Concerning False Teaching
A guest post by Chad Ramsey.
Jude wrote his letter to warn Christians about false teaching. His concern was well-founded, for “certain men” had “crept in unnoticed” among the brethren and taught false doctrine regarding God’s grace (Jude 4).
To counter these individuals and their influence, Jude exposed both their tactics and mentality. Describing them, he wrote:
“These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering the people to gain advantage” (verse 16).
Instead of being deceived by their smooth delivery and deceptive promises, Jude urged his readers to “remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts” (verses 17-18).
Warnings About False Teachers.
As Jude noted, various warnings are scattered throughout the New Testament about false teachers. For example, Jesus declared:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15).
Paul likewise told the elders from Ephesus:
“For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29-30).
And Peter warned:
“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).
Because Christians must “speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1), we must be careful not to fall victim to false teachers.
How to Guard Against False Teaching.
But how are we to avoid being deceived?
We must evaluate what we are taught in light of God’s Word. Like the Bereans, we must search “the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). In other words, we must do as Paul instructed the Thessalonians. He wrote: “Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).
Jude also encouraged his readers to develop this kind of awareness, noting that false teaching and the resulting apostasy it creates is not a new problem (Jude 5-11). Nevertheless, it is must neither be minimized nor ignored. It was a threat to the faith of first-century Christians, and it remains a threat today.
Rather than being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Ephesians 4:14), we must first learn and obey God’s revealed word. We must then stand firm.
Because false teaching is thwarted by sound doctrine, Paul told Timothy: “Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13).
We must do no less.
Chad Ramsey preaches for the Gloster Street Church of Christ in Tupelo, Mississippi. You can access their Bible classes and Chad’s sermons on Gloster Street’s YouTube page.
Chad was - and still is - “my preacher” from when I spent my high school and early college years at Gloster Street. I’m thankful to be able to share some of his writings with you.
RE: Rather than being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every humanistic wind of the Social Justice Gospel’s democratic doctrine of demons, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Ephesians 4:14), we ‘new wineskin’ hearted wise virgins in Christ’s holy-theocratic Bride must first obey God’s holy commandment in Revelation 18:4. We must then no longer stand firm together with the ‘old wineskin’ hearted foolish virgins as digitally-marked (SS#) chattel that are happily held captive, from cradle to grave, within the Marxist UN Beast’s abominable Socialist eugenics Security System.