Lessons from History on False Teachers

 

This is an interesting and timely post related to our recent, brief series on Arnold Murray, specifically his false teaching concerning the nature of the Trinity.  In this post by well-respected author, Randy Alcorn, he cites some observations made by Kevin DeYoung on the nature of false teachers, i.e. wolves, throughout history.

Before quoting DeYoung, Alcorn offers his own striking statement,

More theological battles have been lost to enemies inside the church than to those outside. The evil one has targeted us for deception. Nothing less than the welfare of God’s people is at stake.

Here is DeYoung’s definition of a false teacher:

A false teacher or a wolf is someone who snatches up sheep (John 10:12), draws disciples away from the gospel (Acts 20:28), opposes the truth (2 Tim. 3:8), and leads people to make shipwreck of the faith and embrace ungodliness (1 Tim. 1:19-202 Tim. 2:16-17).

Summarizing his observations from reading history, DeYoung offers 5 salient lessons on these wolves:

  1. Wolves don’t usually know they’re wolves.
  2. Wolves can quote the Bible.
  3. Wolves tend to be imbalanced.
  4. Wolves are impatient with demands for verbal clarity.
  5. Wolves can come in different shapes and sizes.

The entirety of Alcorn’s post may be found in the link below.  He links to Kevin DeYoung’s original post.

http://www.epm.org/blog/2017/May/29/church-history-false-teachers

 

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Christian saved by grace through faith.

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