spamassassin --lint and spamc return different scores

Question

I'll keep this short and sweet.

spamassassin --lint -D < email_message_to_test.eml
Returns:
[22154] dbg: check: is spam? score=4.205 required=5
Which is an entirely reasonable score, it is in fact what I'm looking for.

While
spamc -R < email_message_to_test.eml
Returns:
Content analysis details: (-0.7 points, 5.0 required)
Which is way to low!

Looking for why, and how to fix it.

System info:
FreeBSD 7.2
SpamAssassin version 3.2.5
running on Perl version 5.8.9
No previous installs.

Thanks!
Chance

EDIT
This is embarrassing. It appears that --lint always returns a score of 4.205, no matter what email I feed it. I was misunderstanding what --lint did, and since I was looking for something wrong I jumped on it.

Both answers make good points, and even though I'd love to delete this :) I'm leaving it up in case someone else wonders the same thing.

Answer 1

Have you setup some local user_prefs rules for SpamAssassin?

If so, have you set allow_user_rules in your local.cf?

Answer 2

Perhaps you have spamassassin running in a jail, using different config files than in your test?

If so, ensure that /etc/spamassassin in the jail contains the same files as /etc/spamassassin outside of the jail.