Confessionitis

It is almost suffocating how committed some evangelical ministers to man's word rather than to God's Word.  In liberal denominations, attempts are still being made to hold fellow ministers, not to God's unchanging Word and Gospel, but to man's fallible and imperfect words in confessions, etc.  Confessions appear to take up the time of church ministers who believe that if he can get his colleagues to adhere to the words of man, and thereby be orthodox, they will then be faithful to Scripture.  How facile an approach!

These are the men who at their ordination to the Christian ministry confessed the Scriptures to be the Supreme standard by which every other doctrine is to be assessed.  They also said that all and every man-made document is merely a subordinate standard; such are useful as guides but they are not infallible. 

Therefore to try to get ministers to stick more closely to the confession of faith in a bid to get them to stick more closely to the Scriptures is a much longer route to true orthodoxy than to get them to go straight to Scripture and try to ensure faithfulness to its teaching. 

Fallen mankind is always prone to find and take the longest route to a particular destination than to take the most direct route there.  Souls are perishing while ministers fiddle about with inconsequential matters.  Get men to the Gospel and insist that they preach it with passion and faithfulness, and many of the churches problems will then have been solved.

Subordinate standards, while useful, are just that - subordinate standards. But the Holy Scriptures are the SUPREME STANDARD for all matters of faith and practice.  Let it be so in deed and in fact.