Re: Questioning my pastor

Thanks to CarrieNBecky for your comments on my last post. Since you took the time and interest to write your thoughts. I'd like you to consider this and see if you feel led to reply to this. So if your pastor felt convicted to teach about a women wearing a head covering.. how would you feel he should present/teach that? I'm just trying to get a feel to what you are saying.. because we may agree on that type of thing. What I mean is how things like that are presented. Also, My thing is (at this time in my life) if a pastor is on the pulpit teaching what the Lord has revealed to him, and it is different and contradicts what the Lord has revealed to another, who is right? Pastors are God's chosen, but are also not infallible. They are human, and humans are prone to make mistakes. That is my whole point. And if I were to ask "Where is the accountability?", the answer from them would be, "We are accountible to God". And if they give that kind of answer, who can aruge, even if we want to. They through in the word "God" and they got us. I'm not saying that we should argue with the pastors all the time.. BUT if something is taught a certain way, and we scratch our head in the wording or the teaching.... making a suggestion to,, have you considered this teaching.. and how this applies. to it.. It has just not been received well.. Making us feel as tho it is not welcome. Idk, Im still praying about it.

APOLOGY

I apologize for disabling comments on my previous post. But the reason was stated. And yes, Jon, one more reason not to have them. But not a good enough one for me unless I get overwhelmed with cheap advertising. Please post comments to my previous post on here. Thanks

Questioning the Pastor?!

Recenly I've been going through this thing where I am critical of my church and want to question my pastor. But to question him isn't the easiest thing to do. And for some reason I've been made to feel that it is wrong to question him. It was once said that we have no right to question him because he is inspired by God to preach the way he does. I'm not exactly arguing that. AND get this next part, it's important. I am not looking for answers because everyone says yes or no. What I am asking you for is scripture references that point me toward my answer. I've heard all the opinions of why and why not. What I want now is parts of the Bible that will point me toward the truth and my own decision on that issue. Please feel free to give me some material to read. Even if it is a link to another site.. I exhausted google with no results!!!

From Frustrated in Philly!

Ok, there was a problem (I think) someone posted a comment that was only a big long advertisement.. so I took the comments off this post in order to get rid of hte ad. But this following comment was there and it deserved to stay.

Carrie N Becky said...

Acts 17:11 "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

The Bereans were considered more noble because they, essentially, questioned what Paul said through examining the scriptures. What do you suppose they would have done had they found that he said was questionable? Proverbs 9:9 "Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning."
11:29 PM

Yeh, it's still in Romans

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been deep in the book of Romans and can't get out! This is like for once in my life the Bible is making complete sense! Should I be scared or concerned.. IDK but It's wonderful!! There is no real place to begin because it is one really big circle. So I'll start with Romans and then get to my point! And I promise I will get to my point eventually.

Romans 14: 7-9
"7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living."

No matter what I do or where I go, by the choices I make, I have an influence on someone else. There is nothing that we can do that is totally isolated from the world. Too much is closely knit that we cannot make choices that do not affect our Brother or Sister in someway. If we make wrong life choices our family will suffer the consequences, if we make right life choices our family will sigh a big sigh of relief (at least my family would) and so on. Even if we make the wrong choices in our own private world, at work, or out of our home, those choices affect us and in the same way we affect our family and friends. The only time we are isolated from other people is when we stand before the judgment seat of God. If we hear "Well done my good and faithful servant" we can look in front of us because we will see Jesus Rep'n for us. Ok, I know I already talked about this the other day, but I needed to reiterate it to make my point.

Romans 14: 10-12 "10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’”£
12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God."

Do I have the right to judge you? No, and the reason being is because I, just like everyone else, am a man/woman under judgment! It's like we go before God and are standing there and feel that we have the right to turn to our brother and say, "what the heck are you doing here?" or "Did you hear what """""""" did last night"? or "She won't come? But we are Christians and we feel it is ok to go, she's so self righteous!" You get my point. We cannot judge because we are the judged!

13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil."

Before I go on I must bring your attention to one word in those last verses. The word LOVE 1 Corinthians 13 tells it how it is and I'll quote to make my point more clear.

1Corinthians 13: 1-3 "1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

That pretty much tells us how important love is. And how many times to we take the oppurtunity to 'get back' at someone instead of loving them? We can't pass up to chance to get even so we skip the love part. But even when we do pass up the oppurtunity to get even and we choose to love instead of our natural instincts, Do we really remember at that time what love is? Love isn't just 'not getting back' at someone. Back to Corinthians...

1Corinthians 13: 4-7, "4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
"

Patient? Doesn't envy? Doesn't boast? ... forget the rest.. if that is what love is.. what is it that I have had when I thought I had love?? Ok, I'm half joking. But all joking aside. That is some pretty powerful guidelines to fal into if we want to truly love one another. And just think of the recipients of your love, they will be some lucky people to live in our presence when we have that kind of love in our hearts and it is sincere! Patient, Kind, does not envy, forgets wrongs right away, which means it also forgives instantly. Dang! Verse 7 "Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres". That right there that are the attributes of a mom's love. Don't mean to go off the subject, but, my mom? That's her in verse 7. Many of my friends moms. She's right there in verse 7. I'm gonna keep that verse posted on my fridge if I am blessed enough to be a dad someday! Ok, to get back before I make a wrong turn and get lost>>> We stopped at the word love in Romans 14 verse 15. We have to live a life out of love. If we don't have love for our brother we have nothing. It is important to respect a brother or sister who may be weaker in the faith than we are. If we are totally comfortable in doing something and it does not defile our conscience that is well and good. But if we have a brother or sister who is weaker in the faith OR with different convictions than we do, AND we persuade or convince them to take part in or do the things that we are doing, I think we are wrong.

Mark 9:42 “And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

To state it plainly; If my conscience was clear while I was involved in an activity or at certain place, and my brother said "No way man, I can't do that and feel right about it". And I were to say "C'mon, man, there's nothing wrong with it, we all go there'. And so on and eventually convince him to go or take part, I would be better off with a millstone around my neck and in the ocean? Dude, I can swim but not under those cicumstances, that would suck! Oh, wait, I get it, if we cause our brother to fall, we are screwed pretty much!! But if we skip back to Romans 14, we understand that we are better off not doing those things in the first place if we know our friend/brother/sister is not comfortable with it. If we know that it is one of those things where it is neither right nor wrong in itself and we know our brother doesn't approve. We should completely abstain for the sake of our brother's conscience! I mean, heck, I would appreciate it if it were done in my regard. That'd be one cool friend. I think back to the many times that I was talked into doing things that I knew were wrong.. only thing was I didn't have much of a conscience then. Do I now? JK!
OK, now I get to the personal stuff. A few years ago (and I'm still getting to my point) I was at an aquaintances house and the fridge was stocked full of alcohol of some kind. We had a blast, spent 'several' hours there and when it was time to leave I fell down the steps and was willing to drive, but a friend stopped by and was a friend to me. To make my condition clear, I was 'wasted'. I am not proud of that, but need to say it to make a point. The next day at work, I could not concentrate on work for obvious reasons. I left early and when to the home of someone of whom I considered a friend. I told my story and in return I was belittled and made to feel like a fool and a failure. This person told me how alcohol has "never touched my lips in my life". And how they feel that "all my advice to you was wasted". etc. etc. By the time I left that house that day I felt like crap and a failure and worthless because I failed. I failed God and now I failed a friend who seemed to want nothing of me. Besides the issue of "Does alcohol have a place in a Christian's life?", I learned a lesson that day. No, the lesson wasn't 'don't ever drink again'. It was "DON'T EVER TREAT SOMEONE THE WAY YOU JUST GOT TREATED" !!!!!! That was my lesson. Now here is the conclusion. I was treated that way, not on purpose, but out of ignorance. That person whom I considered a friend had no idea of how to respond to the news they just heard. So they paniced and said what was on their mind without thinking. At the time I was double wounded. I had fallen the night before and in an attempt to get back up I called on a Christian Brother who, unintentionally, pushed me back down again. But I don't consider that experience all bad. Because of Romans 8:28 "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord.....". At the time did I love the Lord? I will always say yes, but my actions obviously speak otherwise. I learned that when someone comes to me with a problem, if I have experienced the same problem in my life, GREAT, I can now empathize with them and explain that I've been there and it sucks, let's work together and find the solution to this problem. And, if I've never been there, like this person was never in the place I was, do my best to explain that "I don't know what you are going through, but there IS forgiveness if you are willing to confess & forsake". Yeh, I know it's all words. But that is what I learned from that experience. To always try to 'protect' the faith of someone else. Protect it from discouragement, especially my own. And apply all those adjectives of love to that person if they choose to come to me with questions or problems. To be patient, kind, not to boast or get angry (or at least be slow at it).. The important thing is it's not about me, especially at that point, it's time to put my all into this person who respected me enough to come my way with something.
Now there is another point; I mentioned before the issue of "Does alcohol have a place in a Christian's life?" It will be controversial til the end of time. And i've heard all the arguements. I'm not looking for new excuses. If you drink with a clear conscience, great! If I drink with a clear conscience, great! But if I were to drink and the fact that a young Christian respected me and knew that I drank, caused them to think it is fine to do, but later became a drunkard and ended up with several DUI's. Would I then think it is still ok for me as a Christian to drink? We may think we are living in our own little world and only having influence on .... no one. But that is not true. There are many young people around most of us and they are heavily influenced by what we do and what we say. And if we take part in something they will automatically think it is cool, if not OK. This is just a warning to re-evaluate what is necessary in our life and what is just a potentially dangerous 'extra'. Did I answer the question of whether it has place in a Christian's life? No I did not, because at this point I don't know. I know for a fact that it would be better if we all stayed away from it, but we are all individuals. Just remember Romans 14. We ourselves and our actions are NEVER isolated to just ourselves. We have a responsibility to look out for our brother's conscience. We may have the Christian freedom to drink, but 'could' it hinder a brother or sister in their walk of faith or cause them to fall?? It may be ok for us, but is it ok for ALL Christians? If not, could be we a negative influence on them by participating? And we have an obligation to respect our weaker brother. We cannot do something as a Christian just because our coolest Christian friend does it and has no struggles with it. We cannot do something just to fit in with the rest of the group. We have an obligation to consider the well being and the conscience of our brother FIRST, and then our own! Man if only we could do that, what a great place we would live in !!!

Bad Christian !

One of my 13 blogs that I read daily is one called badchristian.com recently he wrote;

Honestly, badchristian.com started out of frustration. I felt--and still feel--like the contemporary institutional Church is more enamoured with a vision of its present righteousness than it is with encouraging people to be transformed AND then live truly transformational lives. Also, it frustrated me that the contemporary Church isn't much in the business of allowing questions (and especially not in the business of questioning answers.)

You can view his whole blog at BadChristian.com

My lesson from Romans

You ever have it where you are reading a certain part of the Bible and it exactly coincides with what you may be dealing with or someone else (who talks to you about it) is dealing with? Well it was intersting. I was recently talking to someone about some things they wanted to do. They called me and asked my opinion on somethings. And what they planned to do would have influence on young people and those young people could possibly look up to them. And I couldn't really articulate what I wanted to say or I couldn't be certain that what I was saying or wanted to say was right or correct. But the next morning when I picked up my Bible the marker was on Romans 14. That chapter was exactly what I was trying to portray. I spoke on the fact that it is impossible for us to be isolated in our life here on earth.. no matter what we do it will have an effect on someone somehow whether good or bad. The only time we could ever possibly be isolated would be when we stand before the judgment seat of God but then even at that point.. if we ran the race and faught the good fight we will have Jesus with us to rep for us. And then it spoke about judging people and that we cannot judge others because we ourselves are men under judgment. And the fact that we are responsible for our neighbors conscience in the way that we cannot do something that is neither right nor wrong if it defiles our neighbor's conscience. We cannot condone something that our neighbor thinks is wrong even if we think it right.. IF it is something that is neither right or wrong. .. .. .. .. .. William Barclay had this to say about it. And it made sense to me.

The Stoics used to teach that there were a great many things which they called indifferent. In themselves they were quite neutral, neither good nor bad. The stoics put it this way-it all depends by what handle you pick them up. Now that is profoundly true. To a student of art, a certain picture might be a work of art, to someone else an obscene drawing. To one group of people a discussion might be an interesting and stimulating experience, to someone else a succession of heresies, and even blasphemies. And amusement, a pleasure, a pastime might seem quite permissible but to another prohibited. More, there are pleasures that are quite harmless to one man, which can, in fact, be the ruin of another. The thing itself is neither clean nor unlcean; it's character is determined by the person who sees it or does it.
That is what Paul is getting at here. There are certain things that a man strong in the faith may see no harm in doing; but, if a person with a more narrow outlook saw him doing them, his conscious would be shocked; and if such a person were persuaded to do them himself his conscious would be outraged. We may take a very simple example. One man would genuinely see no harm in playing some outdoor game on Sunday, and he may be right; but another mans conscious is shocked at such a thing, and, if he were persuaded to take part in it, all the time he would have the haunting feeling that he were doing wrong.
Paul's advice is clear. It is a Christian duty to think of everything, not as it affects ourselves only, but also as it affects others. Note that Paul is not saying that we must always allow our conduct to be dictated by the views of others; there are matters which are essentially matters of principle, and in them a man must take his own way. But a great many things are neutral and indifferent; a great many things are neither in themselves good or bad; a great many things are not essential parts of life and conduct but belong to what we might call the extras of life. It is Paul's conviction that in regard to such things we have no right to give offense to the more scrupulous brother by doing them ourselves, or by persuading him to do them.
Life must be guided by the principle of love; and when it is, we will think, not so much of our right to do as we like as of our responsibilities ot others. We have no right distress another man's conscience in the things that do not really matter. Christian freedom must never be used as an excuse for rough riding over the genuine feelings of others. No pleasure is so important that it can justify bringing offense and grief, and even ruin to others. Augustine used to say that the whole Christian ethic could be summed up in a saying; "Love God, and do what you like". In a sense it is true; but Christianity consists of not only loving God; it consists of also loving our neighbor as ourselves.