10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe

Just finished Larry Osborne’s new book 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe. He looks at many of the things Christians believe are in the Bible, things they will die for that aren’t actually true.

Things like:  Faith can fix anything, God brings good luck, God has a blueprint for my life, A Godly home guarantees good kids and the most interesting chapter, Everything happens for a reason.

Being a pastor and a Christian for awhile, I found this book to be really interesting. In fact, the small group that we’re hosting in our home this summer is going to be going through this book, so I’m really interested to see the discussion this creates.

I think what this book points out is that at the end of the day, many Christians have absolutely no idea why they believe what they believe. Pastors have been so good at pulling one verse out of nowhere and making it mean anything, we get our faith from verses on bumper stickers and coffee mugs and then we say, “I believe that.” But the problem is if it doesn’t mean that.

Here’s a great example, since I’m preaching through Hebrews.

Everyone quotes Hebrews 10:24 – 25 to say, don’t skip church, we need to keep meeting together. The problem? The writer was writing to a church that was being killed, imprisoned and persecuted. They wanted to go underground with their faith. The didn’t want to skip church because they were lazy or lacking faith, they wanted to skip church to live. He was not trying to guilt them into being there, he was trying to spur them on to keep the faith, to keep the revolution going in Rome.

The word perfect in Hebrews. We look at perfect and think “without flaws.” So when we read perfect in Hebrews we see that, that we can live without flaws. The problem? The greek word actually means “to reach a desired end, a goal.” So in Hebrews 7, the writer is not saying that grace will make you perfect, without flaws, he is saying grace will reach its desired end, its goal.

Falling away is the other one. Does this have to do with losing your salvation? No. It starts in Hebrews 3:12 when the writer is talking about the nation of Israel and how some will not enter the promised land because of their lack of faith in God. The promised land is just that, the promised land, not heaven. He is saying, “They will not enter my promised land.” Not heaven. The same greek word comes up again in Hebrews 6:6, referring back. He is talking about not experiencing all that God wants them to experience, not being all that God wants them to become.

I think Osborne brings up a great point, we need to move away from one verse faith. We need to actually understand what the Bible says and why we believe something.

This book is definitely worth picking up, but I think this book is at its best if read in a group.

Revolution, be on the lookout for our small group sign-ups. They start May 9th!