What the Bible says about Jesus

The True Light "In him, (the Lord Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world,…the world didn’t recognize him." John 1:4,9.
The Good Seed and the Weeds The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seeds in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. Matthew 13:24,25.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Hillsong’s Gospel


Reblogged by Jean-Louis
Posted by Simplicity In Christ on July 3, 2010
Todd Friel, of Way of the Master Radio, was in London and talked to a couple of guys about their church Hillsong London. He had several questions about their beliefs which they answered to the best of their abilities. Listen to the MP3 here.
They spoke of the Hillsong Europe conference, for which they were filming a promotional video. Read part of the transcript below:
[...]
TODD: What’s the theme?
MAN #2: The purpose of the conference is to empower the local church. That’s the whole goal behind it all.
[...]
TODD: Empower them to do what?
MAN #2: Empower them to reach/influence the world…
TODD: Influence the world. In what way?
MAN #2: Day to day, life as Christians, just being around, living how Jesus would, I guess. And the purpose of the conference is to, I guess, for Christians who are involved in churches throughout Europe … to share the message of Christ.
TODD: What is the message of Christ?
MAN #2: It says to go in all the world, you know.
TODD: That’s the command. What’s the message?
MAN #2: the message… ?
MAN #1: The message is Eternal Life, Prosperity, Hope, Self-Love, Salvation, Healing… It’s really to equip people and give them the resources to affect the lives of the people around them in the community in which they live in.
TODD: What’s the best way I can affect the lives of people in my community?
MAN #1: Well, it all comes from love, doesn’t it, really at the end of the day. And the conviction you get from love.
TODD: Helping people?
MAN #1: Yeah! I mean, sort of doing all you can…
TODD: Hold on. You said two words that kind of jumped out at me. Prosperity. What kind of prosperity?
MAN #1: Well, prosperity in life, prosperity in the workplace, and prosperity in your family life…
[...]
TODD: The other word that you said was something about self-love? What was that about?
MAN #1: Well, there’s a lot of people who harm themselves on a psychological , emotional, and on a deeper level, a spiritual level. Uh, which perhaps you’re not aware of, uh, on your own efforts. I think having a relationship with Christ reveals these things to you and through his strength, again coming back to Christ, you’re able to tackle them hand in hand. I don’t think being, uh, sitting around presuming that becoming a Christian all of a sudden means you’re in the land of milk and honey because our Savior was One Who wasn’t alien to sufferening, to temptation, to being rejected by His friends, and ultimately torture. … As Christians we go through the school of hard knocks, we just remember that if it’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for us.
TODD: So Self-Love. I should love myself, why?
MAN #1: Um, if you love and respect yourself and you are equipped to love others. … If you can’t love yourself, then how are you supposed to love others?
[...]
TODD: I walk up to you guys and instead of putting a microphone in your face, I’ve got a knife in my back. And I’m going down, it’s a bloody mess, I’m gasping for air, I’ve got 30 seconds, I’m scared to die. You’re a Christian; what do I need to do to go to heaven?
MAN #1: Well, I suppose, uh, salvation [unintelligible] is a good one. Just accept somebody loved you enough to step into all this mess and ultimately, you know, we all know that the deepest act of love is to die for somebody. That’s obvious. It’s a huge unconditional love and to accept that, the rest of the work is done. I mean, again, it’s a transcending question, it’s a difficult one, but I suppose if you got a knife in your back, Christ had nails in His hands, nails in His feet, and a spear in His side, and thorns on His head, and dogs around Him, mocking and spitting in His face. So I supposed if you can accept His pain and your pain, then you’re on your way somewhere special.
–End of Interview–
TODD: I think what you just heard was a very, very eloquent presentation of what is very, very typical of the, well whatever prosperity you want to assign to it, but just the feel-good evangelicalism. That Jesus will help you through your life, He’ll help you through your days, He can relate to us because He went through really tough times and our job on this earth is to love our neighbors.
Theologically, frankly, that was a dog’s breakfast.
[...]
Where was witnessing? Where was the sharing of the Gospel? Where was helping people understand that there’s a Savior? And their NEED for a Savior?…

No comments:

Post a Comment

A Short Single Sentence that Saved my Life

Interview: Jack Hibbs, Jonathon Cahn and Jason Sobel (Part 4) | Podcast ...

Most Visited