Who Is Your Ultimate Source Of Truth?
- Jeff Dornik
- Jan 5, 2022
- 3 min read
I’m reminded of the period within Church history leading up to the Reformation. One issue Martin Luther confronted within the Roman Catholic Church was the use of Latin Scriptures, which was intended to keep the Bible out of the hands of the laypeople. This allowed the priests to control the theology of their congregations, which also led to rampant spiritual abuse, including the use of indulgences to profit off of their unsuspecting flock.
However, they were able to get away with it because there were no checks and balances. It was impossible for the untrained congregation to expose the false teaching of their priest since they couldn’t even read the Bible, let alone explain what it meant. Thus, there was no way for them to verify that what their priest was telling that was accurate.
We live in a day and age where the Bible is more readily available with access to theological references to research virtually any topic we like. However, much of the same strategy is being employed in order to allow the Evangelical Elite to go unchecked from the pulpit. Here’s how they’ll avoid being challenged:
They’ll rely on seminary degrees and their ability to read the original Greek and Hebrew. If someone without an educational background challenges them, they will simply point out the challenger’s lack of education in an attempt to discredit without refuting the argument. Surprisingly, this tactic works very well.
They’ll turn to the amount of time in faithful ministry as their claim to superiority. Since everyone would agree that the number of years in ministry has no bearing on whether something is true, this argumentation makes no logical sense.
If the critique continues, they’ll turn to accusing the challenger of not submitting to pastors or elders.
I find it interesting that none of these responses are actually Biblical. The Evangelical Elite want the masses to simply believe them because of who they are. This is an elitist power trip reminiscent to the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, as well as with the Pharisees during Jesus’ earthly ministry. In both of these instances, the religious leadership of their day would ensure they were the ultimate arbiters of truth. If they were challenged, it was swiftly shut down. The same can be said for the Evangelical Elite today.
In Scripture, however, Jesus and the Apostles did not have this mentality. Think about it; in Acts 17, the Apostle Paul preached to the Jews in Berea. Did the Bereans take what he said at face value? Absolutely not! Luke wrote that “these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
So the Bereans were commended not just for taking Paul’s word as truth, but by going back to the Word of God to confirm that it lined up with Scripture. If it didn’t, they would have rejected the teaching. We are talking about the Apostle Paul, a man who wrote the majority of the New Testament and is widely responsible for spreading the Gospel to the Gentiles, and yet the Bereans challenged even him! We should follow their example.
Instead of being like the Bereans, the modern-day church is simply following a single pastor’s teaching. When this occurs, people hear what their favorite pastor says, believe it and then attempt to find verses to confirm a theological perspective. Essentially, a confirmation of their bias.
Instead, we should take what we hear in a sermon, use that as a springboard for our own study and then ensure it lines up with God’s Word. While virtually all Christians give lip-service to the Bible being the ultimate source of truth, we treat our favorite pastors or theologians as that ultimate source.
This article is an excerpt of the book Church & State: How the Left Used the Church to Conquer America, which brought together authors Pastor Greg Locke, Dr Michael Brown, Denise McAllister, Pastor Cary Gordon, Jeff Dornik, JD Rucker, Pastor Ken Peters, Dr Robert Oscar Lopez, Dr Mike Spaulding, Pastor Sam Jones and Dustin Faulkner. This team of authors exposes the strategy employed to overthrow America through the infiltration of the Evangelical Church. Order your copy today!
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