baker,
I don’t know you from Adam or Eve or Other (pick one), but it’s interesting and perhaps informative that you chose to “rookie out” for purposes of this discussion. If that’s an expedient pseudonym to disguise a better-known handle and protect your precious backside, that alone should immediately make you question your own motives.
It would be judgmental of me to make the following comments as if they were aimed directly and singularly at you, because I can by definition have no certainty of the condition of your heart. So, accept them as general in nature and directed at the above remarks written by you and perhaps those of some others. But, IF the shoe fits, consider that your sin may well be worse in God’s eyes than those with which you condemn this pastor.
And, about the only way you could be certain of these accusations being true would be if you participated with him in them. Is that the case? Is this a first or third person account? If you were involved, how do you justify your own actions? Worst of all, how do you explain your condemnation of someone else while overlooking your own complicity and duplicity? For your edification, read your Bible (if you don’t have one, I’m sure your church would loan you one) where Jesus talked about eyes, beams and motes.
If this isn’t a first-person condemnation, then you really don’t know the facts in this case, so you are judging based upon allegations, assumptions and innuendo. That’s usually considered a contemptible thing by reasoning people.
“But, I want to know all the story! Gimme the dirt.” So, what if there really is no dirt? Or, what if there’s a lot? Then be responsible, and show us the badge that gives you a right to demand to know.
“Well,” you say, “I’m not a pastor, so I have no obligations to God or the congregation.” Biblically speaking, that’s “skeballa” (Greek - sp?) or what General Schwarzkopf called "bovine scatology". But, okay, if that be true, then keep your “Bertha-better-than-you” pointy shoes off of the turf of those who do have God-granted and Biblically delineated authority and responsibility in this matter.
You know yourself far better than I (though not so well or truly than as God knows you), so you and not I know whether all that church-going for which you patted yourself on the back so liberally above has done you any good. Either you have been a good student and learned that God gave pastoring teachers to teach the saints to minister... or not. But, you may be on the horns of a dilemma.
If you haven’t learned much in all that time spent in church, you may have to explain to God what you’ve been doing wasting your time there. Why did you spend so much time listening to a teacher who couldn’t teach you? If good instruction was available each Sunday, what did you do with the time you were supposed to have been learning? Were you sleeping? Were you dishonoring the Word going forth from the forth-teller in that pulpit, regardless whether he was more akin to Balaam’s ass than Michael the Archangel?
If you are well-enough taught to recognize that you have a duty to minister, what did you do with that responsibility? Were you smart enough and spiritually aware enough to recognize that pastors are special targets for the forces of the Prince of the Power of the Air? Did you regularly pray for the pastor that he be kept from temptation and the wiles of the Evil One? Did you pray that you would be kept from the temptation to judge God’s man (which implies, by the way, that you have the right to judge God’s decisions about who fills that office)? Or, are you laboring under the delusion that instead of the Chief Shepherd choosing His under-shepherds, the sheep get that task? What must you really think of the power of the God you imply that you worship?
Did you pray that God would keep you from the temptation to gossip and be a rumormonger?
If the above be true, you may have more to answer for at judgment time than the one you condemn so harshly. Think about that a moment! And, Biblically, you should know that by the measure you use to judge you shall likewise be judged. If that’s news to you, then woe to you!
On the other hand, maybe you just stayed complacent and spiritually overfed so that you didn’t really feel the need to learn anything at that church. Don’t worry, be happy! Ignorance is bliss! God wouldn’t possibly condemn you for malfeasance like you are condemning your pastor! Your hands are not guilty of his blood! Wash them publicly on TexAgs, you little Pilate, you! Ooops, but at least we knew who Pontius Pilate really was and where he got his authority, didn’t we?
Well, maybe you’re more like Peter, anyway. When Jesus disappointed Peter’s expectations, he denied his Leader instead of pressing in to help and comfort Him at His time of greatest trial. Maybe you should have chosen aggiepeter05 for your handle instead.
If you don’t have the same feelings for him that you once did, that’s probably because you didn’t have a proper relationship with him in the first place. Is that his fault or yours? You just might find that answer is important to God, to your understanding of accountability and to your future.
By the way, while I’m mentioning “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf, he is alleged to have said, when asked if we should forgive the 911 terrorists, something like “That’s God’s job. Ours is to deliver them to Him.” In that light, do you see Pastor Edwards as a terrorist and yourself as the cavalry?
Better for you, I think, if you thought more about Calvary and less about the cavalry.
