In the first century, a Jewish synagogue in the Macedonian city of Berea received a special visitor who brought new teaching. This visitor was the apostle Paul. His teaching was that Jesus—recently crucified and risen from the dead—was the Jews’ long-awaited Messiah.
The people listened to Paul’s new teaching with eagerness. They didn’t chase him out of town and label him a false teacher for challenging their way of thinking. Rather, they showed a sincere open-mindedness about what he had to say. But they also wanted to be sure his teaching was true. These Bereans spent days searching their Scriptures to see if they supported the new teaching. After determining that they did, many became followers of Jesus.
What does this story from so long ago—found in Acts 17:10-12—have to do with the book before you? Quite a lot.
In the twenty-first century, churches in small towns and large cities throughout the world encounter teachers who, like Paul, are bringing new teaching. These teachers—part of the “New Apostolic Reformation,” NAR—also call themselves “apostles” and “prophets.” Their teaching is that churches must submit to their leadership so they can advance God’s kingdom and prepare the earth for Christ’s return.
Like the teaching Paul brought to Berea, the teaching of today’s apostles and prophets is not unimportant. It has major effects on churches and the everyday lives of individual Christians.
So, how should Christians respond to the new NAR teaching?
The same way the Bereans did. We should hear it out with true sincerity and an open mind. We should not be quick to dismiss this teaching or to label it false—just because it’s new to us. We should give it a fair hearing to see if it presents important truth that we have missed.
We should also be sure the teaching is true. That means we should patiently search the Scriptures to see how this teaching matches up. If it does, then we should believe it—even if it goes against our own conservative traditions and limited experiences, and even if it makes us uncomfortable. But if it doesn’t line up with Scripture, then we must cast it aside.
It’s with this spirit—of open-mindedness, fairness, and thoughtfulness—that we’ve endeavored to write this book.
This is more than an academic exercise. I’ve have wrestled passionately with specific passages of Scripture and asked God to guide me to correct understanding. In addition to studying their literature I’ve attended NAR churches and conferences to observe NAR leaders deliver their teachings. And I’ve spent countless hours talking with people who have been part of this movement—seeking to understand it from their point of view. As a result, I sometimes found that my long-standing assumptions about certain issues were mistaken. Perhaps you will, too.
Some readers may suspect we’re “anti-charismatic.” They may expect us to argue that the “miraculous gifts” described in 1 Corinthians 12—including the gifts of prophesying, healing, and speaking in tongues—are no longer active in the church today. This is not our objective. Many Christians around the world—including charismatics and classical Pentecostals—believe that the miraculous gifts are still active, and we do not dispute their belief. We’ve tried to show that NAR teachings do not represent the views of most charismatics or classical Pentecostals—but are entirely different.
We emphasize that not all people who are affiliated with NAR hold to all the same beliefs. As with any other large, multi-faceted movement, participants in NAR hold to a spectrum of beliefs, accepting some NAR teachings and being unaware of or rejecting others. Furthermore, not all NAR leaders work together or agree on everything. When we critique a particular teaching in this book, we don’t mean to imply that all NAR leaders we address in this book hold to that same teaching. And when we use the descriptive term “NAR” to refer to specific leaders, books, organizations or the like, we do not mean to imply that these leaders, books, organizations, or other entities share all the same views.
We don’t address the most recent “manifestations” of the Holy Spirit that are occurring in NAR churches or the latest teachings or prophetic words. The phenomena observed in some of these churches—such as the making of “animal noises,” “Holy Laughter,” and appearances of “angel feathers”—come and go quickly and new phenomena take their place. Even the “Glory Cloud” that was reportedly making appearances at Bethel Church in Redding, California, a couple years ago has almost been forgotten. There’s a good reason these phenomena come and go. People in NAR believe that God is always doing a “new thing”—and they hope not to miss out on the “current move of the Holy Spirit” by focusing on a “past move.”
Rather than addressing each passing manifestation or latest prophetic word, we believe it will be more helpful to provide an enduring framework for understanding and evaluating NAR teachings as a whole. With this big-picture framework you’ll have a better understanding of NAR than many participants in the movement have. They may hold to a particular teaching here and another one there, but not understand how the teachings fit together into a larger theological framework that is the basis of NAR.
If you have a loved one who has been drawn into this movement and you want a brief and accurate introduction to it, or if you are simply curious and want a basic introduction, this book is for you. After reading this book, if you want to know more, we encourage you to read our other book about this movement, A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement. There we go into much greater depth evaluating NAR teachings and describing the global influence of the movement.