Sunday Sermons: Godly or Manly?

Sermon. Doesn’t that word just conjure up warmth and excitement? Wish you could hear one every day instead of just once per week?

A bit of unvarnished honesty from me… In 33 years of being a Christian I’ve listened to approximately 1600 sermons. Overall I’d say that about 5% were interesting or valuable, 5% were OK, and about 90% have been boring and of little or no value whatsoever. But every week I go to church and endure another. Why?

Permit me, if you will, to think out loud for a bit…

In my years of being a Christian I’ve come to greatly value Christian fellowship. I think that routinely (like at least a few times per week) getting together with other Christians is vitally important. I think that coming together and worshipping God, in song and prayer, is important. I also think that studying God’s word and learning about God is important. Most sermons meet about zero of these.

From what I can tell, there is nothing in God’s Word about weekly sermons. The weekly sermon is purely man-made tradition. We passively endure them for the sake of tradition, not because of anything God has instructed us.

Extremely few people are capable of either writing a good sermon or of delivering one. People become pastors and the weekly sermon is a traditional expectation of the job so regardless of qualification or ability these pastors spend valuable pastoral time every week writing and then practicing their weekly sermon. It is the center of most of their universe. How much better if these pastors instead spent time being a shepherd to their flock? Spent this time helping people in the congregation? Or to go further, do we even need paid full-time pastors?

I most often get far more out of discussions with other Christians than from any sermon. This is not only more valuable to my growth as a Christian but is also far more interesting and enjoyable.

Perhaps our churches are backwards. I wonder if smaller home groups shouldn’t be the core of the church. Instead of going to church every Sunday morning (or Sat night or whenever) maybe we should instead focus on going to a home group every week. And then maybe once a month on a Sunday night all of our home groups get together for a corporate worship time and MAYBE for a brief and relevant sermon.

These are very incomplete thoughts. More later…

FLDS: Raymond Jessop Trial

Week two of the State of Texas vs Raymond Jessop is rolling along. He is accused of rape of a minor – his 16 year old wife (married in church, but no license from the state). If he did, in any way, force this girl to have sex against her will then he is indeed guilty and should be punished. In my opinion, very harshly. But what if she was a willing bride? What if marrying this 33-year-old man and becoming a mother to his children was her earnest desire?

All of those Bible believing folk on the jury need to consider their very own Bible as they consider judgment. Let’s assume for a moment that this girl did desire to be his wife and the mother of his children. In that case convicting him would be tantamount to convicting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Solomon, Joseph (father of Jesus), and Gideon. Are we so much better than these six men whom God loved and adored and held out to us as examples? To the best of my knowledge none of these six men were ever criticized or punished by God or anyone for having more than one wife or for their brides being under the age of 18 (most of their brides were actually about 13 or 14 year old).

As I mentioned the week of the raid, if Jesus came back today he might very well consider the lifestyle of all those polygynists at the El Dorado ranch to be far more Godly than that of the average Baptist, Evangelical, or Catholic. What with our divorce rates greater than non-Christians, hypocrisy and judgmentalism rampant, over 70% of our teen girls losing their virginity well before marriage (most often while at Christian colleges), and piousness blowing out the roof.

Jessop is being tried for having sex with someone under the age of 18, why bring polygyny into the discussion? Does anyone really think that any of the jurors will not be thinking about his having multiple wives? About that whole horrible community down the road with all of those perverted men with multiple wives?

Surely the prosecution won’t slip in a few extra ‘influencers’ like pictures of Jessop with his wives and children, and comments about his ‘other wives’.

Will Jessop get a fair trial? We’ll see. Of course this is Texas we’re talking about. A state with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and single-parent families in the nation. A state that does less about these problems than just about any other. But let those polygynists with their conservative dress, happy intelligent responsible children, and near zero divorce, move in and something must be done!

If she was a willing bride then in my not very humble opinion every Bible believing juror who votes to convict him needs to go home and rip Song of Solomon out of every one of their Bibles and should probably also leave any church that doesn’t do the same. Either you believe in God’s Word or you don’t. It’s not difficult. Maybe they should just get rid of all of their Bibles.