False Teachers
How to spot them, according to the New Testament
In these days of doctrinal confusion and bitter division, the term ‘false teacher’ is thrown around with some abandon. It is increasingly the case that this term is used to describe any Christian or putative Christian whose teaching differs from mine – or, I say with all seriousness, to describe someone whose work I don’t understand and haven’t read at any depth.
But what does the New Testament actually say about who ‘false teachers’ are and what should be done about them? Because the term sounds like it is biblical one, it is important that those who use it use it biblically. Is there a genuine category of false teaching, and how should we use it? I happen to think the well-known US preacher John Piper is wrong about infant baptism. Does that make him (or me!) a false teacher?
So I have made a small investigation. Truth is, the term ‘false teacher’ hardly appears in the New Testament, though ‘false teaching/doctrine’ does and ‘false prophet’ certainly does.
In Matthew 7:15-16 Jesus warns the ‘new Israel’ against the infiltration of false prophets among them:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.
He doesn’t tell them what the false prophets will teach, but he does say to them that they will be recognized by their fruit. What is their fruit? Is it what they teach? Or the immorality of their behaviour? Jesus does not specify, other than to say that we will be able to recognize them as false by what they produce – and that they are doomed to destruction.
In Matthew 24:24, Jesus teaches that in the end times many ‘false Christs’ will arise along with false prophets. There will be false predictions about the appearance of Christ accompanied by great displays of miraculous power in order to deceive people.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul admits that if Christ is not raised he would indeed be a false witness about God. The resurrection is clearly an essential and decisive truth about God that is at stake for Paul and that would make him a false witness if it failed.
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul introduces the false ‘super apostles’ who preach a faith of glory and not of suffering weakness. These guys are motivated by greed, power and vanity – and it is quite clear to Paul that they are feigning their role as apostles of Christ. There is no suggestion that they might just be honestly mistaken in Paul’s accusation against them.
In Galatians 2:4, Paul speaks of ‘false brothers’ who have spied on the freedom of the Galatians. Of course, in Galatians, Paul’s gospel and Paul’s commission to preach it to the Gentiles itself is at issue, and he is very strong in his repudiation of those who have compromised its integrity by their behaviour.
In 1 Timothy 1, Paul urges Timothy to be firm with certain men who are teaching falsely out of their ignorance:
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work - which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith….They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
Sincere but false teaching in good faith can be dealt with firmly but restoratively. After all, as Paul says of himself:
Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.
Later in the same letter Paul asks to Timothy once again to be firm with those who teach false doctrines (not ‘false teacher’, note)
If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain.
That is to say: if the one who teaches falsely won’t listen to rebuke – well, watch how the consequences are destructive of community. Watch how constant friction circles about this person. And notice again – Paul has reason to think financial gain is on the horizon of those teachers in question. The content of the false teaching in 1 Timothy seems to be ‘myths and genealogies’: a devotion to the obscure and useless knowledge that is of benefit to no-one but of interest to many.
In 2 Peter we are actually introduced to the term ‘false teachers’:
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping…
These are people – ex-Christians no less - who really want to make money out of the religion business. Just as Israel was infected by smooth-talking false prophets, so the false teachers of the coming time will be in the church. What was their teaching? A denial of the sovereign Lord who bought them! There seems however to be an immoral content to the teaching of these false prophets – as Peter goes on, it seems that debauchery is the result of what they teach:
For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
It is quite specific: these false teachers are open in the immorality and in their lust for sex and money. In Jude, while ‘false teaching’ isn’t mentioned per se, it is the case that the church is likewise infected by divisive and argumentative types who are also openly immoral – who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
In I John 4:1ff we are told that many false prophets have gone out into the world, and that they are to be recognized by their denial of Jesus’ coming in the flesh. John is quite specific in naming the diagnostic test for recognising them – they deny the true nature of Jesus Christ.
To sum up:
‘False teacher’ itself is a rare terminology, only occurring in 2 Peter – though there it is given an extensive exposition.
False prophets/teachers are not usually thought to be sincere, since the New Testament authors hold them to be motivated on the one hand by profit and on the other hand by lust. These two motives are indicators of false teaching.
The content of false teaching/prophecy in the New Testament is often a Christological issue – for example, the incarnation of the Lordship of Christ, or the resurrection, or the timing of his return.
False teaching is also libertarian in character – a false teaching about Christ is connected to debauched behaviour.
False teachers are divisive and argumentative, especially over trivialities, like genealogies and myths. The trivialities prove a distraction to the feeble. One of the worst results of their teaching is the division they cause in the church.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post, Michael. What about someone who promotes one false doctrine, but the rest seems to be orthodox? However they spend a lot of time promoting their pet subject.
One I'm thinking of is annihilationism, which seems to be contradicted by Jesus and the writer of Revelation, at the least.
“… There seems however to be an immoral content to the teaching of these false prophets – as Peter goes on, it seems that debauchery is the result of what they teach:
For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
It is quite specific: these false teachers are open in the immorality and in their lust for sex and money. …”
With respect, Michael, I don’t think the text, or its context, supports your assertion that these teachers are “**open** in [their] immorality and in their lust for sex and power”.
Or that the “immoral content to [their] teaching” is at all public.
We need only to read Christa Brown’s accounts, to say nothing of the hundreds of other accounts of survivors of sexual abuse by pastors in the SBC and other evangelical denominations, to learn that these men habitually operate by vehemently denouncing immorality from their public platforms while simultaneously convincing their individual victims privately that their abuse is God’s will for them.
And yet I would argue that the New Testament’s teachings on this subject, which you’ve so helpfully outlined, make it clear that it’s not a case of straightforward hypocrisy, or of “moral failure” by otherwise good guys.
The fruit-and-tree metaphor, for one thing, makes it clear that when we observe bad fruit, we are to examine the origin and nature of the whole phenomenon, and reassess it if we’d previously thought it was good.
There’s no place in orthodox Christian teaching for any concept of a good tree producing evil fruit.