Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell
Without Scriptural backing, any teaching put forth as "Christian teaching" is in fact false, fantasy, even heretical. Bad fruit is a symptom of false teaching.
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Where the string of bad fruit comes in, is that it helps us re-evaluate the teaching. When WL had us convinced that the teaching was the Truth with a capital "T", then we could pass off all the bad fruit as the bumbling efforts of mooing cows that couldn't dance while he played piano. (I think that was the imagery). So the bad fruit was the fault of the bumbling disciples and not the teacher. We ignored the bad fruit and continued to cling to the bad teaching that produced it.
But eventually the fruit stunk so much that we reconsidered and came back to the word anew, and lo and behold! The teaching was at best tenuously attached to scriptures. Some verses, carefully selected according to human notions, with the rest of scripture either judiciously ignored or explained away. The illogic of this ideational construction (i.e. teaching) suddenly became glaring to us, and something like scales fell from our eyes, and we began to see the Word afresh; fuzzy at first but little by little we began to see again.
"For He says, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.' Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue..." Little by little the truth began to re-emerge from the Word, and our experiences, many unpleasant, began to point to the truth through the Word.
So it turns out the teaching had no legs. But it was the bad fruit that caused us to critically examine it and find that out. Like Jesus said, "By its fruit the tree is known." Sure enough, man, sure enough.
Here's an example: if it was all about the Glorious Church, then why did Luther leave the RCC? Or why did WN leave the Protestants? WN and WL only discovered their Precious Church teaching after it was under their thumb. Then the Precious Church suddenly became an all-important Truth. Before that, it was about following their conscience, or the leading of the Spirit, or obeying the Word of God, etc. But once they had a flock, suddenly everything was about the Precious Spotless Church, the Bride of Christ. Christ loved the Church and died for it; the Church is the Body of Christ, etc. etc. You can't go on without the Church, right? But if you can't be saved apart from the Church, then why did Luther leave in the first place? Disconnect, much?
To me it seems inconsistent and illogical. I see different themes and different purposes at different times, according to different situations and needs. And unfortunately, the fruit of the tree of knowledge is that we thought we were seeing Truth and Light, in all of those themes and purposes and motives, when in fact we were blind, and groping, and being struck by forces we couldn't comprehend. We thought we saw but our blindness remained. (John 9:41) But God isn't like that. With God there's no shadow cast by turning. With human agents (including myself, I freely admit) there are shadows and turnings galore. And our ideas, thoughts, and teachings should be held at arms' length, until we find out of what sort they are. Believe me, in time the fruit makes them known. Experience is a hard teacher, but it doesn't lie.