The other day I had an interesting discussion with a Pastor. This Pastor tried his best to defend the right of women preaching from the pulpit. As our conversation turned we went on to discuss a Pastor I sat under in the lastCharismaticChurchthat I attended. For sake of clarity we will call the first Pastor ‘The Teacher.’(1) The second Pastor’s real name is Otis Graves. (2) The ‘Teacher’ also knows Otis Graves personally and has attended church with him; long before either man became Pastors.
First I want to say that it is not unfair of me to examine both of these men. I am commanded in scripture to test all things and to try every spirit because many false prophets have gone out into the world 1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1. Secondly I will say that if a man puts himself into the spotlight, by stepping into the pulpit, then he is open to critique and his doctrines are open to critique. Concerning Paul the Apostles trip toBerea, the scriptures declare, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” Act 17:11. In other words the Bereans did not just take Paul’s word as the final say so, but instead searched the Old Testament scriptures to see if Paul was right in what he said.
Having clarified my right to examine a minister’s doctrines I will go on to say that both of these men, ‘The Teacher’ and Mr. Otis Graves are Charismatics. Both are Pastors of small independent churches. Both believe it to be alright for women to preach from the Pulpit. ‘The Teacher’ actually has named his wife as his Assistant Pastor. Mr. Otis Graves on the other hand believes it to be alright for women to preach, but not to Pastor.
In my conversation with ‘The Teacher’ a comment was made by him that showed the heretical views of Charismatics. In this conversation he actually told me that since Otis Graves was an Independent Church Pastor, then he can preach what he wants to. By saying this, he was also pointing to himself and stating that he could preach what he wanted to because he is an independent Pastor.
Therefore my first question is this: Can an independent Pastor preach what he wants to? The answer to this question is, yes. People can preach what they want to preach inAmericabecause we have no laws governing what can be preached from the pulpits. Matter of fact people do not have to even be called of God or can claim they are and make up their own religions as Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell have done. (For those who don’t know it: Joseph Smith founded Mormonism and Charles Taze Russell founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses.)
My second question is this: Does a minister have the right, according to scripture, to preach what he wants to. The answer is: No, he does not. A Pastor is God’s spoke person or is to speak on behalf of God. He is not to make up new doctrines, but is to be faithful to the written word of God. Paul told Titus to ordain elders in every city and their qualifications were that they were to hold fast the faithful word as they have been taught that they may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers Titus 1:9.
This is what is missing from Charismatic Churches. They hold to extra-Biblical revelations and claim that God has spoken to them or that prophets are getting a new word from the Lord. If Prophets are getting a new word from the Lord, then the scriptures are still being written. Since whatever God says is authoritative, then the so-called new words or prophecies from God would be on the same level as scripture. The reason Charismatics have no sound doctrines and one can believe it to be alright for women to Pastor, but the other Charismatic only believe it to be alright for them to preach, is because both have went beyond scripture.
‘The Teacher’ actually told me that Paul had surrounded himself by women preachers. I have searched the scriptures and cannot find any place where Paul surrounded himself by women preachers. When Paul went on his missionary journeys, he went with other men. Barnabas, Mark, Luke and Silas were Paul’s companions. Also when Paul went toJerusalemto discuss the question of whether or not the Gentiles should be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses, we see that an assembly convened together on this matter, but only the elders spoke. All the elders were men. There are no places in scripture where women were put into places of authority.
From Genesis to Revelation we see men being used by God to lead. There was only one case where a woman might have been used to lead God’s people and this was in the case of Deborah, Judges 4:4. In this special instance Deborah actually called on Barak and told him that God had commanded him to go fight. Deborah leading God’s people was not God’s revealed will, though it was his sovereign effective will, because it came to pass. In other words God gave specific instructions from Genesis to Revelation concerning who is to be over his people, the services of God, and the congregation. God always chose men. When Jesus chose disciples, he chose men. When Paul commanded Timothy and Titus to ordain elders in every city, they chose men because Paul gave them the qualifications that only a man could meet.
Paul also gave three reasons why a woman is not to usurp authority over a man or teach, but to be silent in the churches. First, Paul stated that this command is rooted in creation, when he said that Adam was first formed and then Eve. Secondly, Eve was in the transgression because she was deceived. The sin nature passes from man to his children because Adam willfully ate of the tree. He was not deceived. Finally Paul said that a woman is to be silent in the churches because the law also commanded this 1 Tim 2:13-14; 1 Cor. 14:34. After Paul gets through telling the Corinthians, in 1 Cor. 14:34, that women are to be silent in the church, he goes on to tell them that the things of which he writes are the commandments of the Lord 1 Cor. 14:36. Many people speak of keeping the commandments of the Old Testament, but break those of the New.
Now I want to turn the subject from leadership to right doctrine. I was the Assistant Pastor under Otis Graves and was voted in by the people. I preached and taught Reformed Theology the last 4 years that I was under Otis. Reformed Theology is the true Biblical doctrines of the faith. At the time I was teaching word for word through the book of Romans or expositionally teaching and preaching the book of Romans. I have witnesses that heard Otis’ wife stand a few weeks before I was asked to leave and proclaim that she thanked God that I had been teaching through the book of Romans because what I was proclaiming was the truth of God’s word. Otis himself called me to the office secretly and told me that he was having me to step down. He told me that what I was preaching and teaching was the truth, but as long as I was there he could not teach that healing is in the atonement according to 1 Peter 2:24.
The fact of the matter is I had exegeted 1 Peter 2:24 from the pulpit a several months earlier. (3) I had showed that this scripture is not teaching that healing is in the atonement, but that our spiritual healing is in the atonement. All through the New Testament we are told that Christ Jesus died for sins. We are never told as Charismatics teach that Jesus died for our health, for our healing, or any other thing. We are sick because Adam sinned. Sickness is the result of sin. Jesus died for sins, but as long as we are in this body we will continue to get sick and die because the redemption of our bodies are not to take place at the present moment and the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
The reason I was asked to leave was because Otis Graves has many views that are not scriptural. As I proclaimed the Biblical doctrines of the Reformation they would bump into or condemn his false views. For instance, I heard him preach that people could walk in health if they obey God. He preached moralistic sermons or sermons that proclaimed that you can overcome what your in if you abstain from sin. His conflict against me had been building because everything that he had ever been taught was being demolished through my clear exposition of the scriptures. I gave him some material on Arminianism and he brought it back lamenting that he did not realize that he had been teaching these false principles until now. This is what happens when a man steps into a pulpit with no knowledge of what the universal church has condemned as heretical.
Otis Graves would not baptize because he took Paul’s words out of context. He proclaimed that Christ had not sent him to baptize. Paul was giving his own testimony of what God called him to do. An apostle was not sent to baptize, but the local Pastor is to do these things. Otis would not partake of communion because it was tradition and Otis was against tradition. This again is a Charismatic false concept. Otis finally had communion in his church after I left. I was sent word by the congregation that they appreciated my theology because now Otis was allowing communion to be partaken of. Otis had been the Pastor of that congregation for around fourteen or fifteen years and never had allowed communion in the church. (4)
When Protestants came away from Roman Catholicism they defined what the marks of a true church were. The Protestant Reformers gave three marks of a true church. The first two marks are that the ordinances handed down by Jesus should be observed. These two ordinances consist of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The third mark is that the word of God should be preached in its purity. In other words if the scriptures declare that women are not qualified to rule or lead the church and we then presume to allow women to preach or lead the church, then we are not preaching the word of God in its purity.
I sat in Charismatic churches from 1992-2008. All the years of which I attended charismatic churches (and believe me I have been in a heap of them) I had never heard a sermon on God’s absolute sovereignty over his creation, of God’s predestining men to life and death, of Christ substitutionary sacrifice, Christ ruling and reigning from heaven now, or of Christ as the central motif of the scriptures, etc, etc…. It wasn’t until I began to proclaim these things that I had ever heard a live sermon on these biblical truths.
These truths were proclaimed by all the Protestant Reformers. All denominations drew up creeds and confessions and proclaimed these things. It wasn’t until John Wesley organized the first denomination that taught the heretical doctrines of Arminianism that all Protestant churches began to go into demise. Out of Wesley’s Holiness second grace denomination came all the holiness churches of today proclaiming the heretical views of Arminianism and Roman Catholicism. These views have spread over into the Protestant denominations, among those who used to be true to scripture, so that now you have an amalgamation of heretical doctrines.
I have much more to say, but my post has went overboard in its length already, so I think I will title this post Pt 1 and come back to it later.
Hershel Lee Harvell Jr.
Footnotes:
(1) I am calling the first Pastor ‘The Teacher’ only because he is supposed to teach what scripture states, but tells me that he doesn’t care what it states. Also he acts like he is a learned man, but reads no Bible through the week. His job works him 65 or so hours a week and while working he listens to secular radio all day.
(2) Otis Graves is in the same category as the ‘Teacher’ when it comes to knowing nothing about the Bible. His job makes him work from daylight to late in the evening and when he isn’t working he is visiting people here and there. I know for a fact that he never got his sermon up for Sunday morning service, until it was time for Sunday school. He then would go into his office and study for the sermon. I know for a fact that he drags in to church late and then holds up service talking about the football game with the congregational members. I was under Otis from 2003 to 2008 and began many a service without him, because he simply had not showed up yet.
(3) One can hear my teaching on 1 Peter 2:24 on my web site http://www.reformedontheweb.com/hermeneutics.htm entitled “Exegetical Mistakes Most Students Make in Interpreting Scripture.”
(4) One of the last questions Otis asked me in his office was: “Do you think I am wrong for not allowing communion in the church?” I told him that he was wrong. I told him that Christ Jesus himself commanded us to partake of his supper until he return. Paul stated that Jesus said that we do show his death, in doing this, until he returns 1 Cor. 11:26
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