By Irvin Himmel
Christ gave commandment to the apostles, “Go ye therefore, d teach all nations, baptizing them . . .” (Matt. 28:19).
The teacher in a class of children wanted to impress this lesson on her pupils.”She handed each of them a sheet of paper and told them to print the words, “Go, ye, teach all nations.” One little girl printed it this way: “Go, ye, teach all notions.”
It would seem that some religious people have misread the great commission just as that little girl wrote it, “Go, ye, teach all notions.”
All manner of ideas, concepts, doctrines, and beliefs are being taught. Religious people who claim to follow Jesus Christ teach such notions as theistic evolution, reincarnation, premillennialism, salvation by faith only, impossibility of apostasy, infant baptism, papal infallibility, situation ethics, hereditary depravity, unconditional election, direct operation of the Holy Spirit, exorcism, and numerous other concepts foreign to the New Testament.
Everything imaginable is taught rather than the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps we need to reread the commission given by our Master to the apostles and note more carefully what it says. Mark’s account is unmistakably plain in saying “preach the gospel to every creature.”
Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 22, p. 4
November 16, 1995