Search the Scriptures

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)

The Bereans were commended for two things: their eagerness to hear the truth, and their insistence on checking to see if it was true. Their authority was the Scriptures, and they searched them.

Teachers today encourage their students to be like the Bereans. They tell their students where to look in the Scriptures. Sure enough, the students look up those verses and realize that their teacher is telling them the truth. They have not searched the Scriptures! They have been led into thinking that they were searching Scripture when they were just given more teaching.

It is not wrong for a teacher to give Scripture. It is wrong to think that the teacher’s veracity is validated when the student has been given the teacher’s own texts.

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