"The heart is more deceitful than all else, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Since I have heard this comment several times this week, and even by the pastor's wife once, I thought it necessary to address it. First of all, Yahweh's name is not G-d, so in a sense those proclaiming such foolishness might just be correct. Second of all, His word makes it abundantly clear that we should not ever use that statement as an excuse for failing to obey His clearly revealed word. Many suggest my understanding for what is clearly revealed and the understanding of the masses of that same concept varies greatly. Unfortunately, what is clearly revealed has been overshadowed by willful and inadvertent ignorance for so long, most people wouldn't recognize the truth if it flashed in front of them on a neon sign with letters large enough for a half blind man to see.
The teachings of the apostle Sha'ul (aka Paul), are usually badly translated into English, and then perverted, taken totally out of context, and just plain misquoted so often I'm amazed any serious student of scripture still believe he was really an apostle. Of course, Sha'ul was a true prophet, but that is not the point. Even Peter had to clarify to those who were misquoting him when he wrote in his second letter the third chapter, verses 14-16, "Therefore, dear friends, as you look for these things, do everything you can to be found by him without spot or defect and at peace. 15 And think of our Lord’s patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha’ul also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him. 16 Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures."
If you carefully read the context of Sha'uls teaching on things like eating of clean and unclean foods and worship on Shabbat, you'll quickly discover he was forbidding neither. He was addressing vegans who were insisting Renewed Covenant believers needed to refrain from meats. When addressing those who taught one must not judge those who do not worship on the day they worshipped, he was addressing the heretical theology that the Renewed Covenant Assemblies were expected to meet on the first day of the week. The Jerusalem assemblies never bowed to the pressure all of the assemblies throughout the Roman Empire were getting from pagans who were worshipping on the first day of the week.
So beloved, the next time you hear someone suggest "God knows your heart," shake in fear and trembling, because indeed YHWH does.
Since I have heard this comment several times this week, and even by the pastor's wife once, I thought it necessary to address it. First of all, Yahweh's name is not G-d, so in a sense those proclaiming such foolishness might just be correct. Second of all, His word makes it abundantly clear that we should not ever use that statement as an excuse for failing to obey His clearly revealed word. Many suggest my understanding for what is clearly revealed and the understanding of the masses of that same concept varies greatly. Unfortunately, what is clearly revealed has been overshadowed by willful and inadvertent ignorance for so long, most people wouldn't recognize the truth if it flashed in front of them on a neon sign with letters large enough for a half blind man to see.
The teachings of the apostle Sha'ul (aka Paul), are usually badly translated into English, and then perverted, taken totally out of context, and just plain misquoted so often I'm amazed any serious student of scripture still believe he was really an apostle. Of course, Sha'ul was a true prophet, but that is not the point. Even Peter had to clarify to those who were misquoting him when he wrote in his second letter the third chapter, verses 14-16, "Therefore, dear friends, as you look for these things, do everything you can to be found by him without spot or defect and at peace. 15 And think of our Lord’s patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha’ul also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him. 16 Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures."
If you carefully read the context of Sha'uls teaching on things like eating of clean and unclean foods and worship on Shabbat, you'll quickly discover he was forbidding neither. He was addressing vegans who were insisting Renewed Covenant believers needed to refrain from meats. When addressing those who taught one must not judge those who do not worship on the day they worshipped, he was addressing the heretical theology that the Renewed Covenant Assemblies were expected to meet on the first day of the week. The Jerusalem assemblies never bowed to the pressure all of the assemblies throughout the Roman Empire were getting from pagans who were worshipping on the first day of the week.
So beloved, the next time you hear someone suggest "God knows your heart," shake in fear and trembling, because indeed YHWH does.
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