Monday, October 02, 2006

O'Reilly Got It Wrong

I was watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News tonight and was appalled at his reaction to a "pastor" of a Bible church who was being sued for making known to the church the sin of one of the members who was having an affair. The pastor claims that he was doing what the Bible commanded in Matthew 18:15-17 where we are told to go to the person about their sin, if they will not hear us take two or three with you and if they will not hear them then take it to the church.

O'Reilly, in his usual overly confident manner, told the pastor's lawyer that he was a good Catholic and he had never heard of that before. He really didn't think that is what the Bible said because he had never heard of it. He asked the lawyer to quote Matt. 18 and the lawyer paraphrased what it said and so O'Reilly dismissed the truth of what he said. He went on to say that in his church (the Catholic church) this would never happen. The lawyer commented that that was the beauty of our law, that we have the right to practice our religion as we see fit and that this was a matter of religious freedom not a matter for the courts.

O'Reilly went on to contend that the pastor would lose in court because he had humiliated the woman and had defamed her and that was against the law. How sad that someone with O'Reilly's influence will so openly and publicly refute God's word when he obviously doesn't even know what it says and did not bother to check and see whether the pastor was correct or not.

With this kind of display, I would question whether O'Reilly is only committed to what his church teaches and not what our Lord Jesus Christ teaches. "...let God be true but every man a liar." Romans 3:4 We must each be careful that God's word is ALWAYS our supreme authority--not "our church", not our church leaders, not our friends, not any man.

Frequently I agree with O'Reilly, but this is one time he really got it wrong. I intend on writing and telling him so and I will quote Matt. 18:15-17 to him since he obviously won't bother to look it up himself.

Dana Burk

Dana Burk

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