(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Have you seen this cereal commercial?
Several women decry the frustration of nutrition and diet research which contradicts itself. Examples:
- Carbohydrates are good; carbohydrates are bad.
- Eliminate as much fat from your diet as possible; a little bit of fat is good for you.
- To lose weight, eat no more than 1500 calories a day. To lose weight, eat no more than 1200 calories a day.
And then the ladies say something like, “You know what? I’m not listening to expert advice anymore. I’m going to listen to me. I know better nutrition when I see it.”
I want to ask them: “And how do you know what’s good? How did you find out? What makes you wiser than the experts? Sure, they make mistakes. But haven’t you made a few yourselves?”
I’ve seen the same attitude in discussions of spiritual matters.
“Well, I believe…”
“In my opinion…”
“I just know that…”
Oh? Sometimes we forget that there is a standard for truth—the Bible. In the long run, it doesn’t really matter what we believe or think. What matters is what God’s Word says. If our thoughts and beliefs do not coincide with the Bible, we’re on the wrong track.
Bible Study 1 (Photo credit: DrGBB)
“The Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). In other words, God is the only source of true wisdom. We humans cannot manufacture it on our own.
God pointedly warns us about thinking of ourselves as experts of wisdom. “Do not be wise in your own eyes,” he says (3:7a). “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice” (12:15).
EXPERT (Photo credit: Pete Prodoehl)
I, for one, would not set myself up as an expert, like the women in the commercial. I don’t always know what’s good for me. I’m not that smart!
Instead, my measuring tool is God’s Word. That’s where I turn to verify if my line of thinking is straight. There is only one Mastermind, the One who created me. And unlike human experts, he is completely trustworthy.*
It would behoove me to know what he thinks before I spout off my own opinions.
English: Eric H. Cline excavating at Megiddo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
* The Bible is also trustworthy, proven time and again to be accurate, by the ancient manuscripts, archaeology, prophecy, and other proofs. You may wish to read Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction by Eric H. Cline and The Evidence of Prophecy edited by Robert C. Newman for a deeper study of these fascinating topics.
From the Inside Out 