{"id":178,"date":"2012-06-25T08:47:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T08:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meditations.kafkasworld.com\/dir\/?p=178"},"modified":"2012-06-25T08:47:33","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T08:47:33","slug":"too-many-visions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/25\/too-many-visions\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Many Visions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Too Many Visions
\nCopyright 2011 by Shea Oakley
\nAll rights reserved<\/p>\n

Things are so often not what they seem. This is a statement that applies to the human condition whether the humans being referred to are believers or non-believers. It is a profound reality in the world as it now is and will be for as long as the world as a whole remains unredeemed.<\/p>\n

Understanding that this is so is a very important requirement for Christian living that is both authentic and healthy. It is also important to understand that the spirit of deception seems to be becoming ever more pervasive in the opening decades of the twenty-First century. We live in an era when thousands of voices, many purporting to be Christian, are competing for our attention and doing so through an electronic media that is still growing in its already massive influence. The results are a multitude of ways to perceive \u201creality\u201d, including the ultimate form of reality claimed by Christianity.<\/p>\n

The Bible tells us that \u201cthere is a way that seems right to a man, but which leads to death\u201d. As someone also once said it is eminently possible for a person to be \u201csincerely wrong\u201d. Many are those in the Church today who have very sincere, yet differing, perspectives on what it means or doesn\u2019t mean to be a disciple of Christ. The question is who is truly speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and who is not? With so many of the aforementioned voices out there it is becoming, in my view, harder and harder to know.<\/p>\n

In 20 years of faith I have heard a myriad of takes on what true Christianity is and what it isn\u2019t on both a macro and micro level. The winds of doctrine continue to blow and added to them we now have a number of not specifically-biblical philosophies that many of us are trying to safely interpret through a biblical lens. The social revolution that the West has gone through over the past four or five decades has introduced a multiplicity of \u201cworldviews\u201d which the thinking Christian cannot cavalierly dismiss. Every age has required believers in Jesus Christ to \u201ctake the good and leave the bad\u201d, so to speak, as far as the surrounding culture. This age is no different, except in one cardinal way. We have to deal with much more available information than our forebears who did not have to contend with what might be called the \u201cglobal electronic information hive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The airwaves and the internet are full of supposedly Christian voices that sound believable, yet have a tendency to subtlety or not so subtlety contradict one another. The result, it seems, are congregations of people who, already being too immersed in secular pop culture, are also becoming too open to the contemporary idea that one can hold multiple positions on what were once black and white issues.<\/p>\n

Admittedly there are legitimate differences of opinion about just what is black and white and what is \u201cgrey\u201d in following the God of the Bible. This has always been true and has always set off debate within the Church. But today we seem to be entering a period when almost anything can be made grey just as long as one can find enough internet bloggers disagreeing about it!<\/p>\n

The basic heart of any debate is the fact of one person thinking that the other doesn\u2019t understand what is true and what isn\u2019t. This brings us back to the opening statement of this essay that \u201cthings are so often not what they seem\u201d. As Twenty-First Century Christians we are in the process of becoming so overwhelmed with hearing differing visions of true faith, each of which seems reasonable, that we can no longer hear the still, small voice of the Spirit amid the din. If we in the process lose all ability to hear that voice of absolute truth then we are, simply put, lost.<\/p>\n

The Bible speaks of a great apostasy that will mark the Church in the closing days of this dying age. I do not think it extreme to propose that we have entered into that period. The Scripture says that where \u201cthere is no vision the people perish\u201d. Is it unreasonable to posit that the same is true when there are too many visions?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too Many Visions Copyright 2011 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Things are so often not what they seem. This is a statement that applies to the human condition whether the humans being referred to are believers or non-believers. It is a profound reality in the world as it now is and will be for… <\/p>\n

Read more Too Many Visions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-christian","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6GkOA-2S","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":353,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/24\/why-community-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":0},"title":"Why Community Matters","date":"January 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Why Community Matters Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Probably during no other period in human history has a society unknowingly promoted alienation as much as our own. 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What exactly does the term mean and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":371,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2013\/05\/02\/371\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":2},"title":"The Only Way to Stop Sinning","date":"May 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Every believer is called upon to resist temptation and avoid sin. Our sanctification depends on a progressive rooting out of sin that continues throughout our earthly lives. The problem is how to successfully overcome the temptations we face on a daily basis. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/13\/of-carts-and-horses\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":3},"title":"Of Carts and Horses","date":"July 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Of Carts and Horses Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved \u201cIf we insist that a man must believe in the doctrine of the Trinity and the inspiration of the Scriptures before he can be saved, we are putting the cart before the horse. All that is the effect of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":751,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/25\/meditation-365-spiritual-growth-versus-christian-perfectionism\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":4},"title":"Spiritual Growth versus \u201cChristian Perfectionism\u201d","date":"November 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2015 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved It is a biblical truism that we should never be so satisfied with our spiritual growth that we stop seeking it. However is it also possible that we can become so dissatisfied with the perception of our \u201cgrowth rate\u201d that we are\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":678,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/30\/afflicting-the-afflicted\/","url_meta":{"origin":178,"position":5},"title":"Afflicting the Afflicted?","date":"June 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2015 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved During my nearly\u00a025 years as a believer I have observed in some church\u2019s a tendency for preachers and teachers to consistently favor exhortational sermons over encouraging ones. 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