Paul cautioned Timothy about false teachers who “wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. False teaching grows out of ungodly ambition, ignorance, and conceit. Putmanĭoctrine is important, but when is it important enough for Christians to diverge? When Doctrine Divides the People of God affirms the need for grace in disagreement and unity in diversity. When Doctrine Divides the People of God Rhyne R. With the same group of terms, Peter contrasts those deeply rooted in the truth with those who are not ( astēriktous), who are more susceptible to the deception of false prophets (2 Pet. The term “unstable” ( astēriktoi) shares a cognate ( stērizō) with another word used in 2 Peter 1:12 to describe those “firmly established” ( estērigmenous) in the truth (NIV). The emphasis made here is not on a particular method of interpretation or the difficulty of the texts themselves but on the type of people who distort the Scriptures-“ignorant and unstable” people ( hoi amatheis kai astēriktoi). Some pervert the meaning of Scriptures that are “hard to understand,” doing so “to their own destruction” (2 Pet. False teaching can be the product of distorted interpretations of Scripture by those not firmly established in the truth. Elsewhere, he asserts that believers will have true “unity of the faith” only when they will “ 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. Paul repeatedly expresses concern for the minds of believers who may be “led astray” by belief in a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel (2 Cor. False teaching preys on the spiritually immature. The New Testament Epistles offer several characteristics of false teachers and those susceptible to their teachings. It’s an issue of child and spousal abuse, sexual abuse, and perhaps even murder.Just as the true prophets of Israel had to deal with the prophets of foreign gods and false prophets from among the people of the land, the apostles confronted false teaching from within the church and from without. It’s not an issue of people being allowed to marry whomever you want. Once you see this documentary, you’ll be tempted to join her cause. Had they been connected with news sources or emergency broadcasting systems, they might have known the waters were rising and been able to avoid the tragic deaths.Īmy Berg has turned the passion she put into other documentaries, including West of Memphis and Deliver Us From Evil, into pulling back the veil covering those rosy cheeked children and innocent looking women with their big hair and pioneer dresses. Jeffs has decreed that his followers avoid all forms of media: no TV, radio, internet, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. In my opinion, Jeffs is also responsible for the deaths of the three mothers and nine children who were recently swept away by the floods in Southern Utah. The documentary implies that Jeffs is still running the FLDS Church from his prison cell. The despotic Jeffs, currently serving a life sentence in Texas for two felony counts of child assault, had been evading authorities and the Utah judicial system for years, while arranging plural marriages between young teenage girls and older men (himself included), breaking child labor laws in his community by insisting children leave school and work, separating mothers from their children if they weren’t obedient to his will, and removing members of the community who stood in his way. The doc is based on the book “Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints” by Sam Brower, with an introduction by Jon Krakauer, who is coincidentally getting a lot of attention these days for his portrayal in Everest. Berg weaves together interviews, actual footage, eerie quotes from the “prophet” Warren Jeffs himself, along with historical fact to present a story so strange and horrific that it’s hard to believe these things are actually happening in 21st Century America. So when I say that filmmaker Amy Berg’s latest documentary, Prophet’s Prey, is an extraordinary journey into the dark underbelly of polygamy as Warren Jeffs and his followers practice it, I’m not just blowing smoke up your pastel colored prairie skirt. I’ve visited the Hildale/Short Creek/Colorado City area where polygamist families suffered great losses during the recent floods, and I’ve played a part in helping kids escape from that bizarre lifestyle. You could say I’ve been what most people would consider shockingly intimate with polygamists.
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