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Southland School of Ministry

Ancient & Contemporary

Gnosticism

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.

1 Timothy 6:20-21

the subtlety of deception

Gnosticism is based on two false premises

1. Gnosticism espouses a dualism regarding spirit and matter.

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

1 John 4:1-3

1 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."coming and even now is already in the world.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Gnosticism is based on two false premises

2. Gnostics claim to possess an elevated knowledge or a “higher truth” known only to a certain few. ( hidden knowledge )

4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 5

But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those "super-apostles." 6 I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. 7 Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?

2 Corinthians 11:4-7

the gnostic ‘jesus’

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 1:6-7

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

Hebrews 13:8-9

contemporary gnostics

1. Faith itself has been perverted to being a “mystical” power that ordinary Christians don’t have. Only the “special” Christians who really grasp the “hidden knowledge” (gnosis) of faith can prosper.

2. The notion that if you are not healed your faith is deficient has gnostic roots. This is a form of over-realized eschatology.

3. “prophetic” people who write never-ending volumes predicting Armageddon, or even revival, putting dates and locations on them and clearly getting them wrong again and again without accountability or conscience are merely Gnostics dressed up as Prophets.

1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

2 Timothy 4:1-5

4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

2 Timothy 4:1-5