One of the greatest things I heard a pastor say was, “It’s not my job to get you to follow me. It’s my job to get you to follow Jesus!”
You’re about to hear the words of a natural born rebel. I know the word “rebel” might discredit this essay, because the Bible doesn’t usually call someone a rebel in a positive light.
But I posit…that if you call yourself a Christian, a true believer and a follower of Christ…then, believe it or not…you are actually rebelling. You’re rebelling against Satan and this wicked system of things.
Right now, there’s a lot of talk about the decline of Protestant Churches in the US.
And as a Man who’s read the entire Bible now twice, I’ve acknowledged that it’s going to be next to impossible to find a single church where I agree with their theology 100%…but if it’s just 95%…I can manage and hang around.
But still…there are some dealbreakers for me.
- The Bible is My Ultimate Authority:
- Why You NEED To Read the Bible for Yourself:
- The Bible is God’s Letter to You:
- Female Preachers are a Deal-breaker:
- The Courage to Speak Against Popular Opinion
- The Folly of Assuming Silence Means Agreement:
- When Should You Change Churches?
- Loyalty is Honorable:
- How Churches Guilt-Trip You into Staying
The Bible is My Ultimate Authority:
Before I get into those dealbreakers, allow me to establish a baseline about what is the Ultimate Authority for me.
If a Pastor says such and such behavior is okay, but the Bible says that behavior is an abomination…I follow the Bible.
It’s that simple. In my faith, the Bible is the Word of God. It is God’s voice. It is his directions, his guidance, his wisdom. The Bible is Truth.
So, when I see all these multi-part video studies from Christians divulging on Biblical topics, where they espouse their personal beliefs or interpretation on how we should live or what we should think when it comes to the Scriptures…I’m open to listening.
But at the same time, I keep in mind that unless they’re quoting from the Bible verbatim, their words are coming from an imperfect and flawed human being.
That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily wrong. I’m merely conveying that Humans are not God. Pastors, Ministers, Deacons, and Bible Study Group leaders…these people are not God.
In my Marriage Group a couple of weeks ago, I had a disagreement with the group about the essence of the Holy Spirit. They believed that the Holy Spirit was a specific person and also God, not just an extension of God’s power and spirit.
I asked them, “Why doesn’t the Bible explicitly say that? It implies it sure, but there’s a lot of personifications in the Bible. Israel is frequently referred to as the bride and in the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is described as a ‘she’. So, if it was really that important for us to nail down whether the Holy Spirit is a person or not, why doesn’t the Bible say it?”
Then a woman responded with, “Sometimes, it’s on us to connect the dots.”
There…I don’t disagree with her. But the thing is, who gets to say that the dots you connected are right, and the dots that I connected are wrong?
If already that pricked a nerve, I apologize. I’m not here to declare who’s right or wrong in their interpretations. Only that we as individuals are responsible for the interpretations we choose to believe.
It’s understandable and reasonable to put our trust in Pastors and Ministers. But at the end of the day, our trust should first be in God’s Word the Bible.
Why You NEED To Read the Bible for Yourself:
In 2020, I wrote an essay called, “Top 10 Ways the Bible Changed My Life: #5. It Taught Me Which Religious Practices Were Made Up By Man“…I encourage you to check it out because I explain how vulnerable you are if you don’t know what is or isn’t in the Bible.
Names like David Koresh and Jim Jones immediately come to mind.
For those who don’t know, both were religious leaders with huge congregations. David Koresh convinced some of the men that it was okay for him to sleep with their wives to save them from sexual sin. And Jim Jones once held the Bible up to his congregation, shouted “we don’t need this!” before throwing it down the nave.
Both led their congregations to violent and deadly ends and the members could have saved themselves if they put the authority of the Bible over what these human leaders said.
The minute Jim Jones shouted that they didn’t need the Bible, if I was in his church, I would’ve taken my wife by the hand and promptly stood up to leave.
That’s what I’m talking about. Should we be more loyal to the church, or to God?
In my essay, I stress more than anything how important it is for the individual to read the entire Bible for themselves. Don’t just simply rely on humans to tell you what’s in it and don’t just simply memorize a couple of scriptures just so you can spit them out like bullets in a chamber whenever you have a point to prove.
Read the whole Book and pray for the wisdom to understand it.
Not only will it protect you from false teachings, but it’ll open your eyes to which teachings were created by Humans and pushed as truth.
Think back to what Jesus used to say about the Pharisees and religious institutions of his day.
Before John the Baptist came calling in the wilderness, Israel endured 400 years since the Prophet Malachi where they didn’t have a prophet, a messenger bringing the word of God.
That era is called the 400 Years of Silence.
And it was during that absence, that void, that the religious leaders created institutions and groups like the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin…and more rules. These rules…Jesus constantly referred to as a burden on the people. (Matt 11:28-30)
Reading the Bible for yourself will provide relief from a lot of Manmade traditions.
It will also save you from offending our Heavenly Father, who you claim to love, worship and obey. What do I mean?
The Bible is God’s Letter to You:
Well…Let’s say you’re a parent and your grown son or daughter does something you don’t like.
Now, obviously, you’ll still love them regardless. But the activities they’re participating in makes you really upset. It disgusts you and brings you to anger.
To tell them how you feel, you write them a letter. But instead of reading that letter, your son or daughter hears someone else read it and that person leaves out all the important stuff that was really bothering you.
Sure, you’ll be upset with the person that led the son or daughter astray…but how would you really feel about your son or daughter who had the letter in their hands, but chose not to read it?
I digress…
Female Preachers are a Deal-breaker:
Last June 2025…my wife and I joined a local church, a big church with well over 300 members in the auditorium every Sunday service.
Like I said…I agree about 95% with what they’re teaching, so we’ve stuck with this church…until we saw Women Preaching the main service.
I’ve already explained why I don’t think it’s Biblical for Women should be Preaching on stage in this essay, so I don’t want to spend too much time on that.
Instead…I want to share what happened in my Church’s Men’s Group a few Wednesday’s ago where I found out…I’m not the only one thinking it.
We started talking about how we as Men need to do a better job encouraging others to come to church.
I told them how I invited my boxing coach (male 40s, married with an 8-year-old son). He watched the Livestream a few times, and he came to the Christmas service.
But when I told him, that I peek at the 9am service to see if a Woman is preaching before deciding to come to the 10:30am service…he hasn’t been back since.
To explain, at this church there’s the main Pastor…who we think is awesome and we wished he was the one giving the Sermons every Sunday.
But after every 3 sermons or so, a different male pastor will preach on Sunday. For the most part, we haven’t had a problem with their sermons and in some cases, we were even more impressed with their delivery.
But then…sometimes, almost out of the blue, they’ll have a woman standing center stage giving the main sermon.
My wife and I do not like this.
So, when I brought up this issue with the Men’s Group…I did so with caution.
The Courage to Speak Against Popular Opinion
That part is really important. I don’t think people understand how much courage it takes to speak up and say something in rooms where it SEEMS everyone else is standing in solidarity of the opposite opinion.
I don’t enjoy doing that. Let me repeat for those in the back…I DO NOT ENJOY DOING THAT!
It’s not just with church. In pretty much every facet of my life, family gatherings, business meetings, social events…
I’m not constantly ruffling feathers for the sake of starting some drama. But if there’s something that I believe NEEDS to be said for the sake of truth, or efficiency, or to get to the heart of the problem and everyone is tip-toeing around it because they’re afraid…I’m that guy who will muster his courage and step up to say it.
When I do…my job isn’t to force people to agree with me or to belittle them for not agreeing with me…it’s simply to put it out there. As long as I’ve made it known, I can sit back and say I did my part. Or at the very least, I’m not complicit with the nonsense going on.
And when that happens…sometimes I’ll get push-back from people, especially the leaders who think they’re right.
And then, there are times, more often than not…that my words are like the cannons fired against the floodgates. And suddenly everyone else has the courage to piggy-back onto my points and speak up as well.
The Folly of Assuming Silence Means Agreement:
That’s what happened in my Men’s Group. I didn’t expect it. The last time I talked to another guy from this church about the Female Pastors, he told me, “well, why aren’t the men stepping up?”
…which to me, is about as silly as saying, “well, why didn’t the husband do more?” to justify a wife’s decision to cheat on him.
To see that the guys in my Men’s Group all pretty much have the same issue I had with the Church…it was very bittersweet.
On one hand, I felt validated in my opinions. That’s important because I’m not an arrogant narcissist.
What I mean by that is, if I look around the auditorium and it seems like all these good people have no problem with it and I’m the only one who does…then maybe I am the problem. Maybe I am too high and mighty in my thoughts by thinking I must know better than everyone else, which I am often guilty of.
So, there’s that internal clash of my wisdom and knowledge versus the thoughts of, “you’re wrong, Rock. You’re acting like a conceited Pharisee and you need to shut up, sit back, and do what everyone else is doing.”
Even in the Men’s Group, as I hear the fellas speaking up to agree with me, part of me feels bad.
I’m like, “did I just sow seeds of discord within the group?”
And because I am fighting back that smirk of feeling I’ve been right all along…lol, part of it feels like I just did an evil thing. That was until one person said something incredible.
When Should You Change Churches?
In my Men’s Group, there’s a colorful character. We’ll call him Marvin. He’s a 30-something father of 3 girls who teaches as a Christian school…he came out and said this:
“That’s the reason why I don’t go to church here.”
That blew my mind! Other members turned to him, shocked and said, “Wait, you don’t go to church here?”
Marvin said, “I only come for these groups, for the fellowship. But I pulled my family out long ago when I saw the women preaching on stage.”
The Leader of Our Men’s Group suggested that I could meet with one of the Male Pastors so I can understand the church’s position on female preachers.
That’s when Marvin said, “Yeah, we already did that. We met with leadership and they said they’re not going to pivot. It’s their opinion that preaching on stage isn’t exactly a leadership role.”
I suspected that might be their justification. And part of me wants to believe that they actually believe in that opinion. Because if I didn’t believe it, my wife and I would’ve stopped coming to this church the moment we saw it.
“What do you mean, Rock?”
Well…in my heart of hearts, this is what I truly suspect is going on: the Men are demonstrating they have a greater love and fear of women than they do for God. They’re either influenced by the Culture’s push to “include” women… or they’re influenced and pressured by the women in their lives to appease women.
I haven’t “concluded” this opinion. And I have found a way to avoid the female preachers by simply checking the 9am livestream.
But after much prayer and deliberation on the issue…my wife and I have decided to start looking at other churches to attend.
Thus, my question stands.
Are you more loyal to God…or the Church?
Seeing that there were other men who don’t like the female preaching, but still just go…almost in the sense that they merely tolerate the unwanted practice…I can’t criticize them too harshly.
I just wonder. Should we be loyal to a church?
What happens if we find another church and they start preaching things we don’t like? Is it okay to keep searching and hopping from church to church?
Because the obvious criticism that comes to mind is, “Well, Rock! Sounds like you’re only searching for places that tell you what you want to hear!”
That’s fair…at the same time, I can say wholeheartedly that all I really want to hear is the truth.
And unlike most of you, I’ve read the entire Bible to know what it says and doesn’t say. If that sounds like I’m saying I’m better than most of you…instead of being offended or insult, I encourage you to be inspired.
I didn’t go to some to Seminary School. I’m just a regular dude who picked up the Bible when he was 28 and spent two years reading a few chapters every night until I finished the whole book. You can too!
Loyalty is Honorable:
I wonder…Do people put more faith in the Pastor than they do the Bible because it absolves them of accountability and personal responsibility?
I mean, it wasn’t your fault that you were led into condoning and celebrating sinful lifestyles…you were misled by the church leadership. It’s not your fault! It’s theirs!
Even with many atheists and agnostics who grew up in the church…I’ve heard accounts of how they blame the religious people around them to justify their falling away.
It’s makes me sad. Because I came close to being just like them. But even before I read the Bible for myself, as an adult, I didn’t pass the buck. Everything that happened to me in my life, my choices, the paths I took…it was mine to take. It was my responsibility. No one else.
Thus, I blamed no one else.
And I get it…there’s a lot of pressure to stay with a group that may not be good for you.
For many, that group helped them through some trying times. For others, that group fed and clothed them when they had no one else. For some, it was the church members that helped bring them to Jesus.
Those aren’t small things. The human side of us are compelled to trust and give our loyalty to them.
But when you read the Bible and come to understand who God is, how the Holy Spirit works, and what Jesus Christ did to save us…my friends…I’m not saying those people played absolutely no part in your salvation, but it was ultimately God who did everything.
Thus, your loyalty should be to Him above humans. There’s a reason why Jesus Christ said the greatest commandment was our love and loyalty first and foremost to God, and then he followed up with our neighbors coming second. (Matt 22: 36-40)
How Churches Guilt-Trip You into Staying
Then there’s the big scripture Christians like to use keep people from thinking for themselves at Proverbs 3:5-6.
I agree with those Scriptures wholeheartedly. To me, I believe it’s mainly referring to how we should trust in God’s word the Bible for understanding more than the secular ideologies, philosophies, and theories created by Humans or…myself.
For instance, if I believe that the Death Penalty is wrong and I use just my personal feelings and the thoughts and opinions of others to justify it with little to no input from the Bible…I’m guilty of leaning on my own “understanding” instead of seeking God’s.
I’ve also seen Christians use those Scriptures as if to say, “Don’t think for yourself. Don’t trust your own wisdom and understanding of the Scriptures. Instead, put your trust in MY interpretations of the Scriptures.”
And if you’re a novice in the Bible, it’s easy to let yourself get ensnared by the trap of someone else’s “own understanding”. This is how Religious Leaders are able to create cult-like followings out of their congregations.
Trust me…I grew up in a religion that treated my questions as an act of rebellion against the church, which they equated to God, when really…it was my pursuit of understanding the Truth. But as long as leaders can keep you from the truth, they maintain a certain level of authority (control) over you.
And that part that I kinda glossed over…how some people equate the Church with God…that’s the most dangerous sign that you’re in the wrong place.
Ephesians 1:22-23 explains that God placed Jesus as head over all things related to the church. The church is simply a gathering of believers. Not confined to any one building or place. But wherever believers gather. And above them all…is Jesus.
“But Rock. Are you saying that there are no representatives of Jesus on earth?”
Technically, I’m a representative of Jesus. But I am not Jesus himself. I don’t have His authority and in fact, the Bible warns that I’ll be punished for lying on His behalf.
Instead…like the quote at the beginning of this essay says, it’s not my job to get you to follow me. It’s my job to get you to follow Jesus!
The best way for me to do that…is direct you to God’s word the Bible. We can talk about it. We can discuss interpretations and meanings. But ultimately, God’s word should guide us.
Thanks for reading!
Stage In The Sky 