This week at church (http://www.thevillagechurch.net/) my pastor was preaching through the end of Luke 6, and in expounding on the "blind man leading a blind man leads to two blind men in a pit" part (vs 39 and on), he gave some ways to wade through all the conjecture out there in the book world in the search for truth. "Conjecture" being what people think, and "truth" being what God says in the Bible. Matt (Chandler, the pastor) talked about how there is a ton of error in christian literature when it is lined up with biblical truth. In a day when we have a wealth of reading opportunities, both in books and in what is written on the web as articles and blogs, we need to have a way to sniff out the wolves in sheep's clothing. A way to know false teaching that sounds beautiful from what is really true about God and our relationship with him. Here are some suggestions that Matt gave for thoughts during reading:
1) What do they do with the scriptures? Do they treat them as cold and dead (and theologians as evil men in ivory towers touting scriptures not applicable for today's world)? What do they say in regards to the purity of scripture (would they leave some out)?
2) Do they add anything to the cross? ie, to be saved you need the cross AND...
3) What do they believe about the essence of man? Are we good or bad in the deep heart of things?
4) What do they do with Jesus? Is he God in the flesh, the wrath-absorbing Son of God? or a good moral teacher?
To be able to put those questions to good use, we've got to know what the Bible does with them too. So not only should we be learning from authors of other literature, but we should be pupils of the Bible first, studying it to dig out the wealth of truth in which we line up everything else we hear.
1 comment:
good post friend. thanks for sharing.
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