Expert: Tom Smith - 6/2/2004

Question
 You asked me to get back to you if I got any more information. Well, my work associate finally admitted that she was getting her teaching from a tv minister with dubious credentials named Arnold Murray of Shepherd's Chapel in Gravette, Ark. With that bit of information I was able to search the internet and find out all I needed on this cult leader and his beliefs. Thought you might be interested in the source. Thanks again. Don Sisco (Taotog@earthlink.net)
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Followup To
Question -
I have been speaking with a work associate about the Bible and I have a question you may be able to help me with, or help me narrow the possibilities. She seems very grounded on the surface, believes in the Trinity, Deity of Jesus, His bodily resurrection, etc. but she gets kinda out in left field when we talk about Genesis. She believes the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is Satan because the Hebrew word there is masculine. She "seems" to accept the Rapture (sounds post-trib) but refers to it (pre-trib)as the "flying away theory" and says it is unscriptural and was invented by a lady named MacDonald. She says she studies with a "Hebrew Study" group but gets very elusive when I ask for details. Won't give me any names or denominational affiliations. Do you have any idea what group she might be with? It would make it a lot easier for me if I could figure out who she is parroting for her doctrine. Even a few different possibilities to explore would be helpful and I know this isn't much to go on but she's not giving me much to work with. Thanks for your time, much appreciated.
Answer -
I'll be honest - this was a new one on me. I had not heard that combination of beliefs before, especially not the one about the tre of knowledge of Good and evil being Satan. To try to find out what group this might be, I tried following that specific doctrine to see who might teach that. I found two groups, but I cannot say if she might belong to either one, it may be a doctrine held by some other fringe groups also, but I hope that this helps:

1) Gary C. Price and the Omega Ministries - weblinks:

http://www.jesuscult.org/fruit_page.htm
http://www.omegaministry.org/

Note on this webpage, under biography of the pastor, we read:

"Pastor Price believes that the present day Church has lost the vision that Jesus Christ imparted to the Apostles before He departed to be enthroned with His Father."

One should also beware of any church or movement which claims to "restore" the true gospel or tyhe true message which was "lost". Many cults make this claim including Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

This ministry also seems to align with what you said on the post-trib belief.

http://www.omegaministry.org/tribulation.html

Now, I will caution - I don't know if this ministry is sound or not. I do not have a lot of additional information on it, but the claim to restored the true vision of Jesus does raise a yellow flag for me.

2) The second site that I found was "The Church of the Rain"

weblink:

http://www.therain.org/studies/index.html#top

They do teach the doctrine of the tree being Satan:

http://www.therain.org/studies/treekn.html

This groups appears mostly orthodox, but appear to believe in a serious error called "replacement theology", a belief that the church replacement Israel and that God has forever rejected Israel and the Jew. I base that upon this excerpt from their statement of faith:

" We believe that after Christ's death and resurrection Israel was to be called by a new name (Isaiah 62:2). Israel was not to be remembered by her old name (Hosea 2:17), and the new name was to be the Lord's Name (2 Chronicles 7:14) which would be CHRISTIAN (Christ man), (Acts 11:26, 1 Peter 4:16)."

This is almost word for word what I have seen from other groups and churches which are deep into this movement.

this church also aligns on the comments that you made regarding opposition to otrthdox view of the rapture, though they appear to reject the rapture outright:

http://www.therain.org/read/rapture.html

I don't know if this answers your question, but I hope that it has at least helped. What might help would be if you asked her if she could trecommend any literature (books or websites) where you could look into this further. That might help give us some better leads. If you do get more info, let me know and I will try to help further.

Tom


Answer
Thanks for getting back to me with this. Here is some information which may be of use to you, from sources which I trust - I thought that I would add these just in case this adds something that you had not previously seen:

http://www.watchman.org/profile/murraypro.htm

http://www.carm.org/chapel/arnold_murray.htm

http://cultlink.com/sentinel/murray.html

http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/arnoldmurray.html