situation simply because some characteristic is familiar to the observer (so whatever that characteristic meant before it must mean again now). Familiarity is comfortable, but such judgments drop the curtain, effectively preventing the observer from seeing the rest of the play.

Eclexia was not thinking of Todd Bentley when she quoted this. I don’t think the original writer was thinking of him either. But this quote nicely summarises the attitude of so many people to him and to the Lakeland, Florida outpouring which he is leading. They claim to discern things about his ministry, but in fact the fail to perceive what it is all about because they make snap judgments about Todd.

Mark Cahill, an American evangelist whose qualifications, according to his “About Mark” web page, are “a business degree from Auburn University, where he was an honorable mention Academic All-American in basketball” (!) has written a June 2008 Newsletter entitled Guards Up. This has been quoted more or less in full by bloggers Andy Kinman and Ricky Earle, also in an apparent case of plagiarism passed off by blogger Brian Cranford as his own work. (Brian’s appears to be a genuine blog linked to a genuine Christian ministry, but there has been no reply to my comment of nearly 24 hours ago asking for clarification of the source of this post.) In his newsletter Mark links to my post about Todd Bentley and an angel called Emma, perhaps because I still have posted what Todd originally wrote about this but has now, I am told, had removed from his website. But this post from nearly a month ago is old news, and should be re-read in the light of what Todd has just recently written on this subject, which I posted on before.

Now “Guards Up!” may be good advice in business or basketball, but is it in the Christian life? First let’s look at some of Mark’s claims about Todd.

First, Mark accuses Todd of being a false prophet on the basis of a video, which is clearly some years old because Todd has quite a lot of hair. But I don’t see any false prophecy in this video. I see “words of knowledge”, which are not the same as prophecy, some of which are not immediately confirmed but that does not imply that they are false. But then I don’t think anyone ministering in “words of knowledge” like this claims 100% accuracy.

As for the video of Todd laughing, the style may be strange but that doesn’t make it evil. Is there really a good reason why God cannot make people laugh, shake or fall down? Of course not, because all of these are in the Bible: laughing in a positive sense in Job 8:21 (OK, this is Bildad speaking so should be taken with care), Psalm 126:2 and Luke 6:21, shaking in Job 4:14 (this time Eliphaz is speaking so again should be taken with care) and Matthew 28:4, falling to the ground also in Matthew 28:4 and in Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 1:17 etc.

There is in fact nothing new in what Mark writes, just a rehash of the same old criticisms I have seen before. The disturbing thing is that Mark claims to know all sorts of things about occult practices but doesn’t know enough about the Bible and Christian practice to realise that there are no new manifestations happening in Lakeland. What is new is the style, the unprecedented power, and the worldwide attention.

Mark also seems to know rather well the Bible verses about false prophets and the need to discern them. But in fact he doesn’t apply these verses properly. The test of a false prophet in Deuteronomy 13 is whether the prophet leads people astray into idolatry. But there is no question that Todd is glorifying Jesus, not any other gods or idols, as he makes very clear in his recent article. So by this standard he is not a false prophet. Nor has he made any specific prophecies which have proved false, the test in Deuteronomy 18. But these Old Testament tests are only part of the picture. Why has Mark made no mention of the New Testament tests of false prophets and false Messiahs? Perhaps this is because in the NT discernment of spirits is a spiritual gift, 1 Corinthians 12:10. Mark makes no claim to this gift, but without it he has no right to make pronouncements on such a matter. Also, there is also an objective test in the NT, in 1 John 4:1-3, and by this it is quite clear that Todd is ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of the antichrist.

Mark’s basic problem is that he relies on his own understanding in this matter. The guards which he tries to put up are deployed in his own strength. And such guards are powerless against an enemy who is more powerful than he is and quite able to deceive him apart from the leading of the Holy Spirit. People who walk into a spiritual battle without spiritual weapons and armour are likely to be defeated. Instead we all need to rely on the armour and weapons of attack which God provides for us, Ephesians 6:10-17. If we do this we can walk in safety into meetings like Todd’s, confident that we will not be deceived, and allow the Holy Spirit to show us what is his work.

Meanwhile Seth Barnes has offered some sensible criticism of the critics. I am not so happy to find myself listed as one of them, but at least this has brought significant traffic to this blog!

Also, Patsy of Rahab’s Place has gone on the offensive against the critics with her post Great Florida Outpouring – Lying Signs and Wonders, in which she refutes from the Bible the critics’ claims that the healing miracles at Lakeland are the work of the devil. She concludes:

There is a great deal of lying wonders going on regarding the Lakeland Outpouring. The lie is that satan has the power to heal and raise the dead. This lie has been fed to the church and the wonder is that she has accepted it in the light of scriptures.

Patsy has other posts about the “Great Florida Outpouring”, including a link to a TV interview with Todd in which he refers to documented healings, an endorsement from Bill Johnson, and a testimony of healing which is taken straight from Dr Gary Greig’s comment here at Gentle Wisdom. This is the same Dr Greig who has given his own biblical proofs, which I summarised, that what Todd is doing is valid.

So, let’s set aside the critics’ misrepresentations of the Bible, take down our human guards, put on the armour of God, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth about Todd.

Blessing the Lord

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Peter Kirk

Roger Mugs writes a good post about the importance of blessing the Lord, based on Psalm 102:1-2. He concludes:

… the East is a LONG ways from the West. There is nothing about the East that is ANYTHING like the West.

Our God removed our sins that far from us. So next time before a meal instead of “Good food, good meat, good God lets eat,” try a “God we bless you for your steadfast love, for your provision for this meal, for your great love for us, for dying on the cross for us. Bless you God!”

But what does it mean to bless the Lord? Clearly not what “bless” meant to the author of Hebrews 7:7. This was a real problem in the project I worked on, for translation of the Bible into a language without a long tradition of Christian terminology. There is a word meaning “pronounce a blessing”, but we could not use that of a lesser blessing a greater. There is one meaning “give abundantly to”, but that did not fit either. We could just say “praise”, like some modern English translations, but we wanted to avoid too much repetition and anyway this word does not fit everywhere.

Eventually we used in most places a word which is usually translated “applaud”, not necessarily in the sense of clapping hands, but would also include shouts like “Bravo!” But even that doesn’t really work in the case of blessing God for a meal.

And things became even more complicated in the case of blessing the bread, fish and wine at the feedings of the 5,000 and 4,000 and at the Last Supper. In these places the gospel writers made a careful distinction between two Greek words, one usually translated “give thanks” and the other “bless”. Now “give thanks” is clearly directed at God. In the context “bless” is probably to be understood in the same sense. Thus in Matthew 14:19 “he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves” (RSV) the implied object of “blessed” is probably God rather than the loaves, especially because Jewish prayers of thanksgiving for meals always start something like “Blessed are you, Lord our God …” (I note that in Mark 8:7 and Luke 9:16 a literal translation is “he blessed them”, i.e. the fish or loaves are the grammatical object, but this too can be understood as “he blessed God for them”; similarly also in 1 Corinthians 10:16.) So there is no concept here of blessing being associated with a material object. (Indeed Deuteronomy 28:4,5,8 are just about the only cases in the Bible of this kind of association, and caused a different translation problem.) In fact in our translation we could not use the regular “bless” or “applaud” words and had to render “he said the prayer of thanks”. I note that TNIV simply uses “give thanks” for both the Greek words, used almost synonymously.

By the way, we used a quite different word in cases like Matthew 5:3-11 and Psalm 1:1, representing different Greek and Hebrew words.

The lesson I take from this is that we need to unpack the meaning of a word like “bless”, which is quite different in different contexts, even if the same Hebrew and Greek words are used. We have to do this and then restate the concept in appropriate words if we want to communicate such things to people whose regular language is as far from Christian jargon as the East is from the West – which means plenty of people in the West as well as the majority in the East.

Yes, Roger is right, we need to bless God, applaud him, give him thanks for all the great things he has done for us. And as Jews as well as many Christians have understood, one of the best times to do this than before a meal.

Check it out!

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Peter Kirk

Henry Neufeld has written this very sensible advice as the conclusion of a thoughtful post addressed to anyone unsure about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland outpouring, or any similar movement:

My intention here is to make it clear that caution should not become avoidance. One can miss a great deal spiritually by refusing to experience some new thing. For some reason, when people do things that appear foolish at a ball game or a concert, we think it’s funny; when people do something similar in church we regard it as dangerous. …

My suggestion is to change the motto “Danger, Will Robinson!” to “Check it out!” See what happens!

Priests go ahead with gay wedding

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Peter Kirk

On Saturday I wrote about an American Anglican bishop who has banned church weddings because they do not provide complete equality for same-sex couples. At least he was giving some respect to the international rules that same-sex weddings cannot be performed in Anglican churches.

Only hours after I posted that, the news broke that here in England, in central London, those rules have been blatantly flouted, at least not by a bishop (the Bishop of London has ordered an investigation) but by a priest who performed what has been reported as a wedding ceremony, not just a blessing of a partnership, between two Anglican clergymen. Amazingly, Ruth Gledhill reports that similar services have been “happening regularly” for 30 years despite “breaking all the rules”.

The order of service shows that this is clearly intended as a wedding service, with vows and an exchange of rings, in language clearly deliberately adapted from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The preface, also printed in part and in edited form by the Daily Mail, is adapted from the preface which I quoted in my previous post:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together these Men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity. Such a covenant shows us the mystery of the union between God and God’s people and between Christ and the Church.

The Holy Scriptures point to the offering and receiving of love as the principle [sic] sign of God’s presence; the union of two people in heart, body and soul is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and that their love may be a source of grace and blessing to all whom they encounter. Today Peter and David wish to commend themselves to each other exclusively and publicly, in making a solemn covenant as a seal and sacrament of their mutual love and devotion. This step has been carefully considered and is not enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God.

The first and last sentences are almost completely from 1662. The middle is partly a pastiche of it – note that “mutual society” has become “mutual joy” – mixed together with some bad theology and bad grammar. Here are the vows, repeated identically except for the names by each partner:

Peter (David), wilt thou take this man as thy partner, in the sight of God? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, as long as ye both shall live?

Peter (David) shall answer, I will. …

I Peter (David) take thee David (Peter) as my partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, and thereto I pledge thee my troth. …

With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. …

Then shall the Minister speak unto the people.

Forasmuch as David and Peter have consented together in a holy covenant, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands, I pronounce that they be bound together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

This is followed by a celebration of Holy Communion.

This Order of Service does avoid the words “matrimony” and “marriage”, instead referring to “a holy covenant of love and fidelity”. Instead of “I thee wed” is the rather odd “I thee bind”, at which some minds might wander to stereotypes of homosexual practices. So I suppose some kind of case can be made that this is not intended as an actual wedding. But I note that the covenant is called “a seal and sacrament of their mutual love and devotion”. So if it is not holy matrimony but is a sacrament, what is it?

Here are a couple of sentences from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer which were not included in this service:

Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. …

For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.

In the case of these two men, men ordained to ministry in the Anglican church, there is plenty of “just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together”, according to God’s law and also according to canon law which is the law of the land. For they have clearly been “coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow”. So even if perhaps we should “hereafter for ever hold [our] peace”, God will be their judge.

Bishop bans church weddings

Posted on June 14, 2008 by Peter Kirk

John Richardson has brought to my attention one of the most extraordinary stories I have seen, even in the whole saga of discussion about homosexuality in the Anglican churches. Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Diocese of California (which in fact only “covers the immediate San Francisco Bay Area”), in the Episcopal (Anglican) church, is effectively banning church weddings in his diocese! He writes:

I therefore provide you with the following pastoral guidelines:

I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service and then being blessed in The Episcopal Church. I will publicly urge all couples to follow this pattern.

For now, the three rites approved for trial use under the pastoral direction of the bishop, adopted by resolution at the 2007 Diocesan Convention (see appendix), should be commended to all couples (again, regardless of orientation) to bless secular marriages.

All marriages should be performed by someone in one of the secular categories set forth in California Family Code, section 400 (see appendix), noting that any person in the state of California can be deputized to perform civil marriages. The proper sphere for Episcopal clergy is the blessing portion of the marriage. …

In other words, he is instructing his clergy not to perform weddings, but only to bless secular marriages.

The sub-text here is of course that the bishop, in defiance of internationally agreed Anglican guidelines, is promoting complete equality of same-sex “marriage” with proper marriage between man and woman. Because the Anglican Communion rightly does not allow clergy to perform same-sex “weddings”, the only way this bishop can produce the equality he desires is to forbid his clergy from performing any weddings. Instead he only allows them to bless marriages, and according to a form of service of his diocese’s devising (and still against international rules) which treats same-sex and opposite-sex blessings identically.

The Anglican church has always performed marriages. “Solemnization of Matrimony” is a form of service in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is the official doctrinal standard of the Anglican churches. Here is the opening part of this service (taken from here as surprisingly it is not on the Church of England’s website):

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprized, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.

First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.

Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.

Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

But it seems that the Bishop of California no longer considers “holy Matrimony” between “this Man and this Woman” to be “an honourable estate”. One wonders how he can continue to consider himself an Anglican.

Who has the right to test interpretations of Scripture?

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Peter Kirk

James Spinti has drawn my attention to what is called in German the Sitzerrecht and in Latin the lex sedentium. In the title of Alan Knox’s post which James quotes this is translated into English as “the rights of the one seated”, but in James’ post title it aptly becomes “The What?”

The point however is a simple one. The idea comes from 1 Corinthians 14:29-31, in which Paul effectively directs that in a church meeting someone who is sitting down, if they have a prophetic revelation, can stop the person who is standing and speaking and take over from them. By the time of the Reformation this was certainly not taken as a licence to interrupt a preacher, but it was understood by the early Reformers as, in Alan’s words,

a principle that teaches that all believers have the ability to understand Scripture and to weigh what another says concerning Scripture, even if that “other” is a teacher or preacher.

However, in Alan’s words as quoted by James,

Sometime during the 1500’s the magisterial reformers abandoned the idea of Sitzerrecht – that all believers have the right and duty to test teachers and determine the meaning of Scripture together – and embraced the principle that only a “technically qualified theological expert” could properly interpret Scripture for a gathered group of believers.

Here “the magisterial reformers” is a deliberate contrast with the early Anabaptists, who in general maintained “the idea of Sitzerrecht“.

Jim West was spurred to respond by James’ suggestion that Zwingli was wrong to abandon this principle. Perhaps Jim can clarify whether Zwingli abandoned it in response to persistent questioning by his Anabaptist opponents, replacing it by an appeal to his own authority. (No, Jim, I won’t say that he persecuted the Anabaptists, as doubtless you know better on this point than Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia.) Jim writes:

The ’spiritualists’ [i.e. the Anabaptists] were in need of refutation so Zwingli and the other Reformers rightly pointed out that interpretation of Scripture REQUIRED training- and based it on the well known verse which states: ‘Study to show yourself approved…’ That one verse broke the back of the ‘enthusiasts’ then, and I must say, does now too. Individual ‘interpretation’ without valid expertise leads to nothing but the most ridiculous heresy, such as we find in the likes of Todd Bentley …

The fallacy here is the assumption that Zwingli and the other “magisterial” Reformers had training which the Anabaptists lacked. This is probably not true of early Anabaptist leaders like Conrad Grebel, who had six years of university education followed by several years of private study with Zwingli, George Blaurock who studied at the University of Leipzig, and Felix Manz who was also an educated man. Zwingli, older than these three, was also educated, but nevertheless it is written of him that

Like many of his contemporaries, Zwingli went to work for the Church having studied little theology.

So, when Zwingli fell out with Grebel and Manz, his position became the official policy in Zurich surely not because of any greater theological education, but because of his seniority and his official position as pastor of the Grossmünster, and perhaps because his views were more acceptable to the political authorities in Zurich. In other words, he prevailed because of ecclesiastical and political power, not because of academic theological arguments. And the political authorities enforced Zwingli’s victory by drowning Manz and expelling the other Anabaptists.

So how do we apply this principle today, to cases like that of Todd Bentley who Jim brings into this? As I do support “the rights of the one seated”, I accept that any believer has the right to express their opinion about Todd and to judge his teachings and practices according to Scripture. But I do also see some limits to this, as I previously wrote about here. First, if it actually comes to making accusations of wrongdoing, Paul lays down the principle

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.

1 Timothy 5:19 (TNIV)

So proper evidence is needed to support any accusation. Paul also gives this instruction:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Ephesians 4:29 (TNIV)

These principles of course apply equally to those with theological education and to those without it, and should perhaps rule out condemnations based on ignorance like this one.

Now I accept the importance of a properly nuanced theological study and discussion of the teachings and practices of a new Christian movement like Todd’s. The only one I have seen of this particular movement is the one by Dr Gary Greig which I discussed yesterday, which James Spinti has endorsed. So, Jim West, should I accept this at face value because it was written by someone with a PhD in theology? Somehow I don’t think you would say that I should. Well, I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt by assuming that his condemnation of “Lakeland-ianity” was based not on prejudice and third hand reports as it might appear but on his own proper theological study which he has chosen not to publish. Now I, as a mere MA in theology, am no doubt quite unqualified to evaluate the studies which the learned Dr West and Dr Greig have produced. But their conclusions are apparently diametrically opposite: one concludes

I wholeheartedly encourage you to support what God is obviously doing through the Lakeland outpouring.

and the other

Now it’s up to the adherents of Lakeland-ism to abandon the heresy and return to the truth.

They can’t both be right. So it is clear that possession of a doctorate in theology is no guarantee of knowing the truth in such matters.

So how do I decide which position to follow? I could of course look to those in ecclesiastical authority over me – in my case a vicar who has been to Lakeland and supports it with some reservations, as summarised by his friend Dave Faulkner. And indeed I do greatly respect my vicar’s views and would not go against them in public. But I don’t follow his authority uncritically, and reserve the option to confront him privately if I ever think he goes seriously wrong, and in an extreme case to leave his congregation.

For when it comes down to it I believe that this is an issue between me and God. As I wrote in a comment on Jim’s blog,

it is not the human brain but the divine Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth.

Jim is of course right that this does not solve the problem in any objective way, for

the One Spirit can’t lead to Two Truths. So being ‘led by the spirit’ isn’t determinative either, since anyone can make that claim.

Indeed. In the end I can only say that subjectively, as a matter between myself and God if I have allowed him to guide me, I believe that I can be sure of my own position. I cannot prove it to others, I can only leave it in their hands as a matter between them and God.

And on this particular issue I have to say that I am sure that, in general terms if not necessarily in every detail, Dr West is wrong and Dr Greig is right.

"Church people" and "God people"

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Peter Kirk

From a post by Jeremy Myers, which I had bookmarked to respond to and have just come back to:

When it comes to people who claim a connection with God, there are “church people” and “God people.” Church people focus on what they are doing for God, and God people focus on what God has done for them. Check out this quote from David Bosch’s book Transforming Mission:

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy, and truth. Church people think about how to get more people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world (p. 378. He is quoting Howard Snyder, Liberating the Church).

And here is what gets me the most: In my experience, there are not a lot of “God people” or “Kingdom people” in the typical Sunday gathering of the church. Most of the “God people” we’ve ran into recently don’t “attend church” at all. Why do you think this is?

I am glad to say that in my church there are “God people” and “Kingdom people”, as well as some “church people” but we are working on them. I don’t think I would continue to “attend church” if it was full of “church people”. But we are still struggling to get beyond the mindset that the best way of getting people into the kingdom is to get them through the church doors.

A theological defence of Todd Bentley's ministry

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Peter Kirk

In my previous post I mentioned a paper Biblical Reasons to Receive God’s Glory and Give it Away in Power Evangelism by Dr Gary S. Greig, PhD., a former Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University School of Divinity, and Senior Editor, Theology and Acquisitions for the Regal Publishing Group (free PDF download but donations requested). I have now skim read this paper. In it Dr Greig offers a defence from a generally careful theological standpoint of Todd Bentley‘s ministry and the outpouring in Lakeland, Florida.

Dr Greig deals with ten objections to Todd’s ministry. I will summarise them here:

Objection 1: “The healings aren’t really real” and “People are only working themselves into altered states of consciousness.”

On this point Dr Greig points objectors to the clear evidence that real healings are taking place. He also demonstrates that biblical evangelism included healing ministry. It is unfortunate that he likens the objectors to holocaust deniers, and emotional argument which does not fit well with the scholarly tone of the rest of the paper.

Some people have particular objections to reports of resurrections. Dr Greig mentions that three news channels reported on “an older woman being resurrected after rigor-mortis had set in”, but it is unfortunate that one of the three links is broken, and the other two are both to this news report which indeed reports a remarkable event but makes no mention of Todd or Lakeland.

This is perhaps the weakest part of the paper because it fails to provide any verifiable evidence that genuine lasting healings are taking place clearly linked to Todd and Lakeland. Perhaps Dr Greig is not the person to look for for such evidence. But it would help to answer this objection if someone close to Todd could provide this kind of evidence.

Objection 2: “Many healings are partial or gradual, and some people lose their healing after they claim to have been healed.” “Healings in the New Testament always happened immediately and could not be ‘lost’.”

Dr Greig answers this one by showing that biblical healings were sometimes gradual and arguing that healing could be lost.

Objection 3: “The manifestations, shaking, vibrating, laughing, talk of electricity, and weird behavior didn’t happen in the Bible and cannot be from God. Todd Bentley has an obsession with the paranormal.”

Dr Greig writes:

While I agree—and I have heard Todd Bentley and other leaders of the Lakeland revival agree—that our focus should not be on the miracles and the manifestations, but on Jesus alone, it is simply not true that Todd Bentley has “an obsession with the paranormal” or that the “weird” manifestations are not from God …

He also shows that many biblical miracles are just as “weird” as anything seen at Lakeland. In fact he finds biblical parallels for all the kinds of things which Todd does. He rightly insists that what matters, as a test of genuineness, is not the form of the manifestation but the fruit of it.

Objection 4: “There is no emphasis on repentance and holiness in the Lakeland meetings, as there always has been in classic revivals and awakenings …”

This charge against Todd Bentley and the leaders of the Lakeland outpouring is not true either. Anyone who is attentive and who has watched or visited the meetings in Lakeland can attest to the fact that purity of heart, holiness, and keeping our focus on Jesus, are themes that Todd Bentley and the other leaders have repeatedly emphasized.

Objection 5: “We should not be teaching people to interact with angels. Satan masquerades as an angel of light and people can be deceived by demonic angels…”

On this point Dr Greig makes a clear distinction between worship of and prayer to angels and interaction with them. The former is clearly forbidden, and Todd agrees. But the latter is normal in the Bible and should not be rejected, although any message received apparently from angels should be carefully tested.

Objection 6: “It’s wrong and misguided for us to describe angels in detail or to mention their names. This will get our focus off of Jesus.”

Dr Greig’s simple answer to this is that the biblical authors described angels and mentioned their names. Again he asks the question “What is the fruit of such descriptions?”, and shows that in Todd’s case it has been “to focus people on the Lord Jesus and His plans and power for His people.”

Objection 7: “There is no such thing as angels manifesting themselves as female angels in Scripture. Jesus taught that angels are genderless. So talk of female angels with female names is New Age deception.”

In response to this Dr Greig gives a long argument (which Todd accepts in his recent article) that although angels are genderless in their essential nature they can and do manifest themselves in both male and female forms, as well as in various inanimate ways.

Objection 8: “No Scripture supports the idea that the Holy Spirit bestows healing mantles through His angels. Only the Holy Spirit heals, not angels.”

Dr Greig starts his response with the following, which he proceeds to justify in detail:

These assertions are simply not true on several counts, when examined in the light of Scripture. There are three points that need to be made below: 1) The Holy Spirit manifesting God’s presence and glory is attended by angels throughout the Bible; 2) Healing mantles do exist, and they are just another name for healing and miraculous gifts of the Spirit; and 3) Angels are indeed associated with healing in Scripture.

Objection 9: “Todd Bentley teaching that believers can go up frequently in the Spirit to God’s throne in heaven, is unbiblical and borders on New Age visualization.”

“Once again,” Dr Greig writes, “nothing could be further from the truth in Scripture!”:

the New Testament couldn’t be clearer about a principle than this one that through Christ and His blood we have access now to God’s throne in heaven … We are already there seated in Christ in the heavenly realms

He also shows how this kind of experience is an established part of Christian spirituality.

Objection 10: “Todd Bentley is a false prophet, because he teaches things I cannot find in Scripture.”

Here Dr Greig looks back to his previous responses:

as has been demonstrated above, the fact that the so-called “Bible experts,” critics, and concerned leaders, cannot find in Scripture what Todd Bentley and the leaders of the Lakeland outpouring have been teaching and modeling, is more a testimony to the fact that the critics (as well as the rest of us) need to revisit the Scriptures and study the relevant passages more carefully, bind the enemy from interfering with our thinking (James 4:7-8; compare Peter’s thoughts being influenced by the enemy in Matt. 16:22-23), and consciously ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth according to Jesus’ promise in John 16:13-15. …

We, the Body of Christ, need to repent of our being functional atheists—acting as if the supernatural realm, that Scripture clearly portrays, is really not functionally real for us.

Dr Greig then brings his readers back to “Jesus’ criterion for discerning false prophets and false teachers”, which is simply “By their fruit you will recognize them”. He discusses this issue in greater depth, without explicitly applying it to Todd Bentley, and concludes as follows:

The end of the matter: Receive all God wants to give you, and give it away

My prayer is that you will not make the same mistakes I made. I wholeheartedly encourage you to support what God is obviously doing through the Lakeland outpouring. My prayer is that you will be used by the Holy Spirit to empower and equip as many leaders in the next generation as possible to receive the glory and Presence of the Lord and take it to the nations. We need to give ourselves to the Lord and His cause of preaching the gospel with power to all remaining unreached nations and people-groups, to hasten the Day of the Lord, when Jesus will return for His Bride, the worldwide Body of Christ!

Amen!

Todd Bentley lifts Jesus high

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Peter Kirk

Todd Bentley has written a new article (dated 8th June) called Lifting Jesus High! (Thanks to commenter Rick for drawing this to my attention.) This article is a response to the critics of his ministry and of the Lakeland outpouring. In it he responds to concerns about his visions, unusual miracles, angels, his encounter with the Apostle Paul etc.

Todd also mentions, in his PS, a message he received from Dr. Gary S. Greig, PhD., a former Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Regent University School of Divinity. Dr Greig testified to how he had been healed through Todd’s ministry and offered a 55 page booklet Biblical Reasons to Receive God’s Glory and Give it Away in Power Evangelism, “written at a high level of scholarship for pastors, church leaders, and theologians yet is understandable to the layperson”, available as a PDF download (free but donations requested). I have not yet read this. UPDATE: Now I have read it, and have summarised and reviewed it in a new post.

I recommend you, my readers, to read Todd’s article in full. But for those of you who are too busy here are some extracts:

Someone once said that limiting revelation is like trying to fit an ocean into a cup. God is continually restoring truth and light to His Church. Therefore, we should place no limit on further revelation. To have a view that everything that happens in someone’s life because of God’s loving response to us as His children should be listed in the Bible or else it’s wrong or evil, is like saying that Jesus, who is the Word represents a list of do’s and don’ts. Jesus is a Person who, through intimacy and relationship, we perceive and understand by the Holy Spirit what is good and what is evil. If Jesus listed for us everything that we needed to know, then knowing Him would have become an option. It’s in knowing Him, who is The Word that we enter into what He has prepared for us.

The Bible is full of visions, encounters, signs, wonders, miracles, and manifestations that people have experienced, some of which may be downright hard for many to wrap their minds around, let alone believe it could happen today. Again, it’s all relative to each individual, their experiences, and backgrounds, and with what they have learned through intimacy with Christ Jesus, and what they have received as a love response from God.

Here is part of what he now writes about the angel called Emma:

In the case of the angel called “Emma,” who I described as having mother-like nurturing qualities, some have automatically assumed that my doctrine is that I believe in female angels. This has never been the case! For whatever reason God chose to show me this angel in a female persona, He did. This isn’t to say that the angel was female. Angels are spirit and appear in many forms. Perhaps that’s the form God chose this angel to take for the purpose of the revelation He gave me. They are spirit beings of light, created out of God’s glory, without gender, and appear in whatever form God chooses to send them to us.