“I just finished this and was very disappointed. Not that i expected much, but he never really laid out why pastors are supposed to be leaders who are blindly followed. The truth is the church system made up the role and slapped the title "pastor" on it and now we are expected to follow them? A made up man made system and now we are to obey them as we would God? One of his statements about people who disagree with him said something to the affect of "They say we are all brothers and sisters and have the Holy Spirit in all of us so we don't have to listen to pastors." This is the smartest thing in the book! Matthew 23 says: 8 “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. 9 And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. 10 And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be a servant. 12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." It says we are brothers and sisters! How dare they use scripture in the proper context! The Messages says :" 8-10"Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of 'Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven. And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ."John used lots of verses and stories but never really laid out what his doctrine was. You can use any scripture to make your point but it doesn't make it true. He also told horrific stories about people who didn't obey leadership and they were afflicted with horrible diseases or got into head on collisions! Of course he said "God didn't cause it to happen" but then why bring it up? If God wants you to follow these men and will be angry if you don't why doesn't John just go all the way and threaten people. Just tell them God will strike them down if they aren't under a pastor. Because He knows it's bull. God doesn't do that, things happen. I know people who have died in car accidents but still went to church and were good little Christians. Did God kill her cause she disagreed with a pastor? I've left the church and "covering" and i havent been struck down by afflictions. I know people that have been out for years and are far better off. Go to God for stuff not men. You can learn from others but don't blindly follow leaders. God is your covering. If we had to still go to pastors or priests to get to god then why would Christ have to die? Pastors stepping in place of Christ is negating His sacrifice. Good luck with that.”
“I've recently left the organized institutional church and got A LOT of flack from my family. I am a heretic and don't love Jesus or believe the Bible apparently. The odd thing is none of those things are remotely true and i am trying to get back to the original meanings of Christianity. My grandmother gave me this book to prove me wrong, and yet i haven't found much truth to the "covering" doctrine. The basic idea is that we should respect authorities mainly our pastors as our "covering". We are under the pastors authority and the pastor is under God. As Christians we are all priests and have the privilege of going straight to God and not going through human mediators. That was the point of Jesus coming to earth, to make a way for God to get to man without all this religious garbage. There is no verse in the Bible to back up this covering doctrine yet people will write books on it! There are only 1 or 2 verses that even mention the word "pastor" and it does not outline this as an office or position. The last year or so I've found many Christian "beliefs" that have no basis in scripture and are mostly human tradition and this is just one of the many. I would love to discuss more about this and please know i want open and honest dialogue and not a stupid fight. Thanks and God bless! ”
