Inclusion of a resource/presentation does not indicate endorsement of the contents. Provided for educational purposes regarding perspectives in the fields of theology, ethics, and religious studies. Issachar Bible Church is conservative Trinitarian not affiliated with any organized denomination at this time.

Tuesday, May 19

Pastor Threatens Damnation Of Children To Silence Critics

Pastor Jason Cooley at SermonAudio homilized that, if you are critical of the pastor in front of your children, your children might apostatize from the faith in the future.

Dependent upon what the pastor is accused of doing, if the deed is sufficiently egregious, doesn't the pastor also bear some of the responsibility for this potential religious abandonment?

What this pastor was doing from the pulpit was attempting to frighten critics into silence.

Pastor Jason Cooley admonished in the sermon that one ought to largely remain silent regarding a pastor's errors or mistakes.

He likened this form of criticism and analysis to a form of backbiting or secret whispering spoken of unfavorably in Scripture.

Often a pastor's sermons consist in large part of what others have done wrong even if the names are changed.

Therefore, what is so wrong with the average Christian, as part of their own ministry, exposing errors on the part of pastors so that all throughout Christendom might be better protected against them when spiritually assaulted by similar doctrine and pastoral malfeasance elsewhere?

Scripture warns about spreading secrets and talking about that which one ought not or which there is no verifiable proof.

However, a sermon is a public oration.

As such a discourse, it is open to reflection by and cogitation upon by those that hear it. The role of the pastor is to protect the flock.

Then shouldn't it be the role of studied voices from within the flock to protect the flock from the pastor even if that protection consists of little more than assurance that more than one mind is formulating these kinds of concerns?

By Frederick Meekins

Monday, May 18

Pastoral Ego Nearly As Large As The Political

A pastoral round table discussion posted at SermonAudio as part of the News & Focus program of the Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina snidely remarked that Mike Huckabee was only running for president to acquire additional name recognition and that he had no chance of winning.

The analysis is correct.

However, it elicits a number of additional observations.

I'm not really much of a Huckabee fan.

I just don't really care for candidates that insist that the government should track the weight of your children for national security reasons when some of their own offspring from an official family photo look like they top the 300 pound mark.

However, according to these pastors, are we to take away the impression that whether or not we attempt something should be predicated upon the possibility of earthly success?

Secondly, which of the candidates isn't running for name recognition in the form of the prestigious positions or lucrative book deals and speaking engagements that will accumulate at the end of the campaign trail?

What in life is not done for name recognition?

On an episode of Futurama, it was joked that all of civilization was just an attempt to impress the opposite sex.

When you come down to it, one of the primary reasons human beings procreate is so that your name will continue after you are dead.

Name recognition, in part, is why people get involved in ministry.

Sure, there is a deeply spiritual motivation to spread the Gospel.

However, if that is the only reason, why did the church posting this podcast attach its name to the file as well as those of the participating pastors?

By Frederick Meekins

Apostate Coopts Mother’s Day To Denigrate Whites

Click On The Headline

Friday, May 15

Serving God As A Single

Overly Stringent Requirements Chase Away Potential Members

To a number of Christians, it is not enough to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

One is also obligated to become a formalized member of an organized congregation.

Then perhaps the requirements to join should not be so strenuous for some of them.

It might be one thing to ask the aspirant to renounce their sins and to give when they can.

However, there seems to be nothing in the pages of Scripture where one is required to join a “growth group” and to volunteer an hour a week to the church.

If you are attending the Sunday Service, that ought to be considered the hour that you are contributing.

Furthermore, isn't it challenging enough for the socially awkward and anxious to come to a neutral centralized meeting place?

I am sure as Sheol as part of these growth groups not going to the home of people I barely know to areas where I know next to nothing about the off site or on street parking.

Furthermore, isn't it enough for someone to confess that they believe in Christ for the remission of sins?

Should membership be contingent upon how dramatic or shocking one's past life testimony happens to be?

Joining a church should not have to be an audition for American Idol or some other reality series.

By Frederick Meekins

Thursday, May 14

Headline Potpourri #71

A liberal pundit on Cashin In on Fox News insisted that the riots were the result of racist housing policies in Baltimore. Maybe these Blacks should be interspersed into rural areas where the Rednecks wouldn't be afraid to exercise the Second Amendment when threatened by uppity deadbeats.

Those verbalizing the word “thug” have been accused of actually thinking the “N-word”. And what if they did? Those saying the word “thug” weren't the ones rampaging in the streets and destroying property.

The Iranian Supreme Leader has Tweeted that, in America, police kill citizens for no reason. That is opposed to as in the Islamic Republic where law enforcement put to death woman going out in public with uncovered heads and toss homosexuals off of multistory buildings.

Donald Trump condemned the Muhammad cartoon exhibition as being unnecessarily provocative of Muslims. Should his beauty pageants be abolished for the same reasons? Those of that particular faith aren't too keen either on broads prancing about in high heels and skimpy swimsuits with their boobs jacked up and their hindquarters swaying in the breeze.

In a church membership class posted on SermonAudio, those in attendance for the proceedings were required from the sound of it to fill in a seating chart of those around them each week supposedly for the purposes of learning the names of the fellow students. If Independent Baptists insist that their practices are derived from sola scriptura, where is the precedent for the described classroom procedure described in the pages of Holy Writ? If a church requires such rigmarole, doesn't the church run the risk of alienating those with social anxiety? For I know I'd go running out of their at the end of the class like Chiroptera fleeing Ghenna.

A number of supporters are listing among his qualifications for the Presidency that Ben Carson is Black. Perhaps Rand Paul's should list among their preferred candidate's qualifications that the Kentucky ophthalmologist is White?

If the White House can serve tacos during its celebration of the contrived Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo, why is it condemned as racist for assorted student grounds to serve these dishes at assorted activities and functions?

On a News and Focus program, William Strum of Berean Baptist Chuch condemned short term missions trips. But aren't the shortcomings of those undertakings more the fault of professional religionists that shame the average Christian for little involvement with transborder outreach and how even something like vacation has to be justified on the grounds of profound spiritual implication? Can't someone just go to the beach or mountains to be going to the beach or mountains? Does the reason have to have a string of Bible verse references following it?

According to an academic study referenced on Generations Radio with Kevin Swanson, Nigerian children are supposedly better off than than those in Baltimore. Does that include the 214 girls rescued from Boko Haram that are now pregnant. At least those impregnated outside of marriage in Baltimore probably had a bit more say in the matter.

A Facebook theologian admonished that one should only pray for a request if it is God's will. But unless one possess precognition or clairvoyance, regarding a variety of morally ambivalent issues of which Scripture is not necessarily definitive, you aren't really going to know what God's will is until a chronometric potentiality has already elapsed.

Speaking in reference to the Muhammad Cartoon Contest, Al Sharpton insists that, even if you have a right to do something, that does not mean you should do it. Mind you, this is the street thug that applauds those that do that to which they have no right such as the vandalism of private and public property. One of the acts he instigated at one time even resulted in the loss of innocent human life.

Are those outraged by the restaurant sponsoring a White Appreciation Day discount as bent out of shape over President Obama establishing programs such as My Brother's Keeper that benefit only Colored youth?

The Afrosupremacists outraged over southern youth posing with Confederate paraphernalia are the same subversives and terrorist sympathizers that exhibit little concern or condemnation of the property destruction that takes place during riots in ghettos such as Ferguson and Baltimore.

The same Afrosupremacists outraged over southern youth posing with Confederate paraphernalia are the same subversives and terrorist sympathizers that exhibit little concern or condemnation of the property destruction that takes place during riots in ghettos such as Ferguson and Baltimore.

In a Lutheran Sunday School class, an Ethiopian pastor smugly remarked that Ethiopia is mentioned around forty times in the Bible whereas America is not mentioned. If Ethiopia is such a wonderful place, why is the pastor here rather than in Ethiopia. And if he is counting among those references those mentioned in the Book of Daniel, I don't recall those being all that positive. From that text, it sounded like Ethiopia would become part of some Islamist or Third World alliance that would attempt to attack Israel towards the end of the age.

Shouldn't the fact that most Westerners have had few encounters with actual demonic sorcery or witchcraft serve as a testament to the power and vitality of the Christian worldview rather than as a pretext to launch a rant on how dimwitted Whitey is? If you are teaching from Acts 8 and skip over the encounter with Simon the Sorcery instead to harp how wonderfully crosscultural the encounter between Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch, don't you as a pastor bear the responsibility for failing to teach Americans as to the reality of these spiritual dangers?

A pastor praised the Baltimore mother that slapped her son for participating in the riots. From the pulpit, the minister announced that this woman should be nominated as mother of the year. But wasn't what we witnessed more a last ditch effort to interdict a lifestyle of failed parenting? To remain consistent, shouldn't a minister that just a week or two before suggesting that Bruce Jenner is mentally screwed up because of the increasing number of women that wear pants not lift up as the ideal Proverbs 31 mother someone that has birthed multiple children outside of marriage by as many men and who is covered with tattoos?

As part of a mother's day sermon, a pastor condemned young women for not knowing how to cook from scratch. Where is it detailed in the Scripture that meals must be prepared from scratch and cannot be out of a can as ridiculed in the pastor's snide comment regarding Chef Boyardee? If a pastor is going to hold women up to such an impossible standard, is he adept at what would be considered manchores such as gutting his own livestock or even auto repair? Shouldn't someone that lives in an apartment complex where the staff handles the yardwork and maintenance be reluctant about criticizing other basic tasks no longer completed as they were in the 1800's?

A Lutheran Church I visited needed over $3000 for its vacation Bible school program. Who knew cloth puppets and snack cookies were such big business. $2000 was to be for advertising. Are they flying in Davey & Golitath to film a commercial?

Rick Perry said it is healthy to question the government but not the military. But is not the military part of the government? How about when the government through the military is used to implement anti-Christian, pro-gay policies? Composed of fallen individuals like every other human organization, though it can be respected, free citizens are still within their rights to question the military.

The Colorado restaurant celebrating White Appreciation Day has extended the discount to all customers. Does the United Negro College Fund now intend to be as broadmindedly magnanimous in the disbursement of the organization’s scholarships?

In a sermon, a pastor admonished that, if a member was not able to attend a given Sunday, they were obligated to listen to the sermon online. That was so the truant parishioner could receive their “marching orders”. Where the member ought to march is straight out of the church. For down the road, you could very well find that the marching order you are given is to guzzle down the funny-tasting Koolaid.

Mooch Obama gave a graduation speech blaming Whitey for all of her problems. Denzel Washington's commencement oration emphasized the importance of recognizing God to a person's success. Here's a novel idea. How about doing away with celebrity speeches and just hand out the diplomas?

An online meme pictures a man carrying a bow and arrows. The text reads, “Your dad doesn't hunt? Well, happy Mother's Day to your dad.” I've yet to see a Biblical text proving that men that don't like to hunt are effeminate. If anything, if Esau and Nimrod are among the foremost examples of hunters mentioned in the Bible, they don't seem to be spoken of all that favorably. Nothing screams masculinity like running off into the woods with a bunch of other men because that is what the group pressures everyone into doing.

The Washington Post insists that marriage is a constantly evolving social institution that has not always consisted of our current understanding as a relationship between a loving man and woman. If that is the standard, technically there is really nothing wrong when ISIS savages take toddler brides. And if a man and woman come to an agreement where the man can horsewhip the woman when she fails to prepare dinner to his liking, are we as pluralists and relativists required to publicly ascent to that as well?

In coverage of the horrific Philadelphia train derailment, CNN ran the headline “Midshipman Among The Fatalities”. Will the occupational backgrounds of the other victims also merit a broadcast graphic? Given that the tragic passing of this individual was not related to his Department of Defense status, is he worthy of more pity than the others? Why not make public lamentation for the deceased passenger with the largest bank account?

A Calvinist meme reads, “If you as a man are at liberty to choose your own house, friends and wife, has not the Lord God the liberty to do the same? The thing of it is, though it might feel like you are living in Hell if you select the wrong spouse, the person you don't select to marry does not burn throughout all eternity as a result. Furthermore, the use of marriage as an analogy in matters of soteriology ultimately breaks down. Christ might have the church as his metaphorical bride. However, that bride is ultimately composed of multiple individuals. You, as an individual, according to the moral law established by this God, are limited to a single mate (contrary to what certain populations in Utah might insist). Under predestination, if God is free to select as many as He wants to incorporate into this mystical body, isn't He ultimately at fault if He allows an individual to slip into Hell?

By Frederick Meekins

Wednesday, May 13

Are Sloppy Homiletics An Acceptable Mother's Day Gift?

A pastor praised the Baltimore mother that slapped her son for participating in the riots.

From the pulpit, the minister announced that this woman should be nominated as mother of the year.

But wasn't what we witnessed more a last ditch effort to interdict a lifestyle of failed parenting?

To remain consistent, shouldn't a minister that just a week or two before suggesting that Bruce Jenner is mentally screwed up because of the increasing number of women that wear pants not lift up as the ideal Proverbs 31 mother someone that has birthed multiple children outside of marriage by as many men and who is covered with tattoos?

As part of a mother's day sermon, a pastor condemned young women for not knowing how to cook from scratch.

Where is it detailed in the Scripture that meals must be prepared from scratch and cannot be out of a can as ridiculed in the pastor's snide comment regarding Chef Boyardee?

If a pastor is going to hold women up to such an impossible standard, is he adept at what would be considered manchores such as gutting his own livestock or even auto repair?

Shouldn't someone that lives in an apartment complex where the staff handles the yardwork and maintenance be reluctant about criticizing other basic tasks no longer completed as they were in the 1800's?

By Frederick Meekins

Titus: The Importance Of Healthy Doctrine

Titus: Healthy Doctrine from Aletheia College Park on Vimeo.