I received an interesting telephone call this past week. A brother in Christ who preaches for a church in the area called to say that he received a flyer advertising the gospel meeting I’m conducting for another congregation next month. Since he has never met or corresponded with me, he wanted to ask me a question before he announced the meeting to the church where he preaches. He was clear on the point that if my answer to his question was unsatisfactory, he would not recommend to others that they attend the meeting.

I’m not going to mention here the brother’s name (or anything else that might identify him to the reader). Nor am I going to mention specifically the question he asked. It was a question of Bible principle, and one worthy of response. I’m always glad to answer anyone who wants to know what I believe the Bible teaches on a particular Scripture subject, as all Christians should be (1 Peter 3:15).

I’ll also say that I wholeheartedly support a preacher of the gospel who wants to be certain of the nature of an event before he encourages other Christians to attend it. We here often receive in the mail information about happenings sponsored by other churches that we do not publicize or promote, because it is apparent from the information that the activity being offered is not approved in Scripture.

What I found interesting in this case was that this brother, with a single question, was able to determine whether I was a sound gospel preacher worthy of recommendation. I’m certain that I could come up with a long list of questions that, if answered a certain way, would cause me to believe the respondent might not know as much about God’s word as he ought, or that he held a view toward it that I would deem suspect. For instance, I might ask someone, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God (Matthew 16:15-16), who died for the sins of men (John 3:16) and rose from the grave the third day (1 Corinthians 15:1-7)?” If the person replied, “No,” I would not be favorably disposed to hearing much else that he taught. If I asked, “Do you believe that baptism is for the purpose of forgiving sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16) and is essential to salvation (Mark 16:16; 1 Peter 3:21)?” and the answer was again “No,” I would likewise be sure that the individual did not yet understand enough of what the Bible says to be teaching it publicly.

I could extend this list to another twenty or thirty Scripture questions that would be similarly probative, an inaccurate answer to any of which would show — at least to me — that the person answering was likely (even certain) to teach things contrary to the revealed truth of God's word. You could probably draw up a similar list. And even if someone answered all of those questions correctly, there would still be another hundred or more questions left unasked, any of which might show some error in doctrine or weakness in comprehension or study. How would you ask them all?

The question this brother asked me was unrelated to the subject matter of any of the lessons I’m planning to present during the upcoming meeting if the Lord wills. So I feel reasonably sure that the question was not prompted by his reviewing the meeting flyer and saying, “Uh-oh — looks like this fellow is going to teach that…(you fill in the blank).” It was simply a question that matters to him, and I’d guess he was going to ask it regardless of the meeting topics. What I don’t know is how he arrived at that one question as the one he would choose as the critical one. It’s a good question, but I can think of many others I would ask first, if I had reason to question a preacher’s doctrinal soundness. And he didn’t ask me any of those.

The danger in determining orthodoxy by means of a single question, or two, or even twenty or thirty, is that the questions themselves become the standard, instead of the totality of God’s word. Paul affirmed that he declared “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) and preachers today have the same responsibility to “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2). When we boil the “important” parts of Scripture down to the answers to a handful of questions, what we end up with is a catechism or a creed. The measure of a gospel preacher — or of any Christian — should be his “rightly handling” the whole truth (2 Timothy 2:15), not just a piece or two of it.

If you’re curious, the brother who called apparently received the answer he sought. He indicated that he would, in fact, publicize the meeting and would plan to attend at least once. I hope he will. Perhaps we can study together what the Bible says about several things, instead of just one question.