Get our allegiances right!
By Elizabeth Prata
People advocate for the false teacher and denounce the person that is calling the false teacher to task. I see this more and more often.
What sparked this observation is another exchange on social media that is true to the adage I’d shared above. Social media is important because it influences both to the good, and to the bad. So, I’ll repost it, with my replies, then share 3 points and some verses from the Bible. People are giving too much sway to false teachers and not enough allegiance to Jesus and I’ll share why this is inappropriate and actually a virtue signal or just an unwise stance.
Beth Moore made a tweet and a man replied.
Back-Up Tambourine Player saw the exchange and commented on it thus- “Incredibly tacky, to be honest. When people we do not like encourage us to do very good and biblical things like memorize and meditate on God’s word and not ourselves, they don’t deserve our ridicule. That’s the mark of an immature mind.”
I replied to Backup Tambouring Player-, “[The] reply to @BethMooreLPM was proper. She’s a preaching rebel, usurping God-ordained role & inserting herself into places God didn’t design women to go. She makes a living off scripture rebellion & turns around & urges scripture memorization? This hypocrite deserves ALL the ridicule“
The man used scripture to call a false teacher to repent. That’s proper. The OP errantly called that “ridicule”. It’s not. One way we pray for the lost is to use scripture. We MUST call a rebel a rebel to their face if they are to repent, not coddle them in their rebellion.
Beth Moore urged people to memorize scripture and the original poster called that ‘biblical and very good’. It’s not, when it comes from an agent of satan.(Acts 16:16-18). The hypocrisy is, Moore urging us to memorize scripture but she ignoring 1 Tim 2:12 and rebellling against it.
It’s troubling that the man who used scripture to call false teacher Beth Moore to repent is seen as “ridiculing”, while false teacher Moore’s words are called ‘biblically and very good’. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, says Isaiah 5:20.
Elsewhere, the original poster Backup Tambourine Player said to someone else, “I don’t mind occasional joking with my theologically opposites, it’s good fun. I just don’t think he has a track record of doing it in kind. And I’m not trying to defend Beth, I don’t particularly care for her teaching. But I say, joke where appropriate!
Lots to comment on here.
Point #1: The original poster mentioned we should not ridicule people we don’t like. That she doesn’t care for Moore’s teaching. This is wise and true. However, Moore is a false teacher. There is more to it than just disliking her personally or not caring for her teaching, as the poster claimed. Perhaps someone doesn’t like her active style at the pulpit. Perhaps someone doesn’t like her accent. Perhaps someone doesn’t like her clothes or her cornbread recipes. Fine. That’s just personal opinions and of course we don’t denounce people based on personal opinion.
However, Moore is a false teacher. This means Moore promotes satan’s agenda, not God’s. The Bible has MUCH to say about what to do when we come across a false teacher. Speaking out against false teachers is a must. It’s not that we don’ like Beth Moore personally, it’s that we don’t like her biblically.
Point #2: The replier to Moore used scripture. Using scripture to denounce a false teacher is biblical. It’s not “ridicule.” A case could be made for using so many emojis in a sarcastic way, but then again, maybe not, it could be a good punctuation for a woman who urged people to study the Bible yet who also hypocritically rejects the Bible parts she doesn’t like. Jesus reserved His most scathing comments for the hypocrites.
Point #3: In this exchange and too many others, people coddle the false teacher while denouncing the one who denounces the false teacher. False teachers are a scourge. They are evil. Yes, evil. There is only Light and dark, narrow or broad, truth and lie. We need NO HELP from false teachers.
Remember in Acts 16 when Paul was “greatly annoyed” with the demon possessed slave girl who kept following him and saying, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation”? The slave girl was speaking truth. Why did Paul get annoyed? Backup Tambourine Player would say, after all, the girl is “encouraging us to do very good and biblical things“.
Paul was annoyed because we do not need help from satan to declare the truth. Matthew Henry says of the Acts 16 verse,
Satan, though the father of lies, will declare the most important truths, when he can thereby serve his purposes. But much mischief is done to the real servants of Christ, by unholy and false preachers of the gospel, who are confounded with them by careless observers.
Don’t be a careless observer.
There are too many good teachers who “encourage us to good and biblical things“, than to pick the one or two things a false teacher said and give them any credence at all. False teachers are flatterers, they perform and act, they are good at disguising themselves as godly, yet all the while deny the power of God.
Romans 16:18 says –
For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
Matthew 6:1 says – Beware of practicing [performing] your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
2 Corinthians 11:14 says – For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
2 Timothy 3:5 says – holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these.
It is stated in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 to “test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.“
False teachers like Beth Moore are said in the Bible to be deceivers, promote myths, secretly bring in destructive heresies, upset whole families, pervert the grace of our God into sensuality, are puffed up with conceit and understand nothing, are unfruitful, are from the world, and are impostors. Those are just a few of the things the Bible calls a false teacher, not even all of them.
Why listen to ANY PART of a false teacher when so many good teachers are out there? Do you want to be seen as promoting evil and be aligned with them? Paul would say NO.
If your own test of credibility has found a teacher to be false, or if your own pastor has said so, or if other solid Christians have alerted you, take this information on board. Do not give even a quarter inch to a false teacher even when they seem to say good and biblical things. They are purposely saying these things so as to deceive the unwary and to draw you away.
Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16
