Do You Really Think You Are the
First One to Think of That?
You won’t
believe my latest invention. I call it ‘the internal combustion
engine’. I’m very excited about all the possible applications of this
unique discovery of mine. What? You mean someone thought of that
before me!?! Oh, well, I’ll just pursue some other ‘new thing’.
Everyone
would regard a person making such a claim as a true lunatic. How could
one possibly imagine to have invented something that has been around for 150
years or more and is known and used throughout the world? We would view
that fella with extreme suspicion and caution.
Sadly,
religious discussions tend to attract this sort of outrageous claim.
Frequently we talk to people who suggest that they have come up with something
in the Bible that no one ever thought of before. Really? This
ancient book has been around for thousands of years, and you want us to believe
that you have discovered a truth that no one else ever found? Not likely.
The apostle
Paul dealt with some folks who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to
tell, or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21). The problem was, of
course, that when he confronted them with the truth they mocked him and
discounted his message (vs. 32). The same danger exists today for those
who are always looking for “some new thing.”
Many highly
intelligent people have devoted their whole lives to the study of God’s
Word. Their written discourses are preserved for us to read and
research. Within our own lifetimes we have been surrounded by faithful
brethren who have diligently applied themselves to the Scriptures. Now, of
course, they are not the absolute standard of what is true and right, but we
should not quickly discount their scholarship in favor of our own ‘latter day’
discoveries. Think!
- by Greg Gwin
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