Everything seemed to be cooling down from what I can tell concerning the slander in the body of Christ. But, I found a post slamming Beth Moore again and totally taking out of context something she said.
If I am to read this correctly, I believe Beth Moore is basically trying to say that we cannot contain the Holy Spirit (in other words, we cannot put God in a box). I would agree with her on this, as Jesus explains that the wind blows where it wishes, and that you hears its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes (referring to the ways of the Holy Spirit).
Her second statement, "Where He's carefully managed and coolly controlled, He's quenched." makes sense as well. Many professing believers today do not acknowledge the spiritual gifts as being available to the church (at least the revelatory gifts). We are ok with the serving gifts and the gift of helps, but when it comes to actually hearing from God, many shudder. They give the excuse that God doesn't speak to our hearts today, because if He did, that would be revelatory and the only revelation God gave us is in His word. That is an interesting concept, but if you look at the whole context of Scripture, you will see that this is not valid.
Like it or not, the gift of prophecy is a revelatory gift, but when a person receives an impression or word from God, it is not equal with the Scriptures. I don't know of anyone who uses the spiritual gifts or is in circles where the gifts are used, who actually believes that prophecy is equated with new revelation that is equal to Scriptures. In the Bible, Paul encourages his disciples and those in the churches he started to use the gift of prophecy. Yet, we do not see the results of these gifts of prophecy as part of the canonical Scriptures. We don't see whatever Philip's 4 daughters received when they prophesied, in the Scriptures. We do not see whatever Timothy received as prophecy as part of Scripture. None of the prophetical words from these disciples or churches were put into Scripture, so to say that the gift of prophecy was used by the first believers to create what we have as our Bible today, is not accurate.
I know there are abuses with the spiritual gifts, but that is not a reason to slander people who use them. My point is that many professing Christians today do quench the work of the Holy Spirit because they put Him in a box, and if something happens outside of that box, it is either recognized as the work of a false teacher or worse, the devil. It seems like we should be more careful on what or who we attribute the spiritual gifts as being operated from.
My concern about calling people false teachers/heretics is that we are coming into a time when we really will have to deal with false teachers subtly coming into the church. If we want to pick out people and pick on them so we can feel good about calling someone a false teacher, we need to realize the price we are going to have to pay. We will be like the boy who cried 'wolf' and no one will be paying attention to us when we will really have to be dealing with false teachers. We lose our credibility with others and we are not representing the Lord accurately. This kind of attitude is actually very much like the attitude the Pharisees had when they encountered the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be discerning and deal with the real false teachers in a Biblical way. Attacking a person because we glee over being better than they are is not dealing with a false teacher accurately. It is nothing more/less than slander. The Bible has a lot to say about slander, and God is opposed to it.
" Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Ephesians 4:29-32 ESV
A personal thought: I loved the movie "War Room" and thought it was a major encouragement on prayer. Prayer can seem monotonous or dutiful if we do not have the right vision for it. Beth Moore had a part in this movie. All of the movie was excellent. I am sure that there are parts that I don't fully agree with, but that can be found in all of us with everything. Here's the catcher though; the devil really does not want any of us to be prayer warriors. He hates our praying. When we pray, it is a weapon used against him. Is it any wonder that he wants the reputation of someone who strongly believes in prayer (and teaches on prayer) to be ruined? Of course he does. He knows that if you watch the 'War Room', you will be inspired to pray. I don't know enough about Beth Moore to defend what she teaches, but I have heard from many that she is a strong believer in prayer and does teach people on praying. She has been highly recommended up until the point where she has been slandered. I have listened to some of her teachings and I have found them very good. I have not heard the things people are accusing her of, and I feel bad for her that her name is being slandered so much. I will continue to investigate her and her teachings, and if I do see anything false coming out of her writings or teachings, I will share my thoughts on that. Even if she is teaching questionable things, I do not have the right to slander her and show hatred toward her. My responsibility will be to tell people what it is that she is teaching that is in error, and to pray for God to help her to see what it is that is wrong that she is teaching.
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