In the middle ages the Bible was interpreted for the people by men something like wizards in conical hats. After the Reformation, expository preaching, making people who didn't read to understand Scripture, then the Exegete was something like a professor in a business suit. Nowadays it is something like a rock star that determines what much of Christianity is supposed to think and do. Millions go to one man on TV to get their understanding of The Word.
Some try to make what they call "evangelicals" the mainstream of Christianity in our day. This interdenominational identity is a sort of child of The Reformation and is, in America, the twin to Roman Catholicism. Being raised in a Pentecostal version, their doctrines and practices, when the Lord made Himself real to me and I started reading the Bible for myself I found much that was at odds with God's Written Word. Over the years, as distances between Institutional Christianity and Scripture's description of God and what pertains to Him, specially the nature and practice of the Church, grew greater and the implications of popular error were increasingly exposed, I've come to realize that the popular media exhibition of supposed Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy are as wrong in their way as the Mormon's, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and other such fringe groups.
There are people I assume know God to a certain extent, because I used to think like them and had experiences with the True God. But, I've wondered, for instance, how several teachers to millions and world wide evangelists with miracles accompanying them, have made prophecies that do NOT come true. I believe they think they're reaching forward to go on with the Lord. Why can't they? Jesus' Holy Spirit within us guarantees, at least potentially, that all He is and does is in us. So what stops them or us? One thing is they have for years had the same Bibles and concordances I have. If they can no longer assume that what those around them have said is true, that it must be examined in order to align ourselves more accurately with the Truth, then maybe they'll tell the truth about many things they are lying about now. The problem is compromise. "As much as lies within us we are to be at peace with all men." Jesus says, "I have many things to tell you that you cannot bear yet..." With such reasonings they seek to please the people rather than God. Doing this for years can make men be in bondage, their eyes put out as Samson's. This is not a question of salvation; rather, our being used by God to expand His kingdom in mankind.
