In our Christian experience today, we’re often told to pursue the truth – to decern the truth from lies.  This likely comes from two places: 1) Paul’s admonition to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles [some versions would say ‘rightly dividing’] the word of truth,” and 2) the rampant lies and half-truths that were present during the Reformation.  In fact, while some could say that the Reformation was built on “Saved by grace through faith,” it’s almost as accurate to say that it was built on, “Sorting fact and right doctrine from lies and traditions.”

Because of the focus on truth in the Reformation, today’s Christianity is also spun around the pursuit of truth.  This usually looks like learning doctrine and testing spiritual ideas and teaching to see whether or not they line up with the Bible.

The problem with this focus is that it’s not really Biblical.  It’s not inherently wrong; I highly recommend making sure that the teaching you’re sitting under lines up with Scripture.

But if you focus on pursuing truth, you will almost immediately fall into logic.  Logic isn’t bad, but the “wisdom of this world is foolishness to God” (1 Corinthians 3:19).  There’s no way to completely logicize an infinite God.  It’s the problem that the reformers ran into: Once they had put God into logic, they found that God wouldn’t fit inside their logical box.  (In fact, many Christians are still trying to fit God into their logical box.)

Instead, Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).  John the Apostle also wrote to, “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1).

These verses seem to focus less on testing thoughts and ideas as compared to Scripture and doctrine.  Instead, they focus on 1) pursuing the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and 2) testing the spirits (not the ideas).

You can go on YouTube any time of the day or night and find people who are “exposing” “false teaching” of one variety or another.  Are they right?  Sometimes.  More often, they’re pushing their own agenda at the expense of another person, ministry, or group – often by taking quotes out of context, twisting terminology, or misrepresenting unreliable testimonies.  My favorite verse about this is from the book of Romans: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?  To their own master, servants stand or fall.  And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand” (14:4; emphasis added).

So here’s the takeaway from today: If we want truth, we’re better off being led by the Holy Spirit (and abiding in Jesus’ words; see John 8:31-32) than by trying to construct good doctrine (though there’s nothing wrong with knowing doctrine).  If we want to stay away from false teachers, we’re better off testing the spirit behind their words than searching for what someone else says about them.  We can also pray the words of David, “Lead me into your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long” (Psalm 25:5).