{"id":8678,"date":"2023-09-09T03:51:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T03:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8678"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:47","slug":"preaching-strawmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8678","title":{"rendered":"PREACHING STRAWMEN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I listen to a lot of various preachers online throughout a normal week &#8211; while I am making breakfast, as I drive to the office, while I walk the dog &#8211; and what strikes me most often is their confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And how often it seems misplaced.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pulpit could use more humility. Especially when the preacher is tackling some topic on which honest believers differ profoundly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One phrase that always raises red flags for me is: &#8220;You won&#8217;t find a single verse in the Bible that supports X from Genesis to Revelation&#8221; where X is some belief held by millions of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To me, that it just proof that the preacher is creating a strawman out of his opponents&#8217; beliefs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And even if you are ultimately correct, knocking down strawmen is mainly an exercise in pride.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I listen to a lot of various preachers online throughout a normal week &#8211; while I am making breakfast, as I drive to the office, while I walk the dog &#8211; and what strikes me most often is their confidence. And how often it seems misplaced. The pulpit could use more humility. Especially when the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8679,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions\/8679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}