“The truth will set you free.”
—John 8:32
I recently attended a church service with a couple of friends, and we went to a diner afterward. Over French toast and egg sandwiches, we discussed the vast array of different churches, preachers, and attendees that have spanned over time.
The churches I’ve attended sporadically over the years were more old school—with robes and candles—while these friends are members of something more new age—with live bands and a video production crew. My friend’s wife was raised in a cult-like setting that called these new-age churches evil, yet attendance in these newer environments is growing, while attendance in older churches is dying off (literally).
“Maybe they are,” said my friend, “but even if they do, they served their purpose to get us where we are today.”
They were the horse-and-buggy to today’s automotive, I suppose. But the evolution of the delivery of the message is interesting. The old-school vibe I experienced seemed more piecemeal, with lots of hymns and random snippets of verses here and there, which weren’t as cohesive as the man in a suit jacket delivering a modern sermon here.
Our discussion drifted toward how each pastor, reverend, or minister can interpret the roughly 1,700 pages of biblical text however they want. And, being a vast spectrum of deliverers—ranging from good to evil and everything in between—that text can pretty much say whatever they want it to say by pasting different verses together and creating correlations. And then there are the deliverees—ranging from ignorant and impressionable to well-versed and informed—who can pretty much absorb whatever they want with a filter of their own selective hearing. So God’s Word—the “Truth,” if you will—is shaped and understood differently by man, intentionally or unintentionally, depending on who is doing the interpreting.
Our conclusion was that responsibility comes down to the individual to study and learn for themselves—something the minority take the initiative to do—otherwise, you’re at the mercy of whoever is at the head of the church, receiving a grab bag approach to religion. That’s the real truth.