Thursday 19 June 2008

Back To The Bible - Part 2

We live in a time of great confusion in religion. For a person looking for the truth about God there are a huge number of different churches, many teaching opposing doctrines. I have heard people being told, “Just go out and find a church that suits you”, and I guess there are so many out there that you could easily find one that could teach anything, any doctrine to suit your own personal preference. However, anyone who is really serious about God is not seeking to suit their preference, but God’s! Paul warns of just suiting ourselves when he writes in 2 Timothy 4:3-4,
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate teachers according to their own desires; and will turn away from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.”
We can see the danger here. We need to stay with “sound doctrine”, not with what is just pleasing to hear. Jesus taught the truth when He was here and He didn’t always teach pleasing things. He called people hypocrites, He called them liars, He called them snakes. He also drove people out of the temple and making a whip, drove their animals out as well. Jesus was not in the business of tickling peoples ears!

Where do we find “sound doctrine”? It is found in the Bible! We need to go back to the Bible, we need to go back to the word of God to fully understand what the will of God is. If people stayed with the Bible only how could the myriad of churches come into being? If we follow the Bible, and the Bible only, we will not be lead astray into error.

The apostle Paul commends the church in Thessalonica for their attitude to the Bible when he wrote, “And for this reason I also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which performs its work in you who believe.” 1 Thess 2:13We need to accept the Bible as the “word of God” and closely follow its teachings.

The Bible, the word of God, is complete and in it we will find all we need to serve God and be pleasing to Him. In 2 Tim 3:16-17 we read, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

The Bible is all we need. We do not need new revelation or the teachings of men, we just need to be like the noble Bereans who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).  Let us get back to the Bible!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm enjoying your articles. Keep up the good work!

Keith Thomson said...

Its a pleasure. Be sure to keep coming back to read the new posts Jamie. Have a great day.