I Thessalonians 2:4 (NIV) 4 On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.
I Thessalonians 15, 19-22 (NIV) 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
I John 4:1-3a (NIV) 1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
Paul’s word to the church in Thessalonika is basic: TEST EVERYTHING. The mind of the Christian is not meant to be soft. Faith is not gullibility, but neither is it to see if everything agrees with our opinions, our views, or our faith. Our culture has a strong Religious Right and a Religious Left. The two groups differ in their views about everything from abortion to euthanasia, from what is taught in public schools to what rights people have in their private homes. Who or what really causes us to say yes or no to what we hear?
The traditional source of authority for Christians is the written word of Scripture and the living word given by the Holy Spirit. When we turn to the written word, we hear John tell by what standard we should test everything: test the spirits to see if they are of God; and, this is how we will know if the spirit is of God: confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and is of God.
The history of the church is replete with voices confessing that Jesus is a reliable standard to help us decide what is truth and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. We test what we know of Jesus Christ against what is being said, and what we believe. Do we find this too narrow? Can we trust One person who lived 2000 years ago to give us the answers to complex issues today? Is the test too subjective? Is it too easy to confuse our own prejudices with the words of Jesus Christ? Test everything to see if they make public the mind and spirit of Jesus Christ.
There is one more part of this test we need to know, and here is our hope. While we are testing to see if beliefs and statements are of God, God is testing us. It may be that we say, “I had always been taught, but when I actually read the Bible I found out … “ Or, “I was raised to believe and then one day I discovered that God…” The church fathers called this “a holy disturbance.” Convictions tested by God in Jesus Christ come through to us clear and strong. We are to test what we hear and what we believe against Jesus Christ. And equally important is to know that God is testing us.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope September 17, 1995
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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