Bread, Coffee, & the Pope

Folgers coffee company manages to arrange a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican.
After receiving the Papal blessing, the Folgers official whispers 'Your Eminence, we have an offer for you. Folgers is prepared to donate $100 million to the church if you
change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to 'give us this day our daily coffee.'

The Pope responds, 'That is impossible. The prayer is the word of the Lord. It must not be changed.'

'Well,' said the Folgers man, 'we anticipated your reluctance. For this reason we will increase our offer to $300 million.'

'My son, it is impossible. For the prayer is the word of the Lord and it must not be changed.'

The Folgers guy says, 'Your Holiness, we at Folgers respect your adherence to the faith, but we do have one final offer…. We will
donate $500 million - that's half a billion dollars - to the great Catholic Church if you would only change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to 'give us this day our daily coffee.' Please consider it.'

And he leaves.

The next day the Pope convenes the College of Cardinals.
'There is some good news,' he announces, 'and some bad news. The good news is that the Church will come into $500 million.'

'And the bad news your Holiness?' asks a Cardinal.

'We're losing the Wonder Bread account.'
 

-copied

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Heartland Baptist "Bible" College

Next in our installment of Bible colleges is Heartland Baptist Bible College (formerly known as Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where Sam Davison is in the president.

As we said before, we based the results on the 4-year prescribed plan for those thinking they are called to be pastors.

As with Crown, you can get a feel for the direction of the school by certain introductory statements that are made on their website such as thew following:

"We realize there are good, fundamental Bible colleges across America that emphasize Baptist distinctives, separation, soul-winning, and world missions."

• Since no Christian in the Bible ever called themselves a baptist, emphasizing "Baptist" distinctives is called philosophy, not Bible.  The emphasis should be Bible doctrine.  I know everyone that loves the Baptist distinctives more than the Bible itself would say that all the distinctives are biblical, but we know better.

"These three majors are designed to promote the development of character, spiritual maturity, and commitment to the local New Testament Baptist church."

•  You can develop your character, become more spiritually mature, and learn commitment to a temporal church organization without spending thousands at a Bible college: so why go? 

So for Heartland, here is your Bible education:

FRESHMAN: 3 Bible Courses - Gospels, Genesis, Acts/Life of Paul
SOPHOMORE: 4 Bible Courses - Bibliology, Pneumatology/Angelology, 2 Bible electives
JUNIOR: 5 Bible Courses - Ecclesiology, Christology/Soteriology, Eschatology, Anthropology/Hamartiology, 1 Bible elective
SENIOR: 5 Bible Courses - Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Dispensationalism, 2 Bible electives

This yields a result of 17 Bible courses in a 4-year program of study.  However, in addition to the aforementioned Bible electives, the student will also have the opportunity to take up to 6 more Bible electives.  We did not include these in the count since they student can choose between taking a Bible course, course on youth work, a missions course, or Greek.  We also felt it was unlikely that a student would use all 6 opportunities to take a Bible course.  The total number of classes required is 56: which leads to a result of 30% using just the required classes.  If we are gracious and assume some Bible loving student would use all 6 electives to take a Bible course, that percentage jumps up to 41%.  

Either way you slice it, less than 2 full years of education time is spent educating future pastors to perform their primary duty: "FEED MY SHEEP."

While we do commend HBBC for having a course specifically on dispensationalism, they too spend too much time acting like a worldly university.  They waste time with subjects such as grammer, composition, American Lit., and Speech & Debate to name a few.  Again, not all of these classes is a complete waste of time; but as a substitution for teaching through Paul's epistles verse-by-verse?  We think not.

Nevertheless, this is what happens when Christianity takes on worldly institutions and tries to "christianize" it: it didn't work for the papists, it work for the Baptist's either. 

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The Crown College of the "Bible"

First up in this study on Bible college is the infamous Crown College of the Bible located in Powell, Tenn. and run by "Dr." Clarence Sexton.  Despite the serious Shibboleth problem that was exposed down there, this is still one of the leading independent baptist colleges in America; as well as one of the most influential.  Therefore we chose to deal with it out of the gate.

We based the results of the survey on the 4-year prescribed plan of study as listed on the college's website.  While we understand that this may not be the exact way every pastoral ministry major at Crown goes through the system, it is the recommendation of the school, and therefore, is the ideal.  Keep in mind we also defined a Bible course as:

• An individual book of the Bible taught
• Specific Bible doctrines such as: Soteriology, Angelology, etc.
• Dispensational courses
• A required "Bible" elective
• Book groupings taught such as: Pastoral Epistles

You can start to get a feel that this college, like the others, is more interested in teaching their students THEIR PHILOSOPHY rather than the words of holy writ as they list the key courses of the pastoral major as Living the Christian Life, Homiletics, and Baptist History and Distinctives.   One would think they would at least include the Pastoral Epistles as a key class for future pastors, but no.

With this in mind, here is what future pastors and graduates of Crown must undertake to be deemed "prepared" for the ministry:

FRESHMAN: 0 Bible Courses
SOPHOMORE: 6 Bible Courses - Bible Doctrine I & II, Pentateuch, Gospel Records, Historical Books, Christian Church Epistles
JUNIOR: 3 Bible Courses - Pastoral Epistles, Poetic Books, Hebrew Christian Church Epistles
SENIOR: 4 Bible Courses - Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, 2 Bible Electives

This yields a result of 13 Bible Courses in a 4-year program of study.  The total number of courses required to obtain a Bachelor of Biblical Studies in Pastoral Ministry from Crown is 54.  Therefore, doing the math (13/54) we find that 24% of the classes taken by a pastoral major are actually Bible courses.  While this is pathetic, Crown actually fares better than other "Bible" colleges; if you can believe that.  They, at least, do cover the entirety of the canon of holy scripture; albeit in an elementary way.  But this is more than you will see at some IB/IFB colleges in this survey.

Is this what you expected?  If we combined all the Bible courses, they could be taken in one academic year.  That means a Crown pastoral major will spend 3 of 4 years learning everything except the Bible.  WOW!

So what other subjects are taken by pastoral majors?  Greek (how come no Hebrew and Aramaic?), missions, Christian Home, Christian Music, Church Finance, Baptist History, and Counseling to name a few.  And we would not condemn the taking of these courses as many of them are helpful, and maybe even needful.  However, it is never wise to substitute teaching of holy scripture for an auxiliary course.  Church finance, church history, the home, music, and most other side subjects are covered in scripture.  Therefore you could teach the Bible in-depth; verse-by-verse, book-by-book, and cover all of these in some detail; kind of like expository preaching, which most fundamentalists think is a death sentence for a church per Jack Hyles' commendation (but that's another subject for another day).

Well...one down and several more to go.  Remember, we said Crown was one of the better ones.  Up next: Pacific Coast...errr...Heartland Baptist Bible College.

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"Bible" College?

Dr. Peter S. Ruckman once said, "Higher Christian education is a circus without a tent."  And the truth of this statement has never been more evident than here in Laodicea.  The proof of this can be seen in churches all across the land pastored by men from some of the most well-known Baptist Bible colleges.  Yet their congregations are ignorant of even the basic Bible doctrines.  Why is that?  Why can't these men transfer their vast knowledge of the scripture which their professors transferred to them in Bible college?  Better yet: how much knowledge of the scripture did those professors transfer to their students?  You might be surprised how little!

Despite former 10-year HAC professor Dr. William P. Grady commenting that while he was there they taught "below zero doctrine," we thought it prudent to see exactly how little Bible is actually taught at these institutions designed to prepare men to "feed the flock of God."  The percentage of Bible taught in a 4-year program designed for men (supposedly) called to be preachers will astound you.  What you will notice is the overwhelming number of "ministry" courses taught;  meaning, these carnal schools are putting out managers and not men that are "apt to teach" since the men that taught them aren't apt to teach either.

For the purposes of this research and survey we defined a "Bible" class as:

• An individual book of the Bible taught
• Specific Bible doctrines such as: Soteriology, Angelology, etc.
• Dispensational courses
• A required "Bible" elective
• Book groupings taught such as: Pastoral Epistles

So how will your alma mater fare in this survey?  Not well, that's for sure.

First up...the Crown College of the Bible.  Stay tuned.

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I'm A Bible Believer - Part 2

2.  A Bible believer will change his belief to match the words of the Bible, while a fundamentalist will correct the Bible to match his belief.

The second reason is pretty self-explanatory and happens in various ways.  However, I will address just one of the bigger issues with this point: that is salvation.  While almost no fundamentalist has a question regarding how men are saved during this dispensation, there is huge controversy over how men were saved and are going to be saved in past & future ages respectively.  The typical fundamentalists teaches all men were always saved the same way.

The main reason for this is bible college systematic theology.  Systematic theology teaches you a point of view, then shows you how to fit it into the scripture.  But if we let the scripture speak for itself, which it is more than capable of doing, we come up with a different answers than the systems of men.  So let's ask a few simple questions to illustrate.  Remember: men have always been saved the same way; by grace through faith, looking forward to the cross, blah blah blah.

• Were the apostles saved before Christ's passion (less Judas, of course)?

Most fundamentalists will answer yes to this question: and yes meaning saved and saved the same way by believing the same gospel (there is more than 1 gospel, which they also don't get) I believed (1 Cor. 15:3-4).  Let's test this with the words of holy writ:

Luke 18:31-33 Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again

Isn't that the gospel?  That's about as plain as you can get.  But what was their response to this?  Was it "Amen" and "Hallelujah" all around?  Hardly.

Luke 18:34 And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.

Isn't that strange: they didn't understand.  How could they not understand.  Wasn't every person from Adam & Eve (post-fall) waiting on this exact event for their salvation?  But not only did they not understand, they COULD NOT understand as it was hid from them.  Additionally, in Mark 9:32 after Jesus tells them the gospel in verse 31, it says they were afraid to ask him what he was talking about!

Again, they believed the death, burial and resurrection for salvation, did they?  What about Mark 16:14 when Jesus, "upbraided them for their unbelief"?  So make up your mind Mr. Fundamentalist: were they saved the same way or were they not saved until after the resurrection?  According to Luke, they didn't understand until "opened he [Jesus] their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures."  That's post-resurrection.

Even in Matthew 16 when Peter makes his infamous confession, he doesn't say he believes that Jesus will die, be buried, and rise again.  In fact, Peter rebukes Jesus for saying he's going to Jerusalem to be killed.  Peter's confession is that Jesus is, "the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Not the same is it?

But surely after the rapture until eternity people will be saved by Paul's gospel, right?  Not if you've read the Bible and believe it.  Matthew 25:34-40 tells of the "sheep" that enter into the Millennial Kingdom at the 2nd Advent.  Notice: the reason these "sheep" get in is found in verses 35-36.  Do you see anything in their about faith or the death, burial, and resurrection?  I don't either.  They get in because they did something for his brethren (v.40): i.e. WORKS!  Notice also verse 37: the Lord calls these people righteous.  You thought righteousness only came by believing the gospel and having it imputed; isn't that what Paul says in Romans?  You better learn to rightly divide!

And what about the Millennial Kingdom: are people going to be saved?  Surely in 1000 years at least 1 person will be saved.  So will they be saved by responding favorably to the preaching of the cross: after all, Paul does say "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God?  Sorry to burst your bubble again.  Nobody will be responding to the preaching of the cross or any other preaching for that matter.

Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

What?  No teaching in the Millennium?  In fact, if you are caught teaching or preaching the penalty is capital punishment according to Zechariah 13:3.  It doesn't take a genius to understand that FAITH and SIGHT are mutually exclusive (Heb. 11:1).  If faith comes by preaching, and there is no preaching, people will not be saved by faith.  They must be saved by WORKS.  You can find how people will be saved in the Millennium in Matthew chapters 5-7 aka the constitution of the Kingdom.

Are you willing to change your belief to match the words of scripture?  If not, you might be a fundamentalist.

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