INTRODUCTION
Since the old covenant, there have always been people who will act unlike the will of God ; Genesis 11 : 1 All the earth had one language and the same words. 2 As they left the East, they found a plain in the land of Schinear, and they lived there. 3 They said to each other : Come on ! Let’s make bricks, and cook them in fire. And the brick served them as stone, and the bitumen served them as cement. 4 They still say : Come on ! Let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose summit touches the sky, and make a name for ourselves, so that we are not dispersed on the face of all the earth. (Instead of building what God said, they decided to build according to their own thought, just like the birth of religions. NB : Christianity is not a religion).
Leviticus 10 : 1 The sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, each took a blaze, put fire there, and placed perfume on it ; They brought before the Lord of foreign fire, which he had not ordered them. 2 Then the fire came out from the front of the Lord, and consumed them : they died before the Lord.
The sons of Aaron Nadab and Abihu acted by not following the standards established by God : entering two, using non -consecrated material ; they did not respect the instructions so that the fire was sacred. To rectify the God shot acts to dissuade the multitude because it is a heresy that they were going to teach the people.
Definition
Heresy is a doctrine, a teaching contrary to what is originally established. The heretic is the one who teaches a false doctrine ; he is a false prophet because the Bible is a prophecy ; he is a master of lie. In Greek antiquity, she designated a school of philosophical thought.
Causes of heresy
The search for renown can lead many to fall into error as indicated in Genesis 11.
Not knowing the word well or refusing to comply with heretics will intervene it to their advantage. Some are simply limited to local preaching but others go so far as to produce books or videos to better impact.
2 Peter 2 : 1 There have been prophets of lie among the people, so there will be Masters of Lies among you who will insidiously introduce doctrines of perdition (or heresies), going so far as to deny the master who bought them.
Christians want to have the assurance that they believe in connection with God is fair and true. The seed of heresy pushes when we turn to sources outside the Bible to find the supreme truth. This can begin when we think that God will adapt to the present century or our culture. When we think we have discovered a new truth, but which contradicts the Bible, we have lost herself in heresy.
Divergence and similarity
First, disagreements on what the Bible teaches are not all heresies. For example, while some churches baptize at the dam, others practice baptism in a swimming pool, none of these practices constitutes heresy. However, we hear ways that come up to say that as the Lord Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, Christians must be baptized in a watercourse.
Second, heresy and sects often go hand in hand, but not always. Heresy concerns theology ; the content of doctrinal education.
The sect concerns practice, it goes to initiation. The teaching of sects is often heretical, but not always. We can often find there what is not contrary to the will of God.
As for heresy, it can lead to sectarian practices, but not always.
The New Testament mentions some types of heresies.
Trying to win salvation by obeying laws and doing good, generally through religious activities and rituals. In the primitive Church, this conception was mainly defended by people who were called Judaics or Hellenists because they tried to force non-Jews to adopt Jewish customs. The Christian Church recognizes that salvation is obtained by grace alone. Ephesians 2.8-9 It is by grace, in fact, that you are saved by means of faith. It does not come from you, it is the gift of God. It is not by virtue of the works, so that no one can be proud.
Heresy teaches that salvation must be obtained by performing good works in addition to faith in Christ. Here is the vigorous reaction of Paul to the attitude of the Galatians 1.6-7 : I am surprised that you divert yourself so quickly from the one who called you by the grace of Christ, to move to another Gospel, who is not one there is only people who disturb you and who want to pervert the good news of Christ.
Many people believe that if their good deeds prevail over their bad deeds, they will be saved. It’s a heresy.
Gnosticism
This doctrine of knowledge, similar to philosophy, appeared in the 2nd s. Among the heresies that contaminated the primitive Church, the most widespread was Gnosticism which makes believe that one can be released from sin without the need to go through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The two main elements common to all forms of gnosticism are the secret (initiation) and secularism. For Gnostics, having a simple faith was very good, but it was even better to access the deep secrets known only to initiates, many Gnostics taught that the material world was bad and that the spiritual world was good. Therefore, the body was bad. The Gnostics seem to honor Christ, but they denied acts 4 :12 that salvation is in no way, because there is no other name under heaven gives among the humans by which we had to be saved and that the sin of Adam and Eve had not transmitted to the rest of humanity a nature of sin and that each human being could choose to be good without the help of God.
Unfortunately, heresies tend to appear from time to time these days, on our continent and in our country.
Forms of heresy
-Literary or philosophical heresy colos 2 : 8 Take care that no one seduces you with philosophy and with vain deception, according to the tradition of men, according to elements of the world, and not according to Christ.
Many of these people deny the existence of God and encourages the satisfaction of the flesh. However, we can be philosophers for the glory of God.
-Christological : Christ man only, less than Father John 5 :15 This man went away, and announced to the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him. 16 This is why the Jews pursued Jesus, because he did these things on the day of the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus replied : My Father acts so far ; Me too, I act. 18 Because of this, the Jews were even more looking to kill him, not only because he raped the Sabbath, but because he called God his own Father, being equal to God.
Phil2 : 6 which, existing in the form of God, has not looked at a prey to tear off to be equal with God.
-Theological : two gods, that of the bad and that of the new would be good, church and baptism of water unimportant, to be saved without Christ, the confusion between reincarnation and resurrection.
-Doctrinale : sale of sacred objects such as handkerchiefs ; acts 19 : 8 then Paul entered the synagogue, where he spoke freely. For three months, he discussed the things that concern the Kingdom of God, trying to persuade those who listened to him. 9 But, as some remained hardened and incredulous, describing before the multitude of the Lord’s way, he withdrew from them, separated the disciples, and taught every day in the school of a named Tyrannus. 10 It lasted two years, so that all those who lived in Asia, Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord. 11 And God did extraordinary miracles by Paul’s hands, 12 to the point that we applied to the patients of linen or handkerchiefs who had touched his body, and the diseases left them, and the clever minds came out. The oils Marc 6 : 13 They hunted a lot of demons, and they were having many sick oil and healed them. Is Jacq 5 : 14 Anyone among you ? That he calls the ancients of the Church, and that the ancients pray for him, by ioning him with oil in the name of the Lord.
Oppose heresy
To protect Christians from heresies, the apostles and their disciples wrote summaries of fundamental Christian doctrines. Paul summed up for example these doctrines in 1 Corinthians 15.2-8, recalling in particular that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and that he was resurrected on the third day. Subsequently, the leaders of the Church set out what they called the rule of faith, doctrinal points or credos.
Beware of falling into the heresie
How to avoid falling into heresy
The best way is to know the truth. God revealed his truth to us in the Bible. Any spiritual message must be carefully compared to the teachings of the Bible. It is always the Bible that must be considered the Supreme Truth.
Even what fell there can come back to the right way if they want it ; Acts 8 :18 When Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given by the imposition of the hands of the Apostles, he offered them money, 19 saying : Take me also this power, so that the one to whom I will impose hands receive the Holy Spirit. 20 But Peter said to him : May your money perish with you, since you believed that the gift of God was acquired at money ! 21 There is neither for you nor a lot in this case, because your heart is not right before God. 22 So repeat your wickedness, and pray the Lord so that your heart’s thought is forgiven you, if it is possible ; 23 because I see that you are in a bitter gall and in the ties of iniquity. 24 Simon replied : Pray the Lord yourself for me, so that I’m nothing from what you said.
Conclusion
The servants of the Old Testament and the apostles faced heretics. They will always be present but we have to stand firm in the truth. Which will help us and help more than one.