SLOPPY TERMINOLOGY MEANS SLOPPY THEOLOGY

Welcome to another devotional and I pray you are doing well as you continue to serve our Great God. Anyone who knows me for very long might hear my mouth say something different than what is in my brain. I once told my wife I had to "go shake a tower" when what I meant was that I had to "go take a shower."Sometimes my mouth seems to have a mind of it’s own. Those are "slips of the tongue" and once the laughter dies down, no harm is done. Too often in the Church we have "slips of the tongue" in our terminology that are either the result of bad traditions or we are simply not using the correct language. Either reason may lead others, or even ourselves, to believe things that simply are not Biblical. The Church has become extremely tolerant of sloppy terminology and sloppy theology. I hear it almost everywhere I go, everything I read, people I speak with, etc. I am not talking about major issues, necessarily. Although you can hear some out-and-out heresy in some of our pulpits, that is not what I am talking about. This article deals with some sloppy terminology that good-hearted people use from time to time. Nevertheless, just because we may not be discussing major heresies does not mean that it is not an important matter. The Church of Christ/Christian Church used to be known as "A People of the Book." Now the Church of Christ/Christian Church sometimes asks, "What book do you mean?" My proposition is that due to the use of sloppy terminology we have allowed a great deal of bad doctrine, a.k.a., sloppy theology, to make it’s way into the Church. Or it could be that due to weak teaching and weak preaching, a.k.a., sloppy theology, we have begun using sloppy terminology because the Church no longer knows what the correct terminology is? Either way, we’ve grown sloppy and careless. What follows are just a few examples of this sloppiness.

The term "Pastor" is back in style, it seems. Many preachers are claiming the title "Pastor" in many of The Lord's Churches. Why is that? The term "Pastor" is only used one time in the New Testament in Ephesians4:11, and that is a poor translation of the Greek word poimen, which gets translated everywhere else in the New Testament as "Shepherd." "Pastor" is a term reserved for the Elders in the Church. The preacher is supposed to be the Evangelist. Although there are several areas in which the offices of Elders and Evangelist overlap, nonetheless, they are two separate offices with their own distinctive qualifications and responsibilities. As an Evangelist, if someone were to call me "pastor" I would not jump down his or her throat. But as soon as the proper opportunity presented itself I would explain why they should not call me the"pastor", and I have done so many times and have yet to offend anyone.Usually they are grateful and proceed to tell me that no one has ever explained that to them. Why aren’t our Churches teaching these basic terms to her people? We have grown sloppy!