Pondering His Holy Word

Ephesians 4:11-15

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

When I renewed my faith, I remember listening to everything I could about being a Christian and the Christian life. I found myself typing Amen on nearly every post on social media that remotely relates to the faith. In some cases, I listened to YouTubers use bible verses to make their point to justify a position they had. I was too young (in the faith) to realize that those verses were taken out of context. However, during this time, I found myself reading the bible more than I ever did in my life. I cycled through the bible within a year. As I listen to online ministries, I find myself saying, “That’s not quite right,” a lot more than I ever did. Many of the teachers that I followed taught error. In some cases, they taught grievous errors. The more I noticed, the more depressed I became. Besides my wife, I didn’t know anyone who didn’t follow some type of error. I’m not speaking of nonessential doctrine; I’m talking about the core doctrine of the faith.

In 2020, I watched a lot of Christian YouTubers. I had a few favorites, but by and by, I unsubscribed when I noticed that their teaching didn’t match up with the bible. One, Christian YouTuber talked about seeking medical advice. They were adamant that Christians should avoid taking any vaccines and most medical care. He quoted Romans 12:1, I appeal to you therefore, brother, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Now, I’ve been reading the bible for a little while and started internalizing the word of God. This is the first time I remember saying to myself, “That’s not what that verse meant.”

After that, I began noticing many politicians (liberal and conservative), Christian Youtubers, and even pastors misquoting scripture. Part of me wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Surely, these folks would not intentionally take scripture out of context. Yet, Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). The Apostle John wrote, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 19). A part of me was excited that I was beginning to notice, but at the same time, I was distraught that people were misrepresenting the word of God.

The summer of 2020 was a very depressing time because the world was in shambles, and many “Christian” teachers were predicting doom and gloom. I turned off the television and YouTube ministries at a certain point because it was depressing. Looking back, I understand that they were teaching errors.

One thing that Jesus’s apostles emphasize is growing in the faith. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we don’t know everything about the faith. The only thing we really know is the Father is God, and Jesus is the Son of God. In many ways, we are babies when we become Christians. In the epistles to the Ephesians, Paul explained that God gave us “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” The 12 Apostles and Paul are all dead, but they left us their teaching in the epistles, the gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. These teachings are preserved in the New Testament. The purpose of these letters, the four gospel accounts, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelation was for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Apostle John categorizes believers into different categories: little children, young men (young adults), and fathers (parents) (1 John 2:12-14). The stage does not mean that we reach a higher level of salvation. Once we are saved, we are saved. God justified us in eternity. What John is referring to is the process of sanctification. Learning to walk in the faith as a little child is not an easy walk. Much like babies, we stumble many times before we actually walk. Even then, our steps are shaky. At times, well-meaning young Christians (young in the faith, not in age) can fall into different traps and lead astray into legalism and antinomianism (opposite of legalism). In many cases, they find out too lat that they were deceived. 

Often, it is easy to discern truth from untruth; the differences are usually very obvious. Even if the untruth is pleasing to the flesh, we can easily discern it as blatant untruth.  Christians are not usually thrown off with discerning truth from untruth but discerning truth from almost truth (which is untruth). If a mouse smells poison and senses that the owners of the house are trying to kill them, they will avoid the rat poison. Terminators know not to present obvious poison to mice. It has to be appealing. Some pesticides are made to taste like peanut butter. In fact, peanut butter is the main ingredient of some rat poison. When mice or rats eat rat poison, they are, in fact, eating mostly peanut butter. The lethal ingredient in rat poison makes up less than 0.5% of the bait. It is the same with good doctrine and bad doctrine. It doesn’t take much to be led into error.

False teachers know that most Christians will avoid doctrine that rejects Jesus as God incarnate. So, they flatter the Christians by almost confessing Jesus as the Son of God. Other religions and many secular people highly revere Jesus as a good man and a good teacher. But understand this: if they confess Jesus as 99.9999% Lord, then they are 100% rejecting Him.

By doctrine, I mean what Christians believe and how we should conduct ourselves. As mature and older believers, we have a responsibility to protect the younger believers from erroneous doctrine. We have a duty to ensure that young believers are not ingesting poison. Young believers should “long for the pure spiritual milk” so that they can “grow up into salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). This milk has to be pure. Milk that is 99.5% pure and .5 poison is enough to spiritually kill someone.

My message to young believers is to immerse yourself in the bible and biblical teaching as much as you possibly can (which is a lot more than you think). As believers, we should make it a lifestyle of reading and studying the bible. That is the best way you can avoid being tricked into believing errors. Jesus said that believers will encounter false teachers. Even Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

False teachers will not approach you as intentional false teachers to blatantly deceive. Many false teachers try to blend in as teachers in the church. “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13). Jude describes false teachers as “Hidden reefs,” or men who wreck other’s faith by their moral conduct and erroneous doctrine, as they eat at the agape feast without fear of God and care only for themselves (Jude 1:12).

Our natural inclination is to give false teachers the benefit of the doubt. Many appear to be nice and unsuspecting, and many are genuine in their belief. However, if someone’s teaching does not meet what the bible teaches, then the teaching is wrong. We must measure our faith by God’s word. No one is above the word of God. “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible is the inspired word of God. This means that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers to tell the story of God’s redemptions of man through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We must understand that there are people who are very versed in scripture, but their goal is not to edify but to destroy believers’ faith. There are false teachers who intentionally misrepresent the word of God for their own gain. These so-called scholars know the word of God like the back of their hand and know how to effectively misrepresent scripture. They will pretend they do not know the word of God or misrepresent the word of God. However, their goal is not to gain an understanding but to shoot fiery arrows at you.

God gave the man and the woman two commandments in the beginning. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28), and “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). However, the very first words that are recorded of Satan misrepresented God’s word. In Genesis 3, he asked the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” When Satan did this, he posed a question that implied the answer. Obviously, Eve corrected him, but that wasn’t Satan’s purpose. He wanted Eve to believe that God kept something away from them that would hinder their “knowledge of good and evil.” It wasn’t that Adam or Eve didn’t already have the ability and desire to disobey God. In fact, they readily ate the fruit.

Of all of the spiritual weapons that God gives us, the word of God is the only offensive weapon. We cannot wield the sword unless we practice using it. It’s not enough to read the Bible, but we must internalize His holy word. We must study, believe, and act based on what the word says. When Satan tries to tempt Jesus to throw Himself off the temple by misquoting scripture, Jesus responds with scripture, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:5-7).

We, as believers, are especially vulnerable to people who misrepresent God’s word. The only way you can avoid succumbing to such attacks is to know what the bible teaches and do it. It’s not enough that you read and study; you must internalize or live the teachings of the bible. You won’t avoid attacks on your faith; that is part of the Christian Walk. However, you can prepare so that on those evil days, you will stand firm without giving up an inch of ground.