The Most Important Truth…I Can Be Wrong

By Bob Hoyle

In my years of being a Christian and my personal search for truth in the Word of God I have come to know one truth for certain…I can be wrong. The Word of God itself teaches me that.

Paul’s warnings concerning false teachings abound in the New Testament as he admonishes his brothers not to be deceived; meaning that they can be deceived by false doctrine even though they are saved. Check out the letter to the Galatians and discover that some in the Body of Christ were being deceived concerning keeping the law.

If we believe something to be sure, certain, with no doubt about it and then discover that we were wrong…does our original belief change what truly is? For example, let’s say we believe that hell isn’t real, but a metaphorical place. If hell turns out to be a real place does it matter if we didn’t believe it in the first place? Of course not.

Does this mean that I can’t have fellowship with a brother or sister in Christ who believes differently about that than I do? Careful, we might trap ourselves with your answer!

Why do we separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters in Christ for not believing exactly like we do about something that has nothing to do with salvation by grace through faith? Could it be that we just can’t admit that perhaps what we believe might be wrong? Or could it be that we just can’t stand to be around someone that threatens our little pet doctrine?

Shortly after being saved I joined a church. Now this (admittedly) comes from someone who believed someone could pack up a tent, some water, a few provisions, and go camp out on a mountaintop somewhere for a month, open the Bible, in prayer ask God for truth and he would come off the mountain knowing more about truth and the will of God than someone who spent years in a seminary. I’m still not sure I wasn’t right about that one. Here’s what happened. I joined a church and as they pulled out their “selective” verses from the Bible, they showed me their pet doctrine and why it was true. They got me hook, line and sinker.

But that wasn’t the worse part. The worse part was that I was totally convinced “we were right and everyone else was wrong.” I could not fellowship outside of our “non-denominational denomination.” I wasn’t even sure if anyone outside of our “little click” could be saved, seeing as how they didn’t believe what we did.

Did the fact that I could be persuaded to believe false doctrine negate the fact that God had saved me previous to the acceptance of that doctrine? No. I’m so thankful that my salvation is not contingent upon my ability to never be wrong.

So, what has happened to the original church? Where did it go? Where are all those brothers and sisters in Christ that could hang out together and fellowship together in love for one another, even though they didn’t agree 100% on some issues? Where are the Christians that could love one another past the “he eats meat sacrificed to an idol and I don’t?” Or the ability to come together as members of the same Body and exhort one another even though some “had a special day to the Lord, and some treated every day alike?” (See Romans 14: 3-6)

The only thing I can find in the Word of God that commands me to stop fellowship with a brother or sister in Christ is if they are living lives that are in direct contradiction to “Godly living” (I Corinthians 5:11).

Too often we do just the opposite in today’s 20th century Christianity. We fellowship with those who are “drunkards or fornicators.” But, we have withdrawn our fellowship from those who don’t believe exactly as we do about our pet doctrines. We ignore the counsel given to us about taking a brother to the courts rather than to the church to settle issues. The first thing we do is find ourselves a lawyer and take a brother to court for restitution. I can go on and on about what we don’t do in the name of our Lord and Savior. The Word of God tell us to (Hebrews 10:25) and yet we find the most ridiculous excuses to disobey the Word of Truth in order to justify our behavior.

Let’s get right down to brass tacks. We love our doctrine above our Lord or each other. It’s called “religion.”

There are those that believe there are too many contradictions in the Bible for it to be taken literal in its entirety. What seems to be a contradiction in most cases is a misunderstanding of the Scripture and our dogmatic view of how we interpret it. If it seems to contradict something we have already made up our mind about, then we dismiss it instead of going back to evaluate why we believe what we believe in the first place. Was it something I was taught to believe? Was it a preconceived idea based upon an intellectual understanding of what a certain word means to me? And we overlook the most important question of all; does it matter enough to God for me to divide myself from a brother or sister in Christ that does not understand it to mean what I think it means?

It’s said we never want to talk about politics or religion at the dinner table or we may end up wearing our dinner. The reason is simple. We believe we are right!
As I first stated, I have learned one truth for certain…I can be wrong.
How about you?

Bob Hoyle writes from Tallahassee Florida.