Why it is impossible to preach from Leviticus 28

Bob Rogers

Updated: Jan 28, 2011, 2:52 AM

Published: Jan 28, 2011, 2:55 AM

One Sunday I confused my congregation when I announced my scripture text from Leviticus 18, but the screen behind me referred to chapter 28 of Leviticus, which I had incorrectly typed into PowerPoint. Unfortunately, Leviticus ends at chapter 27.

That incident reminds me of a baptism service many years ago in Woodville, Miss. I was the youth minister and I also led the singing. The pastor was going to baptize some new believers after the sermon. He needed a time of transition between the sermon and the baptism to get ready, so he asked me to lead the congregation in a few songs. He also asked me to find that scripture about baptism in Matthew 6, and be ready to read it just before the baptism.

The baptistry had a curtain, so the pastor stood in the water behind the curtain, waiting for the curtains to part before he parted the waters in baptism.

We finished the songs, and I could hear the sound of the pastor standing in the water behind the curtain. So I opened my Bible and said, “Brother Ben asked me to read about baptism from Matthew 6.” However, when my eyes fell on the text, I saw that it was about prayer, not baptism. I wondered out loud, “Maybe he meant Mark 6.” But when I turned to the second gospel, I saw that Mark wrote about Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth. So I said, “Let’s turn to Luke 6.” There, to my dismay, I saw some words about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath; I wanted him to be Lord of baptism right there! So I told the congregation that surely Brother Ben meant John 6, but when I opened the Bible to that passage, I saw that it was about the feeding of the 5,000.

At this point I stopped, unsure what to do next. I didn’t want to go through all 27 books of the New Testament in a vain search for the passage that the pastor wanted read. The congregation looked almost as confused as I was. To my great relief, a voice boomed out from behind the curtain, proclaiming, “Romans 6!”

My baptismal bumble looking for Romans 6 or my pointless PowerPoint to Leviticus 28 were innocent enough. However, it’s not so innocent when people twist scripture to make it say what it does not really say. Watch out for people who loudly proclaim what the Bible says. Check their words with the scripture to make sure that they know what they’re talking about. When the apostle Paul preached the gospel in a city known as Berea, the Bible says that they “examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11, HCSB). I’m sure that Paul couldn’t slip Leviticus 28 past the Bereans!

(Copyright 2011 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday for a mix of religion and humor. For more “Holy Humor,” visit the Web site of First Baptist Church of Rincon at www.fbcrincon.com.)

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Is there a church for a big woman with an itch?

Dr. Bob Rogers

Updated: Jan 23, 2014, 10:34 PM

Published: Jan 23, 2014, 10:36 PM

A pastor was called to be guest preacher at a church. He knew this church was different when the congregation ended every line of the hymn with the shout of “yeehah!”

As he stood to preach, he noticed that people were spread out on the pews. He would see a person, then a space, then another person, and another space. He wondered why nobody sat next to another person, when he noticed on the pew beside each person was a cowboy hat.

Another time this same preacher was invited to a new church in the city. He was surprised to see that everybody there looked like they had fallen face first into a tackle box, because they had piercings and earrings on every part of the body imaginable. A rock band was playing alternative music on the stage.

As different as these two churches were, they were both growing and reaching people for Christ.

Years ago I was pastor of a small country church in the backwoods of Mississippi. There was another Baptist church just five miles away in the town (population 600). The pastor’s wife at the town church asked me, “Why don’t our two churches merge?” I said, “There are people in my church who would not feel comfortable or fit in at your town church.” She said, “Oh, come on. We’re a small town church. What could be so different?”

I said, “Well, I got one really big woman in my church who, when she gets to feeling an itch, she pulls her dress halfway up and she scratches herself.”

The eyes of this pastor’s wife got really big and she said, “I see what you mean.”

I forgot to tell her about another woman in my church who saw a roach running across the wood floor, so she stomped on it with her bare foot, laughed and shouted, “Aha! I got him!”

Yep, the culture was definitely different where I was pastor.

Jesus upset the religious establishment because He crossed cultural barriers. He loved to eat with tax collectors and Gentiles and other strange people. Jesus walked into the land of Samaria, full of half-breed Jews who worshiped in weird ways and talked different and smelled different.

Jesus walked right up to a Samaritan woman at a well and started talking her language. He accepted her culture, but he let her know her sinful lifestyle had to change. Soon she had the whole town following Jesus (see John 4).

So what cultural barrier is keeping somebody in your community from hearing the gospel? If you tear down the cultural barriers to share Christ in your neighborhood, you may hear the angels shouting, “Yeehah!”

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