| Barry Hufker wrote on Tue, 03 August 2010 21:49 |
It is easy to condemn those who fail at this. And it may be that condemning them is proper. It is one thing to fail but it is another to succeed in bilking others such that your "failure" is a multi-million dollar corporation and your actions are an embarrassment to believers everywhere. It is the same with many others who preach on television or internationally. The "prosperity gospel" is a crime and a heresy.
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I agree that (to use the biblical term) these false teachers are harmful to both the those within and outside of the community of faith.
However, I'm not sure I quite like how the word "condemn" here is being used for two reasons.
The first reason I hinted at in my previous post. I don't like the word "condemn" being used in this manner as it can easily turn into a stance of self-righteousness on the part of the one doing the condemnation. In a previous thread there was discussion of a 'Pharisee' disposition. Here I would say that self-righteousness is a major component of that disposition that we witness in the gospel account. Rather than leaning towards self-righteousness, I believe a healthier stance is to recognize that even though some people blow it big time, we too are sinners with our own faults and should not be too quick to cast the first stone.
The second reason has to do with the character and actions with which we are to approach false teachers. 1 & 2 Timothy is probably the best source for these ideas as it's the clearest / most pointed epistle for dealing with false teachers (as was the problem in Ephesus when Paul wrote this towards the end of his life). In general, they are to be avoided, but when corrected it is to be done with "patience and gentleness."
For those of us who believe, how we deal with these people is just as much a witness to a watching world as the actions of these false people. Acting out of the character of Christ is important when there's slimy opponents.
