practicalbibleteaching
Advanced Member
Member # 7755
|
posted
John 18:33-38
Absolute truth can only come from someone who has absolute knowledge, absolute wisdom, and absolute understanding. Those things give that person absolute authority concerning what the truth is. We live in a world of artificial authority where people take authority upon themselves or they have it given to them by others. They then proclaim things to be the truth. Pilate the Roman governor of Judea was a smart man. He knew that in the world truth was relative, it depended on who you happened to be talking to. You can see it in his final response to Jesus in our text, where he said, "what is truth?"
Sadly it is no different within Christianity. You could talk to 10 preachers and get 10 versions of what the truth is on any given subject. All of them might say they were proclaiming the truth of God, but at least 9 and possibly all 10 of them would be wrong. All of us would agree absolute truth can only come from God. That's a truth of the greatest importance. Many however, have received what they hold to be truth from an artificial authority. By that I mean from men rather than from God. Listen to this very important passage from Matt 16:13-17 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. We must ask ourselves an important question, the things we hold to be important spiritual truths, where did we receive them from? Did we receive them from the mouths of men or through enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God? Artificial authority seems to be the choice of most people as a source of truth. They would much rather hang their hopes on the words of men than on the Word of God. Just because a man stands in the pulpit and says with conviction, "I am preaching to you the Word of God" does not make it so. Consider the people spoken of in Acts 17:10-11 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. We need to be more like the people of Berea. Some would say we have Godly teachers we can learn from and that would be true, but even the best man is wrong about something. Paul wrote in Romans 3:4 ...let God be true, but every man a liar. Having Godly teachers does not relieve us from the responsibility of being taught the truth of God by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
--------------------
The Church of Jesus Christ is perfect for those who are not!
Posts: 53 | From: Tennessee | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
