Book Recommendation: “ONCE YOU SEE: SEVEN TEMPTATIONS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH” by Jeff Christopherson

The last time I read a fictional novel that landed such a strong and important spiritual message was way back in the late 80s, when Frank Peretti helped open so many eyes to the reality of spiritual warfare with his book This Present Darkness. In fact, I would love to see Jeff’s book “Once You See” rocket to the top of the Christian fiction book world, just as Peretti’s book did.

He was gracious to come on my podcast to share about the book. Would love for you to listen to this episode. But more importantly, buy and read this book!

To listen to the podcast episode, click HERE.

To purchase the book via Amazon, go HERE.

YOU CAN READ THE WHOLE BIBLE… AFTER ALL, I KNOW PEOPLE WHO’VE READ IT IN LESS THAN A WEEK

One of my passions is to help people get into reading God’s Word. Oftentimes I will challenge people to read the WHOLE Bible. Far too many Christians latch on to a favorite verse or two but do not make it a priority to read all of God’s Book. They will read a series of novels by their favorite author, spend hours reading news stories on the internet, or spend untold hours sitting in front of a television bingeing an entertaining TV series, but cannot find find 70-80 hours in their life to read the whole Bible.

I have read the whole Bible several times, in multiple English translations, but I have never done what two of my friends have done… read the whole Bible in less than a week.

So what is your excuse? Toss that excuse aside and read the ultimate LOVE LETTER to your eternal soul. You won’t regret it.

By the way, I interviewed both of my friends after they completed their amazing feats. You can listen to Lee tell about reading the Bible in six days by clicking HERE and you can listen to Rich tell his story of reading the Bible in five days HERE. Who knows, maybe someday I will interview YOU for reading it in 4 days!

Q: Is Listening to the Bible on Audio a Legitimate Way to Read the Bible?

Answer: YES. Absolutely. Some people are primarily auditory learners. Others, like myself, tend to retain things I’ve heard more than things that I have read. So, it may actually be more advantageous for some Christians to listen to the Bible than to read the Bible text in the way we typically think about reading the Bible.

For the past couple of years I have done most of my daily Bible reading by listening to an AUDIO Bible while simultaneously following along in my PRINT Bible. I’ve gone through the entire NIV Bible while listening to David Suchet read it, the entire NLT Bible listening to Todd Busteed, and I’ve read through the KJV multiple times while listening to Alexander Scourby.

My friend Chuck Coker (hear his personal testimony HERE) listens through the entire Bible twice a year.

You can purchase audio Bibles on CD or mp3 or you can find many of them on YouTube.

Q: Are Good Works Required to Get into Heaven?

Q&A About the Gift of Tongues

In the past two weeks I have received 8 questions about the gift of tongues. Here are my responses…

Q1: I have a friend who has the gift of tongues. He says he can pray in tongues any time he wants to. But it seems to be like if it was a gift from God he could only do it when the Spirit comes upon Him and gives Him the ability to do it. What does the Bible teach?

All gifts are subject to the control of the believer themselves. I believe that 1 Corinthians 14 is clear on this… 29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. 

A prophet cannot control when and where they receive a prophecy, but they can control when to act upon that prophetic word, vision, or dream and speak it, which is the point of verse 32.

It appears the questioner considers tongues to be like prophecy, that the tongues speaker receives a tongue like a prophecy. But that has not been the experience of those who have this gift.

It seems that Paul sheds some light on this in 1 Corinthians 14.15… So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.

When it comes to the gift of evangelism, the gift of service, the gift of administration, the gift of teaching… you can do these whenever you want. Tongues is the same. If. you have the gift of tongues, you make a choice as to when to pray in tongues.

Q2: How can a person with the gift of tongues share their gift with the church? If they are limited to do so only when there is an interpreter present, but we don’t know who is an interpreter in our midst, how can they ever confidently share publicly? 

I’m glad this one was submitted because for me, personally, when I have studied 1 Corinthians 14 and thought through how to apply it correctly in our church, this is the question that has vexed me the most, by far. 

The question comes from seeking to apply 1 Corinthians 14.27-28 … 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.

I mean it’s kind of a catch-22, isn’t it? Tongues speakers are commanded to share tongues publicly only if there is an interpretation, but how does one know there will be an interpretation? It certainly gives the one who speaks in tongues a cause for trepidation before publicly speaking in tongues if not causing them to never step out in faith and attempt it, even if they perceive that the Spirit is leading them to do so.

I see two possible solutions…

A- God may grant the tongues speaker himself the ability to interpret the tongue. That seems to be what Paul is suggesting in 1 Corinthians 14.13:  Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.  I have never witnessed this firsthand. I have, however, heard testimonies of people who have done so. I heard one Christian talk about the ability to always know what they were praying in their tongue (even though they don’t know it word-for-word, they know the content of the prayer). But most of the time, the testimonies are about a rare occasion in which God gave them the interpretation of their own utterance in tongues. So, this is one possibility of how 1 Corinthians 14.27-28 is obeyed. 

B-The second possible solution to this came to me from a discussion with our Harvest friend Matt Field. I asked him about it and he said that in his church background  if a person spoke a tongue utterance out loud, there would almost always be an interpretation that would come to someone. 

I wasn’t really satisfied with that answer so I pressed in and asked, “But how does someone know that they should speak out the tongue out loud, and how does someone know that they have the interpretation?” His answer required me to spend a lot of time in thought and reflection. He said, in essence, “You just know that God is telling you to do it. And you trust that if God is telling you to do it He is also preparing someone to interpret.”

After much thought and reflection it dawned on me that I come from a faith tradition where we haven’t placed much emphasis on learning to hear the voice of the Lord, apart form reading the Bible. But Matt comes from a faith background where the discipline of hearing the personal voice of the Lord in your life is taught, prayed about, cultivated, encouraged, and valued. When that spiritual discipline is developed, we grow in confidence in hearing the voice of the Lord and knowing when He is asking us to do something.

Q3: Do cessationist individuals or churches not see the Spirit working in their lives or their churches? From grieving the Holy Spirit to other comments, it kind of appears you believe they don’t see the Spirit working.

I apologize if I haven’t been clear on this. 

So let me be clear… I definitely believe cessationist Christ-followers and cessationist Bible-believing churches DO indeed see the Spirit working in their lives and churches.

As for whether I believe these people GRIEVE the Holy Spirit, although I don’t remember using the word ‘grieve’ perhaps I did. I’d like to think I used the word ‘QUENCH’ because I definitely believe that refusing to believe in a portion of the Spirit’s true ministry will quench the Spirit’s work in that specific way. As to whether or not that grieves the Holy Spirit, I am not sure. I tend to doubt it.

Let’s look quickly at the times these two words and how they are used in the NT, in their context… 

First GRIEVE… Ephesians 4… NKJV… 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not GRIEVE the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.

Now let’s look at QUENCH… 1 Thessalonians 5.19… Do not QUENCH the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

These are the kinds of things that grieve the Holy Spirit… saying corrupt things, when we are bitter, and have wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, and malice.

But here’s what quenches the Holy Spirit… despising the gift of prophecy. Cessationists complete throw out prophecy for today… instead of testing the prophecies and holding fast to what is good. So I believe that they are quenching the Spirit in regard to the gift of prophecy.

This is why I tend to think that cessationism, which I view as an incomplete pneumatology (study of the Spirit), is not something that grieves the Spirit. I think quench is a much better word for it.

And let me be clear in how I think they are quenching the Spirit… in the areas of the miraculous gifts.

But this does not mean that I believe that they are not seeing the Holy Spirit work in their midst. No, let me say it again… I DO believe that they see the Spirit working in their midst in multiple ways.

There are plenty of cessationists who are living Spirit-filled lives and who are bold, active witnesses for Jesus and see lots of people saved (which is the greatest miracle of all).

I also believe that they see the Spirit working in their sanctification.

I believe that they see the Spirit working in answer to their prayers.

I could go on. So, yes, I believe that they see the Spirit working.

Q4 : Did tongues change from Acts 2 (Pentecost) to Corinth? If so, what is the Biblical evidence? From known languages in Acts 2 to private prayer or angelic?

No. True tongues are always a known language to someone, somewhere, whether it is a person who is present in the room, or whether it is an angel present, or whether it is another human language with no one present (angel or human) in the room. There is a mysterious element to it. It is unknown to the person speaking it and most of the time unknown to everyone else in the room. 

Sometimes the Spirit prompts the person to speak it out loud, in the presence of others. This means one of two things: either (a) someone in the proximity actually speaks that language, as in Acts 2, or (b) someone in the proximity will be granted a gift of interpretation.

Q5: Why do tongues in Acts 2 seem very evangelistic but Paul seems to indicate its’s only for believers in Corinth?  Why would Luke not mention this if in fact it was different?  (Acts was written after 1 Corinthians) 

The answer is found in comparing the scenarios. In Acts 2, the Spirit gave the apostles the tongues that were the native languages of the unbelievers present, which served to amaze them, getting their attention in order for them to hear the Gospel proclaimed in clarity and power.  In 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul is referring to most cases of tongues, in which the tongues would probably not be in the language of the unbelievers present. Therefore it is best that the gift of tongues not be shared publicly, unless an interpretation is given. 

Share tongues in front of an unbeliever in a language that they know and it can be a powerful tool for evangelism. Share it in front of an unbeliever in a language that they don’t know and you can look like a nutcase, perhaps being a negative witness for the Gospel. 

So if you have this gift, make sure you are being led by the Spirit when you share it publicly.

Q6: How can someone develop the gift of tongues without hearing others publicly praying in tongues?

This questions seems to assume that the only way a person can “develop” the gift of tongues is to be taught by some sort of method or process.

Because the pressure to speak in tongues is great in some churches and denominations and because the expectation is high for everyone to speak in tongues, there is often several measures taken to try to help people get the gift. People are told to open their mouth and just start babbling, or people are encouraged to mimic what they hear of others speaking in tongues. People are sometimes even slowly taught syllable-by-syllable how to speak in tongues. All these methods are used so that people are able to learn how to speak in tongues.

But I would caution against trying to “LEARN” the gift of tongues. Rather, I would encourage people to seek the Giver of gifts and let Him give something that is clearly supernatural. This way they will never doubt it is from God because they didn’t learn it from somebody else; it is truly given by the Holy Spirit. I think this will help eliminate some of the inauthentic expressions of tongues that is showy and quite frankly, unbibilical.

Q7: Much as 1 Corinthians 13 seems to be in context of spiritual gifts, it appears women being silent in churches has to do with gifts, specifically tongues and prophecy since that is what chapter 14 is discussing. Is this similar to men only preaching? 

Let me speak to the first sentence here. I would say the questioner has made an excellent observation in that they have identified that the command for women be silent is in the context of the discussion about spiritual gifts. 

Let’s look at verses 34-35…34 Let your women [wives] keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

It is my opinion that the proper interpretation of verses 34-35 is that Paul is telling the women to be silent specifically in the judging of prophecies. The judging of prophecies oftentimes involved some dialogue in which those judging the prophecy would ask questions of the person who perceived the prophecy from the Spirit. In Roman culture of that day women (wives) were not permitted (it was actually the Roman law, hence the end of verse 35) to question another man (someone’s husband) in a public setting. Therefore, it appears that the judging of prophecies were restricted to men, possibly the elders of the church.

It’s definitely not a comprehensive command for complete silence from women in the church setting. If that were the case, then Paul would be contradicting himself from just a few chapters earlier, where he is talking about women praying and prophesying in church: But every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered… (1 Corinthians 11.5). The context of chapter eleven is also the church gathered and since the Bible does not contradict itself, we must deduce that this is further evidence that Paul is not making a comprehensive command for women to be silent in all church gathering moments and scenarios.

As for the question “Is this similar to men only preaching?” I don’t think so. The context of this passage is not about preaching. It’s about prophecy. While on the surface, I see the connection that might be made, contextually I don’t think there’s any connection at all.

Now some of my Bible-believing brethren have told me that they think that the gift of prophecy is actually preaching (how they arrive at that biblically, I have no idea). Some of these same men have said that they do not believe that it is right for a woman to preach. It seems to me that they have theologically tied themselves in a knot when it comes to 1 Corinthians 11.5… But every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered…, not to mention Acts 21.9, where Luke writes, He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied.

Q8: Why would tongues and prophecy not be welcome in the corporate assembly? It seems Paul was discussing the larger assembly rather than micro or small groups.

I think this question comes from my statement that here at Harvest we believe that tongues and prophecy would best be practiced in micro church settings, rather than during our Sunday morning congregational gathering (this meeting were are in right now… what we call MACRO church).

And we say that for what we believe to be valid reasons:

1. We do not believe that the way we (American churches today) conduct congregational gatherings aligns with what the New Testament church looked like. God expects full participation in the church meeting: How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, EACH OF YOU has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification (1 Corinthians 14.26, emphasis mine). Make special note of the phrase EACH OF YOU. “Church” was never meant to be a small number of people contributing while the vast majority look on like an audience in a movie theater.
2. We believe we have too many people in a congregational gathering to function in a way that the Word of God expects, as described above. It is well documented that New Testament churches had as few as a half a dozen in attendance all the way up to about fifty, counting children. This is why I have said on multiple occasions that once your micro church goes beyond 24 adults you should probably start thinking about birthing a new one. Otherwise I will become nigh impossible for “EACH of you” to bring a contribution to the meeting.

So in answer to the original question… Tongues and prophecy, practiced biblically, are welcome in the corporate assembly. We just happen to think that right now at Harvest, our LIFE groups, and definitely our future micro churches best represent the corporate assembly as taught and modeled in the New Testament, as opposed to our congregational gathering on Sunday morning, which we also have called macro church (commonly called the “worship service”).

The Challenge of 1 Corinthians 14.34-35

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. – 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 (NIV)

Few New Testament texts are as difficult in interpret as this one. Numerous interpretations have been proposed, but none are so convincing that you walk away saying, “Ah, that’s definitely it!”

Rather than put forward all the ones that have been proposed, I’d like to simply show why one seems obviously incorrect, while two seem plausible.

First, the one that is, at least from my perspective, clearly unbiblical… and that is this: Paul was forbidding women to ever speak up in a public gathering of believers. The reason why I find this so obviously incorrect is that just three chapters prior (1 Corinthians 11.2-16) the same Apostle Paul was teaching about how women in Corinth should cover their heads when they are publicly praying or publicly prophesying (in the context of the gathered church). So this cannot be an across the board prohibition against women ever speaking up in “church” gathering.

Second, here are the two interpretations I find to be most likely:

 (a) This is a general prohibition for women to participate in the discussion when a prophecy is being weighed or tested as described in 14.29… “and the others should weigh carefully what is said.” They could discuss the legitimacy of the prophecy later on at home, but not in the assembly.

(b) Similarly, but more specifically… perhaps the women in the church in Corinth were interrogating other women’s husbands after these men prophesied as part of the process of testing the prophecy. In the Greco-Roman world of that day, it was VERY bad for a woman to question another woman’s husband in public. But if their own husband or another woman were to prophesy, they could engage in the “weighing”/“testing” of that prophecy.

One thing is for sure, this is a difficult passage to interpret. We would all be wise to disagree with others on this passage in a charitable manner.

A New Way of Looking at Ephesians 4.11-12

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ…

In his book Church 3.0 Neil Cole introduced me to a new way of seeing the five gifted leaders of Ephesians 4.12 that God has given to the church in order to equip His people for ministry.

It is not the intent of this blog post for me to get into the debate about how many of these gifted leaders are even given to the church for this period of church history.¹ Rather, I want to show what shift in thinking took place for me as I saw this passage from a new perspective.

Previously I thought that the gifted leaders of Ephesians 4.11 were simply gifted leaders who, by exercising their respective gifts, blessed the body of Christ in such a way that people were encouraged and motivated to serve the Lord… “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4.12).

A gifted evangelist might be a Billy Graham or a Greg Laurie. A gifted teacher might be a (pick your favorite Bible teacher that you like to listen to).

And while these men of God would certainly be gifted, the apostle Paul is doing more than simply listing especially gifted men, Neil helped me see what now seems so obvious to me… in Ephesians 4.11, Paul is talking about leaders who are gifted at training others to be effective at teaching or evangelizing, being apostolic, shepherding people, or delivering prophetic words.

While each of us may only personally be gifted in one of these five areas…I’ve come to believe that all Christians need to minister in multiple ways in the various situations and circumstances we find ourselves in through our lives. Sometimes we need to know how to teach someone. Other times we need to know how to evangelize. Still other times we can bless someone with a prophetic word. And still other times we need to have apostolic vision.

According to Ephesians 4.10-12, God has graced the church with gifted leaders who are able to teach others to do the things that they themselves are gifted in.

This is being applied this year at Harvest by me working to raise up men who will be able to handle the Word and deliver Bible messages.

When I was physically incapacitated this week, I was encouraged by how Rick Doctor was able to step in at the last minute to fill the pulpit ably. I doubt this was a surprise to any of us because we have witnessed firsthand how Rick has developed as a preacher of God’s Word.

It excites me to think about how God is going to do this with several of our men over the next couple of years.

I believe God has also gifted me apostolically, so I look forward to seeing how God will use me to raise up others who can develop their apostolic vision.

But I am only one man. What REALLY excites me is the idea that God is going to raise up other gifted leaders in the areas of prophetic ministry and shepherding and evangelism. In fact, I think God has already done that for our church in the area of evangelism… in the person of Rick. If you don’t believe me, watch a few of his evangelism training videos on his YouTube channel!

Who else is God going to raise up as Ephesians 4 gifts to our church? It’s going to be fun to see!

_{1. I have some friends that believe this is a list of four gifted leaders: apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher. They also believe that only two of these are in existence today: evangelist and pastor-teacher. They believe the “offices” (their language) of apostle and prophet ceased to exist with the death of the original apostles and/or conclusion of the New Testament canon. I used to hold this position myself but became exegetically convinced that all five gifted leaders are still given by God to the church today.}

Don’t Feel Guilty for Not “Going to Church” on Christmas Day!

Christmas day lands on a Sunday this year. I have noticed that fact has stirred up some debates online among Christians about whether or not it is acceptable for a church to not schedule a “worship service” on Christmas Day.

One of the pastors in our region took to social media in a rather aggressive fashion, basically accusing any churches of not holding a full-fledged worship service (or services) at their routine time(s) as compromising their faith and being disobedient to the Lord, and any church members not attending of being the same: compromising and disobedient. At first I started to respond to his public social media but then I noticed plenty of Scripturally-informed believers had already done so. Unfortunately, the pastor just dug himself in even stronger and would dismiss them without any reasoned response.

Another pastor in our region took a much less aggressive approach, addressing his congregation rather than the public at large, but still telling them that going to church on Christmas Sunday morning was something that Christians needed to do.

In a day and age in which there is far too much compromise in the churches and among Christians it is easy to fall prey to this line of thinking (regardless of the degree of intensity of the messenger).

But in an effort to be faithful to the Lord and not compromise or be disobedient, we must also be careful to make sure we are being SCRIPTURAL, something the afore-mentioned pastors failed to do.

Is it wrong for a Christian to choose to spend Christmas day with their family rather than “go to church” that morning? Is it wrong for a church to not offer a worship service on Christmas Sunday morning, but have it on Christmas Eve instead?

Answers? No, and no.

And here’s why: nowhere in the Bible are Christians commanded to gather together on Sunday.

Yes, the Scripture commands us to meet together regularly (see Hebrews 10.25, for example). But no where does Scripture say it has to be on Sunday. In fact, the Scripture commands us not to let other judge us on this topic (see Colossians 2.16).

It’s true that Bible gives examples of the early Christians gathering on the first day of the week (Sunday). But that’s description, not prescription. Another way of saying it is that is an example not a command. It’s also true that throughout Christian history, Christians have overwhelmingly chosen Sunday as their primary day for gathering together to worship the Lord. But that’s simply tradition, not a command from the Bible.

And yet there are some Christians who consider it compromise if a Christian spends all of Christmas morning with their family or if a church doesn’t offer a Sunday morning gathering opportunity but only offers a Christmas Eve service this year (like our church is doing).

This is a classic example of confusing an example in the Bible or a tradition through church history with a biblical command. To say that Christians MUST go to church on the specific day of Sunday or to say that it is wrong for a church to choose to gather on Christmas Eve this year instead of Christmas Day is a form of legalism.

So, if your church chooses to have a “worship service” on Christmas morning, wonderful. Nothing wrong with that. And if you choose to go to a worship gathering on Christmas day, at your church or elsewhere, good for you. Just please don’t judge other Christians for not doing so. You have no Scriptural basis.

Here is a podcast episode from this past summer where I talk about not confusing description in Scripture with prescription, with some special emphasis to the topic of what day of the week in which churches should gather…

https://podbay.fm/p/sound-of-truth-podcast/e/1658370080

The Generations (Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, etc.) and the Future of the Church

In my latest Weekly Interview, in addition to sharing his personal story, my guest Aaron Summers talks about the changes in our culture in relationship to the study of generational tendencies, and how this will impact the future of how churches function and fulfill the Great Commission…

https://podbay.fm/p/sound-of-truth-podcast/e/1663751100

Almost Every September I Cannot Help But Think of What I Wrote Years Ago

Thirteen years ago I wrote a sports column titled “Of Preseason Polls and Prejudicial Christians.” The column was published nationally through BP Sports (a division of Baptist Press) and was featured in several newspapers across the country. While it remained archived online for several years, Baptist Press eventually closed BP Sports. As a result, that column, along with several others of mine that they had published, is no longer available online.

As a sports fan who loves college football, one of my pet peeves is preseason polls. Each year it seems that as the season progresses we are reminded that ranking teams before the season even starts is an exercise in both arrogance (to think they are smart enough to know how good a team is before they have even played a game) and futility (every year we see how badly the “experts” judge teams before the season begins.

So, in light of the so-called “stunning” upsets across the college football landscape this past weekend, I thought I would dig up the column and republish it here on my blog. While some of the examples are dated, and the BCS Bowl system is no longer a reality (replaced by the playoff system) I think you will find that the basic thesis remains as relevant as ever….

“Of Preseason Polls and Prejudicial Christians” by Brett Maragni (originally published by BP Sports in October of 2009)

I strongly dislike preseason polls. They are meaningless and end up causing more damage than they are worth. Early season polls are not worth much either. Until a team has played four or five games, it is arrogant to assume where a team deserves to be ranked.

Early this season top five teams are losing at a record pace. Last year, the preseason favorite, Georgia, ended up #13 in the final AP poll while the Utah Utes went from unranked to #2. In 2007, twelve top five teams had lost to unranked opponents by the end of November. In 2006…well, three words: Boise State Broncos. 

The problem is that a team that starts the season unranked has a lot more to overcome to get into a BCS bowl game than a team that was ranked in the top five in the preseason. If polls were not taken until five, or even better, six weeks into the season, the bowl assignments would be more fair because the polls would be based more upon performance on the field than preseason prognostications. Even the BCS rankings, which do not begin until later in the season, are impacted because they utilize the polls that started in the preseason, thus making them skewed by the prejudgment of the polls.

But before I get too sanctimonious in my denunciation of the current ranking system, the reality is that we Christians can be even worse about prejudging people. We sometimes prejudge new people coming into our churches by the version of the Bible that they use or the kind of church they came from. If someone is not in our theological “camp” we assume that they are either naïve or close-minded to the truth.   

Sometimes our prejudice works the other way as well. Sometimes we are too quick to favor those who dress the way we do and look the way we look. Leaders say to one another, “They seem like a sharp couple,” meaning, “They look like us.” So sharp-looking couple starts the season off in our church ranked higher than the single lady who is currently without a job.  The reality is that Miss Unemployed might be more spiritually mature and ready to lead a ministry than Mr. or Mrs. Sharp. 

God’s Word addresses our tendency toward prejudicial favoritism: 

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:1-4)

Bottom line for sports: wait until later in the season to start up the polls. Bottom line for us: get to know a person for who they are instead of making early assumptions.