asian female listening on her phone while others are pointing their cell phones at her. — Photo Credit: Joeyy Lee on Unsplash

When you start looking at life, culture, faith and the church from a different perspective, one question rises pretty quickly:

Who should I believe?

I remember asking that question when I first began untangling my faith from some of the traditions, assumptions and interpretations I had inherited.

I was willing to “do the work.” I just had no idea where to turn.

There were so many opinions.

So many books.

So many podcasts.

So many pastors, theologians, authors, creators and commentators telling me what was true, what was biblical and what Christians were supposed to believe.

How was I supposed to know which voices were worth investing in and which ones were just more noise?

To be honest, it wasn’t easy.

I found myself overwhelmed and frustrated. And when I asked people for guidance, I was often met with some version of the same response:

It’s not my job to teach you.

But that was the thing.

I wasn’t asking anyone to teach me.

I wasn’t looking for someone to hand me a list of conclusions and tell me what to believe next. I just wanted a beacon. Something that could point me in a direction and say, Start here.

I never really found what I was looking for.

So eventually, I figured out how to navigate it myself.

And now that I have, I don’t believe in hoarding what I learned.

Because deconstruction can be tough, exhausting, and overwhelming all on its own.

So can discipleship.

Both [deconstruction & discipleship] require us to examine what we’ve been taught, ask difficult questions and decide which voices we’re going to allow to shape us. And when you’re standing in the middle of all of that, trying to separate truth from tradition, interpretation from Scripture and conviction from someone else’s very confident opinion, it can feel like turbulence.

If I can make that process a little easier for someone else, I want to.

Over time, I started using three questions to help me decide whether a voice was worth listening to.

Not whether I agreed with everything they said, because I wasn’t sure I believed narratives that contradicted my long-held beliefs.

I simple filtered them by whether they deserved my attention in the first place.

1. Does it align with Jesus?

This is always my first filter.

I don’t care how popular the speaker is, how many books they’ve sold, how large their church is, how many Bible verses they include in the caption or how confidently they say, “The Bible clearly says…”

If what they are teaching contradicts what Jesus said, did and commanded, I have a problem.

Because despite what people sometimes assume, deconstruction isn’t necessarily about leaving faith or rejecting Jesus.

For me (and many others), it’s the opposite.

Deconstruction is about trying to discover Jesus amid the wreckage humans have made by manipulating faith, misusing Scripture and confusing our traditions with God’s commands.

The more I questioned, the more important Jesus became, and the more I kept returning to the Gospels to see…

How did he treat people?

Who did he move toward?

Who did he challenge?

What did he say mattered most?

What did he tell his followers to do?

Jesus became the lens through which I began examining everything else.

That doesn’t mean every complicated theological question can be answered with “Well, Jesus was nice.” Jesus said hard things. He challenged people. He called people to repentance, obedience and costly discipleship.

But he also showed us what God is like.

So before I accept someone’s interpretation of Scripture or their opinion about culture, politics, the church or another human being, I ask: Does this sound like Jesus?

2. Are they telling me what Scripture says OR what they think Scripture means?

Those are not always the same thing.

One of the biggest shifts in my faith came when I learned to recognize the difference between Scripture and someone’s interpretation of Scripture.

We all interpret.

Pastors interpret. Theologians interpret. Authors interpret. Your favorite Christian creator interprets.

So do you.
So do I.

That doesn’t make interpretation bad. It simply means we should stop treating every interpretation as though God personally dictated it.

When someone quotes a verse, I’ve learned to ask what surrounds it.

Who was speaking?

Who were they speaking to?

What was happening historically and culturally?

Does the conclusion being drawn actually come from the passage?
Or did someone arrive with a conclusion and then find a verse that sounded good next to it?

That little pause has saved me from nodding along with a lot of very clickable Christian content.

Sometimes the verse is biblical, but our application isn’t.

3. What is this voice producing?

Jesus said we recognize a tree by its fruit.

I’ve started paying attention to the fruit of the voices I consume too.

Do they make me more curious or more certain that everyone outside my group is wrong?

Do they help me love people better? Or do they teach me to fear, mock or despise them?

Do they leave room for humility, questions and complexity? Can they admit when they don’t know something? Can they acknowledge another perspective without immediately treating it as dangerous?

And maybe most importantly: What is listening to them producing in me?

Because not every voice that keeps us engaged is helping us grow.

Some voices keep us angry.

Some keep us afraid.

Some make us feel superior.

Some give us an enemy to blame and then keep us coming back for another reason to be outraged.

That may be great for an algorithm.
I’m not convinced it’s great for a disciple.

The voices worth listening to don’t have to agree with me on everything. In fact, some of the people who have helped me grow the most have challenged what I believed.

But they consistently point me back toward truth, humility, wisdom and Jesus.

And I’ve discovered that is a pretty strong light in a very dark and dim world.

Look Again

Before you move on, think about the voices currently shaping your faith. Not just the ones you disagree with—the ones you instinctively trust, quote, share, or assume are right.

Who do you trust most when it comes to faith and Scripture, and why?
Is there a belief you’ve accepted as biblical just because someone you trusted told you it was?
What is the content you consume producing in you? Is it making you more like Jesus? Or more angry, isolated, biased, or fearful?

Keep Reading

If this article sparked your interest, you may also enjoy these:

Discipled by the Algorithm
What gets lost when sermons become soundbites?

Snakes on a Plane
Jesus said to spread the Gospel. But did He mean like this?

Have We Turned Church into Target?
How convenience has quietly shaped the church, and how we can refocus on making disciples.

Hi! I’m Torrie. Thanks for stopping by.

If this article encouraged you, provided language for what you’re feeling,
or challenged you, I’d love to hear your story in a comment below.

Mixed.ology

Who Should I Believe?