Whistle
Blower or Slanderer?
In the circles I am in, there is
a lot of talk today about false prophets, false teachers and heresy. This seems
to be a lively topic in many of the forums I’m part of. What is it about this
subject that is so intriguing anyway?
The Bible instructs us on dealing
with heresy and false teachers. I found some verses relating to this subject
here (http://www.openbible.info/topics/judging_false_teachers):
“Beloved, do
not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from
God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” 1 John 4:1 ESV
“I appeal to
you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles
contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such
persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth
talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.” Romans 16:17,18 ESV
“Beware of
false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous
wolves.” Matthew 7:15
“If anyone
comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your
house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked
works.” 2 John 1:10
So, the Bible addresses the
problem of heresy and gives us instruction on how to respond to it. We don’t
invite false teachers into our homes (making them feel welcomed), we are to avoid them,
and beware of them. The apostles knew that when they would be gone from the
churches they established, that these ‘wolves’ would come in to destroy the
flock, so they prepared the churches they were writing to for that time.
Before I get to the next point of
this article, I want to clarify the fact that the church today, especially as
we see it lived out in America, is much different than it was in its beginning
days. Part of that has to do with the advancement of technology, but some of it
has to do with the way society has evolved down through the years. This makes
it harder for us to understand just exactly how heresy affects the church
today. For example, we could have a profession Christian singer who has come
out of the closet and announced that he is Gay and not ashamed of it. How do we
deal with that as a local church? Many times, the professing Christian singer
isn’t part of a church. Or he may be part of a church that doesn’t value sound
doctrine and will not deal with the issue of immorality. So what do we do to
help this person see his sin? Sadly, there really isn’t any valid place for him
to get help unless he wants it and is asking for it.
In a normal church setting, the
directions in Matthew 18 will be carried out. The professing Christian singer
would be confronted with his sin. He would be forced to deal with the issues at
hand, whether to repent or to continue in sin. Further steps could be taken
such as telling this issue to the whole church and finally excommunication.
That is the way situations like this Christian singer should be handled, but
unfortunately, the body of Christ as a unit is not strong enough to carry out
this work of service. Plus, as I said earlier, many people won’t get involved
in a church for a variety of reasons.
So, that takes us to another step
that really isn’t in the Bible, and that is to take what this person is doing
and communicate it to the church community, in whatever ways this community
uses to communicate with. I have seen this one as well. I have seen a Godly man
who has a profound ministry and who has worked with similar ministries and build
friendships with people in those ministries. That part of it is great. These
people worked together in ministry (although their ministries were separate)
and learned from each other while supporting each other. Then one day, this
Godly man decided that certain Christians that disagreed with him about a
theological issue, were heretics and believed in another god. The other party
tried to work with him but he wasn’t willing to respond. What was wrong with
this picture? The two parties should have worked to resolve the issue. But what
ended up happening was that people who supported both of these ministries, were
made aware of the division that had occurred. In that particular kind of
ministry, there is now a division. Word of this division spread quickly through
forums such as Facebook and blogs. This whole issue should have been handled
through the local church.
People make mistakes and go astray.
That is why we are called sheep, and why we have a shepherd. You might be
asking at this point, what does this have to do with whistle blowing?
Here is the issue; We have great
technology today. I can share the Gospel with someone around the world in five
minutes or less. With this technology though, there are trade offs. One of them
is that the door is open for us to slander. We are all tempted to slander.
Something in our wicked hearts loves to talk about other people, and even put
them in a bad light. We light to spend time picking people apart. Many times we
think we are whistle blowing when we are really slandering.
When Harold Camping made his
predictions of the day the world would end, he was the talk of the town. Many,
many posts on Facebook discussed his so called prophesy. No harm done. We need
to discuss things like this. But there comes a time when we are beating a dead
horse. How many times do we have to rehash this issue? It is not only this one.
I see posts every day about some new false teacher. When does whistle blowing
become slander?
I don’t know how many times I
have seen things like this; Rick Warren is a false teacher, Joyce Meyer is a
heretic, Phillips, Craig, and Dean are heretics. Come on. If they are heretics
(and it is possible that they are), why isn’t the reason given for their being
a heretic? I see names coming up all the time, followed by ‘is a false
teacher’. How do you know? Why is there so much time spent on this? There are
ministries that specialize in this subject and it seems that we should just let
them do their job and use their resources when needed. And when the communication
of a heretic is done, it doesn’t have to be rehashed or recycled.
Someone posted a book on Facebook, that he was using in a Bible study. It was written by
a well known Christian pastor. He was recommending the book, and there were
several comments that followed his post. One woman implied that this pastor was
not a true Christian. The poster asked her if she had ever read any of his
books, to which she replied that she didn’t have time for that. The
conversation continued. It was apparent that this woman who was accusing this
pastor of not being a true Christian, didn’t have anything to back her claim. I
am sure I know what happened. She heard other Christians say that this pastor
was not a true Christian, so she felt a freedom to do this. Never do this
though. If you are sure a person is a false teacher or heretic, research the
person and find out for yourself before you make a claim that the person is a
heretic.
Yes, there are times to bring
heresy out in the open. There are false teachers out there that would love to
destroy the Gospel that you love. They are very subtle. They will come up with
statements that will make you think and will put doubt in your minds about what
is true. For example, there is a college professor named Dr. James Tabor, who
resides, I believe in North Carolina. He teaches on religion and holds to the
conviction that Jesus never claimed to be God. The reason I bring this up is
because Dr. Tabor is an authority on the subject of the Bible. But if you are
in his class, he will teach you things that will destroy your faith, and he
will teach this subject with such authority that you could be swept into his
belief system. This is an example of exposing the teaching of a false teacher.
Bringing it to people’s attention who could be affected by this deception is
what we are called to do. Now does that give me a right to post on Facebook
that Dr. James Tabor is a heretic? Bringing the subject up is one thing.
Beating it into the ground and repeating this action ends up undermining my
original intention.
What I am trying to communicate
is that we need to be careful. Are we whistle blowing or slandering? We might
start out whistle blowing, but if we don’t check out our own hearts, we could
end up slandering, and justifying our slander. Not good.
The church needs some whistle
blowing. It is good for the church. We need to be careful though, that we don’t
start calling people ‘heretics’ because we have a different theological
position than they do (I’m talking about convictions here mainly). There are
some doctrines that we are not going to agree with others on (infant baptism,
spiritual gifts, election, head coverings, etc.) and it is ok that we have
differences in these areas. What is not ok, is when we divide over these
issues. I understand that some Christians believe that once a person is a
Christian, they won’t battle with sin anymore, so that professing Christian who is battling hard with sin is a false
convert. We need to be careful in that too, for we all are going through the
process of sanctification, and none of us are going to get it all right, at least
while we are on earth. The Bible gives a warning; To him who thinks he stands, let
him take heed lest he fall.
We are so blind to our own sin! Instead
of picking on a ‘heretic’ or ‘false teacher’ why don’t we pray for him or her?
What is in us that enjoys watching someone doing something wrong, and reporting
it to others? Is our goal really to protect the church, or is it to be critical
of someone else and justify it?
Here is a quick test you can do to check your heart on the issue of whistle blowing/slander. Look at the posts you put out on Face Book or Twitter. Take note at the blogs you enjoy reading. What percentage of your posts are 'warnings' about heretics or false teachers? What are the forums or blogs you enjoy reading? Let's guard our hearts and do our part to edify the body of Christ.
"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." Ephesians 4:29
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