The New Apostolic Reformation: Is Bethel NAR? Questions for Bethel Leadership (Part 2)

like uh crew my favorite thing about crew is he's like no no that was the fake take i'll let all the stupid stuff get out of your system and then i started the video we're always laughing when it starts it's always guys welcome to remnant radio this part two of our episode tonight uh we are actually talking about the new apostolic reformation and we're actually going to talk a little bit towards the end of the episode if bethel fits the description of the new apostolic reformation uh my name is joshua lewis you're watching remnant radio this is a theology broadcast we interview pastors and teachers from different churches and denominations anglicans lutherans methodists baptist pentecostals and the like our goal is to suspend our presupposition study the scripture and show ourselves approved learn from our christian brothers outside of our specific denomination destabilize the christian echo chamber and uh and man just learn from one another it's going to be a great conversation today if you're interested in doing something like that and learning from these theological voices uh go ahead and hit subscribe and like the video as we're coming out with content just like this to my left your right i am joined with michael rountree who's not actually typing at all he's just touching his keyboard so he looks important uh michael uh yes how are you doing i'm doing great we just had a great episode i'm full of joy oh man but i wanted to talk about grave sucking so bad so we'll we'll do it tomorrow we're gonna i guess tomorrow or maybe or maybe tonight you guys pray for us if we have energy we might just go to the closest to a live stream and we might make this into a triple header we'll see but i just had a great episode about objections to bethel we stuck with the kind of theological ones in nature we want to get to some practical ones talk uh grave sucking and glory clouds and some of that kind of stuff so uh anyway so we're gonna get to those other questions that you have either next episode if we decide we're gonna do a next episode tonight or tomorrow uh okay but make sure you subscribe to this channel because we have all kinds of great common uh great episodes that are coming out that have already come out uh last week we had uh dr beal on the show talk about the apostolic use of the old testament uh within the new testament helps us understand how we should be interpreting the bible we had dr jordan cooper talking talking lutheran soteriology uh pastor david coyce expository preaching so uh had a bunch of great uh great episodes and then we have more tomorrow more with elijah stevens and we're so excited about that going to talk anti-intellectualism and the charismatic community that's coming up tomorrow so um elijah tell us a little bit about yourself i know we just did this last episode but we got to do it again people might just watch this one episode okay uh i'll ask i'll ask unique questions this time um so my background my undergrad was philosophy my other undergrad psychology my grads are apologetics and my other ones science and religion i've been working on a film about miracles medical evidence for the past uh five years i went through three years of um bssm not everybody knows what that stands for bethel school supernatural ministry all right and so yeah it's great okay so just so that's unique from last episode if you had to use a single weapon in a zombie apocalypse oh gosh what weapon would it be um this is pretty telling by the way psychologically well i'm i'm thinking of a mark 19 which a bo staff no you know uh which is a grenade launcher uh okay so yeah i almost want to say it now because right now it sounds horrible he said gandalf staff which is a poorly timed joke it's a poorly timed joke that'll be in another episode some people will get it others won't if you don't get it that's okay it'll be the live comment chat people explain it to you okay uh we are going to talk about the new apostolic reformation there is a book by holly and doug um uh and they did i i want to say they did a great job articulating categories and i've actually seen people have these kinds of categories of theology uh within christendom and said hey that seems to be the category that see peter wagner used you guys articulated something almost identical in the book i see that i don't necessarily agree with the way they categorized subgroups as nar because i don't think that they fit the description that they gave in the book but overall i really liked the book and i recommended it i posted it on facebook and i said hey you've enjoyed the book you guys should pick it up you liked it yeah i've enjoyed it i mean josh you know you posted on like saturday you should read this book so i bought it on saturday i read like 100 pages this monday i like it a lot so far it's really informative and just understanding even what i hear people talking about nar and ar and it's like it's like this amorphous blob trying to define like what exactly is it i mean you can't like youtube can't tell you blogs can't tell you like what is it then you like talk to someone who's supposedly in the nar and they're like i don't know what it is i've never heard of that so this book is really helpful okay so what i'd like to do in this episode um is i'd like to run through the categories um so how does see peter wagner define nar how does holly and doug define nar which and we're starting to see peter wagner because he basically coined the term he coined that he invented it uh and then uh defining how i wrote internet trolls hyper critics people who are who are loose with categories in the same way that we talked about uh pentecostals charismatics being loose with categories uh we can be very loose with categories as an attempt to demonize everyone we don't like into the same category um some people are guilty of this some people are not um so we want to be careful and make sure that when we're defining categories and i want to be very very clear i do not believe that holly and doug are intentionally trying to throw every pentecostal and charismatic into the same category they go out of their way over and over in the book to say like assemblies of god and classical pentecostals do a very good job trying to defend the category of apostle and prophet they quote theology theologians from i want to say tabit school of theology uh to say that this guy believes in modern day apostles and prophets uh because they're in ephesians chapter four and these gifts continue until christ returns so so they're not necessarily saying all people who believe in modern-day apostles and prophets are wrong they're saying a specific kind of apostle and a specific kind of profit so that's what we're talking about today uh really interesting stuff so let's start with peter wagner who was he what did he do right okay yeah and so we're we're looking at these definitions from see peter wagner from holly and what's the other person's name help me out doug okay okay from hollywood so we're looking at their definitions and the reason elijah's on the show is a representative of bethel who teaches in their supernatural school of ministry uh and so as a representative of bethel we're trying to discern is bethel part of the new apostolic reformation and hopefully we can kind of give you the skills to kind of figure this out on your own so that when people say that group's nar you now know the categories that have been listed by the guy who made the organization and the kind of the authority book on the subject yeah and i i want to be clear i'm not here in an official capacity you have not been sent as someone who's discipled bill johnson as an apostle of bethel dr c peter wagner's definition of the nar there you have it i have it it's in here uh uh see peter wagner who it's important that we know who he is he was a professor at fuller theological seminary and studied church growth patterns and church growth models as he was studying church growth models one of the things that he noticed uh was that in the pentecostal charismatic communities these communities were flourishing and they were growing and what he did was he began to identify some of the characteristics of these fast-growing movements to see if there was something that could be replicated uh and then that turned him on to a few things about apostolic ministry other things about apostolic ministry turned him on to some of these ideas of how things are to be run he he writes this uh uh we are now living in the midst of one of the most uh epic changes in the structure of the church uh that has ever been recorded i like to call it the second apostolic age uh see peter wagner uh he also said um do i have this quote oh my goodness here we go it's literally in a second document i'm so sorry um oh sorry here it is when i began researching the pentecostal movement years ago uh i already had the name uh the new movement however uh did not have i i'm sorry the new movement however did not have the name because i uh was planning to teach a seminary course based on it i needed to name the name of my course for a couple of years and i experienced i experimented with post denominationalism but strong but but strong protest from my denominational friends persuaded me that it might be it might not be the best name based i'm sorry uh besides many of the new apostolic churches have uh remained within their denominations independent charismatic it does not seem to fit either these churches seemed themselves as independent uh as opposed to and i am botching this quote i'm gonna have to leave it in the description of the video i'm so sorry guys dyslexia is flaring up today these churches seems uh as themse to uh independent uh and they are not all charismatic in operation uh the name i have settled on for this movement is the new apostolic reformation so in this study when he's trying almost 500 years there's so many quotes in here so almost 500 years christian churches have a largely uh function with traditional denomination structures uh from one kind to another particularly 1990s but having uh having roots going back for almost a century so he talks about how a lot of the uh movements of denominationalism that we have today are rooted in evangelicalism they're rooted in the reformation and how these systems kind of looked at individuals pastors and teachers as these formative forces but these other organizations that are blossoming and growing at the streams it's kind of like this renewal movement god was reclaiming pastors and teachers now he's reclaiming evangelists he's reclaiming prophets now he's reclaiming apostles and as he's reclaiming the apostles we see this massive church growth and he's trying to identify what is happening around him so doug and holly then go back in and try to understand how what see peter wagner is saying and define his teachings and precepts um do you wanna you wanna jump in yeah do you want me to read what holly and doug wrote sure okay i don't you didn't do that part yet did you okay so yet not uh so this is holly and doug from their book kind of just introducing us to the nar they say yet not all churches that are part of this movement look the same as with many other large multi-faceted movement participants in the nar hold to a spectrum of beliefs accepting some nar teachings and being unaware of or rejecting others indeed many people taking part in gnar don't even realize it is a movement let alone embrace all the radical teachings surrounding it furthermore not all nar teachers work together or agree on everything since nar is not an organization or a denomination there is no official listing of gnar beliefs leaders or churches but the one thing all participants in our share in common in our view is the controversial belief in the present day offices of apostle and prophet so that was super helpful for me because i i was trying like what what exactly does nar believe and okay what what's the structure and the organization and like i used at the beginning i said it was like an amorphous blob like and this really helped pin it down for me that it was like okay it's it's down to their definitions of apostle and prophet and see peter wagner says the things that he identifies in these movements they have new authority structures there's new leadership training there's new ministry focus there's new prayer forms i missed five new worship styles new financing new outreach this is an a new power orientation uh and this is from chapter 14 of the new apostolic reformation uh that he wrote so these are things he's trying to identify with this movement um so those are things that holly is going to continue to articulate in uh the no well they're in that note so um it seems as if uh holly and and doug what they're identifying is that the primary difference from everyone in nar is a specific view of apostles and a specific view of prophets so if we're going to agree with that that there are modern-day apostles and prophets um but we wouldn't want to say that those apostles are like the 12. so so they're saying there's differences there um uh and and what i'm not seeing is again we see see peter wagner we see holly talking about this but then we see what we see on youtube i read this book thinking what i saw on youtube was going to be what this book was about and was blown away um that i didn't see this like everyone is in ar that speaks in tongues everyone who casts out right as an ar like if you just if you're trying to find out just from the magical world wide web what is r what you're going to find is like every charismatic belief that we don't like that's gnar right it's the catch-all it's the catch-all grab bag slush fund of all things charismatic like those people are shaking a lot gnar you know so any anyway so back to the let's talk about the apostles and prophets then i've read culture of honor before i know that that book defines a lot of what goes on at bethel does what is bethel's understanding of the apostle and the prophet so that we can determine does this align with what the nar teaches about the apostle and the prophet i i want to maybe set up a category first to help people process this there is a difference between believing in the modern five-fold ministry and what is properly gnar yeah and some of our listeners don't don't know what fivefold ministry is you want to define that yes i do uh the fivefold ministry comes from ephesians four where uh paul is talking about uh that there are apostles prophets evangelists teachers pastors right and uh these are equippers meant to build the church up in love and so each one kind of does their thing to help people learn to love each other so the evangelist teaches people how to share jesus so that people can go share jesus uh with their neighbors and the pastor teaches them how to you know do relationships well and the teacher teaches them scripture well the prophet how to hear god uh and in our view the apostle uh how to get the blueprint of heaven how to see and think from heaven toward earth and so um gnar is a very specific uh according to them authority structure and so maybe you could when you say them are you talking about doug and holly yes would you say see peter wagner as well um well i didn't i read his book ten years ago and then i read quotes of their hymn inside of their book yeah and i don't like to attribute stuff to people without being super familiar yeah yeah i was like that so josh what's your understanding of the gnar definition of apostle we'll just start with apostle okay so um there are three different categories of apostle three different special authorities that apostles are given it seems as if they're given spiritual authority uh ecclesiological authority and missiological authority so we say spiritual authority it seems as if apostles have the specific power according to uh teachers like see peter wagner and bill hammon who would talk about the prophet would see what kind of spiritual powers are out there until the apostle and the apostle would then go and bind the principalities and he had a special authority to work in heavenly places it was a very spiritual warfare-oriented thing yeah a spirit mapping is what it was called and and then the second kind of thing of spiritual authority was that if you had an apostle over your church you had spiritual overflow um and see peter wagner said that a church a pastor a senior pastor leading a congregation does not have the power to advance the kingdom without an apostle over them because there's kind of this overflow of power absolutely that absolutely so it wasn't like you know the apostle helps or you you won't have as much power and authority it is if you don't have an apostle you aren't going to be able to advance the kingdom and it's unfortunate because the man is passed so i that would have been something i would love to have pressed him on like you can't really mean that you're saying like an evangelist out there who's winning a soul doesn't advance the kingdom like if you're really to ask him it's like i would i would be hard-pressed to think he would answer okay but you talked about the the spiritual authority which they call spiritual mapping relates to the apostles ability to kind of like take ground in spiritual warfare with principalities that are hovering over regions and preventing churches from advancing the gospel so if you've got an apostle covering you they can take care of those principalities so the pastors and teachers can be down here doing their work right right okay so that's the spiritual side now this is none of us are saying this is what we believe right we're defining the what the nar believes okay so then there's the ecclesiological side do you want to unscrew that so i'll have you you unpack this and then we want to hear from you elijah what bethel says about these things okay so ecclesiologically within the gnar what kind of authority does an apostle have in a church so as cited in the book i think well see peter wagner describes a senior pastor functioning over his church with kind of a ceo kind of model of authority where they are in charge of their organization and that there are elders in the church and deacons in the church but those elders and deacons are basically there to serve the senior pastor's vision that senior pastor the only person he is responsible to um and submitted to would be the apostle that has been placed over him that he has submitted himself to um uh it is it is by submitting to that apostle that he gets that overflow and the only one that is to come to bring correction guidance counseling apostolic strategy is his apostle okay so it is a hierarchical structure so the plurality of eldership there is a plurality but the pastor is actually above first among equals some might say okay so he is actually one of the elders technically first among equals is the pope among the five guys who schismed i'm using that quote very intentionally right okay so so they're technically first among equals but really the other elders serve the pastor yeah there's one guy in charge and everyone else is there to say yes and how can i serve so at least practically the way it works is you got the church then the elders then the pastor who's an elder than the apostle one might call it a pyramid scheme by the way that you did your hands like you're playing your cards you're letting us know what you think okay so that's the occlusal ecclesiological we're going to get to you in a moment elijah all right now mythological understand the mythiological it's the mission so because you have apostles and prophets you get unique divine strategies on prayer on worship on these new patterns uh that we are to practice so that we can bring the kingdom here so um again courts of heaven something that we have we have done uh videos on uh this was something that was endorsed by c peter wagner we would say no we didn't like it um uh should be very clear it actually felt like it was gnostic go watch the video it it's very difficult radio courts of heaven and i've heard uh from uh guys at destiny image that they do not hold uh that robert henderson doesn't hold some of those teachings anymore and i'd say praise god i'm super excited about that and i would love to talk to him about it uh but um uh i i i would stand behind that video very strongly uh uh missiologically there are new patterns new forms of breakthrough for prayer and worship and evangelism that we get these new patterns that are outside of scripture uh and i would not just say that our um uh i i would i would think that the the people describing nar would say that are extra biblical not something that come along scripture because it's like one thing to say um i really want to do evangelism lord help me do evangelism and the lord be like hey i think it would be great for you to go to this convenience store and hang out and pray for people like that's not nar right like that's that's not saying when god sings so spells that you pray like this you evangelize like this and this is the only way or the new way to do this thing uh it changes the mission right okay it seems so so nar there's a there are modern day apostles who have spiritual authority for spiritual warfare ecclesiological authority uh over senior pastors and their elders and then missiologically to basically determine where the mission of the church is gonna go okay so what we that's an interesting facial expression just the comment okay anyway no i saw that i'm not showing that comment yeah it's okay so elijah um on this basis i know that bethel believes in modern day apostles does their definition of an apostle look like this well let me answer this question is bethel gnar because that's what we're trying to answer right now um and the answer is no and i'll tell you why um because as defined by doug and holly a anar church gives an apostle just nearly absolutely authority at one point they say and i had it highlighted uh earlier uh is that they give them the authority of of a bishop almost uh outside in our authority uh to direct churches is generally invested in groups worthy of worthy leaders rather than individuals these groups of elders or groups of voting members in a congregate are are groups of voting members in a congregation the authority claimed by nor apostles is greater than that of the authority of roman catholic bishops and so bethel doesn't run under this the apostle is in charge of everything we have an elder board um and so we take members of our fivefold ministry bill chris uh and they operate in their office on that elder board um but so bill is an elder and the apostle and an apostle yes yes but not the like we have multiple people that i would even say flow in the gift mix of an apostle at bethel that just aren't on staff they they may plan we have students who come through bssm who have planted 10 000 churches like let that sink in uh where like uh africa india type places um the apostle paul didn't plant that many churches i i know well i i mean no it's yeah we've worked with some church planting movements yeah that's happening yeah and it's happening all over the world and so um as a church that uh has an elder board um one of the things you need to know is that uh like if if he falls into heresy if there's financial misconduct they can fire him and so it's not this absolute authority thing um according to our bylaws he is able to hire staff um but our our board essentially board of elders essentially sets budget um and they control the doctrine so as a board so it's not just one guy going up there and saying uh hey the bible teaches this is as a board if they're like this isn't it it's in our bylaws going hey and so it's got that protective layer of eldership going on that doesn't fit the criteria in fernar and this is very important because you know the law of identity is a equals b if and only if everything that's true about a is true about b and so like the reason i bring this up is because when you say that bethel is identical to a gnar church you can start making up doctrines that we believe and start attributing false authority to apostles that we we just don't see we believe uh in authority through influence that's through persuading people being in relationship um and and so one of the ecclesiastical things that uh holly and doug attribute to nar churches is that the apostle can go into these churches and has authority to make decisions for them when you're inside the bethel network such as global legacy or the bethel leadership network uh there's no authority to make a decision at a local level other than like let's say you sit down with bill and he's like here's some advice as a pastor but every pastor has that relationship with you know shooters and you can reject it and still be a part of the network so um it it just does not match who we are or how we try to practice our ourselves because we're trying to create a culture of freedom like we believe in freedom in heaven one of our core values is being free and responsible and so um trying to use heavy-handed authority to achieve an agenda is just an outside of the the scope of what we're trying to do as a movement that's a culture of like research and development like you guys will test something didn't like it we need to do that again right i heard you say earlier that bill could technically be fired like that's in your by-laws sure yeah so that would suggest that he is not even as the apostle it doesn't sound like he's an authority in that church in the same exact sense that holly and doug are describing a gnar apostle right right because usually the one in authority does the firing right and so you know it it's mutual submission um and it's how peter functioned as an apostle when in first p peter he says he writes as an apostle and then he appeals to people as an elder um and it's kind of what we see going on in church history like when you read the dedicate um which is one of the first century um books on on it's the first book we have on church order like it talks about apostles and prophets and them going on to eldership teams um and so i think that's super important maybe i can find a quote uh you know like it talks first of all this this uh thing is written uh somewhere between 90 and 150 a.d so it's the closest in time to scripture we don't consider it scripture at all but it's kind of like any book you would read from second temple judaism or something it just gives you insight into how people thought at the time uh but i'm going to read something from chapter 13 of it but every true apostle prophet uh uh you're having a josh lewis it happens pull back because is that even what i want uh i'm just going to read a quote uh this is actually 15. a point therefore for yourself bishops and deacons worthy of the lord meek men not lovers of money and truly approved for they minister to you the ministry of prophets and teachers and so what you see is people functioning in an eldership in a five-fold ministry in in the early church and then they're teaching people how to uh recognize true from faults of prophets and apostles by their fruit and so we think that that ministry continued on in in local churches at times uh after the death of the 12th we do not equate bill johnson in any way to paul in the 12th and that's an important thing that's what i was going to ask you so when you say um we saw that peter did this and we saw that paul did this we saw that barnabas did this we saw that hidake said this um there are two different ways typically of distinguishing kinds of apostles so if you're pentecostal and you like dr michael brown we like dr michael brown uh he would say uh there's big a apostles literally apostles right he distinguishes um office of the 12 and then the others right uh guys like d.a carson uh and i think sam storms would prefer to say things like the apostles of christ and the apostles of the church if the word apostle means sent then jesus sent the 12th personal commission go into the world they you know they they write scripture they have authority over every church everywhere they're disciples of jesus himself where we are disciples of christ we're disciples of the church through the church right um so the church sends forth missionaries to this day dear uh in galatians chapter two uh he says i'm not an apostle by man nor through man but through jesus christ i say galatians two might have been it's clearly galatians one uh but but when he's giving that description of who he is um he's letting the people know that he's not he's not sent from the church sit through men he was sent from god so so even paul seems to see uh suggest there are different kinds of apostles present sure that's where guys like d.a carson would say so so to this day there are people who can say uh that is an apostle and not be on an error would not be unorthodox right if they are saying it that he is sent from the church he's a missionary right or church painter and we see them as just gifts to the body of christ right um and that's how uh ephesians 4 describes them is they come to serve like the goal is not let me email amount as much authority as i can and control your life um in fact this is one thing that they talked about in the book is that you need to like in certain gnar churches i i don't even know if gnar exists or not um but in our churches according to them is that prophets you know when they give words the people have to obey um we teach discernment is that you check out a word against scripture against your spirit and if you say hey chris i don't think that's god or i'm not doing that uh because i i i don't believe this is from the lord you're not oust you are treated as a part of the family and uh if we're gonna use their their their stuff so they start with ecclesiological we talked about that you'd say hey there's not one guy at the top what about spiritual as far as like covering as far as practice would you say that the apostles have specific power in the supernatural uh over over demonic principalities was the specific one mentioned in the book and another one would be like covering like that without an apostolic covering that the church could not advance the kingdom of god uh i would think it's false that without a apostolic covering the church can't advance advance because god advances his kingdom right so um as far as uh i don't know praying against territorial spirits i have not seen that taught in our church um in in the entire time uh so you've been there 11 years you've never heard anything taught about here's how you cast down a principality no um and don't cast out a principality because only we have the authority to do that because that's really what this would be right so and and you haven't heard any so you haven't heard anything suggesting that like oh man good thing we have bill here because he can get rid of the principalities for us uh not that i'm aware of at all no okay and and that's that that's good right i've seen uh john paul jackson's something like throwing hatchets at the moon or something sold in our uh bookstore that kind of even takes an opposite approach right of uh let's not do this because you might open yourself up and uh but even if a church holds that position it's it's a third level issue it's not a again referencing those buckets it's not a heresy bucket right it's a wrong and maybe dangerous bucket but it's not a heresy yeah and i'm not even sure i see it forbidden in scripture the argument is it's not directly taught in scripture you shouldn't be doing it um i don't see it necessarily forbidden um and so it's just this weird deal yeah and weird deal and that's so that some people would say you know okay special authority we got to bring it up michael mentioned at the top of the show but that that wizard staff what are we gonna do with that so there's that story yeah uh with cheon we're at his church i say we i was not there but let's uh you know uh the video channels at his church uh ladies dressed like a wizard uh she's got a stick she's slamming it on the ground telling racism it can't pass because it reminds her of gandalf and bill happens to be on stage looking very uncomfortable with a couple of other people who also look very uncomfortable like i didn't know we were signing up for this and they all grabbed the staff they're slaying on the ground yelling you shall not pass to the spirit of racism yeah thoughts i i don't know what to like this would be something where i would just go like and have to talk to the person sure i again i this brings me back to we don't trial people on the internet like we don't project on the bill a certain amount of belief in in something i don't deny that it happened um it feels weird sometimes watching stuff like that from my perspective um but i would just have to ask and i think more than anything i tell people go ask ask him write letters or if you see him at you know after a service well not during covid but he's always at the door uh at back door he always takes questions and so like don't be afraid to ask about stuff like that that's cool and last last time aaron asaro said email bethel any of your questions they're trying to get better at processing stuff with people and uh i'm sure it's like info at bethel.com or just go on the website if you can if you can uh give it to me i'll put it in the description of the video and people can watch it later okay that'd be great um and i think that's that it's not a we all need to be held accountable for things that we do and we say okay so that's that's important as as christians as people who are thoughtful uh we were passionate about theology we want to be held accountable for what we do what we say but we also um need to acknowledge that the pentecostal charismatic movement is not as compartmentalized in our theology as everyone else in the world so like if you go to a classically reformed church and they're like hey we're gonna go out and do evangelism and you say you know why are we doing evangelism and they go well i'm glad you asked i've got six jesus said so right we're just trying to do it right right again there's no wrong that's not a wrong answer uh it's just to say that they don't like being raised pentecostal i there are thoughtful pentecostals as well i'm not trying to make all pentecostals with a broad rush saying no one thinks in the movement it's just to say that the movement is a hundred years old right if you talk about azusa street these other denominations have been around 500 800 years some of them right but but this whole this whole movement of of i said 800 years protestant reformation's only 500 years old about 500 years old uh the protestant uh the pentecostal movement is only 100 years old they're still working through a lot of this stuff the assemblies of god is uh uh creeds they have or reads uh you know i'm talking about the what do you teach your kids with calculus sorry that's right the catechisms yeah can i bring up a point or sure whatever it might be yeah go for it uh one of the topics that's often brought up is bill says hey we are gathering around fathers and mothers not doctrine um a lot of people read into that to mean we are not gathering around essential christian doctrine i i defined that earlier as you know belief in the trinity the resurrection faith along christ alone um our membership requires belief in essential christian doctrine to sign up to be a part of bethel you have to sign on to the the biggies and so i bring that up because what i see emerging and this my personal opinion at bethel is a church that allows for a bit of academic freedom in theology where you are free to believe and teach um ideas that maybe contradict the other person at bethel that believes and teaches the opposite and so it's kind of like from my experience going to a charismatic college where professors believe different things you might find one that's reformed one that's armenian i think it would be more spread out across theology of the uh charismatic pentecostal movement and like i grew up or i i was a pastor in the vineyard and so you know i carry that wave with me a lot of people come from the prophetic movement or the assemblies and so you're never going to nail down bethel on a particular theological practice other than essential christian doctrine because you know even our elders are in stark disagreement over ideas so uh you had a question and i yeah well i wanted to come back there's a statement you made a while ago about apostles that they received the blueprint for how to bring heaven to earth right and so then it was other members of the five-fold in their various manner that they helped execute this but the apostles and maybe the prophets also are receiving this blueprint but uh but there's this revelatory thing and holly and dog talk about this in this in their book that uh that within the within the gnar that there's this idea that i think it's especially the apostles that they're they're the ones that are figuring out these kind of like new strategies and um for bringing the king it sounds pretty similar to what you described as the blueprint and so my my question is does bill as the apostle does he receive new sort of extra biblical insight for how to be effective in the mission of christ and to to maybe give an example so um so to me there's like this fine line so on one hand you know you have for instance mike bickle of ihop and and there was and he's genuinely most people will say they're they're gnar okay and holly talks about him i can't remember if i heard this on a podcast from her if i heard that but they would deny being a part of nar they would deny yeah they literally put a post off right right and explain why they're not a part of that but but my point is holly makes the point that like hey this vision was received from bob jones that there's going to be a prayer movement and this is going to be part of what's necessary to reach the nations for christ and starting up houses of prayer so he's been on this mission they've had a you know prayer meeting going since 1999. personally i think that's wonderful you know hey you're getting a strategy like you know it's like we're all trying to hear the lord i mean even a cessationist honestly is like you know making a decision somehow about where they're gonna plant their church and i think they're gonna try to like make the decision god probably wants them to make you know they they might use different vocabulary they might not say i had a dream or a vision but at the end of the day like we're trying to hear the lord essentially on how he wants us to advance his kingdom so that's one thing sure okay the other side is what we talked about a little bit ago courts of heaven right so uh you have robert henderson we did this episode on it where he has he has like all these different hoops that you have to jump through in order to get your prayers answered so instead of just like what the bible's told us historically um we we have new things that we need to do in order to get the old things done just get answered prayer like i i can't just like you know jesus says persevere in prayer that's how you get your prayers answered maybe doing a little bit of fasting but for robert henderson it's you have to align with the spirits of the righteous made perfect and the voice of the i mean i can't remember at all there's so many hoops to jump through yeah so you've got to know about the books uh in heaven that are written about you before the eternity past god and the angels that wrote these things in a book and you've got to go to heaven and find the things that are written about you in the book and once things uh that have been written you've found the secret book in heaven and read the things that are written about you and god's perfect will for your life you've got to then declare those things over your life against the courts of heaven and the demonic powers that are looking to be in opposition but you've got to declare it right the right way and you've got to make sure that you give enough money and do these seven different things and if you don't do these seven different things then and only then the demonic forces will have authority over you and they'll afflict you and hurt you so you've got to make sure that you go through these seven things to cast out those demonic spirits so okay so it's it's one thing if bethel's understanding is like hey you know bill he seeks to hear the lord for the direction of bethel church and the churches in their network i'm all on board for that that's great on the other hand if bill's trying to find new ways to pray like like new ways to talk to god and that they nullify the old ways that nullify the old ways then then we got problems so yeah which you know to be fair holly thinks the mike bickle thing's bad right like she's critical of like you shouldn't get any revelation for any of that i i think that's too far but um but i think the courts of heaven like is anything like that is when people see that stuff they freak is it should rightfully is bill in a position to receive revelation to do the old things in a new way uh well yeah um so i'm just going to read from culture of honor this is danny silk he would be our fivefold pastor talking about blueprint as those around the impossible begin to manifest their own unique anointings it creates an environment of subcontractors who help master builders to realize the blueprints of habit the following are some key characteristics one worship and supernatural activities in the environments and in the lifestyles of the saints two the saints are sent as jesus was to destroy the works of the devil uh exceeding abundant joy for god desires those who don't know him yet to come into relationship with him where the primary emphasis is love uh five the body of christ is being built up and equipped to become a glorious victorious bride no matter how the conditions on earth may have presently appear six the church is to create a global awakening and impact seven successive generations must be carried equipped to carry and demonstrate the kingdom of revelation so this is what i i mean there's nothing in that that just sounds like man that's crazy it just sounds like yeah make worship a part of your life learn to go and share jesus go out and do your calling and let's equip people to do this we are not inventing new ways to pray that i'm aware of i've never heard a courts of heaven teaching at bethel as you describe it and so that's i guess is that answering your question no so michael was just saying like do if if guys can show up and say hey i've created this new system does bill have the authority to just show up at church one day and say hey guys i found out that like we're doing prayer completely wrong like we're doing evangelism completely wrong we're going to completely redefine evangelism into something completely different than scripture i wouldn't think so i i i mean and i don't foresee him doing this like we're we're assuming abuse mode and in reality it's uh you know chris is coming to bill and being like i feel like we need to have our students do forestry this year as city service because our city nearly burned down two years ago that sounds like an elder who cares for you yeah trying to allocate resources to something they need to do yeah yeah or let's give money i know our church gives money to the indian population just to bless them we gave 500 000 dollars to our city police in order to like bless our city because we did not have enough money for police and crime was uh growing high and so we took the money out of bssm um again the purpose is to serve and ask for strategy like god this is your money where does it go well i want to read a quote because i want to speak on this like new revelations thing because so i mean all three of us believe that there are modern apostles and that there are modern prophets all three of us believe that there are revelations from god and all three of us believe that god could reveal certain strategies for reaching the city or the world he christ for sure okay but i want to read this uh read this quote this is from bill hammond uh about his belief about uh apostles and prophets so it's actually his quote will come into it it's holly and doug in their book but hammond says that the apostle paul teaches that both apostles and prophets are given the revelation are given the revelation ministry for the church just as paul received divine revelation about the inclusion of gentiles in the church a major topic for paul in the ephesians 3 passage present-day apostles and prophets continue to receive new truth that's the key from god for the church hammond says paul reveals that this anointing for divine revelation was not just given for the prophets of old but has now been given equally to christ's holy apostles and prophets in his church okay so i want us to see how that takes it to a whole new level so in the book of ephesians i think it's ephesians 3 5 where paul talks about like hey we this whole this there's this mystery that for ages past has been hidden but now it's been revealed to god's holy apostles and prophets that uh that gentiles are included into the body of christ so this is like a foundational gospel revelation you see that foundational element in ephesians 2 20 where there's the foundation of the temple is the apostles and prophets that's tied to that revelation of gentile inclusion so we're talking about this super foundational revelation at the inception of the church to the apostles and prophets about gentile inclusion and so um some people in the nar when i we did say his name bill hammond and i'm not calling bill hammond a heretic or anything but i'm saying on on this point right here i would have to differ from him in a very strong way because he says part of the role is that apostles and prophets today are to receive not just some strategies for reaching their city but new truths that sounds a whole lot like i mean are we talking open canon now i know bill hammond wouldn't say it's an open canon but but we get into dangerous territory when we're we're already there when we say new truths yeah i i think you would agree with me because i i've gotten to know you a little bit over the course of this week but you go to bethel sure are there new truths that are shared there well it depends on how you find news so this is a quote from an elijah list article november 21st 2008 bill johnson apostolic teens a group of people who carry family and he's talking about uh just new doctrines uh unity based on common doctrines has a measure of success but there's an inherent problem with this approach unity of this nature is based on uniformity when god is saying something new and then he puts a footnote at the bottom and i'll read this in a minute those who are listening are usually asked by their leaders to leave the group they're a part of their newfound convictions and beliefs are considered threatening and divisive so what does bill mean by a new truth and in footnote 2 all he says is there's never in addition to scriptures instead he unveils what's already there and so what we're saying by a new truth is people learning what scripture said originally it's kind of like reform theology is you go back and scripture reforms the church and so god may speak to a prophet hey this is a theological idea that people might be blind to in scripture and you go back into scripture and you go man i never saw that before yeah the role of most of the prophets in the old testament was to remind people of the company like an example i can give you an example of god revealing a new truth to me um so with the blm opera uh kind of situation uh the riots the rise of critical race theory i've just been really asking god how do i process this and so i went back to scripture and began studying biblical justice and reading about how justice is giving to the poor and the orphan and stuff like that and i just began to see oh scripture really teaches you're unjust if you don't take care of the poor and the oppressed and make just laws and so through that i began giving money away to those types of groups because i didn't see it as just charity anymore i saw it as a lack of justice um i felt the spirit doing that in my heart like i don't feel like it was began simply as reading the text i felt it was god put something in my heart and as i studied scripture i began to see all scripture confirms that and i mean if that's what you call new truths i don't think anybody has a problem with like god spoke to me through the scripture right but uh but then there's but i think new truths is that's a hard phrase for me to me like all truth is old truth well let people define for them themselves what they mean and so like this is the thing we always hear our buzz words and we have to start if we're going to be an intellectually solid church we have to say i heard a buzzword let me see if you're saying my buzzword rather than i'm judging you yeah so yeah we're we're already at nine oh yeah so we're 9 30 already like halfway through this episode talking about uh oh halfway through we started at 8 30. we're we have five minutes left five minutes left so we gotta we gotta make a decision of whether bethel is gnar or not okay on this criteria let's run down these these four a through f here and and number four okay so these are these are the criteria set up by the book and then i'm just gonna toss to you rapid fire real quick rapid fire does bethel believe apostles have unique authority over principalities and spiritual authority over churches unsure unsure okay fair uh does bethel believe that the kingdom can't advance without apostles no oh no okay does the senior pastor have governing authority unsubmitted to local elders no no uh is bethel governed by one apostolic leader no an overboard does bethel change the mission of the church by prophetic and apostolic insights uh the mission of christ i would be clear not the mission of christ christ does bethel suggest that rebellion against a prophetic word is rebellion against god uh we have an effect only the word is from god yes but not whether it comes from a profit or not like a product that can be wrong yeah so so uh let's let's let's take like five minutes and unpack prophecy if someone comes up to you and i say hey hey i've been really praying uh i feel a lot of confidence the lord is telling you sell everything you have and give it to me right okay uh we're we're new friends i gave you that prophetic word recently would you sell it like let's say bill appointed me as the the prophet of your church right and i was then to say sell all that you have and give it to me would that be binding on your conscience uh if and only if i thought that was from the lord and i'm highly suspicious okay yeah but bethel does bethel teach you to test prophetic words absolutely like chris's prophetic manual says that you should test it um when we talk about extra biblical truth and that's in chris's prophetic manual as well we we're talking about could the lord tell somebody hey you need to go to africa like via prophetic word let's not even bring a prophet in like you know people are praying and they're just like i saw a picture of you going to africa and the next day that would be extra biblical for us it's not in scripture uh what you should do at that level of your life um and it's the person up to the person to discern if this is god's voice or not so in kind of summation so he's like hey i don't think bethel is nar but some of you are like super unsatisfied with that you're like oh man i wish they would really just get doug and holly on the show well i booked him so that's okay are they gonna be on the same show or two different shows they're gonna be on the exact same show both together wow they're gonna be on in december okay awesome so they're counting but probably should have started it seems as though according to the definitions that we've gathered from doug and hawley which you actually cross checked and doubled with holly that these are the right definitions when we run these by you as somebody who works for and on bethel's teaching team sure you would say it does not appear to you that they i don't know here's one thing you need to know about doug and holly uh this uh our bylaws are not public like and so you could research bethel you know you you have to be a member and then write in uh i don't mind you know i'll ask if i can send it to them but like i'm not trying to say they're failing at their research i'm trying to say this just that's that's really fair because it's hard to criticize a movement from the outside or understand how the inner workings of it all play out and then trying to and i think that's really respectable and i i respect doug a ton yeah he and i have had lunch um i i listened to his heart on the michael brown interview uh yeah i'm i'm not trying to throw them under the bus it's just intellectually i disagree with their condition yeah and i think that that's that's one of the things that people are they're they're going to tune in and they're like man like even doc brown says you know nar is not a thing and you all know that we respect doc brown like we do uh uh nar is not a thing i ask them this inaudible specifically it's not an organization is it a category or is it an organization they say it's a category so if i was to walk out to a person in a church today and as i walk up to them say hey are you dispensational they'd go what like are you a member of a dispensational church and they go no i don't of course not i don't think so like and you start yelling what church did you go to and it's like i go to i go to gateway and you're like you guys are dispensational like you start freaking out and accuse him of dispensational theology they're like whoa well i don't even know what that is man and you're like dude do you believe there's a purpose for israel in the future and they're like yeah and like is there is there a grace for the gentiles and like your pre-trib rapture and yeah it's like bro you dispensational theology and they're like oh so it's a category of thinking people might not know that they have that category and then they say there are organizations that hold this category of thinking so when you look at it like that it suddenly makes sense and it feels like we're talking past each other saying i'm not a part of this shadow clandestine organization and they're like we're calling this a category so it seems like we're talking past each other and i like the book i think if you take time to read the book too i think i think you could kind of agree with a lot of these things and i think pentecostal should go yeah that's bad that's dangerous i don't like that mm-hmm mm-hmm and so yesterday i like that yeah yeah and go that's clearly not us yeah so sure yeah okay cool great show guys hey so we just decided we just decided just decided that in five minutes we're gonna go live again and we're gonna finish this discussion about objections to bethel oh man okay so we had part one just before this grave sucking 101 we're going to talk about oh gosh what are we going to talk about i want to give you we're going to talk about glory clouds gold dust angel feathers gemstones are the healings legitimate gold teeth christian tarot cards graves sucking sozo baby olive astral projection and wakey wakey if you don't know what that is you can find out real soon five minutes might not be a full hour we're going live okay it might not be a full hour because josh he's kind of feeling it this guy's had three hours of sleep he's gonna give this guy some coffee okay going live in five invite your friends invite your wife and subscribe and donate to patreon yeah yeah just yeah the bean went off in my head oh bro i preached it in his sermon i snuck it into a servant demons kids anyway guys uh uh yeah if you enjoyed our content we'd really encourage you go in the description of this video you can donate one time on paypal you can be a monthly giver there on patreon giving 10 15 20 bucks a month no it's five ten fifty five ten twenty bucks a month ten thousand you get special content if you if you donate right now you'll get three you sewed your seat don't do that tell them okay guys not even a joke we're done thanks we'll see you in five minutes be blessed

Channel: The Remnant Radio

Views: 17,259

Keywords: new apostolic reformation, bill johnson, new apostolic reformation exposed, new apostolic reformation explained, new apostolic reformation bethel, new apostolic reformation bill johnson, What is the New Apostolic Reformation, what is the new apostolic reformation, what is the new apostolic reformation movement, is the new apostolic reformation real, is bethel NAR, is Bethel a New Apostolic Reformation Church, new apostolic reformation movement, new apostolic reformation heresy

Id: mMkKILXkKWs

Length: 62min 2sec (3722 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020