by Paul Holland

James Madison was the 4th President of the United States and considered the Father of our U. S. Constitution. His home at Montpelier Station, VA is being restored. A reproduction of his desk and some of his papers presents the seal with which he sealed his correspondence. Madison had a Latin phrase as a part of that seal: Veritas non verba magistri.

Translated, that means “Truth – not the word of the teacher.” How important that point is in spiritual matters! How many times have I heard someone say, “But my pastor would explain it another way…” Truth. Not the word of the teacher.

Religious truth is only found in the Bible. What Paul said or wrote is the truth, not because Paul said it but because the Holy Spirit was speaking throughPaul – 1 Corinthians 2:12-13. The truth is in Heaven, in the mind of God. That’s why truth is objective, exists outside of you and me, and does not change.

Psalms 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (KJV). God has decided what truths He wanted to reveal and He revealed them in His word. Anything not in His word is not relevant to us getting to heaven (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Truth was deposited in the minds and hands of the first century apostles and prophets. Paul wrote about his “sound teaching in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (1 Timothy 1:11). Paul taught the Gospel to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:2) and in 1 Timothy 6:20, he encouraged Timothy: “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.”

The truth does not reside in the teacher. The truth is in the Bible, revealed from the mind of God. Truth – not the word of the teacher. If your teacher is not teaching the truth, however, teach him the way of God more accurately (Acts 18:26). If your teacher refuses to change – as Apollo did – don’t have anything more to do with him (2 John 9-11).