Whose Opinion is It?

Our thoughts and opinions are formulated from something we have been taught! Where do our wrong opinions come from? They come from our parents, schoolteachers, friends, siblings, and pastors, to name a few. We even learn and formulate opinions from what we read and what we see on TV, and from the movies we watch.

Let us get down to where the rubber meets the road! How many times have you looked at someone and formed an opinion of whether they were walking a godly walk or not? How many times have you looked at someone and passed judgment on what they were doing or wearing as being ungodly? How often have you felt led to say something about it to them? Did you?

As far as our opinions and thoughts go, we may not even realize who taught us. However, anytime we make a judgment about how God, would do something, or how God would not do something; or how God would have someone do something, or not do something. That is dangerous territory! We are not supposed to take OUR opinions and decide or pass judgment on anybody in any way! Period! The Bible is truly clear regarding us passing judgment on others. (see Romans 2:1) The world we live in today is horrid! People today apply their opinions and what they hear on television on to people and never even think they could be wrong! If we do not go to God and get His perspective about the individual, we are looking at then we are automatically participating in the opinion of man! Without God’s perspective, we automatically apply a worldly opinion, or an opinion of man to a concept only God can understand.

Ask yourself this question. Would you want to know, if you had overridden God’s perspective in someone’s life with your “own” wisdom? Christians say, God gives us wisdom, and He can! However, wisdom from God comes only when we are listening to Him and when we are letting Him teach us.

“A wise man's heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction. (NIV) Proverbs 16:23

“To answer someone before hearing him out – is both stupid and embarrassing!” Proverbs 16:23 (CJB)

When someone takes a scripture, and applies it according to a teaching of man that they have heard, and then applies it to their own opinions, and then applies it to their own experiences or to where they think it fits then - it is no longer pure! Even the scripture itself, becomes opinionated and is really nothing more than an opinion, in a lot of ways. In other words, if you take a scripture and use it to criticize someone, or use it to condone something you are doing for a selfish reason, that scripture isn’t pure anymore and - it is NOT truth. A lot of times when people say ‘the written Word of God tells me to do this or that’, and the Word is not under the guidance or under the direction of the Holy Spirit and the power of God or the Father, that word is nothing more than an opinion of man. The scripture, however, is still a pure Word because no matter what you do to it - it is truth.

There are people who will take a scripture, misapply it and call it God’s Word. Once misapplied, it is not God’s Word anymore. God’s Word, misapplied, is somebody’s opinion, influenced by God’s Word or backed up by God’s Word. It is no longer God’s Word, in the sense of a direction that came from The Father. Once we start putting it where we think it belongs. It is still God’s written Word, but as far as God’s direction, as far as God’s guidance - it is not that anymore.

That is why Jesus was so angry with the Pharisees. They knew the Word, but they were applying it for their own selfishness, for their own defense, for their own satisfaction and to condone their own actions. They took the scripture and made it work for them!

The minute we take a scripture and ‘make it work for us’ no matter how accurately it was translated, putting our own opinion on it makes it doctrine! It is not God’s pure Word anymore! Rather, we should say “OK, Father. You have put the scripture in my mind. How do I apply it? How do You wish for me to understand it? How do You wish for me to come to a grasping of what You intended that scripture to be used for? How do I come to do and know exactly what You want me to do and know? How do I come to know the fullness of what You meant here?”

(sw-h)

Back to Chapters