Expository Preaching Blog #23 – “You Can’t Teach the Bible In My Church”

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My wife and I have that statement told to us twice now in the last 8 years. Both times have been in SBC churches by SBC trained pastors. I am not against the SBC as a group but I have seen some disturbing trends by men coming out of their seminaries. I am just going to call it as I see it.

Several years I was the Music Director in a SBC church. There was on pastor on staff besides myself. It was a smaller church but had some great potential. There were children Sunday School classes and one adult Sunday School class but no teenage class. There were about 5 teenagers regularly attending the Sunday morning service. So I spoke to the pastor and asked him if he would be interested in having a weekly teen Sunday School class. He said that he was. I went home and talked to my wife about it. She had been a pastor’s wife for over 31 years. She had taught every age from nursery to adults. She was very skilled in Bible Study and teaching others to study the Bible together and on their own. I thought she was a perfect fit.

So one day she and the pastor met to discuss it. He told her he would only let her teach under one condition. She had to use a Sunday School curriculum written and published by John MacArthur. She said she was OK with that but where the curriculum disagreed with the Bible she would teach what the Bible said. His response was “You cannot teach the Bible in my church!” What? Really? Yes he trusted MacArthur more than what the Bible said directly.

A couple of months ago we had a similar situation. The church we were attending had no senior pastor, just a youth pastor. Several ladies approached my wife at different times about teaching a Ladies Bible Study. They had wanted one for a year but there was no one to teach it. Sensing my wife’s gifts and abilities they approached her about it. One lady insisted on talking to the Youth Pastor about it first. His immediate opposition was that she was not a church member. So we sat down with the Youth Pastor and talked to him about becoming members so that she could teach the Ladies Bible Study. As we sat down with him he said “You cannot join my church!” It was because we disagreed with the way a small insignificant item was written in the SBC Faith and Message of 1990. Then he told us, “Because you disagree with me on that point, you cannot teach the Bible in my church!” Where is this coming from?
Both men were “trained” in SBC seminaries. Is this what is being taught to their pastors? You cannot “teach the Bible” in a SBC church. I know that this is not the case in all SBC churches but if it is the case in even one SBC church there is a problem. The SBC needs to get back to the Bible and stop following men. We don’t need more Corinthian churches. We need churches that truly preach and teach what the Bible says Sunday after Sunday, week after week. See what God does when His Word is preached straight up.

 

Rev. David Johnson

Former Pastor

First Baptist Church of Austin, MN

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