Another Pastor Sins!

Occasionally today a church leader will fall to temptation and we all hear about it. In fact, there are always some who feel the need to point out and call him out on his sin.

What’s fascinating to me in today’s reading (Galatians 2) is that we see that happening, but the sin the leader is called out for isn’t sexual or financial, it’s … legalism. Paul calls out Peter, by name, for trying to hold people to the Old Testament law, leading them to become confused about whether it’s obedience to the law or faith in Jesus that truly justifies them. And he also calls out Peter for shying away from spending time with people who are far from God.

Can you imagine if, today, pastors were called out for not hanging with people who are far from God and for teaching legalism? Can you imagine if those were the sins (as they were in the Bible) that got you talked about? Can you imagine the headlines?

Well, first of all, a majority of pastors would get called out – there wouldn’t be enough blogs and tweets to contain it! And, second, the irony would be that the pastors who love to point out the sins of others would find themselves on the receiving end, as their sins were highlighted for the world to see.

It would be a sad day, but there would probably be something kind of funny about the irony of it all. And, if those pastors repented of these sins and really changed, maybe we’d see the church in America stop declining and really do something significant.