Home  Articles  Site map

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires" (2Ti.4:3). All through church history, there have been many types of wrong teachings that turned people away from the narrow path of God that leads to life. Writing in the early days Jude felt a strong need to warn the church to stick with the faith that had been handed down to them (Ju.3). 'The faith' here refers to the doctrines that were given to the church that set the framework for the personal faith of individuals. Some people imagine that as long as they have their own faith, they can leave doctrines to experts. But we need to know the right doctrines so that our lives can go in the right direction (Ps.119:105).

As the world goes openly downwards in sin, and we see it creeping into the churches increasingly, one way to safeguard ourselves is to stick to the teachings that have been accepted and followed by godly people in the universal church through the centuries. These people have sought to live their lives for God, following the path they saw in the word of God. For this, they depended on the guidance of the Holy Spirit who had originally inspired the authors of the Bible to write down what God gave them. We realise there are small differences in the understanding of all these people, but it is not difficult to see that they all agreed on the major and significant aspects of the ways of God. Such people can be discovered if we look for them.

We can also see that there are many others who mostly use their intellectual strength to interpret the Bible. We must keep in mind that mere intelligence cannot comprehend the things of God (1Co.2:14). The more people lean on their own understanding, the farther they will go from the kingdom of God (Pr.3:5). What we ought to look for when we come across the teachings of different people is 1) if it has served to make them more like Jesus in character, and 2) if following it will lead us towards a truly godly life (1Ti.6:3). If we look around, we can see that simple people who sought after greater godliness of life have received greater understanding of God than what highly esteemed scholars have achieved. We can even see Bible scholars bringing out new and strange teachings that may be impressive but which have no use to lead people towards godliness.

"Thus says the LORD, 'Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, "We will not walk in it"'" (Je.8:16). Ways of godliness have not changed with time and godly people have all taught them. But theological concepts have seen many changes, and scholars who want to be in the front line of their profession keep up with the times. Our safety is to stay with the proven paths and keep our eyes fixed on walking closer to Jesus daily (Pr.22:28).

Tweet