Last night I read an article about a Christian cult that my wife, Dorothy and I started to get entangled with in 1979 and ’80. Just one year earlier on November 18, 1978, over 900 people, mostly Christians died who were loyal to a pastor named Jim Jones. This man was winded and dined as a great man doing a great work for the poor by civic leaders, celebrities, senators, congressman and even President Jimmy Carter. At his prompting after a crisis in their remote compound in Guyana they all drank poisoned Kool Aid in a communion service knowing exactly what they were doing. Now that is mind control!
The Christian cult we were with was located in four different cities in the USA and we lived in one of them in the northwest. A brother in another one of these cult locations was a member for over eight years with his wife and after it was all over he said,
“No one can consider themselves above the possibility of deception” ~ Tom Murray
After reading this same article, Susanne Schuberth wrote on her blog:
“As soon as we think we have arrived at a certain point of no return in our walk with God, we can be sure that Satan will test our faith by offering us several temptations in order to draw us back into his realm of darkness where all kind of sin lurks at every corner.” https://enteringthepromisedland.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/beware-of-the-snare-in-the-air/
Some of these satanic temptations seem innocuous and even a “holy desire.” Susanne and her husband were caught up in one in Germany and my wife and I in one in Spokane, Washington. Both started out as bona fide Christian churches. Just because you go to a church the is “main line” does not mean that its leadership cannot be corrupted. You might say, “How could you be so stupid to get involved? Don’t you know your Bibles?” If you ask such a question, you have little knowledge of the power of our adversary who can come as an angel of light.
I have heard many Christians quote the tail end of this verse:
For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (Matthew 24:24 RSVA)
They then reason, “Well, these are The Elect! Of course it is impossible to deceive them! If so they wouldn’t be the elect!” Jesus didn’t give these warnings to the elect of God just to hear Himself talk! These deceivers are active in the Church and even have ecclesiastical titles! In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus gave many warnings as to what will come upon the earth at the end of this dispensation of grace. The New Testament has many such warnings about false anointings (Christs), false prophets, apostles and teachers sent by Satan to deceive the people of God even “with all power and signs and lying wonders.” There are many antichrists among us and have been since the end of the first century (see 1 John chapter 2).
My wife and I knew the people in our cult group quite well. We had been in the same church with them and I knew some of them from a former Christian cult in the same area that formed out of the Jesus Movement ten years earlier. This new one was called “The No Name Fellowship” by the media because they refused to take a name.
The leadership started out all warm and fuzzy as the pastor of our church invited their speakers in to minister to the congregation on Sundays. There was a lot of preaching about going all the way with God, rooting out all sin in our lives and “being holy.” Soon these cult leaders started drawing away church members by inviting them to “special meetings” for those who “really want to get serious with God.” My wife and I were serious about our faith and wanted to grow in Christ so we started going to these meetings during the week. Even the pastor and his wife were sucked into the preaching of these men and hosted them in their home for many months. During these meetings there was always a time of prayer in which the leaders encouraged the people to pray out loud what was really on their hearts. We noticed that the leader didn’t kneel and close his eyes like everyone else during prayer times, but was looking around and took note who was praying aloud and what they were saying. This sowed the seeds of doubt in us, especially after one of them asked to come to our home for dinner. A couple days after he accepted our hospitality, we were called out in one of these meeting and rebuked for all that he found while in our home that he thought was not up to their standard of “holiness.” Needless to say, the sense of betrayal and vulnerability in us started to grow.
As these leaders got control of this core group of serious saints, the control level started ratcheting up. Women were told they must wear head coverings and dresses. Their husbands were told to take control of their wives so that they did not speak up in the meetings (unless she was a “recognized prophetess.” The pastor’s wife happened to be one!) The poor pastor didn’t know what hit him and soon his wife was approved of by them and he wasn’t! Dorothy had seen the head covering edict before, so being a rebellious type, she went to the local import markets looking for a giant sombrero to wear to meetings, but they were all out! Rats! She could have provide covering for herself and the women on each side of her!
Eventually there was a church wide meeting in which the cult leaders, after failing to take control of the church facilities from the elders, forced a division among the people and took as many as they could with them. They pronounced curses on the church grounds, the buildings, and the people who wouldn’t follow them, including a curse of barrenness on all the wombs of the women stood against them. It was the ugliest church meeting we had ever attended. Dorothy and I walked out while this would-be “prophet” cult leader was doing his cursing routine. Everyone else just sat there stunned. I was deluded up until that point because I had been saying to myself, “I can’t be deceived again, because I have already escaped form one Christian cult!” In the next couple of days, I was called into a private meeting with the cult leader, the pastor, a brother in Christ that I thought was my friend and a couple of others while they commenced to berate me for walking out. I told them that I had had all this “fun” with Christians in the past ten year that I could stand and we were heading for the back side of the wilderness and would be back in about 40 years. That was the last time I saw any of them until 20 years later.
Thank God we left when we did. Over the next eight years, the lives of those who went with these men were destroyed. Anyone who did not obey the letter of these leader’s laws was publicly ridiculed and even spanked with boards. Disruptive children were beaten. This went on for years! Women who were deemed “in rebellion” were even locked up and held prisoners in a rented home below where the pastor and his wife lived! But it finally came to a head when a ten-year-old boy who was sick with diabetes was prayed over for weeks instead of given medical attention. He went into severe weight loss and was spanked over and over for a sin he didn’t commit that was “blocking his healing.” He finally died after a severe beating by his own father, supervised by the cult leader. That was when the authorities stepped in and investigated. After a long trial the prophet-leader ended up in prison over this boy’s death, as did his father.
I have shared all this because we as God’s saints we need to learn the voice of our Lord as our One Good Shepherd and not be cowed by strong soulish people who presume to speak into our lives for God. The members of this cult were all people we knew and had a sincere faith in Christ! While in prison, the leader, a powerful man who had been a line-backer in the Cleveland Browns football team and knew how to project his soulish power, confessed that he too had been deceived into thinking that what he was doing was under the authority of God. Yes, the very elect can be deceived! I hope you who read this heed Paul’s solemn warning,
“Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:11-12 RSVA)
A Wilderness Voice 
This is why I have trouble trusting what other Christians say. Although I do put to much focus on books written by men. I had to stop reading a book when the book it self got me questioning the bible. I do not recommend that book to any one.
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Yes, Fred, this is why we need to listen to the Spirit (the Spirit of Truth) in all things and let Him lead us into all truth. Too much time spent reading books and listening to sermons can get in the way of hearing God’s voice for ourselves and doing His will.
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I hear you Fred. I’m even wary of what I read on blogs like this just because my blinkers are open and I’m so conscious of the lies everywhere.
So good knowing that in simplicity we can go to an empty room and just talk to the Lord one on one, knowing He hears us. That keeps me sane haha
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I am glad you wrote about this. Sometimes these churches or cults can make you to feel guilty if you don’t go. I remember reading a story about a boy being beaten to drive the demons out and then he ended up dying. I have heard of other stories as well when parents knowing a child of theirs was sick but were against medicines, even their children died. One story I read was when a child willingly would not accept help and knew that it was God’s will for her to die or live. Even online churches who claim to be Pastors and the like demand to be called by their titles. It wasn’t until I read in the bible where it says Thou shalt call no man Father accept your Father in heaven. LOL I went to play bingo one day at a catholic parrish and I told the priest what I had read in the bible, (I was an ex catholic) and he said to me, oh you can’t take that literally. I said but aren’t we supposed too. Your comment about your wife getting a sombrero hat made me chuckle because she was being a little sarcastic in my opinion in a funny way. I can relate to that. I remember going to a laughing hyena church a few times and wondered if I was missing a joke? They called it the Holy Laughter of the Holy Spirit. I won’t mention any names as there were many weird preachers coming through Tampa. I remember I tried going to a Hebrew Christian church on a Saturday and knowing what the bible has said about what Paul had mentioned about speaking in tongues, I ended up running out of that church because the whole congregation was speaking in tongues at once and that is not what Paul said at all. There had to be three. The one who spoke in tongues, The interpreter, and the listener. Paul has also said that he would rather have us have the gift of prophecy than tongues. They just sound like a bunch of clanging cymbols. Geez don’t these people read the word for themselves? Like I mentioned before in another comment about the elect being deceived, I know that I can. And when you say that if we even think we have attained or arrived at some perfection, well look out. I had an experience one time and I boldly announced in a AA meeting years ago that I would never do that, only to be slapped in the face the next day with a situation and was humbled. Yes for me it is best for me to remain teachable. For when the student is ready the teacher appears. And apparently dear Michael you liked some posts I made posted and like the old saying goes “curiosity killed the cat”. I said to myself who is this guy coming out of nowhere making comments? And I am so thankful that you did. And then I was introduced to Susanne. You both helped me to understand why I went through what I did. There is more I could say but I would rather not. One thing I will say is that I have noticed that a few people like to try to get a gathering unto themselves. I was part of one online and decided it was time to leave and they were not happy about it at the time. Sorry. Rambling on again. You guys are awesome. Hmm. I just noticed a link on the side here that I want to read. Spiritual mentoring.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences, Stacey. Yes, there are many who come in the name of Christ and they deceive many. Time spent with Jesus in prayer and learning His voice as our Shepherd is much better than going to lots of meetings and even reading on the net or watching TV preachers. In our culture, God is lucky to get a word in edgewise.
God is the One who is awesome, always. We are just fellow saints and servants.
Michael
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And see! I was yet to be deceived not to long ago. Crazy! Remember I told you my whale dream. Oh my Darling sweet Whale! Never trust the minds of human beings!
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Michael, wow! What an experience! I almost had to look away when I read what would take place in the years following your departure. But I must say, I love your wife – a sombrero, perfect! Ha!
I have watched many documentaries on Jim Jones, it is quite intriguing and disturbing what one can do to a crowd of people. I’ve listened to the stories of survivors who, at the time, were merely looking for hope, a better way of life. It always saddens me when we seek and find that in another human being. I am leery of such adoration. The manner in which some people speak of their pastors, even if it comes from a good and proper place, well, it sets an inner alarm off for me.
With all of the baggage that I’m still carrying due to my history, my dad, etc…I must say it has given me, by the grace of God, the wisdom to see that we are all human beings, no matter our title – be that in or out of the church. That photo you used, the sign that woman is holding…never! I can’t say I never would have, but I never can now. For I don’t believe IN people. I believe IN Christ. Oops, there’s that rebel surfacing 🙂
I wish you the merriest of Christmases, Michael! You and your whole family! We are blessed!
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Becky, It seems all our church experiences have been given us to teach us that it is futility and even dangerous to put our trust in men. From what I read in 1 Corinthians ch. 3, almost all of what calls itself the church today is carnal,
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with solid food: for until now you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able. For you are yet carnal: for while there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as men? For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are you not carnal?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-4 KJ2000)
In our case we got into this cult because we were looking for a “fast track” into becoming holy and we bought into the lie that submitting to these men would get us there faster. Since then I have learned that men cannot handle power without being corrupted by it. This is why Jesus said that those who would be the greatest of all among us should be our slaves, not overlords. We are supposed to give more abundant honor to the least in Christ’s body, not the greatest. It is what we do for the least of His people that we do unto Him. The kingdom of God is upside down to everything that is of the kingdoms of men, yet the church systems we see today resemble the world and its ways instead of God’s. They have a form of godliness, but deny the power of the cross by not submitting to it. More and more I understand in an ever deeper way what Paul was taking about when he said, “I am determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
There is no “fast track” in the kingdom of God. There is only the way of the cross that deals with that old Adam and Eve in us making us weak that only Christ might be our strength. The more we have going for us in natural abilities, the deeper the cross has to go in us that we would learn not to depend on them, but rather on the Spirit of God in us. How opposite this is from who gets promoted in the churches of today where personality cults abound and people are enamored with men and women with strong personal charisma instead of those that God chooses who come in all weakness (1 Cor. 2:1-5).
Funny, what you wrote made me remember the words to an old song, “Horses don’t bet on people, ’cause horses have too much sense.” 🙂 Or as David put it,
“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” (Psalms 118:8 KJ2000)
Thanks for sharing your own hard learned lessons with us, dear sister. Merry Christmas to you and your whole family, too.
Michael
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That was a very sobering post, Michael. Thank you for baring your soul on this one. It brought back so many memories and to think that I not only got duped once, but TWICE into a cult (not the same one obviously, but the same abuse)… shows that it CAN happen again. And it seems to happen especially to THE ELECT who do have such a overwhelming desire for a HOLY life, anywhere we can find a representation of it. By now I have learned that Holiness can only be found in JESUS CHRIST, and it is an INWARD thing which can never be mandated through RULES imposed by man. If you are part of such a fellowship, I can only pray that God will let man’s “spankings” become so painful that you will run from there. God will bind up all your spiritual wounds and welts when you come to Him!
Love in Jesus,
E.
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I want to apologize for my use of words “let man’s spankings become so painful that you will run” it was a poor choice. I guess I don’t quite know how to express the anger and helplessness I still feel about this. I have seen so many dear folks shipwrecked at the hands of these wolves. I know this topic will open many old or unhealed wounds for many brothers and sisters out there, and my prayer for you is for much of God’s healing grace and that you will be able to perceive His LOVE in spite of what was demonstrated “in His name” to the contrary.
May Jesus hold you in His arms!
E.
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Thanks, Elli, for your clarification and sharing your heart. Yes, it is very frustrating to see so many people abused in churches and cults and just how many turn from Christ altogether afterwards, blaming Him for what the devil has done in Christ’s name. You are right that this blog might open old scabbed-over festering wounds, but it is my prayer that God had me share these things so He could clean those wounds out so that they can heal. The one biggest step toward my own healing was when I finally forgave HIM for what these “Christians” did to me. After that I was able to even forgive them.
One point I would like to make, here… Just because we forgive someone does not mean that we have to come under their authority again and continue in the abuse. Jesus loved all men, but He did not trust Himself to men, because He knew what is in the hearts of men. Forgiving helps us to finally quit living in that hell that the memories of it keep playing over and over in out minds so we can move on.
BTW, once I was free in these things, I was able to go to all the cult leaders and pastors that had abused me and forgive them personally. Did they ask forgiveness back? Only one and the rest justified what they did, but THAT is THEIR problem. I am free. Understand, Elli, that this was something that I had to do to be totally free and I am NOT saying everyone has to do this. The whole process took me many years, but God was faithful with His healing grace through each step of the way.
Bless you in His love, dear sister,
Michael
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Oh, Elli, so sorry that you had to learn these lessons the hard way, also. I am reminded of how the Hebrew people had to feel the lash of the task masters more and more as Pharaoh kept increasing their burdens. It took a lot of abuse to get them to a place where they would finally follow Moses out of Egypt. Even then at one point they were going to kill Moses and appoint them a leader that would take them back to Egypt so they could have those leeks, onions and melons instead of angels food in the wilderness.
What a parable for today! The more things change, the more that human nature remains the same. Being removed out of Egypt took a lot of abuse of me by the church task masters and even then I longed to go back for a long time after God took me out, always thinking that the next church would be different. He finally had to put me in a literal wilderness on a volcanic island in Alaska where there were no churches except a Russian Orthodox church where the natives went and the service was all in Russian! I tried that once and the people were as cold as the climate.
“Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” (Hebrews 13:12-14 KJ2000)
Thank you, Elli for sharing your own journey with us.
Love in Him,
Michael
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I’m so grieved and I want to share but I’m afraid I’ll be known. I want to remain anonymous to all who know me. Is this public information? Will what I say get out?
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I have just been praying for you, dear Lynn, that God might take away your grief and fears.
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Thank you so much for your prayers. This site blesses me so much! My spirit witnesess to its truth! May God bless you!
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You are very welcome, dear Lynne. ❤
May God bless you immensely in the days ahead,
Susanne from Bavaria
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Lynn, I am so glad to hear you have been blessed by our blog and those who post on here as well as our prayers. I will watch for your email.
Your brother in the Son,
Michael
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Lynn, yes, this is a publicly viewed blog and not private. You can find my email address on our website if you want to write to me about your own cult situation. http://awildernessvoice.com
God bless you,
Michael
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Thank you so much for your prayers. This site blesses me so much! My spirit witnesess to its truth! May God bless you. I will follow up with a personal email.
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I am so sorry for your struggles, Michael. I grew up in the cultian world, but mostly every possible new age, spiritual cultian idea outside of Christ. My parents were very militant atheists. As such I’m very sensitive to such behavior and it’s kept me very hesitant about the church. I always have one foot out the door.
On the other hand, Christ has been so faithful, so steadfast in always making sure I have access to a bible study or a small group of believers.
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I am glad to hear that you have been so blessed after your hard years while growing up with your parents, Gabrielle. It seems that militancy soon took over the flower child love generation in one form or another. So many Christian cults swooped down on those young Jesus People I knew and met back then; The Way, The Walk, The Children of God, even a group we called “The Sheets” because they wore long white robes that look like they were made from bed sheets. It is amazing that any of us survived!
Thanks for your comment.
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Interesting writing, I have also found as others do, in my own experience to have heard His calling, but being without knowledge deceived through a desire for fellowship, believing that the religious gatherings were His path and true work. Having since come to the realization that religion is just a part of the exercise in learning to follow Truth, given as a place for those dependent, to ride out the storm, building discernment in the seeker. While learning that seeking Truth is the gathering, assembling to the Truth is the work and will bring us to cross many paths of fellowship, leaving and gathering seed as we go with many different individuals, but not falling idle in an alliance with any group, being bound to Christ in Truth, eventually becoming separated from the world in every thought.
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Thanks for writing, Bob. Yes, the Christian walk is a process. Some of us need more “processing” and in more stringent ways than others. Like it was with Jonah, we can go to Nineveh God’s way or we can go it our way, either way we are going to Nineveh, because He knows what’s best for us and others by the in-working of HIS design.
Michael
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Thank you, Michael, that you share your journey on this blog. It is so confirming of the mercy of our God to help us to find the narrow way. In 1 Samuel 3: 19 it says that God let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. I believe that God has let none of your experiences, as you have sought Him, fall to the ground. I praise God for the treasure that is in you and Dorothy.
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Hi Pat! Thanks for writing again and your encouragement. I think that God does that with all of us who love Him and are called according to HIS purpose… not one of our experiences is in vain for He orchestrates our hearts so that even our trials and persecutions bring forth the glory of His Son in us.
I often think about the woman with the alabaster box of perfume. It was not until it was “wasted” on Christ by being broken and poured out on Him that He was blessed and the whole house was filled with its fragrance. There is something about people who love Jesus and have been through many hard trials in their faith that are so refreshing to be around.
Love you, dear sister,
Michael
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Thanks for posting that, Michael. I had no idea what you and Dot have been through. Thank the Lord for delivering you from that and for the strength and character He formed in you both through the experience.
It is easy to get sucked back in, even after being out (read: delivered) for a season. For us, it was loneliness and the desire for human friendship that motivated us to try again. There was a season after coming out of the IC we considered house churches as the way, and I heard of a house church conference in Peoria. Karen and I went and it was during the 2nd session, the leaders started rolling out the women remaining silent and under head coverings issue … nearly all the women there were in long dresses, long-sleeve gingham blouses, with bonnets of one sort or another – all very conservative – and then there’s me and Karen who I’d describe more like ‘burnt out Vineyarders’ … 😉 I asked a few pointed questions of the leaders about commanding the women to be silent, observing that my dear wife has the same gifts of the Holy Spirit that I do (1 Cor. 12:8-10), and wondered why God would give her such gifts, only to silence them. The leader said “that’s the economy of God” … I quipped something like “and so in terms of the assembly of the saints, God is wasteful to pour out the Holy Spirit upon a woman”? He would not acknowledge me for follow up questions.
At the conclusion of that session, the leaders confronted a woman – boxed her in against the wall – who did not have a head covering and who was particularly vocal in opposition of their teaching, and told her to remain quiet. Karen and I left. I prophe-ranted all the way home – such was the anger I felt for their attempts to rule/lord it over the men and women.
What I am about to say, I can’t support well from scripture – rather – it is the conviction of my heart.
Eve was made for Adam, to be his helpmate, to walk by his side. It was only after the fall that the Lord said ‘your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you’. Commonly, we say that the Lord redeemed us from the curse and we men are only to glad to be redeemed from the curse, whereby we are restored to our inheritance – sons – children of God. How is it then that some men, so glad to be redeemed from the curse, require that their wives continue living under the curse – specifically – to be ruled over by their husband / men? It is my desire in a wife to have her walk at my side, not behind me or beneath me … we have become one flesh, brother and sister as well as husband and wife and like the woman of Proverbs 31, I have full confidence in her to be about my business, etc. I’m also deeply struck by the fact that Jesus first appearance after His resurrection, was to Mary – a woman. I seem to understand, in my Spirit, that since the woman was the first ‘cursed’ (per se) in the garden, woman was the first to be restored – hence appearing to woman before man.
But honestly, I don’t understand the cultural reasons / rationale behind Paul’s instruction(s) concerning women in the assembly.
Sorry Dot couldn’t find a sombrero. So funny! I suppose that was much more tactful than a Kaiser helmet! 😉
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Thanks for your comments about women and the freedom that has been purchased for us ALL in Christ. Frankly, all those verses in Paul’s letters that put women back under the letter of the law, forming a N.T. law, are highly suspect of being tampered with as far as I am concerned. Like you said, Jesus, took the curse upon Himself for both men and women, not just men. This is why Paul could boldly declare elsewhere,
“For in Christ Jesus you are ALL sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized [immersed] INTO Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, THERE IS NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE; for you are ALL ONE in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28 RSVA – emphasis added)
Paul was so emphatic in His letters about us all being free from the law and under a NEW Covenant in which the requirements of the law have been filled up IN Christ’s righteousness and sacrifice, there is no way he would switch back to preaching the law.
A brother who my wife use to work for in Edmonds, WA, Dr. Philip Payne, did extensive research with the N. T. manuscripts in Cambridge, England on this subject. Phil is both a Greek and Hebrew scholar. Anyway, his book reveals some strange markings in these texts where these verses are found. As well as other things in the original language that he brings forth and concludes that women who are IN Christ are as free as men are as they abide in the Spirit and not in the flesh. The name of his book is, “Men and Women, One in Christ.”
As for what George Davis and I wrote on this subject from our own research, you can read it here: “Brotherhood: Male and Female Made He Them” http://www.awildernessvoice.com/brotherhood.html
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Michael wrote: “Frankly, all those verses in Paul’s letters that put women back under the letter of the law, forming a N.T. law, are highly suspect of being tampered with as far as I am concerned.”
I would second that, Michael. Also, I have heard that in earlier manuscripts or bible translations it would indicate in the margin when Paul would be replying to a quote or question from the Corinthians. In the same way that I am replying to your quote now. Only in our modern Bibles this distinction has been lost, and now we have to “guess” what is Paul’s answer and what are the questions he is replying to. Truly, to take it all as Paul’s writing is contradictory and does not make sense in some places.
E.
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Exactly true, Elli. I went through 1 Corinthians once and looked for the questions and statements from them that Paul was addressing and the dialogue became obvious. For instance he starts out this section by writing, “Now concerning the things of which you wrote unto me…” (1 Corinthians 7:1 KJ2000).
Then there is this passage that seems to forbid women to speak in the assemblies of the saints…
In verse 31 he says that ALL may prophesy one by one. He did not say all MEN may prophesy one by one. In 1 Cor. 11:5 & 13 Paul says women may prophesy and pray in the church gatherings. In 1 Cor. 14:33&34 Paul is calling for all things to be done in an orderly manner. But what is this in verse 34 and 35 that is totally a contradiction to what He has been teaching so far? These two verses are the statement that the Corinthians had made as a law silencing women in their ecclesia meetings as was the custom in their civic meetings in that culture, which Paul refutes in the next three verse saying, “What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.”
Thanks for your input on this blog, Elli. I consider you a valuable member of the body of Christ just as I do ANY member who speaks from the Spirit of Christ in them on here, male or female.
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Wow super timely reading this comment.
I’ve come to a place of asking, “how can I tell what bits of the NT are trustworthy?”.
If women are to keep their mouth shut ‘in the church” (haha) then I guess I should not be commenting here (with THE church).
I’m come to a place of just thinking “lord, let me read it and you just jump out when I need to lesson. Everything dud let it pass on by”
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Hi Michael, I didn’t know you’d had a narrow escape from the “no-name fellowship.” Some dear brothers and sisters we knew years ago got involved in that as well, to their sorrow. I remember hearing about the dictatorial leadership. The curses pronounced. The spankings. A tragic story of wreckage and ruin. And since then, other brethren we were in fellowship with got drawn away into a similar “tight huddle.” I fear for leadership like this when the chief shepherd appears. How long, Lord? Rise up on behalf of the sheep of your pasture!
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Thanks, Allan. I had heard that these cult leaders had been up to Fernie and done some damage there to that fellowship. So sad that so many of us have had to learn about the tactics of the enemy the hard way. His coming as an angel of light seems to be the worst. Yet, right down in the bottom of it is a vulnerability that comes from still having un-crucified flesh in us that the enemy can appeal to. Jesus was able to say, “The prince of this world has come and found nothing in me.” I pray that we may all become so cleansed by Him as His bride that we also can say this and have it be true. The bride has so much further to go before she is ready. The Spirit knows when that will be for it is both the Spirit AND the bride that says, “Come.”
God bless you, my brother,
Michael
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Wow we do indeed need to be careful in who or what we put our trust in–thanks for the warnings.
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You are welcome, Ken. Merry Christmas to you!
Michael
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Definitely a word in season. just in the last mo. i’ve had contact with 2 families i knew that have come away from the group , that was cultish, that we were apart of . we were able to share with them some of the things that happened to our family. they were happy , and relieved , to hear it. knowing others had similar experiences as them. it’s hard to break free from that controlling spirit ,witchcraft , of the leader and believe you are actually hearing from God about leaving them and their abuse , that they justify by calling spiritual,.if you try to confront them they say you have a critical spirit and are deceived ,they are right about the deceived part because you are following them, and talk about you behind your back; with their critical spirit 🙂
l agree with what you said about forgiving them for the things they did to you , it took me a awhile , and praying for them and repenting for following , and looking to, man instead of God. that sets us free to go ahead with our walk before the Lord but like you said they don’t have to be a part of your life. wayne
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Wayne, I am glad you got away from all that and are free to forgive and learn from it and go on with God without the past hooked onto you like a ball and chain. It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free from all this so that we would not again entangled with ANY man’s religious yoke of bondage ever again as Paul wrote in Galatians. I am glad you were able to help out those other two families with your own experiences, too.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
(2 Corinthians 1:3-5 RSVA)
God bless you guys a bunch!
Michael
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My dear sister, Life w/ a Porpoise,
Your wrote, “I’m come to a place of just thinking ‘lord, let me read it and you just jump out when I need to lesson. Everything dud let it pass on by.’”
This is a very good way to read blogs, articles, books and even the Bible. Not everything that is written is the word of God for us in that moment. Not everything we hear is for us to act on. How are we to know which and when? Jesus repeated one phrase in the Book of Revelation seven times. SEVEN TIMES! Wouldn’t you thing that maybe He was trying to get the last days church to understand something very important? And what was it He emphasized so much?
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what, the Spirit, is saying unto the assemblies.” (Rev 3:6, EBR)
Yes, we are to hear what the Spirit IS SAYING to us, not hear what the Spirit once said to others and was recorded by men. Jesus IS the Word of God and HE IS STILL SPEAKING! And HIS sheep hear His voice and they follow Him.
“But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.” (John 10:2-5, KJ2000)
God bless you, dear sister! Keep listening to His voice for He is not far away from you.
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