According to U.K. law, each Post Office has to have the right time displayed in its clock. Inspectors regularly visit each Post Office to make sure all is in compliance.

An inspector visited a certain Post Office in the south west of England and while everything else on his list seemed to be ok, he determined that the clock was slow.

He went in to see the head Postmaster informing him, “your clock is slow!”

The Postmaster said, “That’s impossible! It can’t be slow. I correct it every day.”

The inspector said, “It’s definitely slow.”

The Postmaster said, “it can’t be” and took him outside the Post office and pointed across the street and said, “now do you see that house there? If you look into the window, there is a ship’s chronometer on the mantel piece, and you know, don’t you, that ship chronometers are never wrong. Now I adjust the Post office clock by that ship chronometer.”

The inspector then knocked on the door of the house and an old Sea Captain answered the door. The inspector introduced himself and said, “Excuse me, but is that a ship’s chronometer I see on the mantel piece?”

The Captain said, “oh yes!”

“May I see it? asked the inspector.

The Captain showed him inside and showed him the clock.

“Oh, its a lovely clock!” said the inspector.

“Yes, it is,” the Sea Captain said, “the only trouble is that it got salt water in it some time ago and its never really kept very good time since then.”

The inspector then asked, “so how do you keep it right?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” the Captain said, “I adjust it by the Post Office clock over the road, because by law, the Post Office has to display the correct time, so I know its right.”

(These two clocks, neither of which was authoritative, were trying to correct one another and because of that, both of them were incorrect.)

Application: Many do this with the Bible. They set themselves up as ‘the’ authority as to what is true or not, or else look to something other than God’s word for truth, they then judge the Bible by that standard, making themselves prone to error and deception. The Bible alone is the word of God and therefore the sole, inerrant, infallible source for truth.