Galatians 1:11-12 – For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
For fun, I recently put the simple word “God” into a search engine. In the first page of results, I was given some articles by Christians, a link to a spoof Facebook page for God, an invitation to explore the Seventh Day Adventist Church (which probably has terrible church barbecues due to their forbidding of pork), and an ad for the old movie that Noah showed his kids on the ark – Oh, God!starring George Burns and John Denver.
For anyone seeking to figure out who the real God is, it’s easy to become completely overwhelmed with all the opinions, philosophies, religions, and ideologies. Where should we start in the quest for our Creator?
A man named Paul, one of the most towering thought leaders in world history, breaks it down to a very simple set of options. There is revelation from God that God creates. And, there is speculation from man that Satan counterfeits. Here’s the difference:
Revelation
- From God – only God can truly reveal God. God knows God, and the only way anyone else can get to know God is if God introduces Himself.
- Based on Truth – God wants you to know who He is and how to get to know Him better.
- God’s Word to man – when God reveals, the direction is down – from Heaven to earth.
- Unchanging – because God doesn’t make mistakes, He got it right the first time and does not need to update His message to appease the marketing firm seeking to update His brand.
Speculation
- From man – anyone can concoct any crazy concept of God, and it is doubtful that you could conceive of any strange idea about God that has not already been floated by someone else.
- Based on tradition – since we long for eternity, sometimes we settle for something old from the past hopelessly hoping it will suffice. This is how we get tradition.
- Man’s words about God – if you have ever seen someone angry and screaming at the sky then you understand philosophy.
- Always changing – just like a fake medication does not work, so a counterfeit gospel does not meet our deepest needs, so we keep prescribing more fakes to real faith.
Is there any speculation that you have allowed you to disagree with God’s revelation? For example, is there a philosopher, critic, or mocker of Christianity that has gotten your head confused or your heart conflicted?