False Prophets

Further to my last post, before the End comes, people will be led astray by false prophets.  What does this look like?  How essential is it to get all these teachings right?  I suspect that God can forgive quite a lot in terms of us not having the theology exactly right.  There are a number of passages I can cite to support this:

Matthew 11:21, Jesus warns, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”  Similarly, Ezekiel 16:49, “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”  And from Luke 12:10, “And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”  If you “speak a word” against Jesus (the Son of Man), you will be forgiven, I believe it is implied that, “so long as you love your neighbor.”  Note it says “will be forgiven” not “may be”.  Therefore, all those denominations we think get Jesus “wrong” fall into this category.  But speaking a word against Jesus is a sin, so we should get to know what Jesus really was like.  

At what point does wrong direction by the shepherds lead the sheep away from safe pastures?  As you can see from the previous passages, God’s concern is that we act with love.  Chorazin and Bethsaida witnessed Jesus’ miracles, heard his message. Jerusalem was given the Law, the Temple, the Prophets, the very presence of God.  Yet they got caught up in the appearance of following God’s Laws rather than actually living with Love.  Sodom’s primary sin was not, according to Ezekiel, sexual, but arrogance and ignoring the poor.  Yet Ezekiel 16:48 says Jerusalem's sins were far worse than Sodom's.

Some of the most damaging church leaders are those who teach that unrepentance is the Unforgivable Sin.  The result of that is a church that says “I cannot worship with you”.  Turning people out of the Church cannot be God’s intention.  This is the “older brother” condition from the Prodigal Son, where the rule-follower feels he must keep the rule breaker away.  This is what I meant in my last post that the Church seems meaner.  And this is what many Christians want to do in this country today - enforce Christianity in our schools, in our public spaces, whether people want to hear it or not.  Again, if you look closely, none of the Gospels tells of Jesus ever preaching to someone who was not in a synagogue, in the Temple, or who had followed him to hear him speak.    

It is this determination to evangelize by force that seems to push away more people than it saves.  God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us.  And he wants us to share his love from person to person, not by force, and not from the government to the masses.  The pervasiveness of this attitude is why I view the numbers of "practicing Christians" with a degree of skepticism, in this country and around the world.  1 Peter 3:15 reads, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”.