Watch out for what you are reading, watching, or listening to. Everyone is a false teacher! If they are right on 99.9% of what they are teaching but wrong on 0.1%, they are false teachers. At least that is according to some who are denouncing those they don’t agree with. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
These folks are on a vendetta. They are mad!
What is a False Teacher?
The main thing about a false teacher is this, they are not walking with Jesus. Jesus is not the center of their message. Furthermore, they may sound Christ-centered but secretly are not. Cults use this very cleverly to lead people astray like this.
A teaching that is off-base is different than a False Teacher. Without going into great detail, if the teacher is off-base on one of these, then they might be a false teacher:
- The Bible is God’s word. 2 Timothy 2:16-17
- God is three in one (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19
- Jesus is fully God. John 1:1-2
- We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9
- There’s life after death. John 1:25-26
We all err. Calvin said no theologian is ever more than eighty percent right. The problem is we don’t know which that twenty percent is. And then for some of us it’s fifty or sixty percent.
R.C. Sproul
Regarding false teaching (vs a false teacher), Sproul goes on to say, “Those we call errors, not heresies. There’s a difference between error and heresy. Heresy is something that strikes at the very heart of the gospel and of the truth. See the list above.
Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater
What does that phrase mean? “Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater” is an expression for an avoidable error in which something good is eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad, or in other words, rejecting the favorable along with the unfavorable.
I think there would have been more than a couple of Pharisees in Jesus’s day that would have called Jesus a false teacher. Even Paul and Peter didn’t agree on everything, but they didn’t call each other false teachers.
I Certainly Did Not Know It All – Still Don’t
I have adjusted my frame of mind on several things in scripture over the years. As a young Christian, I can see how off I was on a lot of things from scripture. I was excited, I was amazed and energized, and on cloud 9 in my new relationship with Jesus when I first accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. But there was a lot I didn’t know. That certainly didn’t make me a false teacher.
Then we have mature Christians. Big ministry outreaches. Big followings. Let’s say we don’t agree with a certain part of what they are teaching. Maybe it’s about money and giving. Maybe it’s about healing. Or maybe it’s about speaking in tongues and the gifts. Maybe it’s about being dunked or sprinkled. And I could go on, but this doesn’t make them a false teacher. Go back to the R.C. Sproul quote above.
Don’t tell me you don’t already do this to some degree with your own pastor (youth, adult, worship, outreach). It doesn’t matter what they oversee or say, you’ve probably disagreed with something. But you didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or did you?
Challenge of the Day:
Do not be that imperfect person (because you are imperfect) who expects everyone to be perfect (because no one is) and to line up with 100% of what you believe is right about everything you know about scripture even though there is so much you don’t know. We are all in the same boat, if not for grace… So be it!
