doctrines

/Tag: doctrines
10 September

Procrastinating truth another year

By |2019-04-11T02:09:37-06:00September 10th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Truth is timeless. It is unchanging. It maintains its value through the always-evolving marketplace of ideas, like the gold standard in a world of paper currencies. Trends in human thought come and go, and philosophies rise and fall in popularity like fad diets, but truth is like a rock, never succumbing to the pressures of relativistic philosophies or changing "understandings." It is what it is, and what it always has been. The Truth. It also doesn't need to wait another year for us to acknowledge it, either. Or figure it out, or agree upon it, or agree to teach it. Truth just needs to be discovered and immediately taught. This is why Christianity in the first century thrived and turned the world upside down--because people [...]

16 June

The Suitcase of Books

By |2019-04-11T02:09:31-06:00June 16th, 2014|Uncategorized|15 Comments

One of the best teaching tools the Stanton Church of Christ had going for it in its old Non-Member Classes was the infamous Suitcase of Books. Eventually the inconvenience of passing it around to the next Non-Member Class Teacher, or perhaps the hypocrisy of it, led to its demise. Nevertheless, The Suitcase of Books played a convincing role in many conversions to the sect, because it truly was a unique and effective visual illustration of the confusion caused by the doctrines and traditions of fallible men. I'm not positive the Suitcase of Books has been retired completely, actually. If it hasn't, it most definitely has lost some of its rhetorical power, because alas, the point made by the Teachers using the Suitcase has come back [...]

5 September

2 Opinions Chapter 3

By |2022-12-03T08:06:56-07:00September 5th, 2013|Uncategorized|211 Comments

NEWLY REVISED AND TRANSLATED! Now presented in the newest Modern Pharisaical Translation (MPT). [4] It has been brought to our attention that church members and rabbis have had some trouble defending various rules from the Bible, so we've provided the following chapter from the book of 2 Opinions for easy reference. It will no longer be necessary to quote various rabbis, May Meetings, October Meetings, or founding documents. Members can now simply refer to book, chapter and verse below to defend their favorite teachings. 2 Opinions Chapter 3 Christians must not eat food or drink anything but water in their building at any time. Christians must not take food into their building at any time. Christians must not have weddings or funerals in their building. [...]

28 August

Dinosaurs and moon landing conspiracies

By |2019-04-11T02:08:45-06:00August 28th, 2013|Uncategorized|50 Comments

With some of the more bizarre doctrines of the church, you have to laugh a little or you'd cry. Please don't misunderstand this post to be about poking fun or mocking in any way. I assure you that I'm doing no such thing, and everything written here is written in love, and with the intent to enlighten and edify. Can someone hold some wacky opinions and still fit into the paradigm of love under the New Covenant? Yes, no doubt. But elevating men and women to the status of being more revered and spiritual than anyone else just makes wacky opinions more likely. The thinking cap tends to get hung up on the rack gathering dust. Let me just admit here that there are a [...]

5 August

Unbiblical teaching against wine

By |2019-04-11T02:08:18-06:00August 5th, 2013|Uncategorized|9 Comments

The church routinely substitutes its own human reasoning in place of what the Bible actually says, and this couldn't be more the case than with the teaching against wine. Drinking wine continues to be taught against, apparently, although it is now OK to cook with alcohol if someone else buys it for you. With that, let's put aside the traditions of men and take a look at what the Bible really says about alcohol. If you're a Christian, you may be surprised to know that the Bible doesn't make a blanket condemnation of alcohol. Instead, the Bible's teaching on it is consistently one of moderation, not prohibition. Both the Old and New Testaments actually come right out and authorize drinking alcoholic drinks. This passage from the [...]

1 August

Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men

By |2019-04-11T02:08:07-06:00August 1st, 2013|Uncategorized|6 Comments

One of the biggest problems with the sect is the extremes they've gone to in "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (in good old King James English). There have been no areas of life untouched by the rules and regulations of fallible men in the 40+ years of existence of this sect, from whether you can have a glass of wine with your dinner, to whether you can go on a family vacation, what you can do on that vacation, and who you can enjoy your recreation with. The rules (a.k.a. judgments) of the church have reached all the way into the sacred bedroom of a married couple, regulating such things as sexual positions (face to face), distance apart (6 to 12 inches), how [...]

30 July

Rules of attire

By |2019-04-11T02:08:00-06:00July 30th, 2013|Uncategorized|170 Comments

With this post, I'll begin a series on various rules of men that have been created by this church. Some may have changed here and there over time, and some may not have been enforced equally across all congregations. But every one of these has been verified by former members. Keep in mind that the point here is not to argue the validity of the reasoning behind any of these rules, but to argue that the church composed of fallible humans should not be making rules like these at all. "They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules." Mt 15:19 (NIV) "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."  Mt 15:19 (KJV) Dresses for women required on [...]

29 July

Changing doctrines

By |2019-04-30T09:53:03-06:00July 29th, 2013|Uncategorized|104 Comments

One of the staple teachings I had growing up in the Stanton Church of Christ was the idea that truth never changes. Therefore, if any church had ever changed their doctrines, you could be assured it was not the True Church, because 1 Tim 3:15 says the True Church is the pillar and the ground of the unchanging truth. The only problem is that the church has most definitely changed its doctrines over the years. That's the purpose of the May Meetings, in fact...to discuss doctrine and reach conclusions for the sake of "unity." Invariably, each May Meeting creates a flurry of excitement around all the "new understandings" of scripture "brought back" from the meeting. These "church councils," which are nothing more than the equivalent [...]