INTERESTING THOUGHTS...

"Christianity is a religion of repentence."

"All it takes to be a heretic is to stop repenting."

Mark Driscoll quoted someone with this in a message I listened to today from 2 Peter 2:1-10 on the topic of false teachers. (I didn't quite get the name of who he was quoting...) He had some very thought provoking points and gave this definition of a heretic: "a person who claims to be a Christian, but holds a false belief on a primary Christian doctrine."

A heretic is not:

* someone who professes to be a non-Christian
* a new Christian humbly sorting out his/her theology
(we are to help them, not condemn them)
* a person with a difference in secondary theology
* someone who made a mistake or said something wrong, but truly believes the truth

A false teacher/heretic/wolf is: (can be just one of these, or all of these)

A person claiming to be a Christian, but ...
* teaches things that oppose the Bible -- promotes herecy
* does not repent or recant
* allows people to sin and even encourages it "loose living"
* judges what God did
* is in it for greed
* walks in lust/practices sexual sin
* despises authority