Steve McVey - 52 Lies Heard in Church Every Sunday. ...And Why the Truth Is So Much Better

STEVE MCVEY

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Verses marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked YOUNGS are taken from the Youngs literal translation of the Bible.

Verses marked DARBY are taken from the Darby version of the Bible.

All emphasis in Scripture quotations is added by the author.

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Cover photos Thinkstock / Comstock Images / Getty Images; posztos (colorlab.hu) / Shutterstock

52 LIES HEARD IN CHURCH EVERY SUNDAY

Copyright 2011 by Steve McVey

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McVey, Steve, 1954-

52 lies heard in church every Sunday / Steve McVey.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-3864-8 (pbk.)

1. Preaching. 2. BibleHermeneutics. 3. Discernment (Christian theology) I. Title. II. Title: Fifty-two lies heard in church every Sunday.

BV4211.3.M425 2011

251.01dc22

2010017387

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / BP-NI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the many people to whom I taught
these lies for so long. May Gods grace
overwhelm your hearts and minds with the
knowledge of the truth that sets us free.

You can be assured anytime you read a book that it wasnt a solo effort on the part of the author. Thats true with this book too. Many people, too many to list, have influenced my thinking through the years, thus helping to shape this book. Others were directly involved in the development of 52 Lies Heard in Church Every Sunday.

The basis of this volume was the 101 Lies I posted on YouTube a few years ago. Tim Stevenson took those videos and saved me a lot of time by putting them into written format. I had recorded the videos extemporaneously, and Tim did a good job of taking my sometimes-clumsy spoken sentence structure and making my words sound more articulate and well-ordered for print.

Ben Hawkins and Paul Gossard were my editors on this book and helped make it better. They were both encouraging and yet held my feet to the fire on a few things that really did need to be changed, despite my resistance early on.

Thanks to Harvest House Publishers, who has been publishing my books since 1995. I will forever be indebted to Bob Hawkins Jr., who was willing to take a chance on a young unpublished author when he published my first book, Grace Walk.

Appreciation for my administrative manager, Cheryl Buchanan, is a constant for me. Cheryl works tirelessly behind the scenes, handling the details of ministry so that Im free to spend most of my time doing the things Ive been gifted to do.

Anybody who knows me understands how much I adore and appreciate my wife, Melanie. She has been my greatest encourager in life since I first met her when we were both teens 40 years ago. If it all went away, Id be okay as long as I knew she would still be by my side.

Finally, I save the best until last. I am so thankful to my heavenly Father for entrusting me with the life and ministry He has given to me. May any good that comes from this book exalt and honor Him.

W hen you see the title 52 Lies Heard in Church Every Sunday, your first question may be, What makes me think Im qualified to make the judgment on what constitutes a lie? My main qualification is that I taught all these lies myselfbefore I began to experience a radical paradigm shift as I began to learn more and more about the meaning of grace. After two decades of travel on six continents, meeting with groups of people of every doctrinal and denominational perspective, I have come to know with certainty that Im not alone in having taught the things addressed here.

The lies I list in this book are things I taught as a pastor at a time when I was passionate about the truth. I believe that the overwhelming majority of pastors are sincere believers who love God, the Scriptures, and the church. I have often said of myself that my heart was in the right place. It was my head that was wrong. I think that many people are in that same condition.

Frankly, Ive been so wrong about so much for so long that I dont have any rocks in my pocket to throw at anybody. On the other hand, my concern and love for the church of Jesus Christ causes me to write plainly. I call these shake em up to wake em up statements lies to make the point that there has been a widespreadthough admittedly unintentionaldilution of the truth. I was taught as a child that a half-truth is a whole lie. I think that applies here. When it comes to the gospel, diluted truth is polluted truth, and polluted truth is no gospel at all.

Some people will say that Im making a big deal over nothing, arguing that my observations are nothing more than a matter of semantics. My response is that its only semantics to those who dont see a difference between what Im saying and the way it is commonly said. Words do mean something, and when ideas are put into words in such a way that they lead to or reinforce fallacious notions, it is appropriate to challenge the use of those words. Too much is at stake to risk faulty communication about the truth.

The ultimate goal? My desire is that all of us would embrace and express the pure grace of God. Pure grace points to Him, not us. It declares that whatever good may come to us is all because of His goodness, not because of anything we do or dont do. It gives Him all the credit, and us none. With that viewpoint in mind, I offer these 52 chapters in the hope that this book will cause your perception and appreciation of Gods grace to grow bigger than they have ever been.

B eginning a book about lies taught in church presents the challenge of knowing where to start. I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning, with the most basic subject of Christianitysalvation. You might think its impossible to mess this one up, but you would be wrong. I know because I messed it up for many years in my role as a senior pastor who taught the Bible every week. As I look back on how I presented the subject of salvation, I now realize I taught something seriously off base.