INCOMING LEADER OF EPISCOPAL CHURCH SAYS JESUS NOT THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION (Friday Church News Notes, November 10, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Katharine Jefferts-Schori, who was installed as the first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA on November 4, says Jesus is not the only way of salvation and that homosexuals are created that way. In an interview with the Associated Press, Jefferts-Schori revealed her unbelief when she said: “If we insist we know the one way to God, we’ve put God in a very small box” (“ECUSA’s Incoming Leader,” AgapePress, Nov. 2, 2006). In fact, we don’t know anything about God for certain except that which He has revealed in the Scriptures, and He has plainly stated that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. The female bishop redefines the Scripture’s terminology, saying that salvation is “the healing of all Creation.” Thus she has replaced the gospel of personal salvation from sin with the gospel of the salvation of the earth. Jefferts-Schori does not believe the Bible condemns “committed” homosexual relationships and that sexual orientation is “not a choice” but is “a piece of how one is created.” “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 3-4).

SBC PRESIDENT SAYS THERE ARE VARYING LEGITIMATE INTERPRETATIONS OF TONGUES (Friday Church News Notes, November 10, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has given his opinion on the ongoing “private prayer language” debate and not surprisingly has taken a neutral position. He says: “I do believe that there are varying interpretations regarding the issue of private prayer language. And because I do believe there are varying interpretations, I believe it is okay to believe one way or the other” (“So. Baptist Prez Enters Debate,” AgapePress, Nov. 2, 206). On October 17 the trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, voted to disallow professors from promoting the charismatic doctrine of a “private prayer language,” but at the same time the president of the seminary, Paige Patterson, said professors who practice this privately and do not teach it in the classroom will not be disciplined or fired, and one of the school’s trustees who openly endorses this practice will remain in his position (“SWBTS Takes Stance against Pentecostal/charismatic Doctrine,” Baptist Press, Oct 17, 2006). And in late 2005 the SBC Foreign Mission Board passed a rule forbidding the appointment of missionaries who practice a “private prayer language,” but the head of the Board, Jerry Rankin, both practices and endorses it, and the current missionaries who practice it will not be dismissed. I believe it is unconscionable for a Baptist preacher to take a neutral position on tongues because the issue is clear in the Bible. Biblical tongues are biblical tongues; the tongues of Acts are the tongues of 1 Corinthians 14. They were real languages that a believer could speak supernaturally. And they were chiefly a sign to the nation Israel that God was going to send the gospel to every nation and create a new spiritual body composed of both Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor. 14:20-22, quoted Isaiah 28:11-13). Each time tongues were spoken in Acts (Acts 2, 8, 10, 19) Jews were present. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, the Jews rejected the sign and were judged. Its purpose ceased even before the events recorded in the book of Acts were completed. The last mention of tongues is in Acts 19. The sign, having been fulfilled, ceased. When John Chrysostom wrote in the 4th century about the sign gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14, he said: “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to, and BY THEIR CESSATION, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place” (“Homilies on 1 Corinthians,” Vol. XII, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Hom. 29:2). There is no “private prayer language” in the New Testament. It is the recent invention of Pentecostals and Charismatics who, having realized that they cannot speak in real tongues that can be interpreted (one of the absolute biblical requirements), were forced either to renounce their experience or to create some sort of cockeyed defense for it. There is not one example of a prayer in the Bible that is uttered in unintelligible mutterings that “bypass the intellect.” Jesus Christ did not pray that way and neither did the apostles.

THE VENERATION OF MARY IN THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT (Friday Church News Notes, November 10, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The veneration of Mary is a prominent theme of the Charismatic movement. Light of Life, India’s most influential evangelical magazine, reported on the charismatic “renewal” in the Roman Catholic Church in June 1979. When the “renewed” Catholics were asked if their views of Mary had changed, they responded as follows: “Nothing has happened to the great Mother of God. SHE STILL REMAINS QUEEN OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, RESPECTED, LOVED AND VENERATED. But we have a deeper understanding of her position in regard to God and to us.” At the massive New Orleans ’87 charismatic conference, which I attended with press credentials, Mary was highly exalted. Many books were available in the book sales area promoting Medjugorje, Fatima, and Lourdes and there was no warning to the 40,000 people in attendance representing 40 denominations that the “visitations” might be unscriptural demonic delusions.  The late David du Plessis, the most prominent ecumenical Pentecostal of this generation, visited Medjugorje and accepted the apparitions as genuine, saying, “I was quite satisfied from what I saw that this is a working of the Holy Spirit” (New Covenant, October 1984). The book “Is the Virgin Mary Appearing at Medjugorje?” by Rene Laurentin (The Word Among Us Press, 1984) lists many other Charismatic leaders who accept the Marian apparitions as genuine.

THE NEW FACE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM (Friday Church News Notes, November 10, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from an excellent article by Pastor Bradley Berglund [First Baptist Church, Cannon Falls, Minnesota,1stbaptistcannon@frontiernet.net] entitled “From Faith to Apostasy: The Spiritual Journey of a Modern Textual Scholar.” It is an analysis of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. “I wish to introduce you, the reader, to one who represents the face of Biblical textual criticism at the dawning of the twenty-first century. Much has been made of the backgrounds of the first popular editors of the critical text, Westcott and Hort. Much less attention was given to the giants of the latter part of the twentieth century: Aland, Metzger, and Martini. Metzger’s writings on the New Testament text were often used as the textbook in all types of divinity schools including fundamental institutions of higher learning. ... He has been a scholar respected by all groups from liberal to conservative. Bart Ehrman is the newest generation of Biblical textual scholarship. After gathering his undergraduate work at respected Evangelical schools (Moody and Wheaton), Ehrman attended Princeton Theological Seminary and placed himself under the tutelage of Bruce Metzger. In the acknowledgements of the current book Ehrman says, “I have dedicated this book to my mentor and ‘Doctor-Father,’ Bruce M. Metzger, who taught me the field and continues to inspire me and my work.” One of Metzger’s classic works, The Text of the New Testament, is now being released in its fourth edition. On the cover of this edition, Bart Ehrman appears as a co-author. ... I began to realize that Bart Ehrman was arising as the published voice of modern Biblical scholarship. The marketers at Amazon.com sent me an email about a book authored by Bart Ehrman called Misquoting Jesus--The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. The review of the article praised Ehrman as brilliant man who had moved from an absolute, literal faith in the Bible to scholarly doubt. I was later alerted to a broadcast that aired on Comedy Central in which Ehrman promoted this book [Colbert Report, June 20, 2006]. As the silly sophomoric host feigned to be an arrogant and stupid fundamentalist, Ehrman twice during the five minute interview declared that he is now an agnostic when it comes to his faith in God. How does one who started as a ‘fundamentalist’ end up as an agnostic? His book answered the question. ... [After attending Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College it] was at Princeton that Ehrman finally found the path that has led him to his present position. He wrote a term paper for a course on the Gospel of Mark. In it, he analyzed the apparent contradiction found in Mark 2:26. [The O.T. claims Ahimelech, not Abiathar, served in the office of high priest. Many simple and plausible solutions have been offered by men who have faith in the accuracy of the Bible, but for the most part they are rejected by the ‘scholars.’] His old thoughts regarding and inspired and inerrant Scriptures were challenged by the ‘facts’ presented in scholarly study. According to his own admission, his conclusion was a bit convoluted, but he succeeded in providing an answer that defended the inerrant Scriptures. His professor graded the work and wrote at the end, ‘Maybe Mark just made a mistake.’ The solution was so simple. When Ehrman accepted this premise, ‘the floodgates opened. For if there could be one little, picayune mistake in Mark 2, maybe there could be mistakes in other places as well.’ Upon making this important theological jump, Ehrman began to rethink his foundation for the studies of the text. ... He was no longer looking for Holy Spirit inspired words penned by Paul; he was only looking for Paul’s original words. ... Bart Ehrman has delineated his path of ‘enlightenment,’ but in the strict, Biblical sense of the word, this is a tale of apostasy (1 Tim. 4:1).”

BEWARE OF THE TEEN CULTURE (Friday Church News Notes, November 10, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Rock and roll created the “teen culture” in the 1950s. Prior to that, while young people had some different interests than adults and while there has always been some rebellion toward the older generation and a desire to “do my own thing,” which comes from our fallen nature, there was not such a wide gulf between youth and adults. Prior to the rock & roll explosion, young people often liked the same movie stars as their parents and wore the same dress styles and even liked the same music. Top hits of the 1940s and early 1950s before the onslaught of rock included “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” ‘The Good Ship Lollypop,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “Catch a Falling Star,” “The Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy,” “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” “Mr. Sandman,” “Sixteen Tons,” “Sentimental Me,” “The Doggie in the Window,” “The Typewriter,” “This Ole House,” “Vaya Con Dios (May God Be With You),” and “High Noon.” The vast majority of hits was morally innocent and was loved by young and old alike. In contrast, by the late 1950s and 1960s, the top hits were “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” “The Twist,” “A Big Hunk of Love,” “Purple Haze,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “House of the Rising Sun,” “Good Lovin,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Wild Thing,” “Devil with a Blue Dress,” “Revolution,” and “Gimme Some Loving.” The rock & roll phenomenon created an entirely separate youth culture with its very own clothes, music, movies, and attitude. Youth became a style. Young people began to be more influenced by disc jockeys and rock musicians and fashion designers than by their parents and teachers. For multitudes of young people, what’s cool became the be-all and end-all of their lives. Their innate selfishness and rebellion was encouraged and enflamed by the youth culture. The rock & roll youth culture is bigger and stronger than ever, and wise Christian parents will do everything in their power to keep their children out of it. Successful Christian parents today are those that not only separate their families strictly from the rock & roll culture but are also close to their children, working with them, serving Christ with them, playing with them, instructing them, and communicating with them.

CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ day by day? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).