How can I avoid being deceived by hollow and deceptive philosophy?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

Many false doctrines are taught. Unless God speaks to your heart, you have no responsibility to learn them all so that you can refute them. You need to know the genuine well enough that you are not deceived by that which is not real. That doesn't mean that you are to become so brainwashed in your denominational doctrines that even God can't talk to you. It means that you need to know Jesus Christ--you need to have that intimate, personal relationship--so well that nothing can deceive you.

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

(ASV) Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ:

(Darby) See that there be no one who shall lead *you* away as a prey through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the teaching of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.

Mankind was never designed to function without God. Man, being spirit, soul, and body, was meant to be joined to God, but our rebellion has separated us from God. (Isaiah 59:2) Scripturally, the soul includes the intellect, mind, heart, and will. Our souls were meant to be in submission to our spirits, and our bodies are meant to be in submission to our souls. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

When a person is saved, that is, born again, his or her spirit is joined in union with the Holy Spirit. Something also happens in the soul that causes a change. The eyes of our understanding are opened to a great extent when we are saved. Our mind, which is part of our soul is changed to a degree, but we still are plagued by much of our mind that is still carnal. That is why we are instructed not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2) We need to allow The Holy Spirit to renew our minds.

Whatever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23) Faith comes from God. (James 1:17) Faith comes by hearing the word of God. (Romans 10:17) It is possible to read the Bible and not hear the word of God. (2 Corinthians 3:14) We must remain connected to Christ. (John 15:5) We can become disconnected. (Colossians 2:19)

Philosophy is based on a world view, either Christian or non-Christian. A world view exists in the natural human mind. (1 Corinthians 2:14) That which is of faith is a heavenly vision. (Acts 26:19)

There is a difference between a heavenly vision and a world view. (Jeremiah 23:16) Naturalists assume that every person is in the same condition that naturalists are in, the condition of being disconnected from Jesus and dependent on supposition and a world view that exists in the natural mind. (Romans 1:28) They cannot believe that God really is capable of articulate speech. (1 Corinthians 12:2)

Those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23) It is an inner work, beginning with the Holy Spirit ministering to the spirit of saved person, then working outward to the soul (intellect, mind, will), and finally all the way out to the body, which is brought into submission to the Holy Spirit. (Romans 6, 7, & 8)

How can I avoid being deceived by hollow and deceptive philosophy?

How can we know anything about anything

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