During my recent visit to Bere, but also in D\u2019kar, the\nsubject more and more arises as the reason why so many churches stagnate or\neven die. In fact, it was Paul’s great struggle in his ministry, false teachers\nand false apostles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One day Professor Floor asked us in class a question:\n\u201cWhy do you think Paul forbade the woman with the divining spirit to continue\nwalking with them? She was telling the truth, wasn’t she?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Acts 16 from verse 16 it says: \u201cAs we were going to the place of prayer, we were\nmet by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much\ngain by fortune-telling. 17<\/sup>She followed Paul and us,\ncrying out, \u2018These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you\nthe way of salvation.\u2019 18<\/sup>And this she kept doing for\nmany days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit,\n\u2018I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why did Paul prevent her from continuing to walk with\nthem? She did not lie, did she? Would it not have been better if Paul had let\nher commit, as long as she only spoke the truth, because what she said was the\npure truth: \u201cThese men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the\nway of salvation.\u201d At least Paul would have\nkept the peace, because right after that it was chaos. It says: \u201cBut when her owners saw that their hope of gain was\ngone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before\nthe rulers. 20<\/sup>And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, \u2018These men\nare Jews, and they are disturbing our city. 21<\/sup>They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or\npractice.\u2019 22<\/sup>The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates\ntore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23<\/sup>And when\nthey had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering\nthe jailer to keep them safely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One could have asked Paul why was he looking for unnecessary\ntrouble? Why do you dump your head in a beehive? Of course, the bees will sting\nyou. One sometimes needs wisdom to keep quiet, Paul. You could have been dead.\nBy remaining silent you could have led many more people to Christ. Now the\nwhole town is in turmoil over this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Floor’s answer to this was short. By\ndoing this, this woman and of course the devil in her, wanted to pretend that\nshe and Paul were working together. In the eyes of the people, it must have\nseemed as if she and Paul were on an outreach together. The uninformed person\non the street had to come to the conclusion, this woman and Paul are in the\nministry together, because everywhere they go, she was with them. She does not put\nthem down, no on the contrary, she praised them. In other words, Paul arranged\nit for her to walk behind them and sing their praises, so \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \nthat the people would know later, the day after tomorrow,\nwhen Paul left, who they could call for help. In other words, she is Paul\u2019s\n“local colleague”.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To this day, it is the devil’s strategy in many\nmission churches. There are occult activities in the church that are tolerated\nfor the sake of peace, that have crept in because they, like the woman, are not\nnecessarily lying, but followers of the church. When such a person has wormed\nhimself into a church, he ruins it from the inside and you do not get rid of\nhim easily. In the mission churches one often finds such people. They even\nserve on the church council and can pray the most beautiful prayers, but after\na while they provide a kind of traditional service to the community. The fact\nthat he is a member of your congregation makes him credible in the eyes of the\nuninformed. Later he has a kind of spiritual hold and followers among your\nmembers. So syncretism has seeped into many churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How could this be prevented? At the catechism\nclass, where people are prepared to make confession of faith and are allowed to\nbecome members of the church. Many missionaries and pastors are all too happy\nand too eager to add members to their congregation numbers that will end up\ncosting them dearly. Not in vain does Paul say in 1 Timothy 5:22: \u201cDo not be\nhasty in the laying on of hands,\u201d and furtheron: \u201cnor should he deal with the\nsins of others. Keep yourself clean.\u201d This principle of life was applied by\nPaul when he rebuked the spirit in that woman in the Name of Jesus Christ and\ndistanced himself from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To conclude: In the mission field we lack wisdom and\ncourage to take an evangelical standpoint against these kind of behavior and even\nin the end, like Paul and Silas, have to pay a price for it. Nowhere the Bible tells\nus to compromise to keep the peace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We ask for your earnest intercession in this regard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your brother in Christ, <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hendrik du Plessis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Negative infiltration Rev Henrik du Plessis What Professor Floor taught us in class During my recent visit to Bere, but also in D\u2019kar, the subject more and more arises as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/sinkretisme-1024x768.jpg\")
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