Plethora Of Preachers

While walking on the campus of SW Baptist Theological School and Seminary,I pondered about how many pastors we turn out every year and yet the bulk of America is biblically illiterate including Christians.

It is no wonder that we have so many churches and why a new one can rise up every six months.

Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

There are times that I have preached and served in some churches where I could a several week series and intersperse several false doctrines and many would not pick up on it as long as I did not use some keywords.

Indeed, one of my professors once served in a town so small that the Baptists and Methodists shared a building. Once the Methodist preacher had to be out of town and asked my professor to fill in for him. He said he had those Methodists shouting glory about eternal or once saved always saved just by preaching the passages and not using either of those phrases. At least, he was teaching the truth though the Methodists do not believe it. I wondered if he had denied the Trinity, but preached the error of modalism if they would have picked that up. Probably not. More lies are taught couched in terms of truth than by outright bald face lies.

Many thinking that the church is a social club bounce from church to church like a bar hopper looking for the best price on long necks or looking for ladies night. They know little about doctrine and can be comfortable anywhere no matter what they teach and that is scary because if His sheep hear His voice and they are as comfortable in a cult or dead church as they are in one that is alive then that is probable cause to question their salvation.

The IFB folks that I was long a part of were known as people of the book and the SBC has been known to be very Conservative overall yet cults gain more converts from Baptists than any other group. That is sad.

Part of the problem are the pastors and protocols. Many IFB and Charismatic pastors use eisegesis rather than exegesis preaching an application or two as the interpretation. This leads to many personal preferences becoming doctrine or leaving people in a quandary because they cannot apply some passages to their situation because they do not know the interpretation.

In SBC churches and some others Sunday AM is usually an evangelistic sermon since most unbelievers attend that service. Sunday School, the PM service and Wednesday night services are often means of discipleship. When people attended all of those it was great, but many churches do not have the PM or Wednesday night service anymore and SS attendance by adults is way down.

Nearly every Baptist I know of either group can lead you to salvation, even the SMOs because that is what they hear the most. After that, may not be able to fight their way out of a theological wet paper bag.

That is the fault of the pastor for not varying the messages in the AM service and for the people being SMOs instead of attending the other services if they are available.

I was astounded at how many churches when I preached right out of bible college felt I was too deep in the Word and yet were looking for pastors with ThDs/PhDs. Shoot, those guys would be so deep they would be talking to the Chinese in most cases. Some Docs can keep the cookies and milk where people can reach them.

Do you know that in the 18th century people often followed the pastor in a Greek or Hebrew translation because you had to know Latin to graduate HS and by the time you got your BA you had to know Hebrew or Greek? Hard to deviate from the text into your own opinion or rant with a crowd like that.

Many church goers do not even know what their particular group believes in many areas or may only know what the creeds say though they may not understand them. If a pastor were to hand out a T/F questionnaire he may find that many in the congregation do not believe what he does and may also find many heretical or homespun views are held.