Its 7am on Saturday, and I've just
awakened. I turn on the tv, and, for whatever reason, stop at a
preaching program by a “church” in the area. The person speaking
indicates that this is a Bible study, which I must assume means that
he is speaking at a midweek meeting. I'm not going to mention who is
speaking, as there's many others who it could be. He says that they
are about to “dialogue”, which I thought sounded curious, so I
watched a little longer. His subject was knowing God's will, which
has attracted me for years, as I have heard so much irrelevant
information communicated in speeches on that subject. He jumps off
my quoting Matthew 6:10, which is part of the Lord's Prayer which
says, “Your will be done.” Of course, Jesus was teaching His
disciples on prayer. The speaker, through halfway through his
presentation (maybe more—on the tv program, at the halfway point of
the half hour, it cuts off for him to speak about other things),
didn't mention that the main subject of the passage, when looked at
in context, is prayer. He jumps off by saying that some things are
in the Bible, and we don't need to pray about them. He goes into a
story about he and the elders of the church seeking God's will about
opening another branch church in a city hours away. He goes into
some of the odd stuff people have told him from their seeking God's
will which clearly clashes with basic teaching of the Bible. He
mentions in a cutesy way that there are times that the Holy Spirit
and denomic forces can be speaking to us, and that the Spirit's at
times is less logical. At this point, the cutoff in the program
happens. Other than some people in the crowd yelling, “Amen”, I
heard no dialogue. Other than the one scripture, and passing
reference to a scripture that, from the context of his sentence, he
spoke about a week ago, that was the only scripture mentioned, with
no indication that anyone had studied anything in the Bible, other
than the speaker preparing his speech.
What actual teaching content did I
hear? The speaker said there are some directives in the Bible that
are so basic and clear that we do not need to pray about them. He
used being married to one person and staying faithful to that person
as an example. Although that is obvious, it is a concept that spans
many non-Christian societies. He said some things the believer needs
to seek God's direction on, such as accepting a new job. He said
that sometimes deception is more logical than the Spirit's guidance.
He gave no specifics on how to clarify this situation. This isn't
Bible study, this isn't dialogue, and it isn't much teaching. I will
guess that quite possibly, even probably, if I knew this man he would
be nice, and I don't question his faith. He is fitting into the the
institutional status quo of what he is supposed to be doing, and as
the broadcast mentions, he has three church building locations in
cities probably 2 hour driving time from furthest to furthest, he is
what would be considered “successful.” If I was there, there
would be no appropriate forum for pointing out these inconsistencies,
and recognize that that would come across, at least subliminally, as
an attack upon his position, i.e. salary.
This is one more example of why I
prefer a non-institutional setting, where one may actually study the
Bible, and one may even open one's mouth and say the wrong thing, so
that other believer's may lovingly correct one.
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