May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
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So, the question came up in Alpha: how can we detect false prophets? I had this big, long answer, but it's essentially just quoting from the Bible, so let me just put the links out for future reference:
I would have loved for the answer to be "if they tell you to hijack planes and fly them into skyscrapers, they're false prophets," but it ain't quite that simple. Those passages essentially say: if the prophet's predictions don't come true, or if the prophet's lifestyle isn't consistent with the lifestyle God calls for, then you know it's a false prophet. Another thing that's said is that if the prophet encourages us to worship "another god", we know it's a false prophet.
However... what is "another god"? Baal? Molech? Sure, that's clear enough. But, what about an angry "God" that tells us to kill immoral people who are functioning in support of a capitalistic society? Is that truly a message from God, or is the false god of anger and hatred what's really being worshipped here? (Or is this a case of the prophet telling his own dreams instead of God's message?) At what point does righteous anger become unrighteous anger?
I would have loved for the answer to be "if they tell you to hijack planes and fly them into skyscrapers, they're false prophets," but it ain't quite that simple. Those passages essentially say: if the prophet's predictions don't come true, or if the prophet's lifestyle isn't consistent with the lifestyle God calls for, then you know it's a false prophet. Another thing that's said is that if the prophet encourages us to worship "another god", we know it's a false prophet.
However... what is "another god"? Baal? Molech? Sure, that's clear enough. But, what about an angry "God" that tells us to kill immoral people who are functioning in support of a capitalistic society? Is that truly a message from God, or is the false god of anger and hatred what's really being worshipped here? (Or is this a case of the prophet telling his own dreams instead of God's message?) At what point does righteous anger become unrighteous anger?
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