By Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” is recorded in chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s Gospel in the New Testament. Jesus began that sermon with a series of blessing pronouncements known as “the Beatitudes.” In the final beatitude, found in verses 11 and 12, Jesus said:
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
False utterances on account of Jesus
Have you ever wondered what those false utterances might be? Jesus said there would be “all kinds.”
A friend of mine sent me a text earlier this afternoon, October 9, 2024, that read, “You’re making some waves Brother!” and he included a link to a KOTA TV article titled, “Church members stir controversy at Spearfish Middle School.” The opening sentence in that article read, at that time, “Sojourn Church members of Spearfish passed out Bibles outside of Spearfish Middle School Tuesday morning, and some parents were worried.”
The article also appeared on the Dakota News Now website out of Sioux Falls, as well as on KOTA’s Facebook page.
The accompanying video clip of the evening news on October 8 started off with the anchorman stating, “Earlier this morning the Sojourn Church in Spearfish handed out Bibles to students outside of Spearfish Middle School, and some parents were worried.”
As far as I know, the Sojourn Church in Spearfish that I am part of, and currently the pastor of, is the only Sojourn Church in Spearfish. I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sojourn Church was not handing out Bibles at the Spearfish Middle School on October 8, although handing out Bibles is not a bad idea.
I spoke with Don Lyon, the principal of Spearfish Middle School, later this afternoon and he told me that the Gideons had been at the school on October 8 handing out New Testaments. The Gideons have literally been doing this for decades—I still have a New Testament given to me by the Gideons when I was in high school in the 1980s.
The “God Bless the USA Bible” — also known as “the Trump Bible”
After the opening sentence (quoted above), the KOTA article then goes in a very odd direction and seems to associate Sojourn Church and what happened in Spearfish yesterday with the Oklahoma State Department of Education and a Bible known as “the Trump Bible.” Here are those paragraphs.
“This comes after the Oklahoma State Department of Education announced a request for proposal of the purchase of 55,000 King James Bibles that also contain the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights for use in Oklahoma classrooms.
This request created controversy because the only Bible meeting the criteria was the $60 “God Bless the USA Bible” which was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. While the publishers claim the Bible is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign, they did pay for Trump’s name image and likeness license.”
Until today I had never heard of “the Trump Bible,” a King James version of the Bible that also apparently includes “the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.” Now that I do know about this Bible I can tell you that I have several issues with it. Here are two:
- No person’s name should be that closely associated with the Bible; not Donald Trump, not John MacArthur (a well-known example), and not even the Apostle Paul. The Bible is God’s revelation to humanity, penned through human authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
- Including the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in a Bible is just plain wrong. The Bible is not an American book, and Christianity is not an American religion. Christianity is a religion (I’m using that word carefully here) not limited by any geo-political boundaries or cultures.
An anonymous parent’s concern
The article also includes this quote from a parent:
“And then if they are especially passing out–which I don’t know– If it was the Trump Bible that really is upsetting to push politics and religion right there on school property,” said one parent, who asked to remain anonymous.
I’d be upset too if it was “the Trump Bible” being handed out to students, or anyone else, for reasons I’ve already stated above.
However, it wasn’t “the Trump Bible,” and I don’t think anyone was pushing politics or religion that day when the Gideons were giving New Testaments to students who, I’m told, readily accepted them. The Gideons were simply handing out copies of God’s revelation to humans, which is neither religious or political.
Corrected, partially
After I was made aware of this news article I contacted both the news station and the reporter, letting them know they had misstated the facts, as well as implicated Sojourn Church with a religious-political movement that we have no connections with whatsoever.
(I am very curious to know why someone associated what is probably the smallest, newest, and most unpolitical (apolitical) church in Spearfish with “the Trump Bible,” when it was simply the Gideons handing out free New Testaments at Spearfish Middle School.)
KOTA has edited the article removing the name “Sojourn,” but how many hundreds or even thousands of readers and viewers in South Dakota now know about Sojourn Church in Spearfish, SD? Ironically, we couldn’t have purchased that much “free” advertising!
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this situation, a situation that our sovereign God is in complete control of.
Conclusion
That news article is probably a good representation of the anti-Christian direction our culture and the world are heading in. And you know what? I’m fine with that. When people are no longer pretending to be Christians just because they live in a so-called “Christian nation,” then the soil of the human heart is ready for the truth of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ.
Jesus lived, died, and rose again from the dead to save people from their sin and from God’s righteous judgment, and gather those people, his people, from all around the world into one unified body of Jesus-followers called the church.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Media archive
