Some ministers appear offended if their authority is questioned!

Today’s Puritan AUDIO Devotional:

The more vile Christ made Himself for us!
Thomas Brooks  Precious, 2 minutes.
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Some ministers appear offended if their authority is questioned!

(John Quincy Adams, “Baptists, The Only Thorough Religious Reformers” 1876)

“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11

The Bible should be the test of all preaching. That man who desires to make himself the umpire and final standard of appeal to the  congregation, involves himself in a fearful responsibility and virtually claims for himself infallibility. Yet some ministers appear offended if their authority is questioned, or if their preaching is tested by the Word of God.

Paul did not do so. Though inspired, he commended the course of those, who, instead of taking his word for it, examined the Scriptures for themselves, to see whether those things which he taught them were so. To adopt a contrary course, and blindly follow a minister or priest, is downright Romanism! And, if pursued universally, this would . . .
  arrest the progress of the Gospel,
  and clog the wheels of truth,
  and stamp error with immutability.

No, my brethren, your minister is not to be the umpire or standard. There is but one who could say, “Follow Me!” and that was Christ! We point you to Him. We direct you to His Word as the standard of your beliefs, and to His example as the pattern of your lives.

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20

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If you desire additional reading, may we suggest “Baptists, The Only Thorough Religious Reformers” by John Quincy Adams. Adams wrote this in the 1800’s when Baptists for the most part were Scripturally sound. One certainly could not apply this to all the different shades of Baptists today. This book is MUST reading for all Religious Reformers, regardless of denomination! Some 85 pages of easy reading.

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