Colossians 2 KJV CE
1 For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; 2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; 3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. 5 For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.
03/06/11-One step closer to the Triple Helix - Michael Hoggard
Uploaded on Dec 25, 2011
1 John 4:1 KJV CE
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Corinthians 11 KJV CE
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; 5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
Theophostics: Unbiblical Teaching Wedded to Mystical Experience (Theophostic Ministry)
A Warning against the Unbiblical Teachings of Ed Smith
by Bob DeWaay
THEOPHOSTICS AND ITS KEY PREMISE
Theophostics is false teaching dressed in psychological garb: that is the point of this article and the premise I will defend for the rest of this paper.
Dr. Edward M. Smith, the inventor/founder of Theophostics Ministry (formerly TheoPhostics Counseling) claims that through Theophostics, people are delivered from emotional pain, totally and permanently.2 Once free from emotional pain, these individuals can break free from sin habits supposedly caused by their “lie-based thinking,” and live free from emotional pain without effort of maintenance.
These results cannot be obtained through what Smith calls “cognitive truth” (understood by the mind), but can be obtained through “experiential truth” (found in subjective experience) in which a person is brought back to the first memory of a similar emotionally painful experience and receives personal revelation from the Spirit of Christ about that experience.
According to Smith, people who repent and obey God without having this experience are guilty of “performance based spirituality,” and are merely masking their “lie-based pain.” So the former alcoholic who quits drinking, but who still has temptations to drink, is merely “performing” and is guilty of “works salvation” unless he has a mystical experience that heals the true cause of why he or she started drinking (a childhood memory and a lie based on it) and thus never has a desire to drink again, without maintenance. Then the person is truly free. Here is how Smith describes it:
According to Smith, people who repent and obey God without having this experience are guilty of “performance based spirituality,” and are merely masking their “lie-based pain.” So the former alcoholic who quits drinking, but who still has temptations to drink, is merely “performing” and is guilty of “works salvation” unless he has a mystical experience that heals the true cause of why he or she started drinking (a childhood memory and a lie based on it) and thus never has a desire to drink again, without maintenance. Then the person is truly free. Here is how Smith describes it:
Often victory is falsely equated with the cessation of a particular behavior and its replacement with a more acceptable one. For example, we may stop compulsive eating or not eating by replacing it with daily jogging . . . We might quit drinking and overcompensate with religious behavior. Any attempt to overcome our lie-based pain by adjusting our behavior is works salvation (Smith: 164).
By Smith’s definition, what used to be called “repentance” or “faithful obedience” is now “works salvation.”
[ Yes, it's newage in disguise by replacing the 12 step program, which is also not biblical. Works alone do not get us to GOD's Kingdome, we have to have full Faith in JESUS our Saviour. ]
2 Timothy 3 KJV CE
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
Colossians 2 KJV CE
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Theophostic Prayer Ministry is a biblical based, Christ-centered ministry.
Theophostic Prayer Ministry is NOT New Age, Eastern religion, hypnosis, guided imagery, or any other non-biblical practice. It has NO roots in, or resemblance to, the new age practice referred to as "Theosophy." See FAQ for more information.
Theophostic counseling
Theophostic Counseling was developed in the United States during the mid-1990s by Dr. Ed Smith, a Baptist Minister.[1] After concerns about legal liabilities associated with offering counseling services, Smith later changed the name to Theophostic Prayer Ministry.[2]
Its name comes from the Greek theo (God) and phostic (light), and it is often associated with the Christian Inner Healing Movement. Smith says people are being delivered from phobias, depressions, anxiety disorders, obsessive–compulsive disorders, dissociative personality disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, sexual addictions, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, and homosexuality through Theophostic principles. The name Theophostic is a registered trademark.[3][4]
Few empirical evaluations of Theophostic Ministry are available, although Christian psychologist Fernando Garzon says that current case study and survey data has yielded clinically significant changes in client symptom levels, and high degrees of client and practitioner satisfaction.[
Definition
Smith’s definition of Theophostic Prayer Ministry is: “Theophostic is a ministry of helping emotionally wounded people to acknowledge and to identify the true source of their inner emotional pain and find lasting peace through receiving personalized truth directly from the Lord.”[6]
Principles
Smith lists fourteen basic principles of Theophostic Prayer Ministry,:[7]
1. Our present situation is rarely the cause of our ongoing emotional pain.
2. Everything we presently know, feel or are mentally aware of has its roots in a first-time experience.
3. If we try to resolve our present conflicts without resolving our historical lie-based woundedness, we will find only temporary relief for our emotional pain. However, if we find renewal for our past, we can redeem our present.
4. Since many of the negative emotions we currently feel are reflections of the past, they provide opportunities for the wounds of our lives to be exposed and thus for renewal to occur.
5. To facilitate emotional renewal, we need to identify the three basic elements in the renewal process: (1) the present emotional pain, (2) the original memory container and (3) the original lie(s) implanted in the memory container.
6. People are in emotional bondage due to two basic factors, belief and choice. These two factors are rooted in the context of deception.
7. When we believe a lie, the outcome will often have much the same consequences as though it were true.
8. To be free of the lies we believe, we must identify and own the lies rather than suppress or deny we believe them before we can be free from them.
9. In the midst of our “darkness”, we must come to realize how utterly bound we are to the lie and how helpless we are to overcome its debilitating grip on our lives apart from God’s divine intervention.
10. No person, including ourselves, is capable of talking us out of the lies we believe. We will be free only when we receive the truth from the One who is Truth (John 16:12).
11. When we know the truth experientially, having received truth from God in our memory experience, we can walk in genuine maintenance-free victory in these areas of our lives.
12. In time of crisis or in emotionally charged life situations, our experiential knowledge tends to override our logical truth.
13. Lie-based pain can only be removed as the lies causing the pain are replaced with truth, whereas, sin-based pain can only be dealt with through the cross of Jesus.
14. Mind renewal is a lifelong process.
The Theophostic Prayer Ministry Process
Participants in a typical Theophostic Prayer Ministry session are the ministry recipient, a ministry facilitator and optionally a prayer partner.[8]
The ministry facilitator ensures that the ministry recipient understands the process before the session begins.[9][10]
The facilitator begins the session with a prayer of encouragement.[11]
The ministry recipient closes his eyes and concentrates on feeling the emotional pain from which he is seeking relief. The purpose of focusing on the emotion is to allow his mind to drift back to a related memory[12] . That memory is of a situation that the recipient regards as painful and which he has interpreted to form a belief about himself or his situation.[12] The event that is contained in the memory may have occurred many years ago, for example in the person’s childhood.[12] The emotion provides a bridge to the belief.[13]
The ministry recipient describes the memory to the facilitator.[12] The facilitator asks the recipient some questions that will enable the recipient to drill down to the core belief housed in this memory that is troubling him. The questions are not leading questions,[14] as the facilitator does not assume anything about the memory’s content. Rather they are open questions, posed to help the recipient himself to identify the core belief. This core belief is known in TPM parlance as a “lie” that causes lie-based pain. The lie arises from the recipient’s interpretation of the situation.[15] For example a rape victim may have formed a belief that she is dirty or shameful, whereas she was actually an innocent victim. Though her belief is false, it has the same impact on her emotional state now as if it were true.[16]
Once the recipient has identified the core troublesome belief, the facilitator prays, asking the Lord Jesus to provide the recipient with his perspective, that is, what he would like the recipient to know.[6][12] The Lord answers that prayer in various ways. He might provide his truth to the recipient by means of a mental picture, a feeling, a scripture, a word, a realization or some other way.[12] The truth received from Jesus replaces the painful lie previously believed.[12] The result is peace.[17][18]
Every person believes not just one, but many lies of the kind that lead to present emotional pain. Each lie can be eliminated with the same process.[12]
Research
In his 2008 book,[19] Dr. Fernando Garzon, an associate professor in the Center for Counselling and Family Studies at Liberty University,[20] describes his team’s two-year long outcomes-based case study research project that evaluated TPM. The research team found very clear preliminary results that showed a correlation between TPM treatment and symptom reductions.[21] Garzon wrote that the case studies strongly support the need for randomized comparative or control group studies.[21]
Garzon had conducted preliminary practitioner studies in 2001 which showed promise, concluding that "...outcome-based case studies and randomized clinical trials should proceed on TPM to ascertain whether the therapeutic perception of efficacy displayed in this survey actually has merit..." He also found that a wide variety of people were practicing Theophostic Ministry at that time, including pastors, lay counselors, and psychologists. According to Garzon, this raised questions about some practitioners' level of training.[22]
Controversy
A Kentucky journalist has associated Theophostic Prayer Ministry with Recovered Memory Therapy, an approach now widely discredited after discovery of false memory phenomena[23] on the basis that Theophostic Prayer Ministry also presupposes the possibility of repression or memory inhibition,[24] A critical entry from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance also seeks to associate Theophostic Ministry with Recovered Memory Therapy, although the article does not identify the aspects of Theophostic Prayer Ministry that merit the assertion. It also claims that Theophostic Prayer Ministry has added beliefs about demonic possession, Satanic influence, direct communication with "Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit" and "unique concepts about the inner workings of the mind".[25][26] However, Smith himself strongly repudiates Recovered Memory Therapy,[27] and in recent years he has taught that it is counter-productive to pursue or even allow demonic confrontations in a ministry session.[28] However, in his Basic Training Seminar Manual (and in each of the training videos), Smith warns strongly against making any suggestions that might affect the actual content of a memory,[29] and he lists ten ways in which TPM differs from RMT.[30] Nevertheless, once a core belief about self has been identified through the memory (not in the memory per se), Smith does "invite the Lord" to speak truth to the ministry recipient concerning that belief.[31]
In an article about TPM in the Christian Research Journal,[12] Elliot Miller said that to accuse TPM of practicing recovered memory therapy and visualization is to betray ignorance or bias against TPM that refuses to be corrected by clear and consistent facts.
A Christian psychologist, David Entwistle, has expressed concerns with its practice: "TPM follows in the lineage of 'healing of memory' techniques, though it departs from that lineage in a number of important respects. Numerous concerns exist surrounding insufficient attempts to ground TPM in biblical concepts; inadequate and often flawed explanations of basic psychological processes; dubious claims about the prevalence of DID, SRA, and demonic activity; estimates of traumatic abuse that exceed empirical findings; and the failure to sufficiently appreciate the possibility of iatrogenic memory contamination".[32]
Entwistle raises concern over empirical validity, with questions about literal appearances of God, as Entwistle interprets claimed perceptions of truth, including spontaneous visualizations of Christ; ethical and legal issues relating to guarantees of healing; application of TPM to a variety of mental disorders without empirical validation; the legal question of whether it should be considered a religious intervention or a counseling procedure – and whether this was settled by changing the name from Theophostic Counseling to Theophostic Ministry; and the failure of Smith to welcome public analysis and critique of TPM.[33]
In Cumberland County, Maine, sexual-abuse charges against pastor Thomas Wright were laid after a church member's memory surfaced during Theophostic sessions, of Wright allegedly abusing a child. When the case went to trial in 2002, the charges were thrown out by the District Attorney because evidence was based on ‘unconventional and biased therapeutic methods’. The District Attorney noted that these methods were considered unreliable by the American Psychological Society. In Australia, a psychologist was found guilty of malpractice for using Theophostic methods in 2006 by the Queensland Health Practitioners Tribunal. The tribunal found that Irene Moreau, who practiced from a Christian counselling centre in Brisbane, 'inappropriately used Theophostic Prayer Ministry as a counselling technique'.[34]
Practitioners of inner healing techniques such as TPM frequently do not have formal training in psychology or counseling, although Fernando Garzon suggests that this in many cases may be beneficial, saying: "...it may serve people who might not get help otherwise, cannot afford professional therapy, do not wish to use insurance, or have access to counseling limited by managed care. Others belong to churches in which the pastor is either not trained, not interested, or not available (due to having too many other pastoral duties) to meet the needs for pastoral counseling. Still others simply may trust lay people, whom they know, more than a therapist, whom they do not know. In addition, the training itself may benefit the lay counselors spiritually and emotionally."[35]
In addition to questions about the efficacy, safety and reliability of TPM, it has also divided Christian observers with regard to the soundness of its theology. In the conclusion of their paper A theological analysis of Theophostic Ministry, Bryan Maier and Philip Monroe put it this way: "...on the issues of sin and healing, the question remains for Christian counselors and the evangelical community as a whole as to whether Smith's "theological basis" is consistent with responsible biblical doctrine. We do not think that Smith has warrant to make this claim. Furthermore we think these differences are so significant that we advise great caution before engaging in this ministry – whether as a client or as facilitator."[36][37]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophostic_counseling
[ Examples of facilities connected to the 501 (c) 3 ]
Theophostic Counseling
(based on the work of Dr. Ed Smith)
Recently I have had the joy of learning a powerful and improved version of "healing of memories' called "Theophostic Counseling". The rather unusual and unfortunate name is a combination of the Greek words for God (Theos) and Light (Phos). It is basically God shining the light of His presence and His truth on the pain and the lies embedded in our memories.
GlobalChristians.Org is a ministry within Cybermissions / AIBI-International. AIBI-International is the official registered name , Cybermissions is the new DBA - 'doing business as name".
AIBI-International is a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt non-profit religious organization registered with the IRS in the USA, and incorporated in the State of California. Thus donations made to AIBI-International are tax-deductible in the USA
AIBI-International is a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt non-profit religious organization registered with the IRS in the USA, and incorporated in the State of California. Thus donations made to AIBI-International are tax-deductible in the USA
Our tagline is "Encouragement for real life." This is something far more than positive thinking. This is finding ways to connect with Jesus as we go through life's valleys. I really believe that when Jesus shows up, everything changes. I believe it not only because the Bible teaches it, but also because I've experienced it. I know what it is to go from turmoil to complete peace, not because the circumstances changed, but because Jesus showed up and permanently changed me from the inside out. I know He will do the same for you.
Dwight Clough Ministries Inc., founded 2004, a 501(c)3 public charity
Theophostic Healing Prayer
Ephesians 2 KJV CE 1And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
ReplyDelete3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved;
6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.