19 Feb 2024
“We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statements of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2).
It is entirely understandable for sinners to think of themselves as wise, not by reason of divine teaching but through the independent exercise of their own judgment, and to try to justify their fancied wisdom by adjusting what the BIble teaches to what they have already imbibed from other sources. Thus the result of revising the faith to the current religious and philosophical opinions of men takes place.
The sad thing is that although we constantly do it, more or less, for sin is present with all of us, we may be largely unconscious of our lapses, and become aware of them only as we test ourselves by Scripture and ask God to search our minds and teach us to criticise our own thinking. This is a discipline that none may shirk; it should be exercised by all, the very young believers and those who are mature and ‘leaders’ and ‘teachers’ in the church as well.
This is perhaps one major lapse in the church today; we speculate revisions of the faith by the light of secular thoughts and equate them with the Word of God. No synthesis between the gospel and non-Christian systems is permissible. The gospel is complete in itself; to supplement it with extraneous ideas is not to enrich it, but to pervert it.
But as shared, we may not even be conscious of our lapses in the first place – we need to test ourselves by Scripture and ask God to help us to check our thinking and understanding.
But even when we become aware of the lapses, most Christians find it a “hassle” to check the teachings with the Scripture as the Bereans did and to correct them; we rather leave them alone and hope that things will correct themselves. And the devil is of course delighted. It is just like babies placed in the supermarkets with milk powder all around but the babies do not avail themselves of the ‘food’ because they are able to, as babies. But even if someone were to come in and ‘prepare’ the milk to feed the babies, they may not be willing to open their mouths and to consume the needed nutrition.Such also is the state of indifference among Christians in the church. What will happen to such babies, surrounded by ‘milk’ but not being fed. They will either be undernourished, stunted or in the worse scenario, die of starvation. Spiritually, we have Christians who remain babies all their lives; Christians who are undernourished and ‘stunted’ spiritually; or even Christians dying spiritually in the midst of plenty (‘spiritual food’). Such believers may look at others who are growing spiritually and think that they are ‘special’ Christians, when in fact, they are just ordinary Christians who hearken to the exhortation of Scripture to ‘long for the spiritual milk and to partake and grow’.
If we say we love God and His Word – do remember that the opposite of ‘love’ is not always ‘hate’; it is ‘indifference’ !! (to God and His truth!) And this may be the undoing of believers and the church. Please receive this from a heart that is very burdened and concerned for God’s people; it is not meant as criticism – it is shared by a member of the body of Christ whose ‘eyes’ have been graciously opened by the Lord God.