From: Brad
To: The Path of Truth
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 7:06 PM
Hello,
Reading “the big lie exposed”, I have questions.
How does the verse, paraphrasing,” that you need no man to teach you, but the Holy Spirit”, fit?
Is the above verse only for prophets? Does the content of the article, of following a man that is appointed of God, apply to prophets?
Not intending to be contentious with the last question. I am sure the answer is no for obvious reason. It would be like looking in a mirror reflecting a mirror opposite, revealing a never ending site of mirrors. Meaning that a prophet would be following a prophet, following a prophet, following a prophet….
I think of the sabbath reading this. Is one able to apply the both the article concept and the above verse concerning the sabbath?
From: Brad
To: The Path of Truth
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 6:38 PM
Hello,
Reading “praying for salvation of souls”.
I have asked ‘what was the point’? Can God make somebody get saved? Why were people not becoming saved from prayers of these Christians? They say free will, yet praying for salvation , which indicates no free will. Or God is impotent. These thoughts were before I saw TPOT.
You quote luke10:2. The harvest is great. Harvest means ripe fruit, produce, crops. Ready to be picked. Reading your site, the correspondence , it seems the crop is withered, dead, with a few live plants here and there.
If there is few laborers, then the harvest won’t be completed, losing the crop. It seems to fit with my previous thought of God being impotent. Why would he need laborers if one is saved only by the will of God? Is the harvest lost souls to be saved, or saved souls to leave this life?
I have read and understand how one is saved. Trying to see how this verse fits.
Thanks, Brad
Side note for Victor, not Bradley as he addressed me once. Thanks.
From: Paul Cohen
To: Brad
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 3:56 PM
Subject: Questions on Our Writings
Hi Brad,
Is this Brad G? We’ve had three Brads in touch with us over the past year (that I can think of off the top of my head). And is there any reason why you didn’t make yourself known more fully?
After you reply we can answer your questions, Lord willing.
Paul
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 4:03 PM
Hello Paul.,
Sorry. No particular reason. Did not think there may be other Brads. It is Brad G. I also sent about “the big lie”. Thanks.
From: Paul Cohen
To: Brad G
Cc: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Questions on Our Writings
Hi Brad,
Here’s what I have to say about your questions in general:
“For the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17 MKJV).
Paul isn’t talking only of physical food, as the Scriptures points out:
“Do not be carried about with different and strange doctrines, for it is good for the heart to be established with grace, not with foods, in which those who have walked in them were not helped” (Hebrews 13:9 MKJV).
Even true doctrine, when unaccompanied by a walk of faith and obedience producing peace and joy, doesn’t profit its hearers. I think you would readily admit you aren’t experiencing peace and joy, which the saints of God have even amidst tribulation.
Why do you lack? Because you’re trying to figure out the Kingdom of God without faith, according to your carnal mind, which goes nowhere. You need to enter by the King instead, Who is the Door into the Kingdom.
“I am the Door. If anyone enters in by Me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9 MKJV).
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6 MKJV).
Regarding your specific questions:
“How does the verse, paraphrasing, ‘that you need no man to teach you, but the Holy Spirit’, fit?
Actually, the Scripture says “the anointing” teaches us, which is Christ come in the flesh, His Holy Spirit within those who believe. But there’s no contradiction in saying the Holy Spirit alone teaches us and that He also raises up teachers for His followers (1 Corinthians 12:28 MKJV). The only way believers can be taught by the teachers God’s sends is because His Spirit enables believers to hear and understand what the teacher is saying through Him.
“But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:12-13 MKJV).
Therefore our teacher isn’t a man per se, but the Lord, Who puts His living Word in the mouths of His servants:
“And for this cause we still give praise to God, that, when the Word came to your ears through us, you took it, not as the word of man, but, as it truly is, the Word of God, which has living power in you who have faith” (1 Thessalonians 2:13 BBE).
The Lord harmonizes the fact that He is our Teacher with sending His ministers to serve His Body.
Matthew 23:8-11 MKJV
(8) But you must not be called Rabbi, for One is your teacher, Christ, and you are all brothers.
(9) And call no one your father on the earth, for One is your Father in Heaven.
(10) Nor be called teachers, for One is your Teacher, even Christ.
(11) But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
I don’t understand your next question – can you clarify?
“I think of the sabbath reading this. Is one able to apply the both the article concept and the above verse concerning the sabbath?”
You also ask about “praying for salvation of souls.” Yes, the ongoing work of mankind’s salvation can appear so foolish and inept, as you say, and as the Word of God says:
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 MKJV).
The work of God is conducted from the spiritual realm, which transcends your limited thinking:
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9 MKJV)
You’re seeing things from a very constricted perspective, Brad, unaware of the height and breadth of God’s work in Christ:
“So that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7 MKJV).
“After these things I looked, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palms in their hands” (Revelation 7:9 MKJV).
God accomplishes all that He set out to do by sending His Son to die for the sins of the world. His will is that none perish, but that all come to repentance, and so it will be.
Does that give anyone the excuse to do as they please, since God will save them? It’s from this very mentality that one must repent and be saved. Which is, once again, a matter of faith, and is why we’re sent to preach the Word of God:
“Then faith is of hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17 MKJV).
You were going to come to the Sabbath meeting about a month or so ago. What happened?
Paul
From: Brad G
To: Sara
Sent: Tuesday, Aug 5, 2014 at 5:33 pm
Hello Sara,
Name is Brad.
How do I listen to sabbath meetings when I am able?
Thanks, Brad
I have changed jobs before I read and understood about the sabbath. Consequently I work on Saturdays during haying and harvest season. I was hoping to be able to attend, so I asked for directions in case I was able, as the email says.
Brad
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 4:20 PM
Subject: RE: Re: Questions on Our Writings
Hello Paul,
P: I don’t understand your next question – can you clarify?
“I think of the sabbath reading this. Is one able to apply the both the article concept and the above verse concerning the sabbath?”
I was asking about applying both the teaching of following a man of God ‘The Big Lie Exposed’ and that I need no man teach me on the sabbath. You answered in this reply. Thanks.
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Cc: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 5:03 PM
Subject: voting
Hello,
It is election day tomorrow for the ‘saviors’ of this country. I read your writings about voting for Jesus quite a while ago. I was thinking today that voting for whom ever would be akin to the jews asking for a king, (called sin by God), instead of being led of a prohet of God. We would be sinning by voting for a man.
Brad
From: Paul Cohen
To: Brad G
Cc: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: voting
You’re right Brad – we need to put our trust in God, not man. Man can’t fix himself. In trying to do so, he only ends up destroying himself and the world. That’s been the big lesson of history, God subjecting us to failure in order to have hope in Him and His work through Christ.
“For the creation was not willingly subjected to vanity, but because of Him Who subjected it on hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”
(Romans 8:20-21 MKJV).
Thanks for letting us know about your work. Did you leave your job as a copier technician? And how did you get involved in farming? Tell us more.
Paul
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: voting
Not voting would only apply to those who are called of God.
My intent is to eventually not work for nobody but myself. The agreement I have with the farm job is I work half the week for them and the rest of the week for me.The days of working vary week to week. I generally get 40 or more hours in half a week on the farm. A five day a week job does not allow me to get my own work done at home, or to do my own businesses. This is the first step towards my goal.
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 8:09 PM
Hello.
Remember seeing about a 1/3 of this video a year or two ago. Monica Dennington, youtube: ‘the mystery woman of revelation revealed, the name of the holy spirit.’. Teaching the Holy Spirit is a woman. Obviously false.
Also have been been told of Greg Boyd this week. I was told he talks of God as I do, what I have learned from you. Have not seen anything from him yet, as I only heard of him this week. Www.reknew.org.
Brad
From: Paul Cohen
To: Brad G
Cc: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 8:11 AM
Subject: Greg Boyd/Business(es)/Address
Hi Brad,
Have you looked at Greg Boyd’s website? What do you see there?
What kind of business(es) are you starting?
Should we still be using your Ridgeviewtel address for our mail correspondence?
Paul
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 4:46 PM
I have only started to look at greg boyd today. Do not know anything about his teachings.
Ridgeviewtel is OK to use. They are upgrading apparently this week. Unable to access email. It is my primary. I use my phone when not at computer or have a thought I do not want to lose. You could also send to my phone the correspondences.
Business: I am learning about various modes of producing energy to for personal use. Primarily woodgas. It can be used to cook, fuel motors from lawn mower to vehicles, produce electricity, and heat water. I can show people how to be self sufficient, not to be dependent on external systems in case of a disaster of any sort. Not talking about “prepper” stuff. There are many other facets to the idea. Solar, (cooking, heating, cooling, energy production), foraging, (wild edibles). To be able to live and not panic if power is out for extended time, or stranded, heavy snow fall, ice storms…. How to power your house using your car, keep freezer food from thawing. To know what is edible in your yard, how to get it, high production natural gardening. Common sense stuff.
May not seem so, but all these ideas compliment each other. I believe God gave us a brain to use as we live on this earth. We are too dependent on external systems for our physical being. Seemingly constantly stocked stores, truck drivers to deliver, electric, gas stations, heating fuel…
Do people have basic handyman skills? Can you repair, modify, build? I have always had a desire to create, to investigate, (probably why christianity teachings did not seem right over the years), find out the why of a matter or how something works, to improve.
My intent is to show how to provide for yourself with these ideas, for money or barter for something I need. Have no business yet. Working on it.
I want have different skills and sources of provision.
In this, I know God is in control and cannot do anything without him.
From: Brad G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 7:25 PM
Hello,
Listened to Greg Boyd, youtube, twisted scripture james 1.
He used the phrase of God saying “give me your heart”. Had an alter call.
Did not say faith was given from God. Did say faith is not conjured and psychological. God does not expect us to conjure faith knowing it is impossible.
He says thinking and reasoning is worship.
Sounds like he is searching, unlike other false teachers, though he is a pastor in a church.
I will probably listen occasionally. I am reading your site and the Bible to hear the word to gain faith and be obedient. So I do not want to confuse myself now. I mentioned this fellow because some family told me of him because he supposedly sounds like me when I talk of God.
Brad
From: Brag G
To: Paul Cohen
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 8:04 PM
Hello,
Not able to analyze this video. :
Greg Boyd, women in leadership/ministry youtube.
Would like to hear what God has to say of this.
Brad
From: Paul Cohen
To: Brad G
Cc: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 8:41 AM
Subject: Greg Boyd – False Teacher
Hi Brad,
I checked out Greg Boyd’s site, www.reknew.org, and the shorter of his two videos on YouTube about women in leadership http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57GMoet8DhQ <video defunct>
Greg Boyd isn’t a Christian – not according to the definition of a born-again believer demonstrated in the Bible and our lives. Greg is an intellectual “believer,” by worldly measures, an intelligent, capable, zealous, passionate, articulate, humorous, charismatic and accomplished man. None of that means anything with God, however, because there is no faith or cross (The Cross – Only the Death Sentence Will Avail) that minister life from above.
In the welcoming video on his site, “Viva La Revolution,” Greg speaks of the Catholic Church and its offspring as if they’re legitimate. He could only do this as part of the same religious system, a child of Babylon who hasn’t been born of the Jerusalem from above. He says:
“We are on the verge of a new reformation… more revolutionary than the Protestant reformation of the 16th century.”
The Protestant Reformation tried merely to “reform” the Catholic Church, an institution utterly corrupt in God’s sight. Working from this faulty foundation, the Reformation produced new and altered copies of a counterfeit. That’s why it’s said Babylon is filled with names of blasphemy (Revelation 17:3).
Greg goes on:
“People are rethinking fundamental aspects of the faith… that’s why we named this ministry ‘Reknew’ …without in any way dissing the church tradition we’re challenging people to take a fresh look at old beliefs… New wine is being poured in old wineskins causing old wineskins to burst apart – it’s causing people to ask a whole lot of good questions….”
Does God pour new wine in old wineskins? Didn’t the Lord say this was unwise and unprofitable? “No one puts new wine into old wineskins, else the new wine bursts the wineskins, and the wine spills, and the wineskins will be ruined. The new wine must be put into new wineskins” (Mark 2:22 MKJV).
Greg is admitting there are no new wineskins in his revolution, yet doesn’t perceive the meaning of his admission. How can he? He’s under strong delusion. And he doesn’t have new wine, as he presumes, just more of the old questions without understanding or godly answers.
Greg’s ways are opposed to the Lord’s ways, Who positively and emphatically “dissed” the traditions of the religious of His day:
“But He answered and said to them, Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. However, they worship Me in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men… making the Word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have delivered” (Mark 7:6-7,13 MKJV).
And while Greg wasn’t dissing church traditions, one of the “good questions” he refers to involves him dissing God’s sovereignty:
“Is there any truth to these clichés that are perpetually repeated in the face of suffering, when tragedy happens folks say, ‘Oh, well, you know God is still on His throne… it’s all for the better, God knows what He’s doing, there’s no chance, nothing happens by chance, God’s timing is the right timing, His ways are not our ways,’ and on and on and on and on. Does believing in God mean you have to believe in that kind of stuff?”
By cavalierly dismissing God’s sovereignty over all things, Greg denies Him as LORD and calls Him a liar.
Isaiah 45:5-7 ESV
(5) I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,
(6) that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.
(7) I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, Who does all these things.
Greg mocks the notion of “a macho God controlling everything.” Who says God is “macho” because He’s in complete control? This is a characterization of Greg’s carnal mind, vainly trying to comprehend or describe God. Without the mind of the Last Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior, and understanding of His Spirit, how can he know God? The truth is foolishness to the wise of this world, namely, Greg Boyd.
1 Corinthians 2:11-16 MKJV
(11) For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
(12) But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.
(13) These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(14) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(15) But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.
(16) For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
How presumptuous of Greg to speak as if he knows God contrary to His Word! This is the man of sin coming as an angel of light. In Greg’s form of intellectual and carnal Christianity, there’s no place for the personal application of the cross that does away with the man of sin. It’s through the cross that we personally learn of God’s sovereignty, being dethroned as our own sovereigns, “every man doing what is right in his own eyes.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 MKJV
(18) For the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those being lost, but to us being saved, it is the power of God.
(19) For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the perceiving ones.”
(20) Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
(21) For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.
(22) For the Jews ask for a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom;
(23) but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness.
(24) But to them, the called-out ones, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
(25) Because the foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and the weak thing of God is stronger than men.
In line with Greg’s dismissal of God and His oversight of His creation, Greg also promotes evolutionary theory – the epitome of God-denial and arrogant insanity. Greg warns others not to come against this sacred science, which is truly the most pompous and outrageous of lies defying both science and common sense. (See Evolution.)
So it’s no surprise that Greg also trashes the commandment of the Lord against women teaching or usurping authority over men:
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I do not allow a woman to teach, or to exercise authority over a man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:11-12 MKJV).
1 Corinthians 14:34-37 MKJV
(34) Let your women be silent in the churches; for it is not permitted to them to speak, but to be in subjection, as the Law also says.
(35) And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in a church.
(36) Or did the Word of God go out from you? Or did it reach only to you?
(37) If anyone thinks to be a prophet, or a spiritual one, let him recognize the things I write to you, that they are a commandment of the Lord.
Greg’s argument for women in authority over men isn’t original, though he brings his own flavor and twist to it. He starts with a common notion that the “Old Testament” culture was “extremely patriarchal,” but “when the New Testament is being written, we find the gates are opened up for men and women equally.”
That’s all lies. With regards to the sexes, nothing at all changed affecting how God made them with different positions in our lives on earth. Men were given to be the head since Adam was created first, and women chosen of God, like men, had faith from the beginning. Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Deborah, Miriam, Abigail, Esther, Hannah, Huldah, Samson’s mother – the list goes on – all spoke and took initiative in the faith given to them of God. That’s why the apostle Peter uses the godly men and women of old as examples for the believers of the “New Testament” era to follow:
1 Peter 3:1-6 EMTV
(1) Wives, likewise, subject yourselves to your own husbands, so that even if some are disobedient to the word, that by the conduct of their wives, without a word, they shall be gained for Christ,
(2) when they observe your chaste conduct with fear.
(3) Of whom let it not be the outward adorning of braiding of hair, and wearing of gold, or of putting on of fine clothes,
(4) rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible attitude of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious before God.
(5) For thus formerly, the holy women who hoped on God also adorned themselves, subjecting themselves to their own husbands,
(6) as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, of whom you became children, when you do good and are not afraid of any terror.
Greg doesn’t distinguish between gifts of the Spirit and the offices of ministry. He quotes Peter’s words in Acts that refer to Joel’s prophecy:
Acts 2:17-18 MKJV
(17) “And it shall be in the last days, says God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
(18) And in those days I will pour out My Spirit upon My slaves and My slave women, and they shall prophesy.
Greg proposes this means that women now serve as prophets and evangelists in God’s assembly. He’s wrong; that’s not what the Scripture is saying. The Lord is talking about spiritual gifts such as prophesying, which He gives to both men and women for the edification of His Body. His appointed shepherds that oversee His flock are always men, however, and not even all men are elders or leaders of men under God, though they may prophesy and exercise other gifts, as did Stephen and Philip, for examples (Acts 7 and 8) (For more on this, see the Diabolical Doctrine: Women Are Ministers of God in Spiritual Authority over Men.)
Because women were sent to announce the Lord’s resurrection to the apostles, Greg makes the following spurious claim: “The first Christian evangelists were women – to men!”
As wonderful as it was to bear this good news to the apostles, that didn’t make the women evangelists. Shouldn’t a presumed minister of Christ know the difference between one who delivers a message and one who does the work of an evangelist?
2 Timothy 4:1-5 MKJV
(1) Therefore I solemnly witness before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is going to judge the living and the dead according to His appearance and His kingdom,
(2) preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
(3) For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear.
(4) And they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned to myths.
(5) But you watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fully carry out your ministry.
Greg also mocks the apostles with an Elmer Fudd voice for “hiding” because “scared and afraid,” contrasting them to the women who went to the sepulcher. Yet we don’t find any such testimony in the Scriptures. So where does Greg get off making things up as if they’re in the Bible and using them to pit women against men with his sexist remarks?
The man is a divider and destroyer while deceitfully posing as a unifier and builder of the Church; he even claims to take a major role in what he defines as the greatest move of God in history. How strong the delusion God gives men over to, those who don’t have a love of the truth!
“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30 EMTV).
Paul