I just returned from 2 weeks of vacation a half-hour ago so I a bit swamped and I am not much of a phone person – do you do email?

Using such ‘evidence’ you could more easily convince me that you know neither Jesus Christ, nor the Scriptures, nor have any reverence for truth in you when you quote such a person. His “Message” is un-Biblical filth. It’s worse than dirty; it’s demonic heresy. I can give you dozens of sound, well articulated reasons for my certainty about this, but I am not going to be dragged off topic. Let me just simply caution you, if you persist, that the book of Acts documents a man who presumed too much, and was ripped to shreds by a devil who had no fear of that man’s so-called ‘god’, despite his false and reckless claim that it was the same God who spoke through Paul. (“Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you?”) That man had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. This is not a Vaudeville sideshow you are addressing here, however much it may appear that way to you. Lose your smirk.

How insenstitive you are! Do you think before you put words in front of the whole world or just spit them out mindlessly? How can I bring the severity of your unmitigated gall and the reckless clumsiness of your handling of the Christian message to your attention? Not only do you create a metaphor that has nothing to do with the point I made, but you do it with astonishing insensitivity! (Or is that just a trap?)

Perhaps by way of a similar device I can make it plain to you just how foolish you sound (and how reluctantly I give your post the dignity of any response at all) while hoping you’re wise enough to learn:

How, by displaying your own bigotry and thoughtlessness, are you going to persuade someone else to not be bigoted? Don’t bother to answer, there’s no need to.

Next time, try thinking of someone other than yourself before you thoughtlessly (unwittingly?) insult a group of people as though their feelings were nothing but rhetorical devices for your intellectual ego!

(Note to the bystanders: if you have no idea what I’m talking about, then feel free to cast your anger in my direction. I have no intention of explaining this to you.)

And I knew it was but a matter of time before someone with the beam of the letter in his eye would be quoting to me the verse about not arguing over the mere meaning of words. I knew, in other words, that it was inevitable that someone would say “Physician, heal thyself.” So then, if you know that ‘vain jangling’ is a foolish enterprise, why are you so eager to encourage it? For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Or don’t you know that there is a time for every purpose? Or that John was commanded to do that which David was forbidden to do—to count the servants of God? I didn’t start a quibble. I rebuked, and am rebuking, a serious heresy. That will stand long after I cease to press this point, which means, by the way, as of today.

If you want to say that Jesus was subtle, say that He was subtle. If you want to say that He was indirect, say that He was indirect. But I now insist that you cease and desist from accusing our Savior of ’subverting’ anyone or anything. The etymology of the word is informative, but not definitive. The salient point is that this word means ‘to corrupt’, ‘to do evil’. It has had this meaning since the New Testament was written, as you can clearly see by the Scriptures that I have quoted below. You cannot remove this connotation from the word. We are duty bound to use “wholesome” words just as Paul explicitly says, and to avoid giving anyone reason to speak evil of the way of Christ. To use this damnable word in the way you and others with too much intellect and too little heart have been using it, is to defame Christ, and stain all of us, His followers, with the bloodshed of Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Kim Jung Il and Pol Pot. Stop it! Now.

The word ’subvert’ means ‘to do evil’. You have been told. I solemnly warn all of you: do not tempt God. The use of this word as though it were an acceptable thing for a Christian to do, a thing to encourage anyone to do, or to describe anything that Jesus Christ ever did, is heresy. You have all been solemnly warned. This is twice, now. If you henceforth insist on being ‘free’ instead of being ‘faithful’ I will consider you heretical.

Acts 15:24
24Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment: 25It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. 28For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.

2 Timothy 2:14
14Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. 15Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

Titus 1:11
11Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. 12One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; 14Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Titus 3:9
9But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. 10A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject;

Titus 3:11
11Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.

Note that Titus 3:11explicitly states that to be subverted is to become a doer of evil, and uequivocally implies that the result of any subversive act is only and necessarily evil.

There are many more. Do a search on ’subversion’ or on ‘corrupt’ or on ‘corruption’. Same result. But your patience is shallow and weak and on the verge of disappearing altogether, and I would not knowingly challenge you beyond what I think you are capable of.

When anyone shows himself unable to discern good from evil and accuses Christ of ’subverting’ his hearers, the rebuke of this heresy is a gravely serious matter. In no sense is my stance here a matter of ‘foolish questions’ nor ‘geneologies’ nor ‘contentions, and strivings about the law’. Nor is it reasonable to attempt to make a distinction between ’subverting a culture’ and ’subverting a person’ or ’subverting a teaching’ and ’subverting a hearer’. Subversion is subversion.

But to stand firm in an error and refute my clearly stated prohibition as though one had the freedom to say and do any and every thing without any regard for its truth condition or its moral affect on others and claim while so doing to be acting responsibly in good faith is to speak a lie.

Henceforth, if you stand against this plain, honest speech which I have placed before you, you condemn yourself in the presence of the whole world. Only a corrupt fool would laugh at this. It is my prayer that you take your medicine like adults mature in the faith (though I see that you are but babes) and stand humbly corrected.

What I am saying to one I am saying to everyone. I know that God is real, that He is true, and that He keeps His promises. I have seen this before and I know whereof I speak. Those who mock at this will bring swift destruction into their lives so that others might fear to mock the Word of God and he who speaks it. Should anyone dare to be so foolish, it happens quickly, it happens seriously. Don’t flirt with the possiblility of hearing your own words fall upon your own head. This is no time for being reckless and tempting God.

If anyone wishes to argue this further, let me simply say that neither I nor any of the churches of Christ Jesus, the Lord, have any other view about this word. If you hear His voice, you know I speak the truth. Amen.

I wasn’t called to be ’subtle’ or ‘indirect’.

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

In faith, in Christ, in faith in Christ,

John