WE HAVE SEEN that to center your faith in a religious leader and his emphasis or in a religious system of thought and its emphasis is to produce babes in Christ. None of us has the truth, only Jesus is the Truth. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). What we hold is truths about the Truth.
Paul puts the religious leaders in their places: “For all belongs to you; Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present and the future—all belongs to you; and you belong to Christ, and Christ to God” (1 Cor. 3:21–22 Moffatt). Here Paul says that all religious teachers—Paul, Apollos, Cephas—belong to you, they are a part of your heritage, but you don’t belong to them; you belong to Christ. That tipping of the emphasis from good men to the God-Man was decisive. The gazing at Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and glancing at Jesus produced denominationalism and division. The gazing at Jesus and glancing at religious teachers produced Christianity and unity. It also produces maturity. You can never become mature if you make a man and his emphasis the center of your attention. You will exhaust the man and his emphasis in a short time; you will get the kernel of what he presents, and the rest will be husks. Feeding on husks produces stunted, immature Christians—babes in Christ.
The committing of ourselves to a teacher—“I am a Barthian,” “I am a Calvinist,” “I am a Lutheran,” “I am a Wesleyan,” “I am Pentecostal,” “I am a Neo-Orthodox,” “I am a Church of England,” “I am a This, That, and the Other”—puts blinkers on our eyes, making us see one person and one system, and makes for a starved, stunted, and runted type of Christian faith and Christian living. To be centered in Jesus Christ and in Him alone makes for an eternal expansion and an eternal growth.
O Lord and Savior, save me from the marginal, from half-truths, from anything less than Thee. I want to grow up into Thee in all things till I come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Thee. Thou art my everything. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Centered in half-truths I will become a half-person. I need the Truth to be a whole person.
