The same concept is true with knowing God's Truth. When you study the authentic (God's written Word, the Bible) the counterfeit (everything else written as a guide specific to a certain religion) is exposed as falling short of the real.
Those who want to find the errors of the Bible by studying it often become followers. Certainly anyone who is on a quest for Truth will!
I don't have to know everything about every religion to be conversant with arguing a point. I don't have to argue at all. All I have to do is point the questioner to Jesus and His written Word. God is up to the challenge!
If someone tells me there is 'another testament' I can point them to Jesus statement saying, "It is finished." If someone says someone else is the way to God, I can point them to Jesus own words, when He said, "No man comes to the Father except through me." I don't have to know the false to know the true.
That being said, there are a few things in our present day Bibles that weren't there in the first hand-printed copies, and I find that quite frustrating - - but if we let the Bible interpret the Bible, the questionable is minor enough to disregard. The message of the Truth is reiterated over and over in varying ways. When I find something that is only mentioned once, I question it. We should!
I'll give you an example.
Mark 16:18 is not in the original texts. It appears someone elaborated on the text and it got passed down through subsequent generations that way.
It says, "they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison it will not hurt them at all."
That statement is not repeated by any of the other Gospel writers, nor is it repeated in the Epistles. I would not want to base my theology on that text, nor trust it to mean I should go pick up deadly snakes and play with them or drink poison as part of worship to prove God's protection.
Reliable translations are careful to point out that this section was an addition not found in any original texts. Other parts of the 'added verses' are true, and are corroborated in other places in the Bible - - but not that one specific statement. Certainly Pau was bitten by a viper and didn't die. I have no doubt of God's protection when various people have been subjected to danger and should have perished. But - we are not to tempt God's good favor, and we don't check our brains at the door. If something doesn't seem right, 'suss it out, as they say in New Zealand.
God's Word is faithful and true and He stands up to being viewed as though through a microscope.
The reason I know that verse is counterfeit is because I know God's heart as revealed in God's Word, and that promise is not corroborated anywhere else. That is not to say it cannot happen. My God is a miracle worker!
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Our faith must be placed in Him, not in the dramatic. Just saying, it wouldn't be the foundation for my assessing Truth!
By the way, Happy Spring! Spring bounces back and forth between March 20 and March 21 depending on the year, and this year Spring started yesterday! Welcome Spring. Welcome occasional warmth and sunny days. Welcome flowers. Thank you, Lord, for all of it!
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