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Baha'i Faith |
People who follow Baha'i rationalize that one God has revealed Himself through major world religions. Baha'i rationalizes that the human soul is essentially good and that salvation and righteousness can be achieved through human effort. This self-righteousness is part of the cause of their frustration. As with all religions that emphasize human effort as the source of righteousness, the followers of Baha'i are not able to fulfill true righteousness. One follower of Baha'i writes: "Religion is suppose to unite people not divide them." However, Christ says to us: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." Jesus Christ separates truth from error. Unity with Christ involves separation from all that is not holy. Yet He brings a supernatural unity among those who seek Him rather than seeking religion or human intellect. He does this from glory to glory. This glory is through the Holy Spirit as we learn to hear His Voice, learn to respond in submission, and learn to receive His revelation. His revelation gives us discernment between what is of Christ and what is not of Christ. He is forming a Body that is joined to Himself as Head a Body that will be in perfect unity as one man, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In fact, while Baha'i proclaims unity and inclusiveness, they exclude those who are actually following Christ. They exclude those who reject relativism and rationalism. So, the Baha'i teaching can be quite seductive, but it is a lie. It is exclusive while claiming to be inclusive. In relativism and post-modernism, there is no real truth or real truth cannot be known. There are only winners and losers. For this reason, presentation becomes very important in the Baha'i paradigm. If you are a Christ-follower, one who is led by Christ, who is learning to hear His Voice and to respond in submission, the followers of Baha'i need to hear from you about how God touches you, how He shows you your place in the Body of Christ. They need to hear about how God speaks to you and gives you His faith, which comes when you hear the utterance of God. They need to hear about the vision of hope that the Holy Spirit gives you and how this vision of hope keeps you alive in hard times. They need to know that God's faith, His free gift of miraculous trust, gives you access to the power of God's grace for righteousness--that the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. The followers of Baha'i need to hear that God thinks His Thoughts, Says His Words, and Does His Works through you--that you are just a vessel. You will easily confess that you also have tried to do true righteousness in your own effort and have failed. We all have tried that and we all have failed. (some caveats about hearing God's Voice) Christianity is based on Jesus Christ, the Living Christ, Who reveals Himself to the Christian on an ongoing basis. Believer's have the supernatural trust that is a gift from God. By this trust, we see Jesus and hear His Voice. It is Jesus Himself who reveals to us that the Bible is His Word, His Utterance. And it is Jesus Himself Who speaks to us through His Word. Jesus speaks to us through many different means: Scripture, intuition, bringing Scripture to our remembrance, apostles, prophets, etc. When God speaks to us, faith comes and with faith comes a vision of hope. This vision shows us who we are in Christ in an ever-more-clear understanding. When God speaks, He instructs us what to think, what to say, and what to do. Then, He does the work through us by His grace. This is His free gift of righteousness. This righteousness of God in us is the moving of the Holy Spirit that transfigures us from glory to glory to be like Jesus, killing our fleshly nature and causing Christ to be more fully formed in us. And this death to self, to the old Adamic sin nature, and building up of Christ is the very thing that redeems us, sets us free from slavery to the fleshly nature, to Satan, to the pressures of the world, and to death. Baha'i is based on human mental exercise. Baha'i rationalizes that the human soul is essentially good. Don't try to argue them into submission. Show them, by your good works, your good attitude, what Jesus looks like in a son-of-God-in-the-making. Baha'i rationalizes that the purpose of life is to draw close to God. This is actually true. They don't know Who God is, perhaps, but they want to draw close to Him. Christ-followers have the key to their desires. If they can see that there is a difference between your life as a Christ-follower and their life, they will listen to you when you explain that the works that you do are not your own works but the works of God working in you, and that this is all through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost. Heaven and Hell are seen as states of being among the followers of Baha'i. These are not issues that you need to deal with. We, as Christians, don't know that much about Heaven and Hell ourselves. The reality is that the Baha'i theology of Heaven and Hell is rationalized, based on assumptions and made-up stuff. We know, by revelation, some basics about Heaven and Hell. We know that there are at least three levels of Heaven. We know that we are now seated with Christ in Heavenly Places. We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is among us--actually within us since Christ is within us. Without Christ, they will never see Heaven. Focus on showing forth the works of Christ. Baha'i teaches many laws: daily prayer, avoid alcohol, read the Bible and the writings of Bah'u'llh and other Baha'i leaders, work hard, educate yourself, work for "social justice" and "equality." This means that they are likely to be very political. Avoid any political arguments. Rather, show them how you apply justice and treat people with equality in your daily life as Christ lives through you. Baha'i interpretations of Scripture are quite creative. Authority is derived from the writings of Bah'u'llh and other Baha'i leaders. Followers of Baha'i may openly attack or try to denigrate Scripture through rationalizations and distortions of history, which they have been taught by their leaders. Remember that you know that the Bible is the the Word of God, without error, and relevant to every facet of life, and you know this by revelation. God reveals this directly into our innermost minds. And then He confirms this through physical evidence, the fact that no one has found either an internal or external inconsistency or error in Scripture, and by speaking to us through Scripture itself and through the creation. Followers of Baha'i deny the existence of Satan or the devil. They see Satan as a personification of man's lower nature but see each person as needing to find his or her own spiritual nature to overcome evil. You can see, from this, along with their very creative interpretation of Scripture, how easily you could be in a conversation in which both sides think that they are communicating and neither side is communicating. You are using the same words, but the meanings are very different. Those who deny the existence of Satan are much more susceptible to His lies. However, the fleshly nature of Christians and non-Christians alike is under the control of the devil. What they are missing is the Christ nature which you, as a Christian, receive when you are born again. They are missing the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome both the devil and the fleshly nature. So their efforts will result in empty self-righteousness. They end up with an empty life much like the life of the Atheist. Inside, they are crying out for the real and the genuine, yet, without Christ, they are living in an unreal world. It is impossible to be rational without Christ. The Holy Spirit can reveal this to them. Pray for them and live under the power of the righteousness that comes as a free gift from God. While they try to appear to harmonize all religions, they take a firm stand against Truth and for relativism and rationalism, which are both anti-Christ. Jesus Christ is absolute, and His truth is absolute, and Baha'i teaching is strongly against that fact. They are, in fact, dogmatic about relativism and rationalism. They exclude Christ-followers and can become very accusatory against Christ and His called out Body. In contrast to Baha'i, followers of Christ receive Jesus Christ as the only Creator of the Universe, the God Who created them and their only Savior from bondage to sin. At the same time His love for those who have been deceived by Baha'i compels God to speak to them daily through His creation and through other means even when they do not listen to Him. The followers of Baha'i know that they were created for more than they are experiencing. Read more. There is a way that they can get started on the road to fulfillment. Explain it to them. Tell them about total fulfillment. God's plan for this hour is not to make all religions and philosophies get along. His plan is to have a people, a remnant company, who continue to discover Him, to walk with Him until they come into perfect unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to one totally complete man (the Body of Christ and the Head, Jesus), to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The followers of Baha'i believe in one unknowable God. This is a philosophy commonly known as agnosticism. The logical fallacy is that of the universal negative. They are claiming to know the spiritual experience of every person who ever lived--that no one can know God. But you, as a follower of Christ, know God. Jesus Christ speaks to you moment by moment leading you in your life. Speak of your experiences with Christ, how He has led you, how your life has changed, how He has corrected you when you were wrong, and the joy that fills your heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. While the teachings of Baha'i include something that they call "manifestations of god," these manifestations are not what the Bible is speaking of in Romans when Paul wrote about the manifestation of the sons of God. These supposed Baha'i manifestations include Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammed, the BAB, and Buha'u'llah. Tell them about the gifts of the Spirit and how they work in your life and in the lives of other Christians and that these gifts are manifestations of the Christ in a fallen person who also has a fleshly nature. Speak about the great coming event of the manifestation of the sons of God that the whole creation is waiting for. In direct conflict with the teachings of Baha'i, there is one triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect unity yet distinct persons within that unity. God is creator of the Universe and everything in it. He is all-present, all-knowing, all-powerful. All that is good comes from God. Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Holy Spirit is God. They are three persons and one God. Rather than getting into in-depth discussions about these things, you could learn to tell the basic stories in the Bible. You can tell the creation story in your own words, for instance. Then ask if they have ever read that in the Bible (for whichever Bible story you tell.) Then ask if they believe it. If they get really creative in interpreting it, ask them to show you in the Bible where it says whatever they have stated that is not in the story. This keeps the focus where it belongs and avoids fruitless debate. Ask them how we ought to act given that story. Show, by your life, that your walk with Jesus is based on the God of the Bible. You may want to review the Scripture regarding this. Remember to acknowledge the Voice of God as you read Scripture. The Bible speaks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The full name of Jesus is Lord, Jesus, Christ. Lord refers to the Father. Jesus said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. If they see you, they ought to see both Jesus and the Father in your life. Jesus means savior, because He came to save us from our sins. God Himself paid our price for us so that His holy righteousness would be fulfilled and so that He could restore us to Himself. He lives in you to set you free from sin and set you free to do righteousness. Christ is a synonym for Messiah or Anointed One. Christ will always be the only Anointed One. The Anointing Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit. The word, Trinity, is not in the Bible, but the three Persons of the Trinity are very plain throughout the Bible. Christians have an ongoing experience with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be an example of what it means to be a Christian. One of the key differences between following Christ and the teachings of Baha'i is that following Christ is based on knowing Jesus personally. Christians believe Jesus when He tells them that it is in Him alone that they can find life, peace, joy, fulfillment, love, righteousness, and every other good thing. They believe Jesus when He tells them that rejecting Him as their one and only God is the most serious sin that could be committed--the sin against the first commandment. When you put Christ first in your life, you are a witness to this fact. It will have an impact. Biblical Christianity's Teachings on God: The Only God is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present, and has always existed. No person can find purpose or meaning in life or be fulfilled outside of a relationship with God. God is love and wants a personal relationship with every person. In the teachings of Baha'i, Jesus is seen to be one of many manifestations of God, as are Abraham, Muhammad, Krishna, and others. They don't see Jesus as the only way to God, the only Savior of mankind, the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. For this reason, the followers of the Baha'i religion can never have the satisfaction that comes each time the fleshly nature is defeated and the Christ in us is built up through us allowing the Holy Spirit to do His works in us. In divergence from the teachings of Baha'i, you know, by revelation, that Jesus is God. God is One, yet God is plural. There are three persons in One God. The unity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is beyond what the human mind can comprehend. Jesus, Son of God, one person of the one triune God, so joined to the Father that His name is Father, yet in submission to the Father. He is Savior, Lord, and Anointed one (Christ). Eternal God and incarnated as man. In Him is hidden all knowledge. Without Him, we can do nothing. He lives in the hearts of those who have received His redemption and gives them strength to endure all things and walk in holiness. Jesus is the Truth, and the Bible testifies of Him. If you have Jesus, then you have the Father. If you don't have Jesus, then you don't have the Father. Jesus is wisdom, and without Him, there is no wisdom. In the same way, God is love, so Jesus is love. He is peace. He is joy. All knowledge is hidden in Him. Unlike Baha'i, True Christianity is not a religion but rather a living experience with the living Jesus. It is a moment-by-moment experience of the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) guiding and directing the Christian and the Christian either contending with God or submitting to the Holy Spirit. If the Christian contends, he or she becomes less mature in Christ. If the Christian submits, he or she has actually simply entered into the sabbath rest to let God do His work through them. When a Christian submits, faith comes. Faith is supernatural belief that God will do what He has just led the Christian to do. At that moment, the Christian has access into the grace of God, which is God's free gift. Righteousness is the free gift of God and the righteousness of God then flows to the Christian. If the Christian will submit his or her members to the Spirit of God, then God does His righteousness through the Christian. The Christian does the work, yet it is not the Christian but Christ in the Christian doing the work. When God does His righteousness through the Christian, this plants holy seed into the heart of the Christian. The old sinful person, the flesh dies a little bit each time. The Christ within is built up. This holy seed grows in the heart and brings more fruit, which, in turn, plants more holy seed. At the same time, the Christian is set free from sin in some measure--this is the meaning of the word, redemption. This is the relationship that God desires to have with every person. This process proceeds through the Body of Christ. Each member of the Body of Christ, each Christian, is a manifestation of the living Christ in the Earth. Each member is being fitted for a specific place of service within this Body, and the Body of Christ continues to grow until the full manifestation of the sons of God takes place at the end of the age. In stark dissimilarity to Baha'i, true Christianity depends on the revelation that Jesus is God. Only God could pay the price for the sin of every person who ever lived or will live. A Christian's life is all about a relationship with the One Almighty Creator God, the God Who is Love. This relationship is very close and personal. It is a relationship of submission to the Holy Spirit. The human mind was never created to be operated without the Anointing of the Holy Spirit flowing through it with the human mind in complete submission. Without Christ, the human mind doesn't work properly. The same is true of the body. Spiritual death is defined as a condition where the human spirit, mind, or body is not in complete submission to the Holy Spirit. As a follower of Christ, God has revealed to you that He is a loving, forgiving, but totally righteous, God. Christians have been forgiven for their sins because of the blood of Jesus. Jesus paid the price of the sins of every person. You see reality, that is, you have the humility to realize that you have fallen short of the glory of God and that you need the Savior to deliver you. You can certainly confess this fact to the follower of Baha'i. Don't make things up. Tell it like it is. Everyone who follows Christ has many stories to tell--if they are true followers of Christ. Don't argue about theories. Tell what has happened to you. Tell how you are no longer are forced to continually obey your own flesh and try in vain in your own effort. Tell how even your own self-righteousness is as filthy rags, but God can do His righteousness through you as you yield to the Holy Spirit. Tell how you can yield to the Holy Spirit and allow God to do His righteousness through you. Explain that God does not force you to yield. You may want to explain that many Christians are born again and remain as babes in Christ, but they will not be found among the faithful. Many unbelievers are turned off by the immaturity that they see among Christians. It is fine for you to admit that there is immaturity out there that is the result of self-will and resistance to the Holy Spirit. In fact, we are all immature in comparison to the coming manifestation of Christ in His Body. You can point out that some Christians attempt in vain to establish their own righteousness just as followers of Baha'i do and that this is a self-righteousness, and so they are unable to receive the free gift of righteousness that comes from the throne of God. But these Christians will not be found among the faithful. If Christians willingly abandon their self-righteousness and self-dependence and believe God rather than their own understanding, and if they stop contending against Jesus but rather accept Him and His free gift, then God will totally deliver them at the end of this present age. Explain your vision from God, that if a Christian dies in the meantime before the resurrection, they are together with Christ in glory and they join that great cloud of witnesses who have been faithful but have not yet obtained the promise. Baha'i teaches that Jesus sacrificed Himself to illuminate humanity, that His blood was shed to guide the world. In a way, this is true, but not in the way that they believe it. Explain how Jesus illuminates you moment by moment. Tell about your real ongoing, moment-by-moment experience with Christ. Don't talk in theory. The Baha'i people have heard too many theories already. They need to meet the real Jesus. Tell of your experiences where Jesus is guiding you in your life. They already speak of this in theory. Show them the application. Baha'i also holds that Christ gave his life on the cross to unify mankind. You also know that: as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive. You know that every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess to the glory of God the Father. You know that Jesus reaches out to every person. Show your love for every person--the love that flows out from you by the Holy Spirit. Talk about how Jesus is bringing together a Body according to Ephesians 4, that every pattern of Scripture will be restored, that every heart will turn in submission to Christ the Head in Heaven and the Body of Christ will come together in unity. Tell how God is leading you toward this end in your own life. The followers of Baha'i don't believe what Jesus said about Himself, though they claim to believe the New Testament. They don't believe John 3:18 He that believeth on him [Jesus] is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. Because they live in a theoretical world, you must deal in reality rather than theory. Since they want to believe the New Testament, quote from the New Testament as the Holy Spirit leads you. Whenever the Bible is quoted, the Holy Spirit is present. Christ is present. Who knows? Perhaps a heart will be prepared. They don't believe in the literal return of Jesus. While Scripture assures us of the physical return of Jesus, this is not an essential belief to being born again. What they really need at this point is not theological teaching. They need to be born again. They need Jesus. They don't need the physical return of Jesus right now. They need the parousia of Jesus, His abiding presence in you. Show them that. Followers of Baha'i claim to believe all of the Bible, but their interpretations of Scripture are quite creative. Their method is to allegorize the Scriptures to suit their assumptions. Of course, if assumption is deemed a legitimate part of reasoning, then anything can be reasoned to be true and anything can be reasoned to be false simply by making assumptions. They believe that ultimate authority resides with the Universal House of Justice in Israel. Show, by your life, that the Bible (Old & New Testaments as revealed to the hearts and minds of believers by the power of the Spirit but not by the corrupt natural human mind) is the unique, revealed, factual, accurate, & inspired Word of God. That it is the sole authoritative writing for faith & practice. You know that the teachings of the Bible have been shown to be absolutely accurate in every way by every test possible, so live before the Baha'i religionist as one who knows this. God reveals and gives the interpretation of Scripture. God forbids any human speculation, imagination, assumption, presumption, presupposition, rationalization, or anything else that adds to or takes from Scripture. The Scripture is very clear in stating that the human mind is evil, deceptive, and untrustworthy to the point that our own minds can deceive us. The battle is for the mind with Satan and the flesh on the one side and the Holy Spirit joined to the redeemed human spirit on the other side. The Church, as it is defined in the Bible, has authority. The human-designed deviations from the Scriptural church dilute this authority. This is part of the reason that people in organizations such as Baha'i cannot see Christ in the Church. Within the Church, there are gifts, offices, and ministries, all of whom have a Bible-defined authority. Scripture defines those who have authority to receive the interpretation of the Bible and administer doctrine to the Church. A return to the pattern of Scripture will change the way that we all minister as Christians. There is a disparity with the teachings of Baha'i in that God has declared that there is one and only one truth. Truth is not relative but it is very precise and tangible. Truth is found in Jesus Christ. Whatever God has not revealed and led in, whatever is not of faith, is sin. Each Christian, and also every unsaved person, is responsible to find God through Jesus Christ. Whoever seeks Him does find Him. He does speak to them. While the Bible has definitive truth, the Bible is not God. God speaks through the Bible. God must reveal the meaning of the Bible to His people. His primary authority for interpreting the Bible is through apostles. Because of the spiritual war that is currently raging, Satan introduces counterfeits of every reality, so Satan introduces false apostles. However, God assures us that we can know the difference by the Spirit of God. The false apostles will give themselves away by their works. Since the idea of relevatism is self-refuting, you can handle this with questions: "If everything is relative, then is that statement also relative and therefore not true?" Baha'i sees imperfection as a failure to perfectly use inner forces and faculties to turn away for all evil. Follower of Baha'i struggle with their own failure to develop their supposed "naturally good natures." They are told that this is the cause disobedience to the divine commands taught by Baha'u'llah. You know that the problem is sin. The word, sin, literally means straying from the path. This is the path to genuine and absolute fullness of life. Jesus is that path, the way. He is also the life. One can either step or slip off of the path. Sin is anything that is not done in response to the leading of God, that is not done by God's miraculous righteousness working through us, or both. The Bible teaches that human beings are sold into sin, slaves of Satan and must be bought back out of slavery by the blood of Christ. Tell how this happened to you. As a Christian, you are fully aware of the totally lost condition of all human beings, the inability of human beings to do good works, and the one Holy Creator God's great gift of giving His one and only way of salvation through acceptance of the atoning work of His one, unique Son, Jesus Christ. You can show this by telling about your experiences and struggles in self-effort and how you gave yourself over to Jesus and how He now is your strength for righteousness and your forgiveness when you fall short. Explain that Christians do not miss all the benefits of holiness, righteousness, peace, glory, love, and joy that can only be found through Jesus. Christians are those who do not rebel against God and His free salvation, which is through Christ. Christians choose Heaven rather than Hell. This righteousness is exactly what the follower of Baha'i wants yet cannot attain. Imagine the frustration of knowing that they are falling short and only having the failed human flesh to lean on to try to produce righteousness. God's plan for humanity is very high. Sin is falling short of God's plan. Sin is failure to obey God, but sin is much more. Sin is stepping off the Path (Jesus Christ, the Way). God created man in a certain way to be guided by the Spirit of God by grace through faith. Whatever does not follow this pattern of guidance is sin. You can explain that God is love, and sin is the lack of Love. God has a will and is a personal God. Sin is self-will or obedience to other spirits. Tell of examples of how the love of God is shed abroad in the hearts of Christians that you know. Humanity was designed to be completely filled with the fullness of God at all times. Unlike the teachings of Baha'i, God desires to lead us at every moment in every detail. He desires that we hear His voice and respond in submission. We were created for this. We were created to respond by yielding to the Spirit of God and allowing God to do His works through us. Give examples of how this is happening in your life. Differing from the teachings of Baha'i, true Christianity teaches that human beings are sold into sin, slaves of Satan, and must be bought back out of slavery by the blood of Christ. Give examples from your own life of how this is true and how God delivered you and is delivering you from this. Tell about your experience of growing in Christ from glory to glory by the Spirit of God. True Christians are fully aware of the totally lost condition of all human beings, the inability of human beings to do good works, and the one Holy Creator God's great gift of giving His one and only way of salvation through acceptance of the atoning work of His one, unique Son, Jesus Christ. Christians do not miss all the benefits of holiness, righteousness, peace, glory, love, and joy that can only be found through Jesus. Christians are those who do not rebel against God and His free salvation, which is through Christ. Christians choose Heaven rather than Hell. Differing from the teachings of Baha'i, a true Christian's life is all about a relationship with God. Tell about your relationship and how God speaks to you. This relationship is very close and personal. It is a relationship of submission to the Holy Spirit. The human mind was never created to be operated without the Anointing of the Holy Spirit flowing through it with the human mind in complete submission. The same is true of the body. Spiritual death is defined as a condition where the human spirit, mind, or body is not in submission to the Holy Spirit. Followers of Baha'i rationalize that they can, through self-effort, draw near to God. Their concept of human progress is somewhat similar to Buddhists. They feel that right is defined as anything that promotes spiritual growth. They think that wrong is anything that hinders spiritual growth. In a sense, this is true, but the things that promote spiritual growth are always obedience to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit never leads in any way that is contrary to the revelation that God gives in the Bible. The things that hinder spiritual growth are always examples of not being obedient to the Holy Spirit, either not being willing to hear the voice of God, not receiving His free gift of faith, or not allowing His grace to work His works through us. The trouble is that the followers of Baha'i have only the human facilities to discern what causes spiritual growth, and, without the Spirit of Christ, there is no discernment. Since they don't have faith/supernatural trust in Jesus, they don't have His Spirit, and they have no discernment. Another problem that they face is that, without the Spirit of Christ, they have no power to will or to do God's good pleasure. Beyond that, they have no Savior, Jesus, to forgive them for the sins of their past, and they don't even see this as being a problem. Salvation from humanity's sin and depravity requires forgiveness from God. This forgiveness results in the New Birth. You can tell them how this happened for you. Don't argue about their theories. Tell them about the Light of Christ in your life. Don't respond to their logical fallacies of ad hominem or of appeal to ridicule. Forgiveness and being born again are, and can only be, attained through faith in Jesus Christ, God's Son, and in His efficacious death on the cross of Calvary and His resurrection from the dead. Without being born again, no one can see, or enter the Kingdom of God. Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ is born again, and that no other action, gift, baptism, or any other such thing is needed for a person to be born again. Focus on that. Daily prayer, an annual fast, and a monthly communal feast are ways that followers of Baha'i try to work their way to righteousness and acceptance by God. They have locally and nationally elected "Spiritual Assemblies" as opposed to God's order: apostles, who are traveling elders and deacons and who are indicated by God and set by apostles, and local elders and deacons, who are also indicated by God and set by apostles. When any person tries to overcome all evil by self-effort, there is ample opportunity to minister to their need. A follower of Baha'i seeks to discern what causes spiritual growth and do those things, all by self-effort. They work for whatever they think is social justice and whatever they think is equality, again, all discernment, will, and ability is dependent on self. They tend to work in world peace movements. The Central theme of Baha'i is unity. Baha'i says: "To achieve this level of unity, man needs to understand that his point of view is fallible, and therefore he cannot insist on his opinions much less compel the others to believe in the same way as he does." This is a self-refuting statement. Those who make this statement must then realize that their own point of view is fallible and cannot insist that this statement is true or try to compel others to believe this relativistic statement. That is to say, the statement, "To achieve this level of unity, man needs to understand that his point of view is fallible, and therefore he cannot insist on his opinions much less compel the others to believe in the same way as he does." is also fallible, and followers of Baha'i cannot compel others to believe this statement. Not only that, but this dogma of Baha'i presupposes that followers of Christ are the ones who compel others to receive Christ. In fact, the Holy Spirit is the only One Who can change a heart. We are just witnesses, seeking to submit to His Spirit in such a way as to be the oracles of God so that God can speak through us. As a Christian, you can agree with the fallibility of human thinking. You can also agree that human ability to hear God's voice is quite limited at this time, so theology needs to be held lightly. Of course, all thought that is not based on revelation is worthless, since it then must be based either on the things that come out of the fallen, deceitful human mind or else the teachings of demons. At the same time, in variation from the teachings of Baha'i, God gave His law on Sinai, and His law is holy and just and good, but human beings are not able, without the Holy Spirit, to understand or obey His law. Tell them how Jesus reveals truth to you. Explain that you may not understand everything, but you personally know that Person, Jesus, who does understand everything. Explain how God speaks to you through the Bible, how you hear His Voice. The Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit are at variance with the teachings of Baha'i. The Bible is given as an authoritative guide to the truth, and the Holy Spirit teaches us when we read the Bible, provided we ask for leading and believe that we will receive it. Explain how the Holy Spirit teaches you that the Bible gives us the order for the Church and the order of the Church is also given for guidance in interpreting the Bible and for understanding what is right and what is wrong. Followers of Baha'i have a rationalized belief that present and future blessings are seen to be achieved by faith in God, faith in Baha'u'llah, and performing good works through self-effort. They don't mean what the Bible means when they speak of faith, however. They are talking about human rationalized faith, not the faith of God that is given as a free gift. They think that drawing near to God is by self-effort. After death, Baha'i sees a continuation of this self-effort to either draw near to God or go from God. The Spirit is not in agreement with the teachings of Baha'i on Judgment, Heaven, or Hell. There is a life hereafter: Heaven for the righteous, Hell for the wicked and rebellious. God Himself is the only One Who makes this judgment. God's revelation, through Scripture, is in contradiction with the teachings of Baha'i in that resurrection and judgment of all will take place on the day appointed by God. The saved will have everlasting fellowship with the Creator God. Those who have persisted in unbelief will receive judgment according to God's wisdom. God's revelation differs further from the teachings of Baha'i: God's judgment is continual also during life. God's judgments are remedial, though they can be very severe. God has no pleasure in correcting anyone through His judgment. God's judgment starts with gentle leading, speaking to each person who lives. If that person receives the direction of God, they will first receive supernatural belief in Jesus as Savior to deliver them from both the punishment for their sins and to also deliver them from their sins. From there, God will lead them from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. The path of the just is as a shining light that shines more and more until that day when Christ is fully and completely formed in the members of the Body of Christ as they flow into that total unity with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Unlike the teachings of Baha'i, God uses punishment as a way to bring those He loves to Himself. For those who are not obedient to the Spirit of God, it becomes increasingly difficult. Unlike the teachings of Baha'i, Even now, Jesus is the resurrection and the life and we can partake of His life to a degree in the present. The promise is that we will fully partake of the genuine and absolute fullness of life of the Kingdom Age. Jesus Christ is the Genuine and Absolute Fullness of Life. Author/Compiler Last updated: Apr, 2014 ![]() Bread Crumbs Main Foundations Home Meaning Bible Dictionary History Toons & Vids Quotations Similar
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