BE A BEREAN TO STAND AGAINST

FALSE TEACHERS

Part One

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

 

Acts 17:11

“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

 

Luke here commends the Bereans for their dedication to the Holy Scriptures and how they tested all teaching they received by the standard of God’s Word. Berea was located in Greece and in this area of the ancient world people worshipped numerous gods and goddesses. False teachers and worldly philosophies were prolific and very influential. Some things never change for today we still have a plethora of world religions, false teachings, man-made philosophies that attempt to pull us away from the God of the Bible. We should follow in the footsteps of the Bereans and search the scriptures on a regular basis to make sure what we hear and see fall in line with what is in the Holy Bible.

 

Jesus and the apostles knew that there would be a constant threat of followers of Christ being mislead and distracted from the truth by false teachers. These warnings are numerous in the New Testament.

 

2 Timothy 3:1-5 – “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.”

 

1 Timothy 4:1-5 – “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

 

These passages tell us that not only will there be false teachers and deceivers leading people astray, they also indicate that many people will seek out these lies and falsehoods because such false doctrine is pleasing to them. Many times we desire to hear what we want to and ignore what we need to hear. This is a weakness that can lead to drastic consequences in our lives. As followers of Christ, let us seek to listen to correct and stable doctrine from scripture and let it mold and shape us. We should avoid being tempted to accept the ideas, teachings and lies of the pretenders, those who preach a different gospel, a worldly philosophy or man-made teaching.

 

What does the Bible say about these pretenders, those who pretend to be godly, wise, knowledgeable and helpful when in reality they are seeking power, prestige and possessions for themselves?

 

The New Testament is replete with descriptions of these false teachers or what I would call “Pretenders.”

 

In the gospel of Matthew (7:15, 24:24) they are called, “false prophets,” “ferocious wolves,” “false Christs and false prophets.”

 

In the Book of Acts (20:29), Luke calls them “savage wolves.”

 

Paul in 2 Corinthians (11:13) calls them “false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.”

 

In Philippians (3:2) Paul describes them as “dogs.”

 

The Apostle Peter in 2 Peter (3:17) identifies them as “lawless men.”

 

Jude the half brother of Jesus uses very descriptive words to identify them in his letter (Verses 4, 7, 12, 16, 18, 19) as “godless men,” “dreamers,” “blemishes,” “grumblers and faultfinders,” “scoffers,” and goes on to say that “These… do not have the Spirit.”

 

These individuals are portraying themselves as people who can be trusted with spiritual matters, but instead they will prey on your heart, mind and soul to obtain your possessions, distort your faith, rip apart your trust in your Heavenly Father and possibly even lead you into sin and debauchery if allowed to do so. They will at least distract you from living your Christian life appropriately as you wander down the paths of distraction they lay out for you in their teachings. They are to be avoided at all cost.

 

The Holy Scriptures reveal the actions that result from their malicious and selfish character.

 

In Matthew (7:15, 24:24) it says, “They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves,” and they “perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect”

 

Luke in the Book of Acts (20:30) states that they “distort the truth.”

 

In Philippians (2:3) Paul informs us that they are “those men who do evil.”

 

Paul in 2 Corinthians (11:4) states that they preach “a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached”

 

These descriptions tell us that false teachers are not honest and up front. They are deceptive because they want to use you in some way to further their own selfish plans or to gain control over you in some manner. They wish to promote themselves through distorting your spiritual thinking. They have a façade of honesty, integrity and holiness, but behind closed doors they do evil and do not even follow their own statements of faith at times. They may be able to demonstrate miraculous signs and wonders but the question is what spiritual force is behind such signs if their teaching is against scripture. They may use the same words we use as followers of Christ, but the definitions are drastically different. They may appear to worship the same God, follow the same Jesus and claim to be filled with the same Spirit as we are, but their doctrine is skewed, tainted and spoiled. We must be like the Bereans and be good students of the Word, able to know what and why we believe what we do.

 

The book of Jude is what I call, “a letter interrupted.” It is a small often overlooked book that sits next to the book of Revelation. In this letter written by Jude, the half brother of Jesus, he tells us that he was going to write a about “the salvation” that Christians share in Christ. But something caused a change of mind. Possibly someone ran to his house sharing how false teachers were infiltrating the local churches. Maybe someone had written an alarming letter to him about the horrible things that were being taught by evil men causing Christians to stumble in their relationship with Christ. Whatever caused the change of heart, it was dramatic enough for Jude to move from encouragement in the shared faith to one of dire and serious warning of false teachers. Listen to some of the descriptions that Jude uses when he talks about what these false prophets were doing.

 

Jude 4 says they “secretly slipped in among you … who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”

 

Jude 8 states that they “pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.”

 

Jude 10 informs us that “these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals by these things they are destroyed.”

 

Jude 12 includes several statements about these false teachers. He states they are “shepherds who feed only themselves,” “clouds without rain, blown along by the wind,” “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted — twice dead.” And they “follow their own ungodly desires.”

 

Jude 13 says “They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame,” “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.”

 

Jude 16 states “they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”

 

Jude 19 tells us they are “men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts”

 

These descriptions by several apostles and other men of God living in the first century are rather frightening. To realize that selfish, sinful, power hungry and materialistic people are seeking to lead Christians away from the faith is very concerning. The problem is we have the same people running rampant in our world today with an even greater variety of false teachings.

 

Jesus Himself warned of such individuals in Matthew 7:15-27. Here our Savior shares His concerns.

 

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

 

Jesus loves His children and here He is warning us that these false teachers wish to take us captive with their strange and ungodly ideas and beliefs. They desire to do us spiritual harm and frustrate our dedication to our Heavenly Father. He warns that they will come in disguise, appearing as a Bible teacher, spiritual adviser or godly counselor. If we study the Word and live it out like the Bereans, we will not be taken in by such individuals. That is why we are warned by Jesus to be cautious about what ideas, beliefs and teachings we let into our minds. Jesus goes on to say that not everyone who claims to know Him really does. They may talk the talk and may even do miracles, but in reality they are not a follower of Christ. He advises us to build our spiritual house on the solid rock of His teachings and His example of living as a servant of our Heavenly Father. Paul also gives a warning to the Christians in Galatia when he says, in Galatians 1:6-9 – “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” This repeated condemnation of Paul towards false teachers is emphasizing the fact that they are under God’s judgment for their false teaching, deceptive speech and ungodly tactics.

 

In our next part we will cover the “perversions” of these false teachers.