This New Riff needs to be Bottled up, and the church needs to be Bonded
Topic: Testing the Spirits: Biblical Discernment in an Age of Media Lies, Tribal Echo Chambers, and “Christian” Extremes
Whiskey Review: New Riff Bottle in Bond
Connect:
* Instagram: @manhoodneat [https://www.instagram.com/manhoodneat/]
* X: Manhood Neat (@ManhoodNeat) / X [https://x.com/ManhoodNeat]
* Youtube: Manhood, Neat Podcast - YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@manhoodneatpodcast844]
* email: manhood.neat@gmail.com [manhood.neat@gmail.com]
Show Notes:
* Zionism- “Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have a rightful claim to a national homeland in the land of Israel, historically and politically.”
* Reformed Bro- “Reformed Theology is a stream of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes God’s sovereignty, the authority of Scripture, and salvation by grace alone.” -But the Bro’s take it to the extreme - Reformed Reformed Reformed
* Dispensational- “Dispensationalism is a theological system that teaches God works through distinct periods (‘dispensations’) and maintains a clear distinction between Israel and the Church.” - 2 roads to one God
* * “We've watched brothers and generations swing from naive Zionism to reactionary antisemitism. Both fail the test.”
* I’m reformed, I'm evangelical, I'm catholic, I am Baptist, I am a Calvinist…why not Christian
* Reminds me - I am of Paul; I am of Apollos.
* 1 Corinthians 3:4-9: 4For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
* Fellow Christians (regardless of denomination) - Let us come reason together
* Unity of the Body of Christ for His work
* The enemy loves to divide.
* “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity” - Rupertus Meldenius
* Key Text: 1 John 4
* 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.4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood. God’s Love and Ours.7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
* * How do Christian men discern truth without becoming tools of deception or hatred?
* God demands we test the spirits (v.1)
* Confess Christ rightly (v.2-3
* Listen to apostolic truth (v.6)
* Love as evidence of knowing God (v.7-21).
* Confronting the two ditches
* History (Brief Overview)
* Early Church: Mixed – some respect for Jewish roots, but supersessionism/replacement theology grew
* No longer Jew nor Gentile, but the Church and the world
* Justin Martyr, later hardened replacement theology
* Led to disdain, pogroms (violent, mob-driven attacks—typically riots involving looting, assault, rape, murder, and destruction of property—targeted at a specific ethnic or religious groups.)
* Martin Luther's later writings (On the Jews and Their Lies) exemplify tragic failure of love.
* Reformation/ Puritans: Varied; some future hope for Jewish people (pre-Darby).
* John Nelson Darby (1800s, Plymouth Brethren) systematized dispensationalism:
* distinct Israel/Church track
* pre-trib rapture
* literal futurist readings
* Popularized via Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Fueled 20th-century evangelical support for Israel.
* Zionist movement: Jewish political nationalism (Theodor Herzl, late 1800s) responded to European antisemitism. Christian Zionism often overlapped but with eschatological motives.
* Scofield influence: Shaped views of unconditional land promises.
* Post-Holocaust: Shifts toward Philo-Semitism (the admiration, respect, or obsession with Jewish people, culture, or history, often by non-Jews) in reaction to Church failures, but some swung to uncritical political allegiance.
* Modern swing: Newly Reformed / postmillennial / reconstructionist circles reacting against shallow dispensationalism by over-correcting into ethnic suspicion or outright antisemitism.
* Examples:
* Holocaust minimization
* “Zionist Occupied Government" echoes
* Treating all Jewish influence as cabal-like.
* This is not discernment – it's another false spirit.
* Practical tests for Discerning information from 1 John 4 (This is the point):
* Does the source confess Christ preeminent - Love the Lord your God with everything
* or push fear/hate/nationalism as gospel?
* Does it promote love for neighbors?
* Prayer for enemies?
* Cross-reference history, primary sources, multiple views – not echo chambers.
* To "Reformed" Bros: Opposition to dispensational errors is fine; becoming ethnic scoffers is apostasy from apostolic love.
* To Zionists: Israel's existence isn't carte blanche; critique policies Biblically.
* This is one area - lots of other ditches
* Women’s role / value
* Poet and Warrior
* Both: Media profits from division. Web algorithms radicalize.
* (1 Thess 5:21). but test everything; hold fast what is good.