Why Christians Are Constantly Deceived

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I am a minister.

That's the big surprise of the day... someone call TMZ.

I mention that in order to tell you about an experience that I had recently while speaking at a church. So, I was invited to speak at a church not too long ago at their youth conference. However, there were a great deal of adults that attended as well, so that was good too. I am used to speaking to college age thru adulthood so it helped that I could speak to some college age and adults as well.

When I got to the church I walked in to see a minister speaking at the front and he was sort of playing to the crowd and everyone was pretty excited. Although it was a little strange that he didn't mention any scriptures at all. Okay, no big deal, I was a little late so maybe he introduced the scripture earlier. When he finished they had singer after singer, after singer..... after singer. Then they had choir after choir, and then a couple of Christian rap groups.

I was a little exhausted when the conference broke for lunch, I was to speak following lunch so I stepped outside for some fresh air and then look over my message for the day. Finally I was called up and begin to pray aloud before the group, and then asked the people to sit down. As I turned to my first scripture I asked everyone to flip their bibles to the pages, but I heard... nothing.

That may not seem strange to you, but if you have ever ministered in pulpits or at bible studies you can hear the pages of the bible turning from the stage when several hundred people are thumbing through pages to get to the text. But I heard... nothing. So I starting talking and explaining the text to the blank stares. So then I go to my next scripture...still silence. Was my message not relevent, was it boring? Well it was a message that I had taught probably dozens of times before but had gotten a completely different response.

Then I thought about what I heard a mentor say some time ago, he said, "Not having your Bible at church is like going to a 3-D movie without the 3-D glasses, you get an idea of what's going on but you won't understand what the big deal is." The silence that I had been hearing had been that nobody had a Bible therefore they were not engaged in what was being spoken and therefore they were not getting a proper understanding of the Word of God.

This is one of the reasons that Christian people tend to be a bit unprepared when discussing what they believe with someone of a different faith or an unbeliever all together. We don't "know our stuff." I remember sitting in on a discussion with a Jehovah's witness, Muslim, Mormon, Jew, Baptist Christian, and Catholic. The Baptist and the Catholic were the most confused, and could not even comment on what their book said. In fact, I looked as if the Catholic was ready to convert to Islam because they were not sure about the truth of their "convictions" according to the Bible.

The Bible is not very confusing contrary to popular belief. In fact, you have to really be trained to misunderstand the Bible. If you read the Bible daily you find that it does not really contradict itself like people say. Since my junior year of college to this day, I have read the Bible cover to cover every year and have found that when the book is read in order, (note, some of the books of the Bible are not in chronological order) it is easier to understand context and how things line up. And that the book is not contradictory at all. Yet laziness in America causing Christians to not "seek the truth" from God's word and instead settle for being "entertained" at church or believing the Words of some pastor that they have chosen to align themselves with before judging what that man or woman says against the words of the Bible.

There is a story in the book of Acts in the Bible that talks about the Berean people. The Bible calls them "more noble" because they searched the scriptures to discover whether "the things were true" that the minister came to tell them. That is what every person should do. They should go to church and follow along in the Bible with the minister and then when they get home, further study the sermon to get more knowledge on the subject. The Bible even says to "study to show yourself approved...rightly dividing the word of truth."

I attend the church of a person who has been considered "controversial" in the media lately, but everything he says he shows in the Bible line upon line and precept upon precept. He always also admonishes us to make sure we go home and study the Bible and what he taught for ourselves and not to believe anything he says that we can't find in the Bible. That is why the members and partners of this ministry, and others that have been in the media lately with these ministries have not faltered or left these churches because they have taken the time to see that what they are being taught is clearly written in the Bible... and I mean clearly.

The people who are all "up in arms" about the topic having read the Bible. They are just believing what their grandmama told them. Read the Bible, study to show yourself approved or keep your mouth shut.