Steven Furtick and What God Can't Do

The lead pastor over at Elevation Church in North Carolina, Steven Furtick, is a rock star.  He is a big personality with high dollar speaking engagements.   He gets his audience all ralled up with his engaging public speaking style and use bold words and statements.  He even got his masters in divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Even Oprah added him to her top list of spiritual leaders (John 15:19)... With all that said, lets get into what really matters; TRUTH.

Word of Faith Hermeneutics

Word of Faith Hermeneutics.  There is no one central teacher or organizational ministry but a collection that feed off each other adding in their own unique idea, which is usually accepted by the others.  The primary teachers that form the collection of Word of Faith doctrine are: Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Joyce Meyer, Paul Crouch, Kenneth E. Hagin, Charles Capps, Marilyn Hickey, Benny Hinn, Paul Yonggi Cho, Morris Cerullo, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, and E.W.Kenyon. What do they teach?

Why The Bible Is Divine: Christology

The bible is not just a historical record of Israeli culture but also records of a supernatural element that illuminates hearts and minds to a greater plan for all history; where the center point of human history is not a civilization or culture, but a person.  A person that ancient history looked forward to and the same person the modern world looks back at.  This person is identified as Jesus.  In this article we will look at Jesus of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament.

Reformation Day (October 31st)

On October 31st the Church commemorates what was perhaps the greatest move of God’s Spirit since the days of the Apostles.  On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany that provoked a debate that culminated finally in what we now call the Protestant Reformation.

2016 Ligonier Lifeway Research Study

In 2014 and 2016 Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research conducted a study that surveyed participates nation wide of their theological beliefs.  The participates ranged from Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, 'mainline christian', and 'other' in the christian faith.  Age, gender, ethnicity, region, education, marital status, income and church attendance data was also collected.  The questions asked are huge and fundamental to the identity of the Christian Faith.  The questions analyzed the participants understanding of who God is, who they are before God, how they view the Bible and sin.  The results are stunning.  So shocking in fact, Gospel4all.com feels it is critical to address these topics in a more clear fashion.  We will look at those who attend church one or more times a month and how they understand the questions asked.  We will also focus on the 18-34 year old age group.  The results are eye opening on what the Church body in 2016 believes.

Correctly Interpret and Understand The Bible

All kinds of people, from all kinds of religions; all claim some portions, it not all, of the bible are from God, or from a god, or from multiple gods.  They all can not be both true, and not true, at the same time; so how do we know? Biblical Hermeneutics is the study and method of how to correctly understand scripture.  In this article we will review three key elements of an effective method for correctly interpreting and understanding the Bible the way it was meant to be interpretative and understood.

What Did Irenaeus of Lyons Teach?

Irenaeus was born around 115 AD and was martyred around 200 AD.  He was a disciple of Polycarp; who was a disciple of John The Apostle.  He is best known for his 5 books named "Against Heresies" which was comprised around 180AD and addressed the Gnostism heresy.  He generally laid out the orthodoxies of Christianity and express two very important aspects of the faith; scriptural authority and teaching linage from the apostles themselves.  He was a church leader in Gaul which is now Lyons France and had influence with the church leader in Rome, Victor I and later important church teachers like Hippolytus of Rome.  His teachings validates the teachings from the apostles, to their disciples, to him; the succession of truth.

Christology; Pre-incarnation

Christology; pre-incarnation is the study of Jesus in the Old Testament.  This is a very important study because this is how the Messianic Jews knew who Jesus was even before he died and rose again.  How did his followers know him as the Messiah, Christ, and Son of God before his crucifixion and resurrection?  By correctly understanding and knowing the Old Testament.  This also shines light how to better understand the Old Testament and have sound hermeneutics.

The Errors of The Modern Prosperity Gospel

C. Dollar, a teacher of the modern teaching of health, wealth, happiness, and prosperity movement said it best.  At least he was explicit when it comes to what they all subtly teach.  Later this tweet was removed from his twitter account.  Now why would he do that if he speaks God's truths?  hum. But 99% of these modern teaching of health, wealth, happiness, and prosperity teachers are not explicit like he was.  But regardless of their obvious or hidden agendas, there are some fundamental errors and heresies in this modern 'theology'.

The "Jesus didn't say it" Reasoning

With so much debate in our culture, there is a quick judgment to condemn people for quoting scripture for their reason or their lack of support or lack of encouragement for certain cultural issues.  One of these forms of reasoning why some feel scripture quoting Christians are bigots its this:  "Jesus did not specifically say..." or "Jesus did not specifically mention..."  The reason is assuming that because the topic or moral issue is not mentioned in the red lettering of a bible, than Jesus did not have anything to say about the issue.  But there is one major and critical problem with that reasoning. 

Tongues of Angels of 1 Corinthians 13

This is the one and only go-to verse, 1 Corinthians 13:1, for people who believe there is a kind of language in heaven that is not of this world.  Here is the major flaw in this thinking.

Paul is using a Hyperbole. 

Hyperbole is a figure of speech.

Just like if someone went to a concert and listened to their favorite singer said "that singer has the voice of an angel".  That is a hyperbolic expression.  The voice was not literally an angle from heaven voice.  It is describing the positive effect from the human voice. 

What is Paul saying then:

He said that it doesn't matter if he speaks to people with his own language or if the Spirit gives him the ability to speak in another language he has never spoke before; its all useless if there is no love. 

An interpretation that he is talking about a language of Heaven that angels speak to each other is a poor understanding of literature comprehension and adding into scripture what is not being said.  Because of this failed biblical hermeneutics; people are confused and deceived.