Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: We covered these same verses in our last lesson, but they have some complexity and merit additional examination: Paul tells the Thessalonian church — and us — to test everything against the Gospel. Although “everything” indicates a broad application, and the teaching may be extended to many areas of life, he specifically intends that they examine the truth of prophesy and utterances of the Spirit. His immediate concern was false doctrine. Then, now, and for the entire history of Christianity, there have been teachers who make false statements about God and Christ. This passage tells us how to separate those we should believe from those we should reject: test it against the Gospel, i.e., the New Testament. Paul writing to Philippi Paul in Rome The passage from Ephesians, written later in his career, speaks directly to how we should examine and weigh statements of Christian doctrine: teachers, sermons, Bible commentary, books, radio and t.v. evangelism, etc. (Not to mention, Scriptural Notes on Daily Prayer!) In Ephesians 4:13-14, Paul shows the difference between a “mature” Christian, who knows what the Bible says and sticks to it, and a spiritual child, whose understanding and faith is subject to constant change based on two factors: First, events in one’s life, and second, what one might hear or read, that makes any sort of claim about Christianity. And this second part includes the thoughts and opinions that one holds in one’s own mind, for often the worst enemy of our faith is a belief that we cherish. I constantly have communication, in person and by email, with people who will argue an idea that they have in their head is correct, no matter how many Bible passages I cite to them to the contrary and no matter how clear those passages are. People simply do not want to hear what they don’t want to believe. The growing Christian will hear them and conform himself to God; those whose faith is dying, however, will conform the Bible to themselves. They will jump through hoops to misread it or — if their faith is so dead that their own mind has become their god — simply say, “I don’t agree.” It is symptomatic of a society in which one’s self-fulfillment is considered the paramount goal, that people believe their opinion matters. God is not impressed by our opinions. Monkey feeding a bird, from an illuminated Bible Nobody gets the Bible perfectly correct; there is no person who is fully transparent to God’s Word. Christ Himself taught us this: “Do not be called ‘teacher’, for you are brothers and you have only one teacher.” (Matthew 23:8) But we must try. When Paul tells us to test everything against the Gospel, we must take it to mean that if a statement about Christianity cannot be found from a fair and clear reading in the Bible, we must reject it. And whatever is taken from a fair and clear reading of the Bible we must accept. To reject the Bible is to reject Christ; and, using Paul’s exact word — which is identical in English and Greek — both the statement and the person stating it are “anathema.” Cursed. This is one step from saying “damned to hell,” but does not foreclose the possibility of repentance and forgiveness. And it you doubt this is true — test it against the Scripture! A Christian must read and know the Bible, in depth; otherwise, every time we hear something, we are forced to scramble through page after page trying to find statements pro and con something we have heard, or read, or thought. It is a very long and rather dense book, even if one only considers the New Testament. But a Christian who does not learn the Bible — a constant and ongoing process — is at the mercy of other peoples’ opinions and the rationalizations of their own mind.