Responding To CRITICAL Comments! | Ep. 7

Responding to Critical Comments About the Channel’s Mission

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight For Truth, the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. I apologize if you hear any noise in the background, there is some construction near my house.

This video is episode 7 of our series called Responding to Critical Comments. This is, of course, where we read real, unedited comments from this channel that disagree with the positions we take, and we respond to them.

The identities of the commenters themselves will be hidden for their sake. Our first comment comes from our video about Mike Todd. It is entitled, quote, An Absurd Sermon from Mike Todd. The commenter says this, quote, Question, King David and King Solomon wrote some of the most powerful books of the Bible, but were they perfect?

If you exited around their time knowing what you know about their faults, would you have read their book? We all have a story to tell. Give Pastor Todd time for his to form, end quote. There are several assumptions in this comment.

The first assumption is that channels like ours at Fight for Truth would have ridiculed people like David or Solomon, given the fact that they made mistakes and committed sins in their personal lives.

This assumption misunderstands both the methods and the goal of our channel. This channel does not dig up dirt on people's personal lives and then expose it to the public on the internet. In fact, we deliberately make an effort on this channel to avoid that kind of thing because we find it repulsive.

That is not what we do at all. Rather, what we do at Fight for Truth is watch publicly available sermons posted on YouTube from the people who made them, and these are some of the most popular pastors in America, by the way, and then we simply compare what they're saying to the Word of God.

That's it. And this is not a stretch. It's not ridiculous, considering the pastors themselves claim to be preaching from the Bible in the first place. It only makes sense that their teaching should align with what they're preaching from, right?

Romans 16 -17 tells us as Christians to mark and avoid those who teach unsound or unbiblical doctrine. And Paul heaps praise on the Bereans, calling them noble in Acts chapter 17 for comparing his teaching to the Word of God.

More than this, you will find Jesus in the Gospel accounts Himself consistently critiquing the teaching of the Pharisees publicly. You see, we need to be very careful that we do not have a standard of kindness or love or compassion that is above the very character of Jesus.

That's the first thing to understand. This channel is not here to dig up dirt on people's personal lives or expose secret sins. That's not what we do. Rather, we're analyzing public teaching and comparing it to Scripture, which is something that Christians are encouraged to do.

The second assumption here in this comment is that this channel has a goal to permanently silence or cancel teachers like Mike Todd and make it so their story is effectively over. That is never something that this channel has said.

Rather, we are correcting dangerous and unbiblical teaching in an effort to bring positive change to the professing Church. If Mike Todd never repents and continues offering false teaching for the rest of his life, this is not something we see as a win for anyone.

It would be a travesty. It would be very, very disappointing. I would much rather see Mike Todd change his strategy, his methods, get some better biblical teaching and instruction from wise men in the Lord, and then use his gifts, in whatever way he sees fit, to glorify the Lord in whatever way is wise.

That would be successful. First Corinthians 10 31 says, quote,. So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So no, we don't want false teachers to be permanently silenced.

We want them to get help and start living a better life in a more biblical way. We don't want their story to be over. In other words, we want their story to glorify God as much as possible and be filled with joy and peace.

In any case, the comment is simply wrong because it misinterprets both the goals and the methods of our channel. On to the next comment. This particular complaint comes from the same video on Mike Todd.

You can watch that video with the link in the description. The commenter says this, quote, Why don't you react to the whole sermon and then tell us that it's not biblical, even if your video's three hours long, instead of reacting to bits and pieces of it without giving us the full picture?

End quote. And this comment is wrong by implication. You see, the comment is implying that because we react to short clips of sermons rather than the sermons in their entirety, that must mean that we are taking these clips out of context.

First, simply pointing out that we played a short clip does not prove in any way that the clip was taken out of context. Not at all. For one thing, you could just as well take a long clip out of context.

Because whether or not a clip is in context depends simply on the way in which it is used. Is it used honestly or dishonestly? So the reason we feel comfortable using short clips here is because we feel as though we are not doing it in a dishonest way.

At the very least, we strive not to do that. It is entirely possible, though, in fact, it's probable, that we have made mistakes. We've not always done the best job that we could do on this. And this is why we try to make a practice of apologizing when we get it wrong, and working hard to do better moving forward.

Also, the second reason we don't make three hour long videos on the entirety of the sermon we're analyzing is because people working for Joel Osteen and others consistently give us copyright strikes on YouTube.

And they do this dishonestly, despite the fact that we are guilty of nothing. For evidence of this, feel free to watch the video in which I detail our copyright situation with Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church.

The link is in the description. In any case, we did not take any clips out of context in our recent Mike Todd video, so the complaint here falls flat regardless. Let's move forward. The next comment comes from our recent video entitled, quote, Why Kenneth Copeland Talks to His Hair.

The commenter seemingly didn't have any issue with our points in the video, or at least they didn't say so. Rather, they took issue with this, quote, Why even make this video? Who cares? We know Copeland is bad.

End of story. End quote. And this particular complaint is brought up a lot in the comment section here due to the nature of this channel's content. Many people will see that we consistently do videos on recurring topics.

Joel Osteen, Stephen Furtick, Mike Todd, Bethel Church, these come up a lot, Kenneth Copeland, etc. And their reaction is basically to say something like this, you've already demonstrated your point about these people, why go on beating a dead horse over and over?

Demonstrating that they are preaching falsely. We get it, you don't need to do this. Well, let me give you a few reasons why we do. First, many of these pastors have been preaching for at least half an hour, many times more, every week for several decades now.

That is hours and hours of potentially false teaching that has been out there on YouTube misleading millions of people for years at a time. And in my humble opinion, you cannot take effective steps to undo the effects of this by simply posting a single 15 minute video.

Given the massive amount of false teaching, it only makes sense that there would need to be a significant amount of videos refuting said teaching. And second, the reason we often cover the same dozen or so false teachers on this channel is because these teachers are reaching the highest number of people.

Thus, if we want to help the highest number of people recognize their dangerous teaching, it makes sense to focus on these primary leaders. Third, let's look at a practical example. For instance, the video we made on Kenneth Copeland that this commenter took issue with.

In our video, we reacted to clips from a sermon posted by Kenneth Copeland Ministries. It's entitled, quote, Faith for Prosperity. Videos like this have garnered millions of views on their YouTube channel.

In fact, that channel has over 92 million views at the time of recording. So the idea that everyone knows Kenneth Copeland is false and no one takes him seriously anyways, it's simply 100 incorrect.

Indeed, Kenneth to this day is the most successful prosperity gospel teacher with an estimated net worth of $800 million and an active, massive megachurch that is still operating to this day. Comments like the one we just read seem to be unaware of these important facts.

Scripture, Context, and Metaphorical Interpretation

But in any case, our next comment moving along comes from a video entitled, quote, How Sarah Jakes, Daughter of T .D. Jakes, Butchers the Bible, the link to which is in the description. In this video, we demonstrated how Sarah Jakes took Luke chapter 8 completely out of context in order to preach a you-go-girl motivational speech at a Christian women's conference.

In response, one commenter said, quote, I guess we can't use Scripture metaphorically any time… giggles. Not sure what that part's about, but let's keep reading. Be not righteous over much, end quote.

Again, we have several false assumptions beneath this comment. First, the commenter implies that we believe Scripture can never be interpreted metaphorically in any way. This is blatantly false. Revelation 5 .5 says, quote, Weep no more.

Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. End quote. You see, Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah. Now, does this mean that Jesus is literally a large, hairy feline predator who hunts gazelle in the desert?

No. Obviously, this language is figurative or metaphorical in some sense. And we recognize it as such. And indeed, there are many Scriptures that can be interpreted figuratively. That is not what we oppose here at Fight for Truth.

Not at all. Rather, we are against the biblical interpretation method employed by Sarah Jakes and her father, T .D. Jakes. Namely, they take virtually every passage of Scripture they come across, and immediately do the same thing with it.

They take it out of context first. Then, they proceed to individualize it, personalize it for the audience watching, and then in the end, it usually ends up being about your personal motivation in life, your success, your goals, and how awesome and special you truly are.

This kind of man-centered motivational preaching is what we are wholeheartedly against on this channel. That would be a mistreatment of the Word of God. And preaching is meant to convey the truth of God's Word in the first place, not to simply make the audience feel good about themselves.

2 Timothy 4 .3 warns about those who "...accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.". Again, teaching is fundamentally about glorifying God truthfully, not merely pleasing man. In any case, we hope this video has dispelled some of the very common myths that are perpetuated in the comments section of this channel.

Most of these, upon close examination, simply misrepresent what we do here. And hopefully, that has been demonstrated in this video. So I pray this has been a blessing to you, and please know that this video isn't meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a biblical critique.

And let's pray for all the people mentioned in this video that by God's grace, they would hold to the truth of God's Word. Thank you so much for watching that video. Please give us a like and subscribe so that you don't miss any content.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to our Rumble channel as well, just in case YouTube ever takes us down. The link is in the description. And before you go, take a look at this list here. These are the people who make all of the free content you see on this channel possible with their monthly support.

Today's highlighted channel supporter is called GloryToGod. If you also want to help and become part of the solution today, hit the link in the description. Your support keeps us independent and helps us immensely here on the channel.

So I hope you'll consider joining the Truth Army today, and until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you, and God bless.