2 JOHN<\/b><\/p>\n
Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son<\/i><\/p>\n
(2 John 9).<\/i><\/p>\n
During the first two centuries, the Gospel was taken from place to place by traveling evangelists and teachers. Believers customarily took these missionaries into their homes and gave them provisions for their journey when they left. Since heretics also relied on this practice, John wrote the little letter we call 2 John in order to urge discernment in supporting traveling teachers.<\/p>\n
John begins by saying that his message is not new at all. It is the standard Christian message, which focuses on true love. He reiterates what we studied yesterday, that love means obeying the commands of God contained in the Bible and not following anything made by men (2 John 5\u20136).<\/p>\n
The problem is that there are teachers who are adding new revelations to the Bible. They are \u201crunning ahead\u201d of the Bible. They are \u201cgoing beyond\u201d the \u201cmere letter\u201d of the Word. They are coming up with \u201cnew truths.\u201d Such people, says John, are antichrists (2 John 7\u20139). In this category we should include the Judaizers, who were adding the Jewish oral law tradition to the Bible. We can also put the \u201cgnostics\u201d of the second century, who claimed to have special revelations from \u201cthe Spirit?\u201d These same people rejected the Old Testament Scriptures and much of the New Testament as well.<\/p>\n
It is dangerous to accept \u201cprophecies\u201d coming from supposed \u201cprophets\u201d in the church today. Some groups use the word prophet<\/i> to designate someone who has wisdom, and his or her counsel is considered \u201cprophetic,\u201d but is not regarded as revelation from God. Too often, however, modern \u201cprophets\u201d claim to be getting information directly from God. In case after case, these \u201cprophets\u201d wind up leading people into error, and creating new sects that focus not on the Bible but on the new \u201crevelations\u201d received by these \u201cprophets.\u201d Additionally, they embarrass the church when their \u201crevelations\u201d and \u201cwords of knowledge\u201d prove false or don\u2019t come to pass. This has been a problem throughout church history, and it is still a problem today. John says that those who are faithful will avoid such fancies and stick with the Bible.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
Ezekiel 38\u201339<\/p>\n
1 Peter 4<\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n
Ezekiel 40\u201342<\/p>\n
1 Peter 5<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t wish to be too harsh on other Christians who may be using words differently from the way we use them. At the same time, we don\u2019t want to be naive either. There are many today claiming to be prophets. Exercise caution and discernment whenever you encounter such things as \u201cprophecies,\u201d \u201cwords of knowledge,\u201d and \u201crevelations.\u201d<\/p>\n
For further study: Mark 7:4\u20139 \u2022 2 Timothy 4:2\u20135<\/i><\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2 JOHN Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son (2 John 9). During the first two centuries, the Gospel was taken from place to place by traveling evangelists and teachers. Believers customarily took … Continue reading “GETTING AHEAD OF THE GOSPEL”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}