Ephesians 4:11-16 says: “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

This gives the formula for how the gospel and the will of God is taught to the world today. We must attempt to teach others out of a spirit of love, with no other agenda than to bring them to an understanding of the truth and our leaders in the church and in the pages of the word itself must bring us to a maturity in Christ that keeps us from being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but learn to speak and keep the truth in love. If we can avoid those false teachers that seek to twist and bend the truth to their own ends through “cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting” attuning our ears to the gospel and the word of God itself we can grow up in to all things into Christ and be what God would have us be.

This means that we must come to an understanding of what the bible teaches in our own right and not just be led by what the preacher or others teach. They could be wrong and if we will not make the effort to learn the truth ourselves we cannot come to the full and devout faith that is necessary in the child of God. We will not grow into Christ as we should.

We must not be pulled along by what others say is the truth, but grasp it fully and completely ourselves. We must not be led only by others, as we cannot see their motives and though they may be pure, they may also be rooted in the deceitful plotting that Paul speaks of here. When others seek to teach us the truth we must examine it for ourselves and write it on our hearts, so to speak.  That is the only way to come to the fullness and faith that is in Christ.

Some time ago, someone made a comment on my blog that I needed some focus in what I am trying to present and that I should not be carried away by every wind of doctrine. That is not what I am doing here and I assume the one who made the comment did not mean that my  motives were nefarious, since I think instead they were taking it out of context and trying to make it mean something it didn’t.

I try to stick to the scriptures in this blog and no matter how diverse my subject matter seems to be at times, the focus is on the word of God and the uncountable lessons that may be learned therein with the desire to show what I believe it takes to be pleasing to God and to serve Him. This has come from years of study and sermon listening, but I have barely scratched the surface of what may be learned in the pages of God’s word and can and do spend a life time exploring these things.

My hope is that through reading these short posts, someone else may become interested in the truth and will study it more thoroughly for themselves and come to an understanding of it and shape their lives by it as God would have us do. The person who made the comment and misquoted the passage above was perhaps guilty of what many are today: taking a passage out of context and using it to further their own ends or preconceived notions. She wanted me to participate in some program or website (presumable one that you paid for) that would  teach me to be more focused in my blogging and had only attempted to use the scripture (wrongly)  to further her agenda, not to get the true meaning out of it.

We must be careful that we do not seek to bend the scriptures in this way, but study it with a desire to learn the truth. We must also be careful not to be led down the wrong path by those that would invent and twist doctrine to their own ends.We should avoid these people. What do the scripture really say in their true and proper context is what we should believe and practice and we must come to our own understanding of the truth through diligent and constant life long bible study. There is no other way to be pleasing to God and thus do what is right.

May God bless and keep you until next time.