I Lose Zane Hodges: Spring, 2005. - Comments (10)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,GES: Hodges, Wilkin, et.al.
Author: John Malone
Date: 2nd August, 2007 @ 06:20:08 AM

Due to my position with respect to Robert Wilken of the GES, and the conclusion that he is a heretic – a schismatic person – I considered that it would provide useful background to publish this email exchange I had with Zane Hodges shortly after the 2005 GES conference.

While at the conference, I appealed to Wilkin in connection with a workshop conducted by Bob Bryant. I attempted to draw the attention of others to this problem, including Dr. Elliot Johnson and Rene Lopez, but I consider that I was pretty much alone in being outraged at Bryant’s position, and, as I look back on it, his devious behavior that decorated it.

While Wilkin did not at that time simply tell me that Bryan’s position was also his (and Hodges), he emphasized that it was merely “a workshop” and that it thereby did not represent the position of the GES.

Such duplicity!

Subject: GES Conference Workshop, 2005

Zane,

I have some few things to write to you about, and the better part of them will be in an email or emails to follow.

This one is about something very disturbing to me that came from two of the final workshops of the conference earlier today.

The first workshop – and the one I attended – was conducted by Bob Bryant, and was named “Eternal Security: Do you have to Believe It?” Frankly, I thought the premise posed a useful exercise, and was a {reinforcement of 1 John 5:10-11.|1jo 5:10-11}

But in the course of the session, Bob ticked off a few doctrines that he was not addressing – the Deity of Christ, the resurrection, and maybe a couple of other truths – and disposed of them as not saving truth. I interrupted him to say, “Do you mean necessary but not sufficient?” He refused to answer that in the affirmative or negative, but more or less told me to shut up, perhaps more politely.
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GES’ Bob Wilkin: A Heretic’s Vagaries and Intrigue. - Comments (11)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,GES: Hodges, Wilkin, et.al.
Author: John Malone
Date: @ 12:27:34 AM

Friday night, as promised, I attended the “Regional Conference” of the Grace Evangelical Society (GES) hosted by Community Bible Church (CBC) in Omaha, a church my family and I formerly attended in Omaha. I was among the 100 or less in attendance, and so were a half dozen of my friends. Perhaps 20% of the attendees were from the host church.

I went to this conference to expose Bob Wilkin. It’s one thing to teach what he does. It’s a whole different thing to disguise it, slip it in, and be guileful about it. And it’s even another thing to do it here where I live, among people I know.

As George, the former temporary head coach in Hoosiers told Head Coach Norman Dale, “Look, mister, there’s two kinds of dumb. A guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, a guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter. The second one you’re kinda forced to deal with.”
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Join Our Frappr Map! - Comments (0)

Category: Administrivia
Author: Jerod Santo
Date: 1st August, 2007 @ 10:10:22 AM

In an effort to get to know our readers and listeners a little better, we’ve added a Frappr Map to BibleStudy.net!

What is Frappr? It’s a map of people in an online community that displays where they live.

So if you’re a regular at BibleStudy.net, or if you’re just stopping by, head over to our Frappr page and click the “Join” button. Adding yourself to the map is simple and only takes a few moments.

It’s a huge encouragement to us to see our contact points!

Also, be sure to check back from time to time and watch our map grow as others join!

Have questions? help@biblestudy.net is where to ask them.

A Protestant in the Midst of Apostasy. - Comments (4)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,Roman Catholicism
Author: John Malone
Date: 25th July, 2007 @ 02:38:48 AM

Peter Smagacz is 58 years old and glad to have left the Roman Catholic Church. He left it 35 years ago.

I read an article sent to me that was published on Omaha’s daily newspaper, the Omaha World Herald, that described Smagacz’ one-man “protest” at a Luis Palau “Heartland Festival” in Omaha. The event was said to have attracted 105,000 visitors, a record. I suppose, hyperbole being what it is, the crowd was likely half that size, but still large.

Palau is known among Bible believers to be “soft on Romanism,” and far too ecumenical to be Biblically sound. Many of us consider that ministries like Palau’s yoke themselves with unbelievers, contrary to Bible principles set forth in {2 Corinthians 6:14,|2cor 6:14-17} and {Revelation 18:4.|Rev 18:1-5} The more skeptical among us – call us jaded – know that men like Palau don’t become prominent in this country without somehow accepting that Roman Catholics are essentially Christian.

Otherwise, Romanists would have destroyed him by now.
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Surgery and After - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 27th June, 2007 @ 12:25:11 AM

For as traumatic as the news of Karen’s cancer and its immediate consequences was, the surgery itself was pretty anti-climactic.

Two hours, and she’s done. The eye is gone. As one brother said, “It’s like removing a tooth.” The surgery itself was so simple, the doctor said “I can do these in my sleep.” Karen said, “We want you to stay awake.”

The eye removal surgery – enucleation – is apparently a simple one. Karen walked herself into the operating room. The doctor took the eye out, and placed a plastic steering device in its place, wrapping her right eye muscles around it. They place a silicon “conformer” in the eye socket to retain its shape during a six-week healing process.

In the mean time, we will find an ocularist who will hand-design a prosthetic eye that will be moved by the steering piece powered by her muscles.

Her removed eye will be studied in pathology during the next week, and we will get some information about the cancerous tumor. It was large: “very large.”

Karen has been ambling around with the sight of one eye for six weeks, so the advice she was given about dealing with loss of vision was very hollow. They taped a huge bandage on her right eye, and it was too tight, pinching her skin. I mentioned it, and they said, “The doctor can fix that tomorrow when you come in.”

But the doctor said we didn’t need to come in “tomorrow,” and we elected to just leave Iowa City and come home. Home to our family, and responsibilities. While I drove the 4 hour return trip way too fast, Karen adjusted her bandage until it no longer pinched her, listened to music, and rested her eye.

When we got home, she used a mirror and a pen to write “Jesus Is Lord” in blue on her bright white bandage.

She’s not taking her pain medication. Her blood pressure is very high.

We are hoping the grand children will understand, because this all is complicated for them We have 18 of them 8 and under with two more on the way.

Karen Will Lose Her Right Eye. - Comments (0)

Category: Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 24th June, 2007 @ 01:27:03 AM

Monday afternoon, my wife Karen will be losing her right eye to ocular melanoma by surgical means.

I would hope that all of my friends, near and distant, would pray for her about that time.

Karen was diagnosed with this malignant cancer six weeks ago. For all we know, she has had a tumor growing in her eye for decades. On the other hand, it could have been only for years or months.

We are greatly puzzled by all of this, and are seeking God’s will and glory in the matter.

Karen is truly remarkable through all of this. Very courageous. She actually is taking in much better than I am.

We do not know what this holds for her and our future, and we will not know much more about her condition for another week, when the pathology reports come back to us.

Karen and I have 24 grandchildren with 2 more on the way.

Needless to say, this has had an enormous impact on our lives, and we continue to look for and share the grace of God in this life.

We continue to hold on to the {Scripture|Psa 118:7} God has given us.

Dealing With Doctors. - Comments (0)

Category: Articles,Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 19th May, 2007 @ 03:11:40 AM

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” the physician told us.

My wife and I looked at each other, but she only saw me with her left eye.

That’s because she has lost nearly all vision in her right eye, a large “choroidal ocular melanoma” obscuring almost all vision in her right.

I do not often mingle with doctors.

My father died from cancer at 65 – when I was 36 – largely at the hands of incompetent physicians.

One of my very best friends became an M.D., but our relationship was built upon our fellowship in the Scriptures after I had led him to Christ while he attended medical school at the local Jesuit institution.

He died from cancer when he was barely 42.

My next door neighbor was a brilliant neurosurgeon. We used to talk about technology, medicine, and the Scriptures. We were real friends. He died of cancer when he was 45. Before he did, he was restored to his early faith in Jesus Christ, and wrote hymns on his Alabama death bed.

One of my heroes, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, began his radio career after cancer treatments, and went home shortly after my father.

Since those men were taken home by the Lord Jesus, my only contact in the “medical world” has been a brilliant research physician who is remarkably unorthodox, and a chiropractor: someone distinctly NOT in the “medical world.”
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