spiphywarfare

Category: Spiritual Fitness

  • At a Loss

    I’m at a complete and total loss. The more I go to look into the nasty, devilish teachings of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the more I find it has infiltrated into an institution I’ve long affiliated myself with. The Provost and Sr. VP of Southern Seminary, an institution of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), claims that “faithfulness, and orthodoxy, and truth, and righteousness, and justice” are actually a rotting corpse of white supremacy.

    Now, before I continue, I need to make something clear. If you’re not familiar with Southern Baptist church polity, it follows a congregational form meaning the SBC holds no authority over local congregations. This is important because you can’t conclude that every SBC congregation, or even a majority of them, are embracing what I am talking about. Although if not stopped, in the future the majority will. I surely haven’t seen this at the congregation I attend, or I would have withdrawn my membership there.

    Sadly, many of those sitting in the pews of those congregations are unaware that some of their giving is going to furthering the introduction of CRT into our seminaries. CRT makes a mockery of the work of Jesus on the Cross when it is blended in Christianity. We need salvation through Jesus, and then some more. At its core, it is a theory based on Marxist thought and as such is concerned only about power, and adheres to the idea that “truth has no independent existence.” Could anything be farther from what our Bible teaches?

    That’s how it becomes acceptable to teach future SBC ministers that “faithfulness, and orthodoxy, and truth, and righteousness, and justice” are ideas based on “the rotting corpse of white supremacy.” Do you want to be faithful? Congratulations, you’re practicing white supremacy! Do you want to express orthodoxy in your beliefs? Congratulations, you’re expressing white supremacy? How about the truth? That thing Jesus says will set you free. Do you want to proclaim it? Congratulations, you’re proclaiming white supremacy! And to top it off, your beliefs, truths, faithfulness etc. are a dead, rotting corpse. Don’t just take my words for it, hear him in his own words. The video below will start a few seconds before he lets that doctrine of demons spew out of his mouth.

    If you want to embrace these teachings, fine. Go ahead. Just know you will have to reject Ephesians 2:14-16. You have to reject 2 Corinthians 5:17. You have to reject Ezekiel 18:19-20. You will have to reject truth, faithfulness, and righteousness.

    Alternatively, you could keep all of that, embrace 1 Timothy4:1, and wonder if we’re near the end.

  • Wait. What? Things I Didn’t Know About the Bible

    I was raised in church. I’ve often joked with folks that in the church of my youth, the pastor had to push his way through the our family to get the doors unlocked. That experience formed me and gave me some connections that have lasted my lifetime.

    We changed our church affiliation when I was 13.  The involvement didn’t change at all. I did the Monday evening visitation where we’d go and knock on neighborhood doors to talk to folks about Christ. I sat in Sunday School. I sat in Sunday Morning Services. I sat in Wednesday evening services. I was taught all the standard things that I assume almost every other Western Evangelical was taught.

    I don’t remember anything being taught to me about the sons of God taking daughters of men as wives. I was not taught that chapter 6 in Genesis records an episode where a divinely established order was violated and resulted in the birth of part-spirit being, part-human giants (nephilim).  I wasn’t taught anything about the divine/spiritual realm other than about Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Satan. I was certainly never taught anything that included “other gods” in any meaningful way.


    For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

    Psalm 95:3

    But without other gods, if they are nothing and non-existent, what is this verse saying? Is it saying the LORD is a great King above made up beings? Above nothing? Further, what do we do when the god Dagon[ref]1 Samuel 5:7[/ref] is referred to in the same manner, with the same word,  as the LORD[ref]Exodus 3:18[/ref]?

    Along with this what was left out, there were things I was warned away from. To me, apocrypha might as well have meant anathema. I came to the conclusion that these books were deceptive and had no value. They weren’t scripture, and were therefore useless. They were to be avoided and I obeyed. I remained willfully and intentionally ignorant of their content.

    Maybe we should treat them like bible commentaries or Christian books written today. That was my moment. Wait. What?

    That’s what started my latest journey in understanding. I’d noticed that some quotes in the New Testament didn’t have the little letter and the note referencing the scripture that was being quoted. Many did. I use my references and always try to check them. Once in a while, you find new testament writers quoting a work that existed outside of scripture. Jude:14-15 for example.

    I was a bit stunned to find that some were quotes from the Book of Enoch. You know, one of those books to avoid. I ended up stumbling across this guy, Dr, Michael Heiser[ref]https://drmsh.com/[/ref] and some of his teachings. The understanding his teachings give has helped the Bible make much more sense to me. I’d challenge you to listen to some of what he teaches.

    This is longer than I intended so I’ll end it now with a summary of what he says to relieve any ideas he may be heretical:

    • The Book of Enoch is not, and should not, ever be part of the Canon;
    • God, our LORD, is a unique being and there is no other being like him;
    • God is the creator of everything, including other divine beings;
    • Jesus Christ is/was/will be God and is the sole pathway to salvation.

  • “They” are Us

    Paul wrote in the book of Romans about men who rejected God. God gave them over to their desires. We get a view of what such men look like. I read his description and compare them against daily headlines and can’t help but think God has given this country over to our desires.


    They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

    Romans 1:29-31

  • Tozer on Watered-down Religion

    I’ve really taken a liking to A. W. Tozer over the past two years. He would likely be stunned even more in some of today’s “church” services.

  • Forgiven little or much?

    I often wonder if being raised in the church makes it easier to live a Christian life on the outside but harder to live it on the inside.

  • Thoughts on Yoga

    I used to belong to the school that you could probably perform yoga moves without getting into the spiritual aspects of it. I guess I thought you wouldn’t be “doing yoga” unless you were concentrating on the Hindu aspects of it. I no longer think those things.

    The difficulty is that yoga, as traditionally understood, doesn’t work that way. In traditional understanding, yoga is  itself  a religious act. The postures  themselves  lead the practitioner to God, whether the practitioner intends this or not. In traditional understanding, in other words, one can’t separate the religious and secular aspects of yoga and one really shouldn’t try.

    https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/yoga-in-public-schools-american-and-indian/


    The process of yoga is an ascent into the purity of the absolute perfection that is the essential state of all human beings…

    The guidance of a competent teacher is required to learn methods for awakening the serpent-like vital force that remains dormant and asleep in every human body. 

    samij.com


    To those in the know, for example, the yogic asanas, or positions, retain elements of their earlier spiritual meanings – the Surya namaskar is a series of positions designed to greet Surya, the Hindu Sun God.

    BBC


    It should be noted at the outset that the word yoga itself refers to “linking with God.”

    krishna.com

    Draw your own conclusions.

    For me, I’m not sure it’s a great idea for a Christian to participate in an activity designed for the purpose of linking to God. I certainly disagree with the statement that “absolute perfection is the essential state of human beings” and think processes designed to help you reach that realization are an insult to the sacrifice of Christ.

    Rather than honoring Hindu gods and awakening a “serpent-like” force found in every human, I’ll just do some stretches from my pee-wee football days if I feel tight.