Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth – 2 Timothy 2:15

Christians are required to handle the Bible with care. No, I don’t mean the physical Bible—you already have pages marked up, stained by coffee or torn—but the words found in it. I know that this is so because in Paul’s second epistle to Timothy he talks about workers who are approved and disapproved by God.

These are serious words by the apostle Paul that the Christian must understand—relying on a pastor, preacher or theologian to help you exclusive of your own reading and understanding of the Bible is dangerous. That’s how cults form, where churches begin to err, where believers stray.

I have been through my own toils and snares as a believer. When I was 18 I got “saved” and was soon pulled into a “fellowship” that turned out to be a cult. Unlike some cults, this one used the Bible to lure people in and ravage their souls. Thankfully, I got out nine months later but then I plunged into darkness for more than seven years.

The specter of that cult haunted me for years; even today I shudder at what I “learned” while there.

Upon returning to the Lord, I was ignorant or at least I held some common misconceptions about God’s love, grace and truth that took several years to work through. During that time I was caught up in legalistic teaching before gradually weaning myself away from that heavy burden.

It was when I began to study God’s word on my own—in the early 1990s—that I began to fully understand and appreciate who God is and what He thinks about me: love. I don’t always read through the Bible in a year every year as some people do, but this year I set out to step up my studying in order to hear more clearly what God has for me.

As we’ve heard the preacher say, “When you want to speak to God you pray. When you want to hear from God, you read the Bible.” Sure, we’ve heard God’s inaudible voice through others and probably have heard Him speak to our hearts about something or someone. But, the Bible assures us that what we believe is right as we test our beliefs against it.

A pair of Mormons recently showed up at our doors and my wife and I began to talk with them. As usual, they were nice but I must tell you that being nice isn’t enough to get anyone into heaven. When I pressed them about their Book of Mormon being “another testament of Jesus Christ,” one answered, “I know that this is true, because of the feeling I get inside me about the book.”

Feelings betray us and this man and his friend are deceived. Not in anger, but in truth, I said that what they believed was false and that by basing their lives on this falsehood they were on their way to hell. Soon thereafter the conversation ended…I wonder why?!

Seriously, believing something is so just because grandma told you that it was or your preacher said so isn’t enough. Like the Bereans, we need to be noble Christians and search the Scriptures to see if these things we’re being told are true – Acts 17:11

To do anything less is a travesty, something that could separate us eternally from God.

See Also — The Berean Call

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