#non-biblical

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. Check out the video content in this post by clicking here.  https://craigtowens.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/do-we-need-a-pulpit.mp3 Nearly every church has a pulpit where the pastor stands to deliver the weekly sermon. And almost every evangelical church…

The apostle Paul uses a word for authority seven times in his letters. With these words he shows us both the right and wrong application of any pastoral authority.

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.  https://craigtowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/how-are-godly-leaders-to-use-their-authority.mp3 Have you ever heard a parent say to their child, “Because I’m the parent and I say so”?  Have you ever heard a pastor say that to a sheep in his flock?  There is a certain…

"All I ever see here are beetles, pillbugs and worms. Ground bugs. If we want our plants to fruit, they have to be groundplants they can reach."

For a few years, she did. But she wanted to plant flowers that Hummingbirds pollinated. When she told the resident gardner, he said:

"I've never seen a single hummingbird here. If you plant something that hummingbirds pollinate, they'll die. Because theres no hummingbirds here!"

She listened to the gardner another year. But she still wanted to plant flowers for the little jewel colored birds.

So she did. She tended and cared for those flowers, gave them the right soil, water, and sun.

Even if they died and never came back, she had been loyal to then old gardner these many years. What had she to lose?

She didn't shirk the ground plants for the new ones. But the gardner whined anyway.

"Those tall plants are blocking out the sun for the ground plants! They'll die!"

They didn't die, but they did produce less fruit that year. And the flowers withered and died, since there were no hummingbirds to pollinate them.

"There, see. I told you. Its no use planting the tall flowers if there's nothing here to pollinate them! And now you've less of the groundfruit. You've made what little we have worse with nothing to show."

But she didn't listen to the gardner's stinging words, planting the hummingbird flowers again the next year.

That year, the hummingbirds came. And the flowers grew in abundance. The old gardner complained about his groundfruit again since they'd fruited less than the year before. But she listened to the old gardner less.

See, she had done her research. Hummingbirds Did live where the garden lay. They Did like the flower she planted. But the old gardner had never tried to find them. Never laid a plant out for them. Not once did he invite the hummingbird, or the bee, the wasp, the fly, or any creatures that may require him to lift his eyes from the dirt the gardner was insistent on.

So the groundfruit slowly retreated, pushed into a corner of the garden as she planted more plants. Tall ones that fought for sunlight, that crept along the gates, and wound around poles thrived.

One day, the new gardner remembered the groundfruit. It had waned to a handful of fruits a year.

"I have failed to garden what the old gardner had for years"

"I have planted so much more than the old gardner ever thought was possible"

But how could she let herself be proud of her garden when she failed the groundfruit? How could she think of the joy of her accomplishments when she'd failed before?

But she will.

Unbiblical things are those practices that are contrary to the Bible. There aren’t many churches that do this. 

However, non-biblical things are practices that simply aren’t listed in the Bible at all. This is what many churches do without even realizing it. Non-biblical things aren’t necessarily wrong, but my concern is how much time and energy our churches are putting into keeping non-biblical practices in operation, or how many non-biblical metrics we are using to determine “success” in our churches.