God’s Word Or Man’s Opinion?

Q

I live in a rural area. There aren’t many churches to choose from. I want to fellowship and join Bible studies but it concerns me that many churches use books written by popular authors for their Bible studies. I would like to see the Bible used for Bible study. Reading a book may be good if it motivates or inspires you. However, I would like to see the minister or the person leading the study use God’s word not man’s word. I would like your opinion on this.

A

I agree with you. When we’re reading the Bible we’re hearing the word of God as He gave it to us. But when we read a book, we’re getting someone’s opinion about the word of God, slanted in such a way as to make it commercially popular. Many of these books fall under the heading of “saying what their itching ears want to hear” ( 2 Tim. 4:3) instead of presenting sound doctrine. In order to be marketable even the best of them have to consist mostly of milk with little if any solid food.

Hebrews 5:13-14 says,

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.