Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Religious Popularity Contest
Do you read your Bible more in church or at home? If you read your Bible in church more than on your own time outside of church, is it not as if you are worshiping your pastor more than God? If more insight into your life comes from your pastors pointing out things in the Bible than you coming to them in your own devotions, then are you not valuing your pastor more for insight than the God of the Universe that knows everything? Two questions: who are you really worshiping/following? And is your pastor presenting an atmosphere where God is on the pedestal, or whether consciously or unconsciously does your pastor take the role?
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a few things.. you seem to be holding on to a + b = c arguments, and that's frustrating.
ReplyDelete1. reading your bible more at church than at home doesn't mean you are worshiping your pastor more than god. does god not also reign at church?
2. does god not use pastors to provide those insights that we often miss? so many don't open their bible at home. should they be separated from these insights because of this?
3. also, insights come in many forms. sometimes through reading the bible, other times through a conversation or an experience. god isn't limited to revelation via devotions.
i do, however, agree with your final point. there are many pastors who, for whatever reason, lose sight of god and forget to put him at the center.
i have to be honest, i think you missed the mark on this one.
--ellen
I’m sorry you think so, but I also think you missed the point of my blog. Whenever I have used A+B=C arguments, it is usually to make a point. Denying the importance of church, pastors, and non-church experiences was not my point, as I believe you may have assumed. My argument is not aimed at the church but instead at a generational attitude that values the words from the likes of Rob Bell, Donald Miller, John Piper, or even Augustine more than the Word(s) of God. Is Rob Bell a Godly man who is well educated and worth listening to? Yes. Is Donald Miller? Yes. But if their words hold more weight on our lives, or are listened to more often than your own personal reading of the Word of God, then in large part your faith is not your own, but instead a culmination of who you’ve listened to and been around. If nothing is of your own self-discovery, then is your message to others not lacking a sense of personal depth? Have you not just become a recordor of other people?
ReplyDeleteAs I will try to stay away from telling you what the Bible says, you check out these passages and then come back to me:
Numbers 23:19, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 6:24-25, Proverbs 2:6, Acts 17:11, 1 Corinthians 1:12-13, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Timothy 4:2-5, 1 Thessalonians 2:13
hey, let me respond really quick.. i'm currently packing/heading out the door for tennessee, haha.
ReplyDeletei'm sorry i misunderstood your point, but at no point did you mention generational attitudes or book authors. i was left to believe you were simply talking about pastors within a church, who by doing their job, are keeping people from god. thus, why i came to the conclusions i did.
thank you for replying and explaining-- it makes it A LOT clearer. perhaps you should post that as your entry. i think the point you make in this reply is absolutely dead-on & it's something we've talked about before.
and the verses are helpful, but again they point to things you didn't say until your reply.
thanks for responding, love!
I am in agreement, completely, with ellen. Great response, poor articulation in the first posting, which seems to be more of a cynical stab at the habits and spiritual maturity of many modern churchgoers, rather than a critique of our reverence for the Bible as the most valuable source of textual instruction.
ReplyDeleteIt can't be said that people do not benefit, greatly, from the words of others, and that the words and writings of the great theologians of the world (most of which, I believe, were indeed appointed by God to instruct) were/are trivial. However, I completely agree that we cling to men more than we do to God. I often struggle to trust God to say what I need to hear... His Word takes more work, sometimes, to glean from, but is and always will be perfect truth, and better than the "poor reflections" of man.
Solid point. However, as a last comment that I mean to encourage (not to insult) by, I think it would be better communicated, as would all things, in a way that focuses on what should be done, rather than the prevalent practice of what should not. You will always sound more intelligent when speaking of faults - but you will do others much better, and have purposeful opinions, when showing them how to AVOID that which you rightly see as wrong.
First off, thanks both of you for the responses. I thought I should go with this a little further (somewhat in a different direction), as it is clearly something worth discussing. And thank you Anonymous Person #2 for bringing light in your last comment. Being a general cynic myself, it’s difficult to subdue all of the cynical rants sometimes. So thanks, and I’ll try to think about that more before publishing things in the future. I hope you’ll both check out the next blog, respond, and make me aware that it is both of you again. Thanks again.
ReplyDelete