I said: 1.Absolutely NO SCRIPTURE READING WHATSOEVER. No Bible. No Koran. No Torah. Sorry. NADA!.
jasonb writes:
That is a bit of a harsh constraint. That’s like if I asked you to prove the bible is wrong but you cant quote anything from the Bible.
But the discussion is not all about the Bible, it's about the morality of a preacher(and I'm not nearly the only one) who doesn't believe every word on a LITERAL basis.
2.The Bible is not absolutely innerrant. Wonderful lesson book, but not historically sound in many places.
Ok lets tackle this. What if you have two people in your church who come to you with a dispute? Lets say man B is sleeping with man A’s wife. Man A says it is wrong for man B to sleep with his wife and wants you to instruct him as the spiritual leader to stop. Man B says the rules about adultery in the Bible are outdated, and quotes back to you your own beliefs that The Bible is not absolutely inerrant.
For one thing, what about the wives? Their opinions mean something as well, contrary to the Bible. As a Biblical preacher I'd advise them right off, but I'm not so I'd keep them there and call both wives and tell them to come down. When all four of them were present, I'd explain the situation and I'd show mr. know-it-all that if an ancient moral code isn't motivation to stop, his wife beating the tar out of him will be. If he doesn't have a wife, I'll explain it's wrong because it's intruding in on the other guy.
Now if the wife A is with B because guy A is abusive, I'd say divorce him. She shouldn't be bound in a holy contract that one side already broke.
Lets say a mother and her adult child come to you and ask your advice. It seems the daughter has a very bad heart condition and needs a hear transplant. The mother tells you that she loves her daughter dearly and cant stand to watch her die so that night she is going to commit an assisted suicide, so that her heart can be harvested and given to her child. She asks if you would help.
I would ask her how long before a transplant was ready for her daughter first. If it was going to take longer than her daughter could survive, then I would urge her not to do so anyway. Not only does the Bible say something against it for those who agree with that(this part I agree with; I normally think suicide is a coward's escape) but in this case it isn't running away. It's trying to save someone else in exchange for your own life. With that in mind, I wouldn't physically try to stop her if she was bent on it and understood the possible consequences, but I'd tell her to pray for some serious advice etc. Pop quiz:In the Old Testament, who almost commited an assisted suicide because God told him to? I'll give you a hint: A dad was going to kill his son because of this decree.
How would you advise these two women? What spiritual authority would you ground your decision on, and what would be the ramifications of your decision on the rest of your church body?
Lets say a man in your church comes to you and tells you lately he has been very sexually attracted to his mule. For a long time he has been hiding his desires because he thought they were evil, but then it occurred to him that perhaps the Bibles rules against bestiality were wrong. He asks you if you would marry him and his mule.
I would say no for a number of reasons. My own opinion on this aside, how can he be so sure that his donkey feels the same way? I wouldn't think so. To my knowledge(correct me if I'm wrong), animals usually aren't sexually attracted to us, are they? Dogs that leg-hump don't count, I mean the real thing.
A person in your church calls you on the phone and she tells you she has a gun to her head and is going to pull the trigger because she has lost all hope.
What can you say in the two or three minutes she will give you to restore her hope?
Trust me, if she was a member of a church she'd already hear the Eternal Promise. Mentioning that would yeild an obscenity and a very messy room on the other end of the call. People in church already know this, and if they're at that kind of edge they wouldn't care at all. I know I didn't back when I was clinically depressed.
If I knew her from church, I'd know her and some reasons she should be alive, I'd mention those. When she says that it's all bullshit, I'd tell her she's wrong, and that whatever's wrong is no need to end it. If anything, live to piss off the world that hates you. May sound bad, but there's not much else to motivate a person who's that depressed and honestly thinks everyone hates them.
These are the kinds of questions that pastors deal with on a daily basis (except maybe the mule one). I am worried that if you do not have a firm foundation, rooted in truth, guided by the Holy Spirit, sprinkled with the grace of your creator, empowered by the all powerful, with the love and understanding of Jesus on your heart, you will lead your flock astray.
There's a notion in me that what you said MAY be the case. That's why I'm talking about it. I'm curious how you would answer the last one; do you really think telling them something from the Bible they already knew and almost certainly thought about before they called you will convince them? It sure wouldn't me if I were in her shoes.
Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.
http://www.BadPreacher.5u.com (incomplete, but look anyway!)
scissors anyone? 
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