A few days ago, I went to the bank to deposit cash. The bank teller took the twenty-, fifty-, and one-hundred-shekel bills, looked them over, and handed one of the one-hundred-shekel bills back to me. When I asked her to explain, she answered that it was counterfeit. That was a disappointment, but it stirred up my curiosity. I asked, “How did you know?” She showed me all the marks that were on one of the genuine bills and then showed me that one was missing on the fake bill. How similar it is to everything that is related to false doctrine.
From the dawn of history, satan has tried to turn mankind away from God and subdue it by his lies so that he might control, in the attempt to take over God’s dominion over creation. In the Bible we see many times how false teachings have made their way into the minds of the people and the destruction that they brought: Rebecca brought idols with her when she, Jacob, and the rest of the family left her father Laban’s house on their way to the land of Canaan; on Mt. Sinai the children of Israel made a golden calf and worshiped it until Moses returned and brought an end to the matter, and killed the idol worshipers; Balaam brought about the assimilation of the people of Israel – again, false teachings, and all of it in order to make money; in the book of Judges time after time one sees the cycle of idolatry, hardships, repentance, and God’s liberation. Why did the Babylonian exile occur? Because the people of Israel forgot God and went after foreign gods. After the children of Israel returned from exile, in an attempt to prevent the recurrence of idolatry among the people, the leadership enacted many laws, which in fact slowly, slowly deviated from God’s way and thus the Pharisees and Sadducees guided the people away from God, again by false teachings. This distanced the people from God and His Savior.
Yeshua called the Pharisees wolves in sheep’s clothing, on the outside clean and beautiful doing everything that the Torah says, but inside far from God and deceiving their flock from following the Messiah. Paul continues to warn the people of satan who as a lion comes to devour and destroy by his false teachings. In the book of Revelation, John specifically mentions Balaam’s teachings that said that if one wants to believe in Yeshua he must convert, and about the Nicolaitans that taught that one must compromise with the world, and thus avoiding the persecutions that came with a life patterned after God’s Word.
Throughout history, we see many times where different individuals from among the people of Israel, rabbis, as well as churches, taught false teachings, causing others to depart from God and His Savior, and all this was to control the people and achieve financial gain. A tool in the hands of satan – false teachings.
Interpretation or false doctrine?
What is false doctrine according to the Scriptures? The Apostle Paul in Galatians 1.8-9 clearly explains it:
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”
The Word of God is our guideline. Everything that we say, see, read, or learn always has to pass through the filter of God’s Word. If it’s according to God’s Word, it’s correct. If something, even the smallest item, is not in accordance to God’s Word, it’s false teaching.
What is the punishment for false teachers? God does not compromise. It is the death sentence (Deuteronomy 20). Why is the punishment so severe? Because false teachers draw people to doom, to eternal separation from God. This is the complete opposite of God’s plan for creation.
How is this related to us, parents and teachers of children? God has given us responsibility for those children under our supervision. We have a double responsibility:
- To make sure that we are continually learning God’s Word, so that we would know it very well and so that we would be able to test everything that comes our way to see if it is in accordance with God’s Word, or not.
- To teach our children the Holy Scriptures from a young age so that they also would have the tools to distinguish what is correct or not.
Within this God gives us a responsibility to guide the children to examine everything whether it is from God or not. How do we teach them? In every situation one should check if there is anything in it that contradicts the Word of God. If so, understand what is the thing that contradicts God’s Word and talk about what is the right thing according to the Scriptures.
1 Timothy 6:2-5 gives us a number of ways to identify a person who is teaching a false doctrine. You can ask some basic questions to see if something is false or not:
- What is written in God’s Word on the subject?
- Is what I read/hear compatible to what is written in the Word of God on the subject?
- Are the verses they bring to back up what is said interpreted within their context?
- Does the person teaching bring division, anger, jealousy, strife, insults and conflict?
- Is the aim of the person teaching to benefit himself from what is taught?