This week, we see one of these modern, hip, trendy evangelical pastors at these glorified nightclubs and concert halls now rebranded as “churches,” rolling a blunt with pages of the Bible, reminiscing about how he once gave someone pages from the Bible to help this random man smoke his marijuana.
UPDATE: Thanks to a reader submission, the pastor is 32-year-old Tyler Sterban, lead pastor of Different Church in Nashville, Tennessee. The church’s website says he and his wife Ry’ann “BOTH COME FROM AN UNTRADITIONAL, NON CHURCHED BACKGROUND. WHEN THEY GOT MARRIED THEY WERE BOTH NEWLY INTO MINISTRY, BUT IMMEDIATELY SAW EVERYTHING GOD WANTED TO DO IN THEIR LIVES! SINCE THEN, THEY HAVE BEEN IN MINISTRY FOR NINE YEARS AND MARRIED FOR SEVEN!”
On his Threads page, Sterban claims he is a “rapper turnt pastor.”
The original post about rolling a blunt with the Bible can be found here.
Sterban also runs a podcast, where in one episode he publicly swears and uses the F-word.
But this is what passes for “Christianity” and “going to church” nowadays for so many people; and people love it and defend it. One comment on an Instagram post said:
“I read the Bible while smoking blunts for a long time. During that time I received FORGIVENESS and I was ABLE to FORGIVE. And before I knew it, I was no longer smoking. A religiously bound person would never understand this testimony because they are bound by works instead of being freed by the Spirit of God!”
No, it’s “religiously bound:” it’s called having standards; it’s called having conviction and a conscience; it’s called, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Proverbs 8:13); it’s called, “I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked” (Psalm 26:5); it’s called, “And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just” (Romans 3:8).
There is a video out there where famous rap artist Snoop Dogg, who is renowned for his habitual smoking at every opportunity he gets, talked about how he once smoked a blunt made from Bible paper.
I came across another article where people at a LGBTQIA+ Pride parade in 2016 were rolling and smoking doobies with scripture.
But like flies on a turd, wicked things attract wicked people; according to the philosophy of these modern “Christians,” take anything that is lowbrow and God calls abomination, and put a “Jesus stamp” on it and say, Lord bless.
1 Samuel 24:13 As saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.
Proverbs 2:10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; [11] Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: [12] To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; [13] Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; [14] Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; [15] Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
Nothing surprises me anymore. If it’s out there, and God’s word calls it evil, you can expect some “church” out there to take it and claim the Lord’s blessings upon it; and will accuse you of being a “Pharisee,” “holier than thou,” judgmental – “he that is without sin let him cast the first stone” – type of rhetoric if you even try to condemn it.
If you want the rest of my thoughts on the issue, then you can check out my article on the matter where I give more of my thoughts and scriptures discussing how modern Christianity is an utter and appalling embarrassment:
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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