The Dangers of & Antidotes to False Teaching- Acts 14

As we journey through the book of Acts, we are witnessing the birth and growth of the Church. It is a book called Acts, and the longer title is “The Acts of the Apostles through the Holy Spirit.”

We will see that false teaching and true teaching run parallel in this chapter. We will address the false teaching and then make our way to the true teaching.

True teaching brings health to individuals, the community, and especially the church. True teaching is God’s work done in God’s way according to God’s Word.

I. False Teaching is Dangerous- 14:1–23

“The denial of God—rejecting the reality of supernatural creation and the Creator’s sovereign rule of the world—has always been the root cause of every human problem.” Henry Morris

False teaching is dangerous for many reasons. Think of the physical dangers of false teaching. If one were to teach that all vegetables were inherently wicked, that would negatively impact the health of the person who believed it. Likewise, the prosperity gospel preachers who tell people to give money to them in order to receive blessings bring great financial harm. We could go on, but more dangerous than all of these is the danger of spiritual false teaching.

We see two main forms of false teaching in this passage, one from the Jewish people and the other from the Gentiles. What we will see is that false teaching can come from misuse of the Scriptures as well as a direct denial of the Scriptures.

A. False Teachings from the Jews-14:1–7, 19–23

The false teaching of the Jewish people typically was developed from the Scriptures. Now we have no details about the particulars of their teachings in this passage, only that “they poisoned their minds.” The idea is that the unbelieving Jews had an ill-will toward Paul and Barnabas.

The particular false teaching, though, comes to us in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This region about which we are reading is Galatia, and the letter to the Galatians comes to us sometime between chapters 14–15 of Acts. Galatians 2:15–16 “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

The idea of salvation by works of the law is anathema, accursed, and if believed and practiced will lead a soul to hell. To use a more modern day example, The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.” (CCC #1257)

The result was physical violence: mistreatment and stoning (14:5) and stoning (14:19). Since Gen. 3:15, the war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent has been going on, sometimes with physical violence and other times with violence in false teaching.

B. False Teaching from the Gentiles- 14:8-18

The false teaching from the Gentiles involved the belief in the Greek gods and goddesses. The pantheon of the Greeks and Romans is a fascinating study of more-human-like-than-god-like deities.

Although the Jewish people misinterpret/misapply the Scriptures, the Gentiles provide literally every other kind of false teaching. In this exchange, God heals a lame man through Paul and the people go nuts. They immediately start gathering the materials for a sacrifice and almost go through with it “they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them”).

We are provided a glimpse into this false teaching in Romans 1:18–32, where Paul details their rejection of God and their worship of everything else. A modern representation of this would be evolution. There is no god or goddess, the universe came into being by natural processes, and as a result, the idea of morality is quite different. Ephesians 5:3–12 provides a glimpse of the depravity of this false teaching.

We could also use many different countries and the deaths and suffering of billions of image bearers because of false teaching.

II. True Teaching is Healthy- 14:1–3, 7, 15–18, 21–23, 24–28

*Churches written to in our book of Galatians* (F. F. Bruce)

We will follow our parallel with false teaching in the same fashion, using the Jewish-Gentile division.

A. True Teaching to the Jewish People

They taught in the synagogues “in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.” Remember, there are no divisions of chapters or verses in Scripture, so this comes right after “and they were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” It also comes right after Luke records Acts 13:48 “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Paul and Barnabas were mouthpieces, but the Lord provided the growth (cf. 1 Cor. 3:5–9). True teaching brings salvation and growth, to both Jewish and Gentile people.

He continued “to preach the Gospel.”

We also see this in 13:19–23. Paul was stoned but the Lord delivered him from death. Acts 14:19—20. Also, of an interesting note, at some point from now until Acts 16 Timothy becomes a follower of Jesus.

Paul was not hindered by the persecution, and after preaching the Gospel “made many disciples.” Paul and Barnabas make their way back to Antioch, and on their way stopped by each church and did four things:

strengthened the souls of the disciples

encouraged them to continue in the faith by telling them they would experience tribulations

appointed elders in every church

committed them to the Lord with prayer and fasting (cf. 13:3)

They return to Antioch and report to the church what God had accomplished.

B. True Teaching to the Gentiles

Paul and Barnabas’s experiences with the Gentiles is quite different than from the Jewish people. God works a miracle through Paul to authenticate the preaching of the Gospel (cf. 14:3) and heals a lame man.

The Lystrans were absolutely stunned and began preparing sacrifices for they thought the gods came down (Zeus and Hermes). Paul and Barnabas begin to teach the Gentiles the truth: there is only One God. They demonstrate this with creation and the good gifts God has granted to everything, animal and human alike. Paul will develop this thought more fully in Romans chapter 1, but this true teaching curbs the Lystrans idol worship.

True teaching help protect the Gentiles from idol worship (and it helped the animals, too!).

Let’s summarize this chapter:

True teaching brings health to individuals, the community, and especially the church. True teaching is God’s work done in God’s way according to God’s Word.