Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
Millions upon millions of voices all clamoring at the same time, all uttering the same thing . . .
God says . . .
The Bible (God) says . . .
God is leading me to say . . .
God is telling me to tell you . . .
One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, right?
Get a Baptist and a Catholic in the same room and let them duke it out over One Baptism. Infant baptism, adult convert baptism, or both?
Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and these three are one. Surely everyone agrees? Not me, says the Oneness Pentecostal or the Apostolic.
Baptism saves. It doesn’t save. No, it’s water baptism plus speaking in tongues as evidence of Holy Ghost baptism that saves.
Communion is the Lord’s Supper, Baptists say. Other Christians say it is the Eucharist. Is it really the body of Christ (transubstantiation), is it kind of the real body of Christ (consubstantiation), or is it a memorial? Wine? Welch’s grape juice? Pepsi and Ritz crackers?
Pre-, Mid-, Pre-wrath-, Post-rapture, and tribulation.
Pre-, A-, Post-millennial reign of Christ.
Dispensationalism. Non-dispensationalism. Hyper-dispensationalism.
Calvinism.
Arminianism.
Pelagianism.
Cessationist. Non-cessationist.
The Old Testament is for today. No it’s not.
The gospels are for today. No, they’re not.
New Perspective on Paul. No, Old Perspective.
Pauline or Peterine. Or maybe James is right when he says faith without works is dead?
The Old Testament law is still for today.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is, but only the Ten Commandants.
No, only Nine Commandments, and maybe the verses on tithing. Got to pay my bills, you know.
Only the words in red matter.
Only what Paul writes matters.
Did Paul write Hebrews?
Did Moses write the Pentateuch?
God created the universe in six literal twenty-four-hour days. No, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years. No, God created the earth with apparent age. No, God used evolution to create our biological world.
Eternal Security. No, perseverance of the saints. No, preservation of the saints.
Can a Christian lose his salvation (fall from grace)?
Can I get my lost salvation back? Yes! No! It depends!
Hell.
Annihilation.
Purgatory.
Sixty-six books in the Protestant Bible. Catholics, Mormons, and Orthodox count differently, but they aren’t Christians, so who the Heaven cares how many books are in their Bible?
So when you say:
God says . . .
The Bible (God) says . . .
God is leading me to say . . .
God is telling me to tell you . . .
Pray tell, why should we believe you?
How do we know that you have the faith once delivered to the saints?
Can you even answer the most basic of questions?
What is salvation? How is a person saved?
By grace?
By faith?
By works?
By faith, plus works?
By faith, plus works, and staying true to the end?
I can choose?
I can’t choose?
God chooses me?
I choose God?
Baptism saves?
Baptism doesn’t save?
You argue endlessly among yourselves, like toddlers fighting over a toy or Donald Trump and Mike Pence fighting over a Kentucky Fried Chicken drumstick.
The Bible SAYS!
God SAYS!
Our church SAYS!
Our confession SAYS!
Our catechism SAYS!
The Pope SAYS!
The Pastor SAYS!
There is one TRUE church and it is ours, countless denominations and churches say.
With us, and Heaven is your home. Against us, and you fry. Choose right, lest ye die and burn forever!
Your lack of unity is the indictment against you.
Your lack of a singular voice is clear to all who can see beyond the threats of Hell and promises of Heaven.
You should not then be shocked when you try to tell non-Christians God says or the Bible says and they smile and turn a deaf ear.
Oh wait, they are deaf because God made them that way.
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. (Luke 8:10)
It’s God’s fault.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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That’s a good summary of how the Bible is used to promote various and competing ideas. And each group thinks it has THE TRUTH (TM).
“THE TRUTH” (TM) I like that. A trademarked copyrighted version of the truth. They all want it and all claim it, effectively discrediting each other. That is exactly what started so many of us questioning religion writ large. They can’t all be true.
The way all these Biblical subjects are taught, and by whom, over the years, has been a real turn off, because these same people call each other out, call each other ‘ false prophets/ teachers,’etc. And it just got SO wearisome to deal with! So of course like many people, I don’t trust any of them, remembering bad advice here and there,for so long- some of which ruined my life. It even caused premature deaths ! I’d always tell someone now, don’t drop your brain into a wastebasket. Take everything with a grain or two,of sea 🧂 salt, lol !
Holy crap! That’s a great drawing. Make a swell book cover.
scat porn deleted
And with a whole container of sea salt dumped on it ! Scat porn………gotta look that term up, lol.🤭
Scat porn lol! Every time I hear the word “scatalogical” I am taken back to the handbook of the fundamentalist Christian school I attended. There was a rule prohibiting scatalogical humor. I was 10 and asked my mom what that meant. As well read asshe was, she had to look up the word in the dictionary. Poop jokes – scatalogical humor means poop jokes. That rule was taken from the Bob Jones University handbook, the college that the founders of my school attended.
This entire “You Say You Speak for God” post is a perfect illustration of why so many families have been broken up, so many people groups have been marginalized, and so bloody corpses are strewn throughout the battlefields of history.
From the first line (Millions upon millions of voices all clamoring at the same time, all uttering God says) to the last line (Oh wait, they are deaf because God made them that way), this is the best description of the twisted, convoluted, confusion that everyone calls … The Bible.