Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 82
“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 |
The purpose of the BJs’ writings is to
demoralize people’s faith in the authority of Scripture as the breathed-out
words of God. They continue the serpent’s question in the garden, “Did God
actually say…?” to replace what God said with what the “evil people and
imposters” are peddling for unjust gain.
One
thing we need to remind ourselves about as we proceed is that we are always
choosing between “reason” and “revelation”. These are not mutually exclusive,
as though anything to do with reason is in conflict with what is revealed in
Scripture, or that anything revealed in Scripture defies reason.
Rather, the Bible begins with revelation, and all reason is in
submission to what is revealed. Both the real and the counterfeit use reason to
convince, but only the real is attached to revelation. The first two chapters
of Genesis are revelation filled with reason. It is reasoned to us in the
revelation how everything in our world came to be (in the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth). It is reasoned why we exist (we were
created). It is reasoned why human beings have capabilities that are unrivalled
by any other creature in creation (we were created in the image of God). It is
reasoned why there is such an attraction between men and women (because God
created them male and female, and designed women specifically as a helpmate to
men). All these things are revelation from God filled with reason that makes
absolute sense of whatever it teaches.
However, the third chapter of Genesis introduces us to a different kind
of reason, the reason that challenges what has been revealed. Satan comes into
the Garden of Eden and hisses his deception, “Did God actually say…?” and from
there poisons Eve’s mind with devilish reasoning to take her away from what God
had revealed in his own words to Adam.
My
point is that Satan is “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and
Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9), and he is just as
busy in the end times as he was in the beginning.
And
that means that the issue with the BJs is not whether they “make sense”. After
all, the serpent made sense to Eve and look at how much damage had been done!
That’s
how deception and temptation work, they narrow the spotlight to just the words
they are using, lure us away from the revelation of God’s word, and convince us
to believe things contrary to the word of God, but so we are pulled into the
darkness where we forget what God’s word has said on the matters at hand.
I am
not trying to pit my ability to reason with you in the truth against BJ’s
ability to reason you into the darkness. I am showing that when you follow the
reasoning back to the Revelation, we keep finding that BJ is lying. He is
deceiving. He is misrepresenting every Scripture he has used (including the one
we are about to come to).
My aim
is not to appeal to you to choose my reason over the BJs. My appeal to you is
to be like the Bereans who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the
Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Whatever you
hear from BJ or me, see if that is what Scripture says. Whatever Scriptures
either of us share, read the context. Read how Old Testament Scriptures are
viewed by Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. Admit what is NOT said
as much as what IS said.
Please
note that, when it says that the Bereans received “the word” with all
eagerness, this Scripture was declaring that “the word” meant the way Paul
“reasoned with them (whoever is the audience) from the Scriptures, explaining
and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the
dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts
17:2-3). In other words, “the word” was both the “reasoned with them” and “from
the Scriptures”. It was the Scriptures (again endorsing the whole of what we
have in the Old Testament) plus what the apostles taught from those Scriptures
about the gospel of the kingdom.
I was
also reminded that when we are told what the Spirit-filled early church was
like, it included, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and
the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The
church was devoted to “the apostles’ teaching” which meant what they taught
about the kingdom of heaven from the Scriptures, but with the fullness of what
Jesus taught and did.
What
is so important here is to see what the Scriptures say about the Scriptures.
Peter said that Paul’s “teaching” in his letters was Scripture. He said that “There
are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and
unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (II
Peter 3:16). What is really sad is that the BJs are doing exactly that right
before everyone’s eyes, and instead of looking at what the apostles warned us
would happen so we would avoid the deception, people are letting the BJs add
their “Did God actually say…?” to the spiritual warfare, to continue Satan’s
work of stealing, killing, and destroying.
Now,
by way of reminder, did you know that the whole armor of God we are to put on
to stand against the devil’s schemes begins with “the belt of truth”?! David
declared, “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules
endures forever” (Psalm 119:160). Jesus came “full of grace and truth” (John
1:14). Jesus said that “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and
you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Jesus
prayed for all his disciples of every age, “Sanctify them in the truth; your
word is truth” (John 17:17). What the apostles wrote in their letters are
described as, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but
taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual”
(I Corinthians 2:13), which also explains why the BJs don’t “get it” about the
truth that is in Scripture! Paul said that “we have renounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways” (like those of the BJs), and “we refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God’s word” (as the BJs are doing), “but by the open
statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in
the sight of God” (II Corinthians 4:2). What we have in the New Testament
letters to the churches is the open statement of truth for all believers until
the return of Christ, and we have the BJs tampering with it by cunningly
claiming that anything they don’t like is allegorical, figurative, or open to
interpretation by each community as they subjectively imagine the Spirit is
telling them things so different from “the open statement of truth” as it is
plainly written.
Paul
identified the Ephesian Christians as those who “heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation” (Ephesians 1:13). He repeated to the Colossians that
they “have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel” (Colossians 1:5).
He told timothy to be the kind of worker “who has no need to be ashamed,
rightly handling the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15). And the apostle John
told us, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in
truth” (I John 3:18). The “word of truth” is “the gospel of the kingdom”, what
was taught by Jesus and the apostles, what is now collected into the Scriptures
we have in the Bible, and what is being twisted and distorted and tampered with
by the BJs to the harm of all who swallow their arsenic-in-the-koolaid.
Which
brings us to BJ’s question: “So What?” (p. 218)
Because Brad Jersak is continuing to develop his false teaching, and I
believe I have shown that it has required both misrepresenting Scripture and
denying Scripture, I hope I do not need to reply to every way he states what he
is doing.
So,
when he begins his “So What?” section, he is simply showing that he wants
people to treat the Bible as a God/man hybrid that they can interpret as they
please. Even if I said nothing more for the rest of this book, this is the
choice people are making, to have a child-centered church or group that tells
the Father what his word says, or a Christ-centered church or group that
follows the Scriptures as given to us by the Christ to lead us in the obedience
of faith until his return.
Sigh…
second paragraph in and BJ uses such a poisonous twist on something Jesus said
that I must comment to point out the arsenic in the koolaid.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“This principle is best reduced to Jesus’s words in John 10:10:
according to the Author himself, when you see life-giving in the Bible, you
are seeing the Good Shepherd at work; when you see death-dealing, you’re
seeing something or someone at work – the spirit behind the system (i.e., the
thief, the murderer, the destroyer)” (p. 218). |
Wow, such blatant lying! Let’s look at John 10:10 here and then I will step out of the box to
turn this one back on BJ as the thief Jesus is warning us about! “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they
may have life and have it abundantly.” |
The “Principle”
BJ has
described “the principle” as treating the Bible as a “God/man hybrid” with all
“the voices in the book” arranging themselves in worship around “the pinnacle
of the Story” which is BJ’s fabrication of “the incarnation” (p. 218). This
almost sounds like the real thing (as counterfeits aim to do).
What
is wrong with that?
BJ
claims that in “the incarnation” we find the Story’s “main and only infallible
Character” (p. 218). And THAT is what’s wrong with THAT!
When
Paul told us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God”, it made God the
Author of all the Scripture, and that made Scripture his word, and that made
the whole word infallible. So we already have two infallible characters, the
Word (Jesus), and Yahweh, the Author of the word (now contained in the
Bible).
Because both the “word” and the “Word” are infallible, when the word records someone speaking in God’s name, and that person is honored throughout Scripture as a prophet or messenger of God, then God being infallible makes what was written infallible. The Scriptures say that if anyone was a false prophet, or spoke a false testimony as though from God, they were to be put to death. There is no way Jesus or the apostles would honor someone who was a false prophet according to the Scriptures. To say that any prophet honored by Jesus and the apostles “got it wrong” about God is to say they were a false prophet who was neither put to death, nor condemned by God.
BJ
deliberately changes what Paul said. Remember that. If you’re buying what the
BJs are peddling, you are letting them tell you to join them in changing what
Paul said. If that is okay with anyone, the rest doesn’t really matter.
Do you see this, that because BJ changes where “inspiration” belongs from what is written to what he wants, we no longer have Scripture that is “breathed out by God”. And, as Paul said, “you put up with it readily enough!”
Everything BJ is saying is based on him moving inspiration. Without
that, he would never get away with his dissing of the very words of God. But
when people accept his unfounded and unproven claim that inspiration could mean
what happens when someone reads the Bible, not what happened when the writers
wrote the Bible, we end up with BJ making money from a book where he makes
people the authority over the word of God. And THAT has a lot to do with what
BJ now claims about the thief who came to steal, kill and destroy, because he
and BJ are in cahoots!
So, the
“principle” is that “it is then up to readers (in community, by the Spirit) to
perceive how each part of the Story leads to and follows from that Center” (p.
218). This means we have now allowed a false teacher to erase the authority of
God’s word and give each group of people the sense that THEY can decide what it
means and yet treat their opinions and conclusions as if THAT is what Paul
meant by “all Scripture is breathed out by God”. And that is as counterfeit as
counterfeit can be.
Now,
with that belief being accepted “readily enough” by too many people, BJ
presents John 10:10 in one more misrepresentation of Scripture. He claims that
“when you see life-giving in the Bible, you are seeing the Good Shepherd at
work” (p. 218). But that’s not what the verse says. It isn’t about what a group
of people decide is “life-giving” in the Scriptures and deciding that must be
Jesus at work. It is about Jesus saying that HE came that people may have life
and have it abundantly. Jesus made this about him and declared that he would
give life; BJ makes it about life and gives the “community” authority to decide
where they see it.
On the
other hand, BJ says, “when you see death-dealing, you’re seeing something or
someone at work – the spirit behind the system” (p. 218), when what Jesus said
was that this is about the thief first, and then you consider that when you see
the thief, no matter what he is doing, and no matter how life-giving it
appears, it is designed to steal, kill, and destroy.
Let me
show this in a diagram:
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Jesus said: |
BJ said: |
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“The thief” |
When you see “death-dealing” (“steal and kill and destroy”) |
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“comes only to steal and kill and destroy” |
“you’re seeing something or someone at work – the spirit behind the
system” (“the thief”). |
Now,
let me give a very simple illustration of why BJ reversing Jesus’ words changes
the meaning so drastically that it makes it false.
|
George said: |
And that means: |
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“I have a cat” |
“Whenever you see anything white” |
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“my cat is white” |
“you’re looking at my cat” |
Yes,
it is that idiotic!
Now
let’s try this with the second half of Jesus’ quote:
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Jesus said: |
BJ said: |
|
“I” |
“when you see life-giving in the Bible, |
|
“came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” |
“you are seeing the Good Shepherd at work” |
Now
let me elaborate with the “sense” of what BJ is doing by switching the order of
what Jesus said so it means “anything white is my cat” instead of “my cat is
white”.
Again,
instead of looking at everything Jesus was doing and telling ourselves that he
was always working to give life to his sheep (yes, he makes that distinction
right here in John 10!), BJ says that anytime anyone sees something that they
and their community interprets as life-giving, it must always mean that the
Good Shepherd is at work.
What’s
wrong with that? I mean, aside from the fact that BJ again reversed Jesus’
words so that it means “anything white is my cat” instead of “my cat is white”,
could there be any scenes in the Scriptures that the BJ’s in their “another
Jesus” communities would tell us are life-giving and therefore BJ-approved as
the Good Shepherd when we know that it wasn’t the true Lord Jesus Christ doing
the life-giving?
I
mean, think about it. BJ keeps bringing up the criminal nations that Yahweh
instructed his people to destroy. The death penalty. Capital punishment.
Justice against evil people. In God’s word, endorsed by Jesus and the apostles,
God wanted his people to carry out justice. When they didn’t do as they were
told, it left some people alive. In BJ’s world, that would make it “life-giving”,
which would mean it was the Good Shepherd doing it.
But
that’s not what Scripture says. In fact, king Saul was rebuked for not obeying
God when he called for the destruction of their enemies, but BJ says it was
life-giving so Jesus himself was behind it. Again, the exact opposite of what
Scripture says. And no allegorizing makes it true.
In the
New Testament, we see an example that would fit the profile of BJ’s
“life-giving” anything-white-is-my-cat philosophy. The Corinthian church was
totally fine with a man who was having a sexual relationship with his
step-mother. There are churches that are now saying that endorsing sexual sin
is “life-giving” and claim that Jesus approves. Paul came in and utterly
rebuked them for defying God’s will on sexual matters, calling for the man’s
expulsion from the church so that he would realize the gravity of his sin.
Paul’s
instructions were, “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my
spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this
man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord” (I Corinthians 5:4-5). He then concluded, “Purge the
evil person from among you” (vs 13), the same thing God said to his people all
through the ages.
At
this point, each reader should know whether this is about what we feel we like
or don’t like, or what we believe is God’s will regarding sin and salvation. I
have not heard one thing from BJ to indicate something wrong with the
Scriptures, but I have definitely seen the myriad of ways he fits the warnings
of those who twist, distort, and peddle the Scriptures for deception.
With
BJ’s counterfeit, “communities” of religious people can now go and look at
every instance where “death” was instructed and decide that each instance must
have been from the thief. It couldn’t have been Yahweh because BJ says so.
But
just remember, that’s NOT what Jesus said.
So,
how does what Jesus really said show that it is BJ who is the thief?
1. Jesus explained who the “thief”
refers to in the introduction to John 10, “anyone who does not enter the
sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber”
(vs 1). Notice the “anyone” means “anyone”, BJs included. These “anyones” do
“enter the sheep pen” but “climb in by some other way”. What is clear is that
they “do not enter the sheep pen by the gate”. We must be clear on this. The
thief does NOT use the gate, but still CLIMBS IN to the sheep pen.
2. Jesus then clarifies, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves
and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone
enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (vss
7-9). Now we know that the contrast is between those who enter “by me” and the
“thieves and robbers” who climb into the sheep pen by bypassing the true Lord
Jesus Christ.
3. So, let’s reconsider what Jesus said
in the verse BJ alluded to (did not quote), “The thief comes only to steal and
kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (vs
10). So, the thief, the person who climbs in the sheep pen without coming
through the true Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel of the kingdom, that person’s
aim is “ONLY to steal and kill and destroy”. This can’t be reversed as BJ
claims so that whenever we see God putting people to death (as in Noah’s flood)
that must mean we are seeing the sinister evil spirit who rules the world. The
focus is not on looking for death and attributing it to the thief, but looking
for thieves and robbers who have by-passed Jesus, have by-passed the gospel of
the kingdom, by-passed the penal substitutionary atoning work of Jesus Christ,
and have come in with their “another Jesus” with a “different spirit” promoting
a “different gospel”, and when we see THEM, no matter how lovey-dovey they
parade themselves, Jesus is saying that those people, the thieves and robbers,
ONLY steal, kill, and destroy. Period. Don’t listen to the thieves no matter
how much their “Did God actually say…?” triggers the flesh to do what is
contrary to the will of God.
4. So, when Jesus said, “I came that
they may have life and have it abundantly”, he is bringing us back to the
necessity of coming into the sheep pen by the gate, by him, by repentance and
faith in him, by the cross, by the gospel of the kingdom, confessing with our
mouths “Jesus is Lord!” and believing in our hearts that God raised him from
the dead!
My contention is that BJ has again
twisted and distorted a Scripture that, when read in context exposes HIM as the
thief who is stealing, killing, and destroying, because his “another Jesus” and
his “different gospel” are NOT the true Lord Jesus Christ, and are NOT the
gospel of the kingdom that gives life to those who repent and trust in Jesus
Christ as Lord.
As we reach the final paragraph of this
chapter in BJ’s book, it is fitting that he writes, “As promised, we now need
to take a sharp turn from Scripture as narrative to four specific stylistic
devices…” (p. 218).
THIS IS THE POINT OF THE BOOK: “to take a
sharp turn from Scripture…”!
So, I will put my reputation on the line
here and totally disagree with BJ’s next claim: it is absolutely false that
“understanding these stylistic devices is critical to interpreting Scripture in
a way that honors the character and nature of God” (p. 218). No, it is the
exact opposite. These stylistic devices are to continue the “Did God actually
say…?” narrative that steals, kills, and destroys our knowledge of the
character and nature of God so that, just as in the Garden of Eden, people
imagine God has sinister motives for harm when HIS word would have given life
(read Genesis 3. That IS what Satan claimed about God just as the BJs are doing).
I also testify that when BJ says, “If we
stumble here, we may even lose our faith”, it means that if we stumble and
believe what BJ is saying instead of what Scripture is saying, then yes, people
will lose their faith, and BJ’s “another Jesus” will be leading the way. As
Paul warned, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will
depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings
of demons” (I Timothy 4:1). Obviously, getting it wrong the way BJ is teaching
it does mean falling away “from the faith”, and puts people into the deception of
“deceitful spirits and teachings of demons”.
Dear readers, would you heed the warnings
given in Scripture that tell us to “Avoid the irreverent babble and
contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some
have swerved from the faith” (I Timothy 6:20-21)? Be sure you have come into
the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ through faith in the true Lord Jesus
Christ, searching the Scriptures to make sure what you believe is the truth and
not any fabrication of the thieves and robbers who only want to steal, kill,
and destroy what God has offered us in his Son.
© 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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