John Piper’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/tragically-widening-the-grounds-of-legitimate-divorce 

Robert Gagnon’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

http://www.robgagnon.net/DivorceOUPEntrySexuality.htm 

Why People Choose Incompetent Leaders

 https://youtu.be/Ix4nKNDKhTQ?si=zwwhvYUGV4WCrW1U

I think I would acknowledge the problem but give different reasons as to why people choose incompetent leaders. I think it’s because people choose who they like and they like those who make them feel most comfortable. Intellectual people make people uncomfortable and stir up a host of insecurities, and so they are the least liked among leaders. We often want to associate good leadership skills to those who make us feel comfortable and bad leadership skills to those who make us feel uncomfortable. Ironically, it would be the opposite, as a true leader causes discomfort in a person so that it becomes a catalyst for change. But that is not how most people choose their leaders which, ironically, means they choose leaders contrary to their often theoretical goals to change and become better. 

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part I

 The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63) are the pinnacle of the counterreformation launched by the traditional medieval church that wanted to both preserve what they saw as correct developments within the Christianity of the Middle Ages but to reform practices that were obviously corrupt. My purpose with this series is to go through the council and critique where I think the council erred. It may be assumed that those things I do not critique are things with which I either agree or that I find adiaphora (e.g., meeting on Thursdays for communion). 

The council opens up in its first sessions (Sessions 1-2, 1545-46) to both inaugurate the council, state its purpose for reform against heresy and improper conduct by its own members, and to make sure all members of the council are repentant and living out lives dedicated to the Lord through the church.

The Third Session held in 1546 is where the council describes what it is doing is setting forth a confession of faith that had not been set forth before. It declares, 

"Wherefore, that this its pious solicitude may begin and proceed by the grace of God, It ordains and decrees that, before all other things, a confession of faith is to be set forth; following herein the examples of the Fathers, who have been wont, in the most sacred coucils [sic], at the beginning of the Actions thereof, to oppose this shield against heresies; and with this alone, at times, have they drawn the unbelieving to the faith, overthrown heretics, and confirmed the faithful." 

Herein is an admission that anything in the confession is not something set down before. There is nothing wrong with this as I would agree that it is necessary to further combat any new heresy that comes along, but it does need to be noted that when a new heresy does not stem from an old one, one cannot establish their continuity with the early church merely be forming a new confession. The case must be made that the new teaching is, in fact, both new and a heresy if the confession should delcare it as such. Otherwise, the confession itself is an innovation. 

Hence, the council begins from the Nicene Creed as the foundation of orthodoxy and cites the creed as its foundation.

The Fourth Session (April 8, 1546) is really where the council begins to set down its confession, and it does so by beginning with the canon of Scripture, as well as stating its foundational authority as not being sola Scriptura.

"The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,–lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic Sec presiding therein,–keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament–seeing that one God is the author of both –as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession."

So both the Scripture and tradition are equally received and venerated with an equal affection of piety and reverence. Trent claims that both the Scripture and tradition have come from the mouth of Christ or the apostles or the Holy Spirit and so both have God as their author. It further claims that it has preserved all of these equally through continuous succession. 

I'm going to assume that this means a continuous succession of popes, which historically seems unviable. Scripture was not preserved by popes (it was largely preserved by monks), doctrines which are viewed as heretical by the RCC have been taught by popes, and tradition has changed and added innovations over the years. Hence, the need to say that the Holy Spirit speaks things into tradition to explain these observations ends up as a hail-Mary that contradicts the idea of preservation by continuous succession. One can say that some things were preserved by continuous succession but obviously the idea that they came from Christ or the Apostles or the Holy Spirit is just a religious claim that has no verifiable backing. One must simply trust that the church has the same credence to its claims that the Bible does and exercise the same faith toward it that he or she does toward the Scripture. 

This is where I have a problem with Trent in the same way that I have a problem with cults and cult leaders, individuals claiming to be led by the Spirit, etc. There is no external verification that can take place. The Scripture claims to be from God and one must have faith that it is, but I would also argue that Scripture is not self-defeating in its claims. If it can be shown that the church did not preserve even the verifiable teachings of Christ and the apostles or that its religion is self-defeating or ultimately contradicts itself in some way then the claim can actually be shown to be false, but there is no way to show whether it is true as secret teachings cannot be verified and whether God has given new teachings to the church by the Holy Spirit is equally unverifiable even if they did not contradict the teachings found in the Scripture. This is because a claim that God said X can only be verified by something that one knows God said. The entire Christian church agrees that God said X in Scripture but whether He also said Additional Teaching Y secretly cannot be confirmed just because it may not contradict X. For instance, if the Trent claimed that we can affirm that God said unicorns exist just because it does not contradict anything the Bible teaches, we cannot confirm that God actually said unicorns exist because He did not say anything of the sort in the Bible. Hence, we are left to merely trusting the person or institution claiming that God spoke X by Christ, the apostles, or the Holy Spirit without any proof that He did. 

However, as said before, we are able to evaluate anything that Trent claims God said by the work in which we both agree God spoke. This means that the claim that any doctrine that contradicts Scripture is from God can be evaluated, and it must be evaluated by both parties by Scripture, not tradition since whether or not it is truly a tradition of God is the thing under dispute.

The counter to my claim might be laid by arguing that tradition sets the canon, and therefore, must be superior to it. I will argue in my next post why both the tradition contradicts the claim that it is uniform and passed on/preserved by succession and why it is self-defeating. 

Wenham’s Critique of Instone-Brewer’s Argument

https://www.academia.edu/87697466/Gordon_Wenham_critique_of_David_Instone_Brewer

Cleanliness Is Godliness

In my youth, my house was warm and kept.

I wandered far and wide to find another but such was never found that was mine.

Returning home, I found it in ruin and taken by a squatter who let his friends deface it.

I could not expel him but was allowed to put it back in order.

I cleaned out the mold, the filth on the walls and the floor.

I fixed the holes in the roof and in the walls and painted it with beautiful colors.

The squatter would constantly track mud in and let his children rub feces on the walls.

But I would clean it up so that my house was clean.

And so it was. My house was clean again.

But the squatter became jealous and wanted my home. 

He spray-painted the walls and told his friends to wreck whatever they could.

Finally, he left and took his companions of chaos with him. 

We cleaned up the mess.

My house is restored. It is warm and kept. 

My house is clean and I may now rest.

Chrysostom on Timothy's Chronic Illness and Fitness for Ministry

 "But the subject of enquiry is not only, that being a holy man he was sick, and sick so continually, but that he was at the same time entrusted with the public affairs of the world. For if he had been one of those who have retreated to the tops of mountains; who have fixed their cells in solitude, and who have chosen that life which is free from all business, the matter now enquired into were no such difficulty; but that one thrust forward in the throng, and in whose hands the care of so many Churches was placed, and who superintended whole cities and nations; nay, the world at large, with so much alacrity and diligence, should be subjected to the straitening of infirmities! This it is which may most of all bewilder one who does not duly consider it. Because, even if not for himself, yet for others at least, it was necessary he should have health. He was the best general, says the objector. The war was waged by him, not only against the unbeliever, but against demons, and against the devil himself. All the enemy contended with much vehemence, scattering the forces, and capturing prisoners; 2 Timothy 2:26 but this man was able to bring back myriads to the truth, and yet he was sick! For if, he says, no other injury to the cause had come of this sickness, yet this alone was sufficient to discourage and relax the faithful. If soldiers, when they see their general detained in bed, become discouraged and slack for the fight, much rather was it probable that the faithful should betray somewhat of human nature, when they saw that teacher, who had wrought so many signs, in continual sickness and suffering of body.

But this is not all. These sceptics propose yet a further enquiry, by asking for what reason Timothy neither healed himself, nor was healed by his instructor, when he was reduced to this state. Whilst the Apostles raised the dead, cast out devils, and conquered death with abundant ease, they could not even restore the body of one sick man! Although with respect to other bodies, both during their own lives and after death, they manifested such extraordinary power, they did not restore a stomach that had lost its vigour! And what is more than this, Paul is not ashamed, and does not blush, after the many and great signs which he had displayed even by a simple word; yet, in writing to Timothy, to bid him take refuge in the healing virtue of wine drinking. Not that to drink wine is shameful. God forbid! For such precepts belong to heretics; but the matter of astonishment is, that he accounted it no disgrace not to be able, without this kind of assistance, to set one member right when it was disordered. Nevertheless, he was so far from being ashamed of this, that he has made it manifest to all posterity. You see then to what a depth we have brought down the subject, and how that which seemed to be little, is full of innumerable questions. Well then, let us proceed to the solution; for we have explored the question thus deep, in order that, having excited your attention, we might lay up the explanation in a safe storehouse.

8. But before I proceed to solve these questions, permit me to say something of the virtue of Timothy, and of the loving care of Paul. For what was ever more tender hearted than this man, who being so far distant, and encircled with so many cares, exercised so much consideration for the health of his disciple's stomach, and wrote with exact attention about the correction of his disorder? And what could equal the virtue of Timothy? He so despised luxury, and derided the sumptuous table, as to fall into sickness from excessive austerity, and intense fasting. For that he was not naturally so infirm a person, but had overthrown the strength of his stomach by fasting and water drinking; you may hear Paul himself carefully making this plain. For he does not simply say, use a little wine; but having said before, drink no longer water, he then brings forward his counsel as to the drinking of wine. And this expression no longer was a manifest proof, that till then he had drunk water, and on that account was become infirm. Who then would not wonder at his divine wisdom and strictness? He laid hold on the very heavens, and sprang to the highest point of virtue. And his Teacher testifies this, when he thus speaks, I have sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; 1 Corinthians 4:17 and when Paul calls him a son, and a faithful and beloved son, these words are sufficient to show that he possessed every kind of virtue. For the judgments of the saints are not given according to favour or enmity, but are free from all prejudice. Timothy would not have been so enviable, if he had been Paul's son naturally, as he was now admirable, inasmuch as having no connection with him according to the flesh, he introduced himself by the relationship of piety into the Apostle's adoption; preserving the marks of his spiritual wisdom with exactness in all things."

Reason Number 1,054 Why Jesus Wouldn't Be Popular in the Modern American Church: Lack of Modern Hygiene

In the words of one scholar, "The past was pretty dirty."

Modern culture within third world countries are filled with people who are dirty and stink by modern American standards. In fact, many people within first world countries would probably be considered dirty  by modern Americans. This is because we find ourselves in the religion of snobbery where the health and wealth cult thrives. Imagine becoming impoverished and homeless and separated from the modern luxuries of running water on a daily basis. Imagine living in an area where running water was not really something to which you had access. Now, imagine that you do have access to these things but hygiene is not a priority in the culture. 

You may think that Christianity changed all of this but it didn't. The event of bathing was contingent upon one's proximity to clean water. It was a rare event that may have taken place every month to once ever year. Instead, one might wash in the event that he had contact with something extra filthy, as you have in the law of Moses, but beyond that, the ancients largely covered over their lack of hygiene rather than washed it away every day or every other day as we often do. 

They employed things like incense and perfumes that covered the smell. This is seen throughout the Bible and even something that is given to Jesus. This implies that there was a smell and the smell implies that there was filthiness.

Furthermore, there were very few mirrors the average peasant would own and so there wasn't a lot of checking of one's appearance every two seconds. Of course, a change of clothes every day was neither practiced in the ancient world nor in the most modern third world countries, again, unless one was rich. Even rich Roman soldiers, however, only tended to bathe once a month. When they did bathe, they used public baths that were filthy.  The average rich family in Rome of course bathed daily, but they once again bathed in these filthy baths. Their real baths were scraping the dirt and sweat off but not to discard but to use later for medicinal purposes. Talk about gross. 

As recent as last century many people only bathed once a year because they believed they would get sick from the bathing itself due to the fact that often the bathing source (a barrel, a pool, etc.) was contaminated by so many people using it. Hence, again, dry baths with things like ashes, scrubbers, dirt itself, flowers to cover smell, etc. were used, not to really clean oneself but to rid oneself cover over the smell. Modern first world bathing for cleanliness is just that: modern and first world.

Furthermore, most clothing throughout history has been "cleaned" by human urine. "What a lovely smell you've discovered" (Han Solo).

The fact that one can convince people that other people are the dirty ones is also displayed in our thinking of the Romans as very clean people and the Barbarians as filthy hordes of people when the Barbarians, at least those who lived along rivers (i.e., running water), were often cleaner than the Romans. 

Most of the poor had very few sets of clothing and many had only one set of clothes. This is implied when the Bible forbids one to take away a man's outer clothing which is his warmth at night. John the Baptist implies this when he refers to those who have no tunic (Luke 3). 

This is a desert culture and the desert is hot. Clothes are worn to sweat rather than to avoid sweat. Sweat brings bacteria and with dead bacteria, a smell. As one who lives in the desert, dirt is everywhere. They don't have nice rock or grass lawns to keep the dust down. The floors of their houses are dirt. Dirt was often scraped off, rubbed off with ashes, oils, etc. This would not get rid of the bacteria, and it was not meant to (no one even knew about bacteria). Instead, it was meant to give the appearance of cleanliness. The ancient Greeks, for instance, would make bath houses but so that they could show off their bodies, not to make themselves clean. It was to look clean. Most of this bathing took place in public bath houses, where nakedness would be uncovered, and so when the Seleucid kings built them in Jerusalem, they were rejected by the Jews as foul and places of corruption. 

Pools seem to have been made, not to bathe for physical hygiene, but to perform ritual cleanings that some even thought would be a means for God to heal them supernaturally (John 9). In fact, that particular pool was constructed, not to provide bathing for anyone but to restrict access to the spring waters that supplied it to any besieging armies. 

And this brings us to the ritual washing. The ritual washings in the law are not hygienic. I mean that the purpose of them is never said by the Bible to be that of making the Israelites healthy. Dirt, fungus, visible skin diseases, refuse, blood, dead things, etc. were already understood to be dirty things. God uses these as symbolic of what is physically dirty. He's not commanding hygiene. Hygiene is a concern for all people but it our hyper-concern for it has become an issue since the advent of discovering bacteria and its relationship with disease. This is not the issue in Israel any more than the food laws have to do with health.

In fact, this is a good example of people misunderstanding the purpose of food laws. It's not about health. Eating shellfish is some of the most healthy eating you can do. You'd lose tons of weight and have lots of nutrients for your body if you ate nothing but shellfish. Shellfish are used as an example of disgusting things because they look gross. They're giant bugs of the sea. It has nothing to do with health. 

This sort of eisegesis that reads our modern health and wealth cult back into the Bible is cultic.

But let's get back to Jesus. Traveling from town to town on dirt roads and speaking all day in the hot sun of the desert, fishing with his disciples, having little time to even catch his breath and pray because they people won't leave him alone. And those people? Can you imagine large ancient crowds in the desert pressing up against each other and then pressing up against the disciples and Jesus? No wonder perfume is such a commodity. But it isn't hygienic to cover up the smell of dead bacteria. It's physically unclean. Jesus was physically unclean. There's a statement hyper-antignostics can't stand. The health and wealth cult leaders who believe Jesus is just like them in the same way that modern Americans make Jesus movies with very American looking and sounding Jesuses, who believe can't distinguish between Jesus and a Mormon missionary, gasp in horror. "Not my Jesus," they think. "My Jesus would never smell from being dirty for any length of time. My Jesus cares as much about hygiene that I do. He would tear Himself away from the crowds, from the healings, from the teachings, from the children who need blessings, from the prayers to His Father, and go take a shower and change in the to clean clothes on a daily basis." After all, it only takes an hour or so to get dirty enough to stink. 

Filthy Jesus. Not worthy of the fellowship of such highbrow folk who bathe every day. One should think Him not worthy enough to save anyone who will enter into the clean world to come. Perhaps the thought is that there is no dirt in that world so there should be none is this one. But that's just it. We do live in the dirty world. We are dirty because we have not yet entered the world where we all unbathed smell like roses. Jesus didn't smell that way in this world and a servant is not greater than his Master. A servant may smell better than Jesus but this doesn't make him better than Jesus, nor does it make him better than any of Jesus' servants who fail the hygiene test of the modern privileged snobs who think that cleanliness is next to godliness. If that's true, Jesus isn't that godly, and you are still dead in your sins.

Christianity never carried with it better hygiene practices. If anyone tells you that, they don't know history. The upper class has always had more access to smelling better (I doubt they were much cleaner but they would have looked cleaner--there is a lesson even in that statement). But this sort of modern snobbery doesn't come from the Bible. It's actually an Enlightenment tendency to desire progression in all things, including hygiene, and perfecting humanity through this progression of the human animal. This is why hygiene became a hyper-focus of Victorian society. Now, people tied their morality to their hygiene as they tied whether they drank alcohol, played cards, and were educated to how much they had progressed and therefore how moral they were.

If Jesus cared about hygiene, He should have told the Pharisees when they complained that the disciples ate without washing their hands, "It is important but these spiritual truths about cleanliness are more important, even though cleanliness is next to godliness." Instead, He argued that such an idea was part of the old covenant which was not something required in the new and that nothing that goes into a man defiles him. Why isn't good hygiene a part of the new? Oh that's right, because it the laws of cleanliness have nothing to do with hygiene. They're rituals that represent spiritual truths and now that those spiritual truths are realized, God doesn't require them anymore. 

Does this mean you shouldn't observe hygienic practices? Of course you should. There are obligations to take care of one's family and if one knows that something is unhealthy they should tend to it. However, I am argued against the hyper-hygienic health and wealth cult that looks at any dirt or smell as ungodly, and would have condemned Jesus Himself for being ungodly (you know, if they didn't know it was Jesus in front of them). This is a crazy cult where those who are saturated in sins of insurrection, adultery, slander, etc. get to judge others by their preferential minutia. So that while straining out gnats and swallowing camels they nit and pick at others to feel superior. This is true arrogance that the Bible condemns as true ungodliness. The greatest irony is that people who do this are usually guilty of it. I cannot tell you how many people I hear talk about cleanliness who I have smelled as dirty, have looked disheveled, and whose children have looked gross with sweat, snot, and dirt all over their faces. 

Those who live in glass showers probably shouldn't throw stones, and they definitely might want to think whether they are getting their tightly held beliefs from the Bible or reading their own culture back into it. There is only one Jesus, and for our sakes, He who was rich and clean became poor and dirty for our sakes; and He did so because He was better than we are, dirt, smell and all.

Now, this won't convince the brainwashed sheep within our modern cult because nothing convinces cult members, but perhaps those who have the mind of Christ can awaken and see that they've been distracted by things the devil has put in their way so that they would not receive the gold God had for them and so miss out on becoming like Christ in this world.

A Critique of Instone-Brewer’s Divorce and Remarriage

 I’m going to review his book and critique it myself in the future, but here’s another scholarly critique. 

https://www.academia.edu/35774310/Critique_of_the_David_Instone_Brewer_Divorce_and_Remarriage_Theory

Any Witness Who Refuses to Come Forward When Called by Elders Is in Sin

 Leviticus 5:1, 5-6 lays down a very important rule. "“If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity . . . when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to YHWH as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin." 

This text relates that anyone who is a witness to a sin or sins and refuses to testify against them when called by the officials of God's community has betrayed God, the community, and justice itself. According to this passage, they are in sin. They don't have the choice to testify or not. They don't get to make that decision for themselves because they have reasons. They either testify when called upon to do so or they will remain in their injustice/iniquity/sin. Their repentance demands that they come before the community of God so that the minister can apply the sacrifice to them so that they can be forgiven. They do not get to apply the sacrifice to themselves. They do not get to have their own personal repentance. Their repentance would be willing to testify of all of the truth and nothing but the truth about the sin and confess their sin of unwillingness to come forward earlier. Apart from this, they remain in their sin.

What is worse than this is anyone who not only refuses to testify but then testifies falsely so that the guilty are pardoned by the community but not by God. This is a sin worthy of death. It is considered one of the great abominations to God in Scripture. Those who give false testimony, who become witnesses when they are not witnesses, are damned. 

This is all because God takes justice seriously. It isn't a game to play like the American court system where those who can out-argue and create the most convincing narrative of events wins. You can convince people by intimidating witnesses so that they do not testify of the truth, appeal to emotion and relationships to sway people, attack the witnesses to lessen their credibility in the minds of the jury or judge, etc. Biblical justice comes from the very nature of God and to reject it is to reject God Himself. To reject the biblical process of justice, therefore, is to reject God Himself. To play a game rather than to take it seriously is the occupation of the damned, but the redeemed will seek His face even when inconvenient, when it brings a sword between relationships, when it requires his courage and even his life. 

Our Judicial Decision against Those Who Have Sinned and the Biblical Standards of Justice

 As many who deflect rather than repent, less informed minds have claimed that we broke some form of biblical justice by delivering our warning of judgment. Their reasoning? The accused needs to be cross-examined and we have to name witnesses. So let's address this claim.

1. If names were required, then we can produce those. We were not asked to do so because it was clear that those in power wanted to have an accusation against us without seeking justice on the matter. However, there is no biblical precedent for having to supply names to the masses. The elders who are the judges of the matter, i.e., us, know the witnesses and they are not anonymous. Hence, this accusation thrives on the idea that other people are the judges and need to know the names. Again, they can be provided but the judges have what they need.

2. There is nothing in the Bible that says one must cross-examine the accused if two or three witnesses have testified against them. This is likely due to the fact that the accused will almost always claim innocence and obscure justice by distorting facts, explaining away sins, appealing to emotion, etc., and so the Bible never includes their testimony of themselves. The only time one would include the individual is when there was an accusation rooted in one source. Then, it is a matter of seeing whether the accused will become a witness against himself (thus making two witnesses) or deny the accusation, in which case the tie goes to the accused and the accusation must be discarded as baseless.

However, I was an eyewitness of the accused admitting to the things claimed and so they were cross-examined. In the areas where they were not, rendering judgment upon the basis of two or three witnesses is the only right and just thing to do. Any defense that is not rooted in two or more independent sources (i.e., friends and family that are easily coerced to agree with accused must be seen as one source not two or more) is a travesty of justice.

3. No consensus for the original sins were made by the elders. I gave an opinion based upon what I mistakenly thought had happened at the time. As I have said numerous times, a single opinion of an elder is no better than a single opinion of anyone on a matter. Christ renders judgment through two or three qualified elders.

Biblical justice, therefore, was employed. Christ has warned. Christ will render a verdict concerning those who did not listen to that warning. Anyone claiming that we did not employ biblical justice is either ignorant of the matter, and speaking presumptuously and slanderously, or is a liar and speaking slanderously. Ironically, they are speaking in a manner that does not accord with their own claims of what biblical justice looks like. No one has asked me. Not one person. And I am one of the witnesses of these things, which brings me to the final understanding of biblical justice.

4. A judge doesn't need witnesses if he witnesses the sin. The witnesses exist so that the judge knows what testimony he should accept or reject in order to render a just verdict. If the sin is known by the judge as a witness of it himself then he doesn't need any further witnesses at all. How many witnesses stood against Ananias or Sapphira other than Peter, the judge? How many witnesses called out Alexander the Coppersmith other than Paul, the judge? How many witnesses stood against Korah, Datham, and Abiram other than the judges, Moses and Aaron themselves? If you murder someone in front of a judge in the Bible, he doesn't need to ask around who saw it or is somehow incapable of rendering a just judgment.

Biblical justice is not the American justice system. Our system distorts the truth by allowing lawyers to reconstruct narratives from the accused that confuse the judge or jury and distort reality. It doesn't allow one source, one family, one homogenous group to be more than one witness because slander is testimony. Any one person, family, or group of leaders can construct a false narrative to justify sin and attack the accusers. Whoever is the greatest rhetorician and can circle around the truth the best wins. One side may have logic and the evidence but that isn't really what wins most cases. Instead, the Bible bases its justice on two or more independent sources when a judge did not witness the event himself so that the independent witnesses become his eyes to see what actually occurred. American justice seeks to fight over narratives of the events by utilizing not only witness testimony but the denials of the accused, emotional appeals, ad hominem attacks, a retelling of events that contradict the actual testimony of the witnesses, etc. This is why the American court system is a crap shoot for justice rather than a solid basis for ensuring justice. 

No system is fool-proof but rest assured, we who know the Bible have followed it. We have no need of convincing the peanut gallery who confuses American parodies of justice with biblical, godly justice. If anyone claims otherwise, ask for the verses. They'll either give you some verse that has nothing to do with what they're trying to prove or no verses at all. Because that's pretty much how they defend the guilty, with nothing at all.

Judas and the Modern Sin of Cults

 The name Judas actually means "Jew." This is important because Judas represents the betrayal that God's people are enacting toward Christ. 

First, Judas believes that Jesus is in fact the Christ. That is clear. This is not just a speculation from the fact that Judas has witnessed all of Christ's miracles, but in his own confession when he sees that Christ was :crucified, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!" (Matt 27:4). He knows that Christ is innocent because He is who He says He is. So Judas believes.

Why does he betray Him? This is the most important question that most people never ask and then apply to themselves and it is the very sin we find in most churches and cults today.

Judas is also said to be dipping into the offering box. He likes the benefits that following Jesus has brought him. That's important to note because what it tells us is that Judas is in love with the benefits of following Christ more than he loves Christ.

This is likely why he hands Christ over to the authorities. He wants to force a confrontation where Jesus will take over and likely wipe out the Roman Empire, rule the world, and that brings even more benefits to Judas. He's had a little taste of luxury and riches and wants more. He's done sleeping in the fields. He wants to sleep in palaces. He wants that throne Jesus promised him. He wants the world bringing offerings. He wants the benefits and those benefits are more important than what Jesus wants. So he betrays Him.

How are modern churches and cults betraying Christ? I've seen the same thing over and over again. If you were to prove to the average Mormon that Mormonism is false, do you think they care? Nope. Because they love the community of the church they created. They love the people. They love the activities. They love the benefits. Whether Christ is distorted and replaced with a false Christ is secondary. They are so in love with what surrounded their false religion that they are unwilling to sacrifice it to lift Christ up.

Likewise, I cannot tell you how many church scandal videos I have watched in the last two weeks where the congregation does not care about their pastor's disqualifying sins. They love the church they have. They love the people. They love the activities. They love the relationship they have with the pastor. They love the benefits and so Christ is thrown under the bus. His holiness and what He says He wants in the Scripture when it comes to ministers doesn't matter. It's easier to make excuses and not look at it, say it's forgiven, say it's a long time ago, emphasize all of his good qualities and ignore the bad, etc. 

This is the danger in falling in love with the benefits of Christ over Christ Himself. If we love Christ more than the benefits of following Him in a particular community then we will lift up His Word over what we want to happen. We will lift up His holiness over our protection of the community, a pastor or pastors, etc. We will acknowledge His lordship by lifting up what His Word requires of us and lifting up what He says about qualifications of a minister and place them over our personal views and opinions that do not appear in Scripture. But if we love the benefits? Now we have to make excuses. Now we have to talk about how much this guy has been with me through thick and thin. Now I have to talk about how we're all sinners saved by grace. Now I have to belittle the sins. Now I have to belittle those who expose those sins. Now I have to slander and attack those people. Now I have to defend what no Christian who is loyal to the Lord should ever defend.

But if I love the community, I love the denomination the church is in, I'm in love with not having to make another move, I'm in love with comfort over confrontation, I'm in love with the benefits more than I love Christ, then I will find myself defending the indefensible and buying into whitewashed lies. 

You don't become a Judas by verbally rejecting the faith. You become a Judas by loving what you have as a result of following Christ just a little bit more than Christ Himself. When it comes time to choose between them, you will sell what you love less to buy what you truly love. 

Judas didn't see himself as a Judas. He saw himself as faithful while getting what he wanted and surely what he thought Christ would be happy with in the end. Instead, the Scripture remembers him as the son of perdition and he is removed from his eternal throne to spend eternity outside of Christ's kingdom that exists only for those who love Christ more than the kingdom one receives from following Him.

Unqualified Forgiven Sinners

 A minister was out preaching the gospel on the street one day and came across a horrible sinner. As he was preaching, the sinner came up to him and said that he believed and repents of his sin. The minister was overjoyed and told him that he should come to church. The man instantly replied, "Should I prepare a sermon? I would like to hold a meeting with the elders and see if we can make some changes in the church and direct the funds to certain areas I think would be best?" The minister was puzzled. Did this man think that because he was forgiven that he was someone qualified to be an elder? 

"I'm not sure what you mean," the minister replied. "You would be coming to church as a layman, not a pastor."

"But I'm forgiven by grace. You just said that it isn't by works. We're all sinners, and that means that you too are a sinner. If you're a sinner and I'm a sinner then we are equally qualified to be a pastor."

"I don't think you understand," the minister said. Although it is true that everyone has sinned, not everyone has come to master themselves in a way so that they walk not in the flesh and sin but in the Spirit. Ministers are to have mastered themselves in such a way so as to not commit egregious sins or have a pattern of conduct in their lives where sin widely marks their character. If a minister sins, it should not be of an egregious nature, i.e., a sin that leads to death or gets the death penalty in the law, but rather sins that can be atoned for in the law, but even they should be fewer and far between rather than making up his overall character."

"That seems like you are saying that you are better than me," the man replied. "That sounds like the sinner and publican story in the Bible, where he says he's not as great as a sinner as the other man."

The minister replied, "Well, first that story isn't about whether someone can have mastered their sin more than another. It's about the fact that both men are sinners and one refuses to acknowledge his sin and the other acknowledges it." There is nothing in that story that has to do with qualifications for ministry but rather it is a story of forgiveness and right standing with God."

"I just think if we're all saved by grace, then no one is better than anyone," said the man.

"I think you're thinking of it as a competition," said the pastor. "It's simply a matter that some are infants, some are children, some are young men, and some are old men, or elders in terms of their maturity in the Lord. It has nothing to do with being better in nature. An old man is not better than an infant. They are both human. But an old man is better at understanding than an infant. An old man is better at lots of things an infant is not as good at doing until he matures. There is a difference between one's value in nature versus what he is fit to do in life. A brain surgeon is not better than I am as a human being, nor is he somehow less in need of God's forgiveness and grace than I am. But he is more qualified to be a brain surgeon than I am."

"I see," said the man. "So being forgiven is a completely different issue than whether someone is qualified for a specific ministry."

"Yes," replied the minister. 

"I get it now. I should then just participate in the church as a layman until the day, perhaps, that I might mature. If I evidence immaturity by sinning egregiously or having my life characterized by the struggle of sin then I should refrain from ministry because that is evidence, not that I am not forgiven, but that I have not obtained maturity yet."

"That is correct," said the minister. "If only everyone understood that."

Old Sins and the Qualification of the Pastor's Household

 Old sins. What a weird term. If you knew a man who raped women in the past, but said that was a decade ago, would you let him date your daughter because his sins were old? If someone used to murder people but hasn't since he's been kept from people by going to jail, and now seems like a great guy, should you let him out of jail because those murders were old sins? 

What if while someone is a pastor, he not only has sons that are involved in sexual immorality but he participates in those sins by both encouraging and failing to discourage them from those sins, not separating from them but instead letting them remain as a part of his house, but now that his kids are out of the house and the situations have changed and maybe his sons are no longer in these sins for a while, being now grown up, has concluded that he's good now? 

Let me ask a different question: "What if a woman who engages in an adulterous affair and abandons her family to go off and marry her affair partner experiences the death of her former husband? Is she no longer an adulterous because her former husband suddenly has died or is she still an adulterous and you just can't see it now. From now on, everyone who meets her will know nothing about her adultery. Her former husband will only be known as having died and she married a new one. Her adultery is now invisible but it has not truly disappeared. Instead, she is still an adulterous, but you just can't see it now. If you were to try and see whether she is an adulterous, you have to look at the time when her husband was alive and what she did during that time. That's the only way to see it.

Likewise, when it comes to whether a pastor is qualified with the qualification of being a good father who rules his household well, and by that the Scripture means, none of his children can be rightly accused as committing an egregious sin while in a good standing relationship with their father who should discipline and cut them off from his household while they are in that sin, one can only see whether someone does not rule his household well by looking back at the time he ruled his household. Once his sons are grown, and maybe even in different life circumstances so that they are no longer visibly doing those sins, whether he is a good ruler of his household cannot be seen anymore. Like the adulterous who's husband dies, it is impossible to measure this qualification unless one looks back at the time he was a father who had a relational authority over his children. It is not whether he is still doing being a poor ruler of his household now that his children are gone or different. It is how he ruled his household at the time he actually ruled over the household. (The household is extended as long as one has a good-standing relationship with his children even if he has allowed them to move out.)

In this regard, the old sins are the new sins in the sense that the old sins committed that would disqualify a pastor back then when his sons were in sexual immorality disqualify him now because they are the current metric that are to be used as to whether a man is qualified in this area. As Paul argues, a man who is disqualified in this area should not rule the household of God.

1. The sins of his family are his sins unless he breaks from his children (or wife), as Eli's sons' sins cause God to give the death penalty, not only to his sons, but to Eli because he does not cut them off. 

2. He will rule the church the same way by fudging on sin and not removing evil people from among the church, thus corrupting the church in a manner that Achan corrupted Israel.

3. A man who disregards God in order to retain a relationship with his children has no business leading people to follow God above all else.

Old sins? No, there are just qualifications to use as a measuring stick to see if God has prepared a man in his life for ministry or whether a man who is disqualified is wrongfully in ministry. 

If someone shows themselves to be disqualified in these things while doing ministry, he is disqualified, the Spirit is not with him, and his ministry will belong to the devil, along with all of those who are a part of that ministry. The only thing that would save a church would be if people placed themselves under the ministry of other elders who are qualified. Like children under an unbelieving father but a believing wife, the believing wife makes the children holy. But if such qualified elders should be removed, and the entire ministry of the church becomes his ministry, then the entire church will become the possession of the devil. 

Old sins? Old sins are simply the report of sins that were once in the present. The sins in the present will one day be revealed and they will be called old sins; but they're really all sins that God demands we use as a measuring stick as to whether one is qualified for ministry, and this is true whether they are repented of or not.

The murderer repents but he's still not qualified to walk free among us. The rapist repents but he's still not qualified to marry my daughter. Forgiven? If truly repentant. Qualified? Absolutely not! 

Follow Up from My Last Post

 You may be wondering what became of the sins I mentioned in the previous post. We heard out the multiple witness accusations as the judges of these matters, and the elders informed both the church that left and their denomination of our decision. Their response? As someone we know in the military said it, it's according to what those in the military are taught: Deny, deny, deflection!

First, their entire response was based upon the false assumption that these are charges that I was making instead of understanding that these are charges based upon our investigation into these matters based upon eye witness testimony, some of which included family members and the accused themselves over the years. I am simply one witness, although a key one, since I had the most access to what was being said and done behind the scenes.

But we were not submitting accusations for their elders to judge [Who would ever find themselves guilty if they were the judges of their own qualifications? Conflict of interest would dictate that they cannot] or for their denomination to judge [What authority does God through His Word give to denominations? None. They're manmade.] or for their laity to judge [The laity in a church judging a matter either way is evil as Christ does not give that authority to them. The layman who judges the matter on his own speaks against Christ]. Instead, these are charges that are made as a verdict of the judgment that Christ has given the rightful judges, the elders of the church from which they were never released, to make.

Second, they argued that we did release them as a church plant, and therefore, we don't have authority to judge them. This is a very interesting claim. For one, we (i.e., both their leadership and ours) have put churches and people under church discipline, i.e., excommunicated and handed them over to the devil, who were in other churches, including pastors of other churches. Christ isn't bound by walls. So even if they had been released from us, this is a nonargument. On another point, however, no one actually came to us and asked whether they could go to this church. Now, this may be controversial to the American mindset, but if you are under authority you need to be released from that authority. If you can just choose to be under any authority at any given time that you like, then you are not under any authority but your own. I'm not sure how the prodigal son becomes a prodigal if he doesn't need to be released from his father. His father seems to think that he's dead until he repents and returns to him.

On top of this, strange that a church plant began with a coup to take over the church through secret meetings and phone calls, attempted to get another elder on board with the coup to legitimize it, then when that didn't work, through our own gullibility being used to present this as some congenial split, all the while the vow to not campaign was being ignored in order to gut the church that was supposedly sending this group out as a plant. What plant do you know of that is not accountable to its sending church? What plant do you know of poisons its members into thinking that it was the other side's fault as to why you split rather than taking accountability for its rebellion and splitting the church over a single pastor's personal preferences and dislikes? What church plant promises to leave within a couple weeks and then stays in the same building for almost a year and then when asked to leave threatens to undo its sending church and attempts to manipulate its way into getting the building and taking away the time from its sending church that was so graciously given to it even when it was in sin against it? What church plant ignores the elders of its sending church that the pastor they are following is disqualified from ministry and the two elders he appointed were unqualified for ministry (something announced to them when the split was happening)? They were all told this beforehand yet they ignored it because they really, really wanted to have their own church to mold in their own images. Even by their own admission, it was a split, as they admitted that they didn't agree with the decision of the session, i.e., Christ's voice through the two or three, and therefore were going to leave and start their own church. That's not a church plant. That's a mutiny and a split, Ladies and Gents!

My fellow elder and I wish we could go back to make it clear that we did not consider it a plant, and that was never said by us. That was the propaganda of the other side to hide the sin of insurrection committed by this pastor and two or our deacons and many of the households of the church. We were so exhausted and just wanted him to leave so badly, we unfortunately just let him do what he wanted on the way out. I hugged him in the end, not to say that this was somehow all great and good, but rather my hug meant, "Goodbye" and "I'm sorry I couldn't save you," which I sincerely state not in some sarcastic manner but as heartfelt. I deeply regret not being able to pull him out of his rebellion in order to save his life. I do not believe that he, or any of his family, will enter the world to come.

Thirdly, the biggest pushback was about whether the document they got was in accordance with protocol and proper procedures. I must confess, as a Bible scholar, I'm not quite sure what protocol or procedures they're talking about as the verses cited have no relevance to what we did as we either did them or they refer to personal relationships. I can only imagine that it’s according to their denominational, man-made procedures by which we are not bound nor are helpful. In fact, their ad hoc elder wasn't interested in even asking us who the witnesses were, but proceeded to speculate that it was all from one source, that it was sinful to break his imaginary procedures of his denomination because he thought we were submitting accusations. He was not interested in asking questions, but rushing to judgment, in order to dismiss it as fast as he could, he just made blind accusations against us without even talking to us about it. Ironic, isn't it? Unfortunately, as an old friend of one of the elders, he is guilty of what he tried to pin on us (unrighteous judgment, not following the biblical procedure by even investigating the claim of at least two witnesses, i.e., us, and extreme bias). His bitterness toward us may stem from past interactions we've had with him. Whatever it may be, he just projected a bunch of irrelevant claims that would have been easily refuted had he even cared to ask any questions at all. A couple of the witnesses were even willing to reach out to him until I told them his responses and at that point didn't think he was fit to judge the matter objectively. Ironically, as well, the Scripture commands that one is not to even entertain an accusation against elders except on the basis of two or three witnesses (1 Tim 5:19, something we actually were mindful of when we wrote up our decision (we have quite a few, not just two or three), and yet, I'm pretty sure we're elders and he had no problem shooting out lots and lots of accusations based upon the assumption that we were handing him accusations rather than the judgment of Jesus Christ from his highest authority on earth, the local church.

Here is how we went about this matter and the biblical precedent for it:

1. If someone sins a sin leading to death, and it is established to have been committed, it is to be exposed and judged immediately. There is no further trial if the sin is established and it is made known to everyone along with the judgment of excommunication and the handing over to the devil. This is clear from multiple examples where judgment is made immediately either based on at least a couple witnesses or if it is committed in front of the elders/apostles so that they need no witnesses for it (Acts 5:1-11; 13:9-11; 8:20-24; Rom 16:17-20; 1 Cor 5; 1 Tim 1:18-20; 5:20-21; 2 Tim 4:10, 14; 3 John 9-11; Jude; Rev 2-3). This is built off of the idea that if a sin leads to death, the one who commits it must immediately be removed from the camp. Only if there is repentance, i.e., a confession of his crimes and a disposition to make restitution, can one be forgiven and allowed back in the camp.

2. If an elder commits a sin that is against another leading to death, he is disqualified from ministry and is to be exposed. 1 Timothy 5:20-21 states, "The elders who sin are to be exposed in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His elect angels, to carefully observe these instructions without bias, doing nothing because of your personal relationship with or feelings toward someone." 

3. Matthew 18 is about personal feuds, not sins leading to death. As usual, Matthew 18 is misapplied to these circumstances. It's actually what stopped me from obeying all of the above verses throughout the years. I thought if someone said sorry that discipline could go no further. I didn't realize that (1) repentance isn't just saying sorry, and (2) Matthew 18 is a passage concerning forgiveness in one's personal relationships with one another as Christians. This is why some mss. state "if your brother sins against you." This was to make clear that since the sin is against you, you can forgive it without taking it to the church. But even this isn't talking about sins leading to death like insurrection and adultery. The Gospel of Matthew makes it clear that these sins largely have to do with calling people names and having personal feuds with one another. Now, even calling a brother a name or feuding with him may lead to death as murder if it is not repented of and reconciled, but some sins are far more egregious and cannot be dealt with on an individual level because they have consequences for the whole community.

For instance, in Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus warns that calling a brother a name is worthy of hell but can be remedied through repentance so that he no longer has an accusation against him. The phrase, "Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the very last penny," is echoed in the statement of Matthew 18:34, "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him." Verse 35 of Matthew 18 makes it very clear that this is about personal forgiveness and not church discipline. Church discipline is only cited in Matthew 18:17-20 if the sin turns into a murder through unrepentance. The rest of the chapter is about these types of sins in personal relationships, as Peter's question assumes.

Likewise, Matthew 5:44 indicates that there will be feuds within the covenant community where some people "persecute you." Whereas one might be inclined to think of this as a Roman persecution where Christians are being thrown in jail and killed, Matthew defines persecution in v. 11 as insults and false accusations. Again, these have to do with personal relationships of sins that can be atoned for through repentance and restitution even in the Mosaic law itself (Lev 6:1-8). There is no sacrifice in the Mosaic Law for an intentional/high handed/purposeful sin leading to death. Although in the NT, one can be forgiven of such sins, they are disqualifying from ministry since the person has proven themselves to be spiritually immature.

Hence, since we went through the biblical process, have the authority according to Jesus Christ to judge issues of church discipline according to the one part of Matthew 18 that does involve church discipline and because we have apostolic succession to render judgment (vv. 17-20, see the parallel in Matt 16:18-19; John 20:22-23), and have done so in accordance with the way the apostles both render judgment and commanded we must do so as well, we have rendered our verdict and warning, which is Christ's verdict and warning. All who have received Christ's words through us and have rejected it have now placed themselves outside of His loving care and have given themselves over to the devil.

So that's how that all went.

As for us, the only repentance that came out of this was from us. I submitted to the judgment of our leadership, presented it to our people, and gave the option for anyone to object to my staying in ministry. 

So what was the point of all of this if the other church wasn't going to budge one ounce toward true repentance? It really was a cleansing for us, me personally, and a great catalyst for teaching. We had been as wrong about church discipline and repentance as these people are, and over the last year, God has been showing us our error so that we might now come to the right of it. 

Time does nothing toward sin. As Christ states in Matthew 5, a sin committed against someone will carry over into eternity. It is not forgiven or lessened in any way simply because it has been a long time since committed. When people are thrown into the lake of fire, though it be a trillion years later, the sin committed in their lives here will continue to be as potent and poisonous as when they first committed it, perhaps, even more so. Knowing that we had committed so many errors, therefore, and have sinned ourselves, even though with sins not leading to death ourselves, and knowing that time is not a factor, we decided to do what even the other church did when they were a part of us, i.e. render judgment upon those who had sinned (in that case, they had caused a split and left and had been gone for over a year before this pastor and the other pastors/elders decided to put them on discipline--no denomination or man-made procedures needed). They were rebuked. They did not repent. The end.

Now, we are simply left to see who will jump into Korah's pit with him so that we might prepare our final verdict.

A Ministry Training through Fire

When I was a teenager, from about the age of 11 to 18, I attended a church that met in a Christian school in my home city where we would often stay behind after Sunday morning service and play basketball, sing, eat lunch, etc, until the time of the evening service. One of those Sundays, I was sitting behind the pulpit and talking with some of the youth, and the daughter of the pastor said to me, “You should become a pastor one day.” I was about 16 or 17 years old and in no way wanted to become a pastor, having seen what her father had to go through. I proclaimed, extremely confidently, “I will NEVER become a pastor.”

I tell that story because after leaving the city in my early twenties for Bible college and seminary, and determined to never return to the city, many years later I would return and “accidently” end up becoming a pastor at the very church I proclaimed I would never be one. I say, “accidently,” because the church had moved, had completely differently people in it with a completely different name, and a completely different pastor. We just “happened” to start going to it and there just “happened” to be a split leaving open a dire need for an elder/pastor, and I just “happened” to become one, only learning afterward that this was the church of my youth.

Providence. We weren’t going to come back to my home city but we were almost forced to since our landlord across the country decided to remodel the house we were renting and made a deal with a handyman that he could live there if he fixed it up. We had no place to go but home. Having now completed my study, God sent me back to shepherd (and soon I would understand, to save) the church in which I had proclaimed I wouldn’t ever be shepherding any church.

I had just come off of a seven year rest from ministry in a Northeastern state. It was meant to be a much longer rest, a permanent one, as I did not plan on entering ministry again after my last experience, but when I came to what I would later learn was my home church, there had been a massive split in the church where most of the people had left. The rest of the church was in shambles. The pastor was a wreck and teaching all sorts of false teaching: antinomianism, new covenant theology, an almost full preterism with just a little room for an end time, a permissive doctrine of divorce and remarriage, a hedonistic view of sex, not to mention many other lesser doctrinal errors that many would not consider reformed. The people were in failing marriages where he was counseling them to get a divorce, adultery, and just a general state of superficial Christianity in terms of their spiritual maturity. In terms of their theology, there was such a permissive atmosphere that there were vocal advocates of full preterism, hypercalvinism, and outright rejections of penal substitution in favor of a liberation theology of the scapegoat theory when it came to the cross (i.e., a French liberation theory where Christ died to show that the scapegoats that men needed to satisfy their bloodthirst was wrong and that God doesn’t need or want a scapegoat to forgive men’s sin). They even had a self proclaimed unredeemed pedophile who had to be continually watched and propositioned one of the men in the congregation when I began attending in those early days.

There was a general atmosphere of darkness in the church and the pastor had led it there, so when a choice was set before me to go into the ministry again and to become an elder there, even with my chronic illness, I decided I could not just walk on by and turn away. So I made sure that the pastor was aware that I was chronically ill, something he had already come to know anyway, but told him that I would likely not be there a lot because of it. To which he answered, “We’ll take you when we can get you.” Because he said this, it was the final okay I needed to enter into the pastorate of the church.

One of the things that confirmed to me that God wanted me to be here and to take upon the position was that only after we had been coming to the church for some time did I realize that it was the church of my teen years. The fact that, after all of my travel across the country, all of the education to become a professor, and after all of the places I could have ended up, God had me become a pastor in the very church in which I declared I would not become one in order to revive it from the grave this other man had buried it in. Through blood, sweat and tears, many hours and sacrifices of time, energy, and family, the Lord resurrected it through me. I say this because the irony is that I will be later slandered from trying to steal the ministry from this other pastor as though the church I had revived resembled in any way the church he had killed.

My ministry was filled with correcting all of these dark things he had brought into the church or allowed to be brought in. Countless hours of teaching, both publicly and in private, counseling and debate, slowly brough the church out of the chaos. As usual, many rebellious people who were not used to being corrected in their sin left because they hated the new atmosphere that was not as permissive. If someone was going to hold to full preterism, he was going to be refuted. One family wanted to stop any church discipline from being done toward their son because they were hypercalvinists who believed there was nothing we could do but wait to see what God would do, since no one can make anyone repent but God (I got chewed out by the pastor for merely stating that he would need to be put on church discipline for it). Regardless of his opposition, that wasn’t going to fly anymore. Slowly and surely, through many of the heretics either changing their minds or leaving in offense, the church, at least externally, became a healthier environment.

But as I would learn, it was far from it on the inside. On the inside, I had learned that the pastor had let one of his sons bring over his girlfriend to the house and fornicate with her. When it was brought to his attention by his other son, that son was told to hush up about it. I then learned that the other son was in an adulterous affair with the wife of a couple who had been good friends with the pastor and his wife. This was kept from me and my other fellow elder until the husband called me and told me that this was going on behind our backs. It was first explained that the pastor wanted to bring us in but was forbidden by the woman who threatened to commit suicide if they said anything. I later would learn from their own mouths and a meeting we had between everyone that in reality, the pastor and his wife had participated in the adultery each in their own way. The wife of the pastor, who was best friends with the adulteress woman, had encouraged the affair from the get go and was trying to set the husband up with another woman so that her son could have his wife. Apparently, she was also going out with her and trying to get her to go into bars with her in order to flirt with men and see what happens. This all came out at the meeting. Likewise, the pastor had participated by hanging out with his son and the man’s wife and suggesting that since they seem to like one another so much maybe they could get alimony from the man so that he could financially support them and they could be together that way since the son didn’t have much of an income and neither did she. He said he would marry them secretly so that the state would continue to make the husband pay alimony so that she and his son could live comfortably together. They were going out to restaurants with them on a sort of double date, on trips to their hometown, and hanging out. At no time was she encouraged to reconcile with her husband but was rather instructed on good divorce attorneys she might utilize. The woman reported that the pastor was smoking marijuana one time while she was crying over everything and he rebuked her because she was ruining his buzz. I was so sick to hear all of this cold betrayal and then when the man asked for an apology from the pastor for suggesting such a thing, the pastor snarked back with what is probably the worst apology of all time, “I’m s-o-r-r-y. I was trying to find a way to be with MY son.” It was said in a tone of offense as though to say, How dare you question me! The pastor had even threatened the husband (after also threatening him physically by getting in his face and saying very hostilely that “you and I are going to have a problem”) to not spill all of the information he apparently had on them or he could tell the job he worked for that this all had made him seriously depressed and could get him fired, something he had confided in the pastor but was now being used as a manipulative tool since it could get him fired. And that was my first lesson of that night. That these two people, the pastor and his wife, were likely Christians in persona only and were highly manipulative. In fact, by the end of the night, the wife of the pastor had the husband who was defrauded by her son apologizing to her, as she threw a crying fit saying how she was just trying to help him out when she was trying to set him up with other women, one of which the husband said was herself, as she would come over his house alone in lowcut clothing with wine in hand. This crying fit came after leaving the meeting, going back and strategizing in the car, and then coming back into the meeting, something this couple did a few times. Looking back on it, even though tensions eventually died down, I now realize that there was absolutely no repentance on the part of these people, and the couple later confirmed that there was in fact none. They only cared whether we would take them out of ministry for it. I was in such a whirlwind of the bomb just dropped on me, my default was to be merciful, thinking because tensions died down that somehow repentance was there when in reality it wasn’t, and that maybe this was just a horrible one-off mistake, a really really bad mistake that I’ve never heard of anyone else in ministry making before, but sadly I didn’t know if this was disqualifying at the time if there was repentance, a decision I would later regret and realize was completely in error. The other elder just followed my lead, again, regretfully. It is to my eternal shame that I did not immediately remove them from the ministry and place them on church discipline, something I should have done time and again throughout the next ten years since.

Over the course of the next few years, other signs that this was not a one-off egregious sin came up. The son that had been in the adulterous affair would continually do the same with other women, although some officially divorced or separated (I do not know which) and the son who slept with his girlfriend in the pastor’s house was now moved out and sleeping with his girlfriend that he lived with. During these periods, the pastor continued to have full relationships with his sons, knowing that it disqualified him from ministry. They only resolved themselves as time went on and they each found more acceptable relationships (more on that later), but not because there had ever been any genuine repentance.

In the midst of all of this I would hear from multiple witnesses that they would go over to the pastor and his wife’s home to watch movies and TV shows like Game of Thrones that contained naked women and explicit sex scenes in them. During that time, many people were making the argument that such doesn’t really affect them nor did they necessarily believe it was wrong to do these things. Licentiousness seemed to abound along with drinking, as it was reported to me by more than one witness that the pastor had become drunk on more than one occasion throughout the time I was doing ministry with him. He had called me a couple times where he sounded quite drunk but if not for these other witnesses that would never have been confirmed.

On top of all of this, I started having multiple people come to me to tell me that the pastor’s wife and son were horribly slandering me and my family. This occurred around the time that I started to take a salary as a pastor after serving the church with no salary for a few years. My family had been dirt poor due to my illness, but the church was unable to support us, so I labored for the first few years just as hard as any paid pastor without any compensation because I cared about the people and still thought I would be able to save them from this nightmare of church leadership. It only became possible for the church to pay me once we sold a building. But it was told to a women’s group that the pastor’s wife thought all of that money should be theirs. I imagine she wanted her husband to come out on top both financially in case there was a split so she needed to mold me into a villain and him into a victim. This slander went on and on until the day of the church split ten years later. Every time someone would come into the church, they would be excited to study the Bible and learn Christianity and then suddenly I would see them again (or not, as many didn’t want to go to a church with me being such a horrible person) and the air would be so thick with tension I could tell that they had been with at least one member of the pastor’s family. Whether he knew it or not during those earlier days, I believe that he full well did, it benefited him because a faction began to grow between us in the church. My teaching was transforming lives. His teaching had killed everyone. Marriages were being saved under me whereas marriages had been counseled to dissolve under him. His preaching was void of the Spirit and those who had been enlivened by the Spirit knew it. I said none of this to congregation or even my closest confidants for fear that I or my wife would turn into what this pastor and his wife had become. I kept my mouth shut and hoped that God would still save and transform whomever He wished within the congregation despite the evil that lurked there through the pastor and his family.

In the midst of all of this, from the time I first knew them, they seemed to have a lot of financial need, or at least presented themselves that way. I cannot speak to the illness of his wife that was reported to the church and made front and center when asking others for money, but regardless of the reason, there seemed to be no shortage of people who were asked for money. I remember our deacons being offended because they were presenting themselves as not being paid enough when they were being paid a small fortune for just two people. We had the same salary to show that we were equals and not to be seen as a hierarchy by the laity even though my family was made up of 11 people. They demanded to live in luxury and did not want to move when they claimed to not have enough so I agreed to up our salaries going up each month to cover what they “needed.” He would charge the cc to pay for meals that were not authorized, ask to be reimbursed when they had to buy food for fellowships (something we paid for as a poor family out of our own pockets), and ask the church for thousands of dollars to supposedly pay for credit cards right around the time of his son’s wedding.  I realize now that their presentation of themselves as economically upper class would be used against us later on, as we were still living under the poverty line with the same salary with an 11 member family, and we would be presented as the gross poor and unsuccessful family as one of the many ways to slander us.

As time went on, the pastor’s son that had been in adultery found a woman he wanted to marry and it came out that he had been married before. It kicked up a lot of dust to where I was lied to by the pastor’s wife (she had presented the girl as coming in one night and on a whim just getting her son to marry her when I had been on the girl’s facebook account a week before and saw a picture of the pastor, his wife, their son, and the girl all dressed up and going out somewhere a month before they got married). Her own sister reported that she had a problem lying and did it quite a bit so I actually expected it at the meeting. Most in the church held the permanence view I had taught them by this time and would have seen as partaking in a marriage like this as participating in adultery if they attended the ceremony or remained on good terms with their son. So this was hidden from the church until it was revealed by the sister of the pastor’s wife. I was able to resolve the issue (once again, working it out rather than repentance occurring) with a biblical understanding that since the guardians of the girl did not agree to the marriage and broke it up, it was illegitimate. The pastor said he simply forgot his son had been married before. About a year or two after they were married, we found out that the new girl he married had been married before, so that everyone involved was led into the communal sin of adultery much like the sin of Achan in the Book of Joshua. Whether the pastor, who was also the one who counseled them for marriage or his wife, knew or not is unknown.

Some time before this, my eldest son had come to me expressing that he was lonely and really wanted friends. As many who homeschool know, it can be hard for the kids if there are not a lot of kids their age in the church. We prayed together about it and some of the young adults in the church started to invite him out. Unfortunately, this group ended up turning into just hanging out at the pastor’s house most nights and it was there that my son turned from being in submission to me to being told that his views concerning leaving the household and becoming his own man before I thought he was ready to leave the household were right and mine were wrong. Coupled with the constant derision I would get from the household, my son developed such a rebellious attitude toward me that it caused a horrible division in our family and not long after my son left my household. He has since realized that he was given evil advice and used by them but the damage was done. Ironically, he would be used as an example of why I was not a good father. After all, I have a rebellious son because I must have been too strict and overbearing. It couldn’t have been because he was poisoned against me or anything by a household who had been slandering me for the past half of decade before he got there of course. BTW, I have eight other children, seven sons and one daughter, who are all in loving submission to me, and of whom I am very proud as they excel in their godly character in the hidden person that the world does not admire and in their pursuit of Christ.

But my children were attacked because they were not up to the standards of the upper classes, or those who thought themselves as such, within the congregation (again, a slander largely started and perpetuated by this family). All the while, his sons had gone on further to other debaucheries. His one son had lied that he had become a Christian in order to get a girl in the church. Then he was sleeping with that girl in the pastors house (yes, another one), all the while courting other girls with his parents help in other parts of the country. His other son was attending a heretical church and was rebuked for it but did not repent, again, until it all worked out and they had to move away. The one son finally married the girl he was sleeping with in his father and mother’s house and he seems to have become a Christian, although the last I heard the slander of me and my family continued on even after he had admitted to me that he was doing it and supposedly repented of it.

Within all of this, I was made to play bad cop whenever there was a disciplinary issue at hand. I was the one the pastor wanted to go talk to this person or that person when there needed to be a correction. I had to deliver the bad news that they would be put on church discipline. I was made out to be the mean one, the legalistic one, the tyrant. Indeed, I am a strict father when it comes to rebellion and unrepentant sin but I am also a loving one with a lot of mercy (as you can see from this very testimony, probably too much mercy to a fault), but that wasn’t the narrative that benefited this other family. Of course, my preaching style is like the Billy Graham of the 1950s and his was of the Billy Graham of the 1990s, so it fed into this idea that I was a harsh judge. If anything, I was more like Paul in that I was weighty in my medium of communication but personally much softer, unless someone was in rebellion. So he painted a picture of himself as the loving and nurturing pastor, even though I don’t think he actually cared that much about most of the congregation. He always had small groups of young men he hung around and who he really cared about and probably who actually controlled the church (along with his wife who imposed herself into every conversation and meeting of the elders of course until we banned her from the official meetings at least). The irony is that he had a horrible temper and would throw fits and tantrums whenever the elders made a decision he didn’t like. If I were to sum up his demeanor in a sentence, it would be that he was agreeable with what he agreed with, tolerant of what he didn’t care about, and insufferable when it came to anything he didn’t like.

In the midst of all of this going on, the pastor had turned from being receptive to what I taught to constant opposition, undermining what I said in secret, mocking what I would teach sometimes, telling others he did not agree, etc. So as I pulled one way, he pulled the other. He would create factions of people and his family would stir them up against me, all “knowing” the same false information about me even though none of them had spent five minutes with me. If anyone came to him offended by something, he would side with them and agree with them that I was in the wrong and that he did not agree. It was incredibly difficult to pull the congregation out of the mire when they were being told by one of the pastors that the mire was just fine. Some of this may have been due to a lack of biblical qualification in terms of scholarship. He was clearly educated by a seminary that saw pastors as different than scholars and so trained their pastors to be “pastoral” which I would define as relational rather than to be able to do any serious work in the original text or the real difference between exegesis and eisegesis. Much of my ministry early on was to teach exegesis and correct a lot of the errors he had made in bringing the church into some of the errors mentioned at the beginning of this testimony. Some of it was just because he didn’t like it and it went against what he wanted to do in his own life (much of it having to do with sexuality) or what he was brought up to believe in fundamentalism (literal Genesis creation days or that Daniel was written in the Sixth century). The latter wasn’t a big deal to me, as I didn’t really care, but the former issues were of a much greater importance and so I fought for those.

He would often call me and chew me out for teaching what he did not agree with but then go on to teach whatever he wished without consulting me. He called me one time to tell me that he was resenting me because I had too much influence in the church and eventually it got to the point that I could not say two words without him cutting me off and showing his disgust for me. It reminded me of the girl at school who got all of the attention until a prettier girl walked in and started getting it. The disgust and envy oozed out from him and it was vile. He would proclaim with his lips that he loved me and my family because that’s what he knew he should say, but his actions and disdain were clear to everyone who met with us in our leadership meetings. He would always remind me how much everyone hated me. It got to the point that there was almost not a single time he saw me that he didn’t have a story about someone who didn’t like me and he would let me know it.

It became very clear that he had started to see himself as the supreme authority, the head pastor, rather than an equal elder, and he wanted the congregation to see him that way as well. He did not like to give up the pulpit and even if he was away a lot (and he was) he would make sure he was back in time to fill the pulpit on Sunday morning. So while I would be on the phone with people from morning to midnight every day during the week, often not even able to eat anything because I had little to no breaks in between to do so, he and his family made himself out to be the martyr, the victim of some sick guy who was just collecting a salary while he did all of the work. When it was suggested he give the pulpit more often to another elder, he refused to do so. He knew that his age and being in the pulpit would manipulate the people into believing a falsehood. They would see him as senior pastor and the one in authority even though our church had always taught the equality of the elders and the authority of elder majority. He even took people off church discipline one time without consulting the other elders—a decision made without the two or three—and I did not agree that they should be.

This would turn out to be beneficial for him as I had gotten violently ill when Covid hit and even though our church went online for about six months or so, and I did the bulk of the teaching and ministry through it, I was not able to be present on Sunday mornings for about four years. So I continued the online ministry and counseled and held meetings and dinners and Bible studies from my home. During that time I held on because I did not want to give this church back into the hands of this man and his family. I deeply loved these people and did not want to abandon them or my family to a fate I knew would take place if I gave up my position. So even though he wanted me out, he did not have consent from the rest of the leadership and so I stayed on even though it was all causing me tons of anxiety and likely giving me a really bad case of PTSD. It was worth it to me to save the church from the darkness. And I knew if I left that would be all that was left. The other elder would be easily outvoted or discouraged so that he would quit too and then the church would completely fall into the abyss. To abandon the people I loved was a worse option for me than having health and peace.

He typically ignored the biblical qualifications for ministry and put in whomever he liked. So since he liked a lot of the young guys, he would put a bunch of young guys in ministry positions, many of whom were rebellious and later either became churchless or apostatized against Christianity altogether. This was a constant throughout the time I knew him. Partiality and nepotism were the words that ruled the day. Even if not put in official positions of power, he would primarily consult his wife and unqualified young men, including his immature son, about spiritual matters above the elders. I should say that I think this is the worst of his sins even though most will see it as minor due to the state of the American church today and how it picks its leadership but I knew if I left, it would subject the congregation to unqualified men under a disqualified man, and I could not just turn away and let this happen no matter how much pressure was poured on me and how much I was presented as a bad guy for hanging on.

Finally, this led to a coup where he secretly met with a deacon and launched a campaign to coerce the family members of the church to leave and start a new church under a particular denomination. This was when the slander was elevated to a massive level. Anything and everything was said by them to “win over” congregants. They began giving reward certificates and gifts and very visibly praying with people in the assembly so that all could see (we didn’t usually display all of these things in such a show and I thought people would see through this narcissistic love-bombing, but I was wrong). In the mean time, I and the other elder were left in the dark to what was happening but it became clear when the pastor began to preach against me from the pulpit, insinuating that I was arrogant because I would tell people that I knew what the Bible said and could help them understand it. This was a five or six week long series against me, but he never mentioned my name. It was simply clear to everyone who was in the know and afterward when asked if that is what he was doing by my fellow elder, he admitted it. He then preached a sermon acting like the reason we were agreeably splitting was over a ministerial difference when it was actually his deep seated hatred toward a minister that had given nothing but far too much mercy and had done nothing but good to him and his family the entirety of the ministry. I found some comfort, ironically, in a book published by his cousin, where his cousin had become an atheist and lists in his very famous book that one of the three reasons for becoming an atheist was this very pastor and his wife (they were both mentioned explicitly in his book but he made sure to list the wife’s full previous and current name, telling me that she was heavily involved). What he did with his cousin was to slander him to the rest of the congregation as one who was trying to take his power from him as a pastor and so this pastor and his wife turned people who had previously loved his cousin into people who hated him. He notes that they took away the illusion from him that a Christian community was a loving one. After splitting the church, the pastor and his wife left only to do the same thing to me at another church.

Eventually liars believe their own lies. If you tell enough people that someone is a villain then you either have to admit you’re the villainous slanderer or you have to make every reason to believe it yourself. It is an irony that I had such mercy on this family so as to counsel them in their many egregious sins, and that they didn’t think that any of their utter wickedness toward God and the congregation was what threatened the congregation. Instead, they fabricated this narrative in their minds that it was me, as a tyrant, who was the villain because I was trying to pull them and the congregation out of their sins. No deed goes unpunished and this testimony will likely go unbelieved or dismissed as unweighty until the Lord brings us all before Him in judgment. So be it. Come, Lord Jesus!

So when he and his family began making arguments that I wasn’t qualified to be a pastor because I was either too harsh when I taught or rebuked someone, or wasn’t there on Sunday morning (which I was beginning to rectify btw after starting to get better), or my house wasn’t of museum quality, you can imagine the absurdity I thought of it all since this family was actually disqualified by things God considers actual sins but they were trying to disqualify me for superficial reasons that were not sin, not to mention that it was a complete 180 on “we’ll take you when we can get you,” and that after working my butt off beyond measure, it was presented that I wasn’t doing my part of the ministry (this guy took more vacation and family time than any other pastor I have ever known, but he made sure he was back for most pulpit shows on Sunday morning). I don’t think most pastors worked as hard as I did. I certainly never worked that hard in ministry before when I was healthy nor even after the split, which finally left us with largely a peaceful, submissively loving, and uneventful church. I’ve even started writing more books because I feel like I don’t do anything near as much as I did in that ministry. Irony is simply all over this thing.

On top of this, he had family members tell me that he was looking to run off to other churches throughout the ministry if he could get the church’s money and another church would hire him (which would actually show how little he cares about the people). He contemplated leaving on the phone with me before and has tried this coup before with other people so I know there is truth in this claim. Even after this recent split, I'm told he was contemplating leaving the people behind to move up with the in-group in the church.

He was accused and suspected of many other things by some people but unlike him, I would always shut them down if they had no reliable witnesses.

If I have learned one thing about others among the many personal things that I needed to change about myself, I would have to say regretfully that people are easily manipulated by people of low moral character because only people of low moral character seek to manipulate them and are good at it.

What I learned about myself is that my desire for God to be merciful to me often gets in the way of my enacting justice, and thus, distorting the character of God to people because I want to show them mercy when it would actually be unjust to do so. Ironically, and it is a huge irony, is that I was painted as a tyrant and a cult-leader, but if anyone slandered me personally (and there were many largely because there were many influenced by this family) I never put them on discipline. I just chalked it up to immaturity and turned the other cheek. But I realize now that in letting the slanderers in this family go, I hurt the church. I let these clouds without rain corrupt and take over the church by doing nothing about their very now documentable evils. Although I truly was guarding it by holding on and not resigning as I was constantly pressured to do by this pastor because I thought I provided a shield and the balance from God’s judgment, I ended up destroying it anyway because I did not follow what I now see as the clear instructions of God to remove anyone who even commits one of the egregious sins above much less all of them.

I have two roads before me that I now contemplate the future. I’m thinking of stepping down because looking back now all of this is due to my colossal failure to rid the church of these charlatans. Perhaps it was the arrogance in me that thought I could redeem even them with the Word of God. I did truly believe that I could and it looked like I was for a time, but I failed in the end. My other path is to take what I’ve learned and to truly repent and never let this happen again, and to encourage my fellow elder and one day elders to never let it happen, even if it is with me. To be merciful to the wicked is to be burdensome to the righteous. Honestly, I could go either way right now. If I’m really honest, I feel the weight of the guilt on me and because of my willingness to be a “martyr” and just take all the slander on the cheek, and because I only really knew of the one other sin of their son’s adultery that happened toward the beginning of the ministry for most of my most of my ministry, the majority of the church I tried so hard to save fell back into the darkness of this man’s leadership. For this reason, you may think that the pastor and his wife are the villains here, but unfortunately, I must come to grips with the fact that I am because I had the responsibility to rid the church of this evil and did not do it. And this is what I struggle with the most. I really thought at the time that mercy was to triumph over judgment because of the problem that most pastors have in trying to figure out when someone is merely ignorant and immature and when someone is rebellious. Coupled with confusing qualifications for ministry and forgiveness, this led to a really bad decision on my part to let him continue in ministry.

I can only give nothing but praise and admiration for a young elder that God sent in my place and because of my failure, he did what I could not do by giving this corrupt man the ultimatum that either he leaves the church or he stays and we take him out of ministry. Unfortunately, the bulk of the church went with him but that may be a sign of their judgment too, as I heard many reasons for why they went with him and not one was because they believed the Word of God taught by him was powerfully transforming them into the image of Christ. They went with him for convenience, to maintain friendships, to become a part of a denomination they wanted to be a part of, because they liked him, because they knew him a long time, etc. None of them submitted to the actual authority of Christ through the church which is through the majority of elders, not through some pastor to whom they gave authority because he stood by a wood box up front on a particular day of the week. That’s for them to reconcile to Christ on the day of judgment and not everyone may be as equally culpable depending on how just they acted in all of this.

In Revelation 2, Christ speaks of a Jezebel that had taken over the church and swayed many within it to partake in corrupt doctrines and practices. I’m reminded of the scene in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, where the Puritans had a law that refused to take testimony from a whore. It was because whores were seen as having demons and as liars by nature. It is interesting that Jezebel here is described as a whore who brings others into the lies belonging to whoredom. At one point in the play, John Proctor proclaims to the court, “You are pulling heaven down and raising up a whore!” What the court should have done is dismiss any testimony from the whore as lies and damnable lies, but it persisted in receiving her testimony, and because it did, the innocent suffered. I am ashamed to have not silenced the whore. I wish I was John Proctor in this story, even after his sin of adultery he regains his integrity and resolve, but I’m the gullible and unjust court instead, and as such, am not able to throw my hat in with the innocent and pretend that I am as pure as God’s fingers for letting this go on. I’ve often wondered at the horrific scene of these people standing before Christ and answering for all of these crimes on judgment day. But now I ponder my own judgment and worry more about myself than others.

I could bring up that I didn’t have any real power in the congregation and so could not take them out because people follow who they like, not who has authority by divine rite. It would simply have been me leaving the church and leaving behind people that needed my help.  I could argue that I wanted to save this pastor and his family too and was waiting patiently for God to turn them around, and genuinely thought that He was. I could argue that I didn’t think I was supposed to remove them because all things seemed like they were reconciled and worked out, so I had no more reason to give to the congregation for their removal and they were learning and growing earlier on and so it looked like the right decision at the time. After all, if God had forgiven them it would be wrong, so I thought, to then remove them for a sin of which they were no longer guilty in the eyes of God. All of these would be a true testimony for how I thought at the time, but in the end it doesn’t matter because I should have known and done what was right in God’s eyes and not in my own. I should have had a better understanding of what I was supposed to do. I was the Bible scholar and yet didn’t understand the Bible on such a pivotal point. I had always struggled in figuring out what constituted repentance. Is it just a confession? Is it a long term removal of the sin? Is it regret and hatred for the sin that causes one to turn away from it even if only for a few moments? I’m sad to say, I think I’ve just now figured it out. Because of this, good intentions or not, I acted foolishly in the matter, and am now ashamed by it, and that is a very jagged pill to swallow.

Authority carries so much responsibility. Fools fight for it. The arrogant steal it. The wise only take hold of it with trembling hands because they must. But woe to me that I took it. Whether fool, arrogant, or wise, I failed nonetheless and I will forever regret it.

It seems clear to me now that my primary mistake was confusing forgiveness and qualification for ministry. Everyone who repents (and again I don’t believe they ever did of any of this) has forgiveness, but not everyone is qualified to be a pastor. Anyone can be restored to the church, but some people should never be restored to the pastorate. That may include even me, and I’m left weighing these things for my own future and the future of the church.

I wish I could go back now and warn the young 19 Year-Old to not enter ministry before he was 50. I wish I knew then what I know now. Nothing would have been easier but what I was to do would have been clearer. I would have stayed in seminary for thirty years and just soaked up the Bible without becoming a teacher until I understood it fully. But I know that’s not how it works. It’s through failures that come from ignorance, stubbornness to do it our way, and even sin that God causes us to look again and see where we have so greatly erred. The church is seminary. I just wish someone else had gone through this to learn the lessons these regrets have taught and passed them onto me. But I can’t go back, so it’s me. Whether I stay in ministry or not, I will forever warn those going into it and who are already in it to get this one right because if you get everything else right but this it will devastate the church.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten into ministry again. There is a scene in one of the Spiderman movies, cheesy as they may be, that always affected me emotionally. Peter decides that he just wants to live a normal life and not be Spiderman anymore. One day, he passes by an alley where a man is being beaten up and robbed, he stops for a moment but then just passes on by and lets it happen. I often wonder if it would have been better if I just kept walking. I don’t tell anyone this but I was actually offered a lot of ministry jobs after I was fired from my previous one. I simply turned them all down. My pastor at the OPC church we went to afterward was so relieved that had another minister there who could take some preaching off of his hands and give him a break for a while, to which I replied, “I’m sorry. I just don’t do that anymore.” But when I saw them scattered like sheep that had been massacred across a field I could not walk by. Surely, God brought me back here to deliver the church from this chaos, and although He did deliver many from it, I obviously failed to do it in a manner that was swift and decisive. Maybe it wasn’t my place to intervene. Maybe someone better would have come. It’s all so uncertain. I just don’t know. Either way, may the Lord forgive me for what I have done incorrectly and what I have failed to do correctly and may He now and forever grant peace and mercy to those in the church who followed Him by faith despite the mess that men have made of the church.