There is an old adage often attributed to Mark Twain:

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”

I was recently reminded of this when watching an interview with Hollywood actress Kathy Bates. She was discussing her mother and her Oscar win back in 1991. Evidently, she and her mother had a complex relationship. Bates noted that her mother rebuked her for not thanking her during her Oscar speech. For over thirty years, Kathy carried the guilt of not thanking her mother that night. As she told the story, the interviewer stopped Kathy and told her that she actually did thank her mother that night. The actress firmly denied the claim, stating with confidence and a bit of scorn that she did not.

A few moments later, the interviewer showed a video of Kathy’s acceptance speech that night. Sure enough, in the closing, Kathy did thank her mother.

It was a heartbreaking moment. In response to the clip, Kathy’s eyes got big, she gasped, and a few moments later, she whispered, “What a relief.” Thirty-three years of guilt and shame were released. The video could not lie.

Sadly, many people can be convinced of a lie. Whether Kathy’s mother simply didn’t hear her thank her or didn’t want to believe that she had, the outcome was the same. The lie became a fact in Kathy’s mind until video documentation could convince her otherwise.

This encounter reminds me of the importance of truth and of vetting what we are told. Kathy was sincere, but she trusted the wrong source for truth. Sadly, believers can fall into a similar trap. Whether it’s our mothers, fathers, or favorite preacher, many people have fallen into false doctrines because they fail to use the Scriptures to check the accuracy of what people tell them. This is why many NT writers speak of the importance of going to the Word of God as our source of truth. Even trusted people can be wrong.

When false teachers denied the Lord’s coming, Peter pointed to the Word (2 Pet 3:1-2). John pointed to the Word when false teachers denied that Jesus was the Christ (1 John 2:24-27). Paul said that the Scriptures are sufficient for the man of God to be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). Wise people look to the objective words of the Scriptures rather than the words of any man or woman (Acts 17:11). The Word of God is far better than any video recording. We have the words of the Lord Himself to go to in order to vet what we have been told.

Many people within the church today are enslaved by false doctrines. Like Kathy, they carry unnecessary baggage. In fact, we all carry bad theology to some degree. Are we willing to have our minds changed when we receive the evidence of God’s Word? If we are, as we abide in His word, the truth shall set us free (John 8:31-32). Or as Kathy Bates so poignantly said,

“What a relief.”