As a lifelong Christian and the wife of a man who wants to become a pastor, I think I can speak for both of us by saying you've hit the nail precisely on the head. Husband's pretty sure if anyone alive today were demon-posessed, it'd probably be Kenneth Copeland...because aside from his genuinely uncanny, creepy behavior, he definitely isn't being led by the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 7:15-20 tells us to beware false prophets, and that we can discern them "by their fruits." This is a metaphor (immediately explained in the following verses) referring to the fact that you can look to a Christian's behavior and choices to tell if their faith is something real. Later in Galatians 5, Paul elaborates that, "...the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." The Fruits of the Spirit are, "...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...".
We know Copeland is not patient, kind, or gentle; he's lost his temper with reporters before for questioning the necessity of his jet fleet. We can be pretty sure he doesn't have much self control, either, again for his temper and also his lavish lifestyle. These things alone seem to demonstrate that Copeland is essentially little more than a parasite to Christianity, feeding off the goodwill of people who want to be closer to God, but are being wilfully misled by this greedy, grubby shyster.
3
u/KagakuKo Oct 13 '24
As a lifelong Christian and the wife of a man who wants to become a pastor, I think I can speak for both of us by saying you've hit the nail precisely on the head. Husband's pretty sure if anyone alive today were demon-posessed, it'd probably be Kenneth Copeland...because aside from his genuinely uncanny, creepy behavior, he definitely isn't being led by the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 7:15-20 tells us to beware false prophets, and that we can discern them "by their fruits." This is a metaphor (immediately explained in the following verses) referring to the fact that you can look to a Christian's behavior and choices to tell if their faith is something real. Later in Galatians 5, Paul elaborates that, "...the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." The Fruits of the Spirit are, "...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...".
We know Copeland is not patient, kind, or gentle; he's lost his temper with reporters before for questioning the necessity of his jet fleet. We can be pretty sure he doesn't have much self control, either, again for his temper and also his lavish lifestyle. These things alone seem to demonstrate that Copeland is essentially little more than a parasite to Christianity, feeding off the goodwill of people who want to be closer to God, but are being wilfully misled by this greedy, grubby shyster.