It never seems to baffle me how you can listen to preachers preach the Bible, and then when you look at their daily lives and how they do things, you find they go against those very things they are preaching.
As an independent, Independent Baptist, I like to take a long look at things and then sit down and question whether they are right or not according to the scriptures. But, this is something that you aren't supposed to do if you are an Independent Baptist. For in that denomination, you are taught only to obey the Pastor without question and do so without ever wondering if what you are doing is right or not. It's almost become a cult, in which you are pressured to DO something all the time, and never stop to rest or think. (You are also not even supposed to meditate on and spend time in the scriptures, for if you do so, you're labelled a "deeper lifer," whatever that means. No, the emphasis is on toiling and laboring, instead of on praying and preparing).
Because of this, it's become easy for a man who's a preacher or Pastor to deceive his people. He can preach one thing in the pulpit, but then practice another in his daily life, and no one questions it. His congregation is just too busy doing stuff to do so.
The Pastor's also lifted himself and his position up so high, that the sheep are taught to question the man of God is wrong, and to do so is to attack God himself. So in fear, people blindly follow their Pastors without question, doing everything they are told. But what if the Pastor does something that is unscriptural? Shouldn't we have the right to question it and him?
Some do talk to their Pastors and question things. But they usually all receive the same answer. Either they are lamblasted and ridiculed, or they are ostracized by the preacher who calls them "dividers" or "trouble makers" and then they are kicked out. But is that the right way to handle the situation? Certainly not. The Pastor should open the scriptures and prove his position BIBLICALLY from the word of God. The reason so many Pastors don't do this is because they know their positions and even their practices are not Biblical. This is why so many get angry and partake in name calling. They simply don't want to face the facts.
Such is the case in the modern day practice of having women Church Secretaries. Where this practice started is unknown, but it's a realitively new thing, gaining grounding only in the 1960's with the feminist movement and the push to get the woman out of the house and into the work force.
Many Pastors, especially Independent Baptist ones, are against women working, and are quick to point their congregations to the scriptures in showing a woman's position in the home. They quote verses like Titus chapter two, to prove a woman should be a house keeper and not a member of the work force:
1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Yet, as clear as the scriptures are that it's "sound doctrine" for a woman to stay at home, and it's "blashpemy" for her to leave her area, there are many Pastors today who go against this scripture by having woman secretaries in their churches.
Is it scriptural to have a woman work in the church? Of course not. Woman can do a lot in the church. But they aren't supposed to have positions of authority, nor are they to work as the secular world, for a paycheck. What a woman does in the church ought to be done for God, not for money. In the Bible, those who are supposed to work in the church in positions of authority are called deacons, and they are only to be MEN (See 1 Tim. 3:10-12).
Why then are there in so many churches Pastors who preach one thing (i.e. women are to be keepers at home, and not in the workforce), yet these same men practice something else (i.e. allowing women to work for a pay check in the church)? Isn't this hypocritical?
And haven't you heard of the terrible stories of Pastors becoming enfatuated with their secretaries and leaving their wives to run off with them? What a tragic and horrible testimony for a man who claims to be a man of God! Sadly, it's becoming more and more common. I don't know any one who claims to be a Christian who hasn't heard of such a story happening in their town, city, state, denomination, or fellowship. So why do we allow this to continue? Shouldn't we leave off the temptation all together by hiring only male secretaries?
By preaching one thing and then practicing another, Pastors have allowed the worldly influence of feminism to rear its ugly head into the Church. By hiring women to do the work of secretary, when the Bible says that men should be the ones in the work force and not women, Pastors have gone against the very word of God they claim to preach and believe. And not only that, they are teaching the next generation of girls that it's okay for them too to go out into the work force and leave the home. This tears up the family. Both husband and wife working outside the home leaves the kids in the hands of the state and the state schools, which in turn indoctrinates them in the ways of the world, and not in the things of God. (And we wonder why our children don't want to go to church!? It's because they have no desire to.)
God said a woman was to be a keeper at home for a reason. It was for the mother to take care of the child, and to teach him or her the ways of God. She was to be with her kids and train them up in the Lord. She was to be an anchor in the family. By taking her out of the home, the family is destroyed, and so are the children.
So why, oh why, would Pastors who know this and preach this, then turn around and practice it by hiring women to fill paying jobs in the church? How can they preach on thing and then practice another? It simply makes no sense.
