Dear Pastor,

You were educated at one of the finest seminaries. The Bible was preeminent, and standards – both academic and personal – were high. Your professors were knowledgeable, godly men and women who genuinely cared about their students and made a lifelong impact on you. Every week as a pastor, you put into practice what they taught. You can parse Greek and Hebrew to determine the exact meaning of a word. You understand how the Bible fits together, and you have memorized hundreds of verses. You have a wealth of commentaries and study Bibles, carefully selected based on your doctrinal beliefs and the recommendations of others. Your education shows that you take your job seriously.

You have years of experience in ministry. You no longer get nervous preaching to a small crowd for a half hour. You have officiated several weddings and countless funerals. You have led people to the Lord, comforted the grieving, dedicated babies, and baptized overweight church members. You have learned enough parliamentary procedure to lead business meetings and enough music to choose the songs for each service. You are no longer a novice. Your experience shows that you take your job seriously.

And what is more, you honestly love the Lord and care about people. You enjoy studying the Bible, and you want your congregants to enjoy it as much as you do. You believe that you are teaching the truths of Scripture; and your prayer is for people to be saved and grow in their faith. You view the pastorate not only as a job but as a calling, and your genuine love for the Lord and for people shows that you take your calling seriously.

You have a wealth of education and experience, and your sincerity is unmatched. But what if you are wrong?

What if you are wrong?

What if your interpretation of the Bible is simply incorrect? What if you thought you were teaching people the truth, but you were actually teaching heresy? What if the teachers, commentators, and theologians you trusted are wrong? What if they, though well-meaning, have led many people astray because they were themselves deceived? What if your entire ministry has accomplished nothing for Jesus’ kingdom? Worse yet, what if your doctrine has hindered someone from becoming part of the kingdom?

Maybe you aren’t wrong. But what if you are?

If you are wrong, it doesn’t matter how educated you are, how much experience you have, or how sincere you are. You can be educated, experienced, and sincerely wrong.

If you are wrong, it doesn’t matter how faithfully you held to your doctrine. Holding tightly to a sinking ship doesn’t increase your chances of survival.

If you are wrong, it doesn’t matter how many people agreed with you. It just means that more people will be wrong. Convincing a million people that 2 + 2 = 5 doesn’t change the facts.

Pastor, you have one of the most important jobs in the world. James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

You are responsible before God.

You are responsible to shepherd people’s souls. You are responsible to carry on the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. You are responsible to preach the truth. But before you can preach the truth, you first must find it.

How many hours of your life have you spent finding the truth? Not studying your favorite commentaries, not listening to seminary professors, not preparing sermons, not trying to make the verses fit together – but actually finding the truth?

How many times have you set aside ALL of your doctrinal presuppositions and actually read the Bible for what it said and assumed that it meant EXACTLY what it said? How many times have you studied other viewpoints on a passage or doctrine – not to bolster your own argument – but to see if perhaps you might be wrong? How many hours have you spent studying the writings of the earliest believers – the people who learned at the feet of the apostles – to see how they understood Scripture?

Or has pride gotten in the way? (“There is no way we could possibly be wrong. We know more than the early Christians did anyway.”) Instead of searching for the truth, you boastfully proclaim that you are 100% right and everyone else is wrong.

Or insecurity? (“This is what I’ve believed my whole life. If I am wrong, my entire career would be wasted. What would I say to my congregation? What if I lose my job?”) Instead of searching for the truth, you maintain the status quo because you fear the upheaval of change.

Or tradition? (“This is what our denomination teaches. We’ve always believed this. Why would we change now?”) Instead of searching for the truth, you do what you have always done because you have always done it that way.

In Jesus’ day, there was a group of people known for their pride, stubborn insecurity, and tradition: the Pharisees. Rather than seeking the truth and humbly accepting correction, they clung to their tradition. Jesus had harsh words for these people: “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? . . . For the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’” (Matthew 15:3-9).

Pastor, as a teacher of the Word of God, you are responsible to make sure that what you are teaching is the absolute truth. You are responsible before God to do that. Your congregants expect you to have done that. And in most modern churches, you are PAID to do this research. As a pastor, you will be held to a higher standard (James 3:1). You will be judged more harshly – not based on how faithfully you held to your doctrine, but based on how faithfully you found, lived, and taught the truth.

Maybe you are one of the few people in the world who happen to be right about everything.

But what if you are wrong?

Does it matter to you that you might be wrong?

It should.

Now is the time to find the truth. Do the research. Read the Bible for what it says, without any doctrinal bias. Figure out what the early Christians believed. And once you have found the truth, be humble enough to say, “I was wrong” and bold enough to preach the true gospel without compromise.

That is your responsibility before God.

Sincerely,

A Former Church Member Who Was Wrong