15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
Notice that Paul makes no distinction between the teachings passed on to the Thessalonians orally and those passed on in written form. He says they need to stand firmly on and hold to both. This is important in our day. There are no apostles left. They have died off, at least I have not seen any 1990 year old people walking around. I am sure Guinness Book of World Records would have a picture of them! I know that there are some who hold the title of apostle running around, but title does not mean they hold the same position that the first century apostles did. If they are claiming to be uttering new Scriptures, “Run, Forest, run!” Paul’s point is that we must take action in order to stay grounded in God’s revelation of Himself. We can’t float on the currents of the popular ‘spirituality’ packaged as truth. I don’t care how glitzy the packaging is, or how ‘inclusive’ they claim to be, the Truth has not changed. Do you notice that they claim all roads lead to the same place, and yet they reject the road that leads through Jesus! All roads are exclusive, they all reject each other. You can’t believe there are millions of gods and believe there is only one god. One or the other position must be false. But that is exactly what these newly packaged ‘spiritualities” try to sell you. They paint with broad strokes every religion, reinterpreting them according to their own lens of shallow self-promotion, self-glorifying pastels. They become intolerant of intolerance without recognizing their own intolerance. That is why it is so essential to stand firm in the Scriptures. But that is where the Church in the West is failing to a large degree. The knowledge of the Scriptures is astonishingly thin. We claim to be a Jesus-follower, but we spend so little time trying to understand what God has spoken to us in the Word. We think that somehow we will absorb His presence and will through osmosis. We think that sending Ecards and email forwards to each other will meet our eternal needs. We put plaques on our walls, and install a screensaver and think that we will absorb enough truth to survive. I don’t want to just survive, I want to thrive! I desire to have God work powerfully in and through me. I want to see the greatness of God working through this vessel of clay. I want to encourage you to run fully after the Lord. Don’t settle for bits and pieces.
The Arnold Journey 