"Who...who is the worker of iniquity?" Peters looked Bentley in the eye and said, "You are."

Greg, its probably a good point you make here that this specific technique isn’t for everybody. Peters does seem to me to be uniquely fitted to the task he set out to do. I personally cannot imagine sitting through several hours of Bentley talking and the loud music. And anyone who might easily be tempted to lash out and lose control at the moment of confrontation would not be well suited to this task. But Peters seemed to be able to navigate through this, knowing how to wait, call out for a chance to give a word of knowledge at the right time, and then follow through. I have no doubt I would have not done a very good job of this, even if I had the courage to actually do it. But Peters seemed to take it all in stride. But again, word of faith was his background and now is his evangelistic ministry. If I was going to evangelize the people who were at that event, I would have probably tried to pass out literature and talk to people in the parking lot as they were leaving. The beauty of the body of Christ is we are all equipped to contribute in different ways.

[Greg Linscott]

BTW- Admiring someone’s courage and zeal is not the same as affirming the method, either. Picture this- if someone asked your counsel considering doing something like this (and knowing that it might come back that “my pastor gave me his blessing” or “________ Baptist Church is behind this all the way”), would you give the green light? Do we start training people for subversive “word of prophecy” ministry infiltration?

Greg-

You’re raising good points, and I see where you’re coming from. I’m not sure that I could ever, as a pastor, advocate this kind of style of assertive confrontation on ‘home turf’ with false teachers to someone I was responsible to shepherd. There is an element of Romans 16:19 with this situation that would have to come into play, I think.

Let me pose a similar, but somewhat different question - how are you (or others on this board) prepared to handle something like this in your church? What if some guy started attending your church, and then stood up to make a scene based on a message because he believes you are teaching heresy because you’re using the NKJV instead of the KJV during a message?

Jay,

Is your view then that Peters was wrong to do what he did? I agree that this sort of thing isn’t for every believer. I am confident that Peters would agree that its not for everyone. But his action does challenge us to be more bold in sharing our faith and calling out false teachers—based on the point I made above, that if a crippled preacher can stand in that place and proclaim the truth, certainly I can be more bold in sharing the truth in much “safer” contexts.