Discerning Error

Yesterday we looked at truth.  We said that there are many false teachers that are assaulting us via Television, the web, books, email…it is coming from all directions.  So how do we defend well against this onslaught?

Just after I trusted Christ I found myself in around several people who were involved in a well known non-Christian cult.  To arm myself against them I read books about them and their beliefs.  During Bible studies I found, marked, and memorized passages that would help me to counter some of their more typical arguments.  Sounds like a plan does it not?  It was a bad one.  A few months or a year after I started this, it began to dawn on me that a lot of my time in the Bible was consumed by looking for passages that would counter their arguments.  I had let them effectively hijack my time with the Lord.  I was focusing on them rather than Him.  So I stopped.  I just began to study the Scripture to know Him, His truth, and to apply it to me, not them.

Years later during an evangelistic thrust at the University of Alabama Birmingham, a student with whom I was sharing the gospel began to describe a “bible study” he was involved in on campus.  He told me that it was telling him different things than what we were seeing as we looked at the scripture together.  It turned out to be another cult “The Way” that cropped up during the mid to late 70’s.  I had not heard of them, did not know what they were teaching, but simply told him that if he was hearing things that were different from what we were reading together in the Word, that it was an error.

The point is that the best way to discern error is to be immersed in the Truth.  More than that to have a firm, personal grasp of the Truth.  That comes from consistent, personal engagement with the Word of God in study, practice, and teaching (Ezra 7:10).  That is the way you protect your family from error as well.