Learning to Discern#4. “Red herrings.”

Learning to Discern#4. “Red herrings.”

I remember an old preacher saying, “A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer.” I’m not sure that I am anywhere near being the wise man, but I have been that fool.

As Jacob desperately wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, I have desperately wrestled with the contents of the Bible. As I daily grapple with the text, it ever draws me into the struggle to try to fully understand the twists and turns of God’s interaction with man. Its depth is truly profound.

If the Bible has not transformed you, you haven’t read it. Individuals who take it seriously are changed; never to be the same again. It makes the confused into useful servants and the wayward into beacons of hope.

So, it sits as a strange irony that generations of believers can issue forth children who dismiss the Bible as irrelevant and destructive. Amazingly, the Bible that brought unity and prosperity, is being held up as a hindrance to “societal goodness.” How can this be?

It is too easy allow the rants of the unbelieving to divert attention away from that which is most important—the preaching of the Gospel.

The work of God has been put into our hands. We, the body of Christ, strive to embody the character and teachings of our Head, Christ. The whole Bible is fulfilled in this Kingdom experience—the church. We are that light set on a hill.

When we allow our preaching of the Gospel to be hijacked by anything other than death, we are chasing red herrings. There has always been, and there will always be, unbelievers, authorities and even church members, attempting to make the church after their own image.

To avoid being caught up in destructive arguments is to first learn to discern their origin—Satan himself! To keep us from the source of that discernment, Satan skilfully lulls the mind into a stupor.

That is why we daily grab up the Word of God and go to the fight.

John Staiger

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