Charisma
and Theology Do Not Equate to Character and True Spirituality
The
four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — show several encounters of Jesus
with theologians. Largely, they were not positive encounters, because the
theologians thought that they knew much more than Jesus did.
Even
though they had the same Old Testament that Christians use today, they could
not believe that Jesus was God.
Even though they saw Jesus healing the
sick, they could not believe that these miracles were from God.
Even though they saw Jesus delivering
people from demonic oppression, they thought that the power Jesus was using was
demonic.
Their theology, coupled with a lack of
real fellowship with God, hindered them from seeing the obvious reality: Jesus
was God, His miracles were divine and He was above their human traditions and theology.
They were unable to see such powerful reality, which was visible only to
spiritual eyes.
So theological eyes do not equate to spiritual
eyes.
Theologians can have massive theoretic knowledge
of God — just as the theologians who confronted Jesus had —, but without spiritual
eyes theological eyes are blind.
Sadducees and Pharisees, the theologians
who saw no divinity in Jesus, had no character and spirituality. Their religion
was only formal and nominal theological theories, as Jesus showed when he
confronted their empty religiosity.
The same problem often happens to
theologians today. They have massive theoretic theological knowledge, but no
real knowledge and fellowship with Jesus. Sadducees and Pharisees have
inhabited the hearts of theologians for centuries. Pride is an old companion of
theoretic theology.
If theology can pose its own challenges by
simulating spirituality when there is hypocrisy and false spirituality, a lack
of proper Bible knowledge and character can pose other dangers.
The Bible says that Samson had a big
strength, and this was a gift from God. He had no character and he was an
immoral man, but his gift never left him.
He could stand in the presence of a massive
crowd and show his great strength. Weak people could conclude that God’s
strength in him equated to God’s character in him. But this was not so.
Theology and charisma never equate to character.
Many people who have character has no
theology and charisma, and many people with theology and charisma have no
character.
If you see a man with big theological rhetoric,
it does not follow that he has a big character.
If you see a man showing big spiritual
signs, it does not follow that he has a big character.
The biggest scandals in the church happen
when people put excessive trust in the theology of a man — this
happened with Ravi Zacharias, who had a big theology, but a terrible character
— or in the charisma of a man — Jimmy Swaggart was an example.
The spiritual task of a man of God is to
point people to Jesus. When he points people to his own glory, going after
their money, tragedy follows.
Every human being is prone to fall. But if
a man of God points everybody to Jesus, even if he falls, people will continue
looking to Jesus.
Theology or charisma without character
points people to human glory. Character, even without big theology or charisma,
points everybody to Jesus. So if he falls, no one will notice because all of
them are with their eyes fixated on Jesus.
More important than having a big theology or
big gifts of the Holy Spirit is to have our eyes fixated on Jesus.
Yes, if possible, we should have theology
and big spiritual gifts. But without constant fellowship with Jesus, theology
and charisma are useless and harm our mission to bring people to Jesus and His
Kingdom.
The Bible says,
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but
test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have
gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1 NKJV)
We are taught to test the spirits within
the church, especially to see if the theology and spiritual gifts are according
to the character of God. We should test the spirit of leaders who have theology
and charisma.
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV)
God’s Word never deceives. Even the heart
of people with theology and charisma can deceive. So we should never avoid the responsibility
to test the spirits.
We are taught not to trust in our hearts
and in the hearts of other people. We have always to trust in Jesus and His
heart.
If you attend church only for a nice
philosophical sermon, demons will use it to dupe you. I knew a former Presbyterian
minister who had a superb philosophical and theological knowledge. When he fell
in adultery and other scandals, his followers were shocked that their idol let
them down, because his theological philosophy pointed people not to Jesus
Christ, but to himself as a gospel superstar. Many became apostate.
If you attend church because you want to
see big miracles but you do not care about the character of the superstar
preacher, sooner or later you will be let down.
The only SuperStar in the churches should
be Jesus Christ. Beware of any charismatic or theological superstar who points
people to himself, not to Jesus Christ.
The church does not need pastors with the strength
of Samson but with no character.
The church does not need pastors with the
massive theological knowledge of Sadducees and Pharisees but with no character
and real spirituality.
The church needs pastors with a sheep
spirit for Jesus willing to make sheep for Jesus. Pastors who do not want to have
such sheep spirit eventually become greedy wolves.
The best way to avoid such wolves is to beware
of leaders with charisma and theology with no character.
Test the spirits. By doing so, you will
save yourself from wolves.
Portuguese
version of this article: Dons
espirituais e teologia não equivalem a caráter e à verdadeira espiritualidade
Source: Last Days Watchman
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