On the Authority of the Preacher and the Scripture

I enjoy hearing people teach God's Word.

Many times, though, different preachers either offer different insight on a passage of scripture, and sometimes their teaching contradicts what another preacher says of does.

Creflo Dollar preaches about the importance of loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Pastor Joseph Prince has pointed out that this commandment, the first of the two great commandments, comes from the Old Covenant.

Bob George, another impassioned evangelic has also made the case, using Scripture, that we are able to love God to the extent that we grow in grace and knowledge of His love for us!

Scripture bears out that the believer's greatest commandment is to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. Creflo Dollar, like many American preachers, still places greater emphasis on what we must do, whereas the Scripture and preachers aligned toward the grace accorded to us emphasize or identity in Christ.

In the case of Creflo Dollar, therefore, the revelation is simply incomplete. Even reading John's First Epistle confirms the immediacy and primacy of God's love in our lives as the priming force for us to love others:

"We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4: 19, New American Standard Bible )

It is important for every student of God's Word to rightly divide the Word of God (2 Timothy 2: 15).

 Every word of the Bible is truly stated, but not always a statement of truth, or an element of the Old Covenant,which God found fault with and replaced with the New Covenant of God's Grace working in us by the Power of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 8: 8 - 12)

When listening to a preacher, every listener must pay heed to how well the teacher heeds the primacy of the New Covenant in place of the Old. If someone is teaching truth from the Old Covenant apart from the Finished Work of Jesus Christ, the interpretation and application which one may draw from the teaching may lead to all kinds of errors.

For example, the two great commandments listed in Deuteronomy:

""The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

"And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12: 29-31)

These commands are total, no room for error, and trying to love is not enough. This law, rather than inspiring individuals to be loving and obedient, must necessarily produce despair, as no one can love God with everything that they have.

The heart of man is wicked:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17: 9)

Of himself, man cannot possible love God with all his heart. In the New Covenant, God promised to give man a new heart:

"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:" (Ezekiel 11: 19)

Here "flesh" is better translated "soft" or "of good tidings": the Gospel!



Paul explains that the law is not intended for man to live by, but to bring man to the end of himself:

"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers," (1 Timothy 1:9)

Paul also writes regarding the purpose of the law, the chief of which being to love God with all that we have:

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3: 19-20)

To the Galatians, Paul explains explicitly the law' temporary role as guardian until the Gospel was preached through Jesus Christ:

"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

"But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3: 23-25)

To preach to believers that they have to "love God" is an unconscionable abuse of the Scripture, as no man can love God, in his own human efforts, to the ultimate standard demanded by the law.

Creflo Dollar must amend his teachings if he wishes to instill and remind his hearers of their true, redeemed identity in Christ.

In some cases, therefore, some preachers have failed to rightly divide the Word of God. Still preaching the Old Covenant, they neglect the glorious power of God working thorough us by the power of the Holy Spirit, who enables, ennobles, and supplies us to be obedient!