By David ReayWednesday 12 Jun 2013LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read 1 Corinthians 14:20
Brothers and sisters,stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants,but in your thinking be adults. (NIV)
We may sometimes wonder why on earth so many people seem to be victims of scams. Taken in by blatantly deceptive offers,sucked in to believing in wildly impossible conspiracies. Christians are not immune from such gullibility. Some of them hunger after such conspiracies,passing on internet rumours as fact,spreading alarmist material that has little or no foundation. They naively bear false witness.
Or they can swallow up each and every word from whoever happens to be the ‘flavour of the month’ on the conference speaker circuit. That particular guru has insights that no one has ever had before. Somehow God has kept it secret till now.
This is both sad gullibility and potentially dangerous deception. It comes from not heeding the counsel of Paul in this text. True,we are to be childlike in faith-but never childish. We are to carefully evaluate what we hear and see,weighing it against the Word of God and also against what godly Christians are teaching. We are not to be swept along by rumours,conspiracies,faddish teaching by magnetic personalities.
Christian faith is neither naïve nor gullible. It is adult and reasonable and discerning. Believing everything we hear assumes all that we hear is trustworthy. The Spirit of God is not the only voice out there whispering in our ear. Deception as well as truth is abroad. It takes grown-ups who stay close to God to discern the difference.
Blessings
David Reay