Mark 12:24
Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?”
One of the most common and most dangerous things that happens in churches all over the world is something we see in Mark 12. A group of men from the Sadducees comes to confront Jesus with a riddle they themselves cannot solve. Because those men did not believe in the resurrection from the dead, they assume they have Jesus backed into a corner with their question about a woman who was married to seven different men in her lifetime. Sneering, they ask, “whose wife will this lady be in the resurrection?” Jesus responds with the words we see above, condemning their lack of understanding of the Scripture and of the power and plan of God.
While we may not run into many who claim Christ without believing in the resurrection of the saints, we do have many people in our churches who assume that they have doctrine figured out. Without resorting to the hard work of genuine study of the Bible, people in our churches often take for granted theological and moral positions that are in direct contradiction to the word of God and its teaching. Often, these folks have heard a pithy saying or oft repeated phrase, and have digested it as biblical doctrine without any look for themselves at the word of God.
What is a fair example? How about some of the legalistic positions of days gone by? Let’s pick something as simple as playing cards. Because card playing in years gone by was connected with both fortune-telling and gambling, some Christians decided to declare any playing of any card game to be sinful. The problem was, while those believers wanted to protect themselves from evil, they actually developed a standard of righteousness that was beyond the clear teaching of God’s word. In a word, they became legalists.
Take another example. How about the question of going to a restaurant or doing yard work on a Sunday. To some believers, any activity that can be construed as work in any way on a Sunday is sin. How did they come to this conclusion? These believers came to their conclusion by applying the Sabbath regulations of the Old Testament to Christian behavior on Sundays. However, they fail to see that Christ has fulfilled the law of the Sabbath, that the Sabbath rest is a rest from any attempt to work one’s way to God, and that the Lord’s Day, while similar, is not the Jewish Sabbath. Finally, they fail to recognize the regulation of Romans 14 which calls Christians to be convinced in their own minds about how to treat the days of the week, but to not judge others who differ from them in their views.
The point here is not to call Christians to give up all their beliefs about gambling or Sabbaths. The point is to call believers to truly examine the Scriptures for what they believe. The reason we are sometimes wrong about our beliefs is that, as Jesus said, we neither know the Scriptures nor the power of our God. When we know the Scriptures, truly examining the word of God for all our beliefs, we will walk away from legalism and toward a zeal for good works that will honor God. Some of our standards we will keep, because those standards are upheld in the word. Some of our standards, we will throw away, as we realize that our beliefs have not been recorded in God’s word, but have merely been man-made regulations passed down from generation to generation without biblical warrant.
Christians, we will honor God more when everything we believe is based on first-hand knowledge of the scripture. We will please God more when we believe right doctrine from experience with the word, and not from believing platitudes that have endured for generations without Scriptural support.
Pastor Travis Peterson 