A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 74

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 74

“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

   Introduction to Part II (p. 168)

   BJ gets right into the fightin’ words with his very first sentence in this section:

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“Whether or not you track with my journey toward a more Christlike word, I hope you’ll see that my agenda is faithfulness to God” (p. 168).	No, the very fact that you are determined to convince everyone that the word, the Scriptures, are not Christlike enough, makes you totally unfaithful to God who breathed out those Scriptures.

   Because my concern is for the readers of this book and the BJs’ other resources, and because this flows from my grief in beginning this journey at the cost of division among church-folk, I need to challenge things BJ presents as “assumptions” and point out that they are not what he claims.

   So, first, let me remind everyone of the three views in conflict here:

BJ’s Literal Sense	The Historical-Grammatical Sense	BJ’s Literalism
Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his “different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological” (allegorical), none of which mean "literal".	The grammatical-historical method means reading the Bible in a plain manner, respecting grammar, word meanings, and other factors with an emphasis on context, Context, CONTEXT.	BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and human authors.

   I ask those reading BJ’s book to consider that BJ is putting his non-literal Literal Sense against his strawman of Literalism (his version of what that means) and wants us to believe he has made a case for why we should trust his view and not the other. What I have shown is that the issue is whether we are “rightly handling the word of God”. Please keep in mind as BJ disses his strawman to make points for his figurative views on Scripture that he has presented his book to make himself and the BJs the authority on Scripture, rather than treating Scripture as authoritative over us all. 

   While I am not specifically promoting the Historical-Grammatical sense, I am trying to show that what we find in this mindset is the most honest way of rightly handling Scripture. So, while BJ continues his boxing match between his “another Jesus” puppet and his Literalism strawman, I will continue to add the referee, so to speak, the Historical-Grammatical sense that seeks to be sure we understand the history and grammar as described so we are living “by every word that comes from the mouth of God”, not from the opinions of people who are promoting their own “Did God actually say…?” version of belief.

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
On page 168 BJ speaks of the “biblical literalist” and “the fundamentalist wing of the Evangelical world” who would treat “these topics” he is about to present as “generally out-of-bounds.”	I already know that if BJ is going into territory he was warned was “out-of-bounds” it means he is promoting the very kinds of things Jesus and the apostles warned us to watch out for. In other words, playing a Harry Potter card is more telling of the magic wand BJ is waving over his rabbit hat than he wants us to recognize.

   I’m skipping comments on his summary of the “seven elements of biblical interpretation” because I know I will need to address specific claims when we get to them. I see he is already using triggering words like “contrary points”, “conflicting messages”, “a conflicted community”, “the many-stranded subplots”, “some crazy characters”, and “unreliable narrators” to continue conditioning his audience to think that while God was “letting his children tell the story”, we ended up with a God/man hybrid Scripture that isn’t what God meant to say, and we need the BJ’s to change it so it is as Christlike as their “another Jesus”, which isn’t Christlike at all in real life (p. 168).

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

BJ introduces “rhetoric” as if “literalizing their speeches” would bring a “gospel-denying conclusion” (p. 169).

I would counter this with BJ shovelling his rhetoric into the mix so that his outside-of-Scripture gospel denies the gospel we find in Scripture (for real). My focus will be to examine the Scriptures he refers to, look up words and meanings, read the context, and see if BJ starts to suddenly present the real meaning of texts, or continues to twist and distort what was written to support his “another Jesus” cause.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

In reference to his determined effort to rewrite true attributes of God into “anthropomorphisms” (I’m going to need to copy/paste that so I don’t need to keep typing it out!) he claims, “Again, our literalism can become so severe as to descend into idolatry or blasphemy” (p. 169).

Again, BJ has never made his case that the people who tried to save him from his garden path really were as his strawman Literalism described. He has told us what these people supposedly said and taught, but did not give any examples to show this was the case. On the other hand, taking Scripture to mean what it says as in the Historical-Grammatical method will show that it is the BJs who have descended “into idolatry and blasphemy” by claiming that the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures needs to be more Christlike, or that the Hebrew Scriptures were not the breathed-out words of God that Jesus and the apostles affirmed as God’s word. In other words, don’t limit your testing of what BJ says in the second part of his book to whether his strawman Literalists are really idolizing and blaspheming attributes of God, but step back and look at all three groups to see if anyone is idolizing attributes of God (by setting them up as greater than they really are), or blaspheming attributes of God (by dissing them as not Christlike enough). Just be honest about who is doing what (as you observe it, not as BJ insists you need to see it), and keep asking yourself who is the authority for us believing whatever we are told to believe by the BJs or the HGs (Historical-Grammatical folk, hoping to not have to keep typing out that whole hyphenated word!).

!!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!!

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“For that chapter, we’ll need the help and authority of the great saints of history, whom I will cite at length along with some commentary” (p. 169).

Okay, this is what BJ wrote the whole first part for, to have readers convinced that when he started quoting sources outside of Scripture, we would believe that Scripture was deficient (as a God/man hybrid) and it was the authorities outside of Scripture who would need to correct us. Not only that, but we would need to trust the BJs as the mediators between us and those sources (which most of us wouldn’t have studied in-depth enough to know who really said what and how that compared/contrasted to what God breathed out into his word) with the result that it is really BJ and his clan who are the authorities in telling us who their authorities are for dissing the authority of the Scriptures (yes, I am deliberately using repetition as a style option for emphasis on the fact that this is all about who is the AUTHORITY over what we believe). To clarify, there are NO “great saints of history” who have “authority” over what we believe about the Bible! We only have people throughout the history between Christ’s first and second comings who were commentators on what they believed about the Bible. The only men who had “authority” were the ones God carried along by his Holy Spirit to write down the words he breathed out onto the pages of Scripture through their faithful witness. No matter who BJ presents from outside the Bible, they are outside Scripture, and so we test them by Scripture, not the other way around.

   Chapter 13 – A Text in Travail: Tim Talks (p. 170)

   To (hopefully) avoid typing so many comments that need testing, I will simply identify that BJ’s use of the phrase, “a ‘text in travail’” is the defendant. BJ is the defense attorney claiming this phrase is innocent of misrepresentation, deception, and leading people away from the narrow path of the kingdom of heaven. You are the judge. Go ahead and begin with “innocent until proven guilty”, but test your heart to make sure that you are not partial to the defense but impartial and able to truly hear evidence from both sides before judging whether his “text in travail” story is valid, or whether it is one more misrepresentation of God’s breathed-out words. I will serve as the prosecution who has worked with the defense attorney in enough cases that I know he is as crooked as… well… that would require a figure of speech within my figure of speech, so I will just say that I have very good reason to test whatever the defense claims because I have seen too many judges mysteriously die of poison-in-the-pudding and I hope to put an end to the killing-spree happening right before our eyes.

   Okay, editor’s note: that was fun, and I hadn’t even thought of the imagery until I started typing it, which does not mean I was just inspired, but now I see, through figurative language, the real-life “steal, kill, and destroy” that has Satan’s fingerprints all over it.

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
After introducing the “text in travail” imagery, BJ asks as though rhetorical, “Isn’t it appropriate, then, that the story of divine travail be reflected by a text in travail?” (p. 170).	Absolutely not! Because I’m suspicious that the defense attorney is making false equivocations (associating any “travail” in Scripture with his God/man “text in travail” hybrid Scriptures), then I add my objection that this assumes facts not in evidence (I love saying that). We will see if he has any witnesses who explain this phrase in a way that can be tested by Scripture.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“What Girard describes is how the story is told, and I will add, how the story is read” (p. 170).

I will not be examining each of the “authorities” BJ uses. In this case, I simply point out that BJ has twisted what the apostle Paul wrote about Scripture as “the breathed out words of God”, putting “inspiration” between God and the Scriptures, and moved “inspiration” to what happens between Scripture and the reader. We are being asked to treat BJ as a greater authority than the apostle Paul. No one should be okay with that. However, I’m pointing out that when we read Scripture, there is a HUGE impact on us treating the breathed-out words of God as the story GOD has told, and reading it accordingly. This is in contrast to the BJs who want us to believe there is something wrong with the way the story was told (written into Scripture), so they can condition how we read Scripture (continuing the “Did God actually say…?” deception).

   Sigh… so many fightin’ words to type out! Not to be mistaken for “typological allegoricalness”.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

On page 170, BJ states in mid-paragraph, “They (biblical writers) strove with themselves, with each other, and with God over what to say and how to say it.”

I think one of my most repetitive comments is going to be, “Says who?!” Really, this assumes facts not in evidence. Can you think of one example in the Bible where the biblical writers “strove with themselves” over what to write down into Scripture? What about biblical writers “strove… with each other” over what they should write into Scripture? Or where do we see writers who “strove… with God over what to say and how to say it”? What I mean is, these statements are assuming there are facts to support them, or at least wanting us to assume there must be facts to support them since BJ is clearly the expert in what the Bible says. But where do we find anything that relates to what happened between God and the writers that indicated they did not know precisely what to write down as what the BIBLE (not BJ) calls “the breathed-out words of God”? And, if Peter says that Scripture was NOT written down by the will of man (that is SCRIPTURE!), but it was written down by men carried along by the Holy Spirit, then why would we believe BJ telling us that the writers had struggles with themselves, each other, and even God, trying to figure out what they were to say resulting in the God/man hybrid BJ has hypothesized directly contradicting even Jesus who spoke of the Scriptures as the word of God they claimed to be? If you are the judge, you cannot let your mind believe what BJ says here when he hasn’t even presented any evidence that this happened at all.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“The text features the groans of labor and the laughter of new birth, divergent strands meeting in the gospel finale” (p. 170).

OBJECTION!!! I’m not disputing that Scripture speaks of God’s servants struggling through things God told them to say and do. HOWEVER!!! That is NOT the same as saying they then struggled and strove to know what to write down when God breathed out how to record the history of an event. Also, “divergent strands” suggests contradictory teachings, which is a prejudicial expression. Instead, God’s word, Scripture, the Bible states it like this, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,” (Hebrews 1:1). God himself did NOT breathe out words suggesting “divergent strands”. The Scriptures we know as the Old Testament record “many times” and “many ways” that God spoke to his people, but these are not like conflicting messages, but a harmonious symphony of music with different instruments (messengers) playing in harmony (including all the genres) to give us a unified orchestration of the work of God to make for himself a people in the image and likeness of his Son. So Scripture continues, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:2). The contrast is NOT between “divergent strands” that “finally” meet in Christ, but that God himself is the unifying voice that spoke at many times and in many ways up to Jesus’ first coming, and then spoke directly through his Son as we now have in the rest of the Bible.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“I also see how reading the Bible faithfully involves the same process” (p. 170).

The process BJ described was bogus, so we either need to separate that from how we read the Bible, or we need to say that what he says here is just as bogus about people reading the Bible as his claims about God writing the Bible. There is NO WHERE in Scripture that says that when we read the Bible we experience an “inspired” event where God breathes out his words into our hearts so each of us reading the Bible knows exactly what he says and means. What I mean is that, the writing of the Bible is described as men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit writing the breathed-out words of God without messing with it by their own wills. Yes, that is what SCRIPTURE says, and that is what BJ insists we must reject to see it his way instead of God’s. On the other hand, there is no conflict with Scripture for people to give testimony of how they travailed/struggled/strove within themselves, maybe with the biblical authors, and even with God himself, as they tried to understand what God said in his word, and as they humbled themselves to accept that the Lord has spoken and we are his servants who live to do his will.  So, no, there is no “also” between the way Scripture was given through men carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down the breathed-out words of God and what happens when we read the Scriptures and get honest with God about what happens within us as the newbirth goes into labor to bring us to life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“When taken seriously, reading the Bible can become traumatic” (p. 171).

Yes, of course it can. For people who have loved darkness because their deeds are evil to suddenly have their eyes opened to the Bible’s complete contradiction of the world, the flesh, and the devil, will be traumatic. I put into evidence prosecution exhibit A, Paul of Tarsus. The trauma he went through discovering that he didn’t even understand the Scriptures he had grown up with, even studied at the doctorate level, and that the Jesus of Nazareth he was persecuting perfectly fit all the prophecies of the coming Messiah. And that three years of discipleship he got from Jesus after the cross that matched what the other apostles got prior to the cross would have been an incredible journey of considering everything he had understood to be a loss for the gain of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord.

   At this point, let me step outside the box and give a reminder.

   BJ, and at least some of the men who endorse him, all describe a similar experience of trying to deal with people who struggled to accept the way God is revealed in Scripture. My contention is that these men, instead of helping the people make sure they understood what God said and meant, all decided to rewrite Scripture to make a god that was more palatable to the unspiritual appetites of their people.

   Contrary to what BJ claims about helping us young mothers in Scripture to travail through the mindboggling difficulties of having children to care for (using his analogy on p. 170), changing scripture to make it more palatable is not how you help people live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

   Now I see that BJ is about to begin another heading with a conversation between him and a friend. I also see how far I have travelled along the garden path today, so I will end here, set up camp, get some rest, and prepare for the next day’s journal journey. I already know his story is going to include the fightin’ words of his beloved “so-called toxic texts” (p. 171), so I guess I’ll see you in court and see what happens next.

 

© 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

 

 

 

 

 

A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 73

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 73

“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

   My Introduction to Part 2 of BJ’s garden path

   I’m heading into Part 2 of BJ’s book with this conclusion:

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.

   I believe I have given ample evidence of this, but if anyone is not convinced, I continue to ask you this, if Jesus and the apostles warned us about “many” deceivers (Matthew 24), and many who would be deceived (II Timothy 3:13), in your worldview, who are these people? 

   If it is not the BJs who tell everyone that their “another Jesus” must rewrite historical descriptions of God because they can’t stomach God carrying out vengeance against evil people, then who is it? 

   If it isn’t someone like Brad Jersak who has misrepresented every Scripture he has used to make points contrary to what the Scriptures say, then who are the ones Peter warned would “twist” Scripture “to their own destruction” (II Peter 3:16), or that Paul warned would “arise” from among the church leaders “speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30)?

   I would urge everyone who has bought into what the BJs are peddling (II Corinthians 2:17) that you not venture beyond this book without making a list of who the “many” false teachers are in your worldview because if we don’t know how to discern the difference between truth and masquerade, we don’t know how to “test everything; hold fast what is good” and “abstain from every form of evil” (I Thessalonians 5:21-22).

   An Exercise in Details

   This morning (of writing this) was an exercise day, so I was able to listen to about 12 chapters of Exodus read to me. The first thing that stood out is that the details resonate with “history” not “allegory”. Anytime we know for certain that the Bible is using figurative language, the focus is not on giving every fine detail of who, what, when, where, why, and how. Allegory is apparent from the context, and it serves as an illustration in word-picture form to help us understand spiritual truth. It is not filled with details that interpreters can run with in any direction they please (as Origen did with his exaggerated interpretation of the Good Samaritan!).

   The second thing that stood out was the glaring revelation of Yahweh in response to the whole Golden Calf incident. You can read all about this beginning in Exodus 32. In summary, the people got bored waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, so they urged Aaron to “make us gods who shall go before us” (23:1). So Aaron gathered all their gold ornaments, fashioned everything into the golden calf, told the people that it was this idol that delivered them out of Egypt, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD (meaning Yahweh)” (23:5).

   Okay, hit “pause” on the video and think about that. Aaron, Moses’ brother, lets the people urge him to make an idol (it appears to not have required much urging). Aaron gets right to the project as if he really needed something to do. And when he made this idol, he calls it… YAHWEH! The name God gave Moses to identify who he was in coming to deliver his people. And now Aaron is saying that this golden calf they just made from the accumulated collection of their jewelry is Yahweh, the god who delivered them.

   God warned Moses that this was taking place down in the camp. But when Moses came down and saw this for himself, he was horrified to see what the people had done while he had been up on the mountain receiving the covenant from God. What follows in the Scripture below is how the narrative describes Moses' response.

   However, remember that this is in context of Jesus affirming “that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), without even once correcting anything from the Hebrew Scriptures.

   And remember that BJ had asked us (p. 159),

   “As an exercise, why not think of a story or symbol from the Old Testament…” The golden calf incident is clearly a his-story from the Hebrew Scriptures.

   “…and ask yourself which of these three categories it falls into: Is it a trial?” Yes, the people are going through the trial of waiting for Moses to come down from the Mountain, and their sin turns into a grievous trial of justice being carried out on the people.

   “An injustice?” Yes, the people are crediting an idol of gold made out of their own jewelry for delivering them out of Egypt and offering this object of gold their subservience to lead them on their continued journey.

   “A victory?” First, it is a huge defeat for the nation of Israel as they turn back to the gods they left behind in Egypt, but then a huge victory as God’s faithful ones carry out God’s justice against their evil and wicked brothers.

   Now let’s look at the God-breathed account of how God handled this, and then we can answer the rest of the questions:

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the LORD's side (Yahweh’s side)? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD (Yahweh), each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day” (Exodus 32:25-29).

   This record is in the midst of all the revelation about the Law given to Moses, all the details of the Tabernacle, all the detailed rules about how to handle every conceivable sin-problem among the people, and yet it is something the BJs would claim needs “A More Christlike Word” because there is no way that Scripture describes Jesus’ Father.

   And my question is, “Says who?!!!”

   However, let’s continue with BJ’s questions from page 159 of his book:

   “How does this story prefigure Christ?” The apostle Paul gives us a very Scriptural answer to how Moses dealing with the idolatry in the camp prefigured how Jesus would save people from idolatry.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (I Thessalonians 1:8-10).

   “What aspect of the gospel does this signify?” What Moses did in judging God’s people for their idolatry shows how the gospel will save people from idolatrous lifestyles, but also how there will be final judgment on idolaters. Paul wrote,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (I Corinthians 6:9-10).

Clearly, idolaters will be condemned as Jesus described in John 3.

   Paul even uses the golden calf incident in I Corinthians 10:6-11 to warn us, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play’” (I Corinthians 10:7). And John includes them in those whose “portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

   “How does reading this story as gospel (the spiritual sense) address and transform my life (the moral sense)?” The sin of the people serves as an example to urge us to avoid idolatry in the church. And the example of the men who were “on Yahweh’s side” urges us to be faithful to Jesus, his true gospel, and the kingdom of God, no matter who we must treat as enemies of the cross of Christ. 

   Of course, taking up swords under the new covenant could be interpreted allegorically to signify taking up the word of God as the sword of the Spirit to test everything and treat each person on the basis of their handling or mishandling of the Scriptures.

   Anyway, I just wanted to share how God used the golden calf incident to show again that there is nothing allegorical about these historical events. Paul used this specific event to warn us, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” When he continued, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were;” he speaks of this as history, not allegory. He quotes the Exodus record of this stating, “as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play’” affirming the Scriptural account.

   He then applied this to the church with the exhortation, “We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.” Again, when he said “as some of them DID”, he meant they "did". When thousands “fell”, it’s because they really were put to the sword by the faithful.

   So he continues, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” Again, he treats these events as history. It is applied to the church to “not put Christ to the test” ourselves, and affirmed that this was what “some of them did”, meaning, they “put CHRIST to the test” with their idolatry! Yes, for real, not for allegory!

   And so Paul repeats his challenge, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” When Paul said “these things HAPPENED to them”, there is no way to take that allegorically. Plus, when Paul was making an allegorical application of a historical event… HE SAID THAT’S WHAT HE WAS DOING!

   I know that Part 2 of BJ’s book is going to try to solidify hearts into his “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel” of his “different Emmaus Way” than the one we read about in Luke 24. Hearing the golden calf incident read to me while I was exercising left me so grieved that BJ is convincing people that these are only allegorical accounts that his “another Jesus” has to make “more Christlike”.

   Instead, we are to take these historical events as very serious warnings just as Paul told us to. And the writer of Hebrews wrote in 12:15-17, “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled”. That is referring to idolatry as a “root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit” in Deuteronomy 29, treating it like real history with a real ongoing threat to the church. He continues with the warning, “that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.” No allegory, but huge applications!

   An Illustration in Context

   The golden calf incident certainly serves as a huge reproof to BJ’s allegorizing of the “sacred writings”, and God’s judgment is on him as surely as on the ones Paul was dealing with in his day. The next encouragement specifically related to bringing BJ’s false teachings into the light came as I was exploring a new resource called “The Bible Course” presented by the Canadian Bible Society.

   While I viewed their introductory video, this statement jumped out, “A text out of context is a con”. And that is exactly what BJ has been doing with his book, conning people out of the truth by sharing texts without context because the context denies his interpretation of the texts!

   Here is a link to the Bible Course.[1] I haven’t explored it enough to know if I can endorse it, although well-known Canadian pastor Charles Price has a 2 minute endorsement here.[2] And here is their free Session 1 video.[3] I share these as context to their statement that warns us about the “cons”, or “peddlers” of God’s word who use Scripture way out of context to lead people down the garden path to their “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel”.

   The Justice that Lifts Up and Casts Down

   The BJs present their “another Jesus” as someone who does not carry out justice on evil people. Whenever Yahweh shows his righteous judgment on criminal nations, the BJ’s put their hand in their “another Jesus” puppet and tell everyone that we need a more Christlike version of that Scripture, and a more Christlike Yahweh than Scripture describes.

   I have already shared that the “Experiencing God” course from Blackaby Ministries International is so vastly superior to what the BJs peddle. Henry Blackaby always handled the Scriptures as the word of God and applied them “according to sound doctrine” to the ways we can walk with God. On the second morning of working on this day’s journal journey, they had this verse waiting for me:

“Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
    his understanding is beyond measure.
The LORD (Yahweh) lifts up the humble;
    he casts the wicked to the ground”
(Psalm 147:5-6 – ESV).

   This is ALWAYS the case, that God relates to the humble by lifting them up, and he relates to the wicked by taking them down. That is justice. There is no justice toward the humble without justice towards the wicked. My recent journey through Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt showed the same picture, that God delivered his people who trusted in him, and he destroyed the Egyptians who were unrelenting in trying to stop God from doing his work.

   This dual-sided justice is affirmed all through the New Testament, but very specifically by James and Peter who both presented the same quote, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; I Peter 5:5). This seems to be a paraphrase of Proverbs 3:34, “Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.” There is NEVER a time when God’s justice cares for the poor in spirit without standing against the proud in spirit.

   In fact, it comes to mind what happened when Israel first entered the Promised Land. We see how Rahab, a prostitute from Jericho, was saved and added to the people of God, while Achan, a Jew by birth, was put to death for stealing plunder from God. God is just, and his justice is without partiality.

   When I opened BJ’s book to my next page, it reads “Part II Scripture as Epic Saga”. The rest of the page is blank. It would have been better for BJ if the whole book had been left that way. The seriousness of joining the serpent with, “Did God actually say…?” is terrifying. If BJ meant “Scripture” as what Paul meant, the breathed-out words of God, we wouldn’t have the garden path saga BJ has written. If BJ meant “epic” as a narrative of God’s awesome deeds rather than an allegorized and watered-down synopsis of things God didn’t really do, again, this book wouldn’t have been written. And, if what he meant by “saga” was a dramatic retelling of the redemptive work of the Triune God, we wouldn’t have had to endure the twists (literally) and turns of BJ’s garden path.

   So, to prepare for the next leg of the journey, I leave this interlude of truth in love in the hope of restoring “in a spirit of gentleness” anyone who realizes they have been caught in a transgression and needs help getting back on the narrow path of the kingdom of heaven (Galatians 6:1). Nothing of God’s truth needs to be sacrificed to know God as Christlike as he has always been, always is, and always will be.

 

© 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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[1] https://biblescanada.com/pages/the-bible-course

[2] https://youtu.be/rVnGGUcvFck?si=uq48ywyVgmY_bTSC

[3] https://youtu.be/alKTo9zLBI0?si=ROuYfKAwcpYlLE3b

A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 72

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 72

“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

   Chapter 12 - Faith and Function: A Christian Use of Scripture (p. 160).

   Because BJ is going to review a whole bunch of his false teachings, I will respond in kind by reminding you of how they have been exposed as such. I have already given all kinds of proofs in my reproofs, so I will just state the truth in response to his "different" story.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“I hope you recognize that I take the Bible very seriously, which includes reading it as gospel in a way that never blasphemes the character of God as revealed through Jesus Christ” (p. 160).

No, writing the Bible off as a God/Man hybrid when Paul said that all the Scripture in the Bible was breathed out by God is not taking the Bible seriously. And his claim that he never interprets Scripture to “blaspheme” the character of God as revealed through Jesus Christ means that he first decides to not believe the character of God as revealed in the Scriptures, and then denies the Scriptures that show Jesus has the same character as Yahweh in the Old Testament. So he does not avoid “blaspheming” Yahweh’s character by interpreting the God/man hybrid Scriptures by the character of Christ as revealed in the Bible, but he judges the Yahweh of the Scriptures by his “another Jesus” version, and that is just as much denying what the Bible says about Jesus as what it says about Yahweh. No, the BJs do NOT take the Bible seriously.

   From there, he highlights what he has already said, so I will highlight how I already responded. All my responses were much more detailed in earlier Journal entries.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“1. The Word of God is Jesus Christ” (p. 160).

This is clearly confusing what the apostles said about the Scriptures as “the word” and attributing those things to Jesus as the Word. It is false and misleading since he makes it appear that we can treat Jesus as inspired, infallible, and inerrant but not the word of God as we have it in the Bible. I showed how he misrepresented Scriptures that applied to the word of God and claimed they applied to the Word of God. That was one of the early deceptions.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“2. The function of the Scriptures, #1: To point to the gospel” (p. 160).

I respond with a statement from Got Questions where they answer, “What is the Purpose of the Bible?”[1] They state, “If we have to speak of a single purpose of the Bible, it would be to reveal God to us.” I know the gospel is central to the Bible’s message, but the #1 function of Scripture is to make God known to us, and that includes teaching us the necessity of the gospel. However, I clarify that BJ’s gospel is not found in the Scriptures, so he says the words that the Scriptures point to “the gospel” but he means that his version of a God/man hybrid Scriptures teaches his “different gospel”.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“3. Function of the Scriptures #2: a mirror revealing the human condition” (p. 160).

Yes, the Scriptures reveal the human condition clearly, beginning in Genesis chapter 3 with the Fall. However, since BJ begins with creation and the Fall in his efforts to write off Scripture as allegorical instead of historical, we cannot say that the BJs are concerned about WHAT the Bible reveals of the human condition, particularly in denying the need for a Savior to die in our place to propitiate the wrath of God against our sin.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“4. What is worthy of God?” (p. 161).	I am going to have to break this point down because it is full of false statements. However, the question for the BJs is not what the Bible says is worthy of God, but what they claim is worthy of the god in man’s image they are promoting.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“We found that the early church, even before opening the scrolls, had made a faith commitment that God is good (indeed, the Good)” (p. 161).

BJ has been very poor in substantiating his claims, so I would not agree that “we have found” what the early church believed or did. Also because BJ has cherry-picked who he uses to represent the early church, I am not sure that anything BJ says about any of the early church figures accurately represents what the early church truly believed. I will measure everything by what the Scriptures of the early church say on the matter, not what BJ’s select writers apparently wrote. Also, I believe BJ has it backwards about how the early church had a faith commitment that God was good. They didn’t begin with such a belief “before opening the scrolls”, but they learned from the Scriptures how good God was, and so that is the way they saw him in everything he did, including the judging of criminal nations.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“When a passage describes unChristlike images of God, we must not read them literalistically, because attributing moral darkness to God’s nature or deeds is not worthy of God” (p. 161).

This is so full of hypocrisy and double-speak that it is pathetic. It is the BJs who “attribute moral darkness to God’s nature” as seen in his judgment against criminal nations so that they then create “another Jesus” who will rewrite the description of Yahweh, Jesus’ Father, in their own image, NOT in the image of Jesus Christ. There is nothing in the plain reading of the Jewish Scriptures that, taken as they are written, without reading something in that isn’t there, portrays God as morally dark, or doing something “not worthy of God”. That is part of the BJ deception, to make it sound like BJ is taking the high road of protecting God’s character, when he is the one impugning it with claims of injustice in carrying out justice.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“5. Interpreting the Scriptures with the fathers” (p. 161).

We saw that BJ cherry-picked which church fathers he used, siding with those whose reputation for mishandling Scripture went before them. And he claimed/claims that the church fathers support his non-literal Literal Sense view when didn’t even show us examples of what the church fathers taught. At no time was there any reason to believe that there was support for BJ’s version of reading the Bible as a God/man hybrid that has no authority.

   A Christian Use of Scripture (p. 161).

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“The Bible read in the community” (pp. 161-162).	In this section, BJ proposes that there is a community way to interpret the Bible that, again, is not based on the authority of the word of God itself, but what consensus a group of people come to. We don't get our understanding of God's word from a consensus of how people read it, but from being honest about what it says whether or not we have anyone to help us.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“The Bible read in the liturgy” (p. 162).	All I will say about this is that it is not something taught in Scripture. However it may be done in a church, it is a manmade way of doing it. It is definitely not required to "let the word of Christ dwell in us richly".

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“The Bible read in prayer and song” (p. 164).	Again, lots of manmade ideas, but not required of the church in Scripture.

   Scripture as the Music of God (p. 164).

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

BJ makes claims about peacemakers that aren’t from the Bible.

I will simply put against them that when Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers”, he had in mind people who would bring others to have peace with God, which is through the gospel of the kingdom in the Bible, not the one promoted by the BJs.  And, immediately after this Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” because peacemakers, if truly seeking to bring people to have peace with God through the cross, get persecuted for proclaiming the very message the world hates to hear. Example? Jesus. Stephen in Acts 7. Paul everywhere he went proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. For clarification, someone who tries to get everyone to have peace with each other without experiencing peace with God through the gospel is called a “peacekeeper”, not a “peacemaker”.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
Origen, Origen, Origen (pp. 164-165).	I will simply say that those are lot of Origen’s ideas, and he was not a good pick for representing the church fathers, although I can see why BJ prefers him to the more reliable ones.

   I will add a note at this point because I was doing some chores earlier today and was able to listen to some online messages about the things BJ is talking about. I learned some things about the so-called church fathers that really comes down to them being in the same place of grappling with Scripture based on their personal views, opinions, and feelings about things. They sounded just as opinionated about what Scripture means as anything I hear in our day.

   My conclusion is that these men were no authority on the meaning of any specific Scripture passage as if they had something the rest of us don’t have by reading the Bible. They were choosing between what they wanted to read into texts, and what they thought they were reading out of texts. But it all sounded the same as we have it today, different ideas of whether we receive the Scriptures as the breathed-out words of God, or we act as the authorities who breathe-in the words of man.

   Scripture as an Epic Saga (p. 165).

   The wind-down to the end of this chapter was a very picturesque summary of what the BJs believe. It is a beyond-what-is-written narrative with too many manmade additions that have already been addressed in detail when they were introduced. I would just label it all “poo-brownies” and warn people not to eat it.

   However, I will add my comments to the last two lines.

BJ writes, “It testifies to Christ and is itself transfigured by Christ into a luminescent witness and a more Christlike word” (p. 166). Let me share that again but with my “Amplified” translation.

“It (the “different gospel” the BJs teach) testifies to Christ (as the “another Jesus” Paul was warning about) and is itself transfigured by Christ (which means that the Scriptures prior to Jesus’ first coming need to be rewritten to match the box the BJs have put their “another Jesus” into), into a luminescent witness (which means it fits the profile of the “evil people and imposters” who “will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived”, as Paul warned) and a more Christlike word (which means an Old Testament that is rewritten to match the “another Jesus” the BJs have created).”

   I share this knowing that, if that’s all I said about this book, it would just be spouting off my opinion. However, I believe that I have challenged BJ’s claims on these things throughout the book, so I simply leave my closing comments alongside his, and hope that a few will check for themselves what Scripture says and means as the breathed-out words of God.

   BJ’s closing line is, “We’re now ready to study how the Bible’s polyphony of voices, multiplicity of perspectives, and variety of literature churn together into one story – our coherent and beautiful drama of redemption” (p. 166).

   My Amplified translation is,

“We’re now ready to study how the Bible’s polyphony of voices (which doesn’t mean “the Bible’s polyphony of voices”, but the ones the BJ’s have orchestrated that weren’t written into the original symphony), multiplicity of perspectives (after the biblical perspectives the BJs have denied and the manmade perspectives they have added), and variety of literature (again, denying the message of the genres the Bible presents as God’s breathed-out words and adding the jingle-of-genres that are of the beyond-what-is-written variety) churn together into one story (“churn” or “agitate” seems like a fitting verb for what BJ has done with his book so far, trying to take what God has written as “his-story” and rewriting it into the one story of the BJs’ fictitious world) – our coherent (no, with all the distorted teachings about Scripture added to the mix it would be a cacophony of incoherence) and beautiful drama of redemption (like the Emperor’s New Clothes were a beautiful display of royal regalness for all to see, allegorically speaking, of course).”

   How would I allegorize how I am responding to the BJs at this point in the book? Which popular character would I use to illustrate the contempt and head-shaking disbelief that people would get this far and believe that BJ has truly captured what he has just described with the same “rightly handling the word of truth” Paul was speaking about with Timothy?

   As I consider this, there is no allegorical “popular” character who would express what Paul did with his, “you put up with it readily enough”. What we need is a “more Christlike BJ”, not a “more Christlike Bible”. So let’s consider a few of Jesus’ words as the song of life that rises above the cacophony of poison-in-the-pudding (or “poo brownies”) of the false teachers of our day.

   “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many” (Matthew 7:13).

   It hasn’t been difficult for me to research BJ’s claims and see for myself that he has misrepresented one Scripture after another. But his popularity is not in conflict with what Jesus himself taught, that “many” would prefer the easy road of gods in man’s image, and so we look for what Jesus said next, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). A few on the narrow way is vastly superior (albeit bittersweet) than the ease of the wide and easy way of the false teachers.

 

   “For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray" (Matthew 24:5).

   Although BJ is not claiming the exact words, “I am the Christ”, he is claiming that he has a better Christ than the one prophesied about in Isaiah, or the one speaking of God’s wrath in John 3, or the one Paul wrote about who propitiated God’s wrath against our sin, or the one John wrote about as having so much wrath shining from his face that people will call on the rocks and hills to cover them to hide them from the day of wrath that both Jesus and the Father will fulfill as Scripture describes it. As I have said before, the very title of the book betrays the horribleness of BJ’s agenda, and it should have been enough to stop people in their tracks from taking a sample-bite of his poo-brownies.

 

   “And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11).

   Just a reminder that Jesus said “many” false prophets and “many” led astray. I can’t apply this to BJ just because I want to. But it does fit as a valid application after showing him twisting Scripture from its “plain” and obvious meanings into this “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel”.

 

   “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).

   I’m including this for a strange reason (kinda). When I was originally looking at BJ’s books, trying to find the cheapest version to critique because it really bothered me to have to spend money to do this (I think it’s the Hungarian Gypsy in me, although my Dutch/Mennonite background might have something to do with it as well), I noticed that the book was endorsed by a couple of fellas I had already been disappointed in for their dubious writings. Both of them I had either heard or read for myself, and seeing their endorsement of Brad Jersak hit me with a sense of, “Of course they would all approve of each other”.

   The three of them together (in hearing or reading what triggered them to write things so contrary to Scripture), had a similar story of being confronted with people they knew who were languishing in their relationship with God because of a disconnect from the Scriptures. They then explained how this disconnect was turning them away from God, from the gospel as they understood it, and from Scripture as they perceived it, hence the need for these three men to come in and rewrite Scripture, rewrite the Bible, and rewrite Father Yahweh.

My testimony is how God’s word has “come alive” to me over the past 32 years simply by reading it every day to hear what God is saying to me through his word and prayer, by seeking to discern what I see him doing in me, around me, or through me, and then being honest with God about how I need to make adjustments to join him in his work. Often this has led to surprising divine appointments that came with me already prepared to know how to join God in what he was doing.

   But my testimony also includes what happens when people do this together, first having their private “prayer closet” time with God in his word and prayer, and then sharing a summary of what God is saying, what he is doing, and how they are joining him in his work (or preparing to do so). In all these decades, when people just read the word to understand what God has breathed out, I have never had a situation where someone presented a viewpoint contrary to what was written. I have heard people’s testimonies of how God spoke to them through a passage of Scripture that hit them with something different than what stood out to me when I last read that same section, but not something different from what the Scripture said.

   What I have seen and heard, though, is that when we do this together as God’s children, and “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly” as Paul instructed, we witness people growing from when they could read a whole chapter and only get one thought out of it that they tentatively applied to their lives, to when they couldn’t get through a whole verse without each part of it standing out and needing a few days to prayer-journal through it.

   The way this connects to the verse above, about people’s love growing cold because of the increase of evil, is that these three guys all described people’s love growing cold! So what do they do? They increase the EVIL! They add poison to the pudding, leaven to the Passover Bread, diluting-water to the soup of life. Figures of speech, I know, but that’s the way figures of speech work!

   What all three audiences needed was someone telling them why their love was growing cold, and then speaking "the truth in love" from Scripture about how God is going to handle the increasing evil, including his utter and complete victory over sin, death, hell and the grave, and the utter vanquishing of all of Satan’s work and all of Satan’s ways so that those who have trusted in Jesus Christ with new-birth-faith will live in the home of righteousness forever and ever with NO possibility of evil ever destroying or cursing God’s work again.

   But no, the love of the people grew cold, the men believed they were the ones to do something about it, so they stole, killed, and destroyed the realities of God and made a god in their own image and likeness, one who does not know how to deal with sin, does not carry out vengeance against criminal nations, and does not deal with the justice against us because of our sin.

So, no, I do not want the word of God changed to match the god of the BJs. I do not want their “another Jesus” who is only what the BJs tell me he is. I do not want the “different spirit” that Jesus warned us about would come to lead people astray. I do not want the “different gospel” that, as Paul said, is no gospel at all. I would rather find the “few” with the truth in love than the many with a mirage of righteousness that disappears the moment they stand before the Great White Throne of Jesus Christ the Lord.

    Instead of the BJs, I seek to follow the example of Paul. Near the end of his life he declared to the Ephesian elders,

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:26-30)

   Folks, we have books written by wolves. Be one of the few who stand by the whole counsel of God no matter how much we must wrestle with the heart-breaking expressions of God’s justice against sinners. Only the few who stay on the narrow road have the good news of great joy that provides a Savior, the true Jesus Christ our Lord. And we must be the peacemakers who share this good news so we can find a few lost sheep who want to have peace with God by faith in Jesus Christ.

© 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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[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/purpose-of-the-Bible.html