Ed and Patsy now live in Athens, Alabama and are members at the Pepper Road church. As administrator of this blog, he enjoys sharing thoughts about spiritual maters. Not only his thoughts but good articles from other authors. He is also thankful to have been able to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ for over sixty years.
Someone has said that originality consists of forgetting where you got it. When we are tempted to think of ourselves as unique, original, our own person in our understanding of religious matters, it is good to remember that we all owe a debt of gratitude to many who may have contributed to that understanding. While we should never blindly follow any man, but look past all men to the inspired scriptures for the correct view of religious truth, we do not need to be so arrogant as to think that we have worked it all out on our own without the help of any who have gone before us. While one may not be of Paul or of Apollos or Cephas, it does not mean that he cannot recognize the contributions they may have made to his knowledge.
None of us are so self-made that we have arrived at our knowledge of the truth without having benefitted in some way from those who have gone before. While we must keep a certain distance from them in that we are unwilling to accept their teaching without scriptural verification (cf. Acts 17:11), we do not need to go out of our way to completely distance ourselves for any contributions they may have made. This applies both to individuals or movements in the past that may have contributed to our knowledge and understanding of the truth. The fact those individuals, being human, and those movements, being made up of men, who had flaws, should not keep us from recognizing the contributions they may have made to our understanding of the truth.
Every faithful Christian in this country, whether he recognizes it or not, owes a certain debt of gratitude to any number of men and women in the past for being where they are spiritually today. Of course, being faithful Christians, their supreme debt of gratitude goes to the Lord and His revelation of His will. To remain faithful, their loyalty must be to Him, but that does not mean they cannot also have deep gratitude for others who, in the past, have pointed them in the direction of that revelation. Only an ungrateful egotist would do otherwise.
There are two historical religious movements, one in Europe and one in the U.S. of which we deny being a disciple. They both had their flaws, but they both contributed to an atmosphere conducive to our being receptive to the truth when we studied it. In spite of their flaws, I believe that God, in his providence, used them to pave the way for people wanting to return to New Testament Christianity. They are the Reformation movement in Europe beginning in the 1500s and the Restoration movement in the U.S. beginning in the late 1700’s. While I do not consider myself an heir of either movement nor does my faith stand in either, I do recognize their contribution to my understanding of Bible truth. They were trying to shake free from the bondage of perverted Christianity. I believe we can all thank God for that.
The Reformation made many in the world of that day aware of the evil practices of the Catholicism of the day and our reading the history of it makes us aware of the same. Hence, they made much of the world aware that Catholicism was not the answer and divine authority rests in the scriptures and not the church. Sadly, it also resulted in denominationalism with many churches with their many differing creeds. The Restorers in America came to recognize that this is not as things should be, so they began to call for going back of those creeds to the Bible for faith and practice and unite on that. Also, many of these denominations had been affected by reformer, John Calvin’s teaching, which robs man of his free-will, making mans salvation a product of grace only, without obedience on man’s part. The Restorers emphasized the Bible doctrine of free will and the need for man to respond to God’s grace by an obedient faith. They made mistakes. But they contributed to a back to the Bible attitude among many in this country. We have all benefitted from this and we should show gratitude for it without becoming heirs of the movement but rather heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ through the gospel of Christ.
Yes, we can be humble and grateful enough to acknowledge the contributions of Martin Luther and Alexander Campbell to our knowledge of truth without embracing their fallacies or becoming their disciples. This can be said of other men in our past. Because we may believe that we have arrived at truth through our own study of the scriptures, does not mean that we have to demonize those whose work smoothed the way somewhat for our finding and receiving the truth. Certainly, we can and should be aware of their errors and point them out but we can also honor them for their contributions to establishing a climate conducive to understanding and accepting the truth.