For years I felt guilty because I was too tired after getting 4 hours of sleep a night after long days of work and classes to spend hours “doing my devotions.” After reading what passes for devotional material with some fundies, however, I now realize that having no devotions at all is likely better than than having ones like this…
(this has been yet another entry from the SOTL gift package o’ crazy)
2nd
Goodness gracious. Grammatical/mechanical errors FTL.
“it’s path” / unnecessary comma after “point” / “documents that document” / “this ‘a’ fact” (?) – Ok, that’s it, I’m done…
“If the KJV says jump (?)” / “Third are the children (?)” – This is gold. And by gold, I mean awful.
The grammar was atrocious.
The logic was lacking.
The theology was deplorable.
The more I think about people reading this for their devotions, the sadder I am.
I am saddened too by this dangerous nonsense. There is nothing of Christ and Him crucified for sinners, there is nothing of His love and mercy, there is nothing about Him at all. I know very little about fundies, but I wonder what they thought was going on in Christ’s Church before America? Do they know the KJV was not “made in America”?
If anybody can find any connection at all between this paranoid burst of ignorance and the scripture cited, he or she should win some kind of prize.
This is just awful. It is just sentences strung together! Forget the bad logic and rotten theology! UGH!
Does that mean I’m 1st?
The first thing I thought was What the devil is a “King James Devotional”???
I also thought it was telling that the author writes “If the KJV says jump, then jump.” Not God, not the Holy Spirit or Jesus, not even the Bible, but the KJV. Lord.
They also need an editor. Seriously. But then, if Amurrica is being toppled by God through Sharia Law, I guess the its/it’s distinction and fixing sentences like There are many books and documents that document this a fact are secondary.
+1
I would have a field day with this. Maybe a field hour, if that.
Is this devotional also published by “Our Daily Bread”? If not, they’re ripping off theDaily Bread’s page format.
No, it doesn’t appear to be published by them.
The Daily Bread folks are too nice to come up with something that hateful and too smart to print something that dumb. They actually have a proofreader.
But doesn’t the page look almost the same? There’s no little poem at the bottom, but otherwise, it’s seems pretty close. Is this devotional for people who think “Our Daily Bread” not separated enough?
Yes.
“it’s seems” – OK, George. I know you think this is all just fun and games, but some of us don’t appreciate it when what we post makes us look like idiots! lol
“Our Daily Bread” is published by Richard DeHann, Radio Bible Class, which is connected with the Christian (Dutch) Reform Church. It is published in Michigan, which has a large Dutch-American community located in Cedar Rapids and Holland, Michigan.
“Our Daily Bread” is published in many languages and countries. It appeals to an international audience and to Christians of various denominations. They often quote the NIV. (The Reform Church uses the NIV). This is why some fundies hate “Our Daily Bread” and have attempted to create a fundie version, with little or no success. There was a small unsuccessful attempt to end its distribution at my IFB church.
When I lived in New Jersey, my family attended an independent Reformed church. There was none of the paranoid, anti-intellectual and racist stuff I experienced in the IFB church my family attended in Maryland. I wish my parents were able to find a Reformed Church in Maryland. The Reformed Church attaches a better class of people.
There’s no Cedar Rapids in Michigan. Do you mean Grand Rapids? Or possible Cedar Springs?
Yes, Grand Rapids.
Because, as we all know, Grand Rapids is like Egypt…. nothing good can come out of it. Rob Bell and Zondervan. Need I say more? It’s practically Sodom and Gomorrah 😉
This looks suspiciously like sermon notes without all the rabbit trails and personal preferences thrown in. He did hit the fundy high notes of disobedience, Muslims taking over the place, and God will remove His blessing from America if we don’t straighten up and fly right. He’s missing the Gay Agenda and Jezebel Women to make it complete.
You can read about that on June 4. Those topics are addressed by Acts 26:30.
what? that was entirely composed of rabbit trails.
Only if you were expecting a message about the text. 🙄
“Devotions” for me has gone from slavishly reading six chapters a day, regardless of where the narrative took me, to meditating on the Scriptures I know, and when I’m dwelling on some spiritual question, researching the issue and learning new passages. You know that fundy kids’ song? “Read you Bible, Pray every day [repeat ad nauseum] And you’ll grow, grow grow.” Guess what? Doesn’t describe me. And I’ve grown more in the 12 months since I left my fundy roots than I did in 10 years at a fundy college.
10 years at a fundy college?
4.5 undergrad + 2.5 grad + 3 staff = 10 years.
The “meditate” part of things has done more for my walk with God than any of the devotions I tried for years. Yet somehow, the first 25 years of my life in fundyism I didn’t get taught anything about meditating on scripture.
I just read whatever I feel like whenever I feel like. Realizing that the Bible never actually commands us to read it every day (and realizing that this was a historical impossibility) really freed me to, well, read the Bible more than I ever have in this last year.
Then you didn’t hear a certain Bible faculty member say from behind the chapel podium, “God wants you to read your Bible every day.” That sentence, in all its nasally, dragging glory, still rings in my ears.
That short doctor is smarter, and knows more about the Bible than you. Listen to him!
(lawl)
But of course. ;P
My old fundy church use to have the Daily Bread Devotionals that they gave away, but apparently someone noticed that some of the scriptures quoted weren’t KJV, so they stopped using them and instead switched to “Baptist Bread” which is a total rip-off of the Daily Bread name.
Yeah, I’ve seen that one at my parent’s house too. 🙄
“Baptist Bread” LOL!
Yeah, I’ve seen Baptist Bread before. It’s a cheap and poorly done rip off of Our Daily Bread. Now, I could be wrong, but Call to Glory looks like an even worse rip off of Baptist Bread. I wonder if Baptist Bread wasn’t quite separated enough for them…
So some fundy decides the “Our Daily Bread” and “Baptist Bread” aren’t separated or KJV enough and feel the need (or “calling”) to start a “ministry” printing this (pathetic) more separated “Call to Glory”, then they must get fundy churches and fundy members to donate money to this “ministry” and while millions of people are dying in the world without clean drinking water or food, or a Savior, we as a church are giving money to keep all these “ministries” going just because they don’t think each other are good enough to fill the needs? for devotional booklets? can we not just read the Bible anyway?
Run on sentence, I know… just seems like a royal waste of effort & money when there are real needs out there.
So true, Heather!!!
The recent fear-mongering over “Sharia Law” amuses me even more than it horrifies me.
It’s hilarious, because Rastafarianism is probably more likely to be incorporated into America’s legal system than Sharia is. In fact, that Vanuatu cargo cult that says Prince Philip is a god probably has a better chance of dominating American laws than Sharia has.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip_Movement
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/7660671/South-Pacific-tribe-preparing-for-return-of-god-Prince-Philip.html
The even funnier part is that some of Sharia is remarkably close to the rules that Fundies want everyone to have to follow.
It’s horrifying, though, because it’s just code words for promoting hate crimes against Muslims.
Your capricious religion-based restrictive laws are WRONG. Our capricious religion-based restrictive laws are clearly right. See how simple it is, Big Gary?
LOL I was just saying that to my husband. If you didn’t tell a fundy that a certain law was Islamic, they’d be all for it. =P Fundamental Baptists have a lot in common with fundamental Muslims.
The thing about the Prince Philip cult . . . I thought, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
I can’t believe it’s actually true. I thought I’d heard everything.
The great thing about life is, you’ve never heard everything. That’s also the bad thing about life, of course.
My first reaction when I heard about the Prince Philip Movement was, “Philip? Really? Of the whole British royal family, why him? I mean, even Sarah Ferguson seems like a more likely candidate for deity.”
Special bonus: Click here for a sampling of the Prince’s legendary wit and wisdom:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/royal-wedding/2011/06/10/prince-philip-quotes-relive-90-classic-gaffes-to-mark-his-90th-birthday-115875-23191024/
Wow. What a horrible writ. It’s good he can’t write well. More people might listen.
Darrell,
Your last 5 posts have left me speechless. Literally, I have no words. Beyond belief.
Hi.
Evidently, not quite… 😉
All I can say is wow. It is hard to believe someone would publish something with so many errors.
Maybe we should have a contest to see how many grammatical/mechanical errors we can find.
This is a joke. Right? Please tell me this is a joke and does not actually exist.
Unfortunately not http://ctgpublication.com/
“Unfortunate” is that virtually nothing posted here is made up. Pardon the cliche, but truth is stranger than fiction. However, I am glad that most of the craziest crap that I have seen here, I haven’t had to experience personally, just some of the moderately crazy stuff.
. . .maybe the phrase “moderately crazy” doesn’t fit perfectly, but maybe some of you will understand what I mean. 😐
I was going to write exactly what you wrote. It has to be a joke. But you had already written it.
This guy references the KJV as THE word of God and then prints an obviously non-KJV verse beside it? That plus the horrific grammar makes this mess barely fit to start a fire with. Sure isn’t good for anything else.
Whoops! It actually is the KJV! It just doesn’t read like it. My bad.
What Darrell didn’t tell you is that it came in a plastic bag what has a not announcing that the Call to Glory is now available in a Spanish edition.
I hope I’m not jumping the Gum and taking away from a future posting for Darrell but the publishers can be found here. http://newtestamentbaptistchurch.com/
With the likes of:
100,000 Doors in 2011 Every Saturday 9-11am
And
New Testament Baptist Christian School
(sic)
also from the devotional:
They’re clearly knocking it out of the park with this one! Or perhaps they’re exaggerating a bit, like I just did… 😮
They probably send a copy to each missionary they support, thus making it literally “around the world” while still having only 20,000 on their subscription list.
20,000 copies isn’t going to make it very far around the world. And missionary clones reading it doesn’t really count, IMHO.
20,000 is still a pretty large circulation for a publication of this type. Of course, printing 20,000 copies is not the same as having a verifiable circulation of 20,000 per month. If most of those copies get sent in bulk to missionaries, who knows how many ever get read as compared to how many end up serving as paper supplies in the outhouses of the world?
I love this devotional helps me to dig deeper into Gods word.
Sadly there are many Fundamental Christians out there that think this is enough for them. They miss the boat when it comes to devotions. I don’t know where the idea of devotions is in the Bible. I guess it is somewhere in the good ole KJV! I am so glad God has given me the Bible and I don’t have to depend on this dribble to live a godly Christian life.
You’d have a much harder time finding public schools that are lacking discipline & compassion as you would finding Baptists schools that lack them. I guess if you define discipline as physical punishment you could find that lacking in public schools. If you define discipline as non pedophile environments it’d be the reverse…
bingo
My Daily Guilt
Well said.
This is pathetic. And sad. And completely laughable.
Each time I read a SOTL post here, I laugh and shake my head in disbelief.
Then I feel angry, because it’s so wrong. And I remember that most of the people I interacted with and some of my closest friends would stand firmly in agreement with everything said and published there.
Then I feel depressed and humiliated, because it’s not that long ago I was a part of the exact same crowd.
Then I remember that this is all a part of the healing process and it’s ok.
^ Like
Some days it’s the equivalent of an emotional roller coaster.
Just be thankful you’re not in that system anymore and pray that God opens the eyes of those who are. I came across a quote the other day that I found to be very insightful into my attitude at times. “If you ‘get it’, but judge others for not ‘getting it’, than you don’t ‘get it’.”
Good stuff Eric.
Holy Cow. Now there’s an author who is able to get his point across, which was… what exactly??
He grasped so many thread and tied them together I completely got lost an I have no idea what I am to take away and meditate on today from this devotional.
Dear God in a manger, please tell me this is a parody!
Reading this reminds me when a few weeks ago I foolishly decided to visit my old IFB’s website and read the Pastor’s notes. Ok, I have been out of this church for 27 years…and it was verbatim the exact same thing I heard day after day for 8 years when I was a kid at this church. And the notes were recently posted, just a few weeks old. I mean, wow….this guy is coasting and collecting a pay check.
wow. no words.
Trying to follow the logic here. First, the author claims that America was based on one particular religion and needs to return to that foundation. (This statement is cited as a historical fact, and there are “documents that document” this). Then in the next sentence the author decries the alleged intrusion of another religion (Islam) into the judicial system. So the take home message from this “devotional” is that it is okay if religion is intertwined with the law, as long as it is the “right” religion. Hmmmm……I’ll have to re-read the first amendment because I completely missed that.
A KJV devotional in Spanish? A King James English devotional in Spanish? Do they not see the absurdity?
I believe the notion that the KJV is the best Bible version, not just for English speakers, but for other language communities as well, is a uniquely Independent Fundamental Baptist concept. Someone here (sorry, I’ve forgotten who) reported that one IFB church refuses to support missionaries who use Bibles translated into Spanish from the Greek and Hebrew, instead of those translated from the King James Version.
Wheres The Fruitcake?
As a professional editor, this made me cringe. Just terrible.
What kind of junk is this? The grammar, or the lack thereof, is glaring. The Lord prefers heathens to read Pagan literature than this piece of showcase of ignorance.
Only the scripture in the margin and one part of one sentence is about God. “Keeping the Lord’s commandments.” The rest – well, this is DEFINITELY putting man above God. Nothing more than propaganda for the Religious right. 🙄
Right.
First of all, the verse quoted is a sentence fragment in the KJV translation, not a complete thought. My Oxford Study Bible, which was given to me by those wicked heathen Russian Orthodox people at the seminary where I used to work, translates it as a complete sentence: “I endow with riches those who love me; I shall fill their treasuries.”
Fine, okay, except the person speaking is not God. The speaker is Wisdom. This is a huge long poem about Wisdom contrasted with Folly, 2 full pages’ worth in this translation, so I won’t quote the whole thing here.
It begins: “Hear how Wisdom calls and Understanding lifts her voice. She takes her stand at the crossroads, by the wayside, at the top of the hill; beside the gate, at the entrance to the city, at the approach to the portals she cries aloud.” Wisdom (yes, a woman) reproaches “all mankind” as “stupid people” and commands them to listen to her because “All that I say is right, not a word is twisted or crooked.” (Yes, a woman.) “Pride, arrogance, evil ways, subversive talk, all those I hate.” She is the support of kings and governors, the bestower of wealth and honor.
Right after the quoted verse, Wisdom (yes, a woman) goes on to say, “The Lord created me the first of his works long ago, before all else he made.” She was an eyewitness to the beginning of the world and delighted in the creation of humankind. “Then I was at his side each day, his darling and delight[.]” (Yes, a woman.) She calls all humankind her sons, children in need of instruction, and warns, “whoever fails to find me deprives himself, and all who hate me are in love with death.”
Wisdom is portrayed as summoning “the simple” to a feast which she prepared herself in a house she built herself. Then she goes on to teach a longer version of what has been expressed elsewhere as “Do not throw your pearls before swine.” She ends her speech with, “The first step to wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and knowledge of the Most Holy One is understanding; for through me your days will be increased and years be added to your life. If you are wise, it will be to your advantage; if you are arrogant, you alone must bear the blame.” Yes, a woman.
The poem ends with a short passage about Lady Stupidity’s (or Dame Folly’s) feast, to which she lures the simple with the coaxing words, “Stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret tastes good.” “The dead are there,” notes the poem.
What this has to do with the homily printed next to it I have no idea.
I think your analysis of the context of the verses is correct.
This part of Proverbs (which Book is called “Wisdom” in some translations) is seen by some as a devotional to the goddess Sophia (Wisdom), who was revered in much of the Classical world. It’s one of many cases in the OT where there seem to be traces of pre-monotheistic culture surviving in the texts.
Does it say “Baptist Prison Ministry” at the bottom next to his name because he’s been imprisoned for doing terrible ministry?
I wonder when we’ll know God has hit His tolerance point. Facebook? Twitter?
Why? Why are we bashing this guy? I’m a current minister and former English teacher. Grammar errors and muddled theology bothers me too. So just don’t read or use his stuff. Why so much in-fighting in the Body of Christ? When you break it down, it’s self-loathing, because we are all members of one Body. Let’s lift, not tear down.
Sam, I hope you also go to the fundamentalist websites and ask them to stop criticizing Tim Keller, John Piper, Rick Warren, Christian contemporary musicians, and Christians who read Bible versions other than the KJV.
This is why I use (almost exclusively) the form of Morning Prayers from the one and only Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the USA, 1928 edition…
Better be 1928! 🙂
Wouldn’t surpise me if some of the IFB pastors get their sermons from these “devotionals”. They just drag them out for 30-45 minutes repeating themselves.
This devotional is amazing!!!! Stop whining and complaining!! Go out and do the great commission, get people saved, baptize them and teach them the KJB! FYI… God has she-bears for you trash talkers about Men of God!!
LOL. Seriously, you just gave me a great big ol’ belly laugh. Thanks.
Darrell is not bald, for one thing, and anyway, Dude, I read my daily portion from an NLT, plus a chapter of John Stott and a portion of C.S. Lewis, and I am STILL assured of my salvation. Oh, yes, Bud, if it is KJV only, then you must take every bit literally. Those kids made fun of the prophet’s baldness. Then they got mauled. What, you say, there is a principle involved there. But no, I retort, you insist on literal everything, so no falling back on principles. Darrell is not bald, he was not one of a group of youths yelling at an itinerant preacher, ergo, your post is shot full of holes. You sound like you need fresh oil, to me. 😕
….which I understand is available to those who go to Jack Hyles’ grave and scream for it.
I hope I am not the only one here laughing my head off over that.
… unless they ate over fifty, I fear so. 😉
Are not ate. George! Always thinking of his tummy.
Hello, I am a graphic designer who freelances and gets a lot of IFB jobs because of my associations. And I designed the logo on this cover. It was painful. But one must give in to the clients wishes. Problem is after doing much work for them they kept driving my price down and wanted higher quality design in less time. And you just can’t get all three. So I ended the relationship. First Client I ever fired. Afterwards I did some research on them and found some very interesting things about the pastor and his church. You should check it out.
I went to a ladies’ conference at the church responsible for this booklet. Nice facilities. My pastor’s wife criticized another pastor’s wife behind her back. Why? The other pastor’s wife was WEARING PANTS. I wish I would have gotten out then. Unfortunately, I was drunk on KoolAid.