The Unchanging Truth!

           Mark Twain once said, "The only person who likes change is a wet baby." But a lot has changed since Twain said that sometime before his death on April 21, 1910. As someone noted, change is inevitable – except from a vending machine. Much change has been for the good. Who wants to go back from the personal "smart phone" you take with you to the "8 party line" wall-mounted rotary phones of yesteryear?! Thanks to advancing technology, we enjoy more advantages and conveniences in the way we shop, cook, eat, travel, and communicate than ever before. Medicine, education, manufacturing – in spite of continuing problems, changes in these and other areas of life have improved our lives greatly. We should thank the living God for changes for the good, for it is He who, ultimately, is the source of all that is good and enjoyable (James 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:17).

Shifting to a sad / somber note, many changes have not been good. The idea that moral and Biblical truth is constant and absolute has taken a huge hit. In 1 Timothy 3:15 the apostle Paul described the church as "the house of the God....the pillar and ground of the truth." The truth referred to is the same truth Jesus referred to in John 17:17 where the Lord said in a prayer to the Father, "Your word is truth." Paul referred to that truth again in 2 Timothy 4:2-4 where he urged Timothy to "preach the word" and he warned some would have "itchy ear syndrome." They would "heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables". Fables easily become fashionable. Paul warned some in the church would be more enamored with religious teachings, beliefs and practices originating in human minds than those which are taught and authorized in God’s inspired word. Today some churches, due to fears about becoming "irrelevant" and "losing touch" with culture, are seemingly more concerned with being "contemporary" than being scriptural. The changes churches are making in moral teaching and worship practices in order to "reach more people" brings to my mind a statement by the late Willard Collins, past president of what was then David Lipscomb College. At a seminar at the Madison church of Christ near Nashville (1/18/1997) he warned, "A lot of preachers try to find something wrong with the Bible. When they can’t find anything wrong with it, they try to find something new." There have been many good changes in the tools and aids Christ’s church uses to worship and preach the truth – computers, power point, internet, sound systems, etc. But mark it down friends – "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Not one fact, command, or promise in the gospel will ever change – this year or in any year to come. Becoming a Christian in the 21^st century requires obedience to the same gospel the apostles preached in the first century (Galatians 1:6-9). What it takes to "worship in spirit and in truth" has not changed. Our aim in preaching, worship and life must be to please God (2 Corinthians 5:9). The truth belongs to God, not the church. We must not stray from the truth into fads and fables, no matter how popular they become.
"Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.  Let all that you do be done in love" - 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

    By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN