"Eat Your Bible" Obtain the Power of God: This is Not A Joke (But Should Be) | React to Protestants

A pastor rips a page from the Bible and tells a young man to eat it. What does that reveal about authority, emotion, and bad theology?

A pastor tells someone to open Proverbs for him, rips out a page, and orders a young man to eat it while the music swells. The clip is hard to watch, but it’s also clarifying: when church turns into a stage and “holy things” become props, people get pressured, confused, and spiritually harmed. Michael, Jeremy Jeremiah, and Mario Andrew slow the moment down and ask what’s really being taught about God, authority, and power. From there, we trace the theology underneath the stunt. Why does it accidentally resemble the language Christians use about communion and the Eucharist? 

What happens when communion is treated as purely symbolic, and the weight of “real presence” gets shifted onto a printed Bible instead of Christ himself? We also explain how Orthodox Christianity holds Scripture as central and life-giving while keeping it rooted in the Church’s worship, tradition, and lived authority, not in a lone pastor’s improvised performance. We talk candidly about spiritual manipulation, emotional hype, and the subtle guilt that follows when leaders tell you what you’re supposed to be feeling. We even share a personal story that captures the same dynamic in a different setting. 

If you’ve ever wondered about church abuse warning signs, the difference between the Eucharist and symbolic communion, or what historic Christianity actually looks like week to week, this conversation will help you name what you’re seeing. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s sorting through faith and church culture, and leave a review if this helped you. What’s the clearest red flag you hear in the clip?

If “holy things” become props, people get hurt. We react to a viral church clip and unpack spiritual manipulation, Scripture, and the Eucharist. 

We watch a shocking church video where a preacher rips out a Bible page and pressures a young man to eat it, then we unpack why the moment feels spiritually wrong instead of holy. We connect the stunt to deeper issues of authority, emotional manipulation, and what historic Christian worship actually centers on. 

• reacting to a pastor ordering someone to eat a page from Proverbs 
• why the staged music and public pressure signal manipulation 
• Eucharist as true communion versus treating objects as power sources 
• how Scripture is central in Orthodoxy without becoming a substitute for Christ 
• how “anything goes” practices grow when authority and tradition collapse 
• comparing the logic to Roman Catholic adoration and asking what worship is for 
• recognizing spiritual abuse patterns and the guilt they can produce 
• why what you see in the clip is not historic Christianity 

If anyone watching this right now, if you're at all, if maybe you don't know a lot about Christianity, maybe you're just curious about it, please understand what you saw in this video is not a representation of the historic practice of the church. Period. No questions about it. Um, and we would obviously encourage you come find an Orthodox church near you today.

Questions about Orthodoxy? Please check out our friends at Ghost of Byzantium Discord server: https://discord.gg/JDJDQw6tdh

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Transcript

The Setup Feels Off


SPEAKER_03 0:00

Turn the book of Proverbs. Turn the book of Proverbs for me.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Can you pause it on the buggy Bible? Okay, we're gonna have fun with this one, guys. This is already fascinating. He couldn't turn in the Bible himself. He had to have her turn to the book of Proverbs.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

He has a minion, he has a helper. Pick up my Bible for me.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah, pick up my Bible for me. I I mean, I don't know. I guess because he's holding a microphone, we'll we'll cut him some slack. Um, but it's it's kind of a bad start.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

It is a bad start, and it's going in a bad direction.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I will say, uh, out of Mario, myself, and Mike, Mike's the only one that has seen this video so far. So we're in for we're in for a treat. Um, interesting background. I don't know if this is like an under the ocean aquarium thing, but um well, 2026, asking a a woman to open your Bible for you and find the Bible verse questionable.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

What I'm about to do, but it happened 15 years ago in Brazil.

A Page Ripped From Proverbs


SPEAKER_01 1:10

Get my water.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Eat it. When you eat this, the power comment is gonna go inside.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Alright, pause it, Mario. Okay, so for those at home that didn't see that, he just now ripped out a page from the Bible and is telling that young man to eat it.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

I don't know the context of who this younger guy is, but I can't imagine that it justifies what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I was gonna say the same thing, Mike. I don't care what the context is. I mean, it's I feel like we have just jumped into like bizarro world. You know what I mean? From the very beginning of what he said to ripping a page of the Bible right in front of your congregation. Uh what's he thinking?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Susie ripped a page of the Bible. I was like, this can't be good, whatever's about to happen. And then I he hold it up to him and just says, eat it. I'm just like, I don't even know what to say.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Mario, can you jump back a little bit? Because he kind of explains to the guy what's going to happen. Um, but I gotta say, I I would love to be a fly on the wall at this church service. I am fascinated by what the context is myself, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Eat it. When you eat this, the power of God is gonna go inside of you. Go ahead, take your time.

unknown 2:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Come on, raise the music up. Thank you. We'll get to your page.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

We'll get to the page. Pause it there, Mario. The music helps, apparently. Raise the music. I turn the music up.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

And did you hear that music? The music's like, you know, kind of this moody, like building up for something that he's serious.

Eucharist Versus Bible As Substitute


SPEAKER_01 3:10

Like, at least I think he is.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, I mean, if you if you watch the whole thing, it's not a joke. He's being very serious. He's 100% serious.

unknown 3:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Because I mean, there there's so many things that come to mind, obviously. One of them, you know, Mike, you mentioned as as we were kind of talking about this a little bit before we started recording, you immediately think of the Eucharist, right? And how Christians for 2,000 years have consumed the body and blood of Christ. And that is obviously transformative. It is the center of our faith, right? It is how theosis occurs. Um, and so when you see somebody in a church setting loosely saying to feed on this page of the Bible that it's going to, you know, in some way invigorate him or or give him power or healing, like part of me wants to be like, yeah, I get it. I get the concept. I mean, it's completely misplaced, but I understand from a Protestant mindset that you could say, well, there is power in holy things. I would almost be happy if they were to admit that.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, in some way, if we wanted to take like a more charitable approach to it, we could say, like they're kind of onto something, they understand that there's kind of something there, yeah, um, that is almost analogous to the Eucharist. But because they think that communion is purely symbolic, and if you've listened to some things that Protestants say, they've essentially replaced Christ Himself with the Bible, you know, with the word of God is Christ Himself, but they've effectively replaced him with these pages, with pages, with right, with a book, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Uh right, where that's been printed in a print shop. Um that's such a great point, Mike. With they the Protestants have almost over-emphasized the importance of scripture. Now, this is we have to be careful, right? Because it's often said, oh, you know, all Orthodox think is, you know, all they care about is tradition, right? You guys don't care about the Word of God, which is so not true. The scripture is uh central uh and paramount to what we believe as Orthodox Christians. It's it's all throughout our liturgy, it's all throughout all of our prayers, it is part of our Christian life. It's in the lectionary. We read scripture every single day. We read scripture ideally numerous times a day, right? And yet at the same time, we understand that where scripture sits in the whole of it. I heard it said well, I'm I this is not I don't get credit for this. I want to say it's farther desire, but I could be wrong. He describes scripture as the pinnacle, the peak of a mountain, right? And the mountain that upholds that peak is the church, right? Is the is the teachings of the church, the practices of the church. And the scripture is just that tip, right? Which in other words, it's important and it's it's it's super, super valuable, but it's supported by the entire body of the church. And without the rest of that mountain, you know, you're you're kind of left uh with with not much, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Well, you end up with this sort of thing when you don't have 2,000 years of the tradition and the authority of the church, then each individual pastor is is left to kind of interpret things for themselves. Right. And you know, who's to say that you don't end up in a place like this?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, 100%. Mario, you spent some time, I believe as a kid, you were Roman Catholic,

Scripture In Orthodoxy And Its Place


SPEAKER_01 6:43

correct?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

This might seem a little bit of a stretch, but I'm I don't think it is. There is a practice within Roman Catholicism that's gotten very, very popular in recent years. When I say recent years, I mean probably in the past 70 years or so, and it's um adoration. Have you guys heard of this? Yeah. And I I hate to say this, but I would liken what we're seeing here in this Protestant church, this misplacement of what's a a literal page of scripture is going to do by eating it, uh, with what Roman Catholics do in adoration. They take the Eucharist, you could say it's the it's the wafer, right? It's a little different than from what we do. And they put it up, it's in this very elaborate, I don't know what it's called, um, but this thing that people can come in and they pray sometimes for hours, they'll be there for days, and they it's very holy. And I and part of me wants to say, I get it, and I understand, but I feel it's misplaced in the sense that Orthodox always emphasize the Eucharist, as Christ says, take and eat. It is meant to be consumed. It uh you don't see anywhere in there where people are worshipping the bread, if you will. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I so I get it, because and I've heard the Roman Catholic arguments, well, it's not bread, it's the body of Christ. I I get that. And it's it's not to say that it's not the body of Christ, but is this the proper function, right? Is this the proper way we're intended to do these things? And I feel like it's like taking a page of scripture and eating it, it's kind of missing the point in the same way.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Look at his face, guys.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

I mean, not only is he having this guy do this in front of the whole congregation, he's like, he's almost taunting him. He's like, look at his face. It's I I I can't imagine what is going on here.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, it is. It's awkward.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I'm kind of curious to look into the background of this church because clearly there's something going on where like that guy was, he didn't even hesitate to do it. Right. You know, so there's there's something more going on here.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I agree, Mike. And yet, like you said, he had to instruct him. He's like, swallow it. You could tell the guy probably this is the first time he's seen this,

Adoration And Misplaced Worship


SPEAKER_01 9:30

and he's thinking, is this a joke? Is there at some point you're gonna ask me to regurgitate this? But he's like, No, swallow it. Like I'm serious. Yeah, he's instructing him as he goes. The whole scene, what we're seeing right now there, that in that paused moment, you guys, I want to quickly call your attention. Okay. If we were in an Orthodox church right now, and you were out in where um in where the ladies stand, and we were looking there forward towards um the the holy of holies, what would we see? What do we see before us? Like what's in front of us in in church?

SPEAKER_02 10:10

The icons.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

The altar, the icon, the iconostasis, right? Which is the saints of the church, Christ, the Theotokos. What do we see on the altar?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

The Eucharist.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

The Eucharist, right? You see the body of Christ, right? You see the scriptures, you write, you're you're pointed to these holy things. Look at this image here. What do you see? You see this weird blue background, you see, you know, some people standing around, a couple of one, you know, they're in t-shirts or whatever. The band is up there. It's like to me, what is what tells you that this is Christian at all? Right? Is there anything in that picture that gives you any context that this is even remotely a Christian environment? You know, I think it's crazy. And I think, like you were saying, Mike, it uh there's more going on here. And this stuff doesn't happen by accident, right? This craziness that we're witnessing right now, it's the result of a lot of decisions to change the way church operates and what it means and what ecclesiology is and all these things to end up like this.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah, I don't think I don't think things were just going along totally normal, and then one week he had somebody eat a page of the Bible. You know, that I'm sure there are a lot of signs along the way that like, hey, something isn't right here.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Something isn't right here. And yet there's still people in that church, right? You can see there's still people there that are partaking in this. This is wild. Yeah. Like, and I I I haven't seen this before. So when you mentioned this video to

The Scene Signals A Deeper Drift


SPEAKER_01 12:28

me, Mike, it's ten times worse than I thought it was gonna be. When you said, Oh, I hear there's a video of this pastor having someone eat a page of the Bible. That in my mind is much less worse than this. This is craziness. Like he must have seen the guy was having a hard time swallowing it. You can tell him to swallow it a couple of times, and then he offers him water. Right. And what was he saying during the course of this? That the power of God comes upon you or something. The power of God coming upon you. And that reminds me of what you were saying, Mike. Like, there's something there where you want to be like, yeah, there are holy things and scripture is holy, but think about the logical consequence of this. If this is the case, then we need to all start eating our Bibles every morning. I mean, really, we need to start printing Bibles that are meant to be consumed. They can use inks that are a bit more, you know, they use soy ink. I mean, think about it. That's the logical conclusion. If this, if what this guy is saying is true, if if the power of God will come upon you by doing this, hand me my Bible, right? Give me a page right now. Let's do it. If this is true.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

This is a life changing happening to you.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Mario, can you pause it? We've we've talked about this

Emotional Pressure And Spiritual Abuse


SPEAKER_01 14:08

before, you guys. We're all former Protestants here. Um I remember, now obviously I was never in a situation just like that, of course not. But I would I remember being in scenarios in small groups where we were worshiping God and it was very emotional. And someone would say to me, you know, Jeremy, you know, speak out that this kind of thing. And I remember that feeling, which I think he's feeling right now, yeah, which is I gotta feel something. I better, I better do something here because he's telling me this is a life-changing moment. I it's like he's it's this classic charlatanism where the the the magician, the charlatan, is instructing his victim, hey, here's what's happening to you right now. You don't know it yet, but you're experiencing a life-changing event, right? You're feeling the power of God right now. He's telling them what to do. I'm sure you guys have seen this in those videos where they're trying to get people to start speaking in tongues and they instruct them right how to do it. I can't help but feel for this poor guy in a backwards hat who got called up in front of this church, and and now, and I'm very curious, Mike, to see what happens next, what this kid does.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

But houses, people, other people have houses somebody give the Lord a hand of applause, okay? Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

It's like they're waiting for something else to happen. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

100%, Mike. 100%. And you know what? I bet you that pastor, if I dare I call him a pastor, was disappointed in the reaction of that young man. You could tell he wanted he was expecting more.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

That's true. Yeah, I feel bad for that guy. He's like a younger guy, he's up in front of the whole congregation, just kind of like, what do I do? What do I do in this situation? Clearly, something is off. Yeah, you know, and hopefully he recognizes it. It seems like he might, you know, seems like he might kind of realize this is a little crazy. This is a little crazy. But I mean, you you have this spiritual authority figure telling you to do something in front of your entire community and congregation.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

I mean, that's that's a spiritual abuse at that point.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Oh, 100%. 100%. He stands there, right? You guys saw him, and he was he just almost unmoving. He was like he didn't know what to do, so he just he didn't move. Right. I'm sorry, but that certainly doesn't seem like the power of God to me. It it seems like a kid who was confused, embarrassed, on the spot, and a pastor who was I mean, wow, what lunacy.

A Doorstep Tongues Story And Aftermath


SPEAKER_01 16:58

Um there was a a time years ago. Um, I was at home one night. I was about, you know, I was whatever, 13, 14 years old, living at home with my parents, and some people came to our door at night. It's like eight o'clock at night, it was dark outside. And my dad answers the door, and it was these two people. And they, long story short, they were like, Can we pray with you guys? You know, they were some kind of they what they weren't Jehovah's Witnesses, they weren't Mormons. It was like some sort of Pentecostal thing. Because my dad was like, because we were all Christians, we know we were a Christian family, you know, generally speaking, we went to Calvary Chapel, all this stuff. And so my dad was like, sure, you can pray with us. And they called me over, and I think my mom came over, and this is at our doorstep, and they put their hands on us, you know, they're kind of all and they start praying, and immediately, like within 10 seconds, they start speaking in tongues. And I'll never forget, I and I think it's it's how I felt. I think this guy felt. I was just kind of like, like, what's going on? Because we didn't speak in tongues in Calvary Chapel, at least the Caly Chapel I was a part of. And it was the weirdest thing, and I remember I'll never forget it. We after we said goodbye to them, my dad was kind and thanked them, then you know, they left. My dad was like, How dare they? My dad was like offended because of what you were just saying. Like, it's like they put us in a situation where we felt awkward, it was uncomfortable, it didn't seem right. It wasn't, according to us, according to our theology, you know, at the time. And that is, there's it's like you said, a spiritual abuse going on there to some level.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

And that young guy, he could have I think really one of two reactions is he feels guilty that you're saying like he doesn't feel anything happening. Now he's starting to question like, Am I responding to this the wrong way? Am I doing something wrong here? Or hopefully he recognizes that that's a place he needs to get out of. He needs to get out of that situation. Yeah, hopefully that's the direction he would go.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Right. Mario, had you ever seen this video before? No, not at not at all. Do we have any idea? When is this new, old? Do we have any concept? It's pretty new.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

It's pretty yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

That's

Final Takeaways And Find A Church

SPEAKER_00 19:10

crazy. It is crazy. What are your thoughts, Mario? I mean, my jaw was dropped. Totally. Totally. Um, I just felt like it was uh spiritual manipulation the whole time. 100%. Unfortunately, it happens everywhere. You know, this is just a prime example of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah. Well, thankfully, it doesn't happen everywhere. Right. Thanks be to God. Right. It's it's not happening at St. Anthony, uh, the great Orthodox Church. Thanks be to God. Um, yeah. Um, well, I don't know if you guys want to say anything else. I thought that was fascinating. And like I said, Mike, thank you for bringing it. And it was way worse than I am thought it would be. And I knew it was gonna be bad.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I mean, if your theology leads to something like that, like you have to reconsider. You have to rethink.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Thank you for saying that, Mike. I want to leave them with this. If anyone watching this right now, if you're at all, if maybe you don't know a lot about Christianity, maybe you're just curious about it, please understand what you saw in this video is not a representation of the historic practice of the church. Period. No questions about it. Um, and we would obviously encourage you come find an Orthodox church near you today. Thanks, you guys. Mike, thanks for being here. Mario, thank you so much. Thank you. God bless. We'll see you guys on the next one.