Bible blog of award-winning bestselling Christian author, Stephen M. Miller. "Censored comments about Miller" by Stephen M. Miller for Friday, 24 April 2015

Bible blog of award-winning bestselling Christian author, Stephen M. Miller. "Censored comments about Miller" by Stephen M. Miller for Friday, 24 April 2015

WATCH THE WORDS. Sometimes I need a hand over my mouth. Sometimes, so do the people who write me. Some of their comments never make it onto my website. Hand by Sonti Malonti.

I GOT SOME PUSHBACK on Wednesday’s article: “Miller, are you Christian?”
It came from the passionate gent who wrote me the initial email – a man whom, I figure, is deeply sincere about his beliefs. And eager to pass them on to others. Like me.
He started reading some of my past blog articles, and began submitting comments.
Many comments.
Here’s the way the comment boxes work. First-time commentators get cleared by me. After that, they are free to comment on anything, though I can later edit, delete, or send them to spam hell.
Some of the gentleman’s comments were fine. That doesn’t mean I agreed with them. It means I was okay letting him speak his mind.
But in other comments, he called me anything but Christian, and presumed that I needed to get saved. That’s a little too presumptuous for someone who’s not my mother.
So here’s what I had to do, in order to keep out the politely judgmental comments – he sometimes called me “friend” when he said I needed to get saved. I had to tag the gentleman as spam, which means none of his comments would appear. It’s pretty much all or nothing, given my limited understanding of the plugin that runs the comments feature.
That said, I think you might find it interesting to hear at least some of what he had to say.
Here are excerpts from two comments: one about my attempt to write in a balanced manner, and another about homosexuality.
“Miller, take a stand or sit the heck down”
CRITIC: If we don’t take a stand for Him, we have not taken a stand.
We are either for Him or against Him. We cannot “sit on the fence” or he will spit us out of His mouth!
I have read other articles you have written and still find it disturbing you will not take a stand in your writing. You said you want people to think for themselves. I agree. But what does that have to do with you saying what you believe?
This style of writing leaves an open door for a non-believer to agree with what he thought all along, instead of introducing him to Christ. It is not our job to “save” people. It is God’s. But it is our job to introduce the gospel. Kinda hard to do with the books I have read. I look at it like a nonbeliever, since that is mainly who you are writing for, and I believe I would come away as confused, or worse, believing that “scholars” agree with my incorrect thoughts, so I must be on the right track!
STEVE: Well, I say “glory.”
Regarding the notion that sitting on a fence will get us spit out, I think that’s a loosey-goosey paraphrase of Revelation 3:16, “Since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
I report both the progressive and the tradition-minded points of view on how to understand puzzling Bible passages. Doesn’t that make me hot AND cold? Heck, I’m bipartisan all by myself.
Regarding the matter of how to write for people outside the faith, I defer to an email I got yesterday, from New Zealand: “I recently received one of your books and lent it to my unsaved Dad. It was perfect for him….Your honesty and humour is so refreshing.”
It’s not Adam and Steve
CRITIC: Gay is not what God created. He made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! It really doesn’t matter what people think, the truth will prevail.
STEVE: I wish they’d come up with something other than Adam and “Steve.”
How about “Cleve.”
It’s more biblical: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
Regarding the Critic knowing the truth of the matter – whatever the matter of the moment happens to be – I defer to a comment posted on my website yesterday by Erin, who quoted French writer Andre Gilde (1869-1951):
“Trust those who seek the truth, but doubt those who say they have found it.”
Certainly, Jesus is “The way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6). But there’s a lot of stuff in the Bible that’s hard to understand. That’s why God invented Bible scholars, Bible reference books, and aspirin.
Random book winner this week
Sharon Turner-Hoeft.
I give away one free book a week to a randomly selected subscriber to my free blog and quarterly newsletter.
Sharon is random this week.
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