Scripture about Suspicion’s purpose

Crippling Suspicion

Titus 1:14 Not giving heed to Jewish fables...that turn from the truth.

Suspicion of government (especially of your own party) is a healthy thing, if we respect its limits. Without any of it, populations are easily deceived and taken advantage of. But suspicion must be recognized for what it is: speculation in search of facts, but not yet in possession of them.

The only value of suspicion is that it has the power to motivate people to seek facts, and to suggest areas where facts are needed. Suspicion with no interest in facts, and which in fact is suspicious of evidence when presented, only starts wars. Suspicion, stoked for its entertainment value, keeps America tragically divided and unable to heal and resistant to revival.

These days, it is very hard to even remember, as a nation, how to discern truth. The Bible is America’s remaining primary source of it, and even that is being distorted, but most of all, deemed irrelevant; and even the very existence of “truth” itself is questioned by close to a majority of Americans. We are taught “just because that is right for you doesn’t mean it is right for me”. We need to be suspicious of government, and of many other things; even our own precious doctrines. And of suspicion without evidence which is treasured for its entertainment value. Suspicion without evidence may be accurately personified as The Great Accuser, Satan itself, for unsupported accusation is the essence of suspicion without evidence.

Acts 17:11 These [Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

We need to learn to test claims. We need to think of ways to confirm or dispel our suspicions, propose tests to each other, and care about getting the job done. We need to be as committed to this confirmation of facts, of evidence, of Truth, as if we were court officers. After all, we are. 1 Corinthians 6 says we are qualified. We will one day judge angels. But if, here on earth, we do not even care about testing whether our very own suspicions are even true, are we really interested in participating in Heaven?

We need to be like the Bereans, whom God calls “noble” because they did not just believe whatever was told them, nor did they reject out of hand what Paul told them, even though much of what Paul said was completely “unacceptable”, but they immediately tested what they were told by Scripture.

The Bereans were suspicious enough of Paul to test him, but suspicious enough of their own suspicions to test them, too. To do otherwise is not only to fall headlong into error, and to abandon the role offered us in Heaven, but to follow in the steps of Satan.