day no. 16,289: converting wine into grape juice

"If your pastor tells you that Jesus turned 160 gallons of water into grape juice, how can you trust anything he says?" — Douglas Wilson

Call me ol' fashioned, but I prefer preachers who can read. I know, that may be controversial; but still, I'm stuck in my ways.

Biblical literacy presupposes basic literacy. If you cannot read in general, you cannot read the Bible. If you don't know what words mean, you won't know what the Word means.

So, why do some labor so hard to convert the wine into grape juice? Why do they send missionaries far and wide to convince the wine to repent of its sins?

The only reason to do so is if you carry into the text a presupposition about wine. You have to have a reason to keep wine away from Jesus because you:

(a) like Jesus, but you

(b) don't like wine.

But where, pray tell, does the dislike of wine come from? Was it Biblically informed?

We must say what God says and accept the consequences: whether from others or from our own prejudices. We must conform to His words and command others to do the same.

All that to say, if your pastor cannot read and will not repeat what is plainly on the pages in front of him, how can you trust him with that which is implicit, but not stated in so many words? If he makes hash of the words that are there, how can you trust him with the words that aren't? If he shirks the words on the page, how can you trust him with the words in his mouth?

The word for "confess" in the original Greek is homologeo which is literally homo "same" + logos "word." So when we confess that Christ is Lord, we are saying the same things God says. We are repeating His Words. When we confess our sins, we are saying about them what He has already said. We are agreeing with Him and aligning ourselves to His published opinion on the matter. If we refuse to use the words God does or prefer to use different words, we are confessing a different faith and relying upon a different word.

James 3:1

Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment.