Examining a Gothard Book, Part 6

This post is part four of examining Chapter 3: To Inspire Mighty Men! of Bill Gothard’s book, 7 Basic Needs of a Wife. 

With the last post I ended with number 7 of Gothard’s 21 “secrets for successful child rearing.” 

Eighth secret: Boundaries for Exploration. (pg.32). Children who have no boundaries become emotionally insecure and mentally unstable.
I wonder what studies Gothard has made to come to such a conclusion. This is where “blanket training” come in: A playpen or a “play rug” is an example of a boundary. I’ve known one family using this method and have read a lot of testimonies from parents and grown children. A playpen isn’t something a baby is usually able to climb out of, but when they are put on a rug or a blanket it is normal for them to want to crawl around. Child abuse comes in when “training” the baby/toddler to say within that boundary—their hands or feet are smacked whenever extended past the boundary.

Ninth secret: Feeding by Wise Schedules. (pg.32) A strong controversy has developed over the manner in which a new-born should be fed. Should the child be fed “on-demand” or on a schedule? Those who argue for on-demand feeding need to realize the by so doing they are training their child to get what he or she wants by simply crying out. … The goal of scheduled feeding is to bring the child’s will into conformity to the parents’ authority. … Feeding on demand will produce a demanding child.

Now remember, this man has never been married, nor has he had children! We had two children, both nursed by mom unless mom was unable and then we used a bottle with mother’s milk. My wife fed on demand—i.e. when the child was hungry! No—it did not producing demanding children. All those we know who fed on demand did not produce demanding children. It does NOT train a child to “get what he or she wants by simply crying out.” The foolishness and ignorance of such teaching is damaging to those who listen to it.

AH, but let’s look at what Gothard uses to demonstrate how his teaching is correct:

God meets our needs as a Father who loves His children. However, HE does not always give us what we want when we demand it [um, I don’t know any Christian who “demands” from God]. David expressed his experience of learning to wait on God by saying, “O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry” (Psalm 88:1-2).
Talk about twisting Scripture to support a belief!!!! This passage has nothing to do with feeding a baby!

Tenth secret: Birth-Order Tendencies. (Pg.33).  Gothard uses Cain and Able, and “the prodigal son” as examples of the “tendency of the firstborn to reject the second born son”  as proof of a standard/general enmity between first-born and second-born sons, and therefore, Mothers who want to train up mighty sons and daughters must understand and respond to birth-order tendencies. Maybe I’m ignorant, but I’ve never met families with this sort of trouble, so to make it as a general claim is erroneous.

Eleventh secret: One-Accord Power (pg.33) A family that has and maintains one-accord unity will have sons and daughters who are mighty in Spirit. What if a family does as he says and yet not all their children are “might in Spirit”? The periodic observance of the Lord’s Table and Communion in the home is an essential aspect of maintaining a one-accord power…. Well, I’ve never known any family who regularly, if at all, practice this observance in their home. I guess most families are at risk!

Twelfth secret: The Fear of God (pg.33-34). Other than some rambling, I can’t disagree.

Thirteenth secret: “Day Tight” Schedules. (pg.34). God designed the day to begin in the evening. As we meditate on Scripture when going to sleep and also asks God for wisdom for the projects of the day, our “reins also instruct me in the night seasons” (Psalm 16:7).

I can’t disagree with keeping schedules for activities, but one must also be flexible enough to make adjustments, but to abuse a passage of scripture to make a point is inexcusable.

Fourteenth secret: Verbal Blessings (pg.34). Gothard begins with his usual habit of an anecdote, supposedly of a real incident. Then he writes, A verbal blessing of the father [not also the mother?] has great power in setting the goals and desires of his sons and daughters. A blessing involves asking God out loud to impart a son or daughter with the qualities that he or she needs to become successful. 

Can anyone show me from scripture this recipe for blessings? Can not BOTH parents bless their children? Can not the parents, in their own prayers, ask God to bless their children. That’s part of the problem with Gothard’s ideology—it’s so formulated for everything.

Fifteenth secret: Justice vs. Fairness (pg.35). God is a God of compensation. If He withholds a benefit from one person, He will compensate with other benefits which, in the long run, turn out to be more valuable.. This compensation is illustrated in the Body of Christ, where one member is given greater attractiveness and another who is less attractive is given greater importance. Another example is with those who are born in a poor family and yet are made rich in faith, and through faith they are able to acquire what is needed. (See James 2:5.).

Please show me from Scripture where this nonsense found—and James 2:5 has nothing to do with Gothard’s claims!!! Gothard just makes stuff up!!!

Sixteenth secret: Melodious and Triumphant Music (pg.35). Unclean music is produced by taking the corrupt music of the world, which promotes rebellion, immorality, and drug abuse, and combining it with Christian words. This music is the doorway through which unclean spirits are entering the hearts and souls of Christian teenagers and drawing them into the addictions of pornography, eating disorders , immorality, anger, lust, etc. Music and light are related, and Satan appears as an angel of light to deceive. (See Matthew 24:24).

First, who determines what music is “corrupt”? Just because it is secular? We sang a hymn which is to the tune of Auld Lang Syne—is that corrupt? The hymn, Hail the Glorious, Golden City is to the tune of the Austrian Hymn, used by the Nazis! I fully agree that there are some secular song which are trash, and some music sounds like it’s of the devil and not good for praising God with, but who makes that decision? Where is the evidence that such “unclean” music gives a “doorway” to unclean spirits so they can enter the “hearts and souls” of Christian youth—where does the Bible say unclean spirits can enter the “hearts and souls” of Christians? And just what has Matthew 24:24 have to do with music—It’s about false prophets!!! And where does it say, in Scripture or anywhere else, that light and music are related?!?  Bill Gothard just makes up stuff as he goes!

God forced the unclean spirit in Saul to flee as David played melodious music on his harp. (See 1 Samuel 16:23).

The Bible doesn’t say God forced the spirit to leave Saul, it just says the spirit left as David played. 

Stay tuned for the remaining “secrets” in future posts.

Not What My Hands Have Done

Not what my hands have done
Can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers,
And sighs and tears
Can bear my awful load.

Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin
Thy blood alone O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.
Thy love to me O God,
Not mine, O Lord, to Thee
Can rid me of
This dark unrest,
And set my spirit free!

Thy grace alone, O God,
To me can pardon speak;
Thy power alone O Son of God,
Can this sore bondage break.
No other work, save Thine,
No other blood will do,
No strength save that,
Which is divine,
Can bear me safely through.

I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart,
I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt,
I bury in His tomb
My unbelief,
And all my fear,
Each lingering shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace,
I trust His truth and might
He calls me His, I call Him mine,
My God, my joy, my light
Tis He Who saveth me,
And freely pardon gives
I love because
He loveth me,
I live because He lives!

Horatius Bonar

The Passion Translation

This “Bible” version should be called a “mis-translation.” 

The following article was posted on Facebook by Mike Winger.

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Important reminder:

An example of someone who is “getting away with it.”

THIS is the guy who wrote “The Passion Translation” of the Bible, which has been endorsed by Bethel Church and is still available on YouVersion and other apps, despite the fact that it has been panned by numerous scholars as unreliable. 

Does Brian Simmons deny that he said these things? 

This is stuff Brian Simmons, author of The Passion Translation of the Bible, has claimed… (I have video footage of all of these claims)

1. He's gone to heaven, grabbed two books from “the library of heaven” and brought them back to earth. 

2. Billy Graham visited him in a dream. 

3. God gave him secrets of Hebrew and Greek that he has used to make his new translation of the Bible. 

4. His wife has levitated off the ground twice and has seven dreams from God every night. 

5. The great last days harvest will begin in 2013 when every stadium in New York will be filled with evangelistic activities, and continue through 2020 when it will really ramp up. (Imagine someone prophesying that 2020 will be a great year of public outreach events). 30 million Americans will get saved during this time. 

6. Between 2015 and 2016, 20% of Californians will get saved. 

7. He went on a long ride, on a fiery chariot, through the northeast area of the U.S. and watched the sunrise with “a prophet whose name you would know.”

8. God touched his head and supernaturally “expanded the capacity” of his brain. Brian says he confirmed this with a “top brain mapping scientist.”

9. One day in the future God will give him a book that has all the unwritten works of Jesus. This will spark a massive new revival around the world. 

10. Brian will one day have so much glory on him that people within a 50 mile radius will feel it. 

11. One day soon (as of several years ago) God would literally put supernatural pillars of fire over church buildings so that people won’t have to ask where the church is. They will see it. 

12. Brian understands the book of Revelation better than other people because God gave him the “spirit of revelation.”

13. Adam teleported around the Garden of Eden.

14. In order for him to translate the Bible he says “It was like I received a chip” in his head and that “Immediately, downloads came.” 

15. Many of his supernatural revelations and new understandings of the Bible are not only included in his Passion Translation of the Bible but are also included in the footnotes. 

16. Fire once shot out of his head and caught a church on fire. They had to call the fire department and replace the sound system. 

17. He once went to the store to get milk and the glory of God was so powerfully on him that everyone he passed by just fell over. He first thought they were all having heart attacks but then realized it was the glory. 

18. He doesn’t understand why more people won’t call the Holy Spirit “her.”

Some of these claims can be tested and some can not. The ones that can be tested (such as prophecy about stadiums and specific numbers of people getting saved) are demonstrably false. What does that tell you about the ones that can’t be tested?

Some Things to Think About

(Always click photos on this blog to enlarge them.)

Do Not Denigrate the Original Languages of the Bible.  One of the problems with the KJV Only cult. 

If you haven’t heard the speech by Harrison Butker, watch this video, then read what The Christian Post feminist commentator wrote. I agree with Butker, not what is supposed to be a Christian publication.

A Defining Moment: The REAL definition of marriage.

The Pastor Who Lied To 22 Million People? Daniel Kolenda.

Charismatic False Prophets Face Plant…Again.

Love Doesn’t Trump God’s Moral Commands.

Six reasons why you should avoid Beth Moore.  And she “Denounces Southern Baptists as “Masters of Diversion” For Dealing With Women Preachers

Reasons to avoid Lori Alexander.

Five reasons to avoid Jackie Hill Perry.

Reasons why Joyce Meyer is a false teacher.

The Episcopal Church’s dive to apostasy continues deeper and quicker.

Bill Johnson and Bethel Church lies exposed.

A NEW Level of DECEPTION is here.  While he gives some excellent information as to false teachers to avoid, I find Jordan to be rather juvenile with his ball cap on backwards; very distracting as he is saying, “look at me!”

Conference holders are often non-discerning when it comes to what speakers they invite, and inviting Glenn Beck is an example.

Still think The Chosen has no Mormon connection?

Examining a Gothard Book, Part 5

This post is part three of examining Chapter 3: To Inspire Mighty Men! of Bill Gothard’s book, 7 Basic Needs of a Wife. 

In the section titled, 3. A God-Given Life Message Gothard has the following (pg.24):

1. A law system for one family—Adam’s

God gave Adam ten specific commandments that Adam was to obey and teach to his wife and children.

Yet Gothard gave no reference and no hint of such commandments, and I certainly haven’t been able to find them in Genesis!

Training Children Who Will Not Depart.

Many pastors are actually embarrassed over this promise in Proverbs: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6). These pastors try to explain away this verse, because they know of Godly couples who trained up their children and when those children went to college, they rejected what they had been taught and followed the ways of the world.

Rather than looking for loopholes in the promise, we should evaluate they way in which we train up sons and daughters. We no doubt will discover significant areas of neglect, which will explain why they departed from the Lord.

Pg. 25

Firstly, the Proverbs are not promises—the are “proverbs,” i.e. general statements of how things normally go. Many, many parents raise up their children in the Lord in every way possible but they cannot FORCE their children to do as they were taught. College is well-known for having destructive teachings to lead students astray and away from the Lord. Yes, SOME parents neglect proper training, but I know too many who did just about everything right and yet one or more of their children, once on their own, turned their backs on what they were taught. Mr. Gothard has to twist this Proverb into a promise in order to denigrate parents who have children who go astray. It must be remembered the Gothard has never been married and never had children and yet insolently decides he knows better than real parents.

Under the section of, “How to Train up Mighty Men!”, there are 21 “secrets for successful child rearing” to be found in Scripture. As we look over what he calls “secrets,” keep remembering that this is from a man who never married or had children. Let’s look at some highlights of these secrets.

First secret: Desire for Children (pg.27)

A mother was puzzled and frustrated because her son had reacted to her from the day he had been born. When she was asked if she wanted to have that child, she answered, “No, I was not ready to have a child, and I actually resented the fact that I was with child.” 

This mother was informed that babies in the womb can sense in their spirit whether they are desired or unwanted. This discernment will affect their responses after birth. 

She asked God to forgive her for her wrong attitude toward His blessing, and when her son was old enough to understand, she asked him to also forgive her for her wrong attitude toward him before he was born.

Where in Scripture does it say that the spirit of the child is able to discern whether it is wanted, or where does science tell us this? The idea that a child in the womb can sense whether it is wanted is just plain outlandish.

Second secret: Dedication Before Conception.(pg.27)

Every son should know that even before he was born, he was dedicated to God for His service and that before he was formed in the womb God planned for him to impact nations for God’s glory.
Gothard then cites Jeremiah 1:5 as his evidence. Just one problem—that passage is only about Jeremiah. What if the Christian parents don’t dedicate the boy (not a girl?) before birth? What if God doesn’t have plan for the child to “impact nations”? How many Christian actually “impact nations” with service? So how could Gothard say this?

Third secret: Abstinence From Wine. (Pg. 28, Cites Judges 13:3-4)

If a mother wants to train up mighty men, she must eliminate wine and unclean meats from her home and diet.

Mark 7:19 says there are no unclean meats for Christians. The laws against clean and unclean foods were specifically for Jews to begin with. There is nothing in Scripture condemning the drinking of wine—only the excessive use of it. A mother should not drink alcohol when with child because of possible damage to the child, but otherwise there is no need to eliminate wine from the home.

Fourth secret: Pre-Birth Training.(pg.29)

It is now a well-established fact that an unborn child can recognize voices outside the womb and discern what is being said. The unborn child’s mind is not yet developed, but his spirit is given at conception and is capable of discernment. (Cites John the Baptist response when he heard Mary’s voice.)

The reaction of the Baptist to Mary’s voice was a special gift of God. If babies in the womb can discern what people say, then why can’t they understand what is said immediately after birth?

Fifth secret: Proper Birth Procedures (pg.30-31)

Gothard decries a hospital birth as “counterproductive to a healthy birth” due to stress and trauma for mother and child and other procedures he lists which are used only with troubled births. His reasoning for avoiding hospitals is because of Isaiah 66:9 and Jeremiah 32:27, which of course have nothing to do with birth procedures. He does confess that “There may be certain conditions in the mother or the baby that will require medial assistance,” which is good, but then he states that, “in general, a well-planned home birth with an experienced midwife and a wise hospital backup plan is the best way to bring a child into the world.”

Again, a man who has never been married or had children has decided that he KNOWS the “best way.”

Sixth secret: Bonding at Birth (pg. 31)

There is an important event that should take place at birth that will bond the baby with his or her parents and other family members. It involves breathing on the baby.

Gothard cites as “precedent” God breathing into Adam’s nostrils (Gen. 2:7) and Jesus breathing on his disciples after rising from the dead (John 20:22). God breathed LIFE into Adam and Jesus’ breathing was giving them the Holy Spirit!!!!. Holding a baby is bonding with it, especially when the mother breastfeeds.

Seventh secret: Circumcision on the Eighth Day (pg.31)

In order to train up mighty men, we must follow God’s instructions for good health. Circumcision was established by God long before the Law was given to Moses…. It is…a practice that has definitive health benefits and is associated with Godly young men, whereas uncircumcised men are associated with immorality throughout Scripture.

Circumcision was/is a sign of a covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham’s descendants. Christians are not part of that covenant, and that sign had nothing to do with health. Furthermore, in the O.T. where the uncircumcised are associated with immorality it was because the comparisons were between Jews (who were circumscribed by covenant with God) and the gentiles. Gothard has a love affair with O.T. laws that were part of covenants with specific people!!

I will continue next time with part 6 of examining Chapter 3: To Inspire Mighty Men! of Bill Gothard’s book, 7 Basic Needs of a Wife.