Quick Thought – Should Christians have no teachers except the Holy Spirit?

Seeing that this idea has come up in a comment thread, based on a common misunderstanding of 1 John 2:27 (that utterly ignores the immediately preceding verse and the seven verses before that one…which some might suggest is the context…), I thought I’d share a just one passage of scripture relevant to the idea so that the conversation can move to this thread and not clog up other posts.  Read and consider the following:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.  And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

Islam is a religion of peace…

…WHERE exactly?

If Islam is a religion of peace, I have a few questions…

Question 1 – Why can MSNBC or CNN never ever find a non-militant muslim from Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or any other openly muslim country who argues that that “Islam is a religion of peace” and “Islamic extremists are the violent minority that all muslims must oppose”?   They always have western-educated, western-looking experts in “Middle Eastern Studies” or “Islamic Studies”from the UK, USA or Canada.  They always have people speaking on behalf of Islam that would, in muslim countries, be seen as traitors to Islam.

Why do we never see a prominent muslim leader defending the peaceful nature of Islam “joining us via satellite” from Lebanon or Iran?

Question 2 – If Islam is a religion of peace, why is it that people who do things like this claim to be doing it because of their devotion to Islam and never have criticism coming from prominent muslims from within their own countries?

I mean, back in May 2009 when Scott Roeder killed George Tiller, an abortion doctor from Witchita Kansas, almost every prominent Christian Pro-Life organization publically and loudly condemned the murder, and several prominent Christians like Dr. Al Mohler and Justin Taylor and Greg Koukl and Mark Dever spoke out loudly against the murder of Tiller.

Long before the mudrer of Tiller, John Piper had boldly preached against violence against abortionists and John MacArthur had clearly written about how Christians should deal with abortionists.

Prominent Christians loudly and boldly proclaim that those who kill others, including abortionists, are doing so against the teaching of the Bible and in contradiction to Christianity.  Many prominent Christians proclaim publically that those who wrongly take life don’t have anything to do with the God who rightly gives life.

Where are the muslims, in Iraq, who have been speaking out against violence toward Christians (simply for being Christians) as doing so against the teaching of the Qu’ran and in contradiction to Islam?

When, in the history of the world, has a fatwa ever been declared against militant muslims (specifically for their militancy) by any muslim leader?

Where are the muslims who are standing up in outrage about the 45 Christians, in the nation of Iraq alone, who were murdered in the name of Islam in the last 10 days?

Religion of peace?

More like “Religion of piece”

Remembering all those precious sheep who were slain for their testimony, and praying for the safety of all those living in Muslim lands under the threat of being slain for their faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

Rev. 6:9-11,

Lyndon “Love your enemies before it’s too late” Unger