One Thing Your Pastor Will Not Tell You

One Thing Your Pastor Will Not Tell You

Thomas Allen

    In the March/April 2016 issue of Grace in Focus, Phil Congdon had an article titled “10 Things Your Minister Will Never Tell You (If He Believes the Bible!)” He identifies these ten things:
    1. Creation is a myth;
    2. Our purpose is not to glorify God;
    3. The Bible is full of errors;
    5. We are saved by works;
    6. The role of women (he is referring to teaching current social norms that are destroying society is the correct role for women instead of teaching wives to submit to their husbands and women not to teach men or to have authority roles over men, which the Bible teaches);
    7. People are born gay;
    8. Other religions lead to God;
    9. No eternal hell (see comment below);
    10. Jesus made mistakes.
He explains why a Biblical pastor will never tell his congregations any of these things.
    Mr. Congdon omits one item from his list of things nearly all ministers will never tell his congregation if he believes the Bible. That is interracial marriage and mating are acceptable to God. This item is so politically taboo that I would be surprised that even Mr. Congdon would ever teach the Biblical condemnation of miscegenation.
    From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible condemns interracial marriages and mating. Here are some of the verses that condemn or at least argue against miscegenation: Genesis 6:1-7, Genesis 24:1-4, Genesis 26:34-35, Genesis 28:1-2, 6-7, Genesis chap. 34, Exodus 11:7, Exodus 33:16, Exodus 34:10-16, Leviticus 19:19, Leviticus 20:26, Leviticus 21:14, Numbers chap. 23, 24, and 25, Deuteronomy 7:1-4, Deuteronomy 23:2, Joshua 23:12-13, Judges 3:5-8, 1 King 8:53, 1 King 11:1-8, 1 King 16: 30, 31, 1 King 21:25, Ezra chap. 9 and 10, Nehemiah 8:1-18, 9:1-3, Nehemiah 10:28-31, Nehemiah 13:1-3, 23-31, Psalm 106:28-35, Isaiah 2:1-9 (esp. v. 6), Jeremiah 2:19-25, 29, Ezekiel 16:15-39, Ezekiel 44:6-23, Hosea 5:3-7, Hosea 6:7-10, Hosea 10:1-10, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:18, 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 (esp. v. 8), Hebrews 12:12-17, Hebrews 13:4, 2 Peter 2:9-16, Jude 3-11, Revelations 2:12-14, Revelations 2:18-23, Revelations 5:9, 7:9, 11:9, 13:7, 14:6, 17:15, 21:24, 22:2. Deuteronomy 23:2 summarizes this whole issue: “No half-bred may be admitted to the assembly of the Yahweh; not even his descendants to the tenth generation may be admitted to the Assembly of Yahweh” (The New Jerusalem Bible).
    Extremely rare is a pastor who does not believe the Bible who will teach that interracial marriage and mating are wrong. Almost as rare is a pastor who does believe the Bible teaching that interracial marriage and mating are wrong.

Comment to item 9.
    Although Mr. Congdon does not state in his article whether unsaved people are punished (tormented) forever in hell, other writers for Grace in Focus do. Yet, all the writers for Grace in Focus teach that one achieves eternal life by believing in Jesus for eternal life. According to John 6:47 (“. . . He that believeth on me hath everlasting life”), those who believe in Jesus, the saved, receive eternal life. If the saved believe in Jesus for eternal life, in whom or what does the unsaved believe for eternal life if they are punished (tormented) forever in hell?
    If man’s consciousness, soul, spirit, essence, or whatever is naturally immortal such that it can endure eternal punishment (torment), then Jesus is misleading us with his claim in John 6:47 that belief in him is the source of eternal life. If man’s consciousness or whatever is immortal, then he has eternal life whether or not he believes in Jesus. Consciousness or whatever has to be eternal if an unsaved person is to be punished (tormented) forever. Thus, death is not the cessation of life, but a metamorphosis from one form to another. Faith in Jesus does not determine whether one has eternal life or not, as man, being immortal, naturally has eternal life. It merely determines where he will spend that eternal life. If Jesus meant that, why did he not say so? His statement suggests that those who do not believe in him are not immortal and do not have eternal life. Only those who believe in him become immortal by that faith.

Copyright © 2016 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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