"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. -- John 15:12-15 (ESV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwamcL1qNw
The above link is to a six-minute snippet from a Kris Vallotton "teaching." Yes, that means people are actually being taught this and that alone should frighten us. In it he expounds on his beliefs of being friends with God, which is only appropriate since he and Bethel are so firmly entrenched in the friend of God theologies that permeate the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). There is so much heresy and poor logic in these six minutes. We join the sermon in delivery and Kris has just read the key verses above where Jesus tells His disciples that He no longer considers them slaves but now they are His friends. Then Kris begins to exegete and all hell breaks loose, literally. His quotes are the best I can do from taking notes:
"He (God) equates slavery to withholding information from you. When we first come to Christ we learn He is Savior and Lord but how many know He also wants to be the bridegroom? He wants us to go from slavery to friendship to matrimony and He doesn't want to marry a slave girl." -- Kris Vallotton
Wow, this is breathtakingly bad and makes me want to shower. Jesus does not want to be the Bridegroom beloved. He is the Bridegroom. Whatever we do in our lives is inconsequential to who He is. When you think you are the center of your religion, as Vallotton does, it is no wonder you get so easily confused that you actually think the creator of the entire universe is somehow limited in who He can be based upon decisions we make in our lives. Also, the "matrimony" is reserved for the church, not the individual people. We are not marrying Jesus. The church is. Vallotton keeps mixing larger theological points with absolute minutia. Jesus doesn't want to marry a slave girl? How absurd. In the friend of god theology of Bethel, there is a level above mere obedience to God. The understanding that He is Lord and Savior is so "entry level." To them we need to get past that so Jesus can become our wingman.
"Here's a strong point that is a core issue on the church today. People come to Bethel from all over the world because they hear about the revelation. The first question, and I've heard this asked of Bill at leadership retreats during Q and A, is where do you get all of the revelation? They're expecting the answer to be, "well I study this many hours a day and I read these commentaries" but they don't hear that. I would like to propose that revelation is not the product of laborious study but it is the fruit of friendship with God." -- Kris Vallotton
Here is the cornerstone teaching of the experiential church. Put down that bible and really get to know Jesus! How pathetic and inaccurate. You cannot have a deeper revelation than His word. You cannot have a relationship with Jesus without His word. Did God forget to tell us something in the bible so now He wants to impart it to us through a group hug? I think not. Kris Vallotton and Bill Johnson spend a lot of time convincing people to not take the bible so seriously and to elevate their personal experience to the level of scripture and even higher. When Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth he was referring to the truth in His word! If someone honestly tells you that they do not get their revelation from the bible, as Kris intimates here about Bill Johnson, where do you suppose they are getting it from? I will tell you where -- their hearts. There is a reason why the Lord has warned us that our heart is desperately sick and deceitful. Yet that is what they mean when they say they heard God speak to their hearts or even worse, audibly. Now, can God speak to us in these manners? Of course, He is God. but just because God can do something does not mean He is. When you consider the scope of the Old Testament the amount of times God spoke audibly is very little yet some of these false teacher claims make it seem that they have a bat-phone direct to the throne room! "The Lord told me" is NEVER better than "The word of God says." This notion that revelation is the fruit of a friendship with God removed from the laborious study of His word is nothing short of blasphemy. It is an insidious teaching designed to have people stop reading their bibles and seek His revelation from sources in this carnal world. So, let me propose that Kris Vallotton is a raving heretic who should be marked and avoided at the very cost of eternal salvation. To close this video, Vallotton tries to go to the bible, which is odd since he just taught that you do not need to. What is great about false teachers who try to leverage the bible, the word REVEALS for us that they are liars and charlatans. Vallotton tries to string four scriptures together that have absolutely nothing to do with each other to make a point that is not accurate and unrelated. Perhaps if he sought his revelation from the proper source, scripture, he could avoid such bible mangling. First here are the verses he cites:
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, - Hosea 4:6 (ESV)
