Opus 2022-175: Monday Pulpit: A Request Fulfilled

I was asked by a friend to listen to a sermon preached at his church.  The preacher had reportedly told someone in the church that we did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible.  That came as news to me and my friend.  Normally I would never bother listening to someone who preached from a book he thought was inaccurate but this was the request of a friend.

I will only share a couple of things about the sermon.  It was Pentecost Sunday and the sermon had to do with Pentecost in theory.  That is the day we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples gathered in the upper room.  You can find it in Acts 2.  

What first got my attention was that the preacher repeated referred to the Holy Spirit as “it”.  I don’t believe I have heard that before from anyone who knows what they are talking about.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the trinity and in the Bible is referred to as “He.”  Pagans and heretics would say “it” because to them the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force if it exists at all.  I decided to try and check that out to see if it was just me.  I did some searches of the word Spirit in the New Testament in both the KJV and the NASB.  I never found the Holy Spirit referred to as “it” in the NASB.  I did find one place in the KJV but it usually said “he”.

The choice of a pronoun is a theological issue not a matter of translation.  It speaks of the presuppositions of the translator, not the text.  In the Greek the pronoun is included in the verb and although it has person it does not have gender.  Another difference from English is that nouns have a gender and everything referring to it shared the gender.  I remember in German that you have a pencil and a pen.  One is feminine and the other is masculine.  For the life of me I can’t remember to this day which is which.  Christian theology teaches that the Trinity is one God in three persons.  Thus the third person cannot be an it.

This is important because it strikes at the core of our faith and our doctrine of God.  I don’t think it was an accident.  This was reinforce at the end of the service when he prayed “O heavenly God” rather than “O heavenly Father”.

Pentecost Sunday was also being recognized as a day to take a stand against gun violence.  Everyone on the church’s e-mail list got a notice to wear orange and if they did not have anything orange then ribbons would be available.  This is what we call left wing political theater.  In the service we were told it was not anti gun but anti gun violence.  Sure.  If it was about violence why were they not dealing with the causes of more deaths than guns, such as fists, knives, drugs, drunk drivers and so many others.  Sorry.  It was about guns.  

Someone once said, “The Devil is in the details.”  I did a take off on that and said “The adversary is in the adjectives.”  Think of the way in which the adjective changes the meaning.  We have the term “social justice” being thrown around.  It has nothing to do with the concept of justice.  Justice is about equal treatment before the law.  Social justice is about special privileges for favored groups.  The same is with gun violence.

And the pastor shared how he had gone down and participated in the accompanying parade.  He praised all those people he marched with as noble and caring.  The problem, in addition to being one of those useful idiots that were praised by the Soviets, is that the pastor’s do not have a history of marching in other issues.  Every January we have Right to Life Sunday in protest of abortion.  They did not join any parades or wear ribbons on that day.  I am guessing that he would not have referred to pro-life people as noble and caring.  The usual adjectives are bigoted and harsh.  I went back and checked the video to see if they wore ribbons during the service.  

I could go on but I think this gives you a feel for why the church in America is dying.  It has become a tool of anti-Christian forces.  It has been infiltrated and seduced.  It has lost its first love.  Every day I pray for my country.  I also pray for the church because if the church does not have a revival there will be nothing to keep America from going on the list right under Sodom.  Actually we might have earned top slot by now.

homo unius libri