“DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR OR READ!”
by Keith Bellamy
This was the advice I heard from a dear gospel preacher while on a fishing trip as we were floating down the James River in Virginia back in 1983. I had asked him about a particular project that was supported by some folks. The program in question had been vilified by several. My friend said he didn’t believe much of what he read and even less of what he heard.
Why would he say that? Was he being cynical or could it be that he had discovered you can’t always judge a book by its cover? Or you can’t always believe what you hear or read.
Many years ago, on The Waltons TV series, John Boy caused a great uproar on Walton’s mountain by printing some excerpts from Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s famous book, which helped create many followers of the Nazi movement. That book was filled with anti-Semitic outpourings, worship of power, disdain for civil morality, and strategy for world domination. John Boy wanted everyone to know what Nazism was all about. The attitude of most of the people then was to leave it alone and hope it would go away. There was a lot of anti-German sentiment then, and just printing this material caused John Boy serious problems, not only for himself but for his family, too. The preacher decided to have a rally exposing Nazism. He then decided to throw a stack of books down into a pile to start a book burning. John Boy jumped up to stop the preacher. As he did so, he noticed a book that looked familiar. It was written in German. He asked if anyone could read German, and certain lady volunteered. In German, she read, and then translated into English “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Of course, the attempted book burning ceased.
Do we do that? Do we not investigate to see what we read or hear is fact or not? Or do we believe everything we read or hear? After all, if it is on the news on TV or some other media, it must be true, right? I mean they wouldn’t distort the truth or lie…would they?
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