Priscilla Shirer Update

Priscilla Shirer is now teaching modalism--the heresy that denies the biblical triunity of God. She says in the clip that God the FATHER puts on flesh and comes to earth. That's wholly inaccurate. God the Son, who is distinct from the Father and Holy Spirit, came and took on flesh (John 1, Hebrews 1, Col. 1, and Matthew 1).  This is a doctrine that necessitates PRECISION. To be wrong on who God is, is to have a false God and therefore a false gospel and a false salvation.

I warned about her years ago here, starting in 2009 and now you can see where that has all led. Here is Distnr's article. 

The Local Church vs "Community"

There is a difference between the local church and what so many call "community". These are just thoughts I had as I was studying Ephesians and is in no way meant to be a full treatment of the texts.

Eph 5:22  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 

Eph 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 

Eph 5:24  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 

Eph 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 

Eph 5:26  that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 

Eph 5:27  so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 

Eph 5:28  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 

Eph 5:29  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 

Eph 5:30  because we are members of his body. 

Eph 5:31  “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 

Eph 5:32  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 

Eph 5:33  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 

 

1 Cor 12

 

The local body of Christ is made of many parts while it also one unit. True Christians are the body of Christ with each individual being important and necessary for the proper functioning of the body.

The Lord Loves His Body as each person loves his own flesh; that is, as a husband loves his wife as he loves his very own flesh. There are distinct individuals within marriage, but they make one unit or “one flesh”. Even within marriage, the two are still individuals before God as 1 Peter 3 discusses. They are a unit but they are also and foremost, individuals. We know Christ said there is no marriage in heaven, but there are a multitude of individuals.

There is value for every single true Christian—each is important and necessary because God made them and gifted them and grafted them into the body as He saw fit.

1Co 12:7  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 
1Co 12:11  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills. 

The building up to maturity of the local body of believers is crucial as God set it up that way and has commanded the church(es) to believe and function according to Scripture in distinct ways. That’s why factions and favoritism is so bad and corrupt, because it dismisses the value, use, and importance for a part of Christ’s body. He died for that person, for that part of His body. No one can sit in judgement and value that individual based on their usefulness or advantage to a person in leadership for their position, agenda, career or any other advancement or preservation. This is not “community” but rather His body, the church, the called out ones into fellowship and fellowship is based on the same faith and doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

1 Cor. 12:18,22-26 talks about how if one individual in the body suffers, all the members suffer.  This demonstrates how each person affects the local body of believers. In 1Cor 12 uses words like “each individual”, “to another”, “each” “own bodies”, demonstrating that God is the God of individuals and its those individuals, the elect, for whom He purchased with His own blood.

The reason the individual is essential to the local body of believers:

Eph 4:10  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 

Eph 4:11  And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 

Eph 4:12  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 

Eph 4:13  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, 

Eph 4:14  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. 

Eph 4:15  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 

Eph 4:16  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. 

On the other hand “community” isn’t biblical, but rather secular. The notion of the “greater good” over the individual is strictly unbiblical. That is what the “collective” of socialism is. But the biblical triune God of Scripture is the God of Israel always being the God of each individual and He judges, saves, blesses, and punishes individuals, not collectively. And when an entire nation has rebelled against Him as Israel did, then He who is just, justly punishes the whole nation. But His children who are saved have His wrath satisfied by the atonement of Christ Jesus.

Now, fellowship is unity in the Holy Spirit and doctrine with one Lord, one baptism, one faith.

Eph 4:1  I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 

Eph 4:2  with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 

Eph 4:3  eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

Eph 4:4  There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 

Eph 4:5  one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 

Eph 4:6  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 

Eph 4:7  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. 

“Community” de-humanizes individuals by seeing them as and object and means to an end. Often this is seen in how churches refer to the individuals or families as “giving units”.  Elders and “pastors” who treat their people as such are using pragmatic and worldly views condemned by Scripture (James 3:15-18  and the widow’s mite Jesus dealt with in Luke 21:1-4).

“Community” is from socialism and humanism and is, in my opinion connected to evolution as they are anti-Christ and anti-Scripture, as they devalue the individual God created, among other things. It relies on the flesh and is not only worldly but divisive (James 3:15-16) and the source (worldly and demonic) can’t bring unity of faith in Christ by the Holy Spirit, but rather ONLY division, selfish ambition, jealousy, and envy as James 3 states. This is what happened to the Corinthian church—the factions were destroying that church and it’s unity.

Jas 3:13  Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 

Jas 3:14  But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 

Jas 3:15  This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 

Jas 3:16  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 

Jas 3:17  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 

“Community” shields individuals  and their sins and elevates the hierarchy. It also hides or dismisses the individual’s gifts and proper functioning. It is vague and so men like to hide behind that. How often we've heard "we as a church teach or believe this" but within that church are many who do not. 

“Community” is without biblical purpose, whereas the local church is the assemblying together of called-out ones to function in a set proper order with a set proper purpose: the maturity of each person and then the whole body, to protect them from error and to glorify Christ and encourage each other to functioning even better, to God’s sole glory and honor. See Eph. 4:10-16 above.

Another passage which destroys the collectivism notion of “the greater good” is this:

1Co 8:9  But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 

1Co 8:10  For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 

1Co 8:11  And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 

1Co 8:12  Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 

1Co 8:13  Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. 

God calls each star by it’s own name. He has each hair on our head counted. He died for individuals and grafted each one into His body. We all stand before God individually Who judges all (Heb. 9:27).