All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others

Identifying and responding to false teachers.

Jude

¹⁷But you, ^(BC)beloved, ^(BD)ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by ^(BE)the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,

¹⁸that they were saying to you, "^(BF)In the last time there will be mockers, ^(BG)following after their own ungodly lusts."

¹⁹These are the ones who cause divisions, ^(BH)worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.

²⁰But you, ^(BI)beloved, ^(BJ)building yourselves up on your most holy ^(BK)faith, ^(BL)praying in the Holy Spirit,

²¹keep yourselves in the love of God, ^(BM)waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Matthew 24

²⁴"For false Christs and ^(AB)false prophets will arise and will show great ^(AC)signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even ^(AD)the elect.

1 John 2

¹⁵Do not love ^(AO)the world nor the things in the world ^(AP)If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For all that is in the world, ^(AQ)the lust of the flesh and ^(AR)the lust of the eyes and ^(AS)the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

¹⁷^(AT)The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who ^(AU)does the will of God lives forever.

¹⁸Children, ^(AV)it is the last hour; and just as you heard that ^(AW)antichrist is coming, ^(AX)even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

¹⁹^(AY)They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, ^(AZ)so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

²⁰But you have an ^(BA)anointing from ^(BB)the Holy One, and ^(BC)you all know.

²¹I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but ^(BD)because you do know it, and because no lie is ^(BE)of the truth.

²²Who is the liar but ^(BF)the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is ^(BG)the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

²³^(BH)Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.

²⁴As for you, let that abide in you which you heard ^(BI)from the beginning If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also ^(BJ)will abide in the Son and in the Father.

Galatians 1

⁶I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting ^(L)Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a ^(M)different gospel;

⁷which is really not another; only there are some who are ^(N)disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

⁸But even if we, or ^(O)an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be ^(P)accursed!

⁹As we ^(Q)have said before, so I say again now, ^(R)if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be ^(S)accursed!

¹⁰For am I now ^(T)seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a ^(U)bond-servant of Christ.

2 Corinthians 11

¹ I hope you will put up with a little more of my foolishness. Please bear with me. ² For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride^[a] to one husband—Christ. ³ But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. ⁴ You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.

⁵ But I don’t consider myself inferior in any way to these “super apostles” who teach such things. ⁶ I may be unskilled as a speaker, but I’m not lacking in knowledge. We have made this clear to you in every possible way.

⁷ Was I wrong when I humbled myself and honored you by preaching God’s Good News to you without expecting anything in return? ⁸ I “robbed” other churches by accepting their contributions so I could serve you at no cost. ⁹ And when I was with you and didn’t have enough to live on, I did not become a financial burden to anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia brought me all that I needed. I have never been a burden to you, and I never will be. ¹⁰ As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, no one in all of Greece^[b] will ever stop me from boasting about this. ¹¹ Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows that I do.

¹² But I will continue doing what I have always done. This will undercut those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. ¹³ These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. ¹⁵ So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.

How can we know if someone is an apostate, or a false teacher?

What are the marks of a false teacher?

There are certain doctrines that a false teacher denies. What are they?

What do we do with false teachers?

Do we expose the false teachings, or tolerate them?

Do we accept false teachers into our fellowship?

Blessings, Carla

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on May 11, 2011 at 11:26pm

>>How can we know if someone is an apostate, or a false teacher?

One of the things I have seen that is very typical of false teachers and false systems is that while they will outwardly acknowledge Jesus on a superficial level, they will invariably redirect you to their "additional" revelation. They will tell you that they "believe" the Bible, but only as their specific group approves it. They will always modify or ignore key scripture. Ultimately, they will place their doctrine above scripture. They will also have one leader, or office of leader, who is the ______ (anointed, holiest, chosen, successor, etc), who is the only one qualified to interpret the Bible.

Mormons have Joseph Smith (the Apostolic office) and the Book of Mormon

Jehovah Witnesses have the WatchTower Society and a special Bible version

Every cultist group has their "David Koresh" or "Jim Jones"

Sadly, the Vatican falls into this same pitfall. They place church doctrine, history and the Papacy above scripture.

Islam was begun by a man who rejected the claims of Christ's divinity and set himself up as final prophet, created his own book and set of laws. (the Q'uran).

In each case, they will acknowledge (superficially) that Jesus was a holy man of some various degree, but they will tell you that they have the book and the man who are able to accurately interpret God's "real" message; And, that you will be misled without their assistance.

What makes Evangelical Christianity different is that we believe that the Holy Spirit is the interpreter of the Bible and that you can only be misled if you personally neglect to study scripture for yourself.

Now, it can take some time to learn the basics of textual criticism and to develop an historic basis for the times, cultures and concepts of the Bible, but we believe that you will not be in error, if you will simply read the Bible and learn what it is saying.

What we must be cautious about is this tendency to set ourselves up (our group, our church, our extra book) as the arbiter of scripture. What is most important is that we study the Bible to allow the Bible to speak for itself.

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Permalink Reply by Carla on May 12, 2011 at 5:19am

Thank you Scribe.. :-)

This really stood out for me.. because i have noticed it here on AAG several times:

One of the things I have seen that is very typical of false teachers and false systems is that while they will outwardly acknowledge Jesus on a superficial level, they will invariably redirect you to their "additional" revelation. They will tell you that they "believe" the Bible, but only as their specific group approves it. They will always modify or ignore key scripture. Ultimately, they will place their doctrine above scripture.

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Permalink Reply by Carla on May 12, 2011 at 2:54pm

Hi Amanda.. Thanks.. my boys make me very happy. :-)

I agree.. i've noticed there are three main things that false teachers tend to attack.

1) The deity of Christ (fully God fully Man)

2) Jesus's virgin birth

3) The Trinity

False teachers tend to preach prosperity and wealth.

The book of Genesis is always under attack also. If the enemy can get us to deny the creation account, then the rest of scripture somehow is suspect also.

Blessings Beloved.. ~Carla

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Permalink Reply by Carla on May 13, 2011 at 10:14am

Yes.. Amen Amanda.. :-)

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on May 13, 2011 at 1:17pm

Amanda, this is excellent:

>>"I've also heard several say we are saved by faith but they leave out grace--we are saved by grace through faith. I need God's grace because my faith wavers. I think faith is a gift from God but it has to grow, too."

You nailed that.

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on May 12, 2011 at 7:48pm

>>There are certain doctrines that a false teacher denies. What are they?

Carla, one of the things I have noticed over the years is that the false teachers always want to go to one extreme or another on key matters of doctrine.

For instance, on the most central issue, the divinity of Christ:

JW's deny the divinity of Christ by making him a mere created being, the chief of the angels. Thereby making him less that God.

On the other hand, the Mormons swing to the other extreme and make Jesus a second god, an offspring of God, with a brother god alongside (Lucifer). Thereby they diminish the nature of the true God and eventually make everyone a god.

This is where we have to commend the Roman Church and acknowledge that they hold to orthodoxy in keeping to the essentials, by recognizing that Jesus is in very nature God, the incarnate son.

Every other false system denies that Jesus is anything more than mere man, although many will acknowledge that he was at least "a prophet". Yet, in this fact every false system errs.

Looking at the entire Old Testament, it is clear that scripture did not allow for any such nonsense.

First, Yahweh God never promised to exalt an angel. Second he would never allow a mere angel to accept worship and it is clear from prophesy that God said Messiah would receive worship. Third, God stands alone, exalted and unique. He declares that His name is "I am that I am" and says "there is no one else like me, I alone am God and I know no other". So, the idea of God having a secondary created being as an equal son (or sons) is ridiculous - such a notion preposterous and the Scribes and Pharisees were right to call Jesus on it. Unless that Jesus himself is in fact equal to God and is actually God incarnate. Which he would have to demonstrate both by scripture and by proofs - which Jesus did.

Jesus removed all doubt when he said "Abraham rejoiced to see my day" and "before Abraham was, I AM". He was making the clearest statement possible that He is God. Had they succeeded in stoning Him, they could have said "see, he was a blasphemer". However, the fact that they were unable to do so, demonstrates that His claim had validity.

Yet, every cultic movement wants to modify something about the nature of who Jesus is, and who he claimed to be. That's the primary target.

But, if anyone will simply read the Apostles and read the words of Jesus, in context of the Old Testament scripture, you cannot come to any other conclusion. You are left with only one of two options:

a) Believe that Jesus is God the Son, incarnate deity. -or-

b) deny scripture itself.

Scripture makes this very clear. Anyone who is making this otherwise, is simply denying established revelation of the Bible.

As Philippians 2:6-8 says:

"...Who [Jesus], being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient..." (King James Version)

Or, as it says in another version:

"But he did not try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. Christ was humble. He obeyed God..." (Contemporary English Version)

Scribe

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on May 12, 2011 at 7:55pm

Scribe,

Good word.

Lord Bless,

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Permalink Reply by Rita Cullimore on May 13, 2011 at 5:20am

Carla,

I've hear good born again preachers and teachers being accused of being a *false prophet* because they speak something that another person either doesn't believe or something that they have knowledge of but don't agree with the preacher/teacher explanation.

The very best solution is Study God's Word for yourself. What do you think it means? Does the teacher's explanation come anywhere near what you think it means? There are many good, honest teachers/preachers who preach what they believe to be true, but if you study it out they are wrong. Are they a false teacher or did they simply take someone else's word to come up with their teaching.

One needs to be very careful when labeling a person with the *false prophet* label. Are we versed in the Bible well enough to label another person with this name? Motive has a lot to do with giving out this label also. Does the person really deserve to be labeled a false prophet?

Blessings,

Rita