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NASB | John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 10:27 "The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me. |
Bible Question: Is the Word-Faith movement biblical? I have recently realized the Church I have been attending for the last month is WF based. It seems God is bound by His own laws to give me anything I desire if I have faith (they see faith as a gift of the spirit) enough to receive my blessings. By the way I am looking for a new Church since the experience of being in a “Toronto experience” type service last Sunday that was conducted by a visiting evangelist who is a major player in the WF movement. |
Bible Answer: This is getting messy. Let’s separate Word of Faith from valid Christianity. Word of Faith borders on the metaphysical, in that they teach nothing becomes anything until it is spoken. Hence if your sick and you refuse to say your sick you will not be sick. If your car blows up it is only a false manifestation from Satan to defeat you and the car is not really blown up until after you say my car just blew up. They base this on the teachings of F.F. Bosworth and E. W. Kenyon. Kenyon in particular and Bosworth both daubled in the metaphysical before advancing their thoughts on the Christian world. Kenneth Hagin then developed their teaching into what I would call the Word of Faith movement. He claimed never to be sick because he would never allow the false manifestation of sickness brought on by Satan to become real by his voicing of them. In other words if your leg falls off it really didn’t fall off it is just an illusion of Satan to get you to confess your leg just fell off. Neat huh! Then they add to all this mix the fact that God wants you healthy, wealthy and just down right peachy. The only way any problems can come into your life is if you allow them by failing to speak positively or speak something negative into being. Then to sort of cinch it all down they say the only two things that can block your positive confession is the lack of faith or unconfessed sin. Therefore if anything bad does happen to you they always have an out. Either you lack faith or are a sinner. Kind of like catch 22. Your leg falls off, you can’t move, but you can’t call for help because if you say your leg fell off it really will. And since you can't confess it back on your either in sin or you lack mountain moving faith. This all works really well for headaches and such but when a real disaster comes into your life you pretty much look like a fool standing there saying my child didn’t died, it’s all a false manifestation of Satan, while they are throwing dirt on your child’s coffin. Then as you walk away from the cemetery your fellow church members whisper amongst themselves that child would have lived if only you had more faith or would have confessed the sin that was in your life preventing God from moving. This does happen folks! This is not to say God does not heal today, this is not to say God is not in the miracle working business, nor is this to say we shouldn’t have a positive outlook. What I am saying is we have to have our faith in God not in what we speak. |