Why are you here?

[Walt]

There is a time and place for Bible study, when everyone is encouraged to participate, but there is also a time and place for preaching, which is not open to everyone's interruption on minor points or wacky ideas.... case in point - the Scripture (1 or 2 Corinthians) that begins "for we know that if this earthly tabernacle were destroyed..." - clearly, and in context, it is talking about our bodies; our flesh. I was in a Bible study where someone went on and on about how we would be living in tents in heaven, using this passage.

So any person who feels compelled to contribute is going to interrupt with a minor point or wacky idea, therefore there should be no interruptions?  That's a classic non-sequitur.  I'm sorry you have a single data point where someone went on and on with a wacky idea, but that is not a valid argument for sermons to a silent, captive audience.  There are preachers who go on and on with a minor point or wacky idea, too, but that's not the reason why I don't think the model is the right one.

No, you misunderstand me (or I stated it badly): I think that Bible studies and preaching are different things.  I cannot think of any New Testament example where the preaching was allowed to be interrupted with questions.

In my opinion, a Bible Study benefits from questions and comments, but also needs a leader who does not allow heresy to be taught.  I've been in too many where any comment at all was allowed, even when two people pulled opposite teaching from the passage.  Neither may be right, but both cannot be.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

There is a time and place for Bible study, when everyone is encouraged to participate, but there is also a time and place for preaching, which is not open to everyone's interruption on minor points or wacky ideas.... case in point - the Scripture (1 or 2 Corinthians) that begins "for we know that if this earthly tabernacle were destroyed..." - clearly, and in context, it is talking about our bodies; our flesh. I was in a Bible study where someone went on and on about how we would be living in tents in heaven, using this passage.

So any person who feels compelled to contribute is going to interrupt with a minor point or wacky idea, therefore there should be no interruptions?  That's a classic non-sequitur.  I'm sorry you have a single data point where someone went on and on with a wacky idea, but that is not a valid argument for sermons to a silent, captive audience.  There are preachers who go on and on with a minor point or wacky idea, too, but that's not the reason why I don't think the model is the right one.

No, you misunderstand me (or I stated it badly): I think that Bible studies and preaching are different things.  I cannot think of any New Testament example where the preaching was allowed to be interrupted with questions.

In my opinion, a Bible Study benefits from questions and comments, but also needs a leader who does not allow heresy to be taught.  I've been in too many where any comment at all was allowed, even when two people pulled opposite teaching from the passage.  Neither may be right, but both cannot be.

I cannot think of any New Testament example where it was said nobody ever spoke up or asked questions when someone was preaching.  To say that never happened is arguing from silence.  But I can cite scripture that says when you come together, two or three should speak, etc. 

As an aside, I can't think of any New Testament example where preaching was to an assembly of believers.  The only examples that come to mind are when someone was presenting the Gospel or arguing/proving that Jesus is the Christ.  And even then, it doesn't say it was uninterrupted and nobody spoke up or asked questions.

Whether you realize it or not, you're arguing for papal authority.  And that's not a good thing.

 

[FSSL]

...I can't think of any New Testament example where preaching was to an assembly of believers.  The only examples that come to mind are when someone was presenting the Gospel or arguing/proving that Jesus is the Christ.  And even then, it doesn't say it was uninterrupted and nobody spoke up or asked questions....

There are plenty of things you were not able to find in the New Testament and Old Testament. Are you really sure you want to continue using that phrase, "I can't think of any ....?" It always backfires on you.

 

[Mathew Ward]

I joined the old fff in 2004 I believe and just read a lot.

Maybe starting posting in 2006 while I worked in an IFBX church.

There were a lot of inconsistencies that I saw in the church and the fff was a good place for good discussions, spirited debates and even some heated arguments.

It helped me more from far right to center.

I've meet some folks in person and enjoy the people here, for the most part.

I try and stay out of the fray, for the most part, and add when I can.

 

[prophet]

I like to discuss things with people that don't agree with me.

I used to go knock doors, find out what I didn't know, go back and search the Scriptures, and writes out sermons.

I like the interaction with the rest of the family of God on here.

I have my opinions, too, and I express them.

I think this is great!

Sent from my C6730 using Tapatalk

 

[Thomas Cassidy]

Wow. You people are making me feel really old! I joined the very first FFF when it was still at JackHyles.net and run by Don Elbourne. That was about 3 years before Jack Hyles died so it would be around 1998.

Interestingly I can still log onto JackHyles.net but there is nothing there except some spam advertising shoes and boots.

I made the transition to the first .com site. Then to the 2nd incarnation of that site. And finally to this one. Nothing personal FSSL, but none of the more recent incarnations come anywhere near the free-wheeling discussion on the original .net.

Those were the days. Don, Marine, Dr. Bob, and others. We had a great time.

 

[praise_yeshua]

Wow. You people are making me feel really old! I joined the very first FFF when it was still at JackHyles.net and run by Don Elbourne. That was about 3 years before Jack Hyles died so it would be around 1998.

Interestingly I can still log onto JackHyles.net but there is nothing there except some spam advertising shoes and boots.

I made the transition to the first .com site. Then to the 2nd incarnation of that site. And finally to this one. Nothing personal FSSL, but none of the more recent incarnations come anywhere near the free-wheeling discussion on the original .net.

Those were the days. Don, Marine, Dr. Bob, and others. We had a great time.

Translation......

I only like it when IFBs headline the discussion!

 

[Tarheel Baptist]

Wow. You people are making me feel really old! I joined the very first FFF when it was still at JackHyles.net and run by Don Elbourne. That was about 3 years before Jack Hyles died so it would be around 1998.

Interestingly I can still log onto JackHyles.net but there is nothing there except some spam advertising shoes and boots.

I made the transition to the first .com site. Then to the 2nd incarnation of that site. And finally to this one. Nothing personal FSSL, but none of the more recent incarnations come anywhere near the free-wheeling discussion on the original .net.

Those were the days. Don, Marine, Dr. Bob, and others. We had a great time.

Translation......

I only like it when IFBs headline the discussion!

Marine and Dr Bob certainly didn't argue from a pro IFB position.
I don't remember much about Don.

 

[Thomas Cassidy]

Marine and Dr Bob certainly didn't argue from a pro IFB position.
I don't remember much about Don.

Marine preaches in Southern Baptist Churches.

Dr. Bob's son was Youth Pastor at Saddleback, Rick Warren's church, which is Southern Baptist. And Dr. Bob has never been associated with IFBXdumb, but came out of the GARBC/CBA, just as I did.

Don Elbourne pastors a Southern Baptist Church in New Orleans, LA.

And I am a member of a Southern Baptist Church here in Texas.

So, it would seem, once again, that  praise_yeshua has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, as usual.

I knew I had the idiot on "ignore" for a reason.

 

[FSSL]

Dr. Bob was associated with Maranatha, which at that time was very much like IFBXRs.

But of course, he has shed those elements

 

[Thomas Cassidy]

Dr. Bob was associated with Maranatha, which at that time was very much like IFBXRs.

I have heard that. I was there right from the beginning and I never associated it with IFBX. It is true that Jack Hyles was on the board for a couple years in the very beginning, but even he, at that time, had not gone over the edge yet.

Doctor Cedarholm had been General Secretary of the CBA for many, many years (21 years if my memory serves me). Churches IFBXers wouldn't darken the door of. He was educated at Eastern Baptist Seminary, affiliated with the Northern Baptist Convention, which all IFBs eschewed in detail. After Eastern he attended liberal Presbyterian Princeton Theological Seminary. Again, no IFB would have touched Princeton. He was president of Pillsbury (my wife's alma mater) until starting Maranatha in 1968.

He just doesn't seem to me to fit the IFBX mold.

But of course, he has shed those elements.

I am not sure Dr. Bob ever held those elements. His pastor growing up (who was also my pastor for several years in the 1970s) certainly wasn't an IFBX legalist. He considered the ASV to be "the rock of biblical honesty" and often quoted it in his sermons. His wife and daughter wore slacks. And in his later years he spent the coldest months of the winter lying on the beach in Clearwater, Florida (no connection to Doc Clearwaters, as far as I know). 

Doc Clearwaters was educated in Northern Baptist schools including studying Greek literature under Edgar Goodspeed at University of Chicago Divinity School, a school (loosely) associated with the Northern Baptist Convention. Nobody would mistake Goodspeed with a fundamentalist.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

I disagreed with Dr. Bob on a few things, but I really do miss him and his posts.

 

[Walt]

There is a time and place for Bible study, when everyone is encouraged to participate, but there is also a time and place for preaching, which is not open to everyone's interruption on minor points or wacky ideas.... case in point - the Scripture (1 or 2 Corinthians) that begins "for we know that if this earthly tabernacle were destroyed..." - clearly, and in context, it is talking about our bodies; our flesh. I was in a Bible study where someone went on and on about how we would be living in tents in heaven, using this passage.

So any person who feels compelled to contribute is going to interrupt with a minor point or wacky idea, therefore there should be no interruptions?  That's a classic non-sequitur.  I'm sorry you have a single data point where someone went on and on with a wacky idea, but that is not a valid argument for sermons to a silent, captive audience.  There are preachers who go on and on with a minor point or wacky idea, too, but that's not the reason why I don't think the model is the right one.

No, you misunderstand me (or I stated it badly): I think that Bible studies and preaching are different things.  I cannot think of any New Testament example where the preaching was allowed to be interrupted with questions.

In my opinion, a Bible Study benefits from questions and comments, but also needs a leader who does not allow heresy to be taught.  I've been in too many where any comment at all was allowed, even when two people pulled opposite teaching from the passage.  Neither may be right, but both cannot be.

I cannot think of any New Testament example where it was said nobody ever spoke up or asked questions when someone was preaching.  To say that never happened is arguing from silence.  But I can cite scripture that says when you come together, two or three should speak, etc. 

As an aside, I can't think of any New Testament example where preaching was to an assembly of believers.  The only examples that come to mind are when someone was presenting the Gospel or arguing/proving that Jesus is the Christ.  And even then, it doesn't say it was uninterrupted and nobody spoke up or asked questions.

Whether you realize it or not, you're arguing for papal authority.  And that's not a good thing.

Not arguing for papal authority; I think preachers should be asked about things with which one disagrees, but not during the preaching.  That is not at all the same thing as "arguing for papal authority", which says, I believe, that when the pope speaks "ex cathedra", what he says is infallible.

How about when Paul was preaching to the assembly (the church), and the young men fell asleep and fell out of the window?  I believe he was speaking to (encouraging) the believers.

 

[Walt]

It was, I think, perhaps around 2007. 

I was an unhappy kool-aid drinking member of a HAC church.  The popular fundamentalist song had been "The Value of One" by Eric Capaldi, who had been at Bob Gray, Sr (TX) church ... but somewhere around 2007, he was gone, and no one would talk about it.  Irritated by the withholding of information, I searched for him, and one of the top links was a link to the FFF that explained what had happened.  Intrigued, I started reading... I assumed it was a forum  for fundamentalists like me, but I was both repelled and attracted to what I found.  People were (rightly) poking holes in (or making fun of) some of the ridiculous aspects of IFBx (the church we attended was IFBx; I, personally, very privately disagreed with some of their positions).  I was appalled by some of the people who claimed to be "good Christians" but were (it seemed to me) boasting of their divorces, drinking, tattoos, and other deliberate breaking of the "rules".

I was aware that "fundamentalists" disagreed to some extent about music, but I was not prepared for the supporters of hard rock and rap in the church, and the belief among "fundamentalists" that music was utterly amoral.

I only use the KJV, but I'm not sure that it makes me "King James Only" - so much of it depends on how the term is defined. I utterly reject Ruckmanism, which states that God actually wrote the King James Version.  The King James Version is a translation.  Claiming that the KJV is "inspired" muddies the water.

There were plenty of IFBx practices to poke  fun at - the missionary surveys asking what attire his wife sleeps in; preaching against bananas and open-toed sandals (what do people think they wore on their feet in New Testament times?), preaching that Jesus didn't have a beard, and on and on the list goes.

It has been educational.

i think i know one member of that old forum you might be referring to...... and who you might have thought was boasting about her tattoos..... ..... you might say i know her very well..... ..... ... but the fact is she wasn;t really boasting about them..... and i don;t think she is even very proud of them..... except for one maybe......... but when she came under fire by the consortium of forum pharisees there she wasn;t going to let them make her ashamed of her tattoos either...... ...... so her strong defense of self probably did come off as if she boasting about them..... ... i don;t even have tattoos and don;t want any.... but because she was my sister i ended up defending her too... in what probably looked like an advocacy for tattoos myself.......


that;s the problem with negative feedback christianity...... or actually negative feedback anything....... ... rather than exhort each other to do the right things and reach for the things that are greater...... they berate each other with shame and guilt trips over the things they haven;t done well enough..... or which they feel someone else might have done wrong...... ......... it might work in people raised to accept it,  and cow to that kind of treatment.... but i think even you would agree that eventually even those most hardened to it reach a point where they say they have had enough..... .. . ....... ..... but in people not used to it it produces a reaction that looks like rebellion..... though in reality it;s just telling someone that can;t mind their own business where to step off..... ..... and then eventually.... if it continues.... it just drives them away........ .....

people need to see the positive reasons for working toward the good..... and not just be constantly beaten down and shamed over what others feel didn;t measure up.......... relationships based on shame and guilt don;t work....... and neither do religious denominations...... ..

I don't think I ever got involved in the tattoo debate here -- I was just surprised coming from an IFBx church that routinely preached against tattoos to see people arguing that there was nothing wrong with them.

 

[FSSL]

Good history Thomas. I think the 1970s and 1980s changed quite a few things...

At Maranatha, most every rule you would have found at any IFBX college was in place at Maranatha.

Jack Hyles was often a guest preacher. There was plenty of Gothard influences as well. It was a potpourri of legalisms.

Weniger (who followed Cedarholm) had to offset the TR Only, Baptist Bride and low educational standards. Hyles was never asked back. Extreme pastors, who previously filled the chapels, were eventually not invited back. By the time I left MBBC, the school was more IFB than IFBX.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

How about when Paul was preaching to the assembly (the church), and the young men fell asleep and fell out of the window?  I believe he was speaking to (encouraging) the believers.

7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

There is no indication here that he was delivering a sermon at all.  He was talking with them until midnight, and the text gives no indication that people weren't responding. 

One guy fell asleep.  Is that evidence it was a sermon because your uninterrupted sermons put people to sleep? 

 

[Thomas Cassidy]

Good history Thomas. I think the 1970s and 1980s changed quite a few things...

That may well be.

At Maranatha, most every rule you would have found at any IFBX college was in place at Maranatha.

That was the way it was at Pillsbury when my wife was there and Central when I was a student. I once asked the Dean about all the rules and if the administration thought they were biblical. He said, no, they knew they weren't, but it never hurts to learn to obey rules, even ones you disagree with. It may be the best thing I learned for my 40 years of ministry.

Jack Hyles was often a guest preacher. There was plenty of Gothard influences as well. It was a potpourri of legalisms.

I knew Hyles disappeared around that time. I think it may have been his flirting with the Charismatic movement in the early 1970s. And, of course, those of us who warned against Gothard were ostracized back then. But now we seem to have been vindicated. Sadly.

Weniger (who followed Cedarholm) had to offset the TR Only, Baptist Bride and low educational standards. Hyles was never asked back. Extreme pastors, who previously filled the chapels, were eventually not invited back. By the time I left MBBC, the school was more IFB than IFBX.

I agreed with Dr. Weeks and Dr. Hollowood on the church and the identity of the bride, but I saw it more as a teaching metaphor than something to be taken literally. And I am a Byzantine priority guy, but tend to really irritate the TROnly crowd when I ask "which one? There are 33 TRs, all different." LOL!

 

[FSSL]

And I am a Byzantine priority guy, but tend to really irritate the TROnly crowd when I ask "which one? There are 33 TRs, all different." LOL!

Haha... According to Thomas Strouse... there was only one TR (that we were allowed to use)

Weniger changed that. He had the Greek Department change to using the NA. Strouse left that following year for Tabernacle in Virginia.

 

[FSSL]

There is no indication here that he was delivering a sermon at all.  He was talking with them until midnight, and the text gives no indication that people weren't responding. 

One guy fell asleep.  Is that evidence it was a sermon because your uninterrupted sermons put people to sleep? 

Ask Tomato!

At Mars Hill, everyone had an opportunity to ask questions. They were all interjecting and poor Paul could hardly get a word out with all of the questions!

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

How about when Paul was preaching to the assembly (the church), and the young men fell asleep and fell out of the window?  I believe he was speaking to (encouraging) the believers.

By the way, I've given a number of keynote speeches.  The format doesn't account for people interrupting with comments or questions, but sometimes people did, and I responded to them politely and tried to answer.  And there was always a question/answer session afterward. 

"Speaking to the people" doesn't mean there's no interaction.  Maybe you should try it.  Even if you're not going to let anyone speak during your sermon, try opening it up for discussion and Q&A afterward.  You might learn something. 

You might even find that some uneducated Christian in the "laity" has a better insight into a particular scripture than you do.  The Holy Spirit is a better teacher than seminary, or professors, or dozens of other sources of learning.  And the Spirit teaches men of all walks of life.