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The Four Guides into Truth Must Agree

Truth is too important for us to neglect any of the guides God has provided.

guides into truth

For several months now, we have been digging into the idea that God leads us into essential truths about himself and salvation through four guides. They are (1) the Scriptures, (2) the Holy Spirit, (3) the church, and (4) prayer. If we follow these four guides with patience, faith, and wisdom, we can be assured of finding the truth—even if we are a new Christian! Through these four guides God will certainly lead us into the truth that assures us of eternal life.

Harmony

Just as a car needs all four wheels, you need all four guides working in harmony. Do not neglect or ignore any of them. Remember the Pharisees, who were radically religious yet profoundly wrong. Jesus corrected them: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40, ESV) They examined one of the four guides closely, yet they still went astray.

The Sadducees made the opposite error, failing to give adequate attention to Scripture. Jesus corrected them as well: “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mark 12:24, ESV)

So if we rely exclusively on one of these guides in contradiction with the others, or if we neglect, ignore, or reject one of the guides, we can stray into error.

Examples

For example, although objective Scripture is free of error, we might err when we interpret and apply it. False teachers usually appeal to the same Bible as orthodox Christians, but they misinterpret it. This is why we need the wider, historic church and the fruits of its two-thousand year history of interpreting the Bible together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Over that period the church has thoroughly wrestled through disagreements about the key doctrines necessary for salvation, corrected the errors of particular eras, groups, leaders, and locales, and long ago reached general consensus on the essentials.

Similarly, with regard to the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth through the Scriptures, we may have subjective thoughts and feelings that are not from the Holy Spirit. They may come from personal convictions shaped by our upbringing, for example. This is why we need the objective correction that comes from both Scripture and historic church doctrine.

For instance, some people have grown up in heretical religions such as the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses that do not believe Jesus Christ is the eternal, uncreated, divine Son of God. As a result, their consciences may affirm that what they learned in “church” and from parents is true, even though objective Scripture and the wider, historic church emphatically deny this false teaching. A Mormon might think that his Mormon-shaped conscience is the Holy Spirit leading him.

God is faithful to lead us out of an unhealthy religious group if we commit ourselves to follow the truth even if it contradicts our traditions. Psalm 25:5 gives an essential Scriptural prayer that God will surely answer: “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.” The Holy Spirit will answer that prayer over time by illumining Scripture as we read. If we are in an unsound group, over time we will see how the Bible contradicts their teaching in significant ways. The Holy Spirit will disturb our conscience over what we hear. We can trust God to lead us into truth and a church marked by sound teaching.

Through prayerful agreement between the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the true church, God reliably guides everyone who is committed to the truth at all costs and seeks it with prayer, trust, and persistence.

Next week

God is reliable, but we are not. What can make us susceptible to error is the state of our soul. Exhibit A is the Pharisees. So next week we begin an examination of eight soul qualities that make us immune to false teaching.

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Rational Thinking Comes from God

Do you think you can think on your own? Think again.

In the previous posts we have seen five reasons why prayer is important for learning truth about God, his Scriptures, and all the great questions of life. Here is the sixth and final surprising reason to pray for understanding.

6. Our ability to think rationally comes from God.

Apart from God’s aiding you moment-by-moment to have a rational mind, you would have no more ability to think with spiritual reason than a cow chewing its cud.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon shows that. He was the mightiest man on earth until God judged him for his pride. “Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.” (Daniel 4:33)

But after a time, God had mercy on him and restored his rational ability. “At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:34).

Our ability to understand even the most basic things, such as 2+2=4, comes from God!

“What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

And specifically, Scripture tells us that understanding comes from God:

“For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).

Prayer is key

And when does God promise to give understanding?

Proverbs 2:1–6 says, “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

God gives understanding to those who ask for it.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God” (James 1:5).

Again and again, the psalmist prayed for understanding:

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law…. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart…. Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments…. I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies!… Let my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word!” (Psalm 119:18, 34, 73, 125, 169)

In order to know truth about the things of God, you can make those prayers your prayers. Prayer is an essential guide into truth.

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How Sin Cripples Our Ability to Understand Truth

Only God can restore our ability to understand spiritual truth

ability to understand

In the previous posts we began looking at why prayer is important for learning truth about God, his Scriptures, and all the great questions of life. Here is the fifth surprising reason to pray for understanding.

5. Sin Cripples Our Ability to Understand Truth.

What sin has done to the human mind could be compared to brain damage. Sin affects our ability to think, as a stroke affects the brain.

Ephesians 4:17–19 says, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

Notice the crippling and cascading effects of sin on every level of one’s ability to think, understand, and truly know truth.

We need God to overcome this cognitive impairment, and so we need to pray for his help in overcoming the mind-tangling effects of wrong beliefs and sin-engrained, mental strongholds that oppose the truth.

There is one final reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth, and we will explore that next week.

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Some Truths Are Concealed from Us

When a truth is concealed from us, we do not have the ability on our own to expose it.

concealed

In the previous posts we began looking at why prayer is important for learning truth about God, his Scriptures, and all the great questions of life. Here is the fourth surprising reason to pray for understanding.

4. Some truths are actually concealed from us.

Some truths are beyond our understanding not only because of our natural limitations but also because someone is concealing them from us. Someone is hiding the truth from us like the Wheel of Fortune game show covers letters and words.

Jesus once said to his disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” (Luke 9:44–45)

In his wisdom, God reveals many things—but he also conceals many truths. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Satan also conceals truths. Paul writes of the Jews, “In their case the god of this world [that is, Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

On the road to Emmaus

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the risen Christ met with two of his disciples walking to a nearby town. You would think that these men who had been learning from Jesus for some time would have immediately recognized him. But Luke 24:16 says, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

It does not say they did not recognize him because his appearance had changed. Rather, the obstacle was “their eyes.” Their eyes were “kept from recognizing him.” Did God do this to them or did Satan?

I think it was God, who had a purpose in the concealment. Later, as they sat at table together and Jesus broke their bread, “…their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31).

So we should pray to understand truth because it is possible that truth is being concealed from us.

There is a fifth reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth, and we will explore that next week.

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The Natural Mind Cannot Understand Spiritual Truths

To understand spiritual truths we need more than diligent study

Understand Spiritual Truths

In the previous posts we began looking at why prayer is important for learning truth about God, his Scriptures, and all the great questions of life. Here is the third surprising reason to pray for understanding.

3. The natural mind cannot understand spiritual truths.

After several years of ministry with his 12 disciples at his side, Jesus posed a question to them: “Who do people say I am?”

The disciples answered that people thought he was John the Baptist restored to life, or Elijah or Jeremiah or another of the prophets of old.

Then Jesus focused the question on the 12: “But who do you say that I am?”

“Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”

From our perspective, knowing the full story of Jesus, that might seem to have been an obvious answer. But Jesus did not think so. “And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’”

Notice that Jesus did not credit Peter with prescience for figuring this out. He said the Father had “revealed” the truth to him. (Matthew 16:13–17, ESV)

1 Corinthians 2

That word revealed is important. The apostle Paul explains why we need God to reveal spiritual truths to us: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Unaided by the Holy Spirit, you cannot adequately understand spiritual truths about God, his ways, his salvation, and his righteousness—understand them, that is, in the sense that you believe them and respond accordingly.

Therefore you should ask him for such understanding. “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

Next week we look at the fourth reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth.

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Understanding Truth Requires Both the Mind and the Will

No one is completely indifferent about what he or she believes.

the Mind and the Will

In the previous post we looked briefly at why prayer is so important in coming to an understanding of truth about God and his Scriptures and all the great questions of life. We saw that God teaches the humble. Here is the second surprising reason to pray for understanding.

2. Understanding truth requires both the mind and the will

Everyone is predisposed against certain truths. There are things we do not want to be true, and so we do not believe they are true.

For example, the atheist is not just intellectually opposed to the idea of God, but volitionally opposed. He does not want God to exist. Romans 1:19 says, “…what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” Nevertheless, they “suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). They do not want God to exist because for one thing he requires obedience to his commandments.

But the role of the will in understanding truth affects not just atheists, but each one of us with particular doctrines. No one begins day one of their Christian life with perfect theological understanding of all things. We all come upon the various theological truths of the Bible with a disposition toward or against them.

For example, few of us wants to believe in the wrath of God. But you cannot read the Bible for long without seeing God’s just wrath against evil, and eventually if you are willing to accept it you will come to believe that God’s wrath is real and we need to be saved from it.

So we pray for understanding because we need God to change our will to make us willing to believe what is true.

Next week we look at the third reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth.

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Six Surprising Reasons to Pray as You Pursue Truth

If you do not pray to understand truth, your hands are tied behind your back, your eyes are closed, and you are hard of hearing. And then there are the serious obstacles.

Pray to Understand Truth

In previous posts we learned that God leads even the newest believer into truth through three divine guides: the inerrant Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the church. Today we add one more crucial guide into truth, which I did not identify earlier and which will bring us to four guides into truth. This fourth guide is prayer. These four guides, used in harmony, enable even the newest believer to know the truth with confidence.

What do you do when you do not understand a Bible verse, or a biblical doctrine? Is your first reaction to reach for a book that might explain it to you? Do you google the question? Do you ask someone such as a pastor or Bible scholar about it?

Or is your first reaction to pause and pray that God would give you understanding into that Scripture or doctrine? And if the question is significant enough to you, do you write out your question in your prayer journal?

What you do reveals what you truly believe about the role of prayer in understanding truth. It reveals what you believe in your heart of hearts about whether God will answer your prayers for understanding into theological truths.

Prayer is the fourth guide into truth, along with the Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the church.

Psalm 25

Psalm 25:4–5 says, “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” (ESV)

Here David prays that God would lead him into the truth. What is theology? What is doctrine? It is truth about God and his ways; it is truth about spiritual things. You can and should ask God to be your teacher. No one can teach you about God better than God himself.

Of course he will typically teach you through others, but by being careful to ask him to lead you into theological truths you ensure he is in charge of the entire process. If you pray, he will bring the teachers, videos, books, and teachings to you that answer your prayer.

Six reasons why prayer is an essential guide into truth

1. God teaches the humble.

Psalm 25:9 says, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”

Prayer is an act of humility and dependence. Therefore we can conclude he leads and teaches those who pray for understanding.

Next week we look at the second reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth.

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Church and Truth

Who needs the church? Anyone who wants the truth about God!

church and truth

In previous posts we learned that God leads into truth even the newest believer through three divine guides: the inerrant Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the church. We now look more closely at the guidance given by the church.

3. The church

The apostle Paul described the church as “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15, LSB).

Jesus commissioned his apostles, taught them the truth, and assured them that the Holy Spirit would further lead them into all truth (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13). Then the apostles taught the church the essential doctrines of salvation and God’s nature.

These core teachings from the apostles became the cardinal doctrines summarized in the church’s early creeds: The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed.

With regard to God, he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the mystery of the Trinity: one God, three persons.

Jesus Christ is God’s eternal Son, uncreated, fully God, who became fully man. He died for our sins, rose from the dead in a resurrection body never to die again, and ascended to the right hand of God as Lord and Christ.

With regard to mankind, all people have sinned and stand under the just wrath of God, but can be saved from eternal condemnation because of the atoning, substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We are saved not by relying on the merit of our own supposed righteousness but rather through faith in Jesus Christ, relying exclusively on the righteousness he credits to us as a gift.

The church that the apostles of Jesus founded, that is now worldwide, and that is two-thousand years old agrees on these essential truths of salvation as the teaching of the Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

What about when we seek the truth on matters that are not of first order importance, matters on which orthodox churches disagree? I will have more to say about that in future posts.

Next week I will add one more crucial guide into truth, which I did not identify earlier and which will bring us to four guides into truth. This fourth guide is prayer. These four guides, used in harmony, enable even the newest believer to know the truth with confidence.

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Trusting the Spirit of Truth

The Spirit of Truth takes your mind to another level

spirit of truth

In the previous post we learned God leads into truth even the newest believer through three divine guides: the inerrant Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the church. We now look more closely at the guidance given by the Spirit of Truth.

2. The Holy Spirit

The third person of the Trinity has divine ability to lead us into truth. Jesus told his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). Jesus had complete confidence in the Holy Spirit to do this.

Notice that Jesus called the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth.” We lack the ability to know the truth of the gospel apart from the Spirit of truth. First Corinthians 2:11 says, “…no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

And 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

So the mission of the Holy Spirit is to reveal truth within the human soul, like a lamp within your spirit, not merely a teacher talking externally to you.

We can have confidence in the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit

The apostle John wrote, “His anointing [the Holy Spirit] teaches you about everything—and is true and is no lie” (1 John 2:27).

Even though our inner world of thoughts and feelings is subjective and prone to error, John had supreme confidence in the believer’s ability to find truth with help from the Holy Spirit in tandem with the Old Testament and John’s teaching (and by implication the teaching of the other apostles), which became New Testament Scripture.

John wrote, “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:6 ESV) He could say that as a divinely commissioned apostle of Jesus himself.

The apostle Paul showed the same confidence in the Holy Spirit

Paul showed similar confidence when he instructed Timothy, “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit [the true gospel] entrusted to you” (2 Tim. 1:14).

The Holy Spirit lives within every true believer in Jesus Christ (see Romans 8:1–16), and he is the Spirit of truth who leads us in truth through the Scriptures, which he wrote (see 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20–21).

The Holy Spirit guides us into truth by illumining our minds to understand Scripture and by giving an abiding internal witness to truth. We do not hear a voice talking to us externally or internally (except perhaps in a very extraordinary occurrence), but we do experience his illumination, his witness, and the divine depth and breadth and weight he gives to truth.

Next week we look closely at the third, essential, divine guide into truth—the church—enabling even the newest believer to know the truth with confidence.

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How Does God Equip Even the Youngest Believer to Distinguish Truth from Error?

Distinguishing truth from error requires that we rely not on our own understanding, but rather on the guides God has provided.

Distinguishing Truth from Error

In previous posts in this series, we have seen the importance of pursuing truth from God and being on guard against error, for we live in a world swirling with deceptions about the ultimate questions of life. These lies can lead to our destruction.

That brings us to a crucial question. How do we recognize false teaching? How does God equip even the youngest believer to distinguish truth from error?

Passing the test brought on by deception

Those who love and trust the true God will not ultimately be deceived and lost due to false teaching—guaranteed—but that does not mean their salvation is automatic. We are responsible to follow the guides God has given to keep us from error.

When you are unsure what is true, you can trust him to lead you to truth as you prayerfully find harmony between three guides:

(1) the objective truth found in God’s inerrant Word (the Bible),

(2) the subjective truth given by the abiding, internal witness of the Holy Spirit,

(3) the objective teaching of the broader church on essential doctrines.

We must find agreement between all three.

1. Scripture

The foundation of all true teaching about God is the Bible.

The apostle Paul counseled his assistant Timothy, “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching” (2 Tim. 3:14–16, italics added).

Paul was an authoritative apostle commissioned directly by Jesus Christ, and we see in this verse that he had complete confidence in Scripture as the inerrant guide to the truth that brings salvation, just as Jesus had absolute confidence in Scripture and his own teaching as inerrant guides.

“Scripture cannot be broken,” said Jesus (John 10:35).

Notice that I said Scripture is an inerrant guide. People go astray when they think they know better than the Bible and Jesus. That is a sure way to end up in error. I long ago determined that I would humble my mind under God’s Word and believe it rather than believe my own understanding or the wisdom of man.

God is perfect, and he has given us perfect truth in Holy Scripture.

Next week we discuss the second guide to truth: the Holy Spirit.