Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Do you wish you could understand the Bible better? Do you want to know how you can remain faithful to historic Christianity in our contemporary society? Let's take a journey to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Faithfullyliven, the podcast is here to uplift your soul and encourage you to live a life honoring to God
Faithfullyliven:the podcast
How to Recognize Counterfeit Teachings with Cynthia Hampton
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of faith, questioning where the truth lies amid a sea of doctrines? Well join me in a conversation with Cynthia Hampton, where we illuminate the contrasting beliefs between historic Christianity and the teachings of groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, New Thought and New Age movements. We dive a little into their origins and how they offer an alternative spiritual path than that of historic Christianity. Let, this discussion inspire you to learn more about what you believe as a Christian. Hopefully, this episode provides a pathway to strength and support within the Christian community, emphasizing the importance of small group studies, a solid grasp of apologetics, and a deep dive into false doctrines.
Check out these Resources
Women in Apologetics https://womeninapologetics.com/
The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Ralston Martin
Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry https://carm.org/
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I am Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Hey everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living the Podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully by offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. So you know, as believers, we need and should be discerning about the various doctrines around us in the world today. You know many of them don't match the historic Christian beliefs that we hold, but how do you know and how do you tell the difference between them? Well, in this episode I talk with Cynthia Hampton about recognizing cultic counterfeit teachings. So stay tuned for this conversation. But before we get started, let me tell you a little bit about Cynthia.
Speaker 1:Cynthia is an accountant in the Los Angeles County Office of Education. She earned her BS in accounting from the University of Phoenix and was a church treasurer for 14 years. She also facilitated a support group for ex-Jehovah Witnesses in California to help them heal from the effects of cult mind control and to refute the Watchtower Doctrines. Cynthia Hampton is a former Jehovah Witness who left the cult when she was 24. Two years later she became a Christian when she realized that the Watchtower was a false teacher and a false prophet. Her moment of revelation came when the Watchtower stated that Jesus Christ was the mediator for only 144,000 anointed Jehovah Witnesses, as the Watchtower teaches that only 144,000 will go to heaven. Cynthia and our husband David currently live in California. They have three grown married children and five grandchildren. All right, let's dive into today's episode. Hi Cynthia, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you very much. I'm really glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Great. So let's, before we dive into our topic, tell me a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a mother and wife and grandmother currently, and I have three grown children and I have five granddaughters and I volunteer for Women in Apologetics. I am their treasurer and I have been with them since 2017. I also have a background in cults because I was a Jehovah's Witness for part of my life. My mother converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses when we were all kids, and I think I was 13 when my mother started to study with the Jehovah's Witnesses and then she started taking us to the Kingdom Hall. Shortly after that and I got involved with it myself. I became baptized as a Jehovah's Witness. I got married. It was an abusive marriage. I got out of the Jehovah's Witnesses when I was 24. I went back to school and I moved to California.
Speaker 2:When I moved to California, I found this radio show on Christian radio called the Bible Answer man with Walter Martin, who wrote Kingdom of the Cults. And although I had started going to church and I had become a Christian, I wasn't very knowledgeable about the cults and I didn't understand why Jehovah's Witnesses were wrong. I knew they were wrong, but I didn't know everything about them because I hadn't found out everything yet. So when I started listening to this radio show. I heard him talking about Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm like this guy is right. This guy is right, he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 2:And so I started to listen faithfully every day, got his book Kingdom of the Cults, and from then on I started kind of on a path down, studying apologetics as much as I could, studying, um, you know, church history, uh, learning how to defend the faith, learning about cults, you know, I learned not only about Jehovah's witnesses. I learned about Mormons, I learned about new age, I learned about new thought, I learned about a lot of other kind of fringy type of cult religions that had been, you know, popping up, that were really weird, and, and so that's been my, my, my biggest interest is, you know, you know, from becoming a Christian, learning how to defend the Christian faith against cults and other aberrant type of teachings.
Speaker 1:Right. So let's kind of like dive into that, because you know you touched on like there's many different cults in our world today and it's important to know as believers, for us to know, like, what we believe and why we believe it and we should be discerning, you know, know about those different kind of cults, so kind of take us through, like, what does authentic christianity? Teach versus some of those cults out there. So maybe start with jehovah's witnesses. What's the difference between what they believe and what Christianity believes?
Speaker 2:Well, jehovah's Witnesses believe in something called the faithful and discreet slave, and they take this out of context in Matthew 24, 45, where Jesus says you know who is, you know we.
Speaker 2:In most of our Bibles it says who is the faithful and wise servant, who, you know, gives his followers the food at the proper time. And so what? They've taken this and they've built a doctrine around it saying that their organization or their organizational leaders are the faithful and discreet slave, and so you, as a Jehovah's Witness, would have to obey their leaders. So all the doctrines that come out of the Watchtower organization come, in their perspective, it might as well come from God, from Jehovah himself. So this is part of it. It's almost this idolatry around this faithful and discreet slave, as they call it. Not only that, but they don't accept the Trinity or the deity of Christ. They believe in soul sleep. They believe 144,000 of their organization, or what they say is early Christians plus Jehovah's Witnesses, will be going to heaven and that will be the government kind of like. You know, like Washington DC is our government, the United States, with senators and congressmen and stuff like that. So they believe that these people will be disembodied spirits in heaven forever. You know doing the governing. You know, and the rest of jehovah's witnesses will live on this paradise earth. You know, underneath, you know the, this organizational heaven as, as they, you know, believe it to be, so um, there, and there is no um, there's no hope in jehovah's witnesses. You're, you're, you're confined to this um, high control group and, and that's the way you're going to find a lot of cults is, uh, they, they control your life completely. You know some, not jehovah's witnesses, but I know there are some cults that you know. Do you know they? They give you permission as to who you're going to marry, or yeah, or some, some cults have arranged marriages, but Jehovah's Witnesses don't. But there there is a lot of high control in their organization. So, and that's you know, one of the biggest factors you'll find among cults is, you know, the high control aspect of, you know the leader, or their organizational leaders. You know making sure that they control every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 2:So when I was a Jehovah's Witness, we had to turn in time every week. So, as you know, jehovah's Witnesses go from door to door, or they used to. I think they still do, but they don't do as much anymore. But when, when I was a witness. They went door-to-door a lot and and so what you'd have to do was you would fill out a time sheet every week letting your elders know um, how, how many hours you spent out going door-to-door out placing magazines and books and stuff like that. And so everybody who turns in their time sheets, you know, is a good person according to them. They they make sure that everybody's turning in time.
Speaker 2:If you don't turn in time, then they kind of mark you as inactive and they want to know why you're not turning in time and so you kind of get marked as someone who's inactive. So that's one of the aspects of their high control, plus going to you know a lot of meetings that they have. They have their Sunday talk and their watchtower study, and then during the week they study from one of their publications and one of their books. So they make it so your life just totally revolves around this organization and doing things for your organization. Another thing that they do is they've taken away holidays, birthdays, so that if you have non-JW family who celebrate birthdays and holidays and stuff like that, you no longer associate with them and they stop asking you to come to their birthdays and holiday celebrations because, as a Jehovah's Witnesses won't celebrate a birthday because it's a pagan celebration and they'll bring up in the Bible that you know. There's only two recorded instances of birthdays that happen in the Bible, one being John the Baptist, and he had his head chopped off.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And so they said you know, birthdays are bad, so and then, so holidays are also bad, because they, they believe that, you know, all holidays are pagan. And if they're not religious holidays, if they are national holidays like, oh, Fourth of July, you know, Independence Day, or something like that, you know they say, well, you're not supposed to celebrate anything having to do with the government, because they think the government is the beast.
Speaker 2:So they don't have any celebrations you know with other people in the family. So it's just like they separate you you know from, from your family or your friends. So all your friends have to be jehovah's witnesses. So this is kind of uh, indicative of how you know not the same, not the same um way. But it does happen in other cults where they do try to separate you from um your family and other friends who aren't in that cult, and so they get you to just associate with them only, so everybody else outside their cult is of the world and is of Satan. So you don't want to associate with them, is of the world and is of Satan. So you don't want to associate with them. And it's only your group, under the authority of your leader, that is, that that is approved. So that's, that's how it works.
Speaker 2:You know, in cults Mormons kind of the same way you find that Mormons also, everything revolves around the Mormon church and you'll find that a lot of Mormon people probably own their own businesses. A lot of them are very successful. So you know, and then they hire other Mormons to work for them and you know, if you're a Mormon and you are kind of like caught up in this thing where you know you've been brought up Mormon, your family's Mormon, you work for a Mormon and then all of a sudden you don't want to be a Mormon anymore. You may lose your job. You know your family's going to think you're crazy.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of negative things that can happen from that. So, as in other cults as well, you know, once you step out and then there are some very other dangerous cults, you know, you, once you step out and then there are some very other dangerous cults, you know, once you step out, I mean they can make life really miserable for you, really miserable. Some will seek you out. They will um, um, they will, you know, harass you and other things. You know they don't let you leave it's. It's like like a hotel, california. You can check it anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, make it that way. That's kind of scary though yeah, it is yeah, well, what about some things like new thought or new age?
Speaker 2:Well, new thought and new age isn't a cult, okay, but it's kind of a way of thinking where you're not in a high-control organization and I've noticed a lot of ex-cult members will gravitate toward new thought or new age because it's very eclectic and you can basically believe what you want and um, like, for example, in in new age. You know they get into meditations and you know yoga and some of sometimes it's you know, occultic and a lot of. I know a lot of ex-witnesses get into wicca and and stuff like that. So there's no real organization about it. I think that's what they like.
Speaker 2:It is kind of like the disorganized thing about it is you can do whatever you want. You know the new age has the crystals and you know they. They can, you know, basically, you know, do what they want to do. New thought, you know, isn't an organization either, but there are several organizations that kind of um came down the pike because, uh, because of new thought reasoning, um, let's see, it was Phineas Quimby who came up with a lot of their philosophy and that kind of made itself into the Christian science group because Mary Baker, eddy, was one of Quimby's followers. So you got, you know, the Christian science group that you know came about from that in the 1800s and you know, in which you know the Christian science isn't Christian and it's not science either.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, most of it is just, it's just, it's just a new thought way of teaching us, and new thought is so eclectic. Also, you know, it's just sort of you know you kind of you have to like imagine yourself. You know where he believed in animal magnetism and and in this animal magnetism you were supposed to like concentrate and, you know, to get what you want in life. And you know just sort of you know visualize it. Um, I remember at home growing up, because my family was kind of into this new age and new thought too, before they were witnesses, especially my dad, and we had some books on visualization.
Speaker 2:You know you could just lie down and start visualizing the things that you want, you know, or the things that you plan to do in life. You know your vision for your life and so it's not really following God or anything like that and Jesus has nothing to do with it, although they'll say, okay, yeah, you know, if you're, you know, a new thought person, you know you can have whatever you want. You can have Jesus, you can have Krishna, you could have Buddha. Any of these things are okay, just like a new age. A lot of it overlaps too. You know you can have buddha. You know you could have new age jesus. You could have anything you want, yeah, and so none of that leads to any kind of truth. Though you know it's, there's no truth with it. It's just sort of going on your feelings, and we know you. You know our feelings deceive us, and you know what we need are facts. And where do we get our facts? You know we have to look towards scripture.
Speaker 1:You know, to get our facts, yeah, that's definitely our source of truth as far as you know what is right and wrong, Because it's God's moral standard for our lives. So what would be, what would be some common tactics or strategies that cult members use to like manipulate their followers? I think you talked about it a little bit here use to like, manipulate their followers.
Speaker 2:I think you talked about it a little bit here. Well, there is something, um that, uh, steve Hassan came up with and he wrote a book called called mind control. Um, and uh, it's called the bite model. You know so, um, what they do is. You know they be. You know they control your, your, your behavior. So if you don't, um, if you don't toe the line with them and behave the way they want you to behave, you can get in a lot of trouble with them. So they control your behavior.
Speaker 2:Um, there's also information control and so, um, for example, you know, as a jehovah's witness, we weren't allowed to really read outside things or do other research. We were only to believe what came out in the pages of the Watchtower and their publications. So they were trying to control the amount of information that we received. So we weren't allowed to question the information that they gave us, because sometimes, you know we would. You know, if you went and did research, you might find conflicting information. As far as their belief system, you know like they, you know they claim to be. You know the. At one time they were claiming to be a prophet, the um. At one time they were claiming to be a prophet and uh, you know, and because they've made so, many false prophecies.
Speaker 2:You know, of course, they are a false prophet, not a, not a true prophet. So you know they control your information. Uh, the next letter being t they control your thoughts. Um, a lot of a lot of this has to do with fears and phobias. So if you even think about whether or not something might be true or not within the cult, you know they teach you how to do like a thought stopping technique. You know, I don't know if you've ever talked to somebody in a cult, you know, such as such as Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, and you can almost see it. You know, once you start bringing out certain truths to them, that will make them uncomfortable, and then, when they start to get uncomfortable, you can almost see it in their eyes and you can see it in their um, in just the way they carry themselves. They don't want to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2:Just boom, they take a left turn and they will change the subject oh, wow so you know they, they use this thought stopping technique and it mainly comes from the, you know, because their thoughts are being controlled by the organization in a way. You know, so to speak, they're not supposed to think about things that they shouldn't think about. You know, oh, wow, yeah. And then the other one is E emotion, and the organizations, or the cult organizations, will control their emotions. It's like, how does that work? You know Right, and yeah, how does that work? You know Right and yeah, how does that work that I remember, for an example, with Jehovah's Witnesses. They don't show very much emotion and if you go to a funeral of Jehovah's Witnesses, you won't see anybody crying or upset or anything like that, you know, showing any kind of emotion. And they're even told, you know, you don't need to be crying or showing any kind of emotion because they say they believe in the resurrection and everything. But even as a Christian and I believe in the resurrection- when I go to a funeral.
Speaker 2:I'm sad that I'm not going to see that person. You know, in fact I'm going to a funeral tomorrow and it's a son of a good friend of ours and I know I know the family and they're very sad that the son has passed away. And you know how can you not have feelings like that?
Speaker 2:But, when you're in a cult, know it's? It's like they manipulate your emotions so that's like you feel nothing. They don't want you to have feelings. They don't want you to have have uh emotions, uh that will make you feel like a real person. So it's almost like they keep you, so that you're uh robotic that's very interesting how they try to take over your whole self.
Speaker 2:Right your whole psyche, everything about you. It's like you're almost being manipulated and controlled by this cult organization because you have to think only their thoughts, do only what they say. You know, take in the information that they give you yeah, you don't have.
Speaker 1:You can't think for yourself?
Speaker 2:right, you can't think for yourself at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no thinking allowed yeah, if you start thinking, you get in trouble exactly.
Speaker 2:You're not allowed to ask questions. I remember, um, my, my sister's friend this is when we were, you know, uh, teenagers and my sister's friend had a question that she wanted to ask the elders and she said you know, this disagrees with what the bible says here, and I don't remember what it was, but she thought of something and then, shortly after, they disfellowshipped her for, I guess, asking too many questions.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yep, and then you know my sister tried to ask the same questions as somebody and then they kind of marked her and they didn't disfellowship her at that time but she had been an interpreter for the for the deaf people. They took her off of deaf interpretation because she was asking questions. So you can't ask questions.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like they're trying to hold a secret that they don't want you to find out. The answer to Exactly. Exactly. So what can individuals, what steps can they take to protect themselves from like falling prey to like cultic teachings, even within the Christian community? Because sometimes you know, those kind of seep in without us sometimes knowing or recognizing them?
Speaker 2:sometimes knowing or recognizing them. Yeah, you know, and a lot of false teachings have infiltrated the church. You know just, not just cults, but you know just weird. You know teachings that are, you know, with aberrant beliefs and I find that a lot of Christians don't really know their Bible all that well and you know they need to get into deep. You know bible study and understand scripture. Uh, do study and you know here's a good 25 cent word for everyone hermeneutics understand the culture that you know scripture was written in. Understand the historical significance, understand who is the writer and who are they writing to. You know and why. So you have to understand all these things in order to understand scripture. So you have to know that In order to understand scripture, so you have to know that. You know you have to. You know read books on. You know apologetics I mean, there's so many good resources out there. You know in Christian apologetics, so that you can understand.
Speaker 2:You know, you know the counterfeit and false from from the truth. So, um, if, if my mother had known anything about the Bible, we had never gotten involved with Jehovah's Witnesses because she didn't know anything about the Bible. You know, we were Catholic, but my mother never, never, read the Bible. We had this big Bible in the house. It was huge, it was like a big, huge Bible and but she never read it. And then, when she started studying with Jehovah's Witnesses because she'd never read her Bible she thought what the Jehovah's Witnesses were telling her were true. She thought all those things were true and she had no way to refute it. So, you know, sometimes we hear things and then sometimes our um conscience or our our spirit will say this is, this is wrong. You know, and if something might be a red flag or seems untrue, then research it. You know, and if you're coming up against a cult or a false teacher, you know, it's so easy to look someone up online, you know, and research the history.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, back when I was young, we didn't have the internet and, and so I actually had to go to the library and look it up and library and start researching, and that's how I got myself out of the cult mind control.
Speaker 2:But the best thing to do is first know scripture. Second, do your research, do your homework. Something sounds kind of crazy. It probably is, it probably is, and you know, look up, look up the history of, of, of the church that you know you might be thinking of joining, or you know, because it could be a cult, and it's called she calls it the good news mission.
Speaker 2:I think it's a korean cult and anyway, she was telling me how high control it was and that you know, if you're in there, all your marriage, all the marriages are arranged. You're not allowed to. You know, marry the person you want, they arrange marriages, everything, and it's a very hyper calvinism. You know, and, uh, she's kind of like does, has done what I have done with jehovah's witnesses. You know, she's kind of like a person who helps people out of this cult. So, um, which I thought was very interesting, and now she goes to a christian, a good christian church. So, um, you just have to learn the differences between you know the lie and you know where is the truth and be able to compare it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like biblical literacy is something that's, I think, needed today, because not many people know their bibles as well as they should, so it's easier for them to to fall into.
Speaker 2:you know different beliefs if they don't know what the bible says exactly, yeah, um, it it's, and I find a lot of christians get fooled by a lot of um. You know, false teaching. You know, uh, over at our women's Bible study the other night, you know we were talking about the. You know NAR. You know New Apostolic Reformation, and you know people didn't know what that was and we were also talking about. You know, know, some of the prosperity um gospel, you know that, you know, is out there and you know, one lady says well, what about? What about?
Speaker 2:Um, oh, now, I can't remember the name. It's a female. Um, oh, not beth moore, not her. Um, oh, gosh, and her face is in my head too. I can see her face. Uh, she's been around for quite a while. Um, it's on the tip of my tongue. I'm sorry, I don't know if you could think of a female one, but anyway, others, this, this, this woman has published a lot of books. She's been very popular in christian circles and I've tried to warn women. Uh, this is a prosperity teacher that she's. This woman has published a lot of books. She's been very popular in Christian circles and I've tried to warn women this is a prosperity teacher. She's not. She's not. This is not sound doctrine.
Speaker 1:This is the prosperity gospel, yeah, and I think too also I think you might have mentioned this too Like if you do know the Bible, the Holy Spirit can prompt you to know oh, this doesn't line up with Scripture If you know the truth, so. So how can Christians have a healthy dialogue with people who have different beliefs and cults? How can we talk to them?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing is you don't want to just come out and attack their beliefs, start it on Jehovah's Witnesses and start naming off all their false prophecies and their false teachings and say see, this is where the Bible says. And then you know they're going to walk off faster than you can believe, so they're going to be gone. Or if you start telling Mormons oh you know, joseph Smith's a false prophet, here are all your false teachings they're not going to want to stand there and listen to you. So one of the methods that a person might use is just to ask thoughtful questions, you know, that are non-threatening. You know, like, tell me about the history of your, but where did it start? It was the founder and why did they find? How did they found the organization? And you know who were the first leaders, what did they teach? You know, and would I be able to look at their teachings and compare it against? You know the Bible. You know, and you know what would you do if you found teachings in your church or your organization if it conflicted against the Bible? What would you do? Would you take that your organization's teachings as true or the Bible is true? You know, so you try to get them to.
Speaker 2:You know, think about what they're believing and what you know. You might not, you might, you won't be able to convert them right there. Or to say, wow, you know. I always use the illustration. They're not going to be like, oh, I could have had a V8. They're not going to be like, oh, I could have had a V8. They're not going to be like that. It's going to be more of you're planting seeds. You're just giving them enough information, as Greg Kokel might say, to put a stone in their shoe to make them a little uncomfortable, but you don't want to barrage them with all this information.
Speaker 2:You know, just ask thoughtful questions and, you know, ask questions like well, what if you know this happened? You know what would be the result. You know, ask a lot of what ifs you know what, and then then result you know, you know, ask a lot of what ifs, you know what, and then then you know it's. It's it's more just sort of a process of getting them to to think about what they believe yeah, and hopefully, you know, get them to think some.
Speaker 1:Some of them don't allow them to think, so hopefully it allows them to think about what they believe too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even though they may give you a poker face or look like they're not interested or look like it's not getting through to them, it might be. So when they leave, pray for them, you know, you know. Pray that God opens up their heart, softens them up, and that the Holy Spirit will do his work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely so, because God can move, because he, he'll be the one to save them, yes, and not us. So how can Christian communities support people who have been influenced by cultic teachings Like they're believers, but they somehow adapted, adopted some false teachings in their thinking?
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean Christians who, like might be in the church, but yet they have. So how do we assist them?
Speaker 1:Yes, they have been influenced.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, um, that's a good question because you know, you don't know who might be influenced. I think the church needs to do a better job or needs to work on, you know, getting groups together. You know, for small studies, you know to kind of teach apologetics and maybe go over aberrant teachings that have been out there in. You know, in the church there are so many false teachings as I, you know, have mentioned, like NAR, the prosperity gospel. I mean people will watch the TV preachers, you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you know there's. Think, okay, so they'll, you know there's one. Can I mention names? Yes, you can like joel austin, you know, like that they might watch that. Or you know and think, oh yeah, well, you know that sounds good. So we have to make sure that people are not looking at stuff, things that just sound good, but they want to look at good sound doctrine.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, definitely so. So what would be like some resources for believers to kind of equip them to educate themselves on false teachings, cults, things like that?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess the first thing I would recommend is, like Walter Martin's books, you know, Kingdom of the Cults. It's been updated several times and you know that is a good beginner, I think. Kingdom of the Cults because it gives you a kind of an overview of a lot of the cults, because it gives you a um kind of an overview of of a lot of different cults you know, including java's witnesses or mormons, and and uh, you know a lot of the other cults that are around, so you know that.
Speaker 2:And I would um also just say to you know, get some books on Christian apologetics, you know, and start reading some of those. I mean, there's so many resources out there and websites also. You know, if you're there's uh, carm um, there's a website called carm carm and, uh, you know it has um a lot, of, a lot of good write-ups on. You know a lot of the different cults and abrid religions and stuff like that. So there's just know, just start looking them up online.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds good. So, to wrap up the show, what would be some encouragement you could offer believers who want to live faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, encouragement. Well, you know, find a good church. You know, find a good church with a good pastor. I'm very blessed to be in an excellent church right now with a excellent pastor. I just love him so much him and his wife, they're just great people that he teaches apologetics, his wife teaches, you know, the women's group and she does an excellent job because you know they're just right on the same page.
Speaker 2:You know, it's none of this fluffy stuff right, yeah it's good, solid teaching, and so get yourself a good church with a good pastor, the um, and you know where there's a lot of bible study, where you can get involved, um, and and and just work from there. You know, get yourself into some sort of, uh, small group, you know, hopefully, um, I don't know about everybody's church, you know, but you know, um, we're we're looking into having some home groups, you know where, where specific things are studied. You know certain biblical topics I'm supposed to teach one on the cults soon and you know, if you have a church like this, who's really into studying and teaching, that would be the best thing you know for someone. You know, if you can't find that kind of a church, maybe you could find, you know, teaching online, you know, so that you can, you know, do that.
Speaker 2:And then you know, of course, I'm in Women in Apologetics. You know we have a conference once a year. This year we're having one in Nashville. No-transcript has this kind of conference. There are different conferences across the country, you know, with different apologetics organizations. You know Biola University has different apologetics type seminars and weekends, and just keep on the lookout for that and get yourself into some kind of seminar or conference where you can learn, you know, how to defend your faith, mm hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, cynthia, thank you so much for coming on the show and helping us learn about cults and the difference between you know what we believe as christians and what they believe um different than us, so thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 2:It was a pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone. So I hope and pray that this episode with Cynthia will ignite your curiosity to dive more into cults and compare what they believe to the core Christian beliefs. I've added some of the resources that she mentioned in the show notes, so go ahead and check those out. Well, until next time time, remember god is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you, thank you.
