The Second Unpardonable Sin.

If you were to ask most Baptists how many unpardonable sins there were, they would say one. The Blasphemy of The Holy Spirit. But in reality for most Baptists there are two. The second being divorced. If someone feels called to be a pastor or any paid position in the Baptist hierarchy and they've been divorced, regardless of the circumstances they are eliminated from consideration because of their interpretation of such verses as I Timothy 3:2 which states that a bishop should be the 'husband of one wife'. Never mind that the Greek means 'one woman man.' Example, Bill Clinton has only been married once but even the most devout Democrat wouldn't call him a one woman man. Yet, he'd have a better chance of being called as the pastor of a Baptist church then a man who was faithful to his wife but for non biblical reasons, decided to divorce him.

I went through a situation like this. I surrendered to preach the gospel in 2003 at a conference in Hammond, Indiana. The following year I enrolled at Hyles-Anderson College, the bible college run by the church that put on this conference. I left because I felt I wasn't learning any bible. I ended up marrying a graduate of said college in 2006. Less then a year later she filed for divorce. I tried everything I could think of to reconcile with her but nothing worked. Since then I have been greatly frustrated. I still feel called to preach but the Baptist churches I go to prohibit divorced men from pastoring. It had depressed me so much that I've attended Presbyterian and Full Gospel churches where I felt more accepted but whose theology I had trouble with. It seems like I can either stay in a Baptist church where I feel at home, but where I feel like I'll have a scarlet 'D' on my chest for the rest of my life, or I can try another church where I'm accepted but where I don't feel comfortable, either with their worship or their theology.

I am sure there are others out there who have been through simlar circumstances. If you have feel free to post them in the comments.

My Bibles 1 The Classic Note Bible

I have over the past 15 years, become somewhat of a collector of bibles. I only have 3 or 4 (depending on how you count) in my collection right now but that's because I've sold, given away, or lost a good many of them.  I know I usually talk about political things on this blog but decided for a change of pace to talk about this hobby of mine. For the next few posts, I'm going to review some bibles I own.  I'm going to start with the oldest one that I regularly use. The Classic Note Bible.

I bought this bible in 2004 while I was attending Hyles-Anderson College.  It was the same type of bible that Jack Hyles used to preach from, though it had been redesigned to be smaller and easier to carry around then the one he used.  It is a plain black text KJV with one big difference;  It has a blank page beside every bible page with the exception of Genesis 1.  It is only made in Genuine Leather. The leather is kind of stiff which I am not a big fan of but it had held up well in the 5 years since I bought it.  It has two bookmarks which comes in handy if you are reading from the Old and New Testament at the same time.  Although Dr. Hyles was the co publisher of The Bible, except for his name on the front, and an introduction that talks about how this bible came about, it doesn't have any notes or commentary from him.  There is a bit of separation going on in Genesis 20 and Revelation 13.  Of course, the main reason that someone would buy this is for the blank pages, so they can write notes and sermon outlines.  I won't argue that it is good for notes, but I have found in my personal experience, that trying to preach a sermon from a two sided page isn't as good as just taking your sermon notes up to the pulpit with you.  I know Dr. Hyles wrote his outlines in his bible but maybe it was easier when the bible was bigger and thus, you had more room on the page to write on. (Though those editions are so thick, it would probably pull your back out to carry one very far.)

Do I recommend this bible? If you are someone that finds that his or her wide margin bible is still not enough to record their notes on, or you want to be able to write notes from sermons you hear then yes;  If you want to use it to preach from, then I would say no, unless you can find one of the thicker first editions on eBay.