I was speaking with a former pastor friend the other day and we were talking about the lack of hunger for God’s Word in the church today. He made an interesting point: “People would always come up to me and ask: What do you think about (insert Bible topic here) or what do you think about this Bible teaching? They never would ask me: What does the Bible actually say?” I have had that happen to me as well. “Hey Scott, what is your opinion on this Bible teaching?” No one has directly asked me what God has to say about it. Why is that?
People want and seek out a pastor’s opinion rather than God’s opinion written in His Word. Think about that. I have a friend whose wife left him years ago. They both are Christians, they both knew what the Bible says about divorce and yet she sought out a pastor who would tell her that it is okay to get divorced for an unbiblical reason. Oh, I forgot to mention that when she sought out biblical counsel all that was mentioned was his “issues” “his sin” “It’s all his fault”. You know, only one side of the story. When you’re buttering the bread of course it’s going to taste good! She was seeking out what her “Itching ears” (2nd Timothy 4:1-8) wanted to hear, the approval to leave her husband. And there you have it folks! We really do not want Christ or His Word or His authority over our lives. No, we just want the liberal universal Christ that rubber stamps our sin with his “grace”.
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” -Jesus quoting the prophet Isaiah regarding the Pharisees. Matthew 15:8-9
“Rules taught by men” and “Well, my pastor said…” go hand in hand if the pastor’s opinion is not grounded in Scripture. There have been plenty of times (over the years) after exegeting a passage of Scripture that someone would come up to me after church and say “Well, so and so’s pastor told them this was okay!” or something along those lines. I guess all the Bereans died out in the late 90’s.
It is about who has authority over your life. Who is Lord over your life?
There seems to be a massive disconnect in the church today between Christ followers and what Christ says. This is what we will explore in part two.
-Collaborated with Ed Jones