The Relationship between Truth and Unity

It’s so hard to comprehend some things about Christianity, especially when so many people follow the same book, yet have such different beliefs. Naturally, in order to explain these differences, we each come up with our own explanation. The most prevalent of these appears to be “it’s a matter of interpretation.” 

Whether you feel that everyone who wears the name of Christ is correct in their differing doctrines as long as they truly try, or whether you feel that everyone interprets the Word differently yet only one interpretation is correct (ironically, it’s probably the interpretation you follow), I hope to lay both of these points of view to rest in this post. 

First, allow me to present you with a set of guidelines (taken from the Bible; we will discuss each of them in the future) that we must have when attempting to follow the Bible.

1. Search for the truth in everything. It’s not about following the Bible; it’s about truth. If you can’t prove that the Bible is true, at least to the extent in which you are pleased with your conclusion, then you really have no logical reason to follow it to begin with. Simply put, if you don’t believe it’s true, why follow it?

2. If you believe that the Bible is the truth, as I do, then we must follow the Bible first. All opinions and reading “between the lines” comes second. That’s not to say that they don’t matter, they’re just not intended to be the primary basis for anything that we believe.

Or maybe…opinions never, depending on the topic.

3. If God says something is good, whether directly or through divinely inspired writers, we definitely need to do it. If He says something is bad, we definitely don’t need to do it. Pretty simple.

4. If God doesn’t mention it, we are never to put words in His mouth. As Christians, we are expected to try our absolute best to follow Him in the way He wants us to (as best as we can determine in our limited wisdom) and live our lives based on the principles and commands we see in the Bible.

5. If something we do causes another Christian to think we’re sinning, we should go to the Bible first. If what we are doing is scripturally correct (i.e. the Bible condones or commands it), then we should take the opportunity to teach the other person. If the Bible directly says “do this” or “don’t do this,” we have no choice except to follow it. However, we should be willing to change whatever we can for the sake of unity. 

Even if it means never eating meat again. 

If something isn’t specifically denoted as being wrong in and of itself and also isn’t a command or unquestionable implication, but it still bothers a fellow Christian, we’ve got to ask ourselves who we’re putting first if we continue in our practices. If it bothers his or her conscience, to them…what we are doing is sin. (Rom. 4:21-23)

6. Christianity is radical in 2014. In its day, it was groundbreaking. God came to Earth to deliver His word? Wow. The belief in a monotheistic God that would come to Earth and die without a fight in order to save people’s souls, well, that was definitely new. Even though modern culture has taken many of the things condemned as sin in the Bible and removed most of the physical consequences (birth control, for example, makes pre-marital relations much easier to get away with), sin is sin, which is still…you guessed it: sin. 

No matter how you package poop, it’s still poop.

            Let’s finish this post off by discussing point #1, because I don't like just leaving you with a list of "we'll talk about this later." 

So, point #1: We must search for the truth in everything. Why? 

2 reasons. 

1. God expects us to. (Note the word “evidence” in Heb. 11:1-4)

Wait, really?

When Thomas doubted Christ, He wanted Thomas to see the proof (John 20:24-29). In John 8:32, Jesus says that his words are the truth. In chapter 9, He performs a miracle. Then, when the Jews attempt to stone Him in chapter 10:22-39, he references back to His works (including his miracles) as proof that He was indeed the Son of God. 

He never expected them to trust Him on blind faith. 

In other words, Jesus didn’t make any claims that He couldn’t back up. In John 14:1-11, in order to comfort his disciples, Jesus tells them that even if nothing else proves his validity, his works will. He claims to be “the way, the truth, and the life” and then tells Philip that if His being all that isn’t enough, he can find belief “on account of the works themselves.” 

Christ wanted the apostles to find comfort, strength, and faith in the proof that they had of His divinity. 

Why would he expect any less from us? 

This fits right along with our nature, as it is in man’s nature to doubt. This is our second reason that we must search for the truth.

2. We need proof in order to truly believe in anything. We naturally want to know "why?" 

If we blindly accepted everything that we assumed, even if it had it basis in a few facts that seemed to fit together, the world would never make sense. For example, most people will gingerly take a sip of coffee to make sure that it’s cool enough to drink, even if it’s been sitting on the table for 20 minutes, if the glass is still warm.  

We naturally want to make sure that the way that we do things is, in fact, the best way and the Bible is no exception. We must search to find whether the Bible is factually the truth. 

The Bereans in Acts 17:11 searched the scriptures to make sure that Jesus’ story lined up with the scriptures and were commended for it. We should go out of our way to find and follow the truth, and nothing else. 

In other words, we should be skeptics.

Yikes. That “skeptic” word.

Being a skeptic has received a bad reputation, especially in the realm of religion, because many people have confused skepticism with cynicism, but the two are actually quite different.

Being skeptical is just the act of questioning everything you’re told in order to determine its validity. Being cynical, however, is pessimistically viewing everything as being untrue. 

So, be a skeptic. For one, God expects it. He has set things up so that, when we ask "why?", we can find the answers. Secondly, it is in our nature. God created us that way. Let's all search the scriptures directly by reading God’s word daily and also indirectly by viewing other sources of information that can shed light on the validity of the scriptures  “to see if these things were so.”

Note: Be careful. We are NOT trying to prove or disprove our religion, as so many that “search for the truth” unintentionally attempt to do, both in the religious world and in the non-religious world. That’s confirmation bias (Google it). We are simply trying to find the objective truth of the matter. It is so easy to take one side of a discussion without viewing the other side of the discussion and become like the person in 1 Cor. 2:14. So many today can’t accept God’s word because they focus on the physical, the natural, aspect of truth without also considering the spiritual aspect. Let’s take great pains to ensure that we do not make a similar error.