Where Did I Get This?

Start with a question Think of something you believe about God. How did you come to believe it? Was it from reading a verse, or from hearing it, year after year, from people you trusted? Most of us can’t say. We simply grew up inside it.

The test of inheritance The Bible asks the question directly. Jeremiah speaks of a day when the nations will say: “Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.” (Jeremiah 16:19)

Jesus confronted the leaders of His day for the exact same reason: “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition... Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.” (Mark 7:9, 13)

Peter reminded believers that they were redeemed “from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers” (1 Peter 1:18).

Now look at Paul describing his own past: “And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” (Galatians 1:14)

Paul was sincere, educated and zealous, and he was persecuting the church. Sincerity and inheritance are not tests of truth. What is inherited is not thereby verified.

Five questions for any belief Pick a belief you hold and ask:

1. Where did I get it? From a text, or from someone’s explanation of a text?
2. Which verse says it? Can I point to it?
3. Does the verse say that, or does the explanation say that?
4. What does the surrounding passage say?
5. Would I accept this level of evidence for a belief I didn’t hold?

That last question is the hardest, and the most honest.

When a framework takes over Sometimes it isn’t a person’s tradition that controls how we read. It is a framework: a way of thinking, a definition, a system that came from somewhere other than the page.

Paul saw the danger: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

Notice what Paul is and isn’t saying. He is not telling us to stop thinking. Thinking is necessary every time we compare, weigh or explain. His concern is that something other than Christ should not become the authority over us. The question is whether our reasoning serves the text or rules over it.

Here is how a framework can take over without anyone intending it:

1. A reader begins with a definition that was accepted long ago.
2. A verse appears that doesn’t fit comfortably with it.
3. Instead of testing the definition, the reader adjusts the verse.
4. The next difficult verse gets the same treatment.
5. After a while, an elaborate system makes everything seem consistent.

But consistency inside a system doesn’t prove the system is true. A system can be perfectly coherent and rest on a mistaken first step. If it can explain away every difficulty, that may only show it is flexible enough to absorb anything.

So we ask:

1. Where did the controlling definition come from?
2. Does Scripture establish it?
3. If the framework and the text appear to conflict, why does the framework win?

A fairness rule This applies to everyone, in every direction.

1. A teaching isn’t true because it is old, popular, or held by most Christians.
2. A teaching isn’t false because it challenges the majority. A minority view may be right, but being a minority proves nothing.
3. Tracing where a doctrine came from can be interesting, but it does not settle whether it is biblical. The text settles that.

Someone who leaves one inherited framework and adopts another can make exactly the same mistake in reverse. Rejecting a conclusion doesn’t free us from the assumptions that produced it, unless we examine those just as carefully.

That is why every view in this course, including the one this course leads to, will be held to the same standard.

Not a rejection of reason Don’t take this as “never think” or “never learn from others.” Paul told the Corinthians his preaching did not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:4–5). That doesn’t mean learning, history and reasoning are worthless. It means they can’t replace the truth God has revealed. We use reason to examine the evidence, never to excuse ourselves from examining it.

And we do learn from others. The Bereans did. They “received the word with all readiness of mind,” and then “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). They listened and they checked.