The Berean Challenge

In 1 John 4:1, we are told to “test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” People tend to assume that the Devil has not gotten into the mainstream church or mainstream Christian beliefs, so that becomes their basis for truth. It’s always the other churches and branches of Christianity that are deceived. The problem is that there is no biblical evidence for this assumption. Rather, the Bible tells us that Satan is the ruler of this world (John 12:31, 1 John 5:19, etc.), and if he is the ruler of this world, then logically he can wreak havoc in all parts of it. His influence can be seen in everything from philosophy and education all the way to commerce, and he has therefore swayed the majority of the people in their views in practically every area of their lives.

The Bible calls the people of Berea, whom Paul and Silas preached the good news to, noble. Why were they noble? Because they took the time to hear what Paul and Silas had to say and then “examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). In other words, they tested the spirits. They set an example for us to follow that is pleasing to our Father in Heaven. Too often in today’s busy world, we place our trust in other people to search the Scriptures and interpret them for us. We put so much faith in their interpretation that we accept it as absolute fact, so much so that if we hear anything to the contrary, we immediately believe the Devil is at work. And isn’t this exact behavior what many people did when the Gospel was first being preached? Many would not hear what the disciples had to say. They were sure that they already held the truth. They made up their minds that the disciples were wrong before they had even heard what they had to say. We read about this in the Bible, and we judge those people in our hearts. We think to ourselves that they were so close-minded, that they had closed their hearts to the truth. We note the natural consequences of such behavior and we wonder how they could do that. Yet, this same behavior is prevalent among Christians today. We hear something that goes against what our church has taught us, and we immediately close our minds to it because we know that we already hold the truth. Why would we need to hear anything else? We tie our beliefs to our faith and declare that by not considering other beliefs, we are standing strong in our faith. In our mind, our unwillingness to hear beliefs that we deem wrong proves we have strong faith in God. But what if you did not actually hold the entire truth? What if you and your church are the ones who have been deceived? What if, in declaring ourselves wise, we have become fools?

This is hard to imagine because we don’t consider ourselves deceived, and we don’t act in a way that is not pleasing to God on purpose. Our hearts are in the right place. But when we close our minds to what other people are saying rather than testing what they have to say, we are not doing what we are called to do biblically. I have read the Bible from front to back, I have read the New Testament all the way through many times, I have put thousands of hours into researching various topics of the Bible, and I can almost guarantee you that I do not hold the entirety of God’s truth. We are called to be lifelong learners. We are called to always be searching for the truth. Because of this, I challenge you to test everything I say; I challenge you to be a Berean. Search the Scriptures for yourself, pray about it, and see what God reveals to you.