The story goes that there once was an old sage who lived in a small quiet village. One day two men from the town came bursting unannounced into his home, their faces red with frustration and anger. They told the old sage they were having such an argument that they could see no remote chance of reconciliation. The sage asked one of the men to stay and the other to return to him the following day.
Alone with the sage, the first man explained his side of the story to which the sage responded, “You’re absolutely right.” The next day, the second man stopped in to see the sage and to relate his own story to which the old man responded, “You’re absolutely right.” After the second man left the house, the wife of the sage (who had overheard both men’s stories) was left confused. She exclaimed, “How can you tell both of those men they are right when they are opposed to one another? Surely one must be right and one must be wrong!” The old sage responded, “You’re absolutely right.”
The sage in this story isn’t exactly the kind of wise man you would want helping you with an argument. How quickly does he turn from one opinion to the next! In the letter to the Galatians, Paul reveals that the church in Galatia had been guilty of the same problem. Paul writes to them that “I am astonished that you have abandoned the gospel of Christ so quickly for another one!”
The Galatians were guilty of swaying to and fro between teachings based upon who was teaching them at that particular moment. God calls us to something greater. Ephesians 4:15 tells us that we must “no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” In other words, we cannot say to everyone, “You’re exactly right!”
There is only one standard of truth to which we must hold regardless of who attempts to influence us to do otherwise: the Holy Word of GOD.
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