Exposing False Teachers and False Churches

In this thought-provoking episode, pastors Dave and Jeff Leake tackle the challenging topic of false teachers and false churches. 

With biblical wisdom and pastoral insight, they explore:

• How to define a true "false teacher" versus someone who is simply in error or imbalanced
• Examples of false teachings and churches that distort the gospel
• Whether Christians should publicly "call out" leaders they disagree with
• The importance of grounding believers in sound doctrine to recognize deception
• Why the real threat may not be specific teachers, but broader ideological influences

If you're concerned about the rise of false teachings in the church, don't miss this balanced, biblical perspective. 

Discover how to discern truth, protect your faith, and respond with wisdom and grace.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the difference between doctrinal disagreement and dangerous heresy
• Learn how to identify false teachings that threaten salvation
• Gain wisdom on when and how to address errors in the church
• Be equipped to guard against ideologies that contradict a Christian worldview

LinkTree:
https://linktr.ee/AllisonParkLeadershipNetwork
Email:
Jeffl@allisonparkchurch.com
Davel@allisonparkchurch.com
Instagram:
@Jeffleake11
@Dave.Leake

Transcript

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Perhaps you've heard the term false teacher or false church thrown around recently. It's become kind of a trendy blow up thing on social media. These teachers are false because of these doctrines or these practices. These whole churches that these teachers come out of are probably false, and maybe even these worship leaders. But there's like, be careful, because if you're not careful, you're going to be exposed to some really dangerous heresies. How do churches address that? Paul called them out, seemingly so should pastors and churches call out anybody they think is false? So today we're talking about exposing false teachers and false churches. Tune in to hear more. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have our culture, creating conversations. My name is Dave, and my name is Jeff, and we're glad you're joining us today. Of course, we're father and son and both on staff at Allison Park Church and representing different generations, but still trying to speak pastorally to different issues in our culture. And do we have any shout outs today, Dave, I know we like to do this at the beginning one, thank people for leaving us five star reviews in the various places you would listen to this podcast. Yeah, today we want to thank Mike and Karen Bassel. Okay, so you say their name. Thank you for your five star review. And if any of you want to get a shout out specifically from us, all you have to do is go leave a five star review on on Apple podcast. You can leave it on any review platform, but we usually can't see your name on an apple. We can. So thank you for your kind review. All right, we're talking about today, Dave, today. We're talking about what makes a false teacher or a false church, and how do we handle those? Okay, good. Yeah. Specifically, I think the question was, why don't you talk about this more, right? How come in ministry you don't call people out who are false teachers and alert people to the dangers that they represent in the world. Is this kind of the idea? Yeah, because it is. It is both an approach to ministry question, and then it's also, how do you define this, and what is a false teacher, and what are the false teachings that are out there today, and what should be we be concerned about or aware of? So where do you want to start with this? Dave, what is a false teacher? Let's ask that question, huh? What are we what are we worried about here? What that people are concerned about? And I guess this is also really a big social media thing, right? Because social media has a way of making outrage at various things. One of the things people are outraged at is is false teaching, and false teachers, and you will hear people in little clips, kind of come at certain ideas and and individuals. Well, often individuals, and often churches, specifically the most recent, like trend of this feels like it's, don't listen to these worship artists, because, yeah, I saw that come from, which is weird, because I never really even think of worship artists in that space of false teachers home? So why would so? And the idea is because the worship music is being written out of a church that is teaching something false. Therefore the worship music is infected with potential. Heres, I get, well, you know, this is the weird thing. It's like, I think it's more like, I think they're probably more saying, listening to their music, while their music might not be bad, opens you up to their influence. And that might, next thing you know you'll be listening to the Yeah, next thing you know, you're gonna be a heretic and fall, you know, follow from the not to make light of the concern, but that is, that is clearly the, I think it's way overblown. Okay, the trend right now, okay, way overblown. I'm just revealing my hand at the beginning, but people are like, you know, be careful about Phil Wickham, because Phil Wickham is associated with Louie Giglio, and Louie Giglio has these false teachers at his church. And so it's one corrupting Louis Giglio has false teachers. Oh, no, is this actually what you just quoted? Is actually one? Yeah, it's okay. I I am third hand quoting, okay, social media video that you're not on social media says, Oh no, yeah, my brother Josh, is interested in this topic. He was like, you see this one? And this guy said, this, okay, yeah, I mean, but that's a pretty common type of thing, you know, I know producer Matt was in a church, you know, maybe a year ago, where they were, like, the whole sermon was why you shouldn't listen to Bethel worship music, okay? Because they're a false church, yeah. So, so there, I think worship culture is driving this All right, so, so there's a because of where certain the churches that produce some of the predominant songs of the day that are sung in churches all over the world, yeah, are under fire. Those churches are under fire for incorrect or false teaching. Okay, yeah, so, so, why don't we just, why don't we just start with. Biblical background, maybe we can talk about because Paul talks about false teachers number of times. So does so Messiah Peter, so does Jude, so does Jesus technically. Yeah, do you want to? Do you want to mention any of this? Yeah, so, alright, so there's, I think there is a difference between doctrinal disagreements, which you can have with somebody who you look at and view the world from a slightly different perspective, or view of Scripture from maybe a different angle, you'd come up with a divergence of opinion on a particular passage or approach to ministry, right? That's one difference. Then Paul talks about in Philippians chapter chapter one, people who are preaching the gospel from false motives, like they were actually found again. Philippians chapter one, okay, right? So Paul is actually talking about some heartache, because there were some people who were coming at him. So he's in prison, right? And he and so he can't really defend himself. And there were people that were floating around to the various churches where he had planted churches, and he then begins to talk about verse 15. It's true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others do so out of others out of goodwill, the latter do so out of love, knowing that I'm here for the defense of the gospel the former. Preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is, in every way, whether from false or true motives, Christ is preaching because of this. I rejoice So Paul. Paul is obviously wounded, because they were out there people, people out there talking trash on him, right? They were, they were basically saying, Oh, that Paul's boring as a teacher. And, you know, he doesn't have quite the level of anointing that some other guys have, and you shouldn't listen to him. You should listen to us. And they were preaching Jesus, but they were preaching him with a in a manner or with a motive that was toxic, and rather than defend himself or call these people out by name, Paul just simply says, Hey, either way, they're preaching the gospel. So I'm not going to get tied up in knots over the fact that they're doing it from a wrong motive. So sometimes you can have a doctrinal disagreement with somebody, but you still see them as a part of the family, and you're not going to call them out as a false teacher just because they disagree with you. And then other times you have people who are preaching from a false place, like their motives are wrong, or maybe their their approach is too flashy, or their personality is too flamboyant, or maybe their style, you think, I don't Sure, not sure I would handle it that way or look at it that way. And so sometimes people grate on us and we make we might look at them and call them false because we see some flaw in the way that they function. False teachers in the New Testament were those who were teaching things that, if people believed what they were saying, would hinder their ability to be saved. Sure. So let me read some verses from those Yeah, all right, so Matthew seven, Jesus says, Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown to the fire. Thus, by their fruit, you'll recognize them. Yeah, so there's one from Jesus. So Jesus said it's possible someone can appear to be a sheep, but they're really a, how do I always say this wrong? A what? Wolf? Wolf? Did I say that right? Isn't that what you call me a wolf? What I was a Wolf, Wolf. Okay, I say wolf too, but, you know, shout out to Jordan Claire, yeah, like you guys say Wolf, Wolf, whatever. Anyway, yes, that's one. Okay. So a wolf gonna get stuck every time I say it, just say it however you want to a wolf, yeah, has the the intent of using or devouring the sheep like they're they're going to take so this is even just false doctrine. It's somebody who has hostile motives towards your people as a pastor or Shepherd, we want to protect our sheep from somebody who's going to try to destroy them or teach something to them, or do something or take money from them, or whatever happens to be. So I guess there's a little bit of a falsity from that. Somebody who's in tennis is destruction or devouring the body of Christ, rather than adding the argument would be that sometimes they don't mean to or they don't know they are. It's just that they're just dangerous a bad heart, yeah. So like, Okay, let's look at Second Corinthians 11, Paul talks about in verse three, you know, just as Eve was deceived by the serpents cutting your minds, but maybe somehow led astray from your insincere devotion for Christ, for someone comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, or preaches to Jesus other than the one who preached. To me, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you've received, or a different gospel from the one you you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. And then in verse, in verse 13, he says, For such people are false prophets, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for Satan himself, masquerade masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising that then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, their end will be what their actions deserve. So he's sort of warning people be careful of false teachers who come presenting something that seems good, but it's a different gospel, a different spirit, different Jesus, different Jesus. Because, you know, they're gonna masquerade, they're gonna pretend like they're angels, but really they're devils. So sort of the idea here, and I think all this to say, I think where this comes from, a lot of people now are like, Well, Paul did this, yeah, or, for instance, here's one. So one of the biggest challenges to people's salvation in the early church was the people who came in that were called Judaizers, who basically preached that in order to be a Christian, you had to be fully obedient to the Jewish law, and that you couldn't be saved without being circumcised, because the first covenant preceded the covenant we receive in Christ, and that circumcision was essential to stepping into to Christ. And then he goes on to say in Galatians, chapter five, I mean, this is really intense, right, brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, then why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. And then he says this verse 12, Dave, as for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves so, I mean, Paul doesn't pull his punch here. He's like, you want to be circumcised. Well, then just go ahead and, you know, I hope you slip and, you know, cut the whole thing off. Kind of a thing because of the intensity, because he was basically saying, You're causing people to miss salvation and go to hell. That's really, I think, the true definition of a false teacher is that someone who's preaching something that would lead people away from the truth of who Jesus is and bring them into a place where they would miss the opportunity for a relationship with God because of that falsity that's presented to them, it would lead them away from the true gospel, the true Church, and lead them into something that's going to ultimately threaten their salvation. Their salvation or whatever. Yeah, so the trend, it's probably not even I don't know how recent of a trend this is. I would love to actually know throughout church history what this has been like, but at least in my lifetime, especially in the social media era, a church trend is for is for Christians, particularly if I could say it reformed Christians that go for people outside of their streams, and they're like, this person's false, this person's and and sometimes, like, there are people that are clearly teaching something unbiblical. It's like, well, yeah, I'm not even sure if that person's really a Christian. So it's probably good for people to generally know when somebody is leaving the hallmarks of what Christianity says. But they're often these people online are typically coming for, like mainstream people. That mainstream people, you mean, so that where people online are coming for prominent preachers, prominent. That's better. That are that are maybe popular. They're popular, and it's questionable as to whether there's something really that's false. Okay, so, so I think there's a difference between inaccurate and false. Uh huh, right. So I guess they mean the same thing, something that's interactive is false. But when we we use the word a false teacher from the biblical perspective, we're thinking of someone who's teaching very dangerous error and heresy that could lead you away from the true and living Jesus, but you could have an inaccurate preacher who's preaching something maybe they don't fully understand, or maybe they're imbalanced in some way, but they're not going to lead people away from the true Jesus. They're just simply maybe, maybe we'd even say they're in error, but they're not necessarily a false teacher, right? Does that? Does that a distinguishment that makes sense? Say that. Say it one more time, clear the difference between an inaccurate teacher? Yes. Well, I understand that, but you're saying so, so if a person is in error because they maybe are imbalanced in some way, or talking about something, you would be like, Yeah, I don't know that. I'd say it like that. I don't know if I'd present it like that. That's probably going a little too far to label someone who's in error or inaccurate as a false teacher. I think is slapping a label on them that says they're at a level of danger that probably they're not. They're just simply maybe not teaching it in the balanced way. I agree. Yeah, okay, I agree. And never do you see in the New Testament, Paul or anybody else calling out someone in error or imbalanced. Mm. Yeah, you would, you would hear them teach the truth to balance out something that that was maybe being practiced improperly. Well, so, like, I don't know that Paul calls a lot of people out by name. That's one thing that I've because here's typically what gets said. Paul did it shouldn't we. Like, Paul was warning people shouldn't. So who did he call out by name? Paul, yeah, well, he specifically calls out Demas right, and second, Timothy, but he doesn't call him as false teacher. He calls him about someone that let him down, who forsook him, right? Yeah, did harm and yeah right, Demetrius, who wasn't, I don't think, even a Christian, who did have harm. Actually, Galatians chapter one and two. He calls out Simon Peter, true, true, yeah. And Barnabas let Yeah, his mentor for something that he felt was wrong. But I don't think he labels them as a false teacher. Yeah. You know that? He simply just says, even they were in in error in in this particular moment, right? But they, he doesn't say, Be Simon Peter's now dangerous, or Barnabas is dangerous because there's a false teacher. He just says, you know, the way this was handled was wrong, and I'm going to speak it, you know, I'm going to say it so again, a difference between drawing a distinction between the application of truth and and the practice of ministry and someone being outside of the faith and leading people astray into something that's dangerous. I think that's, that's, that's where, too quickly, are people who are in this camp of calling people out, they will call them false teachers when they're really just maybe imbalanced, yeah, or in error. So let me, let's, let's segment this conversation now, because, oh well, we can make sure we're tracking with where we want to go. All right, so we're starting with what's a false teacher. I want to hit what's a false church as well. Josh's question for you is, why don't you, Jeff, call them out from the pulpit or on a podcast, if that's what Paul did, and then we'll eventually get to, how do you shepherd towards right things or against the wrong things. But let's, let's stick with false teacher or false church. Okay, so what would a false church be? A cult? Basically, probably right. I guess it's just a cult. We're not really in the habit. You know, I find cult false church, uh, something that spins off from Christianity that's clearly a false or distorted version of Christian. Okay, so, example, I was just at dinner. I was at an event in Washington, DC, of multi faith dinner. It was, you know, represented by people of various faiths all working together to to work for peace and religious freedom around the world. And I was sitting next to the kindest, most wonderful people in the world who were Mormon Okay, the Mormon Church believes in Jesus, but they would define Jesus as completely different from the way that the Bible would define him, right? So Mormonism while sharing the same morality as Christianity, it doesn't share the same doctrine of Jesus as Christianity, and they would not point to Jesus as the Savior in the same way that historic Christianity would. Sure. So would we would call Mormonism a false church. Yes, they would be really amazing, wonderful people. I'm not in any way disparaging them as human beings. They're very, very kind and again, aligned with a lot of Christian morality, but seeing Jesus from a different perspective Joe's witness would be like that, correct perspective? Well, no, no, so that would be false, right? So you can't be a Christian and be a Mormon at the same time. Now, right? To truly follow the Jesus that the Bible defines as the pathway to salvation, right, right? And we won't go down the path of what Mormonism is, because I think we address this in another podcast, sort of enough. So that would probably be a false church. I guess there could be churches. So there was some churches a couple years ago. I can't remember the name of the pastor now, he had been a prosperity gospel preacher for quite some time, and he shifted into a doctrine of what we would call universalism, universalism, which basically says, everyone goes to heaven, all paths lead to the same place. There is no consequence for sin, because everybody who believes, as long as you sincerely believe, you get there, whether you believe in Jesus or some other Buddha or some other God. So he actually was leading a church that you would consider a biblical church, and he started teaching something in denial of biblical truth. So I guess technically, his independent congregation moved from preaching the gospel, even though it was in an imbalanced way, to universalism, universalism would be equally a false teaching and false idea. Yeah, technically, the early Judaizers probably had organized congregations that believed in order to get saved, you had to i. Um, you know, practice all the Jewish laws as well. You can't, couldn't be saved unless you did both. Paul would have said, That's a false church, right? So would be anything that doesn't align with the, you know, view of the authority of the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ, and who he is in the pathway to salvation. Would all, would all be part of what makes a true church versus a false church. But these kind of critics on on the internet, when they call out Bethel or elevation, they're also churches too. They see them on the internet, but they're also churches. Okay, what do you mean? There are not just people on the internet. These are pastors in churches who take these stances that then people who are wanting to go viral on the internet will take the same stances. So I'm not saying like every church, like from any particular denomination or movement is saying these things, but I'm saying it's not just like, these are internet trolls, okay? And they're a vocal minority. That's name and name. Are you ready? Yeah. So John MacArthur does this a lot. John MacArthur, yeah, yeah. So he would call out people by name and call them false teachers and false prophets, and in so doing, separate himself, he would basically say this, Pastor, Bethel, whatever, is so imbalanced in their approach to the gospel that they're not part of the true Church, and we would have to brand them as outside of the body of Christ, and Therefore we should listen to them because they're dangerous, right? And isn't that true? Yep, okay. And then people mimicking that, we might say that about all Pentecostals. I mean, he's pretty Yeah, he might say that about us. He's radical, yeah, so he's listening to our podcast. So I actually think that is very dangerous. Yeah, I agree to divide the church over things that are not essential doctrines. Is actually dangerous, agreed? I'm not calling John MacArthur a false teacher. I'm just saying that particular idea is not good for the body of Christ because it brings division where there should be unity, right? It's not that we again, like we said about politics, I think we use this statement in one of our recent podcasts. Unity is not uniformity. You know, we can agree to get disagree on certain ideas and still be unified in our in the central beliefs of what Christianity represents. But I think we quoted this too, Dave. I don't remember what we were kind of talking about this subject a couple of podcasts ago, not specifically from the angle of false teachers, but we we quoted, is it? Yeah, you remember this statement, where it's in essentials, there's unity in non essentials, there's liberty in all things, there's charity, right? So we would have to define, in order to define what is a false church, what is a false teacher, we'd have to define what are the essential truths of Christianity, yeah, and once you're outside of the essential truths of Christianity, then you are outside of the true church. And we would then said, Well, that's false. Even still, with false teachers, we love them, right? We don't want to, we don't want to create hostility. But at the same time, what Paul did, what Jesus did, is you drive through the line and say, Be careful over here, because this is, this is a dangerous ideology that could lead you away from the truth. Yeah, right. So in essentials, there is unity. In non essentials, there's liberty, which means you have a freedom to disagree about different I mean, what are the things that are non essentials of people? Predestination, free will. You know what you know? Calvinism versus Arminianism, charismatic, gifting versus sensationalism, which you say the gifts would have ceased these you can be in the body of Christ and be a part of the family of God, prosperity, teaching to a certain degree versus non prosperity. Teaching, you know, you the you still part of the family of God, maybe imbalanced in some way. You know, you say reformed Christianity, which tends to be a bit too argumentative versus non reformed, right? You know? So you have, you have these various tribes within the body of Christ. And anytime we start to take the scalpel and cut out a section of the Body of Christ because of a doctoral disagreement. That's not an essential Doctor doctoral disagreement. I think then that's when we're taking this too far. So essential, just to define it one more time, is the core doctrine of the Gospel itself. Yes, that is what's necessary for salvation and belief in Jesus. Yeah, we would look at the ancient creeds, the apostle creed, the Nicene Creed, things that state what the gospel is. Right? We believe in God the Father. We believe in Christ the Son. We believe He died on the cross for our sin. We believe he rose from the grave. We believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe salvation comes only by faith and what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross in his resurrection, we believe he's coming back again. You know, we believe the Bible is the Word of God and has authority for how we live and what we practice, these would probably represent a lot of the core ID ideas of what is essential Christianity, agreed. Yeah, some of the other things about it's not that they're unimportant. No, they're important, very important. They're just not so you can go to heaven and believe. Differently on the on the level of faith necessary for healing, or whether healing is even possible for today, right? So there are, there are different disagreements about about doctrinal approaches and methodologies that we need liberty for. Yeah, and so let's go to the question you asked Dave, why don't I call them out on this podcast, or call them out in in a message right before that? Can we I there's still another part I want to hit so talking about this, this idea of be careful who you have influence with, because if they're associated with said person who then is associated with other said person. And this person said this thing. Like, to me, you know that that verse you read earlier, where, where Paul is, like, I think I have this pulled up, is this Philippians, one where he talks about people that's being preached, yeah, yeah. 115 he says it's true that some people preach the preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, others out of goodwill. 18, but what does it matter? The important thing is that, in every way, whether false matter to true Christ is preached. To me, it's like if, if, if a song is preaching correct doctrine, wow. What's the big deal? Yeah, like even if, even if it's coming from someone that maybe isn't living right or they're associated with, let's just say they're associated with a Mormon like, like, what's the chosen who, you know? Like, that whole there's controversy because, like, Mormons are influencing it. Or, do you know, Mormon camera? Yeah, it's like, so it's like, oh, so the whole thing is distorted. Like, to me, I'm like, if, if it is accurate, and if it's not saying anything blasphemous or false, what's, what's the big deal? Yeah. Okay, let me, let me get to get to a very specific example with this, with a song. Because this probably 15 years ago, maybe longer, I don't know, Dave, there was a song that came out called healer. I believe you're my healer. Yeah, yeah. I believe you know. Okay, great song. It's a confession of faith that believes Jesus Christ is the healer of our bodies. Turned out so this was produced and recorded at Hillsong, not by a hill Song Artist, by by a guest artist who came and sang with the Hillsong team. And it was the right of the song. And before he did, he told the story about how he was sick and God healed him. And it turned out that that whole thing was was a lie. He was never sick. He actually pretended to be sick. He He actually wore an oxygen tube up his nose, yeah, and told the story about how so he sold it like it wasn't just he lied. He was seen on stage wearing an oxygen tear, right? And then eventually he, you know, declared he was healed. So he he sold his sickness so that he could sell his healing, so that he could sell his song. Yeah, right, okay, terrible stuff, yeah. So I remember we had started singing that song, and then the scandal came out, and I was like, oh, man, I loved that song. I hate that we can't sing it anymore. And then I thought, well, the song isn't bad. The song has good truth in it. It came from a bad place in this guy's life. But that doesn't necessarily make it an invaluable wizard. We still sing it, yeah, well, we don't still sing it on occasion. Okay, okay, it's an oldie, but there might be an occasion we'd bring it back. Sure, sure, during a certain kind of ministry not banned from our No, no, we didn't say. This was written during a time the song is true. There's no error in the song, yeah. So the other thing that I would say that tends to be the case with false teachers and false churches is they tend to be charismatic, like either their prosperity or the charismatic are the two two sides that usually get aimed at. And I can understand the concern. So you know, you're not saying that they are false teachers, but you're saying the angry crowd of preachers who calls out other churches and Christians as false teachers. You said one tends to fit into the reformed camp, and the people they call out tend to fit into the charismatic camp, yeah, or the prosperity gospel, yeah. They're labeled as that, right? They're labeled as some form of and the problem is, a lot of times what you hear being said from a critical standpoint can be true. Like they may actually say this is weird, this is off, this is imbalanced. This is this is taking certain truths too far. If you lived in that, it probably been unhealthy for you spiritually. And they, they may be correct in all of that. That doesn't make somebody a false teacher. Actually, I think the way to go and let me get to the question that was posed through Josh. I think someone asked Josh this question, and he posed it through to us, why don't you call people out who have who preach inaccurate things or imbalance things? And I think the the answer to that is, you know, when they train the FBI to recognize counterfeit bills, they don't concentrate on showing. Counterfeit bills, they have them concentrate on studying the real deal. So they study real bills that are legitimate, so that when they see something that doesn't match, that they know that it's false. I actually think that's the better method. With doctrine, you teach good, sound, healthy, balanced, effective doctrine, and you expose your people to that to such a degree that once they hear something that doesn't resemble that, they are trained in their own ability to recognize that it's off. Now there is, I'll just say, you can grow a church by criticizing other pastors. If you can identify who the enemy is and preach against that enemy all the time. You will draw to your people yours. You will draw people to yourself that are looking for a cause or looking for a way to feel superior. Yeah. And people do this politically. They will preach against the other side politically. Because if you, if you like, if you throw down, let me just tell you about so and so who said this and these people are evil. You will find a following every time you preach that way, that isn't healthy, and that is actually not how Jesus preached, or how Paul, you know, led his churches constantly, where it's an us versus them. And we're the ones who have the truth and they don't have it, and we're the ones that are practicing this properly. They're not practicing it properly. And so you need to come over here with us, and if you happen to listen, it's a way to protect your ministry from rivals, and it's a way to draw people to you and feel glued to you because they feel like you have some kind of corner on truth, and you're protecting them from the bad, evil preachers that are out there, and actually you can grow a large ministry by identifying an enemy and railing at them. I don't think that's healthy. I don't think that produces healthy Christ followers. I actually think it can produce arrogance. It's also not godly. I don't even think it's in I don't even think that's the way Paul handled things. It's not in the Word of God. It's not actually a real model that we're following. And specifically, I think it comes from a mistake of an overemphasis on beliefs and an under emphasis on actual lifestyle or intimacy with God. Like there's this, you know, there's this thought out there that, like, the deeper somebody understands theology, the more close to God they are. That's actually not true at all. No, Knowledge puffs up. Yeah, love edifies. That's what First Corinthians says. And so the more you think you have more knowledge or purer knowledge than others, the more you live in pride, and the more you recognize that you could be wrong and that you need other people who have a different way of looking at things than you, the more you end up in a humble place? Yeah, I actually think that the internet voices like or the voices that are calling people out, the focus is not, doesn't seem to be, how do I lovingly bring correction? It's like, there there's a label like, that person's false, and the assumption is I know their motives, which are also false. So it almost seems to be like, what's the use? And even trying to, you know, bring this other believer back in love, it's more like, I'm gonna label them that way. Anybody who sees me can decide that they're bad, I'm good, they're gonna come under my it's like, it feels like it's stealing, like if we're all unified as the body of Christ, and somebody starts to air like the only way that you can really know they're actually false, unless they're teaching against Jesus, as if they repeatedly refuse any type of correction, and they're going outside of what the the essentials are, yeah, but it's just like people feel casual, casual, that they can just blast somebody, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think that also steps out of the realm of how Jesus recommends that we handle error and offense. You know Matthew 18, he says, if you, if you, you have something, you find your brother has done something wrong, or, we could say, teaches something wrong. You owe it to that brother to confront him personally and privately before you would go public with it, right? And so you have to go there first. So this, this is a delicate one, Dave, I'm going to bring it up, but so dr, Michael Brown is a Bible teacher. He's He's a Messianic Jew, but he's also an amazing theologian. He actually, just recently, is going through his own little personal scandal. That's why I said this is sensitive. But he oftentimes, as a theologian, will call out false teaching, and I've watched a number of his videos where he's done this for for, for instance, we did a podcast a number of years ago based on Andy Stanley's book where he talks about the role of the Old Testament versus the role of the New Testament. And what is that book called remember something? Yeah. Anyway, so he felt that Andy had misrepresented scripture, and so rather than just going online and doing YouTube clip about Andy's book, he called Andy, and he said, Can we talk? And they talk personally. And. He said, can we bring this conversation into irresistible? Okay, irresistible. Can we bring this conversation into a podcast? And so he interviewed him, and they talked about their disagreement in a public way and tried to resolve it that was honorable. So Michael felt like Andy's book talked about the scripture in such a way that was improper. Okay? That could be false teaching. But rather than just blowing it up online, he called Andy and made it a personal conversation first, and handled it with both humility and dignity. And then they had a conversation, and they were closer than, you know, closer in their thought than what maybe it appeared at the outset. It actually had more agreement than disagreement over some things. Yeah. Then Andy had some, some other posts that he had made about his view of sexuality, and Michael Brown did the same thing. We need to talk about this. So they had a conversation again about it, right? So I believe so yeah, didn't bring anything. I don't think it did. It wasn't as resolved, because I think Andy still pretty vague on his, on his, you know, ideas about that. So which is which, which I would say based upon some of the things I've heard Andy say, I've been a huge Andy Stanley fan, but I wouldn't call him a false teacher, even though, right now I'm confused about his views on things I would just probably say to people, oh, be a little careful, like, rather than me call him calling him, I was, yeah, I heard some things over there. Maybe if someone came to me and directly said, What do you think about ex pastor who's a prosperity teacher? I might say, yeah, be a little careful there. I'm not going to call them out and brand them as false teacher, but I might say, I have some concerns about these three things I've heard them say, and I'm not sure where they're headed with this yet, but I would probably just really keep your antennas up when you're listening to that teaching, because there are some things that are concerning to me. If and publicly started teaching against Christian sexuality, biblical Christian sexuality, what would we do? That's a good question. What would we do? I i probably would ignore it and just simply not so I used to recommend his resources, and, you know, some of his books and things like, I probably would just simply say, okay, he's now left what I think is biblical perspectives on an important issue of our day, and until I know he's returned, I'm just going to avoid the materials that I probably would have leveraged and used before. I don't know that it's my place to call them out, because I'm not as covering, and I don't really have a position in the church world where it's my job to police things like that, and so I don't know what what purpose it serves for Jeff Leake at a local Church in Pittsburgh, to call out Andy Stanley over something like, why would I need to do that? And what value would it add to the world? Aren't you steering people away from wrong influence? I think most people in my church would never know he existed, because he's a local church and pastor in Atlanta. What about a big name person that everybody listens to? Who is that anymore? I don't even know that there are such. Let's say I actually was teaching. Say Craig Groeschel. Let's a lot of these people do people know who Greg Groeschel is? Pastors know Craig Groeschel, but I don't know that people every so this was interesting, Dave, we have a young class for a PLA this year there. So there a lot of them are just coming out of high school, which is, which is, normally, we have a little bit more of a mix. Always a good group coming out of high school, but then we have others as well. And I asked the question this week, I said, because we were talking about different styles of preaching, and I was like, so, you know, you can't use the approach that I just presented and be TD Jakes. And I said, How many of you love TD Jakes? And no one responded. And I was like, How many of you know who TD Jakes is? And one kid raised his hand. I was like, No way. Well, you got to hear TD Jakes, so I played a whole video of him. And then I said, Well, who else do you listen to? They didn't have anybody. Like, I'm not sure that the world, the world is now segmented into categories, whereas every it used to be that people knew, like, here are the top preachers that are out there. Yeah, but I don't know that that's true anymore. I don't know that that there is seasoned Christians probably know who Bill Johnson is, who TD Jakes, or who Craig Groeschel is, who Andy Stanley. I'm not sure how many people in our world would come to a church like Allison Park and even know who those names are. Maybe that's why they go after worship music, because you would know those you would exactly and so so to as a pastor, to call out another pastor who's in a different city when I don't hold a governance position in a denomination or organization or a role in their life. I don't know what what purpose that serves. I think preaching the truth of the gospel in a balanced way from the Word of God, where I'm discipling people by showing them the real bills, not the counterfeit ones all the time, is the way that that real disciples are made, and then when they hear some. Then it's like, that doesn't sound like anything I've heard before. Hopefully they've seen the truth clearly enough that they can recognize things that are false. I actually think that the biggest threats to the church aren't false teachers. No, it's It's other world views, totally it's New Age ideas. It's humanism. Humanism is the main one, probably in America. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, demonic activity on the internet. It's, that's where the real concern is. It's, it's not with someone who's teaching an imbalanced view of the role of faith in healing the sick that I'm worried about. I'm not even really worried too much about where Andy Stanley is. He hasn't really backed away from biblical ideas of Christian sexuality. He's just been a little fuzzy on it. So I'm not why would I spend my time calling out something that isn't the primary danger in our culture, which is the fact that most people are biblically illiterate. They they don't know the difference between truth and error because they haven't been exposed to the Scripture enough. So for me to bring out a nuance of theology, to call it a false teacher, I'm trying to just get people into the into the meat of the word, so that they can really grow up in Christ. Do you feel like people that have been in the church aren't exposed to the word enough? Are you talking about people that aren't Christians? I think both. So is that a fault of the church? Like, like, what? What What would it take to expose people to the word enough to ask? That's a really good question. We have the Bible more available to us than ever before. Yeah, devices, it's you can watch great teaching. We have actually a subscription on, you know, at Allison Park Church to right now media where you can listen to some of the best Bible teachers out there. You know, there's Christian television, there's devotionals in the YouVersion app, where you can hear people who talk about, I actually did two of them. They're going to go on you version. I don't if you know this, Dave, but church multiplication network asked me to do a series of video teachings and devotionals for church planters and their church plantings. Great. Yeah, that. So I did a whole one out of the book of Acts and one out of Philippians, and it'll go on you version and people can at their fingertips. Good, good, good. Teaching exposure to God's word. You can actually have it read to you through the audio version of the Bible. Usually do. Yeah, yeah. So people have more of their fingertips than they ever did before, but probably aren't necessarily exposing themselves to the truth of the Scripture like they could. You would think we would be raising scholars in the Bible because of its availability, but I think it's just like anything else. It's one of the most important things you can do to grow up in your faith, but people just neglect it because they're distracted by so many other things. And so the big worry isn't the false teacher, it's the fact that we aren't exposing people to habits and patterns and resources that make them strong in their own faith, and that's probably the biggest challenge and need and and then to protect from where the real predators are, which are things that are coming to attack the authority of the Scripture, our identity in Christ, the centrality of who Jesus is, right? So those that there, we have so much in the world that's coming at those things, that's where the danger happens to be. So two, I have two directions I could go. Let's, let's stick with this question, though, this, this theoretical question, Was there ever a time in your lifetime when churches did a really good job of, I think it was Tim Keller who talked about, like, the inoculation of theology against other world view diseases. He was talking about catechisms, yeah, and Catholicism. How that like, it's like, here's how you differentiate, differentiate between this and false Christianity. Whatever he was talking about, modern catechisms against humanism and other worldviews that don't line up Christianity. But was there ever a time in your life when you feel like the church exposed Christians to the Bible well enough that, in general, that wasn't the same kind of issue? Or has that always been an issue? I can speak of my upbringing, that I think I was exposed to a lot of Bible and was rooted into some things, not through catechisms, but through the amount of time we spend in church. Like as a as as a five year old, I was in church, Sunday morning and Sunday night, and I was playing with my Matchbox cars on Sunday night in a service, but I heard my and then sometimes Wednesdays and then extra services, like we were in we were in person in church so often that people heard pastors like my father taught out of so much of the Scripture and the messages were long. They weren't 30 minutes, they were 45 to an hour. Yeah. So I mean you you're in enough services, in enough Bible classes that you get exposed to it, and now, depending upon the pastor that you had and how much they taught of the full counsel of God versus maybe their pet pet peeve scriptures. But if they were teaching you expository throughout the scriptures, and they were exposing you to various doctrines and truths, it it kind of sunk in, like it, I so. It up. And so for me, I think I I grew up in an era where I felt greatly exposed to truth. In fact, my I remember when my dad, he was over here at Allison Park and preaching, and he had a technique in his communication style where he would say things like he would be quoting a scripture where say, Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and then he would say, finish the verse with me, because he expected people to know the verse, And when he tried that a few years ago, no one knew the verse, right? So it's like people stopped having the same exposure because they weren't spending as much time in in in church. So so, so maybe the catechisms, from an ancient perspective, did that. But I would say a lot of the lot of my friends I grew up with who were Catholic, who probably had the catechisms memorized from their CCD days, I don't know that they knew what it meant. No, well, I think he was saying that was a so the word inoculation is, comes from, like, vaccines. You'd get vaccinated against that way, if you experience it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, you don't contract them in deadly he was talking about how that was given for other against other sects of Christianity, yeah, maybe like in the early, you know, four or 500 ad, yeah, before. So for, for many, many generations, Christians did not have access to the Bible or or they were illiterate, couldn't read, right? So the memory memorized catechisms was the only way for them, or the songs that they would sing, which would have theology in them, yeah, right, were the ways that they got good ideas sort of embedded into who they were, because they would repeat those things, right? So now that's less necessary, because we have biblical we have the Bible at our fingertips. We have good theological songs that flood Spotify, like, I mean good theology and biblical exposure. I mean, you can, you can get that everywhere. What we're battling with as pastors is, how do we take the abundance of good worship music and great Bible teaching and biblical, you know, apps that you can and get people into the habit and play, and get them to have the value for the truth of God's word enough to where they start to grow up in it. Well, I think it's also like, how do you the this is a whole nother podcast topic, probably. But the question so you talked about, you're like, the reason people were exposed the Word of God so much is because they were in church so much we live in, like, a fast food, you know, sound by YouTube clip, yeah, reels, you know, you got 12 seconds, sort of a culture where the priority is more all the different family events. And I might be able to make church three times a month, maybe twice a month. So it's like, like, Is it, is it that the church should continue to adapt with the culture where we're in church less and less and we have more sound by resources, or do we need to somehow come back? Is that possible? Even I don't know to you know, like we're obviously what we're doing right here is one way to address that. Yeah. So I actually think that the podcast we're doing and the feedback we get from people is that we're able to go into deeper biblical ideas here when a longer period of time in a conversational way that makes the people who are hungry for more be able to really dive into some things that maybe we couldn't cover in a weekend motivational message, right? But how do we do that? That that is, that is the conundrum, right? That's the discipleship question of our generation, is, how do we get people into the truth of God's word so that the counterfeit is not a threat or the or the, you know, perilous, you know, dangers of true, false worldviews don't encroach upon us and we fall for them. So let me, let me list some examples of of these kinds of things that maybe expose people to danger of false teaching, because they're not as exposed. I think we have gone through at Allison Park Church over the last year a real crucible of trying to make sure our Gospel messages are fully complete to where, when we, when you preach the gospel, it's, it's the story of Jesus coming to the earth. You know, yeah, like living and then being crucified and dying and rising again. The need for repentance. You know that while salvation is free, it requires a complete exchange of your rights and preferences for God's life. It's a so the whole turning because I think sometimes, like, we would have a cost message that's positive and it's it's just not well, maybe for the sake of the fact that there wasn't that much time left in the Yeah, exactly right. We would, we would summarize the gospel, yeah, rather than preach it in its complete you want to be made aware of God, if you want to confess your sins, you know, yeah, you can have salvation, a new life and purpose for your life. So we have been real. Working hard to say every time we present the gospel, getting right with God involves turning from your sin, yeah, right, repenting, believing in Jesus as the Son of God who died on the cross for He rose from the grave, yeah? And that when you do, He will give you new life. And that not just promises you heaven, yeah, but it brings you into God's family, and it brings you into a place of spiritual fooling. You make you spiritually alive. And if you're ready for that, you want to surrender your life to Jesus, right? And you're ready to turn from your old life, this is your opportunity to do so, to leading people to a full and accurate decision. So they're not just buying fire insurance or adding God into their life as one of their gods and pursuits, but it is a full surrender moment, believing in the person of Jesus Christ, and actually David's. This is true and true to all of our campuses when we've been preaching the fuller gospel, not not that it's been less full, but not and not a summarized, quick version, but taking our time to present that we've actually seen more people respond, yeah. And I think it probably leads to more informed decision making processes, because if it's if, when it's when there's when it's summarized, sometimes the feeling is there's less required. It's like, Oh, I'll sign up for that. I'll add that to my life. Yeah, sure. Why not? Like, that's great. I do need that. I get a bumper stickers or a t shirt with, yeah? Now it's like, this is a pretty serious decision where you're going to actually have to affect your life in a big way. Yeah. It's like, do I want to make, make that move. And then on top of that, we have been trying to preach and teach in such a way that deals with the hard truths. Yeah, right, right, that we aren't skipping over just to say, these truths will make your life better. This will help your marriage be better. This will help you be a better person and make more money, or whatever. Where we're saying, you know, Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. Or he said, unless you eat my blood, eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can't be one of my disciples, like we've been hitting the harder passages, which brings people into reality of what this really is that they're a part of, so that they're not just here as a motivational self help community, right? But this is a community of people who are laying down their lives for Jesus, or moral people who want to grow in their leadership, right? Which is another accusation that maybe is fair from time to time. So okay, so we're heading harder truths. We're trying to be less microwaved with our gospel presentation, but I'm just like, what else? I guess this is the question that needs to be expanded on for solutions. I'm not sure that we can answer this just in a podcast, especially at the end of, well, I think what we're doing right now where we ask the question of, so what should be our view of politics, or how should we handle questions about heaven and hell? Yeah, but you're not because we are. We are going though, okay, I'm saying in terms of, in terms of the Body of Christ being in a place of where you're you're together, worshiping and studying together, and fellowshipping and everything. There's probably, I guess I'm saying, so a podcast is a way to shoot out information for those that are hungry. But what about your average person that's not going all the way to listen to the podcast like you have the top I don't know. Let's say 50% or 20% that are listening to the podcast record. What about your average person? How do we un microwave Christianity to where somebody has what they would need? I think the goal is having I don't know that we are in control of that. Are we was? I don't know. So here's, here's what I actually believe, if someone is truly hungry for it, yeah, they can get it. They can get it. There's enough out there for even if they're not hungry for it. I think maybe we have to pray in a work of the Holy Spirit that creates a hunger and a thirst for the presence of God, for the Word of God, for a relationship with God. When, when the hunger is there, the resources are abundant, like we are not lacking in resources. Yeah, if you want, if you want, if you want experiences, if you want churches, if you want input, if you want teaching, if you you want exposure to God's word. There is not a lack of that availability in our world today, but there is a lack of hunger. If you try to shove resources to a person that doesn't want them, nothing works. So you say, would people come out to more stuff if we plan more stuff, if they were not if they were hungry? Yeah, right, right. So, but just scheduling events when there's not a hunger, that's a recipe for failure, but when real revival does happen, because this is what we talked about in our recent podcast. If the if the country is headed towards spiritual awakening, there will be such hunger that that we will have to meet the demand, yeah, by providing more. But I actually don't think sound biblical teaching or availability of the scriptures or materials that will help you grow. I don't think we have any lack of that in our world, but what and if a person so there's one particular person I'm thinking of right now, Dave. She has recently come to Jesus, and she is devouring everything she can, everything we produce, every event that we have, every spec. Of information that comes out, she devours it. She's growing like crazy. But it isn't because the material got better, or the preaching got better, or the groups got better. It's because she's just absolutely wants everything that God has to give her. Have you have a hungry person? Yeah, so I think it's stoking the hunger, praying for that to start, and then, and then, I think there is availability for for what people need. So is our is our real problem? Less, false teaching, and more, there's not enough spiritual hunger that allows people to have, have the my opinion, is the great problem is the fact that we live in a world where there's predator worldviews out there that are trying to destroy people's lives. Okay? I don't think it's the imbalance teaching of a couple of churches that have a big following. Yeah, I don't think that's the I agree, I agree. I think, I think what's the right word, syncretism we've talked about before, where it's you incorporate other religious views into Christianity. In this case, the religious views we're talking about are social ideologies. They are, they are American morality, self centered American morality. It's being a good person, whatever you define that as. It's often along political lines, manifesting things. It's, yeah, exactly. It's, you know, positive energy, positive energy. It's the astrology, it's the crystals, it's the psychics, it's the but sometimes it's the gender thing that sometimes it's building your identity around your mental health, right? It's who the villain is, who's to blame? CEO, politics or liberals or right? President, this character, there's there's ideologies that swallow you, yeah, right, that are actually, that are actually staunchly opposed to Christian worldviews. But it's easy to miss that because mainstream, I have mainstream, loud voices on the internet, be they pastors or just social media, people mix them together, right? And so I the real threat is in Joel Osteen, right? Like he gets blamed for a lot of stuff. The real threat is this other stuff that's going on and the lack of spiritual hunger. Yeah, I agree, yeah, so and so therefore we don't call people out, because that's not really where the issues are, in my opinion, and because there's a better way to deal with that. And I think we have started to call out the demonic ideologies, if you will. Yeah, you know, a podcast episode on some of that, what are the ideologies that are opposed to Jesus, that are very Yeah, because a lot of people are caught into the ideologies, and they're actually a part of a worldview that's been strategically built by people in our culture, sociologically, but they don't know that they they're in this ideology because they've never identified themselves as a part of it. They just have been influenced by it. But that would be a good thing to talk about. And there's a verse that I wanted to find about this I can't find it quickly enough here, but it's the one that says, like anything that sets itself up because against the knowledge of Jesus, you know I'm talking about, yeah, I'll find that one later, but that I do agree that'll probably be a future episode we'll get to. But for now, we just want to say thanks again for joining us. As always, we appreciate your participation. If you we need it. I keep saying this. We need to make a tutorial video for anybody who wants to leave us a five star review. I get questions about this all the time, okay, literally, probably twice a week. Wow. But for those of you who have always wanted to and haven't been able to yet, we appreciate it. We'll try to get that out too soon. If you would like to support us, we don't need you to do that financially, just with two minutes of your time to like and subscribe on YouTube, to share this on social media, and then also leave a five star view that would be so helpful to us. It just takes maybe three minutes max, but it would really help us to spread the word. So again, we appreciate you for joining us and hope to see you guys again next time you.