The pulpit pimps depend on you not knowing what your Bible says or being only vaguely familiar with some of the more obscure portions. They depend on your desire to hear ‘exciting’ things about God and your understandable desire to be comfortable, secure, and financially well off. And shamefully, they depend on a sincere desire on your part to be Godly men and women. But the price for having the first three desires preached to is spiritual anemia and an almost complete lack of understanding of the what the Bible says and how it should be applied in your life. As a result you don’t even get the last desire, a Godly life. Fortunately, you can tell when you’re being pimped even if you don’t know jack about the Bible.

There are a number of things you can look for. Most of them involve you, your obedience to the pastor (not the Bible), and a willingness to follow what he (or she) says without question. It looks something like this:


Step 1: The pastor starts talking about the ‘vision’ God has given him for the church. Usually this vision involves several million dollars, a much larger building, a much larger staff, and a much larger congregation to pay for the building and staff. But all of that is so he can launch a world-wide ministry, taking Christ to the nations. Usually, the vision is expressed as being directly from God, similar to the Ten Commandments being delivered directly to Moses from God’s hand (anthropomorphically speaking). After all, who in their right mind would resist what he says if he speaks for God?

Step two: He (or she) claims to be The Man (or Woman) of God. Some will even they are your Man of God as long as you attend his church. He (or she) will then explain to you that you must accept what the man of God says because he (or she) is God’s mouthpiece. And if you can’t accept him (or her) as your Man of God, then you need to go someplace else where you can sit under the Man of God.

Step Three is a bit more cunning. At this point, the love-vendor begins to move from the Gospel more explicitly. Since he (or she) has established that you will not leave if he (or she) violates scripture (mis-using the term Man of God and appropriating nearly unquestionable authority is a violation, by the way), he (or she) then begins to move the congregation further into error. One of those moves will generally involve teaching something other than the Gospel, such as Jesus suffering in hell for our sins (yes, I’m talking about that again). It can also include teachings that depart from where the church was before he (or she) took up the post of pastor.


to be continued

courtesy, www.pulpitpimps.org