What has shaped the way you think about God?
The Bible?
Your church?
Your parents?
A favorite teacher?
Something you were taught as a child?
Or simply the way you have always believed?
Every one of us has a theology—a set of beliefs about God, salvation, worship, suffering, prayer, and the Christian life.
But having a theology does not necessarily mean we have a biblical one.
Something can be familiar.
Popular.
Emotionally comforting.
Passed down for generations.
And still be wrong.
In Jeremiah’s day, people had religious practices they had accepted as normal, but God condemned them because their worship was not according to His truth.
Centuries later, when a Samaritan woman appealed to religious tradition, Jesus told her that true worshipers must worship God “in spirit and truth.”
And Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would gather teachers who told them exactly what their itching ears wanted to hear.
So perhaps the question isn’t merely:
“What do I believe?”
It is:
“Where did those beliefs come from—and can I support them from Scripture?”
Today we’ll look at false teaching, religious tradition, the “queen of heaven,” our need for sound doctrine, and why every Christian must learn to examine what he hears by the Word of God.
Welcome to “God’s Word Day by Day,” where I blog through the Bible in a Year. I hope you’ll join me every day. If you’re not already signed up, you can do it here or subscribe and watch on YouTube.
Today’s Readings:
Jeremiah 7 & 8
Psalm 118.1-4
Proverbs 27.5-6
Colossians 2.1-23
What Has Shaped Your Theology—Scripture or Tradition?
Jeremiah 7 & 8:
Itching Ears
In today’s reading, the prophet continues along the same lines as yesterday’s readings, even repeating some of the same phrases.
In chapter 8, Jeremiah again speaks specifically to false teachers, priests, and prophets:
10 … Everyone is given to covetousness;
From the prophet even to the priest
Everyone deals falsely.
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace!’
When there is no peace.
Once again, he condemns them for giving the people a false assurance of peace concerning their relationships with God. He also condemns the people themselves for listening to falsehood.
Even though our pastors and teachers are responsible for what they teach, we are responsible for making sure what we’re learning lines up with God’s Word! Because something is popular or the way I was always taught does not make it biblically sound. There is only one way to be sure our understanding of God and His Word are biblically grounded, and that’s by knowing the Word for ourselves.
Itching Ears, Truth & Traditions
Many of us came out of religious traditions where we realized some things were more about tradition than what the Bible says. But we tend to swing from one extreme to the other like a pendulum. So, in some cases, we have thrown out solid doctrine in favor of things that sound good. We have begun listening to teaching and attending churches that tell us what we want to hear, things that are more like positive thinking and pop psychology than sound doctrine, things that satisfy our itching ears.
Many people form their theological views by listening to preachers and teachers whose style or messages they like without going to God’s Word for themselves. Paul told Timothy:
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (2 Tim. 4.2-4).
Some things taught by popular teachers today are not biblically sound. God is not a genie in a bottle waiting to give us everything we want or keep us from every difficulty.
Your Best Life Now & Itching Ears
It’s been said before, but God is more concerned with our character than our comfort and more concerned with our holiness than our happiness. This is not “your best life now.” This earthly life is where He is growing and maturing us into the likeness of His Son. As believers, our best life is yet to come. This world is not our home. Our home is in heaven, and the best is yet to come!
It’s not that God wants us beaten down and miserable, but He wants us to find our happiness, peace, contentment, and satisfaction in Him. We will never find happiness in the things of creation, only in our wonderful Creator! As the psalmist invites us in Psalm 34:
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!9 Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.10 The young lions lack and suffer hunger;
But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
But God’s rebuke through the prophet didn’t stop there. So, let’s look at a few more verses in Jeremiah.
The Queen of Heaven & False Worship
Jeremiah 7 also addresses false religious practices:
16 Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you. 17 Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.
The queen of heaven was a false deity, and God rebuked them for worship that was directed toward her.
Our Intercessor
Today, that name has been attached to the mother of our Lord. Mary was a godly young woman, but she was not and is not a queen or any more a saint than you or me if we belong to Christ. God said, “Have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20.3). That would include the worship of or prayer to saints and Mary.
I know some will respond that they don’t worship either one. Instead, they see them as intercessors who are in the presence of God. Yet, nowhere does the Bible instruct us to pray to intercessors.
Hebrews 4 tells us:
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
And Romans 8.34 says:
34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Jesus is our High Priest and the only intercessor we need.
Honoring Mary
Jesus honored His mother as a faithful son should. He saw to it that she would be cared for after His death (Jn. 19.24-27), but He did not honor her as someone to be worshiped or someone who was greater than other believers. Luke 8.20-21:
20 And it was told Him by some, who said, ‘Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You.’
21 But He answered and said to them, ‘My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.’
She was not sinless. She needed a Savior just like you and me.
The Wise Men Are Ashamed
Finally, there are those who think they have outgrown religion altogether, that science and man himself have the answers. They refuse to take the Bible at face value and, instead, see it as a book of nice stories or “spiritual truths” with little direct application to life. They refuse to recognize it as the authoritative Word of God. Jeremiah 8.8-9 has this to say:
8 How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the LORD is with us’?
Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood.
9 The wise men are ashamed,
They are dismayed and taken.
Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD;
So what wisdom do they have?
One day soon, all our secular thinkers and scientists will realize man is not greater than his Creator. But for some, it will be too late.
Again, I pray that you will study the Bible for yourself and not just accept what others say—me or anyone else. If any of these things describe you, and I’ve stepped on your toes, please forgive me. But I hope it will drive you to your Bible and to God Himself in a deeper way.
Today’s Other Readings:
Psalm 118.1-4:
And Yet …
And yet, even with all our foolishness, our vanity, our pride, and our false worship, if we repent and turn to Him, we will find that “His mercy endures forever” (vv. 1, 2, 3, 4).
Proverbs 27.5-6:
Open Rebuke or Love Concealed
Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
People who tell us what we want to hear and not what we need to hear are not our truest friends.
Colossians 2.1-23:
Don’t Be Deceived by Persuasive Words!
Like Jeremiah, Paul frequently wrote to the various churches to address false teaching. In the Colossian church, those false teachers rejected the simplicity of the gospel and claimed some higher knowledge or special enlightenment.
Dr. MacArthur says in his Daily Bible endnotes, “Far from being advanced, profound knowledge, the false teachers’ beliefs were simplistic and immature like all the rest of the speculations, ideologies, philosophies, and psychologies the fallen satanic and human system invents.”
Or as Paul said in Colossians 2.4, 6-8:
4 Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words … 6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
There are so many things out there trying to pull us away from the simplicity of the gospel and our faith in God: scientific theories that contradict God’s truth, ungodly secular worldviews, false religion, political correctness, popular culture, religious traditions, and more. We must stand fast and build our lives on God’s Word.
What that Requires
That begins with a genuine relationship with God through faith in Christ and what He did for us on the cross. But if we are going to grow and have the spiritual stamina to finish well and have peace and joy amid modern life, we need a steady intake of His Word through the Bible. That means reading it, hearing it preached, studying it, meditating on it, and memorizing it. If we think we can survive on a sampling here and there, we will find ourselves weak, discouraged, joyless Christians.
If you’re interested in learning more about the book of Colossians, you can check out my series. Here is the first one:
What Do You Think?
How has God spoken to you today? Perhaps you saw a passage in a new light or an area where you need to grow and change. Did you find a promise to hold on to? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Coming Up:
In the coming days, we will look at how to test ourselves spiritually, the importance of standing up for the truth, and ask the question, “Should you follow your heart?” We will also talk about Halloween, witchcraft, and conscience issues a little later in the month.
I hope you’ll sign up so you don’t miss any of them. You might also like to check out the latest videos on our YouTube channel.
And if this post spoke to you, consider sharing it on your favorite social media platform.
Blessings as you grow in Christ,
Donna ♥
Note about this post:
I began blogging through the Bible in 2012 and have done so every year since then. These posts are the product of many edits and additions throughout those years.
A while ago, I read Jen Wilkin’s book None Like Him about the attributes of God. One is His incomprehensibility. In it, she says, “God is incomprehensible. This does not mean that he is unknowable, but that he is unable to be fully known.”
I have found that to be true each year as I’ve gone back through the Bible. Sometimes I find myself feeling as if a passage just appeared there for the first time. I’m reminded that no matter how many times we read through the Bible, we have only scratched the surface. I hope you feel the same.
Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways,
And how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26.14)
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