Part Two in Dave Anderson’s Series on Protecting the Flock
“Plastic words”—that’s how Warren Wiersbe described the technique false teachers use to deceive people. The phrase comes from 2 Peter 2:1-3, where Peter instructs believers about how to identify false teachers:
“… Peter pointed out that the false teachers used ‘feigned words.’ The Greek word is plastos, from which we get our English word plastic. Plastic words! Words that can be twisted to mean anything you want them to mean! The false teachers use our vocabulary, but they do not use our dictionary. They talk about ‘salvation,’ ‘inspiration,’ and the great words of the Christian faith, but they do not mean what we mean. Immature and untaught believers hear these preachers or read their books and think that these men are sound in the faith, but they are not.”
In the previous installment of this series, Dave Anderson admonished elders to be alert and protect their flocks from Satan’s damaging, Scripture-twisting lies. Today, in part two, he gives several clues for spotting false teachers and shares examples of false teaching we’re likely to encounter today.
Red Flags for False Teaching
Drawing from 2 Peter 2:1-3, Dave identified the following characteristics of false teachers:
- They arise secretly from within the church. After earning the church’s trust, false teachers inconspicuously sneak destructive heresies into the church.
- Their teaching is popular but destructive. “If thousands of unconverted people like what you’re saying, there’s a good chance you’re a false teacher,” Dave said, adding that “it matters what you believe.” Wrong beliefs lead to sin and broken relationships. That’s why the apostles exposed heresy rather than ignoring or downplaying it in the name of unity, which many church leaders lean toward today.
- They are sensual. False teachers are often characterized by habitual sexual immorality and the rejection of God’s holy will for sexual relationships and gender.
- They are greedy and exploitative. Take, for example, the modern prosperity gospel movement—a major problem in the world today, especially outside of the United States. It’s a gospel of material blessing, not eternal salvation, and it appeals to people’s base nature. “Want to be rich and live your best life now? Come to Jesus,” they say, which is really another way of saying, “Give us your money.” When poor people have given all they have to these false teachers, hoping God will compensate them, they are left disillusioned and spiritually confused.
- They despise authority. False teachers hate scrutiny and accountability. “Don’t speak against the Lord’s anointed,” they warn. They fire people who challenge them, engage in nepotism to protect themselves from outside criticism, and peg people who question them as immature or faithless.
What False Teaching Looks Like Today
Today’s false teachers are those who:
- Claim Christ while affirming the LGBTQ+ movement and rejecting the notion of God-given gender. “There’s an all-out war on gender, and at its root is a rejection of God,” Dave said. “You can’t reject God more than by rejecting your own gender.”
- Preach a false gospel, including the prosperity gospel, works-based salvation, and the social justice gospel. It sounds biblical to be generous, do good, and help the needy, but never without preaching the message that meets people’s greatest need: the need to be saved by grace, through faith in Christ alone. “The gospel is not what we can do for Jesus but what Jesus has done for us, and the distortion of that is satanic,” Dave said.
- Deny the deity of Christ. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses do this, employing the above-mentioned technique of redefining biblical words to make their teaching sound like it’s straight from the Bible.
- Promote theological liberalism, including theistic evolution. Ideas like these are essentially secularism with a Christian coating—they ultimately reject the authority and inspiration of Scripture.
- Put a “Christian” spin on things that are rooted in secular culture, such as tolerance of sin, materialism, and expressive individualism (“Be true to yourself!” “Follow your heart!”).
- Stir up racial discord. “There’s mass confusion about race today, and it’s a theological confusion—an imago dei confusion,” Dave said. “Partiality has no place in the church of Jesus Christ.”
You can protect your church from false teaching by remaining alert and equipping your people. Have an elder’s roundtable discussion where you identify your church’s weaknesses and analyze where false teaching might be creeping in. Offer a book table and a list of recommended reading about theology, parenting, apologetics, evangelism, and other important topics. Finally, don’t hold back from teaching the whole counsel of God. “As the pulpit goes, so goes the church,” Dave said. “A weak and ignorant pulpit produces weak and ignorant people.”
Cowardice vs. Courage
Dave illustrated the elders’ protective role with a harrowing story of a cruise ship that ran aground in the Mediterranean in 2012, killing 34 people. The tragedy evolved into a modern parable of male cowardice when the transcript of the conversation between the captain and the Italian Coast Guard was released. The captain claimed to have accidentally fallen into a lifeboat (how convenient!) while passengers were still trapped on board. The Coast Guard ordered the captain in no uncertain terms to get back on the ship, let him know how many people remained on board, and coordinate the rescue. The captain made one excuse after another not to follow the orders. He never returned to the ship, and today he is in prison for manslaughter—all because he abdicated his responsibility to protect his passengers.
Elders must be ready to sacrifice their own comfort, ease, convenience, and popularity for the sake of protecting their flock. Confronting false teaching can be risky business—that’s why so many church leaders are afraid to do it. But it’s far more dangerous to allow false teachers to remain in the church, spreading destructive heresies that ruin lives. Step up. Stay on the boat. Protect your people. “And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).
This series is a summary of Dave Anderson’s message “The Elder’s Call to Protect the Flock” from the 2022 BER Conference. You can watch his message and the other conference messages at BiblicalEldership.com/Acts-20-Conference.