Misguided teachings in the church
A couple of blogs got me thinking about biblical-sounding teachings that are nowhere to be found in the Bible. The first is the “sinner’s prayer.” Bob Hayton does a good job of describing the dangers of this seemingly innocent addition to the words of the Bible and notes that no one recorded in the Bible was ever instructed to pray for salvation (see Romans 10:9).
Then there are the well-meaning traditions of Catholicism such as the primacy of Peter discussed by Isaiah on is blog. These also include the teaching that Mary had no other children besides Jesus despite the clear indications otherwise in the Gospels and the practice of “Confession.”
Another misguided teaching is one that I wasn’t really able to recognize until lately. It is something my teachers taught me as a child, namely that we have to confess our sins before God will hear our prayers. This stems from Matthew 5:23-24 which says,
Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Now, I understand that we should confess our sins and get right with our fellow man. But is taking a gift to the altar the same thing as prayer? Surely not, as we are also instructed to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). God is the creator of the universe. He is omniscient. There is absolutely no way that he does not hear us when we pray just because we have sinned. This misguided teaching had me nervous every time I prayed for more than 20 years. I was always worried that I might have forgotten to ask forgiveness for something or that I wasn’t as sincere as I should have been and so God was not going to hear a very important prayer.
Related posts:
Thank you very much for the link, brother. I’ve been meaning to come in and say thanks but I’ve had trouble connecting to your site for the past couple of days. :-(