The sermon was from Galatians 4:21-31. It focused on why it is important to wait for God’s timing and methods instead of trying to do things in our own way and in our own time. I think this is an important message for the church to hear. In that scripture Paul builds an illustration based on the relationship Abraham had with Hagar, which produced Ishmael. That particular story is not well known among many Christians, so I decided to tell the story as part of the sermon.
The problem was that since I did not have access to any of my reference books I decided to tell the story from memory. My memory failed me and I got the characters wrong and told the story as if Esau was the son of Hagar instead of Ishmael. Though I got the point across adequately, the details were not very accurate. Most of the congregation never realized I had messed the story up. But about 10% of the congregation caught the error. Some realized my mistake the moment I made it. Others knew something about the story seemed off but did not know what it was until they got home and looked it up. Needless to say, we had a great laugh about it afterwards and I sent out an email to the congregation correcting my mistake.
But all week I have not been able to get out of my mind how “easy” it was to tell a “messed up” biblical story and have 90% of the congregation go along with it. Thank God for the 10% who caught it and pointed it out to me. Though we might chuckle about having a name wrong, what if it had been a key theological point? I suspect many people still would not have caught the error.
Regretfully, most Christians sitting in church today are biblically illiterate. They do not know the Bible well enough to spot an error when a pastor or Bible teacher makes one. Though one error might not make a church fall apart, imagine weeks, or months, or years, of errors built on each other. Sadly, that is exactly where many churches are today.
I learned to study a bit harder from this experience. But I was also reminded that we need to help people in the church study the Bible on their own so they will be able to spot an error when it happens. Each of us needs to spend time in the Bible each day. We must be good students of the Word. Otherwise, what starts as a small mistake, if not corrected, can grow into a big problem.
Excellent post, and a good reminder of why expository preaching, even if slightly topical in nature, is so vitally important in our churches.
ReplyDeleteAnd people should be looking up and studying for themselves. After all, like the Scriptures say, "God helps those who help themselves." (wink)
Thanks Dave. I agree, expository preaching is the best way to educate Christians.
ReplyDeleteThose who want to increase their Bible knowledge but struggle to stay focused on it, try using this Bible puzzle book as a learning tool.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/bible-brain-teasers-fun-adventures-through-the-bible/17977964
Maybe pastors should throw in an unimportant error once a month and let the person who finds it hit the refreshment table first :-)
ReplyDeleteAt the end of every sermon I encourage my people to not believe anything I have said in the sermon simply because I said it. Take home my sermon and study the passages themselves and see if I am right. Then when and on when they can agree with me after study do what it says from now on.
ReplyDeleteDonna,
ReplyDeleteThat might be a great idea, but I already put my foot in my mouth and chew all the way to the kneecap far too often to purposely put silly stuff into my sermons.
Terry
Mark,
ReplyDeleteGreat idea!!!! If all Christians would do that, fewer churches would turn liberal and lose the heart of the gospel.
Terry
Terry,
ReplyDeleteWe are beginning a training/mentoring for two men who have a desire to teach / preach in the local church and small group setting. We have been praying for over four years for this... A small but significant step.
Walt
Praise the Lord! Glad you are going to train them. Consider using Developing Leadership Teams in the Bivocational Church, since it has a built in six week training course. It will not teach them EVERYTHING they need to know but it will give them a good foundation and then they can build on it with other resources. I can make the books available to you for $15 each, which is currently less than Amazon.com charges. Let me know if you want some copies.
ReplyDeleteYour post explores an issue I am looking at within the American Church (universal). This past Sunday our pastor announced a prayer meeting on Tuesday morning at 6:30 am to pray over the election in our State. We get around 1,000 people to worship on Sunday morning. Tuesday morning I showed up to a prayer meeting that was attended by about 10 people total, INCLUDING FOUR MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH STAFF WHO HAD TO BE THERE!
ReplyDeleteWhat is my point? We have a crisis of spiritual foundation in American churches. People don't come to church to take God seriously; they come to church for a social exchange, to meet friends, or to pay their respects to God out of tradition or heritage.
Another crisis in the Church is leadership that takes errors such as yours lightly. Our senior pastor was away about a month ago, and one of the associate pastors preached a message. Part of the message had us turning to the book of "Revelations". I wouldn't have been bothered by this minute blunder, except for the fact that not only was it verbally spoken that way, but also included in the power point presentation as such!!! I emailed the pastor to point out this error, and their response was to criticize my critique and to question my spiritual integrity. Yes, perhaps I was being petty and making mountains out of mole hills, but the pastor of that church never even apologized for the error, but pointed the finger back at me as to say, "How dare you!"
I opted to move on from this church, but the example is not an isolated one. I've even seen news stories where they document and interview pastors of churches that don't even believe in God!!!
We've got a major spiritual crisis in this country, and revival of the Holy Spirit is desperately needed. I fear that our leadership in Washington reflects the general consensus of the American populace. We are apathetic about religion and Christianity specifically. We'll continue to "play church" for an hour on Sunday morning, but don't you dare ask us to pray or study the Bible. That would take us out of our comfort zone.
This post was reposted on:
ReplyDeletehttp://townhall.com/news/religion/2012/02/01/firstperson_if_your_pastor_made_a_sermon_blunder_would_you_catch_it/page/2
This sermon was reposted on:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=37087
To my readers,
ReplyDeleteBaptist Press re-posted this article on their website and I got the email lbelow today from Michael Foust, one of their editors:
Your column last week was the seventh-most read story on our website. We had several dozen stories, so that’s quite good. Congratulations!
Michael Foust
Baptist Press
Philip,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful post. I wish that mistakes like mine were rare, but as you have observed, they are not. I regret to say that my mistake was ALSO on the power point as well as verbal. But I did send out an email correction as well as corrected the printed notes before they were posted to the web. So we tried to fix it the best we can. I think my experience served as a great "teaching moment" for both my congregation and I. I wrote about it publically in hopes it might be a teaching moment for others too. God bless.
Terry