Leave Your Pastor - Андрей Викторович Шибанов

some church leaders for lording over believers, Dr John Oakes, being a friend to some of them, requested to physically remove me:

You have been asked to leave. That is exactly what you should do. If you refuse to do so, then you give the group there no choice but to physically remove you. What else can they do? That would be on you, not on them. I am sure they will not use any more force than is required if you physically resist leaving. Let me suggest a better option: Move on to another group which is closer to what you believe and practice. – Dr John Oakes

Few weeks later, he wrote an article making this statement:

My role is to support what the leaders are doing, even when I do not completely agree with what they are doing. – Dr John Oakes (What Should I Do To Become a Christian Teacher? by John Oakes | Douglas Jacoby, 2020)

Being a “restorationist” himself (Wikipedia: John Oakes (apologist)), Dr John Oakes follows the following teaching:

Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.

The truth is that the scripture is never silent, for the word of God is living and active:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12

John Oakes also forbids reproving elders in the church.

Below is Dr John Oakes’s response to me via email:

The Bible tells us to not publicly challenge an elder (1 Timothy 5:17-21). It is right there in the Bible, so you might want to consider this teaching. I believe, however, that all members ought to be able to challenge their elder in private. The advice in 1 Timothy 5 is that you do this in the presence of one or two others, not alone, but I am not sure that this is an exact formula we ought to follow for every situation. – Dr John Oakes

Dr John Oakes misinterpreted the Scripture (Timothy 5:20), which he himself provided to me. According to the same Scripture (Timothy 5:20), elders who persist in sin must be reproved publicly:

But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. – 1 Timothy 5:20

You should not tolerate false teachers such as John Oakes but you must reprove them publicly for others to beware of them:

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. – Revelation 2:2

Offering to idols

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. – James 1:27

Tithes and contributions you collect are not going to the poor of this world, all those money do not even go to the needy among you. Instead, you pay salary to organization’s leaders, pastors and priests, you build temples or rent meeting halls. You have erroneously assumed that church leaders, pastors and priests are representatives of God on earth, so that is why you give your tithes to them. They do not represent God but only their religious organizations. They are the Antichrist who are powerful just because some naive people give them their money.

The truth is that possessing a building, renting a meeting space and paying salary to church leaders are all false practices which are ungodly and harmful to disciples of Jesus Christ. God does not dwell in houses made by hands:

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says. – Acts 7:48

Giving tithes to God

It is good to give the first fruits of one's labor to God. Even before the law of Moses, Abel already gave 10% of his first fruits to God and Lord accepted it. Jacob also gave 10% to Melchizedek, the priest of the Lord. The act of giving to the Lord is not regulated by any law but a natural act of gratitude to God. If you want to give your offering to the Lord, give your money to the poor of this world or needy disciples of Jesus Christ.

But now as for what is inside you–be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. – Luke 11:41 (NIV)

God will bless you for what you offer, and you will receive many times more of what you have given. When you give, do it with a cheerful heart:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. – 2 Corinthians 9:7

You must give your tithes to God, not to the Antichrist. Do not give your tithes to church leaders! They are not the representatives of God on earth. They are not the priesthood. Christ is the priest and you all are His royal priesthood:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. -1 Peter 2:9

This Scripture shows that when you give to the poor, you give to Christ:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a