"Preach the Word,

Uh-oh! Here comes trouble! That is the reaction I will more likely receive especially with a blog title like this. But I'm tired of quite a bit of convenient 'RE-interpretation' that pastors, church leaders, and religious organizations have taken with the requirements established for deacons and pastors.

Okay, our primary look is at I Timothy 3:1-12 and Titus 1:5-9 where we read of the requirements laid out for bishops (pastors) and deacons. When we look at church history [note: I refer to our Christian faith more specifically the Baptist history] we see that most Bible scholars had no issue with the understanding that a divorced man could not be a pastor or deacon, but in the last century we find a new "revelation" that conveniently falls in place with other "new revelations" like women preachers, homosexual-practicing 'Christians', and other twisted lies from Satan. Should we cast the blame for the acceptation of these lies on the preacher or the audience? I think both bear responsibility but the preacher definitely has more accountability before God. Sadly, the audience is leaving itself open for these lies as more and more of them forgo the idea of true personal Bible study and rely on the preacher to tell them what to do and what to believe. My desire is for more church members to as those of the church at Berean (Acts 17:11). Now I don't have any in-depth scholarly studies nor do I have any studies in Biblical languages (unless you count the Greek I studied in High School back in 1986...which I forgot by 1987) but I do have a Greek Study Bible, a couple of Concordances, and a computer that aids in my study of the Scriptures. I downloaded the free E-Sword software to both my laptop and my PDA [note: the PDA version came with the Greek New Testament (Textus Receptus), the Greek Old Testament (The Septuagint), King James Bible, Strong's Concordance, Clarke Commentary, Thayer Commentary, Strong's Concordance, Webster's Dictionary, and a couple of more reference materials.] which I love to use in church services to keep a preacher 'honest' as they show off their knowledge with Greek or Hebrew words. For example, I recently listened to a sermon where a preacher used 10 Greek words and 6 were either the wrong word or the wrong definition. Oh, the preacher sounded good with his expansive vocabulary and biblical knowledge but a true study by the audience would verify whether the preacher was speaking the truth or just trying to impress. I don' t mean any unkindness but this seriously weakens the message when the messenger is at best weakly presenting the very words of God and at worse willfully misleading or downright lying to God's people. Oh the responsibility and accountability!

Back on point, the most convenient method of twisting is through ignorance more than an intentional twisting of the Bible. Without overwhelming you or taxing my limited knowledge of Greek, I do want to point out the most common misinterpretation in this particular case of the subject matter...is simply the word "ONE." This simple word is translated a few different ways in the New Testament, but most people easily confuse this (especially when they don't learn to study and prove the pastor - Acts 17:11). In I Timothy 3 & Titus 1 the phrase "the husband of one wife" is often confused as being the same translation of "the wife of one husband" used to describe the 'enrollment' requirements of a widow into the churches 'widow support program' (see I Timothy 5: 1-17) but upon closer examination one discovers that the Greek words used for "ONE" are different. I Timothy 5 uses the word heis which is usually used in the sequence of numbers most often translated as the numeric value of one. I Timothy 3 & Titus 1 uses mia which is usually used as the numeric place value (most often translated one or first). So a pastor or deacon is to have one wife only. Now before you ask an exception could/would be made in the case of the death of a spouse. God doesn't judge this as immorality or adultery, because in God's eyes He sees one man and one woman i.e. marriage as a living relationship. So how can something this clear and this precise in either English or Greek be so easily confused or misconstrued? Well, simply the serpent has been twisting the truth of God since the garden, so why are we so surprised? And as we Christians sit in our comfortable pews we expect the preacher to feed us and we do little any real studying ourselves. No wonder the devil has his way with us.

Now I think I said everything I wanted to so how do I end this long posting? Let me say that we must always honor the man of God and should never disrespect the authority that God has placed over us, but we should not automatically accept everything that is said (Acts 17:11). So I guess the best, last words I could say is STUDY THE WORD.

Let's prove the preacher and in the process learn a little ourselves!! God bless you as you seek to know the Savior and strive to share Him with another this week.