Negative Speaking

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Curious

I want to chip in here and suggest a very excellent resource on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It's a book titled 'There Were Two Trees In the Garden' by Rick Joyner.

I know he's a bit controversial and and out on the loopy end for some, in other of his books, but this book is not loopy at all. I suggest to forget the author and just take the book on its own. Personally, I have read it about 5 times and each time I learned much more, than the time before. Its pretty dense but to me makes so much sense. Just my suggestion to those curious.

It certainly also lays the groundwork to easily expose those such as WL or anyone using what seems good to trap people into a system that served himself at their expense (evil).

I have an ever-growing backlog of books to purchase when finances are less tight, so I wouldn't be able to buy this book any time soon, but I took a look on Amazon in hopes there would be a "look inside" feature for it. There was.

While the rest of the book may be more accurate (and it does have a good review rating), I choked on the very first page of chapter 1 where he says "...the Lord did not implement this restriction just to test Adam and Eve; He prohibited the eating of its fruit because He knew it was poison."

I'm sorry, but the verses are simply not there to back this conclusion up. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was literally described as being "good for food". There is just no way to say that poison can be good for food. It was described as "making you like God." "Poison" and "makes you like God" simply don't mesh.

And if you take that the tree itself was poisonous, then you are immediately on your way down the road to "not only is evil poison, but knowledge is poison and good is poison too", and we are forest-deep into a spiritually abusive teaching.

Ah, I just read a little more, and it's right there on the very next page: "the knowledge of good and evil kills us....."

Nope. It's the punishment for disobeying God by being restricted from having access to the tree of life that killed us. (If you are prevented from eating the tree that makes you live forever you.......die.) The bible doesn't say that "sin is death" but that "the WAGES (punishment) of sin is death."

Who punished us with death for our sins? God did. Death was punishment; it wasn't from the TOTKOGAE itself.

He then says, "It is significant that the Tree of Knowledge is found in the center of the garden (see Genesis 3:3). Self-centeredness is the chief malady with which it afflicts us."

Okay.....well he used Genesis 3:3, which refers to the TOTKOGAE only. However, Genesis 2:9 speaks of BOTH trees, and the tree of life is also described as being in the center of the garden, so his negative attribution of the central placement as pertains to the TOTKOGAE also means the tree of life has to do with self-centeredness too, which doesn't make any sense.

Then two pages later he says:

"The fruit of these two tree is to forever be separate and distinct, as the Lord Jesus also testified.

For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit; nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. Luke 6:43-44."

The verse he uses actually supports the conclusion that the TOTKOGAE was not a bad tree. It was described as being good for food. This means the fruit was good for food. It had good fruit. And Luke tells us straight out that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The TOTKOGAE cannot, Biblically, be a bad tree. Or poisonous. Or death.

I'm not saying there isn't good stuff in his book. In the next page or two he starts speaking of Jesus and it seems good, but that's where the preview cuts off for me .

For better or for worse, I get particular with the two trees teaching because getting it a half inch wrong up front leads so incredibly far off just a mile or two down the road. I don't mean to take away from your enjoyment of the book or your recommendation! The rest of the book may be just wonderful! I've just seen where the misinterpretation of this particular story leads, and the way it is used in the LC, and so I'm not super loosy-goosy about this one. Happy to get into it if someone disagrees, but this is just what I see.

Originally Posted by Curious

I'm fact, thinking about it, WL did care an awful lot for good and evil. At least to present the LC as good not evil. That is, he certainly understood the need to use a 'good' facade to attract newcomers, as if people would think the LC to be bad they wouldn't join. So he used the impression of good to cover over doing evil. And that's the context the above mentioned book explains.

Yeah, and he also cared for good and evil when he thought others were perpetrating his version of "evil" upon him!

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Trapped

I have an ever-growing backlog of books to purchase when finances are less tight, so I wouldn't be able to buy this book any time soon, but I took a look on Amazon in hopes there would be a "look inside" feature for it. There was.

Here is free PDF you can download.

[Curious]

I’m so glad Trapped brought this up. Having recommended this book, I feel responsible to engage.

My conclusion, based on this thread and my book, (which I read before becoming aware of WL’s teachings, so I considered it in a state of ignorance of WL or any other teaching on this subject), is as follows:

First, I agree completely with Trapped. God would not create a bad tree. In fact, as Nell points out, God cares deeply abpout good and evil. Our whole experience of this life is to learn to discern good and evil from the starting point of truth. As God does and He does not allow evil into heaven, His dwelling place. Why trust God, even beyond our own understanding, as He requires? Because He alone is GOOD. Perfect in holiness. Not a stain of corruption in Him. And out of that Goodness, He loves us. The whole lesson of this life is to learn this lesson. Satan is evil….the fool angels that followed him (it) in rebellion against God did not perceive this. Yet we learn to perceive evil as we grow in faith and discernment and there is a scripture that declares we are to learn this ability to discern good and evil…..i cant find it right now but in the NT. I daresay Satan knew that it was Gods intention to teach them good from evil himself, so why satan sought to get in there quickly.

So Rick Joyner, when he sought to put his observations back into a doctrinal framework, has made a mistake. Trapped has spotted it straight away, showing the astuteness he (she?) has gained from his experiences in the LC. Yes RJ is wrong, right there at the start of his book!! What a shame.
The fall happened through disobedience is the key, not the fruit itself. No way around that. Missed by RJ but understood by posters on this forum.

Ok. Next point. The tree at the center of the garden alongside the tree of life. Now I understand this point as it depends on what is at the center of a person’s life. If it is the tree of life as representing Jesus, he at the center of our life, then it is ideal. The tree of life at the center of our heart. Then He is the one to teach us about good and evil. That’s Gods intention in having us live this mortal life under the earthly dominion of Satan and his (it’s) demons etc. Even Adam and Eve were co-existing on this earth with Satan before the fall. No matter what happened I believe its been Gods intention to teach us good from evil. RJ overstepped in his drawing back his good observations to a doctrinal base.

So now, having acknowledged all that, I’m going to explain why I liked the book and summarize what I got from it that I think IS helpful. What RJ has perceived correctly IMOO (In my opinion only) is how the twisted interpretation of good and evil works in the heart of fallen man. This is the strength of the book. This is how our gravitating to what we perceive to be good from a self-centered and unrepented perspective actually creates evil.
Say a husband says openly: “I’m a good husband. I don’t beat my wife, I don’t drink, I don’t stay away from home with my buddies or fraternize with other women”. Yet he talks over the top of her, makes important decisions without consulting her, allows his mother to gossip about her and slander her and never acknowledges it, lies to her about trivial things in a habitual way. But he’s not the very worst of men so he will never address these other issues. Is that ok? It’s the using of what’s good to excuse or deny, and persist in, things that are actually bad and doing harm. That is they key message.

....It’s coming up with a whole bunch of ideas that seem to transform Christian experience from something dead to something alive, with teachings on economy, unity of believers, new high-peak truths, then preaching it to where the numbers of people benefitting from this new and living experience of God, reach into the thousands and beyond. Then feeling so successful and certain of Gods great pleasure in you, the center and conveyor of this great discovery, that you get sloppy about things going on around you, and you start indulging your own vices. The good you seem to have done somehow deceives you away from the basics. You buy into your own hype!! This is the topic RJ exposes and explains so well. (IMOO).

Its how the pharisee looks down on the tax collector, he’s measuring good and evil, and counting himself a pass and the tax collector a fail.

The 10 commandments expose this. When we have a self-centered understanding of good and evil, then what satisfies me and makes me feel good is my good and what I don’t enjoy is my evil. To live to feed the self will cause a person to lust after his neighbour’s wife. (‘she’s much nicer and kinder than my grouchy and stubborn wife, [justification], I’ve suffered long enough, I deserve better’!) It will be the reason why a person lies, is jealous of others, may harm or kill, preserving and believing in oneself, rather than looking at the harm done to others by selfish actions, is the key. And the justifying is where the deception has tricked and trapped us. Having God at the center of our (garden) is to backtrack on this internal self-righteousness and judging right and wrong from the point of view of self.

The taxi driver who waits for an hour in a queue to get his next passenger at a busy airport, then lands a passenger who only needs a 10 minute ride, gets angry with his passenger. He feels short changed by circumstances. He was hoping for a long trip to justify the long waste of time he invested. From his point of view that’s a bad deal. But its not the passenger’s fault, they had no other way to get to their destination. We all have our story but it doesn’t justify sin. Sin exposes our sense of good and evil being centered in self and not in God/truth.

That’s the big overriding lesson. I welcome challenge to this as I’ve learned something important already from Trapped’s response, and I’m so happy about it! also, the guys who write and publish can miss things, and get things wrong that another person without such a reputation may see clear as day!! we don't have to defer to anyone but Jesus himself!!