Christian Living
October 17, 2011 – Patronizing Preaching
15 And consider that the long-suffering of our Lord [His slowness in avenging wrongs and judging the world] is salvation (that which is conducive to the soul’s safety), even as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the spiritual insight given him, 16 Speaking of this as he does in all of his letters. There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist and misconstrue to their own utter destruction. – 2 Peter 3:15-16 AMP
Sometimes God leads me to a subject and it seems that it goes on for days. Last week I wrote about giving more than once, and I also spilled into different blogs about a half-witted, half-hearted Christianity sweeping our society. Now after a very restful Sabbath, He has once again led me back to this watered down religion once again.
Peter says very plainly that those who twist Scripture are doing it to their own destruction, but at the same time he says there are some of Paul’s writings that are difficult to understand. I think many times that some people even twist this Scripture to mean that not some, but ALL of Paul’s writings are hard to understand.
You have to understand this about Paul: he was a very educated man. He received the best religious education of his day, and could speak very intelligently if he was called to. Reading the Book of Romans is a fine example of this. When I was first saved I would skip Romans because it was harder to read than any insurance policy we had. But remember: in that letter Paul was speaking to a very intellectual audience, so he wrote accordingly. Peter, a mere uneducated fisherman, probably looked at that writing and said something like, “My gosh man, it all looks Greek to me!” Many of Paul’s writings contain analogies that are somewhat mind boggling to the first time reader, i.e. his analogy of Christ’s marriage to the church (Ephesians 5), and the full armor of God (Ephesians 6). He even describes the prophetic event of the Rapture in several letters, something that even the best science fiction movies in present day can’t do justice, so why would a reader almost nineteen hundred years ago expect to understand that?
That aside, my focus today is not on Paul, but on twisting Scripture. Since the Bible contains so many symbols and prophecies, people over the years and in present day alike have used it as an excuse to read between the lines to justify their own ends. The sad part is that churches and pastors have patronized Christians over the years by telling them what they want to hear rather than what God wants them to hear.
A real world example of this recently surfaced in the life of our middle son Ryley. Ryley had a friend whose cousin had recently died. The cousin was living a sinful life, and the friend was troubled and asked Ryley his opinion on the matter of the cousin’s eternal destination. After some discussion, Ryley pointed the friend to Scripture. The friend in turn sought advice from leaders at his church who did not point him to Scripture, but told him not to worry because his cousin was fine. The friend afterwards called Ryley arrogant because of the disagreement and because he did not get words of encouragement from our son. The friend just wanted someone to tell him what he wanted to hear rather than share the truth with him. Where did he find such encouragement? He found it at a diet church where the Bible is not taught cover to cover as the black and white truth.
There is only one explanation for churches not teaching the complete truth of the Bible: they are seeking to please man and not God. When they twist Scriptures in any way they set themselves and their congregations up for failure. Sadly no diet Christian will be able to stand before God with their diet Christianity pastor at our side. They won’t be able to say things like, “But the pastor said it was okay for me to do that” or “The pastor never said that was a sin.” Sure, pastors will be held more accountable and receive greater condemnation for their actions (James 3:1), but never will any of us be able to blame a pastor for our own actions.
Society continues to play a big role in this day of patronizing talk from the pulpit, at least to the level that we allow it to. Society has taught us that as long as we don’t harm anyone physically, anything we do is okay. And even if we do cause physical harm, we are allowed to blame it on things like drug addiction or an abusive step-grandparent on our half sister’s stepmother’s side of the family. Nothing anyone does is ever their responsibility anymore.
Let me be the first to inform you that we are all responsible when we reach physical maturity. There is nothing that makes us do anything: we do it by our own free will. We all need to accept that fact and not look for some “preacher” in the pulpit to tell us what we want to hear. Only then we will know that listening to and following God is leaps and bounds better than some guy patronizing our every move.
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