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NASB | John 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 8:32 "And you will know the truth [regarding salvation], and the truth will set you free [from the penalty of sin]." |
Subject: Is truth relative? How do we know it? |
Bible Note: Dear Hank, Thanks for your responses, brother. I, too, love C.S. Lewis. 'Mere Christianity' is a staple in my library. 'The ScrewTape Letters' is excellent, too. That a Christian could have such insight into the diabolical mind shows us indeed where God has brought us from and how radical our translation from darkness to light truly is. My question, Hank, is not posed as a rally cry to eliminate denominations. Although, like you, I don't feel that their existance is the ideal, the fact of the matter is that they do. The fact of the matter is the we have to deal with them. And, I believe that in spite of all our man-made lines and boxes, God works His plan of salvation for any who will seek Him. I don't think that denominations pose a big barrier to Him for He looks on our hearts. My question is really centered in the fact that we DO have to search for God amongst this 'haystack' of man-made religion. And though God has no problem 'finding' us (PTL), we have many problems of knowing who to listen to. No denomination, no church, no pastor, and certainly no forum guide is going to say, "Listen to me. I will teach you false doctrine." Everyone believes they are right (even ME, beware :)). This puts a new believer in an awkward, sometimes overwhelming position. In another thread, I shared that, for me, the Word of God was my sole standard for knowing the truth. It is my plumbline. I was basically told that if that was my standard, then I could easily either start or fall prey to cultic beliefs. It was advanced to me that I need to be under a human teacher's teaching to know the absolute truth. While I realize that God does indeed work through the teachers, pastors, evangelists, elders, and other offices that He has given to the body of Christ, my question is how do you make the determination of who to listen to? If I cannot trust the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of God's Word to me when I am using correct interpreting techniques, and I must seek out a human teacher (for that is all the church offers at this point), how do I know who is teaching the truth? Or the truer truth? Any thoughts? (For the record, although God's Word is infallible, my interpretation of it is not. Therefore I will often check my interpretation up against what my pastor teaches, what other Christians think, what other men or women of God have written in commentaries and literature, and even, sometimes, what other forum members think. That's why we are here. So I do not exist or study in a closed vacuum. But my starting point is always trusting the Lord to illuminate His Word to me first. I feel that if God so 'dead' that He can no longer teach us from His own Word, we might as well close down this site and go play 'Solitaire.') In Christ, Bill Mc |