Inspiration From A Coffee Mug
I came across this image in my Facebook newsfeed this morning. Understandably, there is something to be said for having training and experience in a specific field of study, especially medicine. Certainly there are those who self-diagnose after a Google search and think they know more than their doctor rather than trusting in the expertise of someone who has years of practice in a given field.
The institutional church however would have us to believe the same is to be said about understanding truth in general and Biblical truth in particular. Because of the so-called “total depravity of man” – which also includes the saints, by the way – believers are not able to discern truth and must have it dictated to them by someone in authority. That authority is bought and framed in a document hanging on the wall of a pastor’s study. Anyone who thinks they know something, especially with the interpretation of scripture, is only showing evidence of their own depravity.
Having said that, I would like to submit my own “coffee mug philosophy” for your consideration.
~ Andy
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Andy, Funny stuff, and sad, and in both cases people’s lives and souls are at stake. My doctor friends hate it when their patients rock up with the latest quack articles on dear old Professor Google and try to tell them how to do their jobs. But an anti-Biblical gospel hack is not a doctor; he is nothing, has no authority (only over those who willingly submit to him because they are too lazy to turn a page and read for themselves…or too scared to lose something…salvation, “church protection” (it does not exist), or a chance to go for that new lady in the third pew.
But they think they have authority; they think they rule the world, these anti-Biblical fools. Their coffee mugs are indeed runneth over with . . . the devil’s poison.
I think that if a Calvinist or a Reformed Sheep gets in an elevator with the New Birth they would be oblivious to the fact. That’s how much they know about the truth…less then mute.
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Google may have saved my brother’s leg. He was in the hospital with a localized infection. I consulted google to find the standard protocols were not being followed. I told him to ask for an infectious disease doctor, which he didn’t have. I then told him what to ask for in order so he could get the standard treatment protocol instead of just sitting in there for days with an antibiotic IV that wasn’t doing anything. So yeah, I like google because it lets you know when the doctor is not doing their job, which happens a lot more than people realize.
Similarly, I have a friend who may have saved her child’s life by standing up the doctors by using what she had learned online. She is very assertive with them: “I paid you to do a job! If you can’t do it let me know, so I can find someone else.” To be a mom in the 21st century, you almost have to be a biochemist. I’ve seen amazing results in children I know that the doctor’s wrote off as “that’s just the way it is” by using targeted supplements and nutrition. My own son turned a corner with his reading with fish oil-it was amazing!
Also the thing is, the doctors are just using google themselves. I can predict what they’ll say word for word for so many conditions, it’s just a total joke.
At the last IC I attended, I heard a lady there tell the pastor what she “as a layperson” could do. It made me want to throw up. Like, we’re supposed to be Baptists here, “layperson” is a Catholic/Mainline term. One will notice that the Mainliners went “pro” with their clergy 100 years ago, especially the Methodists when they stopped their circuit riding, and that professional training is why their churches are the way they are. Wasn’t it just 20 years ago that you could still find SBC pastors with no seminary training – in their position by virtue of their “call”? An interesting study would be if and how that was stamped out by the big Seminary money.
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“I like google because it lets you know when the doctor is not doing their job, which happens a lot more than people realize…Also the thing is, the doctors are just using google themselves. I can predict what they’ll say word for word for so many conditions.”
I think the same can be said of pastors who are simply using Google to find out what the latest hot new “orthodoxy” is and are simply regurgitating something they read about on “Desiring God”, “Ligonier”, “Pulpit and Pen”, “Challies”, “Cripplegate” et al.
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Oh, when it comes to Google and the latest “thing” (a word they like for some bizarre reason) in Reformed/Calvinist/Protestant circles, you’re spot on, Andy. That lot write for one another and have little campaigns. For instance, they’d tell you to boycott this or that, or buy here instead of there…because “Grace To You” or some anti-Biblical site has said so. And because the “sawvrinn gawt” would want it that way.
RM, yes, I get you; I was referring to the quacks out there in Google land. You know, the ones who want to “cleanse” your liver via pads on your feet or advise you to put “candles” in your ears to remove the negative spirit in your spleen or whatever.
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I submit that they just go to the next level and have AI robot church “leaders”. They all have such canned responses to life’s problems, that you could probably just boil it down to a Magic Eight Ball type counseling. Just place your robot pastor on the stage. Behind a pulpit with Brylcreem hair for your IFB flavor, sitting on a stool in a Hawaiian shirt for the seeker-sensitive. Create a pastor robot with a whiny face and the sorry attempt of a beard for a New Reformer who carries on about the scandalous, slicing, and dicing gospel, etc.
Since Sunday School teachers are now just facilitators, reading out of a teacher manual with the spiral binding. Just program a robot to do it, or put it on an app. Gee, I wonder why people don’t want to come to church anymore. What is there left for anyone to do? Sit there, submit, and pay your 10%. And you get the fellowship that will drop you the minute you quit, or fall out of favor. What a deal!
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This is great. My hubby went to a small seminary at age 40, and the entire family came with him. Its founders are Reformed; our family is NOT. They were very adamant about teaching proper hermeneutics & exegesis–the literal, contextual, historical, grammatical way of properly interpreting scripture. One prof even quoted something that’s become a family favorite: “If you’re not an exegete, you’re destined to become a parakeet.” (parroting others’ thoughts/words/theology). So when it came to their trying to foist reformed theology & protestant orthodoxy & the Westminster Catechism on my husband, he would simply use the skills THEY had taught him to refute their errant doctrines. They respected him for that, but certainly were irritated by him, too. 😉 Eventually, hubby taught our entire family hermeneutics & Greek & Hebrew, so we would be able to hold our own against stubborn churchianity. He has also taught a number of other folks so their families would be likewise equipped. We have morphed into home-churchers over the past decade, thankfully. Thank you for making these distinctions, and for doggedly posting truth in the face of others’ blindness, ignorance, & traditions-of-men. It’s a slow process, but I see more and more people getting ‘woke.’ 😉
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Lisa,
I love the irony in the seminary story!
Thank you for sharing that with us.
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Republican mom,
One of the probs is that medical school is being horribly dumbed down thanks to big government. And next, specialties are out of control. So narrow they can’t see a connecting problem. We used to keep a running chart in my moms room as we took turns staying there. It was amazing to see how all over the place and inconsistent they were. Add to that people in healthcare are run ragged and dealing with an increasingly hostile public.
My heart breaks for those without family there to advocate for them. And worse are nursing homes. If we can possibly swing it, we need to care for our own. Families are so disjointed and transient, those days are just about over.
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Andy, love the mug. Start marketing it!
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Thanks, Lydia.
I think if the demand is there we might just have to start offering it here at PPT!
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One other thing about the mugs message; I have learned a lot from linguists, Ancients scholars, philosophers and laypeople who do the digging. Usually it’s gives me something to think about, pray about and check it out on my own. None of them were “theologians” —who often have an agenda. After a while I started to really see the difference and the problem.
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