Articles
There is a Higher Standard
There is a Higher Standard than parents, spouse or children. We should honor our parents, love them and care for them with compassion and warmth. God tells us plainly about the attitudes and duties He expects us to nourish and maintain in the home (Psa. 127). I owe a great debt of gratitude to my wife and love her with all my heart. I love my children and my grandchildren are a special treasure. But nobody, however dear, must ever be exalted to the place of God. We must steadfastly refuse to lower our standards based on emotional attachment to anyone. There is a Higher Standard.
There is a Higher Standard than friends. Friendship is a splendid blessing of life on earth (Prov. 17:17). To know people you like to spend time with and converse with. To enjoy and share various pleasures of life with someone who is special to you is relaxing and memorable. But we cannot allow the influence of friendship to overcome our good judgment and certainly not our loyalty to the Lord. It may be, one of the great tests of faith is to remain true to God when friends are weak and faithless. Friends are good but there is a Higher Standard.
There is a Higher Standard than scholars. It is intellectually and morally lazy to refuse to take the time for your own personal study and thought. It is also immature to simply embrace the word of a man because of his reputation and intellectual greatness as commonly measured by men. God never said a word suggesting to us that we hold scholars in such esteem that we turn our minds off or close our Bibles. Even if every man who is called “scholarly” agrees on a given proposition, that doesn’t necessarily say anything about what we should believe and do. There is a Higher Standard.
There is a Higher Standard than editors, writers. Whatever our opinion or experience may be about written publications (tracts, periodicals, etc.), they are here to stay and we must put them in their place. Today, there are the electronic avenues (e-mail, mass e-mail, internet, world wide web, fax), which are also unlikely to disappear. It will be valuable for us to remind ourselves that the writings of men carry no authority. What men write may reflect their conclusions and convictions, or passions and prejudices, but the fact that a human author puts something into print (paper or electronic), does not mean it is in keeping with the Scriptures, therefore worthy of our belief and action. I have personally benefited from the writings of many brethren for over thirty years. I am thankful to good men who have taken the time to write and have helped me in my study. For over a decade I have written on a regular basis and now write a weekly electronic message, a monthly column and co-edit an electronic periodical. So I’m not an outsider tossing out impulsive criticism. I’ve had to give this some thought, and I’m wholeheartedly persuaded that there is a Higher Standard than editors and writers.
There is a Higher Standard than preachers. There is a great need for good men, devoted to Christ and able to preach the Word. From my youth there have been many preachers who have helped me understand my duty. Good men have supplied me with both example and motivation to challenge me. While there is a place for preachers, they must be kept in their place. Early we must learn “not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other,” (1 Cor. 4:6).
There is a Higher Standard than majority belief and culture. We live in a time when polls and surveys are taken daily, then reported on the evening news. In our form of government there is great emphasis on what the majority of people want. Let us guard against the temptation of letting polls of majority belief or cultures determine what we teach and practice. “We ought to obey God rather than men,” (Acts 5:29).
