Endless studying! Writing a test on the seal over and over again, several times a month. Is that really what God, according to the Bible, expects of a believer?
It is well known that members of Shincheonji sit the ‘Sealing’ tests several times a month. Questions and answers are sent to the believers a few days in advance, so that they must learn them all by heart 100 per cent. They must write the test word for word and achieve a score of at least 90–100 per cent.
The tests are not voluntary.
Everyone must write the tests.
The results are then reported in tables to the General Church in Korea.
How can one spend years learning the answers and writing tests without questioning whether it is biblical? Whether it makes sense? Why one is doing it at all?
Well, there is a verse that Shincheonji uses to try to justify this:
Jeremiah 31:33:
33 ‘This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Hebrews 8:10:
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Well, here God says quite clearly that He will do it. Why do people waste years, week after week, repeatedly spending time memorising the answers so that the results can be reported?
The question is:
Do you have to memorise it, or does it happen through God’s inspiration?
Do you really think that if you recite what Lee Man Hee tells you to, you’ll be in God’s good eyes?
Just take a look at what it goes on to say here in Hebrews:
Hebrews 8,11-12:
11 No longer will they teach their neighbours, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’
It is up to God to put it into their minds and write it on their hearts.
But surely not with test after test after test…
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Just a shirt thought.
When the members take these tests, does God know the results or doesn’t He? Why, then, do they need to be reported?
Think about it – what purpose do these tests serve? Perhaps just to keep you occupied and keep you tied to the system?
There is another verse in 2 Timothy 3:7:
7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Is that true?