Who Is Sound?
If I make it until the third Lord's Day in August 1963, I shall have been trying to preach the gospel of Christ forty-four years. During this time I have had my mind and convictions changed concerning many things that pertain unto New Testament teaching. For instance, for most of those years I thought that a church of Christ could, and even must, relieve the sufferings of sinners as well as saints. But in 1957 (I think it was), a brother Franks wrote and requested from me N. T. Scripture to support my article that asserted that churches may relieve sinners in material things. I lost no time obeying the Master's admonition to "search the Scriptures." Then I wrote to both brother Franks and the G. G. an apology and correction: I had been in error. I spent hours and hours, and used every means at my disposal to find a N. T. passage that would support the doctrine and practice of a church's materially relieving a sinner. I could not find it; so I immediately changed. Am I "sound"? Was I "sound" prior to 1957?
There are some Scriptures that I think all of us would do well to study carefully before we so freely call certain people sound or unsound. Perhaps, if a Nathan were sent to many of us, about this matter of unsoundness, he might say to us, "Thou art the man!" 1 Corinthians 8:2 always, as my mother used to say, "brings me down a button-hole or two." I may not know as much as I think I know, about any thing! Then Psalms 19:12-14 has also helped to make me realize that a man's judgment, including mine, may be based on ignorance, rather than truth, especially verse 12. And so I try to follow Paul's admonition: "Let God be true, but let every man a liar." (Rom. 3:4) And that means just what it says, "every man," including me — and you.
— Rt. 2, Box 340, Dora, Alabama