Fending Off Punches from the Pulpit

1. I’m saying this in love.****Then why the Count Dracula grin? I’m saying this in love too: No comprendo! GOODBYE!

2. The greater the sacrifice the greater the blessing.****Then why don’t preachers sacrifice money to each other and get a monstrously big blessing if they REALLY believed this?

3. God can’t afford to bless you if you don’t tithe (or other condition set on Him by the all-wise preacher).****That’s news to me that God, who owns the entire universe, is too poor to afford anything He wants to do!

4. God has no hands but yours and unless you do it yourself his hands are tied.***You learn something new every day. God couldn’t have made the Milky Way unless we rolled up our sleeves and banged it together ourselves. Yeah, right.

5. There’s no such thing as miracles anymore because God is trying to teach you something through your pain.****What, how to scream and run up doctor bills?

6. We feel led to call a 3-week Daniel Fast, even if next week is Thanskgiving. That means no cranberry sauce, no pumpkin pie, no turkey, no candied yams. Just dry soup mix and water.****Protestants are always cutting the Catholics down for giving up ice cream for Lent. But Protestants do their own suffering to earn God’s approval. Daniel didn’t just cut out dessert. He went 3 weeks without his deodorant too, but I don’t think the preacher would belabor that point if he wanted to attract more visitors.

7. God helps those that help themselves.* * * *A cryptic way of telling you not to “request prayer” from the church benevolence committee if you got laid off and can’t pay the rent.

8. I’m talking to myself, here.* * * * The preacher lowers your defenses by telling you he’s also guilty of the sins he plans to preach on, and he’s just one of the guys. But you just try telling him the same thing yourself and see how he reacts.

9. We aren’t trying to force anybody to tithe (or other disagreeable thing), that’s between you and the Lord.****And if the Lord has different ideas, the preacher will make you feel guilty for not doing it anyway and claim it’s the Lord pricking at your conscience.

10. You don’t want to be on the outside looking in.****Outside looking in WHERE? A monkey cage?

11. Jesus had twelve disciples, but only three were in his inner circle.****I’ll pay ten trillion bucks to anybody who can PROVE that phrase “inner circle” is in the KJV, unless they penciled it in themselves!

12. That door swings both ways.****So does the doors in an old-fashioned saloon! Better to walk out them swinging doors than stay in and soak up the atmosphere.

13. Ananias and Sapphira would give their right eyeball to get out of hell and have a second chance to pay that tithe money they refused to pay Peter.****I’ll pay a HUNDRED trillion bucks to anybody who can prove that the Apostle Peter ever asked Ananias to pay ten per cent of his salary to the church.

14. We just doubled our salary because the Bible teaches you owe us double honor.****Fine, I’ll go on OWING you. Here’s my IOU for all my worldly wealth: the pennies in my old jelly jar. Guess Paul was only kidding when he said, OWE NO MAN ANYTHING but love (Rom.13:8). Now unless you think like a prostitute and say love is money, you’re dead wrong, buster.

15. If you REALLY loved Jesus you’d (fill in the blank).****Go fly a kite? Dance on the head of a pin? Well, if YOU loved Jesus, you’d shut that pie hole in your face!

16. I’m going to pray for God to chasten you if you do something (or believe something) we disapprove of.****So now the preacher’s making God his hatchet man to do his dirty work for him? Doesn’t God have bigger fish to fry than John Q. Pewwarmer who drinks a lite beer and dances to country rock?

17. Lord, whatever it takes to make us more like Jesus, even if…(fill in the blank).****The preacher who prays THIS classical prayer is usually financially secure, healthy, and very popular with everybody, and has NEVER experienced the trials and tribs of REAL LIFE. If God took his preacher perks away from him, his ambitions to be “more like Jesus” would fly out the window.

18. And help us to forgive others no matter what they do to us, even if they aren’t sorry. Amen.****If the preacher digs in deep with this doctrine to make you uncomfortable, you could test him on his own doctrine of UNCONDITIONAL FORGIVENESS by:

1. Tell him you’ve discovered that tithing is NOT for today (true).2. Tell him his colors clash or his suit looks like it’s ready for the

Salvation Army barrel.3. If he’s big around the middle but is always carping about others

needing to deny the flesh, tell him he looks like he flunked Daniel Fasting 101 and needs to take a refresher course without the refreshments.

4. At SHARING TIME stand up and share a Bible revelation which contradicts some VAIN TRADITION OF MEN he’s been oppressing the congregation with.

5. Skip three or four services in a row. When he asks you why you did this, say there was a better show on TV.