Not long back I had a retired Pastor reprove me very sharply, for making some interesting points while preaching on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. He was very old school, and he referred to 1 Tim 1.4 “nor to be taken up with with myths and never ending genealogies.. ”

He answered “No”, when I asked him if I had said anything that was heretical. I went on to quietly explain that that particular Scripture was referring to the false teachings and philosophy of Gnosticism, not of genuine enquiry. He could not accept it.

You would think that with 40 years experience this past and would have had some understanding of what Paul was referring to in this letter and the problem of Gnosticism. We have a problem here, how can a congregation understand these things either and be able to interpret their Bible?

If the many pastors persist in preaching, lightweight and shallow messages to the congregation, the results will always be a people, who do understand their Bible very well. Pastors preach again and again ‘moral essays’ and ‘warming affirmations’, for this is what good Christians do, if they truly ‘love’ each other.

It seems that, so long as we are positive and ‘nice’ to all, it really doesn’t matter if Christians are falling between the cracks because of a lack of knowledge.

The reality is, the more ‘relevant’ Christians become, to the world, the less relevant we all are in actuality, to the world.

Our staple diet from pastors seems to be favorite topics and ‘feel good’ messages. Ministers preach on a verse from 1 Peter as well as a passage about a hero from 1 Kings; topical sermon from Hosea and then the belief in God of Aaron or the humanity of King David.

We preach a portion from here and another from there, but we need to put it all together in a clear understandable format.

These days a flood of new ideas and publications come under various names that have a liberal bent. If we were to be taught the basics of Church history, we then would not be so doomed to repeat it.

Let us correctly prepare the Church to understand God and the Bible, but piecing together the fragments of his Word into a beautiful seamless mosaic.

It’s not a difficult thing to accomplish, we just need to put in some study and prayer.

John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (NIV)

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