Knowledgeable than your Pastor

No person agrees with their pastor 100%. Both pastors and congregants are human. Anyone who does is likely weak in what they believe, imo.

The fact that there are sometimes things that pastors and congregants disagree with does not in any way lend evidence to one or both being theologically incorrect.

 

While I was in seminary, a dear friend of mine was pastoring a small church while he was in school. He told me a unique method that he was trying....rather than haveing the traditional Sunday school then worship service, he reversed it he would preach a sermon then have Sunday School. This time was used to go futher into the message he had just preached....

This always stuck in my mind as an excellent idea......altought I never mustard up enough courage to try to break the age old tradition most churches hold to as a must.

 

By the way he said the people ther loved it...and inter acted more in Sunday School.


He said it sure made them listen more entencely to the sermon.....seeing that they were going to discuse it afterwards.

 

I went to a church that had Sunday School last. It was a little out of whack. I could never get used to it.

((By the way, just as a note of trivia, if you've heard about the church in New Jersey where the parents starved the foster children, that was the church I went to - Come Alive New Testament))

 

I talk with my pastor about things in his sermons quite frequently.. he welcomes that, and in fact, after many sunday evenings, one or two people can be seen with him dicussing their points of view on the exegesis of the passage he has done.

Serious study of the Bible and asking questions about the sermons is strongly encouraged.

Our pastor recently taught a class on how to study the Bible, complete with sentence diagramming and outlining of passages.

I don't know more Bible than my pastor, but he does a great job equipping our congregation to do serious Bible study. The end result is that our elders, deacons, and leaders have a great passion to be students of the Word.

 

Personally I am not in favor of all the congregants 'picking apart a message from the Lord.' Pastors should be trained before they enter the pulpit and many laity have little experience as to how to exegete Scripture. Their activity should be to take elected office, help run the church, and support its ministries financially.

Let the congregation take their questions to him privately in his office, rather than making his message as though you really cannot trust what the good pastor is saying. Spreading distrust among the congregation is of no value in fact it is an affront to the Lord.

If they find the pastor is too Calvinistic or too Arminian in his interpretation and they cannot deal with it then they should go where they think the truth is being taught.

Berrian, Th.D.

 

Most pastors would welcome honest discussions, questions, etc. They would not welcome someone picking apart their sermons.

Personally, I've never been more knowledgeable than any of my pastors. I don't know if that says more about them or me.

 

Charles Spurgeon had an interesting critic . According to Fullerton : One who remained unknown , used to send the preacher a weekly list of mispronunciations and other errors in the previous Sunday morning's sermon . These communications were always welcome . If a phrase was used too frequently , the writer would say , ' See the same expression in such and such a sermon . " He remarked in one letter that Spurgeon quoted too frequently the line " Nothing in my hand I bring , " and added , " We have been sufficiently informed as to the vacuity of your hand " !

 

Did Wesley, Whitefield, Moody or others have their messages critiqued? In those days people had a lot more respect for a man of God than present day Protestants. Their message were 'thus saith the Lord!'

As you see on this board, often it does not take brains to criticize an other brother's thoughts and beliefs.

What I dislike most as those who twist what other men and women of God have stated, which in fact is the truth.

 

Isn't that precisely why so many of us have a problem with the pope?

 

Mike Mck,

I always thought Wesley, Whitefield, Moody and others were off-shoots of Protestantism.

As you know the Pope places their tradition even above the authority of the Word of God--the Bible. But I will say that the R.C.'s did get some things right. An example: the Deity of Christ, the Trinity and reverence for the House of God and respect for their clergy persons.

Yes, we analyse Roman Catholic theology but we or they do not gather the congregation after the Mass to point out where the homily did not measure up to their views, nor do they point out what they did not like or what they think is contrary to the Bible or even God Himself. Generally speaking they 'run a tight ship.'

Any dummy can second guess a preacher's message and when they question it they prove they are foolish and disrespectful to what the Lord has laid on his or her heart.

Any questioning of a pastor's message should be done privately, on Monday morning in his pastoral office. With a congregation of, know it alls, only causes sinners and weak Christians to question anything the preacher has to say in the future from the pulpit.

 

I don't think I could even get into a debate with my pastor about anything. Last year, I attended a Lutheran doctrine class. The pastor talked about the Book of Concord. He essentially said the Bible should be interpreted by what the Book of Concord said about it. I asked, "Isn't that putting the Book of Concord on the same level as the Bible?" He said, "No." I further asked, "Why do we need the Book of Concord? Why not use just the Bible?" He replied that if we did, we would get different interpretations. I was still skeptical, but he wouldn't answer any more of my questions. When I attended other sessions, the pastor left very little time for asking questions at the end of class. I was left with the imrpession that I should just shut up and believe whatever he says. Sorry, but I am not like that. He let me borrow his copy of the Book of Concord, but I still disagree with certain things it says.

 

After 47 years of churchgoing I can report many different things happening; when I started this post my intentions were to be completely honest. However as I think about things I've seen I believe they would seem so bizarre both to you and me also, that the thing for me to do is write nothing!!!!!

 

The OP was specific to "knowing your Bible". Are you saying that after carefully reading "the Bible" you discovered that it never meant to say "for in SIX DAYS the Lord created the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day"?...

Or did you mean to say that after studying the doctrines of atheist darwinism you "discovered" that it was "ok" to eisegete the text of scripture using the lense of atheist Darwinism.

If it was the former - then by all means share.

The one "consistent" response on the Christian-vs-evolution discussion section of this board is that whenever "the Bible POV" is the topic of the thread - the evolutionists don't want any part of it.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Good Job Bob you took the words outta my mouth.