What makes one a “false teacher?”
Biblically, it’s a heavy charge that seems to carry a level of intent. In Acts 20, Paul called them savage wolves. In 2 Peter 2, Peter labeled them sensual and greedy. The tone of the New Testament toward false teachers seems to point to those who deceive God’s people for selfish gain.
In other words, a false teacher is not the guy who said something you disagree with.
It’s especially not the guy who agrees with you on 99.9% of the Bible, including the fundamentals of the faith, and would quibble with your interpretation of some third-level doctrine.
We have a bad habit of tossing this term around in the churches of Christ, and it’s time to stop. “One strike and you’re out” is not God’s standard for our fellowship.
I’ve seen men lose lifelong friends and even be put at arm’s length by family for the acutest of doctrinal quibbles. Do we really think that’s pleasing to God, who urged us to be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3)?
Similarly, we’ve had Think Deeper podcast listeners who loved every episode… until we disagreed with them on something. Then we became “as Gentiles and tax collectors.”
Obviously, some matters do rise to the level of one strike fellowship issues.
If somebody walks in and says “You know, Mohammed is actually God’s final prophet,” or “The resurrection is a nice story meant to inspire us but it didn’t actually happen,” or “All you need to do is say this little prayer and you’re going to heaven,” yeah, we should take issue with it.
In other words, first-level doctrines can’t be violated. But that’s our problem—what’s a first-level doctrine?
Anybody can make any doctrine a first-level doctrine and thereby turn it into a purity test. And the temptation for anyone who agrees with them will be to also make it a purity test.
Where we end up is in this place where the only things left open to debate are those of little consequence, like “who were the Nephilim” and “who wrote Hebrews?”
The Consequences
The Echo Chamber
You have to realize where this leads, right? Talking about the Bible with another person long enough is going to uncover some area of disagreement. I can guarantee you it will happen. If you practice one strike fellowship, you’re incentivizing everybody around you to shut their mouths about the Bible unless they’re 100% sure you agree with them on the issue at hand. In other words, you just stunted your own growth.
If everyone is scared into silence lest they voice the wrong opinion and lose all of their church family overnight, it doesn’t create a healthy environment for deeper study. All we’re allowed to do is go to the text to look for ways to support the preapproved answers.
As I’ve said before, there’s a sense that we settled every Biblical dispute sometime around 1950 and now we just need to read from the 3x5 card we’ve been handed.
To be frank, a lot of people are sick of it. We know that fine tuning our stance on difficult doctrines is going to take some push and pull. We’re also not shying away from debate, as we believe good ideas can handle scrutiny.
A Dumbed-Down Bible
To make almost everything a first-level issue, one has to insist that the Bible is a simple book and could not possibly interpreted in multiple ways. You don’t have to think about what it says and wrestle with what God meant whatsoever. In fact, a lot of people say the Bible doesn’t take interpretation at all. “I just read what it says,” they say, ignoring the interpretive stance they’ve taken that was handed them by others who also did a good bit of interpretation.
I understand that one of the first tricks in the progressive playbook is to pretend God wasn’t clear, such as, “Well, it might say women are not to teach or have authority but if you read this one verse juuuust right it might say that a woman named Junia was the 15th apostle so who’s to say whether women can’t preach?”
I get that, and we should constantly be on guard against it. However, that doesn’t mean the Bible is simplistic. Faith, repentance, baptism, male headship, heaven and hell—yeah, they’re pretty straightforward. What happens at the end of the world? That’s quite a bit tougher. Pretending like they’re all equally simple just isn’t realistic.
Bad ideas flourish
If the only categories we have are “fellowship issue” and “matter of opinion/preference” (adiaphora, to some), then we have no recourse for a disagreement that isn’t a full-on condemnation. There is no way to articulate a good/better/best when it comes to interpretation. Any pushback on bad ideas or misunderstandings is met with “It’s not a sin” and my lifelong nemesis, “You can’t bind that.”
But the truth is, there are a lot of bad ideas floating around that won’t necessarily condemn anyone but will have negative consequences for the people who believe them. If our only categories are “false teacher” or “not false teacher” and we have no box for “person who’s wrong about this one thing,” then it gets harder to oppose people with these bad ideas.
Time and place
To be clear, there is absolutely such a thing as a false teacher, and we absolutely have them among us today.
That’s why it’s so important that we not use the term lightly. If we’re telling people that brother so-and-so who teaches such-and-such about our pet doctrine is in the same boat as Joel Osteen and Steven Furtick, they’re going to have no idea what an actual false teacher is. If everybody is a wolf, nobody is.
Jesus said the measure by which we judge others is the one by which He will measure us (Matthew 7:2). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call someone a false teacher—it means you had better be sure they are one before you do.
Maintain unity
Most importantly, we have so many battles to fight that the last thing we need to do is separate ourselves from people who are on our side. Unity is one of the biggest themes in the New Testament. It’s how the world is going to know Jesus really is who He said (John 17:20-23).
If you haven’t experienced it, I can’t tell you how discouraging it is to have Christian brothers and sisters turn on you for saying one wrong thing. If you have experienced it, I’m sorry. Finding out someone was only in fellowship with you until your first strike hurts deeply.
The church is too important for us to let in people who should be kept out, and to keep out people who should be in. Let’s ditch the one strike purity tests and determine to remember we’re on the same team.
You do well, my friend!