Should a Christian (Protestant) question their pastor or teacher?
Upvote:1
The purpose of a Bible teacher is to teach you "how" to think - not "what" to think. Questions should be encouraged and your Bible teacher should help you explore your questions in more depth, pointing you to good books and other resources so you can study on your own. Some good starter resources for Bible study are below. For a Biblical example of questioning our Bible teachers, see the Bereans, who even checked to make sure the apostle Paul's teaching was accurate...
Acts 17:10-12 - "As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men."
To learn how to study the Bible, read Gordon Fee's book "How to Read the Bible for all Its Worth" and as you read through the Bible use his guide "How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour". Fee suggests a myriad of resources at the back of his books to help you enhance your study. In addition, before you read a book of the Bible I recommend watching the Bible Project videos on that book - they are very well done and will help you get oriented to that specific book.
Basic Bible Reading Resources
https://www.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject
Language Resources & Commentaries
Net Bible often provides good comments on translating thorny passages. I do not always agree with them, but they are good.
https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Matthew+1
The IVP Bible background commentaries are a great starter set in terms of background commentaries to understand the culture and historical context.
Upvote:2
Ordained by God - or ordained by the church? Or, ordained by a denomination?
Clearly, they cannot all be right! Our obligation is to regard the bible as the source of God's delivered truth - not the preacher. How do we tell the difference? We must compare the two.
If the bible says something without complexity or confusion or mystery and we hear messages from the word that express mystery or contradiction - especially about God, we must look to the bible and respectfully question the preacher and not accept wobbly, doctrinally based 'answers/responses' to replace the bible's plain speaking.
God is not the author of confusion - man is. Often, that includes the preacher.
If the responses don't make sense - DYOR! We will never find the 'perfect church', but we must understand the quality and provenance of the food we are supplied. Maybe, they are correct - but we should always ask and expect a courteous response.
Doctrines should be carefully and accurately derived from a biblical text without confusing or arbitrarily adding our own words, definitions, practises etc.
Sadly, like many politicians these days, some pastors think they are above the law and pridefully or ignorantly, don't lead and serve the Word with humility but hubris gained from traditional education. Unfortunately, this traditional teaching has moved away from what the bible (God) tells us to believe and has made everything complicated and mysterious and now we need teachers to explain stuff the early church never heard of. What follows is excessive doctrinal confusion with each teacher having their own slant and every college another peculiar more advanced understanding.
No wonder an earnest thinking, truth seeking, person who can read the bible has questions!
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