Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | 1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Corinthians 13:1 ¶ If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love [for others growing out of God's love for me], then I have become only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal [just an annoying distraction]. |
Subject: Can anyone speak in tonges |
Bible Note: Creflo Dollar -- 'Cult or Christianity? 'World Changers promises financial blessings to the faithful, but many leave disillusioned 'by Rick Sherrell, Creative Loafing, Dec. 6, 1997 '...The message of the "Prosperity Gospel," which World Changers (the Rev. Creflo A. Dollar Jr.) teaches, is simple: "You can be rich, healthy and trouble free. Jesus was rich and God wants you to be rich." (...) 'Of course, the prosperity message is not just limited to World Changers. Two of the movement's elder leaders, Fred Price and Kenneth Copeland, can be viewed on a total 420 television stations worldwide and have published 67 books. 'But some religious observers say the Prosperity Gospel is out of sync with the substance of Jesus' teachings, which emphasizes selflessness and spiritual virtue. 'J.R. Hudson was a member of World Changers for five years and graduated from their school of ministry. But his quest for true knowledge of the scriptures caused him to stray from the fold and persuaded him that the teachings were anti-scriptural. 'Hudson contends that the Prosperity Gospel takes advantage of people who are not grounded in Biblical teachings. It tells them they can be wealthy and always healthy and never have problems. 'But Hudson says the only one prospering is Dollar, who wears expensive suits, drives a Rolls Royce and owns his own Lear jet to whisk him across the country spreading his message of prosperity. According to Dollar's teachings, if he didn't look prosperous, how could he gain more followers? 'Such thinking is one of the reasons both Duncan and Hudson call the movement a cult. '"The leader of a cult is generally someone very charismatic," says Duncan. She characterizes him as charismatic, manipulative and with so much personality that his word carries more than the Bible's -- although members would deny that. 'The other sticky issue is the enormous pressure the church places on members to tithe, or give ten percent of their earnings to the church. Unlike traditional churches, many of which also encourage tithing, World Changers goes further by tracking its members' tithing records through membership numbers and computer records. Those who don't tithe in accordance with the pledge signed during new member orientation are ostracized from the church's ministries. You can attend the church, but you can't participate in any of its official business. 'Hudson says members are also taught that failure to tithe will result in the devil wrecking your car or something else terrible happening to you. Everything bad -- and good -- that happens in a believer's life is attributed to whether or not the believer tithed properly. 'The Rev. Marque Payne, author of "Tithing: The Truth About It," has conducted Christian Finance conferences throughout the South and studied over 1,000 scriptures involving Christian finances. He says that what World Changers teaches is not what the Bible teaches. '"It is literally another gospel," he writes. "The Bible makes it clear that you cannot serve two Gods -- God and Mammon. Mammon being greed and the desire for materialistic things above everything else." 'Hudson describes Dollar as a very sincere, compassionate, strong-willed man who loves his family. "If you knew him you'd like him," he says. "I don't have anything bad that I can say about him personally.... He's very sincere. He thinks he's right. There's a whole lot of people who think that but the thing is you can be sincere and be sincerely wrong." ____________________ (http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d11.html) |