Category: Authority

The story is told of a daughter who asked her mother why she always cut the end of the roast off before cooking it in the pan. The mother didn’t know, that was the way her mother always did it. So, they called the grandmother, and asked her why she always cut the end of the roast off before cooking it in the pan. The grandmother said, “Because my pan was too small!”

There are two great dangers with tradition. (Though there is nothing wrong with tradition per se). First, if a person follows tradition blindly, without knowing why, he may be led to do something that is unscriptural. Something with which God is not pleased. Just because “that is the way we have always done it,” does not mean that it is acceptable to God!

Second, there is always the danger of elevating a tradition to a commandment. Jesus warned of this in Matthew 15, “And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrine the commandments of men” (vs. 9).

Many times we do things the way we do because it is a good way to do them. This is fine. But, we need always to be sure that our ways are God’s ways. And, we need to realize if our traditions are only our preferences, and if there are other, scriptural ways of doing the same things, we must not condemn others for expressing preferences that differ from our own.

AOTS Number 42

Our authority in religious matters is the Lord Jesus Christ. To disregard his standards is criminal.

To listen to this Podcast, click here .

To subscribe to the AOTS feed, click here .

The Rebellion of Korah in Numbers 16 shows that God vindicated the integrity of Moses, and that integrity as it is defined in scripture, is closely tied to a respect for God’s authority.

Sermon PowerPoint: Click Here .

Sermon Audio: Click Here .

Podcast Number 37

The Catholic church contends that it, as an institution, is the final arbiter and authority for all matters pertaining to the spiritual welfare and condition of man. A careful reading of the scriptures shows this claim to be invalid. God intended His word to be the final standard man must submit to religiously.

To listen to this Podcast, click here .

To subscribe to the podcast feed, click here .

Podcast Number 30

An examination of the Bible text reveals how different the Lord’s church is from the denominations today. If a congregation of Christians follows the pattern of the New Testament, then and only then it can be known as the true church of Christ.

To listen to this Podcast, click here .

To subscribe to the podcast feed, click here .

We commonly use the phrase “A to Z” to identify the sum total of any particular thing. If a person is knowledgeable on a subject, we say he knows it from “A to Z.” If a person is accomplished in a particular area, we say that he has done it all, from “A to Z.”

In the Bible, similar phrases are used.

Continue reading “Alpha & Omega” →

One of the ways Bible Authority is established is by Implication. The implication must be present in the text, so that the inference made is a necessary one. This lesson explains the principle.

Sermon PowerPoint: Click Here .

Sermon Audio: Click Here .

Sermon Title: God’s Eternal Principles

Heath Rogers preached this excellent sermon establishing from scripture certain principles which have been true from the beginning of time.

Unfortunately, the audio did not come out. However, Heath has supplied us with the Powerpoint file of the sermon.

Sermon PowerPoint: Click Here .

Sermon Title: “He Added No More”

Heath Rogers’ sermon. A proper respect for the authority of God’s word will preclude us from adding to the commandments delivered for us. God has spoken, we must accept His word.

Sermon PowerPoint: Click Here .

Sermon Audio: Click Here .

Sermon Title: Proper Attitudes Toward Obedience

Heath Rogers preached this lesson, examining the proper attitudes we must have toward the commands of the God of heaven.

Sermon Audio: Click Here .

OSAMA BIN LADEN’S quotation that “Islam is the only source of the rulings and laws” (editorial, Jan. 4) is frightening in its total rejection of the principle of separation of church and state. But we should not forget that his ideology is founded on the belief, which is central to most all deistic religions, that “God” is the only true source of morality and moral behavior.

That erroneous idea is a potentially dangerous source of rigidity and absolutism in moral thinking and behavior, and readily leads to efforts to impose one’s own group’s “true” morality on others, or to regard the “infidel other” as not worthy of the beneficence of that morality.

As is all too obvious these days, wars are fought under the self-righteous and self-justifying conviction that “God is on our side.”

The rational, secular view of morality is that it is generated only in human minds and is shaped over time in the real world by negotiating competing needs and shared benefits. There is no “Big Daddy” or “Big Mommy” up there, or out there, to tell us how to behave, or to punish us with natural disasters if we go astray. There is, however, good reason to believe that, along with murderous aggressivity, some fundamental altruistic urges have been built into the human genome by Darwinian evolution.

Given a framework of secular civil laws and enforcement, human compassion, conscience, and “the Golden Rule” of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” will take us a good long way.

RICHARD H. WOLFF
The Boston Globe

Analysis:

The Preceding opinion piece which appeared in the Boston Globe on January 10, proclaims the typical secularist attitude toward morality.

Continue reading “‘God’ Isn’t Only Source of Morality” →

[The following opinion piece, (edited for space) which appeared in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, written by columnist Matt Stone, establishes a typical flawed view of morality.]

Moralism represents the self-understanding of what constitutes decent and indecent behavior – each person one’s own judge and seeking respect in the appraisal of others.

Of course, the perception of “decent” or “indecent” behavior is fluid, allowing open-endedness for society to shape its own moral code: Whereas we abhor polygamy today, it was yawningly normal for Moses to have multiple wives. Dynamism, self-respect and the dignity of the individual are the cardinal tenets of moralism.

Continue reading “Your Morals – Or Mine?” →

The August 2005 issue of Reader’s Digest, a special issue that examines “14 Amazing Trends That Will Change Your Life”, identified as a societal trend the growth of Christian merchandizing.

From GodPods to holy golf balls, marketers have found religion

Note the following short excerpt from the feature:

A lot of conservative Christian’s don’t like the fuzzy line that’s been drawn between believers and nonbelievers. They want to be able to tell the secular from the sacred, Young says. But more and more young believers “enjoy obliterating the lines and appreciate the mystery in that and feel it gives a lesson in not judging.”

So Christian entrepreneurs have found their formula for success, and it’s in stretching the traditional bounds, if not obliterating them. For every person who fells that the shirts being sold – or the books or the gadgets – are a betrayal of the faith, there are plenty of others who see a faith that’s speaking to today. In this age of market evangelism, the ring of a cash register can be sacred music.

Page 185, August 2005 Reader’s Digest

Analysis:

“If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself… For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:3-5, 10).

The report in Reader’s Digest is without bias, noting that some are agreeable to the merchandising of the gospel while others are not. As can be seen from the text above, the Holy Spirit is not so understanding. It is shameful that some are so ready to make a profit from faith. The Catholic church was doing it centuries ago with the sale of indulgences to fund the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This is just more of the same. Those who do such things should be ashamed.

In our last article on authority, we documented several “digressions” which resulted from a lack of understanding of how Bible authority is established.  The three general apostasies we mentioned were: 1) The establishment of the apostate church (Catholicism); 2) The embracing of human creeds in the Protestant Reformation; and 3) The apostasy in the late 1800’s which led to the establishment of the Christian Church denomination.

In the more recent past God’s people have been troubled by digression.  In the 1940’s and 1950’s issues arose in the church, which led to division among God’s people. Continue reading “Institutionalism: An Abuse of Authority” →

In the past 2,000 years, since the church was established on the first Pentecost following our Lord’s resurrection, there have been many apostasies.  In every case, widespread apostasy has occurred because of either a lack of respect for, or misunderstanding of Bible authority.  This we will demonstrate momentarily.  Therefore, the principles of authority we have been establishing in this series of articles need to be instilled in each generation to avoid similar departures both presently and in the future. Continue reading “Historical Abuses of Authority” →