Thoughts From 2Timothy 4 - Part 1

 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2Tim. 4:1-5

      How do you like your church? What are you looking for in a church? This passage gives some warnings to us on what to run from when you are looking for a church and most of it has to do with the pastor.

      First, he must preach the word. How much Bible is used? Do you leave thinking, "Wow, I really understand that passage of scripture a whole lot better."? or, "Wow, God really spoke to me through the word today," I've listened to a lot of messages that are filled with Spurgeon quotes, Tim Keller or C.S. Lewis quotes, cute stories to make a point, or even book reports, it seems, from 7 Habits of Effective people. The Bible is the word of God. Preach it. You usually can't go wrong with a Calvary Chapel as they, every week, work their way through the Bible cover to cover. I'd often ask my Dad after a church service, "How did you like the message"? His answer would often be, "Just preach the Word!!" I guess this is where he got that from.

     Second, does the message convict you of changes you need to make or is it just feel good, or good things are on their way to you vibes? Is it appealing to the fleshly desire of living a better life on this world or convicting you that you are too focused on this world? A good message is supposed to rebuke and correct and point you to Jesus and Heaven not yourself and this Earth. If your church is a "full gospel" church or displays pictures of the pastor and usually his wife decked out in wealth, or if your pastor drives a gaudy car, wears $300 tennis shoes, expensive clothing, and lives on an estate, these are warning signs to run. They are probably preaching positivity not rebuking and correcting.

    Lastly, is he preaching myths? What's that? I would say if he is teaching anything about the Bible that isn't true, that's a myth. The eternal priesthood of Peter is a myth. Purgatory is a myth. Vegetarianism and avoiding caffeine is a myth. Celestial marriage is a myth. Not celebrating holidays is a myth. Same sex relationships normalized is a myth. Wearing holy underwear or uniform clothing and head coverings is a myth. These are obvious myths. I, personally would run from what I would consider myths like covenant theology, amillennialism, Calvinism, egalitarianism, tongues and healing and prophecies, but that's just my personal understanding of scripture.

     I'm mainly focusing on the pastor here, as Paul is also, but if there is a congregation sitting there week after week, eating this stuff up, that's a body you probably don't have much in common with. Look for a better body of believers. Is the Bible front and center? Go there!