Joseph Prince’s False Dichotomy Between Sonship and Discipleship – By Rev George Ong (Dated 23 June 2022)
What Joseph Prince has been trying to portray in the few previous sermons, especially the last sermon dated 19 June 2022 (not a live but pre-recorded sermon) is that we must appreciate our sonship – that we are the privileged sons of God and Father God is our loving Father who cares for us.
No one will disagree with that. All Christians subscribe to this magnificent teaching – that as sinners being saved by His grace, we are given this glorious privilege to be God’s sons and daughters, inheriting all that He has for us. And we can all shout a big Amen and loud Hallelujah to the Lord.
But what is malicious is that in Joseph Prince’s teaching to amplify sonship, he berates discipleship.
In his assertion that privileged sonship (New Covenant) and costly discipleship (Old Covenant) do not go together, Joseph Prince is effectively pitting sonship against discipleship.
It is as if, if we see ourselves as the privileged sons of God, we must discard costly discipleship.
Or, just because we see ourselves as committed disciples who obey Christ to pay the price of giving up everything to be His followers, that will automatically cloud our perspective and impede our inheritance as the sons of God.
The scriptures never set up this false dichotomy between privileged sonship and costly discipleship. It is a false dichotomy that Joseph Prince has deceptively created to poison the minds of believers in order to get them to reject discipleship.
On the contrary, the Bible teaches that both sonship and discipleship are equally important. One does not cancel out the other as though they are mutually exclusive.
One must not be emphasised (sonship) at the expense of pushing the other out of existence (discipleship) as Joseph Prince did:
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 22 May 2022, Joseph Prince said,
“You are not a disciple anymore. The disciples are now called Christians.”
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 19 June 2022, Joseph Prince said,
“It was the Holy Spirit who replaced the name ‘disciples’ into Christians.”
Both sonship and discipleship are not antithetical precepts that Joseph Prince has deceived many people with, but both are complementary teachings as revealed in the scriptures. Both are New Covenant truths taught by the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul, and both must be strongly emphasised.
Rev George Ong
This article was featured in conjunction with the following 3 Articles; Please click below to read them:
Joseph Prince Justifying His Holiday Based on the Lamest Reason – By Rev George Ong
(These 4 articles were also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)