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Biblical Foundations
The Challenge of Discovering Truth
Introduction: From the time of Adam and Eve, truth has always been under attack. Satan introduced that challenge when he in essence told Eve that God lied to you; you will not surely die. From that time on, Satan and his allies (knowingly or unknowingly) have challenged absolute truth as revealed by God (Cf. John 8:44-45). During the Judges, scripture says that, “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Pilate summarized the culture when he said to Jesus, “What is truth?”
As much as any time in history truth is under attack.
Please approach this lesson differently than you might ordinarily. Though there may be some in this audience who are questioning how to discover truth or how to properly understand scripture, this lesson is not just to help with those questions, but to help you know how to help those you know or meet who have those questions.
Subjective and Objective Truth
Let’s begin by explaining why Pilate would say, “What is truth?” and why people in the days of the Judges “did what was right in their own eyes.” [Example of Satan with Eve or Egyptian magicians] When truths are repeatedly challenged by lies, and when those lies become the majority thinking and are accepted behavior within a culture, truth becomes so blurred in people’s minds that they begin to question even the obvious. Let’s illustrate:
Evaluate this statement: chocolate frozen custard ice cream with salted pecans is delicious. Is this statement true or false? Some of you are going to say it is true; some will say false. How can this statement be both true and false at the same time? It is because it is true for the subject, therefore subjective truth. Now with this kind of truth, none of us really cares one way or the other, do we? As long as I get my chocolate custard with salted pecans and you get whatever you want, we don’t care which is true.
What if I said, “Chocolate frozen custard ice cream with salted pecans cures diabetes.” Is that true or false? I don’t think any of you would have any trouble telling me that I am dead wrong about that. You might even get real passionate about it especially if you or a family member has diabetes. But why does this statement stir us up and the previous statement does not? It is because this statement is not about the subject; it is not about me. This statement is about the object – diabetes, and therefore it is an objective truth.
The problem we face today is that many treat biblical truths as ice cream instead of insulin. More and more are going to speak of Christianity or some Biblical subject as being true – for you, but not true for me. They are saying, “Don’t act as if your ice cream should be my ice cream! Let each person find their own ice cream that makes them feel best.”
This blurring of “truth” is what helps people believe that all religions lead to God. Every religion is true for the person practicing it and that is all that God requires. The question we should ask, “Do you have some inside information from God about this? Where did you get the idea that religion is like ice cream or that something He said is like a flavor?” As a matter of fact, there are at least 100 passages that say that no one can be saved without Jesus & without obedience to Jesus (Jn. 8:24; 2 Thes. 1:7-9). Now if you do not like that, take it up with Jesus. It is not my rule; it is not my heaven. Jesus deals in “insulin” truth, not ice cream flavors.
This has been the claim from the beginning. It is the reason so many Christians were persecuted and died for the cause. They didn’t die because they were preaching, “this is true for me.” (In the 1st century, Christians were called “atheists.” – thus, many gods, many truths)
Three Historical Methods for Discovering Truth
Gnosticism
“A revealed knowledge available only to those who have received the secret teachings of a heavenly revealer. All other humans are trapped in ignorance of the true divine world.” [Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.] This belief thrived in the 2nd – 5th centuries.
This is another form of “subjective authority” or “subjective truth.” This belief has been the origin of thousands of religious movements. It is based on some form of gnosticism, that is, private, subjective, knowledge. Ed Harrell states, “Modern “Gnosticism” is when private leadings and feelings give insights unattainable by observation and rational thinking.”
In the 19th and 20th centuries, there were numerous movements based on private revelation. And in the last 25 years there has been a strong emphasis on each individual receiving personal revelations. This private knowledge diminishes scripture and leads to confusion, extremism, and division.
Of course, it isn’t anything new. Paul condemned it in Colossians 2:18, “Let no one condemn you be delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind” (CSB).
“Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind” (NASB).
Apostolic Succession
This is the teaching that truths are established from the apostles through a historic succession of leaders or bishops.
Irenaeus of Lyons, in attempting to defeat gnosticism, taught that there were three pillars of orthodoxy: the scriptures, the tradition handed down from the apostles, and the teaching of the apostles’ successors.
This system is a means by which divergent teachings could be controlled without appealing to scripture alone. In discussions with leaders of the Catholic Church, you will find it impossible to prove a truth by scripture alone. If it is not found in scripture, the claim will be that apostolic succession and tradition of the church is equal to the revelation of scripture.
Gal. 1:8-9; Jude 3; Eph. 3:3-5 make it very plain that we are not to look for further revelations or teachings other than what has been revealed by the apostles and prophets.
Apostolic Doctrine. Acts 2:42, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching…”
Jesus foretold (John 16:12-13) and Paul confirmed (Eph. 2:20-22) that inspired revelation through the apostles and prophets is the exclusive basis for God’s revelation of the New Covenant.
Peter said, “I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Pet. 3:2).
Throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries, apostolic authorship was the primary test in establishing the NT canon.
Postmodern Thought Influences Churches of Christ
There have been strong attacks coming out of churches of Christ concerning the traditional way of reading scripture. These attacks have come from three main directions:
The idea of 1st century Christianity offering a pattern for churches and Christians in all generations. Instead, the NT should be studied only in the context of the 1st century culture and was not intended for all cultures. “Our traditional approaches to scripture have likewise been challenged at the grass roots level through a number of concerns, such as divorce, drugs, AIDS, homosexuality, and women’s rights… The intuition has been that older approaches to hermeneutics do not help in getting closer to God and each other, nor do they help us sort out puzzling questions in regard to family breakdowns, divorce, and woman’s roles. So in some manner, interpretation of the scripture must be repositioned so as to provide more help … The most widely accepted view among certain front runners in Dallas, Fort Worth, Abilene, Nashville, San Antonio, and Searcy is that the scripture is not a constitution or code book, as envisioned by the old hermeneutic, but is a love letter from God” (Thomas Olbricht, 1989 Christian Scholars Conference, Pepperdine University.)
Ridiculing the basis for establishing authority by “command, example, and necessary inference,” specifically making the claim that such an approach to scripture is an innovation of the Restoration movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. “The second challenge is that the traditional hermeneutic of command, example, and necessary inference is not found in the Old and New Testament, but is grounded in the human history of Reformed theology, Scottish Common Sense philosophy and logic, and the nineteenth century American culture. It is not ‘divine’ hermeneutic insulated from the ‘chaos’ of history. If the idea of restoration theology is to remain viable…what should the hermeneutic be? This is the most serious challenge facing the tradition today. A failure to address this question means that the tradition is now dead, having rejected its purpose and goals.” [Michael Casey, The Battle Over Hermeneutics in the Stone-Campbell Movement]
The Holy Spirit continues to lead his people through direct revelation.
Conclusion: In our next lesson we will examine the above claims. How does God want us to approach the study of his word? Is there a biblical, divine-instructed rule for determining authority in scripture?
Berry Kercheville