GREENVILLE, S.C. USA - A Baptist minister is in hot water after
preaching a sermon that called the Ten Commandments sayings or promises
rather than mandates.
In his Christmas Eve message, Senior Pastor
Perry Noble of NewSpring Church, which regularly has more than 32,000
worshippers at 11 campuses across South Carolina, told congregants that
no word for 
“commandment” exists in Hebrew, the Old Testament’s original
language.
“commandment” exists in Hebrew, the Old Testament’s original
language.
“Instead of Ten Commandments that you have to keep if
you’re going to be a follower of Jesus, they’re actually 10 promises
that you can receive when you say yes to Jesus,” Noble said.
He then proceeded to rephrase each of the commandments as a promise.
The first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” became
“You do not have to live in constant disappointment anymore.”
Noble
told his far-flung congregation that he believed his topic was given by
God for a specific people whose struggles over their inability to keep
the Ten Commandments were preventing them from “saying yes” to Jesus.
But
the president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention said Noble had
better reassess his position or reassess his affiliation with the
state’s Southern Baptist churches.
- “His 2014 Christmas Eve message and his theological position in that message are evidence of continued problematic positions and statements that are inconsistent with the beliefs of South Carolina Baptists,” the Rev. Tommy Kelly said last week in a statement published in the denomination’s statewide newspaper, The Baptist Courier. Kelly is pastor of First Baptist Church in Varnville, S.C., in addition to heading the first state Baptist convention organized in the U.S.
- After a backlash on social media and among bloggers, on Jan. 9 Noble wrote in his own blog that he had misunderstood what a teacher in Israel had told him: Hebrew does have a word for “commandment.” He apologized for his error.
Source: huffington post...More..
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