The Bible is very clear that one of the duties laid upon all true believers is to so love the truth of God that one is even willing to contend for it. In Jude 3, the apostle exhorts us to earnestly contend for the faith (not subjective believing, but rather in the objective sense, the body of truth we believe) which was once was for all given to the saints. It is interesting that the word used in Greek for contending is the same word from which we get the word “agonizing”. Thus the apostle is asking us to agonize for the truth. Yes to suffer acute and excruciating pain to safeguard the purity of God’s truth from being polluted by false prophets and false teachers. It is after this introduction in verse 3, that Jude spends the rest of the book in describing and warning against false prophets and teachers.
In keeping with this end, we are to stand against heretics of our day and age. We should show no mercy in calling that which is error as error. Yes this does not give us any sanction to be bitter with them or air our own personal vendetta against them. Thus being humble yet making no compromises, we need to test every spirit and make sound judgments regarding every single preacher we listen to.
At present there are many who are involved in what is called discernment ministries. They write and speak about popular preachers, examining and critiquing the teachings of these men and women. They are like watchmen giving warnings to the church. The main difficulty one encounters with these discernment ministries is that the vast majority of the materials, though has very accurate criticism of false preachers of our day, presents these in a very legalistic or elitist spirit. It does not seem to be presented primarily as a help for true believers, but rather as a gloating over the ignorance and falsehood of the false preachers.
Fortunately there are exceptions and the following criticism is one which certainly is a humble, straight forward exposé of Joyce Meyer. The following link is shared out of two main reasons. First of all, as stated so far, it is difficult to find humble, straightforward criticisms. Secondly, it is rare to find clear criticisms of Joyce Meyer. Everyone seems to be saying things against her in broad terms, like she believes in Word of Faith theology or that she supports Prosperity Gospel etc. However in the following audio by Fran Sankey, you will hear a very clear articulation of the particular doctrines of Meyer which are to be deemed as rank heresy.
The key areas where her understanding of the Bible is heretical are : the atonement of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the justification of sinners by God in Jesus Christ. At least those are the fundamental areas where she is wrong. Though there are many more things in her theology and ministry that could be questioned, the below exposé focuses only on these three core doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Like all Word of Faith (WOF) preachers, Joyce has a faulty understanding of the atonement, commonly known as the Spiritual Death of Jesus. In this whole theory it is the Devil and his sensational killing of Jesus in hell that somehow attained our salvation. God is just a weak spectator in this whole theory. It is not the wrath of God that Jesus bore, but the cruel torture of the devils in hell. Joyce then makes a really funny twisting of scriptures to get over some of the biblical obstacles to preach this theory. She also makes a really common Charismatic claim that she got all these information not from the Bible, but from special revelation. Thus she assaults the sufficiency of Scriptures and makes it plain that she indeed is preaching an extra biblical truth.
When it comes to resurrection, she mistakes resurrection with the new birth and like all WOF teachers, she calls Jesus the first human to be born again. Fran Sankey shows how only humans born with the original sin need to be born again and Jesus being sinless need no such new birth.
Finally there is another shocking audio clip of Meyer yelling about her sinlessness. She again goes wrong in her understanding of what justification means. She mistakes sin to be merely the external deeds and forgets that we still carry indwelling sin in our nature. Thus there is no category of imputed righteousness in her theology and this forces her to think, she is called righteous by God because she indeed is righteous.
Thus her theology – whether it be regarding the atonement or the resurrection or her own justification, it is all built on faulty premises.
Fran Sankey uses actual audio clippings of Joyce Meyer and makes a clear case of heresy against her in a very straight forward manner without any ridicule or gloating over her. All these clippings are from the 90s. It seems most of today’s Christians are unaware of these convictions of Meyer as she now focuses much on practical things like managing emotions or having a healthy body etc.
It is easy to criticize people but let us go a step further and pray that people like Joyce Meyer will be spared of God’s wrath and be saved by Him. Let us pray for the illumination of her mind and for her repentance.
Highly recommend this for all women (and even some men) who listen to her.
