The AL PASTOR podcast

Testing religious traditions against scripture is essential for maintaining biblical purity. In this guide, you will learn how to use the Bible as the ultimate standard to evaluate inherited church practices, unwritten rules, and dogmatic additions,…

Picture an old balance scale. On one side sits the standard. On the other, whatever you're testing. The standard never moves. The standard decides. For the church, that standard is the Word of God. Every tradition, every teaching, every prophecy, every sermon gets weighed against it. The trouble starts when somebody sets a tradition on the same side as the Bible, as an equal weight. Paul knew that world. He was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. This week we put our own traditions on th

When studying religious history, examining how the Pharisees and Sadducees mishandled Scripture reveals dangerous patterns that still plague modern believers. By either adding strict legalistic fences around God's Word or cutting away inconvenient t…

Everybody has traditions. Tamales on Christmas Eve. The same seat every Sunday. Most are good, harmless, even precious. The problem starts when a tradition picks up authority and sits next to the Bible as its equal. Paul was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. His world had two camps. One added to the Word. The other cut pieces out of it. And Jesus answered both of them the same way. He opened the Scriptures. When tradition and God's Word disagree, which one wins? 1. The Source. Paul's

Paul had just called down the curse of God on false teachers. Twice. Then he stops and asks the room a question about himself: do I seek to please men? This is the Bible study companion to Sunday's sermon. We take one verse slowly, hear what the scholars say, and trace the approval trap from King Saul to the Pharisees to the modern church growth playbook... and then to the one approval that is already settled. CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro and Opening Remarks 1:50 - The Big Question and Sermon Point

People pleasing is not just an awkward social habit or a harmless personality quirk; it is a form of spiritual slavery that compromises your integrity and distorts your calling. When you live for the applause of the crowd, you inevitably sacrifice t…