We Must Believe the Bible More than Our Church and Its Leadership and Ministry

To practice what we preach, so God gives us a wide open door to finish His work, we need to do what we ask others to do.

When we preach to the world, we say, don't believe us, don't believe any man or church or tradition - believe God - believe your Bible.

This is the message Mr. Armstrong preached, and God gave him a wide open door because Mr. Armstrong himself practiced that as a way of life.  He always believed the Bible more than any church leader or tradition or man.  This was his way of life even before he was an apostle - while a lay member among the Church of God Seventh Day.  He always believed God - the Bible - more than the ministry and leadership of the Church of God Seventh Day.  This is made clear in his autobiography.

This is exactly what he asked the public to do.  Believe God more than your church, ministry, and the traditions you grew up with.  And God blessed Mr. Armstrong because he did just what he asked others to do.

If we believe our ministry and leadership more than the Bible, we are practicing a double standard.  God will not bless that.

And it does no good to say, we let the Church leadership and ministry interpret the Bible and tell us what it means.  That is what the Catholics do, but we are to be different.  We have to let the Bible interpret the Bible.

That means, when you read something in the Bible that contradicts, or seems to contradict what the leadership and ministry in the Church teaches, you must make the choice to believe God more than man.

Some make the point, there are times when we must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).  This is true, but godly obedience starts with faith in what God says, so we must also believe God rather than man.

When the ministry speaks, they back up their points with scripture.  We believe the scriptures they quote, not the man himself.  We must believe what we believe because we believe God, not because we believe our Church, our leadership, our ministry, or our traditions.  And we must prove from the Bible the major things we believe.

As I have made the point many times before, this does not create division if it is handled right.

A member, or the Church leadership itself, may misunderstand a passage in the Bible.  Thus, there can be disagreements.  If the matter is important to a member, he may, if he chooses, discuss it privately and respectfully with the pastor or headquarters.  In some groups, this may not be wise, and a member may be kicked out for asking questions.  But you may be able to do this, depending on what group you are in and the temperment and character of your leadership and pastor.

But don't discuss it with the brethren.  Don't try to promote your "pet theory" as they call it.  Don't contradict the ministry and undermine their authority in the eyes of other members.  Don't try to "correct" the Church of God in that way.  Offer your correction to the ministry or leadership in private, if they will accept it.

If you create division by contradicting the ministry and promoting your ideas to the members, you can expect to get kicked out, and rightly so (Romans 16:17-18).

And be humble and willing to be corrected by the ministry.  The ministry may show you, from the Bible, where you are wrong.  Discussion may resolve the problem.  But if it does not, believe God, believe the Bible, even if this means not believing all of the traditions and doctrines of the group you are in.

And the leadership and ministry should teach this.  If they teach the members to believe them, the ministry, more than what the members see for themselves in the Bible, they are making idols of themselves, putting themselves in the place of God, which they have no right to do.  And I think God is not likely to bless that group with a wide open door as long as the ministry teaches a double standard, telling the public to believe God more than man, but telling their members to believe them because Christ leads them (though they don't always follow Christ).

And what of new people coming into the Church?  They are coming in because they are willing to do what the Church has told them, don't believe us, believe the Bible.  Then, once they are attending our services, they hear a different message: believe us because Christ is the head of the Church and He guides us in doctrine.  That is a double standard.  Some of them are likely to walk right out again when they see and hear that our leadership does not practice with the membership what it preaches to the public.

This is why I object so strongly to using Christ as the head of the Church to argue for ministerial authority.  It doesn't apply, unless you say the leadership and ministry are infallible and always follow where Christ leads.  We all know that isn't true.

We need to always believe what we see in the Bible more than any Church, tradition, man, leadership, or ministry.  And the human leader of any group needs to teach this to the membership if he wants a wide open door for preaching the gospel or if he wants to be Philadelphian.

I believe that no true Philadelphian will believe any man or tradition more than the Bible, nor will he let the leadership of his group interpret the Bible for him, nor will he assume that what the leadership teaches is true.  He won't cause division, but will quietly believe God more than man.  For a true Philadelphian, God will give an open door.  But if he is in a group whose leadership is not Philadelphian, that door will only be open a little.

And, because God gives the open door to Philadelphians, God will not lead Philadelphians to leave a group that is preaching the gospel to go to a group that is not preaching the gospel or to go to a group that is not giving it priority.  That would be the same as taking the open door from Philadelphians, and God will not do that till the work is done.

We have about 500 million people to warn while they have time to repent and escape before the great tribulation begins.