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THE ALARMING DECEPTION OF CONFIRMATION BIAS
Belief can become so powerful that truth no longer matters. A person with such deep-rooted though inaccurate beliefs will likely never be convinced to change his mind, not even by provable facts.
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Some people call it manipulation. But it’s much more than that. We all have memories of some off-putting relentless salesman who almost convinces us to do something we don’t want to do. Such people have an incredible ability to make us think we need something we don’t need, want something we don’t want, and that we better do as they say or will miss out on a great opportunity and then feel stupid.
I think this is part of the reason why people walking the streets in some major metropolis, let’s say, for example, New York City, since it has the best reputation for that, to never, ever make eye contact with anyone else, especially if someone is trying to get their attention. They’ve probably been hit up a million times on such streets and may even have been scammed a time or two. They have learned to keep moving, never say a word, and stay on their way or will end up late for wherever they’re going. They know they cannot trust themselves to not fall for some sales pitch or sob story or whatnot. And even if they believe they could stand their ground it would all be a waste of time and could probably even result in an argument which they obviously do not need. It is part of why many people, if not most, learn to keep their beliefs to themselves. Life is too short for such unnecessary philosophical interruptions.
DON’T CONFUSE ME WITH FACTS
No one wants their beliefs to be challenged. After a certain age, we decide on what we will believe and stick to it. We build up a superstructure around our chosen beliefs called life, and our lives thus become diffused throughout with a set of convictions and principles that seem to work for us. In reality, though, such beliefs usually have never been challenged fully or even fully thought out. It would be much better if we submitted our beliefs to truth in order to verify their veracity. But that’s a scary proposition.
It can be confusing. The world is filled with enough superfluous knowledge to keep one reading and learning for probably at least about a million years, give or take a few centuries. There are endless minutiae to be dealt with on a never-ending scale that can be so overwhelming it causes small flames and sparking in tender brains never meant to be subjected to such and may even cause a complete burnout or at least an all-day headache. These are not things most people desire.
Hence, society sends out semi-caustic and wearified refrains such as, “Don’t mess with my head, man. It’s taken me years to reach this place of oblivion and I’m tired.”
This is probably why those Krishna guys don’t bother people in airports anymore. It’s probably also why Christian witnessing is largely the work of new recruits. Seasoned followers of the Lord learn to be a tad more careful about who they witness to and how they witness as they gracefully age.
CONFIRMATION BIAS
But let’s get back on track. When people only want information that supports their beliefs and want nothing to do with data that does not, they are doing the mental equivalent of painting themselves into a corner and then constructing a wall around it. A Big Beautiful Wall. They only want the stuff that confirms what they believe, or actually, what they have chosen to believe (but don’t tell them that. It’s too confusing). We all go through life doing the equivalent of tip-toeing through the proverbial tulips with a don’t bother me with facts attitude because I already have all the facts I need thank you very much now step aside please. And this protects our chosen belief system. And if we’re really good we store our little box of beliefs why up high and far in the back on a hidden cranial shelf where we haphazardly stuck the old duck decoys and other assorted junk we haven’t used in decades and arrange things in a way that no one will ever find them and the last thing we want is to be asked, “Where’s the box and what’s in it?”
This is the human problem. We somehow semi-surreptitiously acquire beliefs as if by unconscious ongoing osmosis from somewhere or someone without checking on their validity and then guard them like a junkyard dog. Could it be because we can’t explain them? That they cannot stand up to scrutiny? As if we got the answer from the back of a suspect math book and cannot work out the problem properly on a whiteboard in front of the prying eyes of the entire classroom?
Here’s a question: What Would Jesus Do?
I think it would be cool to get about fifty Christian men and women of the cloth who are each experts in their own denominations and just start asking questions such as, “Why in the heck do all of you profess to be Christians and yet each of you believes something so different from one another that you can’t get along for long and insist on eternal separation in your ubiquitous little boxes spread out all over the countryside? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
And this is why I insist on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And for those philosophy students out there, I always make my final and only appeal to authority to the Lord Jesus and His teachings, found only in their purest form in the New Covenant Scriptures.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
And there it is. That’s what the Lord Jesus would do. He would teach us all His truth, because He is the Truth, if only we would let Him. I say enough with all these millions of different Christian classrooms with different math books and different answers teaching anything and everything but His pure teachings. The cure for hopeless and intractable Confirmation Bias is the Lord Jesus. We must subject all of our beliefs to Him. We must subject them to His light. Then we will see what kind of garbage fish are stuck in our nets and simply remove them and throw them back in the lake while keeping the good fish.
When we get to heaven we will all believe the fullness of the same truth. We will have all knowledge. There will not be any bad beliefs or false doctrines or misunderstandings or confusion. We will not be unsure of what we believe or have to guard our beliefs from inspection. We will be open books of truth and light shining from proverbial hills filled with facts and the knowledge of the Lord. We will know the truth. But wait. Didn’t He say we could have all this before heaven? At least with regard to His pure teachings? I’m pretty sure He did. And He related it to the means of gaining freedom.
So rather than insisting on refusing to subject our beliefs to the light of truth, perhaps we should simply vacate our respective mazes, end all the confusion, determine to gain ever more spiritual knowledge, clean out our mental closets, allow the light of the Lord to shine upon and within our hearts, minds, spirits, and bodies all the way to the DNA level, and begin the maturing process toward the wonderful and inevitable byproduct of breaking down the walls of separation and suspicion and achieve being on the same spiritual page with untold numbers of previously unknown spiritual brothers and sisters and thus experience the full joys of real fellowship. Amen?
While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” [Matthew 12:46-50] [1]
© 2018 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
MAKING PROVISION FOR UNKNOWN TRUTH: BEING TEACHABLE
“The very nature of teaching is the act of revealing information that a student had not known previously. This means we only know what we know…”
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Before we address the content of this post I want to thank my faithful readers. Some of you have been following this blog for a few years now and I do appreciate it. The material here is not mainstream in the least and that causes a decided lack of traffic flow to begin with, but some of you are supporting me anyway. I know many of you do not agree with everything I write and it is refreshing that we continue to share in a level of spiritual fellowship. But the very nature of teaching is the act of revealing information that a student had not known previously. This means we only know what we know, which is not something we usually know that we know. It can also be stated this way:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” [1]
This means we must be humble. We must be teachable. As followers of the Lord Jesus, it is dangerous to believe we know it all. We must be ever-learning. There’s a strange phenomenon that takes place in the soul of some Christian ministers when they insist on doctrines not supported by the Lord’s teachings. In order to enforce said doctrines, such ministers force themselves to adopt guises out of character with the fruit of the Spirit. They prove by their very actions that something is wrong with the teachings they espouse. They become less like Christians and more like hard-edged turf-defenders or stagnant dogma pushers.
They become quite used to having their way. They demand next to blind obedience. It borders on religious brainwashing. It establishes what can only be termed Christian cults. But when a cult goes mainstream by attracting (or forcing) great numbers of adherents, it morphs out of cult status into perceived orthodox status. When the authority of the Lord Jesus is circumvented in such a way and people are thus deceived (not realizing He is not in charge), it allows for great abuse which demands great reform. This brings us to the reality of the two different camps in overall Christianity:
CONTENDERS AND PRETENDERS
The usual traditional camp has already made up its mind what Christian truth is and spends all its time preaching what they know and attacking anything that does not agree with their chosen paradigm. I say chosen because that is exactly what it is. We all choose to believe whatever it may be. There is Christian truth that is obviously foundational that most Christians share, but so much of what the Lord Jesus originally taught is not being taught by most Christian bodies and this is obviously by design.
Such Christians make no provision for possible unknowns.
Consider the fact that the Lord and His original apostles had no religious superstructure surrounding them and one will begin to get the big idea what the dissemination of truth actually entails. He kept His operation extremely streamlined and materially limited and did that for a reason. He even taught very clearly that giving up one’s possessions is a vital part of discipleship. One can define that anyway one wants to but the best definition comes from simply studying the lifestyle of the early Church. We must also acknowledge that they had massive success with comparatively very few material resources. They did without that which most Christians insist upon as indispensable and still turned the world upside down. “Official” Christianity in the modern world can only be described by comparison as lacking.
The Lord knows we need stuff. We need food and water and shelter. In modern society we need a whole lot more simply to carve out a life of sustenance within a complex, ultra-developed, increasingly urban grid. But churches and individuals must be on guard against material props that actually hinder spirituality rather than help. Therefore, giving up one’s possessions does not necessarily mean going homeless and penniless by choice. Perhaps it means not allowing the material to outweigh the spiritual. It certainly means joining a spiritual Community in which the Lord Jesus is the sole Leader. Call it a love-based voluntary lifestyle of willing assistance toward others as echoed in the writings of the prophet:
A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” [Isaiah 40:3-5] [2]
It is in looking at the lifestyle and teaching method of our Leader that we gain all the insight we need to figure out how we should live and learn. I will have more on this later. In the next post we will consider America’s recent call to repentance in further preparation for the Awakening.
© 2017 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] D. Rumsfeld
[2] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Why the Lord Used Parables (And Why So Many Christians Still Don’t Get It). Part 3
And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE.”
With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it; and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples. [Mark 4:30-34]
Here we have the mysterious but distinct contrast to the real teaching method used by the Lord Jesus and that of imposters.
As mentioned in Part 2, religious indoctrination must be used when no relationship with God is present.
There is no doubt this is a “hard saying,” and certainly causes the inevitable stumbling when related to one’s Christian experience. But try to see it this way: Fathers do not put their small children in a school desk or pew in the living room and attempt to ram home all the teaching they must impart through a contrived institutional format.
Instead, they spend as much time as possible with their small children and allow them to ask questions. They are gentle and open, and allow each child to feel secure while also putting forth a mature stature which the child naturally respects.
The father spends time with his children, engages in activities with them, attempts to bless them with opportunities, and teaches by example. Love comes first, and as life’s opportunities for learning present themselves, fathers are ready with the same kind of instruction used by the Lord.
I don’t know why this is so hard to see, but it certainly is. Traditional, institutional Christianity has robbed the children of God from having that particular close learning relationship with the Lord He so wants to share with them. He loves His many children and He must feel very bad at being shut out by those who insist on regimenting and overly structuring Christian teaching, and turning spiritual revelation into classroom indoctrination.
Why can’t we see that the Lord Jesus never did this? Why do we justify it? Why do so few “Christian” men lack the spiritual backbone, intestinal fortitude, and outright nuticles to do something about it?
Though God, the Lord Jesus is also the greatest MAN who ever lived. He is manly to the core. When He walked this earth He presented the manliness and strength of God in a way that had never been done before. The real seekers of truth noted this, honored and respected it, and listened to the Man to the point of receiving His truth, His Spirit, and all that entailed.
Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?”
The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” [John 7:44-46]
Rather than respect Him and the gospel, His detractors and enemies took the opposite path. Whether intimidated or angered by Him, they simply could not possibly coexist with Him. They were the ones who insisted on cold, unfeeling, formalized religion that never touched the deep heart of people in great need.
The Lord, though, never used their false methods. He got down on the level of His disciples and taught with love and sincerity.
He had no church building.
He had no pulpit.
He had no narcissistic clergy distinctions whatsoever.
He did not need to prop Himself up or surround himself with or within some grand faux religious apparatus to appear genuine.
He was genuine by His love and manner. His disciples felt His love. They knew they were loved, the same way a little boy or little girl knows he or she is loved when daddy takes them fishing, or to the park, or plays a game with them, or shows them how to do stuff.
Is not this the very essence of mature servanthood and of the strong taking care of the weak? Instead of the strong becoming more strong and more enchriched and ruling over the weak?
For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak but you are strong; this we also pray for, that you be made complete. [2Corinthians 13:9]
This is the heart of God. At best, some of the overly formalized regimented methods of clergyites might lead to a better understanding of God on possibly an elementary level, but can in no way reveal the Lord for who He really is. This is why all the patriarchs spent so much time alone with God out in the desert. It is why the apostle Paul did the same. They learned from God directly, and they brought home teachings and understandings no one else possessed.
Please consider the following:
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. [Galatians 1:11-12]
Paul had no New Testament. He had no formalized church to attend. How did he learn so much? Though he had no New Testament, he ending up writing much of it! How?
He says he did not receive the gospel from man.
He says the gospel he taught was not according to man.
He says He received the gospel he taught through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Think about it. No church. No Bible school. No seminary. No New Testament to memorize and learn from. No brothers or sisters around him all the time instructing him.
Paul received the gospel he preached through a direct revelation from God while he was out in the desert alone with God.
How do we know he got it right? And how do we know most “Christian” ministers get it wrong? Here’s how:
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom,
BUT IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF POWER,
so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom
IN A MYSTERY, THE HIDDEN WISDOM WHICH GOD PREDESTINED BEFORE THE AGES TO OUR GLORY;
the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written,
“THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
[1 Corinthians 2:1-11] [1]
© 2014 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued.]
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Why the Lord Used Parables (And Why So Many Christians Still Don’t Get It). Part Deux
Real Christians must always guard against religious indoctrination. The human mind in its fallen state is such that it has no reference to truth, no infrastructure toward a standard basis of spiritual knowledge and fact, and no ability to properly comprehend that which can only be spiritually discerned.
We do have a conscience, of course. A healthy though natural mind does have the ability to differentiate between good and evil to an extent, but because human beings are also willful creatures and, short of a born-again experience, rebellious toward God and the things of God, it also possesses the ability to veto one’s moral conscience.
In general terms, people always know in advance when they’re about to engage in wrong behavior if they follow a certain course their conscience is warning them against. Once doing the bad thing, one’s conscience confirms its earlier warning with an “I told you so” to further convict one, reinforce the fact that a wrong course was chosen, and warn further against the illicit action in the future.
And if that’s not enough, there is always the fruit of evil behavior that sprouts up in one’s life to give an individual further proof that the activity was bad.
Therefore, as the Word of God clearly states, even though unregenerate humanity is blinded by sin, human beings still have no excuses whatsoever for evil behavior and rebellion against God:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. [Romans 1:20-25]
In this passage the apostle adds to the fact that we all possess a conscience with the further fact that the natural world all around us also reveals God and the difference between good and evil. One must remember that Paul wrote this long before what is now presented as fully accepted fact and believed wholeheartedly by most, including most “Christians”—the lie of human evolution—and that even then humanity had descended into a gross depravity regarding morality, truth, and mankind’s origins.
Because the nature of such depravity goes unregistered in a sinful mind, one fails to see the nature of the advancing disease as one cannot see the forest for the trees. Because of such gross distortion and moral compasses out of whack, and because of the rapid nature of the sin disease metastasizing throughout the human family, the majority are lost within the matrix and deceived about reality.
A faux reality has thus been constructed to deal with humanity’s distance from God which includes distance from God’s light, truth, and love. This very dark world is then made peace with, so to speak, and accepted as standard reality from which actual morality appears unreachable and impossible. The idea of evil remains, however, but evil is relegated to the realm of the grossly evil. Hence, regular human beings doing regular things according to this low denominational moral understanding are perceived as good and moral, though it is no such thing.
In other words, God’s righteous standard, if we all obeyed and practiced it, would result in a truly wonderful and loving world, while mankind’s faux moral construct is equivalent to an extremely low moral common denominator in which almost everyone can feel good about themselves regardless of pesky moral consciences that are most often shunned and put aside.
Picture a scale of ten in which the Lord’s holy life for all is seen as a 10 and mankind’s false moral standard as a 1. A 1 is relatively simple to achieve since it almost always involves no necessary attempt at achievement whatsoever, and one in which 95% are good people exhibiting moral behavior, as in, “Gimme a break. I’ve never killed anyone, dude. Back off,” meaning that murder and such sins cross the line but almost everything else is fine and dandy.
This all came about for the same reason that all the little five year old soccer players started getting little individual trophies several years ago. First of all, little kids’ soccer is a faux sport in which all the little ones run around trying to kick a fat ball. Real hard. Then they all get a trophy for participating as if they achieved something when they actually achieved nothing.
In contrast, the early days of Little League Baseball showcased the clear differential between those boys good enough to excel at the sport, often through very hard work, dedication, practice, and much playing time among themselves with no adults ever present, and those geeky ones who were quickly seen as possessing little or no talent and no passion for the game. Teams were formed, leagues were formed, and ONE team from each league received ONE team trophy, if anyone ever received a trophy at all. Most of the time there was no such thing. And there were certainly never any individual trophies.
The point here is that winning a championship meant something and that only the winners achieved anything. Even those in second place were seen as losers. This resulted in a very high standard and something one must work very hard at to become a winner.
Do we not see this almost exact dynamic in international Olympic sports? Only one person in each event wins the gold, and often by milliseconds. Imagine missing out on the gold by .001 of a second. You’re still a loser regardless of losing margin. Why even bother with silvers and bronzes? They didn’t win. There is no winning in placing second or third.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. [1Corinthians 9:24-27]
To sum up, the world’s standard of morality is actually no standard at all. Almost everyone considers himself or herself righteous. Pretty much everyone believes himself or herself to be a good, basically decent person whom God has no real problem with, if indeed there is a God. Everyone wins a trophy, whether they run around in circles doing nothing, sit on the field as a spectator watching the untoward activity around them, become distracted by butterflies, knowing or unknowingly join the other team, never touch the ball, whine and cry, or refuse to leave the sidelines. Everyone gets a juice box and a snack and a trophy and good wishes from doting parents though the majority never achieve squat.
The above is this world in a nutshell. Most people are oblivious of the spiritual world all around them. They are spiritually blind and deaf.
But some, a few, actually have spiritual ears and eyes that work, and they receive little radio signals they know must mean something but can’t quite figure out. They remain intrigued, wondering why they see things a tad differently, and is why the blindfolded majority perceive them as a tad off, or strange.
These are the ones who can be reached by a parable.
They do not respond to religious dogma or forced compliance to some hackneyed, subjective, incomplete, false, or fractured moral code. Though they don’t know what they’re looking for, they know what it is not. They reject faux substitutes. They travel on in search of the lost chord—the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—that unseen something they will know when they find it.
This is why they reject religious indoctrination. They know that within their weakened state of being prior to discovering truth that they possess the potential to be force fed faux drivel and indoctrinated against the very truth they seek, and they intrinsically know they must shun such brainwashing efforts by the great faker controllers.
Indeed, such religious controllers, especially those of the Unreal Christianity variety, are as much a part of the world’s faux moral low denominational construct as all other members, and are actually the most sinister of all in that they represent the devil’s last chance at stopping the searcher of truth on his or her path toward life.
It’s like getting detoured a few yards short of the finish line on a winning run. Real Christians, both before and after their born again experience, can never allow themselves to be cut off at the pass by the religious chucklehead posse.
They must press on toward truth and life. They must listen to their conscience, and respect their hearing ears and seeing eyes though the volume be low and the vision initially blurry.
These are the ones who can be reached by a parable.
“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.
“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” [Mark 4:22-23] [1]
© 2014 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued.]
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Why the Lord Used Parables (And Why So Many Christians Still Don’t Get It). Part 1
Most Christians are taught what the Lord’s parables mean without actually receiving their meanings from God. At best, teachers teach what others have received from God. At worst, there are substandard and completely wrong interpretations passed off as genuine.
This is the difference between religious dogma and divine revelation.
In that light, it is said that spiritual knowledge is gained in two ways: (1) book knowledge, or head knowledge, or gaining data empirically, or reading our Bibles to gain facts, etc, and (2) divine revelation.
The former is accessed by a working brain regardless of heart condition or spiritual proclivity. The latter, divine revelation, is gained through the Lord revealing something to our hearts—bypassing our heads (or possibly going through them).
And speaking of brains, it should be obvious to most people with brains that divine revelation is the best method. One might even say it is actually the only method, and here’s why:
We have millions of Christians who have been taught and dogmatized by the letter but actually have no understanding of the spirit (and much of the letter they are taught is not Biblical anyway). In fact, the majority of Christians worldwide are walking around in head knowledge, and the probable majority of those have very little head knowledge, (that’s what we pay the preacher/priest/minister for!), which means they have absolutely no spiritual knowledge whatsoever.
How then are they Christians? One must understand the concept of cultural Christianity to understand that calling oneself a Christian because one identifies with some aspect of denominational Christianity makes one no more a Christian than so many proponents of other religions—those who are such only because of outside circumstances and cultural/family pressure. Many Buddhists, for example, do not actually practice the full teachings of the Buddha but still consider themselves Buddhists.
It is no different with Christianity in the sense that most Christians do not practice or attempt to practice the full curriculum of the Lord Jesus and reject becoming real disciples.
Real Christianity is different from all other belief systems and religions (including Unreal Christianity) simply because it is not a belief system or religion. It is based on an actual personal relationship with the God of the Universe who revealed Himself to us as one of us—God became a human being.
Now, that in itself sounds completely weird to the natural mind and is thus summarily dismissed and denounced by most people right off the bat, which reveals something about the natural mind, of course.
Further rejection by the natural mind of spiritual knowledge follows, and the idea that we can know God and God wants to know us and we can talk to God etc. is also thus placed in that place where the down to earth put belief in little green men and off-the-wall dark conspiracies and haunted houses and “I see dead people” and Ray’s hearing voices out in his field and in short, weird stuff that only weird people take a liking to.
For non-believers this is understandable, but for all the so-called Christians who fall into this category it is beyond mind-boggling and completely proves my point: Most Christians want no part of all the “weird stuff” put forth in the Bible, but only the completely surface indoctrination and cultural low-denominational “refinement” that characterizes all dead forms of Christianity, much like the dead forms of Judaism during the Lord’s day which caused its proponents to reject the Lord Jesus outright.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. [1Corinthians 2:12-14] [1]
© 2014 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued.]
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
