There is so much wrong here…

The Point of the Clip and the Problem with Its Delivery

What's wrong with this clip? I posted episode 453 the other day of some lady preaching, let's just say with some kind of accent. But here's what I didn't do. I did not explain what was wrong with the clip in the caption.

Many commenters affirmed her preaching and the content of her preaching. Wanting to agree with me only about the strange delivery. But I submit to you that the delivery is the least of the problems here.

Slockwood83 writes, come on brother, you gave so many amazing posts that are biblically a nope.

Thank you.

But some of your recent ones, it seems you are looking for something to post, so you're getting desperate. This nope is based on your opinion. Please get better.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man.

I find it to be an amusing phenomenon that people like this will often assume that I am running out of content because they disagree with it. Holy Nope will have content until the parousia, and I actually cannot keep up with the amount of content that I have stored and am sent on a daily basis.

If I'm ever struggling to find something to post, it's not because of a lack of choices. Uh, rather it would be because of choice paralysis, there being so much content to choose from. Now, before we read these next comments, I want to exhort us with James to be quick to learn how to listen when the word of God is supposed to be being preached.

The Whiskey Heron writes, what's so bad about preaching to yourself? Nothing's wrong with preaching to yourself. But that's not all that was communicated in this clip. She is twisting scripture to support her points, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Self-edification through God's word is biblical. Y 'all only disagree because of this page. I hope that's not true. If there's any principle that you should take from my page, it's that you should test everything by God's word and not believe me just because I said something.

But again, this commenter seems to have grasped only the vague concept of reading your Bible and being edified by that activity, ignoring the details of what was actually said by this.

Performer.

I don't care if you have no road to preach, no briefcase to preach, no credentials to.

Preach.

Ignoring the style, this is a perfectly orthodox sermon right up until the end where she veers off into some word of faith nonsense. Preaching to yourself is biblical. You're not listening. I've been following this page for a little time now.

One thing I've noticed is if something is not done the white Christian way, then it's not right. You guys are so focused on how she sounds and look to make judgments. You want to find hate. Join an American church because if it's not done the white way, then it's not right.

I included that one just for fun. As I said before, the delivery is the least of the issues here. So let's break it down.

Paul’s Teaching on Women in the Churches

No briefcase to preach, no credentials to preach. When you're going through hell and high water, you've got to talk to yourself.

First, this woman is pretending to preach. Can't be doing that. In both 1 Corinthians 14 and in 1 Timothy 2, Paul grounds his argument that women must keep silent in the churches and that women are not permitted to teach or to exercise authority.

He grounds those arguments not in the contemporary circumstances of the time, but in creation. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission as the law also says.

Now the law here likely refers to Genesis 2, where the woman is made from the man, then brought to the man, and then named by the man. So you can see that Paul appeals not just to the church at Corinth, but to all the churches of the saints and anchors his teaching in the creation account.

Likewise, in 1 Timothy, Paul writes,. Nothing is said of the Artemis cult in Ephesus. Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians about all the churches of the saints. Paul appeals here again to creation, which transcends cultural circumstances.

These texts apply to the church today. So you've got to talk to yourself if you want to get delivered. But delivered from what? I'm sure that she doesn't even know. It's just a word. We have the directive in scripture to meditate on the word and to set our minds on things above and so on.

Yes, it's biblical to preach to yourself, but does the Bible present preaching to yourself as the means of your deliverance or your breakthrough? The stuff she goes on to mention is about finances and sickness.

So to get delivered from poverty and poor health, you've got to talk to yourself. She doesn't veer off into word of faith doctrine at the end. The whole thing is saturated with word of faith malarkey.

This is the idea that by speaking faith-filled words, I can change my reality. Now, which passage of scripture does she allude to to support her idea that to get delivered from poverty and poor health, you've got to preach to yourself?

So she points to the woman with the bleeding issue in Mark chapter 5. She recalls that the text says that the woman thought or said to herself and then immediately applies it to her audience, saying that means that in order to get delivered, you also need to talk to yourself like this woman did.

This isn't preaching. This is performing. As H .B. Charles Jr. has said, a desire to preach without a burden to study is a desire.

To perform.

What about all the other people who got healed in the Bible who didn't talk to themselves? It's just a ridiculous mishandling of the text. She recalls that the woman talked to herself, which does not equate to the self-hyping speeches that she's advocating here.

But she stops there in the story and she stops there because her sermon is about you and not about Jesus. What was the woman saying to herself? If I just touch his garments, I will get well. Whose garments?

Jesus, of course. This text isn't about you talking yourself out of poverty and sickness. It's about the messianic identity of Jesus as the one who cleanses us from the defiling effects of our sin. Under the old covenant, this woman would not have only suffered physically, but for all this time that she has been bound with this bleeding issue, she would have been considered ceremonially unclean.

And that means that she could not enter the temple for worship. She was barred from God's presence. Leviticus 15 31. Thus, you shall keep the sons of Israel separated from their uncleanness so that they will not die in their uncleanness by their defiling my tabernacle that is among them.

She could not offer sacrifices. Those who were unclean were often separated from the rest of the community. They were often avoided so that their uncleanness could not spread. And here's where we should really get that this text is about the identity of Jesus.

She is unclean. She was forbidden to touch other people or holy objects lest they be defiled by her uncleanness. But when she touches Jesus, he does not become unclean, but she becomes clean. Isaiah writes that in our sin, we have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.

Like those considered unclean under the old covenant, our sin defiles us and separates us from God. But Jesus reconciles us to God through his power to cleanse us from our uncleanness. And so we have the New Testament instructions to confess our sins to the one who is able to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The Woman With the Bleeding Issue and the Object of Faith

That the sick, bleeding, hemorrhaging, hurting woman began to say to herself, so you see is what you say to yourself that gets you delivered.

It is absolutely an abuse of scripture and a twisting of God's word to use the account in Mark 5 to support the gospel of positive self-talk that she is spewing. This text isn't about her faith-filled words or thoughts.

It's about the object of her faith, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now she'll go on to scream more about screaming at the devil, which we are not supposed to.

Do.

Oh, but I came to serve notice to the devil.

That's another issue. But notice at this point her appeal to Proverbs 18 .21.

The Bible said the power of life and death is in your tongue to yourself.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. This is a text I have covered multiple times on this channel. It is the go-to verse for those who promote word of faith heresy.

But this is a proverb. It's about wisdom, and this verse is talking about the wise use of speech. Not that I can create worlds out of nothing like God did. Her delivery was strange, but as I said, that's the least of the problems here.

Our problem is listening carefully to what people are saying. This clip is a giant nope, but watching this clip and thinking nothing is wrong with it besides the delivery is also a holy nope.