It's largely circumstantial for me. Some pastors are very uncomfortable with being questioned. I had a pastor I was on first name basis with that I would have heated discussions with all the time because he believed some pretty weird stuff (at least as far as I'm concerned.) The discussions were never really bad for our relationship, it was like iron sharpening iron. Unfortunately he continued to say some weird stuff from the pulpit and in conversation. Stuff like, whenever you sin you lose the Holy Spirit, one of the secret names for the Holy Spirit is the name "that" because Peter said "this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." He condoned the magic hair doctrine in conversation and practice. He believed that if someone in the church was in sexual sin that the rest of the church would get physically sick. He got this from the passage "for this cause many are sick among you and many sleep" which clearly teaches that those that take communion without discerning the Lord's body may incur hurt upon themselves, thus, teaching something way different than what he was proposing. Salvation justification ultimately came from your works. When my heart caught on fire for the doctrine of justification by faith and I explained it to him he said that he didn't know how to respond and never heard anything like it. I love the guy. Things like this is why I don't believe that questioning a pastor is wrong. I do, however think that they should be "entreated as an elder" as Paul wrote, meaning, you should approach them with respect. I, admittedly have not always exuded as much of this as I could at times, but, I do think that it is the best way.
There is questioning the Pastor (!!!) and then there is questioning the pastor. What you have described is the latter. Just having questions and having dicussions, heated or not, is fine, far and needed, but there is something about questioning the pastor publically. I have and would question God about things I don't understand, not to 'set Him straight' but to find out what is going on. My pastor I would do the same, because let's face it I can be wrong too. But to the point of the original post here yes I would question it if it were something serious and could spawn false teaching, but if it were something minor I might not worry about it. At the end of the day when it comes to raising my children I have to be the teacher and the church should bookend what I am saying, they should be similar. When I was raised up by my parents my father held out his hands, parrallel to each other, palms facing each other and said this hand, right, is what the church believes and this, left, is what we believe, find yourself somewhere in the middle and you'll be fine.
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"If we don't learn to live together we're gonna die alone"
Jack Shephard.
I had a pastor who had a terrible predilection for making false prophecies and also attempting to back up his own private interpretations with statements like, "God told me (the 'correct interpretation') and I looked it up in the Greek and found it to be so."
Nonsense. He couldn't even read a Greek comic book, let alone do an exegesis of the NT from the original.
I privately and politely questioned him to try and at least see where he was coming from on any number of occasions, but this is the kind of guy that if any saint in the church ever asked a simple question he would immediately rise up against them in the most self-defensive manner.
Simply put, the guy was a fraud and he knew it.
When he and his wife fell into open sin I pleaded with them to "give your lives back to Jesus Christ!" I was serving as their Assistant at the time. They fired me for "hindering revival" (we were in 'revival' services with a known adulterer - a UPC pastor - the meetings were scheduled specifically to provide cover for this guy after he was caught with his secretary in our district).
Another reason I was let go was because they complained "you talk to us like we're sinners..." Well, duh!
Bottom line: If you can't even talk to your pastor about the Bible in a friendly manner, there's a good chance that he's trying to hide a lot more than just his own Bible illiteracy.
Good pastors love the Word of God and they love the people they pastor. That love will smooth over any of the typical doctrinal disagreements - 1 John 4:18. If all you are facing is fear and defensiveness, then don't expect love. You're better off if you "leave the church without any explanation" because they're fixing to throw you out.
Ever compare the typical UPCI manner of "pastoring" and "discipleship" with the way 'coon hunters breed their coon dogs? "BLAM!" goes the shotgun. Time for a "cull."
The pastor and his buddies are fornicating and covering it up and they have actually killed an innocent pastor from a neighboring district in their fooling around. Anyone who knows these types of secrets... "BLAM! Time for another cull." It's probably best to just quietly leave.
Still haven't figured out how to quote portions.....
"Good pastors love the Word of God and they love the people they pastor. That love will smooth over any of the typical doctrinal disagreements - 1 John 4:18. If all you are facing is fear and defensiveness, then don't expect love. You're better off if you "leave the church without any explanation" because they're fixing to throw you out."
Very true. If you don't leave without explanation, you are only setting yourself up to be thrown out. If you have become enough of a nuisance or threat to the pastor/priest, you will be slimed whether you left quietly or thrown out. You might as well leave before you are humiliated. I wish I had...
"Ever compare the typical UPCI manner of "pastoring" and "discipleship" with the way 'coon hunters breed their coon dogs? "BLAM!" goes the shotgun. Time for a "cull."
That idea of "discipleship" should instead be called, "DO AS WE DO". The real idea of learning about the Shepherd is lost in their "search for Truth", where the organization's doctrines rather than the life and character of Jesus is stressed.
The minister that says never question me about anything is the very one that needs to be questioned.
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People who are always looking for fault,can find it easily all they have to do,is look into their mirror.
There they can find plenty of fault.
There needs to be a grievance procedure to expose questionable teaching and/or behavior. Elders are overseers of God's flock and should be used. There is no record of a single leader as an established example to follow IMO.
Assume you are listening to your pastor preach, and then suddenly he makes a statement that you believe is contrary to the actual meaning of scripture (though he uses scripture to justify his position and you have scripture to justify the position you have, which is completely opposite of his/hers). You may be just as well informed of a position in which your pastor is taking a completely opposite stand on, but you feel he is in error.
1. Do you politely schedule a meeting with the pastor and discuss the disagreement over the teaching and try to come to a mutual understanding without trying to convert one another to each others' position?
2. Do you ignore it, and let it go, and pray that God would correct him/her assuming you yourself are not the one truly in error?
3. Do you leave the church without any explanation, because you can't believe that someone would be so ignorant as to make non-biblical remarks from the pulpit?
4. Or option #4 (fill in the blank how you would hand it if the aforementioned options are not feasible to you)
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It seems to me that there is a general assumption that there is an Office of pastoral authority and quite honestly I cannot find any scriptural reference to support that.
So perhaps WE are doing the "pastor" a dis-service by providing authority as such....Senior Pastors...CEO's etc.
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