Seriously need insights!

[nerizzah]

I am desperate for insights. Our church subscribe to the Westminster Standards. But our pastor believes that not everything therein should be adhered to. I am not certain to what extent he means with this but here’s what I know.

1. He does not believe in personal bible study for the members. According to him, that this endangers the members from errors and heresy. Moreover, he says that there is no explicit command on the Bible to study but only to meditate. He advises the members instead to meditate on the sermon given every Lord’s Day throughout the week. I believe this contradicts WLC Q157.

2. He disagrees with the idea that the preaching is the Word of God. He distinguishes the scriptures and the preaching to be different. But then there is WLCQ160.

Should I be worried or am I wrong?

 

[Sam Jer]

1. He does not believe in personal bible study of the members. According to him, that this endangers the members from errors and heresy. Moreover, he says that there is no explicit command on the Bible to study but only to meditate. He advises the members instead to meditate on the sermon given every Lord’s Day throughout the week. I believe this contradicts WLC Q157.

You did not name the denomination and I can't view your profile, but that is the Papist doctrine and is very dangerous. The moment he convinced everybody, what's to stop him or his succesor from bringing in doctrines of devils unawares?
Is this pastor part of a Presbytery? Are they aware of his teachings?

 

[Jmsbentley]

Those seem like very reasonable concerns on your part. It causes me to wonder if he was formerly Roman Catholic, since that's largely their qualm with the personal reading and study of scripture.

2 Peter 3:16 "As he (Paul) does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." (ESV)

This passage would seem to indicate that it is not the faithful who strive to conform themselves unto Christ and submit to His will who fall into error and heresy through personal study, but those who are unstable and untaught.

The Berean Christians are commended to us as an example. They tested the words of the Apostles upon the Old Testament scriptures, and so ought we to test the teaching of our pastors and leaders.

I think there's a pretty obvious answer as to why God does not command His people to read, only to meditate on His word, and that's simply the difficulty of access. Books and scrolls were extremely expensive between all the parchment, ink, skins, and scribal skills that went into it. For God to command His people to read His word would be to command they spend vast sums of wealth to acquire personal copies. Many would memorize God's word since they did not have personal copies, and would not thinking back on what was memorized be a form of meditating on God's word?

 

[Sam Jer]

He advises the members instead to meditate on the sermon given every Lord’s Day throughout the week.

Another thought: he is asking you, and the church, to exclusively meditate on what he preaches. In other words, the moment his preaching goes sideways, there goes your meditation.

 

[RamistThomist]

He sounds like a cultist. I'd leave.

 

[Sam Jer]

He sounds like a cultist. I'd leave.

If he talks to the other elder, and perhaps the other churches forming a synod, to no avail, and there is something else that is truly Protestant in his area, I agree.

 

[Solparvus]

Brother, I would take the apostle John’s advice and (1 John 4) “test the spirits to see whether they really be from God.”

Notice that you have to study the Bible yourself before you can come across that.

 

[Ploutos]

I'm interested to know how he defines meditation, and how he arrives at that definition. We're not Eastern mystics; meditation and study are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Parakaleo]

Who ordained him?

 

[RamistThomist]

I'm interested to know how he defines meditation, and how he arrives at that definition. We're not Eastern mystics; meditation and study are not mutually exclusive.

My guess it is more along the lines of "think pleasingly about the pastor's insights." Or, meditate on Scripture as outlined in my sermon.

 

[Northern Crofter]

Our church subscribe to the Westminster Standards. But our pastor believes that not everything therein should be adhered to.

If it does, the minister should, too, or he should either agree to not teach against the parts he finds unconscionable or peacefully depart.

He does not believe in personal bible study for the members.

Very strange. And definitely out of sorts with LC 157 (not that this minister seems to feel bound to it): "The holy Scriptures are to be read with an high and reverent esteem of them; with a firm persuasion that they are the very Word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them; with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them; with diligence, and attention to the matter and scope of them; with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer." The part I've emphasized sounds like studying to me.

According to him, that this endangers the members from errors and heresy.

It is a noble thought, but as others have mentioned, it is an error of Rome (and pretty much every cult and heretic). If he is faithfully teaching, preaching, and discipling, he should be answering questions - that interaction is a massive component of discipleship. It's pretty much the bulk of Christ's ministry. See also Paul: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me....." (I Cor.7.1 ff.).

Furthermore, you can develop error and heresy just as much (if not more so!) by not studying Scripture.

Moreover, he says that there is no explicit command on the Bible to study but only to meditate.

He's not technically wrong. The Bereans were commended in Acts 17 because they "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." This could simply mean that they did well to see if what Paul was saying about Christ was actually in the Hebrew Scriptures by reading them (which is what Christ commanded in John 5.39). There's also 2 Timothy 2.15 ("Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, dividing the word of truth aright.") but this is a command directed towards a minister. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence of God rewarding the studying of Scripture and asking questions by common folk. The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 immediately comes to mind - yes, he was reading (v.28), but he is also studying it which leads him to have questions: "Then the Eunuch answered Philip, and said, 'I pray thee, of whom speaketh the Prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?'" (v.34) Your minister needs a slight tweak to his position - people should study the Scriptures on their own and bring their questions to the elders. This seems to fit what Peter writes in 2 Peter 1.20: "no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation."

Should I be worried or am I wrong?

You should be worried. One approach would be to talk with him directly about the matter without bringing up Scripture - simply ask institutional questions: does the congregation hold to the Westminster Standards or not, does the congregation hold to presbyterian polity or not, etc. If the answers sound like they are simply the opinions of this one minister, move on if there are other alternatives. It is also worth asking if members will be disciplined for studying Scripture on their own.