Recognize The Zero Tolerance Heresy

There is an old saying that One mend-fault is worth twenty spy-faults. End of quote. Before we say things to expose people who we define as false teachers (thinking to ourselves that we are more righteous than them) we should first read 2 Chronicles 28:8-15 and ask ourselves these questions : Are my intentions fair or am I disproportionately magnifying other people's faults ? Are my intentions fair or am I making a mountain out of a molehill ?

If God made mountains out of molehills the kingdom of heaven would be empty. Jesus said : Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew 5). Consider the lesson of 2 Chronicles 28:8-15.

Proponents of the zero tolerance heresy operate internet channels that are called discernment ministries. However, the term discernment ministries is just a euphemism used to cover the stark reality of what the operators really are which is unlicensed slanderers. Travesties are as bad as heresies. And anyone who does not agree with this description of these operators should listen to the critical stuff that Christians post on these channels and then ask yourself this : When did God give these critics a detraction licence that in effect has revoked the anti- slander maxims written in Psalm 50, Psalm 101 and Titus 3 ?

These critics commit detraction under the pretext of justifiably-exposing-false-teachers. And they have used meticulous form-critical-analysis to denounce things said by some of America's most respected and mature evangelical pastors. I am not convinced that God has given these critics an open-ended slanderers licence.

The ability to recognize the difference between exegesis and eisegesis presumably functions as a safeguard against the manifestation or use of subtle heresies. The word eisegesis is less than 200 years old and I have thought about the meta-ethical nature of its meaning. After listening to sermons preached by men who, in their own words, purport to stand firmly against the use of eisegesis my conclusion about them is this : All of them are do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do pretenders.

Christians who accuse others of eisegesis often commit eisegesis themselves either knowingly, unknowingly or inadvertently. Accusations that so called expository preachers use to denounce the innovative styles of topical preachers are similar to accusations that apocryphobic Chistians have used to denounce the Apocrypha. In fact any person who says anything of their own to expound the Bible is adding things to it that did not originate with it. But this does not mean that every sermon preached is condemned by what John said at the end of Revelation 22.

A relevant extract from Bruce Metzger's Introduction to the Apocrypha says this :

In reply to those who urged the discontinuance of reading lessons from apocryphal books as being inconsistent with the sufficiency of scripture, the bishops at the Savoy Conference held in 1661, replied that the same objection could be raised against the preaching of sermons, and that it was much to be desired that all sermons should give as useful instruction as did the chapters selected from the Apocrypha. End of quote.

You can treat apocryphal books fairly by regarding each one as an independent document and judging each one separately on its own merits.

MODERATION is the title of one of the sections in the Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs. Here are some relevant sayings from it : It is good to be neither too high nor too low. Every extremity is fault. From the sublime to the ridiculous is only a step. Too far east is west. Extremes meet (This and the preceding sentence imply that any virtue, belief, emotion etcetera, indulged in to excess may approach the opposite extreme. Thus a person may verge on extreme arrogance by being excessively humble).

Feel pity for Christians who, with respect to this message, cannot discern the difference between reasonable and unreasonable and have omitted those two words from their wisdom vocabulary.

George Warner