A couple of weeks ago two of the Southern Baptist Convention’s biggest celebrities, Beth Moore and Perry Noble, both wrote blog articles aimed at silencing their critics. In Noble's case the criticisms were in response to his changing of the Ten Commandments to the Ten Promises, along with some outright false information that God supposedly told him to say in the NewSpring Church Christmas Eve service. Moore was responding to a tweet a young woman had sent out labeling her as a false teacher.
Moore used the term "heresy hunters" in her article, a standard tactic of those in the seeker-sensitive and charismatic movements to turn the "critics" calling them to abandon aberrant teaching into the bad guys. Both Moore and Noble did an excellent job of drumming up sympathy for themselves, playing the victim, and setting themselves up as the bold heroes who won't back down in the face of relentless persecution.
Moore even accused the woman who called her a false teacher, and heresy hunters in general, of being unChristlike. One of the many oddities of the modern American church is that super-celebrities like Moore and Noble won't say a negative word about anything or anyone, no matter how blatant the false teaching, but will question the salvation of those who dare call false teaching false. Many before me have noted the hypocrisy of mean-spirited accusations made against the supposedly mean-spirited critics, but that's a topic for another day.
The question I want to examine today is this: what would Jesus say to the so-called heresy hunters? I think Revelation 2:1-7 gives us a pretty good idea.
In Revelation 2-3 Jesus spoke to seven churches. These were real churches in real history, and the words of Revelation are directly from the mouth of our Lord. Generally speaking, the seven messages follow a pattern of Jesus introducing himself, commending the church for what they were doing well, criticizing the church for an area where they were failing, commanding the church to do something, and closing with a promise. The church in Laodicea received no commendation, as a careful reading of the text reveals that there were no genuine believers in that church. The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia received no criticism as they were suffering well in the face of intense persecution.
The first of the seven messages was delivered to the church in Ephesus. It reads:
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. - Revelation 2:1-7 (ESV)
There's a lot here, but I want to focus today on Jesus' commendations and criticism.
Commendations
- their works
- their toil
- their patient endurance
- that they could not bear with those who were evil
- that they tested those who claimed to be apostles and were not
- that they were enduring patiently and bearing up for Christ's sake, and had not grown weary
- that they hated the works of the Nicolaitans, which Jesus also hated
Criticism
- they had abandoned the love they had at first
Jesus seemed quite pleased that in addition their faithful work for the Kingdom the Ephesians were testing those who wanted to teach them, and that they hated the works of the Nicolaitans. Can anyone in modern American evangelicalism conceive of Jesus hating something? Approving of those who hate something? Not much is known about the Nicolaitans, but it is believed that they were antinomians in the truest sense of the word, engaging in unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, including sexual immorality, while claiming to follow Christ. Jesus hated that, and he praised the Ephesians for hating that. He also praised them for testing those who claimed to have his authority and removing from fellowship those who were found to be false.
So Jesus didn't condemn or criticize the Ephesians for heresy hunting, he praised them for testing the words of men against his unchanging word. He didn't condemn or criticize the Ephesians for removing the false apostles and evil men from the fellowship. He didn't call them arrogant, judgmental, unloving, and divisive for doing so. He praised them for it. He said keep doing it.
And it's important to note that Jesus praises them for these things while criticizing their loss of love. Their testing of the false apostles and hatred of the works of the Nicolaitans are not equated with being unloving. The problem was internal. They were doing everything Jesus wanted them to do, but internally a problem had developed. They had lost their love and were now doing the right things while lacking the right motivation. They were just going through the motions.
What, then, is the application for the "heresy hunters" in the church today? Here's what I would say:
Deeds and creeds matter. It's common today to hear things like "deeds not creeds" or "doctrine divides; love unites" as if the two are mutually exclusive. It's actually a false dichotomy. We don't have to choose one or the other; we're commanded to do both. Those who have gifts and a passion for discernment and sound doctrine must serve The Lord wholeheartedly while exercising discernment. We must not become the caricature that people like Beth Moore and Perry Noble make us out to be, sitting on the sidelines pointing out problems while not doing anything ourselves.
Keep testing the words of those who want to teach the church against the authoritative, sufficient, inerrant word of God. This honors Jesus. This is what we're commanded to do.
Keep identifying those who teach falsely as those who teach falsely. We live in a different age than the early church did. The shepherds of a local flock, usually, only needed to be concerned with the local flock. Today, anyone anywhere in the world can say anything they want and have it reach worldwide audiences in seconds. Our local churches and the church universal need men and women who will not sit idly by while false teachers and Scripture twisters appear on Christian TV/radio, sell their products in Christian bookstores, and fill up our social media feeds and those of our neighbors. Keep testing what people say, and when it doesn’t line up with Scripture, call it out as false teaching.
Don’t abandon the love you had at first. I imagine many people with gifts and passion for discernment, like myself, came from backgrounds of weak or false teaching. Then one day, through the reading of the Word or the preaching of a faithful man, we were exposed to the truth. Our hearts were filled with joy as we discovered the holy, sovereign, merciful God. We finally saw how bad we truly are and how good God is. Over time, the joy faded as we became increasingly dissatisfied with mainstream evangelicalism, as no one else seemed to care about these wonderful discoveries we’d made, and as we begin to see false teaching every where we turned. For some, and I was once here, joy turned to bitterness and anger. Here are some suggestions I think will help us maintain the love we had at first as we continue to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
- Maintain an active devotional life. Every Christian needs to be reading the Word and spending time in prayer and praise every day, but I think this is especially true for those who are listening to podcasts and reading blogs that highlight false teaching. If we try to do these things apart from an ongoing devotional life with the Lord, disaster waits.
- Pray for the false teachers. They may be enemies of the gospel, but so were we at one time. We should fervently pray that God would open their hearts and minds to the truth of the gospel and that they would repent and believe.
- Don’t confuse weak or lost sheep with wolves. Not everyone who shares a Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer quote, listens to the preaching of Steven Furtick, or attends Bethel in Redding is a wolf. Some are deceived, some are genuine believers who haven’t been discipled correctly. They are not our enemies. They need the gospel and the truth of God’s Word. Jesus confronted the false teachers; he had compassion on the harassed and helpless people who were like sheep without a shepherd. The unfortunate reality of our day is that many professing Christians are without a human shepherd pointing them to the Great Shepherd. We can help, but not if we look at the shepherdless sheep and see wolves.
- Listen to your critics. It’s not very consistent to criticize others for not listening to us and then not listen when they call us arrogant, judgmental, divisive, unloving, etc. Just because someone makes the accusation doesn’t mean it’s true, but if someone does make the accusation, we must examine our own actions and heart motivations.
- Criticize a person’s words, not the person. I cringed a little when I saw a high-profile teacher and writer, for whom I have great respect, make a comment about Beth Moore’s outfit recently. The same goes for graphics comparing someone to a comic book villain or comments about a person’s voice. It’s cheap, and it’s not Christ-honoring. We live an age where to criticize a person’s words is considered a personal attack, so we will always sound unloving to some people, but we don’t want to give any unnecessary reasons for them to think that we are.
- Don’t make accusations you’re not prepared to back up. Don’t call someone a false teacher or heretic unless you can show why. In general, I think we should be very slow to label someone a false teacher or heretic unless it is obvious. When Bill Johnson of Bethel says Christ did his miracles as a man and not as God, yes, call him a Christological heretic. In many cases though, we’ll have to do a little more work to show how someone’s teaching is inconsistent with the message of Jesus and the Apostles. It’s a very serious charge to accuse someone of preaching a different gospel or teaching falsely, and unless you yourself can clearly articulate why you think this is case, don’t make the charge.
It’s been so encouraging to see #the15 come together over the last few weeks, to see that there are many people out there across a broad spectrum of backgrounds and theological systems who care about sound doctrine and the rampant error in the church today. It’s more encouraging to see that some changes are already taking place as a result of #the15 and others not staying silent. Let us continue to exercise discernment, let us continue to tell the establishment that we won’t sit quietly while they dishonor our Lord, but let us not abandon the love we had at first in the process. Keep fighting the good fight in the love of our Lord.
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