----- Original Message -----

From: Name Withheld

To: Paul Stringini

Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 2:00 PM

Subject: Please don't respond negatively....Thank you

Greetings Sir,
 
I hope you don't respond in a fashion that you responded to others that have sent you messages.
 
I did a search on Arthur Murray/Sheppards Chapel, and your site popped up in front of it, so, I decided to take a look at your information.  Information I wish I would not have come across, and the following is why:
 
There is way too much judgement on one person, and his teachings.
There is way too much judgement on the people following his teachings, meaning; it appears you assume the followers are not studying what Pastor Murray is teaching.  How would you know that?
There is way too much discussion about another man/minister/teacher.  Our focus should be on God and His word, and MAKE ALL MAN A LIAR, and God instructs us to study what we have been taught, to see if it is TRUE.  We are to follow after Christ only!
It appears that you seem to have all the answers, and truth, but Pastor Murray is no good, and speaks all lies.
 
There is error in ALL man, that is why God commands us to seek Him, and HIS word, and find out through prayer and diligent seeking His word to find whether the teaching is truth or not.  And, I know Pastor Murray tells his followers this all the time.  I have heard him tell his viewers not to believe him, but to seek for ourselves whether he is speaking/teaching right or wrong. 
 
That is all I am going to say about him.  Please, if you want to minister, or teach, or preach, do it without kicking another man down, or trying to expose something about him, because God says, whatever measure of judgement you judge on a man, that same measurement will come back to you...
 
I could not stay in your site, due to all the negativity, and self righteousness that I witnessed in you.  There was nothing of value to study, or view, because of all the personal stuff over crowding your ministry.
 
I am praying for you.  May God Bless you, and your studies, and your ministry.  I would just give up on what another man is doing, and only worry about what you do.  Minister God's word, and people may want to listen, and study with you.  Seek God, and you will find Him, Knock and it shall be opened onto you, Ask, and you shall recieve what you are asking for, as long as you are seeking, asking and knocking in good faith.
 
Sincerely,
Name Withheld

----- Original Message -----

From: Paul Stringini

To: Name Withheld

Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 1:06 PM

Subject: Re: Please don't respond negatively....Thank you

Hello, Name Withheld. I did get both emails  When one finds my Shepherd's Chapel page it is easy to assume that is all I do, there is a lot of stuff there,  but I'm glad you found the main area of my website and hope you will find time to enjoy all I have to offer there. 

 

I am not going to comment on everything you said, obviously, because it would be wrong to bring up the stuff that became irrelevant after you discovered the rest of my website and made an apology, which I accept. I did have a thing or two to say though, about some of the remarks, that were not exactly related to that (or I do not see how they relate) and I hope I have not written them in such a fashion that will cause you any discomfort.  From what I can tell my writing reads very harsh to some people, and at times it must be so, but I am mostly trying to communicate clearly and concisely as best i can, and it is not easy to do it in the limited time life provides.  I mean well.

 

There is something I wanted to communicate to you that you may not have really understood about me.  Some people have said "Why don't you go after other teachers?"  And the simple answer is that Arnold Murray was MY teacher.  The only bible instructor I ever had.  I began studying with his ministry in 1993 when I was 19 years old, In 1995 I was married in front of his desk even though I was already beginning to doubt whether this man was teaching me rightly. After I stopped listening to his broadcasts and buying his tapes I continued to study on my own, but with growing concern about what I had been taught. When I first began talking about Arnold Murray and the Shepherd's Chapel in 2007 I had spent ten years living with the doubts I had, but saying nothing, and oraclesofgod.org had been up and running since 1998.

 

What I'm saying is that I didn't come up with my Arnold Murray webpage overnight or out of the blue, I didn't rush into it either, this is something I did after long consideration, .  He was my teacher, I didn't pick him randomly or anything, I was a student.  I didn't go to Oral Roberts University, or Wheaton College, if I did, them that part of my website might be about them, but I didn't go there and I don't know them the way I know Arnold Murray.

 

There is way too much judgement on one person, and his teachings.

I know you found the rest of my website,  but what I'm trying to say is that I only have one man's teachings to judge.  I have not done any public judgment of the man.  Teachings must be judged, you yourself said this:

 

 I study to find whether it is of God or not.

I'm not saying any of this to batter you or "score points" please don't think that.  I don't even need to print this (I'm so far behind God only knows if I ever will), but I want to make you think.  How can you tell if some man's teachings are of God or not, if there is error in all Men? If we all err in doctrine, then doctrine full of error can't be the measure of ungodly teaching. Moreover, if you are trying to judge if things are "of god or not" you can never be sure that your judgment itself is uncorrupt.  Judgment is not a dirty word but it is a slippery business.

 

I'm not claiming to myself be perfect.  But I'm not afraid of confessing it when it is shown to me.  The thing is, that almost everyone says "you can't have doctrine without error"  but then they all run around acting as if they are the exception.  If I were to ask you<  "What is your error in doctrine?"  You couldn't answer, and neither could I.  If we believed it was error, we would reject it, that, or we would be exceedingly wicked.

 

Titus 2:7 In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,

 

How can we be uncorrupt in doctrine?  We are certainly called to be so.  And you said that you study in order to make judgments about teachings, so do I. So we obviously have some sense of what corrupt and incorrupt doctrine is. And we also have some sense that these things need to be judged.

 

For me it is a very simple sentiment. "intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,"

 

Many of Arnold Murray's doctrines are far-fetched and the product of active imagination, and such things are clearly "corruption" or "leaven," they are not things one is taught by the bible but rather things that men teach the bible to say by manipulating the scriptures.  For example, when he says that the elect who live in the flesh were Angelic beings in a past age who where chosen to be the elect because they stood against Satan at that time.  That is not based on the teaching of Christ or any of his apostles or prophets, but based on manipulating far-flung scriptures and using psychology to shame people into "seeing."  "Only the elect can see this truth, only the wise."  But the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

 

Anyway, I don't really care much about Arnold Murray's "reputation" or whatever, what I care about are the people who need a teacher but end up finding this guy, and I sincerely believe his teachings are damaging people and that God has given me the work of helping these people.  I don't know if you know many long-term students of the Chapel, but as a rule, the fruit of an evil tree is evil. 

 

I know it is very popular nowadays to "accept" everyone and everything and judge nothing.  We are far from the sentiments of Christ who said, either make the tree and its fruit good or make the tree and its fruit evil.  We want wells that produce bitter and sweet water.  We listen to ministries and glean out the good stuff and leave the bad, and we think that is just ok.  Well, it isn't.

 

When I teach the bible I try to leave as much imagination out as possible.  I don't know how successful  I am at that, but I do make it a priority.  Listen and judge for yourself.

 

A few more clarifications and comments:

 

There is way too much judgement on the people following his teachings, meaning; it appears you assume the followers are not studying what Pastor Murray is teaching.  How would you know that?

Some of them don't know what he teaches, and that is something I DISCOVERED, after I started this, absolutely not an assumption I started out with.

 

I know it because I studied his teachings, so I know what they are.  And then I talk to SOME of these people and they say things to me like "Arnold Murray doesn't teach that the people commonly called Jews are actually the literal offspring of the devil, I have never heard him speak such filth."  And at that point, I absolutely know that these folks have not studied very much with the Pastor.  I don't know if they are bad listeners, or if they just missed all those points by accident, or if their eyes glaze over when he uses the old doubletalk on them, or if they just refuse to believe it even when he says it... I don't know why or how, but some just don't know.

 

I have heard him tell his viewers not to believe him, but to seek for ourselves whether he is speaking/teaching right or wrong. 

That is a classic confidence tactic.  Confidence, as in, "con-man."  You gain their confidence and disarm them by saying things like "don't take my word for it" Etc. All the while he is disarming them.  "I can trust this guy, because he says "don't trust me""

 

That is why he can ask for money constantly and even people who ought to know better are fooled when he says "I never beg,"  Confidence tactics are not the tools of godly men.  They are self-serving  tactics which disarm the minds of the weak.

 

whatever measure of judgement you judge on a man, that same measurement will come back to you...
 
I know, and I am willing to submit myself to that judgment.

 

2 Ti 2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

Verses 16-18 are not as popular as 15.

 

Sincerely,

Paul Stringini