"Do You Understand Everything?"

by Edward O. Bragwell, Sr.

A tactic used in the 60's and 70's by those using grace as the basis for extending fellowship to those teaching and practicing religious error was to ask their critics, “Do you understand everything about the Bible?” If you answered, “No,” then they would ask “How can you be so sure that others are wrong?” The idea being that since you admit you don’t understand everything then you have no right to say with certainty that another is wrong in his understanding.

It took me a little while to catch on, but when I began to see what they were doing, I quit answering their question with a mere, “No.” Rather I would tell them let’s pick a topic, let’s look at it and then you tell me whether I understand it or not. That would take away their “gotcha.”

Because one cannot say with certainty that he knows all about any discipline does not mean that he can not say with certainty that he knows much of it. In my early preaching days, I also taught high school math for one semester. If a student had challenged me for giving him and others a failing grade by asking me, “Do you understand everything about mathematics, then how can you be so sure that our answers were wrong” I would have likely taught him a thing or two that had little to do with math.

Don’t let those fellows who are presently talking about grace like they are the first ones in the church to have discovered that “by grace are ye saved” to lure you into believing that since we are all weak in our understanding in certain areas that we have no right to draw any lines against those professed Christians who may “understand differently” than we do. The fact is, we cannot understand truth differently, we either understand it or we misunderstand it.

As it was in the 60’s and 70's, I fear that it will be with the present one’s who are overemphasizing grace and using it as an excuse for broader fellowship, most of them will wind up out right espousing the false doctrines of the ones they are now seeking a way to fellowship – in fact, some of them may already be there.

Ephesians 5:17—Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  

 

Other Articles by Edward O. Bragwell, Sr.
A New Dogma
How to Raise a Heartache
The Right Baptism
Standing Alone