Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 60
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
I begin this day with a
reminder. Brad Jersak began his book with a testimony of how someone spoke to
him during a time of Contemplative Prayer, a non-Christian meditative practice
similar to Eastern mysticism.[1] As I have joined his journey down the garden path, I have interspersed
my rebuttals to his false teachings with examples of how we can seek God in his
word and prayer without listening to voices telling us the exact opposite of
what we read. It is these interspersed testimonies of how God speaks his
already breathed-out words into our hearts that give me so much encouragement
that someone might find this for themselves and begin learning how this
fellowship with God in his word and prayer not only helps us to know God “in a
real and personal way”, but it also tunes our minds to discern truth from
falsehood.
While
I speak of each of these posts as a day’s journal journey, that is about how far I get through the book before I have to take a break because I’ve
covered enough ground. In reality, each day’s journey may be a few days before
I can complete a critique. With that in mind, I had another time with God in
his word on the morning after my last post, and it is so applicable to what we
are going through that I need to add it as a testimony and warning. It is worth
sharing the whole Scripture I was in so you can read it for yourself.
5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.” 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matthew 16)
The
thing that stands out is that Jesus was presenting a metaphor of something very
real. It was obvious that his reference to leaven was a figure of speech, but
the application was precise and clear once the disciples understood what he was
talking about. I present that simply to show that it is not difficult to
recognize when something is a figure of speech that addresses real life. We can
see for ourselves which part is the illustration and which is the truth it is
illustrating. From there we can learn
and discern what is expected of us in our response to Jesus’ words.
This
situation also shows something I mentioned much earlier along the garden path,
that my younger years had some humorous stories (real life) regarding how I was
just like the disciples in trying to grapple with Jesus’ words when I didn’t recognize
that he was using a figure of speech (the whole cut-off-the-hand and
pluck-out-the-eye thing). I can really relate to them initially not getting
what he was talking about. Why? Because in real life leaven in bread (yeast)
really does do what Jesus was talking about. But it is also a metaphor for what
false teaching does in churches.
However,
the disciples do not support BJ’s claim that a figure of speech means something
is fiction. The illustration is fiction (partly); the problem is real life.
There really was something that worked into people’s lives like leaven (the
simile wording of the metaphor).
One
thing that stood out for me in this Scripture was that Jesus was presenting a
warning to his disciples about the teaching of the religious elitists and using
the words “watch”, “beware”, and “leaven”.
“Watch” means, “to watch carefully v. — to be vigilant, be on the
lookout or be careful” (Bible Sense Lexicon). This emphasis is on keeping an
eye/ear out for the thing Jesus is warning about, in this case, the teachings
of both these groups.
“Beware” means, “to beware v. — to be on one’s guard, be cautious or
wary about, or be alert to” (BSL). This adds the element of protectiveness
regarding the things we are watching out for. The first has us watching out for
it; the second has us guarding against it.
“Leaven”
means, “influence ⇔ leaven n. — influence,
understood as the substance used to pervasively produce fermentation in dough
or a liquid” (BSL). Jesus is not condemning leaven (yeast). He is using the
imagery of what leaven does in a lump of dough to warn his disciples about what
false teachings do in the church. And he has used two distinct groups of false
teachers (very popular in the culture of the day, I might add), to make sure
his disciples appreciate that he is challenging such a big component of what
they grew up with. The Sadducees were prominent in everything to do with the
temple worship and the governing of the Sanhedrin while the Pharisees were
prominent in everything to do with the synagogues and the daily religious life
of the people. And Jesus was warning them about BOTH groups!
Now,
guess what!
When
we put this warning into the context of all the biblical warnings against false
teachers, it is easy to picture the Pharisees and Sadducees like this:
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Pharisees |
Disciples |
Sadducees |
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Even without filling in the details, this
illustrates that there were three groups in this picture, not only two. The
disciples were the central group since they were the ones learning the life of
the kingdom of heaven directly from Jesus. Neither the Pharisees nor Sadducees
were in the kingdom of heaven, but their teachings were pervasive in the
religious society of the day and so they had to be avoided. Their differences
also put them on the same pendulum extremes as we have already been noting in
BJ’s book.
While this is not proof of anything related
to BJ’s teaching, it is illustrative of Jesus’ disciples needing to pick
between three possibilities, not just two. First there are the pendulum
extremes of the two sects:
|
Pharisees |
Disciples |
Sadducees |
|
Pandering to the applause of the
religious crowd. |
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Pandering to the applause of the
political crowd. |
For
more information on the Pharisees and Sadducees, here is a brief explanation of
the similarities and differences between the two groups.[2] I’m only using a very simple description to show the extremes between
the two groups.
Then we add the plumbline Jesus was
discipling into his disciples:
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Pharisees |
Disciples |
Sadducees |
|
Pandering to the applause of the
religious crowd. |
Learning to deny themselves, take
up their cross daily, and follow Jesus wherever he leads. |
Pandering to the applause of the
political crowd. |
What applies so personally to BJ’s book is
that it is every bit as much false teaching as what the early disciples heard
from the Pharisees and Sadducees, and Jesus’ warning applies just as much now
as it did then.
Now, with all this warning to watch and
beware of the leaven of false teaching, when did you first see it in BJ’s
writing? Was it after the dozenth time of showing he was 100% misrepresenting
any Scripture he used? Or was it the twentieth time of showing that he was
deliberately mixing poison with the pudding so that it was not safe for human
consumption? What about when he began his book saying that he heard a voice
during the non-Christian practice of contemplative prayer? What about when you
read endorsements and recognized the names of other men who had already changed
Scripture into their own version of “another Jesus”? Or what about when you
read the title? Did it not hit you across the heart that anyone would dare to
put Satan’s question, “Did God actually say…?” right on the cover of their
book? We need a more Christlike word? Or the one I first downloaded by mistake,
we need a more Christlike God? Really? All the readers popularizing this book
did not see the leaven in such a challenge?
Now, for those who have not yet agreed with me but are, for some reason, still reading, where do you see leaven in the church? Jesus warned about it. He warned about false teachers. The apostles warned about false teachers. Where is your list of false teachers in this generation? Jesus said to watch and beware of the leaven of false teaching. Where do you see it? Who do you put into the category in our day and age? It's still here. So how well are you watching and bewaring?
And how many ways does a guy get to change God’s word, lie about
what Scriptures mean, take things totally out of context, bait-and-switch to
make it appear (masquerade) that he’s proving a point when he’s really just
manipulating the data, before the church rises up and puts an end to the
leavening of the church with false teaching?
In the
Scripture that heads each of my daily journal journeys, Paul lamented that,
concerning teachers proclaiming “another Jesus”, “a different spirit”, and “a
different gospel,” the people “put up with it readily enough.” But what did
Jesus say to his disciples to help them see why they were having so much
trouble understanding what he was talking about?
First,
he said, “O you of little faith”. There was something about their minds being
stuck on earthly things that made their misunderstanding a lack of faith. This
puts their lack of watchfulness and being aware on the same level as being
terrified in a storm, Peter sinking when he was walking on the water, and not
knowing how they could provide food for multitudes of people. It was always a
lack of faith.
The
question is, how much of people not seeing the leaven in BJ’s book is because
of a lack of faith? Faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes from the word
of Christ (as we have it in the Scriptures). What is it that BJ is attacking
throughout his book? The authority of the word of Christ. He has changed where
Paul said inspiration happens so that people are not treating the words of
Scripture as already breathed-out by God and so authoritative over every part
of our lives. Instead, they are open to whatever a person imagines is happening
to them when they read the Bible. He has claimed that the characteristics of
God that are clearly revealed in Scripture are anthropomorphisms when nowhere
in Scripture does it say they are anything less than the attributes of God. He
presented teachings on specific Scriptures (like Isaiah 53) that were the exact
opposite of what the text says. And so many people do not have the faith to
recognize the twisting of God’s word happening right before their eyes and that it is leavening false teachings all through the church.
Second, Jesus said, “Do you not yet perceive?” I feel the same question.
At this point in BJ’s book, do readers not yet perceive the leaven in what he
teaches? The disciples clearly did not get what Jesus meant, and Jesus clearly
expected that they had seen enough that they should have picked up on what he
was saying right away.
Third,
Jesus said, “Do you not remember…?” This is the clue to why they had no faith
and why they did not perceive what he was talking about. They didn’t remember (or
they weren’t bringing to mind) what he had already done in the two miracles of
feeding the multitudes. I could ask the same thing here for anyone who still
believes BJ is a valid teacher of God’s word. “Do you not remember” how many
times he has twisted Scripture to say what it doesn’t say?
Fourth, once Jesus had made these reminders (giving them “the word of Christ”
on the matter), he simply gave the same warning he began with, “Beware the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they “got it” that he wasn’t
talking about bread, but about false teaching.
This
is a huge lesson in relation to teachings like the BJs are pushing on everyone.
Any teaching that is not in line with the word of truth in the Scriptures (as
we now have collected in the Bible) demands the same “watch and beware” as Jesus
gave to the disciples about the Pharisees and Sadducees. And BJ’s teaching is
clearly as bad as those two groups.
I will
leave this with a short journey today as I think Jesus’ warning needs to be
contemplated concerning the twisted teachings in this book. However,
assuming many do not yet see the poison in the pudding, I will jump into the
next chapter on BJ’s version of the Emmaus garden path and see what comes of
it.
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
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