Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

[Mithrae]

[William]

I have mentioned in passing way back when, that I followed through on this particular aspect of scripture when going through my christian phase.

I sold all my possessions.
I left my wife and child behind.
I carried no money (although occasionally I was given money or found it and it had its uses.)
I carried no extra clothing except an extra pair of socks, and an old coat for when it rained (which it frequently does in my country.)
I also carried a pen, some colored pencils a few envelops and stamps so I could write of my progress and send to my wife.
Also a toothbrush.

I spent weeks 'on the road' in some kind of pilgrimage testing my faith and I would say that - had I not done so I would have abandoned Christianity and GOD as well.

As it turned out, I have since abandoned Christianity but certainly not GOD or for that matter Yeshua.

The stories that I have regarding that experience - that phase of my life - are many and very interesting. Of course they are subjective so are not subject to scientific review although there is nothing to stop scientists from doing the same and seeing what results are to be found, other than their focus is elsewhere and most would likely consider such a thing a kind of madness anyway.

Indeed, what I am sharing is just hearsay anyway. Only those who were close to me at the time could verify that I did do what I say I did, and even then they cannot know the details - how I survived the experience and what things I experienced during that time-period of my life - because yes - once I understood how it worked, I eventually went back into the 'system' but that didn't mean I didn't do the same things, again, and again, and again over a period of a few years.

In a nut shell this is where I learned first hand how serendipity worked, and how GOD can indeed provide, so in that I can testify that Yeshua was correct and something else I learn was that GOD provided through circumstance but ALWAYS this involved humans beings helping me along the way.

Those human beings of course, were all connected to the system, and in that I was very aware that although I was temporarily 'off the grid' I was still indirectly relying upon it. There was no 'mana from the sky' and nor was I given the ability to rub my hands together and produce bread.

Indeed, I can testify that for the most part, it was almost always non-Christians who helped me and on the odd occasion where I did 'seek out the believers' to ask for their help, they had a very hard time giving me that help and felt as if I was intruding and encroaching and putting pressure on them simply by doing what I was doing and being in a situation where I had to ask.

Generally though, I often didn't have to ask as - like I said - serendipity arranged it that way. People would offer.

Anyway, I can at least say that it works. It isn't easy and it certainly tests you to the limits but the reward as it were is indelible. Anyone willing to go through such a thing will never have reason to doubt again, and can only move forward 'in the spirit' as it were, no regrets.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 21 by William]

Jesus said the second greatest command is to love your neightbour as youself, and your family is remains your closest neighbour, do you think many children wish for their fathers to leave them and their mothers? Did you know psycological damage of prolonged separation from a parent sometimes only shows up years later?

It is a historical FACT that the following scriptures are in the bible. I of course would not apply any of them to ANYONE in this forum but I would be interested, since this is a discussion on godly commands and devotion, what you think Jesus was trying to say to the Pharisees?

MATTHEW 23:23
Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law--justice, mercy, and faith.

I left my wife and child behind.

THE PHARISEES: EXAMPLES IN GODLY DEVOTION

• The Pharisees were so busy applying what they thought was the correct interpretation of the bible that they totally missed the spirit and point of the law. They were wrong in their reading, because they took the words as absolute and literal and failed to apply any common sense to God given commands, ending up with an oppressive, extreme, impractical unworkable religion impossible for the ordinary man to follow that appealed to the self righteous and the psychotic. A religion that made God look mad and ugly and drove people away frather than appealed to them.
  
  Ordinary working class men and women longed for someone who would teach them the truth and unburden them from the self righteous self congratulatory Scribes and Pharisees who prided themselves on being the only ones that REALLY tried to apply the what the law was saying, while the commoners, the great unwashed, the peasants who knew no better looked after their families and children. Jesus had nothing but contempt for their literal interpretations, he told people to disregard their Pharasitic nonsense and dignified them with the common sense God gave them to understand laws in context with a logic that did not render them impossibly burdensome.

"ALL" MEANS "ALL"; WORK MEANS WORK

So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

• Another example of the Pharisees literal and absolute interpretation can be found in the Mosaic command not to "work" on the Sabbath. Unfortunately God left his people to use their common sense to decide what "work" was. Oh but this was not good enough for our friends the Pharisees! Work is defined as: activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a result. So just as some today don't allow common sense to interfere with a good theology, the Pharisees took the word in its absolute and literal sense and prohibited more or less all physical effort. So what began as a law that meant that families could consecrate at least one day to spiritual activities, refraining from secular work to find refreshment and rest, became an unspeakable web of rules and laughable regulations. And of course, an opportunity for the religious zealots and extremists to give the experiment a try and then tell the world how close it brought them to God!

Well, it seems as if history is repeating itself: The teachings of Christ, built on godly principles, (not a plethora of unworkable and frankly cruel and even harmful instructions), has again fallen into the hands of modern day Pharisees promoting unworkable literal readings, pushing an interpretation that makes what is beautiful, ugly, that which should dignify, guilt-inducing (after all how many of us have the luxury of and pleasure of abandoning our wives, children or dependent older parents to live off other people's earnings in our quest to be REAL Christians) and reducing the beauty of God's personality to a cruel taskmaster asking us to hurt those that we should help and abandon the principles which Jesus taught, in order to prove our godly devotion. Naturally such extreme and literal readings do not lead to real faith and so it is not unheard of that those that follow this theology say they I have since abandoned Christianity entirely.

CONCLUSION: The teachings of Jesus can be interpreted in the absolute, taking every word literally even if that reading would lead not only to a disharmony between what Jesus and his friends actually did as recorded in scripture, but a violation of divine principles and sometimes even divine law OR read with logic, common sense and due regard for godly principles and qualities that build genuine and lasting faith.

RELATED POSTS

Should Jesus words about abandoning "all things" be taken literally?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 89#p908689

Did Jesus stipulate that all his followers should renounce ownership of all material possessions?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 20#p835720

Did Jesus expect his disciples to give up absolutely everything they owned?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 61#p908161

Would the "Acts model" allow for Christian ownership of houses?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 13#p980613

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http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 85#p909585

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http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 01#p980601

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CHRISTIANITY , MONEY & WEALTH and ... JW's FINANCES

[Mithrae]

It is a historical FACT that the following scriptures are in the bible. I of course would not apply any of them to ANYONE in this forum but I would be interested, since this is a discussion on godly commands and devotion, what you think Jesus was trying to say to the Pharisees?

MATTHEW 23:23
Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law--justice, mercy, and faith.

THE PHARISEES: EXAMPLES IN GODLY DEVOTION

You do realize that the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees in these particular passages is that they were ignoring the plain meaning of the teachings found in the Tanakh, right? So... probably not the best examples to make your case that it is right for Christians to ignore the plain meaning of Jesus' teachings

That said, there are other gospel stories in which Jesus himself rejected the plain meaning of older teachings. So does that make it 'okay' for Christians to ignore the plain meaning of what Jesus said and did? As I've already said, in my opinion - yes. Religions can and should evolve over time with the societies they inhabit, and if someone decides that Jesus' teachings about forsaking all are no longer relevant or no longer workable - or even just not applicable to them personally, for one reason or another - I personally would say that is a matter between their conscience and their god. If they find themselves wracked with guilt over that decision maybe that's their conscience telling them something or maybe, and more likely in my opinion, it is the result of indoctrination into a mindset which views the bible as absolutely perfect and directly relevant for every individual, whenever it seems convenient to do so.

Choosing not to follow some particular teaching of Jesus (however strongly and frequently he may have emphasized it) for better or worse could be an honest and conscientious decision of the individual, and quite similar to some of Jesus' attitudes to the older teachings he was raised on.

On the other hand pretending that Jesus never even taught it would not seem to be quite such an honest approach, and seems a lot more similar to the 'pharasaic' attitude of selective/deceptive righteousness which Jesus so frequently condemned.

Well, it seems as if history is repeating itself: The teachings of Christ, built on godly principles, (not a plethora of unworkable and frankly cruel and even harmful instructions), has again fallen into the hands of modern day Pharisees promoting unworkable literal readings, pushing an interpretation that makes what is beautiful, ugly, that which should dignify, guilt-inducing (after all how many of us have the luxury of and pleasure of abandoning our wives, children or dependent older parents to live off other people's earnings in our quest to be REAL Christians) and reducing the beauty of God's personality to a cruel taskmaster asking us to hurt those that we should help and abandon the principles which Jesus taught, in order to prove our godly devotion. Naturally such extreme and literal readings do not lead to real faith and so it is not unheard of that those that follow this theology say they I have since abandoned Christianity entirely.


CONCLUSION: The teachings of Jesus can be interpreted in the absolute, taking every word literally even if that reading would lead not only to a disharmony between what Jesus and his friends actually did as recorded in scripture, but a violation of divine principles and sometimes even divine law OR read with logic, common sense and due regard for godly principles and qualities that build genuine and lasting faith.

What Jesus actually did, and what his apostles and their wives actually did, and what he told his other followers to actually do - as recorded in scripture - was to forsake everything, stop working for money and start working for the kingdom of God.

Jesus himself all but disavowed his own mother and brothers (Mark 3:31-35) and told a potential follower not to bother burying his father (Luke 9:60), yet you're trying to argue that family unity is more important than what he taught and the example he set? Jesus himself (and Paul) clearly said that following his teachings would be harder for those with wife and family, that their actions would seem hateful towards their family, and that it would be better to not be married (Matt. 19:10:12, Luke 14:25ff, 1 Cor. 7:8). Yet you're suggesting that family ties were something unforeseen which aren't addressed and therefore somehow invalidate his commands?

In fact I think that a good case might be made that raising children as slaves to the system of dependence on money, working for mammon and a worldview of materialism and consumerism could be viewed in the long run as more damaging than setting an example of freedom and trust in God. While not directly theological - and in fact, ultimately arguing in favour of making people work for money - Benjamin Franklin's observations about the stark negatives of living within this artificial economic system seem quite relevant:

• The proneness of human Nature to a life of ease, of freedom from care and labour appears strongly in the little success that has hitherto attended every attempt to civilize our American Indians, in their present way of living, almost all their Wants are supplied by the spontaneous Productions of Nature, with the addition of very little labour, if hunting and fishing may indeed be called labour when Game is so plenty, they visit us frequently, and see the advantages that Arts, Sciences, and compact Society procure us, they are not deficient in natural understanding and yet they have never shewn any Inclination to change their manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our Arts; When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural [to them] merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger Brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and a match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness.
  
  Though they have few but natural wants and those easily supplied. But with us are infinite Artificial wants, no less craving than those of Nature, and much more difficult to satisfy; so that I am apt to imagine that close Societies subsisting by Labour and Arts, arose first not from choice, but from necessity: When numbers being driven by war from their hunting grounds and prevented by seas or by other nations were crowded together into some narrow Territories, which without labour would not afford them Food.

The story of the 'fall' from the paradise of Eden may well reflect that agricultural transition and the necessity of working the ground for food. Rightly or wrongly, Jesus clearly tells his followers to return to something closer to that natural lifestyle:

• Matthew 6:25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
  34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

[Mithrae]

I spent weeks 'on the road' in some kind of pilgrimage testing my faith and I would say that - had I not done so I would have abandoned Christianity and GOD as well.

As it turned out, I have since abandoned Christianity but certainly not GOD or for that matter Yeshua.

The stories that I have regarding that experience - that phase of my life - are many and very interesting. Of course they are subjective so are not subject to scientific review although there is nothing to stop scientists from doing the same and seeing what results are to be found, other than their focus is elsewhere and most would likely consider such a thing a kind of madness anyway.

Indeed, what I am sharing is just hearsay anyway. Only those who were close to me at the time could verify that I did do what I say I did, and even then they cannot know the details - how I survived the experience and what things I experienced during that time-period of my life - because yes - once I understood how it worked, I eventually went back into the 'system' but that didn't mean I didn't do the same things, again, and again, and again over a period of a few years.

In a nut shell this is where I learned first hand how serendipity worked, and how GOD can indeed provide, so in that I can testify that Yeshua was correct and something else I learn was that GOD provided through circumstance but ALWAYS this involved humans beings helping me along the way.

Those human beings of course, were all connected to the system, and in that I was very aware that although I was temporarily 'off the grid' I was still indirectly relying upon it. There was no 'mana from the sky' and nor was I given the ability to rub my hands together and produce bread.

Indeed, I can testify that for the most part, it was almost always non-Christians who helped me and on the odd occasion where I did 'seek out the believers' to ask for their help, they had a very hard time giving me that help and felt as if I was intruding and encroaching and putting pressure on them simply by doing what I was doing and being in a situation where I had to ask.

Generally though, I often didn't have to ask as - like I said - serendipity arranged it that way. People would offer.

Serendipity is a good word. I try not to put too much stock in coincidences, but by the same token it would be fallacious to always assume that mere coincidence is an explanation for every unusual event which occurs.

While I failed to follow through with Jesus' commands for more than a single day, it was on that single day for the first and so far only time in my life that I met a couple of folks who struck up a conversation saying that they belonged to a group who were themselves doing that very thing. I've obviously never considered that proof of providence, but even after my loss of faith I have always found it hard to dismiss as mere coincidence.

I've always kept that story pretty close to my chest, because it's a story of personal failure regardless of whether I failed to follow Jesus' commands or I was just foolish to try it in the first place. I may or may not have told my brother at some point while we lived together, but aside from that the first time I ever shared it with anyone I know was earlier this year, asking a couple of relatives to proof-read my book draft. And then here's another bit of coincidence: Within a week of sharing that story with them, while googling videos on 'liberal Christianity' to watch over a meal, I somehow stumbled across a YouTube channel belonging to that very same group, almost fourteen years to the day after I'd met a couple of their folk in person.

What's particularly interesting to me is how sensible a lot of their views seem to be, and how similar to many of the conclusions I myself had reached even as a Christian: That things like gossip and bitterness are greater sins than homosexuality, for example (which I believed even back when I thought the latter was a sin), but churches love to focus on the imagined logs in others' eyes rather than their own. Or that the bible is not the 'word of God' - Jesus is! - and that even the gospels contain some errors and imperfections in their record of Jesus' life and teachings. These are reasonable and down-to-earth views, despite going against the current of traditional Christian dogma and practice and despite not always precisely matching my own. (And interestingly, similar to your experience this group also seem to have the impression that a lot of non-Christians and folk on the fringes of society are closer to the kingdom of God than many upright members of institutional churches.)

Obviously you are another example of a sensible fellow who I often find myself agreeing with, or at least usually not disagreeing too vehemently So perhaps this forsake all teaching of Jesus is something of a litmus test; whether of a shared craziness or just of folk with the mindset of being willing to set aside preconceptions and try to look for what's really there, I couldn't say

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 23 by Mithrae]

Yes, you like the Pharisees of Jesus day, favour an absolute reading of Jesus words, a theology that leads to extreme behaviours but very little real and sustainable faith.

As it turned out, I have since abandoned Christianity

... even after my loss of faith.

I cannot say I respect that, but I do recognise that such an absolute and literal interpretation has its examples in scripture. There are fortunately Christians that don't strain out nits and swallow camels and take the principles of Christ's words so they can obey them while supporting themselves and their families with honest work like the carpenter Joseph, adopted father of Jesus (There is no account of Joseph abandoning Mary and Jesus to go a and serve God "properly"). Unlike the scribes and the Pharisees some today actually acknowledged that an alternative view is scripturally superior.


Jehovah's Witnesses interpret Jesus' words to mean to live simple modest lives, not devoting energy to getting rich, making a lot of money or becomeing the top earners in our communities (see chart below). We believe a Christians should work in honest employment that enable him to earn enough to support ourselves and our families. We believe our lives should be centred on spiritual interests and the doing of God's will but not to the detriment of ones family (Jehovah's Witness husbands are NOT encouraged to abandon their wives and children as proof of their devotion to God).

In 2017 Jehovah's Witensses spent nearly 2 and a Half billion ours preaching the good news of the kingdom, and conducted over 10 million free home bible studies. They could have devoted that time and energy to getting a higher income

RELATED POSTS

Should Jesus words about abandoning "all things" be taken literally?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 89#p908689

Did Jesus stipulate that all his followers should renounce ownership of all material possessions?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 20#p835720

Did Jesus expect his disciples to give up absolutely everything they owned?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 61#p908161

Would the "Acts model" allow for Christian ownership of houses?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 13#p980613

Is there proof JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES are the religion that put spiritual things ahead of working for money?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 85#p909585

Did Jesus command all his disciples renounce employment and all private ownership.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 01#p980601

To read more please go to other posts related to...

CHRISTIANITY , MONEY & WEALTH and ... JW's FINANCES

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 23 by Mithrae]

Yes, you like the Pharisees of Jesus day, favour an absolute reading of Jesus words, a theology that leads to extreme behaviours but very little real and sustainable faith.

As it turned out, I have since abandoned Christianity

... even after my loss of faith.

Two examples; and both of those are instances of people who left Christianity some time after ceasing to follow Jesus' teachings, while not obeying him by our own admissions - in my case, perhaps even because I failed to follow him. How many cases do you know of people who've lost their faith while actually following Jesus' teaching? I know of considerably more than two who've been following his teaching for decades...

Meanwhile there are literally millions of people from the institutional churches - including your own denomination - who lose their faith while pretending that was obedience to Jesus, and probably billions of members of institutional churches for whom the religion is nothing more than a social club or cultural habit. Numerically, it is unquestionable that failure to follow Jesus' teaching of forsaking all correlates with far, far more spiritual stagnation than following it - and quite probably more as a percentage of folk who've taken each respective path also.

I cannot say I respect that, but I do recognise that such an absolute and literal interpretation has its examples in scripture. There are fortunately Christians that don't strain out nits and swallow camels and take the principles of Christ's words so they can obey them while supporting themselves and their families with honest work like the carpenter Joseph, adopted father of Jesus (There is no account of Joseph abandoning Mary and Jesus to go a and serve God "properly").

You're kidding, right? According to one of the stories, an angel told Joseph to leave everything and go to Egypt, so he packed the family up and dragged them off that very same night! He didn't start humming and hahing about how travel would be rough on his wife and child, how they had roots in that community while pagan Egyptian culture might be a bad influence on the boy...

Maybe what you are inadvertently implying here is that the words of Jesus are not as important as those of an angel. If an angel told us to do it, well then surely we would obey!

Unlike the scribes and the Pharisees some today actually acknowledged that an alternative view is scripturally superior.


Jehovah's Witnesses interpret Jesus' words to mean to live simple modest lives, not devoting energy to getting rich, making a lot of money or becomeing the top earners in our communities (see chart below). We believe a Christians should work in honest employment that enable him to earn enough to support ourselves and our families. We believe our lives should be centred on spiritual interests and the doing of God's will but not to the detriment of ones family (Jehovah's Witness husbands are NOT encouraged to abandon their wives and children as proof of their devotion to God).

Who said anything about abandoning wives and children? Besides Jesus saying that anyone who wishes to follow him must hate their family, I mean? In all of his teachings that one is probably the most bizarre and inscrutable, but it actually starts to make a lot of sense when the clearer, unambiguous commands to forsake everything are taken seriously: You won't hate your family, but that's certainly what you'll be accused of if you ever dare consider following Jesus' teachings!

Let's be honest here, telling people to hate their family was a really horrible thing for Jesus to say. Wasn't it?

So why on earth do you imagine that he said it, if you think that what he 'really' meant was that you should do everything under the sun to provide temporal luxuries to your family, up to and including ignoring Jesus' teachings themselves?

There've been human communities which have lived nomadic lifestyles for hundreds of thousands of years right down to the present. But you seem to believe that God is not powerful enough or not loving enough to provide for a family who trust in him enough to follow the teachings which his Messiah very clearly and repeatedly emphasized! How can you possibly believe that anyone was raised from the dead if you can't even trust him for daily bread?

There was no money in the 'garden of Eden' at the start of the bible and likewise - in fact much more emphatically - at its end there seems to be an even more potent object lesson suggested by the 'mark of the beast' so intimately associated with buying and selling. In a world so utterly dependent on money, it's a pretty safe bet that if that prophecy comes to pass there will be few who find themselves able to resist it. Jesus' teachings seem to dovetail in quite well with that theme, arguably serving as both warning and preparation against the day when it would not 'just' be a matter of not working for money and because Jesus said so, but a situation of having to live without money entirely because social progress has led to a simple, secure, unloseable replacement for credit cards which some 'extreme pharasaic literalists' think is somehow evil.

If folk are unwilling to forsaking their possessions now, purely because Jesus clearly and repeatedly taught that they should do so - and at a time when they can ease themselves into it and perhaps even retain some support from family or a generally friendly and open society - I wonder how many will be able to bring themselves to do it when it really is the abrupt and absolute cliff edge you seem to fear? The various passages in all four gospels in which Jesus tells his followers to stop working for money and give up their possessions are pretty clear and unambiguous, as far as I can see; so if we can persuade ourselves that he didn't really teach that, then rationalizing the 'mark of the beast' (if it ever occurs) will be a breeze!

[bjs]

[showme]

[Replying to post 1 by Mithrae]

Did Jesus really teach that to be his follower, you must forsake all your possessions?

Certainly not. On the other hand, if you want to become "perfect" then certainly, you must "sell your possessions" "give to the poor", and "follow me". (Mt 19:21). As for entering the "kingdom of heaven" without selling your possessions and following me, that would be like threading a camel through a needle. Possible, but apparently difficult.

[showme]

[Monta]

[Replying to post 26 by Mithrae]

"How many cases do you know of people who've lost their faith while actually following Jesus' teaching? I know of considerably more than two who've been following his teaching for decades..."

Sometimes leaving on'e faith (what you've been taught about about God) is the best thing you can do. Then you turn to Teacher Himself 'who will lead yu into all truth'.
...............

"Let's be honest here, telling people to hate their family was a really horrible thing for Jesus to say. Wasn't it? "

It appears so but a genuine seeker of truth will not come to any conclusion and put it into don't understand basket. If the scripture says to honor thy father and thy mother, that means you can not honer them and hate them at the same time.

I don't know where to find that scripture but in another place instead of 'hate', 'forsake' is used.

The teaching is that we hate/forsake everything we've learned from our parents, brothers, sisters, could also include Preachers and other teachers who continue to speak falsities regarding God, and go on and follow the Word.