False Teachers

False Teachers

Recently, there seems to be an emphasis on calling out the names of false teachers, false prophets and churches in relation to these.

In the first place, I wonder why there is such a need when the goal of a believer should be the Great Commission. There are some who even built their so-called ministries on exposing false teachers. If we don't major on the major, we will spend our time and focus wrongly on the minor.

At the end of the day, God is not going to ask you, "How many false teachers have you caught in your life? How many false doctrines have you corrected in your life?"

He is going to ask, "Have you fulfilled My Great Commission? Have you loved people? Have you discipled My sheep?"

That said... I'm not undermining the importance of sound doctrines, because I am pretty sticky with the Word. But I extremely dislike people to go around calling out the names of false teachers and churches just because they disagree with their doctrines.

I am afraid that many have misunderstood the term "false teachers." Just because someone or a church over-emphasizes on certain doctrines do not make them false churches or false teachers. Well, denominations began because of different emphasis on Scriptures. Does it mean they are false churches?

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 2:1-2

The context of these false teachers/prophets in 2 Peter 2 was about those who 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐧.

When Jesus Himself talked about false prophets in Matthew 7:15, He was referring to those 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐢𝐦 (v21). These people do not bear fruit in their lives because they were not good trees to begin with.

Read also Matthew 7:15-20; Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22; 1 John 4:1.

There are many Christian figures who have been labeled as false teachers, just because they are not perfect in theology and that they preach stuff that differs from mainstream doctrines. However, they are bearing fruit, such as walking in love and compassion, reaching out to the lost, sharing about Christ as much as they know how, etc.

I'm not sure why we want to label them as false teachers/prophets/churches, when we don't even know them personally. It's absurd when you yourself are not even anywhere near when it comes to bearing fruit or having perfect theology.

It's even more ironic that we don't even understand what the term "false teachers" really means, yet we keep using them.

Let's stop this and go after Jesus, His Word and His Works. Period.

P.S: It is absolutely fine to correct wrong teachings without bringing up the person's name and church. But that has nothing do with labeling them as false teachers/prophets. Paul called out some names in the Bible because he knew what was happening when his flocks were led astray from Christ.