Seeing the Holy Spirit in others: Focus on Pastors
Getting back to my primary point on this specific subject; I will make an assumption that we are following a Pastor who is apparently a true believer; Biblically sound and therefore qualified to lead the local congregation as the example of who we can desire to emulate. That; of course is a tall order with the state and condition of churches in general at this hour.
A cult of personality; nonetheless can still rear its ugly head even in this situation. The first rule of thumb; of course is to determine if indeed a church is still teaching correct doctrine or if error is creeping in as that is a top method of the enemy. When one is puffed up there is danger of a little leaven creeping in. ( Romans 11:21). Revelation 2:4 mentions losing our first love while teaching is basically correct doctrinally.
There is; as my initial post alluded to distractions in the flesh. There is no doubt that many megachurches in particular are focused on young; attractive people in leadership as either Pastors or Music Directors in particular. I have gotten into that on previous occasions; so I won't elaborate here.
Ok; with the preliminaries well examined I will ask what seems to be a dumb question: How do we properly view a good Pastor or other leader? From my premise I have established that no man is perfect; but I'll say it straight out-no man is perfect.
Psalm 37:37 says to "mark the perfect man"; there are other N.T. references to being perfect but clearly this means fully mature. It should be clear that proper teaching must also be accompanied by proper living out of the Gospel. Given that IS occurring to the best of our understanding-then what? How do we allow this experience to transform us?
To be a conduit of truth; no doubt best aids the rest of the congregation through genuinely listening to the gifts of others in our midst. This means proper doctrine as well as timely messages edifying at the time.
It is interesting; in light of a study in Judges 4; specifically verse 6 (could be 8 hard to read my Bible in this light) that I had earlier tonight it mentions Deborah the Prophetess telling Barak about going after his enemies as if he knew something the Lord had already revealed about attacking; whereas the NIV states the narrative making the assumption that Deborah's prophetic insight was the initial revelation to Barak. There are things that concern the divinity of Christ that concern me in NIV and other versions.
That being said; I am not sure if this is a discussion I had with you or someone else who was insisting KJV was the only inspired version. In that I have to draw the line; the Geneva was earlier; along with Tyndale and I would suppose Latin Vulgate; at any rate there can be no perfect translation that makes literary sense from the original text. There are multiple numerical figures in different texts. There are also different Biblical texts that were from Africa; for instance. The original Greek; Hebrew or Aramaic have words that have more than one meaning at times; there are names that may represent the same person or city name that could be others (such as an issue with archeology); there are similar stories in the Gospels that may or not be the same event; etc. I am in agreement that the Pastor was immature in stating that just because it was an "old book" or something to that affect" that he wouldn't read it. The "thee" and "thou" words to me are unnecessary in KJV.
So I am sorry I can't agree totally with the KJV only crowd. I would say that there are certain aspects to truth that may actually be clearer in a different version; and more often when reading several different variations a fuller understanding may commence. We should be vigilant to make sure we aren't reading a largely spurious rendition; and at least very cautious with NIV. I think someone can find enough of the Gospel to be saved in either case; however.
I would like to ask a question concerning a certain pastor I had. You say: "How do we properly view a good Pastor or other leader? From my premise I have established that no man is perfect; but I'll say it straight out-no man is perfect." I agree that this points to spiritually maturity but let me ask you a question: What if your pastor tells you, in a private conversation at church, that he believed the KJB was just an old, ancient book and was "not written by God"? He preached out of the NIV and the NKJB, so I assume he thought the modern versions were and since I use the KJB only, because it is the one that is written by God,this really disturbed me. What do you think of him as a pastor? I believe he is immature and far from perfect because he is so easily blinded by what the world believes about the modern versions. It would only take a small amount of time to simply compare what the other versions say to the KJB to see how corrupt they are. When he told me this, just me while we were about to start our Wednesday night service it really bothered me and I left that church because I didn't feel like I could sit under his preaching. Up until I found out how he believed this, I would just follow along in my KJB while he preached from the NIV.
Getting back to my primary point on this specific subject; I will make an assumption that we are following a Pastor who is apparently a true believer; Biblically sound and therefore qualified to lead the local congregation as the example of who we can desire to emulate. That; of course is a tall order with the state and condition of churches in general at this hour.
A cult of personality; nonetheless can still rear its ugly head even in this situation. The first rule of thumb; of course is to determine if indeed a church is still teaching correct doctrine or if error is creeping in as that is a top method of the enemy. When one is puffed up there is danger of a little leaven creeping in. ( Romans 11:21). Revelation 2:4 mentions losing our first love while teaching is basically correct doctrinally.
There is; as my initial post alluded to distractions in the flesh. There is no doubt that many megachurches in particular are focused on young; attractive people in leadership as either Pastors or Music Directors in particular. I have gotten into that on previous occasions; so I won't elaborate here.
Ok; with the preliminaries well examined I will ask what seems to be a dumb question: How do we properly view a good Pastor or other leader? From my premise I have established that no man is perfect; but I'll say it straight out-no man is perfect.
Psalm 37:37 says to "mark the perfect man"; there are other N.T. references to being perfect but clearly this means fully mature. It should be clear that proper teaching must also be accompanied by proper living out of the Gospel. Given that IS occurring to the best of our understanding-then what? How do we allow this experience to transform us?
To be a conduit of truth; no doubt best aids the rest of the congregation through genuinely listening to the gifts of others in our midst. This means proper doctrine as well as timely messages edifying at the time.
That being said; I am not sure if this is a discussion I had with you or someone else who was insisting KJV was the only inspired version. In that I have to draw the line; the Geneva was earlier; along with Tyndale and I would suppose Latin Vulgate; at any rate there can be no perfect translation that makes literary sense from the original text. There are multiple numerical figures in different texts. There are also different Biblical texts that were from Africa; for instance. The original Greek; Hebrew or Aramaic have words that have more than one meaning at times; there are names that may represent the same person or city name that could be others (such as an issue with archeology); there are similar stories in the Gospels that may or not be the same event; etc. I am in agreement that the Pastor was immature in stating that just because it was an "old book" or something to that affect" that he wouldn't read it. The "thee" and "thou" words to me are unnecessary in KJV.
So I am sorry I can't agree totally with the KJV only crowd. I would say that there are certain aspects to truth that may actually be clearer in a different version; and more often when reading several different variations a fuller understanding may commence. We should be vigilant to make sure we aren't reading a largely spurious rendition; and at least very cautious with NIV. I think someone can find enough of the Gospel to be saved in either case; however.
I would like to ask a question concerning a certain pastor I had. You say: "How do we properly view a good Pastor or other leader? From my premise I have established that no man is perfect; but I'll say it straight out-no man is perfect." I agree that this points to spiritually maturity but let me ask you a question: What if your pastor tells you, in a private conversation at church, that he believed the KJB was just an old, ancient book and was "not written by God"? He preached out of the NIV and the NKJB, so I assume he thought the modern versions were and since I use the KJB only, because it is the one that is written by God,this really disturbed me. What do you think of him as a pastor? I believe he is immature and far from perfect because he is so easily blinded by what the world believes about the modern versions. It would only take a small amount of time to simply compare what the other versions say to the KJB to see how corrupt they are. When he told me this, just me while we were about to start our Wednesday night service it really bothered me and I left that church because I didn't feel like I could sit under his preaching. Up until I found out how he believed this, I would just follow along in my KJB while he preached from the NIV.
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