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NASB | 1 Corinthians 11:2 ¶ Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Corinthians 11:2 ¶ I praise and appreciate you because you remember me in everything and you firmly hold to the traditions [the substance of my instructions], just as I have passed them on to you. |
Subject: Baptists |
Bible Note: Hi, Ed... I entirely concur. You have made a very profound and deeply significant statement. We Reformed Baptists receive Spurgeon as one of our own, but the reality is that he was not a member of a denomination, nor even an association -- that is common among many Baptists even today. Nonetheless, Spurgeon himself wrote of the danger of unity with those who deny the fundamentals truths of the Christian faith. I think you have declaimed Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Arthur W. Pink to the hall of villiany in which you now place Charles Spurgeon. May God show them mercy! We ought not be blind to the faults of church leaders in Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist circles. In Scripture we have record of the moral failings of great men like Moses and David. Our Lord tells us, "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?" (Matthew 7:16) Yet Moses and David -- and need I list others? -- have their Godly witness born out in lives that showed a general bent toward righteousness. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:37) You wrote, "History is easy to manipulate if you snip here add there and ignore this and emphasize that." In other words, those who manipulate the truths of the past are liars and deceivers. Though, I suspect there is a lot of ignorance -- as per Peter's description "unstable and unlearned." This is their fruit, plain for all to see. Thus, we can and ought to identify them (cf John 8:44; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Revelation 21:8, 27, 22:15). False teaching ultimately becomes characterized by accompanying forms of immorality -- lying is only the beginning. Consequently, we must not be ingenuous -- thus joining their ranks! God forbid! -- by excluding anyone who fails the God given standard of the fruit they bear. Thus, as we examine the public records in just the last hundred years, there are people like Charles Fox Parham, A. A. Allen, Aimee S. McPhearson, Duncan Leighton, Billy James Hargis, Jim Bakker, Peter Popoff, Bob Jones, Mike Warnke, Earl Paulk, Clarence McClendon, Roberts Liardon, Douglas Goodman, Lonnie Frisbee, Paul Cain, Ted Haggard, Todd Bentley, Michael Guglielmucci, Eddie Long, Roy Clemments, Paul Barnes, Gilbert Deya, Paul Cain, Ralph Rutledge, etc. ... to name but name a few. Ultimately the ones justified will be mercifully vindicated by a Holy God while the unrighteous will receive His just wrath. "So the LORD cuts off head and tail from Israel, Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day. The head is the elder and honorable man, And the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail. For those who guide this people are leading them astray; And those who are guided by them are brought to confusion." (Isaiah 9:14-16) If this is true in the days of Isaiah, how much more is it true in these days of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ? Thank you for these frequent reminders of the day in which we live. In Him, Doc |