Kill the Spider?

What this page is asking

The author of this site set down a thesis to be tested: “A pulpit that prays for the instant death of those who disagree with it is not speaking in the spirit of Christ. When James and John wanted fire to fall on those who rejected Jesus, he turned and rebuked them.”

The remarks behind the question were heard repeatedly from the pulpit of a modern church. The author has paraphrased them from memory, attributes them to no one, and asked that no name be supplied or guessed. This page follows that rule strictly. Here is what was said, as he described it:

The author put the question in a form that can be checked: How does praying for the instant death of theological opponents align with the message and the person of Christ? What did Jesus mean when he rebuked James and John, and does the text say they were of “another spirit”? What do Scripture and the historic Church mean by “another spirit,” and how is a hearer to test it? Is disagreeing with a preacher the same as opposing the church?

He asked that the strongest case for the preacher be presented first, fairly, and then tested text by text. Part I does that. He also asked that earlier dossiers be linked rather than repeated wherever a topic has already been covered in detail, and each Part ends with a box of those links.

Three answers, labelled so they can be told apart

The page compares three ways a pastor might respond to those who disagree with him. They are given letters so that the page can refer to them briefly.

Position D is tested here, not mocked; Part I sets out its case at full strength. Position S is rejected as firmly, because Scripture rejects it too: the same letters that forbid cursing command correction (Part VI). This page is not arguing that disagreement is harmless. It is asking what Scripture tells a pastor to do about it.

What all three agree on

So the disagreement is not about whether God judges, or whether error should be answered. It is about one thing: whether a preacher may ask God to kill those who disagree with him, and call them opponents of the church for doing so.

What the page concludes, stated up front

The prompt behind this page

Everything below was produced by giving the following brief to a frontier language model with web search, which assembled and checked the sources. It is published so you can run it yourself, change it, sharpen it, or reverse it and see what comes back. Three experiments are worth more than reading this page. First, reverse it: ask for the strongest possible case that a minister may pray for the death of those who oppose his teaching, and see which texts it rests on and whether it reads them in context. Second, narrow it: replace the pulpit remarks with a sermon line you have heard yourself, in your own words and without names, and ask which texts answer it. Third, turn it round: ask how your own tradition has treated its dissenters in the past, and what it says about that now.

Write a detailed, source-first, interactive article, in British
English, for a general reader who is willing to work. Quote Scripture
from the Authorised Version. Date and attribute every other
quotation: give the work, the edition or translation, and the
section. Verify every quotation against a reliable published source;
where a quotation cannot be verified, cut it, or say that it is
given at second hand. Do not invent quotes. Do not take verses out
of context.

  WORKING TITLE. Kill the Spider? Praying for the Death of Those
  Who Disagree. Propose alternatives and confirm with me.

  THESIS TO TEST. A pulpit that prays for the instant death of those
  who disagree with it is not speaking in the spirit of Christ. When
  James and John wanted fire to fall on those who rejected Jesus, he
  turned and rebuked them.

  SOURCE OF THE MATERIAL. The remarks below were heard repeatedly
  from the pulpit of a modern church. They are not attributed to any
  one preacher, and no names should be supplied or guessed. They are
  paraphrased from memory.
   - The preacher repeatedly wished for "instant death" on those who
     disagree with him on theological matters.
   - God should remove the spider, and not just the cobwebs. The
     cobwebs are the dissent; the spider is the person who dissents.
   - God will destroy those who disagree with a called person like
     him.
   - Those who disagree with him on theological matters are
     opponents of the church.
   - He frequently derides the "dead" church.
   - He derides the Reformers, with special contempt reserved for
     Martin Luther.

  CORE CLAIM. Christians disagree about theology. Scripture gives
  pastors clear instructions for how to handle those who disagree
  with them: correct them with gentleness, warn them, and, in
  serious cases, separate from them. It never tells a pastor to pray
  for their death. When a Samaritan village refused to receive
  Jesus, James and John asked to call down fire, with Elijah as
  precedent (2 Kings 1:9-12). Jesus "turned and rebuked them" (Luke
  9:54-55). So the question is not whether God judges. He does. The
  question is whether a preacher who asks God to kill those who
  disagree with him is speaking in the spirit of Christ, or in the
  spirit Christ rebuked.

  QUESTION TO TEST. How does praying for the instant death of
  theological opponents align with the message and the person of
  Christ? What did Jesus mean when he rebuked James and John, and
  does the text say they were of "another spirit"? What do Scripture
  and the historic Church mean by "another spirit," and how is a
  hearer to test it? Is disagreeing with a preacher the same as
  opposing the church?

  POINTS TO TEST.
   1. The strongest case for the preacher, first: the imprecatory
      psalms (139:19-22; 35; 69; 109); Elijah (2 Kings 1:9-12;
      1 Kings 18:40); Korah (Numbers 16); Ananias and Sapphira (Acts
      5:1-11); Elymas (Acts 13:8-11); Galatians 1:8-9 and 5:12;
      Alexander the coppersmith (2 Timothy 4:14); the martyrs under
      the altar (Revelation 6:10). Then test each: does the psalmist
      act or hand vengeance to God? Are the enemies oppressors or
      fellow believers who disagree? Was Elymas struck for a
      theological disagreement or for turning a seeker away? Did
      Peter pray for Ananias to die? Set 2 Timothy 4:16 beside 4:14.
      How the Church prayed the imprecatory psalms: Augustine's
      Expositions of the Psalms; Bonhoeffer's Psalms: The Prayer Book
      of the Bible (verify).
   2. "What manner of spirit?" (Luke 9:51-56). The village rejected
      Jesus himself. The textual question on verses 55-56 (verify
      which manuscripts). The text does not say "another spirit,"
      though it makes a similar point; the rebuke stands either way.
      John 3:17; Luke 19:10; "Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17); what
      changed between this John and the John of 1 John 4:8.
   3. What Scripture means by "another spirit": 2 Corinthians 11:4,
      13-15; 1 John 4:1-3; Galatians 5:19-23; James 3:9-18; Romans
      8:15; 2 Timothy 1:7. Which description fits a prayer for the
      instant death of a fellow Christian who disagrees?
   4. How Christ and his apostles treated opponents: Matthew 5:44;
      Luke 23:34; Matthew 26:52 and Luke 22:51; Acts 7:60 and 8:1;
      1 Timothy 1:13-16 (if God had removed the spider in Acts 8,
      where would the Church be without Paul?); Romans 12:14, 19;
      1 Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4.
   5. How Scripture tells pastors to handle those who disagree:
      2 Timothy 2:24-26; Titus 3:10; 1 Corinthians 5:5; Galatians
      6:1; Matthew 18:15-17; Jude 22. The wheat and the weeds
      (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43): who decides who the spider is?
   6. Cursing in God's name: Exodus 20:7; Luther's Small Catechism on
      the Second Commandment (verify).
   7. "A called person" and "opponents of the church": the strongest
      case (Numbers 12; 16; 1 Samuel 24; 26), linked rather than
      repeated. What is new: Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:18;
      1 Corinthians 3:5-7; Galatians 2:11-14; Acts 17:11; Augsburg
      Confession XXVIII (verify).
   8. The "dead" church, and the irony of deriding Luther: Revelation
      3:1; Exsurge Domine (1520) and the wild boar (Psalm 80:13); the
      Edict of Worms (1521) (verify both); Luther at Worms, conscience
      "captive to the Word of God" (verify); Hus (1415); Tyndale
      (1536). By the logic of the spider, each was the spider.
   9. What such prayers do to a congregation: 1 John 4:18;
      Deuteronomy 18:22; Hebrews 2:14-15; Matthew 10:28.
  10. A test readers can run on any sermon, including in their own
      church. Close with Matthew 7:16 and let readers draw their own
      conclusions.

EARLIER ARTICLES. Link rather than repeat: Our God Is a Deadly God;
Ananias and Sapphira; Baal's methods; Dossier 06 and "don't fight
God"; the personal vendetta from the pulpit; the umbrella of
protection; the self-important preacher; platitudes and "love your
enemies"; "anything goes"; "I never knew you"; the Lutheran view of
death; the effect on children; what Luther would think of the modern
church; divisiveness.

OBJECTIONS. Present the case for the preacher first, at full
strength, in its own Part. Answer other objections inside the
argument where each arises. Where the evidence corrects or qualifies
the brief, say so in a marked box.

POSITIONS. Three labelled positions: R, the Restoring (held);
D, the Destroying (under test); S, the Silent, for whom error should
never be contested (rejected).

NAMING. No living individual or congregation named or identifiable.
The pulpit remarks are paraphrased and attributed to no one. Every
modern example composed and labelled as composed. Deceased writers
quoted from dated, published works.

INTERACTIVES. A priors quiz. The case for the preacher, weighed by
the reader before it is tested. Each hard text tested on who acts,
who the target is, and what was asked. Luke 9:51-56 phrase by phrase,
with a manuscript switch. Two prayers sorted against the fruit of the
Spirit and the two wisdoms of James 3. A New Testament with the
spider of Acts 8 removed. The pastor's ladder. A field of wheat and
tares to weed. Prayers sorted by whether they call on God's name or
curse by it. People sorted by whether they oppose the church. The
dissenters earlier churches wanted removed. A checklist for any
sermon. An objection drill the reader answers first. Claims sorted
by whether the argument proves them.

OUTPUT: a single self-contained interactive HTML page, professional
and readable, light theme by default with a dark switch, stating the
question at the top, publishing this prompt in full, repeating the
key points in prominent boxes for readers who skim, explaining every
technical term in a box where it is used, and giving the reader
something to do in every major section. Also produce a plain-English
quick version with three short exercises, and a Simple English
version with no exercises.

The page you are reading is the output of that brief after the sources were checked. The brief quoted Scripture from a modern version; the page gives it from the Authorised Version, as it does everywhere on this site. Twelve things qualified the brief, and each is marked where it arises.

What do you currently think?

Ten questions. Each has a determinate answer, and you can check every one yourself in the texts listed in Part XV. Answer them before reading and lock them in. They come back in Part XIV with the sources beside them.

What follows

The case for the pulpit

The author asked for the preacher’s case to be put first, at full strength, and fairly. Here it is, in nine arguments, as its most serious defenders would make them. Nothing in this Part is a straw man. Each argument rests on a real text, and several of those texts are hard for anyone who wants a gentle, harmless religion. A preacher who prays against his opponents can point to every one of them.

Try it: how convincing is each argument?

Before anything is tested, weigh each argument as it stands. Nothing is recorded. Your answers come back in Part XIV beside what the page found.

0 of 9 weighed

The case, tested text by text

The author proposed three questions to put to each text. Who acts: does the speaker carry out the judgement, or hand it to God? Who is the target: oppressors of God’s people, impostors, those turning others from the faith, or fellow believers who disagree about doctrine? And what was asked: was anyone’s death prayed for, or was judgement announced, or left to God? The answers turn out to follow a pattern.

The psalms: vengeance handed over, not taken

The imprecatory psalms are real, and the Church has never cut them out of its prayer book. But read whole, they do three things the pulpit prayer does not. First, the psalmist hands vengeance to God; he does not take it. Psalm 139:19 in the Authorised Version is not even a wish but a statement of what God will do: “Surely thou wilt slay the wicked.” Second, the enemies are those who “speak against thee wickedly” and “rise up against thee” (139:20–21), those who “hate me without a cause” (69:4), who “fight against me” and “without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit” (35:1, 7). They are persecutors of God’s servant, not believers who read a text differently. Third, the same psalms show the psalmist’s own heart toward these enemies. “But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting” (35:13). “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer” (109:4). And Psalm 139 ends by turning the searchlight on the one praying: “Search me, O God, and know my heart … And see if there be any wicked way in me” (139:23–24).

The New Testament reads two of these psalms as prophecy fulfilled in one man. Peter quotes Psalms 69 and 109 of Judas: “Let his habitation be desolate … and his bishoprick let another take” (Acts 1:20).

“I hated in them their iniquities, I loved Thy creation. This it is to hate with a perfect hatred, that neither on account of the vices thou hate the men, nor on account of the men love the vices.”

Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Psalms, on Psalm 139:22, §18 (early fifth century); tr. J. E. Tweed, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8.

Fifteen centuries later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a short book on praying the psalms while he was training pastors for the Confessing Church, which was resisting the Nazi state. He did not soften the imprecatory psalms. But he set tight limits on who may pray them and against whom.

“The enemies referred to here are enemies of the cause of God, who lay hands on us for the sake of God.” … “Nowhere does the one who prays these psalms want to take revenge into his own hands.” … “God’s vengeance did not strike the sinners, but the one sinless man who stood in the sinners’ place, namely God’s own Son.” … “I leave the vengeance to God and ask him to execute his righteousness to all his enemies, knowing that God has remained true to himself and has himself secured justice in his wrathful judgment on the cross, and that this wrath has become grace and joy for us.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (1940); English translation, Augsburg, 1970, pp. 56–60.

Bonhoeffer was writing under a regime that would hang him in April 1945. His enemies did lay hands on God’s people. Even so, he read these psalms as prayed through Christ, whose answer to his own enemies was “Father, forgive them.” A preacher who uses the same psalms against members who question his teaching has made the enemies smaller and the prayer larger.

Try it: test each case

Ten cases. For each, answer two questions; the page’s reading appears when you have answered both. Watch the tally underneath.

0 of 10 tested.

“What manner of spirit?”

The scene is short. Jesus has “stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,” where he will die. He sends messengers ahead into a Samaritan village to prepare for him. “And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem” (9:53). Jews and Samaritans disagreed about where God was to be worshipped. A Samaritan woman put it to Jesus herself: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20). The village’s refusal rested on a theological dispute.

So the case James and John brought to Jesus was far stronger than any preacher’s. The village had rejected Jesus himself, not a preacher’s interpretation of him. Its reason was a doctrinal error. And the disciples had a scriptural precedent: Elijah had called down fire on the king’s men, in the same region, and God had sent it. Still, Jesus “turned, and rebuked them.”

Try it: read the scene phrase by phrase

Select each underlined phrase to see what it tells you.

0 of 10 phrases read.

Which words are disputed?

The Authorised Version gives Jesus’ words of rebuke. Most modern translations do not, or put them in a footnote, because the oldest manuscripts lack them. The difference is worth seeing for yourself. Switch between the three forms of the text below.

Three things can be said with confidence. First, the rebuke itself is in every manuscript. Whatever Jesus said, he turned and rebuked them, and no fire fell. Second, the longer words, even if they were added by a copyist, say nothing that Luke does not say elsewhere in his own words: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), a text no one disputes. John says the same: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). Third, the argument of this page does not depend on the disputed words. Remove them, and the scene still shows Jesus refusing to call down death on people who had rejected him over a doctrinal error.

The Sons of Thunder, before and after

Jesus had a name for these two brothers: “he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). The Gospels show why. Just before the Samaritan village, John forbade a man casting out devils in Jesus’ name “because he followeth not with us” (Luke 9:49). Not long after, the brothers asked for the seats at Jesus’ right and left hand in his glory (Mark 10:37). Fire, exclusion, rank: the same instinct three times. What happened next is worth following.

• Mark 3:17Named “sons of thunder”Jesus gives James and John a nickname that fits.
• Luke 9:49–50John forbids an outsider“We forbad him, because he followeth not with us.” Jesus: “Forbid him not.”
• Luke 9:54–55Fire on a Samaritan villageThey ask; Jesus turns and rebukes them; they go to another village.
• Mark 10:35–45The best seatsJesus answers that “whosoever will be chief among you, shall be servant of all.”
• Acts 4:13“They had been with Jesus”The council marvels at Peter and John, “unlearned and ignorant men.”
• Acts 8:14–17, 25John goes back to SamariaPeter and John “prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost,” laid hands on them, and “preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.”
• Acts 12:2James is killedHerod “killed James the brother of John with the sword.” The first apostle to die called down no fire on his killer.
• 1 John 4:7–8John writes“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God … He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
• Jerome, c. 387John in old ageJerome records that at Ephesus, too frail to preach, John “was used simply to say at each meeting, My little children, love one another.” (Commentary on Galatians, on 6:10; a late report, given here as tradition.)

One more detail. Earlier in the same chapter, Jesus had already told the Twelve what to do when a town would not receive them: “shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them” (Luke 9:5). The instruction for rejection was to leave, and leave the testimony with God. That is exactly what happened: “And they went to another village.”

Another spirit, and how to test it

The phrase “another spirit” is Paul’s. Writing to Corinth, he feared that the church would be led astray by impressive teachers: “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (2 Corinthians 11:4). Another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel come together. And they come dressed as the real thing: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (11:13–14).

So how does a hearer tell? John gives one test, a confession: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2). Then, in the same chapter, a second: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God … He that loveth not knoweth not God” (4:7–8). A right confession and love are both marks of the Spirit of God, and John does not let one stand without the other.

Paul describes the Spirit by what he produces. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23). Against them stand the works of the flesh, among them “hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders” (5:20–21). James sets two wisdoms side by side.

Notice that “first pure” comes first. The wisdom from above is not indifferent to truth; that would be Position S. But it is “easy to be intreated,” open to persuasion, and “full of mercy.” And just before, James names the very thing this page is testing: “Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be” (3:9–10).

Paul adds a test of the effect on the hearer: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Try it: which wisdom?

Eight things a pastor might say about someone who disagrees with him. Sort each by James’s two wisdoms and Paul’s two lists.

0 of 8 sorted.

What Christ did with his enemies

Jesus did not leave his followers to guess how to treat opponents. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Luke’s version is shorter: “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you” (Luke 6:28).

Then he did it. When Peter drew a sword in the garden to defend him, Jesus said, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). And to the servant whose ear had been cut off, “he touched his ear, and healed him” (Luke 22:51). The last miracle before the cross was performed on a member of the arresting party. On the cross itself: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

The first Christian martyr followed his Lord to the letter. As the stones fell, Stephen “kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). Luke adds a detail that changes everything: “the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul” (7:58), and “Saul was consenting unto his death” (8:1). Saul then went on “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (9:1), and later admitted that when believers were put to death, “I gave my voice against them” (26:10).

If any opponent of the church ever deserved removal, it was Saul. God did not remove him. He converted him. Paul later wrote of himself: “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him” (1 Timothy 1:13–16). Paul calls his own conversion “a pattern.”

Try it: remove the spider

Suppose Stephen had prayed the pulpit’s prayer instead of his own, and God had answered it in Acts 8. Here is the New Testament. Press the button and see what goes.

The apostles taught the churches the same pattern. “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not” (Romans 12:14). “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him … Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (12:19–21). “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). Romans 12:19 is sometimes quoted as if it licensed prayers for vengeance. It does the opposite: it takes vengeance out of the believer’s hands and puts food in them.

Behind all of it is the heart of God himself. “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11). The Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9); he “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Correct, warn, separate

Scripture does not leave a pastor without instructions for dealing with those who disagree with him. It anticipates them, names them, and tells him what to do. Paul’s words to Timothy are the clearest. He expects opponents; the Authorised Version calls them “those that oppose themselves.” And he tells the pastor to instruct them “in meekness,” hoping that God “will give them repentance.” The pastor is to be “gentle unto all men,” not some.

The instructions form a ladder. Each rung is more serious than the one before. The aim never changes.

1. 1
   Go privately“If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”Matthew 18:15
2. 2
   Correct with gentleness“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” Priscilla and Aquila took Apollos aside “and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”2 Timothy 2:25; Acts 18:26
3. 3
   Restore the one who falls“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”Galatians 6:1
4. 4
   Take witnesses, then the church“Take with thee one or two more … And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church.”Matthew 18:16–17
5. 5
   Warn twice, then separate“A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.” “Note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”Titus 3:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:14
6. 6
   Even then, a brother“Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” The aim of the severest step: “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”2 Thessalonians 3:15; 1 Corinthians 5:5
7. ?
   Pray for his deathNot in Scripture. There is no seventh rung. The most severe step Scripture gives a pastor is separation, and even that is aimed at the person’s restoration.Search for it yourself

Matthew 18:17 ends: “let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.” It is worth asking how Jesus treated publicans. He called one of them, Matthew, to be an apostle, and ate with many more, so that the Pharisees asked, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” (Matthew 9:9–11). Jude, whose short letter is among the fiercest in the New Testament against false teachers, ends with the same direction: “And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (Jude 22–23). James and John wanted to call fire down. Jude tells the church to pull people out of it.

Who decides who the spider is?

Jesus told a parable about exactly this problem. A man sowed good seed, “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat.” The servants were eager to fix it: “Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares” (Matthew 13:25–30). And who are the reapers? “The reapers are the angels” (13:39). Not the servants.

Jesus says “The field is the world” (13:38), so the parable is first about the world. But the Church has long applied it to itself as well; Augustine used it against the Donatists, who wanted a church of the pure. Either way, the servants are forbidden to uproot, because they cannot tell wheat from tares before the harvest, and the uprooting belongs to the Lord’s reapers at the Lord’s time.

Try it: weed the field

Here is a field in early summer. Somewhere among the twenty-four plants, an enemy has sown tares. Pull up whatever you think is a weed, then call the harvest.

Cursing in God’s name

Many Christians think of the Second Commandment (the Third, in some numberings) as a rule against swearing. Luther’s Small Catechism, which has taught children the commandments since 1529, gives it a wider meaning, and a positive one.

“We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”

Martin Luther, Small Catechism (1529), the Second Commandment; Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod translation (1986).

The first thing Luther lists is “curse.” God’s name is given to be called upon in trouble, in prayer, in praise. To use it to call down harm on someone is to turn it to the opposite purpose. A prayer is not made holy by being addressed to God; the question is what it asks him to do. Asking God to strike down a fellow Christian who disagrees with the preacher uses his name to curse.

Try it: calling on his name, or cursing by it?

Eight prayers and sayings. Sort each by Luther’s explanation.

0 of 8 sorted.

Is the church a man?

Two of the pulpit remarks belong together: that God will destroy those who disagree with “a called person like him,” and that those who disagree with him about theology are “opponents of the church.” The strongest case for both is real. God defended Moses when Miriam and Aaron spoke against him (Numbers 12) and when Korah rose against him (Numbers 16). David would not lift his hand against Saul, “the LORD’s anointed” (1 Samuel 24:6; 26:9).

Those texts, and the claim that opposing a minister is opposing God, have been read in full in Dossier 06 and are not repeated here. Two details from the same chapters are enough for this page.

The called man prayed for his critics. When Miriam was struck with leprosy for speaking against Moses, Moses “cried unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee” (Numbers 12:13). In the middle of the account of her criticism, the text stops to say: “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (12:3). When God threatened the congregation after Korah, Moses and Aaron “fell upon their faces” and interceded: “shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?” (16:22).

The anointed king refused to kill his critic. As David fled Jerusalem, a man named Shimei walked alongside him, cursing and throwing stones. David’s nephew Abishai asked, “let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.” David answered: “let him alone, and let him curse … It may be that the LORD will look on mine affliction, and that the LORD will requite me good for his cursing this day” (2 Samuel 16:9–12). Abishai plays the part of James and John. The LORD’s anointed plays the part of Christ.

What the Church is

The new claim is that disagreeing with the preacher on theology makes a person an opponent of the church. That depends on what the church is. The New Testament answers plainly. God “gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body” (Ephesians 1:22–23). “And he is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18). The head is Christ. Ministers are servants within the body: “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed … I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:5–7). When the Corinthians divided by preacher, Paul asked, “Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you?” (1:13).

And the New Testament shows ministers being opposed, rightly, by other believers. “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11). The Bereans checked Paul’s own preaching against the Scriptures, “whether those things were so,” and Luke calls them “more noble” for it (Acts 17:11). The one leader in the New Testament condemned for treating dissent as opposition is Diotrephes, who “loveth to have the preeminence” and “casteth them out of the church” (3 John 9–10).

“The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.” … “But when they teach or establish anything against the Gospel, then the congregations are forbidden by God’s command to obey them.”

The Augsburg Confession (1530), Article VII.1 (Triglot translation, 1921) and Article XXVIII.23 (Concordia Publishing House translation), on the power of bishops.

The Reformers wrote that article about bishops, the most senior ministers of their day. If a bishop who teaches against the gospel is not to be obeyed, then a member who disagrees with a pastor’s teaching is not thereby an opponent of the church. He may be wrong. He may be right. The question is settled by the gospel, not by the office of the man he disagrees with.

Try it: an opponent of the church?

Seven people from the New Testament and one composed case. Does each oppose the church, or disagree with a minister?

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When Luther was the spider

The preacher frequently derides the “dead” church. That label, and what Luther would make of churches that use it, has its own dossier (10), and is not repeated here. One observation is new. The only church that Christ himself calls dead in Scripture is Sardis. He says it to Sardis, directly, in a letter addressed to it. He calls it to wake up and “strengthen the things which remain.” And he does not write it off: “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments” (3:4). Christ’s verdict on a dead church comes with a call to repent and a word for the faithful few.

The dissenters

Then there is the irony. The preacher reserves special contempt for Martin Luther. In his own day, Luther was the dissenter the authorities wanted removed. In June 1520 the papal bull Exsurge Domine opened with a prayer: “Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause … foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard.” It took its central image from Psalm 80:13, “The boar out of the wood doth waste it”: “The wild boar from the forest seeks to destroy it and every wild beast feeds upon it.” The boar was Luther. A year later he stood before the emperor at Worms.

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”

Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms, 18 April 1521; Luther’s Works, vol. 32, p. 112. The words “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise” appear only in later printed versions.

The Edict of Worms followed in May. It placed Luther under the imperial ban: no one was to shelter or feed him, he was to be seized and handed to the emperor, and his books were to be burned. His prince had him hidden in the Wartburg castle. He died in his bed in 1546.

By the logic of the spider and the cobwebs, Luther was the spider. So were others. Press the button to see how each removal is judged now.

• 1415 · ConstanceJan HusA Czech priest and preacher, condemned for heresy at the Council of Constance and burned on 6 July 1415, though he had come under the emperor’s promise of safe conduct.
  Now: On 17 December 1999 Pope John Paul II said: “I feel the need to express deep regret for the cruel death inflicted on John Hus.”
• 1520–21 · Rome and WormsMartin LutherCalled the wild boar in the vineyard, excommunicated, placed under the imperial ban, and hidden by his prince.
  Now: In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and in 2016 the Pope joined Lutherans at Lund in Sweden to open the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation together.
• 1527 · ZurichFelix ManzAn early Anabaptist, drowned in the river Limmat by the Protestant authorities of Zurich for baptising adults who had been baptised as infants. The dissenters had become the authorities.
  Now: On 26 June 2004 the Reformed Church in Zurich formally apologised to the Anabaptists, and a memorial on the Limmat marks where they were drowned.
• 1536 · VilvoordeWilliam TyndaleTranslator of the New Testament into English, hunted for years, tried in the Low Countries on charges of Lutheran heresy, then strangled and burned early in October 1536.
  Now: Much of the wording of the Authorised Version’s New Testament, the translation quoted on this page, comes from Tyndale, and churches that once hunted his books commemorate him.
• 1553 · GenevaMichael ServetusA Spanish physician who denied the Trinity, burned at Geneva on 27 October 1553, with Calvin supporting his conviction.
  Now: In 1903 Calvin’s heirs raised an “expiatory monument” on the spot, inscribed by “respectful and grateful sons of Calvin … condemning an error which was that of his century.”

Two of these five were killed by Protestants, which matters. The lesson of the list is not that one church was cruel and another kind. It is that every church that removed the people who disagreed with it, whatever it believed, is now judged by its own heirs to have been wrong to do so. Even Augustine, who came to approve of state pressure on the Donatists, wrote to the imperial commissioner in 412 asking that those who had confessed to murder not be put to death: “by no means to do this or permit it to be done” (Letter 133.1; tr. J. G. Cunningham, NPNF first series, vol. 1).

What the congregation learns

A prayer from the pulpit is not private. It teaches. When a congregation hears its pastor ask God, week after week, to kill those who disagree with him, it learns something about God, about the pastor, and about the cost of a question.

Scripture speaks to that man directly. To a hearer afraid of a preacher’s predictions, Moses says: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22). “God will destroy those who disagree with me” is a prediction. If those who disagree go on living, Deuteronomy has already given its verdict.

To anyone kept quiet by the fear of death, the letter to the Hebrews says that Christ came to “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). And Jesus himself: “fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). Death is no longer a weapon in anyone’s hands, least of all a preacher’s.

Try it: two closing prayers

Two prayers that might close a Sunday service. Which teaches each of the six lessons below?

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A test you can run yourself

The author asked for questions any reader can put to any sermon, including those in his own church. Here they are. Think of a particular pulpit, starting with the one you sit under. Nothing is recorded.

Then hold the pulpit up to Christ’s own test. Not its size, its confidence or its claims about its calling, but its fruit: what it produces in the preacher and in the people.

What the argument proves

The argument of this page is narrow, and it is easy to claim too much for it. It does not show that any preacher is false, that anyone is not a Christian, or that every disagreement with a pastor is harmless. It names no one and reads no one’s heart.

What it tests is one practice: praying for the death of those who disagree with a preacher about theology. On that practice the evidence runs one way.

Try it: does the argument prove this?

Eight claims. Does the argument of this page establish each one, or not?

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Your verdict

Two questions. Nothing is recorded.

Your answers, revisited

Here are the ten questions you answered before reading, with what the sources say, followed by how convinced you were by each argument in Part I and what the page found when it tested it. If you skipped the quiz, go back to the questions, lock in your answers, and return.

Check it yourself

Fifteen items. Nearly everything here is free and online. If you read only three, read the first three. If you do only one thing, do the last.

1. 1. Luke 9:46–62 and Acts 8:4–25. Read these first. Fifteen minutes. Read the Samaritan village, then John’s return to Samaria. Note what is asked for in each.
2. 2. 2 Timothy 2:14–26, Titus 3:9–11 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6–15. Read these first. Ten minutes. List every instruction for dealing with opponents, and look for one that involves their death.
3. 3. Acts 6:8–8:3 and 1 Timothy 1:12–17. Read these first. Ten minutes. Stephen’s prayer, Saul at his feet, and what Paul made of his own conversion.
4. 4. The hard texts, whole: Psalms 35, 69, 109 and 139; 2 Kings 1; 1 Kings 18; Numbers 12 and 16; Acts 5:1–11; Acts 13:4–12; Galatians 1 and 5; 1 Timothy 1:18–20; 2 Timothy 4:9–18; Revelation 6:9–11.
5. 5. On the spirit: 2 Corinthians 11:1–15; Galatians 5:13–26; James 3; 1 John 3:11–24 and 4:1–21; Romans 8:12–17; 2 Timothy 1:6–8.
6. 6. On enemies: Matthew 5:38–48; Luke 6:27–36; Luke 22:47–53; Luke 23:32–34; Romans 12:9–21; 1 Peter 2:18–25 and 3:8–17; Ezekiel 33:10–20.
7. 7. On discipline: Matthew 18:15–35; 1 Corinthians 5; 2 Corinthians 2:5–11; Galatians 6:1–5; Jude 17–25; Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43.
8. 8. On the called and the Church: Numbers 12:1–16; 2 Samuel 16:5–14; 1 Corinthians 1:10–17 and 3:1–23; Galatians 2:11–21; Acts 17:10–12; Ephesians 1:15–23; 3 John 9–11.
9. 9. Luke 9:54–56 in a modern translation with notes, beside the Authorised Version. Then look up the passage in any textual commentary (Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament is the standard one) to see the manuscripts for yourself.
10. 10. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, on Psalm 139, and Letter 133 to Marcellinus. Free at New Advent.
11. 11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (1940). Short; the section on the enemies is a few pages. Also in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 5.
12. 12. Luther’s Small Catechism, the Second Commandment, and the Augsburg Confession, Articles VII and XXVIII. Free in several translations.
13. 13. Luther at Worms (Luther’s Works, vol. 32), and the text of Exsurge Domine (1520), free at Papal Encyclicals Online.
14. 14. Earlier dossiers: Part XII gathers every one this page draws on. If you read only three, read 06 (silencing dissent), 19 (the deadly-God sermon) and 37 (the pulpit as a weapon).
15. 15. One prayer. Do this one. Think of one person who disagrees with you about something that matters to you, in your church or outside it. Pray for him by name, using 2 Timothy 2:25 as your words: that God would give repentance and the knowledge of the truth, to whichever of you needs it. Nobody else needs to know.

No living individual or congregation is named, described or identifiable on this page. The pulpit remarks examined were paraphrased from memory by the author and attributed to no one; every other modern remark, prayer and scene is composed for illustration and quoted from no one. This page tests a practice and a teaching; it does not judge any person’s faith, sincerity, salvation or standing before God, and it does not tell anyone whether to stay in or leave a church.