The Sean McDowell Show - Lies that Distort the Gospel (w/ Allen Parr)

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

What are the most common and dangerous doctrines today that distort the gospel? Is it possible to discern biblical truth in our age of fake news? In this video, Sean interviews Allen Parr about his new book MISLED. They discuss the prosperity gospel, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and more. READ: Misled, by Allen Parr (https://amzn.to/45OuQBY) WATCH: 13 Lies that Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-obsessed (wth Alisa Childers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhzjxhPWi_c) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What are the most common and dangerous doctrines of our day that distort the gospel? Alan Parr has a new book out, coming out in two weeks, called Misled, which has the subtitle that captures it all, Seven Lies That Distort the Gospel and How You Can Discern the Truth. Alan, you gave me really the distinct privilege of writing the foreword for this, so I want to thank you for giving me the chance to do that. We've been friends for a while. When I first jumped on YouTube, you were one of the first channels that came up. And I was like, man, this guy is sharp.

He is theological. Having a great ministry here and pattern a lot of what I do after you. So this interview is long overdue. Thanks for coming on the show. Hey, Sean, it's been a pleasure, man. I'm grateful for our friendship, and I'm looking forward to a great conversation today. Well, let's dive right in. You began the book with a personal story that I had not heard, and it really frames why you care so deeply about false doctrine, not only for the church and for your own spiritual life, but also

for the gospel. So maybe give us the backstory of that story and how it motivated you to write Misled. Yeah, so it's interesting. I'm sure you can probably relate to this since you're an author. This book, I tell people, has kind of been writing itself in my life for the past 30 years. I'm dating myself now, but it really goes back to— Yeah, I'm dating myself now because it it really goes back to, yeah, I'm dating myself now because it goes back to around 1993 when I was in college and coming out of a very, very traditional Baptist church that I grew up in. I did not go to church my whole freshman year. My sophomore year, I ended

up attending a charismatic church. And I'm not against any charismatic churches. I think there are many wonderful charismatic churches, and I thank God for my experience at this church. But this specific church, which happened to be charismatic, there were some things that were happening in the church service that I did not understand, and I had no concept for whether it was biblically accurate or theologically sound or anything, because I'm a new Christian, and I could go into all sorts of details about them trying to push me down and forcing me to speak in tongues and teaching me that I needed to have this experience and things like that we might touch on. But the thing is, is that because I did not have a context for how to

interpret whether this was accurate or not, once I was able to get removed from that experience about three or four years later, after studying the Word of God, it just created in me a hunger and thirst to want to help other people who might also be caught up in that situation right now and help them to be able to have the tools to be able to discern truth from error. I love it. Those of you who just joined us, we're here with Alan Parry. He has a book coming out in two weeks called Misled, and this is his first interview on the topic, which is really fun. Alan, you just mentioned three to four years. I know looking back at yourself, you're thinking, why didn't I see that earlier and leave earlier? Of course, hindsight is 20-20.

Why is it so hard to spot false doctrines? And then when we spot them, just leave a church that propagates these unhealthy ideas. Well, you know, that's the same question that we typically ask people who have been abused physically. We say, you know, why is it so hard for you to understand that you are actually being abused by this particular person? And then once they do know that they are, people would just say, well, why don't you just leave? Like, can't you see you need to leave? You know, the question about, you know, spotting the doctrines that are false, the reason why it's so difficult is because most false doctrines include some level of truth that's embedded in them.

I mean, any church you go to that's promoting false doctrine, normally you're never going to hear straight-up total heresy from the pulpit where the pastor is saying, Jesus is not God. Jesus did not rise from the dead. The Bible is just written, you know, inspired by man. Like, we're not going to hear that stuff. But what we're going to hear is, you know, a little bit of truth with some falsehood sprinkled in. And so that's the reason why for many Christians it's hard to discern because most all false doctrines are really using the Scriptures out of context oftentimes.

And for many people, if you're not discerning enough, it can be very difficult to spot these things. Now, as it relates to why it's difficult to leave, for me personally, when you put your trust in a spiritual leader and you feel like, man, this person is my spiritual covering, and even specifically, if there's any sort of spiritual abuse or manipulation going on where they make you feel like if you leave the church, you're rebellious or you're going to be out of God's will, similar to an abusive relationship, it can be very difficult for people to leave something that for so long they felt was their home.

That makes a lot of sense. So I know this scenario is different, but just a couple weeks ago, I interviewed a fellow, Jared Larson, who'd been in a polygamous Mormon cult. And when there was a false prophecy, it was 10 years before he left. And a lot of that is just second-guessing yourself. You're leaving the people that you know and you love. It really costs you something. And so you model that in your own way, obviously different than the background of Jared's, but being in a church really can be—it's interesting to compare it to abuse because

it can be a kind of spiritual abuse when people are pushing these false doctrines that directly contradict the scriptures. Now, we'll get into some of those concerns, but when I picked up your book, when you first sent it to me, I was like, okay, seven lies that distort the gospel. Of course, one of my first thought is, what seven lies is Alan Parr going to talk about? And when I got into this book, some I totally expected, like the prosperity gospel. I'm like, that makes sense. That is huge. A few of them I thought, oh, that's interesting. I just didn't expect that. It doesn't make right or wrong. I just didn't see it coming. So tell me how you picked these top seven lies. Yeah. So, and that's a great question. For me, I looked primarily at three different sources, if you will. I looked at my own personal experience, and I said, okay,

what are the things that have caused me to be deceived, misled, confused over the years in my own personal walk? And then I also looked at the experiences from people close to me, my friends, family members, whom I've seen literally devastated by some of these false teachings. And that's the thing about false teachings. Some people might watch this video and think, oh, well, you know, discerning between derail your life from the direction that God wants to take it because with false beliefs oftentimes comes false behavior, which I'll share a little bit later when we talk about one of the other ones, an experience that one of my family members had. So I looked at my family members, looked at my own life, and then as a YouTuber,

I mean, I'm looking at the comments that people are bringing to my videos and the emails that we're getting and the inboxes and the direct message on DMs. And I'm thinking, wow, people are really, really confused about these things. And so let me write a book that hopefully addresses as many of them as possible. That makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people maybe who haven't written a book don't realize there's always such a backstory and a personal experience and a motivation behind talking about some of these lies. And in your case, it's academic in one sense, but it's very personal. You've seen this amongst your followers, subscribers, and your family. So when we get into this for folks watching, realizing this isn't just

some academic issue, this is personal and lives are at stake. And I appreciate that sense of urgency in your book. Again, we're here with Alan Parr doing his first interview on his book, Misled, that is out. When we get to the end, if you have questions, we're going to carve out some time for some questions for Alan. Of course, they relate to the topic we're covering today. So you'll want to put those in cap question. We'll get to those at the end. But one more question before we jump into you have seven lies that are distortions. We're going to look at five end. But one more question before we jump in. Do you have seven lies that are distortions? We're going to look at five of them.

Is there one that jumps out to you that you consider the greatest threat to the gospel? And I realize when I ask threat, that's kind of loaded language, but maybe one that just concerns you the most, you see the most. Which one bubbles the surface? If you're just going to take this book and expand it into one book, focusing on one of them, which would it be and why? Well, you know, it's interesting, Sean, whenever I started writing this book, the one that I'm going to share in just a moment wasn't one that was probably on my radar as the top, the biggest threat. But, you know, it's probably chapter five where I talk about progressive Christianity. And I know that's something that you and I have talked a little bit offline about.

But I think the reason why to me that's so damaging is because it's so subtle because it promises people that you can pretty much kind of have the best of both worlds. You can have Christ, but on your own terms. Right. You can remain in whatever lifestyle you would like to remain in. You can accept the parts of Christ that you want to accept, you know, diminishes the finished work of Christ and things of that nature, which we might talk a little bit about later. But to me, that's a huge threat to the gospel because it can deceive people into thinking, hey, I can be a Christian, but I can also deny some of the core tenets of the Christian faith, excuse me, that Christians have held near and dear for, you know, two millennia. Well, let's jump in, and this is

number one we're going to talk about. Again, you discussed seven. I don't want to do all seven. Got to have, motivate people to get the book, and of course, in each one of these, you go into a lot more depth than we will here, but this first one is about speaking in tongues. Now you mentioned going to a charismatic church. I actually worked at a Pentecostal church in LA for a year, and it was an incredible, right in the heart of LA. For me growing up in a small town in the mountains of San Diego, it rocked my world on so many levels. And there were different charismatic gifts that were just not familiar to me in my background. And there were a few people, not most, who I got questions of like, wait a minute, does Sean speak in tongues? Is he really saved? These kinds of questions would come up.

Now, the church as a whole didn't preach that, but these kind of questions, I experienced them personally in that setting. So this first distortion we're talking about is related to speaking in tongues. So maybe before we get into some of the distortions about this, just explain to us what is the gift of tongues, and do you think it's still operative today? Yeah, so, you know, the exact nature of the gift of tongues is debated, and I see arguments on both sides of this. gift of tongues was the ability for someone to be able to speak in a language that maybe they've never learned, or depending upon how you interpret Acts chapter 2, maybe they weren't speaking in that language, but they were speaking something that they didn't even understand with their human mind, but the hearers on the other side were hearing the Word of God being communicated to

them in a language that they understood so it's kind of a little bit unclear as to whether i'm speaking japanese having never learned japanese and you're japanese and you're hearing it or i'm just speaking something and i don't know what i'm saying but you're hearing it as japanese regardless of what it is the purpose was to communicate the truth of the word of god and get it to more people with me not having previous knowledge of that person's language. Now, there's an argument to be made for that, but then also if you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14, our charismatic brothers and sisters would make the argument that it could also be a prayer language that you have with God that edifies you.

And it's a private language that you can communicate to God. And so depending upon where you land, that would be how you feel about the gift of tongues. For me personally, I would not go as far as to say that the gift has ceased. I'm not personally a cessationist. I would probably consider myself more of a continuationist, which is between if you have a cessationist, no gift at all. You have a charismatic, you know, gifts fully operating in spirit. I'm kind of in the middle where I'm like, yeah, the gifts are operating, but maybe not

always in the way that God intends them to be used. That's really fair. We had a professor at Biola, just a legend, Robert Sose, who both my dad and I had at Talbot, interestingly enough. And he said he's open but cautious about the operation of the gifts. And it sounds like that captures kind of where you might be at this as well. Okay, so must someone speak in tongues to be saved? I've had people tell me this, basically to my face, have you spoken in tongues? And clearly implying that if I hadn't in the way they understand it, I'm not saved. What say you? Yeah, well, to me,

that's one of the biggest distortions of the gospel, is this idea that our salvation is contingent upon a subsequent experience that we must have. And many times, once again, improper interpretation of Scripture, looking at some isolated passages from the book of Acts, which most Bible scholars would agree that that's more of a descriptive book that is describing the experiences of the Christians in the New Testament, not necessarily prescribing that every Christian that comes after this is going to have all these experiences. And so, you know, whenever we look at, you know, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the Holy Spirit, His presence in our lives manifests Himself in many different ways—convicting, leading, teaching, empowering, all sorts of different ways, a fruit of the Spirit.

So to pin it down and say, well, if you don't demonstrate that you have the Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues, then that means you're not saved, is a very dangerous doctrine to, in my opinion, to kind of infiltrate or permeate, or to communicate, rather, to people. Because you have a lot of people who love the Lord with all their hearts, and they're doing great things for the Lord, and they're experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit every day of their lives, but they just have never spoken in tongues. Okay, so let me make sure I understand. It sounds like you would say whether the gifts are still operative today is a secondary issue that Christians can differ on. But if somebody says you must speak in tongues to be saved, now they're proclaiming a false gospel, because this is a work that is added to the gospel that violates the gospel grace. Now, you're shaking your head up and down, so presumably, is that how you see it? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we can talk all day about the gift of tongues and whether it's active for today or not, but to attach that to salvation, there's absolutely no strong biblical evidence for that. And when you look at the evidence outside of the book of Acts, it strongly contradicts. I mean, just simply, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13 and 14, it talks about, for you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise when you believed, when you heard the word of truth. Right of promise when you believed, when you heard the word of truth. Right there. It tells you when you heard the word of truth, number one, when you believed, number two, number three, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Bingo. That's it. That's when you received the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion. Love it. So to add tongues, to add baptism, add any other works is distorting the heart of the gospel. Okay. Those of you, again, who are with us, we're talking with Alan Parr. His first interview on his new book, Misled, which is just fantastic. At the end, we're going to take some questions, so put question in

caps, and assuming it relates to this, we will throw it to Alan. But we worked through the first distortion. One last question on this first one is, should every Christian speak in tongues? After all, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul kind of says, I wish all of you would speak in tongues. So shouldn't we all aim to do this in our personal lives? Yeah, once again, you know, that's another misunderstanding of Scripture, because in 1 Corinthians, in the exact same book, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, I believe it's in verse 7, where Paul says, hey, I wish that all of you were single like me, but each one has his own gift, right? So when Paul is saying, I wish that every single person was single, he's saying, hey, I wish that everybody had the freedom to be able to

be unencumbered with the responsibilities of married life and family life, to be able to be unencumbered with the responsibilities of married life and family life to be able to just evangelize and serve the Lord. But Paul also acknowledges that that is not—just because he wishes that doesn't mean that's always going to happen. In the same way, he could say, hey, I wish that every Christian would be able to speak in tongues so that no matter where you go in this world, you'll be able to communicate God's truth even though you don't know their language. Yeah, Paul would wish that, but to say that that wish is also a reality and even a possibility would once again contradict

what he said in 1 Corinthians 12, where he says, do all people speak in tongues? Are all people apostles? Are all people teachers? And the obvious expected answer to all those questions is no. So if it's a gift from God, if it is a gift, we don't get to choose which gifts we get. That belongs to the Lord Jesus, well, the Holy Spirit who distributes the gifts, 1 Corinthians 12, 7. That's really helpful. It's almost like there's a contrast between Paul saying, here's my personal desire in an ideal world, but I also recognize that God is sovereign and distributes gifts according to his will. That's what matters most. They're not in contradiction. They're just looking at the

issue differently. And of course, ultimately, Paul submits his will to the Father. So helpful, helpful distinction. All right, let's move to distortion number two, which is about the prosperity gospel. So, two-part question. Just to make sure we're on the same page, can you define for us what you mean by the prosperity gospel in its simplest form is the idea that embedded in the gospel, or as a part of the finished work of Jesus Christ, what he accomplished on the cross by dying on the cross for our sins, embedded in that work is a promise from God that our lives are going to be characterized by health and wealth. And so because of what Christ has done, we have the ability to tap into this vault of blessings that include health and wealth, which is dangerous because then it depends on my faith to be able to unlock that vault, which we'll get into in just a moment. And so the idea is that it's available to you if you have enough faith.

And so that's a very dangerous doctrine because you're now, in a sense, adding to what Jesus did on the cross. The focus was to die on the cross for our sins and to experience a spiritual reconnection with God, his focus was not to promise us some life that's free from pain, suffering, sickness, and poverty. Okay, so the prosperity gospel promises that if we have enough faith, God will give us health and wealth understood financially and in material gain. Do you have big concern about this in the U.S. and beyond? Because it sure seems to me in a lot of countries outside the United States, the prosperity gospel is massive. And in terms of numbers, maybe of the ones you talk about here, probably one of the most common distortions of the gospel that's out there. Would you agree

with that, or do you see it differently? Yeah, I definitely think it's very sad to see because here in the United States, you could look at the average income for most homes and you could make an argument that most everybody in the United States in some way is considered prosperous compared to the majority of the rest of the world and they're living in third world countries and things of that nature. But that's one of the issues with prosperity gospel is that if it indeed is the gospel, then it needs to work in every part of the world. And so when you have people in other parts of the world that are sometimes living on

two or three dollars a day for their whole family, you'd have to ask the question, would that be considered prosperity? If you ask any, you know, prosperity teacher, would you be okay with living for, you know, with two or three dollars a day, they probably would not say that that really, you know, is characteristic of prosperity. So if it doesn't work for the entire world, then it can't be part of the gospel. The gospel has to work no matter where you are which is why I love the purity of the gospel which is hey no matter whether you are sick no matter whether you are impoverished or no matter whether you are healthy or whether you have a lot of prosperity it doesn't matter it strips a playing field bear believe in

Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins that That's it. So is this a secondary issue, like whether the gifts of tongues still exist today? Or is the prosperity gospel a false gospel that twists the true gospels taught in Scripture? So, you know, that's an interesting question, Sean. I think that someone, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, I think that someone could be a genuine Christian and subscribe to the prosperity gospel. I might get some pushback for that, right? Because someone who might say, I believe in the prosperity gospel, what they're saying is, I do believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I do recognize that I'm a sinner, and I do believe that Jesus is coming back,

and I do believe that he paid the price on the cross for my sins. So as long as they believe that, then they are saved. But they're also adding something to the gospel saying, I also believe that Jesus has promised me A, B, C, D, and E, right? And that's where it's not necessarily going to cost them their salvation. But as I write in this book, it's going to lead to a life of hurt, frustration, and pain when they realize, when they have that moment where they realize, wow, all these things that I've been told by this pastor that I'm promised, God never promised those things in the scriptures. And when you have an experience where you lose a loved one that you've been praying for and fasting for, it can turn into you actually being angry with God, which is one of the dangers of following the prosperity gospel.

That's a really helpful distinction, and I think it shows that even if something in the way you described it does not result in the loss of the gospel being embedded in bad theology, it still has some dangerous and huge consequences in somebody's life. So that's well, that's really fair. Now, what are your big problems, what you might say, with the prosperity gospel? You list out a bunch. You don't have to give all of them here, but maybe give us just kind of one or two of why you take issue with the prosperity gospel. Yeah, well, you know, like you said, I could mention a whole bunch, but I'll just give you one. I think that it creates false guilt oftentimes with the individual who might be believing in this. And what I mean by that is the easiest way I could explain it is I have a friend of mine,

a very close friend of mine, who lost his sister to cancer. And everybody told him that if he had enough faith that he could get his sister healed. Because God wanted to heal her. It was God's will. Matter of fact, they were telling her, it's already done. God has healed your sister. Well, he believed that, and he asked people to pray for her and things of that nature. And so, to make a long story short, she passed away, and it devastated him because for many, many years, he was left feeling guilty and responsible for his sister's death because he kept thinking, man, if only I had more faith, then my sister may not have died. So it creates false guilt for the believer, but it also makes God look bad

because other people might be looking on and saying, wow, what kind of a God would promise you this and then end up doing that? And so it can make God look bad because for something God actually never even promised that he would do. That can also cause somebody to eventually bail on their faith because it's like God doesn't come through. The scriptures are not reliable. And of course, they're not rejecting the scriptures. They're rejecting a false character of the scriptures, but it sure seems real to the person in that experience. I'm going to just pull a question quickly to see if you would accept this.

It seems like a really helpful distinction on first glimpse. Nidhi says, I wish believers or non-believers wouldn't call it prosperity gospel anymore. It'd probably be better defined as prosperity theology. Would you agree with that distinction? Yeah, yeah, I would. And I'm going to echo the words of my friend, our mutual friend and colleague, Elisa Childers, right? She has a book, Another Gospel, right? And so Paul mentions that, and I believe it's in Galatians where he talks about, if anyone comes to you with another gospel other than the one I preach, let them be anathema, let them be cursed, right? There is no other gospel. So I would agree with the person who wrote that in. Probably need to refer to it

more as prosperity theology, because prosperity gospel is a false gospel. Thank you, Nidhi. That's a very helpful distinction. Alan, you know I did my PhD dissertation on the death of the apostles. And one of the things that I did is I went through the entire New Testament, and I noted every time one of the followers of Jesus or Jesus himself suffered, or the biblical writers taught that you would suffer as a result of your faith. And it blew me away how much I missed this. I'd invite all my viewers to read the New Testament and just pay attention. It's all over the Gospels. It's all over the letters of Paul. By the way, he wrote many of those letters while

he was suffering in prison, such as the letter to the Philippians. It's all over Hebrews. We read about this, especially in the Hall of Faith. It's in the book of James. And of course, it's in Revelation. So before we move on to the third kind of false gospel, so to speak, what does the Bible actually say about suffering? Well, it promises that we are going to suffer. I mean, Jesus said, you know, I've overcome the world, right? Blessed are those who persecute

you. You know, he talks about that. He promises that. The New Testament writers talk about suffering. They talk about sickness. You know, as you mentioned, you look at the lives of Jesus, you look at the lives of his disciples, you look at how they died, you look at, you know, the book of Revelation, where it talks about the souls of the martyrs under the altar, crying out for justice. You know, suffering, unfortunately, is a part of the fallen world, and we're not going to be free from that suffering until the other side of heaven, where the Bible says that, you know, we're going to a place where there'll be no more death, no more sickness, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears. The old has passed away, and behold, all things have become new.

So to expect heaven on earth is not consistent with Scripture, and it's also not consistent with reality, Sean. To think that every Christian is promised by God to die of natural causes is just a little bit extreme, in my opinion. To say that God can't take someone home any other way other than natural causes is not consistent with reality. Let's move to distortion number three. Again, you cite seven. We're just covering five.

This is about speaking things into existence, what you kind of refer to as the positive confession movement. So first off, what is the positive confession movement, which I think is sometimes referred to as the word of faith? Yeah, so this is kind of an offshoot of the second distortion that we talked about, because oftentimes they kind of go hand in hand because they really are both promoted heavily by the Word of Faith movement. And so this idea of speaking things into existence comes from a doctrine, a false doctrine called the Little Gods Doctrine, which is a false interpretation of Psalm 82, where, you know, there's a phrase in there that talks about ye are gods. And so to make a long

story short, the premise is that if God has creative power, because he created the world with his words, let there be light, there was light. He used words to create. And then in Genesis 1, 27, it says, you and I were created in the image of God. So if God created us in his image, then that means we are little gods, which means we have the ability to create things with our words, just as God was able to create things with his words. And it totally distorts the idea of the creation story and the creation narrative and the understanding of what it means to be an image bearer of God. Totally doesn't mean that we have the same power as God, but there's a whole doctrine that's built on this idea of being little gods,

which means we can speak things into existence and our words have creative power. And once again, Sean, the difficulty here is that with every lie, there's some truth in there, right? Do our words have power? Yes. Right. I have the power to say to my wife, you know, and criticize her and say, you're no good at this. And I never should have been with you or whatever. I would never say those things. But the point is I could, I could create death to our marriage and death to our intimacy and our fellowship with my words, or I could create life. So yes, our words have power, but I can't say, you know, if, if, if, if we were barren and we weren't able to have kids, I can't speak a child into existence. That's sure. It doesn't work like that, you know? And that's where we have to be more careful with this whole idea of positive confession. It's kind of the same distinction between saying the Bible is inspired,

meaning it is God-breathed and supernatural, versus inspired like the basketball play of Michael Jordan or whoever it may be, or Butler, to be a little bit more contemporary, who's a stud. It's the same thing here with being, our words have power. That's lowercase inspired in a sense, but not God-breathed. We're not gods in that sense. That's where this takes that step way too far. So maybe give us one big concern. You kind of hinted at this, but one big concern about Word of Faith theology that you raise in the book? Yeah, well, you know, I think one of the biggest concerns is that it essentially makes God subservient to us, and it reverses the roles, right? So what's supposed to be happening is that God speaks, we listen and act. But with the Word of Faith theology, it's kind of the other way

around. It's, you know what, God, I'm going to speak something that I want to happen in my life, and because my words have power and you've given me the authority to speak this over to life, and it's a reversal of roles, and that can be very dangerous. That's really interesting. I'd love to hear what you think is a biblical view of words, because for me, I always go to James chapter 3 and just the tongue, how the tongue is small but has great power. In fact, when I'm teaching my students, I'll always compare it. I'll say, you know, that's a theme of Ant-Man, right? Ant-Man is small, but little things have great power. I'm always looking for a superhero connection. Now, James compares the tongue to like a spark that can set an entire forest on fire or a rudder that controls an entire ship. So clearly James thinks our words

matter. So maybe fill that in, or what would you add to how we should think about words, biblically speaking? Yeah. I mean, man, I mean, our words have significant power. As I mentioned a moment ago, you can criticize, you can blame, you can destroy someone's reputation, you can malign, you can slander, you can gossip, you can discourage. I mean, you can do a lot of negative things with your with your with your mouth with our words right and they all have significant power telling a a kid in in elementary school that they're never going to be good at anything and that you know um they're too slow and they're never going to be a good reader and they're never going to be athletic I mean just try saying a couple of these things to your own kids and see what type of impact it's going to have. So our words have significant power. But then again, the beauty is

that, you know, our words have power to lift up. Our words have power to build. Our words have power to encourage or infuse courage in someone, to motivate, to inspire. So when we talk about the power of our words, we need to be making sure that we're using our words, as Ephesians says, always do not let any unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only that which is helpful for the edifying or building someone up. So yeah, words have power, but not creative power like you mentioned. I already see some great questions coming in, so we're going to talk about two more distortions, then we'll make sure we'll come to some. I see one by you, my friend, Darren, that we will come to and make sure we get. But let's move to distortion number four, which is about prophets and prophecy. So what is the gift of prophecy? And is there a difference between how prophets function in the Old Testament and how they should function today in the, quote, New Testament Church?

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I did some extensive work on this, and I'm excited about this particular chapter because what I do is I look at the Old Testament prophets, and I mean, you take a good look at them, and you don't have to look very hard to see that there's a very distinct difference between how many people who proclaim to be prophets today are operating as compared to prophets in the Old Testament. Prophets in the Old Testament were called to call out sin, to warn the people of impending danger if they don't repent, right, and to encourage people to repent. And so prophets were hated. They were not loved. If a prophet had a prophecy night in the Old Testament at a local temple,

it wouldn't have drawn a whole bunch of people from that community and communities from hundreds of miles away because the assumption was this prophet's going to probably tell me something I need to stop doing, not promising me something good that's going to happen to my life. And so there's a big difference between Old Testament prophets and New Testament, or should I say modern-day prophets. Now, when we look at prophecy in the New Testament, you know, there's some different things going on there that we have to look at, which is where, you know, we need to look at the fact that, you know, prophecy, is it just speaking forth the Word of God?

Is it encouraging? Is it exhorting someone, using principles from the Word of God? There's some principles that we need to look at. But whatever prophecy is today, it does not include new revelation from God that should be considered the same as Scripture. So would you say God could give a supernatural word of prophecy through somebody just for maybe the timing reveals that it was supernatural, but the idea of new information that God is speaking akin to scripture itself, that's where you would draw the line. Yeah.

So for instance, let's just say we were hanging out, Sean, and we did a double date with your wife and my wife, and we did a double date. And let's just say I observed you speaking negatively to your wife and embarrassing her and demeaning her, which I know you would never do. But let's say I observed that at dinner. Could it be possible that God put it on my heart to pull you aside in a week from now and say, God really put on my heart to exhort you about how you treat your wife. And here's some scriptures that he showed me to give you. And that could be a way that God is using me as a so-called prophet in your life

to encourage you to live a godly life and be a better husband, something of that nature, right? So God could certainly use me to speak a word into your life. But I'm very, very leery of people who say, you know, who stand on a stage and promote these vague prophecies, which is the key. Right. If something is a prophecy from God, the Old Testament prophets were very, very specific in their prophecies. It wasn't like 15,000 people there. And he says, one of you is going to get a promotion today. I feel it in my spirit, right? Like, yeah, somebody's probably going to get a promotion over the next week of 15,000 people. That's not specific enough. So we need to be

careful of those types of vague prophecies. Let me draw this out just to make sure I understand where you land. That example, where we're at dinner, in some ways, I'm sitting here thinking you probably don't need a prompting from the Lord. If I'm treating my wife that way and you're as observant as I know that you are, you should exhort me, right? Even non-Christians would probably exhort me because we know that's not something you should do. Now, God could put it on your heart later as well.

I understand that. But that's the kind of thing we should see and do as friends, as brothers in Christ, etc., regardless of some supernatural prompting. That might be a little bit different than a unique prompting he had a word of prophecy, about a very specific professional baseball team that he was going to play for. And he was kind of sitting around waiting for them to call. And even at that time, and this is two decades plus ago, I remember thinking, guy, this just doesn't seem healthy and right to me. Very, very suspicious. So I guess two-part question. Could there be a specific supernatural prophecy like that today that God does at time selectively?

And if so, how would we test it? Yeah, yeah. So, and this is where I have to look at Scripture, and I have to ask the question, because, guys, at the end of the day, I have to be true to the Scriptures, and I have to ask the question, is there clear biblical evidence that the gift of prophecy has ceased? For me personally, I respect those who see things differently, but for me personally, I don't see the clear evidence, which means I can't biblically prove that it is impossible for God to communicate a personal word through

someone else for someone else that they might need to know in that moment. I've had an experience like this in my life in college where I was convinced that a man who claimed to be a prophet was on the stage. And he said something that was so characteristic of what I was going through at that moment. And he provided so much detail that I knew that it was me because I didn't tell anyone else about an experience that I had. And I was going to church just hearing, like, Lord, speak to me. And he did. And nobody else got up. Nobody else went down.

Now, am I 100% sure that was from God? No, but I'm pretty sure it was. So to say that it's impossible, I think, would be a stretch. But I think we need to test it by sharing that prophecy with fellow trusted brothers and sisters in the Lord, also making sure that we don't just assume right away that this prophecy is from God because it's from someone that we trust. Is it lining up with Scripture? Pray and ask God to confirm. Don't just act. Say, God, you know what? This person is saying this, but I don't want to move

until you can confirm it. So please confirm to me whether this is a direction you want to go. And we can test prophecies. And then I would probably not move forward until God really, truly confirms it.

Okay, that's fair. I agree with you that God still does miracles today, still can give words of prophecy, but it concerns me deeply how much people throw around, God told me this and God told me that, and I'm looking at the Old Testament like, man, alive, if you claim to speak for God and got it wrong, you were like, your life was over. Exactly. So I think there's a balance between being open to this and not silencing supernatural, but just having a sense of the gravity of saying the words, God told me this, man alive. That's how I see it. Now, somebody made a quick comment before we look at the last one and take questions. They said, what are the exact misleading distortions that you cover?

So I'm just going to give the seven really fast. It's about speaking in tongues, health and wealth, prosperity gospel, having the power to speak things into existence, word of theology, prophets and prophecy, which we just discussed, progressive Christianity, losingosing Your Salvation, and then chapter 7 is the one we're going to talk about, about grace. You said grace may be free, but it isn't cheap. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so this is one where I definitely could see some people providing some pushback, which

I'm totally okay with that. There are different camps out there theologically. There's the free grace. There's lordship salvation. There's the free grace camp. And we're not going to necessarily get into characterizing or categorizing those. But the premise behind that last chapter, the last chapter in the book, the premise is this, that if I could really break it down this way, there's a lot of people who I personally feel as though they are assuming that they are saved simply because at some point in their life, they had what they thought was an encounter with God. Maybe they're at a youth camp. They're 13 years old, and someone described hell as being a place where there are flames

and eternal torment. And they said, hey, does anybody here want to avoid going there? Well, yeah, I'm 11 years old. I don't want to go get burned forever. So yeah, I'm just going to say whatever somebody tells me to say, and I'm going to repeat a prayer, right? And at that moment, you know, the assumption is, okay, I must be saved, right? But you don't really fully understand the gospel. You don't, and because of you don't fully understand it, you therefore, you can't really totally do what Paul says, believe it in your heart, confess with your mouth. And so therefore, let's just say you go through your whole life

and you show no signs of any sort of spiritual desire, no fruit at all. There's no discipleship going on at all. I look at Jesus' words in Matthew 7, and when he says, depart from me, he says, for I never knew you. And so the assumption there is not—and if you notice in that text, they were saying the right things. He said, many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord. So you're saying the right things. And then he said, many of them were doing the right things. Didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we not cast out demons?

So you can be doing a lot of the right things. You could be doing the right things. Didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we not cast out demons? So you can be doing a lot of the right things. You could be saying the right things, but what does Jesus go to when it comes to entrance into heaven? Relationship. Do we have a relationship? Do I know you, right? And so I think it's very dangerous for many people who profess to be Christian when, if they're honest with themselves, they really have no relationship with Jesus Christ at all. Tell me if this is fair. And I found it very interesting that you put this at the end of the book, because this one you're trying to just kind of toe the line very carefully of confusing grace and works.

It makes sense after you've walked through some false gospels, you put this one here, that there's one mistake is just to say, I have God's grace, and I have salvation, and that just doesn't affect my life at all. If that's the case, it's fair to ask, have you really experienced God's grace? On the flip side is to muzzle in works as a part of the gospel message itself. Now you're no longer teaching that God's grace is given to us by faith, not by our works. So as a whole, would you say if somebody says they're saved and you just never see the fruit in this person's life, then the question is, were they ever saved in the first place regardless of what they say? Is that the heart of what we're getting at here?

Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. And I mean, this was probably one of the toughest chapters to write because as you mentioned, Sean, you insightfully mentioned, I don't ever want to be guilty of causing people to say, okay, wow, how do I know if I've done enough? How do I know if I have a relationship with Christ? How do I know if I've prayed enough? How do I know if I've read my Bible? And how do I know if I've worshiped and spent enough time with the Lord to ensure that I have this relationship with Alan is talking about? Because I don't want to risk it on the day of judgment. Right. Um, you know, it's, it,

it wasn't written to instill fear in people as much as it is to encourage us all to take a look and say, Hey, is there any interest? Is there any fruit in your life? Is there any relationship with Christ? Uh, because I know, I mean, well, let me just say it this way. None of us are able to judge another person's salvation based on what they do, based on how much they pray or anything like that. That's up to God to do. that we are engaging in a discipleship type of relationship with Christ and actively pursuing that relationship with Christ, not to earn our salvation, but as I say, as proof that we were saved. As proof, basically. That's a helpful balance to me, that when we actually know God personally, it's going to manifest itself in our works. Now, what we cannot judge, I completely agree,

is somebody's heart and somebody's salvation. That's 1 Samuel chapter 16. Man judges by appearance, but God judges the heart. Now, that doesn't mean we're not supposed to make judgments. Matthew chapter 7, recognize false prophets. That is a kind of judgment. The Bible says they will know us by our love. So we make judgments, but when it's all said and done, God is the one who judges the heart. That's a very, very key distinction. Now I've got a million more questions for you, but there's some great questions coming in. And if you wrote a very, very key distinction. Now, I've got a million more questions for you, but there's some great questions coming in. And if you wrote a question, I'll do my best to get to it. Write question in caps. And then if it relates to the topic today, I will bring it here to Alan.

But here's one that I'm really curious. This is from ExcuseMeBut. Why doesn't the Bible clear up the difference between the different camps? And that could be on any issue we talked about today, word of faith, theology, prophecy, tongues. Why doesn't the Bible just make it clear, Alan? Why do we need additional books to clear up? Shouldn't God have communicated this in the first place?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the Bible does clear up many of the things that I talk about, and that's literally what I try to do, is try to show the biblical perspective on these things. And so I do think the Bible is very, very clear, but the issue is that people are using different hermeneutical, or to not use a fancy word, people are using different interpretational principles for how they view the scriptures, right? So, for instance, if I read 3 John 2, where John says to Gaius, hey, beloved, you know, I'm writing to you and pray that you prosper in all things just as your soul prospers. I read that and I say,

you know what, John was just writing to Gaius and he was saying, hey man, I hope you're doing well. I pray that everything is going well in your life. I pray that you're prospering just as your soul spiritually is prospering. And I see that as a basic greeting, not as a promise from God. But if somebody else interprets that and they see the word prosper in there and says,

the apostle John is praying that this person prospers, that must mean that he believes that God will prosper them. You see how I'm using a different hermeneutical principle to get to my theology of prosperity. So I do think the scripture is clear when we use proper hermeneutics, but when we don't, which is why it's important to be trained, right, theologically, but when we don't, we can make the Bible say just about everything, anything we want it to say. I think you're officially the first person who's quoted 3 John on my channel, so congratulations, my friend. Here's kind of a parenting— We don't even read. I know, right? But it's still inspired. That's a whole conversation in itself.

Here's kind of a little bit more of a personal parenting question for you. Michael says, how does a parent prepare their child from now for the future possible suffering that will challenge their faith? And for those who just joined us, we were talking about prosperity, theology, and gospel. And Alan made the point that the Bible teaches to expect that we will suffer. So how do we prepare our kids for the suffering that may come someday? And presuming this is not somebody probably in a third world country who's already experiencing this, probably somebody more in the West who sees it at some point in the future would

be my guess. Yeah. So, and communicate the theology of suffering in an age-appropriate way, right? So if, you know, I have kids that are four and six, so I would communicate suffering to them, you know, differently than I would if they were 14 and 16, right? I might tell my four-year-old, hey, suffering for you might be that you don't get, that when you're sick, you have to go to the doctor

or you have to take medicine in order to feel better, right? Or, hey, you can't get the latest video game or everything that you want because it costs money. And therefore, we don't have an endless supply of that, right? So I might have to communicate them. When they're 14 or 16, and maybe they have some sort of physical issue going on, then I communicate that way. Or if they get their heart broken, they're in love, and they have a heartbreak or something, I'll have to

explain to them. So using age-appropriate communication to communicate the biblical concept of suffering to our children as early as you can would be very wise for us as parents. That's great advice. How do you teach theology and make your own kids aware of these false doctrines? I mean, yesterday I was having breakfast with my son, who's 10, and I was reading Colossians 1 to him, and it said, talk about things that are seen and unseen. And I said, hey, buddy, can you, talking about things that are seen and unseen. And I said, hey, buddy, can you think of any things that are seen and unseen? And how do we know they're real?

Now, that's the philosopher in me engaging my son in a little metaphysics. I try to have conversations with my kids as I can just naturally. Are there any ways you teach the truths of this? Again, we're talking about your book, Misled, some of the seven distortions of the gospel. How do you pass this on to your own kids? Yeah, I think you hit it out of the park. I think looking for those teachable moments that God will give you, as we all know as parents. I mean, my kids are four and six, and they're asking questions at that age already that give me and my wife many opportunities, give my wife and I, should I say, many opportunities to communicate biblical truths to them. And so really taking advantage of those

teachable moments and then also asking your kids questions. Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about, you know, what do you, I mean, obviously my kids only about tongues, but I could ask them questions about suffering in their own way. Hey, what do you think about this? You know, what do you think about heaven? What do you think you have to do to get to heaven? And, you know, and just listen to what they say and then use those, their responses as teachable moments to communicate the truth. I love that. Maybe down the road we'll take this book and we'll talk about how to teach some of these to our kids.

If that's helpful and you want Alan and I to come back and talk about how to teach theology to their kids, let us know in the comments. Go ahead. And I was going to say, this recent just came up, there's a young lady, I think you might be familiar with Elizabeth Urbanovic. Are you familiar with her? Yeah, yeah. She's in our program at Biola. Okay, I figured so, yeah. I think she's got some great resources for kids as well, if I'm not mistaken, in terms of just trying

to communicate a Christian worldview to kids. So I would use some curriculum out there that would really help you so you don't have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. Elizabeth Urbanowicz and Natasha Crane are my two go-to sources on this. Here's a good question for you. Maybe I have time for one or two more. Megan says, how do we approach a friend that we don't believe is saved, but they say that they are? Oh, that's a great question. So I would simply ask that friend, on what basis are you basing your salvation, right? Ask them, you say you're a Christian. That is great.

On what are you basing that assumption or that conclusion? And listen to what they say. If they say, well, I'm basing it on the fact that I prayed a prayer whenever I was seven years old, it's possible that when they prayed that prayer, it was genuine and it was authentic and that they're saved. I mean, I got saved whenever I was eight, so it's possible. But if they're saying that I believe that I'm a Christian because I always treat people well, and I'm a good person, you know, and I try to do my best to, you know,

to honor, you know, the Ten Commandments, listen to what they say, and then take that opportunity to show them in the Scriptures whether their response is a biblical justification for salvation. So are they depending on their works? Are they depending on something they may have said? Or are they truly depending on what they believe is true about Jesus? Because at the end of the day, it's what you believe about Jesus, not just believing in Jesus. There are many cult groups that believe in Jesus,

but it's what you believe about Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross, which is the ultimate key and source to our salvation. So listen to what they say, and if they mention that they believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, then you have to assume, regardless of what their lifestyle shows, because I've lived parts of my life where I looked like a carnal Christian. I may have, if you looked at my life at certain years, periods of my life, you might have assumed that maybe I wasn't a Christian, right? So you can't look only at what someone is doing, and for a small part of their life, because we do backslide, but pay more attention to what they believe about Jesus rather than

what they say or what they do. That's great. I love that you said ask questions and listen first. That's awesome. Last question for you, so you can answer as quick as you need to because I want to respect your time, but Darren asks a question, and he says, should there be better oversight with theology in current worship songs in the church? So let me maybe just frame it this way. When we talk about oversight, I don't know who's

going to oversight that and what that's going to look like, but in terms of some of these false doctrines you talk about in your book, Misled, how concerned are you about a lot of these bad ideas coming through worship music? Yeah, I'm very concerned about that. I've got several videos where I talk about that, because the thing is that worship is so powerful, music is so powerful, that sometimes it's even more powerful than sermons. Think about it from all of our perspectives. We go to church, we hear a song we love, and we may not remember the sermon at all, but we go throughout our week singing that song, and it stays in our spirit. So if that song has wrong theology, it's going to lead to a wrong belief, which ultimately can lead to wrong behavior.

So what I would love to see is more songwriters filtering their music through a trusted theological source. Amen. That they can say, hey, look, I wrote this song and I love it. I think it's great. But can you as a theologian, can you just analyze the lyrics for me to see if there's anything that I might not be seeing? Because I'm not a theologian. I'm just a lover of Jesus, but I want to make sure that I honor God with my lyrics. Can you look over this? I'd wish that would happen more often um but even then that can be dangerous depending upon what church they are attending and who they

allow to look over their lyrics so um but yeah it's i'd like to see that done more fair enough i can help folks with good theology in their worship but i cannot help you with a good melody or song. I got nothing there, although I've seen you do that. Alan, I got a ton more questions for you. Want to respect your time. I printed out your book because I know my copy's coming in. Just so you can see how much I wrote all over this thing, took copious notes, learned a ton. I like to bring guests on that I hope my viewers will benefit from, especially their book. Thoroughly enjoyed, Miss Led. Again, you gave me a chance to write the foreword for it,

which is a great honor for me, which is how much I endorse it. I think it's fantastic. Comes out in a couple of weeks. Folks can pre-order it now. Now, I can't imagine anybody following my channels like who is this Alan guy, but in case he's new to you,

make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel. Alan, one of my most popular blogs that almost every day somebody asks me is, what are my top apologetics, worldview, and theology resources for students? And under YouTube channels, I link to yours as a trusted, just good quality source. You're doing great work. Be encouraged. Really appreciate you coming on. Now, before any of you click away,

make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other interviews coming up, including an expert on detransitions. We're going to talk about what is the scientific data actually show on this. We have another ex-witch coming up whose story literally blew me away. Theological apologetic issues you won't want to miss. Make sure you hit subscribe. And if you've thought about studying apologetics, we have a fully distance program. And part of this is Bible and theology is a big chunk of our apologetics program because of the very things that we talked about today. Alan, appreciate you, my friend. Keep up the good work. We will do a follow-up show in due time, maybe how to teach theology to our kids so we can raise a generation that avoids some of the very distortions that

you're talking about in your book, Misled. Again, thanks for coming on, buddy. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks so much, John. Grateful for your friendship and your ministry, man.