Why preachers lie

How about you? I have heard some incredible whoppers from the pulpit especially when it comes to missions stories. I struggled with the same as an evangelist making up whoppers to sex up the power of God. However I later found grace and it killed off that need to impress the audience.

The Gospel is powerful enough and amazing enough. Not surprising that so many have a problem with lying. When, those he blessed biblically had pretty hard and unattractive lives. Lots of snake oil being sold in most churches.

Being paid to care. Enough said. I play an instrument in a Praise band, but I just found out that the sound level to my instrument has been muted the whole time.

The pastor says the instrument is muted due to a sound issue. Neither person will be honest with me. What should I do? But the idiot pastor would not listen to me. Needless to say, I am no longer a member of his church; he is deceased. I wish I had never been in his presence in the first place. I am no longer a Methodist; his conduct was the final straw.

Most pastors lie to their congregations weekly, either by ignorance or deception. They are clueless to the doctrine of truth and speak in meanderings and ambiguities constantly. They call their people depraved and broken and deny the Lord that made them holy, sanctified, and beautiful. Sin and shortcomings are drilled into the saints constantly.

They destroy people rather than magnify the goodness they have in Christ. Subscribe and get one year free. The views of the blogger do not necessarily reflect those of Christianity Today. Join in the conversation about this post on Facebook. Bible Coronavirus Prayer. Start Here NewSmallChurch. Church Leadership September 09, Read as Single Page Page 1 of 2. Image: Julian Carvajal Flickr. Posted: September 09, at AM. Recent Posts. Include results from Christianity Today.

Follow Karl Facebook. Current Issue November Subscribe. Read This Issue. His words express his own hours of work, his gifts and character, his insight, his attitude to the Scriptures, his prayer life. And his own hard work. He shows them a false image of himself. And he accepts and benefits from the praise he gets from doing so. They do the thing one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to do. As a writer, I understand the temptation. And that means people expect of a lot of their preachers.

That sermon better be a darn good sermon. What do we pay him for? What does he have to do all week anyway? Some of whom, it turns out, were themselves stealing material from others. Not to mention their better clothes, better haircuts, and all the help they get from their assistants and the techies. My former students who became pastors have told me sad stories of congregational abuse, based in completely unrealistic expectations.

It surprises me that preachers steal like this and in stealing lie to their people. I also kept trying to figure out where the mistruths come from. Are there particular aspects of history, church life, or American culture that lead us to embrace and perpetuate these mistruths? These are unavoidable questions that reflection and discussion can bring out with the book as a guide. These questions permeated not only my waking hours but my sleep, too. I woke up one morning to the realization that the mistruths arise from at least two different influences.

The first is the increasing lack of biblical literacy in both pews and pulpits. This makes it difficult to differentiate truth about the Bible from mistruth.