Pragmatism, the Enemy of the Cross

Pragmatism: Assessing a matter in term of success rather than accuracy.

It is not alright to use unbilbical or inaccurate methods just because they work. The devil loves to use lies to deceive people, he can make something look right because it worked, but using an untruth to tell the truth ends up being untruth.

When we do things in a sinful way to bring about good, we have dishonored and defamed God. God cares how we do things, to use our own methods because they work is like saying God didn't know how to do it, we know better than He, how something should be done.


Acts 5:29 "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."

Many people add to God's word in terms of methods and practices to help God, they fear that preaching God's Word will cause people to think for themselves, the rules are what matter to these Pharisees, they lack faith therefore feel a need to burden others with more rules than God gave.

Leadership is not about keeping people in line our own way, leadership is about preaching truth and letting the Holy Spirit work in the lives of the people. If someone chooses to disobey God's principles, then God needs to work more in their heart, our extra Biblical rules won't change their heart.

Forcing people to follow particular rules not given in the Bible does not change their hearts, it merely makes them look good on the outside. It is better to allow their real selves to emerge so that the light of truth from the Bible will expose their hearts, then they can see what God needs to change in them.

Matthew 23:4 ""They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger."

The best way to help a brother or sister in the Lord is to tell the truth, and pray that the Lord will work in their hearts, the extra rules and burdens do not change hearts.

Go Back To The Source

When the KJV of the Bible speaks of Christ's hands and feet, it is slightly inaccurate. The hands in the original Greek language extended to above the wrist. IF we are to be accurate we would say "wrist" where Christ was pierced, not hand, in our English understanding. If the Lord had been pierced in the hand as we understand the hand, the nails would have torn loose, but when placed in the between the wrist bones, they would have held, as they did.

One of the reasons is matters is that there was a little boy who supposedly came back from heaven after dying saying that he saw the nail prints in the Savior's hands, we know from this that he did not see heaven or the Savior. If he had seen accurately he would have described the wrist not the hand. He was merely repeating what he had been inaccurately taught.


If we are to accurately understand God's Word, we will have to go back to the original languages often. The English versions are not clear enough in many things.This will be true of every translation.