Categories
apologetics church personal

How People Are Allured By False Teaching

Here is an old joke that I vaguely remember my Father using: People tell me that on every public bus there is always one nut-job. A complete wacko. An absolute loon. Look around, they’d say, and you’ll always find one. So I keep riding the bus to find out, constantly looking for the one nut-job. I could never find him.

I’m going to be honest here. Just like the joke about being the one nut-job, I’m afraid of being the false teacher Scripture warns about. It is a creeping fear crowding behind me right up until I walk towards the pulpit.  Then, even when I open my mouth, I can feel the fear behind me whispering a warning: don’t fall into the false teacher’s trap.

Now, don’t start telling everyone “Rey says he’s a false teacher.” Hear me out.

The reason for my fear is that false teaching has an attractive pull in (at least) two directions. It not only draws hearers but it’s attractive to those who are handling the truth. And because it’s strong allure, I think it’s more pervasive than we think.

Categories
acts church human

The Fact of False Teachers

For years, Christian writers forced pens to bleed ink on the subject of false teachers. They warned, they begged people to be ready, they called out the false teachers, and they repeated the whole thing. We often nod, hum a hymn, and don’t give it much thought.

Let me put some meat on those bones.

At church, we are rightly warned about those wool-wearing wolves but we never think of them as already here, among us, teeth bared. We mention them in a nebulous sort of way, waving our arms in that direction over yonder, but most of us never stop and wonder if they’re sitting next to us, smiling and saying “amen” during the sermon. Or maybe, arms raised, leading the singing. Or possibly, speaking, behind the pulpit.

For most of us Christians, false teachers are a distant threat reserved for tele-evangelists.

Categories
brethren

“Spirit” Led Leadership

Churches and denominations have a system set up that if you’re ambitious enough, and you get in the right channels, you might have an ecclesial career. So, let’s say you were willing to go to seminary, meet the qualifications, and then willing to market yourself you can probably get into a church that is willing to pay your salary. Just know the right hands to shake and answer the stuff that makes people nervous. People generally frown upon outright ambitiousness and resume career tailoring so a person would have to work things so as to not appear ambitious and even then there are no guarantees that the person will be at all successful where they’re ministering. God gives the increase after all.

Categories
study

Don’t Know Much About Heresy

Cooke’s “Wonderful World” is about a man who doesn’t know much of anything but the fact that he loves his girl. In the hopes of her loving him back he aims to be number one, but he knows he’s woefully inept. Sometimes we can be like that when it comes to alternate Christian beliefs and sometimes we use words like heresy to describe these beliefs. Linking to the Archive, Curt noted that his illustration, in proximity to me, wound up having heretical ramifications (which he denies) and we wound up discussing (offline) what exactly defines a heresy and how does one deal with it.