Recognizing False Teaching

Consider This...

Theological Thoughts to Encourage the Heart & Stir the Mind ___________________________________________________

Volume I         March 2011  Issue 10

         Our Consider This topic for the month of March is recognizing false teaching. Unbiblical teaching is all around us. It is proliferated through religious books, Christian music, the distortion and twisted use of Biblical terminology, and bad theology within the Church. In the next few issues, we will attempt to present Biblical instruction on how to detect error, how to avoid the lure of deception, and how to know and do what is right in a world gone wrong spiritually. So, keep reading and Consider This...

In 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter warns that false teachers will come and when they do, they will bring destructive heresies with them. In verses 4- 9, Peter uses the examples of God’s righteous judgment against the fallen angels, the rebellious people of Noah’s day, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as illustrations of God’s impending judgment on the false teachers.

         In verses 10-17, Peter tells us that because these false teachers indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority, God’s judgment on them is a reasonable conclusion. They claim to have spiritual insight and deep understanding that provides help. Peter, however, likens them to waterless springs that provide nothing but disappointment.

         So, why it is it that false teaching seems to be so successful? More importantly, how do we recognize it? In verses 18-19, Peter helps to answer these perplexing questions.

First, false teaching is man-centered. Rather than pointing people to the person of Christ, false teaching promotes self. In verse 18, Peter describes it as “loud boasts of folly.” Often false teaching comes wrapped in embellishment, aggrandizement, and exaggeration. It is peddled as the latest and greatest. Unfortunately, there is no substance to this empty, self-centered intellectualism. It is empty of real spiritual content. The Apostle Paul warned of this deception in 2 Timothy 3:7 when he wrote that people who follow false teaching are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." As individuals and a church body, we need to be on guard against accepting a message on the basis of how impressive the messenger makes his presentation. Instead we must ask, what does the Word of God say?

         Secondly, false teaching is emotionally alluring. Peter writes, “they entice by sensual passions of the flesh.” Because false teaching is man-centered, it is concerned with man’s self-esteem, self-respect, and self-worth. Things like happiness, health, wealth, and prosperity are equated with God’s favor and blessing. Therefore, just having these things or pursuing these things is a spiritual endeavor.

         Sadly, for many Christians, this is attractive. They can be considered as being spiritual, yet chase after the same empty things as the world does, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. False teaching shuns speaking of things like humility, suffering, persecution, depravity, and even poverty for the sake of Christ. In his commentary on this passage, David Guzik of Enduring Word Ministries writes, “false teaching produces people who are just like the crowds in John 6 that wanted bread from Jesus but didn’t want Jesus Himself.” Truth be told, false teaching is most often consumed only with material not eternal things. Thus, our response is obvious; we must avoid teaching that stirs the worldly desires of the heart.

         Lastly, false teaching is enslaving. Peter continues in verse 19, “They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.” The Scriptures are clear, freedom will never be found in earthly, fleshly things, however, that continues to be the focus

In reference to false teaching, Kenneth Gangel, in the Bible Knowledge Commentary, states that the “empty and boastful promises of liberty are reminiscent of Satan’s words to Eve in” Genesis 3:5. He’s right. Listen to Satan’s man centered, emotionally alluring, yet enslaving sales pitch—”For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Man centered: YOU will be like God.

Emotionally alluring: You will know good and evil. (The promise of intellectual freedom)

Enslaving: Their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked, they hid from God.

         One other thing that I feel must be said is that those most susceptible to false teaching are the undiscerning, untrained, uninterested or perhaps even the unsaved. Often, because of one or more of these conditions, an individual is gullible and therefore left open to deception.

         We live in a day of false teachers. What is our best prevention? We must be diligent in our study of the Word, having a solid knowledge of the Scripture. We must live in obedience to its doctrine and precepts. We must teach the Word sincerely and correctly. Remember, false teaching does not appeal to an instructed Christian who is living a holy life.

—Pastor Andrew Frey