Acts 24:14 But this I confess to you, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers… The Revised Version reads, "After the Way which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our fathers." St. Paul's teachings the Jewish party certainly regarded as heresy, and did not hesitate to call heresy. St. Paul urges that he did no more than belong to a sect, or section, of the Jews, who, while worshipping according to the Mosaic system, had received, as they believed, some further light by the direct revelation of God. To some Jews St. Paul's doctrine of resurrection, based upon the fact of the resurrection of Christ, was a heresy. To others his free announcement of gospel blessings to the Gentiles was a heresy. But his chief offence in the eyes of the more bigoted Jews lay in this, that he freed his Jewish converts from the characteristic demands of the Jewish ritual. This was, in their eyes, heresy indeed. As indicating a wider use of the term sect than that with which we are familiar, it may be noticed that it was used of Jewish sects by Josephus, of schools of philosophy by Greek writers generally, and of schools of medicine by Galen. There are four sides from which heresy, as a misrepresentation or perversion of accepted truth, may be viewed. I. HERESY AS IMPERILLING THE TRUTH. The apostle speaks distinctly of false doctrine, which puts the Christian truth in peril. There are great first principles, great foundation truths, and for these we do well to be jealous. But we must clearly see that while heresy on these points is dangerous to the Christian faith and life, heresy on points which men have been pleased to elaborate - on mere details and accepted formulae - have never shaken the rock-built house of truth, and never will. God has given us two all-sufficient tests of moral and religious truth. No heresy ever vet has stood the application of these two tests. 1. Is the statement in harmony with God's revealed Word? 2. Does it practically work out into that which is good - morally pure and good? We need never fear any presentation of so-called truth that is in accord with God's Word, and is manifestly "unto holiness." It is God's truth, whatever some may call it, if it helps to make men holy. II. HERESY AS A SYNONYM FOR INDIVIDUALITY. This it very often is. A man expresses a well-established truth in some new form or new phraseology, and, without waiting to examine it, and see if it was only new clothing on the old body of truth, his fellow-men raise the heresy shout, and create prejudice against him. St. Paul's heresy was only individuality, and God gave him that individuality in order that it might make him a holy power. Jews called it heresy, but we have learned to glory in the gospel with the Pauline stamp upon it. The lesson taught by the Christian records of nearly two thousand years, but which we are strangely unwilling to learn to-day, is that we must never crush individuality by the shout of heresy, but thank God for sending men who can clothe his old truth in adaptation to the thought and life of each succeeding age. III. HERESY AS REQUIRING JUDICIAL INTERFERENCE. This men think it does. This it never does. God's truth never wants the bolstering of any human courts or judges. God's truth asks only one thing from the world's powers and potentates - to be let alone. Truth wants the open air and the sunshine, that is all. It can win its own way. It can carry its own conviction. It can take care of its own purity. It can cast off all unworthy additions. We greatly need an absolute and unquestioning confidence that God's truth is in no danger. It smiles at unbelief and over self-reliant science, much as the granite rocks seem to do at the wild careering waves. IV. HERESY AS THE HEALTHY ASSERTION OF NEGLECTED SIDES OF TRUTH. Truth - revealed truth - is a great whole, but no one age seems able to take in the whole; some parts are always prominent and some are always in the background; and there is this constant peril, that the truths in the foreground are treated as if they were the whole, and any one who brings up to view the neglected aspects is liable to the charge of heresy. Many a so-called heresy is only a missed truth or a half-truth; and then, after men have done "calling names," they are glad to accept the teaching. One rule is set before us, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," whatever may be the name by which men call it." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: |
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