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I remember listening once to part of a recorded lecture from a supposedly conservative Christian college that would have openly proclaimed a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. It’s been years now since I heard the lecture, but I still remember it clearly, because it had such an effect on me. The teacher was speaking about a verse in I John, and he declared in front of his students that this verse did not belong in the Scriptures.

“It’s only in two manuscripts of the Bible,” he said, and then he listed those manuscripts. He also explained how he thought this verse entered into our Bible if it wasn’t originally in what John wrote. That bothered me. Here I was, believing this verse, and this all seemed so proven, that the verse wasn’t originally in the Scripture. And so now I started to doubt whether this verse should really be in the Bible.

Then, studying something else, I discovered that the “proof” wasn’t as cut and dried as the college teacher had claimed. Various authors claimed different numbers of manuscripts contained the verse, and one of them admitted that half the manuscripts hadn’t even been looked at for his number, which was actually larger than the one the college professor had given out. Yet this professor had presented his “evidence” as absolute fact; probably he believed it himself. He even praised a particular non-Christian group for their view that this verse should not be in the Scripture. “They know the evidence,” he declared.

Another time I heard a missionary in a fairly conservative congregation in the same denomination as the college, and I’m sure that the missionary and the congregation that the missionary spoke at would have all stated a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture also. Yet when the book of James was mentioned to this missionary, he tried to throw doubt on the book by saying that there had been controversy about whether that book should have been included in Scripture.

If one reads commentaries, he will probably soon find out that a very large number of verses have had their authority challenged as having not been in the original text. These people will tell us that a very significant section of the New Testament, spread throughout the various books, is spurious and should be rejected.

The Apostle John said, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” He’s saying here that those who are of God will listen to the apostles. They will accept their teaching. They will follow it. Yet these “scholars” refuse to accept much of the teaching of the apostles! John tells us that they are “not of God” because they don’t hear the voice of God’s true messengers.

They are doing the same thing that Voltaire did, that David Hume did, that Darwin did—attempting to diminish the authority of the Bible for our daily lives, because if we have to check with scholars to know whether a Scripture is valid, then the scholars, not the Bible, are our main authority. Scholars have become the source that we must trust. This could easily be more dangerous than the open atheists because, since these people claim to be Christians, God’s people are more likely to be open to the false teaching and its “scholarship.” John says, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” He’s telling us, “You don’t have to rely on others to tell you the truth. You don’t have to just accept something because of the scholarship behind it. You don’t have to believe what people say because you can’t verify the facts. You don’t have to do that, because the Spirit is in you, and He will show you the truth! He will protect you as long as you persevere in following Him!” John is speaking in this section about those who were with the Christians he wrote to. He mentions “them that seduce you.” These false teachers were telling them things that weren’t in the Scripture. In chapter 2 John warns them to listen to the Holy Spirit and the Scripture. Then in chapter 4 he describes how to tell the difference between the spirits.

First, in verse 1, he warns them that it is a necessity to test, to find out whether these spirits are of God or not. It’s important, he says, because there are so many spirits that are teaching things that are not true. Then he tells them that the spirits must confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. When we look at those who are promoting the removal of Scripture, what do we find? The college professor I mentioned at the beginning of this article praised a group that denied the divinity of Christ. Supposedly the members of that group knew the textual evidence better than those who believed the verse he was attacking. Much of the critical text research is based on the presupposition that the Bible can be lost and forgotten just like any other non-inspired work.

Next John proceeds to explain that we, as Christians, have already overcome false teaching, through Christ. False teachers speak in a way that those who are not living to the glory of God want to hear, so those people listen to them. Then he says the verse I quoted before, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” He’s giving us another way to know which spirit someone is speaking from. Look at his life! If someone is listening to the words of God and obeying them, then we can take in and think about what he is saying. If someone is not obeying God, then his teaching will not be from God either. So when the missionary mentioned at the beginning of the article argued that repentance was something that should never be taught in evangelism, there was no need to listen when he tried to discard the book of James. In doctrine also, teachers need to be hearing God. When someone will not listen to doctrines out of the Scripture, there is no need to respect their scholarship or learning. We need to listen to God.

Jesus said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” We don’t need scholarship to tell us whether we can accept the Scripture. God shows us as we obey His will.