Flat Stone Teaching

Have you noticed that most men who fancy themselves bible teachers are flat stone teachers? (FSTs)

By flat stone I mean they skip from one passage to another when they teach. They'll ask you to turn your bibles to such and such a verse, read the verse, expound on it for a few minutes, usually completely out of context, and then ask you to turn with them to another verse which may have the same word or theme as the verse they just left. Then for the next few minutes they'll explain to their listeners what they think that verse means, again completely out of context.

Flat stone teachers never get more than an inch below the surface. They never go deep.

Their bible knowledge, be what it is, is an inch deep and a mile wide.

Flat stone teaching, skipping from one passage to another, can avoid difficult and controversial passages by skipping right over them!

FSTs use this skimming and skipping over water - water is a symbol of the word of God - teaching week after week, month after month, skipping over difficult and controversial passages all the while.

I listened to a flat stone teacher expound on Matthew 8:5-13 recently. He read and "taught" his way from verse five to verse ten, skipping right over the two verses he appeared to not understand ( I watched with great interest as what cognitive dissonance looks like was being shown to me) and knew would not set well with his universalist itching ears listeners, to finish with verse 13; how great the Roman centurion's faith was and because of that faith his request was granted. Oh, if only we could have that kind of faith, right?

Too bad this flat stone teacher doesn't have faith in the Word of God to teach its truth, no matter how unpopular that truth may be.

Here is the two verses Matthew 8:11, 12, the FST skipped over:
11 I say to you that many will come from east and west, and [m]recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons (not of Jacob, but of Esau) of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This FST skipped to Matthew 8 from the passage in Matthew 15 dealing with the Syrophenican woman whom Yahshua "answered her not a word," and whom the disciples asked the Lord to "send her away, for she crieth (croak, like the cry of a raven) after us."

The FST's explanation for why Yahsua called her a "dog," was because of the "place she was at." What did "place" have to do with why he at first refused to even talk to her?

Nothing.

Her race, (Canaanite - see verse 22) not her place, is why Yahshua refused to talk to her and called her a dog. (In English, because she was female, we could call her a "bitch.") Her request was granted because she agreed she was a dog, and unworthy, not being a child of the Master. But her argument was, "even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master's table."

Nothing is said of salvation, just that her daughter was healed. Magnanimous acts such as this are often granted to the undeserving by those in high positions.

Did the FST see the true reason the Roman centurion, obviously an Israelite, was accorded completely different treatment than the Canaanite woman? No, it went right over his head, the same way his teaching skims right over the water.

Consequently, all of those sitting under the feet of this teacher were once again fed milk, skimmed milk, pardon the pun, instead of the meat and truth of the Word of Yahweh.

Oh, how the truth of Yahweh would wake up His People to their rightful place as heirs of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!

"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel."