Educate the Spiders, Maybe?

Who is the spider?

The spider is not an enemy of Jesus. The spider is not someone who attacks the Christian faith. The spider is a church member who asks questions about what the church teaches.

The man who writes this site heard these questions from members of a church. He wrote them from memory. He does not name anyone, and this page does not either.

1. “How did baptism and the Lord’s Supper become only symbols?”
2. “Did the early church not baptize babies?”
3. “How can we call ourselves Protestant if we disagree with Martin Luther about everything important? We even make fun of him in sermons.”
4. “Did God really change his mind after almost 1,800 years?”
5. “When did being a Christian become about ‘me’ and not about Christ?”
6. “How can you change the meaning of ‘born again’ after 1,800 years? If words can change their meaning, why have a written Bible at all?”
7. “How can we trust what you say God told you, when you use it to go against the Bible and church history?”

This page does not name any living person or any church. It does not say who is saved. It does not tell anyone to leave their church.

Seven points

1. Some Bible verses seem to say “don’t ask questions.” But when we read them carefully, they are about silly arguments, not about baptism or the gospel.
2. A pastor must answer. The Bible says a church leader must be able to teach, and to answer people who disagree.
3. The Bible likes good questions. Jesus asked questions when he was twelve. The Bible praises people who checked what Paul taught.
4. Whoever brings a new idea must show the evidence. The faith was given “once for all.”
5. The seven questions are fair questions. They have answers you can check in the Bible and in old Christian writings.
6. Silence does not make a question go away. It teaches people that the question has no answer.
7. The spider may be the teacher. Many of the questions repeat what the church taught for hundreds of years.

“Don’t ask questions”?

Some people use these verses to say that church members should not ask questions:

• “Refuse foolish and ignorant questionings” (2 Timothy 2:23).
• “Knowledge puffs up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). This means knowledge can make people proud.
• “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

These are real verses. But look at them carefully:

• Paul says what the foolish questions are: arguments about family trees, made-up stories, and fights about words (Titus 3:9). Not questions about baptism.
• In 2 Corinthians 3, “the letter” means the old law written on stone. It does not mean reading the Bible carefully.
• Read the next verse after “refuse foolish questions.” It tells the pastor to teach.

But refuse foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing that they generate arguments. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him.

2 Timothy 2:23–25 · World English Bible

In simple words: Stay away from silly arguments. But a leader must be kind, able to teach, and gentle with people who disagree.

Paul also warns about a man who loves arguments. But look at who he is:

If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and doesn’t consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ … he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles.

1 Timothy 6:3–4 · World English Bible

In simple words: The man who loves arguments is the one who teaches something different.

A pastor must answer

The Bible says what a church leader must be like. He must be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2). And:

… holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict him.

Titus 1:9 · World English Bible

In simple words: A leader must know true teaching well. He must use it to encourage people, and to show people who disagree why they are wrong.

Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear.

1 Peter 3:15 · World English Bible

In simple words: When anyone asks you why you believe, always be ready to answer. Answer kindly.

So a pastor can encourage. A pastor can correct. But both need reasons from the Bible. Laughing at someone is not a reason. Praying for someone to die is not a reason.

The Bible likes good questions

Look at the people in the Bible who asked questions. Every one got an answer.

• Jesus at twelve. He sat with the teachers in the temple, “both listening to them, and asking them questions.” They were amazed at his understanding (Luke 2:46–47).
• Thomas. He doubted that Jesus was alive. Jesus did not send him away. He showed Thomas his hands (John 20:27).
• Theophilus. Luke wrote a whole book so that this man could be sure about what he had been taught (Luke 1:1–4).
• Apollos. He was a good preacher, but he did not know everything. Two friends took him aside and taught him more (Acts 18:26).
• The first church meeting. Christians disagreed. The apostles met, listened, read the Bible together, and wrote down their answer (Acts 15).

Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Acts 17:11 · World English Bible

In simple words: The people of Berea checked the Bible every day to see if Paul was right. The Bible says this was good.

Who must show the evidence?

A famous scientist, Carl Sagan, made this saying popular: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” It means: if you say something very surprising, you need very strong proof. The idea is much older than Sagan.

The church had the same idea long ago. Jude wrote about “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). God gave it once. We keep it. We do not change it.

About 1,600 years ago, a monk named Vincent said: hold on to what Christians have believed “everywhere, always, by all.” He said the faith can grow, like a child grows into a man. But it must not become something different.

Martin Luther agreed with this test. In 1521 he said to his enemies: show me my mistakes from the Bible, and I will change my mind.

The seven questions, answered simply

1. Baptism and the Supper. Jesus said about the bread, “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26). Peter said baptism is “for the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:38). The first Christian writers, about 100 to 150 years after Jesus, agreed. They said the bread is Christ’s body, and baptism gives new birth. The idea that these are only symbols became church teaching in the 1520s, in Zurich. Even Calvin said they are not empty signs.

2. Baptizing babies. In the Bible, whole families were baptized (Acts 16:15, 33). Peter said the promise is “to your children” (Acts 2:39). About 200 years after Jesus, church leaders said this practice came “from the apostles.” Around the year 253, a group of 66 church leaders talked about babies. They did not ask if babies should be baptized. They asked how soon. One early writer, Tertullian, said it was better to wait. But churches started saying baby baptism is not real baptism only in 1525.

3. Protestant and Luther. The word “Protestant” comes from a meeting in 1529. In 1530 the first Protestants wrote down what they believed. They said babies should be baptized, and Christ’s body and blood are truly in the Lord’s Supper. Luther taught that baptism “works forgiveness of sins.” Today, “Protestant” can mean any church that is not Catholic or Orthodox. But a church that uses the name should say what it means.

4. Did God change his mind? God says: “I, Yahweh, don’t change” (Malachi 3:6). God did show new things in the Bible, like welcoming people who were not Jews (Acts 10). But he showed them through Jesus and the apostles, in the Bible, for everyone to see. If a pastor changes a teaching 1,500 years later, it is the teaching that changed, not God.

5. About “me.” John the Baptist said about Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Faith is personal. Jesus loves me. But the good news is about what Jesus did, not about my success or my plans.

6. “Born again.” Jesus said we must be “born of water and spirit” (John 3:5). For about 1,700 years, Christians understood “born again” as being baptized. Around 1740, some preachers began to speak of being born again as a feeling or a moment you remember, separate from baptism. In 1976 the words “born-again Christian” became very popular. The member asks a good question: if we can change what Bible words mean, what is the Bible for?

7. Personal messages from God. Paul said: “Even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any ‘good news’ other than that which we preached to you, let him be cursed” (Galatians 1:8). John says: “Test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). We test every message by the Bible. If a message goes against the Bible, how can we test it? We cannot. So we should not trust it.

What happens when questions are stopped?

If a pastor laughs at a question, or gets angry, the question does not go away. People just stop saying it out loud. And everyone who is watching learns something:

• A young person learns that maybe Christianity has no good answers.
• A new Christian learns that it is dangerous to ask things in this church.
• A quiet member who had the same question learns never to ask it.

He who answers before he hears, that is folly and shame to him.

Proverbs 18:13 · World English Bible

In simple words: It is foolish to answer before you really listen.

Who is teaching whom?

Look at the questions again. Many of them are not new ideas. They repeat what Christians believed for hundreds of years: in the Nicene Creed, in the first Christian writers, and in the teaching of Martin Luther.

So the “spider” is not bringing something new. The spider is remembering something old. Maybe the spider is the one doing the teaching.

Questions you can ask about your own church:

• When someone asks a question about the Bible, does the pastor answer from the Bible?
• Does he answer kindly?
• Is the person who asks treated as a brother or sister, or as an enemy?
• When a teaching is new, does the pastor say so, and show why?
• Is the pastor happy for people to check what he says, like the people of Berea?

Read it yourself

• Read 1 Timothy 6:3–5. Who loves arguments: the teacher or the person asking?
• Read 2 Timothy 2:23–25. What must a pastor do?
• Read Acts 17:10–12. What did the people of Berea do?
• Read Acts 15. How did the first church solve a disagreement?
• Think of one question you have never asked at church. Ask it, kindly, to someone whose job is to teach.

Bible verses in boxes on this page come from the World English Bible, a modern translation that is free for everyone to use. In Old Testament verses it uses the name Yahweh where many Bibles write “the LORD”. Some other verses are given in simple words. The full dossier quotes all the verses from the Authorised (King James) Version.