Whose Truth Is It?

Adelola Edema


When I was much younger, my elder brother said he didn’t like boiled fish. He complained about the smell and the taste. So I decided that I didn’t like boiled fish as well. The truth is I strongly believed that boiled fish was not good, and somehow it began to nauseate me. Sadly all my mother’s five children stopped eating boiled fish, and my mother had to always fry fish for us (We suffered that woman ehn).
Fast forward to my teenage years, my sister and I had now become the kitchen “madams”, and I discovered that frying fish was not easy; with the oil splashing and hurting you, the fact that you had to stay there and endure the smell of the fish frying (I hated that smell) etc. Brethren, the rule had to change o. I could now not come and kill myself. So my sister and I returned to boiling fish and forced the boys to start eating boiled fish (I’m not your mother, I cannot die for your sakes na).
If it was mothers’ day, this may have been a tribute to my mum. But it is not.
We can laugh and yab my siblings and I because we followed one person’s judgement and suffered my mum, but we were kids. Many of us as adult Christians are guilty of this as well. Somebody says that God’s word says something that is not in the Bible or that is from twisting a scripture taken out of context, and we swallow it and live by it. How many “Christian principles” do we live by that is not based on God’s word? In fact some things may be in the Bible, and one pastor told us that it does not concern Africans, and we happily discard it.
The painful thing is that we don’t just swallow these doctrines, we judge others by them. We find scriptural reasons to condemn and judge others, just because “our father/mother in the Lord said so”. May God forgive us! I have a number of examples in my head, but I won’t type them here. But let us examine ourselves. Are we living by God’s word or other people’s interpretations of the Word?
And we can only know what God’s word says by reading the Bible and asking the Holy Spirit to teach us. Even if it is from our pastor’s sermon, or Christian article, it is important to still allow the Holy Spirit teach, so we don’t swallow wrong teachings. The fact that other believers are preaching it doesn’t make it God’s word. Yearn for the revealed word of God and trust that the Holy Spirit will teach you.

Now we have not received the spirit [that belongs to] the world, but the [Holy] Spirit Who is from God, [given to us] that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate the gifts [of divine favor and blessing so freely and lavishly] bestowed on us by God. (1 Cor 2:12, AMP)

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. (John 16:13, MSG)"