It is a great blessing to have parents who are true Christians.  By true Christians, I mean parents who have first, obeyed the gospel by doing what the Bible commands (Hearing—John 6:44-45, Believing—Mark 16:16, Repenting—Acts 17:30, Confessing—Romans 10:9-10, and being Baptized—Acts 2:38), and second, are truly living by the Word of God and teaching their children to do the same thing.  However, when children grow up, too often they end up believing exactly what their parents believe, not because of personal study, but just because it is what their parents believed.  Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with children believing what their parents believe, but it must be based on one’s own investigation of God’s Word.

Almost all of us were, at some point, taught by another person.  If the person teaching us is knowledgeable in the Word, using the Bible to instruct us, and is someone we trust, we often end up believing what they believe.  This is a natural process.  We must, however, always be aware of the possibility of that person, no matter how much we love and trust them, being wrong.    It is not that they would lead us astray purposefully.  Whatever it is that they have taught us is certainly something they sincerely believe.  But, it is possible that they have not rightly divided the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).  If we believe what they taught us, and make it our own conviction, we are now believing something contrary to the scriptures.  If we believe the false doctrine to the point that we begin teaching it to others, we now become false teachers and put our souls, and the souls of others, in peril.

The process that I described above sometimes involves our parents.  They are the teachers.  We love them and trust them, and we respect their spirituality and godliness, and sometimes, without personal investigation of scripture, we accept what they teach us.  Thus, we “grow up” believing some false teaching.  It might go as far as becoming a part of a church or denomination that cannot be found in the scriptures, but we feel okay because our parents have always been a part of the religion, whatever it might be, and we trust them to lead us in the right direction.  Millions of people are engulfed in error or are a part of some man-made church simply because it is their parent’s religion and they grew up with it.  Many souls will be lost in this way.

What is the solution to this problem?  How can you be sure that you are not believing error or are a part of a religion that is not the religion of our Lord?  The solution to resolving any error, whether it is doctrinal, denominational, individually believed, or congregationally practiced, is always the same—turn to the Bible.

Many people have taught themselves out of error, whether it is just believing a false doctrine, or being a part of a denominational church, by going to the Bible and examining their convictions and religious practices in the light of God’s Word.  They have done this by opening the Bible with one goal in mind—coming to a knowledge of the truth on a given subject.  They determined to learn the truth even if it meant realizing that their instructors were wrong, and even if those instructors were their own parents, or maybe a brother or sister or some other close acquaintance.   It was not easy for them.  They were faced with tough decisions, especially when they involved family, but they followed the Bible and saved themselves from the clutches of error.

This practice of examining what we believe in the light of scriptures is critical.  Any of us can fall into error.  Many have “grown up” in error.  The only way out is the Word of God.  Many of the Jews fell into error.  The Sadducees embraced a doctrine that denied the resurrection of man and the continual existence of the soul, among other things.  How did they get themselves into such a mess?  Jesus told them.   He said to them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).  The fact that they did not know the Scriptures was their fault.  They had access to them, but they just did not study them like they should.  Jesus told the Jews on another occasion, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).

There is a lot of error in the religious world.  Much of what is considered orthodox is false teaching.  The fact that our parents, or some other loved one, believes it or taught it to us, does not change this.  Our responsibility is to search the scriptures.  We will either find that what we have believed is wrong or determine that we were correctly taught.  One way or the other, our conviction will be our own, and that is how God intends for it to be.