"Facts are facts" part 2

 

Spiritual truth takes on context and meaning when we're in a relationship with the source of all truth. Truth without Çhrist  quickly spirals into deception.  Yea, hath God said? 

We may honor a man who had a real experience and relationship with God. We may learn from him butvwe must not limit our theology to whatever God has revealed to another man or woman 150 years ago or yesterday.  Wherefore i will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things (remember the truth you've been taught that was revealed in times past) though ye know them, and be established in the present truth - know and hear and accept the truth the Holy Spirit is currently revealing to the Body of Christ at large, as well as to your own heart, personally.  Remember: truth is revealed to us line upon line, precept upon precept,  here a little, there a little.  We cannot understand nor digest as babies truths we learn as adults.

If we cling to teachings from a man who died hundreds of years ago we will miss what the Holy Spirit is teaching today. That man or woman's teachings may have been "present truth" a hundred years ago but since then the pillar of fire and cloud has moved on, far beyond, what they taught. The Holy Spirit leads us deeper, ever deeer into Christ,  if we're willing to follow.

An added danger of basing our theology on one man's teachings,  alive or dead, is that if that man has error in his doctrines,  we will swallow it along with the truths - for most who choose to submit to and follow men are immature and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness for he is a babe. But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses excercised to discern both good and evil. 

Men who excercise their spiritual senses, hearing and seeing and tasting, through ongoing, uninterrupted fellowship with the Holy Spirit,  can discern between truth and falsehoods,  false doctrines.  They are eating from the tree of life, not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil- for often what men call "good", God calls evil and what men call "evil" God calls good.

If we allow him to, the Holy Spirit will personally feed us truth, line upon line, till we steadily mature, increasing in knowledge and wisdom,  till we arrive at spiritual adulthood and we can understand and digest "strong meat". The knowledge and understanding an adult has is far beyond what he knew as an infant. Yet many denominations camp around the teachings of men dead for centuries- Martin Luther, John Wesley, Calvin etc. They even name themselves after men, declaring themselves to be a man's disciples (Lutherans, Calvanists, etc.) They more identity with a man, with the denomination built upon that man, than they do with Christ! They remain fixated on whatever that man taught,  truth or not (in his latter years, Luther taught much error, for example). They build Bible colleges and Universities to disseminate a dead man's understanding of scripture because they themselves are not willing to press in close enough to God to hear him for themselves. They never let the Holy Spirit become their personal teacher and guide, choosing instead to be fed by men and in so doing they remain spiritual infants- drinking spiritual milk, for what was meat hundreds of years ago is milk today. 

Part three soon