Vectorman
Senior Member
I had the pleasure this week of reconnecting with an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in a few years. Bill was the pastor of my mother’s church and I got to know him when I accompanied mom on a short-term mission trip into Central America. I could tell right away that Bill and I shared a passion for evangelism, along with hunting and fishing. But Bill's real gift was ministering to men. He even wrote a yearlong bible study that helps give you a solid foundation and teaches you how to study the bible. I along with a few guys in my church took the study.
That was 8 years ago, but I’m glad to report that our men’s bible study group is still meeting today. After our year long study was complete, Bill was called to another church in a different state and left us freshly trained bible thumpers to fend for ourselves with nothing but the Word, the Spirit and each other to guide us along as we dug through the book. It turns out that we had everything we needed. Bill did a great job at giving us the tools to learn about the bible but he was a mainline denominational pastor who followed the party’s teaching fairly closely. I would say he leaned in the direction of reformed lordship salvation.
When our group of men really started digging into the Bible with our newfound study skills, the book took us in a completely different direction. The more we learned about what the Bible really says, the more we realized that our church and denomination were teaching things that were just not true…. some things were not even close. I came to realize that just because it came from the pulpit didn’t mean it was biblical. Everything taught by pastors, Sunday school teachers, TV preachers, etc., was suspect until you checked it out for yourself from the book.
I was shocked at how many things I had to unlearn, things I had believed all my life, things that I had been taught by my church and things that I had been teaching too. We even had an occasional church staff guy join us at our study once or twice, most of them ran away to never come back. One said as he left, “I believe what you are saying is true but you are going to get me fired if I start preaching that stuff”.
I believe that God put Bill in our group to help us to reach a point but He knew we needed to separate and go it alone after that. The funny thing about this is when Bill and I started comparing notes this week, I found that over the past few years, he had reached many of the same conclusions that we had about biblical topics. He had to unlearn many things just as we did.
You see, it’s the Spirit’s job to teach, and He teaches the same truth regardless of what state you are in or how many miles you are away from each other. Our job is to be teachable. Martin Luther said the Christian life is a life of repentance. What he was saying is that you must allow the Word and the Spirit to change your mind about what you believe to be biblical truth. The problem today is that most people, especially church ministers and teachers think they know the bible so well that they can’t be taught anything. They are unteachable. I’ll leave you with a bible verse.
Proverbs 26:12(NIV)
Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for them.
That was 8 years ago, but I’m glad to report that our men’s bible study group is still meeting today. After our year long study was complete, Bill was called to another church in a different state and left us freshly trained bible thumpers to fend for ourselves with nothing but the Word, the Spirit and each other to guide us along as we dug through the book. It turns out that we had everything we needed. Bill did a great job at giving us the tools to learn about the bible but he was a mainline denominational pastor who followed the party’s teaching fairly closely. I would say he leaned in the direction of reformed lordship salvation.
When our group of men really started digging into the Bible with our newfound study skills, the book took us in a completely different direction. The more we learned about what the Bible really says, the more we realized that our church and denomination were teaching things that were just not true…. some things were not even close. I came to realize that just because it came from the pulpit didn’t mean it was biblical. Everything taught by pastors, Sunday school teachers, TV preachers, etc., was suspect until you checked it out for yourself from the book.
I was shocked at how many things I had to unlearn, things I had believed all my life, things that I had been taught by my church and things that I had been teaching too. We even had an occasional church staff guy join us at our study once or twice, most of them ran away to never come back. One said as he left, “I believe what you are saying is true but you are going to get me fired if I start preaching that stuff”.
I believe that God put Bill in our group to help us to reach a point but He knew we needed to separate and go it alone after that. The funny thing about this is when Bill and I started comparing notes this week, I found that over the past few years, he had reached many of the same conclusions that we had about biblical topics. He had to unlearn many things just as we did.
You see, it’s the Spirit’s job to teach, and He teaches the same truth regardless of what state you are in or how many miles you are away from each other. Our job is to be teachable. Martin Luther said the Christian life is a life of repentance. What he was saying is that you must allow the Word and the Spirit to change your mind about what you believe to be biblical truth. The problem today is that most people, especially church ministers and teachers think they know the bible so well that they can’t be taught anything. They are unteachable. I’ll leave you with a bible verse.
Proverbs 26:12(NIV)
Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for them.
