News Flash: God Causes Bills Receiver to Drop Winning Pass; Receiver and Bills Fans Obviously are Not Tithers!

Things are really starting to get seriously bad in this country. God not only has caused our economy to crash because of non-tithing Christians, now apparently God is causing our NFL receivers to drop passes. Causing high umemployment and stock market crashes are one thing, but brother when you non-tithers start causing our football teams to lose, you've really crossed the line!

Apparently God caused Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson to drop the potential winning pass in overtime Sunday, the ball slipping right through his fingers as seen in the video above. Who would better know than Stevie himself, who posted the following Tweet at the end of the game:

"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS IS HOW YOU DO ME!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS???? HOW???!!! I’LL NEVER FORGET THIS!!! EVER!! THX THO…STEVIE JOHNSON13"

Why would God do this to Stevie and the faithful Buffalo Bills fans? From what I've been hearing around Baptist churches these days, there is one and only one reason that God will actively hurt a believer like Stevie, and that is if he is not tithing! Stevie Johnson obviously must not be tithing 10% of his salary, and probably making things worse there are just too many non-tithers in Buffalo! Our most popular preachers today, like Ed Young, Jr., are telling us that the reason we can't keep our kids out of the doctor's office, why we can't keep a job, why we have terrible marriages and terrible kids...and apparently why footballs are slipping through receivers' fingers....it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! And now God is causing our NFL teams to lose!

Stevie - please, if you want to get back on track and start catching the big passes again, it's all about the money - he'll get the ball to ya, if he can get the dough through ya! You need to bring 10% of your salary to da house! And Stevie, do you want to catch passes at a rate based on the net or the gross? Amen! So tithe on the gross, baby.

What should we NFL fans do? If we care about our NFL team, and we don't want God to make our star receiver drop the winning pass, or running back to fumble on the game winning drive, we should write the owner and make sure that his players are tithing! And we should tithe too, and tithe on the gross. Do we want our NFL teams to win based on our gross or our net? Hmmm?

Oh, and now the huge success Cam Newton of Auburn has enjoyed this year makes sense - obviously his dad tithed on the $200,000 that was reportedly paid to get Cam to Auburn!

"Bring ye all the tithe into the storehouse, saith the Lord, that there may be touchdowns in my stadiums!" (Malachi 3:10, New American Tithing Version)

H/T: Wartburg Watch

Inspiring Story About Matt Chandler

Below is a link to a very inspiring article appearing last week in the Dallas Morning News about Matt Chandler's year-long battle with brain cancer. Matt is the pastor at the Village Church in the Dallas area. FBC Jax had him speak at the 2009 Pastor's Conference.

Young Pastor Turns Struggle With Brain Cancer Into Year of Teachable Moments - by Sam Hodges, Dallas Morning News

I have written several articles about Matt Chandler on this blog, including one in November 2009 before he suffered his seizure and the cancer diagnosis - about an incredible sermon he preached to future pastors at Southern Seminary (click here to watch that sermon at the SBTS website). His sermon was almost prophetic when he was warning these young students to not be like so many preachers in our day who get into the ministry to promote themselves to achieve Western success - selling books and tapes and making much of themselves. Then about 2 weeks later he suffered his severe seizure and the discovery of the mass in his brain.

But in that SBTS sermon, Chandler pointed students to Hebrews 11:32-33 where it does say some Christians will achieve great success such as "shutting the mouths of lions" and raising the dead...but Chandler pointed out that so many preachers today ignore verses 35-37 where the writer says that some will be tortured and sawn in two and living in caves for their faith. Chandler expressed his concern that today's seminary students are watching the big shots, the famous preachers who sell books and are on TV and live the glamorous life, and yearn to be like them, and think they WILL be like them if they can sit at their feet and learn their techniques - after all, who gets invited to preach at chapel to these students? Not the lowly suffering pastors, but the popular, glamorous ones. But Chandler says no, some will be ridiculed and sawn in two so-to-speak, and live extremely difficult lives - and they should be willing to accept that possible fate as ministers or they should get out of the ministry lickity split.

Prophetic words, because just several weeks later Chandler's life moved into that realm of verses 35-37, and God gave him the opportunity to live it himself. He no doubt had been achieving great things for the Lord. By many accounts I've read he is a humble man of modest means and does not draw a large salary or accept money from books or speaking engagements and never sought out to be a big time preacher - in fact his story is that he reluctantly took over as pastor of a dwindling congregation of about 200 people that has grown to over 8000. But in the middle of all of this "success", he suddenly had to begin a walk through surgery and chemo and radiation treatments and uncertainty - that has lasted more than a year now.

But Chandler has used it to teach Christians how to deal with tragedy by trusting in God, that no matter what happens, God will get the glory for it even though we might not see how. He has been very transparent using social media tools to allow people to follow him in his journey.

Chandler doesn't use his pulpit to talk about poor Matt Chandler and all of his trials and tribulations and attacks - like some Baptist preachers do - instead through the last year he has been able to glorify God through the madness, giving thanks that God counted him worthy to suffer for His name's sake to make much of God's name, and little of Matt Chandler.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Watchdog

Best wishes to all of my readers and commentors for a blessed Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and family.

One of the many things I am thankful for are all of you that participate in this blog who engage in thoughtful discussions that I believe we all learn from, even when we don't agree. I have made quite a few new friends here, and thank you for your support and encouragement on the blog and via email, I can't tell you how much it means!

The Watchdog blog will continue on, and we shall see what 2011 holds! This is the 4th Thanksgiving of the Watchdog blog - so far no trespass warnings this year on Thanksgiving Eve - but who knows it is still early, waiting for that doorbell to ring! But seriously, I have much more to write about regarding the lawsuits, and matters that I know are of interest to all of us who participate in the blog. We're just getting started!

But for now let's go eat some turkey and watch some football!

Daring to Question the Storehouse Tithing Doctrine

In David A. Croteau's book "You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe: A Deconstruction of Tithing and a Reconstruction of Post-Tithe Giving" you will read in the preface just how Croteau came to question that his long-held view of the applicability of the Old Testament tithe to the Christian might be false.

And Croteau gives a glimpse of just how sacred this doctrine is to denominational leaders and how those who question it are punished.

Croteau's testimony in this regard is very interesting to me, as I found his experience to be very similar to my own, and the same as others I've talked to. I've come to believe that many of the erroneous doctrines we are taught we easily believe them if they are taught "gently" and sincerely to us. Sometimes it is not until some bull-in-a-china-shop kind of preacher comes into our lives and kicks the doctrinal door down when we finally wake up and realize what we were taught all along was wrong.

Here are some excerpts from Croteau's preface that give a glimpse of how he started on his journey:

"I was driving to work in the fall of 1999 and listening to Christian talk radio. John MacArthur was in the middle of a sermon and he was explaining why the tithe was not applicable to Christians. I had never heard anyone actually challenge the applicability of the tithe before, so this took me totally by surprise."

Most of us in Baptist pews have been taught this doctrine as fact for so long, even by well-meaning and sincere preachers. We have not heard SBC preachers dare to consider that the Old Testament tithing laws do not apply to Christians under grace. Preachers at best take a hybrid approach: that yes, we are obligated to tithe, but the New Testament says we should do the forking over joyfully and not under compulsion - in fact we should give more than the tithe as proof of just how darned joyful we are. As someone who was saved in a Southern Baptist Church as a teenager in college, I know the tithe has always been an expectation. It is planted into the minds of preschoolers. The Malachi 3:8-10 application to Christian tithing was never, ever to be questioned. If you don't tithe, you're a God-robber, a cheapskate, plain and simple. No one dares question the doctrine. You are expected to tithe - you check the box that says you are a tither on your committment card, and pray no one at church sees your tax returns to see you're only giving 4% on the gross.

But here is what is happening: as the new generation of preachers are beginning to become more brazen about the doctrine, taking it to the extremes now of saying non-tithing Christians are under God's judgment or a curse, or that God will take your money anyways through calamity if you do NOT tithe, blaming your family or financial misfortune on your lack of "faith" to "bring the tithe"...this is jolting more people to open their eyes and question the very basis of the doctrine that we have just accepted blindly for so long.

And thank God there are some men who are coming forth and not afraid to tell the truth. MacArthur is probably the most prominent one for a long time, as is Barna and Viola, but these are not Southern Baptists. Croteau is - he is trained in our seminary, and his research has the endorsement of Dr. Andreas Kostenberger at SEBTS.

Here is what Croteau says he did after he was challenged to question the tithing doctrine after listening to MacArthur's views on tithing:

"That night when I got home from work I read every passage in the Old and New Testaments that mentioned the tithe...at about two o'clock in the morning, I realized I was beat: I could not decipher what was being described. I called MacArthur's radio ministry and ordered the six part series on tithing. Thus began my journey into this subject; ten years later I have now completed this book."

So Croteau made this the topic of his Ph.D. dissertation at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Andreas Kostenberger approved the topic, and Croteau admits he was concerned over the opposition he would face from his writing:

"..I was not looking forward to the opposition with which the concepts would be received. I had already studied the topic for over five years and the resistance I had met with when discussing it with people was, at times, intense."

How true. Bring up this topic in your Sunday School class. Tell your Sunday School class when you next discuss money matters, something like this: "Christians are not under the Old Testament law of tithing. Malachi 3 has been misused for decades by taking it totally out of context. We are to follow the New Testament model to be generous, but there is no prescribed percentage." Try it and see what happens.

During the course of his research Croteau says he reached out to two authors that are cited in his book, and their responses made him realize tithing was more of a "hot button" topic than he realized.

"The first man said that after he had written his book, every church he visited ostracized him because of his view. He was unable to get a job in ministry, so he went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in journalism and began his second career....The second man commented that he received so much disdain for his view that he quickly left the Baptist denomination."

My hope is that more and more Christians will be shocked by the false teachings in our mainstream churches on this doctrine, by men who have a vested financial and professional interest in the perpetuation of the doctrine. Christians must understand they are NOT obligated to blindly fork over 10% minimum to their church, with no accountability from church leadership. They can and SHOULD if they are so led by the Holy Spirit, but not under compulsion, or coercion, or scare tactics. But they are also free to be generous with their money as God leads them in doing His work through many avenues.

When Christians realize they are free to give as the Holy Spirit leads them to being generous and cheerful, then that is when the true church will use it's resources more for true Kingdom work, and less for building the kingdoms of men and preachers.

Croteau wraps up his preface by saying:

"I pray that this work will be received by gentle hearts open to the attempt I have made to inductively analyze Scripture's teaching on this complex, important, and very practical subject. My hope is that readers will interact with the content of this book and not attempt to guess at hidden motives or agendas, that ad hominem attacks will remain on the sideline, and that, through dialogue, the evangelical community will strive to come closer to the truth and thus bring glory to our God."

We shall see in the coming years how Croteau's views are treated. He will likely face the same ostracizing as others, and the same cast of SBC characters will probably belittle his views from their pulpits/stages. You won't see Croteau at the next SBC pastor's conference...but perhaps it will be a grassroots effort. Let the lay people see the truth on tithing, sharing it with others. Let's call for transparency in church finances and if refused, perhaps the Holy Spirit will guide you into giving in other areas. And let's be sure to challenge pastors who teach wrongly on giving.

And over time we can make a difference.

Dr. David A. Croteau Has Another Book on Tithing Coming Soon

We have been looking lately at the ridiculous assertions of Ed Young and Steve Gaines and Mac Brunson and even Perry Noble when it comes to the tithe. It can be pretty discouraging to learn how these very popular preachers are misusing scripture from their pulpits (or coffee table on a stage), but there is good news on the horizon on the topic of tithing.

Dr. David A. Croteau, graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and current professor at Liberty University, has a second book on tithing coming out next year entitled "Perspectives on Tithing: Four Views". Croteau is the editor of this book that will examine different views of the biblical tithe from Croteau, Hemphill, Kidd, Ecklund, and North. The best thing about this list of contributors: you don't see Brunson, Gaines, Noble, or Young.

Croteau is also the author of "You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe: A Deconstruction of Tithing and a Reconstruction of Post-Tithe Giving", that we discussed on this blog here. Croteau is a Ph.D. graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where his thesis was on the tithing doctrine, done under the tutelage of Dr. Andreas Kostenberger.

Here is what Wade Burleson said about the work of Croteau and Kostenberger:

"Dr. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Dr. David A. Croteau are the product of Southern Baptist theological education. These men, working on the faculties of Southeastern Theological Seminary and Liberty University respectively, have published many scholarly articles. One joint project, entitled “Will a Man Rob God?”, focuses on the abolishment of the Old Covenant law of storehouse tithing and the establishment of the New Covenant practice of graceful, cheerful and generous giving as believers are led by the Holy Spirit. Both men, inerrantists to the core, clearly display their love for the sacred text in the aforementioned article."

So while high profile pastors under enormous pressure to raise revenue have been beating the sheep to convince them they MUST tithe as a means to obey God and avoid personal calamity, and have been collecting account and routing numbers for auto withdrawl, and accusing their non-tithing members of being spiritual whores and common criminals and burglars and telling them to stay home if they don't tithe, it is good to know over the past several years that Croteau has been working hard on these two projects, out of the limelight. This has not earned him many friends I'm sure in the SBC - in fact as you recall earlier this year it was discovered by Wade Burleson that SBC pastor Les Puryear may have contacted SEBTS about Kostenberger's views on the tithe in an attempt to get him removed.

Mac Brunson of FBC Jax told his congregation in February 2009 that if they didn't agree with him on the requirement to tithe, that they should "Take it up wit da Book". And boy oh boy, has Croteau been taking it up "wit da Book". Thank you David A. Croteau for takin' it up wit da Book, and daring to tell the truth that the Old Testament law of tithing has been replaced by a better way clearly spelled out in scripture: loving, generous, sacrificial giving as Christians are led by the Spirit.