Posted in theology

Jackie Hill Perry rejects discernment talk about her false prophesying

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

On April 4 I posted a blog reacting to Jackie Hill Perry’s (JHP) coming out as a prophet. In a multi-tweet thread she announced that God deals with her in dreams, speaks to her, gives her information about other people for JHP’s intercession. My examination of her statements is here.

I am not all that familiar with JHP. I don’t follow her on social media nor have I listened to her raps, songs, or sermons (Yes, she is a preacher too). But I know a false teacher when I see one. Or when I hear one… preach to men or claim direct revelation from God. These are easy. You don’t need a nuanced or advanced discernment radar to know the bells are going off when a so-called Christian says that.

Her following is huge. She has 688,000 on Instagram and 211,000 on Twitter and I’m sure more on TikTok. Let’s say north of a million followers. So what she says and does matters, because numerous impressionable and undiscerning women are being impacted by her consistently unbiblical example.

When I posted about her admission that she is a prophet, that blog got a lot of views. See chart below. You can guess which hits are the days when my JHP essay dropped. People are influenced by influencers, and JHP is an influencer. My job is to praise the ones the Lord has raised up and warn people about the others. My job is to tell the truth using the gift of discernment for y local church and the wider body, to warn, admonish in love. And I mean it in love. No one is happy to see someone drift away from Jesus.

Jackie Hill Perry does not like “discernment bloggers” (I purposely used scare quotes). She certainly didn’t like that many have called her false. So, she posted an Instagram video pushing back. She did not address the scriptural issues raised by me or other discerners. Of course. She cannot: there is no scriptural basis for denying the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits, no basis for receiving direct revelation nor of scriptures allowing females to preach to men. So, JHP’s push-back was against discernment as an activity.

She raised the usual canards about discernment: It’s unloving. It’s unwarranted. It’s unbiblical. Well, I’ll just let you take a listen yourself. It is 52 seconds.

I’ll go through her points one by one.

JHP: “If you follow somebody or something and literally all the content they produce is talking about other people, you don’t need these people to teach you how to spot false teaching or error.”

EP: I agree with this. When authors, bloggers, preachers, teachers etc get ‘stuck’ on one topic and that is ALL they ever “literally” produce, speak of, write about, their perspective becomes skewed. We must focus on Christ and employ the spiritual gifts for His glory and the good of the body. A skewed or myopic perspective won’t accomplish that. We should be balanced.

But while I agree with her general point, her comment is a straw man, because only a few discernment bloggers produce ONLY content that is “talking about other people.” She deliberately focused on only the fringe bloggers and lumped the bad ones in with the good ones and denied the total use of the gift of discernment. JHP says people who focus too much are not to be followed. So, opponents will find a reason to try and dismiss your warning or admonitions and then just focus on the emotional.

JHP: “You need the Spirit, you need the church, and you need your Bible.”

EP: I agree with this. However, her list is not complete. You also need the gifts of the Spirit. The Spirit dispensed gifts to believers. One of them is discerning of Spirits. All gifts that are in use today are for the edification of the body, which is the church. (1 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Now this is interesting. JHP maintains that she is a charismatic (not in those terms, but yes). She believes the gift of prophecy is in use today, and tongues, and hearing from God etc. So does she not believe that the gift of discerning of spirits is also in use? Did it go away? We don’t need believers with that gift anymore? But miracles and tongues and the rest we do need?

Or does she believe that NONE of the gifts are in use today, all we need is the Bible and the Spirit and the church?. And what does she mean by needing “the church” to discern? Are not believers with gifts the ones who make up the church?

You see when Peter in 2 Peter 3:16 wrote that the untaught and unstable distort scripture, this is one way they do it. JHP is giving us an example here. They move your eyes from scripture to emotion. They use church-y verbiage like Bible and Spirit and church. They use verses but omit the parts they dislike. There’s another example of twisting coming up in a second.

JHP: “You don’t need a constant diet of someone tearing down the body to teach you how to contend for the faith”

EP: Contending for the faith is messy. It involves a fight. Not that we are pugnacious. Not that we look for it. But if you contend for anything, it gets painful. Paul contended and in almost every city he went to there were riots. All the apostles contended, and they were killed, or exiled.

I already addressed the ‘constant diet’, but now here is a common phrase, ‘you’re tearing people down.’ Well yes and no. We love people and pray for the ones like JHP. But we also tear down. We are commanded to tear down philosophies that oppose Christ.

We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5 Berean Study Bible)

We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB).

We’re supposed to tear down anything that opposes Jesus, any teaching that is abhorrent to Him. Wolves always agree in principle that false teaching should be rejected. But wolves always say, “It’s not me. I’m not false. You’re so unloving”.

JHP: “That’s not what Jude offered he offered the old testament to them to give them some context for how to discern false teaching in their presence.“

EP: That is exactly what Jude offered. He was soooo upset about false teaching he abandoned his original point of his letter about salvation so that he could teach them to discern.

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all time handed down to the saints (Jude 1:3).

Jude is the only New Testament book whose entire focus is devoted to confronting apostasy, meaning people who have defected from the true, biblical faith. Jude gave some examples from the Old Testament about their judgment, not about ‘how to discern’. He also described in detail the immoral and unconscionable character of these false ones who were infiltrating the church. He contended, and bluntly.

JHP: guard your heart and guard your mind from those who would tempt you and disciple you into lovelessness.

EP: Jude is the only book in the Bible written by Jude. His only focus is discernment. But JHP’s standard of discernment bloggers, of which Jude is one, we should avoid Jude since “literally all the content they produce is talking about other people.”

Was Jude loveless? Did the Holy Spirit include Jude’s book in the canon as a “temptation to lovelessness”? Of course not. You see the holes in Jackie Hill Perry’s talk by now, I’m sure.

Jude continued in his book describing in detail the immoral and unconscionable character of these false ones who were infiltrating the church. He ‘talked about other people’. (And so did Paul – and by name). Jude said the false ones were:

hidden reefs (which kill ships)
selfish
dead
wild
shameful
bound for hell
grumblers
fault-finders
lusty
arrogant
flatterers
self-aggrandizing

By JHP’s standard, isn’t that “loveless” talk?

Yes, do guard your heart and mind saturate it with truth. That way you won’t be twisted by the unstable who distort it.

Sinners never allow you to point to them. The lawyer tried to justify himself. The woman at the well tried to distract Jesus from talking of her sins by switching the conversation to worship. The Rich Young Ruler tried flattery (“Good teacher“) and arrogant knowledge (“I have kept the commandments”). A false teacher will never say, “Let me take a look at what they’re saying against me to see if there is any merit to it”. A Christian will do that. A wolf won’t. A wolf will use the Bible to justify herself, distract you from her sin, and pretend to be humble and kind. But inwardly they are ravenous. Don’t feed them.

Posted in theology

CampMeetings: an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening, and still going strong in Georgia

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

EPrata photo

The second Great Awakening had an impact, of this we know. I was not aware of the impact it had on the south until this week. Encyclopedia Britannica says,

Second Great Awakening: Protestant religious revival in the United States from about 1795 to 1835. During this revival, meetings were held in small towns and large cities throughout the country, and the unique frontier institution known as the camp meeting began.

The Georgia Encyclopedia explains more:

Georgia has a wealth of extant camp-meeting grounds across the state. These historic sites developed as a result of the Second Great Awakening, a series of revivals that occurred from about 1790 to 1830 and planted the values of Protestantism deep in the American character, especially in the South. This religious movement galvanized the entire nation after the American Revolution (1775-83) and by 1820 helped to form the distinct national characteristic of a revivalist society. The Second Great Awakening, often called the Great Revival, became a regional phenomenon in the South, fostering the development of three major denominations, the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, and creating what some have called the Bible Belt. [1].

Oh my! That’s HUGE!

Awww, it’s so quaint. And long ago. Are they still having camp-meetings?

The camp meeting, an outdoor, continuous religious service, became a fixture of Georgia’s religious life. In fact, the meetings were so popular by the 1890s that the phrase “at a Georgia camp meeting” became a trite expression the world over. At least thirty of these sites, reflecting the camp-meeting movement and exhibiting its vernacular architecture, remain active in the state into the twenty-first century. [2].

One of those Great Awakening camp meeting grounds is near me! It’s the Poplar Springs Campground. Meetings have been held there every year since founding in 1832 till now. The only exception was the 4 years of the Civil War 1861-1865. I am in awe.

The surrounding landscape is another distinguishing feature of camp-meeting grounds. Given the idea that camp meetings provided a chance for worshipers to commune with God in nature, the topography and other landscape features played a significant role in the selection of the sites. The availability of a water source and the presence of trees, or the “sacred canopy,” often determined the place and name of the retreats. Site names like Fountain, Mossy Creek, Pine Log, Rock Springs, and White Oak indicate the importance of these natural features, while such names as Flat Rock and Pleasant Hill highlight other pleasing landscape features. The founders of Poplar Springs Camp Ground in Franklin County used both water and tree type to name their location in 1832. [3].

I made a jaunt to Canon, GA to see the National Register location of three historic churches. I decided on the way back to swing by the Poplar Springs Camp-Meeting grounds. I just love the idea of them being together with like-minded Christians, under the trees, united in love for Jesus and hearing sermons and music every night. Apparently at Poplar Springs there is a bugle that announces the opening of each night’s sermons!

The historic marker alongside the road says:

Camp meetings have been held here each year from 1832, except four years during the War Between the states. The 50-acre plot, “extending one-half mile in every direction from the preacher´s stand” was purchased by from Daniel and Jacob Groover for $25 by William Hammons, John F. Wilson, George Shell, John B. Wade, Dennis Phillips, Thomas King and Rev. Nelson Osborne, Trustees. The first meeting, August 1832, was held under a brush arbor with 30 tents on the ground. Women were seated on one side of the arbor: men on the other John W. Osborne, appointed usher served at every meeting until his death in 1914.

These are my photos of the place. It’s beautiful. The ‘tents’ are actually rough cabins. The tabernacle is open air on all sides, with hand hewn beams above and wood pews below. The tabernacle AKA the Arbor, is a pole and beam construction supporting a large roof. This July will be the 191st Camp Meeting at Poplar Springs. Tugaloo Holler will play bluegrass music.

There is a monument on the grounds that states:

Poplar Springs Methodist Camp Grounds. 1832 – 1956. Athens Elberton District Methodist Church

“This memorial is erected in July 1956 by Friends of Poplar Springs Camp Grounds who feel that these grounds have constituted a shrine for the past century constantly pointing to the better life and dedicated with earnest prayer that “the faith of our father might live on“

Amen. Amen.

Many of the cabins are owned by family members passed down from one generation to another. This blogger has some great photos of the growth pencil marks on the exterior of some cabins, or the hand prints of the family members, etc. His photos are here and worth looking at. He took them in 2018.

Further Resources & Footnotes

The last photo in the slideshow that’s black and white is from the Georgia Archives Virtual Vault.

You can see even more photos from R. Clegg photography, here

The Historic Rural Churches of Georgia entry for Poplar Springs Camp grounds is here.

Footnotes 1, 2, 3: New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Jul 31, 2018. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/camp-meeting-grounds/

Posted in poetry, theology

Kay Cude Poetry: Be Killing Sin or it Be Killing You

Posted on by elizabethprata

I recommend John Owen’s works. Admittedly, his writing is dense and difficult, being 350 years old. However, there are many helps available to aid understanding of his writing, many notes and modern language updates. Here is one from Meet the Puritans. It is very much worth it to pursue a study of Owen’s monumental books.

Here is Texas Poet Kay Cude with her thoughts sprung from Owen’s work Mortification of Sin. Used with permission. Right-click to open larger in new tab

Posted in theology

Jerry: His JOY Story

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Radio Station TheJOYfm does short stories on people who evidence joy in the Lord. I posted this on my social media yesterday. It encouraged a LOT of people. So I’m posting it here also, in hopes that even more people will be encouraged. The radio station did a JOY story on my elder, Jerry. It’s a great story, if you need encouragement, a smile, or hope.

The JOY FM 

JOY Story | Jerry

In 1983, I was a high school senior playing football in Nebraska. We had a dominant team and cruised through the regular season and first two playoff games unchallenged. Our team was soaring with confidence and expectation as we traveled to the state championship. After an hour-long ride, we confidently piled off the bus to finish business and become, at least in our minds, a dynasty in Nebraska football.

I was holding the ball for our kicker on a kickoff play. He booted it deep and expected that the faster guys on our team would get down there and knock the poor ball carrier into the next county. This time, however, the ball carrier found a gap and barreled toward me. We collided somewhere between the 30 and 35 yard line and my helmet met his helmet with tremendous force. The pain was not excruciating and with adrenaline galore, I tried to get up. Nothing happened.

The game video shows some of my teammates trying to help me up. A medic came racing over and waved off my teammates. I later learned that he saw the way I went down and knew it looked “fishy”. My Mom, Dad and brother soon joined the fray of medical personnel and coaches on the field. I remember Mom squeezing my hand with a worried look on her face asking if I could feel it. I could not and it was heartbreaking to let her know the truth. In the 3 minute ride to the hospital, I can remember two exceptionally comforting thoughts: the Lord gave me the peace that passes all understanding and the conviction that this whole experience was going to ramp up both my need and dependence on Him. Rather than being fearful, I experienced more peace on my way to the hospital than I ever had to that point in my life.

An x-ray showed that I had dislocated C4-5 and cracked one of the vertebrae as well. When my vertebrae were dislocated, the spinal cord was pinched and damaged. My lifetime diagnosis was labeled a C4-5 incomplete injury. I was now a quadriplegic.

As a new quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down, I was flown to a hospital in Denver to start the rehab process. Slowly but surely our Lord began to help me recover some movement! More importantly, He continued to increase my love for the Lord Jesus. After almost four months, I was able to come home and graduate with my high school class.

Looking back, the extraordinary events of that providential night certainly added trials to a life that had previously been largely carefree. But with those came God’s sufficient grace times a thousand! He has unloaded one blessing after another. It has proven to be one of just a few events in my first 56 years that I would not trade for anything because of the sanctification I would have missed out on without it. My wife, Amy, and I have been married 20 years and are blessed with our two children, Ben and Maggie.

I am still confined to a wheelchair and Amy and my children carry much of the load. In addition, six different godly, servant-hearted friends, each with their own morning of the week, relentlessly serve our family by getting me out of bed and ready for the day. My job of teaching Bible at a Christian school continues to provide tremendous joy and would be one of my favorite pastimes even if it wasn’t my job. For me, being a quadriplegic was my journey to being more like Christ. He is using all things – no matter what it is – to perfect the Gospel in me.

Posted in bible, God, prayer

Peter’s impetuousness

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Picture Peter and friends on the boat, in the middle of Lake Galilee.

Suddenly one of the men in the boat looked out and said, “Someone is walking on the water!” Sure enough, with robes flowing in the wind, here comes Jesus walking across the whitecaps.

Peter cried out, “Is that You, Lord?”
The Lord answered, “It is I”
Peter said, “Can I come?”

Continue reading “Peter’s impetuousness” →
Posted in holy spirit, prophecy, regeneration

The beautiful work of the Holy Spirit

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

EPrata photo

When we repent and come into reconciliation with Jesus, He sends the Holy Spirit into us and the Spirit begins the work of regenerating sanctification. Because we are born dead, spiritually empty and carnally minded, when the Spirit comes, He enlivens us and begins the work of shaping us like clay into the Lord’s likeness. Here are but two verses that remind us that He grows us sovereignly and perfectly:

“One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” (Acts 16:14)

“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6)

The change is not instant. We go from one who is dead in the flesh to one who is bearing all the good fruit is that the Spirit nurtures in us (Galatians 5:22-26). Even the Apostle Paul battled flesh (Romans 7:15). But through constant submission, prayer, study of the word, and good works-bearing fruit, the Spirit leads us into good things, which will be completed on the day we are glorified in body at the rapture or upon our death. (Galatians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

But sometimes it is hard to detect if we can see this change in ourselves. In growth by degrees you don’t see it at first. On our first day of school when I see the little kindergarteners I’d worked with last year, I notice that they have sprung up like weeds! I notice it because I had not seen them for 8 weeks. But do I notice growth or change in them day in and day out during the school year? Not so much.

And that’s outward, physical growth. It is even harder to detect fruit-bearing, spiritual growth in myself.

The Bible says for us to “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2). So I do. I ponder heaven, and the Spirit and Jesus and the things He has told us in the Bible.

One day I was musing along in my mind and thought of the statue of the David I’d seen in Italy. It was a beautiful piece of work, so lifelike carved out of marble! ‘It will be gone someday,’ I thought, ‘As will all man-made art.’ I shook my head. But then another thought popped into my mind. “Hey! I can go over and see the REAL David!” My mind was no longer on earthly things but realized that a greater treasure was the resurrected, glorified and perfected David that the Lord had personally set as King of Israel! I laughed out loud. The real David, how about that! I began to get a glimmer of just how beautiful the Lord’s work is in us and that there will be many more things that will be stunningly beautiful that my brain can’t even conceive of but was just getting a tiny glimpse of. Slowly and surely the Holy Spirit does His work in us, praise God.

As we grow, we let go of earthly things and trust the fact that no matter how lovely the man-made things of earth are; like soaring bridges, stately buildings, beautiful art, the LORD is preparing a place for us that will be astoundingly beautiful, the foremost beauty of which are the glorified and redeemed people populating the place through the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ. And more than that, Christ Himself is the most beautiful of all!

RC Sproul used to talk of beauty from the Bible and especially how beautiful God is. He said,

Other texts also talk about God’s beauty. “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). In Psalm 29, David calls upon us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. In both places, the Lord (or significant aspects of His character) are called “beautiful.”

We are being grown in HIS beauty!

Do you have a moment when you came across a growth marker in yourself when you realized that your response to a thought or a situation was a direct result of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit? Let’s celebrate the Spirit’s work!!

Further Reading

Our Beautiful God

Begging: The Place to Start

Posted in theology

How’s your prayer life?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

We always pray for the weak and the hurting. That is good. But please also pray for the strong, whom the weak lean on and don’t usually ask to be prayed for. As more people hurt, more people go to the strong. In other words, let’s all pray for each other.

I finished my Institute for Church Leaders course on the Practice of Prayer. It was excellent, so excellent! The ICL is online and part of The Master’s Seminary. Anyone can take classes, or take a certificate track (usually of 4 classes). The classes run $70 but at the end you take a survey and usually they give you $25 off the next one. Some classes are free. Other times they run a half-off sale. It is not financially burdensome to take any ICL course!

The idea is to help pastors raise up men for leadership, or lay-people interested in strengthening their walk. My prayer course was with Brad Klassen and was rich with truth and wonderful insights.

My next class I’m taking in the Christian Living Track for a certificate, will be Biblical Manhood and Womanhood taught by John Street.

Here are a few thoughts on Prayer. Even with all the joy I felt while learning these things, and the wonder of our opportunity to commune with the Triune God, and the conviction I felt that I don’t pray enough, I still don’t pray enough! But I want to be better.

“Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,” (Ephesians 6:18).

What does prayer do? So MUCH. But here are a few:

It effects forgiveness and cleanses the conscience.

Prayer promotes holiness and mortifies sin.

Prayer taps God’s strength to meet daily needs.

Prayer gives opportunity to experience God’s goodness. (Gulp, this one really convicted me.)

JI Packer used to say, “The best way to diagnose one’s spiritual condition is to ask, ‘How’s your prayer life?'”

Prayer is not:

  • a wish
  • magic that “releases” God
  • mystical meditation
  • positive confession
  • self-help
  • a way to receive revelation

The impulse to pray is innate in humans and only in humans. We were created to have communion with God on a personal level. What a gift! What an opportunity!

We pray in gratitude for this great salvation, for a very present help in times of need, for our future with God… Prayers of gratitude in the Bible are–

2 Samuel 22:47-51, “The Lord lives, and blessed be my Rock; And exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation, 48 The God who executes vengeance for me, And brings down peoples under me, 49 Who also brings me out from my enemies; You also raise me above those who rise up against me; You rescue me from the violent person. 50 Therefore I will give thanks to You, Lord, among the nations, And I will sing praises to Your name. 51 He is a tower of salvation to His king, And shows favor to His anointed, To David and his descendants forever.”

Daniel 2:23, To You, God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, For You have given me wisdom and power; Even now You have made known to me what we requested of You, For You have made known to us the king’s matter.

Psalm 7:17, I will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness And will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalm 9:1, I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders.

Romans 1:8, First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the world.

1 Corinthians 1:4, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus,

Ephesians 1:15-16, For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;

I think I’ll end this here, so that I can go…pray!

Posted in theology

Markers on the way-station of downgrade: Exhibit A, Aimee Byrd

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I was saved in around January 2004. For 18 months I followed Joel Osteen, until I got a Bible that is. In mid-2006 I moved to Georgia and began attending church, and was baptized.

Since then, the acceleration of false teachers populating the faith and their numerous public implosions, seem to be accelerating. Even previously solid-seeming platformed teachers and theologians are falling like dominoes.

Byrd’s Author pic at Amazon

I used to listen to Reformation 21’s Mortification of Spin Podcast with Carl Trueman, Todd Pruitt, and Aimee Byrd. I’m not a huge fan of listening to women, I prefer men, but I was pleased that the so-named “Housewife Theologian” was able to speak on theological issues in a roundtable with men. ‘Good for her’ I’d thought. ‘If she has time away from family to do that.’

Aimee wrote as to why she wrote her book Housewife Theologian: How the Gospel Interrupts the Ordinary and joined the podcast in 2013, “Much of my blogging speaks to why it matters to know the true God and what hinders our growth in this in our own church culture.”

Initial reviews of her first book were good:

Jodi Ware at TGC wrote, She evidences how thinking rightly about God and his revelation strengthens and directs women in their particular roles of wife, mother, and homemaker; though, gratefully, much of what she writes also applies to women in other circumstances and in different stages of life. ~Housewife Theologian: How the Gospel Interrupts the Ordinary, 2013.

Downgrades have always happened, they’re cyclical. “Church history is a series of cycles. You can see what’s going to happen by knowing what happened before.” ~Phil Johnson.

But does it seem to you like it does to me that the downgrades, controversies, falling pastors, teachers exposed as false, whole ministries disqualifying themselves, is happening at an ever increasing rate? It seems to me it’s speeding up.

So in 2013 Aimee Byrd appeared suddenly when her blog got noticed, was put on a podcast, wrote a book, seemingly solid in 2013, but by May 2020 she was gone. Seven years for her arc to appear, crest, and crash. What happened?

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is what happened, Byrd’s 2020 published book where she rejected complementary roles for women, confused the lines between biblical masculinity and biblical femininity, insinuated patriarchal abuse, and more. The book was an outward evidence of her inward drift.

Her drift and new feminist-ish stances upset many. Her book sparked many questions, some of them put onto a lengthy list by Greenville Seminary President Dr. Jonathan Master, published at Reformation 21 titled “Questions for Aimee“.

Byrd replied to Dr. Master at Reformation 21 somewhat wide-eyed innocently that she was ‘a bit perplexed’ by Master’s questions, saying “I wrote a book highlighting how a contemporary movement has damaged the way that we disciple men and women in the church, focusing on the way we read scripture, the way we view discipleship, and our responsibilities to one another.“

No. No, it wasn’t. Most people could see that.

Either Byrd didn’t see it, failing to pay close enough attention to her own drift (Hebrews 2:1), she was cunningly masking it (2 Corinthians 11:15), or she knew exactly what she was doing (Galatians 2:4).

The Council for Manhood & Womanhood was not perplexed with Byrd, but a bit perturbed. The Council knew, as Andy Naselli wrote, that “For the past several years on her podcast and blog, Byrd has been criticizing the version of complementarianism that leaders such as John Piper teach.” They weren’t blindsided at Byrd’s drift, but perhaps they were surprised at the now public level of her rejection of male-female roles. Andy Naselli wrote at the Council that the premise of Byrd’s book was that “Byrd argues that “biblical manhood and womanhood” is not all biblical. A lot of it is unbiblical. A lot of it is based on cultural stereotypes that wrongly restrict women and thus prevent them from flourishing.“

In June of 2020, a month after her book hit the shelves like a bombshell, Aimee Byrd still maintained at Reformation 21 that she was writing about ‘just discipling’, “There are some fundamental differences in the lens CBMW writers and I use in understanding men and women. Also, “I take a look at some of these to see how the female voice functions in Scripture, often telling the story behind the story, making visible the invisible.“

If a person is telling a story not in the Bible, then it’s made-up and based on man’s – er – woman’s biases/philosophies/ideas… Right? Right.

Do you see feminism on the horizon? Or even closer? Many did. Shortly after her book’s publication and the public back-and-forth on blogs etc, The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, which sponsored the Reformation 21 podcast, released Byrd from their cadre of contributors. They wrote:

This post is motivated by the recent action of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Board of Directors to part ways with our long time contributor, Aimee Byrd. Those asked to leave have one thing in common; they have caused our audience to respond in a largely negative way. They have caused other contributors to either speak up, to sit out, or to leave altogether. And these situations often and recently have kept other contributors from joining us. Yet it must be a conversation, a two-way dialogue, and done so graciously. When that is not possible, when contributors will not or cannot define or defend what they believe, continuing together is no longer viable.

The firestorm heated up, naturally, with more militant feminists insisting that Byrd’s release was either due to cyberbullying (Julie Roys’ contention), or that Byrd’s dismissal was due to the fact that the patriarchy is threatened by strong women. (Rachel Green Miller’s contention). Byrd herself countered that she was targeted, underwent spiritual abuse, and was subjected to ‘misogyny’. She insisted she was complementarian, perfectly satisfied with the distinction between male and female roles.

But… if a person is a complementarian inside a complementarian camp, they are not a “threat”, are they? If a person is complementarian, why would they need rebukes? If their biblical orientation of male and female roles was orthodox, why dismiss her from a podcast hosted by two other men who are also orthodox in their biblical views of male and female roles?

It’s a case of speaking out of two sides of the mouth. On the one side, words come out that are supposed to quell the waves of concern, and on the other, words that stir up the waves in the first place. Most people only listen to one side of the mouth of the double speakers. But if you’re ‘inside the camp’, you don’t part ways with same-believing folks.

When Byrd’s book came out in 2020, Denny Burk said of Byrd,

“I predict arguments like Byrd’s will prove over time to be a briefly held way-station on the movement from narrow complementarianism to egalitarianism. Readers who do not wish to take that journey should be cautious about Byrd’s book.” ~Denny Burk.

Well he nailed it. People with discernment see the markers of the slide much earlier than others, and alert the church to them. This month, we see that Aimee Byrd is preaching. Byrd has gone from way-station to terminus.

I changed the word “speak” to “preach” because such minimizing language fools no one. Byrd is preaching in church services. Period.

Colin Smothers at the council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood wrote this month of Byrd’s slide downward,

That Was Then, This Is Now: Aimee Byrd Preaches Her First Sunday Morning Sermon

From the article above: The reason Byrd’s article from 2013 is suddenly relevant today is because this week, in an apparent reversal from the position she once articulated, Aimee Byrd preached her first Sunday morning sermon…

But what is new is Aimee Byrd’s position on preaching, which was on display this past Sunday. How she squares her new position with 1 Timothy 2:12 is yet to be seen. As Andy Naselli pointed out in his excellent review of her 2020 book, 1 Timothy 2:12 is conspicuously absent from Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which she wrote as a trenchant critique of CBMW’s ministry. CBMW was formed in 1987 to help the church faithfully live out verses such as 1 Timothy 2:12, and to not ignore them.

It is of course sad that people drift from the Rock, and if unchecked, drift into deep waters of sin. But the Hebrews verse is pointed, and applicable to each and every person, you and me included.

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every violation and act of disobedience received a just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (Hebrews 2:1-3).

What happens when we do not pay attention? Aimee Byrd is what happens. A very public, and very sad, implosion. But make no mistake! This could happen to any one of us, me included! Drift is an ever-present warning. Our flesh is so strong. We underestimate how strong. Add to that, God put the usurping curse on us (Genesis 3:16). So while it is sad that Aimee Byrd is now usurping the pulpit, hers is an object lesson for all of us. Do not neglect so great a salvation. We will want to, we will sometimes, but pray to the Spirit of God to draw us back. And if we still neglect it, and still drift happily away from the object of our love and devotion, and cease reading His word as our anchor, pray the Spirit will yank us back. Yes, it’s unpleasant when He does that, but it is for the glory of God above all, and our good. Where Byrd landed is the rocks of usurpation and the reefs of feminism. We need to remain under the wings of love.

For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. Psalm 63:7.

Posted in theology

Jackie Hill Perry comes out as a ‘prophet’

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Jackie Hill Perry (JHP) is the latest platformed/celebrity teacher to come out and claim that she hears directly from God. She was hesitant at first to claim this, she wrote on Twitter, because the saints “get weird” when you state such things.

[For good reason, says this saint].

Jackie Hill Perry

But she felt confident enough at last to come out and say that God prophetically deals with her through dreams. She quotes what God has allegedly said, and claims that he has given her information about other people for whom she has interceded. God had told her the gender of her baby.

Her thread is here in Thread Reader Unroll, and it is also below:

I really be wanting to share how the Lord deals with me prophetically but the Saints get weird about stuff like that.

Ok ok. I’ll say this. God primarily deals with me in dreams. I’ve been enlightened, warned, and led to intercede for others through them. But lately, I’ve had an increase of “inner unctions” by the Spirit, that arise in prayer, about people I know and don’t know. It’s deep. 

At the beginning of my walk, I was in a Pentecostal church that gave me room and space to explore this part of myself but after leaving, I haven’t embraced the prophetic out loud as much. Out of fear mainly. But God really does speak to and through His church and I love it. 

One scenario I’ve told folks out loud is how the Lord (through an inner knowing/unction) told me I’d have a son in 2019. Got pregnant w/another girl in 2020 and I was thrown because I was KNEW what God said but I just chunked it up to me being off… 

After I had Sage, we scheduled Preston’s vasectomy because I had no intention of having 4 kids. The night before it, I had a dream that I was holding a boy that was “half dead”. Not because he was dying but because he was being kept from life. As I held him, I felt fear… 

and literally, in the dream, God said “Do you trust me to have a fourth child?” I told the dream to Preston, who’d also had a similar one, we canceled the vasectomy and a few months later, I was pregnant with…a boy. I say all of that to say, we serve a LIVING and SPEAKING God. 

Before this moment I said to myself “If I don’t see blue powder, I’m a false prophet and I’m never claiming to hear from God again.” 

I have yearssssss worth of stories. Not even primarily about me either. God has placed me around a lot of prophetic people and trust me, if you get you some friends that are sensitive to the Spirit, life will forever be interesting.

end JHP Twitter comment

Let’s put this in a larger context than just ‘tsk tsk another one is going out from us’. Which in itself is worthy to note and very sad. There are four points here, maybe more but I want to address these four.

First, let us define terms. JHP uses the word “unction.” It’s an old-fashioned word meaning anointing.

UNCTION—(1 John 2:20, 27; R.V., “anointing”). Kings, prophets, and priests were anointed, in token of receiving divine grace. All believers are, in a secondary sense, what Christ was in a primary sense, “the Lord’s anointed.” Defined in Easton’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary and Treasury of Biblical History, Biography, Geography, Doctrine, and Literature (p. 679).

We see the word used in 1 John 2:20. “But you have an anointing [unction] from the Holy One, and you all know.“

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: But ye have an unction from the Holy One – The apostle in this verse evidently intends to say that he had no apprehension in regard to those to whom he wrote that they would thus apostatize, and bring dishonor on their religion. They had been so anointed by the Holy Spirit that they understood the true nature of religion, and it might be confidently expected that they would persevere. The word “unction” or “anointing” (χρίσμα chrisma) means, properly, “something rubbed in or ointed;” oil for anointing, “ointment;” then it means an anointing. The allusion is to the anointing of kings and priests, or their inauguration or coronation, (1 Samuel 10:1; 1 Samuel 16:13; Exodus 28:41; Exodus 40:15; compare the notes at Matthew 1:1); and the idea seems to have been that the oil thus used was emblematic of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit as qualifying them for the discharge of the duties of their office. Christians, in the New Testament, are described as “kings and priests,” Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10, and as a “royal priesthood” 1 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 2:9; and hence they are represented as “anointed,” or as endowed with those graces of the Spirit, of which anointing was the emblem.

So in fact, believers are ALL anointed. We ALL have ‘unction’. But we do not have special, direct revelation as JHP claims she possesses.

Now to JHP’s claims and my points-

  1. JHP mentions her first “knowing” from God, calling it unction. But it was wrong. The first time, she “knew” she’d have a boy, but it was a girl. If her knowing was from God, then JHP does not address how or why God failed to deliver the correct information. According to Deuteronomy 18:22, this alone would be enough to disqualify her from prophetic service (which expired in the Apostolic age, anyway).
  2. JHP mentions she has been hesitant to reveal her uncommon relationship with God, though it has been going on for many years, because the “saints get weird”. But note that now she feels comfortable to admit it. This is an indictment on the church and on husbands both of whom are supposed to have built for their families strong hedges against false doctrine. If a false prophet feels comfortable enough to reveal her revelations, it is not only the false prophet to blame, but her followers who have heaped her up (2 Timothy 4:3) and a weak church that lacks both discernment and discipline to maintain that hedge.
  3. This is the other #MeToo Movement- “I hear from God too.” It is becoming a scourge. Numerous women with large platforms are running around waving prophecies, predictions, and revelations from a God they obviously don’t know, but still are deceiving many. (Matthew 7:15). Birds of a feather flock together, (1 Corinthians 15:33), so more and more women feel secure enough to add their voice to the clamor. Because, who’s going to rebuke them? No one, it seems.
  4. Claiming private revelations displays a lack of discernment, declares the Bible insufficient, and makes the even ground at the cross among the saints a two-tiered hierarchy between those who hear God and those who don’t. It leaves them all open to accepting errant theology.

All of the above is a huge problem in the church. John MacArthur has said several times over the years that the greatest issue in the church is lack of discernment. This leads to biblical illiteracy, which in turn leads to false doctrines creeping in. Here is MacArthur:

Another way to approach the subject would be to ask the question, “What is the greatest need? People ask me this all the time, “What’s the greatest need in the church today? What is the most compelling need? What do you see as the biggest problem in Christianity, the biggest problem in the church? It’s simple for me to answer that. The biggest problem in the church today is the absence of discernment. It’s a lack of discernment. It’s the biggest problem with Christian people. They make bad choices. They accept the wrong thing. They accept the wrong theology. They are prone to the wrong teaching. They’re unwise in who they follow, what they listen to, and what they read. SOURCE

Ladies, God is living and He is speaking, but He speaks through His word, not in dreams telling you the gender of your baby, and other ‘unctions’ as claimed. We “get weird” because it’s false. Please do not feel left out if you also don’t hear from God as these other women claim. There are a lot of them, not just the fringe ones at the crazy edge of the faith, but women in the so-called conservative fold, like Jennie Allen (founder of IF:Gathering), Joanna Gaines (of Magnolia everything), Beth Moore (formerly of SBC & Lifeway), Sarah Young (of Jesus Calling), Priscilla Shirer (of the movie War Room), JHP, and many others. God spoke in His word through His Son. The same Son who descended from glory to live a perfect life on our behalf, die excruciatingly on the cross, be buried in a stinky tomb, and raised again to be ascended to the Father. Isn’t that enough? The Bible is enough.

When you claim the prophetic voice you hear is from God, you are saying “the Bible is not enough. I need more.” It’s as simple as that.

What can WE do?

  1. Pray for JHP that the Lord would graciously deliver to her a discerning mind.
  2. Pray for ourselves that the Lord would graciously keep us in our right mind and away from deceiving lusts and false doctrine.
  3. Keep reading the word of God. It’s the only weapon against wolves and their doctrines of demons.
  4. Be brave. Brave enough to point out false doctrine when it comes your way. Don’t be afraid of the “Tone Police” as Phil Johnson expertly encourages here (start at 22:40, sermon is aptly called “Fortitude“).

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Matthew 7:15

Yet in the same way these people also, dreaming, defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak abusively of angelic majesties. Jude 1:8

In this 9-minute video Spencer Smith opines about Jackie Hill Perry’s recent rejection of the American Gospel documentary and where she regrets her participation in it. (Sure enough we regret your participation in it, too!). Smith also opines about his bemusement as to why JHP was included in the first place, lol. His opinions were insightful to me. (Disclaimer: I do not know who Spencer Smith is, nor have I vetted the body of his work, but I liked and agreed with this particular video).

FURTHER RESOURCES

Does God speak to us audibly?

Beware of false teachers

The miraculous gifts have ceased

Posted in theology

Kay Cude poetry: Faith and a Broken Heart

Posted on by elizabethprata

Kay Cude poetry. Used with permission.

Artist’s Statement: By Kay Cude

“There are staunchly defended and heatedly argued “opinions” concerning man’s “free-will” faith (the heart’s object is “self”) and his personal work of “inviting, allowing, and/or accepting” Christ VS. faith (the heart’s object is Jesus) that is supplied by God in and through His sovereign act of-“

(1) drawing one to Christ and
(2) saving them.

“There are very heated intra- and inter-denominational disagreements about “Lordship Salvation” (one repents and surrenders to Christ’s Lordship at the moment of saving faith–the heart’s object is Jesus) VS. a believer “finally making Jesus the Lord of their life” (sometime much later, usually long after they’ve decided to “invite, allow, and/or accept” Christ as Saviour–the heart’s object remains “self”).”

And yet it truly is a penitent heart where God works His saving work! It is our broken heart for sin that makes us hear His Words clearly–and we respond! I agree with Thomas Watson, “True faith is always in a heart bruised for sin.”

We obtain saving faith by hearing the Gospel exhorted from God’s undiluted, unedited, unaltered, and inerrant Word preached by His true and faithful servants. Truly, a penitent and believing heart is pricked to respond to God’s drawing them to Christ, for God Himself provides that one the faith necessary to believe, repent, and follow Jesus as Saviour, Lord, and Master. It is terribly sad that more often than not, a hard and impenitent heart will remain unaffected.

It may become a “pretender,” but as stated by Thomas Watson, “it is not [of] the true faith.”

I first came upon Thomas Watson’s penetrating quotation while listening to John MacArthur’s sermon, “Spiritually Living, Yet Still Stinking.”

right-click to open larger in new tab

—————————————
Kay Cude is a Texas poet.