Recently I listened to a podcast hosted by two former Christians.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The question that prompted their “deconstruction” was kind of surprising to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
First, they pointed to Jesus’s promise in John 16:13 – that, once sent by Jesus, the Spirit would lead them into “all truth”. And then the two podcasters asked this question:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
“If the Spirit leads disciples into all truth, why are there 44,000 different Christian denominations in the world? Shouldn’t all believers be unified if we each have access to ALL truth through the Spirit?”<\/p>\n\n\n
Even if 44,000 isn’t an accurate number (and who knows how one would count such a thing), it’s undeniable that there is a lot of disagreement within the Body of Christ – and often over major doctrines.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Besides, the question would stand even if there were only two denominations on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n
But here’s the problem: The podcasters were making an assumption about the sort of “truth” being promised. Does it really seem likely that Jesus was promising that the Spirit would come bearing correct doctrine?<\/p>\n\n\n
How might our reading of the promise change when we remember that Jesus had earlier said, “I am the way and the truth and the life”? (John 14:6)<\/p>\n\n\n
What if “lead you into all truth” primarily means “make you more like Jesus”?<\/p>\n\n\n
Being filled with the Spirit isn’t about intellect. It’s about heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently I listened to a podcast hosted by two former Christians.\u00a0 The question that prompted their “deconstruction” was kind of surprising to me.\u00a0 First, they pointed to Jesus’s promise in John 16:13 – that, once sent by Jesus, the Spirit would lead them into “all truth”. And then the two podcasters asked this question:\u00a0 “If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4179,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions\/4179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}