If ministers don’t teach the truth, trusting them with anything they teach becomes difficult (at best). That’s likely one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul wrote the following:
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth,” 2 Timothy 2:15.
A problem in the 21st century is that it has become too common for what many ministers teach to include some things that just are not true, and these things often don’t even come from scripture. These tidbits may have a sliver of truth in them, but a sliver of truth in a full slice of falsehood is really teaching something that is not reliable.
Here are a half dozen examples of some popular things ministers teach that are more false than true:
We learn more from failure than success.
This is heavily parroted in church leadership circles, and I think most ministers who include it in their teaching do so without serious consideration of its validity, they’re just saying what some “guru” has claimed. It is true that for some people, experiencing failure can be one way of eventually learning how to be successful. But it is also true that MANY people are devastated by failure and don’t quickly bounce back and learn a lesson needed to then move on to “success.” For some, failure is so devastating it wipes out both their resources and any confidence in moving forward. For others, the failure is so deep and painful they don’t want to ever take risks again. Ministers can talk about and treat failure too lightheartedly. A better statement: It is possible to learn from failures and still move forward to success.
Fifty percent of all marriages fail.
Ministers routinely quote this as fact, but it isn’t true. In fact, it has never been true in America! Continuing to quote it paints a dark picture of marriage for both those who are married and to all those single people who begin to question if they should even consider marriage if it’s that bad! To my fellow ministers, PLEASE do yourself a favor and BUY and READ Shaunti Feldhahn’s book, “The Good News About Marriage.” Shaunti is a devout Christian who is a Harvard-trained researcher and, in this book, clearly details her research revealing this claim regarding the divorce rate to be F A L S E. That’s GOOD NEWS you need to know about. You can find my original review of the book by clicking here. A better statement: In spite of what you often hear, not only do a large majority of marriages succeed, a strong majority of people say they are happy in their marriage.
