Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'christianity'.
-
In talking with several people that I am in contact with through physical therapy, grocery shopping, my wife's place of employment, etc, I have been asked many times why Christians are so hateful when they are talking to people. I asked for examples, and some of them were shocking, many of them being from Baptist pastors, deacons, and laypeople. I'm going to list several of the conversations, abbreviated.... 1) A young man my wife works with went to a Baptist church to visit with the possibility of becoming a member with his wife and three children. They visited an I(big "I" little you) FB church. It's a pretty well-known church in the Nashville area. They went to Sunday school where the SS teacher was bashing a local community church pastor ministry because he had allowed a local Gideon missionary to come and speak. He had a great presentation, and he gave the Gospel during his presentation. Two people were saved during the service, but, there was one thing that this IFB pastor had focused on. The Gideon missionary didn't use the KJV, but instead used the ESV, his message being that the fields were all ready to be harvested. This pastor said nothing about the two souls won, nothing about how the Holy Spirit used the ESV in his work. He was so derogatory in his criticism of this local pastor that he ended up losing two of his own members and families who had questioned him on his stances over the past few years. When he talked to the two families it wasn't to try and find out their concerns, it was instead to attack them as heretics, people who were spreading discord among the brethren, which was not the case, and ones who wanted to destroy the KJV and the ministry that they were setting under. Apparently, the pastor felt threatened, and it was very apparent that he felt attacked for no reason....The young man who visited the church with his family (he doesn't use the KJV, but instead uses the NLT, which was used in leading him to the Lord several years ago) was very upset about the things going on. He asked for a few minutes with the pastor, but, the pastor said that since he wasn't a member he didn't owe this man any time, nor did he owe him an explanation. This hasn't been uncommon here in our area. 2) A young man that I have been in contact with and have been witnessing to has been attending a large IFB church here in the Murfreesboro area. He had come to know the Lord during a service that was run by the Billy Graham program. He was saved several years ago and wanted to be baptized. The leadership in this church who visited him told him and his wife that they questioned the validity of his salvation. The reasons given were that he had made a decision under the ministry of Billy Graham and that Billy Graham was a false prophet. He was taken aback by the things coming from this pastor's mouth, and when the pastor got even more insistent that the man "make sure of his salvation" he ordered the pastor out of his home. He's now a member of the World Outreach Church, a very well-known non-denominational church here in Murfreesboro. Since he joined there he has led four people to the Lord, has been baptized, and is being trained on how to be an SS teacher. He was surprised by the hatefulness and dishonesty that came from the pastor's mouth, and I have to say that I don't blame him. Yes, we should be ones to earnestly contend for the faith as told in Jude 1:3. Still, we are to speak the TRUTH in love...not mix our opinions with scripture to fit with our own ideology These are just two instances. Why is it that Christians are becoming so hateful and deceptive in their presentation of the Gospel? Why is it that many of them don't try to present Christ in such a way that others humbly and willingly come to church? I find this a very disturbing trend.