How to Deal with False Teachers
Notes
Transcript
When I started seminary, I was single, I moved to a new state where I didn’t have any family - so naturally one of the first things I did was find a church. As every seminary student should - but sadly many don’t.
It was a somewhat bigger church with a couple hundred attendees they would have a quarterly church membership meeting for those interested in becoming church members. It was a Friday night/Saturday morning to afternoon thing. They wanted to make sure that you were committed. Beforehand, I heard a handful of people warn me of what was called the “Seminary Beatdown”. I was told that the pastors would yell at the seminary students during the new member meeting.
“They try to scare you.”
“They will put you in your place.”
“They will tell you that you aren’t special.”
“They will tell you that they don’t want you there.”
The manner in how it worked was that the elders would dismiss everyone for lunch but then ask for those who were in seminary to remain back for a few minutes. They promised to give us lunch but wanted to speak to us first. There were maybe 20 of us in the room at that time.
But it wasn’t scary, it was much more gentle than I was told, it was much more pastoral than I expected. It was not scary, but it was firm.
The “beatdown” was in essence the elders telling us we understand that you are in seminary, we know that you want to teach, and that you may have been in situations of teaching and leading in your previous church… but we don’t know you, we don’t know your church… you unfortunately, do not have any special privileges simply because you are enrolled in a Master of Divinity program.
Let us get to know you first. Let us see how you serve. See what you know, and how you convey what you know.
To some people this sounded harsh. But it wasn’t the goal of this whole discussion is to protect the rest of the church from young men who get a little bit of knowledge, and with that knowledge comes arrogance and people get hurt.
This meeting was necessary because of how it happened in the past. And this wasn’t the only church in the area that had this issue.
I heard of several churches that had the problem where Seminary students, thinking that they are God’s gift to church would come into this church with arrogance and entitlement being expected to be given the keys to the church upon showing up the first time. And rather than building up the church, they harm others, they cause division.
This church was already blessed with brilliant scholars and professors as elders and laypersons. Seminary students who don’t know anything and think they know everything could cause more harm than good.
Additionally, not every person who goes to seminary, or even graduates from a seminary, is fit or qualified to teach. Seminaries help to train pastors, but they neither call nor qualify them.
This “beatdown” was the church’s way of preemptively preventing those who Paul describes here in verses 10-16.
However, the issue in most churches is not just with seminary students. However, it is similar to what happens in many churches - someone appears well studied and is confident, people like them… but then they become influential and spread bad theology.
A wise pastor does not allow just anyone to preach or teach.
Every book of the New Testament with the exception of Philemon addresses false teaching. Wherever the church has gone false teachers have soon followed.
Paul in this text gives us a description for the
Actions of False Teachers
Identities of False Teachers
Responses to False Teachers
Now the text does not perfectly divide into these points in order because Paul addresses Actions in 10-12, Identities in 12 and 14. Responses in 11, 13. And then in 15 and 16 he returns to actions again.
In last week’s text we looked at the qualifications for an elder. Here Paul show why a church must have elders that meet these qualifications. False teachers are everywhere. Paul is warning Titus of insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers - and the danger they can bring to a Christian community.
10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
Paul begins his section here by warning of people first by given description of what they are doing. Then by identifying who they are.
How They Act
Insubordinate is the same word that Paul uses to describe the unfaithful children in verse 6. Here he uses here to describe these teachers. This word would suggest that if these people are able to make their way into the church, as Paul is warning against here, they will wreak havoc, and never cease to stop. They wont submit to anyone so now one will stop them until they have accomplished their end goal, and they will steamroll over others.
He then follows that up with describing them as empty talkers… they speak but they don’t really say anything. One lexicon provided the translation “windbag’. It is as if he is saying that there are many disobedient, babbling children pretending to be teachers. Then he specifically identifies one group of people in this party: the circumcision party.
Who They Are
The Circumcision Party… now if you remember back to our series in Galatians this ought to sound somewhat familiar.
If not, the circumcision party are a group of Jews who converted to Christianity - but then began to insist that Gentile Christians had to be circumcised to be true Christians. They had to become Jews first, and then they could become Christians.
This meant that they needed to be circumcised, be obedient to the law and believe in Jesus. It’s Jesus + works = salvation. Jesus + works always turns into Jesus being diminished and the works being over emphasized.
The true gospel is: Your works are not good enough to save you. The only work that saves is the work of Jesus on the Cross. We are saved by the grace of God, through our faith in Christ Jesus.
Paul does not mince words when it comes to false teachers. And he also would encourage Titus, and us, to no to mince words either. The language in verse 11 is that it is necessary that they are silenced. The church is not a free for all where everyone gets to talk and say whatever they want.
What to do
Paul has described who they are, and then he proceeds to in verse 11 describes what to do with them.
He says:
11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
Pretty straight forward… however,
Have you ever been in a conversation where someone is talking about something with extreme confidence but you know that everything they are saying is wrong? But rather than correct them you let them speak - just to be nice. But when they leave, or you leave you correct everything they said to whoever you are with?
That is often the temptation in instances like this. You don’t want to cause trouble, or make someone feel uncomfortable. But Paul is urging Titus, not to allow that to be his disposition. The church cannot smile and nod, while someone spouts off heresy - instead they must be silenced.
It’s not loving to let someone believe a lie, or a damnable heresy, and it’s not loving to allow them to expose others to that heresy just because you don’t want to make things awkward.
It might sound harsh but Paul also demonstrates why this is so important.
One reason is that they are:
v. 11 - upsetting entire households…
It only takes influencing the parents to upset the whole household. And yet when that happens it can cause irreparable harm.
These false teachers could easily upset an entire family, simply be deceiving dad.
Paul concern here is for families. He knows that when one member in the family is led astray the whole family is harmed. This is not only a concern for their eternal souls, but also for their physical health.
As I said last week, everyone has a theology - everyone is a theologian - the question is just whether or not you are a good theologian.
Theology matters. Bad theology hurts people.
Ex:
Jim Jones, David Koresh, Heaven’s Gate cult, 9/11, The Holocaust, and even what happened in Minnesota two weeks ago are all a result of bad theology hurting someone.
And while not all instances of bad theology lead to tragic death, they can at bear minimum harm ones soul.
Then in verses 12-14, Paul repeats the structure of what they do, who they are, and how to respond.
12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
Now with the Cretans, Paul describes:
Who they are, and how they act
Cretan is not to be confused with the insult Cretin - spelled with an i. Meaning imbecile, but rather he is speaking of someone from Crete. So while Paul was previously speaking of the Circumcision party (a sizeable group within the deceivers), he seems to be now to be speaking of any false teacher on Crete. Paul is quoting Epimenedes, a 6th Century BC poet. So Paul isn’t making some ethnic slur, but instead he is quoting one of their own to demonstrate how this culture has thought of themselves.
It’s not that different from someone saying Americans are all obsessed with guns, food and capitalism. Most Americans would not be offended by that but probably chuckle - though some time - many other countries might think those things are negative or weird.
You wouldn’t allow a broke gambler from Vegas to do your accounting. Paul is warning Titus not to permit lying, evil, lazy, gluttonous Cretans from deceiving the people of God.
But more than identifying how the Cretans have a reputation for acting - Paul also tells them
What to do
to rebuke them sharply…
Yet here Paul gives a reason for the rebuke:
The reason for both the rebuke in verse 13, and the reason for silencing them in verse 11 is so that they might be sound in the faith. They are to be silenced, corrected, and rebuked so that they might have sound doctrine. This isn’t about power, it’s not about silencing different opinions to maintain the status quo. It’s about sound doctrine, and silencing those who are teaching falsehoods.
Sadly in our postmodern culture, we have been fed the idea that every opinion is valid. Though no one actually believes that.
However, one basic presupposition of the Bible is that there is an objective truth that can be known - and that ideas opposing that truth are falsehoods that ought to be silenced.
Unfortunately, it makes it easy so that someone who is silenced or removed for trying to harm - can easily paint themselves as the victim. Especially for those who are given to empathy. I’ve seen it quite a bit… someone says this church is mean, this pastor hurt me, because they did awful things to me. But when you get past their story you find out that they were communicating false doctrine, or they were deceiving others, or they were bringing others to sin along with them.
The church silenced and rebuked them because it is what they were supposed to do.
Now, there certainly are abuses of this issue. I’ve seen this on both sides. However, Paul is assuming and commanding (1:9, 2:1) that elders teach with sound doctrine.
The goal is sound doctrine, and repentance. Paul is instructing for them to be silenced and rebuked so that they might return and believe the true gospel, rather than the distorted theology they have come to believe.
And he continues by giving further examples of what this false theology is. He cautions against Jewish myths. We don’t know exactly what these myths are… maybe they are something like an obsession with book of Enoch - as we discussed briefly in Sunday School recently. Whatever it might be it is likely the first century version of believing that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat.
And not only have they wandered off into myths they insist on tradition of man (commands of people) as if they are essential. And while this text very much deals with a response to false teachers, there are attitudes that we also need to be warned about - and I think this the strongest warning for us. There is a grammatical link here to where Jesus rebukes the pharisees for “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” In Mark 7:7.
We ought to also be on guard about this. We cannot begin to force people to have to have exactly the same preferences that we do. Ex: musical style, or interior design. We must hold firm to the essentials, but we also need to be cautious that we do not hold our preferences as essentials.
When we start judging other churches faithfulness based upon which hymnal they use or if they use the KJV, or the NASB or the ESV.
15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
In verse 15, Paul further describes the issues of the false teachers by demonstrating a response to aestheticism. Likely behind these false teaching was the instruction to cast off all earthly pleasures. In short they taught that the uncomfortable miserable life is the holy life.
So when Paul says that to the pure all things are pure, he is referring to the Christian. To the one who has Christ, these things when used not for sin are pure. The defiled one is one who will use these things for evil.
Two men may go into a store and purchase the same bottle of wine. One uses it for the Lord’s Supper, and the other uses it to get drunk.
To the one who is pure they will use it for pure reasons, to the one who is defiled they will use it for sin. The problem isn’t the wine, it’s the use of the wine. Paul is making a similar argument here. It’s not that enjoying things in life is bad - it is how one uses those things that they enjoy. And this false teaching regularly shows up in the New Testament, and frequently in the early church.
16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Here Paul finally fully identifies the real issue. They do not know God. They cannot speak rightly about God because they do not know God. And since they do not know God, they do not know Christ. They are dead in their trespasses and sins and their deeds are as filthy rags.
One thing that the Apostle Paul would have never expected is how easily false teaching would make it in our homes without ever coming into our churches.
I can warn you about false teaching every Sunday, and you can anticipate that it will walk into our church looking like a wolf… but in many cases it’s a catchy song on K-Love, or a provocative speaker on CSN (unfortunately, there is SO much heresy on Christian radio), or it’s a preacher with millions of followers on TikTok or YouTube, or it’s a movie produced by a company merely trying to make a buck off the greatest story ever told, it’s a fear mongering doomsday preacher… their speech is polished, their production value is impeccable, but their message is corrupted by greed.
Be cautious who you listen to.
It’s easy to name the money grabbing prosperity preachers. The Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Paula White-Cain, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland,
But those are not the most harmful ones.
The most harmful false teachers are the ones who go by unnoticed - their message is
Ask questions of those who you listen to… what is the goal of what they want me to do? Is this rage bait? Do they just want you angry? Are they ONLY trying to get you to give them money? (Sometimes that’s fine, but is that ALL they ever try to do?) Is it merely trying to illicit an emotional response? Is that emotional response in accordance with the Scriptures?
OR
Are they pointing you to Christ? Is the end of goal of their message to glorify Jesus? Does it cause you to love Jesus more? Does it lead you to desire to love your neighbor? Does the message lead you to grow in your affections for the church? Does it help you to understand the word of God more?
If you are listening to something or someone and it does not leave you with a greater sense of awe and wonder concerning the greatness of our God and Savior then you may be better turning it off. If it doesn’t lead you to hold fast to your confession. Or to rejoice that the Lord is King.
My goal is not to get you to throw out your radio or tv or to never listen to a sermon on YouTube unless it is me. This isn’t about me telling you to block out other voices - but rather it is a reminder that Jesus, John, Paul, Peter, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, James, Jude, and The writer of Hebrews were all concerned about the presence of false teachers.
