Day: March 5, 2024

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29 KJV).

What is this “corrupt communication?”

The only Bible verse that exhorts us to study the Bible also tells us how to study it: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). A failure to obey this verse has resulted in a persistent myth circulating in our churches and Bible colleges. Everything in the Bible is allegedly the same. What God did in the past, He is still doing. If it was true then, it must be today. There is and has always been one church, one baptism, one gospel, and so on. We can claim any verses for ourselves and demand God act accordingly. Believe it or not, this is corrupt communication (the opposite of sound doctrine).

“For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;…” (1 Timothy 1:10). “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;…” (2 Timothy 4:3). “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers” (Titus 1:9). “But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:…” (Titus 2:1). This word “sound” in “sound doctrine” is the Greek “hugiaino” (as in “hygiene”)—in contrast to “corrupt.” It was also translated “whole” (healthy, well) in Luke 5:31 and Luke 7:10, and rendered “be in health” in 3 John 2.

Christians filled with sound doctrine are thus “sound in faith” (Titus 1:13; Titus 2:2). We are told in 2 Timothy 1:13: “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” Finally, “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome [hugiaino] words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;…” (1 Timothy 6:3).

Let us see more of this sound doctrine….