Read It for Yourself

by Doy Moyer

If I judge Christianity by what people tell me I should think, I would come away with a very different perception from what I can read in Scripture.

If I judge Christianity by the people alone — people who, like me, are so flawed and sometimes hypocritical — then I would, again, have a very different view from what I gather in reading the Scriptures.

There is a reason people are not the standard. There is a reason what people say is not the standard. Both set up an impossible and inconsistent standard of authority that comes only from other people.

Hear for yourself. Read for yourself. Don’t rely on what you hear people say about Christ and his church. Don’t rely on perceptions gathered from people who don’t always act right or speak with grace.

“This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe” (I Thessalonians 2:13).