” It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

The main gist, blindness is proportional to ones personal prosperity.  

The tobacco industry paid scientist for decades to study the effects of smoking concluding that it was not bad for ones health.  For decades these scientist promoted a lie against overwhelming evidence because their paycheck was based upon the lie.  It wasn’t until the dam they had created, holding back this evidence, burst that the falseness of their lies was forced upon them.

The oil industry has its own scientist; they are bought and paid for to conclude that fossil fuel emissions are not harming the planet.  Lately, scientific evidence has been uncovering their lies. 

The industry of Churchianity

 has its own batch of scientists they are called pastors.  The pastors I am talking about here are the salaried purveyors of the tithing doctrine.  Contrary to all scriptural evidence they are the proponents of the tithe, perhaps this is because their very livelihood depends upon it.  Try to convince the tithe preacher with scriptural evidence that tithing is not for the New Testament believer and you will be shunned.  A few verses taken out of context might be rallied to the tithe preacher’s defense but they quickly back up to the cowardly position of avoidance.

The pastor is a unique position in modern day Christianity.   There are many gifts that God has poured out upon the church; teacher, pastor, evangelist, servant, encourager, gift giver and prophet.  These are just a few of the gifts the Lord has given for the building up of His church.  Today, it is interesting to note that a church is typically advertised by who their pastor is.  We are such and such church and we have pastor so and so.  This declaration is duly noted as the method by which one can determine who is the salaried individual and who is the group’s leader.  The leader is typically one man with the title Senior Pastor.  This one gift, pastor/shepherd has been singled out to do it all and to receive funding for it.  Why the pastor gift is the one gift that is to be the un-muzzled ox (Paul's terminology for a $-supported minister) is not so big a mystery when you see this one man leadership associated with the tithing doctrine.  For the tithe preacher there is much to lose that is dependent upon the tithe doctrine.    

The Lord Jesus was not a coward.  He stood up to the lying scientists of his day with uncompromising zeal. The Pharisees promoted their version of the law with the convictions of salary dependent promoters.  They were lost in their own cause and could not, would not see beyond it.  In reading the gospels it is amazing how much controversy occurred in the Lord's relationship with these religious leaders of His day.

Change can only occur by revelation.  Paul's, knocked off his donkey by a brighter than the noon day sun light, conversion  was due to new revelation.  This new vision included the answer to 'who art thou Lord' and caused true change.  A broken and contrite heart is of great value to God (Ps.51:17).  It is this kind of heart that is mold-able by His hand.  It is this kind of person that can receive revelation.  The hard heart is unable to change, unable to repent and it is closed to revelation.  Change is hard but without it their can be no growth and when change is not possible there can be no hope.