How Not To Be Deceived By Cults (Even Christian Ones)

Evangelical · 06-10-2018, 05:22 PM

You correctly stated the context, being worldly riches, but then you diverge and offer your own out of context interpretation as "word" or "life" and falsely attribute it to "calling someone rich". There is no issue with calling someone rich or poor if that is what he is, even the bible makes that distinction between believers. The issue is showing favoritism because of that condition. Now a cult, may or may not fit that description. A cult which is based on sharing all things in common and each person having relatively few possessions does not fit that description. A cult , such as a "Hollywood cult" might value rich and fame and that verse might then apply to them, but only if they were in a church. The verse does not apply to outsiders, only believers in the church. The one major flaw in Todd's and your approach to "testing cults" is that you apply verses intended for the church, to unbelievers. The only real tests we can apply to unbelievers is the test of faith and test of spirits, to determine if they are genuine believers or not. Beyond that, we cannot apply 10 verses intended for believers to unbelievers, and then determine they are a cult on that basis.

I do not see a problem calling one brother rich in the word if he is, and another poor in the word if he is. The rich brother may spend 3 hours a day in the word and the poor one 5 minutes a week. We cannot call the poor brother "rich in the word" if he is not, that would be a lie. And it is not showing partiality to let the word-rich brother serve more in the church by preaching the word than the word-poor one who is unable to preach the word.

06-10-2018, 05:22 PM	#20
Evangelical Member Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 3,965	Re: How Not To Be Deceived By Cults (Even Christian Ones) You correctly stated the context, being worldly riches, but then you diverge and offer your own out of context interpretation as "word" or "life" and falsely attribute it to "calling someone rich". There is no issue with calling someone rich or poor if that is what he is, even the bible makes that distinction between believers. The issue is showing favoritism because of that condition. Now a cult, may or may not fit that description. A cult which is based on sharing all things in common and each person having relatively few possessions does not fit that description. A cult , such as a "Hollywood cult" might value rich and fame and that verse might then apply to them, but only if they were in a church. The verse does not apply to outsiders, only believers in the church. The one major flaw in Todd's and your approach to "testing cults" is that you apply verses intended for the church, to unbelievers. The only real tests we can apply to unbelievers is the test of faith and test of spirits, to determine if they are genuine believers or not. Beyond that, we cannot apply 10 verses intended for believers to unbelievers, and then determine they are a cult on that basis. I do not see a problem calling one brother rich in the word if he is, and another poor in the word if he is. The rich brother may spend 3 hours a day in the word and the poor one 5 minutes a week. We cannot call the poor brother "rich in the word" if he is not, that would be a lie. And it is not showing partiality to let the word-rich brother serve more in the church by preaching the word than the word-poor one who is unable to preach the word.