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The search for truth

In my younger days, I read an article written by a Bible teacher that was critical of another denominational leader whose teaching differed from his own. I recall how he sneered at his opponent for adopting certain teachings from one group and other teachings from another group, putting them all together and coming up with his own unique blend of teachings.

The supposed “solution” was to pick a mainstream denomination and adopt their entire viewpoint. Though I was quite young at the time, this seemed strange to me. Even then I could see that every group had truth that everyone ought to adopt, even if one disagreed with some of their other teachings.

Perhaps it was just that I was raised in a denomination that did not teach it was the “true church” and that its formal creed contained “all truth.” Looking back on it, this was one thing that I appreciated about the denomination that I grew up in. They acknowledged that they were not the custodians of all truth and that other groups may know some truths that “we” did not accept.

Beware of any group that considers itself to be the “true church.” This assertion is usually accompanied by restrictions in reading what other groups may have to say. Sometimes they have a list of banned books or banned authors. Sometimes one has to get permission from a bishop to read a book written by someone outside of the denomination.

In all of my education, both spiritual and secular, I doubt that I have ever read a book that I agreed with entirely. Nonetheless, they contained many great truths and information that was necessary for me to know. Learning to discern truth even in the midst of error is part of our education. Examining the premises and foundations of another man’s conclusion is essential in learning how to think and discern.

Unless, of course, one is content to adopt what other men say. In fact, when some people claim to be searching for truth, it is often the case that they are searching for validation of what they already believe. They have no intention of actually learning something that contradicts their current view. The result is that they never truly grow, because they never really learn anything new. Their lives are seldom changed. Their views remain the same year after year.

It has been said that some people stumble across the truth, and they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and proceed as if nothing happened.

I can testify that I have learned things year after year that have altered my understanding. Each new truth then must be integrated into the whole, because each truth modifies every other truth. Back in the 1970’s, after studying diligently many new things, I finally came to the conclusion that I had learned everything worth knowing. Then God confronted me with something entirely new and it took me a year to study it thoroughly.

Ah, at last, now I know everything worth knowing! Well, not so fast. God then put another issue in my path, and it took another year of study to search it out. Then it happened again, and soon I discovered that I really knew nothing at all. In the early 1980’s, I reached a new phase in which I found myself to be a complete novice—the art of intercession and spiritual warfare.

It took another ten years of intense training—along with many mistakes and failures along the way—to bring me to the point where I could establish a ministry according to my particular calling. I have written about a few of these failures, because I know that even these are helpful to true seekers of truth. Unfortunately, I have had to do so somewhat sparingly, because my enemies and opponents will invariably use my confessions as a club against me.

I learned the hard way never to confess my sins, mistakes, and failures to an enemy. Complete transparency is not always wise. They tend to interpret such things according to their own context and use them to prove their own superiority.

In the end, I have seen that most “wrong” views are really just incomplete (partial) or have been misapplied in some way. For example, the rapture doctrine teaches about the second coming of Christ, but it has been separated from any understanding of the feast of Tabernacles. The belief in “the Great Tribulation” has been taught with little understanding of actual history, so men think it is yet future.

The belief in an Antichrist is seldom connected to its main Old Testament type and shadow when Absalom usurped the throne of David. The regathering of the house of Israel is applied to the Jews (house of Judah), and so men confound the terms Jew and Israelite. Most Christians have not even understood the term Hebrew and do not know why the book of Hebrews is not a book of Jews or a book of Israelites.

The point is that everyone knows some truth, but their understanding of truth is partial and therefore distorted to some extent. As my youngest son once said when he was a child, “I need more splain.”

Over the years, I have not focused on trying to debunk various teachings but rather to give people more “splain” so that have a less distorted understanding of their own beliefs. Instead of telling them, “There is no such thing as a rapture,” I shift their focus to the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles which prophesies of the second coming of Christ.

If a Christian claims to be under the New Covenant, I can teach him the core difference between the two covenants. If a Christian claims to be “saved,” I can teach him about the 3 salvations, justification for the spirit, sanctification for the soul, and glorification for the body. If a Pentecostal is disillusioned after discovering that he is not yet perfected in spite of the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, I can teach him about the main Old Testament Pentecostal—King Saul.

I do not want the gift of criticism. That gift is often used in spite of the fact that Paul omitted it in his recommendations. If we teach these things with the view of being of help to people, rather than trying to convert them to our own doctrinal position, we can actually be of help. Not everyone will be grateful, of course, but those who truly desire the truth will find enlightenment. Success is often bound up in a simple principle: Find out what they want to know, and then help them get it.