{"id":7804,"date":"2017-01-22T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=7804"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:37","slug":"bastardized-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/bastardized-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Bastardized Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Published: 2014\/11\/02<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Is<\/a>There are a great many people in the world that lay claim to the title, \u201cChristian\u201d, yet know little or nothing about The Bible. They know what they know about Jesus, about God, about His promises and requirements from listening to someone else. Some of those teaching preach solid, biblical lessons \u2013 some preach lessons designed to comfort their audience. They pick and choose passages from The Holy Word, taking them out of context and making them mean what they want them to mean to promote their own views of life, Jesus, and God.<\/p>\n

This is not new. It was going on in the first century church. Paul cautioned several of the first churches not to be mislead by those preaching a bastardized theology mixing The Way with The Law. Those acknowledged that Jesus was the son of God, and that salvation came through Him: but they also wanted to adhere to parts of the Mosaic law. They wanted an integrated theology that clung to the sacrifices and festivals of the old law yet claimed Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice.\u00a0 To many of the day: Jews by birth, raised in the Jewish traditions, this version of the gospel of Jesus felt familiar, comfortable, acceptable.\u00a0 But it was wrong.<\/p>\n

Modern Theology<\/h2>\n

Today there are many who will preach God as Creator and Jesus as Lord, but they preach from an edited Bible. They want to remove or ignore certain admonitions and add permissions to tailor God\u2019s Word to the lifestyle they desire to promote. This is the work of Satan.<\/p>\n

The enemy has been among us since the time of Adam and Eve. Satan, formerly Lucifer, and his following of malcontents inhabited the Earth since long before mankind came to be. Satan enticed Eve then Adam into sinning, and has been busy doing the same with all humanity throughout humanity\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

Satan does not subvert God\u2019s work by refuting it, but by misguiding God\u2019s people. A small twist of the truth here, a tweak there: small things that compound. Soon there is just enough truth to sound right, but so much lie that God will not honor it. God does not honor any theology but His own.<\/p>\n

The Bible tells us that this has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. It describes the time of judgment when mankind comes before Jesus. Those who openly rejected Him will not be surprised by their fate, but:<\/p>\n

21\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cNot everyone who says to Me, \u2018Lord, Lord,\u2019 shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22\u00a0<\/sup>Many will say to Me in that day, \u2018Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?\u2019 23\u00a0<\/sup>And then I will declare to them, \u2018I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Matthew 7:20-23<\/a> New King James Version (NKJV)<\/p>\n

Nor will Jesus accept the excuse of, \u201cBut I was mislead, you can\u2019t blame me. You can\u2019t condemn me because of what they told me.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can we, as individual people, know if we are hearing truth or fabrication? We are told time and time again in God\u2019s Word that we are to seek the truth, seek knowledge, seek God. We do that by reading The Bible for ourselves. Read what it says, lay aside preconceived notions and look to see what The Book says. As we learn, more will be revealed. When you find you are being misled, step away from that source and follow the path of truth.<\/p>\n

Do not allow yourself to accept bastardized theology. Do not seek guidance from those who mislead you. Be wary of popular trends and churches that seek to appeal to the masses:<\/p>\n

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.<\/em><\/p>\n

James 4:4<\/a> New King James Version (NKJV)<\/p>\n

13\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cEnter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.<\/em> 14\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>Because<\/em>[a<\/a>]<\/sup><\/em> narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Matthew 7:13-14<\/a> New King James Version (NKJV)<\/p>\n

Do not lean wholly on the understanding of another, seek the truth for yourself. Read The Bible, study God\u2019s Word and seek the narrow path. Seek life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Published: 2014\/11\/02 There are a great many people in the world that lay claim to the title, “Christian”, yet know little or nothing about The Bible. They know what they know about Jesus, about God, about His promises and requirements from listening to someone else. Some of those teaching preach solid, biblical lessons – … Continue reading “Bastardized Theology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-7804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19860,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions\/19860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}