A key attitude of the early followers of Christ, particularly his apostles was their high regard for the teachings of Christ. Many of them spent years devoting themselves to the teaching of Christ and ensuring the churches remained faithful to it amidst new ways of thinking that were springing up. Paul, Peter and Jude, to name just a few often warned the brethren against false teachers and their false doctrines. It’s easy to read their warnings and think, what was the big deal about it but the truth of the matter is that they knew how easy it was to detract people from the truth simply by slightly twisting it or omitting parts of it. After all, that was Satan’s old trick from the Garden, “you will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Good teaching and sound doctrine were important for the disciples that is why they prioritized the word of God, not neglecting it so that the church could grow in maturity and godliness. This high regard for sound doctrine should still be our goal today; the word of God must still have the final authority in our lives and we must eradicate from our midst anything or anyone for that matter that does not submit to the authority of scripture. As Peter warns, we must be on our guard so we may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from our secure position (2 Peter 3:17). With the plethora “winds of doctrine” in our society, it is highly important that we who are followers of Christ be ever grounded in the Word. My goal in today’s post is to remind us of the importance of remaining in the word of God.
It often baffles me to see how consistency shapes our habits and by extension who we are. It is also intriguing to see how repetition does the same. In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear tells us that what transforms us are in fact small changes done repetitively that end up amounting to much: remarkable results. He calls those atomic habits. His point is that the more you do a small task steadily, diligently the more you are transformed and it becomes part of who you are. To apply this same principle to the context of faith and doctrine, the more consistent you are in the word of God (hearing, meditating, praying) the more transformed in His image you become. Similarly, the more consistent you are in believing false doctrines, the more you become like the world, that is a friend of the world but an enemy of God (James 4:4). Paul and his companions knew how destructive it was to follow a false teaching because it often led to disobedience which always had devastating consequences. Take for example the case of Jeroboam, first king of the northern kingdom of Israel who led the Israelites into disobeying the Lord and sinning by changing the ways and practices the Lord had put in place for worship all because of his selfish desire to remain king (1 Kings 12:25-33). He started by changing the place of worship, instead of Jerusalem, it was in the cities of Bethel and Dan. Moreover, he instituted a festival similar to that which had been instituted by the Lord and held in Judah to be followed by the northern kingdom. He essentially changed the ways and customs of the northern kingdom just so they would be different from the southern kingdom (Judah) and in so doing he caused the people to sin gravely against the Lord. My point in bringing this story is to show how easy it is to change the course and belief system of an entire nation by changing what they knew as truth and giving them a lie. The younger and new generation of the northern kingdom would grow on this falsehood and consider their ways of worship truth. Yet, this was heinous to the Lord of Israel, it was pure idolatry. The apostles saw the danger from afar and fought very hard to not let believers partake in any form of lie, whether it was by believing false teachers or tolerating their false teachings. Anything that did not look like what the word of God said, they called it as false and strongly urged against it. Peter called such false teachers “men of lawlessness” or “unprincipled” as the ESV puts it which means they have no regard or respect for the Most High. This struck a chord with me this morning because I often think about the fact that a false teacher or a false doctrine is simply opposed to God but not much about the fact that it is an insult to His majesty and is a disrespect to His person. When God is put at the centre we are able to see just how pernicious and grave the lie is to Him. It’s as though we get to put God on the pedestal He should be on and realize that anything that does not honour Him is sin and should not be welcomed. Our God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). He is not a liar and there is no lie in Him. He is the truth. The smallest of lies is not acceptable to Him. Deception is not acceptable to Him. Hypocrisy is not acceptable to Him. Confusion is not acceptable to Him. Distortion is not acceptable to Him. Slander is not acceptable to Him. Bondage is not acceptable to Him. Sadly, these are all characteristics that are found with people who believe and live a lie. Peter also uses the example of Balaam a wicked prophet who “loved the wages of wickedness”. For the sake of money, Balaam advised Balak to entice the people of Israel to bring a curse upon themselves by committing idolatry seeing that he could not curse them himself for God had favoured Israel. This is inferred from Jesus’ speech to the church in Pergamum (Revelation 2:14). Indeed, Peter makes it clear that the Lord is just, He is righteous and He will not let such sin go unpunished. In fact, a judgement day is already established and it is coming but in the meantime, the Lord is being patient so that many will repent of their sins and receive salvation. For those that are already in Christ, that is, those that have believed in the righteousness of Christ and in his sacrifice on their behalf the expectation is to live without reproach and “make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with the Lord” (2 Peter 3:14). This is no easy task and it does begin by ensuring we get our doctrine right. The word of God cannot lose its authority in our lives. The teachings of Christ must still be relevant to us today. We cannot afford to believe the lie that our ways are better, that we know more than the people in Jesus’ time. We cannot fall into the trap that says we are smarter than our forefathers because of our technological advancement and our breakthroughs in medicine and science. The reality is that the human condition is still the same. The sin of Adam still runs through all of humanity and that is still speaking in our blood today (Romans 5:12). The only way to be freed from the sin of Adam is to be under the “rulership” of Jesus Christ, the better Adam who through his sacrifice on the cross exchanged our sinful DNA to his glorious righteousness so that we are now new creatures. Adam’s sin no longer has the power it had, we are no longer under its curse, we are now given the power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. We are changed and our desires are now for the kingdom of God. We are now heavenly minded, seeking things from above (Colossians 3:1) and aspiring to grow in those. We can only go as far as our love for the word leads us.
Therefore, let us make every effort to remain faithful to the teachings of Christ, growing in godliness, forsaking our flesh more and not cheapening the work of Christ on the cross. Let us strive to embrace the whole counsel of God, not just parts we agree with or parts that are pleasing to our ears. May the Lord grants us to stand on His word ever so firmly. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 