I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago where a certain person decided to write me a ‘rebuke’ e-mail and actually wrote these words:

You are a Brutus in the Spirit.

Of course, this statement was followed by grossly inaccurate comparisons of me to the man who eventually killed Julius Caesar. I had discarded this e-mail and did not think about this until this morning when I figured out the mentality behind this stuff. The real mentality behind this calling people names ‘in the Spirit’ is really a cowardice attempt to spiritualize telling someone how you really feel about them in the physical without experiencing any physical consequences.

By doing this, some feeling or opinion that could be tangibly measured in the physical is masked into the intangibly unmeasurable in the spiritual realm. Also by doing this stuff, the person is really transmitting a hidden message of what they think about you physically instead of what God really knows about you in the name of avoiding lawsuits in the form of libel, slander, and defamation of character because if someone decided to sue, they can claim ‘freedom of religion’ as their excuse.

However, I went back to part two of an article I wrote entitled Imitators or Intimidated and found this paragraph I had written:

If the Pentecostal / Charismatic concept of deeming names of people was correct, then the Apostle Paul would have had to call Annanias and Sapphira “Achans” in Acts 5, verses 3 through 10. Such men mentioned at the end of Paul’s letters such as Diotrephes in 3 John 9 who did not recognize Paul’s authority and wanted to be a leader would have been labeled as “Spiritual Absalom”. Alexander the Coppersmith (2 Timothy 4:14) would have been deemed as “An Aaron”. Hymenaeus (1 Timothy 1:18-20 and 2 Timothy 17-18) and Philetus (2 Timothy 17-18) would have to been labeled as “spiritual Ahabs, Abihus and Nadabs”. How many Pentecostal / Charismatic churches call their people ‘the spirit of Diotrephes”? But they will call someone a ‘spiritual Judas, Absalom, Miriam, Balaam”, etc. The theology is not consistent. If they use one Biblical example to call someone the “spiritual (insert Bible character here)”, then they have to use all the Biblical characters. However, Paul called these sinful people mentioned in the end of some of his letters what they were, teachers of deception, usurpers of authority, and rebellious. Paul did not try to call them ‘the spirit of some Old Testament person’. Neither did Jesus. So why do we do such nonsense by stating “brother so-and-so has a Ahab spirit?” Very simple, it sounds more ‘spiritual’ and more ‘holy’ but in reality, it’s an misapplication of the scripture. True Christians really have no desire to manifest sinful traits like these sinners manifested. Therefore, instead of stating that acting like these men and manifesting their character traits is not imitating Christ? The instilling of a ‘fear of allowing in the spirit of an evil Bible character’ drives people to a works based conformity of Scripture instead of a grace based following to be like Jesus.

It’s time to quit hiding…..

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