Tag: Rachel Held Evans

Discernment, False Teachers

You Might Be Apostate

Michelle Lesley

Originally published June 3, 2016

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy hit the big time several years ago with his “You Might Be a Redneck” one-liners. He frequently introduced the bit by saying, “I’ve found that there are rednecks all over, but sometimes people don’t know they’re rednecks. So, I came up with this little test…” and continued with such gems as:

“If you’ve ever had to carry a bucket of paint to the top of a water tower to defend your sister’s honor, you might be a redneck.”

“If your wife has ever said, ‘Honey, come get this transmission out of the tub so I can take a bath!’ you might be a redneck.”

“If you’ve ever been accused of lying through your tooth, you might be a redneck.”

It was a routine that a lot of us in the South found hilarious because we knew someone (or were someone) who fit nearly every one of Jeff’s jabs.

Like rednecks, there are apostate false teachers all over the place out there, only a lot of them (and their disciples) don’t know they’re false teachers. And the fruit of their lives and ministries is far wackier than anything a redneck has ever dreamed up. That fruit is a sign that we’d better examine the root of doctrine from which the fruit sprang.

So if any of the preachers and teachers you’re following have ever said or done the following things (or something even crazier), watch out, because they Might Be Apostate.

HoNuthaLevel

If you’re a middle aged pastor who makes embarrassing rap videos, who publicly extols the virtues of Spanx for men (even though it gives you gas) and who calls himself a Ferrari you might be apostate.

If you feature a Naked Cowboy impersonater (aka- your youth “pastor”) at your “Christian” women’s conference, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever purposefully applied the pronoun “herself” to God, you might be apostate.

If you celebrated your 35th birthday by preaching at the “church” of your mentor, T.D. Jakes, and placing a $35,000 check in his offering wheelbarrow, you might be apostate.

If God has ever told you to go up to a stranger in the airport and ask if you can brush his hair, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever given your congregation a sob story about needing a new $70 million Gulfstream jet, because the old one is worn out, you might be apostate.

If you think of the Holy Spirit as the “sneaky,” “silly,” “funny,” “blue genie from Aladdin,” you might be apostate.

If you’re a woman who thinks God is OK with you preaching to men despite what His Word clearly says to the contrary, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever said, regarding your church’s worship service, “I probably wouldn’t have a stripper on stage…” but leave the door open to the idea because “God told Isaiah to walk around naked for three years,” you might be apostate.

Benny Hinn at Maple Leaf Gardens on Sept. 28, 1992 photos by Tony Bock/Toronto Star and handout photo.

If you think smacking people in the face with your Nehru jacket is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever typed a Facebook status in tongues, you might be apostate.

If you say you’re a trinitarian, but think the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three “manifestations” of God rather than three Persons, you ARE apostate.

If you think Proverbs 21:9 means you should camp out on your roof in a quest for biblical womanhood, you might be apostate.

If your senior pastor father sexually abused boys at your church and paid them off to keep them quiet and you, as the subsequent pastor, knew about it but didn’t speak up, you might be apostate.

If you officiated at your homosexual son’s “wedding,” you might be apostate.

If you’re a pastor who thinks expository preaching is “cheating” because it’s “too easy” and that “it’s not the way you grow people” AND that we shouldn’t say “the Bible says…” AND that parents who take their children to a small church instead of a mega church are “stinkin’ selfish,” AND that we shouldn’t use the Bible to convince the lost of their need for Christ, AND that we need to “unhitch” from the Old Testament, you might be apostate.

If you’re Oprah’s idea of an awesome pastor, you might be apostate.

download

If your preaching, ministry, and theology have ever been publicly rebuked by John MacArthur, Paul Washer, or Justin Peters, you might be apostate.

If you partnered with a Roman Catholic mystic with a degree in spiritual psychology to make a completely unbiblical movie about the Bible featuring ninja angels and Mary Magdalene bossing the disciples around, you might be apostate.

If you and your 80s rock star third husband stand in the pulpit and tell people to watch porn to improve their sex life, you might be apostate.

If a feature of your “worship service” is people laughing uncontrollably or barking like dogs, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever decided to “p*ss off the religious people” on Easter Sunday by playing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell to open the service, you might be apostate.

If you’ve written a book entitled “I Am” and it’s about positive confession rather than Jehovah, you might be apostate.

If you think you have the power to control the weather by the words you speak, you might be apostate.

Joyce-Meyer-600x450

If you think that between the cross and the resurrection Jesus went to Hell and that Satan and the demons jumped up and down on His back, you might be apostate.

If the top three “pastors” you encourage people to follow on Twitter are T.D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen, you might be apostate.

If a currently practicing homosexual couple wants to serve in leadership at your church and your only problem with it is that one of them isn’t yet divorced from his wife, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever been accused of having an affair with Benny Hinn, you might be apostate.

If, a hundred years ago, your worship leaders might have been carted off to the funny farm or treated to an exorcism for conducting themselves like this, you might be apostate.

And, if you’re about to write a comment rebuking me for marking false teachers to avoid and exposing unfruitful works of darkness because Jesus would never do such a thing then you don’t know your Bible.

And you just might be apostate.

Favorite Finds

Favorite Finds ~ August 21, 2018

Michelle Lesley

Here are a few of my favorite recent online finds…

Here’s something helpful that came out of the TGC Women’s Conference earlier this summer, the 9Marks at 9 breakout session Women and the Local Church. Karen, Keri, Bev, and Abigail discuss what makes a church, the importance of the local church, what makes a healthy church, practical things you can do to help your church become healthy, prioritizing the local church, and the impact your commitment to the church makes on your children.

 

Wretched has, not one, but two freebies for you! Download the gospel booklet Don’t Stub Your Toe or The Biggest Question video (also available in Spanish) and share them on social media or via e-mail with friends who need to hear the gospel. You might even enjoy reading and watching them yourself!

 

 

Pastor Allen Nelson has written a helpful seven-part review and response to Rachel Held Evans’ new book, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. It’s over at the Things Above Us blog, and it’s entitled God-Breathed: A Response to Rachel Held Evans’s View of Scripture. If you’re unfamiliar with Rachel, you can read more about her here, where I have also linked Allen’s article series.

 

At night or in the morning? Commentaries or journaling? “In January 2018, Crossway surveyed over 6,000 readers, asking questions about their Bible reading habits.” They’ve given us some of the results of that survey in a nifty little infographic, How Do You Read the Bible? 

 

 

Yet she will be saved through childbearing—
if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
1 Timothy 2:15

Have you ever wondered what that verse means? WordBoard explains with the Boardies video What Does She Will Be Saved Through Childbearing Mean?

Discernment, False Teachers, Mailbag

The Mailbag: Do you recommend these teachers/authors? Volume 2

Michelle Lesley

If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against false teachers, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.

mailbag

Volume 1  Volume 3

I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, and Bible teachers, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found above at my Popular False Teachers tab. Below are some others I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on each of them.

Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, or author, he or she has to meet three criteria:

a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual).

b) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.

c) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.

I am not very familiar with the women listed below and have not had much of an opportunity to examine their writings or hear them speak, so most of the “quick checking” I did involved items a and b (although in order to partner with false teachers (b) it is reasonable to assume their doctrine is acceptable to the false teacher and that they are not teaching anything that would conflict with the false teacher’s doctrine).

Just to be clear, “not recommended” is a spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are people like Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kay Arthur. These are people I would not label as false teachers because their doctrine is generally sound, but because of some red flags I’m seeing with them, you won’t find me proactively endorsing them or suggesting them as a good resource, either. There are better people you could be listening to. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans- complete heretics whose teachings, if believed, might lead you to an eternity in Hell. Most of the teachers I review fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum (leaning toward the latter).

headshot-resized_400x400

Rachel Held Evans– Not recommended. There are so many ways Rachel deviates from orthodox, biblical Christianity, It would be impossible to describe all of them, even briefly. Rachel denies the Bible’s inerrancy as well as its authority. She rejects the Bible’s teaching that a conscious knowledge of and faith in Christ is necessary for salvation (inclusivism). She supports homosexual “marriage” as well as the idea of calling practicing, unrepentant homosexuals Christians and including them in church membership. She mercilessly twists and misuses Scripture to the extent that it would be comical for its ridiculousness were it not so blasphemous. (Denny Burk has an excellent article that covers all of these issues in more detail.) Rachel believes in evolution. Rachel has, at best, mixed feelings about abortion, supporting the funding of Planned Parenthood and decrying “abstinence only” teaching in sex ed classes. Rachel is a staunch feminist, egalitarian, and promoter of “gender equality” in the church. Pick a biblical issue or doctrine. Rachel is almost certain to be on the unbiblical side of it.

Rachel Held Evans died May 4, 2019. I commend to you Gabriel Hughes’ and Elizabeth Prata’s articles responding to her death.

xecm_hpro_256

Heather Lindsey– Not recommended. The header of Heather’s website lists her as: Christian, Wife, Mother, etc., and “pastor.” Heather and her husband co-pastor a “church”, which is rebellion against Scripture.

Heather demonstrates extremely poor hermeneutics and lacks a basic understanding of Christ’s atonement in salvation. In this video , she not only teaches that you can lose your salvation by failing to forgive others, she also refers to examining Scripture in context as a way of “squirming out of” obedience to the Bible. In this article on how to study the Bible, Heather suggests praying in tongues, using music by some of her favorite artists, including Jesus Culture, Kari Jobe, and Hillsong, and using study materials such as the Joyce Meyer Everyday Living Bible, the Dakes Study Bible (embraced by Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn), The Power of Speaking God’s Word by Joyce Meyer, and Beth Moore materials. In the same article, she makes this odd statement in reference to Jesus being her “husband” (she misunderstands and takes several verses out of context to explain this relationship):

“When I was single, I would dress up, make reservations and take my bible & have a date night! I would go to the movies with Jesus! I would cook him dinner, brownies AND we’d watch a movie at home alone. We’d go grocery shopping together. At nighttime, I would talk to Him about what I should wear the next day (sometimes, we would disagree lol) I would ask Him how He wants me to wear my hair.”

She also talks about having “a relationship with God the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ,” demonstrating her lack of understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit.

Continuing in the same article, Heather indicates that she believes in and receives extra-biblical revelation and that she relies on her feelings rather than God’s word:

“I started to obey Christ..whenever He told me to do something. You hear God’s voice through your inner ear and some would call it your ‘gut’, conscience or ‘just something told you that you should have done that.’ I always CHECK my peace. If something comes up–I immediately tune into the Holy Spirit and I can tell if He is tugging my heart one way or another. I LISTEN to that peace. A great checker is if you’re in an unhealthy relationship & God is telling you to leave it–you won’t have any peace about the person.”

Heather’s blog is rife with recommendations for and references to Joyce Meyer and T.D. Jakes, she is an admirer of Sarah Jakes Roberts, and Heather and her husband Cornelius have preached at T.D. Jakes’ organization The Potter’s House. You can listen to a critique of one of her “sermons” here.

nancy-demoss

Nancy (Leigh) DeMoss Wolgemuth– Not recommended. There are many good things about Nancy and her ministry, Revive Our Hearts. Nancy’s teaching is generally doctrinally sound, and I would not label her a false teacher. I’ve personally done one of Nancy’s studies and didn’t find any theological problems with it.

I commend Nancy for stating on her Revive Our Hearts web site that ROH supports the Danvers Statement on biblical manhood and womanhood. Unfortunately, Nancy also believes it is appropriate for women to speak to mixed groups as long as they’re doing so “under the headship of male spiritual authority” and the woman is not in “a position of ongoing responsibility for the spiritual direction of men” (Scripture doesn’t make either of these exceptions).

ROH recommends multiple studies by both Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer on their resource page and ROH has printed articles by Nancy and others positively referencing both Moore and Shirer (who was a featured speaker at ROH’s True Woman conference in 2012), as well as Lysa TerKeurst/Proverbs 31. There was also concern in 2012 over Nancy’s/ROH’s/True Woman’s use and endorsement of “circle maker” praying. Finally, ROH is an outreach of Life Action Ministries which subscribes to Keswick theology (source, source, source).

I truly regret that I’m unable to give a wholehearted endorsement to any of these women. I’m sure they’re all perfectly nice people who, in their own hearts, have only the best of intentions, but Christian leaders and teachers have a grave responsibility to Christ and to their listeners to teach sound doctrine and walk in obedience to Scripture. Please understand that this is not a personal attack on any of these women, only answers to readers’ questions about whether or not I recommend them and their materials.

If you have a question about: a well-known Christian author/leader, a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.

Discernment, False Teachers

You Might Be Apostate

Michelle Lesley

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy hit the big time several years ago with his “You Might Be a Redneck” one-liners. He frequently introduced the bit by saying, “I’ve found that there are rednecks all over, but sometimes people don’t know they’re rednecks. So, I came up with this little test…” and continued with such gems as:

“If you’ve ever had to carry a bucket of paint to the top of a water tower to defend your sister’s honor, you might be a redneck.”

“If your wife has ever said, ‘Honey, come get this transmission out of the tub so I can take a bath!’ you might be a redneck.”

“If you’ve ever been accused of lying through your tooth, you might be a redneck.”

It was a routine that a lot of us in the South found hilarious because we knew someone (or were someone) who fit nearly every one of Jeff’s jabs.

Like rednecks, there are apostate false teachers all over the place out there, only a lot of them (and their disciples) don’t know they’re false teachers. And the fruit of their lives and ministries is far wackier than anything a redneck has ever dreamed up. That fruit is a sign that we’d better examine the root of doctrine from which the fruit sprang.

So if any of the preachers and teachers you’re following have ever said or done the following things (or something even crazier), watch out, because they Might Be Apostate.

HoNuthaLevel

If you’re a middle aged pastor who makes embarrassing rap videos, who publicly extols the virtues of Spanx for men (even though it gives you gas) and who calls himself a Ferrari you might be apostate.

If you feature a Naked Cowboy impersonater (aka- your youth “pastor”) at your “Christian” women’s conference, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever purposefully applied the pronoun “herself” to God, you might be apostate.

If you celebrated your 35th birthday by preaching at the “church” of your mentor, T.D. Jakes, and placing a $35,000 check in his offering wheelbarrow, you might be apostate.

If God has ever told you to go up to a stranger in the airport and ask if you can brush his hair, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever given your congregation a sob story about needing a new $70 million Gulfstream jet, because the old one is worn out, you might be apostate.

If you think of the Holy Spirit as the “sneaky,” “silly,” “funny,” “blue genie from Aladdin,” you might be apostate.

If you’re a woman who thinks God is OK with you preaching to men despite what His word clearly says to the contrary, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever said, regarding your church’s worship service, “I probably wouldn’t have a stripper on stage…” but leave the door open to the idea because “God told Isaiah to walk around naked for three years,” you might be apostate.

Benny Hinn at Maple Leaf Gardens on Sept. 28, 1992 photos by Tony Bock/Toronto Star and handout photo.

If you think smacking people in the face with your Nehru jacket is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever typed a Facebook status in tongues, you might be apostate.

If you say you’re a trinitarian, but think the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three “manifestations” of God rather than three Persons, you ARE apostate.

If you think Proverbs 21:9 means you should camp out on your roof in a quest for biblical womanhood, you might be apostate.

If your senior pastor father sexually abused boys at your church and paid them off to keep them quiet and you, as the subsequent pastor, knew about it but didn’t speak up, you might be apostate.

If you officiated at your homosexual son’s “wedding,” you might be apostate.

If you’re a pastor who thinks expository preaching is “cheating” because it’s “too easy” and that “it’s not the way you grow people” AND that we shouldn’t say “the Bible says…” AND that parents who take their children to a small church instead of a mega church are “stinkin’ selfish,” AND that we shouldn’t use the Bible to convince the lost of their need for Christ, you might be apostate.

If you’re Oprah’s idea of an awesome pastor, you might be apostate.

download

If your preaching, ministry, and theology have ever been publicly rebuked by John MacArthur, Paul Washer and Steve Lawson, you might be apostate.

If you partnered with a Roman Catholic mystic with a degree in spiritual psychology to make a completely unbiblical movie about the Bible featuring ninja angels and Mary Magdalene bossing the disciples around, you might be apostate.

If you and your 80s rock star third husband stand in the pulpit and tell people to watch porn to improve their sex life, you might be apostate.

If a feature of your “worship service” is people laughing uncontrollably or barking like dogs, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever decided to “p*ss off the religious people” on Easter Sunday by playing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell to open the service, you might be apostate.

If you’ve written a book entitled “I Am” and it’s about positive confession rather than Jehovah, you might be apostate.

If you think you have the power to control the weather by the words you speak, you might be apostate.

Joyce-Meyer-600x450

If you think that between the cross and the resurrection Jesus went to Hell and that Satan and the demons jumped up and down on His back, you might be apostate.

If the top three “pastors” you encourage people to follow on Twitter are T.D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen, you might be apostate.

If a currently practicing homosexual couple wants to serve in leadership at your church and your only problem with it is that one of them isn’t yet divorced from his wife, you might be apostate.

If you’ve ever been accused of having an affair with Benny Hinn, you might be apostate.

If, a hundred years ago, your worship leaders might have been carted off to the funny farm or treated to an exorcism for conducting themselves like this, you might be apostate.

And, if you’re about to write a comment rebuking me for marking false teachers to avoid and exposing unfruitful works of darkness because Jesus would never do such a thing then you don’t know your Bible.

And you just might be apostate.