On the blog this week was an exhortation to examine what we do and believe by asking “Where is that in the Bible?” This very question is one which God used strongly in my life a few years after I was born again, and has continued to use throughout my life.
I was raised in the Catholic church which teaches that people should not read the Bible. But when I was first born again, I had a strong desire to read the Bible. One of my sisters had been given a pocket-size New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs which had been put in a drawer and forgotten. When I found this, I secretly read it late at night because I didn’t think my parents would understand.
Then when I went to college a few years later, I met a young woman who told me she was a born-again Christian. This woman read the Bible and even gave me a full-size Bible. As we talked, I would sometimes say something I had been taught by the Catholic church, and she would ask “Where is that in the Bible?”
At first I would reply that it must be in the Bible, because this is what I had been taught. She never argued, just encouraged me to find this in the Bible.
When I wasn’t able to find these doctrines in the Bible, I checked other sources (even checking with a nun at one point) to see if maybe I was just overlooking them in the Bible. These doctrines just weren’t there. While doing this, I also started noticing scriptures that were opposite to what I saw going on in the Catholic church. I started keeping a list of these things.
Through this process, God sorted out for me what I was to believe, what was true.
It was shocking and unsettling at first to realize that I had been taught things that were not based on the Bible. Although I had been taught all my life that the Catholic church was the one true church, I was able to leave it as God worked with me to base what I believe on what He has told us in the Bible.
This is a firm foundation. What we believe and do needs to be based on what God has said.
Many times when hearing something that sounds religious, the simple question “Where is that in the Bible?” has been brought to my mind, reminding me to prove what has been said.
I Thess. 5: 21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Prove: to establish the existence, truth, or validity of