Day Of Discovery
A young preacher is confused, disillusioned, frustrated and discouraged. He has discovered that older preachers, in whom he had the utmost confidence, are not worthy of that confidence — they do not agree upon Bible teaching.
Yeah!! I also made that discovery, in the mid-thirties. I still recall the men involved, and my disappointment in them. It is a safe guess that every conscientious young adult whose eyes are open, faces that same awakening. Young man, I am not laughing at you; I am hurting with you. But the picture is not completely dark.
You could have been so blinded by hero worship that you rationalized the whole mess, and concluded that truth is relative to the individual — that there is no standard but man. In despair, you could have chosen blindly — taking the leap of faith that only pretends to see, and wraps God in hypocritical robes. You could have been wed to one party or creed so that party loyalty took the place of honest intellectual objectivity. And you could be using this whole matter as your excuse for copping out, or gratifying selfish liberation from the demands of truth and right.
Failure to agree is no reflection upon Gods word as source of truth. There was great disagreement among those who heard Jesus. We hear with our background, our likes and dislikes, our selfish interests (Matt. 13:9-16). There is little evidence that anyone is wholly objective; and identical understanding, in all details, is rare. The young man was naive.
But one mind in striving for the faith of the gospel is possible, and is necessary (Phil. 1:27-f.). We must have a common desire to know truth, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind (2:1-f). In this spirit we will defer to one another, and help one another to know truth.
And with this spirit the young man will realize he had placed his confidence in the wrong direction-- in man rather than in God. Now he can shed childish dreams, pick up the pieces, and join with brethren world-wide who study and live honestly before God.