Sometimes it’s hard to tell these days. Things have gotten pretty strange. However, the strange ones are fairly easy to discern. But what about your pastor or priest or whatever? This article is my reaction to Sergio Desoto’s major revelation this past Shabbat.
I’ve been screaming the wrong word!
It’s an incredible article. The note about it in Substack will give you a link to the full article. The link above also takes you to the full article at Berean Table.
Berean Table is the new [rebranded] site where believers can talk about the serious issues today in the Church and Israel. The two of them together make up the Kingdom of God as it stands today. Don’t give me any antisemitic crap! The church is in just as bad a shape, the persecution just hasn’t hit them so hard—yet. It’s all going to Hell in a handbasket, as my wife’s grandmother used to say.
I agree, that’s my yellow journalism outburst for the day. The sad thing is that it is true for around 98% of people who claim to be Christians. The church is not normally preaching lies—but, they’re preventing people from appropriating the Gospel into their lives. That’s why I’ve gotten involved with Sergio’s Berean Table effort.
As you may know, I have written strongly, many times about the problems with the spectator style church, with the entertaining paid holy person raised up in front on a podium so he or she can make his or her pronouncements. They’re usually called exegetical sermons—but normally that is not actually the truth. In truth, they are pushing carefully prepared packages of doctrinal pablum.
Rarely they might mention that God doesn’t really talk to people anymore, or that the Holy Spirit is not for today. But, normally they are more careful than that. Those pronouncements are usually accidental or hinted at. If the Torah is mentioned, it’s usually clothed in “the Old Testament law” which no longer applies to believers living under grace. Or the Torah is mentioned legalistically as things you must do as a Christian. But then, we’re all just filthy sinners and we really can’t live that out—can we? As I’m sure you noticed, I just mentioned several of the lies they teach.
This is where the problem first rears its head. Don’t get your undies in a bunch though. There is an easy solution. More about that in a bit. First let me give you a little reminder. There is really only one description of a church service given in the New Covenant or the Tanakh [Old Testament].
How is it then, brothers?
When you come together, every one of you has a psalm, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, and an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
If anyone speaks in an unknown tongue,
let it be by two, or at the most by three, and each in turn, and let one interpret.
But if there is no interpreter, let him remain silent in the church,
and let him speak to himself and to God.
Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.
If anything is revealed to another that sits by, let the first keep silent.
For you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
1 Corinthians 14: 26–33 MEV
I would add that spiritual gifts commonly come through women and the newer believers.
In this way the Holy Spirit raises people considered lesser into a “competent participant level”. The people simply need to be taught how to discern if the Lord wishes for them to speak, and then taught to spend the time to provide the opportunity to speak. Established believers can easily get swelled heads if they also provide all the spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit keeps everyone participating equally.
It should. But that is extremely unlikely these days. Church services have become events—often professionally performed. The idea of the ekklesia—a group called to gather to minister to each other and build each other up—is long gone.
When each of us met the Lord, my wife and I were in the Episcopal Church. We quickly grew very frustrated because there was no place to discuss “real” questions. What we were led to do was start a home Bible study for the friends we were making with the questions. Over a few years, it developed into a standardized structure for us. Looking at it now (forty years later) it was clearly discipling in a Berean manner. What I want to do here is explain how we did it, and why it worked.
In fact, the only Christian book that ever sold well was my little book, How to Teach the Bible. Right now it is quite outdated by all the changes caused by fulfilled prophecy. I think I may just put out a series of articles explaining how we did it.
Remember this was just a Gentile Episcopalian Bible study. My wife was studying for ordination. I was studying the Bible because it was a life or death thing for me. I had come to the Lord as a real mess—drug-crazed, and heavily into the occult. I had a strong desire for truth and sanity.
Pat and I did our best to explain scripture and how to find out what the words really meant. We taught our people how to use Strong’s Concordance, Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Unger’s dictionary, and all the rest. Now, of course, all those resources are easily found and used online. I recommend Bible Gateway because they have dozens of versions and you and read them in up to five parallel versions. This greatly helps you see the true meaning of the words by simple consensus.
I also suggest the use of blueletterbible.org for finding out the meanings in Greek and Hebrew. Simple things like perfect does not mean flawless, but complete and mature. That can be nitpicked into useless rabbit trails. But the basic meaning will show you a lot.
One of the better new tools is Hebraic First Hermeneutics Study Tool©️. It’s a bit of free software developed by Sergio and available on Berean table. It explains the Greek and the Hebrew meanings clearly. I agree with Sergio that the writers of the New Covenant were all Jews (with the possible exception of Luke). For them Greek was a foreign language, even though it was the common universal language. Many things were confused by the philosophical differences between the Hebrew and the Greek. The Hebraic tool discusses those differences and let you decide how they apply.
We discovered that we needed to make it policy that questions took priority. Any question could be asked—though I must admit that non-spiritual questions didn’t last long. But we would stop what we were doing to get the question answered. If we didn’t know the answer we promised to look it up and bring it to the next meeting.
It was important, and the Lord backed us up. Many times He answered us with a gift of knowledge or wisdom. Or He would lead us to the verse which answered the question. The vast majority of questions were answered at the meeting and discussed.
We expected the Holy Spirit to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit from 1 Corinthians 12 to provide answers
It ws a normal part of our study. It was not spectacular or overwhelmingly emotional. We were just grateful to get the answers we needed. And we saw people healed, delivered, and cleansed on a regular basis.
A funny tale! And why we met on Friday nights.
The meeting would get quite exciting and often one of us would look at our watch and realize that it was one or two in the morning and it was time to go home. One of the women who was really getting a lot out of it ran into a problem. Her husband became convinced she was having an affair because she came home so late and so happy. We met Friday nights because no one had to work on Saturday. Only recently did it dawn on me that they were actually Shabbat meetings, Gentile style.
We finally had a meeting with her and her husband. It got pretty intense. Finally, Pat got fed up and exclaimed, “[name], unless you’re too afraid, just come up and join her to see what happens."J Her husband hemmed and hawed then answered, “Can I bring some beer?” Pat laughed, “Sure.” So, he did. I not sure he ever drank any of the beer—maybe one the first night. But he got filled with the spirit and just as excited as his wife within a couple of months. I believe He and his wife are now elders in a church in Albuquerque now. I’ve never asked.
That helped to keep everything in context. Pat had done a lot of study about how the Jews in Israel lived at the time of Jesus, so she could share about that. None of the churches would let her preach or teach. But, the Lord gave her sheep to help unofficially.
I led the Bible studies, and the Lord blessed them. Going verse by verse meant that we covered many things that were not normally taught. When we finished a book, Pat and I prayed about what book to do next. Because much of our work was about the Holy Spirit within, it was natural for us to spend most of our time in the New Covenant.
Plus, the Tanakh is often historical stories which do not tend to produce discussions about what is meant. Or they are prophetic, and there was a tendency to get lost in speculation about things that had no answer outside of, “The Lord has it covered.” In addition, I was raised as a scientist by top rated public schools, and I didn’t discover the glorious truth of the 6-day creation until 2011-12. I know much better now.
Eventually, in 1993, one of bible studies grew to the point where we felt we were called to start a new work. The pastor at our church agreed—though all he would do was give prayer and moral support. So we started a church called New Sabbath. We met Friday evenings and ran the church the same way we ran the Bible study.
But the sheep wouldn’t have that. They demanded Sunday services and that Pat be our pastor. I agreed, knowing she had the call, not me. I had married her to support her call. The Lord told me to do that. We ran a fine little church. Pat’s ministry was mainly to abused women. We got all kinds of guff because she was a woman. Finally her flesh gave out with spinal fusions, knee operations, and many other physical ailments so we had to shut it down in 2005.
This is what we do at the Berean Table also. Several of us write articles and leave them open to be discussed. The Hebraic Tool is an excellent resource. I wish it had been available for Crown of Thorns Church. We changed the name to Crown of Thorns because this example of abuse helped the people to whom we ministered. Jesus truly did understand them.
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