Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 96
“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)
|
The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
|
The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
When I
set out to read Brad Jersak’s book to understand what my friends believed, I understood
that the author’s problem was that he didn’t like what the “word” (the Bible)
said about Yahweh in the Old Testament. I also understood that he had isolated
enough Scriptures from the New Testament to make his “another Jesus” look quite
different from the Jewish God. He could then take those isolated qualities
about his Jesus (the warm-fuzzy ones) and claim that those are the only
qualities that God really has, therefore the Yahweh of the Bible has to be
false. Or at least, not Christlike enough. The Hebrew Scriptures must have been
corrupted by God’s boys who had difficulty writing down his words, and at least
some of the New Testament Scriptures would make the corrections. Hand-picked by
the BJs, that is.
So the
question is whether there is a way to see Jesus as “the Word” independently
from the Bible as “the word”. My answer after reading the whole book is, no,
not a chance. I must also conclude that Brad Jersak totally failed to give any
authoritative evidence that there are any discrepancies between Yahweh and
Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures, or that there is a Jesus outside the
Scriptures who corrects anything anyone doesn’t like about God.
At the
same time, I’m happy to report that, in the same way as God kept giving me
Scriptures to share in response to Brad Jersak’s unbiblical teachings all the
way through the book, the same is true as I share my conclusions. I have begun
to journey through Matthew 24 where Jesus is focusing his teaching on what will
soon happen. He is on the verge of being crucified. He has told his disciples
that Jerusalem will be destroyed, and they ask him, “Tell us, when will these
things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
(vs 3). I’m now considering how Jesus replies to them to answer their double
question, and what he teaches them that goes beyond what they could ask or
imagine.
First,
let me tell you something about Jesus: when people ask him questions, he is
never obligated to confine his answer to whatever parameters of a “box” their
question describes. When we ask him a question, he is talking to us as he knows
us and will answer based on what we need. Somewhere in there may even be the
answer to our questions!
As a
commercial for encouraging everyone to have their daily time with God in his
word and prayer, one thing I recommend is that when we come to God’s word
telling him how we’re doing, often wanting him to address something specific in
our lives, we should never ignore the first things he teaches us just because
they aren’t quite what we were asking him about. When we see how he taught his
disciples or answered his opponents, we discover that people needed to hang on
his every word because he was doing more than answering a question. He was
teaching people the bull’s eye issues of what they needed to know God.
So,
when the disciples wanted to know when Jerusalem would be destroyed and what
would be the signs to look for regarding Jesus’ coming and the end of the age, it
is fascinating what Jesus said first: “And Jesus answered them, ‘See that no
one leads you astray’” (vs 4).
What
I’ve realized after a couple of days of meditating on this is that guarding
ourselves from being led astray is a much bigger issue than knowing the answer
to those two questions. In a sense, Jesus is showing that if we are always on
guard against going astray, we will always be on the path where he wants us
when anything happens whether it was expected or not.
The expression “See that” means “to watch carefully v. — to be vigilant, be on the lookout or be careful” (BSL). This is something sorely missing from all the good press Brad Jersak got for his books. People couldn’t possibly be showing vigilance about not going astray if they would believe the author’s teachings when he didn’t use one Scripture to prove anything he claimed.
Yes, 100% of the
times that he used a Scripture to prove his case, he used a translation that
sounded like what he wanted but didn’t match the original language, or he used
only part of a Scripture when the rest of the Scripture contradicted his claim,
or he said that a Scripture meant something when simply reading it ourselves
showed that it didn’t mean that at all. To get through such a lengthy volume
claiming we need a “more Christlike” Bible and find that the author couldn’t
even use the Bible to make his case certainly begs the question of whether
anyone is “seeing that” they are watchful and vigilant against people leading
them astray.
The
word “astray” means “to be misled (deceived) v. — to be or become misled
from a proper belief or course of action” (BSL). One thing I have noticed in
our present generation of church folk is that they don’t have a list of who the
false teachers are. Even though Jesus used the word “many” to describe the
proliferation of false teachers, at least in my view of the North American
church scene, people aren’t even admitting to any false teachers, let alone
identifying many of them. And yet Jesus was warning his disciples that the
greater issue in wanting to know the answers to theological questions is to be
sure we are not being misled, or deceived, or… well… led down the garden path!
After telling his disciples to be sure that no one is leading them astray, Jesus gave a reason that we must be on guard. He continued, “For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (vs 5). What is far more important than what we believe about the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, or the signs that will accompany Jesus’ return and the end of the age, is the fact that history will be riddled with false teachers, and what we will see happening in response to these false teachers is “they will lead MANY astray”.
I found it interesting to look up whether “many”
had any significant definition. It did. “Many” means “multitude (gathering) n.
— a multitude (throng) or a large gathering of people” (BSL). For some reason
that is more picturesque to me. It isn’t just that we will see many individuals
following the many individual false teachers, but that we will see multitudes
of people gathering to follow multitudes of gatherings of false teachers. You know,
thousands of people going to the same conferences in the same buildings with a
whole lineup of false teachers putting on these events. Jesus said that is what
it would look like.
The word “astray” means “to deceive
v. — to cause someone to believe an untruth” (BSL). That is what this whole
book is about. The positive reviews of the books are not telling us that this
is a good guy on to something helpful for believers to better understand God
and their Bibles. They are telling us how Jesus’ prophecy of the “many” and the
“many” is happening right before our eyes. Brad Jersak and his kin are many
false teachers. The people buying into what they are peddling are many being
deceived and led “to believe an untruth”. And yes, in my previous responses to
the book, I did show this to be the case, that Brad Jersak is leading people to
believe untruths.
This
is why I began inserting the following text box at various points along the
garden path:
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 of
the biggest things that stood out to me as I continued through the book was
that I was never shown where Brad Jersak’s version of “the Word” (Jesus) came
from. He kept talking about how his Jesus and his gospel were outside the Bible
somehow. They both were distinct from the Bible and could reinterpret the
Bible’s teachings, even rewriting what it says about Yahweh all through the Old
Testament. He quoted people from the past who believed the same things as what
he was espousing, but none of them presented anything of substance regarding
how we are to know what Yahweh and Jesus really are like if we don’t believe
what is written in the Bible, the Scriptures, the word of God.
On the
other hand, when I consider how I have read the Bible for myself since my teen
years, how I have studied it for myself in pastoral ministry, how my daily time
with God has centered on how God speaks to us through his word, and how I am
able to understand all the Scriptures Brad Jersak presented as to what they were
really saying, I have never seen any discrepancies between Yahweh and his Son
Yasous (that’s just more like what “Jesus” probably sounded like in the Greek).
I am
quite sure that I said this early on in my responses, but Brad Jersak’s books
enter the ring as the challenger. It has already been well-accepted that the
Bible is God’s word for centuries. Great preachers from history have proclaimed
Yahweh and Yasous from every part of the Bible as not only totally compatible,
but of the same divine nature with the same divine attributes. They are
different from each other as Father and Son, but there is not one attribute of
Yasous that is distinct from the attributes in Yahweh. We can use “the word”
(the Bible) to show every attribute of God the Father matches every attribute
of God the Son. There simply is no discrepancy between the two as Brad Jersak
claims.
When
we consider what “the word” of God says about “the Word” of God, there is
complete harmony between Jesus as “the Word” and Scripture as “the word”. Jesus
is the ultimate communication of the Father, but the Scriptures are the written
communication of the Father that tells us all we need to know about the Triune
God (Father, Son/Word, Holy Spirit).
It is
by the “word” of God that we know this about the “Word” of God:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)
This
is how God has spoken to us. His “word” in the Scriptures tells us about him and
his Son, the “Word”. The “Word” was both with God and was God. How do we know
the “Word” was like this? The “word” tells us. Everything we know about “the
Word” comes THROUGH “the word”. This is why I began inserting this little chart
at the beginning of each day’s Journal Journey:
|
The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
|
The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
In
Brad Jersak’s book, he tried to show that there is a conflict between the word
and the Word so readers would imagine they had to pick between the two (when
they were really being lured to pick the forbidden fruit like Eve was). My
responses were to show that the way we get to know the Word is through the
word. We read the Scriptures about the Word so we know who he is and how we can
know him. Of course, Satan will send false teachers to ask “Did God actually say…?” questions about the Word, or about Yahweh, because if he can undermine what God
actually said, he can lead us with whatever words he can get us to believe (exactly as he did with Eve).
So, when John continues writing about the Word, he says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This is John’s testimony given as God’s word. The disciples witnessed Jesus as the Word revealing the glory of God as “the only Son from the Father”. Everything about Jesus is an expression of the Father. He is the Son who makes the Father known. He is the Word who makes the Father’s thoughts known. He is the image of the invisible God who makes God known. He is the radiance of the glory of God who makes God’s glory known. He is the exact imprint of the invisible nature of God who makes the nature of God known. Contrary to the bogus claims of Brad Jersak’s books, Jesus in the New Testament (the Word revealing God in the word) did not make ANYTHING known about God that made the God of the Old Testament look not Christlike enough! Pure bogusness!!! Yes, that’s an oxymoron, but I think it makes the point!
I am
not going to elaborate on Jesus as “the Word” of God. The Bible already tells
us what we need to know. The issue is not what the Bible says about Jesus, but
what it says about itself. Brad Jersak and his kin are not attacking the Word;
they are attacking the source of revelation about the Word, the word, the
Bible, the Scriptures of God. If Satan can convince people to disbelieve God’s
words (“Did God actually say…?”), he can replace them with his own teachings,
and with those false teachings he can present “another Jesus”, “a different spirit”,
and “a different gospel” with people already giving up the only means of
testing anything we are taught, the breathed out words of God in the Bible.
The
foundational way that the evil one is using Brad Jersak’s garden path to lead
people astray is to diss (disrespect, discredit, criticize) the word of God.
And they are doing this by claiming that what we have in the Bible is NOT the
authoritative word of God the church has believed in for hundreds of years.
After hearing the author’s claims that “inspiration” happens differently than the apostles described it, I made some diagrams to help illustrate not only the difference between the apostles and the BJs, but how it exposes Brad Jersak as someone who does not honor God’s word and is leading people to believe untruths. I will share them again as my summary of why he is so wrong, and how everything he teaches is false for the very reason that he has twisted and distorted how we know God’s “word”.
This
first diagram shows the four players, so to speak. God is the source of
everything, including his word. The Bible was written down by men. The result
is what we call “Scripture”, the written word of God. And we have the readers
including you and me. Whatever we believe about the Bible includes what we
believe about the relationships between these four entities.
The Bible says that “inspiration” is what already happened between God and the writers of the Scriptures. It is the word that summarizes what Paul said that
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
The Bible’s meaning
of “inspiration” is “breathed out by God”. This could only happen between God
and the men who wrote down what he breathed out. It can’t mean anything
different than that.
Peter
added, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke
from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (II Peter 1:21). This
confirms that what we have in Scripture, particularly the prophecies about
Jesus, were not produced “by the will of man”. This rules out any sense that
the men who wrote down the Scriptures did so by their own ideas (as you will
see, this absolutely rebukes Brad Jersak for what he claims). It also
attributes the Scriptures to God because these men “spoke from God” (which also
rebukes the author for claiming otherwise). What the men of God first told the
people themselves, and then recorded in Scripture, was God speaking to his
people. And, all the Scriptures were the result of the Holy Spirit’s work as he
“carried along” the men to write God’s words instead of their own. For Brad
Jersak to claim otherwise is to expose him as a false teacher, not someone who
has “a more Christlike word”!
Because “inspiration” is what happened between God and the writers, what
they wrote down as Scripture is “God’s word”. It has God’s authority. It is
what he himself said. He breathed out the words, so they are his word. We do
not need to stretch Scripture to make it sound like “inspiration” happened
between God and the writers who wrote down his words in Scripture. That is what
it says, and there is no meddling with the words to make them say that.
On the other hand…
Brad Jersak claims that what the Bible calls “inspiration” is something that happens between the Scriptures and the readers. Now, if Paul said that “All Scripture is breathed out by God”, and Brad Jersak claims that inspiration happens after the fact when someone reads Scripture, who are we going to believe?
In Paul’s
way, it is the Bible that has authority. But in Brad Jersak’s way, when we read
the Bible is when God is breathing out the words to us (because that is the word Paul used that is called "inspiration"). It is no longer the
words in the Bible that have authority because they were already breathed out
by God (Paul's way), but it is the way a person or group thinks they understand those words
that is considered “the word of God” (Brad's way). If Satan can lead people there, he can
make them believe anything he wants (as Brad Jersak’s books attest).
Now,
aside from the fact there is no possible way that Paul’s words could mean that,
it explains why the author would begin his book by telling us that God was
communicating with him during a session of “Contemplative Prayer”. In his world
(and world it is), if it is not the Scriptures that are breathed out by God,
but it is a person’s understanding of God’s word when they read it that is
inspired, anyone can claim anything using the vaguest of comparisons with
Scripture and it would be treated as authoritative, at least in some nebulous kind of way.
My challenge to this false teaching about “inspiration” is not merely to point out how this makes man the judge of God’s word, but that it is not what is written. It is not even reading Scripture as God’s word, but treating it like something inferior to whatever a person or group agrees a passage of Scripture means. This would explain why the author 100% of the time applied meanings to Scriptures that were not in the text. It is obvious from his rave reviews that many people like the ear-tickling feeling of being told that it is whatever happens in their own heads that is what Paul meant by inspiration. How tragic. However, with that mirage in place, we end up with this:
Because Brad Jersak changes where inspiration happens, Scripture is not “God’s word”, but a “God/man hybrid” that has no authority. At best, it is the closest that God’s men got to trying to put into their own words what God tried to tell them. At worst, it is God’s men adding their prejudices and violent tendencies contrary to what a “Christlike God” really told them (and the author would know this how?) so that the BJs need to save the day and restore all Christendom to “a more Christlike Word, God, and Way” because our centuries of following the Bible just hasn’t given us a genuine relationship with the God revealed in the Scriptures. Sigh.
A big part of my conclusion by the end of the book is that BJ has presented himself as an authority greater than the apostles. Paul and Peter clearly made Scripture the result of what God did between him and the writers. Brad Jersak changes all that to what happens between the written word and the readers. And the only reason anyone would follow such a teaching is that they view Brad Jersak as the authority, and my only question is, WHY?!!! There was not one thing in this book that justified treating the author as a greater authority than the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New. He did not present one thing for Christians to agree is authoritative over the kingdom of God that would require us to accept his view. He simply continued the serpent’s “Did God actually say…?” And Paul’s lament continues to echo through history, “you put up with it readily enough”!
Now let’s zoom in on what Brad Jersak claims happens between the Scriptures and the readers. He says that what Paul meant by inspiration happens between the two, not where Paul put it back on the other side of the writers. What does that give us now that the authority has been removed from God to Brad?
As Paul said under the authority of God’s breathed-out words,
“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” (II Corinthians 11:4).
With Brad’s change of inspiration, we end up with exactly the “another Jesus”, the “different spirit”, and the “different gospel” the apostles warned us about.
There is no doubt that something happens in the minds of people when they read Scripture the way the author teaches, just as I am sure there was “another Jesus” and “a different spirit” speaking to him in his non-Christian Contemplative Prayer sessions. This isn’t about whether there are spirits at work to put things into people’s minds that tickle their ears and convince them to eat forbidden fruit. This is about what Jesus and the apostles said about false teachers pushing a Jesus, a spirit, and a gospel, that are FALSE!
With
all that in mind, I now want to talk with you about “the Word”. Jesus. The Son
of God. We know who he is through “the word”. Scripture. The Bible. We have
absolute confidence in what we know about Jesus because ALL the Scriptures are
“breathed out by God”. For that reason, they are “profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of
God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
The
word translated “profitable” in the ESV is translated as “useful” in the NIV
and “beneficial” in the NASB. That’s what it means. It has a particular benefit
to believers in the ways Paul describes BECAUSE it is “breathed out by God”.
And, the opposite is equally true, that it is NOT profitable, useful, or
beneficial if inspiration is changed to the subjective interactions of the
readers with the written. It is only BECAUSE Scripture is breathed out by God
that it is profitable in the ways Paul describes.
Note:
Because we are talking about the Scriptures as breathed out by God, and the
Bible contains the Scriptures that are breathed out by God, I will simply refer
to the Bible from now on as the Scriptures we are speaking about.
Now,
let’s consider the things Paul lists as the useful benefits of having the
Scriptures that are already breathed out by God:
·
Teaching: “teaching (activity) n. — the activities
of educating or instructing; activities that impart knowledge or skill” (BSL).
Because the Bible is already breathed out by God, it is the textbook for
teaching believers how to walk in “the obedience of faith”. Because Brad Jersak
rejects the inspiration of Scripture as already “breathed out by God”, he
cannot educate people in the truth, he cannot instruct people in how to live
for Christ, he cannot impart knowledge as described in the Bible (beginning
with “the fear of Yahweh” since he pronounces Yahweh as not Christlike
enough!), and he cannot teach the skills of living in the obedience of faith
since he denies the “word of Christ” in the Scriptures that would give us our
faith (see Romans 10:17). On the other hand, in my rebuttal to this book, I
have used the Scriptures to teach anyone who will read my Journal Journey how
to hear God’s word speak to our hearts and teach us to live in the blessings of
the kingdom of heaven. The Bible IS the word of God, and it is able to do all
we need to teach us all we need!
·
Reproof: “rebuke n. — an act or expression of
criticism and censure” (BSL). With the Scriptures already breathed out by God,
we can read what the Scriptures say and know when they are speaking a rebuke or
reproof into our lives. The Scriptures have the authority to express criticism
of anything we are doing wrong, and to apply “censure” (strong disapproval) of
things we are doing contrary to the will of God. It is because the Scriptures
are breathed out by God that they can address such things. Brad Jersak’s reinvention
of inspiration leaves people never feeling the reproof of God’s word. It is not
surprising that the author actually admitted to times when people tried to
“reprove” him using the plain reading of Scripture, but he had his own
subjective view of Scripture and could not hear what the Spirit was saying to
the churches. The Scripture I have shared at the beginning of each day’s
Journal Journey for the latter part of the garden path is exactly the reproof
Brad Jersak needs to hear, “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.” That is a reproof. It rebukes Brad Jersak
for creating “another Jesus” than the one in Scripture. It reproves him for
calling people to “a different spirit” than the Holy Spirit of the living God.
And it rebukes him for preaching “a different gospel” than the one given by
Jesus through the apostles. By the end of his book, I am absolutely
confident that rebuke is the primary thing that Brad Jersak needs, and it is
easily done using Scripture as God’s breathed-out words.
·
Correction: “correction n. — the act of offering
an improvement (according to a standard) to replace a mistake” (BSL). This is
the part of “justice and mercy” Brad Jersak does not understand. Justice must
reprove people with the word, calling them out on anything they are doing or
promoting contrary to the breathed-out words of God. Mercy offers correction
with the desire to show someone how to get back on track. Jesus told us to
confront a brother’s sin with reproof, but with the hope that we would gain our
brother and correct what he is doing. Paul spoke of how to address someone who
is “caught in any transgression”. He said “you who are spiritual should
restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” The transgression must be reproved, and
the attempt at correction applied. And he added this warning, “Keep watch on
yourself, lest you too be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). We watch ourselves with the
word. We hold everyone to the same word because it is already breathed out by
God. We never focus on reproving people as an end in itself, but on reproving
them so we can correct them back to the way of the righteousness of faith. I
trust that much of my sharing showed how to use the word to correct Brad
Jersak’s reprovable false teachings against the word.
·
Training
in righteousness: “instruction upbringing n. — the whole education and instruction of a
disciple (both the cultivation of mind and morals); understood as the rearing
and education of children” (BSL). The “training” side of Scripture is that it
is breathed out by God to address every area of life in a way that will help
every believer in Jesus Christ grow up to be like our Savior. The “righteousness
n.” means “adherence to what is required according to a standard; for example,
a moral standard, though not always” (BSL). This brings us back to everything
we are taught in the gospel about righteousness. The poor in spirit “hunger and
thirst for righteousness”. We are “not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the
power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for
faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:16-17).
We desperately need training in the church that tells church folk that the
gospel reveals to us “the righteousness of God”. That righteousness of God is
“revealed from faith for faith”, which leads us into all the glorious truths of
the gospel that our righteousness is received from faith, but it will also work
in our lives for faith. We know that “For our sake he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II
Corinthians 5:21). Brad Jersak has tried to dishonor what Jesus did for us on
the cross, and to dishonor Yahweh as the Father in heaven who presented his Son
as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, but the Scriptures are still working to
train people in righteousness, to train us to walk in the righteousness of God
by faith because “the righteous shall live by faith”. Brad Jersak cannot train
people in righteousness by moving where inspiration happens so that people are
now free to subjectively interpret Scripture however they please. That turns people into self-centered, unrighteous children who think the church is about them and
what they want instead of the Father who has already spoken through his Son,
through his word, through his Spirit, so every generation of believers has the
same breathed-out words of God and can always live by every word that comes
from the mouth of God.
·
Complete: “fitted out adjs. — furnished or
equipped with every necessary component (for a task or purpose)” (BSL). The
comprehensive training plan of Scripture is what makes us complete for our
purpose in the world as the body of Christ. It’s the breathed-out words of God
that give us this. Every generation of the church has the same words of God to
complete us, to make us fully trained for our place in the world. Brad Jersak’s
subjective interpretations that are based on treating him as the authority
instead of the breathed-out words of God cannot complete us. They cannot train
us in a way that completes us for our work. His book has proven this very well.
·
Equipped
for every good work: “to be fitted out v. — to be or become furnished or equipped with every
necessary component for a task” (BSL). It is the Scriptures (not Brad Jersak’s
book) that equip us for everything God has called his church to do. The “good”
of this means “(moral) adj. — of moral excellence” and the “work” aspect means
“duty n. — work that a person is obliged to perform for moral or legal reasons”
(BSL). In other words, the Bible as the breathed-out word of God has everything
in it to equip us for the good works GOD wants us to do, not the subjective
interpretations that lead people to write books against the very God they claim
to believe in!
I
believe that Brad Jersak’s teachings are so radically contrary to what is
written that we must accept the teaching of Scripture that reproves him for his
lies and falsehood and corrects all his teachings to line up with the word of
God so that people are trained in righteousness instead of falling for the
“another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel” the Scriptures warn
us to avoid.
And we
need to abandon his lie that there is a Jesus and a gospel outside the Bible
that reinterpret what the true Lord Jesus Christ (the Word) already breathed out
into the Bible. It is by the Bible, the “word” of God, that we get to know the
truth about Jesus, the “Word” of God. Of course, Jesus is outside the Bible, and
so is his Spirit. But the Bible is THEIR word to us until Jesus' return, and they fully expect us to
live by it.
By now
you should be able to discern why the author needed to change this verse to
make it appear it was talking about Jesus instead of the Scriptures we have in
the Bible:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
Yes,
the “word of God” in the Bible is “living and active”. It is so sharp that Brad
Jersak must make us think this is talking about Jesus. Why? Because he would
hate it if we taught him, reproved him, corrected him, and trained him in righteousness
using the “word of God” that exposes him as a false teacher!
But
there it is, right in the word of God, a description of how the word of God
pierces and discerns so that God’s people can test everything, throw out what
is evil, and hold to what is good. Brad Jersak’s books are evil because they
continue Satan’s question of, “Did God actually say…?” But the “word of God”
continues to bring us to the “Word of God” for salvation, freedom, and
deliverance in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
© 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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