discernment – Page 5

Beth Moore’s latest study: critique and review

Posted on September 9, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Beth Moore is a self-identifying Bible teacher, who writes and publishes material based on the Bible. She also is President of her corporation Living Proof Ministries, in which Moore goes from city to city teaching material she says is related to the Bible. In addition, she has a TV show on TBN, Youtube, and other outlets. She has written a novel and recently published her autobiography.

She is 67 years old and has been teaching woman AND men – and eventually preaching – since about 1983.

She has always been false. She did not start well and go off the rails. Nor did she recently turn soft or errant. She has been false since the beginning. There are sheep and there are goats, one marked for blessing and eternal life and one marked for condemnation. Moore is the latter. I discussed that fact here:

Has Beth Moore only recently drifted, or has she always been false?

and here-

Beth Moore’s spiritual biography

I’ve been tracking Moore since 2011 when I was taken to a Live Living Proof event, and later a simulcast retreat weekend. I’ve written many critiques about both Moore’s doctrine, her teaching style, and her lifestyle. Last week, I checked in to see how Beth Moore’s teaching is going, with viewing her latest Bible series, “When is He Present?”, a study looking at what it means to truly seek the Lord’s presence. Key Scriptures: 1 Samuel 2:12-18, Jeremiah 7:12-15, Jeremiah 2:1-8, 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Proverbs 3:5-6.

Conclusion: Beth is still false.

Let’s take a look at why. This isn’t just about marking a teacher, it’s about leading the reader through WHY Beth Moore is false, so the reader can develop her own discernment and be on the alert for true and false teachers. That act alone glorifies the Lord. Rightly dividing the truth glorifies Him. Submitting to and learning about the actual God as revealed in scripture glorifies Him. Alternately, following a false teacher or believing wrong doctrine does not glorify God. This is why we critique teachers- to glorify God and to aid sisters in developing discernment.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)

Moore began part 1 of her new series with a focus on 1 Samuel. We read at Grace To You the predominant themes of 1 & 2 Samuel:

-The first is the Davidic Covenant,
-A second theme is the sovereignty of God,
-Third, the work of the Holy Spirit in empowering men for divinely appointed tasks is evident,
-Fourth, the books of Samuel demonstrate the personal and national effects of sin.

Ligonier’s overview of 1 Samuel teaches three truths, that God always intended for Israel to have a king; God selected David to be king and promised him an eternal dynasty, God selected Jerusalem to be the place where He would provide a substitute for His people.

Knowing now the devastation of Israel’s national and personal sin, and how they were at a low and weak point because of persistent sin, how does Beth Moore introduce the theme and background of 1 Samuel? Let’s take a look.

Moore opens the lesson thus:

A paradox of being completely self-absorbed is that the more we fold into ourselves the more we try to just give ourselves to every craving every yearning anything we want regardless of what it does to anybody else that the more we do that the more and more Barren we become. ~Moore

Moore uses the word barren 9X in this lesson but the word sin only once. It seems that Moore is inserting her gynocentric focus here, in making these chapters be about women, barrenness, and birth. She opens with a focus on women- not sin, not kings, not Israel. Women and their child-birthing capabilities, or lack thereof. Moore knows her audience likely knows about barren Hannah, so Moore seems to have latched onto the birthing issue and barrenness and extrapolated it into the theme.

First, she uses the word barren when saying that when we give in to cravings, (carefully avoiding the word sin) it makes us “barren”. If that was all she said, one might surmise from the scant context, that Moore meant spiritually dry. But then she confuses things in the next moment by using the word barren to mean Hannah’s physical inability to have children.

Moore conflated the word barren and then goes on in the ‘lesson’ to overuse the word without clarifying. Moore matches the spiritual dryness of disobedience to one woman’s inability to have children.

This lack of clarity and the cobbling together of cherry-picked words is the usual MO of how Moore has publicly said she crafts her lessons. She prays and waits to hear a literal word from the Spirit, then she goes through books of the Bible and picks out that word and makes a lesson out of it. Here, she seems to have ‘heard’ the Spirit say “barren”. You notice above how many books of the Bible and how many verses she intends to teach through. She is always all over the place.

I’m just a few minutes into Moore’s lesson and it is incorrect and confusing already.

In fact, the next statement Moore gives is that Moore claims the entire theme of the book of 1 Samuel is about barrenness. She said,

So the book unfolds 1^st Samuel chapter 1 and goes into to chapter 2 and then we see it in chapter 3 the book unfolds with a whole theme of barrenness. It’s showing us the idea of barrenness in the woman by the name of Hannah…

This is incorrect. The theme of 1 Samuel is the installation of a King over the people, the beginning of the monarchy. Not barrenness.

She goes on to say,

it puts us on the page of Hannah’s barrenness but that is not where it stops. Because what it immediately shows us is that this particular people of God has become Barren. That spiritually they are completely Barren.

So are the people unable to have children? Or are they barren spiritually? Because Moore has used the word in both senses in rapid order by now. And what exactly IS spiritual barrenness? How can an entire people be ‘barren’? The men too? She never defines it.

This is a tactic politicians use, when they use words that are commonly understood but that each person can attach their own individual interpretation to what it exactly means. Words like peace, liberty, freedom. Politicians do this so they can appeal to the widest possible audience (voters).

In faith-based organizations like Living Proof that twist the word, the speakers first rip out the context, then they use words that make sense on the surface but are in fact nebulous, so they can appeal to the widest audience possible (consumers).

Barrenness makes sense, but what IS it, really? The people at this juncture were SINNING. They were DISOBEDIENT. Moore doesn’t use the more specific and appropriate words of sin and disobedience. Only ‘barrenness’.

there’s nothing like barrenness to make God want to birth something… ~Moore

What?! Sometimes barrenness, if we interpret it as disobedience, causes God to punish, not birth something. See: Sodom, The Disapora, Intertestamental 400 years of silence…

Moore goes on to reference Sarah who was barren and in the NT Elizabeth who was past child bearing years. Moore again cobbling together a false doctrine out of her cherry picked word. Now it is true that God used barren women for His plan. In fact, He was the One who MADE the women barren in the first place. He didn’t look down on these poor women who could not give birth and decide out of compassion to give them a child. It is the Lord who opens and closes wombs and decides whether or not he gives a woman a child. He uses them as part of His plan.

Next, Moore says,

Elizabeth a woman past the years of childbearing there’s just nothing like a time of barrenness …

What does that mean??

Anna wasn’t mentioned as having children, and her life was rich a teaching ministry in the Temple. Lydia is not mentioned as having children yet her ministry of hospitality was thriving. What does that mean, “there’s nothing like a time of barrenness”?

so I want to say to you if you come here this weekend in your life your soul your heart just feels Barren you may be in exactly the right place because it may be that God is just about to birth something brand new in you.

Or it might mean you’ve been disobedient and need to repent.

The above sounds like Joel Osteen doesn’t it? Moore uses nebulous words in order to emotionally connect with her audience, rather than teach the plain meaning of scripture and allow the Spirit to connect in transforming their mind.

Beth, just stoppppp with the ping-ponging back and forth between the spiritual barrenness and gestational barrenness!

Moore refers to Hannah’s promise to dedicate the child to the LORD when he is old enough, and for laughs, Moore says she’d renege on that promise to YAHWEH:

I’m going to tell you something, if it were me, He just never would get old enough, isn’t that the truth…[laughter]

I’ve often remarked that Beth Moore lacks gravitas. Not that we moon about and wear a long face, but her frequent quips and pause for laughter moments chip away at the foundation of the seriousness of the topic on which she is speaking, and eats away at the due seriousness of the Bible itself. Should we joke about abandoning a promise to God?

Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT [ab]MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.’ (Matthew 5:33)

Moore admits a bit further on that she changes translations frequently and when she does she reads the verse a bit differently and it “captures my fresh attention.“

This is rather a sad confession, but one that to my mind confirms once again that Moore is an unsaved person and looking for ways to liven her Bible reading (which is always dry as dust to a pagan). The Holy Spirit livens the reading of God’s word to us as He uses it as the mechanism to transform our mind and melt our heart and grow our soul. But not for a heathen. Heathens need tricks to make the Bible interesting and keep one’s attention. So Moore changes translations often.

Moore continues with reading a passage from Jeremiah where God is speaking to the people about their lack of awareness and failure even to ask “where is the Lord?” never noticing that He is not present among them. Moore extrapolates that to a lamentation for our day, that,

we should really be seeing the Lord move in our midst and moving some obstacles and making some ways in the wilderness and this is a God that does wonders for his people and where where is the Lord?

Is she saying that we should be expecting visible proof that the Lord is moving? Miracles and wonders? Seems so. If the Lord feels far from you, what are you called to do? REPENT. That word does not appear at all in the transcript of Moore’s 30-minute teaching. We seek the Lord’s presence through seeking His forgiveness for our sin through our repentance. This is not a mention in the transcript nor is it the theme in this lesson.

Moore went on like that for a while. Her teaching was not 100% devoid of truth. False teachers always include some truth which they mix with a heaping cup of confusion and a dollop of emotion. But her teaching was human centered, not God-centered.

What descriptions are used for false teachers? Spies, masquerade, creep in, secretly… If you could immediately detect their falsity then we would not need so many warnings in the Bible about training in discernment so we cold detect them.

Moore’s error in identifying the theme of 1 Samuel, her incorrect use of barrenness, and her ripping out of context the story of Sarah and other childless women are clues that her teaching that is not healthy.

Further Resources

Beware of False Teachers

Hannah’s perseverance

Why we still warn against Beth Moore

theology

Cut to the Chase discernment: Avoid Jen Wilkin

Posted on July 29, 2024March 15, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

About the series: I have written discernment essays critiquing various teachers. In articles like that, I include sources, explain the teacher’s errors thoroughly, and provide examples. All this make the essays longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false. In the Cut to the Chase I include links at the end if you care to go to my longer essays and/or other resources.

Why should we avoid Jen Wilkin?

1. Poor hermeneutic. Wilkin’s emphasis on gender and pushing for opportunities for women to teach (no focus on exercising the other gifts, solely teach, preach, or be hired leader-staff) is starting to twist her hermeneutics. I saw this in each of the messages I watched, including a Bible teaching from 2014 supposedly expositing Joshua, the Rahab segment of that speech. Her teaching is off. I would not trust it and sadly do not recommend Jen Wilkin’s Bible studies. Some have called her recent teachings ‘gynocentric’ which I think is apt.

2. Discernment. Jen is partnering with and promoting questionable/false teachers. She is increasingly speaking with Kelly Minter, Christine Caine, Priscilla Shirer, and Beth Moore. Also Jackie Hill Perry. See one example here. Another is the Lifeway Women’s Leadership conference in February 2020. More recently Jen spoke at an Oklahoma Women’s Retreat alongside Whitney Capps, who is part of false teacher Lysa TerKeurst’s Proverbs 31 Ministries and Lifeway Women…and The Gospel Coalition Women with Muslim Isa-dreams believer David Platt.

3. Egalitarian. In one famous example, Wilkin based her entire talk on the biology of men and women, avoiding the biblical/spiritual foundation. When she does refer to the Bible it was to present a different interpretation of the creation of humans in Genesis 2.

In that speech, Wilkin explained to the attending male pastors and church planters, that it’s important to understand the biology of men and women when you’re planting a church, and so you can use women in “visible leadership”. You hear this phrase from Wilkin a lot … “visible leadership”. She is big on women in visible leadership. As opposed to “hidden leadership”? Wilkin tries to make the case that men and women are interchangeable and therefore their roles are too. She does not preach the beauty of an Abigail, Anna, Lydia, Mary, Dorcas. Her sole focus of late is women who leading, and often mentions Deborah and Huldah. She is against the concept of complementarian helpmeet, which is why she needs to reinterpret Genesis 2.

3. Attitude. Titus 2:3a says, Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior
Wilkin is on record as being angry and being snarky. Greear said in his introduction about her that he’d first heard of her as ‘The Bible Girl’ and talked with her, testing her for her biblical knowledge, and “she’d always give back a snarky answer, to let me know that she knew a whole lot more than I did about whatever I was asking about, so I learned to be very respectful around her…”

Unknowingly Greear made Proverbs 27:15-16 come to life-

A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
And a contentious woman are alike;
He who would restrain her restrains the wind,
And grasps oil with his right hand.

Wilkin sometimes demonstrates a barely suppressed anger, a vitriol that in one case clearly came through. She actually called one noted and credible theologian “a pervert”. It was uncharitable in the extreme. In another case of an author of a commentary writing that Rahab was a prostitute, she said to her audience, “If I ever meet him I’ll probably sock him in the face.” Maybe her anger is not so suppressed after all.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. (Titus 2:7-8).

4. Omissions. Wilkin does not teach the role of women as submissive learners, content in her God-designed role to serve at home and humbly in the church. She does not teach women mentoring other women. She does not teach positively about the women who submitted to their biblical roles, like Lydia, Eunice and Lois, Anna. Jen speaks of “the gifts” but restricts ‘the gifts’ to teaching and not the other gifts such as administration, hospitality, support, etc. She focuses on the teaching and positions of women in “visible leadership.” Omissions are harder to detect but once you realize Jen gives only part of the story of our roles and joys, you can’t forget it. She is unduly entranced with gender politics and it’s affected her teaching and her own walk.

Further discernment essays from The End Time critiquing Jen Wilkin-

I went back and re-edited the following two series. They are slightly shorter now.

“If I ever meet him I’ll probably sock him in the face” said Jen Wilkin, Redefining Rahab, part 1

“If I ever meet him I’ll probably sock him in the face” said Jen Wilkin, Redefining Rahab, part 2

“If I ever meet him I’ll probably sock him in the face” said Jen Wilkin, Redefining Rahab, part 3

Slippery Slopes: A discerning look at Jen Wilkin, part 1

Slippery Slopes: A discerning look at Jen Wilkin, part 2

Slippery Slopes: A discerning look at Jen Wilkin, part 3

theology

Cut to the chase: Six Reasons why Joyce Meyer is a false teacher

Posted on May 31, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week, lol.

Wolf Week Intro: or, We DO know the heart
Wolf Week # 1: My two “starter false teachers”
Wolf Week # 2: Why Wolves?
Wolf Week # 3: Types of false teachers and their different methods
Wolf Week # 4: Has that false teacher REALLY ‘helped’ you?
Wolf Week # 5: Why does God allow false teachers?

A short follow-up series I am publishing contains more essays in short form focusing on influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these teachers previously in years past, but those essays were longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.

Today I look at 6 reasons not to follow Joyce Meyer.

Bullet points on why Joyce Meyer is a false teacher

Joyce Meyer is a very popular female Bible teacher and preacher. She has been on the scene for decades, and shows no signs of slowing down. She has 10 offices around the world and employs 500 people. Her brand of charismatic/name-it claim it religion has deceived many. This is sad, but the Bible says that many will be deceived by false teachers. I pray that anything here will spark a further Berean investigation by the reader and through prayer, come to the other side of discernment in understanding why Meyer should be avoided.

Joyce Meyer preached that Jesus was a sinner, had been born again, stopped being the Son of God, paid for our sins in hell (from 1991 Booklet called The Most Important Decision you Will Ever Make), and was tormented there. Meyer preaches a different Jesus. She is a heretic.
Joyce Meyer preaches to men and mixed gender audiences in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12.
Joyce Meyer operated as an associate pastor in a church in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12.
Joyce Meyer preaches that it is normal and expected to hear directly from God, yet the scriptures claim they are sufficient (2 Timothy 3:14-17), and the Bible canon is closed. (Revelation 22:18-19). Yet she teaches that God speaks individually to people today. Example, in essay “It’s not that complicated” (scroll down!) she wrote -“Do you ever wonder if God speaks to people? You’ll be happy to know the answer is yes. But first let me explain how distractions can hinder His voice” and taught more from her book How to Hear from God or in this video.
Joyce Meyer claims she is not a sinner. This is in violation of 1 John 1:8, which says that such people are deceived and the truth is not in them.
There’s more, but these should suffice to illustrate to the reader that Joyce Meyer’s teaching is not edifying.

Please do not allow a teacher’s longevity lull you into thinking they must be good. Please do not allow a ministry’s global breadth to lull you into thinking he or she is good. In fact the Bible says that popularity is often a mark of falsity. (Luke 6:26). The world wants their ears tickled. In 2 Timothy 4:3 we read

For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,

If you follow Joyce Meyer, please consider these things. Please stay in the pure, undefiled faith, and find some good Bible teachers to follow, beginning with your own pastor and elders at your own church.

theology

Cut to the chase: Five reasons to avoid Jackie Hill Perry

Posted on May 30, 2024May 31, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week, lol.

A short follow-up series I am publishing contains 4 more essays in short form focusing on 4 influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these four previously in years past, but those essays were longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.

Today I look at 5 reasons not to follow Jackie Hill Perry.

Jackie Hill Perry (JHP) is an author, spoken word artist, poet, and speaker. She was saved, she said, in 2008. Until that point, Jackie had indulged in all manner of sins, including long-term lesbianism.

Issue # 1- Direct Revelation

Jackie’s manner of conversion began with a voice from God. As an aside, many of the false teachers I warn you about claim either as part of their conversion story or part of their foundation of their ministry, a voice from ‘God’.

In Jackie’s case when she was an active lesbian, she said that despite knowing the scripture for ‘the wages of sin is death’, apparently the biblical statement was not enough for her to repent of her perversity. It wasn’t until she heard the Lord speaking directly to her that she believed. Source and Source. And notice the displacement of the core issue. Jackie said she ‘heard’ the Lord say of her girlfriend, “She will be the death of you” and Jackie said, ‘then things clicked.’ Emphasis mine

No. SIN is the death of us. In JHP’s case, her lesbianism. The girlfriend isn’t the problem, choosing sin and indulging in it is the problem.

Issue # 2: Lack of Discernment

After her stated conversion in 2018, Jackie Hill Perry was seen as solid enough (by some) to be invited to appear in the American Gospel film, which combatted word-faith doctrine and prosperity gospel. But in 2022, JHP renounced her participation in AG film, saying she wished she had never been featured in it. She said it was “too tribalistic” whatever THAT means; and reeked of “theological superiority”.

As a side note: true doctrine IS superior to false to half-true doctrine. The Bible commands us to separate from liars, the greedy, false teachers, and so on. Jackie became unwilling to set doctrinal boundaries and separate. See the following-

In 2019, Jackie Hill Perry was invited from the upcoming Answers in Genesis Conference where she had been slated to speak. That is a pretty big deal, because not many other ministries have been consistently faithful and biblical over decades. It spoke volumes.

Then she was disinvited. Her disinvite followed on the heels of a controversy after Perry publicly endorsed Jenn Johnson of Bethel Church, who is a heretic and her organization is a heresy factory. No wonder Answers in Genesis said, ‘no thanks’ to JHP’s participation in their conference. The disinvite from a credible ministry like AiG spoke volumes, yet it did nothing to prompt JHP to reconsider her endorsement of Jenn Johnson, at least publicly. In fact, JHP doubled down. She later defended her endorsement of Jenn Johnson of Bethel by claiming that Word-Faith theology isn’t ‘actual heresy’. These were Jackie’s own words. Jackie’s unwillingness to separate shows her to be a man-pleaser.

Issue # 3: Reverse racism

In 2020 in an episode of her show “With the Perry’s” she said many woke things, including that “all white people” must look within themselves to search out the deceitfulness in their hearts over their inherent racism and reject the notion that, “all white people” have bought into the narrative that all black people are criminals. Source.

Issue # 4: Usurper

JHP preaches. Here she is at Liberty University in April 2024 preaching at the convocation where men are present. Here she is in 2023 preaching at the Passion Conference, where men are present. Other examples abound. You cannot listen in good faith to a ‘Bible’ teacher or preacher who openly and brazenly rebels against the very scriptures they purport to uphold.

Issue # 5: She is a Prideful ‘prophet’

In 2022, Jackie came out as a prophet. See #1 again, direct revelation.She quotes what God has allegedly said, and claims that ‘God’ has allegedly given Jackie information about other people, for whom she then intercedes. God had told her she’d have a boy. She didn’t. She had a girl.

The canon is closed. God is not speaking directly or individually to people today, giving inside information. The ‘voice’ Jackie says she is hearing is not God’s. She is either lying, massively deceived, or mentally incompetent.

I wrote two previous pieces on JHP:

Jackie Hill Perry: Discernment review

Jackie Hill Perry comes out as ‘prophet’

The size of a ministry isn’t an indicator of their standing with God or the credibility of their organization. In fact, the larger and more popular a so-called ministry is the more we should be suspicious of it. In Luke 6:26 we read, ‘Woe to you when all the people speak well of you; for their fathers used to treat the false prophets the same way.‘

Avoid Jackie Hill Perry. She is false.

theology

Cut to the chase: Four reasons to avoid Lori Alexander of godlywomanhood

Posted on May 29, 2024December 8, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week, lol.

A short follow-up series I am publishing contains 4 more essays in short form focusing on 4 influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these four previously in years past, but those essays were longer. In articles like that, I include sources, explain the teacher’s errors thoroughly, and provide examples. All this make the essays longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.

Today I look at 4 reasons not to follow Lori Alexander, half of the duo behind godlywomanhood/ The Transformed Wife.

Continue reading →

theology

Cut to the chase: Six reasons why you should avoid Beth Moore

Posted on May 28, 2024May 30, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week, lol.

A short follow-up series I am publishing beginning today contains 4 more essays in short form focusing on 4 influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these four previously in years past, but those essays were longer. In articles like that, I include sources, explain the teacher’s errors thoroughly, and provide examples. All this make the essays longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.

Today I look at 6 reasons not to follow Beth Moore.

Continue reading →

theology

Cut to the Chase: Three (probably four) Reasons to Avoid David Platt

Posted on May 25, 2024January 10, 2026 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week 🙂

Having learned, hopefully, what was presented in the previous Wolf Week essays, these cut to the chase essays hopefully will edify you and give you skills to explore further, if you choose to.

This first one is about David Platt.

Continue reading →

theology

Wolf Week # 5: Why does God allow false teachers?

Posted on May 24, 2024May 25, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“Beware of supposing that a teacher of religion is to be trusted, because although he holds some unsound views, he yet ‘teaches a great deal of truth.’ Such a teacher is precisely the man to do you harm: poison is always most dangerous when it is given in small doses and mixed with wholesome food”. JC Ryle

I’ve spent the last 5 days discussing from the Bible the fact of false teachers, their methods, their characteristics, and their traits. False teachers are destructive to the individual, to the local church body, and to the faith in general.

and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:30)

So that leaves one last important question. Why does God allow false teachers? Why does He allow them to destroy? Why does He use false teachers to pollute the faith, draw away the unwary, and make shipwrecks of whole churches? (Revelation 2:20[Thyatira], 3:1 [Sardis], 3:16 [Laodicea]). What good can a false teacher possibly do in God’s Economy?

For there also have to be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. (1 Corinthians 11:19).

That’s the reason. False teachers are a magnet for the sinner, the unsaved, the fleshly. If these people are drawn to a false teacher, and especially if they stay with a false teacher after evidence is presented, a schism forms between the redeemed and the person who prefers falsity.

God uses the false teacher as a magnet to show which side people are on. And don’t think we the forgiven sinner, is immune to following a false teacher. We have sin in us and are drawn just as the false professing believer is. In fact, we should be grateful for the false teacher’s existence if we follow one for a time, because we can then repent and ask God to help us. And then praise Him for his help, patience, and forgiveness. False teachers show us our blind spots of sin.

In Matthew 7:15 Jesus had warned the disciples that false teachers are like wolves that wear sheep’s clothing. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus said He was sending them as sheep out to where the wolves were. In Acts 20:20 Paul said he knew that after his departure savage wolves will come. Wolves are quite the theme in the New Testament. Wolfish false teachers cause division. And that is a good thing, noting the verse again,

For there also have to be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. (1 Corinthians 11:19).

He did send us a measuring tool to allow us to determine with evidence some who are professors and who actually possesses the Spirit, and that is the wolf. The wolf is a test.

CC license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/shinealight/2220267854/
Author Ryan McGilchrist

In the verse above, we see the word factions. The word has been translated in different translations as divisions, differences, and even heresies. It is from the Greek word haireomai; properly, a choice, i.e. a party or disunion. It means a self-chosen opinion, a personal (decisive) choice. The term stresses the personal aspect of choice. Sources- Strong’s Greek and NASB Lexicon.

If you ever wondered why a person would defend a false teacher even after having been given evidence of their falsity, this is why. They CHOOSE it. It is a strongly decisive choice according to the word use in the original language.

Now we read this verse,

Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to the person through whom the stumbling block comes! (Matthew 18:7).

The world has various and ingenious ways of tempting the Christian to stumble. One of the most direct ways is through a false teacher. How?

By doing like Jezebel, by teaching doctrine that isn’t biblical. I think you commit the most heinous of all crimes. That’s why the Bible speaks so forcefully against false teachers, because they lead God’s people into the worse kind of sin, and that is a misrepresentation of who God is. And that’s the severest of all, because if your God isn’t right, you can’t settle anything. And so false teachers are the ultimate who are guilty in this regard. John MacArthur, The Danger of Causing a Christian to Sin sermon on Matthew 18:5–9.

The false teacher is used by God as a magnet, a curse, and a crowbar to make a separation between the true believer and the false believer. For his part, the true believer/false believer goes along with it by his choice. It is a test.

but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2).

So ultimately the answer to the question, Why does God allow false teachers? As John Piper says, “The result is that we learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin by how we more easily embrace false teaching rather than biblical truth.” So the answer is, to test us.

Secondly, everything He does is for His glory, and our good. So while it is a trial for us to endure false teachers, it is for our good and His glory that they should exist. False teachers test our sinfulness, and they display Gods patience. What we do is pray to stay strong in the faith, trust God, and repent early and often. God is good, all the time.

theology

Wolf Week # 4: Has that false teacher REALLY ‘helped’ you?

Posted on May 23, 2024May 25, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

One way to spot a false teacher is how they respond (or don’t respond) to biblical correction. Denny Burke wrote:

Those who refuse to respond to biblical correction eventually prove themselves to be devoid of the Spirit and taking orders from another master (Jude 1:19). Recalcitrance in the face of correction is dangerous, and it is why the apostles would often apply some of the most bone-chilling descriptors to unrepentant false teachers. ~Denny Burk, How to Deal with False Teachers

The same might be applied to a bystander who enjoys the false teacher and refuses to be corrected away from that false teacher with the scriptures. Worse is their insistence that BECAUSE the teacher ‘helped them,’ the teacher surely can’t be false. But that is the false teacher’s job, to be helpful.

Christian Lady 1: So-and-So is a false teacher.
Christian Lady 2: No way! But she’s helped me in my walk! And she says true things sometimes!
Christian Lady 1: The demon possessed slave girl was ‘helping’ Paul, so why was Paul ‘greatly annoyed’? Because her statement was only partly true, AND it was spiritually ambiguous. Paul exorcised her.

Ladies, we don’t need to allow a false teacher to help along our God. He doesn’t need just any truth. Truth that’s proclaimed must be clearly explained and specifically credited to HIM. Here is what the slave girl was saying-

“These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17)

The slave girl said, ‘Most High God’. This matters because though Jews would have recognized the phrase, pagans were used to many people saying there was a ‘most high god’, notably, Zeus. And, “a” way of salvation? It is THE way of salvation. See the subtlety with the slave girl’s statement being off the center of truth?

False god Oceanus, central statue at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. EPrata photo

The way of evil is darkness and crooked paths (cf Proverbs 2:13-15).

The final arbiter of whether a teacher is true or false isn’t how much or little he or she has ‘helped’ you. In fact, many times the truth won’t feel like it’s helping at first. Truth hurts, it convicts, it pricks the conscience… and the opposite of that is the problem of false teachers knowing how to tickle ears. Tickling is pleasant. So is he or she REALLY helping you if you always feel tickled and helped, and never feel provoked by the lessons?

Don’t go by your internal feelings, which lie. Go by the sterling truth of God’s word. Compare what the teacher is saying to the Bible. Then do it again, because they are subtle, sneaky, and destructive, and we are less than intelligent sheep after all.

False teachers are dangerous, and part of what makes them so dangerous is that they will affirm so much that is good and true. They will not deny all of the doctrines upon which the Christian faith stands or falls, but only select parts of it. They draw in the unsuspecting with all they affirm and only later destroy them with all they deny. ~Tim Challies, Lessons I’ve learned from False Teachers

Would you buy a pair of new pants that only partly fit? Would you eat a brownie that was only partly filled with cockroaches? Would you drive tires that were only partly covered in rubber? Of course not. We expect the full, working edition of whatever we consume. Since that is true for mundane things, it is even MORE important to ensure that God’s truth we knowingly consume is fully truth, sterling, sparkling, and whole.

You don’t need to listen to someone who speaks some truth, sometimes, from a mouth of lies that oppose Christ. The truth is how we are sanctified- John 17:17. That false teacher is not helping you if you’re absorbing only partial truth, then you get only partial sanctification. What you get from the false teacher’s mouth of lies is polluted truth, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Further Reading

Tim Challies: False Teachers and Deadly Doctrines

theology

Wolf Week # 3: Types of false teachers and their different methods

Posted on May 22, 2024May 25, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Wolf Week Intro: or, We DO know the heart
Wolf Week # 1: My two “starter false teachers”
Wolf Week # 2: Why Wolves?
Wolf Week # 4: Has that false teacher REALLY ‘helped’ you?
Wolf Week # 5: Why does God allow false teachers?

When we read directions telling us to quiet ourselves, to ‘be still’ so we can hear God because too many distractions dampen our ability to hear Him – it says something important about God:

1. It says that God can’t cut through ambient noise to make Himself heard.
2. It says that He created the creation, but can’t control it enough to get His message to the ears of the person to whom He intends to speak.

For years I have written discernment articles about discerning certain movements, trends, and this or that particular false teacher. One of my earliest was a series on Beth Moore, who became one of my ‘starter false teachers’ thirteen years ago. (Joel Osteen was the other). I wrote about that the other day.

2 Timothy 4:3 says, For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,

Thus, one way the symbolism of the wolf differs from the actual false teacher, is that the animal wolf preys on mammals who are minding their own business. The false teacher wolf has a partnership with its prey. The ‘victims’ of the false teacher deliberately prop up the teacher. ‘They accumulate for themselves’ teachers who teach something that satisfies an unrepented-of lust in their flesh. It may be sensuality, greed, health, or whatever. But people who cling to false teachers even after being shown how dangerous she is, have culpability for perpetuating the problem.

Repent early and often so the wolf does not smell out your sin and nurse it for you.

So, discernment is more than pointing out this or that false teacher. False teachers also exhibit certain characteristics. As is written at The Masters University, false teachers exhibit a “pathology.” We need to be “spiritual pathologists” to detect them.

To that end, below are some excellent articles outlining the characteristics of false teachers describing the types of things they do to deceive. If you are reading an author’s Christian book or listening to a podcast or sermon, and you begin to wonder if the person is solid or if he or she is a wolf, these are good articles to start ‘testing the fruit’ of their teaching or behavior.

The Pathology of False Teachers

Here is The Masters University with their article The Pathology of False Teachers“, well worth a read. Here’s a gem-

“It takes careful discernment to see that the light is really darkness. Paul taught Timothy how to diagnose satanic darkness masquerading as divine light. Here’s how he described the key symptoms that identify those infected with the spiritual disease of false teaching:”

The article then goes on to describe each symptom of the false teacher disease.

10 Characteristics of False Teachers

Here is Noah Adams, lead pastor of City Park Church in CO, with a list of 10 Characteristics of False Teachers. It’s at Linkedin but you don’t have to sign in to read it, just press the X and the pop-up goes away. He matched each type of false teacher with scripture, then explains.

1.They creep in unnoticed (Jude 1:4)
2. They operate in secret (2 Peter 2:1-3)
3. They have many followers (2 Peter 2:1-3)
4. They create division and obstacles (Romans 16:17)
5. No matter what it seems like, they do not have God (2 John 1:7-11)
6. Some began in sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1-5)
7. Their words seem intelligent (1 Timothy 6:20-21, Colossians 2:8)
8. They look like legitimate apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13-15, Matthew 7:15)
9. They target the spiritually naive (Romans 16:17-18)
10. They twist Scripture (1 Timothy 6:3-5, 2 Timothy 4:3-4)

7 Traits of False Teachers

Here is Colin Smith with “7 Traits of False Teachers” from The Gospel Coalition (in 2013, back when they were pretty OK). This is a different article from the similarly named article below. Smith explains why these false teachers are different, with a short answer from the Bible for each question.

1.Different Source—Where does the message come from?
2. Different Message—What is the substance of the message?
3. Different Position—In what position will the message leave you?
4. Different Character—What kind of people does the message produce?
5. Different Appeal—Why should you listen to the message?
6. Different Fruit—What result does the message have in people’s lives?
7. Different End—Where does the message ultimately lead you?

7 Traits of False Teachers

Here is Tim Challies with 7 Traits of False Teachers, which include The Heretic, The Charlatan, The Prophet, The Abuser, The Divider, The Tickler, The Speculator.

If you are thinking of a particular false teacher right now, go to Challies’ article and see if you can match your false teacher with one of his certain 7 traits.

False Teachings and How to Battle Them

Kim Sorgius Jones at Not Consumed has an essay outlining several steps to guarding your kids from false teaching. I am not familiar with this blog or this author, but I liked her approach in this one essay. She identifies 7 false teaching messages that kids are likely to fall prey to in our culture today, including:

Follow your heart,
Godly living brings prosperity,
Right choices will get you the perfect life,
God will never give you more than you can handle,
If you try harder, you can be right with God,
I deserve better,
I need ME time.
More at “7 False Teaching Messages & How to Battle Them“.

Further Reading

Tim Challies “The Spiritual Gift of Discernment” book.
Far too often the gift of discernment is said to be little more than a gift for making good decisions–for knowing God’s will when we need to turn to the left or the right. Yet the Bible tells us that it is more.

Sinclair Ferguson, “What is Discernment?” article.
True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.