2Timothy
4:
1 I charge you in the presence of God and of
Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and
his kingdom:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out
of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
3 For the time is coming when people will not
endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
4 and will turn away from listening to the
truth and wander off into myths.
muthos=myths
a tale, that is, fiction
(“myth”): - fable.
2Thess
2:
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the
activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
10 and with all wicked deception for those who
are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion,
so that they may believe what is false,
12 in order that all may be condemned who did
not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Jeremiah 5:
30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened
in the land:
31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the
priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will
you do when the end comes?
Often quoted, seldom taught or
understood in context. Paul (Jeremiah as well) is speaking of those who profess
to be believers. Week in, and week out within professing Christianity, the
clockwork like ritual of the “faithful” filling pews, and being fed a
“mythological meal”, rolls on. “You will not surely die”, (i.e. I’m ok, you’re
ok, we’re all OK), being the main course. (Genesis 3:1-7)
People are deceived for the
very reason that they want to be deceived.
God sends them a strong
delusion as judgment; the judgment being, they are handed over to the lie. They
would rather believe a lie since the cold, hard truth is not a pleasant thing,
nor are those who proclaim it, a pleasant people, (at least in their estimation
of what is “pleasant”).
energeia=strong
efficiency
(“energy”): - operation, strong, (effectual) working.
plane=delusion
objectively fraudulence;
subjectively a straying from orthodoxy or piety: - deceit, to deceive,
delusion, error.
Ephesians 4:
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the
evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed
to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human
cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to
grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held
together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working
properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love……
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let
each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of
another. (2 Timothy 2:15-26)
How much more
clarity is needed here? The redeemed are those who love the Truth, and
subsequently
speak the Truth, in love (not tolerance), to one another. They do not speak “in
love”
without speaking the Truth. The two are forever bound together in Christ. (John
14:6;
Romans
5:8)
This
is the true prophetic calling of the church, not the peddling of fortunes, (one
of the myths
men
get lost in).
1Cor 13:
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy
or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but
rejoices with the truth.
To
“spare one another’s feelings” by lying to each other, and so deceiving
ourselves, is not love;
it
is wrongdoing.
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