“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar” (Prov 30:5,6).
Everything needed for godly living in the eyes of a righteous God has been made available to us so that we can “escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:3-4). Through the grace of God, the indwelling of and baptism in the Holy Spirit, the intercession of Christ in heaven, and God’s inspired Word, the believer has been provided with all that is needed for life and godliness. And yet there have always been those since the earliest days who would promote the idea that something must be added to the teachings of Jesus. Paul gave strong rebuke in his letter to the Galatians for allowing themselves to be misled by false teachers who were mixing customs under the Law and primarily the need to be circumcised with the gospel of the kingdom and faith in Jesus Christ as being necessary for salvation. And many traditions of men have been added to the pure gospel over the ages in like manner to corrupt what has been revealed for us in the scriptures. God’s Word must never be mixed with human ideas, no matter how cleverly presented with persuasive words by eloquent speakers. It is necessary to take constant heed in these latter days when false apostles abound, masquerading as ministers of righteousness while in truth being workers belonging to a kingdom ruled by Satan (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). The greater tendency today is not that of adding words to inspired scripture as much as diluting and compromising the Word of God with pleasant psychology and promises of prosperity which lack any biblical foundation whatsoever. One might wish to read the review found under Lessons on ‘The Emerging Church’ on this website in this regard. It has been my rather consistent experience over a great many years (83 as of next month) that the larger the congregation of an individual church, the more likely that one can find erroneous preaching at some level, whether it be the addition to or deletion from words found in Holy Scripture. The tragedy of this is that the vast majority of professing believers are rather ignorant when it comes to biblical truth, not having committed themselves to the daily study of the scriptures, and consequently not recognizing when human reasoning has been added to divine revelation.
