About Me

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Saginaw, Michigan, United States
A sinner who may come before God because of Christ

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Spam and Doctrine

There are a number of church “movements” that have become popular. The ‘seeker sensitive’, the ‘emergent’ conversation, ‘purpose driven’ approach are all ways of ‘doing’ church. There is ‘love languages’, ‘boundaries’, ‘wild at heart’, and a number of other trends in improving our personal growth with God and each other.

Now, this happened to me a couple of years ago just before Thanksgiving.

I received an email announcing that my Pay-pal account needed updating. Now, Pay-pal is a very secure method for transferring funds for purchasing items over the Internet. Since I had not used the service in a few months, I clicked the link from the e-mail (I can already hear some groaning) and was taken to a site with the login boxes. I logged in and filled out the information to update the requested information, which included my debit card number and password.

Well, this turned out to be a bogus site. A couple of days later I tried to purchase some Christmas gifts using my debit and it was rejected. This was a shock because my paycheck had just been deposited a couple of days before the purchase. When I got home and checked my accounts on line, the checking account had been drained of all available funds through ATM withdrawals from some banks in Bulgaria (I live in Michigan).

I then remembered that I had updated through an email. I went and checked. The bogus website looked and acted exactly like the Paypal site. It had the same logo, the same fonts, everything. I opened both sites up and the only difference was the address.

The lesson learned – something can look true, can sound true, can even feel true, but not be true.

Doctrines can be the same way. They can look and feel the same but only appear different when checked with the ‘address’ – Scripture. Upon being compared with the Word of God, they become clearly false and the results can be even more disastrous than an empty bank account or embarrassment for being taken. Lost souls remain lost and do not know they are lost because they cling to a false belief.

That is why Scripture says we are to be Bereans (Acts 17: 10-11), checking beliefs by searching the Scriptures in order assure that our faith is true to Christ, and is aligned with God.

For His Glory (not mine),
Tom


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