Are You In The Way of God?

Acts 18:26 records that when Aquila and Priscilla heard the eloquent and learned preacher Apollos preaching at Ephesus, "...they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately." Those words doen’t sit well with many in our postmodern, plural- istic age which insists there are many paths to God. According to Acts 18, Apollos was already a very religious man – "a Jew . . . mighty in the Scriptures . . . instructed in the way of the Lord . . . fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord" (Acts 18:24-25a). Then what was the problem? Verse 25b says "he knew only the baptism of John." The popular idea is that all religious roads lead to God, regardless of their accuracy or inaccuracy according to the Bible. The entertainer Madonna said she had her daughter Lola baptized as a Roman Catholic, even though she herself renounced that church. She told Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes II, "I can disagree with doctrines and dogmas and still celebrate them. I go to synagogue, I study Hinduism. In the end, all paths lead to God" (USA TODAY, 5/21/99). Aquila and Priscila apparently disagreed with Madonna’s religious philosophy or practice. Even though Apollos "spoke and taught acacurately the things of the Lord" (vs 25), there was more he needed to know. So it is we read in verse 26, "When Aquila and Priscila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."

Madonna and millions of others who believe in a plurality of paths to God find themselves at oods with the Lord. In John 14:6 He declared words that to this day rub most of our world the wrong way – "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." There simply is no way to soften this statement if we accept Jesus as God’s Son and the New Testament as His inspired word. If the question is how one comes to God, His way and His truth and His life are the only means available. Jesus is asserting that there is a way to God, but that there is only one way – His way. New Testament writers never stopped insisting there was a way to God – a way that will save anyone in the world who accepts and obeys it (Mark 16:15-16) – but only one way. Inspired teaching is summarized by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:4-6, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all . . ." The church of Christ is under increasing pressure these days to change these verses. From outside the church the atheist would have us say, "There is no body, no Spirit, no hope, no Lord, no faith, no baptism, and no God." We dare not yield to that pressure. But pressure is increasing from inside to change the message of these verses to say, "There are many bodies . . . many faiths . . . many baptisms" – in short, many different paths and ways to please God, so long as you believe in Jesus. Many are ready to accept that Jesus is a way, a truth, a life, a light, a door to God. The problem is that is not what Jesus said. A Slovenian proverb says, "Speak the truth, but leave immediately after" (RD, February 2018, p 65). The truth is God has only one way. I’m leaving now. Are you accurately in the way of God? 

           By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN