What are they teaching in Bible college?

[Bronconagurski]

My teenage son was in Bible fellowship following the early service. A visiting youth pastor taught this morning. He started off his lesson by quoting from Steven Furticks' book, "Greater." That set off alarm bells in my son, who does not like Furtick (he gets it honest as I do not either.)

He basically picked a subject, Teen Leaders, and found scripture to take out of context to prove his lesson. This pastor graduated from Piedmont Bible College, now Piedmont International University. He went to Matthew 17 and used scripture of Jesus talking to Peter about the temple tax. He said the reason Jesus and Peter had to pay the tax was that the rest of the disciples were teens, making them children, and Peter and Jesus were not. He totally missed what Jesus was teaching about the king's children not being obligated to pay the tax, thus Jesus and his disciples weren't obligated, but so as not to offend, they would pay it. He then said that all teens were supposed to be leaders because most of the disciples were teens when Jesus called them to service. I was flaggergasted by this. The good news for my son is that I taught him to search out lessons for himself, but he didn't even need to with this one it was so blatantly wrong.

Our youth pastor was in there, but did not correct him at that time, but I would hope did later. What would you do in this case if it happened in your church?

 

[Greektim]

My teenage son was in Bible fellowship following the early service. A visiting youth pastor taught this morning. He started off his lesson by quoting from Steven Furticks' book, "Greater." That set off alarm bells in my son, who does not like Furtick (he gets it honest as I do not either.)

He basically picked a subject, Teen Leaders, and found scripture to take out of context to prove his lesson. This pastor graduated from Piedmont Bible College, now Piedmont International University. He went to Matthew 17 and used scripture of Jesus talking to Peter about the temple tax. He said the reason Jesus and Peter had to pay the tax was that the rest of the disciples were teens, making them children, and Peter and Jesus were not. He totally missed what Jesus was teaching about the king's children not being obligated to pay the tax, thus Jesus and his disciples weren't obligated, but so as not to offend, they would pay it. He then said that all teens were supposed to be leaders because most of the disciples were teens when Jesus called them to service. I was flaggergasted by this. The good news for my son is that I taught him to search out lessons for himself, but he didn't even need to with this one it was so blatantly wrong.

Our youth pastor was in there, but did not correct him at that time, but I would hope did later. What would you do in this case if it happened in your church?

Any school worth its salt does not spoon feed interpretations to the students. At best, they should teach them how to think critically and interpret independently from indoctrination.

That said, I am a grad of Piedmont. But I have shed much of their indoctrination. However, you can't judge an entire school based on 1 student. I'd be interested to know when this person graduated and what program he was in, but out of all the major problems to have, this is not one of them. Typically, teens get crappy, topical messages that lack the substance of lordship that they need more than anything else. So you are dealing with multiple issues, one peripheral is bible college education. But there is probably a core issue that is greater.

As a side note, I am rarely impressed by bible college pastors who do not do graduate school/seminary training to hone their "skills". Undergraduate studies is pretty weak compared to the upper level of academia.

 

[Mexdeaf]

I took a group of men to a Men's conference last year. One of the preachers was so far off the mark that hurt to watch him preach (it was a Deaf Men's conference). It was mostly "Rah, rah - clap for Jesus" with a few crazy stories and laps around the room tossed in. The other speaker was very good, he stuck with the text, explained what it meant and made application.

On the way home from the conference I asked the guys what they thought about the preaching. They all said they liked the "rah-rah" guy (which did not surprise me at all- Deaf people love action). So I asked them what he taught them that will make a difference in their lives. They could not say anything. Then I asked if they had gotten anything out of the other preacher's message, and their eyes lit up and they said yes. This gave me an opportunity to challenge them not to allow themselves to be deceived by a good show and to analyze what they hear (see). Most of my guys are health nuts so I used the "empty calories" illustration- some food has little nutritional value and is mostly just fat- and some (if not most) preaching is like that.

That being said, I don't see much value in getting up and rebuking the visiting preacher on the spot. My experience has been that it is better to speak with the group about it later that day (if possible) or in the next meeting. And it would be even better for someone in the group who smelled a rat to bring it up to the group.

 

[mont974x4]

There is a huge move to the left in many Bible colleges. Liberal politics and liberal theology is the norm. Northwest Nazarene University, for example, has allowed mystics and their practices a welcome forum.

Scripture said these days would come.

 

[annsni]

I'm reading Metaxis' Bonhoeffer and I can say that they were dealing with this back then. Nothing is new under the sun. Nothing. There are good schools and bad schools and unfortunately, more and more "good" schools are going bad.

 

[Bronconagurski]

Any school worth its salt does not spoon feed interpretations to the students. At best, they should teach them how to think critically and interpret independently from indoctrination.

That said, I am a grad of Piedmont. But I have shed much of their indoctrination. However, you can't judge an entire school based on 1 student. I'd be interested to know when this person graduated and what program he was in, but out of all the major problems to have, this is not one of them. Typically, teens get crappy, topical messages that lack the substance of lordship that they need more than anything else. So you are dealing with multiple issues, one peripheral is bible college education. But there is probably a core issue that is greater.

As a side note, I am rarely impressed by bible college pastors who do not do graduate school/seminary training to hone their "skills". Undergraduate studies is pretty weak compared to the upper level of academia.

You are right, Piedmont has been a solid school in the past as my Pastor I got saved under went there, so I shouldn't paint with a broad brush. The core issue probably is greater, as you say. There seems to be a thing with teen pastors today that doctrine or theology is not that important to teens. My son takes it serious, however, of which I am glad. He is not going into the ministry like my older son, but likes bible study. The sad thing is that most of the kids didn't even know that they were being taught something that was wrong.

 

[Bronconagurski]

I took a group of men to a Men's conference last year. One of the preachers was so far off the mark that hurt to watch him preach (it was a Deaf Men's conference). It was mostly "Rah, rah - clap for Jesus" with a few crazy stories and laps around the room tossed in. The other speaker was very good, he stuck with the text, explained what it meant and made application.

On the way home from the conference I asked the guys what they thought about the preaching. They all said they liked the "rah-rah" guy (which did not surprise me at all- Deaf people love action). So I asked them what he taught them that will make a difference in their lives. They could not say anything. Then I asked if they had gotten anything out of the other preacher's message, and their eyes lit up and they said yes. This gave me an opportunity to challenge them not to allow themselves to be deceived by a good show and to analyze what they hear (see). Most of my guys are health nuts so I used the "empty calories" illustration- some food has little nutritional value and is mostly just fat- and some (if not most) preaching is like that.

That being said, I don't see much value in getting up and rebuking the visiting preacher on the spot. My experience has been that it is better to speak with the group about it later that day (if possible) or in the next meeting. And it would be even better for someone in the group who smelled a rat to bring it up to the group.

You are correct that he should not have rebuked the visiting preacher in front of everyone. But this guy is a good friend of his, so I hope he does at least approach him.

So many preachers today pick a topic and go out and look up scripture to use to preach.

 

[quantumfaith]

Bronc, I feel the need to "interject" ....I do not see anything inherently "wrong" with topical preaching....it has its place. Pastors can certainly be moved to speak and teach on "topics" addressed in scripture. One should not (imho) rely solely and entirely on topical preaching.

 

[Bronconagurski]

Bronc, I feel the need to "interject" ....I do not see anything inherently "wrong" with topical preaching....it has its place. Pastors can certainly be moved to speak and teach on "topics" addressed in scripture. One should not (imho) rely solely and entirely on topical preaching.

Neither do I if it is not taken out of context. My experience of listening to sermons for 30 years has told me it lends itself to error more than expository or evangelistic preaching. But you are right, it can be effective if someone does their homework and relays what the scripture tells us about God rather than going straight for the application, which is usually the methodology used. I am all for applying scripture to my life if it can be, but I can do that much better after I see what it tells me about God.