My husband and I hurried through the airport, to make our connection while dodging and squeezing between other fliers and their bags. It was the last leg of our flight back home and we maneuvered through thick waves of congested bodies as everyone tried to get to their flights. We finally arrived with our phones in hand at a central boarding area from which several other flights were leaving.
We checked our airline apps. As various destinations were announced, multiple groups exited through the same gate. We’d never seen it done quite like that before, and it confused us. Beyond the gate, however, the hallway forked to other gangways which spat passengers out in different directions.
Finally convinced we were in the right spot, my husband and I sat down with the flight boards lined up in front of us. Each destination had a board of its own. Our city’s was the last screen on the right.
I was tired. I’d been reading on the plane. My eyes were blurry and the board was difficult to read. I blinked to clear my vision.
But the flight data was still blurred.
I moved my head and tried from a different angle, but the letters and numbers were fuzzy. I closed first one eye
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and then the other. So began a process of thinking I needed a check-up and new glasses. I adjusted my glasses, cleaned them, and tried again. Same.
I looked at the other boards from left to right. I could see everything just fine down the line until I came to the screen with our flight on it.
After all the squinting and blinking, in the end, seeing the clear boards with true letters and numbers convinced me my eyes were fine. The data board was flawed.
The information was correct. The gates were spot on. But, the lines blurred because of a faulty screen.
The world’s interpretation of Scripture comes through its own lens. It distorts Scripture and bends it, blurring the lines, to what’s most convenient and compatible rather than seeing God’s—sometimes uncomfortable—truths.
The Apostle Paul’s custom of going to the synagogue to present Jesus as the Messiah met with fierce opposition in Thessalonica, so much so that Paul and Silas fled by night to Berea.
In Berea, they explained in the synagogue that Jesus fulfilled prophecy through his death and resurrection.
Paul and Silas found the Bereans, “more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11 ESV)
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The Bereans had an openness and diligence about what the Scriptures said. They examined God’s Word to see if what Paul and Silas preached aligned with the truth of the Old Testament. And, they established a daily routine to do so.
They honored truth and practiced critical discernment by examining the words of the apostles with the true words of God.
Many voices form our spiritual thoughts and directions today. We have books, courses, devotionals, podcasts, teachers, schools, and churches. But unless we hold their teachings up under the microscope of the true and infallible Word of God, our spiritual understandings can easily become blurred and unclear by the teachings of this world.
Eyesight grows weak, truth and error mix, and we find ourselves led astray, entering into the wrong gate and spitting out onto a false runway.
Sometimes even well meaning people convince us to look through a lens that blurs God’s Word and changes it to say something other than God intended. God’s Word serves as our strong and uncompromising anchor.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV)
As we waited for our flight, a lady a few seats away caught my attention. She sat facing the lines of screens. I could not help noticing how she squinted up at the boards. She turned to look about her, closed and opened her eyes, looked around the room and back up again. I was pretty sure she was headed to the same destination we were. Her forehead creased, her eyebrows met and her eyes narrowed. I could feel the woman’s worry build. She raised a hand over one eye, lowered it, and then lifted her other hand over her other eye.
I leaned toward her and hissed, “Excuse me. It’s not you. The board is blurred.”
She turned to look at me, still with a sort of what-in-the-world-is-wrong-with-me-look on her face.
“It’s not you. It’s the board,” I repeated.
“It’s blurry for you too?” Relief sighed through each word. “I thought it was my eyes.”
It is by knowing the real thing that we detect the false.
I have always loved the few short verses dedicated to the noble Bereans. Anchored by truth, they received, examined, and many of them believed in Jesus. May we know well what God says in His Word so we too are wise to recognize the blurriness of error and stand firm in truth.It is by knowing the real thing that we detect the false. Share on X
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