Did You Hear...?

      Did you hear about the gang initiation going on in big cities? They are getting under cars and slitting your Achilles tendon as you try to get in. Did you hear about the black market kidney stealing operation? You may get drugged and wind up in a hotel room bathtub in icy water with a phone to call 911. Did you hear about the Wal-Mart crime ring that is taking pictures of your checks and running up huge over draft charges for you?

      You probably did. These rumors get passed around online all the time. They are all equally false, urban legends. Yet we get these warnings and we pass them on like wildfire.

      My all time favorite is the guy who actually stopped by the church building when I was in Texas wanting to let us know about the awful legislation lobbied by Madelyn Murray O’Hare and pursued by congress to stop all religious broadcasting on tv and radio. Interestingly enough, O’Hare had been missing and presumed dead for years when this guy came by. There was no such legislation pending at all. Yet, I still get that story in an e-mail every once in a while trying to get me to sign my name to the petition and send it on to all my friends.

      How easily we are convinced something is true without always checking out the facts. Sadly, this happens a great deal in modern religion. People read books, hear sermons, attend classes and just accept whatever a smart sounding preacher says without actually getting into the Bible themselves.

      Acts 18:24-28 demonstrates just how wrong this approach can be. Apollos was a fervent speaker. He was eloquent. He was competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and taught many things accurately about Jesus. However, if you simply listened to Him, you could never receive forgiveness of sins. Despite all he got right and what a great eloquent, motivational speaker he was, he was still teaching John’s baptism. Priscilla and Aquila had to take him aside and explain the way of God even more accurately to him. Interestingly, in Acts 19:1-7, we learn of at least 12 men who had been unduly influenced by this error. They had to be baptized truly in the name of Jesus Christ to be saved.

      Certainly, if an online rumor makes us a little more aware of our surroundings as we walk through a dark parking lot, makes us a little more careful with our personal checking info or makes us a little more careful about who we drink coffee with, the mistake is not such a big deal. However, if our lack of studying for ourselves causes us to merely take someone’s word for it about the gospel and they are wrong, then only we are to blame for the words we hear from God in judgment.

      Don’t just pass on what you hear from someone else. Get in your Bible and study for yourself. Your soul depends on it.

Edwin L. Crozier