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Comparing old pictures of preachers in their days of poverty and obscurity with their recent "God's general" glitz and glamour usually gets me wondering.
God rewards His labourers, but ministerial progress isn't always about accumulating more money and more beauty.
Peter left His fishing business to follow Christ.
Someone was told to sell all he had to follow Jesus.
I'm sure Paul became poorer after becoming an Apostle.
The real issue is not about possessing more things in your service to God.
It's about what God has gained through your labours and sacrifices.
If we are indeed servants of Christ, it is what He gains that should mark our scripts.
Not what we earned, made, or even stole.
Even if you're the worst person on earth, you can't accuse God of hating you.
Jesus hates how much your sins have damaged you, but His love still invites you into the family of God.
IS Grok REALLY, REALLY an AI chatbot?
Stuck in traffic this morning and trying to distract myself from the prospect of missing my flight, I decided to grok a bit, just to confirm if I am the only mad one or if Grok shares in some of my alleged insanity.
"This guy you want to marry, is he really, really born again?" Whenever I reference such popular statements in my teaching, it is usually to say how theologically inaccurate it is, even though the intent may be noble. I would then say that the born again experience itself cannot be improved, therefore there are no degrees of born-againness, meaning that you are either born again or not born again. I would then clarify that what such statements actually intend to query is transformation and not regeneration. Anyone who has not heard me teach this hasn't heard me teach on holiness or transformation, at all.
So, seeing that there has lately been some noise about a clip of me saying there is a gradient in holiness or something of that hue (truth is, I haven't watched that clip, but I know what I have said – here & there – in that regard), I decided to disturb Grok this morning.
First I asked Grok to theologically differentiate between Righteousness & Holiness. It came back with the typical, orthodox response associating Righteousness with Justification (imputed & positional) and linking holiness with Sanctification (practical & progressive).
I followed up with the question in the screenshot. I asked:
"Theologically therefore, can a Christian be more holy than another, even though they are both equally righteous?"
First line of Grok's response, was:
"Yes, theologically, one Christian can be more (progressively) holy than another, even while both are equally righteous in the sight of God."
The last paragraph of Grok's response went:
"In short: Equal in Christ’s righteousness and positional holiness—yet capable of real differences in progressive holiness here and now. This is the consistent biblical and theological framework across historic Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical teaching."
I chucked to see Grok appealling to "historic Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical teaching." As if to say, "if you think I am insane in saying theologically, a Christian can be said to be more holy (progressively) than another, I got my view from historic Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical teaching."
WHERE THE CRITICS ARE RIGHT, but...
Granted, a theological case can be made for the view that in a sense a believer can be more holy than another, yet, it is another matter how believers express it.
Some believers pray in tongues more than others, yet, it isn't Christlike to boast to a whole church: "I thank my God that I pray in tongues MORE THAN you ALL..." Therefore, if you wake-up and begin to flaunt your supposed superior holiness in the faces of believers, it may actually be the evidence that you are not so holy after all, because flaunting in this case is synonym for boasting. Boasting, in context is not one of the evidences of holiness. Here then, the critics would be right, if there was no context to the clip other than just an attempt to say I am more holy than some believers (real or imagined).
But there is a context. It is that everytime some believer comes up to charge the church to holy living, some other believers (trying to discredit or discourage the preacher), would say things like: "see how he is talking as if he is more holy." It is against the backdrop of this blackmail strategy that I usually respond with, "So what? I may actually be holier than you, and you may truly be holier than me, because we are not all holy to the same degree." I say it in more or less a polemical context, to bite the bullet and return to the main issue of advocating for purity.
If context is missing in clip, I'd still expect critics to at least say, "I can grant the theology, but I don't see the piety – without context."
But Gotcha!
NB:
I just asked Gemini too
https://t.co/VjIBwRXvMp
Keep yourself humble. Keep yourself hidden. Focus on the crown.
True impact happens in the secret place, not on the stage. Let’s stop chasing the crowd and start seeking His face. 🤍
#rccg#rccgyp1
@Youth_Aflame1@Preacherrapper@gideonodoma No sir.
The synonym is not the problem here.
The problem is what is being taught.
First of all
In simple terms, what is Grace?
Why are we twisting narratives to fit out perverse nature?
Is grace a license to sin or a power to overcome sin?
@UdochukwuI39438@Preacherrapper@gideonodoma Define Amazing
Define Hyper
And learn in the context of what is been debated on.
If I say don't deliberately sin and claim there's grace for you... Why should you as a Christian be angry and say I'm teaching false doctrine?
Just because as I said live as you have been saved?
@gideonodoma FRAUD!
Our instruction is the Bible.
Jesus lived it.
Paul taught it.
The apostle lived and taught it.
There's no one higher than the word!
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAINTS
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Therefore do not be partners with them.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
– Paul of Tarsus, Apostle extraordinaire
*** *** ***
If I were the one preaching and I said, as in the last line above, that believers should LIVE as children of light, & that they should not just confess they are children of light; If I said so, some deluded hypergracer would start convulsing and accusing me of advocating for Legalism.
If someone is angry when you repeat what the New Testament teaches, is that person an apostle or a fraud? Please, tell