There are so many lies swirling around our world today, sometimes it is hard to tell what is true and what is not. Add to that the bias found on many news stations, and it is no wonder so many people get confused.
Making it even harder to navigate this sea of uncertainty is the fact that false stories usually travel much faster than true ones.
According to a recent study of Twitter conducted by three MIT scholars, “it takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people.”
Along with that, many times, these false stories are so indistinguishable from the truth because there is an element of truth contained within them.
Even solid Christians can have a hard time deciphering the truth, especially if they spend more time watching television or scrolling through social media than they do reading their Bible.
Everyone has an opinion on everything, and these days, people are more than willing to make them publicly available.
With so much information and misinformation floating around it can even make it difficult to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong, or at least what our stance should be on certain issues.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean.
I read a lot, especially if I’m trying to figure something out.
You can imagine, then, how many books and articles I read about parenting when I first became a mom.
My first child was an amazing baby. In fact, we started calling her “Amazing Graci” because she was just that. She slept 11-12 hours at night. She did it for the first time about three weeks after she came home and by the time she was three months old, she was doing it steadily.
She was pleasant, cute and always smiling.
When her brother came along two years later, I thought surely we couldn’t get that lucky twice. But, lo and behold, we had another pleasant baby.
He was so happy, one of the dear ladies in the church nursery gave him the nickname, “Smiley Ehresman.”
We had definitely been doubly blessed.
However, about the time we brought baby number two home from the hospital, baby number one decided it was time to test the boundaries her mother and father had so lovingly set before her.
I watched my amazing baby turn into a terrible toddler in the blink of an eye. Terrible twos??? Oh no, this kid was more like terrible 2-4.
It wasn’t that she had a complete personality change. Ninety-five percent of the time, she was still our sweet loveable girl.
It was those few times she decided her desire to do what she wanted to do was greater than her desire to please mom and dad.
During those days of defiance, she would dig her little heels in and absolutely refuse to budge her three-year-old mind from the decision she had made to directly disobey us.
We would discipline her, explain why she needed to obey, think we’d gotten through to her, and the next day – same thing all over.
I began to wonder if I was doing something wrong.
They were some frustrating, discouraging days.
I would pray. I would read, and then pray some more.
I read books on discipline, books on strong-willed children, books about disciplining your strong-willed children.
Most of what I read was from authors with a Christian worldview, but even within those, I found great differences of opinion.
I had always been taught from the pulpit that spanking was an acceptable and biblical form of discipline, specifically for cases of the direct defiance my daughter was displaying.
I had also personally experienced the positive effects of such discipline as my parents spanked my brother and I in our early years and it fostered in both of us a great respect for authority.
However, some of the authors of the articles I read discouraged the practice as outdated or in some cases harmful.
It all came to a head one night when I was just casually reading Ann Landers in the newspaper and a reader who just happened to be asking a question about speaking said, you know the phrase “spare the rod spoil the child” isn’t even in the Bible.
Say what???
I was flabbergasted. I had heard that from the pulpit all my life and couldn’t believe it wasn’t actually in the Bible. Had I been lied to all those years?
I decided it was time for me to do what I should have done from the beginning: Go to the only source I know that is always true, always right and never fails – my Bible.
I began doing a study on all the times God mentions disciplining our children in the Bible.
I found that while that phrase about sparing the rod and spoiling the child may not be in the Bible word for word, it is certainly implied in verses like Prov. 13:24 and Prov. 29:15.
It was more than just reading words on a page though. As I studied those verses and diligently sought God’s wisdom on the matter, the Holy Spirit filled me with such peace. With each verse I read came a quiet assurance that my husband and I had indeed been following God’s plan for our daughter.
Around the age of four, we began seeing a real difference in Graci’s heart. That cold, hard exterior began to give way to a much softer, pliable one.
While not perfect, at 16, Graci needs little chastening anymore. In fact, she does quite a good job of disciplining herself. She has learned the wisdom of not only obeying mom and dad, but obeying her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Her dad and I have begun reaping the fruits of seeking God’s wisdom with our daughter. We have started seeing verses like Proverbs 25:17 come to fruition.
Our job is not finished, of course. There is still more work to be done, but it gives us hope that her future will be bright as long as we continue to guide both her, and her brother, by the truth of God’s word.
I will certainly be reminding the two of them that they need to do the same.
You see, I learned a vital lesson back in my early parenting days, and as God heeds us do in Deuteronomy 6:6-8, I teach it to my children as often as I can.
God’s truth is the only truth!
No matter how popular, how trendy, how “Christian” an author or preacher or speaker may be, if what they’re saying doesn’t match up 100% with scripture, you better cast them aside.
Because just like the false teachers in Bible days, they will at best confuse you and at worst, lead you astray.
Anytime you have a question about what God says on an issue – whether it’s discipline or dancing, alcohol or abortion – no matter what, the best way to know what God says about it…is to read what God says about it.
Even if you’ve heard message after message preached on it, even if you think you know what the Bible says about it, you need to make sure you KNOW what the Bible says about it.
Godly counsel is good and recommended by the Bible, but nothing beats digging into the word and finding sweet truth for yourself.
I’m sure many of you have heard the story of how federal agents are trained to find counterfeit money, not by studying counterfeits, but by studying the real thing.
They study it so intently that they memorize every last detail and can instantly spot a fake bill because of its inconsistencies when compared with the real thing.
It is with that same intensity that we should study our Bibles. We should consume God’s truth until we know it so intimately that even the slightest hint of false teaching will send off danger alarms in our soul.
We should heed the same warning Paul gave to Timothy in his second letter to him.
2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. ”
I’m sure many of us have heard and even memorized this verse, but have you ever noticed the context within which it was written.
Paul is warning Timothy against falling into just the same trap we are speaking of today.
He wanted Timothy to diligently study the truth that he might correctly teach it to others, because there were those among them who were spreading lies.
If you read on through verses 16-18 you will find that a pair of heretics known as Hymenaeus and Philetus were spreading lies about the bodily resurrection of dead believers.
They were teaching that it had already taken place and causing some to doubt the truth.
It warns Timothy to avoid such talk and the people who speak it, for it will spread like a disease among them.
Paul knew the danger of false teaching and its tendency to rampantly spread long before the creation of Facebook and Twitter.
Now that social media has been introduced into our lives, false information has the ability to infiltrate every corner of our world with the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger.
Now more than ever it behooves us to be on our guard. Even good people -authors, evangelists, preachers – can fall victim to Satan’s craftily devised lies if they are not careful. That is why we must all be careful listeners.
As Paul writes to the Thessalonians we are not to despise the preaching of God’s word, but we need to test everything, cleaving to that which is good and abstaining from that which is evil.
Oh friends, we have heard it all our lives, but now is the time to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
Now is the time hide God’s word in our hearts that we might not sin against Him.
Now is the time to meditate on it day and night that we may do according all that is written therein.
Now is the time to study to show ourselves approved that we might rightly handle the word of TRUTH!!!