Things Your Pastor Never Told You, A Layman's Lament

The modern Christian Church is in a state of serious decline. But this was prophesied all through the New Testament. The World Christian Encyclopedia estimates there are over 40,000 denominations worldwide. Even if the truth were only 10% of that number, this would be a ludicrous situation. Many of these denominations are relatively small and localized, but others are large and widely recognized. And that number does not include quasi-Christian movements like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. But the reason there are so many denominations is because there are that many belief systems. And every one of them is convinced that they have the pure and correct doctrine that all the others have missed.Each of these denominations likely came about because someone, somewhere found critical “truths” that all the others missed. And yet, they all serve the same God and the same Christ. And almost all get their legitimacy from the words in “the bible”. So, if they all get a different set of truths from the same book, there must be a serious problem with that book. And that is truly the crux of the matter.There are so many denominations, at least in part, because there are so many versions of the bible. In fact, there are far more versions than any list of versions could ever include. And that is because so many pastors and teachers retranslate passages every Sunday, week after week. Retranslation of words from a supposed original Greek text, and occasionally the Hebrew text or the Septuagint, is the main component of tens of thousands of sermons every week in Christian churches around the world. Those pastors who routinely engage in this practice are writing their own unique translation, little by little.And never mind that none of them have ever seen an original autograph or spoken to an original speaker of the Koine Greek or original Hebrew language. Both of those languages became dead languages 1800 years before your pastor was born. And all the original autographs turned to dust 1800 years before your pastor was born.