Change Your Mind About Anything Lately?

Over the past 15 years, I have changed my mind about a few things Biblical. A big one is my understanding of I Tim 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

This Scripture might seem clear enough, but I brought a lot of past baggage to my early theology. I believed from my earliest years that God really works through an organization, and more particularly through whatever man was leading that organization. I bought into the myth that the church is the Mother of us all. (The Scriptures never say this about the church. You can look it up).

Even when I reached adulthood and changed my religious affiliation, I ended up in an organization that claimed the very same things regarding church authority as I had been taught in my youth, accept more so. The only way I could reach the Father was through the Son, I was told, but reaching the Son could only be through a particular church organization headed by a particular man.

That dangerous theological view implies shifting responsibility for salvation to the organization and its leadership, giving them a dangerous degree of control over your life and thinking. This, in spite of Paul’s admonition to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, in spite of Jesus’ teaching about the truth setting us free, and in spite of Peter’s statement that we, i.e., we Christians, are a royal priesthood and therefore by definition have a direct private line to God without the need of a physical priesthood over us.

The fact is, we’re responsible for ourselves. It is incumbent upon us to prove all things, and this isn’t just for theological constructs. It’s true that we shouldn’t accept everything that comes out a pulpit, and it’s just as true that we shouldn’t accept everything that comes out of the mouth of Sean Hannity. (No offense to Sean intended). And certainly we shouldn’t believe everything that comes out of the mouths of our duly elected officials.

How ironic it was for someone like me, free-thinking enough to choose my own religion even while a youth, to promptly leave my critical abilities in the baptismal tank. Trust me on this: God expects more of us than that. He is big enough to handle our questions and doubts and powerful enough to lead us into all truth without the aid of self-proclaimed prophets.

If anyone anywhere demands that you accept whatever they say as truth on penalty of ridicule or worse, they are trying to enslave you by stealing from you your right to God’s unique spiritual path for you in pursuit of his truth.