How to Know False Doctrine When You Hear It

Every group that claims to be Christian will say they believe in sound doctrine.  You will never hear a minister or Bible teacher stand up and say, “What I am about to teach is heresy and should be rejected.”   Christian authors never write that they are about to misuse the Word of God and teach you something God hates.

Yet each of these things happen in practice everyday as ministers stand in pulpits and preach heresy as do authors write false doctrine in book after book.  So what is the average layman to do?

Peter warned of this situation is 2 Peter 2 as even in his day false teachers were bringing in “privily” or secretly false doctrine.  He gave a warning to these false teachers and then two points of proof for the layman to know who is a false teacher.

First, Peter told in 2 Peter 2:4-22 that false teachers will he held accountable by God Himself as was done to the people of Noah’s day, the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrha, and even Balaam.  Peter told them God hates a false teachers as they revert His truth and mislead the people whom Jesus came to save.  So if you are a teacher of the Bible….BE VERY CAREFUL!

Second, Peter gave two basic guidelines to know whether a preacher/teacher is teaching truth or not:

1. False doctrine will always give the flesh permission to feed its lusts.  In 2 Peter 2:10 Peter warns that these “walk after the flesh” and live in the “lust of uncleanness” and that they are “self willed” which “speak evil of “dignities.”  Let me clarify dignities here as that really covers the entire issue of fleshly lusts being the motivation of false teachings.  The word dignities is the word “doxa” or glory of God.  You may have heard of the “Doxology” which is a short hymn that praises the greatness of God.  It is named after this word, doxa.  “Doxa,” dignities here, is the to be the central focus of all we do and teach.  So if someone speaks evil, or vainly attacks, that the glory of God is paramount then they are going to teach that the flesh is to be exalted and thus they are false teachers teaching false doctrine.  This is why Peter uses Sodom, Balaam, and the even the people of Noah’s day to illustrate this point.  Each of these placed their own desires ahead of the glory of God.  Beware when a teacher/preacher downplays that God’s glory is to be the central focus of all we do.
2. False doctrine will always seek to exalt the knowledge of man over the simplicity of God’s truth. In 2 Peter 2:18-22, Peter warns that because of the flesh’s weakness, great swelling words can deceive into false doctrine.  Peter makes it clear that when someone tries to make you feel small because they are “smarter” than you then they are not from God.  God throughout His Word warns that His truths are “foolish” so as to confound the “wisdom” of tis world.  This does not mean God’s truths are easy to grasp or that His Creation isn’t complex, but that His desire is to make the truth of God accessible.  Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

God’s doctrine is vast but it is clear and concise and holy not vague or fleshly as false doctrine is taught to be.