Center for Creative Ministry A research organization and research center for Seventh-day Adventist pastors and their congregations
Signs of Divinity
“Run!” 12-year-old Tracy Parks heard her father Jerry scream. “Get in the jungle!” Tracy, holding her mother’s bullet-riddled body, saw her sister Brenda sprinting from the airport runway toward the dark jungle. She, too, began running to get away from the beginning of what became known as the Jonestown Massacre.
She and her family were attempting to leave Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult when they were ambushed. By the end of the day, many members of a congressional delegation and more than 900 cult members, including five members of Tracy’s family, lay dead in a Guyana jungle.
“This wasn’t suicide,” reflects Parks today. “This was murder. Those children didn’t want to die and neither did many of the adults.”
46 years following the Jonestown Massacre, people still wonder how cult leader Jim Jones was able to fool, disillusion, and murder so many.
Jesus warned of the danger of false messiahs in Matthew 24:4-5. We can identify these counterfeit messiahs (cult leaders) through the leadership characteristics they exhibit.
“Cult leaders are notable for the enormous amount of power they have over their group,” reports cult intervention specialist Ashlen Hilliard. “This power is what many look for when defining a cult, but it’s not the only aspect that creates a cult leader. When you take a closer look, a cult leader often exhibits a classic set of traits and behaviors.”
These traits include: charismatic personalities, authoritarianism, the inability to admit being wrong, malignant narcissism, unpredictability, delusion, a grandiose self-image, and a penchant for exploitation. Although it’s helpful to recognize these traits, the best way to avoid cultish deception is to study and follow the life and characteristics of Jesus, the true Messiah.
John 1:1-3 introduces the major theme of his gospel as the revelation that Jesus Christ is both human and the divine Word. One way he does that is to intentionally report on Jesus’ miracles in ways that identify His divine nature. He begins by connecting Jesus as the new Moses. Jesus fed the 5,000 around Passover time, which commemorates Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Gathering the leftover food is reminiscent of gathering the manna. John reveals Jesus as the divine deliverer of God’s people.
John also shows Jesus as the great I AM of Exodus 3:14. Jesus proclaimed “I am” the bread of life (John 6:35), the light of the world (John 8:12), the door for the sheep (John 10:7), and the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). These statements lead up to the ultimate demonstration of Jesus’ divinity: He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). The miraculous healing stories, such as the healing of the blind man in John 9, culminate in Jesus’ crowning miracle—the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Only God is the true life-giver.
In reporting on this story in The Desire of Ages (p. 530), Ellen White delivers the classic line regarding Jesus’ divinity: “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived.”
Why would anyone choose to follow a charlatan when Jesus, the divine Son of God, is available to all?
For Reflection
Connecting: What emotions do you experience when you hear the stories of death cults such as the Peoples Temple or Heaven’s Gate?
Sharing: Why do you think John felt it so important to emphasize Jesus’ divinity?
- The three previous gospel records, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, didn’t adequately make that case
- By the time John wrote his gospel, the gnostic heresy (that Jesus wasn’t a real person but only seemed to be) was beginning to take hold among Christian believers
- That truth so enraptured John as a young man that he couldn’t help but highlight it
- The Holy Spirit inspired John to reveal that truth
- John was the closest disciple to Jesus—the disciple Christ loved—and he knew Jesus more intimately than any other human
- Other:
Applying: Have you ever seen a friend or loved one fall under the spell of an obvious con artist? Were you able to help this person break the enchantment? What are some strategies you could try to help someone disengage from a false messiah?
Valuing: What does it mean to you that God personally—not an angel or other created being—suffered death on your behalf?
~ Chuck Burkeen
First Hurricane Helene struck, and now Hurricane Milton pummels the Southeastern United States. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia is just now surfacing from massive flooding that occurred over the last few weeks. And a month ago, Europe recorded one of its heaviest rainfalls.
Devastation abounds.
But in the midst of all the tragedy, we can look at Hurricane Helene recovery efforts to see that in the darkest moments, love has an opportunity to shine.
For example, Dolly Parton donated $1 million to the Mountain Ways Foundation and is working to match that donation with another $1 million gathered from her various Tennessee businesses.
Meanwhile, Union Adventist University’s Disaster Response Team deployed a team of 35 to assist with cleanup efforts in Avery County, North Carolina. (You can support their efforts by giving online.)
In addition to prayers, donations, and labor, tangible ways to assist in preventative efforts are at your disposal.
Atmospheric scientist Katherine Hayhoe believes we can apply preventative changes in our daily lives. She encourages people to consider mitigating the causes of floods, and offers a plethora of educational resources that can help each of us rethink our part in floods (and other climate disasters). Some of those resources include:
- Her Global Weirding YouTube series
- The Nature Conservancy’s award-winning NatureLab
curriculum - BioLogos’ Integrate curriculum for home-schoolers and faith-based schools
- The EU’s Education for Climate community
- Subject to Climate
- CLEAN
For those of us who are hesitant to reevaluate our part in natural disasters and then make small adjustments to the way we live, she warns that warmer air holds more water vapor, so massive floods and heavy rains aren’t likely to disappear anytime soon.
What do you feel called to do?
Stefani Leeper | Content Coordinator
Sources: Talking Climate Newsletter, Oct. 7, 2024, Union Adventist University Newsletter, Oct. 4, 2024, thedonut.co
The Center for Creative Ministry is fully recognized by the North American Division (NAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; it is also a 501c3 nonprofit organization which makes donations tax deductible in the U.S.
