Have you ever notice that some issues are never seriously considered by many people, if they differ from what the people already believe? People will race back to the ammunition supply of what verses they feel support their idea, and then shoot down everything about the "new" idea without first checking some important things out about the "new" idea.  I have found this especially true with the issue of prophecy when presenting what we feel is the correct view of prophecy to others.  I thank the Lord that not all people are like this, but many who have corresponded to me are!

In truth, if something is wrong, then we really do not know it is wrong until we first sincerely and honestly consider it as a possibility of a candidate for the reputation of truth, and search the scriptures to see if it indeed is fitting the biblical texts, and to ensure whether or not we have been wrong in what we always believed, rather than search the scriptures to shoot it down, being already convinced, without having honestly searched it out, that it is wrong.

May each of us never be guilty of closed-minded discussion. Such a discussion does not even consider a different viewpoint in case it might really be truth. People's minds are made up before they hear anything else out, because they live by the principle that what they were taught cannot be wrong.

It ever reminds me of the woeful saying in Proverbs as follows:

Prov. 18:13
(13) He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.


Ever notice that some people only chat and allow you to speak, while they do not even seriously consider your thoughts, but rather think of something to combat you again? While you speak, they are not really listening to consider your thoughts, but only listening to think of something else to shoot them down with.

Most do this because they simply cannot fathom the possibility that their teachers were wrong! This is so much like the denominational world's closed-mindedness to apostolic truth in that they cannot believe their group is wrong. Period. No further reasoning than that!

Someone should always be given a benefit of the doubt when they claim that they got an overall thought in personal study and revelation, instead of immediately being relegated to a liar and incorrect. The ultimate essence of circular reasoning is saying this differing teaching cannot be of God because it is not of God! After all, how can one get a revelation of something from God if it is error?

Oh, for the sincere brethren, who are open for correction, and HONESTLY CONSIDER something proposed to them in case they were previously wrong and the people presenting a thought to them might have the answer they've lacked! One would not mind it if they walk away after sincere study and still feel they are correct, so much as one who will not even hear a thought out! At least they TRIED! But to deal with folks who never even considered someone else might be right, while themselves wrong....? Not fun.

Folks many people were wrong for years about the godhead until they were faced with a different issue that was TRUTH. Perhaps we, here, presently believe in something with all of our hearts that is not actually true. And we tend to feel SAFE where we are because so many others agree with it, and we have been in it's teaching for so many years. In reality, though, a teaching can be wrong, whether it has lasted for the relatively short span of time, which we consider along time, of fifty years or even a short two hundred years, in contrast to two thousand year of Christianity!

I try to consider the thought that I adhere to something very strongly that I received from my elders, that could very well be totally wrong. So I need to be as honest as possible, extremely so, and allow the Lord to confirm or correct. After all, I cannot stand on YOUR relationship to God concerning what is truth. I HAVE TO STAND BEFORE HIM MYSELF!