Another Musick-al Note: # 49
If a person takes a package to the Post Office to mail to a friend, the clerk will weigh the package and from his rate book obtain the amount of postage. You may not be pleased, think the amount is too high, but usually one will pay the amount quoted. It would do no good to take the package to another Post Office in another place for every clerk would weigh the package, obtain the amount of postage from the rate book and it would be the same. We would expect it to be and would be very surprised if each were different from the others. Why would they all be the same? Because there is a standard rate for all postage in the United States and all Post Offices will follow the same rate book. They have the same standard of authority and follow it.
In religious matters, when one wants to know the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” and asks two, three or more groups this question, he is likely to receive as many different answers as the number of groups that he asks. One will say one thing, another something else and another something different. Why is this so? To listen to each one’s voice you would hear them say that they follow God and His Word. Yet when answering such a question, one goes to a discipline, another a church manual, another goes to a creed book, and another goes by what his preacher says. Are all serving God? They claim to be, but are they following the Bible which is the Word of God. Obviously not. Do all have the same authority in religion? No, for they follow other books and doctrines which are given by men. It is no marvel that the religious world is divided because all do not follow the same standard of authority in religious matters. Yet, we all could follow the New Testament, if we would let God speak through it without interpretation (changing the obvious meaning of words to fit their beliefs). It would mean discarding disciplines, manuals and creed books. It would mean setting aside prejudice, laws of men and decrees of council, synod and pope. It would mean a fresh look at God’s Word with a willingness to follow it alone, adding nothing to His Word and taking nothing away. It would mean that we would all have the same book of authority and all answer the question, “What must I do to be saved?” with the same answer given in the first century. It would mean unity in our day and age.
Gordon Musick
Musick-al Notes 