Bible Study Pretending to Know God.

[Tenchi]

Titus 1:16
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him,
being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
​

The Church has always had "posers" within it, "false brethren" Paul called them, "tares among the wheat" that participate in the life and work of the Church illegitimately, professing a saving knowledge of God but denying Him in the daily, practical shape of their living (2 Corinthians 11:26; Galatians 2:4; Matthew 13; Hebrews 6:4-8). Though they have "tasted of the heavenly gift" in their involvement in the Church, they are, in private, "abominable and disobedient"; though they partner with the Spirit in a second-hand sort of way by working with genuinely-saved people in fulfillment of God's will for the Church, they are "unto every good work reprobate." In the highly tribalized, member-individuated Church where a "mind your own business" attitude and increasing isolation are the norm, no one dares make an assessment of anyone's claim to being a genuine child of God. Doing so in even the lightest, most oblique way usually triggers a blizzard of labels: legalist, holier-than-thou, intolerant, judgmental, hypocrite (and probably bigoted, racist and misogynistic, too). And so, the Church is filled with folk who profess that they know God but in works constantly deny Him, protected from critical evaluation or censure by a well-established hyper-sensitivity within the Church to any and all spiritual "fruit inspection."

Inevitably, though, the presence of these "false brethren" is felt within the Church. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" the apostle Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9), and "false brethren" always bring a lot of "leaven" into the Church. As a local church is crowded with those pretending to know God, their "leaven" deadens the church spiritually, stifling God's work and blessing upon the church, and producing a general spiritual malaise within it. The carnality of "false brethren" is at direct odds with the life and work of the Spirit, the two actually at war with one another (Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:5-8).

If the carnality of the "false brother (or sister)" is permitted to continue unchecked, it works itself out within a local church community in divisiveness, contention, jealousy, bitterness, gossip and slander, and even gross sexual sin (See: 1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6, 11; Galatians 5:19-21). Many times, as this "leaven" is allowed to continue in a church, there is a church-split, or some terrible scandal occurs, or the community just withers and dies. Sometimes, all of these things happen.

Caring deeply for the Church and thus willing to suffer the storm of anger and resentment the "false brethren" in the Church would offer in reaction to being exposed, Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude all pointed straight at the sin within the Church and called it out. Consider the following stark example:

1 Corinthians 5:1-5
1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife.
2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Yikes! Stringent stuff! Paul was determined to protect the "flock of God" at Corinth no matter how many toes he stepped on. It was far more important that "leaven" be kept out of the Church than that the sinner in the Church be made to feel comfortable in their sin. And so, Paul commands the believers at Corinth:

1 Corinthians 5:11-13
11 ...I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

The modern Church in North America is far from Paul's command here. And it shows. How many awful scandals have bubbled to the surface within the Church in the last forty years? Many are the stories of pastors raping women and children, of pedophilic youth pastors, adulterous deacons, thieving and drug-addicted church leaders. Think of the adulterous, Ravi Zacharias. Or Jim Baker. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Or Ted Haggard. The list of examples of "leaven" in the Church seems almost endless.

This is what happens - and will continue to happen - so long as the Church refuses to carefully inspect the claims those within her ranks make to "knowing God." The unrepentant sinner will neither appreciate nor understand such inspection, thinking it mere hypocritical piousness and judgmental intolerance. They can't imagine, you see, that others aren't just like them, full of secret sin and hypocrisy.

Titus 1:15
15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

Thus, it is the "defiled and unbelieving" "false brethren" who protest most stridently any actually-applied standard of conduct and belief within the Church and who fiercely resist any evaluation of their words and deeds by fellow believers. Who are you to judge? the false believer thinks, You're all just as sinfully hypocritical as I am. This isn't actually true, of course, but a part of the delusion and hardening of sin that causes the willful sinner to think that nothing is pure.

The genuine child of God, in contrast, walking with Him in holy submission, love and joy, will see the critical assessment of every believer within the Church as a vital part of going deep with God and being blessed by Him, individually and corporately. Doing so protects the Church, it prompts God's blessing, and it paves the way for full, unhindered fellowship with God.

1 Peter 1:13-16
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,
15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."

 

[Josef]

Hey All,
Tenchi, "posers" as you called them, have been in the church since it was established. Paul, Peter, James, and John had to deal with them in their day. Here we are still dealing with them today. Suffice it to say, tares will always be a problem for the church. If we take The Parable of the Sower literally, 75% of people, who believe they are part of the church, are tares. They are not going away.
Maybe that's a good thing. Among a body of believers is where they can be healed. Maybe tares are among the body so they are without excuses come judgement. I don't know exactly why.
I may have missed it, since it is so late an hour, but I did not see in your study what we as believers are to do with the "posers." Unless it is obvious and they are hurting a member of the body, I tend not to worry about who is real, and who is acting. Jesus will take care of all that. I just know that as part of the body of believers, we are called to show the love of Jesus to anyone that we encounter. Love is patient and it endures. Among the body is where they can see what they are not. Maybe our love for them just makes them feel safe.
Who but God knows? If I did know, does it change what I am called to do? No.
Just a different perspective.

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz

 

[jasonc]

Hey All,
Tenchi, "posers" as you called them, have been in the church since it was established. Paul, Peter, James, and John had to deal with them in their day. Here we are still dealing with them today. Suffice it to say, tares will always be a problem for the church. If we take The Parable of the Sower literally, 75% of people, who believe they are part of the church, are tares. They are not going away.
Maybe that's a good thing. Among a body of believers is where they can be healed. Maybe tares are among the body so they are without excuses come judgement. I don't know exactly why.
I may have missed it, since it is so late an hour, but I did not see in your study what we as believers are to do with the "posers." Unless it is obvious and they are hurting a member of the body, I tend not to worry about who is real, and who is acting. Jesus will take care of all that. I just know that as part of the body of believers, we are called to show the love of Jesus to anyone that we encounter. Love is patient and it endures. Among the body is where they can see what they are not. Maybe our love for them just makes them feel safe.
Who but God knows? If I did know, does it change what I am called to do? No.
Just a different perspective.

Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz

They removed them of they knew not tolerated them .

My church has confronted people known to be sin to correct them .they refuse to after given a few chances they are out .

We refused communion to a couple living in sin .told them they may visit to worship but not to take part in communion .

 

[reddogs]

Titus 1:16
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him,
being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
​

The Church has always had "posers" within it, "false brethren" Paul called them, "tares among the wheat" that participate in the life and work of the Church illegitimately, professing a saving knowledge of God but denying Him in the daily, practical shape of their living (2 Corinthians 11:26; Galatians 2:4; Matthew 13; Hebrews 6:4-8). Though they have "tasted of the heavenly gift" in their involvement in the Church, they are, in private, "abominable and disobedient"; though they partner with the Spirit in a second-hand sort of way by working with genuinely-saved people in fulfillment of God's will for the Church, they are "unto every good work reprobate." In the highly tribalized, member-individuated Church where a "mind your own business" attitude and increasing isolation are the norm, no one dares make an assessment of anyone's claim to being a genuine child of God. Doing so in even the lightest, most oblique way usually triggers a blizzard of labels: legalist, holier-than-thou, intolerant, judgmental, hypocrite (and probably bigoted, racist and misogynistic, too). And so, the Church is filled with folk who profess that they know God but in works constantly deny Him, protected from critical evaluation or censure by a well-established hyper-sensitivity within the Church to any and all spiritual "fruit inspection."

Inevitably, though, the presence of these "false brethren" is felt within the Church. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" the apostle Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9), and "false brethren" always bring a lot of "leaven" into the Church. As a local church is crowded with those pretending to know God, their "leaven" deadens the church spiritually, stifling God's work and blessing upon the church, and producing a general spiritual malaise within it. The carnality of "false brethren" is at direct odds with the life and work of the Spirit, the two actually at war with one another (Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:5-8).

If the carnality of the "false brother (or sister)" is permitted to continue unchecked, it works itself out within a local church community in divisiveness, contention, jealousy, bitterness, gossip and slander, and even gross sexual sin (See: 1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6, 11; Galatians 5:19-21). Many times, as this "leaven" is allowed to continue in a church, there is a church-split, or some terrible scandal occurs, or the community just withers and dies. Sometimes, all of these things happen.

Caring deeply for the Church and thus willing to suffer the storm of anger and resentment the "false brethren" in the Church would offer in reaction to being exposed, Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude all pointed straight at the sin within the Church and called it out. Consider the following stark example:

1 Corinthians 5:1-5
1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife.
2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Yikes! Stringent stuff! Paul was determined to protect the "flock of God" at Corinth no matter how many toes he stepped on. It was far more important that "leaven" be kept out of the Church than that the sinner in the Church be made to feel comfortable in their sin. And so, Paul commands the believers at Corinth:

1 Corinthians 5:11-13
11 ...I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

The modern Church in North America is far from Paul's command here. And it shows. How many awful scandals have bubbled to the surface within the Church in the last forty years? Many are the stories of pastors raping women and children, of pedophilic youth pastors, adulterous deacons, thieving and drug-addicted church leaders. Think of the adulterous, Ravi Zacharias. Or Jim Baker. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Or Ted Haggard. The list of examples of "leaven" in the Church seems almost endless.

This is what happens - and will continue to happen - so long as the Church refuses to carefully inspect the claims those within her ranks make to "knowing God." The unrepentant sinner will neither appreciate nor understand such inspection, thinking it mere hypocritical piousness and judgmental intolerance. They can't imagine, you see, that others aren't just like them, full of secret sin and hypocrisy.

Titus 1:15
15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

Thus, it is the "defiled and unbelieving" "false brethren" who protest most stridently any actually-applied standard of conduct and belief within the Church and who fiercely resist any evaluation of their words and deeds by fellow believers. Who are you to judge? the false believer thinks, You're all just as sinfully hypocritical as I am. This isn't actually true, of course, but a part of the delusion and hardening of sin that causes the willful sinner to think that nothing is pure.

The genuine child of God, in contrast, walking with Him in holy submission, love and joy, will see the critical assessment of every believer within the Church as a vital part of going deep with God and being blessed by Him, individually and corporately. Doing so protects the Church, it prompts God's blessing, and it paves the way for full, unhindered fellowship with God.

1 Peter 1:13-16
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,
15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."

Judas comes to mind..

 

[Tenchi]

Hey All,
Tenchi, "posers" as you called them, have been in the church since it was established. Paul, Peter, James, and John had to deal with them in their day. Here we are still dealing with them today.

Right. I pointed this out in my OP.

Suffice it to say, tares will always be a problem for the church. If we take The Parable of the Sower literally, 75% of people, who believe they are part of the church, are tares. They are not going away.

If we allow them to continue comfortably within the Church, yes, you're right. Were Christians to take seriously what Paul said about "leaven," however, they would act as he did in protecting the Church from it.

Maybe that's a good thing. Among a body of believers is where they can be healed.

No, the Church is not a "hospital for the sin-sick." This is nowhere indicated in the New Testament. Instead, there are passages like 2 Corinthians 6:14-16, or Ephesians 5:1-13, or 1 Corinthians 5 that command born-again believers to be in the world but not of it, remaining carefully separate from the influence of the lost and the "leaven" of their sin.

Spiritual healing is accomplished in and through Christ. As he commanded and demonstrated, his disciples are to go out into the world and preach him, the Savior of sinners, making disciples of the lost and THEN bringing them into a local community of believers (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15). At work, across the backyard fence, at the grocery store, at the gym, and so on, the "salt and light" of God (ie Christians) are to be "living letters of Christ read by all people" (2 Corinthians 3:2-3), bringing the lost to salvation and discipling them, not crowding them into a Sunday morning worship service to hear songs made in praise of a God they don't know or love, prayers to a God toward whom they are in rebellion, and teaching of the truth of the God they constantly offend.

I may have missed it, since it is so late an hour, but I did not see in your study what we as believers are to do with the "posers."

See above. Or just re-read the OP.

Unless it is obvious and they are hurting a member of the body, I tend not to worry about who is real, and who is acting.

As the apostle Paul explained, "posers," "false brethren," inevitably bring "leaven" into the Church thereby "leavening the whole lump" (1 Corinthians 5:6). No local community of believers that wants to be spiritually healthy and blessed by God can afford, then, to allow the "leaven" of false brethren to continue within their community.

Jesus will take care of all that. I just know that as part of the body of believers, we are called to show the love of Jesus to anyone that we encounter. Love is patient and it endures.

There is no love that we show to the sinner when we ignore the fact that their sin is sowing corruption and death into their life (and the life of the Church). Sin hardens, deafens, blinds, sears, corrupts and deadens people (Hebrews 3:13; John 8:43-47; 1 Timothy 4:1-2; Galatians 6:7-8; Ephesians 2:1-3). And if it is not repented of, confessed, and abandoned, it will reap the harvest of eternal torment in hell. We do evil, then, when we think to just leave it up to Jesus to care of them. He has made us his ambassadors who are to make strident appeal to the wicked to turn from their wicked ways:

2 Corinthians 5:20-21
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

James 5:19-20
19 My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back,
20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Ephesians 5:11
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Godly love will have nothing to do with evil. Knowing the terrible damage sin does, the believer who truly loves as God does, will never turn a blind eye to sin, giving the impression that sin isn't the death-dealing poison God has said it is.

Psalm 50:19-21
19 "You let your mouth loose in evil And your tongue frames deceit.
20 "You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.

Maybe our love for them just makes them feel safe.

No unrepentant, willful sinner is safe, regardless of how much a Christian's "love" might make them feel - entirely wrongly - that they are. There is no love I show in watching in silence as a person sips from a cup that I know is full of deadly poison, thinking it is more important that I make them feel "safe" instead of properly alarmed by the terrible jeopardy they are in.

Just a different perspective.

A very common one, unfortunately, that opens the Church wide to the "leaven" of sin and its damaging effects.

 

[WIP]

They removed them of they knew not tolerated them .

My church has confronted people known to be sin to correct them .they refuse to after given a few chances they are out .

We refused communion to a couple living in sin .told them they may visit to worship but not to take part in communion .

This is one area where the churches today don't take things as seriously as they probably should. We tend to turn a blind eye to wanton sinful behavior. It's one thing to have an occasional falling away but entirely something else to continue living a lifestyle that one knows is inappropriate.