Some believe the Bible bars paying preachers. An LDS viewer claimed no one has been able to cite scriptures for compensating them. (I don’t think he will be able to say that if he watches this). With any Bible question, Christians always ask the question in Jeremiah 37:17: “Is there a word from the Lord?” Yes!
I’m Weldon Langfield, author of The Truth about Divorce and Remarriage: A Politically Incorrect Guide to Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in Today’s Church.
Why are the divorced singled out (no pun intended) by some churches? Is it cultural, as it seems to have taken root in the southern United States? Decades ago, the Bible Belt, which has four times the consumption of hard liquor per person as the rest of the country, and where substance abuse is so prevalent that a person can buy only very limited amounts of some over-the-counter allergy medications, had a lower divorce rate than other regions. Bible Belt preacher W. W. Otey, author of the influential Modernism in the Church, concluded singling out those with failed marriages was indeed cultural. He wrote:
Televangelist Joyce Meyer claims God put it in her heart to preach. Maybe that supposed divine directive was fiction – a lie – a figment of her imagination or planted by Satan. Yet, God can’t be its source. He wrote the Bible through inspired men. Scripture explains the gift that distinguished inspired authors of God’s word:
We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit…. We have the mind of Christ.
1 Cor 2:11-12, 16
What did the mind of Christ, now recorded in the Bible, reveal to me about Joyce Meyer and all female preachers?
I’m Weldon Langfield, author of The Truth about Divorce and Remarriage: A Politically Incorrect View of Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in Today’s Church.
Some believe divorced folks must be flawed, or they wouldn’t be divorced. Yet, God is divorced. Jeremiah 3:8 says, “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had…given her a writ of divorce…” The Lord doesn’t sin. James 1:13 says that God cannot even be tempted by evil. God’s divorce proves failed marriages don’t always indicate the divorced are defective. Does the fact that most anti-marriage preachers and leaders are totally unaware of God’s divorce underscore their lack of qualifications to address the subject of divorce and remarriage? What lessons does God’s divorce teach?
Christians were once known for their Bible knowledge. When in my 20s, an older man in the congregation, a woodworker by trade, was known in the area as the “walking Bible.” Now, few ever study at home. Is the individual mastery of God’s word being replaced by preachers as our sources of truth? Ministers, like other Christians, are not perfect. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Some use scriptures, differently understood by sound men, to seek out and destroy marriages not meeting their standards. Yet, they ignore plain, undisputed Bible commands.
First, certain ministers refuse to baptize truth seekers. Why? They have not repented of a supposed sin never mentioned in the Bible: their current “adulterous marriage.” Yet the same ministers ignore what the Bible clearly says in Acts 10:47: “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized…”
Following are excerpts a brother, Bill Lewis, wrote in a troubling email:
This doctrine (that is, error on divorce and remarriage) is a major problem in…my area. Here, where…churches are small and scattered, we rely on…schools of preaching. [A well-known school] has been graduating 50 men every two years since 1965. Their version of the gospel is to push this agenda, and they are militant…I realize the heads of the schools are not going to admit they are wrong, but the members need to hear another voice, and there isn’t any other being taught. That is why I am passionate about getting this disseminated. This doctrine was not taught in the church, ever, up until recent years. Now the church is getting to be known by it, as the Mormon church is by polygamy, and it is just as damaging. I am determined to do whatever I can to cry out against it. With my very limited resources and being totally unknown in the brotherhood, I have faith the Lord will be my strength. Lord bless.
Hi. I’m Weldon Langfield, author of The Truth About Divorce and Remarriage: A Politically Incorrect View of Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in Today’s Church. I have known many preachers. Some are close friends. If it weren’t for their encouragement, I would have never preached. Consider a dark side of some preachers:
Foy Wallace, Jr., who died in 1986, is a former editor of the Gospel Advocate. Wallace was very well-known. He was said by many to have had as much name recognition as Alexander Campbell and was called “The Dean of Preachers.” Foy Wallace, Jr. knew preachers. He wrote:
The course of many preachers and the breaking up of family relations, and the refusal to…baptize certain ones whose marriage status does not measure up to his standard of approval is…presumptuous. It reveals the tendency to displace God as the Judge of us all, and a preacher ascends to the bench….There are some things…done in certain circumstances which cannot in later circumstances be undone, which remain matters between God and the individual, and therefore reserved for judgment. It is certain, however, that if the Lord Jesus Christ had intended a course of action in these cases, he would not have left it for preachers to prescribe.”
Continue reading “SOMETHING ABOUT PREACHERS, PART ONE (Divorce and Remarriage in a Few Minutes)”
Occasionally, WeldonLangfield.com receives email from those damaged by preachers who believe their take on divorce and remarriage is absolutely correct and beyond question. So much so, that all other Bible teachings, including those commanding unity, are far less important. Such an email arrived recently. Reproduced below, it has been slightly edited, and names have been withheld. Consider:
Continue reading “THE ROTTEN FRUIT OF HOMEWRECKING PREACHERS #4: The Bad Fruit of Division – A Sad Email”
A prominent, influential Central California church acquired a new preacher. Once his “honeymoon” was over, he began teaching on divorce and remarriage aggressively and often. An elder at that time said their PC pulpiteer insisted that prospects for baptism and members must be questioned to determine if their marriages were “scriptural.” When the preacher refused to baptize a couple, the elders called respected Foy Wallace Jr. for advice. Wallace said, “If he won’t baptize them, I will.”
Continue reading “THE ROTTEN FRUIT OF HOMEWRECKING PREACHERS #3: The Bad Fruit of Division”