Are You Sure?

Are you sure? Are you sure that the church you attend is right? Are you sure that your preacher, youth minister, pastors and teachers are teaching truth? Are you sure you are doing everything God wants and expects you to do?

You probably fall in one of three categories:

1. You are 100% sure. You are beyond confident that everything you are doing is exactly the way things are supposed to be.

2. You are not sure if you are sure. I would argue this is where most people are. You are like 99% sure, but every once in a while you wonder, and you see and hear things that you dont necessarily agree with.

3. You are struggling. You are wondering. You aren’t convinced. You feel like there must be someone or something out there that has to be better.

No matter which category you placed yourself into, I want to encourage you to continue looking for the right answers. If you have doubt about the things which your church leaders tell you, then your doubt is probably well deserved. If you think you have all the answers, that is a pretty good sign that you probably don’t.

There is a quote which reads “Intelligence: not because you think you know everything without questioning, but rather because you question everything you think you know.”

The principle at the heart of this quote is the same principle at the heart of 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

In Acts 18-19, we see this principle put in to practice and I want to look at this account, and take some of the points and apply them to us.

In Acts 18, we see a man named Apollos. Apollos was a good guy. He was genuine, and he knew his stuff. He was teaching other people and leading them. The problem was that he was leading them incorrectly. He wasn’t trying to deceive anyone, but he was simply ignorant of the right answer. This couple came along and their names were Priscilla and Aquila. They took Apollos aside and taught him the right things. We see that Apollos changed and then taught more accurately.

I would argue that Apollos and the people he was teaching fell in to the same three categories that you placed yourself in at the beginning of this article.

1. There were probably some who were 100% sure the things that Apollos was teaching was true.

2. There were probably some who were pretty sure, but also wondered about some stuff.

3. There were probably others who were wondering and struggling, thinking that there had to be something better.

They were all wrong. The one who doubted and the one who was 100% sure were both just as wrong, and both needed the same correction.

You see my point is this: I don’t care if you are a Catholic, a Baptist, a Pentecostal, a Mormon, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or a member of the church of Christ, I want to encourage you to study, ask questions, challenge what the Pope, the Pastor, the Bishop, the elder and the preacher says. If you are like me, and you are the preacher, never, ever, ever, ever think you have all the right answers. Just like Apollos, even the best and most genuine people can be wrong.

Have the humility to change your views no matter how confident you are.

Turn Netflix off. Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier. Put your phone down. Pick up your Bible. Dig in to The Word. Ask questions. Don’t let the preacher have the final say, let the Bible have the final say. If you don’t know how to study the Bible then call me or text me @405-426-0384. I am far from the perfect Bible student, and I have a long way to go, but we can work on it together.

Test all things and hold fast to what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21

- Nate Miller