The Need to Address Alternative and New Religious Movements

The average churchgoer who attend regularly on Sundays a "Word of Faith" service are "unaware" of the history, beliefs, and practice of the prosperity-faith message (2 Cor. 11:3).  When the prosperity-faith message came on the scene in the early 80's even though it started in 1892 through that of E.W. Kenyon who is the "Father" of what is known as, "The Word of Faith movement" or that of "The Hyper-Faith movement whose belief is in that of "faith" healing without any need for medicine or the doctor's recommendation that "blind" followers of this movement lost their lives as a result of their "misguided" faith (Matt. 4:1-11).  E. W. Kenyon who read extensively that of the material of Christian Science so as to compete with the cults of his day in regards to "divine" healing (1 Pet. 2:24).  Many of the cults of New Thought: that of Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, Religious Scie...

What is the prosperity gospel understanding of the Bible? What is the "avenue" by which many proponents of the prosperity gospel receive such spiritual "revelation?" How has the prosperity gospel misunderstood what is "special" revelation? What is "special" revelation? What is the "general" revelation of the Bible in regards to the creation of the universe? How does a person attain salvation based upon what the "revelation" they receive from God?  These are questions that needs to be answer by those who claim that in order to understand the Bible are to be understood esoterically and mystical (Col. 2:18, 19).    As I stated in my previous articles is that mere casual reading of the scripture (e.g. "3 John 2") is just Only the tip of the theological iceberg.  There is a philosophical basis by which the prosperity gospel originate.  It may appear that many proponents of the prosperity gospel seem to have a "go...

The original article that I have wrote, "Getting a Grip on the Basics of Knowing How to Read the Bible" is very much basic when it comes to properly reading God's Word.  It is "unfortunate" that the leadership of many churches today especially both Charismatic and Pentecostal churches are ignorant when it comes to knowing "how to" properly read scripture. Scripture quoting and sanctimoniousness does not make a person a student of the Bible but if anything as my father said years ago, "Talking loud and saying nothing." (1 Cor. 12:1-2).  In order for believers to read properly God's Word is to take into account every word of scripture: that is paying attention to the author's original intent, the wording of the text of scripture, "small" words (e.g. "and") so as to bridge the gap between one thought into another, the grammatical structure of the context of scripture, and also such the immediate scripture as to its ...

I find it quite amazing that people who are on the social media especially the average churchgoer have not yet master the basic fundamentals of Bible interpretation.  It is very unfortunate that many who called themselves Christian leaders in the church today are unskilled when it comes to "properly" interpreting the Bible.  Instead of properly reading the scripture they in fact read over biblical passages of the Bible without taking into consideration the "wording" of the text of scripture, comparison passages that will shed light upon a particular difficult Bible passage nor understand the grammatical structure of the context of scripture as to its literal meaning, the type of literature, and the interrogatives so as to question the text in and of itself (2 Timothy 2:15).    Once again the church have not yet graduated from "The Fundamentals of Bible Interpretation." Many believers remain to on the milk of God's Word by which their senses are not...

How is it possible for "Christian" theologians  to "misread" the Bible by contextualizing the text of scripture? Well just recently I heard on a local Radio station where this particular minister begins his commentary by utilizing the Bible (e.g. Egyptian exile) in the book of Exodus to conceptualize the experience of Black people into the context of scripture. The experience of the Western culture and civilization view the Bible from a Euro-centric perspective that it is impossible to see the experience of Black people as to be oppress by the White slave owner.  If the experience of the Bible does not fit within the contours of the African American experience especially that of European theology than it would be problematic concerning that of their beliefs and culture.  Everything have be seen through that of the experience of Black liberation theology in regards to the experience of Black people by which the Bible is made to be a "suspect" as to the Wh...

Now that many of my readers have given a basic understanding of knowing "how" to read properly God's Word and that is to take into account the whole of scripture (2 Tim. 2:15).  The recent article that I wrote entitled, "How to Properly Read God's Word" is that the leadership of many churches today have in fact made an assumption based upon God's Word to say what it says without taking into account the whole of the biblical context of scripture.  In order to understand the whole of the context of scripture is to read previous and preceding verses or chapter so as to grasp that of its meaning. Scripture interprets scripture (1 Cor. 2:13, 14). The basics of Bible interpretation is being able to know "how" to interpret God's Word in light of the Bible itself.  The student of the Bible must allow God's Word to speak for itself; not to "infringe" upon the context of scripture. Whenever the leadership of the church "forge...

I have written numerous articles on, "How to Read Properly God's Word?" I find it necessary to go back to the drawing board because my my recent experience dealing with one of my student within our Bible class.  What I have learned during the course of my conversation with one of my students that "mere" casual reading of the scripture was just only the tip of the iceberg but there were other issues that were involved in the necessity of knowing how to read properly God's Word.  What I have discovered with my dialogue with one of my students by which I love dearly is being able to communicate but understanding clearly what was being asked of them to do.  Because of my students eagerness in sharing that of God's Word was very much admirable but what fall short in our conversation is to listen attentively to what is being said in the text of scripture.  People have the tendency to assume what a passage says or mean without taking into consideration the wh...