The Church has been plagued by false
teachers and deadly doctrine for centuries. Never has there been a period of time when
Christians could let down their guard. Satan
has opposed the Church since the day of its founding, and the devil will
continue to oppose her until the day of his destruction.
The apostle Paul was seriously
concerned about false teachers and deadly doctrine – warning the churches of
them in almost every one of his letters. As he comes to the end of his letter to the
Romans, he reminds the church to be on guard – since false teachers are skilled
at using flattery and smooth words to deceive even believers. His solution may strike us as surprising; he
tells these Christians “to be wise as to
what is good and innocent as to what is evil.” (Romans 16:19b) This echos Jesus.
In Matthew, we read of Jesus sending
out His disciples and warning them of impending persecution from enemies of the
gospel. He tells them how to behave in
the midst of such trials: “Behold, I am
sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and
innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) Jesus
and Paul both call for wisdom and innocence.
Blogger and author, Tim Challies,
explains how these two passages instruct us on protecting ourselves and our
churches from false teachers and their deadly doctrine.
Serpents and Doves
Jesus had taught and mentored His
disciples, and He was now ready to send them on a short-term mission. They would go to their fellow Jews to tell
them of the Messiah. They were like
sheep being dispatched into a pack of dangerous wolves. Wolves are vicious, and sheep are helpless; wolves
are crafty, and sheep are dumb. How
could these sheep survive? They would
need to learn from two other creatures — snakes and doves.
Snakes are shrewd animals, able to
make astute judgments. They are able to
evaluate circumstances and behave in a fitting manner. When they see danger, they slither out of
sight without hesitation. Doves,
meanwhile, are innocent animals. Doves
are simple, pure creatures who cause no trouble. Yet their simplicity is prone to lead them
into danger, for they may not take flight when a predator draws near. Their purity is associated with their
gullibility.
Douglas Sean O’Donnell puts it this
way: “We are to be godly but not gullible—snake smart, but not snake sneaky. For our character commends Christ; our
godliness proclaims the gospel.” We are
to behave in a way that draws attention to the Gospel, not to ourselves. We are to preach the Gospel wisely, evaluating
situations to discover the most appropriate way to speak the clearest truth.
Wise and Innocent
Paul borrows the words of Jesus and
applies them to a different context. If
Jesus calls for a pure witness, Paul’s call leans toward a pure mind. Paul leaves us no simile to unpack and
interpret. Knowing that false teachers
and their deadly doctrine are close at hand, Christians are “to be wise as to what is good and innocent
as to what is evil.” (Romans 16:19b)
J.B. Phillips paraphrases it this way: “I want to see you experts in
good, and not even beginners in evil.”
Becoming an expert in truth … by
studying error … is dangerous and wasteful, a backward, perilous approach. There are at least two grave problems with
this approach:
First, we are too weak and evil is
too strong for us to immerse ourselves in evil and remain untouched. Our acquaintance with evil can soon become an
attraction to evil.
Second, defending truth by studying
error is a fool’s errand. God’s truth is
profitable, but evil is a useless counterfeit, a perversion of the truth. God’s truth is fixed and unchanging, but evil
is always morphing, always adapting to the trends of the age.
Paul offers a far safer and far more
effective solution. We must focus the
best of our attention on what is good and pure and lovely (Philippians 4:8). We must make truth, rather than error, the focus
of our studies and the delight of our hearts. We must trust that the foolproof way to
identify false doctrine is to become experts in true doctrine. Our priority must always be the truth. We defend the Christian faith best when our
grasp of sound doctrine is both deep and wide. The believer with great knowledge of truth is
equipped to defend against every error.
We do well to know of the existence
of error and its strategy for infiltrating the Church. The shrewd Christian will be familiar with the
primary challenges of his day, the most prominent errors, the foremost peddlers
of heresy. Yet he will remain innocent
by equipping himself with truth, rather than obsessing about error. As heresies arise, he will respond by
increasing his familiarity with God’s Word, trusting that the light of God’s
Word will expose the darkness of every error.
We must never allow the study of error to hinder our pursuit of the
truth.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling
Memorial Chapel
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