This series examines how A.W. Tozer, an otherwise excellent, Scripturally-based and spiritual writer, still blindly held to the “church” paradigm that keeps people from being everything Christ intends them to be.
All quotes from A.W. Tozer are from his book, God Tells the Man Who Cares unless otherwise specified.
- Introduction; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard A.W. Tozer, an otherwise excellent, Scriturally-based and spiritual writer, still blindly held to the “church” paradigm that keeps people from being everything Christ intends them to be.
- 1. Organization: Necessary and Dangerous (Part 1); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer, as is true of every proponent of the “church” paradigm, is quite capable of expressing contradictory opinions without ever realizing the statements are contradictory.
- 2. The Vital Place of the Church; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer’s teachings exposes his own “church” paradigm and opens up the truth for us today.
- 3. Organization: Necessary and Dangerous (Part 2); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Parasitical organizations attached to the work of God is precisely what Jesus predicted.
- 4. The Wasp and the Church Member (Part 1); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer asks great questions! But if anyone else were to ask them, the most likely response will be “Oh, he’s just bitter – he’s been hurt!”
- 5. Pragmatism Goes to Church; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Even in 1960, Tozer recognized that the “religious majority” within the “churches” would exhibit the same wrath as the Jews exhibited against Jesus and all His followers – and that the “religious majority” were a mixed multitude rejecting the sound doctrine of hearing the Lord and submitting to His rule.
- 6. The Way of Christ Is Still Narrow; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer, writing around 1960, gives testimony here of a quick but dramatic transformation in the practice of following Christ.
- 7. The Wasp and the Church Member (Part 2); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Even Tozer saw that the “church” most often gives new converts precisely something other than or something in addition to Christ and that the race the spiritual converts run is a short dash that fizzles out into the “dull religious routine” of faithful “church” attendance.
- 8. We Must Be Still to Know; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard If the people who have read Tozer – and a lot of “pastors” and religious leaders have read his writings – would have simply heeded this message, the landscape of Christianity might be vastly different than it is now.
- 9. The Era of an Absentee God; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard One advantage gained from thinking of God as being absent is that we may assume that He is pleased with whatever we may be trying to do, as long as it is not downright wicked. There would seem to be no other way to account for the vast amount of religious nonsense being carried on these days in the name of the Lord.
- 10. The Perils of the Preacher (Part 1); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard One of the clearest instances where Tozer saw things as they were but was unable to rightly label what he was seeing.
- 11. Organization: Necessary and Dangerous (Part 3); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer gives a classic example of the slippery slope method of reaching false conclusions, an error he does not often make.
- 12. The Perils of the Preacher (Part 2); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Even in labeling the “pastor” or preacher as “the minister” Tozer is giving evidence that he has unconsciously accepted the “minister” as a superior class of being and we have entered a place that is quite different from the New Testament.
- 13. Artificial Divisions Are Harmful; The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard To support the idea that the clergy/laity distinctions have “grown out of a partial truth,” Tozer uses words that are heavily infested with religious definitions that are not necessarily found in the New Testament.
- 14. The Responsibility of Leadership (Part 1); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Tozer overlooks two details in his underlying premise and misses some obvious points about the Israelite’s rebellions.
- 15. The Responsibility of Leadership (Part 2); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Here again Tozer tumbles down a slippery slope – a mistake he does not make often – and lands in a heap at the bottom.
- 16. The Perils of the Preacher (Part 3); The “Church” Paradigm (a la Tozer) - Neil Girrard Even in saying that Satan doesn’t rest in devising pitfalls for “the ministry,” Tozer betrays the separation in his mind between “the ministry” and the rest of the people.
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