Are You Following Jesus or Just Following What You’ve Been Taught About Him?
Most of us did not begin our Christian lives with an empty Bible, no previous ideas about God, and no one telling us what Christianity meant. We learned from someone. Perhaps we learned from our parents or grandparents. Maybe it was a pastor, Sunday school teacher, denomination, church community, Christian school, television preacher, author, Bible study leader, or someone whose faith we respected. Long before many of us learned how to study Scripture for ourselves, someone was already helping us understand what Scripture meant.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. God gives teachers to the church, and Scripture repeatedly shows believers learning from one another. The Christian faith was never intended to be lived in isolation, with every believer deciding that he or she needs no instruction from anyone else.
The problem begins when what we were taught about Jesus becomes a substitute for actually knowing Jesus.
There is a difference between receiving instruction and surrendering discernment. There is a difference between honoring faithful teachers and allowing someone else’s understanding of God to become the boundary of our own relationship with Him. At some point, every believer must confront a deeply personal question: Do I believe this because I have seen it in Scripture, or do I believe it because someone I trusted told me it was there?
Those two things may lead to the same conclusion, but we should know the difference.
What Did You Inherit?
Every one of us inherited something.
We inherited ways of talking about God, ideas about what church should look like, expectations about worship, assumptions about holiness, interpretations of Scripture, beliefs about spiritual gifts, ideas about prayer, and definitions of what a faithful Christian looks like. Some of those things may be deeply biblical. Some may be wise traditions developed over generations. Others may simply be assumptions that have been repeated so many times that nobody thinks to question them anymore.
That does not mean the people who taught us were deliberately misleading us. Most people teach what they themselves were taught. A pastor may faithfully pass along the theology he learned in seminary. Parents may teach their children what their parents taught them. Churches preserve traditions because those traditions have become part of their identity. Entire denominations can develop distinctive ways of interpreting certain passages of Scripture.
None of that automatically makes those teachings wrong.
But neither does inheritance automatically make them right.
This is why spiritual maturity requires more than knowing what we have been taught. Eventually, we need to understand why we believe what we believe and whether Scripture actually supports it.
That requires us to open the Bible with enough humility to admit that something we have believed for years may need to be examined again.
Jesus Confronted People Who Knew the Scriptures
One of the most sobering things Jesus ever said was spoken to people who possessed an extraordinary knowledge of Scripture. In John 5, Jesus was speaking to religious leaders who studied the Scriptures diligently. Yet He told them:
“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”— John 5:39 KJV
Then He said:
“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”— John 5:40 KJV
Think about what Jesus was confronting. These were not people who had rejected Scripture. They were people who studied it, discussed it, interpreted it, taught it, and built their lives around it. Yet Jesus stood directly in front of them, and some of them could not recognize the One to whom the Scriptures pointed.
They knew the text, but their knowledge of the text had not necessarily brought them into recognition of Christ.
That should humble every one of us who loves studying the Bible.
It is possible to know an enormous amount about God without actually knowing God deeply. We can understand theological systems, quote Scripture, recognize biblical patterns, explain doctrine, defend our positions, and still resist Jesus when He confronts something we have already decided must be true.
The danger is not studying Scripture too much. The danger is studying Scripture while becoming so attached to our conclusions that we are no longer willing to let Scripture correct them.
There is a significant difference between asking Scripture to confirm what we already believe and allowing Scripture to examine what we believe.
The Bereans Did Something Remarkable
Acts 17 gives us a beautiful picture of what healthy spiritual discernment can look like. Paul and Silas came to Berea and began teaching in the synagogue. Luke tells us:
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”— Acts 17:11 KJV
Notice that the Bereans did two things at the same time. They received the word with readiness, and they searched the Scriptures to see whether what they were hearing was true.
They were neither cynical nor gullible.
They did not sit there assuming that every teacher must be wrong, but they also did not assume that because someone sounded knowledgeable, spiritual, confident, or persuasive, everything that person said must be right.
They listened, and then they searched.
That is an extraordinarily healthy pattern for believers.
We do not have to distrust every pastor, teacher, author, mentor, or ministry in order to practice discernment. In fact, faithful teachers should want the people they teach to open the Scriptures and examine what they are hearing. The goal of Christian teaching should never be to make people permanently dependent upon the teacher. Good teaching should continually lead people back to God and His Word.
Paul was an apostle, and the Bereans still searched the Scriptures to examine what he taught.
If they could examine Paul’s teaching, surely we can examine ours.
Being Taught Is Biblical; Outsourcing Discernment Is Not
God clearly gave teachers to the church. Ephesians 4 tells us that Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers “for the perfecting of the saints” and for the building up of the body of Christ. We need one another, and we should be grateful for faithful people who have spent years studying Scripture and helping others understand it.
The problem arises when we allow another person’s relationship with God to replace our own responsibility to know Him.
A pastor can teach me Scripture, but he cannot know God for me. A Bible teacher can help me understand a passage, but she cannot do my discerning for me. A denomination can provide theological structure, but it cannot become the final authority over Scripture. A respected Christian author may give me insight I have never considered, but that author’s words still must remain beneath the authority of God’s Word.
Even this blog should be treated that way.
You should never believe something simply because I wrote it confidently. Open your Bible. Read the passage. Examine the context. Ask whether what I have said actually agrees with Scripture.
That is not disrespect.
That is discernment.
There is a tremendous difference between allowing someone to teach us and allowing someone to become the unquestioned filter through which we understand God.
Sometimes We Read the Bible Through What We Were Taught
This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable because we may think we are simply reading Scripture when, in reality, we are sometimes reading Scripture through interpretations we received years ago.
We come to a familiar passage already knowing what it “means.” We have heard the sermon. We know the Sunday school lesson. We remember the phrase that always accompanies the verse. We have heard the same interpretation repeated so often that we no longer realize an interpretation has been placed upon the text.
Then one day we slow down and actually read the passage in context.
Suddenly we notice something.
Perhaps the verse is answering a different question than we thought. Maybe the surrounding verses change the emphasis. Perhaps the person speaking matters. Maybe the original audience changes how we understand what is being said. Sometimes another passage of Scripture adds balance that we had never considered.
The words have not changed.
We have.
We have finally stopped long enough to see what was actually there.
This does not mean every traditional interpretation is wrong or that we should constantly search for some novel meaning nobody has ever discovered. Newness is not the goal. Truth is.
Sometimes careful study will confirm exactly what we were taught, and there is something beautiful about discovering that for ourselves. At other times, careful study may require us to adjust what we believed.
Both outcomes are valuable because our faith becomes rooted more deeply in truth rather than merely in inheritance.
Jesus Warned About Blind Guides
Jesus was not hesitant to confront religious leadership when leadership moved people away from truth. In Matthew 15, after confronting the Pharisees over their traditions, Jesus said:
“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”— Matthew 15:14 KJV
That statement should make us take spiritual leadership seriously.
Who we listen to matters.
Who shapes our understanding of God matters.
Who interprets Scripture for us matters.
This does not mean we should live suspicious of everyone. It means spiritual influence should never be treated casually simply because someone carries a title, has a large platform, speaks confidently, quotes many Scriptures, or has been teaching for decades.
A person can be sincere and still be wrong.
A person can know Scripture and still misunderstand something.
A person can teach something that was taught to them without ever having examined it carefully themselves.
That includes pastors.
That includes authors.
That includes Bible teachers.
That includes parents.
That includes denominations.
And that includes us.
Humility requires us to acknowledge that none of us approaches Scripture with perfect understanding. We need the Holy Spirit, the whole counsel of Scripture, and the humility to allow our conclusions to be corrected.
“My Sheep Hear My Voice”
Jesus said something in John 10 that brings this conversation into relationship rather than merely doctrine:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:”— John 10:27 KJV
Notice the movement in that sentence. His sheep hear His voice, He knows them, and they follow Him.
Christianity cannot ultimately be reduced to following people who know Jesus better than we do. Teachers can help us. Pastors can shepherd us. Mature believers can counsel us. The church can correct and strengthen us. But every one of those gifts should ultimately help us recognize and follow Christ more faithfully.
There is a danger when we become more familiar with the voice of a favorite teacher than we are with Scripture itself. There is a danger when we immediately know what our denomination says about something but cannot explain why we believe Scripture says it. There is a danger when our first question becomes, “What does this person say?” rather than, “What does God’s Word actually say?”
The goal is not independence from the body of Christ.
The goal is dependence upon Christ within the body of Christ.
Those are very different things.
Following Jesus Does Not Mean “Me and Jesus Alone”
There is another ditch on the opposite side of the road, and we need to avoid it.
Once people begin recognizing the problems of religious tradition, they can sometimes swing toward the idea that they need no church, no pastor, no teacher, no accountability, and no spiritual community because they have “Jesus and the Bible.”
That is not the pattern we see in Scripture either.
The New Testament assumes believers will live in relationship with other believers. We are told to encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens, pray for one another, teach one another, forgive one another, submit to godly leadership, exercise spiritual gifts for the benefit of the body, and gather together.
Following Jesus personally does not mean following Him privately.
God has given us the body of Christ partly because none of us sees everything perfectly. Sometimes another believer sees what I cannot see. Sometimes a pastor’s teaching exposes something I have misunderstood. Sometimes another Christian challenges an interpretation I have held for years. Sometimes the wisdom of believers who came generations before us protects us from thinking we have discovered something new when we have actually wandered into an old error.
Community can be part of God’s protection.
The issue is not whether we should have teachers.
The issue is whether our teachers lead us toward Jesus or gradually become substitutes for Him.
Paul Understood the Difference
Paul wrote something to the Corinthians that captures this balance beautifully:
“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”— 1 Corinthians 11:1 KJV
Paul did not merely say, “Follow me.”
There was a qualification.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
That means Christ remains the standard.
Every human leader is followed conditionally. We can learn from people, honor them, appreciate their wisdom, receive correction from them, and imitate their faithfulness, but no human being becomes our ultimate pattern.
Jesus does.
If someone we respect begins moving away from Christ, our loyalty belongs to Christ.
If a tradition conflicts with Scripture, our loyalty belongs to Scripture.
If a teaching sounds compelling but cannot withstand careful biblical examination, we do not have to accept it simply because the person teaching it has authority, influence, education, charisma, or a large audience.
This is not rebellion.
It is remembering who the Shepherd actually is.
What Happens When Jesus Challenges What You Were Taught?
This may be where the question becomes personal.
What happens when careful study of Scripture challenges something you have believed for years?
What happens when you realize that something you thought was a biblical command was actually a church tradition? What happens when you discover that a verse you have quoted for decades means something slightly different in context? What happens when a belief you inherited from someone you deeply respect does not appear as clearly in Scripture as you once assumed?
That can be unsettling because beliefs are rarely just ideas. They become connected to people, memories, communities, identities, and sometimes entire seasons of our lives.
Changing our understanding can feel as though we are dishonoring the person who taught us.
But examining what we were taught does not automatically mean rejecting the people who taught us.
We can be grateful for someone and still discover that they were mistaken about something. We can honor the church that formed us while recognizing that some of its traditions were traditions rather than commandments. We can appreciate a pastor who taught us faithfully for years without assuming that pastor was infallible.
Perhaps one of the marks of spiritual maturity is learning to separate gratitude from unquestioning agreement.
We can say, “Thank you for what you gave me,” while still allowing God to continue teaching us.
Do You Know Why You Believe What You Believe?
There comes a point when inherited faith must become examined faith.
That does not mean we spend our lives suspiciously dismantling every belief simply because someone else taught it to us. It means we become willing to ask questions that bring us closer to truth.
Where is this in Scripture?
What is the context?
Who is speaking?
Who is being addressed?
What comes before and after this verse?
Does my interpretation agree with the rest of Scripture?
Am I reading what the passage actually says, or am I reading what I have always been told it says?
Those questions are not evidence of weak faith.
Sometimes they are evidence that faith is growing up.
A child may initially believe something because a trusted parent said it. Eventually, maturity requires understanding. In much the same way, there may be a season when we receive truth primarily because trusted people teach us, but we should gradually become people who can open Scripture, examine what we hear, recognize truth, and know why we believe it.
That does not make us less teachable.
It should make us more teachable because our loyalty is no longer to protecting what we already believe. Our loyalty is to truth.
The Goal Is Not to Question Everything. The Goal Is to Know Him.
There is a danger in making deconstruction itself the destination. A person can become so focused on identifying everything wrong with religion that questioning becomes another identity. Every doctrine becomes suspicious, every tradition becomes oppressive, every pastor becomes questionable, and every established belief becomes something to dismantle.
That is not where this conversation is going.
Jesus is the destination.
The purpose of examining what we have been taught is not to leave ourselves with nothing. It is to remove anything that prevents us from seeing Christ clearly and following Him faithfully.
The Bereans searched the Scriptures because they wanted to know whether what they were hearing was true. Jesus confronted traditions because they had begun interfering with obedience to God. Paul invited people to follow him only insofar as he was following Christ.
Everything keeps bringing us back to the same center.
Jesus.
Perhaps the question is not simply whether your theology is inherited. All of us inherit something. The deeper question is whether what you inherited has ever been brought into the light of Scripture and examined there.
Have you allowed Jesus to challenge what you were taught about Him?
Have you allowed Scripture to correct assumptions you have carried for years?
Have you learned to distinguish God’s Word from someone’s interpretation of God’s Word?
And if something you have always believed does not survive careful examination, are you willing to release it—not because you have stopped believing in God, but because you want to know Him in truth?
That kind of faith is not weaker.
It is becoming rooted.
From Knowing About Him to Knowing Him
This brings us to an even deeper question.
If we remove the expectations Jesus never gave us and examine the beliefs we have simply inherited, what remains at the center of Christianity?
Jesus gives us the answer in John 17:3:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”— John 17:3 KJV
Knowing God.
That sounds remarkably simple.
Yet perhaps it is far more demanding than the religious systems we have built around it because a system can sometimes be satisfied by outward participation. Relationship cannot.
A system can tell us exactly what boxes to check.
Jesus asks for us.
And that is where we are going next, because perhaps knowing God is much simpler than religion has sometimes made it—and at the same time, much more demanding than we ever imagined.
Much Love
~Gayla~
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