I think a lot of people find this clip kind of strange:www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOnWeiUZpMAI’ve actually met two of the people in the clip and got ‘headpushed’ by one of them at an A/G. I hadn’t ever heard of him at that point.If they were going to quote a movie line from a character holding a stick, how about Charleton Heston’s Moses at the Red Sea saying, The LORD of hosts will do battle for us– behold His mighty hand.Where does the Bible teach or give examples of apostles having a special authority to ‘decree’? A lot of people in the new apostolic movement speak of ‘apostolic decrees.’ I heard of a pastor saying a certain person in the church who had been an elder at the previous church couldn’t decree anything because he wasn’t an apostle. Isn’t the whole ‘decreeing’ thing based on the idea of commanding the mountain to go into the sea? That’s the closest thing I can think of. That and the mulberry tree going into the sea. Maybe James ‘sentence’ (as the KJV puts it) in Acts 15. Otherwise, I don’t know where they get this stuff.
Here’s another Bethel one for you (BSSM to be exact). I came across this the other day and had to spend some time researching because I absolutely could not believe this was real. I assumed someone created a fake Facebook post. Unfortunately, it was real.
I came back from overseas, and my parents were going to a ‘prophetic movement’ or ‘signs and wonders’ church. I was staying with them for a few weeks or months and went with them.We went to a Chinese restaurant with one of the people from the church. I asked the question if using Chinese fortune cookies was divination. He said he just read the fortune cookies for the lottery numbers. I think he was joking.Years later, I was told that the author John Crowder who made the ‘toking the ghost’ video was the guy who’d said that about the lottery numbers.I noticed the use of the word was rather light. There were sermons. I remember one where being more ‘right brained’ instead of ‘left brained’– or the other way around was emphasized. I was thinking, is it wrong to be an accountant? They used the side of the brain, theoretically, that he didn’t like. What did it have to do with the Bible?He called 10 or so people up to prophesy over people, and I mention to the pastor that the apostles said let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. He responded something along the lines of growing up in a church in South America where they really tried to follow the Bible and how negative the whole experience was. He seemed to have a negative attitude toward the Bible.
I saw a clip from a man, probably a Charismatic, giving an even-handed critique of some of the doctrine and practice coming out of Bethel Redding on YouTube. As I recall, Bill Johnson’s concept of ‘prophecy’ seems rather loose, including saying encouraging words. It reminds me of Presbyterians who equate preaching with prophesying. John Calvin had similar thoughts but did not take it that far. He considered some preaching to be prophesying. I have visited a church or two during a Sunday meeting or prophetic conference that asked people to prophesy over each other, and there are people who after praying for a while do seem to get genuine, things, words of knowledge. I may have gotten a word of knowledge or two in that environment. God is generous, after all. But I’ve also seen a preacher telling the crowd, Prophesy!, wanting everyone to ‘prophesy’ on command as if they could do it at will, without having the rest hear, which I think makes no sense, Biblically. This is probably something that originated with Copeland who tried to draw a lesson from the valley of the dry bones that you ‘prophesy’ to the situation. Ezekiel spoke words that the Lord gave him at the Lord’s command in that visionary experience. He didn’t speak his own will to the bones and call it prophesying.