My first semester of seminary, I took a church history course that was taught by a gentle-looking, long-tenured, dry-speaking professor who appeared to be on the cusp of retirement.
The required text was as plain, unassuming and dry as the professor. It wasn’t long before I was lost in an avalanche of dates, names, and movements that were unfamiliar to me (I’m afraid that some of the obscure heresies are still a confused mystery to me). So I faced the day of our first quiz with some trepidation — I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep everything straight.
After quickly taking the quiz at the beginning of class, he went over it with us and quickly reached a question that raised debate from several students (including me). One adventurous student was quick with his hand — “But…” he started. The prof cut him off with a clear-eyed stare and a dismissive word: “Trick question.”
No more explanation was coming and no more debates were raised. He intended to trip us up and see what we really knew. He intended to deceive — at least that’s what we thought.
In a far worse condition, there were in the early church (and still are today) a group of leaders whose intention was to deceive and lead astray believers in that church with false teaching so that they might have some measure of personal profit from the delusion.
These men were “tricksters” (Eph. 4:14) — men who intended to deceive with cunning craftiness, just like the cheats who might run a gambling game with loaded dice. These were manipulative teachers, willing and wanting to take advantage of immature, unstable believers. They would do anything to win their maliciously deceptive game.
And Paul notes that when a believer can evaluate and expose those false teachings and teachers, it is a mark of maturity. It demonstrates that a believer is moving forward and progressing in his life of faith in Christ.
What then are some of the marks of these tricksters? How can one determine if one has integrity in his leadership and teaching, or if he is working only for his own self-interests and desires? Other passages offer some keys to helping us reveal these tricky men:
- Watch what they teach. Teaching should conform to the body of truth contained in Scripture. And it should be consistent with the heritage of faith. So, the Bereans examined the teachings of Paul — were his words consistent with the rest of Scripture? Did his words harmonize with the OT Scriptures? If not, he would have been (rightly) considered suspect and unreliable. And for the same reason that Paul’s teaching was accepted, men like Alexander and Hymenaeus and Philetus were rejected. As a subset of this category, you might ask: are they man-centered or God-centered? Do they emphasize Biblical truth and the cross or are they enamored with story, preferring method to message?
- Watch how they live. What is the character of their own lives? Are they happy to give themselves in the service of Christ — even to the point of death? Or are they self-serving and manipulative? Is their teaching merely worn-out worldly philosophy and fable or grace-filled exhortation? Is their teaching an obvious expression of the fruit of the Spirit? Biblical truth, rightly believed will produce godly living. If they live like the world it demonstrates that they believe what the world believes. In fact, that is why what they do is actually far more revealing than what they say. To paraphrase Christ, they (and we) live out of the overflow of their hearts (what they really believe). Again, a couple questions might help: are they greedy or giving? Are they humble and aware of their God-dependence or are they proud and self-confident?
- Watch what they produce. Or, what are their followers like? What kind of disciples do they produce? While this might not be an absolute principle, in general children are like parents and disciples are like their teachers (which is one reason that the qualification of an elder includes an examination of his home). So, if you want to know about the validity of a teacher, look at his students.
The influx of false teachers has (unfortunately) not diminished since the days that Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians. And just as their maturity was revealed by their awareness and rejection of deceptive and false teachers, so our own church will also mature as we encourage and embrace a rigorous adherence to Biblical truth. The cost of falling prey to deceptive teaching is far more catastrophic than a low grade in a classroom.
Words of Grace 