Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eternal Perspectives, with Randy Alcorn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/randyalcorn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-22T16:30:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-04-03T05:16:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/644\/2023\/03\/bible-affirming-truth.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1199\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"693\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Randy Alcorn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@randyalcorn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Randy Alcorn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/\",\"name\":\"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-04-22T16:30:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-04-03T05:16:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/214b66ae06d44a58785070a3d97d6035\"},\"description\":\"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/\",\"name\":\"Eternal Perspectives, with Randy Alcorn\",\"description\":\"Fixing Our Eyes on the Unseen\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/214b66ae06d44a58785070a3d97d6035\",\"name\":\"Randy Alcorn\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ceeeb250f2eea4bbebda1e7147d32b2e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ceeeb250f2eea4bbebda1e7147d32b2e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Randy Alcorn\"},\"description\":\"Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries and a New York Times best-selling author of over fifty books, including Heaven (over one million sold), The Treasure Principle (over two million sold), If God is Good, Happiness, and the award-winning novel Safely Home.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.epm.org\/blog\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/randyalcorn\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/randyalcorn\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/author\/ralcorn\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?","description":"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?","og_description":"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/","og_site_name":"Eternal Perspectives, with Randy Alcorn","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/randyalcorn","article_published_time":"2023-04-22T16:30:20+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-04-03T05:16:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1199,"height":693,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/644\/2023\/03\/bible-affirming-truth.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Randy Alcorn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@randyalcorn","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Randy Alcorn","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/","name":"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-04-22T16:30:20+00:00","dateModified":"2023-04-03T05:16:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/214b66ae06d44a58785070a3d97d6035"},"description":"God takes our words seriously, and so should we.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/","name":"Eternal Perspectives, with Randy Alcorn","description":"Fixing Our Eyes on the Unseen","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/214b66ae06d44a58785070a3d97d6035","name":"Randy Alcorn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ceeeb250f2eea4bbebda1e7147d32b2e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ceeeb250f2eea4bbebda1e7147d32b2e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Randy Alcorn"},"description":"Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries and a New York Times best-selling author of over fifty books, including Heaven (over one million sold), The Treasure Principle (over two million sold), If God is Good, Happiness, and the award-winning novel Safely Home.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.epm.org\/blog","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/randyalcorn","https:\/\/twitter.com\/randyalcorn"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/author\/ralcorn\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":6162,"date":"2023-04-22T08:30:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/?p=6162"},"modified":"2023-04-02T21:16:01","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T05:16:01","slug":"affirming-biblical-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2023\/04\/affirming-biblical-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Affirming Biblical Truth Important for All of Us?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

Lots of people believe everyone will go to Heaven or that Hell doesn\u2019t exist. Where do people get these ideas?<\/em><\/p>\n

Our theology tends to come from sources we trust. Some people, instead of trusting Scripture, believe a hodgepodge of pop psychology and pop religion, with a little New Age philosophy thrown in. And some people think they trust Scripture, but don\u2019t bother to read and know it well enough to recognize truth (or heresy) when they see or hear it.<\/p>\n

The fact that a teacher or blogger or even a pastor has some good insights makes their heresy all the more easy to swallow. Hand a sane person undisguised rat poison and they won\u2019t eat it. Cover it in chocolate, and they just might. All effective heresy contains some, even much, that is true\u2014it\u2019s that chocolate coating that deceives us into taking a bite.<\/p>\n

Genuine ignorance may be the reason some teach what we know to be heresy. They have no intent to deceive. Yet as James warns, \u201cDear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly\u201d (3:1, NLT). God takes our words seriously, and so should we.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s another reason\u2014the most insidious, and probably the most common\u2014for false teaching. \u201cThe Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons [doctrines of demons in some translations]\u201d (1 Timothy 4:1). False doctrine is more than errant human opinion. Often its source is in another world, where evil spirits labor to deceive us. Ironically, demons know true doctrine better than we do\u2014making them all the more effective in obscuring and twisting it: \u201cYou believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that\u2014and shudder\u201d (James 2:19).<\/p>\n

Paul makes a remarkable statement in 1 Timothy 6:3-4\u2014\u201cIf anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

A rather blanket condemnation, but nonetheless scriptural and quite clear. What strikes me is the first description that comes to Paul\u2019s mind, as prompted by the Holy Spirit: teachers of false doctrines are\u00a0conceited.<\/em>\u00a0Why? I think it\u2019s because they choose their preferred doctrines over God\u2019s revealed doctrines. And that is not just error, it is the ultimate conceit. That view says, \u201cI trust my own opinions and perspectives (which are often identical to the current drift of culture) more than I trust God\u2019s.\u201d The false teacher earns the same condemnation as the enemy\u2014who set himself up to be God\u2014by following in his footsteps.<\/p>\n

The judgment upon a false prophet is serious indeed (capital punishment in the Old Testament). The burden laid on Bible teachers in the New Testament is also heavy. Jesus said
\n\u201cI tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.\u201d Titus 2:1 says, \u201cYou must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.\u201d Those are great verses to put up where we\u2019ll see them.<\/p>\n

Submitting to God\u2019s revealed truth, even when we do not like its implications, and wish that it said something other than it does, takes humility. The doctrine of eternal Hell is a prime example\u2014I do not \u201clike\u201d it, but I accept and submit to it, and recognize any of my instincts and arguments against it are but straw.<\/p>\n

Jesus spoke more of Hell than anyone\u2014who am I to suggest some way around a doctrine that Christ embraced and taught? And consider the vested interest that demons have in our not believing in it! (See\u00a0Hell: Eternal Sovereign Justice Exacted upon Evildoers<\/a>, which is chapter 29 of my book\u00a0If God Is Good<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

If I were to join people in believing (or worse yet, teaching) \u201cthere is no eternal Hell\u201d or \u201ceveryone will go to Heaven\u201d I might fancy myself civilized and compassionate. But in fact, I would simply be a heretic, trusting in my insights and doctrines over my Lord\u2019s\u2014and hence proving that I, and the current drift of popular opinion, not He, is my real \u201cLord.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by\u00a0 San Smile<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0 Unsplash<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"