A Serious Charge

Heresy.

The word has a chilling ring to it, evoking images of ecclesiastical torture chambers and zealous witch-hunts.  It smacks of intolerance and rigid, unyielding dogmatism.  Indeed, in our relativistic age, the word itself has outlived its function.  Heresy trials are virtually non-existent in the contemporary church.

Historically, the church distinguished between "heresies" and "errors," indicating a difference in degree rather than in kind.  That is, though all heresies are errors, not all errors are elevated to heresy.  That heinous word heresy is reserved for an error of a most severe sort.  All errors of truth matter, but not all errors threaten the very substance of the truth.

Error invades the thinking of every Christian.  None of us is infallible. None of us is omniscient -- not only because we are sinners but because we are creatures -- inherently limited and finite. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite.  Omniscience is a divine attribute.  God does not impart it to us.  We concur with the adage "to err is human."

Our error, however, is not limited to our human boundaries of finite limitations as human beings.  Errors are also a real and often deadly result of our sin.  We wonder, for example, why there are so many diverse views as to what the Bible teaches.  God is neither the author of confusion nor of error.  The fault does not lie with Him or with the Bible, but with us.  We are the ones who are guilty of distorting what the Bible teaches.  To distort the Word of God is no small matter.  It does violence to the very Author and Spirit of truth.


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