A spider makes cobwebs. The preacher said the cobwebs are the disagreement: the questions and different ideas. The spider is the person who disagrees. To “kill the spider” means to ask God to take that person away by death. This page asks if that is right.
What is this page about?
Pulpit, theology, dissent
The pulpit is the place in a church where the preacher stands to preach. Theology means teaching about God and the Bible. Dissent means disagreeing. A person who dissents says, “I think you are wrong about this.”
The man who writes this site heard these things many times from the pulpit of one church. He wrote them from memory. He does not name the preacher, and this page does not either.
- The preacher wished “instant death” on people who disagree with him about the Bible.
- He said God should remove the spider, not just the cobwebs.
- He said God will destroy people who disagree with a man God has called, like him.
- He said people who disagree with him are enemies of the church.
- He often laughs at the “dead” church, and at Martin Luther and the other Reformers.
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. It does not say that God never judges. God does judge. The question is different: may a preacher ask God to kill people who disagree with him?
Seven points
- The preacher can point to some hard Bible verses. But when we read them carefully, none of them tells a pastor to pray for the death of people who disagree with him.
- Jesus said no to this very thing. Two of his disciples wanted fire to fall on a village. Jesus turned and rebuked them.
- John changed. Later, John went back to the same area and prayed for those people to receive the Holy Spirit.
- The Holy Spirit makes people loving and gentle. Blessing and cursing should not come from the same mouth.
- Jesus loved his enemies. God did not kill Saul, an enemy of the church. God changed him, and he became Paul.
- The Bible tells pastors what to do: correct gently, warn, and if needed, stop working together. Never pray for death.
- The church is not one man. Jesus is the head of the church. Christians may check what their pastor teaches.
This is my own opinion. I think wrong teaching is serious. Pastors should answer it.
But I cannot find any place in the Bible that tells a pastor to ask God to kill the people who disagree with him. I find the opposite on almost every page of the New Testament.
The hard verses
The preacher could point to these verses:
- The Psalms. Some psalms ask God to destroy enemies (Psalms 35, 69, 109, 139).
- Elijah. Elijah asked for fire from heaven, and God sent it on the king’s soldiers (2 Kings 1).
- Korah. The ground opened and swallowed men who rebelled against Moses (Numbers 16).
- Ananias and Sapphira. They lied about their gift, and fell down dead (Acts 5).
- Elymas. Paul said a magician would be blind (Acts 13).
- “Let him be cursed.” Paul said this about anyone who changes the good news (Galatians 1:8).
These are real verses. But look at them carefully:
- In every case, God does the judging. The people praying leave it to God.
- The enemies were people who attacked God’s people, or lied, or tried to stop someone believing in Jesus. None of them were Christians who simply disagreed about the Bible.
- Peter did not pray for Ananias to die.
- Elymas was blind only “for a season,” for a short time. He was trying to stop a Roman leader from believing. The leader believed.
- The same man who wrote Psalm 35 says that when his enemies were sick, he fasted and prayed for them.
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting.
Psalm 35:13 · World English Bible
In simple words: When my enemies were sick, I was sad for them. I did not eat, and I prayed.
The hard verses are about God’s judgement on people who attack God’s people. They are not about Christians who disagree with a preacher.
Fire from heaven
Jesus was going to Jerusalem, where he would die for us. He sent messengers to a village in Samaria. The people there would not welcome him, because he was going to Jerusalem. The Jews and the Samaritans disagreed about where to worship God. So the village said no to Jesus because of a disagreement about religion.
Two disciples, James and John, were angry. They remembered that Elijah had once asked God for fire from heaven.
When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky, and destroy them, just as Elijah did?” But he turned and rebuked them.
Luke 9:54–55 · World English Bible
In simple words: “Lord, shall we ask God to burn them?” Jesus turned and told them they were wrong.
Then “they went to another village” (Luke 9:56). No fire. They just went somewhere else.
Some Bibles add more words here: “You don’t know of what kind of spirit you are. For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” The oldest copies of Luke do not have these words, so many Bibles put them in a note. But every copy says that Jesus turned and rebuked them. And in another place Luke writes: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Think about this. The village said no to Jesus himself. The disciples had a Bible story to copy. Still, Jesus said no. A preacher who asks God to kill people who disagree with him is asking for more than James and John asked.
Jesus’ disciples asked for fire on people who rejected Jesus. Jesus rebuked them.
John changed
Jesus called James and John “the sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). They were quick to get angry. But something happened to John. After Jesus rose from the dead, the people of Samaria believed in Jesus. The apostles sent Peter and John to them.
Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
Acts 8:14–15 · World English Bible
In simple words: John went to Samaria. He prayed that God would give the Samaritans the Holy Spirit.
Many years later, John wrote:
He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8 · World English Bible
Before, John wanted fire to fall on the Samaritans. Later, he prayed for the Holy Spirit to come on them. Jesus changed him.
How to test a spirit
The Bible says: “Test the spirits, whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). How do we know if someone is led by the Holy Spirit? The Bible says the Holy Spirit makes good “fruit” in people’s lives.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.
Galatians 5:22–23 · World English Bible
Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
James 3:10 · World English Bible
In simple words: We should not praise God and curse people with the same mouth.
So ask: is a prayer for a Christian brother to die full of love, kindness and gentleness? Or is it full of anger and hate?
The Holy Spirit makes people loving, kind and gentle. Cursing people does not come from him.
Jesus and his enemies
But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you.
Matthew 5:44 · World English Bible
In simple words: Love your enemies. Pray for people who hurt you.
Jesus did this himself. When soldiers came to arrest him, Peter cut off a man’s ear with a sword. Jesus told Peter to put the sword away, and he healed the man’s ear (Luke 22:51).
Later, a Christian named Stephen was killed with stones because he believed in Jesus. As he died, he prayed for the people who were killing him.
He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!”
Acts 7:60 · World English Bible
A young man named Saul was there. He agreed with the killing (Acts 8:1). Saul hated Christians. But God did not kill Saul. God changed him. Saul became Paul, and Paul wrote 13 books of the New Testament.
What if God had “removed the spider” when Stephen died? There would be no Paul, and almost half of the New Testament would be missing.
“As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”
Ezekiel 33:11 · World English Bible
In simple words: God does not want even bad people to die. He wants them to change and live.
What the Bible tells pastors to do
The Bible knows that people will disagree with pastors. It tells pastors what to do, step by step:
- 1Talk aloneGo and talk to the person privately (Matthew 18:15).
- 2Correct gently“In gentleness correcting those who oppose him” (2 Timothy 2:25).
- 3Warn, then stop working together“Avoid a factious man after a first and second warning” (Titus 3:10).
- 4He is still a brother“Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3:15).
- ?Pray for him to dieThis step is not in the Bible.
Jesus told a story. An enemy put weeds in a farmer’s field of wheat. The weeds looked like wheat. The workers wanted to pull up the weeds. The farmer said no: “Lest perhaps while you gather up the darnel weeds, you root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:29–30). At the harvest, the angels will separate them, not the workers.
A pastor may correct, warn, and sometimes stop working with someone. He must never pray for that person to die. Only God knows who is wheat and who is a weed.
God’s name
You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.
Exodus 20:7 · World English Bible
Martin Luther wrote a short book for children, called the Small Catechism. He explained this commandment. He said we should not curse using God’s name. Instead, we should use God’s name to pray, to praise him, and to thank him.
When a preacher asks God to hurt a person, he is using God’s name to curse. That is what this commandment says not to do.
Is the church one man?
The preacher said that people who disagree with him are enemies of the church. But the Bible says Jesus is the head of the church.
He is the head of the body, the assembly.
Colossians 1:18 · World English Bible
In simple words: The church is like a body. Jesus is the head.
Pastors are servants. Paul wrote: “Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants?” (1 Corinthians 3:5).
- Paul once told Peter, to his face, that he was wrong (Galatians 2:11).
- The people of Berea checked Paul’s preaching against the Bible. The Bible calls them “noble” (Acts 17:11).
- When Moses’ sister spoke against him and became sick, Moses prayed: “Heal her, God, I beg you!” (Numbers 12:13).
- When a man cursed King David, David’s soldier wanted to kill him. David said, “Leave him alone” (2 Samuel 16:11).
Disagreeing with your pastor is not the same as being an enemy of the church. Christians may check what they are taught.
When Luther was the spider
The preacher laughs at Martin Luther. But about 500 years ago, Luther was the one who disagreed. In 1520 the Pope wrote that Luther was like a “wild boar” destroying God’s vineyard. In 1521 Luther told the emperor that his “conscience is captive to the Word of God.” Then he was made an outlaw.
So, in his own time, Luther was “the spider.” So were others:
- Jan Hus was burned in 1415.
- William Tyndale, who put the New Testament into English, was killed in 1536.
- Protestants killed people too. Felix Manz was drowned in Zurich in 1527. Michael Servetus was burned in Geneva in 1553.
Today, the churches that did these things say they were wrong. A preacher who laughs at Luther is free to preach today because, in the end, the person who disagreed was not killed.
In the Bible, only Jesus calls a church “dead” (Revelation 3:1). He says it to that church directly. He tells it to wake up. And he says some faithful people are still there.
What people learn
When a pastor prays for his critics to die, people in the church learn to be afraid. A person with an honest question stays quiet. But the Bible says:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
1 John 4:18 · World English Bible
And if a preacher says, “God will destroy anyone who disagrees with me,” and it does not happen, the Bible says: “You shall not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22).
Questions you can ask about any sermon, starting with your own church:
- Does the preacher pray for people who disagree with him to change, or to die?
- Does he correct them gently?
- Does he know the difference between enemies of Jesus and people who disagree with him?
- Does he answer to anyone?
- Can people ask questions without fear?
Jesus said: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16).
What this page does not say
- It does not say that God never judges.
- It does not say that the preacher is not a Christian.
- It does not say that wrong teaching does not matter.
- It does not say that Luther was always right.
It says only this: the Bible never tells a pastor to pray for the death of people who disagree with him. Jesus rebuked his disciples when they wanted that.
You can sweep away a cobweb and kill a spider, because they are two different things. But a question lives inside a person. That person is made like God (James 3:9). You cannot pray against the question without praying against the person.
Jesus did not ask God to burn the village. He went to another village. Later, he sent John back with the Holy Spirit.
Read it yourself
- Read Luke 9:51–56. What did James and John want? What did Jesus do?
- Read Acts 8:14–17. What did John do in Samaria?
- Read 2 Timothy 2:24–26. How should a pastor treat people who disagree?
- Read Acts 7:54–8:3. Who was watching when Stephen died?
- Think of one person who disagrees with you. Pray for him by name. Ask God to show the truth to both of you.
Want more?
The quick version has three short exercises. The full dossier has all the evidence and every source.
Quick version →Full dossier →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.