The Flour Story: The Source

If you haven't read The Flour Story you might want to back up and read it before reading this post.

I really can't imagine even considering going into the kitchen to bake without knowing that I have a good supply of flour available to me. Whether it's cookies or cake, pies or bread, flour is a basic necessity.

I've always known there were different kinds of flours available, but I never dreamed that my basic level of baking would require me to be careful of what flour I used. After all, my bread recipes all worked beautifully with the bulk flour from Sam's. Why wouldn't everything else I baked? I'm no gourmet baker - I am good at what I bake, but I don't usually delve into the fancy baked goods. So, basic all-purpose flour should work just fine for me, right?

What I discovered when I went to make cookies, though, was that not all flour is created equal, even for a basic-level baker. For my cookies and biscuits, the Sam's flour just wasn't good enough.

For baking, I need to know about my flour to know what I will be able to bake with it. In our lives, we need to examine the source of our tools in the exact same way.

As Christians we are surrounded by a plethora of doctrines, theologies, books, teachings, preachings, and resources galore. But, how many times do we truly go through and examine them? We make a couple of assumptions regarding our resources.

First, we often assume that they are appropriate for all things. How wrong we are! A book that might be perfectly appropriate for one area of ministry might crash and burn in another. A sermon that applies to me today might not fit your need tomorrow. A ministry tool that works in one community to draw dozens or even hundreds to the Lord might actually have the opposite effect in another.

We have to analyze the source of our tools so that we might truly know the work in which those tools are effective. We cannot automatically assume that they are good because of the effectiveness they've had in the hands of a fellow believer.

Secondly, we assume that if they have the right name, they must automatically be effective. All-purpose flour in bulk from Sam's is the same as all-purpose flour in a smaller package at Wal-Mart, right? Wrong!

We must analyze the source of our tools. Sometimes the tools seem to be effective as we begin to use them, but then flaws begin to reveal themselves as we dig deeper. The best way to analyze those tools is to compare them to the Word of God itself. Do they line up completely? If not, how do they fail? How can we take what is good about them without compromising our standard to do all things by the Word of God?

Whatever the tool, we must go to the Source and know whether each and every tool lines up with His infallible Word.