Could You Recognize the Truth?

When our pastor died in June, 2011, Floyd was in a position to hold the church together for a little while.  But when we weren’t able to fill the pastor’s position right away due to financial circumstances beyond our control, a church member offered to fill in as interim pastor. Since he had previously pastored a church, most of the congregation received his offer gladly.  The only problem was that he didn’t meet the Scriptural qualifications of a pastor due to divorce.  Floyd was against it because of that, but the pulpit committee outvoted him, so it was brought to the church for a vote, and in October, 2011, the church voted Gary in as interim pastor.

I didn’t think it mattered a whole lot because it was only temporary.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  On New Year’s Day of 2012, Gary stood behind the pulpit and said, “I know it won’t be long before I’m voted in as full-time pastor.”   I cringed, but his declaration didn’t bother me half as much as his sermon did on that day.  (That’s when I learned how ignorant he was of Scripture, especially for a previous pastor.)  Now Floyd and Donnie (my son-in-law) weren’t in the service.  They were downstairs counting the morning offering.  So they missed most of what transpired that morning.

Gary preached from Matthew chapter 24 and how we needed to start preparing for the end times.  He told us to stock up on food and water and batteries and everything else we’d need to survive the tribulation.  He emphasized that Jesus had warned the church to be ready.

I shook my head and said, “Jesus wasn’t talking to the church.  He was talking to his disciples.” I spoke barely above a whisper because I was talking to myself, not someone nearby.  But Gary overheard me.  He turned and spoke directly to me.  “No, He was talking to His church, most of which were Gentiles.”

I said, “Gary, the church didn’t exist until after the resurrection. (I have since learned that Christ started His very first church with those 12 Jewish disciples, so I was in error on that point.)  He was talking to his disciples, who were all Jews.”

“He had Gentile disciples, too, and they were there.”

“Okay, then which of His disciples were Gentiles?”

Mind you, this was going on during the service.  I was sitting about five rows back and heads were turning all over the auditorium looking from me to Gary and back to me.  And I’m thinking, This is not good.  I’d better be quiet.  I’m distracting the whole service.

But Gary put his finger to his chin and thought out loud.  He said, “Hm, let’s see.  I know that Matthew was a Jew.  Peter was a Jew.  Paul!  Paul was a Gentile.”  And I couldn’t let that slide.  How could any pastor not know that Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin.  So I said, “Paul was a Jew, and he wasn’t even there.  He didn’t get saved until Acts chapter 9.”

About that time, the Holy Spirit said to me, “Marj, you’d better be quiet because he’ll argue with you all service.”

Gary said, “I know that Paul was a Gentile.”  When I didn’t respond, he continued with his message, closing with this statement, “And if anyone here disagrees with anything I said, feel free to come talk to me  about it, but make sure you back your statements with Scripture.  So I emailed him a nice rebuttal to our discussion, reiterating what I knew to be true, and backed all my statements with Scripture.  His reply was very nice.   He said, “I’m so sorry that you have so little knowledge of the Bible and how to properly interpret Scripture, but keep studying.  You’ll get there.”

We weren’t the only ones who changed churches.  But it shocked me how many of the people in attendance that morning, including Sunday school teachers, knew so little about God’s Word and it’s truths that they failed to recognize his obvious errors in Scripture. Because only two months later, they readily voted him in as full-time pastor. 

How well do you know your Bible?  Would you recognize the truth, or would you be swayed by false doctrine and misinterpreted Scripture?  Just because the sermon is preached by a supposedly “Christian” minister does not mean that it is truth.