What is your view of the majority of Christian pastors/preachers/priests?

What is your view of the majority of Christian pastors/preachers/priests?

May you please choose the response that you agree with and may you please also provide a reason for your response.

2 Timothy 4:1-4KJV
1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

1 Corinthians 14:26-29;
26 "How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
....
29 Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge."

I chose option 3. Every one may speak. The others may judge. What you take home is up to you. You have the responsibility to see if God has said that or not. If the saint is new or a babe in Christ, the brothers who know the Word must (i) teach him to listen and calculate, (ii) teach him to turn inwardly to his spirit, (iii) teach him to check all options, and (iv) teach him that he does not have to commit to anybody's teaching. We will all hear incorrect teaching and doctrine. We will all, sooner than later, believe an incorrect doctrine, at least for a while. If we are honest, God will cause circumstances so that you hear the truth. If you embrace the truth, God gives more truth. If you resist the truth, God causes a blindness to descend on you.

Be honest at all times.

I do not trust any of them unless they agree with the two witnesses, the law that is written in my heart, and the inspired word of God.

Most of the false doctrine preachers, I believe, are sincere in their beliefs, but only The few, the remnant, the 144,000 are preaching the doctrine that Jesus taught.

Only 144,000 are preaching true doctrine?

Are you sure it's not 144,001

As I have neither heard nor seen "the majority" of Christian pastors/preachers/priests, I have no opinion on them.

Theology degrees don't mean much to me unless the person is making claims about the original languages. Whether their content lines up with Scripture means far more. When assessing someone with whom I'm not already familiar, I also consider the basis of their content: if it is worldly, fearful, or secular, I lose interest.

Maybe it is only 143,999

There are several things that have to be qualified before answering your poll.

1) I don't trust or "assume" any priests are going to be worth listening to. They are so far off track they are a stewpot of confusion, and would be a nightmare for any new Christian to try and glean truth from error.

2) I don't think we are supposed to 'put our trust' completely in any teachers.

We have to study the scriptures and determine whether the teachers we listen to are interpreting the scriptures correctly.

We can tell when someone is not interpreting correctly when we have learned the correct interpretations. This takes time and study.

I suppose if you are just starting on this journey you have to trust or assume that your pastor or teachers are interpreting scripture correctly but it is up to you to look it up and verify.

3) If they have been to Bible College it does not mean they are gifted or called to preach but it does help you "assume" that they will be sound doctrinally. (That is if they went to a bible college that has a good reputation for teaching sound doctrine and producing good preachers) You are probably going to "trust" or assume that they are not a complete bufoon.

4) If they are ordained or licensed to preach by an organization that you respect then that is going to give you a level of trust, or make you assume that they are not a false teacher or the organization would have pulled their credentials.

You can reference several commentaries when verifying an interpretation. You might agree with three and not with the forth. The ones that seem to do the best job of hermeneutics (interpreting using common sense rules like context, other scriptures on the topic etc..) these will help you identify which interpretation is correct and why.

5) And finally, I will not trust or listen to any teacher who says they do not read any other men, or listen to any other men but the bible.
They are the worst teachers you will ever encounter.
Especially if they say they do not read commentaries because they are "just the thoughts of men."
It has been my experience that these people are going to be wrong about many of their interpretations.
They are usually the worst teachers, making many mistakes but being too ignorant of their ignorance and blaming the Holy Spirit for their bufoonery. It is an embarrassing display of a public meltdown and you feel so bad for them you don't even want to point out their errors. You hope that they will start referencing commentaries before they preach so they can at least catch the most obvious errors.

But this attitude about commentaries comes from two reasons 1) immaturity and ignorance has them thinking that it is 'more likely the Holy Spirit' to get an understanding without reading that someone else had that understanding before they did. They like to think that they discovered it themselves and were not "tainted" and therefore they can trust it to be correct.

2) they have read a commentary by scholars of the textual criticism camp who seem to discredit the text as though it were merely the works of ancient human fallible authors and not divinely inspired and this shocking experience caused them to think that this is what commentaries are about. I don't think any one should waste their time with those kinds of commentaries. Only scholars who are believers in the inspired word of God are worth reading and they do help us shorten our learning curve because they point out things that we might not see until our 700th reading of the bible.

So in conclusion, compare teachers interpretations with commentaries and this will help you if you are just starting out on the journey. Trust the Holy Spirit. "Grant ministers the benefit of the doubt" is not the same at "trusting". We trust only Jesus.

I only make a judgment on those I know.
To make a judgment on those I do not know would be a sin.

I picked option 3 as well.

I like hearing different opinions of scripture. It gives you a different perspective that you may have not thought of.

Sometimes it is the pure imagination of the one preaching. Sometimes it is Truth. It is up to us to study and pray and find out which.


I'm just going by the majority of preachers I have listened to.


The problem with bible college or seminaries that I have seen is that they teach based on the beliefs of a certain denomination. Then this denomination is the one the preacher is accredited in. So if you go to an Assemblies of God bible college you will be accredited Assemblies of God. If you go to a Baptist bible college you will be accredited Baptist.

So the preachers that come from these colleges and seminaries have their built in beliefs. Which, some of them are correct, some of them aren't.

It should be obvious when you really look at it. Just pit the different denominations against each other and see how they disagree.

Do you mean the "higher criticism" camp? Textual critics, in contrast, are those who study the manuscripts to determine which is most likely the original wording.

Both. There are textual critics that study the manuscripts and try to prove that they were written after the prophesies were fulfilled instead of before. They are expert in the original languages, and other Ancient Near Eastern writings and culture and they spend their whole lives trying to present proof of mistakes and inaccuracies. They are on record as saying they do not believe that the scriptures are divinely inspired but they are teaching textual criticism in a theological university. There are commentaries that are very technical that are written from the view that the scriptures are just ancient Jewish thought that developed their religion over time. I find my commentaries by suggestions from bibliographies of authors I read and that has kept me from getting lost or wasting time with the wrong kind of commentaries.

What is your view of the ones you know of?

Wouldn't this question assume that whoever responds possesses the perfect knowledge to be able to judge the pastors?
If pastors can be wrong about doctrine, suggested by the poll choices, what guarantees that the general Christian public will answer this in a correct way, giving an accurate image of the pastors? If rulers are corrupt, they are corrupt no less than the citizens.

99.9999% of Preachers are preaching another Jesus that is not in the Bible. Matthew 7:14

The narrow way is the Cross! The preaching of the Cross is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18

How can anyone honestly answer this question? Who could possibly know "the majority of Christian pastors/preachers/priests?"

There must be tens of thousands world wide!

I would also be careful offering ill will towards Gods anointed. Scripture speaks of this.

Growing up in Southern California, my family changed homes many times, many. Because my parents were separated then divorced when I was about 8 years old, I found an escape in going to church(es).
Actually I had been shipped off summers to Bible school previous to this along with one of my sisters during the summer. It kept the home, a trailer, more livable with less than seven in it.
Anyway, every time we would move, I would go to the church nearest my home, any church with a cross on top. The messages given from the pulpit were just a little bit hateful I thought as a child.

I heard preaching against just about everyone for being black, Jewish, or other denominations that the one I currently attended.
It never occurred to me that the names of the churches were different but all claimed to tach Jesus. By the time I came to the realization that these were different denominations I had fatigued of the preaching of hatred from the pulpits.
This did not stop me from believing the love of Jesus, but it did stop me from attending any named church.
Now I realize anyone who needs to call himself by any denominational name or even just Christian is just satisfying a need to be justified. Any who teach Jesus, His mission, and the Good News He gave us all is my family, but do not tell children they must listen to preachers who preach more against others and other denomination because I do not need to hear them.
Jesus is our Only Teacher.

None of the above.

I once read about a woman who was so displeased with her church and asked God why His church was so fallen. She said one day she was very perplexed and comtemplating on this while in church when she heard God's voice answer...

He said, "My preachers are not perfect. But I AM."