By David ReayWednesday 2 Mar 2022LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you— whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (NLT)
It is possible for followers of Jesus to live in a certain sort of echo chamber. They find a Bible teacher whose teaching appeals to them and soak up whatever he (usually a male!) says. They assess Christian doctrine as a whole against what this one person says.
It is not the same as mindless surrender to some fraudulent guru. The teacher or leader may well teach valuable truth. And it is only natural that we gravitate to certain speakers or writers or leaders. The problem arises when such teaching becomes our only source of input. When that teacher is invested with something approaching infallibility.
Paul reminds the Corinthians, who had a tendency to attach themselves to human personalities, that such attachments are dangerous. Ultimately, we belong to Jesus. And Jesus is pleased to work through various human beings to achieve his purposes. We may have our favourites or our preferences, but we dare not confine ourselves to such people.
We do not dwell in echo chambers where we only hear and read what we favour. We are willing and able to learn from different sources. We are willing to have our settled views challenged. We will not be too swayed by personalities, styles of expression, or peer group popularity. We are to be known as followers of Jesus, not adherents of one of his many earthly representatives.
Blessings,
David