How to know what’s right about God

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:16-17

A blackboard in a ninth-grade health classroom was covered with the names and locations of the major bones and muscles of the human body. The diagram stayed on the board throughout the term, although the teacher never referred to it even once.

The day of the final exam, students came to class to find the board wiped clean. The sole test question was: “Name and locate every major bone and muscle in the human body.”

The class protested in unison: “We never studied that!”

“That’s no excuse,” said the teacher. “The information was there for months.”

After the class struggled with the test for a while, the teacher collected the papers and tore them up. “Always remember,” he told the students, “education is more than just learning what you are told.”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of defining your belief in God based upon what others say. In the media, we constantly hear, “I think God…” with very few of those opinions being biblically informed.

As Christians, we have to go first to the informer of our faith: the Scriptures. Where they are silent, we can say, “I think….” But where they are sure, we must also remain so. Just like education, knowing God is more than learning what you’re told. You have a Bible. Use it!

Prayer Challenge

Pray that instead of relying on what others say, God would open your eyes to what He says about Himself in Scripture.

Questions for thought

Why do you think there’s so much speculation today about what God is like, yet so little of it is biblically informed?

How can you stay disciplined in your fact checking so that when you hear different ideas God, you have a reliable way of knowing the truth?