Of the many aspects, you read about prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, no a single one of them spent half of his waking hours each day tryi9ng to prove to others that he was legitimate. Deep down they knew they had a calling and went forth to the world, no holds barred. Their God spoke directly through them. Not so much today in 2018 though.
Today the Church of God is filled with a myriad of mentally disturbed men who think they are conduits of God's word. They have no qualms about lying to church members with one absurd false prophecy after another. Many of these believe they are God's prophet and don't have a second thought about it. Well, that is except for one.
That leads us to our favorite eternally-bitter, self-appointed prophet, Almost-arrested but not-arrested Bawana Bob Thiel. Bawana Bob is once again dragging Norm Edwards into this legitimization process.
The Great Bawana to Africa writes:
The article is quite long after this.Norman Edwards, a former board member of the old Global Church of God, wrote an article Need Prophets More than Prophecy. Norman Edwards granted me permission to post the article in its entirety (because of potential copyright issues, I rarely post articles in their entirety unless permission has been given/suggested). The following is from a file Norman Edwards emailed me:Need Prophets more than Prophecy
by Norman Scott Edwards, Shepherd’s Voice MagazineThis writer can still remember the excitement he felt when he first heard a preacher explain that the Bible was a prophetic book, and we could understand the events of our time in advance by reading it. The preacher explained that the prophecies of the Bible were complicated and often symbolic. He also said a firm grasp of world history was necessary to properly distinguish the fulfilled prophecies from the ones in the future. This task obviously exceeded the capability of fledgling Christians, so I needed to get his booklet on the subject. And so many others have had a similar experience, and were excited to take in the book, video or seminar where the future events of prophecy were all explained for them.
Bawana Bob, Prophet to Africa then continues:
Seriously? Yes, you did just read that unadulterated nonsense!Norman Edwards runs the Church Bible Teaching Ministry and has been the editor for Shepherd’s Voice magazine. He is not part of the Continuing Church of God, where, I function as its human leader (and am an ordained prophet; the only known such prophet in any legitimate Church of God group).
While Norman Edwards and I have long disagreed about aspects of church governance and various matters of doctrine (and I would have suggested a different title, etc. for his article), we both agree that many who are in or claim to be in the Church of God (COG) wrongly do not accept that God has any prophets today. We also agree that most have severe difficulty to identify one who really is a prophet because of various unscriptural biases and improper criteria that they have.
As if Norm Edwards seriously believes that Bawana Bob is a real prophet. I am certain though that Norm does believe there are false prophets presently leading several COG's. That is an easy deduction for about 80% of the people in the COG today.Because of false prophets in a couple of COG-related groups and a disbelief in prophets by most of the COG groups, the non-Philadelphian COGs have a lot of severe prophetic misunderstandings.
As the people of old ignored John the Baptist, the Church of God today ignores Bawana Bob.
The Church of God today ignores Bawana Bob because everyone knows he is a liar. When he made such big deal about a false double blessing to legitimize his apostacy from the Living Church of God, the red flags went up for most church members. Bawana Bob knew he needed to make the first step before Rod Meredith kicked him out. Gaylyn Bonjour's innocent prayer has turned into a doctrine for the 2,900 members he has in Africa.As Norman Edward’s article points out, it is scriptural to now have prophets according to the New Testament. But many who truly believe that they live by the word of God have discounted or overlooked what the Bible actually teaches and/or have been influenced by others who have done the same or worse. The COG has at least one demonstrably true prophet today, yet most in the greater COG world seem to be able to ignore the truth about that, like most ignored John the Baptist and others in their day.
Has there ever been a prophet in the church that spent 99% of his time talking about himself? Other than Dave Pack, is there any other COG leader who is so self-absorbed?
Discerning false prophets
We should learn from this and ensure that the prophets among us are authentic. The Bible teaches that we will know the true from the false by their fruit (Matthew 7:15). We are able to test through the discerning of spirits (one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12) and through perceiving their inner motives. We need to be able to recognise those who are false by discerning that they “inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15
If we look carefully, we will say that their gift is being used to serve their own hunger or need (“ravenous wolves”). Their own need for recognition, honour and praise will be their motivation. They will not come primarily to freely serve, but will want seats of honour and power. They will lord it over people and love the fame that their gift gives, rather than being willing to serve without praise or recognition. They may, like the woman in Acts 16:15
Another giveaway that we learn was that this woman was continually “shouting” (Acts 16:16-17 NIVJesus! Who the hell is he? Bawana Bob certainly has no idea because, like false prophet James Malm, prostitutes himself to the law, Catholicism, Mayans, and hundreds and hundreds of irrelevant topics, instead of ever focusing upon what Jesus did and accomplished.
Bob Thiel is not a prophet. Norm Edwards has not certified him as a prophet, and even if he did, Edwards theories on prophets are of little importance to Christians today.
